“For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, [even] his eternal power and Godhead.”
(Romans 1:20)
Invisible Things
***
YourNewsWire.com
Pope Francis: World Government Must Rule U.S. ‘For Their Own Good’
July 9, 2017
Pope Francis told the Italian newspaper La Repubblica that the United States of America has “a distorted vision of the world” and Americans must be ruled by a world government, as soon as possible, “for their own good.”
The Pope made the observation in an interview with La Repubblica reporter Eugenio Scalfari.
“Last Thursday, I got a call from Pope Francis,” Scalfari reported. “It was about noon, and I was at the newspaper when my phone rang.”
He said Pope Francis had been watching Putin and Trump at the G20 and had become agitated. The Pope demanded to see him at four that afternoon, according to a Google translation of the Italian report.
“Pope Francis told me to be very concerned about the meeting of the G20,” Scalfari wrote.
As translated into English by Agence France Presse, which picked up the story, the Pope said “I am afraid there are very dangerous alliances between powers who have a distorted view of the world: America and Russia, China and North Korea, Russia and Assad in the war in Syria.”
“The danger concerns immigration,” the Pope continued to La Repubblica. “Our main and unfortunately growing problem in the world today is that of the poor, the weak, the excluded, which includes migrants.”
“This is why the G20 worries me: It mainly hits immigrants,” Pope Francis said, according to AFP.
Pope Francis’s idea that Americans would be better off under a world government doesn’t stop there. The radical leftist pontiff also went on record stating that Europe should become one country under one government.
In the same interview, according to La Repubblica, Pope Francis said that Europe must take on a “federal structure,” resembling feudal times when the peasants were ruled by unimpeachable monarchs.
“I also thought many times to this problem and came to the conclusion that, not only but also for this reason, Europe must take as soon as possible a federal structure,” the Pope said, according to the Google translation of the La Repubblica article.
WND
POPE PROXIES COMPARE U.S. CHRISTIANS TO TERRORISTS
Vatican attacks those who want 'to build barrier-fences crowned with barbed wire'
July 19, 2017
WASHINGTON – In a stunning rebuke of U.S. conservative Christians, two close aides to Pope Francis have drawn comparisons between Islamic terrorists and American evangelicals, accusing the latter of advancing “a theocratic type of state.”
Marcelo Figueroa, a Presbyterian pastor and editor-in-chief of the Argentinean edition of L’Osservatore Romano, and Antonio Spadoro, editor-in-chief of the Vatican’s La Civilta Cattolica, teamed up to write the blistering attack on U.S. Christians – including Catholics who embrace the conservative values of evangelicals – in the latter periodical.
The authors characterize Francis as “courageous” for giving “no theological-political legitimacy to terrorists, avoiding any reduction of Islam to Islamic terrorism. Nor does he give it to those who postulate and want a ‘holy war’ or to build barrier-fences crowned with barbed wire.”
They say “fear” is what characterizes “fundamentalism.”
“It is fear of the breakup of a constructed order and the fear of chaos,” they write. “Indeed, it functions that way thanks to the chaos perceived. The political strategy for success becomes that of raising the tones of the conflictual, exaggerating disorder, agitating the souls of the people by painting worrying scenarios beyond any realism. Religion at this point becomes a guarantor of order and a political part would incarnate its needs. The appeal to the apocalypse justifies the power desired by a god or colluded in with a god. And fundamentalism thereby shows itself not to be the product of a religious experience but a poor and abusive perversion of it.”
In fact, the pope’s proxies assign harsh and impure motives to their theological and political adversaries on the right side of the political spectrum that they do not assign to defenders of radical Islam.
“To maintain conflict levels, their (American Christian conservatives) biblical exegeses have evolved toward a decontextualized reading of the Old Testament texts about the conquering and defense of the ‘promised land,’ rather than be guided by the incisive look, full of love, of Jesus in the Gospels,” they write.
In addition, the called out – by name – President Donald Trump’s senior strategist Stephen K. Bannon, as one of those identified as having “apocalyptic” views of geopolitics.
They say Bannon, a Catholic himself, is part of a “fringe group” of U.S. Christians who seek to bring about a theocratic state and that his views are fueled from the “Christian reconstructionism” views of Calvinist John Rushdoony.
GATEWAY PUNDIT
In Shock Warning, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI says Catholic Church is ‘on the verge of capsizing’
Joshua Caplan
July 16, 2017
Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI issued shock criticism of his successor Pope Francis, warning the Catholic Church is a boat “on the verge of capsizing.”
According to Lifesite:
Pope Benedict XVI sent a sobering message at the funeral of Cardinal Joachim Meisner today, saying he was moved at the dubia cardinal’s ability to “live out of a deep conviction that the Lord does not abandon His Church, even when the boat has taken on so much water as to be on the verge of capsizing.”
