Month: October 2021

Sheep to the Slaughter

OK, to be honest I had Zero plans to write this post when I woke up “today”. In fact I’d been hoping to take advantage of my solo weekend to wrap up a post or two I’ve had in draft mode for months, but it appears that they’ll have to still wait. My hunters will be home soon…

This journey started out by reading Carl’s beautiful Sunday post.

Dear MAGA: 20211024 Open Topic

Being very moved by the teaching he shared I wanted to look up the source material by John Piper AND finally came to a page that appears to contain much, or even all, that Carl shared, here:

https://www.desiringgod.org/messages/glory-majesty-dominion-and-authority-keep-us-safe-for-everlasting-joy

In the course of searching for the actual message, & not just other people’s blog posts about Piper’s teaching that was apparently given at some type of conference, a few interesting links popped up. One looked to be addressing how seemingly Piper weighed in on the 2020 election & from the couple lines of text visible at the search may have spoken against Trump. I was curious so went to read that article too.

https://notthebee.com/article/john-piper-wrote-a-weird-article-talking-about-the-freedom-to-be-vaxxed-and-james-white-had-some-thoughts-for-him

What a surprise to discover that the article was more about promoting the vax from the pulpit rather than steering people away from Trump during the stolen election. Hmmm

OK, so this post is NOT trying to attack John Piper as a man, a Christian, nor as a theologian. I’m trying to steer clear of my own biases, which is obviously impossible. In reading the search engine thumbnail descriptions it appears that Piper is affiliated with the Baptist church, which makes my “legalism radar” perk up. I’m just being honest, I have issues with legalism that go way back & have a (possibly misplaced) perception that Baptist takes might hover in the legalism domain…so grain of salt going forward here…

Here are a couple places where I’ve addressed legalism, & the other end of the spectrum, the prosperity gospel, for context on some of my thinking in these arenas…

Legalism, Lies, & Liberty
Faith vs the Prosperity “Gospel”

So, back to the issue at hand. I like to think of myself as a Truth-seeker AND a Truth-teller. So let’s see if we can unearth some Truth in the controversy before us, namely shilling for the vax from the pulpit. Whom the Son sets free is Free indeed!

Let’s look into John Knox’s Not The Bee article a bit first. Per his opening remarks he appears to be a Conservative Christian, who is perhaps comfortable with MAGA & Trump’s leadership.

“I’m not here to slander John Piper. He’s a brother-in-Christ and a man who has, by all accounts, picked up his cross daily to preach the hope of Christ and Christ crucified to a broken world.

With that being said, Piper has come to some odd conclusions in recent years, starting most notably with the idea that voting for the worldly bravado of Donald Trump was just a [sic] morally wrong as the utter institutional corruption, unfettered support of abortion, and woke totalitarianism of Joe Biden.”

He then starts to dissect Piper’s article:

https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/a-reason-to-be-vaccinated-freedom

Let’s dive into Piper’s perspective without immediately referring to Knox’s take & see what might jump out…

Here is his opening & yikes he’s seeming like a Pro-vaxer from the outset, not just pro-freedom (in Christ).

“My aim in this article is to encourage Christians to be vaccinated, if they can do so with a good conscience and judicious medical warrant.

The people I have especially in view are those who are not vaccinated because of fear of being out of step with people they respect, and in step with people they don’t admire. My message to them is simple: You are free.

So, I am not talking directly to everybody. If the shoe fits, put it on, check your conscience, consult your doctor, and go get vaccinated. If it doesn’t, go tearfully and cheerfully on your way. Tearfully, because over 4.5 million people have died from COVID-19 worldwide (including over 700,000 Americans). And cheerfully, because Christ makes it miraculously possible to love people by being “sorrowful yet always rejoicing” (2 Corinthians 6:10).”

So I’m pretty close to an anti-vaxer for numerous reasons now. It would be nearly impossible to read consistently here at The Q Tree & not be Extremely Concerned about the many & manifold dangers of the so-called Covid vaccine. Obviously Piper is coming from a very different worldview, though we Might be somewhat similar in our Christian biblical foundational viewpoints. Some of what he said above strikes me as manipulative, which is a big red flag to me!

Below is a comment written before the Plannedemic was on the scene with some vaccine concerns I expressed elsewhere, for perspective, but we’ll just stick with the Covid “vax” concerns today:

Vaccines – their benefits and alleged and real dangers

So Piper cites a number of sources that all seem to show that being unvax’d is Way more dangerous than being vax’d. Obviously here at the Q-Tree we consider material much more wider afield & also take into account the numerous reports, medical, scientific, & anecdotal that expose Much of the danger of the clot shots. It appears that Piper is unaware of this alternative & alarming material. Here’s his take, shudder:

When people respond to this increasingly clear reality by pointing to untrustworthy and disreputable government and medical leaders, I respond, “That’s a non sequitur.” The team called “vaccination” just made a first down, even if monkeys are holding the chains. For friends around the world who don’t know American football, that means a win is a win even if all the coaches and referees are incompetent.

Piper’s take on freedom is interesting & I encourage you to read it for yourself. He then lists a series of considerations to ponder as one decides for the shot or not. He doesn’t elaborate on those issues, even the implications of fetal cell lines, though he does link to a YouTube video on the topic. I have no idea if Piper is a pro-lifer or not, but at least he brings up that fetal tissue issue, though by implication doesn’t apparently consider it an impediment to Christians taking the “vax”. He appears to have made up his mind to take the shot & seems to be freeing, or even persuading, his parishioners to do the same–concerning!

Now let’s consider Knox’s other cited material that is opposed to Piper’s take before returning to Knox.

https://www.aomin.org/aoblog/personal/freedom-is-the-primary-casualty-of-the-experimental-mandated-vaccines/

James White, the author of the above, pulls no punches & calls Piper out for his writings AND remarks on the election & the shot! Here is White pointing out what many Q-Treepers might consider to be quite obvious.

God’s ownership of our bodies implies our own stewardship thereof, which is why many of us take serious issue with experimental genetic therapies with record-breaking reports of adverse reactions, including death, with no long-term studies relating to safety (cancers, fertility), for a disease with an average mortality age above life expectancy and a mortality rate of less than 0.5%.

Further from White, bold is my take:

…there is the arrogance of the secular worldview that actually leads man to believe he is wise enough, while remaining in rebellion against his Creator, to meddle with the very essence of his being (genetics). When such arrogance is joined with a lust for power and dominion, it becomes deadly.

So the bulk of the article, comprising numerous biblical citations about freedom, is not the issue. Instead, the problem is found in the section that reads like a Pfizer promotional advertisement, and then the application portion at the end.

White’s wisdom & Piper’s naivety are on display in this next quote from White (not italicised to preserve his presentation):

“From late October of 2020, as word about the technology that is behind the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines came out, I have stated that I would consider use of these vaccine [sic] once three and five year safety studies had been completed. Prior to 2020, this would have been considered a sober, even mundane position to take. You do not do genetic manipulation at “warp speed,” especially when the threat you are seeking to counteract is one that almost always requires multiple co-morbidities and results in an age of death equal to or above life expectancy. But we do not have such data, and with how this one particular disease has been handled, we have good grounds to wonder if we will ever have geniune [sic] data in the future. The VAERS database, maintained by the CDC, has catalogued record numbers of negative results from the vaccines, so it is now regularly dismissed as “untested” (the irony is palpable) by the media. The amazing reality that we are now counting deaths with the Covid-19 as the same as deaths from Covid-19 has resulted in massively inflated numbers, numbers Dr. Piper repeats without comment, and uses in his final argumentation as well. The fact is we are playing with dangerous and unknown long-term impacts with these types of experimental1 therapies. Dr. Piper does not even acknowledge this reality.”

Here is the material for the footnote #1 above & a reference to further work by White (an 8 page pdf). This appears to be a level of truth AND integrity to be much admired & emulated, yet too rarely seen!

1 Yes, they remain experimental. The FDA approved the Pfizer jab without public comment, fundamentally altering the entire process. Video exists of Anthony Fauci in 2019 (Milken Institute found on CSPAN2) lamenting how long it would take to get these kinds of vaccines approved. Given his own role in the Wuhan lab, gain-of-function funding, etc., the reality of the situation is clear.

Note: I have written a fuller statement on the basis for Christian rejection of vaccine mandates here: https://standwithwarriors.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Statement-on-Christian-Faith-and-Mandated-Experimental-Medical-Procedures.pdf

AND White continues with his truth-telling…

“Many studies are now showing efficacy rates below 50% and dropping for these vaccines. But the UK report is even more dangerous. We are now seeing that the vaccines are inhibiting the natural ability to produce antibodies against not just the well-known “spike protein,” but against the shell of the virus as well. Our bodies provide not only a much more robust immunity (as all studies are showing, and which Dr. Piper misrepresented when he said natural immunity is “as effective as vaccination immunity” when it is actually 13 to 27 times greater), but it is a much wider immunity, responding to more of the structure of the virus. This study is telling us that vaccination degrades our natural immunity, leaving us even more exposed to future infection.”

And this treat from White on Piper!

“He then provides one of the most disappointing lines in the article: “You have pondered the likelihood and unlikelihood of conspiratorial conjectures.” Without defining his meaning, or providing examples, Piper does us no favors. Is the recognition of the cooperation of Big Tech and Big Pharma with the extreme leftists in political power resulting in the transfer of literally trillions of dollars of wealth a “conspiratorial conjecture”? Are the banishments from social media of medical experts who are warning about dangers fictional? We are not told.”

Winding down toward his conclusion White displays both insight AND wisdom:

“It is undeniable that the vaccines are not a solo issue. They are coming to us after mask mandates and church closures and pastoral imprisonments and before the next onerous demands from governments drunk on the power that inevitably comes from the rise of secularism. The secular state is far worse than the ancient pagan context of Rome (which was bad enough), for by its very definition it must be ultimate in all things as there is no Creator. Why Piper does not see the role the vaccines play in the overall demands of the newly empowered totalitarianism I cannot say, but it is not the first time he has missed the role a particular element plays in the whole. Mean, arrogant tweets are, in the overall scheme of things, significantly less important than the fact that the Biden regime is intent upon forcing your children to celebrate drag queens and likewise just as intent upon taking control of every aspect of your life to force you to live in denial of the lordship of Christ. What Piper has missed, badly, is the role these vaccinations play in a much bigger, much more basic movement into a technologically based, chemically and medically controlled secular totalitarianism.”

Obviously it is easier to resonate with White, at least for me. So let’s return to Knox. Piper is presented as

“…either unable or unwilling to see past the veneer of Everything is Fine™ that’s been peddled by the leftist politicians, the woke media, the “progressive” academy, and the neo-Marxist Big Tech offices.”

Knox reminds us to consider the source AND question conclusions drawn from faulty data & assumptions:

“As a math professor once told me, even if your calculations are 100% correct, your solution will be insanely wrong if your starting premises are off!”

Honestly I did enjoy reading all three pieces. Knox was my intro to the other two & his framing & take is invaluable. Piper was who I’d been searching for in appreciation of the Wonderful Teaching Carl shared with us today (now yesterday). Piper was shallow on facts but deeper on scripture in his writing compared to what the other two shared, but both Knox & White were addressing Piper’s factual fallacies more than his biblical prowess. Because I was reading Piper’s article as more of a vax skeptic, I found some of his scriptural insights to work on me in the opposite way than where he was going in his applications. White was factual, truthful, & masterfully insightful on both human nature & the creeping totalitarianism in our societies. I resonated with his take & hope to read further of how he also might “rightly divide the Word of Truth”!

I guess I would prefer to just hear from Piper on scripture, not social issues. Because White & Knox are seemingly aligned with my worldview they are more comfortable reads to me when addressing social &/or cultural concerns. Knox is an easier, quicker read, so he’s a good place to start. White dives in deep & dispenses truth, wisdom, & integrity quite liberally. Piper would do well to stick to biblical truth & could expand his sources of information so he has a better grasp of what is Really happening in the world today.

Now let’s turn to the reason for this post’s title, since many Shepherds (pastors & other leaders) are seemingly leading their flocks of Sheep to the metaphorical, if not literal, slaughter.

I’m going to share Ezekiel 34 in a moment, but this is how thinking along those lines developed, in the comments section on this excellent post by Wolfmoon:

Weffen SS Demands Our “Bloody” Papers – But What Are They Looking For?
Aubergine

AubergineOfflineCoyote October 17, 2021 08:58

AND logic.

There are markers in the vaccine, AND they are testing (using useless PCR) for infection, AND they are taking DNA.

All bases are covered. The sheep will see the “testing for viruses” part and be satisfied. The lions will see the markers and the DNA theft and walk majestically away.

They are flailing around trying anything they can think of to trick the lions into submission.

But I am a lion, and not subject to such gaslighting trickery.11 Reply

Wolf Moon

Wolf MoonOnlineAuthorWolf Reply to  Aubergine October 17, 2021 12:45

EXACTLY! That’s what I’m thinking. The small cheese was the vaccine in as many as possible. The BIG CHEESE was “everybody gives their DNA to the globonazis just to travel”. The really big cheese behind the scenes is “now we can modify and study every single person like a lab animal”. When we talked about being “controls”, they rubbed their hands in glee. “We can use that! We can surely use that!” The trick THERE is to foil that plan – to say “No, KlauSS. No DNA for you!”

One of the things they would surely be testing for would be immune function. Shedding. OMG. There is so much modification and study of us possible.

Once again….

comment image


Very clear who wants control.

“Bill Gates – Future Leader” one of them.

smiley2


smiley2OfflineCoyote Reply to  Aubergine October 17, 2021 13:13

pure lawlessness…

cleverly disguised as “peace and safety” for all !

and coming soon…

comment image


   marker

sounds like mark.

but we’re not quite there just yet.

the UN’s Sustainablity crap + the 2030 Agenda + the WEF + the Vatican + the Covid/Climate Change tyranny…and the global compliance to all of that…is creating Alinsky style chaos.

   they will need all the chaos they can manufacture…so that…

the machiavellian psychopath man of universal “peace” can show up, and quell all the chaos…

by then, ppl of the global village will have become rendered compliant enough so as to readily take the mark which will require, not just relinquishing our privacy, but something much worse : our souls.

to worship that man of lawlessness, perversion & lies.Last edited 7 days ago by smiley29 Reply

singingsoul1

singingsoul1OnlineWolverine Reply to  smiley2 October 17, 2021 15:09

We would be stronger if the Church leaders around the globe including Pop would stand with God’s people. They are not for a second time in history the past 80 years.
They failed God and humanity and will be judged more harshly for selling out God and Christ for a lousy bag of silver.4 Reply

Valerie Curren

Valerie CurrenOnlineCoyote Reply to  singingsoul1 October 18, 2021 04:36

The whole 34th chapter of Ezekiel is profoundly applicable Right Now!

Ezekiel 34
New International Version
The Lord Will Be Israel’s Shepherd
34 The word of the Lord came to me: 2 “Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel; prophesy and say to them: ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Woe to you shepherds of Israel who only take care of yourselves! Should not shepherds take care of the flock? 3 You eat the curds, clothe yourselves with the wool and slaughter the choice animals, but you do not take care of the flock. 4 You have not strengthened the weak or healed the sick or bound up the injured. You have not brought back the strays or searched for the lost. You have ruled them harshly and brutally. 5 So they were scattered because there was no shepherd, and when they were scattered they became food for all the wild animals. 6 My sheep wandered over all the mountains and on every high hill. They were scattered over the whole earth, and no one searched or looked for them.

7 “‘Therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the Lord: 8 As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, because my flock lacks a shepherd and so has been plundered and has become food for all the wild animals, and because my shepherds did not search for my flock but cared for themselves rather than for my flock, 9 therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the Lord: 10 This is what the Sovereign Lord says: I am against the shepherds and will hold them accountable for my flock. I will remove them from tending the flock so that the shepherds can no longer feed themselves. I will rescue my flock from their mouths, and it will no longer be food for them.

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ezekiel%2034&version=NIV

Let’s add the rest of Ezekiel 34 (that wasn’t included in my original comment above) for perspective:


11 “‘For this is what the Sovereign Lord says: I myself will search for my sheep and look after them. 12 As a shepherd looks after his scattered flock when he is with them, so will I look after my sheep. I will rescue them from all the places where they were scattered on a day of clouds and darkness. 13 I will bring them out from the nations and gather them from the countries, and I will bring them into their own land. I will pasture them on the mountains of Israel, in the ravines and in all the settlements in the land. 14 I will tend them in a good pasture, and the mountain heights of Israel will be their grazing land. There they will lie down in good grazing land, and there they will feed in a rich pasture on the mountains of Israel. 15 I myself will tend my sheep and have them lie down, declares the Sovereign Lord. 16 I will search for the lost and bring back the strays. I will bind up the injured and strengthen the weak, but the sleek and the strong I will destroy. I will shepherd the flock with justice.

17 “‘As for you, my flock, this is what the Sovereign Lord says: I will judge between one sheep and another, and between rams and goats. 18 Is it not enough for you to feed on the good pasture? Must you also trample the rest of your pasture with your feet? Is it not enough for you to drink clear water? Must you also muddy the rest with your feet? 19 Must my flock feed on what you have trampled and drink what you have muddied with your feet?

20 “‘Therefore this is what the Sovereign Lord says to them: See, I myself will judge between the fat sheep and the lean sheep. 21 Because you shove with flank and shoulder, butting all the weak sheep with your horns until you have driven them away, 22 I will save my flock, and they will no longer be plundered. I will judge between one sheep and another. 23 I will place over them one shepherd, my servant David, and he will tend them; he will tend them and be their shepherd. 24 I the Lord will be their God, and my servant David will be prince among them. I the Lord have spoken.

