Posted on 09/20/2013 4:29:03 AM PDT by spirited irish
“Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son” (1 John 2:22).
“And the fifth angel sounded the trumpet, and I saw a star fall from heaven upon the earth, and there was given to him the key of the bottomless pit." (Rev. 9:1)
In his Concise Commentary Matthew Henry identifies falling stars as tepid, indecisive, weak or apostate clergy who,
"Having ceased to be a minister of Christ, he who is represented by this star becomes the minister of the devil; and lets loose the powers of hell against the churches of Christ."
John identifies antichrists, in this case clergy who serve the devil rather than Christ, sequentially. First, like Bultmann, Teilhard de Chardin, Robert Funk, Paul Tillich, and John Shelby Spong, they specifically deny the living, personal Holy Trinity in favor of Gnostic pagan, immanent or Eastern pantheist conceptions. Though God the Father Almighty in three Persons upholds the souls of men and maintains life and creation, His substance is not within nature (space-time dimension) as pantheism maintains, but outside of it. Sinful men live within nature and are burdened by time and mortality; God is not.
Second, the specific denial of the Father logically negates Jesus the Christ, the Word who was in the beginning (John 1), was with God, and is God from the creation of all things (1 John 1). In a pre-incarnate theophany, Jesus is the Angel who spoke “mouth to mouth” to Moses (Num. 12:6-9; John 9:20) and at sundry times and in many ways “spoke in times past to the fathers by the prophets, last of all…” (Hebrews 1:1) Jesus the Christ is the incarnate Son of God who is the life and light of men, who by His shed blood on the Cross died for the remission of all sins and bestowed the privilege of adoption on all who put their faith in Him.
Therefore, to deny the Holy Father is to logically deny the deity of Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son of God, hence,
“…every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist . . . and even now already is it in the world” (1 John 4:3).
According to Peter (2 Peter 2:1), falling stars will work among the faithful, teaching damnable heresies that deny the Lord, cause the fall of men into unbelief, and bring destruction upon themselves:
“The natural parents of modern unbelief turn out to have been the guardians of belief.” Many thinking people came at last “to realize that it was religion, not science or social change that gave birth to unbelief. Having made God more and more like man---intellectually, morally, emotionally---the shapers of religion made it feasible to abandon God, to believe simply in man.” (James Turner of the University of Michigan in “American Babylon,” Richard John Neuhaus, p. 95)
Falling Stars and Damnable Heresy
Almost thirty years ago, two well-respected social science scholars, William Sims Bainbridge and Rodney Stark found themselves alarmed by what they saw as a rising tide of irrationalism, superstition and occultism---channeling cults, spirit familiars, necromancers, Wiccans, Satanists, Luciferians, goddess worshippers, 'gay' shamans, Hermetic magicians and other occult madness at every level of society, particularly within the most influential--- Hollywood, academia and the highest corridors of political power.
Like many scientists, they were equally concerned by Christian opposition to naturalistic evolution. As is common in the science community, they assumed the cause of these social pathologies was somehow due to fundamentalism, their term for authentic Christian theism as opposed to liberalized Christianity. Yet to their credit, the research they undertook to discover the cause was conducted both scientifically and with great integrity. What they found was so startling it caused them to re-evaluate their attitude toward authentic Christian theism. Their findings led them to say:
"It would be a mistake to conclude that fundamentalists oppose all science (when in reality they but oppose) a single theory (that) directly contradicts the bible. But it would be an equally great mistake to conclude that religious liberals and the irreligious possess superior minds of great rationality, to see them as modern personalities who have no need of the supernatural or any propensity to believe unscientific superstitions. On the contrary...they are much more likely to accept the new superstitions. It is the fundamentalists who appear most virtuous according to scientific standards when we examine the cults and pseudo-sciences proliferating in our society today." ("Superstitions, Old and New," The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. IV, No. 4; summer, 1980)
In more detail they observed that authentic ‘born again’ Christians are far less likely to accept cults and pseudoscientific beliefs while the irreligious and liberalized Christians (i.e., progressive Catholics, Protestant emergent, NAR, word faith, prosperity gospel) are open to unscientific notions. In fact, these two groups are most disposed toward occultism.
