Month: November 2024

In what area of my life would I prefer ‘first come, first served’ to ‘high bid wins’? ‘First come, first served’ is just whoever arrives first gets the product. It’s what we have at our grocery stores. First one to get to the store gets what they want. If you arrive late, then you may not get what you came to get. ‘High bid wins’ is like an auction. Whoever decides to pay the most gets the product. 

I prefer ‘First come, first served’. Why? There’s a lot of problems with ‘High bid wins’. What is someone who really needs something arrives late, or doesn’t have enough money? It makes their lives harder. With  ‘First come, first served’ everyone has a chance to get what they want or need. It makes it fair. In what area of my life would I prefer ‘first come, first served’ to ‘high bid wins’? I would keep everything the same as it is now. Stores are ‘First come, first served’ and auctions are ‘High bid wins’. 

Is there anyone you think is more of the archetypal American than Franklin? According to the dictionary, Archetypal means “very typical of a certain kind of person or thing.” Who was Benjamin Franklin? According to Wikipedia “Benjamin Franklin was an American polymath: a leading writer, scientist, inventor, statesman, diplomat, printer, publisher and political philosopher. Among the most influential intellectuals of his time, Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States; a drafter and signer of the Declaration of Independence; and the first postmaster general.” Why is he considered a archetypal American? According to Bartleby, “He was industrious. Franklin continually put forth the idea of the industrious American. He had support from the middle-class who did not care if he was rich but he was a man who was self-made and worked hard. This American attitude was formed early and most of it by him.” When he was young, he found an interest in reading and writing, so he started to print. He never gave up on this. Is there a more archetypal American than Franklin? Out of all the people I’m thinking of, yes he is. Here’s why. 

First of all, he didn’t care about having a ton of money. This is a great trait to have. 1 Timothy 6:10 says “For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.” Earlier, I said that I was thinking of multiple people, but they all love money, so I didn’t choose them. Franklin was also self-made. According to Wikipedia, “A “self-made man” is a person whose success is of their own making. In the intellectual and cultural history of the United States, the idea of the self-made man as an archetype or cultural ideal looms large, but has been criticized by some as a myth or cult.” He was also a hard worker. This means that he didn’t give up easily. He kept going, even if there was some difficult challenge in his life. When he was faced with a situation he would do his best to fix it. He didn’t give up on his life goals either. He did them, mostly. He had his problems, but he is still a good example. 

If you had heard the sermons “Marks of a True Conversion” and “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”, would you have assumed that you were the target? Marks of a True Conversion was a sermon spoken and written be George Whitefield. According to Wikipedia, “George Whitefield, also known as George Whitfield, was an Anglican cleric and evangelist who was one of the founders of Methodism and the evangelical movement. Born in Gloucester, he matriculated at Pembroke College at the University of Oxford in 1732.” He was alive from 1714-1770. He might be best known for being a central figure in the Great Awakening. According to Bartleby.com, “It (the sermon) is representative of the Great Awakening. It was a revival sermon, the goal was to gain conversions to Christ, the sermon used detailed imagery as rhetoric, it was Calvinistic. But, it didn’t focus on the role of the local church. It assumed the conventional preaching had not produced conversions.“

Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God  was a sermon by Jonathan Edwards. According to Wikipedia, “”Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” is a sermon written by the American theologian Jonathan Edwards, preached to his own congregation in Northampton, Massachusetts, to profound effect, and again on July 8, 1741 in Enfield, Connecticut. The preaching of this sermon was the catalyst for the First Great Awakening.” Who was Jonathan Edwards? According to Wikipedia, “Jonathan Edwards was an American revivalist preacher, philosopher, and Congregationalist theologian. A leading figure of the American Enlightenment, Edwards is widely regarded as one of America’s most important and original philosophical theologians.”

If you had heard the sermons “Marks of a True Conversion” and “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”, would you have assumed that you were the target? According to Bartleby.com, “His (Edwards’) sermons were intended as a wake-up call for those who underplayed the majesty of a holy God and overemphasized their own worthiness as a decent, hard-working, successful citizens. Edwards believed strongly that only a genuine conversion experience should qualify a person for church membership.” Both of their sermons were a wake-up call for Christians. So would I feel as if I was the target of the sermons? Yes. The sermons were for Christians, not for converting people to Christianity. So yes I would feel like a target of these sermons. 

Is a tax-supported school different in principle from a tax-supported church? According to Wikipedia, “A tax is a compulsory financial charge or some other type of levy imposed on a taxpayer by a governmental organization in order to collectively fund government spending, public expenditures, or as a way to regulate and reduce negative externalities.” Taxing is just another way for the government to rob us. Being tax-supported is when the government is giving something the taxes that we pay, even if we don’t want them to. 

Is a tax-supported school different in principle from a tax-supported church? There is really no difference. The government gives that church or school money, but in return they make the church or school teach what they want. Public schools are tax-supported. Those schools teach some of the biggest lies this generation came up with. The teachers are forced to teach what the government wants, even if they don’t believe it. The same goes for tax-supported churches. The only difference is one is a church and one is a school. So they teach different things, but the things that the government wants. Not the truth. Private schools are not tax-funded and kids who come from those are much smarter than public school kids. Or they should be. My church is not tax-supp0rted and we’re doing great without the government. We even have a private school there. 

If you had been a member of the General Court, how would the sermon Theopolis Americana have influenced your politics? Theopolis Americana was a sermon written by a man named Cotton Mather. It was basically an  extended description of Revelation 21:21. “The twelve gates were twelve pearls, each gate made of a single pearl. The great street of the city was of gold, as pure as transparent glass.” According to Wikipedia, Cotton Mather was “a New England Puritan child prodigy, clergyman, theologian, and writer. Beginning his Harvard College undergraduate education at age twelve, he is the youngest person ever to be admitted there.”

This sermon was written to the Massachusetts General Assembly, which is also known as the General Court. Mather was hoping that His sermon would change the General Court in how they viewed politics, how they change their laws, and possibly how they think. There were parts of his sermon that were messy and other parts were very serious and extreme. This is because he needed to be vague and general. He needed to keep it civil, because he couldn’t risk dividing up the legislators in being more specific than he needed to be. There were many criticisms in his sermon. Many of these were being dealt with 0r already dealt with, Some of these problems were contract violations, commercial dishonesty, business corruption, and this includes the kidnapping of African slaves. He quoted Richard Baxter to describe how horrible it was to kidnap people from a different continent and force them to work in yours as slaves. He also describes his dislike of alcohol and its overuse. He says h0w he isn’t against it, but he doesn’t encourage it. He only says that he hates its excessive use, but he doesn’t want it banned. He doesn’t give an explanation. He just says he hates its excessive use. He wants them to solve the problem themselves. 

If you had been a member of the General Court, how would the sermon Theopolis Americana have influenced your politics? I don’t think it would. The General Court already knew the problems of the thing that he criticized. If they didn’t already change it, then why would they change.