Recent events in Charleston Part 3 Politics

What are politics?

Wikipedia defines politics as...

Politics (from Greek: πολιτικός politikos, definition "of, for, or relating to citizens") is the practice and theory of influencing other people. More narrowly, it refers to achieving and exercising positions of governance — organized control over a human community, particularly a state. Furthermore, politics is the study or practice of the distribution of power and resources within a given community (a usually hierarchically organized population) as well as the interrelationship(s) between communities.

Dictionary.com defines politics as...

the science or art of political government.

My definition of politics is people in charge of people.  We in freedom as a society of humans have decided that we needed to appoint people to be in charge of us.  I think we have become to reliant on this and now have come to depend on these other people to do everything for us....even to point of manipulating our natural morality system.  We depend on other people for almost everything, if you want to eat, drive your car, live in your house....you better do what it takes to keep your boss happy.....
so what am I getting at? Where is this going.....

in times of crisis we tend to look at the politicians we have elected and put in charge of us to tell us what happened or what to do....

If they don't give us the answer we want, we don't re-elect them... in some cases we impeach them....

In the recent event in Charleston, the media made it appear as though we are looking to the politicians for answers....the answers the politicians gave us were that we need tighter gun control.....I'm confused though...are guns the real problem or is morality.... this particular statement is not about defending gun rights (I will get to that in a later post)...I honestly feel like the people that we have put in charge of us don't get it, or they don't care to address it....I don't think they understand the value of the human life....

Also I don't understand why everything that I see on Facebook is pointing the blame of this on race, flags, gun, morality, these are all things that affected the person at blame yes, but that just it. It is a person to blame. 

I get that as a christian that I have to love my enemies...and pray for them ALL .  This doesn't change that fact that they did wrong and are to blame....they should take responsibility for their actions.  In this case He should take responsibility for his action.   

If you read this please leave a comment.

Recent events in Charleston Part 2 Morality

What is Morality?

Well this depends on who you ask or where you look...

Wikipedia defines Morality as..

Morality (from the Latin moralitas "manner, character, proper behavior") is the differentiation of intentions, decisions, and actions between those that are good or right and those that are bad or wrong.^{[citation needed]} Morality can be a body of standards or principles derived from a code of conduct from a particular philosophy, religion, or culture, or it can derive from a standard that a person believes should be universal.^[1] Morality may also be specifically synonymous with "goodness" or "rightness."

Dictionary.com defines Morality as..

conformity to the rules of right conduct; moral or virtuous conduct.

http://www.christianityetc.org defines Morality as..

Definition

Morality for a Christian is the application of God’s laws regarding a person’s private and public behavior. In his or her seeking to live a moral life, a Christian tries to obey the rules for his or her personal behavior that have been decreed by God and recorded in the Bible. Throughout centuries of history these rules have been proclaimed by God’s prophets, like Moses and Isaiah and Jeremiah, taught by Jesus, interpreted by the apostles, like Peter and Paul, established by Emperor Constantine, and proclaimed by various popes, theologians, and preachers, like St. Augustine, Martin Luther, John Calvin, Jacob Arminus, Jonathan Edwards, John Wesley, Dwight L. Moody, Billy Graham, and other contemporary preacher/teachers within the Jewish-Christian traditional understandings of what is right and what is wrong.

So basically Morality is a measurement of what is good or bad as it relates to a persons actions and behaviors......

So how is  a person to define what is good or bad....a christian person might turn to the bible....a non religious person might turn to their up bringing...their ethics...then there are some people who's moral compasses are defined by others...some people that don't have any ethic system or value system to fall back on, are all to easily influenced by the outside....even more scary some people don't have any system of morality at all and could care less whats the people around them do or think....now in a way, I believe that it is impossible to have no morals at all...I believe that all living things have some since of morality built into there human DNA in speaking to another christian I would say we are created in the likeness of God therefore we must have some morality as humans in the likeness of God....but it doesn't stop there I would even say to the non religious person that people still have a morality that is part of them from birth....

CS Lewis in mere christianity puts like this...

“The moment you say that one set of moral ideas can be better than another, you are, in fact, measuring them both by a standard, saying that one of them conforms to that standard more nearly than the other. But the standard that measures two things is something different from either. You are, in fact, comparing them both with some Real Morality, admitting that there is such a thing as a real Right, independent of what people think, and that some people’s ideas get nearer to that real Right than others. Or put it this way. If your moral ideas can be truer, and those of the Nazis less true, there must be something—some Real Morality—for them to be true about.”
– Mere Christianity

So....I pressume that people by nature know right from wrong...