As Bainbridge and Stark admitted, evolution directly contradicts the Bible, beginning with the Genesis account of creation ex nihilo. This means that evolution is the antithesis of the Genesis account. For this reason, discerning Christians refuse to submit to the evolutionary thinking that has swept Western and American society. Nor do they accept the evolutionary theism brought into the whole body of the Church by weak, tepid, indecisive, or apostate clergy.
Over eighty years ago, Rev. C. Leopold Clarke wrote that priests who embrace evolution (evolutionary theists) are apostates from the ‘Truth as it is in Jesus.’ (1 John2:2) Rev. Clarke, a lecturer at a London Bible college, discerned that evolution is the antithesis to the Revelation of God in the Deity of Jesus Christ, thus it is the greatest and most active agent of moral and spiritual disintegration:
“It is a battering-ram of unbelief---a sapping and mining operation that intends to blow Religion sky-high. The one thing which the human mind demands in its conception of God, is that, being Almighty, He works sovereignly and miraculously---and this is the thing with which Evolution dispenses….Already a tremendous effect, on a wide scale has been produced by the impact of this teaching---an effect which can only be likened to the…collapse of foundations…” (Evolution and the Break-Up of Christendom, Philip Bell, creation.com, Nov. 27, 2012)
The faith of the Christian Church and of the average Christian has had, and still has, its foundation as much in the literal and historic meaning of Genesis, the book of beginnings revealed ‘mouth to mouth’ by the Angel to Moses, as in that of the person and deity of Jesus Christ. But how horrible a travesty of the sacred office of the Christian Ministry to see church leaders more eager to be abreast of the times, than earnestly contending for the Faith once delivered unto the saints (Jude 1:3). It is high time, said Rev. Clarke, that the Church,
“…. separated herself from the humiliating entanglement attending her desire to be thought up to date…What, after all, have custodians of Divine Revelation to do making terms with speculative Biology, which has….no message of comfort or help to the soul?” (ibid)
The primary tactic employed by priests eager to accommodate themselves and the Church to modern science and evolutionary thinking is predictable. It is the argument that evolution is entirely compatible with the Bible when we see Genesis, especially the first three chapters, in a non-literal, non-historical context. This is the argument embraced and advanced by mega-church pastor Timothy J. Keller.
With a position paper Keller published with the theistic evolutionary organization Bio Logos he joined the ranks of falling stars (Catholic and Protestant priests) stretching back to the Renaissance. Their slippery-slide into apostasy began when they gave into the temptation to embrace a non-literal, non-historical view of Genesis. (A response to Timothy Keller’s ‘Creation, Evolution and Christian Laypeople,” Lita Cosner, Sept. 9, 2010, creation.com)
This is not a heresy unique to modern times. The early Church Fathers dealt with this damnable heresy as well, counting it among the heretical tendencies of the Origenists. Fourth-century Fathers such as John Chrysostom, Basil the Great and Ephraim the Syrian, all of whom wrote commentaries on Genesis, specifically warned against treating Genesis as an unhistorical myth or allegory. John Chrysostom strongly warned against paying heed to these heretics,
“…let us stop up our hearing against them, and let us believe the Divine Scripture, and following what is written in it, let us strive to preserve in our souls sound dogmas.” (Genesis, Creation, and Early Man, Fr. Seraphim Rose, p. 31)
As St. Cyril of Alexandria wrote, higher theological, spiritual meaning is founded upon humble, simple faith in the literal and historic meaning of Genesis and one cannot apprehend rightly the Scriptures without believing in the historical reality of the events and people they describe. (ibid, Seraphim Rose, p. 40)
In the integral worldview teachings of the Fathers, neither the literal nor historical meaning of the Revelations of the pre-incarnate Jesus, the Angel who spoke to Moses, can be regarded as expendable. There are at least four critically important reasons why. First, to reduce the Revelation of God to allegory and myth is to contradict and usurp the authority of God, ultimately deny the deity of Jesus Christ; twist, distort, add to and subtract from the entire Bible and finally, to imperil the salvation of believers.
Scenarios commonly proposed by modern Origenists posit a cleverly disguised pantheist/immanent nature deity subject to the space-time dimension and forces of evolution. But as noted previously, it is sinful man who carries the burden of time, not God. This is a crucial point, for when evolutionary theists add millions and billions of zeros (time) to God they have transferred their own limitations onto Him. They have ‘limited’ God and made Him over in their own image. This is not only idolatrous but satanic.