The Church “stands in particularly pressing need of convincing shepherds who can resist the dictatorship of the spirit of the age and who live and think the faith with determination,” Pope Benedict said in a message read by Archbishop Georg Gänswein, his personal secretary and head of the papal household. Because of this “pressing need,” Meisner “found it difficult to leave his post.”
“What moved me all the more was that, in this last period of his life, he learned to let go and to live out of a deep conviction that the Lord does not abandon His Church, even when the boat has taken on so much water as to be on the verge of capsizing,” the pope emeritus concluded.
Meisner, who was 83, was one of the four cardinals who sent Pope Francis a dubia, consisting of five questions, asking if Amoris Laetitia is aligned with Catholic morality.
It’s an open secret Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI and Pope Francis do not have much of a relationship. The Gateway Pundit published a little-reported story about the fractured relationship between the two Church figures.
Translated from a German report by Pewsitter.com:
Speaking at a March 16th conference in Limburg, Germany, the long-time Vatican correspondent Andreas Englisch has delivered an explosive allegation: In contradiction of public appearances, Pope Francis and Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI “are in complete disagreement” and “never speak to one another.” The Pope Emeritus has apparently stated that he only appears in public “at the explicit request of Pope Francis.” What is shown on these occasions, Englisch continues, is “only the pretense of friendship.”
No official transcript of the press conference is yet available, but Giuseppe Nardi, another well-known Vaticanist who was in attendance, says that Englisch continued his statements by describing Pope Francis as a “strong personality” who “gets what he wants,” and that he has little in common with Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI but “uses him when necessary for the optics.
***
CNN
Renaissance 'Book of Miracles' shows gruesome visions of the apocalypse
July 18, 2017
Today, we accept eclipses, meteor showers, plagues and unseasonable weather to be natural phenomena, easily explained away by science. But during the more religious and superstitious Renaissance period, these phenomena were often considered signs from God.
This is graphically illustrated in "The Book of Miracles," a coffee table book published by Taschen. It's a reprint of the "Augsburg Book of Miraculous Signs," which was rediscovered in what's now southern Germany in 2008.
Dated to the mid 16th century, it "gives spectacular expression to sixteenth-century Europe's ever-increasing concern for extraordinary signs sent from God," co-author Joshua P. Waterman writes in its introduction.
"The preoccupations that the present manuscript reflects were by no means unprecedented. They built upon traditions of omens and prophecy reaching back to Classical Antiquity and the Bible."
Outside of the merely unexplained, the book delves into the truly impossible, dedicating substantial pages to freakish creatures, including a flock of flying crowned dragons and a raging seven-headed sea monster. Some scenes, such as Noah's Ark before the mythical flood, are taken from the Old Testament and local folklore.
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FOX NEWS
Early church discovered on UK Holy Island, may be linked to medieval saints
By James Rogers Published July 03, 2017
Archaeologists have discovered an early medieval church on the remote Holy Island of Lindisfarne that could be linked to key figures in the history of British Christianity.
“We’re just really excited because, potentially, it’s evidence of the earliest church on the island and it’s linked to historical figures like St. Aidan and St. Oswald,” Sara Rushton, conservation manager of Northumberland County Council, told Fox News.
Rushton explained that the church may have been built as early as the mid-seventh century A.D., possibly around the year 650. The island off the coast of North East England is an important site in British Christianity – St. Aidan established a monastery on the island in 635 A.D, which became an international center for learning and craftsmanship before it was ransacked by Viking raiders in the late 8th Century. The monastery was re-established in the 11th century.
Rushton explained that, while the church could date from the seventh to the ninth centuries, there are plenty of hints that it was built in the early part of the island’s history. A stone, possibly an altar stone, was found at the east end of the church, a feature of northern British churches before 671 A.D, according to Rushton. “The other reason we think it might be earlier is because of the style of the stonework – it’s very crude” she said, noting that it lacks the refinement seen in later churches.
The church’s location on a steep, rocky narrow ridge that runs across the northern end of the island also provides a clue. “It’s the type of location that appealed to the Celtic church,” said Rushton.
Additionally, the church’s position may have been chosen to face Bamburgh Castle on the nearby coast. Bamburgh was the royal court of St. Oswald of Northumbria, a Saxon king credited with helping spread Christianity in the region.
“Because it’s high they looked across to Bamburgh castle,” said Rushton, who believes that the potential church discovery cements Holy Island as one of the most important early medieval sites in Britain.
Until this summer archaeologists thought that the early churches on the island were located elsewhere. Like Holy Island’s monastery, it was thought that the churches were in the shelter of the rocky narrow ridge, known as ‘The Heugh.’
