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John Bunyan's Last SermonPreached July 1688 "Which were born, not of blood,  nor of the will of the flesh,  nor of the will of man,  but of God;" — John 1:13. The words have a dependence on what goes before, and therefore I must direct you to them for the right understanding of it. You have it thus, —"He came to his own, but his own received him not; but as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them which believe on his name; which were born, not of blood,...

For a while now I've been on the mailing list of a group called Republican Young Professionals. I never bothered to block it since it gets delivered to my junk mail folder and deleted. This, however, is worthy of reposting. Well, the last couple of days have been interesting to say the least.  Now that Cathy Santos, my fiancé and RYP Co-Founder has come forward to publicly air her story about her experience in the Treasurer's Office last year, I feel like we have a duty to you - our members - to answer some questions that I'm sure you...

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints prints a small card that is normally entitled "Seventeen points of the True Church." At times the front of the card will read "Does it meet the Test?" Whatever the form, many Christians have been handed this card. What of its claims? Are the 17 listed points true? Do the claims made by the LDS Church stand the test of the Bible? This article will examine, briefly, the claims made by this little card. It is not intended to be an in-depth doctrinal treatise on each point, as the card hardly attempts...

I. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. --The First Amendment 22. The printing presses shall be free to every person, who undertakes to examine the proceedings of the general assembly or of any branch of government; and no law shall ever be made to restrain the right thereof. The free communication of thoughts and opinions is one of the invaluable rights...

Joseph Smith bore many titles in his lifetime, Elder, Seer, President, Mayor, even Lieutenant General, but he is probably best known as the Prophet. And prophesy he did, often with great passion, invoking the powers of heaven and the name of God. What follows are seven prophecies of Joseph Smith, notable for their specificity and appeal to divine authority. These are taken from official Mormon sources — either the Latter-day Saint scriptures or the History of the Church (HC), a seven volume history published under the authority of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon). Each are given...

What's In a (Utah) Name? by Cari Bilyeu Clark When my husband and I moved from Utah to the Washington, D.C. area seventeen years ago, we knew nothing of the inadvertent legacy we carried from our four years in Utah. Shortly after we arrived in our new home, we saw a television commercial for a local grocery store chain. The spokeswoman's name was the unusual "Odonna." "She's gotta be from Utah," I said to my husband. "That's a Utah name if I ever heard one." We eventually learned that Odonna was, indeed, Utah born and bred. It dawned on...

50 Reasons why LORD OF THE RINGS sucks Fellowship of the Rings was shoved down our throats. I've heard some students are even forced to read some novelization of the movie in their literature classes. Ridiculous. Does Hollywood run our classrooms now? Greed. Hollywood can't make a movie these days without crapping out a sequel the next year to squeeze more money out of the sheep. Guess what; there's ANOTHER LOTR movie coming this Christmas. Gee, I wonder what will bring Rocky out of retirement this time? Quality Control at New Line. Millions of copies of the LOTR DVD have...

Trent Lott, the Republican Party's eternal Maalox moment, has given the Beltway's liberal pontiffs on race exactly what they crave: a big, fat excuse to extract legislative payoffs to ease their collective "pain." On Wednesday, the Senate Republican leader went on Fox News and CNN promising more race-conscious government remedies to make amends for his tacit endorsement of segregation. In interviews with Sean Hannity and Larry King, Lott cravenly pledged support for "community renewal" (more minority set-asides); said he would "put more money into education so no child is left behind" (more federal spending for failed urban programs); and boasted...

West Bloomfield bulk e-mailer Alan Ralsky, who just may be the world's biggest sender of Internet spam, is getting a taste of his own medicine. Ever since I wrote a story on him a couple of weeks ago (www.freep.com/money/tech/mwend22_20021122.htm), he says he's been inundated with ads, catalogs and brochures delivered by the U.S. Postal Service to his brand-new $740,000 home. It's all the result of a well-organized campaign by the anti-spam community, and Ralsky doesn't find it funny. "They've signed me up for every advertising campaign and mailing list there is," he told me. "These people are out of their...

Translated by J. C. Rolfe.[Arkenberg Introduction]. Rolfe's annotations appear in brackets with no attribution; mine are noted. I have also replaced modern place names, as used by Rolfe, with those in use by the Romans and Hellenes; thus, for example, Rolfe's "Italy" is now "Italia". I. OF the origin of the Vitellii different and widely varying accounts are given, some saying that the family was ancient and noble, others that it was new and obscure, if not of mean extraction. I should believe that these came respectively from the flatterers and detractors of the emperor, were it not for...