Additionally, evolution inverts creation. In place of God’s good creation from which men fell there is an evolutionary escalator starting at the bottom with matter, then progressing upward toward life, then up and through the life and death of millions of evolved creatures that preceded humans by millions of years until at long last an apish humanoid emerges into which a deity that is always in a state of becoming (evolving) places a soul.
Evolution amputates the entire historical precedent from the Gospel and makes Jesus Christ unnecessary as the atheist Frank Zindler enthusiastically points out:
“The most devastating thing that biology did to Christianity was the discovery of biological evolution. Now that we know that Adam and Eve never were real people the central myth of Christianity is destroyed. If there never was an Adam and Eve, there never was an original sin. If there never was an original sin there is no need of salvation. If there is no need of salvation there is no need of a saviour. And I submit that puts Jesus…into the ranks of the unemployed. I think evolution absolutely is the death knell of Christianity.” (“Atheism vs. Christianity,” 1996, Lita Cosner, creation.com, June 13, 2013)
None of this was lost on Darwin’s bulldog, Thomas Henry Huxley (1825-1985). Huxley was thoroughly familiar with the Bible, thus he understood that if Genesis is not the authoritative Word of God, is not historical and literal despite its’ symbolic and poetic elements, then the entirety of Scripture becomes a collection of fairytales resulting in tragic downward spiraling consequences as the Catholic Kolbe Center for the Study of Creation makes clear in part:
“By denying the historical truth of the first chapters of Genesis, theistic evolutionism has fostered a preoccupation with natural causes almost to the exclusion of supernatural ones. By denying the several supernatural creative acts of God in Genesis, and by downplaying the importance of the supernatural activity of Satan, theistic evolutionists slip into a naturalistic mentality which seeks to explain everything in terms of natural causes. Once this mentality takes hold, it is easy for men to regard the concept of spiritual warfare as a holdover from the days of primitive superstition. Diabolical activity is reduced to material or psychological causes. The devil and his demons come to be seen as irrelevant. Soon ‘hell’ joins the devil and his demons in the category of antiquated concepts. And the theistic evolutionist easily makes the fatal mistake of thinking that he has nothing more to fear from the devil and his angels. According to Fr. Gabriele Amorth, the chief exorcist of Rome, there is a tremendous increase in diabolical activity and influence in the formerly Christian world. And yet most of the bishops of Europe no longer believe in the existence of evil spirits….To the Fathers of the Church who believed in the truth of Genesis, this would be incredible. But in view of the almost universal acceptance of theistic evolution, it is hardly surprising.” (The Difference it makes: The Importance of the Traditional Doctrine of Creation, Hugh Owen, kolbecenter.org)
Huxley had ‘zero’ respect for modern Origenists and received enormous pleasure from heaping piles of hot coals and burning contempt upon them, thereby exposing their shallow-reasoning, hypocrisy, timidity, fear of non-acceptance, and unfaithfulness. With sarcasm dripping from his words he quipped,
“I am fairly at a loss to comprehend how any one, for a moment, can doubt that Christian theology must stand or fall with the historical trustworthiness of the Jewish Scriptures. The very conception of the Messiah, or Christ, is inextricably interwoven with Jewish history; the identification of Jesus of Nazareth with that Messiah rests upon the interpretation of passages of the Hebrew Scriptures which have no evidential value unless they possess the historical character assigned to them. If the covenant with Abraham was not made; if circumcision and sacrifices were not ordained by Jahveh; if the “ten words” were not written by God’s hand on the stone tables; if Abraham is more or less a mythical hero, such as Theseus; the story of the Deluge a fiction; that of the Fall a legend; and that of the creation the dream of a seer; if all these definite and detailed narratives of apparently real events have no more value as history than have the stories of the regal period of Rome—what is to be said about the Messianic doctrine, which is so much less clearly enunciated? And what about the authority of the writers of the books of the New Testament, who, on this theory, have not merely accepted flimsy fictions for solid truths, but have built the very foundations of Christian dogma upon legendary quicksands?” (Darwin’s Bulldog---Thomas Huxley, Russell Grigg, creation.com, Oct. 14, 2008)
