When Faced With The Choice, Who Would We Choose?

“Give us Barabbas!” (from The Bible and its Story Taught by One Thousand Picture Lessons, 1910). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The choice was offered before to an oppressed people. A people who were governed against their will and had no say in their Earthly destiny.

In a world of social materialism, political materialism, and political ideologues who seek no real justice for the individual, only social and political control for the purpose of building a ‘Tower of Babel’  world…  a world of equality absent liberty. The extremes of which are found in Cuba, Former Soviet Union, and North Korea .

Who would we choose? Jesus or Barabbas?

History is filled with event after event where, when the choice was offered, the world chose Barabbas.

When it comes to social action and Materialism, the world will always cry out for Barabbas…a man of action and violence, a man of revenge, a warrior. The mobs will follow this man to fulfill their worldly ambitions. The world will always follow the “man with a plan”.

This choice leaves us in continued slavery to the world.

We must be people of ethics, peace, love, and charity. We must fulfill the needs of those around us to the best of our God-given ability. We must do this knowing what we sacrifice of ourselves. The fruits will come from our actions of goodness, non-violence, restraint, and moral clarity.

Blessed be the peace-makers.

When the world cries out for Barabbas, we must cry out for Jesus.

Tower of Babel and Today

It is easy to view the stories of the Old Testament as ancient relics, distant from the realities of our current world and keep them on a shelf as colorful ancient ‘allegories’ to impart some meaning to the organization of the world. Far from that, these stories are profoundly relevant and are surely included in Scripture for the distinct purpose of advancing our understanding (ref: Romans 15:4). These are divine gifts of wisdom and they should be revered as such. This wisdom would keep the narcissism that infects our minds with the belief that the world is ‘more complicated today than it has ever been’ in check (Ecclesiastes 1:9). There is nothing new under Sun.

One of the most interesting stories in the Bible as it relates to society today happens to be among the oldest of the stories in the Bible. It is the story of the Tower of Babel. I heard Rabbi Daniel Lapin speak about The Tower of Babel and I have never looked at this story and our society the same. It has illuminated my view of humanity and seems to reveal the seminal point at which the disease of Materialism has ravaged our societies.

Nimrod was considered in the Jewish tradition a ‘hunter of men’ whose idea was to build a society to rival God. But more than rival God, it was to replace man’s need for God. Moreover, to advance a society to replace society’s and Man’s need for God, which is still relevant today as materialist leaders and thinkers of all stripes propose remedy after remedy to cure society’s ill at the expense of an individual’s reliance on his own pursuit and his own personal divine intermediary.

The key figure is Nimrod, who was considered a mighty hunter. Jewish tradition refers to Nimrod as a ‘hunter of men’. He was traditionally referred to as a mighty hunter in relation to his building of his kingdom. The name Nimrod comes from the ancient Hebrew verb marad, which is translated as rebel or ‘we will revolt’. The ‘hunter of men’ was a distinction of his will to power by trapping men through strategy and force.

Nimrod did not initially propose a tower. His call was; “Come, let us make bricks”. This call is vital to his society. Bricks are the same size and shape absent individuality. They have no variance in size nor do they possess a distinctive character. Prior to bricks, buildings were constructed of stone, each cut or naturally fitted with one another. Bricks are made by man and stones are made by God. Now, I am sure at this point the smirks might begin about why God hates bricks. This would miss the point. Replace the bricks with any new technology. It is the purpose and motives behind the use of such things and the presumption they would change or replace the ultimate questions of life, society and our relationship with God that is the troubling issue.

Individuality will be kept according to God’s will and we see this in the resulting scattering of languages and profound confusion. Individuals who are created in God’s image are not bricks. Individuals are not worker bees which are interchangeable.

But how were these bricks to be joined? They would be joined by mortar of course. The three consonants M, T, And R are used in the Hebrew word for mortar and according to Rabbi Daniel Lapin, a Prominent Rabbi, share a common root with the word for materialism.

What are we building today?

The EU building almost seems too similar to this prominent depiction of The Tower of Babel to be accidental.

Related articles

• Nimrod

A Brief History of Socialist Plots to End the American Way of Life

clipped from www.commondreams.org

Don’t you just love Leftist revisionism, propaganda, logic, and art?

Public Schools – Disaster, partisan cronyism and money pit. Compare to private schools.

Public Water System – Compared to what? Private water system?

Public highways – Yes, that really has a lot to do with socialism. LOL

Public Parks, introduced by a Progressive Republican and supported by Republicans, this is actually the Fed overstepping it’s reach to control the property of sovereign states. States operate their parks with much greater efficiency than the Federal Gov’t.

Just because you want to pretend the inferiority of progressive ideas is superior doesn’t mean it matches reality.

Of course, we could get into other Progressive or materialist policies and debate the results of them.

Slavery – We know how that ended.

Segregation – How wonderful was that?

Abortion/Planned Parenthood, founded to cull society of the undesirables. Today blacks are being decimated by abortion. Revolution of society vs Evolution of society. 2 sides of the same coin.

The Federal Reserve/Central Bank – Oh yes, we are all loving that crony capitalism.

League of Nations/United Nations. – That just works out so well. And the Left wonders how we get so tied up in the issues of other nations. Thank you Woodrow Wilson. We all relish John Dewey and Woodrow Wilson for illuminating the “social possibilities of war”.

Ahh, yes, and Roosevelt’s Blue Eagle Campaign, which authorized a dictatorship over businesses in America. Too bad that pesky Supreme Court overturned that and enabled the free market economy to turn around and lift us out of the Great Depression Long after all other nations had begun to grow their economies.

