BE YE THEREFORE SOBER

1 Peter 4

1Forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with the same mind: for he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin;

2That he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh to the lusts of men, but to the will of God.

3For the time past of our life may suffice us to have wrought the will of the Gentiles, when we walked in lasciviousness, lusts, excess of wine, revellings, banquetings, and abominable idolatries:

4Wherein they think it strange that ye run not with them to the same excess of riot, speaking evil of you:

5Who shall give account to him that is ready to judge the quick and the dead.

6For for this cause was the gospel preached also to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit.

7But the end of all things is at hand: be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer.

8And above all things have fervent charity among yourselves: for charity shall cover the multitude of sins.

9Use hospitality one to another without grudging.

10As every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.

11If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God; if any man minister, let him do it as of the ability which God giveth: that God in all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom be praise and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.

12Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you:

13But rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings; that, when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy.

14If ye be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye; for the spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you: on their part he is evil spoken of, but on your part he is glorified.

15But let none of you suffer as a murderer, or as a thief, or as an evildoer, or as a busybody in other men's matters.

16Yet if any man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed; but let him glorify God on this behalf.

17For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?

18And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?

19Wherefore let them that suffer according to the will of God commit the keeping of their souls to him in well doing, as unto a faithful Creator.

GULIANI PICKS CLOBALIST TO HEAD COALITION

Giuliani Appoints Globalist to Head Up National Coalition of Law Enforcement and First Responders

Mike Swenson and Josh Reeves Real Inside News

August 30, 2007

Rudy Giuliani has reportedly handed over the responsibility of heading up a national coalition of law enforcement and emergency first-repsonders to Howard Safir, according to an article in the New York Post today. The group has also been backing Guiliani's campaign for president.

During Giuliani's time as Mayor of New York City, Safir served as both the fire and police commissioner.

"He has always shown uncompromising courage in the face of challenges," Safir said of Giuliani.

Also in the coalition are a group of higher-ups within the city's government agencies, including former New York FBI chief Pat D'Amuro, ex-NYPD First Commissioner Joseph Dunne, College professor and former city firefighters-union president Jim Boyle, and Lee Ielpi, a retired firefighter who lost his firefighter son, Jonathan, on 9/11.

Some further digging into the background of Mr. Safir has brought forth some startling facts, most of which point to involvement in global government.

Along with his past duties as fire and police commissioner, Safir is currently the CEO of a company called GlobalOptions Group. According to the company's official website, GlobalOptions is "led by a team of world-class experts from government, the military, and business." However, this is just the tip of the iceberg.

GlobalOptions also includes some interesting characters on its advisory board. Ambassador Frances D. Cook (former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State), William Sessions (former Director of the FBI), William Webster and R. James Woolsey (both former directors of the CIA), and John Oswald (President and CEO of the Capital Trust Group), just to name a few.

GlobalOptions has been involved in several other suspicious activities.

According to the website FindArticles.com, back in March, GlobalOptions' associate James Lee Witt Associates was involved in the assesment of emergency situations in Weston, Florida. "This includes reviewing and analyzing plans in relation to traffic, public safety and other emergency plans, including evacuation and the potential impact on emergency services in the region."

GlobalOptions has also expanded into the Middle East and North Africa. According to WittAssociates.com, the same plans the company executed in Weston, Florida have also been carried out within these regions. Again, James Lee Witt Associates "formed a multi-year agreement with Kuwait-based International Investors Group Holdings, to jointly provide emergency planning, crisis management, business continuity planning, training and exercises, and continuity of government services to governments and corporations throughout the Middle East and North Africa". This took place back in June.

It is also interesting to note that James Lee Witt was the former director of FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency), according to his official website.

This company also specializes in various forms of international strategies, including crisis management, investigations and reconnaissance, business intelligence, litigation support, risk management and security, emerging markets services, corporate governance.

Globalism poses a definitive threat to the stability of freedom and prosperity throughout the world. The definition of Globalism is a system of global connectivity. It involves a one monetary system (one bank), one religion, and one group of leaders to govern all citizens.

Giuliani's law firm, Bracewell and Giuliani, according to The August Review, is involved in the legal council for a company called Cintra, which has ties to the NAFTA Superhighway\Trans-Texas Corridor. This is important to note, due to the fact that the NAFTA Superhighway\Trans-Texas Corridor is part of a plan to instill the North American Union. The NAU will unite Canada, the United States, and Mexico into one country, which will lead to the destruction of the United States Constitution and sovereignty.