25 “‘I will make a covenant of peace with them and rid the land of savage beasts so that they may live in the wilderness and sleep in the forests in safety. 26 I will make them and the places surrounding my hill a blessing.[a] I will send down showers in season; there will be showers of blessing. 27 The trees will yield their fruit and the ground will yield its crops; the people will be secure in their land. They will know that I am the Lord, when I break the bars of their yoke and rescue them from the hands of those who enslaved them. 28 They will no longer be plundered by the nations, nor will wild animals devour them. They will live in safety, and no one will make them afraid. 29 I will provide for them a land renowned for its crops, and they will no longer be victims of famine in the land or bear the scorn of the nations. 30 Then they will know that I, the Lord their God, am with them and that they, the Israelites, are my people, declares the Sovereign Lord. 31 You are my sheep, the sheep of my pasture, and I am your God, declares the Sovereign Lord.’”

Footnotes

  1. Ezekiel 34:26 Or I will cause them and the places surrounding my hill to be named in blessings (see Gen. 48:20); or I will cause them and the places surrounding my hill to be seen as blessed

New International Version (NIV)

Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Here is that same passage in a couple popular versions around the Q-Tree, the King James Version & the Douay-Rheims 1899 American Edition:

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ezekiel+34&version=KJV

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ezekiel+34&version=DRA

VC housekeeping note, footnotes from Bible Gateway show up as numbered here though they are lettered within the biblical text, please make adjustments (a=1, etc.).

I was going to expound on that passage but I think at this point it might be best for the Word of God to speak to your own heart as He wills…

Here is an example of a church that has gone overboard in the wrong direction, way beyond Piper’s vax persuasion. They wouldn’t allow the unvax’d to enter nor apparently work there, even those with medical or religious exemptions. I really hope the majority of the remaining flock got saline instead of the real clot shot!

https://notthebee.com/article/georgia-church-requiring-worshippers-to-show-proof-of-vaccination

Closer to home there have been disturbing trends. Our old home church seemed to go pretty overboard on Covid craziness. Earlier we visited to support a family member’s music ministry. At that time masks were strictly & personally enforced by deacons or elders, significantly impeding worship AND fellowship. They had Covid stations w/ hand sanitizer & masks positioned by entrances & strategically elsewhere in the building. Thankfully, over the summer the restrictions were relaxed as in people were encouraged to wear masks rather than “required”. At our daughter’s wedding there in August only a very small minority, like 2% of attendees, were pretty consistently masking.

My parents’ very large & prosperous church went through a season of only having online services. They spent exorbitant amounts of money to install various health measures including outfitting multiple gathering rooms w/ microbe killing lights, I believe. Since they also operate a Christian School they may have been proceeding with an abundance of caution. The online services were a blessing to my parents who may continue to do church that way when health or weather issues make attendance an hour away from home much more challenging. More churches having an online presence AND broadcasting services can be one of the seeming few positive changes since Covidiocy has mesmerized global sheep & tantalized totalitarians!

My husband has been very activie in music & leadership in a local church that might best be described as “seeker-friendly” & more youth oriented. This church is part of an extended church plant ministry in Michigan & most of the leadership are on the young side too. Michael, my husband, got one of our sons involved in music ministry there & our daughter-in-law was active in the children’s ministry. M & son got quite close to a Conservative Christian church employee who grew increasingly frustrated with various “woke” aspects of leadership that he was unable to sway whatsoever, even though he was on the church board. He finally moved out of state, largely to escape what was becoming toxic church culture.

Our son chose to leave because he couldn’t stand the mask mandates that were pretty heavy-handed for many months. Our daughter-in-law lost her motivation when they shut down all of the children’s ministry areas due to Covid lies. This church has had an extensive youth & children’s ministry & much outreach to the community. What had been a welcoming atmosphere, complete w/ complementary coffee & treats, turned into a desert of fear, in so many ways. Talk about serious mixed messaging…

My husband’s experiences with music there were becoming so frustrating compared to pre-covid freedoms. Significant enforced masking. No access to normal musician hang out rooms before or between services–much interpersonal ministry had occurred spontaneously in that environment previously. No longer were refreshments provided for the worship team (nor the church at large, for that matter). In fact they often had to wait in their cars when they weren’t on stage or in the service. Michael would hit a nearby drive-through & pick up cheap breakfast food to share with his team but it wasn’t even close to the same.

I attended service there at Easter & M had to RSVP so the church would have a head count & not get overcrowded. I’m not sure if they were attempting to limit numbers due to “social distancing” or what. Our son wasn’t able to make the RSVP cut so he stayed home on Easter, again. I refused to wear a mask & nobody called me on it, which was a relief. There were Many empty chairs so our son could likely have come too but the “restrictions” made the concept of joyfully coming into the House of the Lord pretty foreign–Tragic! Compared to the previous Easter, when virtually All Michigan churches were closed, this was an “improvement”. What a very twisted way to disrupt the celebration of Jesus’ Resurrection, the very lynchpin of the Church’s existence. Surely just accidental tyranny–NOT!

Although my husband Loves being a part of that music ministry AND has developed a number of quality relationships that have extended beyond just fellowship within the church walls, he has stated on numerous occasions that if that church ramps up the Covid crap again he is going to have to leave.

Churches bowing to government lies, tyranny, AND deception is transforming the natural areas of ministry that should be unfettered and subject to the leading of the Holy Spirit, Not the permission of The State! To see a pastor, like Piper, shilling for the death shots is beyond horrifying to me. Having ubiquitous masking & promoting fears & isolation & a lack of human contact (touch, hugging, holding hands to pray, shaking hands to greet others, laying hands on others in prayer &/or fellowship, facial expressions, etc.) are all destructive of the church & in effect are putting the Light of Christ under a metaphorical bushel.

Early in the Scamdemic when our dictator in the Governor’s mansion (Gretchen Half-Whitmer, to quote Trump) banned churches from being opened, or even people leaving their own households, we had a House Church service in our home. People from Four different households attended (family & pending family) and we were technically in violation of some illegitimate “mandate”. It was joyful, liberating, moving, godly, AND surreal. I wondered if we were, as a society, on the cusp of seeing the church driven underground, like in China or ancient Rome. Honestly our home church service was more meaningful & powerful with God’s presence than Any church building service I’d experienced in Many Years (my issues, not necessarily the church’s “fault”).

If driven underground The Church, The True Bride of Christ, will survive AND thrive…& suffer significantly…

In contrast to some of the above, other family members have been blessed to discover a vibrant & growing church about an hour away that did not bow the knee at Any level to the “pandemic” paralysis. Apparently this church has been on the front lines in fighting against illegitimate powers & even has some legal eagles in the congregation that have contributed significantly to clipping the Nazgul’s wings (Gretchen Whitmer). Standing up to tyranny may be One of the key factors why this church is growing so much right now.

I went to the church’s website to see if any of their Covid “activism” featured prominently, and it did not. Here is a link to an article from earlier in the scamdemic that quotes the pastor & gives context to his decision to keep their church open against manifest pressure from the system. It’s interesting given our hindsight view on much of what was happening then.

https://www.whmi.com/news/article/brighton-pastor-still-holding-in-person-services

Another distant family member, on the other side of the state, has recounted how her small community church has fared during the Covid manufactured “crisis”. Her church stayed mostly open, didn’t mask, & didn’t do social distancing. Many people got sick AND now have natural immunity. Many congregants are well-versed in alternative healing approaches to Covid & have been helping to bring healing to their community whenever the illness kicks in. I’ve shared some of her approaches here before & hope to do so more fully in another post…eventually.

Alarmingly on Detroit area TV there are a number of pastors featured prominently in Michigan propaganda pieces trying to still convince the masses of the importance of taking the clot shot. Every time I see one I think of Margaret Sanger’s desire to keep the “uppity” “undesirables” from thinking for themselves & not getting abortions. Basically the de-population agenda is still finding “spiritual shills” to sell their snake oil!

OK I went looking at Michigan.gov to see if I could find an example commercial featuring a faith leader & found this document on fetal cells & the “vax”. At the bottom are links to various faith organizations statements on the topic. I would guess the state isn’t linking to anyone who objects to the “vax” but am not taking the time to check. All of the links say Catholic or Vatican except the Charlotte Lozier Institute.

https://www.michigan.gov/documents/coronavirus/COVID-19_Vaccines_and_Fetal_Cells_031921_720415_7.pdf

Here is a link with a plethora of presumably propaganda materials promoting the clot shot from Michigan.

https://app.box.com/s/4cy0so8b5ux8dzmdcj5297bikvc4sejz

Here’s a link for the TV spots folder from the above file:

https://app.box.com/s/4cy0so8b5ux8dzmdcj5297bikvc4sejz/folder/129356162329

It looks like in order to view one needs to download the file. The top one tries to convince pregnant women the shot is safe. The seventh video features one of the pastors lamenting people dying alone. From the second from the bottom on page 2, link below, there is a spot on “keeping the faith”.

https://app.box.com/s/4cy0so8b5ux8dzmdcj5297bikvc4sejz/folder/129356162329?page=2

Just even considering this material makes me feel like I need to take a shower. This is like the PR campaign to convince people to willingly enter the Nazi cattle cars & showers, bringing about their own destruction!

Here’s an example of the kind of pastoral leadership I would much rather see!

Here’s the larger scene preceding that one:

I’ve spoken/written numerous times about movie-quoting as a language in our family, including at my inaugural Q-Tree post immediately below. Comments are closed now, but well worth reading. If someone might care to comment there is a copy of that post on my main blog, Special Connections, also below.

https://wqth.wordpress.com/2020/05/02/luna-wolf-pack/

Luna Wolf Pack

Oh for a protective, patriotic pastor’s heart to arise in these dark days! Here is a possibility. I haven’t watched this video in full just share it for your consideration…It’s almost 2 hours & from earlier this month. Interestingly You Tube won’t allow that video to embed…hmm…just a glitch in the matrix surely!

Medical Freedom: Educate. Don’t Mandate.

1,072 views Streamed live on Oct 6, 2021

https://youtu.be/Vv0cvPPmRe0

Here is an appropriate warning from scripture for those who presume to teach others.

James 3:1 Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly

I went looking for some scriptures that might be applicable & encouraging in these dark days, here is truth!

2 Samuel 22 New International Version

David’s Song of Praise

22 David sang to the Lord the words of this song when the Lord delivered him from the hand of all his enemies and from the hand of Saul. 2 He said:

“The Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer;
3     my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge,
    my shield[a] and the horn[b] of my salvation.
He is my stronghold, my refuge and my savior—
    from violent people you save me.

4 “I called to the Lord, who is worthy of praise,
    and have been saved from my enemies.
5 The waves of death swirled about me;
    the torrents of destruction overwhelmed me.
6 The cords of the grave coiled around me;
    the snares of death confronted me.

7 “In my distress I called to the Lord;
    I called out to my God.
From his temple he heard my voice;
    my cry came to his ears.
8 The earth trembled and quaked,
    the foundations of the heavens[c] shook;
    they trembled because he was angry.
9 Smoke rose from his nostrils;
    consuming fire came from his mouth,
    burning coals blazed out of it.
10 He parted the heavens and came down;
    dark clouds were under his feet.
11 He mounted the cherubim and flew;
    he soared[d] on the wings of the wind.
12 He made darkness his canopy around him—
    the dark[e] rain clouds of the sky.
13 Out of the brightness of his presence
    bolts of lightning blazed forth.
14 The Lord thundered from heaven;
    the voice of the Most High resounded.
15 He shot his arrows and scattered the enemy,
    with great bolts of lightning he routed them.
16 The valleys of the sea were exposed
    and the foundations of the earth laid bare
at the rebuke of the Lord,
    at the blast of breath from his nostrils.

17 “He reached down from on high and took hold of me;
    he drew me out of deep waters.
18 He rescued me from my powerful enemy,
    from my foes, who were too strong for me.
19 They confronted me in the day of my disaster,
    but the Lord was my support.
20 He brought me out into a spacious place;
    he rescued me because he delighted in me.

21 “The Lord has dealt with me according to my righteousness;
    according to the cleanness of my hands he has rewarded me.
22 For I have kept the ways of the Lord;
    I am not guilty of turning from my God.
23 All his laws are before me;
    I have not turned away from his decrees.
24 I have been blameless before him
    and have kept myself from sin.
25 The Lord has rewarded me according to my righteousness,
    according to my cleanness[f] in his sight.

26 “To the faithful you show yourself faithful,
    to the blameless you show yourself blameless,
27 to the pure you show yourself pure,
    but to the devious you show yourself shrewd.
28 You save the humble,
    but your eyes are on the haughty to bring them low.
29 You, Lord, are my lamp;
    the Lord turns my darkness into light.
30 With your help I can advance against a troop[g];
    with my God I can scale a wall.

31 “As for God, his way is perfect:
    The Lord’s word is flawless;
    he shields all who take refuge in him.
32 For who is God besides the Lord?
    And who is the Rock except our God?
33 It is God who arms me with strength[h]
    and keeps my way secure.
34 He makes my feet like the feet of a deer;
    he causes me to stand on the heights.
35 He trains my hands for battle;
    my arms can bend a bow of bronze.
36 You make your saving help my shield;
    your help has made[i] me great.
37 You provide a broad path for my feet,
    so that my ankles do not give way.

38 “I pursued my enemies and crushed them;
    I did not turn back till they were destroyed.
39 I crushed them completely, and they could not rise;
    they fell beneath my feet.
40 You armed me with strength for battle;
    you humbled my adversaries before me.
41 You made my enemies turn their backs in flight,
    and I destroyed my foes.
42 They cried for help, but there was no one to save them—
    to the Lord, but he did not answer.
43 I beat them as fine as the dust of the earth;
    I pounded and trampled them like mud in the streets.

44 “You have delivered me from the attacks of the peoples;
    you have preserved me as the head of nations.
People I did not know now serve me,
45     foreigners cower before me;
    as soon as they hear of me, they obey me.
46 They all lose heart;
    they come trembling[j] from their strongholds.

47 “The Lord lives! Praise be to my Rock!
    Exalted be my God, the Rock, my Savior!
48 He is the God who avenges me,
    who puts the nations under me,
49     who sets me free from my enemies.
You exalted me above my foes;
    from a violent man you rescued me.
50 Therefore I will praise you, Lord, among the nations;
    I will sing the praises of your name.

51 “He gives his king great victories;
    he shows unfailing kindness to his anointed,
    to David and his descendants forever.”

Footnotes

  1. 2 Samuel 22:3 Or sovereign
  2. 2 Samuel 22:3 Horn here symbolizes strength.
  3. 2 Samuel 22:8 Hebrew; Vulgate and Syriac (see also Psalm 18:7) mountains
  4. 2 Samuel 22:11 Many Hebrew manuscripts (see also Psalm 18:10); most Hebrew manuscripts appeared
  5. 2 Samuel 22:12 Septuagint (see also Psalm 18:11); Hebrew massed
  6. 2 Samuel 22:25 Hebrew; Septuagint and Vulgate (see also Psalm 18:24) to the cleanness of my hands
  7. 2 Samuel 22:30 Or can run through a barricade
  8. 2 Samuel 22:33 Dead Sea Scrolls, some Septuagint manuscripts, Vulgate and Syriac (see also Psalm 18:32); Masoretic Text who is my strong refuge
  9. 2 Samuel 22:36 Dead Sea Scrolls; Masoretic Text shield; / you stoop down to make
  10. 2 Samuel 22:46 Some Septuagint manuscripts and Vulgate (see also Psalm 18:45); Masoretic Text they arm themselves

New International Version (NIV)

Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Here are links to the King James & Douay-Rheims versions for your convenience:

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2+Samuel+22&version=KJV

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2+Samuel+22&version=DRA

Another passage filled with truth AND hope!

Job 5 New International Version

8 “But if I were you, I would appeal to God;
    I would lay my cause before him.
9 He performs wonders that cannot be fathomed,
    miracles that cannot be counted.
10 He provides rain for the earth;
    he sends water on the countryside.
11 The lowly he sets on high,
    and those who mourn are lifted to safety.
12 He thwarts the plans of the crafty,
    so that their hands achieve no success.
13 He catches the wise in their craftiness,
    and the schemes of the wily are swept away.
14 Darkness comes upon them in the daytime;
    at noon they grope as in the night.
15 He saves the needy from the sword in their mouth;
    he saves them from the clutches of the powerful.
16 So the poor have hope,
    and injustice shuts its mouth.

17 “Blessed is the one whom God corrects;
    so do not despise the discipline of the Almighty.[a]
18 For he wounds, but he also binds up;
    he injures, but his hands also heal.
19 From six calamities he will rescue you;
    in seven no harm will touch you.
20 In famine he will deliver you from death,
    and in battle from the stroke of the sword.
21 You will be protected from the lash of the tongue,
    and need not fear when destruction comes.
22 You will laugh at destruction and famine,
    and need not fear the wild animals.
23 For you will have a covenant with the stones of the field,
    and the wild animals will be at peace with you.
24 You will know that your tent is secure;
    you will take stock of your property and find nothing missing.
25 You will know that your children will be many,
    and your descendants like the grass of the earth.
26 You will come to the grave in full vigor,
    like sheaves gathered in season.

27 “We have examined this, and it is true.
    So hear it and apply it to yourself.”

Footnotes

  1. Job 5:17 Hebrew Shaddai; here and throughout Job

New International Version (NIV)

Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Links to the KJV and the DRA:

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Job+5&version=KJV

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Job+5&version=DRA

I’m searching for scriptures based on the word “rescue” AND there are Many. Here are more that leap out to me: Psalm 18; Isaiah 35; & II Peter 2. Also the many shared below!

