The Bible Should Be Taught In School

One of my liberal friends, who contends she is a good Christian (and I have no reason to doubt her claim) said that all republicans do is play on fear. I explained a couple weeks ago how she is right, that fear did create Trump. In fact, we can go further back in time and say that the entire premise of the Bible is that we must "fear" the Lord. My point here is that fear is good. Fear keeps people safe. Fear is what causes people to be prepared.

This kind of reminds me of a another post I wrote a while back. FDR was famous for the quote, "There is nothing to fear except fear itself." I explained how this was not actually a good quote.  A better quote would be, "There is nothing to fear except not being prepared." Imagine if Americans were not so confident during the roaring 20s and, to at least some extent, feared a crash.  If that had happened, then more Americans would have been prepared, thus making themselves resistant to any crash.

I explained to my friend that there is nothing more important than teaching God in school. She said she sees no need for it. I explained that, if God were taught in school, it would cost about half of what it does today. If God was taught in school, if the Bible was taught in school, costly regulations would not be needed to save the environment.

I can say this because the Bible teaches that God created mankind, and God told mankind to take care of the planet, and take care of the beasts on the planet. He said that those who take care of the fig tree shall bear the fruit of that tree. He taught people to be good to one another. He taught people to be prepared and to fear the Lord. He taught people to resist evil and resist the Devil. By doing these things, a person will get to Heaven, which is eternal euphoria.

Until the 1960s, when the department of education was created, parents and teachers controlled what kids learned. A majority wanted their children to learn about the Bible. The cost of education was very little, and the results were great and mighty.

Amid an experiment, liberals decided they could make a great educational system better. So they took away parental and teacher rights and gave eight people in Washington the power to control what kids learned. These eight people decided that God was not needed in school.

This is what made it necessary to teach that theories are real. For instance, this is why they have to teach that global warming is real, even though evidence refutes the basis of it. This is why they have to work to hard to teach kids respect and responsibility, because they did not have access to Biblical teachings.

Teach the Bible and you don't need to create laws to force people to be good  Teach the Bible and progressivism, liberalism, socialism, fascism, Marxism, will not be needed. But, then again, I can see why a liberal wouldn't want the Bible taught, because the Bible teaches capitalism.

A problem with federally funded schools is that parents have no choice but to send their kids to them, or at least this is true for most parents. They do have a choice, but when that choice is between spending thousands on a Christian education and nothing on a public education, this isn't really much of a choice. Most parents are forced to send their kids to the secular public schools.

Truly, the only way to get the Bible back in school is to get rid of the department of education and give the states the right to control what kids are taught. Once the people have power over education again, parents and teachers can decide what kids learn. This system worked for the first 184 years of our country's existence. It will work again.

So, fear is good. The Bible plays on fear in order to encourage people to be good. By inculcating Biblical values to all kids, whether they are at home or in school, will make the world a better place.

Further reading:

• God created capitalism
• Is God liberal or conservative?
• Pope Francis wrong about capitalism

How to defeat an atheist

One of the most difficult choices we can make as humans is to believe in God. There are simply so many people who have chosen not to believe in him for one reason or another, and many of them work hard to try to pull you away from God. So what do you do in the face of such challenges? What do you say? 

Here is a list of some of the things people might say to challenge your faith, and what you may consider saying to them.

1.  Science proves God does not exist.  Einstein believed in God, and said that he saw no reason why God and science cannot co-exist. He said, "Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind."

2.  Well, Einstein found the Bible Primitive, Childish.  That's because the Bible IS primitive and childish. That's just how people wrote back then. It was allegorical. 

3.  Nobody lives the way the Bible preaches. No person lives completely by their Faith, which is why we have forgiveness. For example Chris Kyle had Faith and he carried the Bible with him, but he did not read from it every day

4.  The Bible is not historically accurate. Actually, whether you believe in God or not, the Bible is one of the most significant historical documents ever written. I have read many history books where the Bible is used as a reference to paint a picture of the era in which it was written.

5.  The Bible is not factual.  Christians believe everything in the Bible is true.  If everything in the Bible is true, does this mean that Christians have to choose between science and the Bible.  The key to understanding the Bible is to understand the difference between truth and fact.  Simply put, something can be truthful without being factual.  For example, if you are trying to download a large file onto your computer and it is taking a long time, you might say that it is "taking a million years." You would be speaking the truth: the file is taking a long time to download.  Figurative language such as this communicates truth without relying totally on facts.  We say that as Christians, we believe everything in the Bible is true.  What we mean is that the Bible teaches us, without error, the truth about God.  Although the Bible does contain historical information, the authors of the Bible were not primarily concerned with historical or scientific facts.  Their goal was to teach the truth about God.

6.  Science proves that God could not have created the world in seven days.  The first creation story in the Book of Genesis is true, although it does not attempt to teach scientific facts.  It teaches us truths about God and his relationship with creation, such as: God is the author of all creation, God brings order out of chaos, human beings are created in God's image, and everything God created is good. As Christians, we can learn from what scientists are teaching us about creation and, at the same time, learn from the Book of Genesis about the religious truth of Creation. Besides, God actually created the world over six eras.

7.  Adam could not have lived 930 years.   Once again, you have to consider the era in which the Bible was written.  People back then never even considered the idea of keeping track of a person's time in this world.  When the Bible says that Adam lived to be 930 years old, it is teaching the religious truth that he lived a long life, which is a sign of God's blessing. 

8.  The story of Noah could not have happened.  Actually, there is historical evidence of a great flood that wiped out much of the population of the world that then existed.  So this story is based on this historical fact.  However, the story of Noah teaches the truth that we drown in sin and only those who obey God's voice are saved. 

9.  Jonah could not have lived in a fish.  The story of Jonah is true: when you say no to God's will, you will find yourself in darkness. You see, much of the Bible is told allegorically.  This was simply how people wrote back then.  

10.  The entire old testament is poppycock.  Look, again, don't be concerned with historical fact or scientific fact when reading the Old Testament.  What you should be concerned with is learning the truth about God.  Remember, everything in the Bible is true.  After all, God has given us his Word.

Who gets to Heaven?

Whether you get to Heaven is between you and God.  So it doesn't matter what I think, nor what I assume.  However, it appears to me that not all people who believe will get to Heaven.

So what does the Bible say about Heaven and who will get there.  The answer comes from Psalm 15, or a Psalm of David, "Who Shall Abide in God’s Sanctuary?"  David asked: "O Lord, who may abide in your tent? Who may dwell on your holy hill?"

The Lord answers: 

"Those who walk blamelessly, and do what is right, and speak the truth from their heart; who do not slander with their tongue, and do no evil to their friends, nor take up a reproach against their neighbors; in whose eyes the wicked are despised, but who honor those who fear the Lord; who stand by their oath even to their hurt; who do not lend money at interest, and do not take a bribe against the innocent. Those who do these things shall never be moved."