Given the various criticisms of Giuliani in recent weeks, months, and years regarding his handling of 9\11 and ground zero resecue workers, this move by the candidate may not sit well with his closest supporters and could bring even further heat upon his already stained reputation.

Source: http://www.realinsidenews.com/governmentnews076.html

NON-GOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS

NGO Research Guide

Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO) Research Guide

Christof Galli, Subject Librarian

326D Bostock christof.galli@duke.edu (919) 660-5850

Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have become increasingly influential in world affairs. They often impact the social, economic and political activities of communities and the country as a whole. NGOs address a host of issues, Including, but not limited to, women’s rights, environmental protection, human rights, economic development, political rights, or health care. In numerous countries, NGOs have led the way in democratization, in battling diseases and illnesses, in promoting and enforcing human rights, and in increasing standards of living. More...

Thousands of NGOs are also active at the international level; according to one estimate, some 25,000 organizations now qualify as NGOs. Some of these NGOs only impact a small region of the world, while others have spread across multiple continents. Amnesty International, for instance, has more than a million members and affiliates in over 90 countries and territories. In the field of international relations, scholars now speak of NGOs as “non-state actors” (a category that can also include transnational corporations). This term suggests NGOs’ emerging influence in the international policy arena where previously only states played a significant role. Though NGOs have few formal powers over international decision-making, they have many accomplishments to their credit. In recent years, they have successfully promoted new environmental agreements, greatly strengthened women’s rights, and won important arms control and disarmament measures. NGOs have also improved the rights and well-being of children, the disabled, the poor and indigenous peoples.

Source: http://library.duke.edu/research/subject/guides/ngo_guide/

FINANCIAL CRISIS WILL CUT NYC TRANSIT FUNDS

Bloomberg Says Subprime Crisis Will Cut Transit Funds (Update1)

By Henry Goldman

Aug. 31 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. subprime mortgage crisis has cooled New York City's real-estate market and lowered Wall Street revenues, reducing the city's and state's ability to finance mass transit, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said.

Rising defaults on home loans made to borrowers with poor credit ultimately will lead to less revenue at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, operator of the largest U.S. public transit network, because it gets a percentage of real estate transaction fees, Bloomberg said.

``At the same time expenses are going up. Something's got to give,'' Bloomberg said during his weekly appearance on WABC radio. ``You have either the tax base subsidizing this, or the straphangers, or a combination.''

Bloomberg said that reduced revenue made it more important to enact the plan he has proposed to charge motorists fees to enter Manhattan's most congested parts. The revenue from that program could be applied to the mass-transit system, he said.

State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, who has questioned the mayor's plan and said it would be unfair to target commuters with the fees, rejected Bloomberg's argument.

``There's no logic to the idea that when peoples' mortgages are foreclosed, we should add to the burdens on them,'' he said in an interview.

Silver said he wants to wait for the findings of a commission impaneled to study the issue and present recommendations by March 31, 2008.

Congestion Pricing

Silver has three appointees on the 17-member panel, which must determine how to cut traffic into Manhattan by at least 6.5 percent to qualify for a $354 million U.S. Department of Transportation grant. The federal grant requires that the city's plan use some form of pricing structure to discourage car use.

Bloomberg also has three appointees on the panel, as do such supporters of his plan as Governor Eliot Spitzer, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, and state Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno. The Senate and Assembly minority leaders each appointed one member to the commission.

The cooling of the city's hot real estate market will probably end a period of unanticipated surpluses for the MTA and to city and state government during the past three years, Bloomberg said. The slowing revenues come at a time when the transit agency is projecting a $965 million deficit in 2008 without fare increases and other gap-closing actions.

Higher borrowing costs, declining affordability and a jump in the number of subprime defaults have sapped housing demand, leaving a glut of unsold properties.

In 2006, 1 percent of real estate deals brought in about 50 percent of New York City's revenue from the property transfer tax, a situation that couldn't be repeated amid tighter credit because of subprime lending difficulties, the mayor said.

Wall Street profits ``are now down 50 percent from what they were last year,'' he said. ``That's a lot of tax revenues.''

The mayor is founder and majority owner of Bloomberg News parent Bloomberg LP.

To contact the reporter on this story: Henry Goldman in New York at hgoldman@bloomberg.net .

