Category Archives: News

News

Is there anything in the atheistic worldview that rationally grounds human rights?

5 Comments
Support for free speech in different countries
Support for free speech in different countries (Source: Pew Research)

I think it’s useful for Christians in America to look at what is happening to Christians in other countries, so that we can understand what the future holds for us. Most other countries are further along the road to secularism than America is, so you can how a secular government reacts when a Christian exercises his or her free speech rights in public.

Here’s an example from Finland:

A Christian politician who is under police investigation for sharing a Bible verse on Facebook has spoken out about her shocking ordeal.

In June, Finnish politician Päivi Räsänen called out the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland for its participation in the Helsinki Pride events, sharing a passage from Romans 1 to prove her point.

As a result, authorities opened an investigation into Räsänen, who is a member of The Christian Democrats party and also the former Minister of the Interior.

Speaking to Faithwire, Räsänen said that she was motivated to share the scripture after hearing her church denomination had decided to endorse events that are in contradiction with God’s word.

She perceives that the government’s criminal investigation of her “offensive speech” will cause other Christians to be frightened about speaking out against sin in public:

One of the most shocking elements of this case is that the authorities have decided to charge the politician with “agitation against an ethnic group” — an accusation that she believes is not only false, but also something that will also have grave ramifications for the Finnish Christian community and freedom of religion as a whole.

“Already the fact that a police investigation has been started and there is a suspect of a crime has a significant effect to freedom of speech and religion in practice,” she told Faithwire.

“I am worried that the police investigation has had a chilling effect among Christians. It seems that many Christians in my country are now hiding and going to the closet now that the LGBT-community has come out to the public.”

The politician said she was concerned that Christians will become increasingly less inclined to share scripture on public platforms out of a fear that they are will be arrested for offending a certain group of people.

Wow, she’s right about that. Unfortunately, in America, I have yet to see pastors in any church I’ve attended warning people about the loss of liberties that Christians experience when they are ruled by atheists. And I attend conservative PCA and SBC churches, although I would not attend an SBC church any more.

Here’s another story from South Africa, where a Christian doctor has lost his medical license for merely expressing pro-life views:

A hearing by the Health Professions Council of SA (HPCSA) against an anti-abortion doctor got off to a rocky start and had to be temporarily adjourned on Tuesday in Cape Town.

Jacques de Vos, 32, is facing charges of unprofessional conduct and was prohibited from practising medicine due to his views on abortion.

The former intern at 2 Military Hospital in Wynberg allegedly told a patient more than two years ago that a foetus was a human being. He allegedly likened abortion to killing an unborn human, while working for the gynaecology division during his intern year.

At the hearing it emerged that De Vos was only a week short of finishing his medical degree before he did his community service.

South Africa is a communist country, which means that the rulers of the country are atheists. Communism is an atheistic ideology that does not recognize human rights. This is because in order to have human rights, you need a God to design the universe with those rights, such that other humans have to respect those rights. Atheism starts with an accidental universe, and finishes with humans that evolved accidentally, through a process of evolution that was random and unplanned. So, it’s not surprising to see governments in atheistic countries mistreating Christians, and using the power of government to compel them to act like atheists.

It would be nice to see leaders in churches setting aside some time to warn Christians about the dangers of being ruled by atheists. But what I see happening with young people is that atheism is being sold to them as glamorous through false ideologies. Socialism, which has only ever made people poor, is presented to them as a solution to poverty. The Southern Baptist church that I recently attended was mostly concerned with opening up our borders to refugees and illegal aliens, and equalizing incomes by giving power to a secular government. If it were up to me, they’d be focused on evidential apologetics, rolling back radical feminism, and explaining how the free market system produces prosperity. But they have other priorities. By the time Bible-believing Christian leaders realize that anything is going on, it will be too late to stop it.

News

Do illegal immigrants commit more crimes than law-abiding residents?

2 Comments
Policeman investigates crime scene for evidence
Policeman investigates crime scene for evidence

I’ve had people on the left tell me that illegal immigrants commit fewer crimes than law-abiding US residents, so when I came across this article from the Daily Signal, I knew I had to share it. They managed to get hold of a Department of Justice report featuring a comprehensive breakdown of all crimes committed. And they even go over local crimes rates for illegal immigrants.