The subject was addressed again in John 14: 2-3.  Here,  Jesus said:

"Do not think of trouble. You believe in God. Believe in me also. In my father's house are many rooms. What I tell you is true. I will go there to prepare a place for you. Because I will prepare a place for you, I will come back for you. Where I am you will be also. You know where I am going. You also know the way"

Doubting Thomas, a friend of Jesus, said, "Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?"

To this Jesus replied, "I am the way. I am the truth. I am the life. Nobody comes to the father except by knowing me"

So the way to Heaven is to believe in Jesus and to live through Him.  The way Jesus would live is described in Psalm 14 by David.

Of course it's not possible for us to live exactly the way Jesus did, and so we all make mistakes (i.e. sins) from time to time.  Good Christians will feel guilty when they sin, and ask for forgiveness.

This brings us to 1 John 1:9, which states, "If we acknowledge our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from every wrongdoing."

We are all prophets

So God reveals himself through The Word, and The Word appeared as human flesh by the name of Jesus.  So Jesus, in dying for us, made us all prophets.  In this way, we are all -- those of us who are believers, anyway -- unprofitable servants.

Jesus shared his wisdom with the apostles, and through the Church their teachings are shared by the Bishops and the Priests.  They then share the wisdom of the Lord with all the people of the Church.

There's a better way of summing this down a bit.  Consider that in the Old Testament there are 16 books of prophets, or people who listen to the wisdom of the Lord and interpret this wisdom and share it with the people.  

There are various names for such prophets, such as revelators, seers and patriarchs.  For our purposes we will refer to them as prophets.  Some of these prophets include Adam, Abel, Seth, Noah, Zechariah, Abraham, Moses, Isaac, Jacob, Job, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Haggai, and Ezias.  

The New Testament also has prophets, such as John the Baptist, whose prophecy was that Jesus was coming.  Some listened and heard him, while others chose to ignore him. This was the case for all the prophets.  

Jesus made us all prophets.  By his Death, he made the wisdom of The Word available to all who choose to accept it via the Holy Spirit.  Some refer to prophets like us as unprofitable servants of the Lord, meaning that we share His wisdom as acts of charity.

So, your assignment, if you so choose to accept it, is to use your gifts to share the wisdom, either by your actions or your voice.

We are a Judeo-Christian nation

America is a Judeo-Christian nation.  This is important, because this is what all our laws are based on. This is what our Constitution is based on.  This is where our basic rules come from: don't lie, don't steal, don't cheat, don't covet your neighbor's wife.

It is from this that our basic values and morals come from.  It is from this that the founding fathers conceived the idea of natural rights, or those liberties that we are born with, or those liberties that were handed down from a higher power: God.

Everything that our nation was founded on is based on the fact that we are, at the core, a Judeo-Christian nation.  It is by reading the Judeo-Christian Bible that our children learn the basic values that are essential to holding this nation together.

It is from this that we learn to be kind to other people, and to respect other people.  It is from this that we learn to respect ourselves.  It is from this that we learn to take responsibility for our own actions.  It is from this that we learn to resist temptations, such as the temptation to steal, or the temptation to covet your neighbor's wife, or the temptation to consent to mutual sex before marriage.

These are all behaviors, or actions, that lead to controversies.  They are actions that the Bible preaches against in order to create a better world.

When you teach about God, when we read the Bible, we are learning the very values and morals that hold this nation together.  It is only when we get away from this does our nation start to fall apart.  It is only when you ignore the Bible do evil things happen, things that the Bible teaches are sins.

It is only when we get away from the Bible does evil occur.  Lacking a Judeo-Christian upbringing, children are more likely to have children out of wedlock. Lacking the two-parent structure, studies have confirmed (again and again) the age old suspicion that children are less likely learn the Bible, and therefore less likely to become good, honest, and productive members of society.

As a nation we have learned to tolerate such behavior.  We have learned to tolerate the fact that atheists do not want the Judeo-Christian Bible taught in public schools.  And there's this old saying: "What one generation tolerates the next embraces."

Today we tolerate households where children are brought up by only mothers. The next generation will just accept it as the way it is.  Today we tolerate abortion, yet the next generation will just accept it as the way it is.  Yesterday we tolerated atheists attempts to remove Bibles from schools, and now it is just the accepted norm.

By becoming increasingly tolerant we are becoming openly hostile to our own nation; we are becoming increasingly tolerant to the morals and values that set us up as a nation.  We have learned to tolerate, and sometimes even embrace, principles that are the antithesis of our founding principles.

Today we have learned to tolerate certain behavior because we are afraid of causing controversy, or because we want to shut them up.  We have learned to tolerate.  We have become a politically correct nation in our attempt to not make waves, or to take the path of least resistance.

Surely it sounds good when you are a teenager to marry the first person you fall in love with.  But when this happens you set yourself up for a lifetime of misery, as you do not have a job, you will not be able to provide the kind of security your child needs.  How could you?  You haven't even finished your education yet.

But more and more we have become tolerant to this sort of behavior.  Look at Bill Clinton as a perfect example.  He was married, and yet he gave in to the temptation of another woman. Chances are he did this more than once.  Because what he did was against Judeo-Christian values, it did nothing but cause controversy for Mr. Clinton.  It tarnished his reputation.

Yet for those lacking Judeo-Christian values, Mr. Clinton's actions were acceptable.  Many of the people who liked what he was doing as president simply tolerated his actions.  They said things like "that's just what men do."

The best way to reverse this trend is to start with yourself.  Live your life as Jesus would.  Read the Bible every day.  Live by the values taught by the Bible, and set a good example for others to follow.

The lesson of Zachariah.

The founding fathers did a ton of research when working to create the new nation. They wanted to make sure mistakes of the past were not repeated.  Based on this research they believed it was important, if not essential, for Americans to have an appreciation for God and His Bible.  They therefore must have been aware of the prophet Zachariah.  

Unlike the prophet Jeremiah, who received many chapters in the Bible, Zachariah received only a few pages. Therefore many children have been named after Jeremiah, and only a few after Zachariah.  So, while Jeremiah is a well known prophet, Zachariah is not a well known prophet.

Perhaps it is for this reason that the lessons of the Book of Zachariah often go unheeded, and to the detriment of societies.  Some even suspect that it was by not heeding the lessons of Zachariah might even lead to the fall of the United States of America.  

The Book of Zachariah covers a the span of time between 518-520 B.C. 

Zachariah was a prophet during a time when the Assyrians had taken over Israel, between 518 and 520 B.C.  Assyria at that time extended from the Dead Sea to the Sea of Gibraltar. The area by the Dead Sea was mushy and mostly deserted and not worth much, but the rest of the land, the land in the West, was very fertile and worth a lot. So the Assyrians had good reason to take over this land.