Last Updated: August 31, 2007 15:55 EDT

Source: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=a7IZ9OOnoZ_g&refer=us

HITLER YOUTH AND THE VATICAN

Hitler Youth and the Vatican
By Marc Ash
t r u t h o u t Perspective

Thursday 28 April 2005

Pope Benedict XVI as young Joseph Ratzinger. Circa 1940. (Photo: KNA / AP)

In the final stages of World War II, US and British soldiers reported that the German military was using child soldiers. Boys as young as 14 faced advancing allied forces, often fighting to the death. Death, however, was not always the fate that awaited the young Germans, some were captured. The American and English soldiers who questioned the young prisoners noted two things almost categorically: most of the child soldiers were or had been Hitler Youth, and those who had held membership in the Fuhrer's youth corps were impossible to reason with. Passionate ideological mind-sets were reportedly common among these boys.

Recent worldwide press attention to the boyhood membership of now-Pope Benedict XVI in the Hitler Youth Movement has re-focused the attention of world on the origins of the catastrophic conflict that engulfed mankind in the mid-twentieth century. The debate has been focused in particular on what constituted a good German at that time.

In fairness to the new Pope, there is no evidence that any member of the Ratzinger family supported or sympathized with the Nazis. There are even some accounts that put the Ratzinger family in opposition to the Nazis. That would have, by any account of the day, been risky, as the Nazis were willing to mete out their vengeance against Catholics who opposed them as quickly as against any other opposition. Catholics who resisted faced persecution and even execution. As for entry into the Hitler Youth movement itself, as Cardinal Ratzinger has pointed out many times over the years, young German boys were in fact conscripted, and attendance was compulsory. History supports this all.

Two things, however, bear note. First, Cardinal Ratzinger's own recollection of induction into the Hitler Youth Movement. He said, "I was too young, but later was enrolled into it from the seminary." And second, it should be noted that, in Germany today, finding a former Nazi is not easy. Yes, there is a troubling cadre of new-right neo-Nazis. Gone, however, are the wild-eyed throngs of average Germans who were swayed, gone as though they had never existed.

Fear and Loathing of Communism

One theory promulgated by Adolph Hitler that has resonated with many Americans throughout the decades is the fear and loathing of Communism. It seems the red menace is as good a social motivator in America today as it was at the Nuremberg rally in 1934. Shame. Beware the left, and all that. At any rate, according to a recent New York Times article by Richard Bernstein, Daniel J. Wakin and Mark Landler, Joseph Ratzinger developed a deep and abiding disdain for the student radicalism in the late 1960s at Tübingen University. The Times authors point to a fear that students' tactics smacked of Nazi tactics, and that, they conclude, Ratzinger could not abide. But Ratzinger's words belie a greater fear of Marxism. He wrote, "Marxist revolution kindled the whole university with its fervor, shaking it to its very foundations." Some years later, he chided a left-leaning colleague over dinner, saying with some satisfaction, "Your Marxist revolution has come to nothing."

Events in Russia during the first half of the twentieth century sent shock waves through all of Europe. As the kettle boiled over in Moscow there was little time to differentiate between Marxism and Stalinism. The difference was profound but ultimately the far-left proved a catalyst for the far-right and the center became a killing-field. Stalin had used the far-left to launch his own personal Stalinist dictatorship and the rest is, as they say, history. While Stalin pretended to support the goals of the Communists to gain power, Hitler used fear of the Communists to do the same. It is also worthy of noting that as the far-right attempted to gain power in the US in recent Presidential elections the far-left, specifically Ralph Nader once again opened the door.

Joseph Ratzinger might have argued that the far left's capacity to empower the far right was reason enough to reject the new thinking emerging at Tübingen University in the late 1960s. But as his journey now has led him to be arguably the most influential man in the world, his early demonization of the students at Tübingen becomes suspect by its convenience.

Why Does All This Matter?

The Vatican contends today, as it has always contended, that they 'don't do politics.' History disagrees, particularly with regard to the Vatican's relationship with the Nazis. Serious allegations have swirled for years about the Vatican's complicity with the Nazis during and after the war. Those charges have resulted in several investigations and at least one lawsuit, but no more. The Vatican has refused repeated requests to open its archives from the period. Until they do so, the question remains open, as well it should.

