Tag: God

Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics: How SARS-CoV-2 Math Mistake Became a Global Panic

Lies are bad, trust is lost, relationships suffer.

Damned lies are worse, monarchies, nations and empires kill people over damned lies.

Statistical error about your height and weight may be one thing, but in the case of SARS-CoV-2, they too killed tens of thousands of isolated and lonely elderly in nursing homes and long term care facilities WHILE killing people via suicide and job loss for months and years going forward.

A Russia Today Op-Ed shares the timeline, summarized here:

Bottom line is that in a 28FEB2020 report:

On February 28, 2020, an editorial was released by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Published in the New England Journal of Medicine, the editorial stated: “… the overall clinical consequences of Covid-19 may ultimately be more akin to those of a severe seasonal influenza.”

So far so good. But then ..

They added that influenza has a CFR of approximately 0.1 percent. One person in a thousand who gets it badly, dies.

But that quoted CFR for influenza was ten times too low – they meant to say the IFR, the Infection Fatality Rate, for influenza was 0.1 percent. This was their fatal – quite literally – mistake.

Whoops, one decimal point shift IS a big deal .. it is the difference between 2.2M dead in the US verses 220,000 more in line with a typical flu season.

No wonder Congress, then the world, panicked. Because they were told Covid was going to be ten times worse than influenza. They could see three million deaths in the US alone, and 70 million around the world.

So tell me why NO ONE in the medical field saw this and spoke up?

From a 12AUG2020 paper called ‘Public Health Lessons Learned from Biases in Coronavirus Mortality Overestimation‘ from Cambridge Press:

… Results of this critical appraisal reveal information bias and selection bias in coronavirus mortality overestimation, most likely caused by misclassifying an influenza infection fatality rate as a case fatality rate. Public health lessons learned for future infectious disease pandemics include: safeguarding against research biases that may underestimate or overestimate an associated risk of disease and mortality; reassessing the ethics of fear-based public health campaigns; and providing full public disclosure of adverse effects from severe mitigation measures to contain viral transmission.

CFR or IFR? “What difference does it make” – Hillary Clinton

How does anyone walk this back? Well in the political world, one NEVER does that. Never, ever walk back a lie.

Examples:

.. I could continue to the fake Gulf of Tonkin incident that justified the ramp-up of the war in Vietnam ..

Do you want me to continue? I didn’t think so, you got the point.

Basically, it takes about 40 years for most political lies to get revealed by those in the know, IF they have one ounce of truth-telling in their body.

Don’t hold your breath though, to be a politician requires that you are a 100% lying machine that tells others that they can’t handle the truth:

Here is looking at you our political class who are puppets for the global elites that took advantage of this mistake for a global reset. May God have mercy on your souls ..

Peace out.

-SF1

The Remnant: Those in the Minority that Get It – Faith Version Episode 1

In my previous post I opened up the whole concept of the remnant as it was offered by Albert Jay Nock in the 1930s to describe those who could see what the masses could not. His thought was that is was a huge waste of time and effort to educate the masses, and that it was much more effective to address the remnant, even if it meant a much smaller audience and rarely any reward factor.

I talked about my school experience transition where I was able to see it for what it was by age 10 as my parents separated and I moved with my mother and sister to California for my 5th grade school year. My whole personality changed with this new adventure in the midst of a time of crisis, where my parents were heading toward divorce.

My second of three major transitions came in the part of life that many people talk about the least. While most see this as religion, I see this more as faith and hope. Many, like myself were introduced to faith through religion, especially in my generation ( #60ish ), and that experience could have been good or bad, however, if you are one of the remnant, you might be “gratefully disillusioned”.

In hindsight I would change nothing, because my faith journey toward who I am today required that I navigate (with the assistance of the Great Navigator) my own way to the understanding I have today and where I might be going in whatever tomorrows I still have. I had mentioned last week:

I think it is by design that truth makes itself know in a process verses just being taught. While knowledge helps, there is nothing like a crisis to unpack that truth that had been simmering for months and years before.

This holds true for me in my own process of developing a faith worldview.

The process started in my earliest memories of attending a fairly large conservative church where a majority were of Dutch ancestry in the Midwest. The typical cycle of weekly religious life was church attendance TWICE on Sunday, at 9:30am and 6pm with almost NO “fun” allowed on that “day of rest”.