Last year excavations on the western part of the ridge revealed a massive foundation wall that archaeologists speculate is part of a watch tower.
***
INDEPENDENT
Having children is one of the most destructive things you can to do the environment, say researchers
One fewer child per family can save 'average of 58.6 tonnes of CO2-equivalent emissions per year'
Caroline Mortimer
12 July, 2017
Having fewer children is a more effective way of saving the planet than recycling Getty Images/iStockphoto
“A US family who chooses to have one fewer child would provide the same level of emissions reductions as 684 teenagers who choose to adopt comprehensive recycling for the rest of their lives,” it said.
Lead author Seth Wynes told The Local: “We found there are four actions that could result in substantial decreases in an individual's carbon footprint: eating a plant-based diet, avoiding air travel, living car free and having smaller families.
“For example, living car-free saves about 2.4 tonnes of C02 equivalent per year, while eating a plant-based diet saves 0.8 tonnes of C02 equivalent a year.”
The paper, which studied analysed 39-peer reviewed journals studying the environmental policies of several major economies, found most governments focused on incremental changes which have “much smaller potential to reduce emissions”.
Although governments focused on increasing recycling schemes and using energy efficient light bulbs, these methods were between four and eight times less effective than eating a plant-based diet.
Researchers found that avoiding one trans-Atlantic flight per year can save between 0.7 and 2.8 tonnes of C02 equivalent per year (depending on the distance travelled, amount of luggage on board and how many passengers on the flight) whereas recycling will typically only save 0.21 tonnes of C02 equivalent per year.
This means recycling is between three and 13 times less likely to save the planet than avoiding that extra flight at its heaviest.
(So much for “Be fruitful and multiply.)
***
SPUTNIK
Why Russia-Turkey S-400 Deal Means a Tectonic Shift, Game-Changer in Arms Market
14:05 15.07.2017
On Friday, Bloomberg reported that Turkey has agreed to pay $2.5 billion to acquire Russia’s most advanced S-400 missile defense system under a long-discussed deal. Russian political analyst Konstantin Makienko explained why, if completed, this deal will signify a "tectonic shift, game-changer" in the arms market.
"Turkey has agreed to pay $2.5 billion to acquire Russia’s most advanced missile defense system," Bloomberg reported on Friday, citing a senior Turkish official, who asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the matter.
Earlier in July, Vladimir Kozhin, Russian presidential adviser on military and technical cooperation announced that the contract on the delivery of Russian-made S-400 air defense systems to Turkey has been agreed, but there was still no decision on a loan Moscow can provide to Ankara for the purchase.
The negotiations on possible deliveries of S-400 systems to Turkey have been underway since 2016. In March 2017, CEO of Rostec Corporation Sergey Chemezov said Ankara was ready to buy the S-400 systems with a loan provided by Moscow.
On April 28, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Moscow and Ankara had reached an agreement on the purchase of the S-400 air defense systems with the negotiations on joint production and prices already underway.
The issue was also discussed by Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan during their meeting in Sochi in early May.
Bloomberg's report now says that the preliminary agreement sees Turkey receiving two S-400 missile batteries from Russia within the next year, and then producing another two inside Turkey.
On July 4, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced that Turkey would seek technological independence from defense imports and enhance its own defense production industry, based on the country's capacities and resources.
Turkish Defense Minister Fikri Isik also confirmed Turkey's determination to design its own air defense systems jointly with France and Italy.
A spokesman for Russia’s arms-export company Rosoboronexport OJSC said he couldn’t immediately comment to Bloomberg on details of a deal with Turkey.
Disappointment in NATO?
Bloomberg suggests that the deal "signals a turn away from the NATO military alliance that has anchored Turkey to the West for more than six decades."
"Turkey has been in NATO since the early years of the Cold War, playing a key role as a frontline state bordering the Soviet Union. But ties with fellow members have been strained in recent years, with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan pursuing a more assertive and independent foreign policy as conflict engulfed neighboring Iraq and Syria," it says.
Tensions with Washington mounted over US support for Kurdish militants in Syria that Turkey considers terrorists, and the relationship with the European Union soured as the bloc pushed back against what it sees as Turkey’s increasingly autocratic turn, it further suggests.
The Turkish official explained to the agency that the Russian system would not be compatible with other NATO defense systems, but also wouldn’t be subject to the same constraints imposed by the alliance, which prevents Turkey from deploying such systems on the Armenian border, Aegean coast or Greek border.
The Russian deal would allow Turkey to deploy the missile defense systems anywhere in the country and against any threat without restriction, as they would not have a friend-or-foe identification system.
In his comment on the issue, Konstantin Makienko, an analyst at the Moscow think-tank the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies, told Russia's online newspaperVzglyad that Turkey might deploy one battery near the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles Strait, and the second one either near to Ankara or maybe deployed closer to the south-east, towards Syria and Iraq.