Some facts from that period are not in dispute and do shed light. Pope Pius XII has long been criticized for his silence as the Nazi concentration camps did their awful work, but understanding Pius XII's relationship with the Nazis provides substantial insight into why he did not speak out. The 1933 Concordat signed by the Vatican with the Nazis ensured, if nothing else, that they would do no harm to one another. The Reich Concordat was an agreement signed between the Vatican and the National Socialist government of Germany. The person primarily responsible for the negotiation and signing of this document was the Cardinal Secretary of State, Eugenio Pacelli, the future Pope Pius XII, with the agreement of Pius XI. Why the Vatican saw fit to elevate Pacelli to Pope as Germany was massing its armies is a question that remains relevant today.

Among Joseph Ratzinger's better-published positions is "a sense that Catholicism is in competition with Islam." Is that very different from the Vatican's attitudes toward European Jews during the early part of the twentieth century? Lo and behold, armies march again, and once more, the Vatican and German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger are at the center of the action. As the US pursues what the Islamic world views as a latter-day Christian crusade, it appears Ratzinger made the decision to intercede in the US presidential election process on behalf of the war's architect, George W. Bush. In a June 2004 letter to US bishops, Ratzinger made clear that John Kerry was a sinner for his positions on "life" issues, as would be any one who voted for him. The result was a historic swing of traditionally Democratic voters away from the Catholic John Kerry and into the win column for Republican George W. Bush.

While Pope John Paul II had openly opposed the US war on Iraq, Ratzinger had ensured it would continue for four more years. Either death by war is more acceptable to the Vatican than death by abortion or Islam is a bigger concern than they are letting on. Or both.

By all accounts, the American and English soldiers in the trenches were right: the Hitler Youth were/are ideologically driven.

Source: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/042805Y.shtml

GHOSTS OF THE VATICAN RATLINES

Ghosts of The Ratlines


December 2005
By Ron Fraser

The United Nations’ chief prosecutor for war crimes has claimed the Vatican is sheltering a Croatian war criminal. For those familiar with post-World War II history, this case resurrects memories of the ratlines.

Students of Vatican history are familiar with the Vatican’s involvement with an orga-nization known as Odessa that bankrolled the escape of many a Nazi from Europe following World War ii. They are also familiar with an underground network of safe houses and escape routes used by the Nazis in the closing stages of and years immediately following the war. This network became commonly known as “the ratlines.”

The general public remains basically ignorant of the high level of involvement of the Vatican hierarchy in the operation of the ratlines. This covert network allowed safe haven in monasteries and other church facilities, and used church manpower to facilitate the escape of countless thousands of Nazis to Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, Canada, Australia and even the United States of America.


The average person is also probably unaware that the current pope, Joseph Ratzinger, was connected to the operations of the Vatican ratlines network of Nazi escape routes.

To anyone familiar with this sponsorship by the Vatican State of the Nazi escape routes, it will come as no surprise that Carla del Ponte, the United Nations’ chief prosecutor for war crimes, claimed in late September that the Vatican is sheltering Croatian war criminal Ante Gotovina. “I have information he is hiding in a Franciscan monastery and so the Catholic Church is protecting him,” she said. “I have taken this up with the Vatican and the Vatican refuses totally to cooperate with us” (Reuters, September 20).

Reuters further indicated that Del Ponte claimed “Gotovina, a former general wanted for atrocities against Croatian Serb civilians by his troops in 1995, was being sheltered in one of 80 monasteries in Croatia and the Vatican could probably find out where ‘in a few days.’”

Del Ponte, a Roman Catholic herself, is in a prime position to make such a statement. Her office allows high-level contacts that enable her to be patently aware (like all top-level officials involved in international politics, security and defense) that, as she declared, “the Catholic Church has the most advanced intelligence services” (ibid.).

Gotovina is no petty criminal. As the bbc reported, “Forces under General Gotovina’s command are accused of killing scores of Serbs and expelling up to 200,000 from the Krajina region, now part of Croatia. Many in Croatia regard him as a national hero” (September 20). Whereas Croatia is overwhelmingly Roman Catholic, Serbs subscribe mainly to the Orthodox religion.

Although Del Ponte now claims the Vatican is cooperating, finally, with her investigations, when she raised the issue last July in Rome with Archbishop Giovanni Lajolo, the Vatican’s equivalent of foreign minister, the Vatican informed her that it had no obligation to help the UN track war crimes suspects. Ordinarily such a stance would be regarded as simply obstructing the process of justice; however—as with Pope Benedict xvi’s stance on charges of the Vatican’s complicity in pederasty in the priesthood—he simply regards the church as being above the civil law. As the Vatican State informed the nation of Israel when it complained about Ratzinger’s failure in a recent speech on terrorism to condemn Palestinian terrorist acts against that country, no power may dictate to the pope!