Many families would have cooked their Sunday meal the night before and prepared for a day, the “Sabbath”, to reflect on where they came up short with their creator. The church service was designed by John Calvin’s followers to be a rather dour experience where man’s degenerative nature was emphasized and I was quickly aware of the sour faces around me for that hour of organ music and hymns followed by a sermon from the “dominie” ( minister / professional pastor ) who spoke God’s Word at us in no uncertain terms.

Dominie is a Scots language and Scottish English term for a Scottish schoolmaster usually of the Church of Scotland and also a term used in the US for a minister or pastor of the Dutch Reformed Church

By Monday morning I was on my way to Christian school where the underlying emphasis was still communicated as almost all our lessons came from the Bible’s Old Testament and God was someone you always feared. Staying on the right path performance wise seemed to be the only way to avoid God’s wrath and judgement until one went to Heaven to be with Him forever. Midweek there was a Catechism class taught at the church and so we were bused from the Christian school to the church for another hour of instruction on what is called the Heidelberg Catechism, a question and answer format that was foundational to this Calvinistic theological matrix that emphasized total depravity of man, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace and perseverance of the saints. ( known by the acronym TULIP, how Dutch is that? ) The only day without religious expectations was Saturday, which to me meant Little League, college football and playing with neighborhood friends except for weekends when our family went to my grandparent’s dairy farm for the day to visit, which itself was an interesting experience that I plan to talk about someday.

Inside this rhythm of religion, I started to explore the only option I had during the minister’s sermon on Sunday mornings, the Bible. Instead of paging through the Old Testament, I started reading the New Testament books where I discovered a whole new “lens” to see what faith was beyond the typical religious wrappings and trappings. I found it interesting that Jesus came humbly into the world and took His time to start His official ministry, that he was marginalized in His own hometown and that He chose gnarly fishermen to be on His team. This was not an exclusive religious performance culture, but an inclusive relationship-based friendship culture. The nautical culture that Jesus introduced His friends to the real loving Father he had, would impact the early Jesus-follower’s vocabulary for generations. The anchor symbol meant a hope to a future, whether on this earth or not.

“At present we are on the outside of the world, the wrong side of the door. We discern the freshness and purity of morning, but they do not make us fresh and pure. We cannot mingle with the splendours we see. But all the leaves of the New Testament are rustling with the rumour that it will not always be so. Some day, God willing, we shall get in.” ~ CS Lewis

So in the middle of religion, I found a relational faith that would take years and decades to unpack. I will post an “Episode 2” in a few days that expands on my journey during the balance of my school years from 5th grade and beyond.

In hindsight, towards the end of this journey, I have learned to relax in this relational faith in the middle of the storms of life.

As opposed to religious obligation says that it is all up to you, where, if God isn’t doing the things you want, you have to work harder, stand firmer and pray longer. The religious focus I have found is on your performance, your obedience, your righteousness.

Outside that box, you will learn to rely on Him ( Abba Father or Papa ) alone and recognize that any time you give up responsibility for your spiritual and faith nourishment to another person – whether friend, pastor or author, you’ve already traded away a bit of your freedom, for life in a box.

So in these days I picture this:

.. and I leave you with this:

Peace out ..

The anchor holds
Though the ship is battered
The anchor holds
Though the sails are torn
I have fallen on my knees
As I faced the raging seas
The anchor holds
In spite of the storm

-SF1

 

Roots: What Are We as Individuals and Community At Our Core? Honorable?

As I read the headlines that 99% of Americans do not see, those from independent and grassroots media, across the Internet, I find a search for several things from all angles across the globe. I find words like honor, freedom, faith and reason all being bantered about as we humans attempt to make sense of this broken world.

On the one hand, we have people looking back in our broken (and sometimes covered up) history. For example, Karen Stokes writes of the type of person typical of areas of the southern USA in 1863 under the stress of war that threatened their families and their livelihood:

.. their letters also offer an inspiring story of “devotion to home, family solidarity, faith, virtue, fidelity, sacrifice, bravery, and a strength of character that makes it possible to survive terrible loss and trauma.

The character to stand up to tyranny when ones own family and way of life could be swept away like that of Job in the Old Testament of the Bible is something that was not seen in these united States since the War for Independence 80 years earlier when the same kind of people stood up to the British Empire.

