Bible, Culture, Israel, Miracles, Technology, Theology

Israel to land on moon on 110th anniversary of founding of City of Tel Aviv

I could not agree more with my friend, Kasim Hafeez, who just posted the following:

“What an interesting day today is! April 11 marks 110 years since the founding of Tel Aviv, when 66 Jewish families gathered on a desolate sand dune to parcel out the land by lottery using seashells. While we marvel at what Tel Aviv has become today, this is just a tiny part of a much bigger and greater story. If you look at the picture of the empty desert below and think of what Tel Aviv is today, it is truly astounding given the circumstances, but today 110 years on from the day Jewish families gathered on those desolate sand dunes that would become, Israel, the Jewish state, will touch down on the moon. From barren deserts to the moon in 110 years! Yes the reborn state of Israel is younger that 110 years, yet it didn’t just spring into being in 1948. It took a movement, the realization of a dream. It took pioneers, dreamers, men and women who wanted to fulfill that most basic need in human kind, to go home. So while the skyline of Tel Aviv is incredible, to see and witness where it has come from to where it is, in the skies above, something much more incredible is happening.

“Look, I know I’ve talked about the miracles of Jewish history for a while now, but this is just another example. It’s not just in the skylines and in buildings, it is the rebuilding. It’s bringing a dead language back (Hebrew). It’s in creating rich and vibrant culture, arts, theater, science, technology, and an endless desire to be a light to humanity.

“Let every nazi, antisemite, antizionist and islamist see, that while you peddle in hate, while you call for the murder of Jews, while you think you can destroy the Jewish state and people, the reality is this: Israel thrives, and in a few hours a space module with a flag with the Star of David will sit on the moon, marking an incredible, impossible achievement. And if witnessing the first 72 years of Israel’s rebirth is anything to go by, this is just the start.”

Update:

“#Beresheet crashed on the Moon. Connection was lost before the landing. Still this is an incredible achievement for #Israel ……next year on the moon?

“Israel has achieved something most of the world has not even come close to. It’s a testament to what Israel has achieved in 71 years that this is not being celebrated as the great achievement it is but as a mission partly accomplished. An Israeli moon landing will happen, and I see it happening in the near future.”

Humor, Mentoring, Ministry

Phenomenal message, and funny to boot – More than funny with Michael Jr.

 

Software, Technology

Bryan Seely had a good reason for wiretapping the Secret Service. Wow.

“In 2014, Bryan Seely hacked the Secret Service and the FBI, and then turned himself in to alert authorities to the problem. He’ll tell you what you can do about it in his very entertaining talk.”

This is amazing.

Technology

FIX FOR: cannot set up text message forwarding (MacOS High Sierra)

Quite a few folks have been complaining on Apple fora and various websites that they cannot get (SMS) Text Message Forwarding to work again (after it was fine before some update). I was bitten with the same issue. None of the “fixes”  I found in googling worked for me, but after banging my “sign out/ sign in” fixes around the four walls of my brain, I finally stumbled on a series of actions that worked. I cannot promise my situation will match yours, or that this will work, but perhaps it will help. (I have an iPhone XR with up-to-date iOS 12.1.4, and a MacBook Pro (17″) with MacOS High Sierra 10.13.6.)

  1. On Mac, under Messages > Preferences, I signed out of iCloud account. (Didn’t sign back in until a step shown below.)
  2. I finally broke down and turned on Two-Factor Authentication at https://appleid.apple.com/account/manage
  3. While at appleid.apple.com, I “removed” my Mac from being logged in, so I could force a new login of it.
  4. All the above required some “verifications” (authentications) back and forth to get iPhone and Mac logged (/back) into Apple ID / iCloud.
  5. On iPhone, turned off iMessage. Waited a minute.
  6. On iPhone, turned on iMessage (switched it back on).
  7. On iPhone, went to Settings > “My Name” > iCloud. There, under “Apps Using iCloud,” I found that “iMessage” was ‘turned off,’ as in ‘not using iCloud.’ I switched iMessage ON for iCloud usage.
  8. On Mac, went back to Messages > Preferences, and signed in again. This time, there was a new option shown to “Enable Messages in iCloud.” So…
  9. On Mac, I marked the box to “Enable Messages in iCloud.”
  10. On iPhone, under “Messages > Text Message Forwarding” the Mac was properly showing as a (switched off) option. Switched Text Message Forwarding on for the Mac. No code was needed or called for this time, and it stayed on!

I hope this helps someone. I did a lot of fiddling before trying this “set” of steps that worked, and while I think I have not forgotten any steps I took, I may have. However, hopefully this general approach will spark someone in the right direction, even if some additional jiggling is required for your situation.

Design, Intelligent Design, Technology

That’s just cool! VIDEO: “Why Machines That Bend Are Better”

Music, Technology

This is what happens when Google AI mashes Beethoven + Bach together.