Here’s Hans Von Spakovsky writing for the Daily Signal:

Opponents of federal efforts to enforce the immigration laws enacted by Congress repeatedly claim that illegal immigrants are “less likely” to commit crimes than U.S. citizens—and thus represent no threat to public safety.

But that’s not true when it comes to federal crimes.

Noncitizens constitute only about 7% of the U.S. population. Yet the latest data from the Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics reveals that noncitizens accounted for nearly two-thirds (64%) of all federal arrests in 2018. Just two decades earlier, only 37% of all federal arrests were noncitizens.

These arrests aren’t just for immigration crimes. Noncitizens accounted for 24% of all federal drug arrests, 25% of all federal property arrests, and 28% of all federal fraud arrests.

In 2018, a quarter of all federal drug arrests took place in the five judicial districts along the U.S.-Mexico border. This reflects the ongoing activities of Mexican drug cartels. Last year, Mexican citizens accounted for 40% of all federal arrests.

In fact, more Mexicans than U.S. citizens were arrested on charges of committing federal crimes in 2018.

Migrants from Central American countries are also accounting for a larger share of federal arrests, going from a negligible 1% of such arrests in 1998 to 20% today.

Now, people on the left like to say that of course illegal immigrants commit more federal crimes, because their federal crimes mostly involve immigration violations. I don’t know about you, but that list of arrests didn’t sound like “mostly immigration violations” to me.

Anyway, we actually do have numbers for border states regarding local crimes committed. Here’s an example from a very well-known border state:

A recent report from the Texas Department of Public Safety revealed that 297,000 noncitizens had been “booked into local Texas jails between June 1, 2011 and July 31, 2019.” So these are noncitizens who allegedly committed local crimes, not immigration violations.

The report noted that a little more than two-thirds (202,000) of those booked in Texas jails were later confirmed as illegal immigrants by the federal government.

According to the Texas report, over the course of their criminal careers those illegal immigrants were charged with committing 494,000 criminal offenses.

Some of these cases are still being prosecuted, but the report states that there have already been over 225,000 convictions. Those convictions represent: 500 homicides; 23,954 assaults; 8,070 burglaries; 297 kidnappings; 14,178 thefts; 2,026 robberies; 3,122 sexual assaults; 3,840 sexual offenses; 3,158 weapon charges; and tens of thousands of drug and obstruction charges

These statistics reveal the very real danger created by sanctuary policies. In nine self-declared sanctuary states and numerous sanctuary cities and counties, officials refuse to hand over criminals who are known to be in this country illegally after they have served their state or local sentences.

OK, that’s not so good. And remember, none of those illegal aliens need to be here. We have methods for allowing immigrants to come here legally, and those methods also allow us to to keep out people who are dangerous to residents who pay taxes.

Here’s an example from the Daily Caller of some recent crimes (all in August) that were committed in a Democrat-dominated sanctuary area:

A sixth illegal immigrant was arrested in Montgomery County, Maryland, this month for sex crimes; this time, a Salvadoran national accused of molesting a 12-year-old girl and her younger brother.

Nestor Lopez-Guzman, 21, was arrested by Montgomery County Police on Aug. 18. A friend of the 12-year-old victim told a school counselor that her friend had been molested by Lopez-Guzman, according to the police report. The victim then confirmed that the abuse had been occurring over the past six months.

[…]Five other illegal immigrants have been arrested in Montgomery County, Maryland, since July 25 on sex crime-related charges. On Aug. 14, for example, ICE issued a detainer against Salvadoran national Nelson Reyes-Medrano, who is accused of raping a 16-year-old girl at knifepoint. In another case in the last month, two illegal immigrants were charged with repeatedly raping an 11-year-old.

Now, if you ask Democrats what their plan is to protect law-abiding taxpayers from criminals like this, they’ll say that their plan is to make law-abiding taxpayers pay for all the health care of illegal immigrants. No, really, that’s literally their plan. As for the children being raped, their answer is “we don’t care”.