"It is a defensive system, but the deliveries of such systems have a very important meaning: they will close the Turkish skies, at least partially. And they will close it from the western-manufactured jets," the political analyst told the outlet.
In preference over the US and China
In October 2015, the US withdrew two of its Patriot missile-defense batteries from southern Turkey due "eased risk of Syrian Army missile attacks since the Patriots were deployed in 2013."
At the time, US officials said the anti-missile systems would be needed elsewhere to defend against "threats from Iran and North Korea."
At the same time Turkey was in active negotiations with China over the deliveries of its surface-to-air missile systems. Ankara then chose China's National Precision Machinery Import & Export Corporation for a deal on deliveries China's long range Hongqi-9 systems.
Ankara's original justification for choosing the Chinese system was that it was the cheapest, and also included the most generous offers of technology transfer, which would allow Turkey to acquire the blueprints for the system so that it could eventually build its own system.
But that decision angered Turkey's NATO partners, which objected that they couldn't integrate the Chinese system into NATO's larger air defense umbrella because it could compromise the security of NATO data. Many in China and Turkey complained that this was merely a pretext, and that Western governments were trying to bully Ankara into choosing a European system for commercial reasons.
Under pressure from the US and NATO, Turkey then gave up its plan to buy the missile-defense system from the state-run Chinese company, in a deal valued at $3.4 billion.
"Taking this episode into account, the recent reports on Ankara's agreement to purchase Russia's advanced S-400 systems does not necessarily mean that they will be purchased. The two countries [Russia and Turkey] are still in negotiations. Until the contract is signed and starts to be implemented, we can't be sure of anything," Makienko told Vzglyzd.
"The most important and the most sensitive items in the arms market are the sales of combat aircraft systems – fighter jets and long range air defense systems. If the Turks really purchase Russia's missile defense systems, it will be a tectonic shift, a game-changer in the arms market," he explained. (Emphesis added.)
The political analyst also noted that besides getting $2.5 billion, Russia will be able to load its production capacities. It will be of extreme importance after the end of the state-run program of armaments, the military reform program, which is set to expire in 2020.
'Know-How' purchase
For Turkey, the key aspect of any deal is the transfer of technology or know-how, Bloomberg quotes the Turkish official as saying.
Turkey wants to be able to produce its own advanced defense systems, and the Russian agreement to allow two of the S-400 batteries to be produced in Turkey would serve that aim, the official said.
"There are a lot of different levels of technology transfer," and any offer to Turkey would probably be limited in terms of sophistication, Makienko said.
More likely, he suggested, it would be a production of separate components. However separate components do not mean the production of a whole system.
"For Turkey to be able to copy the S-400 system, it would have to spend billions to create a whole new industry," he said.
Searching for more reliable partners outside the alliance?
In a separate comment on the issue, political analyst Kirill Koktysh, Associate Professor at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO), told Vzglyad that the deliveries of such types of weapons are agreed upon only on condition of solid strategic reasons and a long-term plan for military cooperation.
Hence we are witnessing a real rapprochement between Russia and Turkey, the creation of a new strategic reality and a new strategic security zone. (Emphesis added.)
'Turkey has a very low level of trust and hardly any strategic plans with Europe and the US. Turkey is searching for another strategic direction and more reliable allies, who will treat it with due respect and take into account its personal interests," the expert concluded.
(This could be another important step leading to the fulfillment of Ezekiel 38.)
***
PRESSTV
All those responsible for failed coup will be beheaded: Erdogan
July 16, 2017
Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan delivering a speech at a ceremony site on "July 15 Martyrs Bridge" (Bosphorus Bridge) in Istanbul on July 15, 2017. (Photos by AFP)
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has warned that he will chop off the heads of traitors while the country marks the first anniversary of a failed coup.
Addressing a thousand-strong march on Saturday, Erdogan warned that his government was seriously mulling reintroducing the death penalty.
“First of all we will chop off the heads of those traitors,” he said.
"Did my people have guns in their hands? They had their flags -- just as they do today -- and a weapon way more effective. They had their faith," he added.
Any move towards reintroducing capital punishment in Turkey would end negotiations for the country’s EU accession.
Turkey has been attempting to become part of the EU for decades. Formal EU accession negotiations, however, began in 2005. The process has been mired in problems, and only 16 chapters of the 35-chapter accession procedure have been opened for Ankara so far.
In November last year, the European Parliament suspended the accession talks with Ankara over concerns regarding human rights and the rule of law following the July 15 coup attempt.
In January, Turkey called on the EU to resume the negotiations.
Turkey witnessed a coup attempt on July 15, 2016, when a faction of the Turkish military declared that the government of Erdogan was no more in charge of the country.