What happens when you let a Google AI mash Beethoven and Bach together? This.

Although some limitations (regarding composition) imposed by Google’s Doodle for 2019-03-22, in celebration of Bach, made it impossible for me to properly add the first few notes of Beethoven’s “Für Elise,” I got as close as I could, and then I unleashed Google’s AI—which was “formally” trained to try to mimic Bach’s style regarding adding harmonies. Listen to the not-half-bad result:

Think you can do better than my approximation of Beethoven’s “Für Elise”? Give it a try! Or to just create and share a composition of your own, either simply visit google.com any time during Friday, March 22, 2019 and then click on the doodle’s image at the top (see image below), or if you missed it on the debut date, just click here to visit the Doodle Archive.

After a brief intro (an initial tutorial), which looks like this,

…you’ll finally be able to give the composer tool a go. It  looks like this:

When you’re done, simply click the “Harmonize” button to “bach-i-fy” your work! Side buttons allow you to dump your work and replace it with “Mary Had a Little Lamb” or “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.” I did not try the “ACDC style” battery option on the right. Did not see it until just now. The up and down arrows adjust the beats-per-minute rate of your composition. Have fun!

Bible, Church, Doctrine, Theology

Christian Pastor responds to Mormon doctrine on Baptism for the Dead

This video published by Mormons (below) proposes to defend / explain their doctrine and practice of Baptism for the Dead:

 

This is my reply, as a Christian pastor who holds the Bible as our supreme authority in matters of faith and practice.

First, certainly anyone is free to believe such a thing. I do not oppose anyone’s right to believe this and practice it. I seek to address whether their doctrine is biblically sound, and whether it is therefore something that Christians should buy into. I find it to not be biblically sound.

The Mormon’s doctrine and practice of Baptism for the Dead is a notion quite strange to me. There are several underpinnings worth looking at.

I watched the video and noticed some things while listening to the narrator’s explanation of “proxies.”

Proxies have no authority to represent someone unless the unable person has granted that power to the proxy. To use the examples given in the video:

  • A substitute teacher cannot be a proxy for a regular teacher unless the regular teacher has consented to be temporarily replaced by the substitute, and/or the school / principal / school board has consented and has asked the substitute to stand in.
  • Likewise, a person cannot just show up and claim they have power of attorney. An unable person who wants to be represented needs to have previously signed, granting the power of attorney, or else they cannot be represented in that way.

In contrast to this essential requirement of permission being granted before any proxy can represent someone else… persons who died without choosing to be baptized, do not leave in their wills (nor say aloud before dying) that they designate anyone to represent them as their proxy for being baptized in their place. The reason is clear: if they actually wanted to be baptized, they would have simply gotten baptized themselves. Thus, what permission do the Mormons have for representing dead persons that never gave such permission? Bear in mind they don’t just get baptized for ancestors they personally knew prior to the person having passed. They get baptized for many literally distant ancestors, who died long ago, well before the “proxies” were born, and this is after doing extensive genealogical research.

This weakness regarding permission seems to have led to their effort to address it in the video.  The narrator states, “You may be asking yourself, ‘Isn’t it a little presumptuous for Mormons to perform a baptism for the dead, who may not even want it?'”

Yes, we are asking ourselves that very thing.

In their “reply” to their own posing of the question, they then “beg the question” — which means that they presume something to be true without questioning why (in hopes that you will too). Begging the question means asserting something while making no effort to support it.

They start off using the Bible: “Well, the Bible teaches us that individuals have the right to choose.” That’s accurate, and it’s all well and good. However, after that is when they start begging the question.

“Mormons believe” that the right to choose continues after death. Is that biblical?

The narrator’s next statement is that “Mormons believe” that the right to choose continues after death. Notice he does not say, “The Bible teaches…” but rather that “Mormons believe….”

However, there are actually passages of the Bible giving us reasons to hold that the truth is the opposite of the Mormon position.

The Bible leads us to conclude that a person’s right to choose upwardly (re: toward salvation / God) is limited to their earthly life, as the Scriptures lead us to understand that in the afterlife, unsaved persons cannot negate their anti-salvation choices made during this life, nor can they renegotiate upwardly regarding God / salvation (see verses below). This is not to say that such people cannot experience a change of mind / heart during their resulting punishment, just as the wicked rich man did in the account told by Jesus (Luke 16) of the righteous, poor beggar, named Lazarus, and the wicked rich man, who was unnamed. Jesus told how that the man who had been both wicked and rich during his earthly life had a great change of heart during his suffering/punishment in the afterlife. However, despite that change of heart, the man’s spirit was told by Abraham’s spirit (from a distance) that it was not possible for either the righteous or the wicked to traverse the fixed gulf between them. Mormonism would have us believe that either the gulf is not “fixed” (while it is indeed said to be fixed), or that someone can indeed cross it, which the Lord Jesus (in telling the account) indicates “cannot” happen, i.e. is not possible.