A man or woman of honor were people, who in times of crisis, rose to the occasion and became unwilling leaders in their efforts to repel the forces of change that represented a foe who’s agenda was to implement their own life view on others, with force. Honor was a sought after attribute especially in the South in the decades after the War for Independence, and by the 1930s had all been but overshadowed by something new:

Earlier in the 1930s, the celebrated English writer and critic G. K. Chesterton gave his thoughts on what the “Old South” had to offer the world in his essay “On America,” in which he asserted that, although the twentieth century was the “Age of America,” there was “a virtue lacking in the age, for want of which it will certainly suffer and possibly fail.”

That missing virtue, according to Chesterton, was honor.

The Age of America emerged from the post-“Civil War” north’s view that its own victory over the South was a moral one. All one has to do is to count the atrocities and scandals in the decades that followed until the Northern GOP was forced to finally let the South go in the late 1870s, removing them from military districts and allowing them to go it alone to recover economically. It would not be until the 1970s that most of these states did recover, without much if any federal assistance. That is not honorable.

Lately, there has been yet another underground effort to capture the essence of what the history of the South could help us in the 21st century understand about the core of human nature in a world that seems out of control and bent on destroying us:

in his book Why America Failed (2012), cultural historian Morris Berman expressed similar sentiments, characterizing the antebellum South as a culture focused on “honor and community,” and further stating, “In its flawed and tragic way, the Old South stood for values that we finally cannot live without if we are to remain human.”

It does seem that hope and encouragement are sorely needed at this time in this world. Personally I take solace in reading what the 1st century Jesus-followers did as they faced persecution and yet stood with honor, grace and defended their families against all odds, with the strange by-product of having Jesus’ words ripple throughout the Roman Empire in such a way as to turn the then known world upside-down!

So in 1939, as the threat of another world war was evident, a book was offered in an attempt to give some hope from a more secular view:

What does the South have to offer that is valuable to humanity, to civilization? In 1939, the Pulitzer prize-winning historian Douglas Southall Freeman proposed an answer to this question in his book ‘The South to Posterity’ ..

.. He maintained that these works of historical literature would always stand as solid evidence that the South had “fought its fight gallantly, and, so far as war ever permits, with fairness and decency; that it endured its hardships with fortitude; that it wrought its hard recovery through uncomplaining toil, and that it gave to the nation the inspiration of personalities, humble and exalted, who met a supreme test and did not falter.”

The core of his book centers around the real war-time correspondence letters of Alexander Cheves Haskell, one of seven brothers who fought in the War Against Southern Independence:

In ‘The South to Posterity’, one man whose story Douglas Southall Freeman offered as testimony to the “court of time” was a young Confederate cavalry officer from South Carolina, Alexander Cheves Haskell. Freeman had recently read a biography of Haskell which drew heavily on his memoir and correspondence, and he singled out a letter Haskell penned in 1863 as among the finest examples of “the war-time correspondence of high souls” and “one of the most beautiful born of war.” Freeman included only a portion of this letter in his book, but all of Haskell’s wartime letters have finally been collected and published as part of his family’s correspondence in my new book An Everlasting Circle: Letters of the Haskell Family of Abbeville, South Carolina, 1861-1865.

An Everlasting Circle includes many outstanding letters written by a remarkable and prominent family that sent seven sons to war. Dr. James E. Kibler has contributed an excellent afterword to the book that comments on the literary value of the letters and the kind of civilization that could produce a family like the Haskells. It was a civilization shaped by classical learning and orthodox Christianity.

Beyond this article, others like Bionic Mosquito, has taken sights off the distractions of today’s world and centered on the core of what each generation needs to grapple with, the tension between reason and faith:

As God is the author of reason and faith, philosophy and theology, why would any Christian agree to live with such distinctions? It seems reasonable to suggest that one reason Christianity has lost its way (and has lost many in the West) is precisely because Christian leaders have accepted and even emphasized this difference. “Oh, you just have to believe by faith; don’t ask questions.” This is too often heard.

It is interesting that non-Christian intellectuals are making this connection once again. I am thinking of Jordan Peterson and John Vervaeke. It is also interesting that this has led to an increase in interest in Christianity – although I think neither of these two have ever intended to increase church attendance.

It is the case: God moves in mysterious ways….

Yes, that last quote is a teaser. You will have to go look around Bionic’s site to see the path he has traveled in his quest for truth. I may have to post about some of his works this year. He has done a great service for those around the globe who are starting to see all the government and media lies and are desperately searching for truth.

Stay tuned!