Isaiah 46:4Even to your old age and gray hairs I am he, I am he who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you. In Context | Full Chapter | Other Translations


  • Ezekiel 34:27    The trees will yield their fruit and the ground will yield its crops; the people will be secure in their land. They will know that I am the Lord, when I break the bars of their yoke and rescue them from the hands of those who enslaved them. In Context | Full Chapter | Other Translations

Daniel 3:28Then Nebuchadnezzar said, “Praise be to the God of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, who has sent his angel and rescued his servants! They trusted in him and defied the king’s command and were willing to give up their lives rather than serve or worship any god except their own God. In Context | Full Chapter | Other Translations

Daniel 6:27He rescues and he saves; he performs signs and wonders in the heavens and on the earth. He has rescued Daniel from the power of the lions.” In Context | Full Chapter | Other Translations

Zephaniah 3:19At that time I will deal with all who oppressed you. I will rescue the lame; I will gather the exiles. I will give them praise and honor in every land where they have suffered shame. In Context | Full Chapter | Other Translations

Luke 1:74to rescue us from the hand of our enemies, and to enable us to serve him without fear In Context | Full Chapter | Other Translations

Acts 12:11Then Peter came to himself and said, “Now I know without a doubt that the Lord has sent his angel and rescued me from Herod’s clutches and from everything the Jewish people were hoping would happen.” In Context | Full Chapter | Other Translations

Acts 26:16-18 New International Version

16 ‘Now get up and stand on your feet. I have appeared to you to appoint you as a servant and as a witness of what you have seen and will see of me. 17 I will rescue you from your own people and from the Gentiles. I am sending you to them 18 to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.’

2 Timothy 4:18 New International Version

18 The Lord will rescue me from every evil attack and will bring me safely to his heavenly kingdom. To him be glory for ever and ever. Amen. Read full chapter2 Timothy 4:18 in all English translations

As you can see from the numerous scriptures shared above God’s Word is full of hope for us all! Please dive in for yourself & see how God might speak directly to you in your hour of need from His Word!!!

Here is the passage I was originally searching for, Absolutely Applicable to pastors, leaders, AND to us all!

Proverbs 24:10-12 New International Version

Saying 25

10 If you falter in a time of trouble,
    how small is your strength!
11 Rescue those being led away to death;
    hold back those staggering toward slaughter.
12 If you say, “But we knew nothing about this,”
    does not he who weighs the heart perceive it?
Does not he who guards your life know it?
    Will he not repay everyone according to what they have done?

God grant us the wisdom, grace, AND strength to speak the truth in love AND to rescue those who are “staggering toward slaughter”.

Well God Bless you AND thank you for reading along with these thoughts today. I hope you are encouraged, inspired, AND challenged to go forth boldly proclaiming grace And truth. In Jesus Love, Valerie

VC note on use of AND throughout. This is a bit of an inside joke at The Q-Tree as Wolfmoon is fond of using the term “AND logic”, as in many times things aren’t either or but more like both AND…

PS, if this post has blessed you an earlier post reflecting on God’s intervention in our battles is below:

The Battle belongs to the Lord!

Dear KMAG: 20211025 Joe Biden Didn’t Win ❀ Open Topic

Joe Biden didn’t win. This is our Real President:

This Stormwatch Monday Open Thread is VERY OPEN – a place for everybody to post whatever they feel they would like to tell the White Hats, and the rest of the MAGA/KAG/KMAG world (with KMAG being a bit of both).

Yes, it’s Monday…again.

But it’s okay! We’ll make our way through it.

Free Speech is practiced here at the Q Tree. But please keep it civil. We’re on the same side here so let’s not engage in friendly fire.

If you find yourself in a slap fight, we ask that you take it outside to The U Tree…which is also a good place to report any technical difficulties, if you’re unable to report them here.

Please also consider the Important Guidelines, outlined here. Let’s not give the odious Internet Censors a reason to shut down this precious haven that Wolf has created for us.

Please pray for our real President, the one who actually won the election:

Since ’tis the season of ghosts and goblins, I offer ‘All You Zombies’ by The Hooters:

And ‘Dead Man’s Party’ by Oingo Boingo:

Our beloved country is under Occupation by hostile forces.

It sucks and there are new outrages each day.

We can give in to despair…or we can be defiant and fight back in any way that we can.

Joe Biden didn’t win.

I will keep saying Joe Biden didn’t win until we get His Fraudulency out of our White House.

Wheatie’s Word of the Day:

ovine

Ovine is an adjective which means…sheeplike; of, like, or pertaining to sheep; consisting of sheep; resembling or being sheep.

Used in a sentence:

Democrats depend on their ovine foot soldiers to do what they are told without question.

It Is Your Duty To Rebel Against COVID Communism

Just watch these videos. (H/T para59r)

https://twitter.com/TheJuggernaut88/status/1452259807696670736

Please find more and better copies of this street-corner speech!!!

I will add them here.

Yeah, we know this stuff, but this is like the “check-mark red pill” that seals the deal and shows the URGENCY of turning this shit over. This old boy puts it all together in a way that simply cannot be denied.

We have to stop it COLD.

What I want people to do is to IDENTIFY all things we need to do RIGOROUSLY in order to save businesses and stop this process.

We have to begin IMMEDIATELY.

I want TWO classes of actions / inactions.

(1) What must WE as individuals do or not do.

(2) What must politicians do or not do.

The LATTER (and how it affects the FORMER) is how we will TEST the WHEAT from the CHAFF.

Better hope that TEAM TRUMP is paying attention. Because WE ARE.

W

Dear MAGA: 20211024 Open Topic

This Sanctuary Sunday Open Thread, with full respect to those who worship God on the Sabbath, is a place to reaffirm our worship of our Creator, our Father, our King Eternal.

It’s also a place to read, post, and discuss news that is worth knowing and sharing. Please post links to any news stories that you use as sources or quote from.

In the QTree, we’re a friendly and civil lot. We encourage free speech and the open exchange and civil discussion of different ideas. Topics aren’t constrained, and sound logic is highly encouraged, all built on a solid foundation of truth and established facts.

We have a policy of mutual respect, shown by civility. Civility encourages discussions, promotes objectivity and rational thought in discourse, and camaraderie in the participants – characteristics we strive toward in our Q Tree community.

Please show respect and consideration for our fellow QTreepers. Before hitting the “post” button, please proofread your post and make sure you’re addressing the issue only, and not trying to confront the poster. Keep to the topic – avoid “you” and “your”. Here in The Q Tree, personal attacks, name-calling, ridicule, insults, baiting, and other conduct for which a penalty flag would be thrown are VERBOTEN.

In The Q Tree, we’re compatriots, sitting around the campfire, roasting hot dogs, making s’mores, and discussing, agreeing, and disagreeing about whatever interests us. This board will remain a home for those who seek respectful conversations.

Please also consider the Guidelines for posting and discussion printed here: https://www.theqtree.com/2019/01/01/dear-maga-open-topic-20190101/

Glory, Majesty, Dominion, and Power

How Doxologies Work

Doxologies refer first to something that God has done or will do, and then they ascribe attributes to God that account for that action, or are expressed in the action. So, for example, we might say, “Now to Him who fashioned the intricacies of the human eye and every molecule and atom in it — to Him belong infinite, inscrutable wisdom and skill.” Or we might say, “Now to Him who adopts dirty, abandoned, rebellious children into his family — to Him belong compassion and boundless mercy.”

In other words, the attributes that we ascribe to God are the ones that account for the action we are praising, or that come to expression in the action we are praising. His wisdom and skill are expressed in making the eye. His compassion and mercy are expressed in adopting of unworthy foundlings. These attributes account for the actions we are celebrating. So it is in Jude 1:24-25.

“Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of His glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.”

Jude is celebrating three things:

  1. God keeps us from stumbling.
  2. He presents us before the glory of God blameless.
  3. And He presents us before the glory of God with great happiness.

And then Jude says: What came to expression in these three acts of God was God’s glory and majesty and power and authority. That’s what it takes to keep us as Christians for our years. This perseverance was the effect of God’s glory and majesty and power and authority.

Considering the Measurement

Do we have any idea of the degree (the measure) of divine glory and majesty and power and authority that it took to give us spiritual life when we were dead (Ephesians 2:5), and to keep us spiritually alive moment by moment for our years, and to stir up that spiritual life in such ways that it resisted sins and loved holiness and pursued spiritual fruit in the life of the church?

Do we know the degree of glory and majesty and power and authority that took? No. We don’t. We have no terms of measurement for such glory and majesty and power and authority. How do we quantify a Spirit creating and sustaining spirit? Or a Spirit acting on spirit to sustain the life of that spirit?

God creates spiritual life when we are dead. “That which is born of the Spirit is spirit” (John 3:6). We had no spiritual life. Then the Spirit acted in us. And now we are spiritually alive. We are spirit. This is not spirit like the demons are spirit. This is Holy Spirit. This is eternal, spiritual, God-created, and God-sustained spiritual life.

Our Life Is God’s Work

This spiritual life that we have is not ours intrinsically. It is not ours autonomously. We have this life to the degree that we have the Holy Spirit in us, and to the degree that we are united to Christ — which are interwoven realities. It is not the kind of spiritual life that we would have if the Spirit left us or we were not united to Christ. We would not be alive if we were not united to Christ by the Spirit. Our life is Christ’s life. The Spirit’s life.

The giving of this life, and the moment by moment sustaining and keeping of this life, and the stirring up of this life so that it treasures holiness and ministry is a work of God. If the decisive cause of our faithfulness to Christ must come from us, it will not come, because it is not there.

We bring nothing decisive to our creation. And we bring nothing decisive to the ongoing existence of this divine spiritual life in us. We exist as Christians by it. We did not create it. We don’t keep it in being. Not any more than the universe came into existence by its own power or is upheld by its own power (Hebrews 1:3).

Jude is clearly amazed at what it takes to sustain spiritual life — to keep it from collapsing and to bring it to glory blameless and happy. He must sense that what it takes to keep us believing — to keep us alive — is very great. So how do we join him in this God-exalting amazement?

Two Ways to Measure What It Takes

How do we then measure what it took for God to bring my spiritual life into being and keep me alive and holy and happy to the day of Christ? There are only two ways that I can see that we can measure what it takes to accomplish the preservation of our spiritual life?

One is to think about the fact that creating and sustaining spiritual life is something we cannot do at all, and that God alone does it. And the difference between nothing and anything is infinite. Let me put it this way: If God says to us: Create a being with divine spiritual life and sustain it, we will say, “We can’t.” And we will be right. We absolutely can’t. Then He does it with a word or a thought.

The difference between our absolute inability — our nothing — and His absolute ability — His everything — is immeasurable. Indeed it is immeasurably great. That’s the first way we can measure what it took to give us life and preserve it blameless and joyful to the day of Christ. We know we can’t do it and He can. The measurement of what it took to create us and keep us alive is the distance between us and God. It is an infinite wonder that God creates and sustains our spiritual life — that we are still Christians.

And the second way we know the measurement of what it took for God to sustain our spiritual life blameless and joyful before the glory of God is that He reveals it to us in verse 25: it took glory and majesty and power and authority. If the first computation of the infinite difference between our contribution and God’s contribution to our spiritual life does not make sense, then just take God’s word for it. Our creation and our preservation takes divine glory and majesty and power and authority. And any amount of divine glory and majesty and power and authority is infinitely greater than what we bring to our creation and preservation.

How God Keeps Us

How does God keep us

  • when Paul’s strategies of not losing heart (2 Corinthians 4) seem remote,
  • and when the language to articulate the gospel with words one more time won’t come,
  • and when we’re depressed not just because our church has false converts, but you fear you may be one,
  • and when you can remember countless times when you gave no evidence of trusting the power of the gospel to convert a neighbor, let alone a terrorist,
  • and when Spirit-empowered, gospel-driven, faith-fueled effort seems as likely as flying by flapping your arms,
  • and when the fuel tank of death-defying devotion to world missions seems empty,
  • and when your treasure is held out to you and God says, “You can’t have it,”
  • and when the crown jewel of the new Jerusalem that you are trying to lead is cut in slivers by an airplane propeller, or by the seduction of the prophetess Jezebel?

How does God keep us — keep us alive, keep us believing, keep us serving?

Called, Loved, Kept

Notice that Jude’s letter begins and ends with the assurance that God is decisively our keeper. We have already seen the end. Verse 24: “Now unto him who is able (who is strong) to keep you. . . .” Now look at the beginning: Verse 1: “Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James, to those who are called, beloved in God the Father, and kept for Jesus Christ.” We are called. We are loved. And we are kept. The love of God moves him to call his elect to himself out of death and unbelief. And those whom he calls he keeps.

This is exactly what Paul teaches: God keeps those whom he calls. None is lost.  “He will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, by whom you were called” (1 Corinthians 1:8-9). The called are sustained guiltless in the last day. The keeping is implicit in the call. That is what Jude means in verse 24. Then Paul says it again in Romans 8:30: “Those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.” None of the called is lost. The called are kept. That is a rock-solid teaching of Paul and Jude.

Jude’s Warning

So Jude establishes first and last the decisive work of God in keeping his own. And in between, he warns against the false teachers (verse 4) who “pervert the grace of our God into sensuality,” and who presume that they are saved but (verse 5) are “destroyed because they don’t believe.” So these professing Christians are not called and they are not kept. And the evidence that they are not called and not kept is that don’t crave Christ, they crave physical sensations. They don’t prize the God of grace; they prostitute the grace of God.

Then after those many warnings, Jude tells us what we must do for ourselves (verses 20–21) and for those we love (verses 22–23), in order to go on being kept by God. I’m only going to deal with what we do for ourselves because this brings out the paradox of the Christian life most clearly. Verses 20–21:

“But you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life.”

“I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me” (1 Corinthians 15:10). Or as Paul says in Philippians 2:12-13, “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.”

Keep Yourselves in the Love of God

Here in Jude, it goes like this: “Keep yourselves in the love of God (verse 21), for God is the One who keeps you in His love.” The order and logic are supremely important. Verse 1: the love of God called us; the love of God will keep us. Therefore, keep ourselves in the love of God. Keep ourselves in God’s prior commitment to keep us.

And what does that mean? “Keep yourselves in the love of God” (verse 21) is the main verb — the only imperative verb in verses 20–21, and the other three verbs are supporting participles — they define how Jude understands keeping ourselves in the love of God. Verse 20: 1) “building yourselves up in your most holy faith;” 2) “praying in the Holy Spirit;” 3) (verse 21) “waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life.”

The key words in those phrases are “faith,” “prayer,” and “waiting.” So, keep ourselves in the love of God — keep ourselves in the omnipotent commitment of God’s love to keep us, by trusting that omnipotent commitment, by praying for its daily application to the specifics of our lives, and by waiting patiently for God to finish His merciful work. We pray for God to keep us (“Preserve me O God!”). We trust the promise that He will (“for in you I take refuge”). And we wait for His mercy.

God Is Not Robbed

And in none of this do we rob Him of the glory and majesty and power and authority by which He decisively, faithfully, omnipotently keeps us. Because even our praying is His doing — it is by the Spirit that you pray (verse 20). And our faith is His doing, not our own, “it is the gift of God” (Ephesians 2:8). Our praying for His keeping, and our trusting in His keeping, is His keeping.

The glory and the majesty of His keeping consists very much in the power and the authority that He has to keep us through the means of our keeping ourselves in the love of God. We are not robots. And we are not autonomous. We are a new creation, a new race. Our coming into being and our being sustained is unlike anything the world can ever experience. It is a mystery. A daily miracle. We are those who by prayer and trust keep ourselves in the commitment of God’s love to keep us praying and trusting.

God Fulfills the New Covenant

God’s act to keep you praying and trusting so that you remain in his love and are kept blameless and joyful for the glory of God — that act is the fulfillment of the new covenant. “I will make with them an everlasting covenant, that I will not turn away from doing good to them. And I will put the fear of me in their hearts, that they may not turn from me” (Jeremiah 32:40). The new-covenant promise is that God will act so decisively for his newborn elect that they will not turn from him. They will be kept. They will pray and they will trust and they will keep themselves in the love of God. He will see to it. Our praying and trusting him to keep us is His keeping us. This is God’s new-covenant promise.

And this new-covenant fulfillment in our lives was secured, purchased by the blood of Jesus Christ. “This cup is the new covenant in my blood” (1 Corinthians 1:25). When Jesus died for us, all the promises of God became Yes in him (2 Corinthians 1:20). “I will see to it that my own will not turn from me into destruction (Jeremiah 32:40). I will keep them from falling.” That is a blood-bought, new-covenant promise.

And that is the ultimate reason why Jude 25 says, “To the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority.” The glory and majesty and power and authority that it takes to keep you and me alive in Christ — to keep us praying and trusting, to keep us in the love of God — was secured for us sinners, when Christ died for us. Therefore the glory and majesty and dominion and authority that keeps us from falling and presents us blameless and joyful to God is through the blood of Jesus Christ — the blood of the covenant. And therefore when we ascribe glory and majesty and dominion and authority to God we do it through Jesus Christ.

Don’t Underestimate the Power of the Gospel

We must not underestimate the power of the blood of Christ to keep us from falling. It’s power was at work “before all time” (Revelation 13:8), it is at work “now,” and it will be at work “forever.” Our keeping began before creation, it is happening now, and it will never end.

He will not let your foot be moved;
   he who keeps you will not slumber.
Behold, he who keeps Israel
   will neither slumber nor sleep.

The Lord is your keeper;
   the Lord is your shade on your right hand.
The sun shall not strike you by day,
   nor the moon by night.

The Lord will keep you from all evil;
   he will keep your life.
The Lord will keep
   your going out and your coming in
   from this time forth and forevermore.” (Psalm 121:3-8)

He sealed that promise with the blood of his Son.
Therefore, keep ourselves in the love of God.

Resource by John Piper

On this day and every day –

God is in Control
. . . and His Grace is Sufficient, so . . .
Keep Looking Up

Hopefully, every Sunday, we can find something here that will build us up a little . . . give us a smile . . . and add some joy or peace, very much needed in all our lives.