The Assyrians worshiped false gods, such as those of the sun and moon. The morale of the people fell to ruin, and the economy tanked.  Since the economy was in ruin, King Darius of Persia was able to easily come in and wipe out the rulers of Israel and take over the nation.  He turned the Israelites into slaves.

Zachariah was one of the few who noticed what was going on.  He understood why the land of Judah (Israel) was in such disarray. In fact, he described the destruction of the once prosperous Israel as the result of lack of morals and values. Hence, the people of Judah had gotten their priorities in the wrong order.

The Book of Zechariah says: 

The Lord Almighty told Zachariah to say to the people, "I the Lord, was angry with your ancestors, but now I say to you, 'Return to me, and I will return to you.

What he was saying was that the economy of Judah was ruined because the people started worshiping their stuff more than they worshiped Him. 

In that way, this story is similar to the story of the Tower of Babel. There the Land of God turned to ruin because the people started worshiping false gods and stuff more so than God. They put their stuff before other people. They put their stuff before work. They put their stuff before their children.They put their stuff before learning.  They put their stuff before God.  

So instead of valuing and appreciating their wives, some grew bored of them and moved on to other women.  The divorce rate spiked.  Children were now being raised in broken homes, and did not learn the values their parents once learned. Lacking a firm set of values and morals, there was no incentive to not do things for selfish gain.  Crime rose.  The economy collapsed.  This made it easy for the enemies of Islam to take over the nation of Israel. 

Yet God, through Zechariah, was telling the people of Israel that if they wanted their country back, they would have to get their priorities straight:

1. God
2. Country
3. Spouse
4. Children
5. Other people
6. Other things

The idea that Zechariah described is mentioned later in the Bible too, because the writers wanted to prevent the people of Israel from repeating the errors that lead to the decline of Israel. Matthew 5: 1-48  mentions it and so does Paul to the Corinthians (1).  The ultimate goal hear was the Biblical authors did not want people to forget the lessons learned in the Book of Zacharia. 

Zachariah said:

But my people stubbornly refused to listen. They closed their minds and made their hearts as hard as rock. Because they would not listen to the teaching which I sent through the prophets who lived long ago, I became very angry. Because they did not listen when I spoke, I did not answer when they prayed. Like a storm I swept them away to live in foreign countries. This good land was left a desolate place, with no one living in it.

And he said:

These are the things you should do: Speak the truth to one another. In the courts give real justice-- the kind that brings peace. Do not plan ways of harming one another. Do not give false testimony under oath. I hate lying, injustice, and violence. 

Yet as so often occurs, the lessons of the past are often repeated.  And the mistakes of Islam that occurred during the time of Zachariah are occurring once more in the United States, and in Europe.  

"Then the angel said, 'almighty Lord, you have been angry with Jerusalem and the cities of Judah for seventy years now. How much longer will it be before you show them mercy."

With the Lord's help, the people of Judah once again turned to Him.  They once again learned the importance of fearing God and His Bible.  Priorities were once more placed in the right order, with God as the top priority.

Then God said to His poeple: 

"So I have come back to Jerusalem to show mercy to the city. my Temple (values) will be restored, and the city will be rebuilt... The Lord has promised that he himself will be a wall of fire around the city to protect it and that he will live there in all his glory."

To the enemies of Israel, the Lord said through Zachariah:

The Lord himself will fight against you and you will be plundered by the people who were once your servants."

Zachariah said: 

"Long ago I gave these commands to my people: 'You must see that justice is done, and must show kindness and mercy to one another. Do not oppress widows, orphans, foreigners who live among you, or anyone else in need. And do not plan ways of harming one another.'"

So, as the Lord saved Israel during the time of Zachariah, he will save the nation he created that spread freedom through the land.

He said: 

Once again old men and women, so old men and women, so old that they use canes when they walk, will be sitting in the city squares. And the streets will again be full of boys and girls playing. This may seem impossible to those of the nation who are now left, but it's not impossible to me. I will rescue my people from the lands where they have been taken...

Have courage! You are now hearing the same words the prophets." You must never quit trying. You must believe. You who see what is wrong must not stop trying to change it. You must have courage.

So there is hope for returning America to it's former Glory.  There is hope for a return to unbridled American Exceptionalism.

And the idea of freedom will spread.

In those days ten foreigners will come to one Jew and say, 'We want to share in your destiny, because we have heard that God is with you.'

The first step is to return to traditional American values, which include teaching classical liberalism and the Christian Bible.   

Here's why Christians oppose gay marriage

Tensions are growing since the Supreme Court's controversial decision to make gay marriage the law of the land.  Proponents of gay marriage can still be heard celebrating, and for good reason.  Still, there are many Christians who feel the celebrations are a way of rubbing in their faces that of which they did not want to happen.  This has left many Christians questioning their faith, and why they were against gay marriage in the first place.

So, why is it we support marriage between a man and a woman, and why are we opposed to gay marriage? 

Dan Calabrese, a columnist for the North Star Writer's Group, explains why Christians don't support gay marriage in his column, "A detailed explanation of why Christians don't support gay marriage." I will use this as a reference for the following, although I will also add some of my own thoughts. 

1.  First it should be known that Christians believes that the entire Bible is the inspired Word of God. That’s why, when we cite the Bible, we treat it as authoritative.

2.  The Bible clearly defines marriage as between a man and a woman.  (Genesi 2: 23-2)(Matthew 19: 4-6)(Mark 10: 2-9)

3.  The Bible clearly sates that homosexual life is a moral sin with a penalty. Loving Christians want to see gay people spared of the pain of that penalty.  (Romans 1: 24-28)(Leviticus 20: 10-18)

4.  God is very stern with people who participate in sexual immorality. This is because when you unite with them physically you unite with them spiritually. He wants you to unite spiritually with one other person of the opposite sex of whom you are married.  (Leviticus 20: 10-18)

5. God explains that the reason for laws is for sinners, which includes sodomy (sex with an animal) and fornication (sex outside of marriage).  Timothy 1: 8-11

6.  We are all born into sin, and we are all tempted by our own desires, and we must resist these temptations to avoid the pain of punishment.  (James 1: 14-15)

7.  Liberals believe that people are born perfect and are corrupted by society.  So they believe the way to get the individual back to perfection is to do battle with society.  This explains why they battled so hard to change the definition of marriage.  

8.  Conservatives believe, as the Bible teaches, the people are born flawed, and the way to improve society is through the moral improvement of the individual.  They believe that to make society better you have to start with the individual.  

