Philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein used the rabbit/duck illusion
in his writings to demonstrate different ways of seeing things. You can
easily Google 'rabbit/duck illusion' to see the illustration. More
recently, the varying perceptions of a blue and black dress went
viral on the Internet. You can also easily Google this illusion. Emil
Mazey, a twentieth century labor leader, is reported to have paraphrased
the older proverb known as the duck test when he said the
following..."I can't prove you are a Communist. But when I see a bird
that quacks like a duck, walks like a duck,, has feathers and webbed
feet and associates with ducks- I'm certainly going to assume that he
is a duck."
I, and many others, see Barack Obama as a Marxist and a Communist. Is this just an illusion on our part or are those who do not see this the ones being taken in by the illusion? The evidence, if one is willing to view it, strongly supports Obama being a man who was prepared, programmed and protected along his way to the White House. Americans need a tutorial on Communism to dispel the illusion that Barack Obama has America's best interests at heart.
Been There....Done That....Got The T-shirt
This is my resume. I have almost a half a century of experience as an adult to write these posts. I was part of the 60s generation. I saw JFK in person and shook Jimmy Carter's hand....twice. I've been a Democrat and a Republican. I can compare the Cuban Missile Crisis with Communism today. I was Pentecostal in the beginning. I lived about a third of my adult life without Jesus Christ. I've been in the military. I've been a union member for over 35 years. I've been in college in the early 70s and the late 90s. I've studied world history and American history and church history. I've heard every imaginable form of Christian preaching and have the past to compare it to. I've lived through lean times where we struggled to put food on the table and fat times where I feel guilty after paying so much money at a restaurant. The following post is from June of this year:
It's really rather amazing....the older one gets the more complete a picture appears of life and this world that we live in......it's more complex but paradoxically more clear at the same time. Now this in itself guarantees nothing for it is just a help that may be utilized or may be wasted. I have many legitimate memories of the 1950s and the accompanying lifestyle of my parents and their friends with their entertainments... all culminating in those '13 days of October 1962.' The 60s were something else altogether and I lived it as part of that generation that spawned idols and tragedies as America deteriorated in the process. I experienced the Vietnam years...from Vietnam...18 months anyway.
I know what the 70s felt like. I've experienced lean times and fat times. As I grew up I watched my mother struggle to put food on the table and now I buy more food than I need. I backed political candidates from both sides of the political spectrum as both a teenager up until now as a senior citizen. Most importantly I once knew not Jesus Christ and I still tremble at that. I once thought that this life was the only thing that mattered and certainly did not want to even meditate upon what would happen when it was over. I now know that there is meaning in life and that meaning is in Jesus Christ......and that somehow He painted us into the picture of calling others to Him. There is now not only 'meaning' to life but 'life' to life. I don't think that I can adequately convey the difference in these two periods of my life but combined together they offer an additional perspective.
There is a downside to experiencing this world over so much time... as one sees decades pass with no lessons learned. I've lived on both ends of a fifty year spectrum and we are far far worse off in just about every imaginable way today! As every year passes I see more and more how frail and weak man is and would wonder how he lasted six-thousand years if I did not already know that the answer to that is that nuclear weapons have only been around for 70 of those years. Wisdom is rare and truth is obsolete today. I read simple letters of correspondence written centuries ago and marvel at how we have digressed in language and analysis and thought in general. We are taken in by every scam hatched in the nursery of our narcissism and greed. We have a Communist president and could care less about it because we have no idea what Communism is.
No, man has not progressed even though he constantly grades himself with an "A+." Every evidence points to a cataclysmic end to Western Civilization but this courtroom takes no prosecutorial evidence...only testimony from the defense on how they are the true victim. There is no judge, no jury and no oaths to take.
I take you back to the rise of the Persian Empire and the book of Ezra. God had moved mightily upon the heart of Cyrus The Great who decreed that the Jews could return to Jerusalem and rebuild their temple. The 70 year Babylonian Captivity was over. Tens of thousands of Jews returned and began the work only to be delayed because of opposition from the peoples who had since taken up residence in the area. Eventually their permission to build was verified. Ezra then returned and found that the people had fallen away from God as if nothing was ever learned! Great remorse was offered to God and reforms were instituted. Nehemiah would return as governor of Judea shortly after and once again great remorse had to be made and reforms instituted. Finally the walls of Jerusalem were rebuilt! I can see a similar progression in our own nation....America. It is as if we attempt, albeit through much opposition, to rebuild what we once had but just as the Jews had done, we utterly refuse to separate from the surrounding pagan culture. We are indistinguishable in our conversations, our entertainments and our pastimes. Yet we in the church also grade ourselves with an A+! We would be more than satisfied and consider it a great victory to have a Republican Party led government where little change would be required of us.