Shall we continue?

To the Left “Reason is a tool of Oppresion” – Derrida.

JFK on the Separation of Church and State

clipped from www.youtube.com Watch Video

Commenter of Clipmarks post asks:
Where have we gone wrong?

Here is my reply:

Some have pretended that we are a secular nation and there is some backlash to that sort of idiocy. Especially when one considers the fact that it is the secularists responsible for opposing all of the things for which JFK speaks out in support. Where there is a stat-ist, anti-libertarian fervor there is religious intolerance. There has to be be because religion gets in the way of control.
Where there is individualist, libertarianism there is religious acceptance. There has to be because that is love.

One who does not respect the individual liberty of another is neither faithful nor tolerant. One who preaches secularism is neither a patriot nor tolerant.

That said. People are imperfect, which is basically the driving foundational principle of our Nation.

The Tytler Cycle of Society

clipped from www.commonsensegovernment.com From bondage to spiritual faith; From spiritual faith to great courage; From courage to liberty; From liberty to abundance; From abundance to complacency; From complacency to apathy; From apathy to dependence; From dependence back into bondage From bondage to spiritual faith (1760 to 1769) From spiritual faith to great courage� (1770 to 1783) From courage to liberty� (1784 to 1865) From liberty to abundance� (1866 to 1969) From abundance to complacency� (1970 to 1989) From complacency to apathy� (1990 to 2000) From apathy to dependence� (2001 to 2007) From dependence back into bondage� (2008 to ????)

Fascsim

Communism and Fascism: Both are totalitarian
American Right is libertarian: Anti-totalitarian

Fascism is a government focused, statist society
American Right supports individual sovereignty and liberty.

Fascism/Socialism have cultivated war-socialism, state control of media, and compulsory service to the state.
American Right traditionally cultivates a resistance to meddle in the affairs of other nations.

Fascism/Socialism pushes for nationalist or protectionist strategies.
Libertarianism/Right pushes for free trade.

Fascism/Socialist/Progressivism is a top to bottom system of power.( Federal>state>local>individual)
Libertarianism is a bottom up system of power ( individual>local>state>Federal)

Fascism/Communism/Progressivism foster societal mobilization, organic unity.
Libertarianism fosters free will, thousand points of light, the fractally-complex richness of society.

Fascism/Progressives/Communists are controllers, materialists, intolerant.
Libertarians, American Rightist Conservatives are believers in individuals and communities.

50 States, 50 Constitutions, 50 Preambles about God

clipped from neprimer.com Alabama 1901, Preamble. We the people of the State of Alabama, invoking the favor and guidance of Almighty God, do ordain and establish the following Constitution … Alaska 1956, Preamble. We, the people of Alaska, grateful to God and to those who founded our nation and pioneered this great land … Arizona 1911, Preamble. We, the people of the State of Arizona, grateful to Almighty God for our liberties, do ordain this Constitution… Arkansas 1874, Preamble. We, the people of the State of Arkansas, grateful to Almighty God for the privilege of choosing our own form of government… California 1879, Preamble.  We, the People of the State of California, grateful to Almighty God for our freedom .. Colorado 1876, Preamble. We, the people of Colorado, with profound reverence for the Supreme Ruler of Universe .. Connecticut 1818, Preamble. The People of Connecticut, acknowledging with gratitude the good Providence of God in permitting them to enjoy …

The Seminal Point for Materialist Progressivism

clipped from str.typepad.com With savages [i.e., those in more primitive societies], the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated; and those that survive commonly exhibit a vigorous state of health…. We civilized men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination; we build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed, and the sick; we institute poor-laws; and our medical men exert their utmost skill to save the life of every one to the last moment.  There is reason to believe that vaccination has preserved thousands, who from a weak constitution would formerly have succumbed to small-pox.  Thus the weak members of civilized societies propagate their kind.  No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man.  excepting in the case of man himself, hardly any one is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed….

“If…various checks…do not prevent the reckless, the vicious and otherwise inferior members of society from increasing at a quicker rate than the better class of men, the nation will retrograde, as has occurred too often in the history of the world. We must remember that progress is no invariable rule….”

On Individuals and Mobs

It is axiomatic that leftists love mobs and rightists love the individual. Leftists love humanity but despise individuals. Rightists despise humanity but love the individual. Individuals spring forth from the crowds and they leave behind them the mob..the selfish mob that seeks to tear down the accomplishments of individuals and take for themselves, by force, what they did not earn.

Morals vs. Liberty

clipped from mises.org It is well to remind ourselves at this point that liberty as I have defined it is not a synonym for good; that any act of liberty may be either “good” or “evil” as another person judges it. This will be true until and unless infinite wisdom and universal perfection of conscience guide every act of every person in such a way as to be ap�proved by every other person. But universal agreement is far from a descrip�tion of real life; it is no more than a direction toward which to strive. And that fact is precisely why there is any problem of liberty at all. The concern of morals is to judge acts as either good or evil, right or wrong—“moral” or “immoral,” as we say in appraising them. Such a judgment has neither place nor meaning except for acts of choice. It follows, then, that no problem of morals can ever be resolved by removing liberty, in a degree either large or small.

Thomas Davidson expressed it this way: “That which is not free is not responsible, and that which is not responsible is not moral. In other words, freedom is the condition of morality.”
A interesting perspective that morality inevitably reduces liberty, yet without the liberty to choose, one cannot be moral.

More and more I believe the fundamental understanding of liberty is lost. This is brilliant clip but I think foreign to many if not most. As is the concept of fascism.