Pouring more contempt on them he asked,
“When Jesus spoke, as of a matter of fact, that "the Flood came and destroyed them all," did he believe that the Deluge really took place, or not? It seems to me that, as the narrative mentions Noah’s wife, and his sons’ wives, there is good scriptural warranty for the statement that the antediluvians married and were given in marriage; and I should have thought that their eating and drinking might be assumed by the firmest believer in the literal truth of the story. Moreover, I venture to ask what sort of value, as an illustration of God’s methods of dealing with sin, has an account of an event that never happened? If no Flood swept the careless people away, how is the warning of more worth than the cry of “Wolf” when there is no wolf? If Jonah’s three days’ residence in the whale is not an “admitted reality,” how could it “warrant belief” in the “coming resurrection?” … Suppose that a Conservative orator warns his hearers to beware of great political and social changes, lest they end, as in France, in the domination of a Robespierre; what becomes, not only of his argument, but of his veracity, if he, personally, does not believe that Robespierre existed and did the deeds attributed to him?” (ibid)
Concerning Matthew 19:5:
“If divine authority is not here claimed for the twenty-fourth verse of the second chapter of Genesis, what is the value of language? And again, I ask, if one may play fast and loose with the story of the Fall as a “type” or “allegory,” what becomes of the foundation of Pauline theology?” (ibid)
And concerning Cor. 15:21-22:
“If Adam may be held to be no more real a personage than Prometheus, and if the story of the Fall is merely an instructive “type,” comparable to the profound Promethean mythus, what value has Paul’s dialectic?” (ibid)
After much thought, C.S. Lewis concluded that evolution is the central, most radical lie at the center of a vast network of lies within which modern Westerners are entangled while Rev. Clarke identifies the central lie as the Gospel of another Spirit. The fiendish aim of this Spirit is to help men lose God, not find Him, and by contradicting the Divine Redeemer, compromising Priests are serving this Spirit and its’ diabolical purposes. To contradict the Divine Redeemer is the very essence of unfaithfulness, and that it should be done while reverence is professed,
“…. is an illustration of the intellectual and moral topsy-turvydom of Modernism…’He whom God hath sent speaketh the Words of God,’ claimed Christ of Himself (John 3:34), and no assumption of error can hold water in the face of that declaration, without blasphemy.” Evolutionary theists are serving the devil, therefore “no considerations of Christian charity, of tolerance, of policy, can exonerate Christian leaders or Churches who fail to condemn and to sever themselves from compromising, cowardly, shilly-shallying priests”---the falling stars who “challenge the Divine Authority of Jesus Christ.” (ibid)
The rebuttals, warnings and counsels of the Fathers against listening to Origenists (and their modern evolutionary counterparts) indicates that the spirit of antichrist operating through modern rationalistic criticism of the Revelation of God is not a heresy unique to our times but was inveighed against by early Church Fathers.
From the scholarly writings of the Eastern Orthodox priest, Fr. Seraphim Rose, to the incisive analysis, rebuttals and warnings of the Catholic Kolbe Center, creation.com, Creation Research Institute, Rev. Clarke, and many other stalwart defenders of the faith once delivered, all are a clear, compelling call to the whole body of the Church to hold fast to the traditional doctrine of creation as it was handed down from the Apostles, for as God spoke and Jesus is the Living Word incarnate, it is incumbent upon the faithful to submit their wills to the Divine Will and Authority of God rather than to the damnable heresy proffered by falling stars eager to embrace naturalistic science and the devil's antithesis--- evolution. But if it seem evil to you to serve the Lord,
“…you have your choice: choose this day that which pleases you, whom you would rather serve….but as for me and my house we will serve the Lord.” Joshua 24:15
If they are ravenous wolves bent on scattering the flock, masquerading as apostles of Christ, deceitful workers attempting to pervert the gospel, then we MUST do all we can to cut the ground from under them (II Cor. 11:12) and expose their lies with the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.
***That’s what brojoke has been doing. Jesus calls such false teachers ‘vipers’ and ‘sons of the devil’.
If we are talking about unbelievers, we are to speak the truth in love.
***I would characterize TL as a spiritually hardened unbeliever, someone who regularly pushes an atheistic point of view.
