Okay, so what is a sin anyway?

God gave us free will, the ability to reason, and a sense of moral responsibility, all with the intent that we would use these gifts to live by His law.  When we use these gifts to deviate from Gods law it's called sinning.

Original sin occurred when Adam gave into temptation and ate from the tree of knowledge.  The consequence of this is that all humans are born with an innate desire to sin, making it so that a conscious effort must be made to live by God's law and to receive God's grace.

Personal sins are all the sins that we make by our own personal lives.  There are two types of personal sins:

1. Venial: These usually involve sins that are not of grave matter.  They may also include sins you do not know you are committing, or sins you do not deliberately intend to commit. These sins do not cut you off from the Grace of God as such sins do not mean a person has rejected God.  They may be forgiven by the Sacraments of Eucharist and Reconciliation (Acts of God's Grace). 
2. Mortal: Sins that are merit damnation without reconciliation. These are sins involving a grave or serious matter, either by intentionally doing something severely wrong or by intentionally omitting something from one's life. Such sins cut the sinner off from God's grace. It's the rejection of God (spiritual death) that results in eternal punishment in Hell.  

Tempting each of us are what are often referred to as the seven deadly sins (also referred to as capital devices or cardinal sins), each of which is associated with one of the seven holy virtues, and each of which may be associated with a venial or a mortal sin.

1.  Pride (Vanity, Superbia): An unrestrained or improper appreciation of your own worth.  It's excessive belief in your own abilities to the point that it interferes with your recognition of the grace of God. It is the sin from which all other sins arise.
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2.  Envy (invidia): The desire to own that of which (traits, status, abilities, situation, materials) is not yours.

3.  Gluttony (Gula): Consuming more than what is required.

4.  Lust (extravagance, luxuria):  Inordinate craving for the desires of the body

5.  Anger (Wrath, ira):  Spurning love in favor of fury.

6.  Greed (Avarice, Covetousness, avartia):  Desire for material wealth or gain at the expense of spiritual wealth or gain.

7.  Sloth (acedia):  Avoidance of physical or spiritual work.

Stroking egos: the only way to succeed

Whether we admit it or not, we all have egos.  The most popular people around us, and the most successful, are those who excel at stroking egos.  

Look at just about any Chief Executive Officer, and the president is a perfect example here, and you will see someone who excels at stroking egos. They stroked egos all the way to the top.  

Les Giblon, in his book "How to Have Confidence and Power in Dealing with People," said that the central person in everyone is "YOU!"  When you feel good about yourself, it's because you have an ego.  You love it when someone makes you feel better.  Those who make you feel better are the people you want to hang around with.  You love it when someone strokes your ego. 

In other words, all people have an innate desire for acceptance.  The people who make us feel accepted are the people we want to be associated with. 

He said this works because the most important person in your life is YOU. And YOU have an ego whether you want to admit it or not. And YOU love it when someone strokes your ego. In other words, all we humans have an innate desire for acceptance.

So the best way to succeed in life is to become good at building up the egos -- stroking egos -- of those around you.  Nearly all great salespeople are those who excel at stroking egos.  

Some sales people may excel at speaking, although others do not.  So it is not the gift of speaking that determines success, it's what the salesperson says and does. Those who succeed say and do things that make other people feel good about themselves.  

Giblon said that if you want to succeed, you must understand some basic facts about people.  

1.  All people are all egoists

2.  All people are are more interested in themselves than anything else

3.  All people want to feel important and to 'amount to something'

4.  All people crave approval from others so they can approve of themselves

So whether you are loquacious, taciturn, or somewhere in between, you have the skills necessary to life egos and succeed, according to Giblon.  

Giblon provides us with an example.  

Say you walk into a hotel on the eveing of the 4th of July and you are in a hurry. You have just enough time to check into your room and get to the fireworks.  Yet the desk clerk says the hotel is full.

Now, easily you could become irritated here and start yelling obscenities at the clerk, but the expert ego stroking will have another technique.  He would say something like, "I know your hotel is full, but I bet if there is anyone in the world who can find me a room tonight it is you."

Some people succeed based on technical skills.  Some people succeed simply because of intelligence.  Yet even people with limited technical and intellectual skills make it to the top, and the reason is because they "have a way" with people.

He said:

There are millions of people today who are self-conscious, shy, timid, ill at ease in social situations, who feel inferior and never realize that their real problem is a human relations problem. It never seems to get across to them that their failure as a personality is really a failure in learning to deal successfully with other poeple."

Of course there are people on the other end of the spectrum too, those who are talkative, confident and "bossy."  No one wants to be around these people because they make people feel bad about themselves.  They do not boost egos other than their own.