A few hours later, however, the coup was suppressed. Almost 250 people were killed and nearly 2,200 others wounded in the abortive coup.
“We paid a price… but there is no price for the independence and future we obtained in return for that sacrifice,” he said.
Erdogan also said that those being tried over the coup would be made to wear uniforms similar to the notorious orange jumpsuits used at US military prison at Guantanamo Bay.
“When they appear in court, let’s make them appear in uniform suits like in Guantanamo,” he noted.
ENENEWS
Fury at Fukushima: Over 1 Billion pounds of nuclear waste “will be dumped into sea” — Top Official: “The decision has already been made” — “The solution is to pour the radioactive liquid into the ocean” — Toxic radioactive water to cause devastation
July 16, 2017
Kyodo, Jul 14, 2017 (emphasis added): Fukushima’s tritiated water to be dumped into sea, Tepco chief says — Despite the objections of local fishermen, the tritium-tainted water stored at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant will be dumped into the sea, a top official at Tokyo Electric says. “The decision has already been made,” Takashi Kawamura, chairman of Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc., said in a recent interview with the media… As of July 6, about 777,000 tons were stored [1.54 billion pounds]… Kawamura’s remarks are the first by the utility’s management on the sensitive matter…
The Independent, Jul 15, 2017: Radioactive waste from Fukushima power plant disaster to be dumped in sea — Water tainted with tritium, a radioactive form of hydrogen, is to be released into the Pacific Ocean, says the head of the company responsible for the Fukushima clean-up operation… Local residents are furious at plans to release the radioactive tritium from the 2011 Fukushima nuclear plant, which suffered a triple meltdown, into the sea…
UPI, Jul 14, 2017: Japan utility plans to dump radioactive Fukushima water into Pacific — The operator of Japan’s paralyzed nuclear plant in Fukushima has decided to release radioactive tritium into the Pacific Ocean… Technology has so far been unable to remove tritium from the water, and TEPCO’s solution is to pour the radioactive liquid into the ocean… TEPCO insists tritium poses few health hazards, but Japanese fishermen are outraged because of the announcement…
Newsweek, Jul 14, 2017: Fukushima’s Nuclear Waste Will Be Dumped Into the Ocean, Japanese Plant Owner Says — Toxic waste produced by one of the world’s worst nuclear disasters will be dumped into the sea, according to the head of [TEPCO]… Takashi Kawamura, chairman of Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), told foreign media that nearly 777,000 tons of water tainted with tritium, a byproduct of the nuclear process that is notoriously difficult to filter out of water, will be dumped into the Pacific Ocean…
The Telegraph, Jul 14, 2017: Fishermen express fury as Fukushima plant set to release radioactive material into ocean — Local residents and environmental groups have condemned a plan to release radioactive tritium from the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant into the Pacific Ocean… Around 770,000 tons of highly radioactive water is being stored in 580 tanks at the site. Many of the contaminants can be filtered out, but the technology does not presently exist to remove tritium from water… Fishermen who operate in waters off the plant say any release of radioactive material will devastate an industry that is still struggling to recover from the initial nuclear disaster…
Kyodo, Jul 15, 2017: Tepco backpedals after disaster reconstruction chief knocks plan to dump tritiated water into sea — [Tepco] backed off its tritium-dumping decision Friday after disaster reconstruction minister Masayoshi Yoshino said it would cause problems for struggling fishermen… The remarks made Friday by the Fukushima native came shortly after the chairman of [Tepco] was quoted as saying that the decision… had “already been made.” After Tepco Chairman Takashi Kawamura’s remarks were widely reported, the utility scrambled to make a clarification the same day. According to Tepco’s clarification, Kawamura meant to say that there was “no problem” with the dumping plan, based on government guidelines and “scientific and technological standards.” The statement also said that no final decision had been made…
WND
U.K. GOV'T DEMANDS 'QUEER THEOLOGY' IN SEMINARIES
And for Sunday schools? They must include 'teaching of LGBTI beliefs'
Bob Unruh
July 21, 2017
An executive agency of the United Kingdom’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office has issued a report recommending that seminaries include “queer theology” in their courses and that even Sunday schools teach “LGBTI beliefs.”
The stunning document, released by Wilton Park, an agency of the Foreign Office, also recommends that the Bible be reinterpreted “to make it compatible with LGBTI ideology.”
The Barnabas Fund, an organization that supports persecuted Christians worldwide, was surprised and more than a little worried.
“The recommendations, if implemented, would massively reverse freedom of religion across the globe,” the group said.
“Once it is accepted that any ideology can be imposed on those who hold conscientious disagreement with it, a very significant backward step has been taken both in relation to i) Freedom of Religion or Belief and ii) human rights generally.”