So it is that the Trumpet sees the shadow of the old Nazi ratlines rising to once again cloud the prospects of true justice being imposed in bringing Catholic fascists to book. We have consistently warned of this past repeating itself. Now we are not only witnessing an approach by the Vatican to the Gotovina case identical to that applied to the sheltering of Nazi war criminals 60 years ago, we see none other than the pope himself directly involved, once again, in frustrating the course of true justice. Such a stance by Benedict, so early in his papacy, bodes ill for the future of Europe, and indeed the rest of the world.

Copyright © 2007 Philadelphia Church of God All Rights Reserved

Source: http://64.233.169.104/search?q=cache:w7xZjzOqL3kJ:www.thetrumpet.com/index.php%3Fpage%3Darticle%26id%3D1821+THE+VATICAN+RATLINES&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=2&gl=us

PRESS SECRETARY TONY SNOW RESIGNS

White House Press Secretary Snow Resigns

Friday, August 31, 2007

WASHINGTON - Tony Snow, the highly visible White House press secretary, will leave his job on Sept. 14 and be replaced by his deputy, Dana Perino, an administration official said Friday.

President Bush was to announce the changes during an appearance in the White House briefing room.

Snow, ailing with cancer, had said recently he would leave before the end of Bush's presidency because he needs to make more money.

The 52-year-old Snow was a conservative pundit and syndicated talk-show host on Fox News Radio before he was named press secretary on April 26, 2006. He is the latest in a string of White House officials to head for the exits.

Friday was the last day of work for political strategist Karl Rove. Others who have left since Democrats won control of Congress are counselor Dan Bartlett, chief White House attorney Harriet Miers, budget director Rob Portman, political director Sara Taylor, deputy national security adviser J.D. Crouch and Meghan O'Sullivan, another deputy national security adviser who worked on Iraq.

Snow has been undergoing chemotherapy after doctors discovered a recurrence of colon cancer in March.

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed

Source: http://home.peoplepc.com/psp/newsstory.asp?cat=TopStories&referrer=welcome&id=20070831/46d79240_3ca6_1552620070831514917705

THE GEORGIA GUIDESTONES

The Georgia Guidestones

On one of the highest hilltops in Elberton County, Georgia stands a huge granite monument. Engraved in eight different languages on the four giant stones that support the common capstone are 10 Guides, or commandments. That monument is alternately referred to as The Georgia Guidestones, or the American Stonehenge. Though relatively unknown to most people, it is an important link to the Occult Hierarchy that dominates the world in which we live.

The origin of that strange monument is shrouded in mystery because no one knows the true identity of the man, or men, who commissioned its construction. All that is known for certain is that in June 1979, a well-dressed, articulate stranger visited the office of the Elberton Granite Finishing Company and announced that he wanted to build an edifice to transmit a message to mankind. He identified himself as R. C. Christian, but it soon became apparent that was not his real name. He said that he represented a group of men who wanted to offer direction to humanity, but to date, almost two decades later, no one knows who R. C. Christian really was, or the names of those he represented. Several things are apparent. The messages engraved on the Georgia Guidestones deal with four major fields: (1) Governance and the establishment of a world government, (2) Population and reproduction control, (3) The environment and man's relationship to nature, and (4) Spirituality.

In the public library in Elberton, I found a book written by the man who called himself R.C. Christian. I discovered that the monument he commissioned had been erected in recognition of Thomas Paine and the occult philosophy he espoused. Indeed, the Georgia Guidestones are used for occult ceremonies and mystic celebrations to this very day. Tragically, only one religious leader in the area had the courage to speak out against the American Stonehenge, and he has recently relocated his ministry.

THE MESSAGE OF THE GEORGIA GUIDESTONES

1. Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature.
2. Guide reproduction wisely - improving fitness and diversity.
3. Unite humanity with a living new language.
4. Rule passion - faith - tradition - and all things with tempered reason.
5. Protect people and nations with fair laws and just courts.
6. Let all nations rule internally resolving external disputes in a world court.
7. Avoid petty laws and useless officials.
8. Balance personal rights with social duties.
9. Prize truth - beauty - love - seeking harmony with the infinite.
10.Be not a cancer on the earth - Leave room for nature - Leave room for nature.