Regardless of how hard they try, they cannot get people to listen to them, appreciate them, and cooperate with them.  In fact, these people usually have to force people to comply with their wishes.

Yet while they can force people to comply with their wishes, they cannot force people to like them.  They never really get what they want because they have never mastered the art of dealing with other people.

He said that when people have to force compliance it's because they have no confidence in their ability to deal with people.  Lack of confidence therefore results in a low self esteem, and a "low self esteem results in friction and trouble."

Thus, the best way of dealing with trouble makers is to help them like themselves better. They need to have their egos stroked, or they need to be fed ego.  So when you become the person to stroke their egos, you in turn become the person they like to be around.  They will treat you better than they treat anyone else.  

Give that person a reason to like you. Give him a personal reason to give you what you want. 

Bottom line:  Regardless of your personality, the way to succeed is to stroke egos. The way to stroke egos is to make other people feel better about themselves.  So get started!  Go stroke some egos today!

We have lost our way...

So I explained the other day how, for the first 200 years of this nation, we put our priorities in the right order. We put God first, Country second, Spouse, Children, other people, other things, and then somewhere down the line... self.  So adults were not concerned with self.

And then the push came to change the definition of marriage so that people could put their own selfish desires before their nation.  It suddenly became more important for two homosexuals to get married than to protect and preserve the Constitution.  This never would have happened prior to the 1960s.  

Glenn Beck said it best.  He said:

These times have been foretold, and you don’t have to be a genius to figure out what the problems are in the country.  It’s because our society, our people, us, have become lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to our parents, ungrateful, unholy, inhuman.

We’re slanderers. We’re haters of good. We’re treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure much more than lovers of God. [We're] holding the form of religion, but denying the power of it.

Too many of us are blind (to the problems in the country... but) “it is the simple that will confound the wise.

We’ve closed our hearts. We’ve closed our eyes.  Almost everything has become like that homeless guy that you walk by on the street and you just don’t look at. … We don’t see things anymore. Because if we see things, it requires us to do something. And too many of us don’t know what to do.

I don't know how you can word it better than that.  I don't just want to pick on those who pushed for gay marriage, because there's a lot more going on that just that.  There are people who get divorced because they value their own happiness over the happiness of their children.  I mean, I could go on...

Believe it or not, there are things in this world that are more important than us, there are things more important than you or me.  Today people put themselves first, and everything gets all out of whack. It's all messed up.  Everybody is on edge.  Even those who are celebrating today know something is wrong with how they won.  There is this guilt.

And those who were on the losing side feel like they are getting their faces rubbed in the mud.  You have Christians being called bigots.  It's just terrible.  This has a rotten taste about it.  I'm not talking about gay marriage, I'm talking about how it was done and how it is being rubbed in.

We used to be united as a nation.  Now we are divided by groups.

We have lost our way...

Further reading:

• Beck Says the Past 10 Days Have Been a ‘Slapping of God’s Face’ Unlike He Has Ever Seen
• The Constitution is something special
• Gay marriage is legal: now what?
• 22 myths about gay marriage

The true nature of liberty

The founding fathers came up with an idea, and it was this idea which separates our idea from the ideas of other nations.  Their idea was that rights come from God, and cannot be taken away by any government.  Other men can deny you your rights, but they cannot take them away.

Contrary to this is the notion that our rights come from governments, which are created by men.  If other men give us our rights, then other men can take them away.  If other men give us our rights, then the people we elect -- such as Obama and Joe Biden and George Bush -- can make laws to take them away.

If our freedom was derived from the pens and pencils and keyboards of men, then our freedoms would not be very secure.  It is based on this notion that men have ignored the Constitution and made laws that take away our rights to choose.

Thomas Jefferson stayed up long nights thinking of this.  By his words and his pen, he wanted to make sure the freedoms that were fought for, the very rights that were denied to 99.9 percent of all men and women who lived before him, would not be denied to any person born in the United States.

The idea he and the other founding fathers devised was that rights were not born out of the minds of men, but born out of a gift of God.  It was in this way that he would assure that no man, no lawmaker, no king, no president, would ever make any law denying us our rights.

Thomas Jefferson wrote:

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, --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.

He also wrote:

"God, who gave us life, gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God?"

He was a brilliant man, one who not only wrote to secure his own rights, but the rights of all those who would be born after him.  If you so happen to forming in a womb of a person who doesn't believe you are a life, then your rights are denied you.

If you so happen to be born in a nation like Cuba, you will be born with rights, but they will be denied you.  You may think that you hate Castro, but you will not be able to say it or you will be severely punished, maybe even killed.  If you are born in any communist country, you will be denied your rights, but you will still have them.