I used to do two series of threads. One was about politics and government in the Greco-Roman civilization, and the other was my own columns. Here's a list of them: Ancient Politics and Government The Athenian Constitution, Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, and Part Five by Aristotle Chapter One of Polybius and the Founding Fathers by Marshall Davies Lloyd Deeds of Augustus by Caesar Augustus Cicero by Plutarch The Conspiracy of Catiline by Sallust Lives of the Twelve Caesars by Suetonius JuliusAugustusTiberiusCaligulaClaudiusNeroGalbaOtho The American Constitutionalist-In Defense of "Underage" Drinking -Anarchy vs. the Right to Life -Calling a...

<p>WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A limestone burial box, almost 2,000 years old, may provide the oldest archeological record of Jesus of Nazareth, according to several experts who announced the finding Monday.</p> <p>The ossuary, as the bone boxes are known, dates to A.D. 63 and has an inscription in Aramaic which translates to: "James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus," said Andre Lemaire, an expert in ancient writing who identified the writing on the box in Jerusalem last spring.</p>

Therefore, brethren, stand fast, and hold the traditions which ye have been taught, whether by word, or our epistle. (2 Thessalonians 2:15) The Scripture quoted above is usually understood by Catholics and the Eastern Orthodox as referring to Tradition as understood by their denomination. I believe it does not. There are two things I'd like to establish early. 1. The traditions mentioned include things communicated in Scripture -- the epistles. (And even if it didn't, Scripture would still be true, which is really all I need.) 2. The traditions don't contradict each other. Galatians 1:8 says, "But though we, or...

I went down to Boystown earlier today. We were planning to go somewhere else, but we spent so much time getting sushi it was too late, so we went to The Alley instead. The Alley is, as the first line indicates, in Boystown, which is the Chicago gay district. There was parking in The Alley's alley, so we entered via the back door past stacks of free publications (gay and alternative newspapers and old copies of the Onion). The Alley is... different. It's basically a kind of all purpose store for punks, goths, and other people who're unique, just like...

We say Christ so died that he infallibly secured the salvation of a multitude that no man can number, who through Christ's death not only may be saved, but are saved, must be saved, and cannot by any possibility run the hazard of being anything but saved. ---Charles Haddon Spurgeon There was a time when I called myself a "four-point Calvinist." There are a lot of people who use that term, and, almost all the time, the one point of the five that they reject is the terrible, horrible, "L". Limited atonement. There is just something about the term that...

I. THE ancestors of Otho came from an old and illustrious family in the town of Ferentium and were descended from the princes of Etruria. His grandfather Marcus Salvius Otho, whose father was a Roman eques but whose mother was of lowly origin and perhaps not even free-born, became a senator through the influence of Livia Augusta, in whose house he was reared; but did not advance beyond the grade of praetor. His father Lucius Otho was of a distinguished family on his mother's side, with many powerful connections, and was so beloved by Tiberius and so like him in ...

The situation is already bad enough. Every state in the union has already been forced by federal blackmail to raise the drinking age to 21. Now a group called the Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse is trying to whip up hysteria about the evils of people drinking a few years before they get government permission. They came out with attention getting claims that 25 percent of alcohol consumption is by &quot;children&quot;, which to them apparently includes a number of potential voters. It turns out the real number is 11 percent, including, it should be noted, people over 18. ...

Guess what each piece of nonsense really is, and you'll win a prize! Not really, but guess anyway. Each numbered item is derived from a well-known piece of text. See if you can figure out what that text is. 1. Our person United States is considerable and in order to form the process of shoes founding the union which is complete in our descendants namely us soak, domestic insurance tranquil namely support together protects the general material of promotion of free heaven axis luck, this constitution which it strengthens and it stipulates, establishes is United States. 2. We draw up ...

I. THE race of the Caesars ended with Nero [Nero was the last who bore the name because of connection with the family of Augustus; after him it became a designation of rank]. That this would be so was shown by many portents and especially by two very significant ones. Years before, as Livia was returning to her estate near Veii, immediately after her marriage with Augustus [38 B.C.E.], an eagle which flew by dropped into her lap a white hen, holding in its beak a sprig of laurel, just as the eagle had carried it off. Livia resolved to ...

Joe Sobran, as evidenced by his recent columns, seems close to being convinced, if not already convinced, by Hans Herman Hoppe's book, Democracy: The God that Failed. As you might have guessed from the title, Hoppe thinks democracy was a bad idea, but he goes further than that; he thinks government, in any form, was a bad idea. He's an anarcho-capitalist. In an anarcho-capitalist society, instead of using police and an official court system to punish criminals, individuals would hire defense agencies, in much the same way we hire insurance agencies now. Then, if you're robbed, your agency would ...