Should God send an Ezra or a Nehemiah to America there would indeed be rending of garments, but He has instead sent Jonahs and now Nahums who are ignored.
I, and many others, see Barack Obama as a Marxist and a Communist. Is this just an illusion on our part or are those who do not see this the ones being taken in by the illusion? The evidence, if one is willing to view it, strongly supports Obama being a man who was prepared, programmed and protected along his way to the White House. Americans need a tutorial on Communism to dispel the illusion that Barack Obama has America's best interests at heart.
Been There....Done That....Got The T-shirt
This is my resume. I have almost a half a century of experience as an adult to write these posts. I was part of the 60s generation. I saw JFK in person and shook Jimmy Carter's hand....twice. I've been a Democrat and a Republican. I can compare the Cuban Missile Crisis with Communism today. I was Pentecostal in the beginning. I lived about a third of my adult life without Jesus Christ. I've been in the military. I've been a union member for over 35 years. I've been in college in the early 70s and the late 90s. I've studied world history and American history and church history. I've heard every imaginable form of Christian preaching and have the past to compare it to. I've lived through lean times where we struggled to put food on the table and fat times where I feel guilty after paying so much money at a restaurant. The following post is from June of this year:
It's really rather amazing....the older one gets the more complete a picture appears of life and this world that we live in......it's more complex but paradoxically more clear at the same time. Now this in itself guarantees nothing for it is just a help that may be utilized or may be wasted. I have many legitimate memories of the 1950s and the accompanying lifestyle of my parents and their friends with their entertainments... all culminating in those '13 days of October 1962.' The 60s were something else altogether and I lived it as part of that generation that spawned idols and tragedies as America deteriorated in the process. I experienced the Vietnam years...from Vietnam...18 months anyway.
I know what the 70s felt like. I've experienced lean times and fat times. As I grew up I watched my mother struggle to put food on the table and now I buy more food than I need. I backed political candidates from both sides of the political spectrum as both a teenager up until now as a senior citizen. Most importantly I once knew not Jesus Christ and I still tremble at that. I once thought that this life was the only thing that mattered and certainly did not want to even meditate upon what would happen when it was over. I now know that there is meaning in life and that meaning is in Jesus Christ......and that somehow He painted us into the picture of calling others to Him. There is now not only 'meaning' to life but 'life' to life. I don't think that I can adequately convey the difference in these two periods of my life but combined together they offer an additional perspective.
There is a downside to experiencing this world over so much time... as one sees decades pass with no lessons learned. I've lived on both ends of a fifty year spectrum and we are far far worse off in just about every imaginable way today! As every year passes I see more and more how frail and weak man is and would wonder how he lasted six-thousand years if I did not already know that the answer to that is that nuclear weapons have only been around for 70 of those years. Wisdom is rare and truth is obsolete today. I read simple letters of correspondence written centuries ago and marvel at how we have digressed in language and analysis and thought in general. We are taken in by every scam hatched in the nursery of our narcissism and greed. We have a Communist president and could care less about it because we have no idea what Communism is.
No, man has not progressed even though he constantly grades himself with an "A+." Every evidence points to a cataclysmic end to Western Civilization but this courtroom takes no prosecutorial evidence...only testimony from the defense on how they are the true victim. There is no judge, no jury and no oaths to take.
I take you back to the rise of the Persian Empire and the book of Ezra. God had moved mightily upon the heart of Cyrus The Great who decreed that the Jews could return to Jerusalem and rebuild their temple. The 70 year Babylonian Captivity was over. Tens of thousands of Jews returned and began the work only to be delayed because of opposition from the peoples who had since taken up residence in the area. Eventually their permission to build was verified. Ezra then returned and found that the people had fallen away from God as if nothing was ever learned! Great remorse was offered to God and reforms were instituted. Nehemiah would return as governor of Judea shortly after and once again great remorse had to be made and reforms instituted. Finally the walls of Jerusalem were rebuilt! I can see a similar progression in our own nation....America. It is as if we attempt, albeit through much opposition, to rebuild what we once had but just as the Jews had done, we utterly refuse to separate from the surrounding pagan culture. We are indistinguishable in our conversations, our entertainments and our pastimes. Yet we in the church also grade ourselves with an A+! We would be more than satisfied and consider it a great victory to have a Republican Party led government where little change would be required of us.
Should God send an Ezra or a Nehemiah to America there would indeed be rending of garments, but He has instead sent Jonahs and now Nahums who are ignored.