“This day is holy to the Lord your God;
do not mourn nor weep.” . . .
“Go your way, eat the fat, drink the sweet,
and send portions to those for whom nothing is prepared;
for this day is holy to our Lord.
Do not sorrow,
for the joy of the Lord is your strength.”

Vladimir Putin Confirms: America Has a Bolshevik Problem

Sundance has a great article up right now, in which he shows why his warning about Western COVID authoritarianism is coming true, by highlighting a speech by Vladimir Putin.

Let me back up a bit.

Sundance has been saying that the increasing authoritarianism and brutality of the Western “democracies” over COVID mandates, is placing those countries (including the USA) in the dangerous position of giving real credibility to human rights criticisms by Russia, China and Iran.

He has ALSO been saying that this unearned credibility has significant geopolitical consequence.

Sundance has WARNED, that as Western criticisms of Russia and China grow more hypocritical, those same Western countries will NOT be able to object, much less react, to aggressive moves by Russia and China.

LINK: https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2021/10/22/the-chicago-marxists-and-woke-political-followers-are-fracturing-western-society-paving-the-way-for-vladimir-putin-and-xi-jinping-to-expand-look/

MORE: https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2021/10/22/the-chicago-marxists-and-woke-political-followers-are-fracturing-western-society-paving-the-way-for-vladimir-putin-and-xi-jinping-to-expand-look/

I urge you to go read Sundance’s thoughts – UNTIL you get to the translated transcript of Vladimir Putin’s amazing speech. Sundance only provides the most highly relevant part of the speech.

I want you to come back here, and read THE WHOLE DAMN SPEECH.

(H/T CTH, Rebel News, Kremlin)

REBEL NEWS LINK:

https://www.rebelnews.com/vladimir_putin_addresses_the_decline_of_western_civilization_in_anti_woke_speech

KREMLIN LINK:

http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/66975

I will save my thoughts for the end. It’s much more profitable if you read his speech yourselves, and come to the same conclusions independently, which I am sure you will.

President of Russia Vladimir Putin:

Ladies and gentlemen,

To begin with, I would like to thank you for coming to Russia and taking part in the Valdai Club events.

As always, during these meetings you raise pressing issues and hold comprehensive discussions of these issues that, without exaggeration, matter for people around the world. Once again, the key theme of the forum was put in a straightforward, I would even say, point-blank manner: Global Shake-up in the 21st Century: The Individual, Values and the State.

Indeed, we are living in an era of great change. If I may, by tradition, I will offer my views with regard to the agenda that you have come up with.

In general, this phrase, “to live in an era of great change,” may seem trite since we use it so often. Also, this era of change began quite a long time ago, and changes have become part of everyday life. Hence, the question: are they worth focusing on? I agree with those who made the agenda for these meetings; of course they are.

In recent decades, many people have cited a Chinese proverb. The Chinese people are wise, and they have many thinkers and valuable thoughts that we can still use today. One of them, as you may know, says, “God forbid living in a time of change.” But we are already living in it, whether we like it or not, and these changes are becoming deeper and more fundamental. But let us consider another Chinese wisdom: the word “crisis” consists of two hieroglyphs – there are probably representatives of the People’s Republic of China in the audience, and they will correct me if I have it wrong – but, two hieroglyphs, “danger” and “opportunity.” And as we say here in Russia, “fight difficulties with your mind, and fight dangers with your experience.”

Of course, we must be aware of the danger and be ready to counter it, and not just one threat but many diverse threats that can arise in this era of change. However, it is no less important to recall a second component of the crisis – opportunities that must not be missed, all the more so since the crisis we are facing is conceptual and even civilisation-related. This is basically a crisis of approaches and principles that determine the very existence of humans on Earth, but we will have to seriously revise them in any event. The question is where to move, what to give up, what to revise or adjust. In saying this, I am convinced that it is necessary to fight for real values, upholding them in every way.

Humanity entered into a new era about three decades ago when the main conditions were created for ending military-political and ideological confrontation. I am sure you have talked a lot about this in this discussion club. Our Foreign Minister also talked about it, but nevertheless I would like to repeat several things.

A search for a new balance, sustainable relations in the social, political, economic, cultural and military areas and support for the world system was launched at that time. We were looking for this support but must say that we did not find it, at least so far. Meanwhile, those who felt like the winners after the end of the Cold War (we have also spoken about this many times) and thought they climbed Mount Olympus soon discovered that the ground was falling away underneath even there, and this time it was their turn, and nobody could “stop this fleeting moment” no matter how fair it seemed.

In general, it must have seemed that we adjusted to this continuous inconstancy, unpredictability and permanent state of transition, but this did not happen either.

I would like to add that the transformation that we are seeing and are part of is of a different calibre than the changes that repeatedly occurred in human history, at least those we know about. This is not simply a shift in the balance of forces or scientific and technological breakthroughs, though both are also taking place. Today, we are facing systemic changes in all directions – from the increasingly complicated geophysical condition of our planet to a more paradoxical interpretation of what a human is and what the reasons for his existence are.

Let us look around. And I will say this again: I will allow myself to express a few thoughts that I sign on to.

Firstly, climate change and environmental degradation are so obvious that even the most careless people can no longer dismiss them. One can continue to engage in scientific debates about the mechanisms behind the ongoing processes, but it is impossible to deny that these processes are getting worse, and something needs to be done. Natural disasters such as droughts, floods, hurricanes, and tsunamis have almost become the new normal, and we are getting used to them. Suffice it to recall the devastating, tragic floods in Europe last summer, the fires in Siberia – there are a lot of examples. Not only in Siberia – our neighbours in Turkey have also had wildfires, and the United States, and other places on the American continent. It sometimes seems that any geopolitical, scientific and technical, or ideological rivalry becomes pointless in this context, if the winners will have not enough air to breathe or nothing to drink.

The coronavirus pandemic has become another reminder of how fragile our community is, how vulnerable it is, and our most important task is to ensure humanity a safe existence and resilience. To increase our chance of survival in the face of cataclysms, we absolutely need to rethink how we go about our lives, how we run our households, how cities develop or how they should develop; we need to reconsider economic development priorities of entire states. I repeat, safety is one of our main imperatives, in any case it has become obvious now, and anyone who tries to deny this will have to later explain why they were wrong and why they were unprepared for the crises and shocks whole nations are facing.

Second. The socioeconomic problems facing humankind have worsened to the point where, in the past, they would trigger worldwide shocks, such as world wars or bloody social cataclysms. Everyone is saying that the current model of capitalism which underlies the social structure in the overwhelming majority of countries, has run its course and no longer offers a solution to a host of increasingly tangled differences.

Everywhere, even in the richest countries and regions, the uneven distribution of material wealth has exacerbated inequality, primarily, inequality of opportunities both within individual societies and at the international level. I mentioned this formidable challenge in my remarks at the Davos Forum earlier this year. No doubt, these problems threaten us with major and deep social divisions.

Furthermore, a number of countries and even entire regions are regularly hit by food crises. We will probably discuss this later, but there is every reason to believe that this crisis will become worse in the near future and may reach extreme forms. There are also shortages of water and electricity (we will probably cover this today as well), not to mention poverty, high unemployment rates or lack of adequate healthcare.

Lagging countries are fully aware of that and are losing faith in the prospects of ever catching up with the leaders. Disappointment spurs aggression and pushes people to join the ranks of extremists. People in these countries have a growing sense of unfulfilled and failed expectations and the lack of any opportunities not only for themselves, but for their children, as well. This is what makes them look for better lives and results in uncontrolled migration, which, in turn, creates fertile ground for social discontent in more prosperous countries. I do not need to explain anything to you, since you can see everything with your own eyes and are, probably, versed on these matters even better than I.

As I noted earlier, prosperous leading powers have other pressing social problems, challenges and risks in ample supply, and many among them are no longer interested in fighting for influence since, as they say, they already have enough on their plates. The fact that society and young people in many countries have overreacted in a harsh and even aggressive manner to measures to combat the coronavirus showed – and I want to emphasise this, I hope someone has already mentioned this before me at other venues – so, I think that this reaction showed that the pandemic was just a pretext: the causes for social irritation and frustration run much deeper.

I have another important point to make. The pandemic, which, in theory, was supposed to rally the people in the fight against this massive common threat, has instead become a divisive rather than a unifying factor. There are many reasons for that, but one of the main ones is that they started looking for solutions to problems among the usual approaches – a variety of them, but still the old ones, but they just do not work. Or, to be more precise, they do work, but often and oddly enough, they worsen the existing state of affairs.

By the way, Russia has repeatedly called for, and I will repeat this, stopping these inappropriate ambitions and for working together. We will probably talk about this later but it is clear what I have in mind. We are talking about the need to counter the coronavirus infection together. But nothing changes; everything remains the same despite the humanitarian considerations. I am not referring to Russia now, let’s leave the sanctions against Russia for now; I mean the sanctions that remain in place against those states that badly need international assistance. Where are the humanitarian fundamentals of Western political thought? It appears there is nothing there, just idle talk. Do you understand? This is what seems to be on the surface.

Furthermore, the technological revolution, impressive achievements in artificial intelligence, electronics, communications, genetics, bioengineering, and medicine open up enormous opportunities, but at the same time, in practical terms, they raise philosophical, moral and spiritual questions that were until recently the exclusive domain of science fiction writers. What will happen if machines surpass humans in the ability to think? Where is the limit of interference in the human body beyond which a person ceases being himself and turns into some other entity? What are the general ethical limits in the world where the potential of science and machines are becoming almost boundless? What will this mean for each of us, for our descendants, our nearest descendants – our children and grandchildren?

These changes are gaining momentum, and they certainly cannot be stopped because they are objective as a rule. All of us will have to deal with the consequences regardless of our political systems, economic condition or prevailing ideology.

Verbally, all states talk about their commitment to the ideals of cooperation and a willingness to work together for resolving common problems but, unfortunately, these are just words. In reality, the opposite is happening, and the pandemic has served to fuel the negative trends that emerged long ago and are now only getting worse. The approach based on the proverb, “your own shirt is closer to the body,” has finally become common and is now no longer even concealed. Moreover, this is often even a matter of boasting and brandishing. Egotistic interests prevail over the notion of the common good.

Of course, the problem is not just the ill will of certain states and notorious elites. It is more complicated than that, in my opinion. In general, life is seldom divided into black and white. Every government, every leader is primarily responsible to his own compatriots, obviously. The main goal is to ensure their security, peace and prosperity. So, international, transnational issues will never be as important for a national leadership as domestic stability. In general, this is normal and correct.

We need to face the fact the global governance institutions are not always effective and their capabilities are not always up to the challenge posed by the dynamics of global processes. In this sense, the pandemic could help – it clearly showed which institutions have what it takes and which need fine-tuning.

The re-alignment of the balance of power presupposes a redistribution of shares in favour of rising and developing countries that until now felt left out. To put it bluntly, the Western domination of international affairs, which began several centuries ago and, for a short period, was almost absolute in the late 20th century, is giving way to a much more diverse system.

This transformation is not a mechanical process and, in its own way, one might even say, is unparalleled. Arguably, political history has no examples of a stable world order being established without a big war and its outcomes as the basis, as was the case after World War II. So, we have a chance to create an extremely favourable precedent. The attempt to create it after the end of the Cold War on the basis of Western domination failed, as we see. The current state of international affairs is a product of that very failure, and we must learn from this.

Some may wonder, what have we arrived at? We have arrived somewhere paradoxical. Just an example: for two decades, the most powerful nation in the world has been conducting military campaigns in two countries that it cannot be compared to by any standard. But in the end, it had to wind down operations without achieving a single goal that it had set for itself going in 20 years ago, and to withdraw from these countries causing considerable damage to others and itself. In fact, the situation has worsened dramatically.

But that is not the point. Previously, a war lost by one side meant victory for the other side, which took responsibility for what was happening. For example, the defeat of the United States in the Vietnam War, for example, did not make Vietnam a “black hole.” On the contrary, a successfully developing state arose there, which, admittedly, relied on the support of a strong ally. Things are different now: no matter who takes the upper hand, the war does not stop, but just changes form. As a rule, the hypothetical winner is reluctant or unable to ensure peaceful post-war recovery, and only worsens the chaos and the vacuum posing a danger to the world.

Colleagues,

What do you think are the starting points of this complex realignment process? Let me try to summarise the talking points.

First, the coronavirus pandemic has clearly shown that the international order is structured around nation states. By the way, recent developments have shown that global digital platforms – with all their might, which we could see from the internal political processes in the United States – have failed to usurp political or state functions. These attempts proved ephemeral. The US authorities, as I said, have immediately put the owners of these platforms in their place, which is exactly what is being done in Europe, if you just look at the size of the fines imposed on them and the demonopolisation measures being taken. You are aware of that.

In recent decades, many have tossed around fancy concepts claiming that the role of the state was outdated and outgoing. Globalisation supposedly made national borders an anachronism, and sovereignty an obstacle to prosperity. You know, I said it before and I will say it again. This is also what was said by those who attempted to open up other countries’ borders for the benefit of their own competitive advantages. This is what actually happened. And as soon as it transpired that someone somewhere is achieving great results, they immediately returned to closing borders in general and, first of all, their own customs borders and what have you, and started building walls. Well, were we supposed to not notice, or what? Everyone sees everything and everyone understands everything perfectly well. Of course, they do.

There is no point in disputing it anymore. It is obvious. But events, when we spoke about the need to open up borders, events, as I said, went in the opposite direction. Only sovereign states can effectively respond to the challenges of the times and the demands of the citizens. Accordingly, any effective international order should take into account the interests and capabilities of the state and proceed on that basis, and not try to prove that they should not exist. Furthermore, it is impossible to impose anything on anyone, be it the principles underlying the sociopolitical structure or values that someone, for their own reasons, has called universal. After all, it is clear that when a real crisis strikes, there is only one universal value left and that is human life, which each state decides for itself how best to protect based on its abilities, culture and traditions.

In this regard, I will again note how severe and dangerous the coronavirus pandemic has become. As we know, more than 4.9 million have died of it. These terrifying figures are comparable and even exceed the military losses of the main participants in World War I.

The second point I would like to draw your attention to is the scale of change that forces us to act extremely cautiously, if only for reasons of self-preservation. The state and society must not respond radically to qualitative shifts in technology, dramatic environmental changes or the destruction of traditional systems. It is easier to destroy than to create, as we all know. We in Russia know this very well, regrettably, from our own experience, which we have had several times.

Just over a century ago, Russia objectively faced serious problems, including because of the ongoing World War I, but its problems were not bigger and possibly even smaller or not as acute as the problems the other countries faced, and Russia could have dealt with its problems gradually and in a civilised manner. But revolutionary shocks led to the collapse and disintegration of a great power. The second time this happened 30 years ago, when a potentially very powerful nation failed to enter the path of urgently needed, flexible but thoroughly substantiated reforms at the right time, and as a result it fell victim to all kinds of dogmatists, both reactionary ones and the so-called progressives – all of them did their bit, all sides did.

These examples from our history allow us to say that revolutions are not a way to settle a crisis but a way to aggravate it. No revolution was worth the damage it did to the human potential.

Third. The importance of a solid support in the sphere of morals, ethics and values is increasing dramatically in the modern fragile world. In point of fact, values are a product, a unique product of cultural and historical development of any nation. The mutual interlacing of nations definitely enriches them, openness expands their horizons and allows them to take a fresh look at their own traditions. But the process must be organic, and it can never be rapid. Any alien elements will be rejected anyway, possibly bluntly. Any attempts to force one’s values on others with an uncertain and unpredictable outcome can only further complicate a dramatic situation and usually produce the opposite reaction and an opposite from the intended result.

We look in amazement at the processes underway in the countries which have been traditionally looked at as the standard-bearers of progress. Of course, the social and cultural shocks that are taking place in the United States and Western Europe are none of our business; we are keeping out of this. Some people in the West believe that an aggressive elimination of entire pages from their own history, “reverse discrimination” against the majority in the interests of a minority, and the demand to give up the traditional notions of mother, father, family and even gender, they believe that all of these are the mileposts on the path towards social renewal.

Listen, I would like to point out once again that they have a right to do this, we are keeping out of this. But we would like to ask them to keep out of our business as well. We have a different viewpoint, at least the overwhelming majority of Russian society – it would be more correct to put it this way – has a different opinion on this matter. We believe that we must rely on our own spiritual values, our historical tradition and the culture of our multiethnic nation.

The advocates of so-called ‘social progress’ believe they are introducing humanity to some kind of a new and better consciousness. Godspeed, hoist the flags as we say, go right ahead. The only thing that I want to say now is that their prescriptions are not new at all. It may come as a surprise to some people, but Russia has been there already. After the 1917 revolution, the Bolsheviks, relying on the dogmas of Marx and Engels, also said that they would change existing ways and customs and not just political and economic ones, but the very notion of human morality and the foundations of a healthy society. The destruction of age-old values, religion and relations between people, up to and including the total rejection of family (we had that, too), encouragement to inform on loved ones – all this was proclaimed progress and, by the way, was widely supported around the world back then and was quite fashionable, same as today. By the way, the Bolsheviks were absolutely intolerant of opinions other than theirs.

This, I believe, should call to mind some of what we are witnessing now. Looking at what is happening in a number of Western countries, we are amazed to see the domestic practices, which we, fortunately, have left, I hope, in the distant past. The fight for equality and against discrimination has turned into aggressive dogmatism bordering on absurdity, when the works of the great authors of the past – such as Shakespeare – are no longer taught at schools or universities, because their ideas are believed to be backward. The classics are declared backward and ignorant of the importance of gender or race. In Hollywood memos are distributed about proper storytelling and how many characters of what colour or gender should be in a movie. This is even worse than the agitprop department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

Countering acts of racism is a necessary and noble cause, but the new ‘cancel culture’ has turned it into ‘reverse discrimination’ that is, reverse racism. The obsessive emphasis on race is further dividing people, when the real fighters for civil rights dreamed precisely about erasing differences and refusing to divide people by skin colour. I specifically asked my colleagues to find the following quote from Martin Luther King: “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by their character.” This is the true value. However, things are turning out differently there. By the way, the absolute majority of Russian people do not think that the colour of a person’s skin or their gender is an important matter. Each of us is a human being. This is what matters.