Hegewish Dupa is a jew who has said we shouldn’t even be allowed to proseletyze on FR.
***And where have I expressed such ideas on this thread, troll?
In your actions.
***Well, that’s an interesting response. It’s pure bowlsheet. I never expressed such ideas on this thread, you read into my posts some kind of intention that probably qualifies as a projection on your part. Get lost, troll. You may not like that Jesus strongly condemns false teachers as vipers and ‘sons of the devil’ but then it’s up to you to take it up with Jesus rather than uphold His followers to a higher standard than even He upheld.
Time for another prediction of your trolling actions on Free Republic.
You will not answer the thing put before you. When you say “it didn’t happen”, you are basically just engaging wishful thinking. You could easily tell all of us that you accept that Jesus is God Himself. But you won’t. Because not only is it antithetical to your obvious manifested beliefs, but it is also because you are a troll here on Free Republic. An accomplished and disciplined troll, yes; but a troll nonetheless.
And no doubt, you have a huge temptation to key up on the phrase “obvious manifested beliefs”. Because a troll like you doesn’t state simply and straightforwardly what your beliefs are, you tear down the conservative beliefs of others. That’s your modus operandi.
The way I/we know all this is because GOD told us through His word. People didn’t just make it up playing that “what if” game, God said it and it is why we CAN believe it and build our faith upon it.
So your faith is in the bible, not God... like I have said..
You’re not alone.. many worship the bible...
Some worship their “church”... others worship saints and artifacts.. etc..
So worshiping bible lore is quite normal...
Jesus never said read the bible.. but go to the Holy Spirit..
That takes faith to believe in and follow the Holy Spirit.. an “invisible friend”..
True the bible is visible tangible literal... like an idol.. so I understand that..
Following the Holy Spirit you have no need of bible lore..
except as entertainment...
for more than 1500 years since Jesus MOST people could not read.. or wanted to...
Seems to me a silly God would require reading anything to determine anything..
Would take a weak God for that....
Most people I know.. and have known treat the Holy Spirit as a doofus.. a go-fer..
I think the HS knows where your faith lies.. textual or in statutes, artifacts or amulets(totems)..
You know... is Not a doofus....... knows “whats happening”..
I come to the News and Activism forum to talk politics, not prosthelytize.
***Proselytizing is allowed on the News and Activism forum. Do you fancy yourself a moderator?
Finally someone selected a meaning for theos. So you see The Son of God as a god and created Being?
My faith is in God alone and, because it is, I know I can trust the sacred Scriptures HE commanded to be written and which HE preserves so that we can have an objective authoritative rule of faith to know truth from error. Lots of people think they are relying solely on the Holy Spirit, because they are trusting in their OWN feelings, however, we can know that when someone feels something is true the only way to KNOW if it is is to go to the objective and authoritative rule of faith, the Bible. It alone contains what holy men of God spoke as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit - that SAME Holy Spirit you seem to think didn't "need" to lead men to write.
If you want to trust in your own feelings or those of others whom you are convinced have the right feelings, then go ahead, you have that freedom to choose for yourself what master you follow. However, I also have that freedom and I have decided long ago that I can trust what God's word says because heaven and earth (those things you can feel) will pass away but His word will NEVER pass away. It remains the ONLY offensive weapon in the spiritual warfare going on all around us - the Sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God. Whether or not someone can read it doesn't change that fact.
John 17:17 "Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth"
that SAME Holy Spirit you seem to think didn’t “need” to lead men to write.
I didn’t say that... the fact that you think I did say that exposes that you trust in filtered verbiage..
The Logos cannot be written down.. because the logos is a person..
The word of God is a person.. not mumblings.. grunts.. of human language...
You seem to filter words thru an agenda..
Which is better than nothing.. I contend there is something better..
Hey there! Hope you had a very happy and healthy Christmas!
Here's what you DID say and to which I responded:
Jesus never said read the bible.. but go to the Holy Spirit.. That takes faith to believe in and follow the Holy Spirit.. an “invisible friend”.. True the bible is visible tangible literal... like an idol.. so I understand that.. Following the Holy Spirit you have no need of bible lore.. except as entertainment... for more than 1500 years since Jesus MOST people could not read.. or wanted to...