If you so happen to be born in the United States, you will be born with natural rights and you will be able to keep most of them.  I say most of them because progressives have made many laws to perfect the world over the past 100 years that will deny you some of your rights.

It is for this reason that we must never stop learning about our founding fathers.  This must be taught in our schools every day, that our rights come from God. And if our schools don't teach it, this is the responsibility of fathers and mothers.

We must always be vigilant to those evil people who wish to deny us our natural rights, as some of them are born right here in this Great Nation. Freedom is not free.  Many good people have put their lives on the line, and many others have died, so that you may enjoy your God given freedoms.

The true meaning of the Statue of Liberty

It seems that many people misinterpret the true meaning of the Statue of Liberty. They believe it means that the U.S. wants the impoverished, the poorly educated, and the unfortunate of other nations because of the slogan that is implanted on the base of the statue: "Give me your tired, give me your poor, give me your huddled masses."

Rush Limbaugh loves educating people about truth of American history, truths that have have been twisted by the left leaning people who have been educating our children since the 1960s. He reminded us, mainly those of us who are young enough to have been hoodwinked by our modern educational system.

In fact, that saying was not what the original purpose of the statue was all about. In fact, the original intent of the statue was to give us your folks who are fleeing oppression and we will provide them with an opportunity at a free and successful life. We will give them the opportunity to provide a good life for themselves.

It appears that the "huddled masses" quote was misinterpreted a while back to mean that we want your down trodden, your poor, your unfortunate, your disadvantaged, your uneducated, and we will provide you with a free education, free health care, and allow you to become democrats.

Actually, Emma Lazarus wrote the "huddled masses" poem as part of a campaign to build the pedestal of the statue. The poem was called The New Colossus, and it was written in 1883, and not even inserted onto the pedestal of the statue until 1903 when it was engraved onto the base.

The poem was forgotten and not even a part of the celebration of the opening of the statue in 1883, and it was not until 1903 that it gained much attention outside the original contest to raise money.

In fact, the original intent of the statue had nothing to do with immigration, it had to do with freedom and liberty. France was thanking us for being the first nation ever to make the rulers of their country aware that freedom and liberty was possible. This is ultimately what lead to the French Revolution.

Of course the French Revolution failed because they fought for the rights of man (man as a single entity) while the founders of the U.S. fought for the rights of individual men (we all have inalienable rights that cannot be taken away by anything other than the government).

The reason the statue was build had nothing to do with the Lazarus poem, and yet once again history was twisted so that one group of people who wanted to convince the children of the world the Statue of Liberty was all about immigration. This was all one big lie that was taught in schools since 1903. This was a distortion by the progressives to make you think America was willing to take anyone, from any place in the world or universe.

The truth is, the statue was a celebration of the Declaration of Independence. It was dedicated on October 28, 1886.

On July 1, 2010, Limbaugh said:

"In fact, we don't call it the statue of immigration, we call it the statue of liberty. Lady Liberty is stepping forward. She is meant to be carrying the torch of liberty from the United States to the rest of the world.She is meant to be carrying the torch of liberty from the United States to the rest of the world. The torch is not to light the way to the United States. It is to light the way to liberty to the rest of the world. Lady Liberty is carrying the light of liberty to the rest of the world. It is not a beacon for immigrants to get to this country because they’re tired, they’re poor, they’re huddled, hungry, or thirsty. And in the proceeding years, that is exactly what she did. And she offered her freedom to France and the rest of Europe, and those countries came up with their own form of freedom, and their own interpretation. That's what other countries do. We have a right to choose our own forms of freedom.

And yet none compare to that of the United States. None. We were the first to establish freedom, we were the first to sign anything like the Declaration of Independence, and we were the first to form a U.S. Constitution that was meant to protect the natural rights of men (it tells its government what it cannot do).

And yet, all these years later, the only people to grasp the true meaning of the original documents (Declaration of Independence, U.S. Constitution) and the Statue of Liberty are those sons and daughters of classical liberals, those who are now referred to as conservatives and libertarians. The rest of the world has their own skewered interpretation of the true meaning of what kind of freedom we have here in the United States.

Those who intentionally or unintentionally misinterpret the meaning of these great documents, or this great statue, are those who mean to change the United States to be something other than what the founders had intended.

Further reading:

• American Exceptionalism
• Natural rights of men
• Rush Limbaugh: It's the statue of liberty, not the statue of immigration
• Rush Limbaugh: The true history of the statue of liberty

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.   

The truth about Obama's economic numbers

So the AP comes out with this story today that the unemployment rate fell to a seven year low at 5.3%. They tell us that this is because 223, 000 jobs were gained during the last month. The White House is hailing this as good economic news, and the AP goes right along with it. Yet when we look at all the numbers we see a different picture.