-SF1

Christians (Not the Religion, But Jesus Followers) and Government

Now this is a topic that seems to have been misunderstood by generations of Jesus followers since governments started tolerating and later embracing Christianity as a religion especially after Constantine converted to the religion in the year 312AD and re-directed all his pagan priests and temples to transition to the new religion. One of his directives was to replace December 25th which was observed as the birthday of the pagan Unconquered Sun god to become celebrated as Jesus’ birthday.

Many Christians love the “faith-religion-state” relationship that Constantine offered better than that which Jesus had offered (“faith-God”).

The matter of fact is that Jesus had zero influences on the “religion-state-complex” back in His day and was routinely on the run but eventually allowed Himself to be captured and executed as an innocent man that was framed by the religious elite who were in tight with the Roman Empire government officials of the day. Blow-back was real as over the years and decades of oral story telling, thousands of people were personally touched with Jesus’ message that freed them while in the physical state of slavery in an empire. (50% of the Roman Empire were slaves at that time) This “blow-back” actually turned the then known world upside-down in a generation as their lives were touched with love while many of their hearts were touched directly by Love.

I contend that if God is love, and perfect love drives out all fear then – 1 Cor 13 sets the stage for the characteristics of perfect love or a misunderstood God. (Read the next paragraph and then re-read it substituting God for Love)

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.  It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.  Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails

As with all movements (even spiritually sparked ones) the subsequent generation takes the personal convictions of the previous and turns them into traditions, programs and rules. Even before Constantine converted, there were significant changes in the Jesus follower communities that were based more on safety and fear than the real presence in one’s heart of our loving Creator giving us fatherly advice daily on how to live in a broken world.

Bionic Mosquito’s article I will then use as a springboard for future posts, discussions and dialog. The author refers to a book by Gerard Casey where it becomes essential to refer to scripture (Bible) in addressing society and governments. Here is a sampling:

Freedom’s Progress?: A History of Political Thought, by Gerard Casey

“I know full well how hazardous an enterprise it is to set sail on the controversial and disputed sea of Scriptural interpretation….”

Yes, same here. This is one reason (of many) that I strongly prefer to keep theological discussion off limits. I know this is difficult to do, given the topics at this post, and I appreciate that you all respect this desire. As you know, my intent behind these topics is to examine the ramifications of broad religious issues on the social, governance, and political aspects of society.

I guess today I am going to somewhat cross that line…

Good for you Bionic Mosquito! Having been immersed for a season in what I had hoped was a grassroots informal faith community network, I became disillusioned as I hit full on with the Christian religion that as I said defers to Constantine’s model more than that of Jesus’. Bionic Mosquito goes on to say:

… The reasons are twofold: first, the examination Casey takes on is precisely on the point of freedom; second, the topic is one of the most misunderstood, misrepresented and misused regarding the Christian take on government.

The topic? In two words: Romans 13. Casey offers a full examine of both Old and New Testament Scripture regarding kings and government authority, as a few verses should not be taken in isolation.

Bionic Mosquito goes on to expand Casey’s thoughts regarding both Old and New Testament telling of various “faith-state” moments. 1 Samuel 8 is a good “go-to” to see God’s view of earthly kings (verses the wise judge model He attempted with the theocracy Israel) followed by Hosea 8 in which shows God allowing governments while not endorsing them.  On the New Testament moments, this proves to be a “target-rich” environment to see how Jesus as well as His followers dealt with the “State” while living their “faith”:

Regarding the life of Jesus, Casey offers…

“…we can see immediately that his very life was bookended by acts of political significance, from King Herod’s murderous intentions at his birth to the final drama of his politically inspired execution.”

This is the lens through which all Scriptural discussion of kings and earthly authority should be viewed. Casey offers that the New Testament is a target-rich environment when one wants to find passages regarding kings and government; he limits himself to five. I will touch on only a couple of these.

As much as I want to proceed with these, I believe they would be well served to address in a future post. Romans 13, taken in isolation, has formed the bedrock belief most Jesus followers have today about their relationship with the State. This view is enhanced by the Christian Religion which in the US has identified themselves (with a few brave exceptions, please see Chuck Baldwin’s rebellion to this alliance) with financially beneficial 501C3 status as state recognized corporations. Bionic Mosquito also offers this in conclusion:

Keep in mind: virtually every one of Jesus’s disciples died in martyrdom, died in disobedience to the political authorities. Do you really believe they are all damned to hell due to their “disobedience”?

Got that? Now I think you know where I am heading ..

SF1