Now that read every bit like you don't have much use for the Bible and that you mock those who do saying that it is like idol worship. Who has got an "agenda" here? I do hope you know the difference between the LOGOS (Jesus) and the word of God, because there are many places in Scripture where it is used to mean God's spoken as well as written word. I can point you to a word study on all those places if you'd like. Let me know. Cheers.
bb makes a post that's hard to disagree with and you seem to chastise her for it.There's tons of scripture related to why we should study them and there's also tons of folks attempting to make scripture subservient to traditions,imaginings of men,feelings etc etc
The sword of the spirit is the word of God,Jesus Himself said we would be sanctified by the truth and then added that "thy word is truth".So to be honest I can't blame bb for her stance and in fact I'm thankfull for it.
I'd never heard of Christians 'worshipping' the Bible until I came here to the RF.It's something I find very hard to fathom and ,rightly or wrongly,it always makes me think that's because some seem to feel they have something more to add or worse,it's an attempt to push the word aside.
Practically every page in God's word points me to God.To think that those who supposedly worship the bible then go on to empty idolatry is a contradiction.If they truly worshipped the book they'd be doing what it spells out very plainly yes?
I treat it as an empty statement and I think that God would be happy at what He knows I think of His written word.
Having said all that I still have the nagging feeling I'm not entirely following you.So in the spirit of family,please be gentle.8-)
God bless you and God bless you bb for your zeal for God's word.
BJK: when you research this particular passage, come to find out that one otherwise Trinitarian theologian, John Calvin, wrote:
“the ancients improperly used this passage to prove that Christ is of the same substance as the Father.
For Jesus does not argue concerning unity of substance, but speaks of his agreement with the Father, so that whatever is done by Christ will be confirmed by the Father’s power.”
And so, one-by-one, every Trinitarian proof-text which people like Kevmo might offer up is found not to say what they claim.
Spirited: You have not rightly comprehended the meaning intended by Calvin.
As the ancients were monists, which means they held to the idea of an impersonal Divine One Substance or Void with which everything in the universe was in continuity with, it was to be expected that as Calvin noted, they would use,
“this passage to prove that Christ is of the same substance as the Father.”
While the Father (the first Person of the Holy Trinity) and the Son (the second Person) are of the same essence the same is true of men.
While it may be said of two men that they are of the same substance with respect to the flesh (physical matter) within which their souls are fully embedded, yet they are not the same man, but one is one man, and the other another. For we do not say all men are one and the same person, which does not follow from their being of one fleshy substance and the same human nature, but rather that each man is a person with his own will and personality.
So it is that the Father and the embodied Son, while of the same spiritual essence are two distinct persons.
Kevmo, you lie. "The thing" put before me was the accusation that I've said "Jesus is not God", and it's is a flat-out lie. I've never said it.
You could easily tell all of us that you accept that Jesus is God Himself. But you won’t. Because not only is it antithetical to your obvious manifested beliefs, but it is also because you are a troll here on Free Republic. An accomplished and disciplined troll, yes; but a troll nonetheless.
Yes, we could all jump though your hoops on demand. But we don't. Deal with it.
Pity the soul who can look into the moonless, cloudless night sky, seeing the Milky Way spread from horizon to horizon, and not feel awe. Paul’s admonition early in the Letter to the Romans addresses that witness to God’s Creativeness. The Creation bears witness to the Creator.
Does "convert or I will spread lies about you" qualify as proselytizing? Looks more like extortion.
yes, evolution is satan’s massive attempt to create doubt about the existence of God. Fail.
I agree. When Jesus Christ was tempted by the devil, He clearly said “it is written.” Even the Messiah Son of God truly God and truly man quoted the written Words.
Practically every page in God’s word points me to God.To think that those who supposedly worship the bible then go on to empty idolatry is a contradiction.If they truly worshipped the book they’d be doing what it spells out very plainly yes?
What the bible plainly says is follow God.... not a graven image...
Is the bible “graven” or in “images”?.... i.e. or any book..
Looks like a slam “dunk” to me.. Lots of useful images out there but I use them not follow them.. When you follow textual images they become “dogma”... or even “totems”..
When does “text” become an “idol”...?.
It’s hard to say... but it does happen...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.