First of all we must look at the rest of the data, for to get an accurate economic picture we must view it all. Right now, in the U.S. a record 93 million people are no longer in the workforce, and are not counted in the unemployment statistics that are reported by the White House. So, if you take out all these working age people, the unemployment rate is 5.3%.  This is called the U3 unemployment number, and by most accounts it is the least accurate, although best looking, unemployment number.  In essence, reporting this makes Obama look good.

Now, if you add the 93 million to the unemployment number you get the U6 unemployment number, and most economist get somewhere between 10 and 14 percent unemployment rate. However, economist David Stockman estimates that it would be upwards to a 42.9% unemployment rate. Now, could you imagine what would happen if Obama released that unemployment number? Obama's popularity would plummet. So it only makes sense that he release the smallest of the samples.

Investigating the numbers further, 432,000 people lost their jobs last month (I'm referring to June). Now, let's put this in Math 101 form: 223,000 jobs created minus 432,000 jobs lost equals negative 209,000 (-209,000). So now we see what the true damage of Obamanomics had on our nation during the month of June.

Now, here are the numbers as reported by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics: 5.3 unemployment rate, 223,000 jobs created, and 432,000 work force decline. In May the statistics were similar. So if you do the math, the trend of economic collapse is obvious.

There are a lot of reasons why Americans can't find jobs. For one thing, Baby Boomers are not retiring, perhaps because they need healthcare. Baby Boomers cannot afford to retire. High School and College Students are not working because the low paying jobs they used to take either no longer exist or are taken up by low skilled, uneducated immigrants who do not speak English. Either that, or older people who have lost their jobs are taking these jobs, leaving younger Americans with no work.

Because of Obamacare the 40 hour work week is no longer defined as full time work; 30 hours is. This is because most companies limit hours so they don't have to pay for health insurance. So this has forced many Americans to take on two part time jobs, leaving no jobs open for new workers.

In many places minimum wages are so high that places like McDonald's have to hire fewer workers, and this eliminates jobs for high school and college age kids. So, there are a variety of reasons why so many people are not in the work force. This is not to mention the record number of people who live off the government and so they have no incentive to look for work.

So, anyway, the economic numbers do not look so good.  The White House is lying about the economy being good.  

Some, however, believe he has simply redefined the definition of a good economy.  For instance, the Gross Domestic Product is shrinking.  For most of history the GDP has been the number one indicator used by economists to measure how the economy is doing.  The White House no longer wants to use the GDP as an indicator, claiming "it just doesn't show the whole story."  

They don't want to show it because the GDP shows the economic failures of the Obama administration that they don't want you to know about.  You have 93 million no longer in the workforce, an actual unemployment number greater than 10 percent, college graduates with big college loan debts who can only find a job working 30 hours per week.  There is simply no room for the economy to grow, unless you count government jobs. 

Recession has been re-defined as well, because if you considered two consecutive quarters of a declining GDP as a recession, the entire Obama term would have to be considered a recession.  He doesn't want that, so he has re-defined recession by simply not reporting the GDP.  

The economy has been stagnating, sort of like it did during the Jimmy Carter administration.  Still, the Obama administration keeps reporting that we are in a recovery.  

More people are not working than ever before, immigrants are taking all the jobs that college and high school age kids once took, twice as many jobs are lost in a given month than jobs created, full time work is now considered 30 hours, wages have stagnated (are not going up), disposable income has stagnated, and the number of people who have no desire to work because they receive government checks is growing.  

So you have no markers of a growing economy, and yet the White House continues to say that we are in a state of recovery.  Then the Associated Press, instead of doing its own review of the data as I just did, just reports what the White House releases.  The same is true of most of the rest of the media, and so too many people are mislead into thinking the economy is in a state of recovery.  

What the White House wants you to think is that all this doesn't matter.  What matters is that Obama and the democrats are nice.  Democrats have made it so "everyone" can get healthcare.  Democrats have made it so that anyone can get food stamps and other forms of government assistance.  Democrats will give you free cell phones.  Democrats will protect your social security.  Democrats are nice. 

But all this niceness is actually making the country worse. 

Further reading:

• Americans Not In The Labor Force Soar By 640,000 To Record 93.6 Million; Participation Rate Drops To 1977 Levels -- Zero Hedge
• Record 93,626,000 Americans Not in Labor Force; Participation Rate Declines to 62.6% -- CNS News
• U.S. Unemployment falls to seven year low -- AP
• Job participation lowest since 1977 -- Bloomberg
• The Warren Buffet Economy -- Why Its Days are Numbered (part 4) -- David Stockman
• A closer look at the economic numbers, or what is the U6 unemployment number