The Christian organization issued its own report stating “the fact that Wilton Park is an executive agency of the U.K. Foreign and Commonwealth Office” is frightening.
“As such, unless disowned by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the publication of these recommendations by Wilton Park are in effect state sponsored advocacy of imposing serious restrictions on freedom of religion around the world.”
“The Wilton Park report therefore represents a significant attack on the human rights of Christians around the world,” the Barnabas Fund said.
The government report, which appears to be directed mainly to nations in Africa and South America, blames the “heteropatriarchy of Christianity brought by Western missionaries” for current problems.
The solution it recommends isn’t complicated: “Improve” how people think about the Bible.
“Understanding of key religious texts which appear to perpetuate discrimination should be improved by using well reputed scholarly texts to challenge accepted versions eg the story of Sodom and Gomorrah from Genesis Chapter 19. A good example of a thoughtful scholarly based discussion of this story is ‘Breaking Open: Sodom and Gomorrah’ a 2016 booklet by Soulforce Inc.”
Soulforce is an advocacy organization for homosexuals. Genesis 19 describes how God destroyed the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah because of their tolerance of homosexuality.
“The promotion of more creative ways to reread religious texts would do much to encourage a change of viewpoint,” the report continued.
“Queer theology, feminist theology and a theology of inclusion need wider currency, particularly in seminaries,” it went on. The report said “religious people eg teachers and pastors should have generic human rights training so that they can understand LGBTI+ issues in the wider context of protection for all people.”
It said marriage is “part of heteronormative society; there are other types of relationships: polyamorous relationships, bisexual relationships. Sacralising things excludes people, and can create demons in others. It is important to go beyond Christianity.”
The report urges lawyers to “challenge hate speech” and even implies a threat much worse.
“In some cases, direction action is more effective than dialogue in order to challenge hateful religious teachings,” the report said.
Barnabas Fund said the U.K. Foreign and Commonwealth Office “should immediately withdraw” the Wilton Park report and “immediately issue a statement stating that this report does not represent U.K. government policy.”
“The promotion of Freedom of Religion or Belief around the world should be included as a major aim of U.K. foreign policy [and] the Foreign and Commonwealth office should institute an inquiry into the operation of Wilton Park,” Barnabas said.
“It is a matter of profound concern that an organization which is an executive agency of the U.K. Foreign and Commonwealth Office has published a report recommending measures to enforce an ideology on religious believers, such as evangelical Christians.”
The anti-Christian bias in the report is obvious, Barnabas Fund said.
“Missionaries are described as: ‘spreading prejudiced views’ … contributing ‘to the context in which these attitudes and behavior have flourished’ and people ‘who bought the trust of the people’ and entrenched hateful attitudes toward homosexuality, transgender and intersexuality.'”
Barnabas Fund said the report condemns Christians for having “intensified hatred, disseminating it in parts of the world which had previously exercised greater tolerance.'”
The Christian group said the “suggestion that evangelical Christians in the global south have simply imbibed incorrect interpretations of scripture from Western missionaries and need to be challenged to reinterpret them will be deeply offensive to a great many Christians.”
The Wilton Park report, the Christian group concluded, “contains extensive and significant levels of Christianophobia, both in the sense of intolerance toward Christians including negative stereotyping and advocacy of discrimination and even direct action against Christians.”
***
cnsnews.com
Johns Hopkins Psychiatrist: Transgender is ‘Mental Disorder;' Sex Change ‘Biologically Impossible’
By Michael W. Chapman | June 2, 2015
(CNSNews.com) – Dr. Paul R. McHugh, the former psychiatrist-in-chief for Johns Hopkins Hospital and its current Distinguished Service Professor of Psychiatry, said that transgenderism is a “mental disorder” that merits treatment, that sex change is “biologically impossible,” and that people who promote sexual reassignment surgery are collaborating with and promoting a mental disorder.
Dr. McHugh, the author of six books and at least 125 peer-reviewed medical articles, made his remarks in a recent commentary in the Wall Street Journal, where he explained that transgender surgery is not the solution for people who suffer a “disorder of ‘assumption’” – the notion that their maleness or femaleness is different than what nature assigned to them biologically.
He also reported on a new study showing that the suicide rate among transgendered people who had reassignment surgery is 20 times higher than the suicide rate among non-transgender people. Dr. McHugh further noted studies from Vanderbilt University and London’s Portman Clinic of children who had expressed transgender feelings but for whom, over time, 70%-80% “spontaneously lost those feelings.”
While the Obama administration, Hollywood, and major media such as Timemagazine promote transgenderism as normal, said Dr. McHugh, these “policy makers and the media are doing no favors either to the public or the transgendered by treating their confusions as a right in need of defending rather than as a mental disorder that deserves understanding, treatment and prevention.”
