Religious Liberty is about to be seriously undermined by the 'religious'

Religious Liberty is about to be seriously undermined by the 'religious'

 

Well, at least you're half-right.

 

It is already happening in a way through youtube, facebook, etc, who are the real media and thought-police, since anything that does not agree with 'AGENDA" or I should say "AGENDER" is scrubbed, but that is just small potatoes compared to the other blacklisted topics ...

 

It's truly an amazing sight to behold.

Unable to defend their own position from scripture, and unable to assail the position which scripture does teach, such persons are reduced to incoherency thinking they are being funny, when in reality, it is quite sad, even to the sadness of Jesus weeping over those who refused to accept the Truth.

Prophecy has been given, and it is fast fulfilling. Instead of looking at the claim of the person who prophesied, and the evidence before them, they can only say that which is inane vanity having nothing to do with what was given in evidence.

They must distort the words of the person they respond to in order to lift themselves up, and do this, since they claim to be infallible and not admit their errors.

They take into account what their friends think, what their family thinks, what their church thinks, what their pastor thinks, what their congressman thinks, but when it comes to what God thinks, not so much.

They refuse to stand for truth. They wait for someone else to do it for them.

 

"... Maybe it’s time to declare a national sabbath. Maybe it’s time to step back from the scandalmongering and assess who we are right now. ..." - NY Times; March 25, 2019 - Opinion | We’ve All Just Made Fools of Ourselves — Again

They are feeding the thought to the public, for the movement will come from the grass roots 'change' (Jesuit) movements and will affect the political leaders who desire offices, money, power and thus votes.

Rev_13:14 And deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast; saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live.

 

"... In our industrialized, digitized, pressurized world, it may be hard to imagine there was once a time without the sound of text messages, the sight of skyscrapers and the smell of car exhaust.

A time when the human impact on the earth was reverential and humanity viewed their mission as a steward of the planet and caretaker of everything therein.

You would probably need to go back to Biblical times when Adam and Eve walked alone in the Garden of Eden when God concluded the six days of creation with a cessation of all further work.

This day of rest called the Sabbath, or in Hebrew Shabbat, became enshrined in Mosaic law with the Ten Commandments. To this day, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam have a version of a day of rest with adherents citing benefits far beyond the religious or spiritual.

There are many examples of senior corporate executives and celebrities who have found within the day of rest, an opportunity for rejuvenation that strengthens their efforts during the rest of the week. Former Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, who also served as Chief of Staff for President Barack Obama and former Senator Joseph Lieberman all managed to observe the Sabbath while juggling high-profile roles at the highest level of government service. “[R]egardless of one’s religion, or frankly whether one considers oneself religious, there’s a powerful message and purpose to the Sabbath,” says Lieberman, “[t]he gift of rest is desperately needed in our world today, where people work so hard almost every day, and yearn for meaning and find it hard to locate in our popular culture.” Today, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner make Shabbat observance a priority, balancing their civic duties with their religious obligations.

Randi Zuckerberg, former Director of Market Development and spokesperson for Facebook, and a sister of the company’s co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, “I’m completely unable to be creative when I’m glued to my phone, Instagram, LinkedIn messages. When you’re constantly connected to other people, you can’t unplug. On weekends, we do a ‘digital Shabbat,’ where we turn everything off.”

“In addition to providing personal fulfillment and an unparalleled opportunity for rest and self-reflection, Shabbat can also positively impact the world far beyond the individual,” explains Dr. Menahem David Smadja, a well-known author, economist and religious scholar, “through my 35 years of experience in economics, I have been able to observe the behavior of people on a daily basis, about their spiritual and material response to everyday problems. This socioeconomic and microeconomic base has allowed me to develop macroeconomic solutions on the management of human challenges for the twenty-first century.”

Dr. Smadja’s daring plan calls for an international day of rest (about 53 days per year) plus approximately 15 “holidays” where cumulatively there would be a cessation of all productive activity for approximately 70 days, or about 20% of the year. These days of “non-activity” would help achieve the shared goal outlined in the Paris Climate Conference (COP21) of a 20% reduction of pollution globally by 2050, with the aim of keeping global warming below 2°C.

Smadja brings together social, economic, ecological and theological principles to address the serious issue of climate change.

According to a recent report published by The World Health Organization and The Climate and Clean Air Coalition, a voluntary partnership of governments, intergovernmental organizations, businesses, scientific institutions and civil society organizations committed to protecting the climate and improving air quality through reducing short-lived climate pollutants, air pollution is responsible for an estimated seven million deaths annually, or one in eight premature deaths every year.