9.  Now, this is what the Bible says it is not me.  The following quote is from Calabrese.  "For the homosexual who says, “I was born this way,” I will not argue. We were all born with sinful urges of our flesh. Some struggle with anger. Some struggle with heterosexual lust. Some struggle with gluttony or addiction to alcohol. And some struggle with homosexual urges. These are our desires. They come from the flesh and they war against the spirit."

10.  "God’s desire for each person is that they will repent of those desires and surrender to Him so that He can deliver them from these urges by the power of Christ."

11.  "The Christian who loves as God loves certainly does not a hate another human being for having sinful desires of the flesh. We have them too"  So you can see that Christians love our gay brethren as all others. 

12.  Christians, however, recognize these thoughts as sinful, and so they resist the temptation.  They feel guilty when they have these thoughts.  This is God saying, "Stop!" 

13.  We must resist such sinful temptations so we can be right with God. Life is full of temptations, and every attempt at resisting them makes us a better person.  We are rewarded with blessings in our lives.  One such reward is a better society.  In other words, we make society better by resisting temptations.  

14.  The more people who resist temptations, the better society will be.  So society is made better one individual at a time. 

15.  This explains why there is a constant effort to improve the moral standard of the individual through the Church.  It is a constant battle.  We must never quit. 

Now, to tackle the modern issue of gay marriage, Calabrese said: 

I understand why some Christians struggle with this. They know a gay person, or maybe have a gay family member, and they want that person to be happy. It’s enticing to accept the “love is love” argument and to believe that surely God wants that gay person to be in a loving relationship.

But that argument wrongly conflates love with sex. There are a lot of different kinds of love. Hopefully you love a lot of people, but you only have sex with one person - the one to whom you’re married. If you want a gay person to know love in a romantic/sexual relationship, good, so do I. So I will pray that this person is delivered from those urges through the blood of Jesus so that he or she can find the mate of the opposite sex that God always intended for them to come together with.

Still, it must be added that all people have a right to choose the lifestyle the wish to live.  It must be understood, however, that Christians also have this right.  And to choose to be a Christian does not mean that we do not love and respect all our fellow men and women, all of whom we wish the best for.

Further reading:

• A detailed explanation of why Christians don't support gay marriage," by Dan Calabrese
• The Church will survive gay marriage if... National 
• Gay men blow kisses, taunting guy in ‘Ask Me About Jesus’ shirt; watch his reaction
• The Next Gay Marriage Battle: National Review

Why is the Fifth Commandment so important?

Stalin once said that, even while he believed in God, he must extricate God and his Bible from society because God teaches capitalism, and capitalism encourages individualism. Since socialism is all about giving up personal liberties for the good of the state, then Biblical teachings must be prevented.

It was for this reason that Stalin got rid of all the churches, and prevented people from learning about God.  It is also for this main reason that most all totalitarian dictatorships fight against Christianity.  Surely there might be other noted reasons for this, but the real reason is because Christianity teaches individualism, and individualism is the antithesis of state control.

The Bible, therefore, gives us all the right to choose, although it holds us accountable for our actions.  For example, a person may make the choice of taking advantage of the poor for personal gain in life, the end result will be eternal damnation.  For example, a person may sacrifice personal gain for the benefit of society, and the end result will be eternal life in peace.

So while the right choices may lead to eternal peace in Heaven, the wrong choices may doom us to eternal damnation in hell.  Yet the end result, according to the Bible, is that the greatest rewards come from the greatest individual decisions.

So you can see that it was in this way that Christianity is what ultimately lead the assimilation from totalitarianism to the creation creation of the U.S. Constitution and American Exceptionalism that followed. It was for this reason that God and His Bible remained the Cornerstone of the American educational system until the 1960s, when the state gained control of education.

There are various names for totalitarianism depending on where you live. In some countries it is called fascism, in others socialism, and still others it's communism. Here in the U.S. it was referred to as progressivism, yet when that name soured it became known as liberalism.  Liberalism is now sour, so many are referring to it as progressivism once again.

The progressives understood that if they wanted to move forth their agenda of perfecting society, they had to extricate the Bible from society.  So that is why they created the state run school system, and why they champion for the "separation of church and state."  It is in this way they prevent Biblical teachings.

So it is here where the fifth amendment comes into play.

Dennis Prager, in his column "You Don't Have to Love Your Parents: But you do have to honor them. The Ten Commandments has it right, for families and society."  He said:

“Honor your father and your mother.” 

This commandment is so important that it is one of the only commandments in the entire Bible that gives a reason for observing it:

“That your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.”

Many people read that part of the Fifth Commandment as a reward. But while it may be regarded as a reward, the fact remains that it is a reason: If you build a society in which children honor their parents, your society will long survive.

And the corollary is: A society in which children do not honor their parents is doomed to self-destruction.

In our time, this connection between honoring parents and maintaining civilization is not widely recognized. On the contrary, many of the best-educated parents do not believe that their children need to show them honor, since “honoring” implies an authority figure and that is a status many modern parents reject.

Then he adds:

Without a father and mother to honor, children lose out on having one of the most important things they can have — mothers and fathers exercising parental authority.

So, then, why is honoring parents so important? Why does the Ten Commandments believe that society could not survive if this commandment were widely violated?

One reason is that we, as children, need it. Parents may want to be honored — and they should want to be — but children need to honor parents, too. A father and a mother who are not honored are essentially adult peers of their children. They are not parents.

No generation knows better than ours the terrible consequences of growing up without a father. Fatherless boys are far more likely to grow up and commit violent crime, mistreat women, and act out against society in every other way. Girls who do not have a father to honor — and, hopefully, to love as well — are more likely to seek the wrong men and to be promiscuous at an early age.

Second, honoring parents is how nearly all of us come to recognize that there is a moral authority above us to whom we are morally accountable. And without this, we cannot create or maintain a moral society.

Of course, for the Ten Commandments, the ultimate moral authority is God, who is therefore higher than even our parents. But it is very difficult to come to honor God without having had a parent, especially a father, to honor. Sigmund Freud, the father of psychiatry and an atheist, theorized that one’s attitude toward one’s father largely shaped one’s attitude toward God.

There is one more reason why honoring parents is fundamental to a good society. Honoring parents is the best antidote to totalitarianism. One of the first things totalitarian movements seek to do is to break the child–parent bond. The child’s allegiance is shifted from parents to the state. Even in democratic societies, the larger the state becomes, the more it usurps the parental role.

Emphasis was added there by me.  To advance their agenda, first the progressives had to extricate parental control from society.  But the way to achieve this was to create a state run educational system where children are extricated from parental control and molded and shaped into good little progressives.

In the euphoric state-run society, schools are the parent.  It is teachers that kids look up to, and teachers who are taught to indoctrinate children to agree with the state.  It is here where they are taught to believe in man made global warming, and so forth.