In a number of Western countries, the debate over men’s and women’s rights has turned into a perfect phantasmagoria. Look, beware of going where the Bolsheviks once planned to go – not only communalising chickens, but also communalising women. One more step and you will be there.

Zealots of these new approaches even go so far as to want to abolish these concepts altogether. Anyone who dares mention that men and women actually exist, which is a biological fact, risk being ostracised. “Parent number one” and “parent number two,” “’birthing parent” instead of “mother,” and “human milk” replacing “breastmilk” because it might upset the people who are unsure about their own gender. I repeat, this is nothing new; in the 1920s, the so-called Soviet Kulturtraegers also invented some newspeak believing they were creating a new consciousness and changing values that way. And, as I have already said, they made such a mess it still makes one shudder at times.

Not to mention some truly monstrous things when children are taught from an early age that a boy can easily become a girl and vice versa. That is, the teachers actually impose on them a choice we all supposedly have. They do so while shutting the parents out of the process and forcing the child to make decisions that can upend their entire life. They do not even bother to consult with child psychologists – is a child at this age even capable of making a decision of this kind? Calling a spade a spade, this verges on a crime against humanity, and it is being done in the name and under the banner of progress.

Well, if someone likes this, let them do it. I have already mentioned that, in shaping our approaches, we will be guided by a healthy conservatism. That was a few years ago, when passions on the international arena were not yet running as high as they are now, although, of course, we can say that clouds were gathering even then. Now, when the world is going through a structural disruption, the importance of reasonable conservatism as the foundation for a political course has skyrocketed – precisely because of the multiplying risks and dangers, and the fragility of the reality around us.

This conservative approach is not about an ignorant traditionalism, a fear of change or a restraining game, much less about withdrawing into our own shell. It is primarily about reliance on a time-tested tradition, the preservation and growth of the population, a realistic assessment of oneself and others, a precise alignment of priorities, a correlation of necessity and possibility, a prudent formulation of goals, and a fundamental rejection of extremism as a method. And frankly, in the impending period of global reconstruction, which may take quite long, with its final design being uncertain, moderate conservatism is the most reasonable line of conduct, as far as I see it. It will inevitably change at some point, but so far, do no harm – the guiding principle in medicine – seems to be the most rational one. Noli nocere, as they say.

Again, for us in Russia, these are not some speculative postulates, but lessons from our difficult and sometimes tragic history. The cost of ill-conceived social experiments is sometimes beyond estimation. Such actions can destroy not only the material, but also the spiritual foundations of human existence, leaving behind moral wreckage where nothing can be built to replace it for a long time.

Finally, there is one more point I want to make. We understand all too well that resolving many urgent problems the world has been facing would be impossible without close international cooperation. However, we need to be realistic: most of the pretty slogans about coming up with global solutions to global problems that we have been hearing since the late 20th century will never become reality. In order to achieve a global solution, states and people have to transfer their sovereign rights to supra-national structures to an extent that few, if any, would accept. This is primarily attributable to the fact that you have to answer for the outcomes of such policies not to some global public, but to your citizens and voters.

However, this does not mean that exercising some restraint for the sake of bringing about solutions to global challenges is impossible. After all, a global challenge is a challenge for all of us together, and to each of us in particular. If everyone saw a way to benefit from cooperation in overcoming these challenges, this would definitely leave us better equipped to work together.

One of the ways to promote these efforts could be, for example, to draw up, at the UN level, a list of challenges and threats that specific countries face, with details of how they could affect other countries. This effort could involve experts from various countries and academic fields, including you, my colleagues. We believe that developing a roadmap of this kind could inspire many countries to see global issues in a new light and understand how cooperation could be beneficial for them.

I have already mentioned the challenges international institutions are facing. Unfortunately, this is an obvious fact: it is now a question of reforming or closing some of them. However, the United Nations as the central international institution retains its enduring value, at least for now. I believe that in our turbulent world it is the UN that brings a touch of reasonable conservatism into international relations, something that is so important for normalising the situation.

Many criticise the UN for failing to adapt to a rapidly changing world. In part, this is true, but it is not the UN, but primarily its members who are to blame for this. In addition, this international body promotes not only international norms, but also the rule-making spirit, which is based on the principles of equality and maximum consideration for everyone’s opinions. Our mission is to preserve this heritage while reforming the organisation. However, in doing so we need to make sure that we do not throw the baby out with the bathwater, as the saying goes.

This is not the first time I am using a high rostrum to make this call for collective action in order to face up to the problems that continue to pile up and become more acute. It is thanks to you, friends and colleagues, that the Valdai Club is emerging or has already established itself as a high-profile forum. It is for this reason that I am turning to this platform to reaffirm our readiness to work together on addressing the most urgent problems that the world is facing today.

Friends,

The changes mentioned here prior to me, as well as by yours truly, are relevant to all countries and peoples. Russia, of course, is not an exception. Just like everyone else, we are searching for answers to the most urgent challenges of our time.

Of course, no one has any ready-made recipes. However, I would venture to say that our country has an advantage. Let me explain what this advantage is. It is to do with our historical experience. You may have noticed that I have referred to it several times in the course of my remarks. Unfortunately, we had to bring back many sad memories, but at least our society has developed what they now refer to as herd immunity to extremism that paves the way to upheavals and socioeconomic cataclysms. People really value stability and being able to live normal lives and to prosper while confident that the irresponsible aspirations of yet another group of revolutionaries will not upend their plans and aspirations. Many have vivid memories of what happened 30 years ago and all the pain it took to climb out of the ditch where our country and our society found themselves after the USSR fell apart.

The conservative views we hold are an optimistic conservatism, which is what matters the most. We believe stable, positive development to be possible. It all depends primarily on our own efforts. Of course, we are ready to work with our partners on common noble causes.

I would like to thank all participants once more, for your attention. As the tradition goes, I will gladly answer or at least try to answer your questions.

Thank you for your patience.

[ end ]

[ Wolf here ]

Before we even get started, note how much the intelligence of that speech differs from our phony President Biden. It’s even smarter than speech-making puppet and ACTUAL President, Barack Obama.

Now – don’t think for a SECOND that Mr. Putin isn’t one VERY cagey cat who’s looking to eat that singing caged bird when nobody is looking.

From the moment Putin shills for phony Globo-Soviet China-helping “climate change”, you know he’s not in it to speak the truth unless that truth benefits Russia.

Yeah, you can say that he’s “playing along with the Globalists”, but why is that?

RUSSIA FIRST. It is smarter for him to play along openly on a strategy that harms America more than Russia, and overtly helps China, than to flip that around and make his own country suffer, merely for credit with a few opponents of globalism in a primary globalist adversary (meaning the United States).

Never for a moment think this guy is saying anything to help America – unless it helps Russia first.

This is part of nationalism, or at least Russia’s version of it. Just accept that, IMO.

From there, also understand that Putin is always looking out for China, too. Russia and China will always have a very complex relationship, where mutual suspicions and mutual courtesies include NEVER saying the wrong thing, risking destabilizing that relationship, and always upholding each other’s SCAMS.

OK? Got that?

The TRUTH only goes so far with Putin. After that, it’s RUSSIA FIRST, LIES OR NO LIES.

Nevertheless, Putin goes on to provide an AMAZING set of NON-HYPOCRITICAL arguments:

  • FOR nationalism
  • FOR conservatism
  • FOR sovereignty
  • AGAINST wokism
  • AGAINST “racist anti-racism”
  • AGAINST tyranny of the minority
  • AGAINST Bolshevism
  • AGAINST extremism
  • AGAINST gender / sexual minority insanity
  • AGAINST Western liberal excess
  • AGAINST revolution
  • AGAINST transhumanism
  • AGAINST destruction of society

This is exactly what Sundance is saying. Putin has jumped off his bear, and has GRABBED credibility by both horns, and is milking the bull for all the national macho it will provide!

Corrupt, Soviet-honeymooning, dementia-addled weakling Biden, selling out to China, has given Russia an extraordinary opportunity to recover Soviet-era levels of prominence on the world stage – but without all the stinky Bolshevik baggage of old. Full of fleas and bedbugs, that baggage was gladly taken off Russia’s hands by Democrat doufuses and traitors.

In my opinion, this is exactly where Russia wants things.

I have more opinions, but I will save those for the comments.

What do YOU think of Putin’s speech?

W

Civil rights as distinct from minority tyranny. What a concept! Wonder where that started?

Transhumanism – The Great New Reset Is The Same Old Serfdom

A Guest Post by Gail Combs

1.

“Own Nothing and Be Happy”: The Great Reset’s Vision of the Future

What does the Elite Cabal actually have planned for us and what indications are there showing how they are going to implement those plans.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

There are really only two types of governments.

  1. A government FOR the People that protects the RIGHTS of the INDIVIDUAL.
  2. A government FOR the Elite that controls the people and strips them of their wealth and whatever else the Elite may decide to take.

As I said before, since 1776, the European Aristocracy and City of London have been trying to retake the USA by any means they can think of.

G. Edward Griffin in his Talk on the Federal Reserve said:

….interest on any loan of fiat money (meaning money made out of nothing)…. [is a] dead short across the productive element of society. Money being taken from people who are working hard providing the material and the labor. They don’t even know that this is being taken from them and it’s in this huge river of wealth flowing into the banking cartel…. You are led to the question of where is this river flowing? Where’s it going? Get a picture of this that it’s all going into a lake somewhere and maybe there’s a dam and the wealth is building up and somewhere they’re getting it all. Getting it no, they’re spending it. They’re not accumulating it at all. What are they spending it for? The answer may surprise you. They’re not buying more yachts and mansions with this money, they’ve already got all of those they possibly want…. When a person has all the wealth that you could possibly want for the material pleasures of life, what is left? Power. They are using this river of wealth to acquire power over you and me and our children. They are spending it to acquire control over the power centers of society…

And they did so. In 1913, they passed the Federal Reserve Act and the 16th Amendment. The 16th was passed by Congress on July 2, 1909, and ratified February 3, 1913, the 16th amendment established Congress’s right to impose a Federal income tax. ”…the income tax amendment became part of the Constitution by a curious series of events culminating in a bit of political maneuvering that went awry.….”

LINK

After that, it didn’t take long for the Elite to jump into action. In 1915, they grabbed control of the leading newspapers. It was even reported in the Congressional Record two years later:

Congressional Record, February 9, 1917 — J.P. Morgan interests buy 25 of America’s leading newspapers and insert their own editors

In 1917 … the Bolshevik revolution actually was financed by wealthy financiers in London and New York. Lenin and Trotsky were on the closest of terms with these moneyed interests both before and after the Revolution. Those hidden liaisons have continued to this day and occasionally pop to the surface…

Knowing that, is it any wonder that the Communists have taken over our schools, universities and now our government?

As Charles Buriss writes:

This classic 1911 cartoon by the internationally acclaimed Communist cartoonist Robert Minor needs to be resurrected and posted on the front pages of every regime Establishment newspaper, beginning with the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and the Washington Post… Sadly, the cartoon desperately needs to be updated for 2021 with the knelling, decrepit usurper Joe Biden surrounded by the leading honchos of Big Tech, Big Pharma, Wall Street banksters, and top CEOs of the Woke Fortune Five Hundred, eagerly lined up to French kiss the ass of Chinese Communist Party Chairman Xi Jinping.

When you look at it Communism, is nothing more than feudalism in a new dress and fresh lipstick.

Karl Marx does not even hide this.

“The bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations. It has pitilessly torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to his ‘natural superiors,’ and has left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, callous ‘cash payment….” – The Communist Manifesto

I am pretty sure the City of London and US Federal Reserve are also tied to the Chinese Communist party but that Deep Dive is for another day.

At first I thought control would be through RFID chips, (See ChiefIO’s August 2013, Experiments in Mobility and Anonymity) and digital currency, all thanks to OH!Bummercare.

I read the Obama ‘Health’ ‘Care’ bill (HCA) and here are some of the goodies I found:

Pg 30 Sec 123 of HC bill a Government committee (good luck with that!) will decide what treatments/benefits a person may receive.

Pg 42 of HC Bill The Health Choices Commissioner will choose your HC Benefits for you.

Pg 239 Line 14-24 HC Bill Government will reduce physician services for Medicaid. Seniors, low income, poor affected.

PG 50 Section 152 in HC bill HC will be provided to ALL non US citizens, illegal or otherwise.

Pg 170 Lines 1-3 HC Bill Any NONRESIDENT Alien is exempt from individual taxes. (Americans will pay.)

Pg 58 HC Bill Government will have real-time access to individual’s finances and a National ID Healthcard will be issued!

Pg 195 HC Bill -officers & employees of HC Admin (the GOVERNMENT) will have access to ALL Americans’ finances and personal records.

Pg 59 HC Bill lines 21-24 Government will have direct access to your bank accts for funds transfer.

However there was another goody buried in the bill that had NOTHING to do with healthcare and is now coming back in a different version… ON STEROIDS!

Section 9006 of the health care bill — just a few lines buried in the 2,409-page document — mandates that beginning in 2012 all companies will have to issue 1099 tax forms not just to contract workers but to any individual or corporation from which they buy more than $600 in goods or services in a tax year. The stealth change radically alters the nature of 1099s and means businesses will have to issue millions of new tax documents each year. Right now, the IRS Form 1099 is used to document income for individual workers other than wages and salaries… The bill makes two key changes to how 1099s are used. First, it expands their scope by using them to track payments not only for services but also for tangible goods. Plus, it requires that 1099s be issued not just to individuals, but also to corporations…. http://money.cnn.com/2010/05/05/smallbusiness/1099_health_care_tax_change/

(This section got repealed ASAP after Sam’s Club et al realized the amount of paperwork they were in for.)

However the interesting tidbit was this:

”…the IRS has stated that even for transactions covered by the law, they intend to exempt purchases made with credit cards….”

Can you say DRIVE PEOPLE TO DIGITAL CURRENCY???

CLEARING UP 1099 CONFUSION

The NEW 1099 Law – IRS Form 1099-MISC

This 1099 law (Section 9006 of the health care bill passed earlier this year) is scheduled to go into effect January, 2012. Under this law you will have to report ALL purchases of goods and services over $600 (including smaller purchases aggregated over the full year.) Yes, that includes your retail clients, your fellow dealers (no more corporate exemption), office supply stores, show travel providers (hotels & airlines), etc.

Small businesses and associations (including ICTA) have protested this provision so fervently that Congress – and even President Obama – have acknowledged that it is a problem. Potential fixes include repeal of Section 9006 (ICTA’s strongly preferred solution), raising the dollar amount threshold to $5,000, exempting businesses with fewer than 25 employees, and exempting transactions paid for via credit or debit cards. However, the administration is extremely sensitive to the word “repeal” as applied to any part of the health care bill.

https://forums.collectors.com/discussion/795970/1099-information-you-need-to-act-on-now-from-icta

2.

TRANSHUMANISM CONFERENCES

Report on conference:

https://rumble.com/vnswds-transhumanist-techonocult-meets-to-discuss-world-domination.html

Article: https://www.sott.net/article/459537-Transhumanists-gather-in-Spain-to-plan-global-transformation

Humans will be DESIGNED –  Made In China 2025 – CHINA WOULD DOMINATE THE TEN INDUSTRIES NEEDED for the FOURTH INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION. Five or six converge for the ‘Singularity’ –> Immortality for ELITES. Think organs-ON-Demand FROM CHINA https://rumble.com/vkkmze-ccp-enforcing-live-organ-harvesting.html

and now Human – Computer interface to control the serfs.

https://rumble.com/vnswe2-made-in-china-2025.html

WORSE IT EVEN INCLUDES RELIGION AND CHRISTIANS!!!

(And not just Catholics.)

Pope sponsored a conference on Transhumanism at Vatican on 23th of October – HUMANITY 2.0 AND THE VATICAN DISCUSS THE TRANSHUMAN CODE

SEE: Vatican is captured by the World Economic Forum transhumanist death cult where a lot of different articles are gathered supporting that statement.

…The meeting has been described as an “exclusive gathering of technology, corporate, finance, government, academic, ecclesiastic and media leaders … to catalyze awareness and establish the best path forward with humanity and technology in harmony.”…

And yes, that is Francis Collins, FauXi’s old boss.

October 21, 2021 Warning Over Electronic Religion

https://rumble.com/vo1dkz-warning-over-electronic-religion.html

2:20 Joe Allen:….imothy O’Leary talked of creating an electronic religion in the 60s…Already been enacted via 2nd life the very popular simulation space…… D.J. Soto who founded the First VR Church, founded in 2015, 2016. the way it works is you put on your oculist goggles, you are in a virtual sanctuary space surounded by cartoonish avitars, and listening to his vapid sermon behind the pulpit. ….What does he hold sacred… In 2019, he held a gender bending transracial baptism in which he was depected as a buff black man, and a man at the other end is depicted as a cartoon girl, and there were homo-erotic jokes cracked throughout the entire thing. But when I confronted Pastor D.J. Soto about this via email, he came back with, I would do it again in a heart beat, you just have to be more open minded. He has also floated the idea of having cartoon jesuses in 3-D virtual space that congregates can interact with directly. And this isn’t just off in the corner, these people have been boosted by NewsWeek, BBC, Wired Mag. And that should raise flags already….