The Scriptures make clear that the judgment known as the “second death” is to be everlasting, eternal — not something that can be shortened or escaped from. Consider these verses:

  • 2 Thessalonians 1:9 – “These will pay the penalty of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power,”
  • Matthew 25:41 – “Then He will also say to those on His left, ‘Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels;”
  • Hebrews 6:2 – “…of instruction about washings and laying on of hands, and the resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment.”
  • Matthew 25:46 – “These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”
  • Mark 9:44-48 – “[where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched.] If your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life lame, than, having your two feet, to be cast into hell, “If your eye causes you to stumble, throw it out; it is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye, than, having two eyes, to be cast into hell”
  • John 5:29 – “…and will come forth; those who did the good deeds to a resurrection of life, those who committed the evil deeds to a resurrection of judgment.”
  • Daniel 12:2 – “Many of those who sleep in the dust of the ground will awake, these to everlasting life, but the others to disgrace and everlasting contempt.”
  • Revelation 20:10 – “And the devil who deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are also; and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.”

“Mormons believe” that the spirits of the dead not only can hear the Gospel after death, but that they can choose to accept the Gospel after death. Is that biblical?

The narrator then goes on to assert, without any support from the Scriptures, that the spirits of the dead can hear the gospel after death and choose to accept or reject it.

This presumes not only a continued freedom of upward choice after death, but it also presumes that the choices of the unsaved made during their earthly life don’t count, when the Bible indicates they do indeed count, and very much so.

For all the reasons shown above, and a host of others, we reject such a notion.

The Scriptures indicate (for example in Revelation 20) that the wicked dead will be raised up to be judged, and their judgement will be based on their deeds during their earthly life.

Regarding the spirits of the dead hearing the Gospel, the indications of Scripture are that when Jesus was crucified and buried, and His soul went to the Abode of the Dead (aka “Hell”), that He preached unto the spirits of the dead (1 Peter 4:6). However, when in His ascension He emptied out the “Comfort” side of the Abode of the Dead, and “led captivity captive” (Ephesians 4:7-10) taking upwards the souls of the saved to be with Him above, there is no biblical indication that He took with Him a single soul that had died having finally chosen wrongly during their earthly life and having changed their mind in Hell. Rather, it seems clear from Scripture that He took with Him those saved souls who had already finally chosen correctly during their earthly life. To hold otherwise goes against numerous verses of Scripture.

Abortion, Culture, Culture War, Media, Politics, ProLife, US History, West Virginia

Response to critique of the pro-life movement in The Federalist

Yesterday a critique of the pro-life movement appeared on The Federalist site, authored under a pseudonym of Bill Kilgore. Regarding that pseudonym, the Federalist website says,

“Bill Kilgore is the pseudonym of a writer serving in the U.S. military. The author writes anonymously because conservative opinions are unpopular and harmful to one’s career in the military. He has also written for American Greatness. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of Defense or the U.S. government.”

So, the writer lacks the courage/fortitude to write under his own name for fear of reprisal and detriment to his military career.

Let that sink in for a moment: a writer not willing to suffer detriment to his career for owning up to his convictions / opinions, is criticizing people in the pro-life movement who have sacrificed time, talent, and treasure (done/given under their actual names), including some who have suffered serious detriment/persecution including attacks both physical and legal. The writer deems such people as supposedly not doing enough or not being serious enough about the pro-life cause!

The Federalist writer seems mistaken on several counts.

The writer seems to think we are not winning unless we are winning in every single state of the union. The facts on the ground are that just as there are intense divisions in America over issues such as Israel, abortion, and right v. left, those divides are seemingly always correlated along geopolitical lines in which a few areas lean left (usually concentrated urban areas or historically “liberal” areas), while practically everywhere else leans right. Certainly the pro-life movement is not winning in leftist New York State (which is dominated by leftist urban New York City) and other heavily leftist areas. We’re seeing the same kind of increasing division happening over pro-Israel support.

Both the issue of supporting Israel (and opposing anti-Semitism) and the issue of supporting life (and opposing abortion) used to be bi-partisan, but with support in the leftist side eroding faster and faster over time.

The Federalist writer dismisses all the places where the trend happening is the opposite of what’s going on in the most left-leaning areas. The writer also dismisses, or is ignorant of, or misreads, for example, much data indicating the younger generation is far more pro-life and far more engaged and more informed than prior generations. The writer also seems ignorant of all the legal holes that have been shot through Roe & Doe over the intervening years since 1973. Legally, the Roe of today is a not what it was in 1973.

