The Case for Christ

Karen and I went to hear Lee Strobel tonight at church.  We remembered hearing Lee speak in 89 --91 at Willow Creek in Barrington when we lived in Chicago.  He gave a great talk tonight about his journey from being an outspoken Atheist to an outspoken Christian.  He started his talk tonight by saying that Christianity really boils down to one question:

Did Jesus die for our sins and rise from the dead?

This can be summarized by the word Execution.  Did an execution of Jesus take place?  Atheists and Christians agree that there was a man named Jesus and that he was indeed killed on a cross.  There is also clear evidence and agreement from both sides of the argument that he was dead.  He wasn’t put in the tomb alive and somehow recovered.  He died which brings us to the fundamental tenet of Christianity that Jesus died for our sins and on the 3^rd day rose again.

Early accounts of his rise from the dead.  It has been shown over time that legends take at least two generations to be formed.  In other words, if it is going to become known that I am 6’5” tall and I once was the strongest man on earth, it would take at least two generations for this legend to be created and be accepted as fact.  If someone in my generation or my kids generation or my grandkids generation made this up, there would be people alive that would be able to say that I was never 6’5” tall and would stop the legend from continuing.  Jesus’ death and resurrection was talked about immediately after his death by people who were alive when Jesus was alive and still alive after he rose.  In fact, early churches adopted a creed from the Apostle Paul.

Remember that the Apostle Paul was a devout Jew and a heavy persecutor of the Church.  The creed that he wrote in 1 Cor. 15:3-4 is
“For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures,”

The reason that this creed is important is that the early Christian churches recited this and believed this to be true.  It is said that this creed was passed to the Christian churches as early as 2-5 years after Jesus’ death.  Again, think in terms of giant Tim.  Is it possible that a legend about how big and strong I was could start as early as 2-5years after my death and NOT be true. 

Empty Tomb  The undisputed reality is that the tomb was empty.  One thing that proves it was empty is that the guards immediately tried to blame someone for taking the body of Jesus.  If the tomb was NOT empty, they would have nothing to defend.

Eye Witnesses.  There are many eye witness accounts of Jesus’ resurrection that are recorded and talked about almost immediately after his death, resurrection, and eventual ascension to heaven.  In fact, it is documented that over 515 individuals witnessed Jesus alive after his crucifixion. 

It is amazing that there is so much evidence supporting the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. 

Crazy Solutions to our problems

Tell me if this is a Republican or Democrat view.  I'm not sure, but I know we need to get serious about fixing our problems.  Here's what I think we should do:

1.       Raise taxes by creating more tiers above $500K and $1mil and $100 mil.

2.       Treat Capital Gains and Dividends and Interest the same as income.  Too many very rich people don't pay what they could because of investment income being treated differently.

3.       Cut Defense by A LOT!!

4.       Cut Welfare by A LOT – make people work.  We have welfare generations.  Get crazy and penalize people on welfare when they have more kids rather than award them.  How – make it simple.  If you are on welfare and have another kid, your welfare payment goes down.  But, if you give up your baby at adoption and have drug tests that prove you were off drugs and alcohol during the pregnancy, give the woman a bonus.  (yes, fanatical, but we need to do crazy things)

5.       Cut Social Security – no increases for 5 years.  No ifs, ands or buts.  Make it "means tested" so that people who don't need social security don't get it.

6.       Cut Medicare by a lot – why do people with a bunch of money get medicare when they get a certain age.

7.       Let private markets dictate pay for public employees – they are paid too much.  Disallow unions for government works.  They are not fair.  Here's why.  If I am in the UAW and work at Ford, my union leadership has to fight hard for my pay and benefits, but they also know that if they push too hard they could ultimately make Ford non-competitive forcing them out of business.  As such, we have seen private sector unions offer concessions in recent years.  On the flip side, government works have no customer that can choose.  Therefore, they don't need to worry about their employer going out of business and only negotiate to get more without any thought or conseration to what the customer wants. 

8.       Invest a lot in roads and all infrastructure.

9.       Invest in charter schools.

10.   Find a way to reward people who move economic classes.  I don’t know what this means or how to do it, but people that can grow up in a terrible environment and turn out ok should be cheered for and rewarded.  Instead, we reward welfare moms!