Transhumanists Aim To Replace God With Machines Through Digital Immortality

The Five Pillars of Transhumanism

https://rumble.com/vng4he-the-five-pillars-of-transhumanism.html

Elon Musks’ Satanic Dreamworld – Steve Bannon’s War Room: Pandemic

https://citizensoftheamericanrepublic.org/2021/09/29/elon-musks-satanic-dreamworld-steve-bannons-war-room-pandemic/

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/09/elon_musks_crusade_to_save_you__by_destroying_your_humanity.html

Elon Musk and the Pagan Witch Who Summoned a Computer God

https://salvomag.com/post/elon-musk-and-the-pagan-witch-who-summoned-a-computer-god

https://citizensoftheamericanrepublic.org/2021/09/30/a-technocracy-is-a-greater-threat-to-freedom-than-fascism-and-communism-steve-bannons-war-room-pandemic/

Facebook’s Plans ON Becoming A Metaverse Company

?Vintage? Scriptures talk about an Astro plane which is an Immaterial Plane of Existence. We are technologically realizing that deeply ancient notion of an immaterial plane of existence. plane A metaverse is a persistent social virtual world where one can live, create, work, and play. DEEP FUTURE Mind Uploads a la Permutation City Metamind group or Hive Minds Exploratory Van Neumann metaverse-ships From Felipe Van ?Medervelda? Virtual reality pioneer. Speaking @ Transvision 2021.

April 2, 2021 – War Room Previews ‘Unholy Saturday of Transhumanism’ Special (7 min.)

https://rumble.com/vfbblp-war-room-previews-unholy-saturday-of-transhumanism-special.html

https://stream.org/the-unholy-saturday-of-transhumanism/

Includes TWO 48 minute War Rooms ON TRANSHUMANISM PLUS AN ESSAY By JASON JONES & JOHN ZMIRAK  AUTHORS OF ‘The Race to Save Our Century [a book that ] pointed to the causes of the genocides in that epoch in various forms of “Subhumanism.” 

LINK: https://stream.org/the-unholy-saturday-of-transhumanism/

Descent Into Hell: Transhumanism and the New Human Race

https://citizensoftheamericanrepublic.org/2021/04/03/episode-848-descent-into-hell-transhumanism-and-the-new-human-race-part-2/

3.

Bobby Piton

“As Bobby Piton reminded us, the Nazis, thanks to IBM, even knew the number of animals and how much food a farm grew.”

David Clement interview of Bobby Piton:

https://rumble.com/vm5y0r-bobby-piton-finance-wizard.-election-fraud-fighter.-u.s.-senator.html

4.

The Clot Shot and Graphene Oxide

Transhumanism and the connecting of the serfs to computer Will-he Nil-he certainly would explain Graphene Oxide in the Clot Shot and the MASSIVE PUSH to get everyone vaccinated wether it kills you or not.

It also explains the Magnetic Shot Hoax used to discredit the addition of graphene to the shots.

Stew Peters Show Interview with Former Pfizer Employee | Poisonous Graphene Oxide is 100% in the Vaccines

and

Can Graphene Oxide Turn The Human Body Into A Networked Biological Computer?

https://vimeo.com/572772371

…Since graphene oxide “is considered to be the world’s thinnest, strongest and most conductive material”, how would this function in the body? Could it transmit frequency into and out of our bodies? Well according to other studies, graphene oxide is a “high-efficient interconnector in radio-frequency range”, in other words, it “has high potential for transmitting signals at gigahertz ranges” … “0.5–40 GHz. Radio- frequency transmission”. This would include 4G, 5G, and other wifi and microwave frequencies. So now we have many more questions than answers….

– Gail Combs

GC/wm

2021·10·23 Joe Biden Didn’t Win Daily Thread

Okay you knuckledragging ChiComs trying to take us down…here’s a history lesson for you.

For millennia, you had to suffer from this:

Yep. Steppe Nomads. They laid waste to your country, burned, raped and pillaged (but not in that order–they’re smarter than you are) for century after century.

You know who figured out how to take them on and win? The Russians.

Not you, the Russians. And it took them less than two centuries. And Oh By The Way they were among the most backward cultures in Europe at the time.

You couldn’t invent an alphabet, you couldn’t take care of barbarians on horseback, and you think you can take this board down?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! We’re laughing at you, you knuckledragging dehumanized communists…worshipers of a mass-murderer who killed sixty million people!

I mean, you still think Communism is a good idea even after having lived through it!

By my reckoning that makes you orders of magnitude more stupid than AOC, and that takes serious effort.

His Fraudulency

Joe Biteme, properly styled His Fraudulency, continues to infest the White House, and hopium is still being dispensed even as our military appears to have joined the political establishment in knuckling under to the fraud.

All realistic hope lies in the audits, and perhaps the Lindell lawsuit (that will depend on how honestly the system responds to the suit).

One can hope that all is not as it seems.

I’d love to feast on that crow.

Justice Must Be Done.

The prior election must be acknowledged as fraudulent, and steps must be taken to prosecute the fraudsters and restore integrity to the system.

Nothing else matters at this point. Talking about trying again in 2022 or 2024 is hopeless otherwise. Which is not to say one must never talk about this, but rather that one must account for this in ones planning; if fixing the fraud is not part of the plan, you have no plan.

Political Science In Summation

It’s really just a matter of people who can’t be happy unless they control others…versus those who want to be left alone. The oldest conflict within mankind. Government is necessary, but government attracts the assholes (a highly technical term for the control freaks).

(A comment I wrote last week that garnered some praise.)

Lawyer Appeasement Section

OK now for the fine print.

This is the WQTH Daily Thread. You know the drill. There’s no Poltical correctness, but civility is a requirement. There are Important Guidelines,  here, with an addendum on 20191110.

We have a new board – called The U Tree – where people can take each other to the woodshed without fear of censorship or moderation.

And remember Wheatie’s Rules:

1. No food fights
2. No running with scissors.
3. If you bring snacks, bring enough for everyone.
4. Zeroth rule of gun safety: Don’t let the government get your guns.
5. Rule one of gun safety: The gun is always loaded.
5a. If you actually want the gun to be loaded, like because you’re checking out a bump in the night, then it’s empty.
6. Rule two of gun safety: Never point the gun at anything you’re not willing to destroy.
7. Rule three: Keep your finger off the trigger until ready to fire.
8. Rule the fourth: Be sure of your target and what is behind it.

(Hmm a few extras seem to have crept in.)

(Paper) Spot Prices

Last week:

Gold $1768.40
Silver $23.40
Platinum $1059.00
Palladium $2162.00
Rhodium $15,150.00

This week, 3PM Mountain Time, markets have closed for the weekend.

Gold $1793.00
Silver $24.40
Platinum $1047.00
Palladium $2104
Rhodium $15,250

Nice moves upward for gold and silver, but the platinum group metals are considerably mixed.

XXII Powering Stars

One of the things that was puzzling physicists and astronomers in the late 1800s and even into the early 1900s is how stars could continue to belt out such phenomenal amounts of energy every second, year in, year out for millions and even billions of years.

Our sun, for instance, has been pumping out 3.828 x 1026 watts, continuously, for billions of years. To be sure the current conclusion is that this number is actually increasing slowly so that in the past, say a billion years ago, it might have been ten percent less.

To put that into some sort of context, the best estimate we can make is that the entire human race uses 15 terawatts, that’s 1.5 x 1013 watts. The sun belts out ten trillion times as much power as we consume.

That power goes out in all directions from the sun, and only a tiny fraction of it hits the earth. By my calculations, the earth catches about 1/2 of one billionth of all of that energy, because that’s the fraction of the possible directions for light shining from the sun, that is covered by the disc of the earth as seen from the sun. (I may very well have dropped a decimal somewhere.) If that number is right, the Earth absorbs solar energy at a rate of 176,000 terawatts.

Where does this energy come from?

In the 1800s the only imaginable energy sources were combustion (like burning coal), the sun getting hotter as it shrank, and objects striking the sun. These were all unsatisfactory answers. A sun-sized pile of coal (never mind the oxygen needed to burn it) would have run out in a couple of thousand years [not long enough even to account for history since Caesar, much less all of recorded history]. The other two sources would last less than a million years at most (and there’s simply not enough junk in the solar system to hit the sun and supply the energy that way, or we ourselves would be getting bombarded by it).

We had every reason back then to believe the Earth is tens of millions of years old, though many argued it had to be much older. They were correct. We now have every reason to believe it’s roughly 4.5 billion years old. (Anyone disagreeing today is either simply ignorant of the evidence in favor of this statement and the massive preponderance of evidence in favor of earth being billions of years old (without putting a precise number on it), or is (in rare cases) quite aware of the evidence and is lying.)

So we need a way to power the Sun–and other stars–that can keep them going for billions of years.

And indeed Arthur Eddington–he is the astronomer who measured the deflection of starlight by the sun in 1919, which was strong evidence in favor of Einstein’s theory of General Relativity, which in turn had been published in 1915–well, Arthur Eddington suggested in 1920 that perhaps it was nuclear energy that powered the stars.

Nuclear energy had not been known in the 1800s, but it was now apparent that nuclear energy could supply roughly a million times as much energy as coal, per unit mass.

Fission of uranium would be plentiful, if only the sun were made of uranium, but honestly the biggest yield would come from the fusion of hydrogen into helium. If only the sun were made of hydrogen.

We know today that it is roughly 3/4 hydrogen, but that was not clear in 1920. We had spectroscopic evidence that the Sun contained certain ingredients (most of the elements are in the Sun at some concentration or another) but it wasn’t clear how much of anything there was. The proportions were a mystery. In fact the consensus at the time was that the Sun was pretty much made up of the same sorts of things, in the same proportion, as Earth. There was some reason to believe this, but we didn’t have all the facts.

Enter Cecilia Payne (later Ceclia Payne-Gaposhkin) (1900-1979).

Classifying Stars

But first, let’s go back a bit further to Annie Jump Cannon (1863-1941).

Annie Jump Cannon, along with Edward Pickering, was responsible for the current scheme by which stars are classified. She did most of the grunt work, he got most of the credit (though that is changing). This current scheme is known as the Harvard classification because, well, they were working at Harvard (pronounced HAH-vahd).

How do you classify stars? The same way you classify anything else: on the basis of what you can perceive about the objects. And with stars, that’s very confined. You have the star’s direction in the sky, its brightness, and its color. With telescopes, and some very specialized accessories, you can get the star’s spectrum, which is actually very useful since it can tell us what the star is made of, how fast it’s moving radially (towards or away from us–but this won’t include any sideways motion as seen from Earth), and even how fast it’s rotating in absolute terms. Today we can even use those spectra to detect planets orbiting those stars.

We truly didn’t have a science of astrophysics until we got a good close look at those spectra.

All of those things I mentioned as being able to be determined from spectra depend on absorption lines. These had first been noticed by Joseph von Fraunhofer (1787-1826) in the Sun’s spectrum (and so they are called “Fraunhofer lines”). They are dark bands visible in star spectra.

Fraunhofer lines in the sun’s spectrum, with labels. The bottom scale is the wavelength of the light of that color, in nanometers (billionths of a meter, millionths of a millimeter). Short wavelengths are more energetic and have higher frequencies.

(Incidentally, astronomers who deal with visible light talk in wavelengths; radio astronomers talk in frequencies; and gamma ray astronomers talk in energies measured in mega electron volts…so when these guys get together at a conference it’s hard for them to relate to each other.)

Later on in the 1800s it was realized that these lines were actually characteristic of different elements in the Sun. Different atoms would either absorb or emit certain wavelengths of light under differing circumstances. For instance if you heat a sample in a Bunsen burner flame, the atoms in the sample will emit only certain frequencies of light, creating an emission spectrum; under other circumstances those atoms will absorb those same frequencies from “white” light, leaving dark bands in the spectrum.

It turns out the Fraunhofer lines were due to the Sun’s atmosphere absorbing some of the light emitted by the photosphere (which is the part of the sun we actually see if we are so foolish as to look directly at it).

And indeed helium was detected in the sun’s atmosphere by this means decades before it was discovered on earth. The name “helium” comes from Helios, the Greek god of the Sun who rode his very bright chariot across the sky every day.

When we turned telescopes to look at (other) stars, they too exhibited absorption lines, but they didn’t all exhibit the same absorption lines.

And those differences gave way to a variety of classification systems.

Annie Jump Cannon looked at hundreds of thousands of spectra and could classify them on sight, according to systems then in use, and eventually according to the system she refined in 1901-1912.

One thing that had been noticed, certainly by her and probably by others before her, was that there was a strong correlation between the color of a star, and which spectral lines were prominent.

And we already knew from studying blackbody radiation that the color of a star was determined by its temperature. Blue stars are hot, at least ten thousand Kelvins. White stars are hotter than our sun, which is a yellow-white and therefore has a temperature of 5,772K–or rather the other way around.

(And this is why you can’t buy a light bulb any more without selecting its “color temperature,” you’re picking the color of the light according to the temperature it simulates. A true tungsten light bulb filament actually did get as hot as its color temperature, and the light it emitted tended to be quite yellowish in color. And of course this is a “thing” in photography since the camera cannot adjust what it sees, but our eyes can, based on ambient color temperature.)

Annie Jump Cannon divided stars into classes with letter names (holdovers from older systems) O, B, A, F, G, K, M. Type O stars were the bluest (and hottest) of stars, down through G (like our sun) to M (reddish color).

Why these particular colors? A “white” star has the peak of its black body emission curve in the middle of the visible part of the spectrum, so the curve is about the same height at both the purple and red ends of the spectrum. It’s fairly uniform across that range, and we perceive that mixture as “white.” A cooler star has its peak somewhere below the red end of the spectrum so what we see contains more red light than yellow or blue light–so we see orange or red. And blue stars are so hot most of their radiation is ultraviolet; the visible light part has much more blue than red in it.

Cannon actually subdivided each of those letters into ten sub-types, numbered from 0-9 with zero being the hottest. Since these plots always put the hot end of the spectrum at the left (which is counterintuitive, but the habit formed, and once formed, stuck, and we are stuck with it today), you’d see a progression from O0 to O9, then B0 through B9, and so on.

Another useful thing to consider is how bright the star is, intrinsically. Not just how bright it looked, but how much light did it actually emit, compared to our sun? But in order to know that, we have to know two things: how bright it appeared to be here on Earth, and how far away it was. The first was easy, the second very hard, and in fact impossible to determine much of the time because the star was too far away for our measuring methods to work.

Nevertheless, when plotting luminosity against temperature, we saw some clear trends, and not entirely what was expected.

Most stars ran along a diagonal line that got named the “Main Sequence.” Other stars were of similar colors but much, much brighter intrinsically. And a few were obviously very hot, but also very dim. In particular, Sirius B was one of the latter (I described it in my second post on stars).

This is a Hertzprung Russel diagram, plotting stars based on their “absolute magnitude” (intrinsic brightness, on the right hand side) and color temperature (across the top). The big diagonal line running from upper left to lower right is the “main sequence.”

Once we had absolute luminosities in hand, something became apparent. You would expect a hotter star to be brighter, just as white hot coals in your fireplace are brighter than redder coals. And we could indeed calculate how bright they should be compared to cooler stars from the Stefan-Boltzmann equation. (An object twice as hot as another object emits sixteen times the energy as that other one does.)

When we looked at the luminosity of hotter stars, though, they were even brighter than they should have been. But there was a very simple answer to that. They were brighter than one would expect, because they were physically larger than the dimmer stars, just as a coal twice the size as another coal will emit twice as much light as the other, even at the same temperature.

So combine the two: Imagine a white hot coal twice the size of a red hot coal, and the white hot coal is now 32 times brighter than the red coal; more than can be accounted for just by its temperature or by its size.

Eventually we were even able to figure out the mass of these stars (especially when they were parts of binary star systems–we could determine the mass by watching how fast the stars orbited each other), and all of this was confirmed.

And all this largely from the data that Annie Jump Cannon meticulously collected, analyzed and cataloged.

Cecilia Payne Fills the Gas Tank

OK, now we are ready for Cecilia Payne-Gaposhkin.

She was at Harvard (yes, HAHvuhd again) in 1924, working on her doctoral thesis–she would go on to become the first female given a doctorate in astronomy by HAHvuhd…though it was actually Radcliffe, the associated womens’ college.

She took up an issue, that being what stars are made of.

That should have been pretty easy, right? We had their spectra with all of those wonderful absorption lines, after all. O stars had lots of helium in then. A stars had lots of iron and magnesium and silicon in them. And so on, down to M stars that had spectra of molecules in them like TiO2. That was how we divided them into their classes, after all!

But it turns out that many of these absorption lines weren’t from (say) ordinary iron or ordinary helium. They were from ionized iron, iron that had lost a couple of electrons. What difference does that make? The absorption lines (or emission lines under other circumstances) are caused by electrons absorbing (emitting) that precise wavelength of light in order to jump to a higher (lower) orbit.

When an atom is ionized, it has lost some electrons, and it hangs on to the remaining electrons more strongly, so it takes more energy for them to jump to higher orbits. This changes the absorption spectrum of that atom.

One way to knock those electrons off in the first place is to heat the atoms; that makes them move faster and when they slam into each other it could be hard enough to knock some electrons away. Thus the amount of ionized substances depends on their temperature.

This had first been realized by the Indian physicist Megnad Saha, but Cecilia Payne (she married Gaposhkin in 1934, so she was still Cecilia Payne in 1924) was the first to try to apply it to stars.

The prevailing theory at the time was that our Sun was made up of pretty much the same things as the Earth. All that calcium in the spectrum seemed to fit (there is a lot of calcium in the Earth’s rocks), as do other spectral lines from unionized (i.e., not ionized, rather than not a member of the UAW or Teamsters) elements. Meanwhile the hydrogen lines are very weak, especially compared to bigger stars.

Payne corrected for all those temperature effects, and came to the realization that the Sun…and other stars as well…were mostly hydrogen and helium. In fact the Sun is 74.9 percent hydrogen, 23.8 percent helium, and only 1.8 percent everything else.

