Tag Archives: Texas

News

Texas Governor Rick Perry signs bill to legalize saying “Merry Christmas” and “Happy Hanukkah”

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CNS News reports.

Excerpt:

By law, it is now okay to say “Merry Christmas” or “Happy Hanukkah” in Texas public schools.

Gov. Rick Perry signed House Bill 308 on Thursday, allowing public school students and staff to use traditional holiday greetings and display religious scenes and symbols on school property.

“I’m proud we are standing up for religious freedom in our state,” Gov. Perry said.

“Freedom of religion doesn’t mean freedom from religion, and people of faith often feel like they can’t express that faith publicly. HB 308 works to address that by ensuring that people of all faiths are free to use traditional holiday greetings, and display religious scenes and symbols, even on school property. It ensures freedom of expression where, for many students, teachers and administrators, it’s most important.”

The bill states: “A school district may educate students about the history of traditional winter celebrations, and allow students and district staff to offer  traditional greetings regarding the celebrations, including: (1) “Merry Christmas”; (2) “Happy Hanukkah”; and (3) “happy holidays.”

The bill specifically says that schools may display scenes or symbols associated with religious holidays — as long as the display includes scenes or symbols of more than one religion or at least one secular scene or symbol.

Displays “may not include a  message that encourages adherence to a particular religious belief,” the bill says.

Supporters of the bill argue that allowing teachers to display various holiday symbols associated with certain religions makes it possible for them to educate students about the history and roots of different religions.

Gosh, how will the militant fascists at American Atheists and Freedom From Religion Foundation deal with this? Militant atheism’s “good works” consist of threatening, jailing and execute people who have different beliefs than they do. That’s true atheist worship, right there. It’s about feeling good by taking away the basic human rights of other people who make you feel bad. Now that Texas has put limits on the practice of militant atheist religion (i.e. – Stalinism), the militant atheists might have to move to a country like North Korea. There, they will be happy because imprisoning and murdering Christians for acting like Christians in public is legal. If militant atheism stands for anything, morally speaking, it stands for tyranny and totalitarianism.

News

Texas Lt. Governor demands probe of late-term abortion provider

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From Breitbart.com.

Excerpt:

The lieutenant governor of Texas, David Dewhurst, demanded an investigation Wednesday of an abortionist whose employees claim he twisted the heads off of babies who were born alive during abortion procedures.

A new video exposé released Tuesday of the Aaron Women’s Clinic in Houston, one of three clinics owned by abortionist Douglas Karpen, depicts gruesome details of the practices of an abortionist who is currently facing a criminal investigation for allegedly allowing late-term babies to be born alive then twisting their heads off with his bare hands.

According to LifeNews, three former employees of Karpen’s brought forward photos taken on their cell phones at his clinic on Schumacher Lane in Houston. The photos depicted two babies aborted well beyond the legal limit of 24 weeks in Texas. The babies’ necks had been cut.

“In a week when serial murderer Kermit Gosnell was found guilty of killing babies, I read with disgust about the allegations of Houston-based abortionist Douglas Karpen performing illegal late-term abortions surrounded by appalling sanitary conditions in his clinic,” Dewhurst said. “The Harris County authorities should perform a full-scale investigation and take action against those who broke state law.”

In the new video produced by Life Dynamics, a national pro-life organization, the three former employees of abortionist Karpen allege that the Kermit Gosnell “house of horrors” abortion clinic was not the anomaly that the abortion industry says it is.

The article has graphic details of the allegations of the former employees, in their own words. Horrifying stuff.

I found some disturbing images of the aborted babies on another Life News post.

Videos

Peter J. Williams lectures on the historical reliability of the gospel narratives

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Peter J. Williams
Peter J. Williams

This is a lecture I found from British historian Dr. Peter J. Williams.

Here’s the main lecture: (54 minutes)

And here’s the Q&A: (9 minutes)

About Peter Williams:

Peter J. Williams is the Warden (CEO) of Tyndale House and a member of the Faculty of Divinity in the University of Cambridge. He received his MA, MPhil and PhD, in the study of ancient languages related to the Bible from Cambridge University. After his PhD, he was on staff in the Faculty of Divinity, Cambridge University (1997–1998), and thereafter taught Hebrew and Old Testament there as Affiliated Lecturer in Hebrew and Aramaic and as Research Fellow in Old Testament at Tyndale House, Cambridge (1998–2003). From 2003 to 2007 he was on the faculty of the University of Aberdeen, Scotland, where he became a Senior Lecturer in New Testament and Deputy Head of the School of Divinity, History and Philosophy. In July 2007 he became the youngest Warden in the history of Tyndale House. He also retains his position as an honorary Senior Lecturer in Biblical Studies at the University of Aberdeen.

Summary of the lecture:

  • What if the stories about Jesus are legendary?
  • were the gospels transmitted accurately?
  • were the gospels written in the same place as where the events happened?
  • do the gospel authors know the customs and locations where the events happened?
  • do the gospels use the right names for the time and place where the events took place?
  • do the gospels disambiguate people’s names depending on how common those names were?
  • how do the New Testament gospels compare to the later gnostic gospels?
  • how do the gospels refer to the main character? How non-Biblical sources refer to Jesus?
  • how does Jesus refer to himself in the gospels? do the later Christians refer to him that way?
  • how does Jesus teach? do later Christians teach the same way?
  • why didn’t Jesus say anything about early conflicts in the church (the Gentiles, church services)?
  • did the writers of the gospels know the places where the events took place?
  • how many places are named in the gospels? how about in the later gnostic gospels?
  • are the botanical details mentioned in the gospels accurate? how about the later gnostic gospels?

And here are the questions from the audience:

  • how what about the discrepancies in the resurrection narratives that Bart Ehrman is obsessed with?
  • what do you think of the new 2011 NIV translation (Peter is on the ESV translation committee)?
  • how did untrained, ordinary men produce complex, sophisticated documents like the gospels?
  • is oral tradition a strong enough bridge between the events and the writers who interviewed the eyewitnesses?
  • what does the name John mean?
  • why did the gospel writers wait so long before writing their gospels?
  • do you think that Matthew and Luke used a hypothetical source which historians call “Q”?
  • which gospel do critical historians trust the least and why?

I really enjoyed watching this lecture. He’s getting some of this material from Richard Bauckham’s awesome book “Jesus and the Eyewitnesses”, so if you aren’t familiar with it, you can get an idea of what’s in it. Peter Williams is a lot of fun to listen to – an excellent speaker.

You can read an interview with Peter Williams here on Between Two Worlds.

And you can listen to the Peter Williams vs Bart Ehrman debate. That link contains a link to the audio of the debate as well as my snarky summary. It’s very snarky.

And Apologetics 315 also posted Peter Williams’ assessment of Bart Ehrman’s “Misquoting Jesus”.