So is that we as a people know right from wrong and are making a conscious choice to act against what we know is right....as much as I hate to proof text from the bible this verse comes to mine like a sledge hammer

I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. Romans 7:15

If so what has eroded are natural internal compass of morality so much, why have we lowered are general morals, not just in a biblical sense but in natural sense...and better yet what can we do to get this compass point the right direction again ....

Bringing this back to the event in Charleston what is it that could have been pressuring this kid so hard to go against his moral compass and shoot 9 people, each shot was a choice, and I suggest that between each shot a surge of emotion prompted by ? morality? would have come over this individual?  He had to override this ...his very built in nature....every time, nine times.....

I submit that the we need something in this country to step up and point our moral compass in the right direction.....

This type of thing is happening more and more we are seeing it on the news day after day....Its even getting to our presidents and our leaders they know that something needs to be done...but I day they are missing the target....they say tighter gun control laws will solve this but I don't believe so....why...because a gun is just a machine....in my line of work we talk about something called RCA this stand for root cause analysis....the leaders need to push deeper and get to the root of the issue.....I see morality has a root cause that needs to be addressed....how I don't know.....

For me my moral compass is set by the Bible and my upbringing.....for those that don't have a moral compass....wait we all have a natural moral compass.....for those that choose to override that moral compass. What can we do to get them back on track?.....We can love them.....this is the christian way the thing to do....but what if its to late then what....or is it ever to late..

My perspective on morality....

I encourage your thoughts and comments below...

I I 

Recent events in Charleston Part 1

I feel that as a result of tragedy people look for an out, a quick explanation as to why things happened, this often times results in finger pointing.  Sometimes this happens much too quickly. Recent events in Charleston have caused many of us great pain…and for some more so confusion then pain…..



 Growing up in the south I have spent many hours in churches and bible studies. Through them I have grown immensely.  I was tought such things as forgiveness and love charity and understanding.  Growing up in the church I saw some hate and bias, but I tried to steer away from it. The first church I went in my teenage years was very conservative.  Some of the things taught came off very abrasive to other people.  During this time I had a very close friend that confided in me that he was gay.  I often wondered at this point if I should end my friendship with him.  Could I in all honesty with myself say I was a Christian and continue to support and be there for my friend?  I chose to not end that friendship but also I chose to continue to study the bible and Christianity. I began to steer clear of the church as my life began to pick up pace and my career began to take over my life.  I ended up riding with a fellow at work that was listening to a Christian radio station, I asked him if he was a Christian and he ended up inviting me to an Assembly of God church.  I went to that church for a few weeks, but found it way to conservative for me, people talking in tongues and so forth and so on….don’t get me wrong if that the way they choose to worship that’s their choice, this is part of what America is based on freedom.  I stopped attending that church and later on ended up getting invited to another local church by a girl I was seeing, this church at face value appeared to be much less conservative, “come as you are”.  The church was focused and built around family and small groups working to together for the good of the community.  I really liked this to me this represented what the church was meant to be.  I ended up meeting a girl at the time, and we were engaged to be married.  She chose to move in with me at the time before we were married because she had nowhere else to go.  We decided to engage the pastor of that church for premarital counseling.  The pastor came over to our house to start the counseling and then out of nowhere said, “I can’t do this, (because we were living together unmarried) and left.   This showed me what it was like to be burned by the churches judgment, and that really hurt I had dedicated hours to helping that church grow. I have learned through life not to be quick to judge and to be open minded. I ended up attending my wife’s church but never have felt the same about the church since the events with the previous church…….



I have engrained in me a love for Jesus. I believe in God as this is the way I was raised and God has seen me through many hard times....

I also have very strong belief in family, honor, and pride….pride in my country pride in my God…. I also believe in men being men standing up for what right even at the cost of shame, and being cast out from the crowd…..

There are time when I choose to go to the church for fellowship, normally when I’m low and need the support of other believers, however guarded I am now from getting to close to other Christians to keep from getting burned from their judgment….


Growing up we never locked the doors….it was the south anyone was welcome to come in…it was sort of a southern tradition, we weren’t afraid of getting robbed, people stealing stuff from out cars…..


When I bought my own house I always locked it.  I think it was because I lived alone….then when my wife moved in it was to protect her…later on I had several cars broken into on my property several times…I ended up putting up a security camera and eventually getting a CWP so I could carry a gun to defend me and my wife if someone decided to break into our house…

I joined a range passed a federal background check and passed the required training showing proficiently with my weapon….

So here I am bible believing open minded Christian carrying a Gun for self-defense…..

I say all this so readers will know where I’m coming from….as I begin to breach the subject of Politics, Morality, and Christianity and lastly Guns….
More to come…..