This is so striking that astrophysicists today call everything that isn’t hydrogen and helium “metals” as a short hand. Since most of the elements in the periodic table are metals, that’s not a bad bit of scientific slang.

When Payne submitted her dissertation for review, it was criticized severely. She (unfortunately) backed down and wrote a paragraph into it dismissing her own data as spurious.

By 1929 her main critic, Henry Norris Russel, came to the same conclusion by a different method. He had the integrity to mention in his paper that Payne had got there first, but he still often gets the credit for discovering the stars are mostly hydrogen.

Mostly hydrogen.

So maybe (getting back, at last, to where we started) stars really did get their energy from fusing hydrogen. They certainly had the raw ingredient for it. The sun has the mass of 333,000 Earths, and three quarters of that is hydrogen. That is an absolute shitload of the stuff.

We knew from the binding energy curve how much energy is released (how much mass is converted to energy) per hydrogen atom, when four of them are brought together to form helium. We know the power output of the sun. Given those numbers it’s simple arithmetic to figure out how much the sun would have to “burn” and that amount is 620 million metric tons per second (a metric ton is a thousand kilograms, which on earth weighs roughly 2200 lbs).

4.26 million metric tons of this mass is converted to energy. That is a LOT of energy. And this happens every second. When you plug that into E=mc2, you get that number I quoted above, 3.838×1026 joules, and since that’s every second, that’s the number of Watts as well.

Divide that 620 million metric tons into the mass of the sun, and it’s clear that there’s enough fuel in the Sun to last billions of years–and indeed it has; we are about midway through that phase of the Sun’s life.

Tunneling Through Hurdles

But I am getting ahead of myself.

There was an additional hurdle the hydrogen fusion suggestion (not even really a hypothesis even now) had to clear before it could be taken seriously. And it was a difficulty Arthur Eddington had recognized clear back in 1920.

In order to fuse hydrogen into helium, you have to bring two protons together close enough that the strong nuclear force (which is so short range the protons have to be almost touching each other for it to take effect) overwhelms the electrical repulsion of the protons…which, if you’ll remember is a strong enough that we people could feel it (even out of those dinky little protons).

This can be done by making the protons move fast enough right toward each other. The repulsion causes them to slow down, stop, and reverse course…but if they’re moving so fast that they don’t stop until they get close enough, then they’ve climbed over the so-called “Coulomb barrier” (named after Coulomb, who first discovered the law of electrostatic forces) and can stick to each other.

How to make protons move fast? Heat them up. Temperature, after all, is simply a measure of the average kinetic energy of the atoms in a substance. Hotter temperatures mean higher speed of the atoms, particularly in a gas or superheated plasma.

At the kinds of temperatures we’re talking about, the electrons are stripped off the atoms, completely. You have bare protons zipping around in a swarm of loose electrons. (This is called a plasma, and it’s a fourth state of matter: solid, liquid, gas, plasma.)

The problem was, the interior of the Sun was believed to be at 17 million K, and even that temperature simply isn’t high enough.

But there actually is a way, and it’s supplied by quantum mechanics. Because of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, the speed and position of particles isn’t precisely set at any given time, and if the speed isn’t set, the kinetic energy isn’t either. A particle with not enough energy (one would think) to jump over a potential “barrier” therefore gets to do so sometimes anyway. It’s much more likely if the particle is close to having enough, than if it is not.

This bit of quantum strangeness is called “quantum tunneling” and allows a particle which has no business jumping over a barrier to do so anyway, and physicists likened it to “tunneling” through the wall.

At the temperatures inside the sun, the probability of this happening is small, but not so small it never happens (as you see in the more familiar world where you fail to tunnel through blank walls unless you’re in a Road Runner cartoon).

If it were hotter inside the sun, the energy levels would be higher and the probability of tunneling through the barrier would be higher. But even as it is, it’s high enough that a tiny fraction of the protons do manage to “tunnel” through the barrier, and fusion can then happen.

But there is yet another hurdle, if you will pardon the expression.

When those two protons do glom onto each other, the resulting “diproton” is so unstable it simply falls apart right away.

But every once in a while, at the exact moment the diproton forms, one of the protons undergoes positive beta decay and becomes a neutron. In the process it releases a positron (anti-electron) and a neutrino. The positron finds an electron (they’re everywhere and literally anywhere in a plasma), they mutually annihilate and release a gamma ray–pure energy.

(The neutrino is a matter neutrino, not an antimatter antineutrino, because it counterbalances the antimatter positron, unlike in nuclear reactors here on earth where an antineutrino is created to counterbalance the electron produced by “regular” beta decay.)

A proton and a neutron will stick together. In fact this is hydrogen-2 or deuterium. Or rather, it’s a deuterium nucleus, known as a deuteron. (And yes, the joke is that the study of deuterons is known as deuteronomy.)

This beta decay at exactly the right time is a very rare event. And this is a good thing! Consider all those protons slam-dancing at 17 million degrees K for billions of years. If this event wasn’t rare, they’d be used up quickly rather than the supply lasting for billions of years. It’s not as if hydrogen is in a fuel tank until the sun is ready to burn it. No, it’s sitting on the fire, and has been sitting on the fire all along. It’s just that it’s burning very, very slowly.

The average survival time of a lone proton in the center of the sun is nine billion years. Yet it collides with a lot of protons at the temperature and pressure at the core of the Sun.

This was all outlined by Hans Bethe in 1939, at a Nobel lecture he gave.

The next step is for the deuteron to glom onto another proton. This takes, on average, about a second. The result is a helium-3 nucleus, two protons and one neutron.

After an average time of 400 years, two helium-3 nuclei will collide, and the result will be one helium-4 nucleus, and two freed-up protons, ready for another nine billion years on average of bachelorhood.

Six protons in, two protons out, plus one helium nucleus, plus gamma rays, plus two neutrinos. And a lot of energy. This is called the proton-proton chain.

Bethe also outlined another process, which involves four protons being added to carbon nuclei successively, with a couple of beta decays along the way, until an oxygen nucleus is created, which then spits out an alpha particle and reverts back to being the original carbon nucleus. This method is called the carbon-nitrogen-oxygen chain, or CNO chain, and it nets a helium-4 nucleus after consuming four protons.

It turns out that in stars more massive than the sun, this is the dominant mode. The temperatures are high enough to support it more readily than the proton-proton chain.

I’m now going to jump ahead to the modern understanding rather than going through the detailed history of how it was hashed out.

We know, now, that intergalactic gas consists of about three quarters hydrogen and one quarter helium. This gas is hot enough to radiate in X rays, but we can analyze the spectra.

There is only a trace of lithium in this gas, maybe a tiny bit of beryllium, and absolutely nothing else.

This is gas that was never part of a star. This is the original composition of the universe. [At least, as far as ordinary matter goes…but THAT is a future story.]

All of the “metals” we see today have to have come from somewhere. And indeed stars made them.

Because fusing hydrogen to helium isn’t the only way stars can make energy.

The Life of A Star

So let’s walk through this.

A cloud of (mostly) hydrogen gas…a very big cloud, trillions of miles across…contracts under its own gravity. As it contracts, it heats up (just like any other gas). But that’s no problem, gravity continues to crunch the cloud down.

The only thing that will stop the contraction is an equal but opposite pressure coming from the inside of the cloud. The pressure from the cloud depends on its size, a smaller cloud has less mass, less gravitation, and less pressure, so it will take less of this hypothetical internal pressure to get it to stop contracting.

I called it a hypothetical internal pressure, but it’s actually real. As the pressure and temperature at the center of the cloud go up, the hydrogen gas loses its electrons, the protons start slamming into each other, and at a temperature somewhat lower than at the center of the sun, some nuclear fusion begins to occur. If it’s a small cloud, that releases enough energy to heat the core up enough to stop the contraction. A bigger cloud will continue to contract, raising the temperature higher, to the point where more fusion happens, and then finally a balance is struck.

This balance is when the star becomes a well behaved, ordinary star, and it is now a “main sequence” star.

The main sequence is where all the hydrogen-burning stars go.

When I say “more fusion happens” I mean that more fusion happens for each ton of the star’s mass. In other words, it burns its fuel faster.

The bigger the star, the faster it burns its fuel, not just in absolute terms but in proportion to its mass. Bigger stars thus live much shorter lives than smaller ones.

It happens they are also a lot rarer than small stars.

One star in ten million is an O type star. These are 15 – 90 times as massive as the sun, but they are anywhere from 30,000 to a million times as luminous. If a star 90 times the size of the sun burns its fuel a million times as fast…well, you can see that it’s going to run out about 10000 times faster. Indeed they live only a few million years. Almost every O type star that has ever existed is long gone.

On the other end of the scale are the M type stars. About 75 percent of all stars are M type main sequence stars (at least, judging from the stars near the Sun). They are anywhere from 8% to 57% the mass of the sun, but even the biggest ones emit 7% of the light of the Sun. (The smallest emits 0.03% the light of the sun.) They’re cool and consequently reddish; they’re called “red dwarfs”.

(Red dwarfs may be 75 percent of all stars, but if you step outside at night and look up, you won’t see any red dwarfs. They’re simply too faint to be seen by the naked eye. The nearest star to us (other than the Sun, of course) is a red dwarf and cannot be seen without a telescope. This is not to say that you won’t see red stars…but those will be red giants. Which I’ll get to below.)

Red dwarf stars are long lived. It is estimated that one 16% the mass of the sun will last 2.5 trillion years. That’s an estimate, of course, because no one has seen one die. The universe isn’t even 1/100 th that age yet. Every red dwarf that has ever formed is still with us. (Even a “big” red dwarf 57% the mass of the sun should last at least 30 billion years, also older than the universe.)

OK, this is well and good. We have a pretty thorough description here of how hydrogen is made into helium. But not only is it still bottled up in a star…it’s also still not metals.

Remember that the material of the universe originally contained no metals, except maybe a smidge of lithium and beryllium. Yet we have these elements today…if not, you wouldn’t be reading this and I’d never have written it, because we would not exist.

Where did the metals come from? If they come from stars, how do they get out of the stars?

Well we need to follow this story further. (Kids, stop asking “are we there yet?” after every paragraph.)

What happens when a star runs out of hydrogen fuel?

It depends on the star. Those tiny red dwarfs, less than 25% the mass of the sun, are simply done. They shrink until the only thing holding them up is the mutual repulsion of the electrons. At this point they weigh maybe a million tons per cubic meter. They’re very hot, but that’s residual heat that slowly radiates away–no new energy is being created. Because they’re hot–hotter than they were as living stars, they are now known as white dwarfs, and are approximately the size of the Earth. Sirius B is a notable example of a white dwarf (I talked about it in one of my “stars” articles).

But wait.

Didn’t I say that no M stars had died yet? If so how do we have white dwarfs?

Because bigger stars also become white dwarfs. They take a more indirect route, but get there faster.

Stars bigger than 25 percent the mass of the sun follow a different path when they run out of hydrogen. They also begin to contract once again, but the temperatures in their interiors climb a lot higher.

They climb high enough, to 100 million K, that helium begins to fuse, three nuclei at a time, into carbon. (This is called the triple alpha process, because the three helium nuclei are three alpha particles.)

This happens at much higher temperatures. Under all of this heat the star expands. It gets downright bloated.

When the sun hits this phase it will probably bloat enough to swallow the earth.

That huge surface is actually rather cool for a star, it’s a hundred million miles (or more, for bigger stars) away from the raging inferno where carbon is being made.

The star is a giant, but it is red, hence the name “red giant.” It puts out a LOT more light than a red dwarf, in fact it puts out much more light than it did before. That pushes it up out of the “main sequence” and into the territory of the “giant” stars, to the top and right of that Hertzsprung-Russel diagram. These are giants in size, not mass…they’re no more massive than main sequence stars.

Helium converting to carbon produces less energy, kilogram for kilogram, than does hydrogen fusing to helium. Yet the giant star doing so must produce more energy to produce all that heat that makes it bloat.

In other words, all that helium “ash” from the hydrogen fusion, is going to itself be burned much faster than the hydrogen was. The star will get hot enough to do so, because it seeks balance.

Red giant phases don’t last very long compared to the time the star spent on the main sequence, happily burning their birthright of hydrogen.

If the star is the size of the sun, this is the end of the line. During this phase the star is a bit unstable, and may blow off some of its outer layers, producing a “planetary nebula” (called that because they used to be mistaken for planets in telescopes), and so a star like this might return some of the carbon it produced to space. But then the star dies, and it shrinks into a white dwarf. This white dwarf will contain carbon in it–a lot of carbon, but it does no good; it’s stuck in the white dwarf.

Of course, now when stars are formed from gas that already has metal in it, they return some of that too, but that’s not where that stuff came from. So where did it come from?

Big Stars are Metal Factories–complete with a shipping department.

Kids, we’re not there yet.

Stars considerably larger than the Sun, when they run out of helium in their cores, start to fuse the carbon. Again, this is at even higher temperatures. And again, this is a diminishing return. Less energy from the fusion, with a higher temperature having to be maintained, means this phase is short.

Also, around the core there is still some helium, and even the layers immediately outside the core are hot enough to fuse helium to helium, making more carbon, or helium to carbon making oxygen.

The star turns into a giant onion, each layer going inwards making bigger and bigger nuclei, and this (at last) is where all the good stuff forms, all the elements up to iron, in point of fact the elements that make up us.

Cooked in the centers of massive stars.

The only thing we need to close the loop, now, is to explain how all that stuff gets out of the stars. That would explain where all the metals that already exist in the Sun came from. Somehow, those metals were made in long-dead massive stars, then ended up in the cloud that contracted to form the Sun.

So here it is. The massive star eventually has a core of silicon, and there’s not enough other stuff in the core (though there is in layers surrounding the core) to keep going. The star heats up again, and commences to fuse the silicon into iron.

There are vast amounts of silicon in there, many times the weight of the earth.

The star rips through it in a day. Yes, a day.

It now has a core made of iron.

And now it cannot make energy any more. Because fusing iron consumes energy.

So the core collapses.

There’s a bit of a rebound effect. I say a bit. That rebound is actually one of the biggest explosions there is, a “core collapse supernova.”

The explosion is so bright, it outshines the other 100 billion (or so) stars in that galaxy, for a few weeks.

The last time one of these happened in our galaxy where we could see it was in the 1600s, just before the invention of the telescope, and the supernova was visible during the daytime.

Supermassive stars live fast and die hard. Bruce Willis has nothing on them.

That big explosion flings vast quantities of all the stuff the star has been brewing out into space, later to coalesce into new stars…and planets. And in the case of some star that blew itself to bits over four and a half billion years ago, the stuff eventually made us.

In the process, a lot of neutrons are created, and glom onto existing atoms, making heavier atoms, and until recently, it was believed that even gold, lead, and uranium were primarily produced this way. What an image: all the gold in your jewelry was once hurtling through space at a tenth the speed of light, blasted out of the guts of a star bigger than the sun.

What a pretty story. So pretty a lot of people like to say “we are made of star stuff.”

It is a fact that we owe our very existence to the death of big stars. Our bodies are made of atoms flung from their funeral pyres.

The Neutrinos Prove It

What’s the evidence?

There’s a lot of evidence, in fact, including the composition of nebulae (gas clouds), and especially the nebulae that have been blown out of supernovae. Stellar compositions are the evidence that started the whole thing, but shouldn’t be forgotten. A lot of “little things” all consistent with this framework.

But I want to focus on neutrinos.

In fact, this is why I undertook this whole damn series.

I wanted to talk about neutrinos. And connect them to stars…remember I talked about stars in the two science posts before this series. I was going to tie the smallest known particle of matter to the biggest discrete objects out there: stars (galaxies and galaxy clusters are bigger, but they don’t strike us as being objects but rather groups of objects).

But they are so ghostly, so non-reactive, that I would need to really justify their existence and tell the story of how they were discovered. And that entailed yet more background. I was going to just explain how they solved some problems with conservation laws…but then that meant I needed to explain those.

I thought maybe I’d write four parts. Then the doggone thing took on a life of its own. It ended up being twenty parts before I got to neutrinos. And another two before I connected them to stars.

So here I finally am.

One of the most important pieces of evidence that stars are, indeed, fusing hydrogen into helium, and so on as appropriate, is the neutrinos.

Those two protons coming together to make a deuteron, release a positron and a neutrino in the accompanying beta decay. This means that IF nuclear fusion powers stars, then ordinary stars are sources of neutrinos, and that most definitely includes our sun.

But also, a supernova, a dying star, gigantic numbers of neutrinos all at once in the fury of nuclear reactions going on all at once in the explosion–the reactions that give us all those heavy elements, elements heavier than iron.

There was a supernova of this kind 168,000 years ago in the Large Magellanic Cloud. The light reached us in 1987. A star known as Sanduleak -69 202 had just died.

It is estimated that this supernova released 1058 neutrinos. All at once.

I’ve thrown some big numbers at you over the course of this series, but that number is staggering. I’m not going to pretend to imagine how much that is.

Divide it by a trillion…it’s still 1046. Still a staggeringly huge number beyond our experience. And a hundred billion billion times as much as that ridiculously huge number I used for the power output of the sun.

If you had been a billion miles from that star when it blew up, here’s what you would have seen. The neutrinos hitting almost instantly–they were made in the core at the moment of the explosion but just zipped right on through everything. Then the light, actually delayed by all that matter being blasted out. Then the matter would have reached you as a blast wave to end all blast waves.

Except that you wouldn’t have seen the light or the matter, because you’d have been killed instantly by the neutrinos. There were so many of them that even at their ridiculously low likelihood of interacting with you rather than passing right on through, enough of them would have interacted with you to kill you instantly from the radiation.

It’s estimated that the light from the explosion–which, remember, outshines billions of stars–is one percent of the energy contained from the actual material blast. And that is one percent of the energy carried off by the neutrinos.