These diseases include stroke and heart disease, respiratory illness and cancers. This air pollution the world’s largest environmental health risk comparable in size and scope with well-known health risks such as smoking, high cholesterol, high blood sugar, and obesity.

In addition to the health impact, air pollution has an equally devastating economic impact. Air pollution caused by energy production in the U.S. caused at least $131 billion in damages in the year 2011 alone, and that is a significant improvement compared to the staggering damages calculated in 2002. Worldwide the situation is even more ominous, according to a June 2016 report by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) entitled The Economic Consequences of Outdoor Air Pollution the market impact of outdoor air pollution, which include impacts on labor productivity, health expenditures and agricultural crop yields, are projected to lead to global economic costs that gradually increase to 1% of global GDP by 2060.

The international political response to climate change began at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, where the ‘Rio Convention’ included the adoption of the UN Framework on Climate Change (UNFCCC). This convention set out a framework for action aimed at stabilizing atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases (GHGs) to avoid “dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.” The UNFCCC now has a near-universal membership of 195 parties.

However, international political consensus has often come into conflict with business interests. In the United States, coal, oil and natural gas companies, which evidence suggests are responsible for serious environmental damage, represent a powerful and well-funded lobby against climate change based reform.

The tide appears like it may be changing, as the size and scale of climate change denial become better known. Also, multinational companies are seeking public relations and business advantages to a more environmentally-friendly policy. Unilever recently unveiled its sustainability initiatives, including sourcing 100% of its energy for production from renewable sources by 2030 and has already cut its carbon emissions by 43% from 2008 to 2016. Coca-Cola, Ikea, and Walmart are also taking steps toward 100% renewable energy.

This suggests that the time may be right for Dr. Smadja’s proposal. “This frantic race to go faster and faster makes us forget essential things, such as loving ourselves, others and also our earth,” says Smadja, “the result is a global disaster, whose ecological impact is more and more obvious. A Sabbath for ourselves, our industry and our environment is a corrective to these failures. It is a transcendence of spiritual over material will lead to a better sharing of wealth and a measurable improvement to the climate crisis that can bring together populists, progressives and conservatives toward a common cause.” ..." - CEOWOrld Magazine; January 29, 2018 - A Modest Proposal for a Day of Rest | CEOWORLD magazine

 

"... Former emergency-room physician and author Matthew Sleeth explained the importance of taking a day of rest in a recent interview with CNN. "For almost 2,000 years," Sleeth said, "Western culture stopped -- primarily on Sunday -- for about 24 hours."

Here are three specific ways the Sunday step-back benefits your business while it helps recharge your batteries, fend off depression and make you more personally productive. ..." - Entrepreneur; June 24, 2018 - Why Sunday Is the Most Important Day of the Week for Your Wellbeing

Buying and selling ... merchants of the earth ...

 

"... Italy’s Populists Want to Close Stores on Sundays

The idea is to give workers time to spend with their kids and go to church. ...

... Italy long followed the Christian custom of largely shutting down on the Sabbath" - Bloomberg Businessweek; May 1, 2019, 9:01 PM PDT - Bloomberg - Are you a robot?

 

The trend is growing more bold:

We are told that “Those who place themselves under God's control, to be led and guided by Him, will catch the steady trend of the events ordained by Him to take place” (White, RH, Aug. 5, 1902).

Notice this steady trend:

• And on the Seventh Day We Rested? (Time, July 25, 2004).

• Tightrope: Better take a break [keep Sunday], or you’ll break down (USA Today, Oct. 25, 2007).

• German Court Enforces Day of Rest (ABC News, Dec. 3, 2009).

• Slow Sunday: The simple solution to global warming. “Using Sunday as a day of rest and renewal would be good for our personal health as well as the health of the planet” (The Guardian, Sept. 17, 2009).

• Let’s Make Sunday a day of rest, for God’s sake (FoxNews.com, April 22, 2012).

• Keeping stores open on Sunday is not beneficial for society: Pope Francis (NY Daily News, July 6, 2014).

• Pope: No Work Sundays Not Just for Faithful (Fox News, July 5, 2014, same story).

• Arizona State Senator: Make Sunday Church Attendance Mandatory (CNN, March 27, 2015).

• Sunday as a Mark of Christian Unity (Lord’s Day Alliance of the U.S., April, 2015).

• Capitalism’s War on the Sabbath [Sunday] (Patheos, Sept. 7, 2015).

 

That is actually incorrect. The Two Witnesses are "the Law" and "the prophets/testimony" as per Isaiah 8:20; Romans 3:21, etc.