So it's understandable that people who champion for state control would also seek to get rid of God from society.  If God is extricated from society, children start to treat their parents as just other members of society who must give up their liberties for the good of the state.

The Fifth Amendment is important because the alternative is honoring thy state. To honor the state means to give up some of our liberties for the good of that state.

Values and Priorities

There are many people who read the Bible, and every one of them might have a unique way of interpreting it. This actually occurred recently between myself and one of my patients. We actually both had unique interpretations about the Tower of Babel.

However, in the end, we both decided that every Christian, every person who believes in God, or studies the Bible, however religious, should get two things out of it.

1. Virtues: We must all be virtuous above all else
2. Priorities: We must have our priorities in order

Jesus said that the most important commandment is to believe in God, and the second most important commandment is that you should love your neighbor, and treat your neighbor as you would yourself.

If we can skim it down, if you put God first, then you are putting virtues first. If you are putting your neighbors second, then you are thus putting God first, and thus virtues first. If you are a virtuous person, then you will not only love your neighbor, you will be loved by your neighbor.

So it comes down to -- bottom line -- values and priorities.

Humility

I wrote a while back how life is humbling, it's not just baseball itself is humbling, as many athletes say.  Most God fearing people are trained to be humble, and as we face the trials and trivializations of life this often becomes the case by default.

According to Wikepedia (sure why now), humble is defined as such:

"Humility (adjectival form: humble) is the quality of being modest, reverential, even politely submissive, and never being arrogant, contemptuous, rude or even self-abasing. Humility, in various interpretations, is widely seen as a virtue in many religious and philosophical traditions, being connected with notions of transcendent
unity with the universe or the divine, and of egolessness.

Humility means being aware of the feelings and needs of the people around you and finding a place for them in your heart. Sometimes needs are short term, sometimes long term.

Needs? What are needs?

Needs can be something physical like food and water and shelter, or something internal, like an ear to listen to you, a hug, or a friend.

Most people who who work in the medical profession say they went into medical field because they love people. Yet do they truly have "empathy?" Do they truly have humility?

I don't see humility when I approach the nurses station and the staff is complaining about how they didn't get a raise for the year, and how the bosses are "ignorant" for not giving "me" a raise.

I don't see humility in that, because a person with humility would see that the boss didn't give anyone raises so all staff could keep their jobs. A humble person would jump into his bosses shoes and see what it's like from that perspective (although there are selfish, greedy exceptions of course).

I have humility, I would imagine, when I get called stat to do an EKG that is not needed in my opinion. The whole time I'm walking down there I'm thinking what I'm going to tell the irritating nurses who keeps calling me stat for non life threatening instances.

Yet, once I see the nurse, I see them as the people they are, just working to make a living. So, instead of complaining to them, instead of lecturing them, I keep my mouth shut and just do the job.

I may not do it with a smile, but at least I'm respectful.

Say it's slow at work and your boss says, "One of you RTs needs to go home." Your coworker is burned out and really wants to go home. Yet she says, "Why don't you go home, you have little kids and a wife who is sick."

That was a humble act in my opinion.

Some doctors in the emergency room will not consider the opinions of any other person in the room. They order what they want and complain when it's not done. They walk with their heads high as though they are better than everyone else. Humble they are not.

On the other hand, the humble doctor says, "Does any one else in the room have any ideas that might help this patient?"

Humility is sacrificing your own pride to lift up the other person's pride. Humility is sacrificing your time and energy and your own personal needs to make someone else happy.

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Why the push to get rid of religion?

What harm has religion done to anyone? Why do some people work so hard to try to get rid of religion in this world?  Prominent Cosmologist and theoretical physicist Lawrence M. Krauss believes he has developed a method that would eradicate religion in one generation. Why would he want to?

He said: "“What we need to do is present comparative religion as a bunch of interesting historical anecdotes and show the silly reasons why they each did what they did. Instead of shying away from it, we have to explicitly educate people to confront their own misconceptions.”

Rather than do this, why don't people just leave religious minded people alone. Every study ever done on the matter shows that children who grow up in religious minded homes are more likely to grow up to become productive members of society than children who grow up in non-religious homes.

According to the Heritage Foundation, "Why Religion Matters Even More: The Impact of Religious Practice on Social Stability," by Patrick F. Fagan, studies also show that people who believe in God, and who regularly attend religious services, develop morals and values essential to forming:

• A stable family life
• Strong marriages and stable marriages
• Well behaved children
• Less incidence of domestic abuse
• Less incidence of crime
• Less incidence of substance abuse
• Less incidence of addiction 
• Increased physical health
• Increased mental health
• Longevity
• Educational attainment
• Satisfaction in life
• Higher self esteem
• Increased confidence
• Decreased incidence of divorce 

Perhaps equally important, is that the morals and values inculcated by the Bible are "intergenerational, as grandparents and parents pass on the benefits to the next generation."

And it's not just the Heritage Foundation that reports such studies, as you can find them by any simple Google search.  It's also common sense, as people five thousand years ago found the advantages of religion and Christianity without doing a single poll. 

Faith in God leads to happiness

Not all of the founding fathers believed that Jesus walked the earth.  Yet nearly every single one of them believed that it was important for America to be a Christian nation.  Why?

The answer was that, without having done one scientific study, they realized what the Jews realized over 3,000 years ago: that belief in God made for a safe and happy society.

They knew that those who believed would spend eternal life in Heaven. They knew that those who did not would spend eternal life in Hell.  Belief creates happiness, fear creates respect.  This results in a humble, honorable, and trustworthy society.

The founding fathers, even those who were not true Christians, understood this. Thomas Jefferson and John Adams discussed this subject in many of the letters they wrote to each other in their later years.

They knew that the United States, having accrued a massive debt following their massive campaign for independence, could not afford a militia, and therefore they needed to figure out a way to prevent people from committing crimes.  The way they did this was by inculcating the values and morals of the Christian Bible among society.

It is for this reason that George Washington, along with nearly every president since him, has referenced God and Jesus in many of their speeches.  The idea was to assure that America be an inertly Christian nation.

However, as Tom Knox noted in his column at dailymail.com, The tantalising proof that belief in God makes you happier and healthier:

God has had a tough time over the past few years. On TV, in newspapers and on the internet, the debate as to whether faith has any relevance in a sceptical modern world has been as ubiquitous as it has been vigorous.

And it has been pretty clear which side is the most splenetic. 

From Richard Dawkins’ powerful atheist polemics to Christopher Hitchens’ public derision of the Roman Catholic Tony Blair and Stephen Hawking’s proclamation that the universe ‘has no need for God’, it seems that unbelievers have had the dwindling faithful on the run.

Yet then Knox came to a stunning revelation:

But then I had something of an epiphany. One night, after a long dinner, I was walking back to my hotel in downtown Salt Lake City at 2am and I suddenly realised: I felt safe. As any transatlantic traveller knows, this is a pretty unusual experience in an American city after midnight.