“This intensely felt sense of being transgendered constitutes a mental disorder in two respects. The first is that the idea of sex misalignment is simply mistaken – it does not correspond with physical reality. The second is that it can lead to grim psychological outcomes.”
The transgendered person’s disorder, said Dr. McHugh, is in the person’s “assumption” that they are different than the physical reality of their body, their maleness or femaleness, as assigned by nature. It is a disorder similar to a “dangerously thin” person suffering anorexia who looks in the mirror and thinks they are “overweight,” said McHugh.
This assumption, that one’s gender is only in the mind regardless of anatomical reality, has led some transgendered people to push for social acceptance and affirmation of their own subjective “personal truth,” said Dr. McHugh. As a result, some states – California, New Jersey, and Massachusetts – have passed laws barring psychiatrists, “even with parental permission, from striving to restore natural gender feelings to a transgender minor,” he said.
The pro-transgender advocates do not want to know, said McHugh, that studies show between 70% and 80% of children who express transgender feelings “spontaneously lose those feelings” over time. Also, for those who had sexual reassignment surgery, most said they were “satisfied” with the operation “but their subsequent psycho-social adjustments were no better than those who didn’t have the surgery.”
“And so at Hopkins we stopped doing sex-reassignment surgery, since producing a ‘satisfied’ but still troubled patient seemed an inadequate reason for surgically amputating normal organs,” said Dr. McHugh.
The former Johns Hopkins chief of psychiatry also warned against enabling or encouraging certain subgroups of the transgendered, such as young people “susceptible to suggestion from ‘everything is normal’ sex education,” and the schools’ “diversity counselors” who, like “cult leaders,” may “encourage these young people to distance themselves from their families and offer advice on rebutting arguments against having transgender surgery.”
Dr. McHugh also reported that there are “misguided doctors” who, working with very young children who seem to imitate the opposite sex, will administer “puberty-delaying hormones to render later sex-change surgeries less onerous – even though the drugs stunt the children’s growth and risk causing sterility.”
Such action comes “close to child abuse,” said Dr. McHugh, given that close to 80% of those kids will “abandon their confusion and grow naturally into adult life if untreated ….”
“’Sex change’ is biologically impossible,” said McHugh. “People who undergo sex-reassignment surgery do not change from men to women or vice versa. Rather, they become feminized men or masculinized women. Claiming that this is civil-rights matter and encouraging surgical intervention is in reality to collaborate with and promote a mental disorder.”
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ALTERNET
Living the American Dream in a Trailer Park
Home to some 20 million people—6 percent of Americans—they are the nation’s largest source of unsubsidized affordable housing, offering a shot at the American dream to people who can’t afford a traditional home.
By Sarah Terry / BillMoyers.com
July 13, 2017, 11:42 AM GMT
All too often, they’re the butt of jokes and stereotypes — mobile home parks and the “trailer trash” who live in them.
But the 50,000 parks that are spread across the United States deserve a lot more respect than that. Home to some 20 million people — 6 percent of Americans — they are the nation’s largest source of unsubsidized affordable housing, offering a shot at the American dream to people who can’t afford a traditional home. And at a time when only 1 in 4 Americans who qualify for government housing assistance actually receives aid, these parks take a huge load off a severely strained system.
Historically, trailer parks have been mom-and-pop operations that have turned a tidy profit through lot rentals paid by every tenant each month. People who live in mobile home parks generally own their homes, but not the land they live on, and pay monthly lot rental fees to a park owner — fees that vary widely depending on location, but can be around $700 to $800 in urban areas. Affordable housing activists have helped some residents — like the residents of Birch and Baker in Boscawen, New Hampshire — featured in the video above — buy their parks and own them as co-ops, to free them from ever-rising rents.
But far more common in the past few years has been the phenomenon of investors, such as billionaires Sam Zell and Warren Buffett, catching on to the fact that there’s a lot of money to be made in trailer parks — returns of 20 percent or more. Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway owns Clayton Homes, which manufactures nearly half of all mobile homes a year in America. And Zell’s Equity LifeStyle Properties (ELS), the largest mobile home park owner in America, has a “controlling interest in nearly 140,000” park lots. The Guardian reports that in 2014 alone, ELS made $777 million in revenue, helping boost Zell’s near-$5 billion fortune.”
In general, residents are between a rock and a hard place when it comes to rent increases: Mobile homes aren’t so mobile anymore (they cost thousands of dollars to move, which can be prohibitive for people on fixed or limited incomes), and in many states there are few protections for residents, which mean that park owners can raise rents at their own discretion and are also able to evict residents in as little as 60 days.