The light, bright enough to be seen from earth that far away (one of the first people to see the supernova was an astronomer at a major observatory in the Andes, outside taking a smoke break; he noticed that the Large Magellanic Cloud had a “new” star in it), was a sideshow.

So why are the neutrinos from the sun and exploding blue supergiants such a big deal?

Because we can detect neutrinos. And therefore, if we don’t see these neutrinos, something is wrong with our theory.

Large tanks of water, deep underground in mines so that nothing can get to them other than neutrinos, can be surrounded by flash detectors, which will register a hit every now and again. We can even tell, from the direction of motion of the products of the reaction, what direction the neutrinos came from. (And it’s a neutrino detector–we don’t have to wait for daytime or nighttime, it runs 24/7, and it doesn’t matter whether the sun or the supernova is “up” or not.

Twenty five neutrinos (a big signal for neutrinos) were detected from the supernova.

More importantly, these tanks have been detecting neutrinos from the Sun for years. That is a sure sign that nuclear fusion is happening there. And, they are of precisely the energy one would expect from the creation of deuterium from regular hydrogen.

There was just one hitch, with regard to the Sun’s neutrinos. We can calculate, from the power output of the sun, how many fusion reactions must be happening each second inside the sun, because we know how much energy each individual reaction releases. (It’s a geek’s story problem.) That gives us the number of neutrinos. We can figure out how many of them must be going through the detectors. And we know how likely it is that any given neutrino will be stopped inside the detector, letting us detect it. In other words, we know how many neutrinos should be detected coming from the sun, on average, during a given time period.

The number we detected was 1/3rd as much as it should be.

Ah, well, you solve one mystery (what makes the sun and other stars shine?) and you get presented with another mystery (where are the neutrinos?).

This is science moving forward.

And now, I think, I’m going to continue this series, even though it has reached the original planned conclusion.

I’m going to step from the neutrino, to something very, very big….much bigger than stars.

And then I’ll tell the story of that missing third…but that’s going to take a few installments.

Bonus Stuff

You put out more energy than the sun…sort of

The core of the Sun is at 17 million K, but what is its energy density?

How much energy is being generated in each cubic meter? The very high temperature has no bearing on this; some particular cubic meter of the sun stays at 17 million K because its surroundings are at that temperature. Heat leaks out of the core only where it meets the higher layers of the Sun. In fact it takes tens of thousands of years for a photon in the sun’s core to make it to the surface.

Energy density is how much energy is generated per…kilogram or cubic meter depending. Gasoline has a higher energy density than car batteries (even the ones for electric cars), for instance.

The energy density of the core of the sun turns out to be…wait for it…about 276.5 watts per cubic meter.

That is not a typo. Yes, we think of the core of the sun as a raging inferno, because there’s a lot of energy trapped in there. But as to how much new energy it generates every second, it’s actually quite sparse.

YOU produce 100-150 Watts just sitting on your butt reading this (more if you’re scratching your head really hard), because you have to keep your body temperature above room temperature. And your volume is a LOT less than a cubic meter. In other words, you generate more energy than a same-sized piece of the Sun’s core.

In fact a cubic meter of compost generates about the same amount of power as a cubic meter of sun’s core. (It just can’t do it for billions of years, so no, the sun isn’t a big compost heap.)

The reason the sun puts out so much power is that the core of the Sun is huge, roughly 200,000 miles across. That is a lot of cubic meters!!

So where did the gold come from?

I alluded to the belief that gold primarily came out of supernovas being an “until recently” sort of thing. So what’s the current theory? Core collapse supernovas leave behind either (for stars a couple of times more massive than the sun) a neutron star) or (very massive stars) a black hole.

What is a neutron star? It’s almost the ultimate collapse. It is what happens when even electron-to-electron repulsion can’t stop a star from collapsing, and the star doesn’t stop collapsing at white dwarf levels. Much of the star in a supernova gets blown away, but the remainder is usually much more massive than the sun. That remnant collapses. The electrons are forced into the nuclei, and combine with the protons to make neutrons. The entire remnant becomes one big ball of neutrons, with maybe a surface layer of white dwarf-style matter. The entire mass of the thing ends up in a ball perhaps ten miles across, weighing billions of tons per teaspoon.

When two of these neutron stars happen to collide–perhaps because two massive stars both went supernova and the neutron stars eventually lost all of their orbital energy to gravitational waves and then collided with each other–a lot of neutron debris splashes out there, decays and becomes heavy atoms, like gold. Entire earth-masses of gold are produced in this way and scattered across the cosmos. Now that we have observed neutron star collisions, we realize that most of the really heavy elements out there came from neutron star collisions, not from supernovae.

Obligatory PSAs and Reminders

China is Lower than Whale Shit

Remember Hong Kong!!!

Whoever ends up in the cell next to his, tell him I said “Hi.”

中国是个混蛋 !!!
Zhōngguò shì gè hùndàn !!!
China is asshoe !!!

China is in the White House

Since Wednesday, January 20 at Noon EST, the bought-and-paid for His Fraudulency Joseph Biden has been in the White House. It’s as good as having China in the Oval Office.

Joe Biden is Asshoe

China is in the White House, because Joe Biden is in the White House, and Joe Biden is identically equal to China. China is Asshoe. Therefore, Joe Biden is Asshoe.

But of course the much more important thing to realize:

Joe Biden Didn’t Win

乔*拜登没赢 !!!
Qiáo Bài dēng méi yíng !!!
Joe Biden didn’t win !!!

DEAR KAG: 20211022

“Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add ‘within the limits of the law’ because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.”

Thomas Jefferson

Welcome back! Wolf’s Pub is open for business, and it’s a smart crowd we have today…and every day.

Today I honor my son-in-law, a hard-working and all-around great guy who happens to have had a birthday yesterday. Though he’s a Scotch man, he also enjoys gin, and his favorite is Bombay, that iconic British gin that was launched in 1960 but has roots in the 18th century.

Now, I’m a Beefeaters partisan, but Bombay is more than acceptable. Here’s a history of gin in general, and then here’s a nice little riff about the original Bombay gin. It’s a lovely and smooth gin, wonderful with tonic or in a Gimlet or Martini.

As I’ve noted before, gin puts me in a nice cellophane bubble. And honest-to-God, the times we are living in is enough to drive the best of us to find refuge in a bubble. Now, it’s okay to pop into a bubble on occasion, so let’s enjoy a Bombay gin in whatever cocktail we prefer. The bar is open, the company is stellar, and I heard there’s some appetizers floating around somewhere.

POPPING THE CELLOPHANE BUBBLE

“Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves.”

Abraham Lincoln

It’s time. We’re not gonna take it anymore. Klaus Baby and his CCP attack dogs have underestimated the American people. Our DNA cannot be corrupted. It’s 100% Grade A FREEDOM. Fauci can stuff it.

Do you remember when Tipper Gore and her sidekick, Al, went after rock music? Here’s a little history. Fun to watch Dee Snider take those POS to the cleaners.

Here’s the full hearing in Congress with Dee Snider. In light of what is happening today, I am soundly on the side of Twisted Sister. 😊

This is how we take them on. They deserve to be mocked and ridiculed and outed as the insufferable tyrants they are. Snider had it right.

HOUSE RULES

I feel very little obligation to give the time of day to our foreign and domestic enemies. They will see justice. We will not forget. Every big business that fired one of us for choosing to remain unvaxxed will be remembered. Every business that forced their employees to be masked and vaxxed will be remembered. Every doctor and nurse and hospital that pushed the deadly Covid protocol and denied therapeutics to patients will be remembered.

It is not going to go well for any of them.

This is America. And we are a genial and friendly lot. We have a long fuse. We forgive easily. We do our best to be polite and open-minded, just like here at the Qtree. Wolf’s rules are helpful to review.

But there comes a time when blatant evil and greed must be confronted. The Utree is just such the place to confront others. It’s also a place to reconvene when the enemies of mankind attack us here. We make nice here and we make war over at the Utree.

THEY SEEK TO DEMORALIZE OUR CHILDREN

I went Christmas shopping the other day. The scuttlebutt is that the shelves will be empty and stock low for the holiday season. I wanted to get a jump on it. Here’s a few of the ways that the enemies of our people seek to corrupt our children and shove their attacks in our face.

Let’s concentrate on dolls. First, note the eyes in the following dolls. Unnaturally large and vacant. There’s even dolls that have crossed out eyes, as if the doll is dead or almost like a zombie.

Fishnet stockings and a corset???

Notice the little doll that looks hypnotized or traumatized.

Have you noticed the fishnet stockings and corset on the little girl figure?

I wonder if there is some significance to the dots we can see reflected in the dolls’ eyes?

The features and clothes and expressions are all…off. It seems subtle until you actually take a moment to really study these toys. Degradation. Sexualization. Objectification.

Tip of the iceberg.

Just take a stroll down the toy isles. The occult is staring us in the face. It’s everywhere. Zombie dolls. Transhumanism, cyborgs, and on and on.

Walk through the kid section at a bookstore. There is more about witchcraft there than in the adult section.

IT’S TIME

“Cowardice is the most terrible of vices.”

Mikhail Bulgakov

We all know it. This cannot continue. We have to get involved. I’m going to begin raising a stink with the retailers like Walmart who carry these toys. The toys and the ideology behind them are disgusting and anti-human.

What shall I say?

They are designed to demoralize and corrupt our children, to hand them over to the devil. Parents in our public schools are also aware of what is going on with the curriculum. Our precious children are being taught Critical Race Theory (CRT) and introduced to perverted sex, and their parents are being attacked by our own government for opposing the evil teaching. Children are being taught to look at everything through a godless, satanic and communist lens.

I’ve decided I’m going to make a stink. I’d rather sit in my garden, but in all good conscience, I cannot.

ODDS AND ENDS

Lots of stuff going on.

The Battle for Your Brain

The Propane Market Armageddon?

OSHA seeks to stop employers from reporting jab side effects

Precinct strategy now has state groups

The Army does a piss-poor job of propagandizing its troops

Used computers sold here (great for Linux newbies)

John Lovell gives some great advice on how to take our country back:

The New Normal Purge

Help to cancel the spike protein



#FJB

Small victories…

I decided to make this a stand-alone post, because I wanted everyone to see it.

You may have seen my discussion here with Wolf in his post yesterday, about a supplement called nattokinase, but if not, here it is:

Aubergine

AubergineOnline Coyote October 20, 2021 10:20

This is a natural fibrinolytic. Maybe this could be a treatment, too? It’s called nattokinase.

https://explore.globalhealing.com/nattokinase/ 6 Reply

Wolf Moon

Wolf MoonOffline Author Wolf Reply to  Aubergine October 20, 2021 12:32

Same as above. Probably active. WHERE it’s active is important. Use with caution, because depends on the patient and what exactly is being treated and why. But I do think that the known mechanism will launch a bunch of drug opportunities at all levels. 2 Reply

Aubergine

AubergineOnline Coyote Reply to  Wolf Moon October 20, 2021 12:50

Well, part of the reason I am so partial to “natural” and herbal remedies is there are generally FAR fewer side effects and contraindications. There are some, of course, but way less than pharmaceuticals. Nattokinase is derived from a food source. If you wouldn’t have a bad reaction to the food, then the derivative is unlikely to hurt you.

When a person is at death’s door, I think it is time to throw the kitchen sink at the illness. 5 Reply

Wolf Moon

Wolf MoonOffline Author Wolf Reply to  Aubergine October 20, 2021 12:56

The reason why the safest off-label drugs (like HCQ and ivermectin) are employable “hail Mary” drugs is the same – unlikely to cause a fatal reaction even if “wrong”. And I would say this makes these drugs more “tryable” LONG before “death’s door”.

The window of “tryability” should be directly or even exponentially proportional to safety. 3 Reply

Aubergine

AubergineOnline Coyote Reply to  Wolf Moon October 20, 2021 13:00

AGREED!

And you know, ivermectin and HCQ were both derived from naturally occurring sources.

God gave us what we need in most cases. We just have to find it. 10 Reply

Wolf Moon

Wolf MoonOffline Author Wolf Reply to  Aubergine October 20, 2021 13:16

THE FORCE that becomes FORCES
THE FORCES that become THINGS
THE THINGS that become LIFE
THE LIFE that becomes KNOWLEDGE
THE COMPUTER that BUILDS ITSELF
From a BLUEPRINT it tries to DISCOVER

And – if some theories are correct – an infinite number of different universes that never worked that way.

*exploding head emoji*

BE IMPRESSED! 3 Reply

Aubergine

AubergineOnline Coyote Reply to  Wolf Moon October 20, 2021 18:17

Lol, I am!

__________________________________

In a related story, I have been trying to help, through a friend, a woman who was hospitalized for Covid. I mentioned it here; she is the one who was unvaxxed and told by the doctor that “you didn’t take the vaccine, so now you get to die.” The person I am in contact with is her daughter, who is her advocate.

Apparently, Mom has a better doctor now who is at least willing to listen. I sent the information about the nattokinase to daughter yesterday, with information about its utility against clots, and a study about fibrin clotting in Covid. I warned her the doctor might want to use a pharmaceutical instead of a natural product to be more aggressive.

https://www.webmd.com/vitamins-and-supplements/nattokinase-uses-and-risks

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.10.12.464152v1.full.pdf

Today I got a message that she is being given a “new” drug, only the fourth person in the hospital to get it. The second person who received it went home yesterday. It’s called Baricitinib:

https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/coronavirus-covid-19-update-fda-authorizes-drug-combination-treatment-covid-19

According to the above, they are administering this with Remdesivir, which I hope does not happen in my friend’s case. However, the interesting part of this is that baricitinib is a janus kinase inhibitor. Well, lo and behold, nattokinase:

“In vivo, the level of cyclic Adenosine Monophosphate (cAMP) and the pathway of the Janus Kinase1/Signal Transducers and Activators of Transcription1 (JAK1/STAT1) were studied……Results showed that Nattokinase (NK) significantly increased the cAMP level, activated the signal passage of JAK1/STAT1 in injured part and inhibited remarkably the rise of platelet intracellular Ca(2+) ([Ca(2+)]i) in human platelet.”

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25446567/

So it seems the doctor may have listened after all, but decided on the pharmaceutical instead of the natural. Fine by me, I hope it works.

Also interesting? Baricitinib is used for rheumatoid arthritis, just like hydroxychloroquine!

Given the above, I will have nattokinase on hand as part of my “defensive arsenal.” My hope is none of us here are ever at the mercy of a hospital or doctor. Having the natto on hand seems like another way to avoid it.

(added by Wolf)

Health Matters of Various Kinds

TL;DR –

Wolf needs to take care of health matters – both HIS and THE SITE’S. This should not significantly impact things here in the short term, and in the long term, it will improve things. However, this means that Wolf’s appearances on the site will be even more unpredictable than they already have been.

The remainder of this post is just a vague and largely unnecessary explanation of the matters.

My Health

First of all, I have greatly appreciated Duchess01‘s various prayers for bakocarl and myself! These prayers have been very effective.

I also appreciate all the other people who have been praying for me, both here and on Marica’s site! God Bless you and thank you!

One of the most important results of these prayers was to convince me to do needed things, instead of putting them off ONE MORE DAY WEEK MONTH YEAR.

And because GOD wants things to move, THEY’RE MOVING.

Thus, because I’ll need to spend time doing all of the ridiculous things that being healthy entails these days, particularly when dealing with the healthcare system, you will see me a bit less during “office hours”.

Know that I’m still around – I may just be coming around at different times.

Site Health

It turns out that we are having some kind of growing pains. Because of that, I’m going to have to increase the percentage of BUDGET that is going for RENT instead of being stashed into the RAINY DAY FUND.

We will remain IN THE BLACK.

However, we need a bigger condo, or even a single-family abode.

I will thus be spending MORE TIME setting up those things, too.

Wish me luck!

JP’s Magnesium

I have to put in a free plug for a magnesium supplement called Magnesium Breakthrough, which I learned about HERE:

At the end of the video, JP talks about this new magnesium supplement he is fronting. As a certified acolyte of Mg, the element that saved me from long haul, I am a fan of this stuff already. Yes, this stuff which I will admit I have never purchased nor tried. No – I have not tried this particular supplement, but I have been pushing Mg supplementation for the last 2 years, and this stuff looks pricey but good.

Here is why I’m super-convinced.

Let’s look more closely at that label, shall we?

Yes, there is Vitamin B6 and manganese in there, too, but the kicker is that there are so MANY of those fancy, super-bioavailable forms of magnesium, that they crammed into there.

If this shit got any more boutique, they would have to serve you champagne and hors d’oeuvres while shopping.

I could argue that many if not most of these niche forms of magnesium are the same basic type of chelated magnesium as “Magnesium Chelate” (top of the list). In my opinion, there’s not a massive difference in bioavailability between them, although YOUR BIOCHEMISTRY MAY VARY.

However, Sucrosomial Magnesium Oxide is different, and it has been proven to be highly bioavailable, which is uncommon for ANY form of magnesium oxide. It’s even more bioavailable than some of the chelates, which is startling.

LINK 1: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29630135/

LINK 2: https://www.maypro.com/products/sucrosomial-magnesium-a-source-of-magnesium-oxide-with-superior-bioavailability

And with 7 different kinds of magnesium, (a) something is going to work great for you, and (b) they are all going to max out at different times, with different half-lives, so you are going to get a nice spread in the availability. I use 3 kinds already – 7 is surely even better.

Just don’t turn it up to 11, JP!!!

SO – bottom line – if you’re thinking about upping your magnesium, you may want to check this “Magnesium Breakthrough” stuff out.

I guarantee it’s better than “Vaccine Breakthrough” – or “your money back”!!! LOL!

And with that – I bid you all a great Thursday. STAY HEALTHY. I will be doing it, too!

W

LINK: https://balchem.com/human-nutrition-health/hnh-products/albion-minerals/magnesium/