Why did I feel safe? Because I was in a largely Mormon city, and Mormons are never going to mug you. They might bore or annoy you when they come knocking on your door, touting their faith, but they are not going to attack you.

The Mormons’ wholesome religiousness, their endless and charitable kindliness, made their city a better place. And that made me think: Why was I so supercilious about such happy, hospitable people? What gave me the right to sneer at their religion? 

From that moment I took a deeper, more rigorous interest in the possible benefits of religious faith. Not one particular creed, but all creeds. And I was startled by what I found. 

Yet Knox's epiphany should not come as a surprise, as such epiphany's have been the norm throughout history.  The Bible is full of them.  The Bible is also full of stories where people lost Faith in God, such as the Tower of Babel. So what we are facing now is nothing new.

The rise of secularism in America and Europe over the past 60 years comes as no surprise to anyone raised by the Christian Bible.  We have spent our entire lives reading about the temptations of Satan on people throughout history.

We grew up knowing how gifts such as the Holy Spirit and the Theological Virtues create an internal peace even during the most challenging times in life. Such internal peace brings forth joy and comfort.

So while the challenges of life may cause doom and despair in some, those who believe always retain faith and hope, which leads to happiness.

Where do we go to seek God?

All Christians are aware of the importance of saying a prayer, or of communicating with God, both talking to and listening to Him.  Yet as our lives tend to become busy, most of us fail to meet even minimal requirements.  

This was the reflection of our priest recently as he said the following.  

Where do you go to seek God. How often do you go there? All prophets seek a place to be alone with their God. Jesus went off to a deserted place and prayed. We are disciples, and disciples should want to be with their teacher, to a place where we deliberately seek him. Mother Theresa said she encountered the suffering Christ in every face of every poor, sick and dying person she was sent to administer. She mandated all her sisters and all priests to spend three hours in prayer before they started working each day. I’m not advocating we do three hours, but I think it is important to ask: Where do we go to be in communion with God, and how often do we go there?

How and when to pray

If you believe in God you'd probably better pray.  If you don't believe in God, chances are you pray anyway when you're backed into a corner, so you might as well do it right.

When I was a child my mom would have me read, from time to time, a Biblical reading that showed me how to pray.  I remember it saying that one should ideally kneel and pray in silence, and it should be done at least every night, if not more frequently.

As a typical guy, I never could remember the passage she had me read. Sometimes I would ask mom, and she would tell me where to find it in the Bible. Yet even after asking her 20 times, I still don't remember it, even though the last time I asked was probably over 30 years ago.

I don't know if it was a passage that she learned from her mother or religious upbringing, or whether she learned it through a newspaper clipping.  I do, however, remember that the prayer was sometimes in the paper, and she'd cut it out and give it to me.

Today I do not know the passage. I could ask mom, but have not gotten around to it. With the gift of the Internet and Google I thought I could find it online, although, even if I read it, I'm not sure I'd know if I was reading the same passage. However, I have this feeling that I'd just know.

As of yet I have not found it.  However, there are many websites that quote scripture on how to pray, such as christianity.about.com and biblegateway.com:

• (Matthew 6:6):  But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you
• (Matthew 6:7):  “When you are praying, do not heap up empty phrases (do not babble on and on) as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard because of their many words. 
• (Ecclesiastes 5:2):  Do not be quick with your mouth, do not be hasty in your heart to utter anything before God. God is in heaven and you are on earth, so let your words be few. 
• (Luke 11: 1-4):  He was praying in a certain place, and after he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.”  He said to them, “When you pray, say:  Father, hallowed by your name.  Your kingdom come.  Give us each day our daily bread.  And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.  And do not bring us to the time of trial... 
• (Luke 11: 9-13):  “So I say to you, Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened."

There are many verses that explain how to pray, or why to pray, although these are the basic ones. When I was a kid I would try to pray on my knees as my mother instructed, although such a task was sometimes impossible due to exhaustion, laziness or even embarrassment.  

The issue of embarrassment didn't come into play until college when I had roommates.  It seemed silly to kneel before the bed and pray, so prayers were done under cover of blankets.   Sometimes I'd feel guilty for not kneeling, although there was no way I'd do it with people around.  

Then one day one of my roommates and I had a nice discussion about prayer.  He said he was taught that it didn't matter how or where you prayed so much as that you did it.  So it was on his advice that the guilt subsided. 

The Bible describes praying in every position imaginable, such as standing (1 Kings 8:22), bowing, (Exodus 4:31) sitting, kneeling (1 Kings 8:54), or lying down.  A prayer may also be cited in silence, or aloud, and at any point during the day.  

The general consensus, I believe, is that a person should find time to pray at least once per day.  Some say it should be in the morning to thank God for helping you make it through the night, and to ask for help through the new day.  Some say it's best to pray at night, in order to thank Him for helping guide you through the day, and for continued guidance.  Some recommend praying both in the morning and at night.  

I'm more of a nighttime prayer, and this is when I'm most likely to pray with my children.  Recently, however, I read Psalm 3, which is a prayer David said in the morning after he ran away from his son Absalom.  In it, he thanked the Lord for a safe night while fighting was ongoing around him.  So some believe a morning prayer is necessary when the Lord keeps us safe in the night.

What you say in the prayer is up to you, so long as, according to Matthew, you do not babble on and on.  A prayer should be short and sweet, or pithy.  Surely I like to ask, although almost always I start by thanking.

All that said, it is Matthew who gives the basic prayer, one that most Christians, or at least most Catholics, should know by heart.  There are various versions of it, yet they all mean the same (Matthew 6: 9-13).

“Pray then in this way:
Our Father (who art) in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come.
Your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts (trespasses),
as we also have forgiven our debtors (who trespass against us).
And do not bring us to the time of trial (lead us not into temptation),
but rescue us from the evil one (but deliver us from evil).

If you're one of those who pray in desperation, chances are you believe deep down.  For the rest of us, prayers should easily transition into our daily lives.

The habit of prayer

When I was a kid I as encouraged by my mother to get on my hands and knees and pray every night.  Sometimes, when I was very little, she would kneel with me.  This was good because her words taught me how to pray, and her doing it with me made praying habitual.

As is perhaps the intended consequence of being a Catholic, on those nights when I didn't pray I felt guilty.  More often than not this guilt turned into a prayer. Mom said that, if you are tired or time is limited, even a sign of the cross is considered a prayer.  Sometimes I took advantage of this, thus making my prayers short.

Sometimes I would forget how to pray, and I would ask mom how.  When I was younger she'd pray with me.  When I was older, she read to me a passage of the Bible that explained how to pray.  When I was even older, she'd give me the name of the passage and have me look it up myself.  Perhaps this was her way of getting me to memorize the passage.  I did not.  Although, I wonder if it is one of these.