The writer is also clearly inaccurate in lamenting that all the successful regulations passed are failing in the courts. Tennessee’s successful Amendment 1 was upheld in court, and pro-aborts don’t stand a chance of defeating West Virginia’s successful Amendment 1 in court. Also many other successes in West Virginia have not been challenged in court.

We knew the fallout would be great when we made enough progress that the abortionists began to realize they could eventually lose Roe & Doe. I always suspected that the fallout would include moves to insulate certain leftist states “in advance” of a suspected demise of Roe & Doe. I also saw indicators there would be disunity in the pro-life side in the face of the fallout.

The writer may simply be in un-thought-out mourning and panic over the recent losses in places such as New York, which are typical of the kind of fallout I suspected would happen. Or the writer may have an agenda. There are some today who say that no one is really pro-life unless they agree with certain views on how the pro-life movement ought to conduct itself, phrase its wording, and set its strategies.

The gritty reality is that our history vis-a-vis slavery / the Civil War indicates that as we move as a union toward a major resolution to the issue of abortion, America will likely become even more bitterly divided, probably along geopolitical lines, and, as scary as it may sound, may teeter on the brink of civil war in a division where some whole states go “pro-abort” and more whole states go “pro-life” (just like there were “slave states” and “free states” before the Civil War).

The issue is certainly careening toward the US Supreme Court—again—because, contrary to their wrong-headed view in 1973, Roe v. Wade & Doe v. Bolton did not settle the matter. There is a chance that no matter what the Supreme Court does in the future, a harsh divide and even civil war may become inevitable. I saw a lot of complaints in the article, but saw no real solutions suggested.

Become a member of West Virginians For Life:
https://wvforlife.org/membership

Donate to West Virginians For Life:
https://wvforlife.org/donate/

Sincerely,
Pastor Doug Joseph
(Yes, that’s my real name.)

Abortion, Culture, Culture War, Media, Politics, Prayer, ProLife, US History, West Virginia

The Evil We’re Facing Demands Full Engagement

Note: this was my WV For Life Treasurer’s Letter for February 2019.

2019-01-31 Virginia Gov Ralph Northam Defends Defending Infanticide - Only Talking About Infanticide of Disabled Babies
2019-01-31 Virginia Gov Ralph Northam Defends Defending Infanticide – Only Talking About Infanticide of Disabled Babies
#BornAliveAbortionSurvivorsProtectionAct
2019-01-31 National Right to Life Praises Sen. Sasse's Call for Action on Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act
2019-01-31 National Right to Life Praises Sen. Sasse’s Call for Action on Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act
#BornAliveAbortionSurvivorsProtectionAct

We’ve been warning* all who will listen for some time now that pro-abortion “ethicists” (so-called) have been openly teaching that morally there’s no difference between killing a baby in the womb and killing one that’s already born. (Some are even arguing for killing babies as old as 24 months!) The preborn baby has the same potential as the post-born baby, and the newborn on the knee has practically the same vulnerabilities as the baby in the womb. We know it’s morally wrong to murder either one. They claim it’s ethically “acceptable” to kill either one. Their lunatic lie will be shocking to the gullible public for a while, yet not a few pro-aborts are already fully numbed to the insanity of senselessly killing a baby who is born and breathing. Simpler pro-abort talking heads may have not yet mastered the talking points of the “ethicists.” I just watched national news video of one mindless pro-abort “robot” using the tired trope of “you-can’t-control-women’s-bodies” to justify Virginia Governor Ralph Northam’s recent sickening suggestion that a baby with a deformity, once already born, could be made “comfortable” while a “discussion” should be held [about whether to let the baby die as opposed to feeding and caring for her]. We know that a preborn baby’s body is not her mother’s body. Yet how mindless does an abortion supporter need to be to pretend that a baby already born is somehow to be seen as the mother’s “body”? This is the evil we are facing. Battle lines are forming. Join us in bringing facts to light, the truth of what’s right to a society being manipulated by absolute evil. Your pro-life actions, words, and donations are needed now more than ever.

Join WV For Life here: wvforlife.org/membership

Already a member? Give here: wvforlife.org/donate

*Listen to WVFL State Convention keynote speaker Wesley J. Smith, J.D. Recorded on October 21, 2017 at Horizons Church in Lost Creek, WV

General

14 ways iPhone users can dramatically increase battery life!

So you’ve probably seen an online ad for a gimmick charger sold by a “former Apple engineer who was fired for revealing so-and-so” that boasts it can improve your battery life by adjusting your iPhone’s software. Well, watch as these guys (one of whom worked in an Apple store) tell you 14 ways iPhone users can dramatically increase battery life. They won’t make you buy anything to learn how editing your settings, shutting off your phone about once per week, and potentially doing a one-time DFU restore, can get your battery that you thought needed replacing… to last much longer.

 

God. Family. Church. World. Doug Joseph is an ordained Christian pastor & presbyter, author of fiction & nonfiction.