These sorts of crimes will stop when the victims of these crimes are allowed to sue the Democrat politicians who allow open borders and sanctuary cities.

News

Federal appeals court rules that Christians can’t be forced to act like atheists

5 Comments
Gay activist vandalizes pro-marriage sign
Gay activist vandalizes pro-marriage sign

The state of Minnesota is one of the most progressive states in the union. A while back, they passed a law making it illegal for Christians to exercise free speech or religious liberty. For example, the atheists who run Minnesota wanted to force a Christian couple to operate their business as atheists. Or go to jail. So the Christian couple took them to court. They lost. Then they appealed.

The Daily Caller reports:

A federal appeals court has revived a legal challenge to the Minnesota Human Rights Act (MHRA), ruling for the first time that religious business owners can invoke free speech rights when refusing to service a same-sex wedding.

The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sided with Carl and Angel Larsen, a Christian couple who operate a video production company called Telescope Media Group. The Larsens want to expand their business to include weddings, but state officials say the MHRA requires the Larsens to accommodate both same-sex and opposite sex partners.

“Minnesota’s interpretation of the MHRA interferes with the Larsens’ speech in two overlapping ways,” Judge David Stras wrote for a divided three-judge panel. “First, it compels the Larsens to speak favorably about same-sex marriage if they choose to speak favorably about opposite-sex marriage. Second, it operates as a content-based regulation of their speech.”

[…]Elsewhere in the decision, Stras wrote that the MHRA regulates speech based on content, another violation. The majority said the safer course for the Larsens would be to avoid the wedding business altogether, a type of “compelled self-censorship” that violates free speech rights.

But the appeal decision was not unanimous. A radically-leftist Obama-appointed judge dissented:

“What they cannot do is operate a public accommodation that serves customers of one sexual orientation but not others. And make no mistake, that is what today’s decision affords them license to do.”

So, if you run a business in America, then the atheist judges who rule over you can compel you to run your business like an atheist.

I found a short 6-minute video of the couple on the ADF YouTube account:

I was thinking about this decision overnight, and wondering if atheists also can compel pro-life doctors or nurses to act like atheists against their consciences.

And the answer is yes – at least in states run by the Democrat party.

The Federalist explains:

The Office for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has put the University of Vermont Medical Center (UVMMC) on notice after employees reported being forced to help with abortions against their moral objections.

A Catholic nurse at UVMMC was allegedly forced to assist with an elective abortion, despite previously telling her employer that she objects to participating in abortions for reasons of conscience. According to HHS’s investigation, the nurse was told she would be treating a patient who had experienced a miscarriage. When she walked into the procedure room, the doctor allegedly said to her, “Don’t hate me.” The nurse asked for a replacement, but was allegedly told no. The abortion was not an emergency procedure, but an elective one. Fearing losing her job, the nurse relented.

“This should never happen in America. There is room for disagreement on these issues without having to coerce people to choose between a career dedicated to supporting life versus instances or circumstances where they are being forced to take a life,” Roger Severino, head of HHS’s Office of Civil Rights, told reporters on Wednesday.

The hospital began performing elective abortions in 2017, but did not inform all employees, “many of which had already informed” the hospital of their objections to assisting in abortions, Severino said.

[…]UVMMC recently created a new policy that allows punishing staffers who refuse to participate in abortions when the hospital is short-staffed.

Vermont is, of course, a state dominated from top to bottom by the Democrat party.

When the state engages in barbarism, they are made uncomfortable by the presence of conscientious objectors. The easiest way to make those dissenters go away is to threaten them with starvation by taking their jobs. And if that doesn’t work, you can always go full fascist and move on to imprisonment, or execution. It would not be the first time these things have happened in regimes run by the secular left. In an accidental universe, where humans evolved by accident, there are no human rights, and no objective standard for how humans ought to act. Secular leftists are very sure of themselves, and they feel warranted in forcing their views on others. This sort of thing has happened many, many times in places where the political leaders had kicked God out of their minds.