As I grew older and my life became busier, praying remained a habit.  I didn't always get down on my knees, but more often than not I did.  And, when I did, I usually felt that much better about my prayer.

During my six month stay at the asthma hospital in Denver I prayed on my back every night until I got my own room, and then I prayed on my knees.  There was always the risk a counselor could open the door and catch me, although, in retrospect that doesn't seem like such a bad thing.

When I returned from Denver life quickly got busy, and praying on my knees became a major challenge, especially as I had room mates in college.  So it became customary for me to pray while tucked under the covers in bed.  Still, the habit inculcated into me by my mother continued.

So I have a habit of praying at night.  I try the best I can to share this habit with my children.  I sometimes do it with them as mom did, although rarely do we kneel.  A childish feeling of guilt usually rushes through me when we do not kneel, and an even deeper guilt when we pray not at all.

When we do pray, our prayers are simple.  Laney uses the word "I wish" instead of "I pray." Yet I pray that she picks up the habit as I have.  Surely it helps during the course of this life.

God Created the United States

I wrote before how God created capitalism.  Here I would like to explain how God, through Christianity, created a world where freedom and personal liberties are appreciated and respected.  In other words: God created the United States.

First we must understand that 99.9 percent of all governments ever created prior to the signing of the United States Constitution did not respect personal liberties. Essentially, the leader or leaders of nations created rules people were forced to follow. Those who did not comply were punished harshly, sometimes with their lives.

The path to a world where personal liberties were respected began with the birth of Jesus.

Father Oscar Lukefahr, in his 1994 book "The Catechism Handbook," explained that Jesus summoned the 12 apostles as the first teachers, and Peter was their head.  Peter's successor is the Pope, and the successor of the apostles are the bishops, so their pastoral office comes from Christ. (1, page 40)

He said the job of the Bishops is to teach the truths taught by Christ in the Christian Bible, and they do so with the help of priests, who share the truth with the laity. (1, pages 40-41)

The laity consists of all the members of the Church who are not committed by vows to religious life.  They are the key to spreading the truths taught by the Bible. They, in essence, are the "front line of the Church," said Father Lukefahr. "Their role is to bring Christ to the world -- into social, political, and economic realms of human existence."  (1, pages 40-41)

As I explained in my previous post, God gave individual people the right to choose.  This is proven in Psalm 1, (or see image) which states that God gives us the right to choose either good or bad, with either choice bringing about its inevitable consequences.

The website of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops explains Psalm #1.  It says that the Bible usually refers to the right path as "the way," which essentially means a way of living or following a moral code.  A good example of a moral code is the 10 commandments, although there are many other moral codes.

Essentially, following a moral code leads to good conduct and a direct path to Heaven.  Not following a moral code leads to wickedness and a direct path to Hell. (2)

The bottom line here is that God gives individuals the right to choose.  In this regard, it is HE who gave us liberty.  God gave the people Natural Rights, or inalienable rights, or those rights or liberties that we are born with and that only governments can take away.

With only a few scattered exceptions, most governments throughout the course of history required people to give up their natural rights for the good of the nation or collective.  It was exactly this that British citizens were unhappy with, and why they forced King John to sign the Magna Carta on June 15, 1215.

The founding fathers wrote frequently of natural rights, and how they yearned to create a Constitution that would protect them.  It was under this premise Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, which states quite clearly:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed...

He was essentially saying here that God gives people "natural rights" that can only be taken away by governments.

That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

The United States Constitution was further created in an attempt to protect these natural rights.  Just to make sure they were not misinterpreted by future generations, many states insisted they be specifically listed in the document before they would sign it.  It was this that inspired James Madison to write the first ten amendments, or the Bill of Rights.

So God gives individuals natural rights.  Each individual has the right to choose, and God holds them accountable for the consequences of those choices. The founding fathers created the documents necessary to allow individuals the ability to cherish those natural rights.

They also understood that natural rights are unchanging, and so they created a Constitution, and signed it on June 21, 1788, that was meant to protect natural rights for all time.  It was meant to be very difficult to change in order to prevent those in power from abusing the powers given to them.

Various founding fathers, even those who were not true Christians, wrote about the importance of Christianity in government.  Stephen McDowell, writing for the Providence Foundation, preferred to use Noah Webster's writings as the best example of the founding father's thoughts on Christianity's influence on the evolution of freedom.

McDowell said:

The primary reason civil liberty could be developed in America was because the people understood biblical law and lived according to the principles set forth in the law and the gospel. Their internal self-government and Christian character, and their understanding of important biblical concepts such as covenant and rule of law, allowed them to be able to develop external civil liberty and constitutionalism. (3)

He referred to an 1829 letter from Noah Webster to James Madison, where Webster said...

...that the christian religion, in its purity, is the basis or rather the source of all genuine freedom in government.. . . I am persuaded that no civil government of a republican form can exist and be durable, in which the principles of that religion have not a controlling influence. (3)(4)

Madison, therefore, according to McDowell, believed that...

...in order for America to be free and prosper, the youth and adults of America must be educated in governmental principles of liberty, which could only be found in the christian religion.  (3) 

So it was through the path of Christianity that lead to the United States, the first nation to protect and defend natural rights from governments.  Since the signing of the U.S. Constitution, freedom has spread to over 175 nations.

References:

1. Lukefahr, Father Oscar, "The Catechism Handbook," 1994, United States
2. "Psalms, Chapter 1," United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, http://www.usccb.org/bible/psalms/1:1, accessed on 12/17/14
3. McDowell, Stephen, "Noah Webster, God’s Law, and the United States Constitution:The Influence of the Bible on the Development of American Constitutionalism," Providence Foundation, http://providencefoundation.com/?page_id=1948, accessed 12/17/14
4. Webster to James Madison, 16 October 1829, Madison Papers, Series 2, Library of Congress. Quoted in Defining Noah Webster, Mind and Morals in the Early Republic, by K. Alan Snyder, New York: University Press of America, 1990, p. 253.

How was the devil formed?

Fr. Oscar Lukefahr said Everything God creates is good.  He created all the angels in Heaven as good. However, as any good father would do, he allowed his angels the right to choose. One fallen angel chose to become evil, and he became a fallen angel, later to be named Satin, Lucifer or the Devil.

He said that while God created all good, he allowed the Devil to do is evil.  So the Devil did. However, because God was the creator of everything, including the Devil, the Devil could not defeat God nor destroy the kingdom of Christ.

The Devil chose to reject God and His good, and he chose to tempt the first man and woman to walk away from God and toward sin.  Adam and Eve were also given the right to choose, because what fun would it be to live in a world where you had no way to make it better.  So the Devil decided that he would tempt them.