Mom-and-pop parks — which for years were the hallmark of the industry — tended to make modest yearly increases in lot rentals (if at all). But the standard among investors is to raise rents immediately after buying a park, and to justify large increases by comparing rates to local apartment rentals. In Silicon Valley, which faces one of the worst affordable housing crunches in the country, lot rentals have been jumping — and now range from $1,600 to $2,000 a month for new residents in some parks.
These days, mobile home parks aren’t such a joke anymore — they’ve become serious business.
Natural News
Chemotherapy found to SPREAD cancer throughout the body, warn scientists
Monday, July 10, 2017 by: Amy Goodrich
(Natural News) Though conventional medicine claims to be winning the war against cancer, along with the holistic health community, we at Natural News have consistently been trying to expose one of the biggest frauds known in human history: CHEMOTHERAPY.
Brainwashed by doctors, oncologists, and the mainstream media, most cancer patients think their only hope for survival is chemotherapy. In America, treating cancer is BIG business. Since the cancer industry makes billions of dollars each year, a cure is not what they are after.
Did you know that the number one side effect of chemotherapy is cancer? Conventional cancer treatments not only fail miserably, they are also designed to make cancer patients sicker. Though chemotherapy may shrink the initial tumor(s), what is happening in the background is far more important. It is the one dark and criminal truth nobody seems to knows about.
A new study published in the journal Science Translational Medicine earlier this month proved what we have been saying for decades; conventional cancer treatments cause more cancer. A team of scientists at New York’s Albert Einstein College of Medicine has found compelling evidence that chemotherapy is only a short-term solution.
Eventually, the drugs will make you sick again, pushing patients towards a second round of expensive treatments. Clever money generating trick: Instead of helping patients to get rid of the disease, they temporarily put it on hold so they can take the dollars twice.
Chemotherapy kills more patients than cancer itself
In 2017, an estimated 1,688,780 new cancer cases are expected to be diagnosed and about 600,920 people will die from the disease in the United States, according to the annual report by the American Cancer Society.
The New York scientists explained that while shrinking the tumors, chemotherapy simultaneously opens new doorways for tumors to spread into the blood system, triggering more aggressive tumors which often result in death.
The researchers believe toxic chemo drugs switch on repair mechanisms in the body that allow tumors to grow back faster. Furthermore, Dr. George Karagiannis, lead author of the study, and his team found that two common chemo drugs increased the number of “doorways” on blood vessels which allowed cancer cells to spread to other parts of the body. The team also discovered that chemotherapy increased the number of cancer cells circulating the body and lungs of mice.
Though this study only investigated the effects of chemotherapy on breast cancer, the researchers are currently experimenting with other types of cancer to see if similar effects occur, reported The Telegraph.
Dr. Karagiannis noted that women receiving preoperative chemotherapy to treat breast cancer should be monitored to check if the cancer isn’t circulating or creating more possibilities to spread. He recommends taking a small amount of tumor tissue after a few doses of preoperative chemotherapy. If the markers are increased, the therapy should be terminated immediately.
This study is not the first to demonstrate the ways in which chemotherapy can trigger secondary or metastatic cancers. In 2010, researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) Comprehensive Cancer Center and UAB Department of Chemistry were awarded a $805,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Defense Breast Cancer Research Program to investigate the question whether chemo encourages cancer to spread throughout the body.
Many studies later, we can no longer ignore the answer to that question. YES, patients are dying from chemotherapy, not cancer itself. It has been shown to not only cause secondary cancers but also accelerates tumor growth and causes cancer cells to become resistant to treatment.
Seventy five percent of physicians and scientists would refuse chemotherapy for themselves or their family
What does this number say about the effectiveness and risks of therapy? Do these people know more? And what is the mainstream media hiding from us?
Due to the devastating effects on the entire body and the immune system, and an extremely low success rate, three of every four doctors and scientists would refuse chemotherapy, according to polls taken by the McGill Cancer Center. Additionally, an estimated 97 percent of cancers don’t respond to chemotherapy, yet it remains the go-to treatment for nearly every cancer type.
Think about it. When your body is fighting cancer, the last thing it needs is more cancer-inducing, immune suppressing chemicals, right? Though all scientists and doctors know that chemotherapy is pure poison and can make things worse, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) outlaws doctors from choosing non-chemical routes, such as vitamins, supplements, herbs, superfoods, and other natural cancer solutions, for their patients.
Over the past few years, one study after another has been coming out, linking chemotherapy to cancer. Yet authorities fail to make the healthy call. How much more proof do they need before they start to acknowledge that there are far better, less expensive real cures out there?
Sources include:
Telegraph.co.uk
STM.ScienceMag.org
Cancer.org
NaturalNews.com
NaturalNews.com
Collective-Evolution.com
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Until next week...keep on believing.
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(Ephesians 1:17-18)
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