11.   Cut more and more government funded social programs, but allow more than a 1 to 1 deduction for charity contributions.  Here’s the reality.  Locally run charities that aren’t saddled with all of these government rules make better use of the money that they have because they know that next year, Joe or Sue may give their money elsewhere.  If we can further encourage people to give to local charities, much of the government can disappear and resources will go where they are needed and where people want them to go.  A lot of giving is done because of the deduction, but make it 1.5 x and we'll see giving go up.  The tax revenue lost can be replaced by the cuts made to the programs. 

I'll write more on some of these at a later time.

Budget Deficit -- Raise Revenue or Cut Services

It really is crazy that both parties are being so ridiculous with their so-called proposals to solve the debt crisis.  Obama and the Democrats think we can keep spending and just tax the top 1 or 2% more.  Equally bad is that Ryan and the Republicans think we can cut spending without touching defense, social security, or medicare and they don't want to raise revenue.

Come on!

We have to raise taxes and cut spending. 

Here's a good video of David Stockman.

http://www.bloomberg.com/video/69402400/

Cheap Stuff or Good Jobs

I'm back! And it's my cousin's fault.  He keeps sending me stuff from the Huffington Post which is a very liberal (even by journalistic standards) news source.  In any case, I love getting the information because it is important to view and understand the different perspectives of our economic strengths and weaknesses.   Take a look at the following article that talks about how our monetary policy has increased the fortunes of the Chinese while killing American jobs:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dylan-ratigan/the-fed-works-for-chinese_b_811777.html

Monetary policy is interesting and complex.  There are certainly two opposing forces that are impossible to ignore.  One is the need and desire to keep “things” affordable to all Americans and the other is to create and maintain high paying jobs for all Americans.  Unfortunately, it has been difficult to do both.  In our history, we have seen where the force to create and maintain high paying jobs has crushed industries and almost crushed industries – think Auto unions and Teacher unions and Government unions.  And now, we have seen where the push to keep things inexpensive has crushed jobs.  A pair of pants or a shirt costs the same amount now as it did 20-30 years ago.  That’s only possible because of the outsourcing of jobs.  Which evil is worse?  I really don't know.

What do you think?  Should we be protecting our jobs at the expense of a standard of living and global competitiveness or should we be letting the free market do its job?   Not so fast though.  I'm a big believer in the idea of a free market ONLY if we are indeed being treated fairly by our competitors globally.  Are we?

Cutting the deficit

Take a look at this video.  It really highlights how ridiculous it is to think that we are making progress when we cut $100 million of spending.  Come on!  It's time to get serious about cutting spending and we need to cut all spending -- from medicare to social security to defense to welfare to education to everything.  It needs to begin with downsizing government and getting government pay and benefits on par with the private sector.

This is a quick video that clearly illustrates how small a $100million cut is:

http://www.wimp.com/budgetcuts/

Education Problem

The following is a great article in the Washington Post.  It really points out the issues of our educational system.  This same article could be written about our government unions.  The time for unions has passed because they didn't stay relevant.  I believe that unions were one of the reasons that this country became so great, but they are now one of the reasons that we are in major trouble.  In Rockford, we have a huge deficit that our government officials are trying to tackle.  They went to the fire department and asked for wage concessions.  The fire union said no.  They then tried to reduce the number of fire personnel on a truck from 4 to 3 and the union managed to block the move in court. 

Now, the government has gone to the police union because we need their approval to change insurance providers and save $800,000 per year.  The police union isn't sure even though benefits and coverage doesn't change.  Come on!  If I had to get every decision approved in my business, I would have been forced out of business years ago.  This is what is happening to our government.

It's time that the unions in this country become relevant again by actively participating in the business of solving problems and keeping businesses (education or government) profitable and viable.  If they are not willing or able to become relevant, we the people (sound familiar) need to take our government back.

Do take the time to read this.  This is really a great ariticle written by educators:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/07/AR2010100705078.html

The War on Terror

OK -- let me say first that I am basically a wimp like most of our politicians who are afraid to say what they really think.  So, I would never write or say what was said by a British housewife in a letter to the editor that she sent...... but, I do think that she make some excellent points and that too often we are so concerned about saying something that won't offend anyone that we don't say anything.

If we are a society with no dissenting opinions or who only say things that won't offend anyone, will we become bland?   I don't know.

Read and judge for yourself -- please do add your positive and negative comments.

http://www.arguewitheveryone.com/war-iraq/141553-letter-british-housewife-newspaper.html

By the way, this article wasn't written by a British housewife, but she is the one who forwarded it to her nephew and it started circulating back in 2005.