He said:

Genisis said that God told the first humans not to eat from the tree of knowledge, and this was his way of saying that they must accept God's laws which tell us what is good and what is evil.  But the first human beings disobeyed God's command.  Seduced by the devil, they preferred themselves to God, thinking they could thereby be like God.

Instead, their sin brought tragic consequences.  Satan gave them a false image of God as one who was jealous to keep power from them.  They became afraid of God.  They lost the soul's control over their body, the accord between man and woman, harmony from creation, and freedom from death.

Sin flooded the world and has affected all of history.  It has affected us, for we are drawn toward what is wrong and trapped by evils which cannot come from God.  This can be unerstood only in connection with the sin of our first parents.  

Because of their sin, our first parents transmitted a human nature deprived of holiness and justice, a state known as original sin.  Original sin does not wholly corrupt human nature.  But id does deprive us of original holiness and weakens our natural powers.  It subjects us to ignorance, suffering, and death.  It gives us an inclination toward sin called concupiscence.  As a result, we must struggle with sin.  We are tempted by Satan and negatively influenced by sinful sinful situations in society.

So while everything God created was good, including angels and humans, he gave us the right to accept or reject his laws. Yet when one angel rejected God, he became the devil and created sin and hell.  Hell is one of the biggest deterrents for those who believe in God's laws from sinning.

Are atheists given a guardian angel?

An interesting question that occurred to me as I was studying angels was this: if a person is an atheist, will that person still be given a personal angel?

The authors of The New Theological Movement addressed this issue. And while the answer they gave was to another question, I think it would also answer mine.  They wrote:

Will the anti-Christ have an angel guardian? If he is a human being, he will have an angel guardian. Even though he will be a great enemy of God, the Lord will still love him – the expression of this love is the gift of a guardian angel.

I imagine that answers my question.

Can you name your guardian angel?

I had dinner a while back with fellow members of the Knights of Columbus and our priest.  One of the Knights suggested we name our guardian angel.  Our priest concurred.  So we all discussed possible names for our angels. The name I pulled out of my head was Martin, as though my angel named himself.

Angels are superior to humans, and were actually created before God created man in his own image.  Angels are immortal, and were made by God to be his messengers, and their mission is to help us and guide us through life.  We enjoy their company from the time as we as we struggle with the trials and trivializations as well as the great joys of life.  When we struggle, they struggle with us; when we feel joy, they feel joy with us.

Your personal angel not only guides you through life, but also may affect your physical world.  For instance, during those moments when you are driving and wake up from your fantasy world, and you realize, "Wow!  How did I stay on the road?" Probably during those times your angel was driving for you.

Father Ryan Erlenbush of "The New Theological Movement" wrote:

Can my angel guardian affect the physical world around me? Yes. St. Gemma Galgani would regularly ask her guardian angel to mail letters for her – many letters were sent back and forth to her spiritual director while he was in Rome.

Anyway, I recently Googled "Can you name your angel?" and the answer I got was "No!"  It was no on every site I went to, including the Vatican (see section 217):

The practice of assigning names to the Holy Angels should be discouraged, except in the cases of Gabriel, Raphael and Michael whose names are contained in Holy Scripture.

Father Ryan Erlenbush  noted:

Can I name my guardian angel? Perhaps, but we must keep in mind that it belongs to a superior to name an inferior. Thus, it seems unfitting that a human being should name an angel.

So I guess it's not such a good idea to name our angels.  However, I have this feeling my angel's name is Martin anyway, so, perhaps he revealed it to me. Once again, I quote Father Ryan Erlenbush:

How do I find out my guardian angel’s name? You could try asking. But it is also possible that it will not be revealed to you immediately. I should think that in heaven, we would all know guardian angels’ names.

One author noted that parents name their children because children are supposed to look up to and respect their parents.  But people should not name their angels because angels are superior to humans, and we should look up to and respect them.

What are angels?

Do you ever wonder what angels are.  No, I'm not referring to the baseball team in California, I'm referring to the angels of Heaven.

When I asked my five-year-old daughter Laney this she said, "Angels aren't real."

I said they are.  In fact, I told her that we all have an angel to help us and guide us through life.  I told her I named my angel Martin, and that she should name hers. Yet this was all over her head, no pun intended.

So what are angels, at least according to the Catholic faith?  Oscar Lukefahr, in his book "The Catechism Handbook" defines angel this way:

Heaven refers to the angels, personal and immortal spiritual beings who are created by God and possess intelligence  and free will.  The word angel means "messenger," and angels are mentioned throughout the Scripture as those who do God's will and care for people.  Angels adore and minister to Christ.  Angels watch over and protect us as members of the Church, and we enjoy their company on life's journey.

Every have one of those moments where you are driving down the road and all of a sudden you wake up from your dream and wonder how you were still on the road and not on a ditch.  Well, I think it in such moments that your angel is watching over you.

Angels can't stop you from making bad decisions, and they can't stop you from dying.  But they surely can help you through life.  I believe your conscience is your angel talking to you.  He is telling you to make the right decision.

Catholic Online agrees with  Lukefahr, and adds:

Although the word "angel" in the Bible, meaning a messenger, nearly always applies to heavenly beings, it can occasionally apply to human messengers. Malachi himself said a priest was a messenger (malak) of the LORD of hosts (Malachi 2:7), and in the Book of Revelation the elders of the seven churches of Asia were called angels (1:20;2:1 etc.). But when we meet messengers doing supernatural things, there is no doubt they are heavenly beings - God's messengers, working for Him and for the ultimate benefit of mankind.

Catholic Online also discusses personal angels, such as I was discussing to my Laney.  It begins by quoting a Psalm (Psalm 91:10-12 ):

No evil shall befall you, nor shall affliction come near your tent, for to His Angels God has given command about you, that they guard you in all your ways. Upon their hands they will bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone.

Catholic Online then describes your personal angel this way:

A heavenly spirit assigned by God to watch over each of us during our lives. The doctrine of angels is part of the Church's tradition. The role of the guardian angel is both to guide us to good thoughts, works and words, and to preserve us from evil...

He has charged His angels with the ministry of watching and safeguarding every one of His creatures that behold not His face. Kingdoms have their angels assigned to them, and men have their angels...

So even nations, such as the United States, has an angel guiding us on our path to share the Bible, capitalism, and natural rights with the world through our good example.  It is for this reason that the U.S. will always prevail.

So, should we all give our personal angels a name?  Recently I had a friend tell me tell me I should give my angel a name, and our priest, who was having dinner with us, agreed.  I Googled this, and the answer I got was from Catholic Answers:

I once attended a conference during which a priest said that we should name our guardian angels. So I did. Now I just heard someone say that we should never name our guardian angel because demons like the knowledge of names.