Limiting the population of the earth to 500 million will require the extermination of nine-tenths of the world's people. The American Stonehenge's reference to establishing a world court foreshadows the current move to create an International Criminal Court and a world government. The Guidestones' emphasis on preserving nature anticipates the environmental movement of the 1990s, and the reference to "seeking harmony with the infinite" reflects the current effort to replace Judeo-Christian beliefs with a new spirituality.

The message of the American Stonehenge also foreshadowed the current drive for Sustainable Development. Any time you hear the phrase "Sustainable Development" used, you should substitute the term "socialism" to be able to understand what is intended. Later in this syllabus you will read the full text of the Earth Charter which was compiled under the direction of Mikhail Gorbachev and Maurice Strong. In that document you will find an emphasis on the same basic issues: control of reproduction, world governance, the importance of nature and the environment, and a new spirituality. The similarity between the ideas engraved on the Georgia Guidestones and those espoused in the Earth Charter reflect the common origins of both.

Yoko Ono, the widow of John Lennon, was recently quoted as referring to the American Stonehenge, saying:

"I want people to know about the stones ... We're headed toward a world where we might blow ourselves up and maybe the globe will not exist ... it's a nice time to reaffirm ourselves, knowing all the beautiful things that are in this country and the Georgia Stones symbolize that. " (1)

What is the true significance of the American Stonehenge, and why is its covert message important? Because it confirms the fact that there was a covert group intent on

(1) Dramatically reducing the population of the world.
(2) Promoting environmentalism.
(3) Establishing a world government.
(4) Promoting a new spirituality.

Certainly the group that commissioned the Georgia Guidestones is one of many similar groups working together toward a New World Order, a new world economic system, and a new world spirituality. Behind those groups, however, are dark spiritual forces. Without understanding the nature of those dark forces it is impossible to understand the unfolding of world events.

The fact that most Americans have never heard of the Georgia Guidestones or their message to humanity reflects the degree of control that exists today over what the American people think. We ignore that message at our peril.

(1) Found on the web site: http:www.odysee.net%7Ericjolly/geostone.htlm#francisco. Copies are available for researchers from Radio Liberty.


The Age of Reason was a book written by Thomas Paine. Its intent was to destroy the Judeo-Christian beliefs upon which our Republic was founded.


The hole that you see in the stone was drilled in the Center Stone so that the North Star could be visualized through it at any moment. This was one of several requirements stipulated by R.C.Christian for the building of the American Stonehenge and reflects his obsession with the alignment of the stars, the sun, and the moon. Occultists often worship the alignment and movement of heavenly bodies as part of their religious ceremonies.

Source: http://www.theforbiddenknowledge.com/hardtruth/thegeorgiaguidestones.htm

---

CHEMICAL DISCOVERED NEAR U.N.

Chemical From Iraq Discovered at U.N.

Shiho Fukada/Associated Press

The police and the F.B.I. removed a container of phosgene, a chemical agent, from a United Nations office Thursday.

By ROBERT D. McFADDEN

Published: August 31, 2007

No unconventional weapons were found in Iraq after the United States-led invasion in 2003. But a potentially deadly chemical agent produced by Saddam Hussein’s regime has turned up, improbably, in an office at the United Nations in New York, and it had the F.B.I. and the city police scrambling yesterday.

Skip to next paragraph

City Room Blog

The latest news and reader discussions from around the five boroughs and the region.

Go to City Room »

Federal, city and United Nations officials said the small quantity of the chemical, phosgene, was contained and appeared to pose no immediate danger. But unanswered questions about its risks and about how material from Iraq’s notorious chemical warfare center wound up in New York swirled all the way up to the State Department, the Senate and the White House yesterday.

And nobody was taking any chances.

A joint hazardous-materials team from the F.B.I. and the Police Department descended on the offices of the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission at 866 United Nations Plaza, at 48th Street, a block north of the world body’s East Side headquarters, and removed the material for safekeeping and analysis.

The air in the offices also was tested, using chemical weapons detection equipment, and no toxic vapors were found and no evacuation was necessary, said Marie Okabe, a deputy spokeswoman for the United Nations. “There is no immediate risk or danger,” Ms. Okabe said. “Unmovic staff are still working on the premises.”

Ms. Okabe said that a United Nations investigation, in conjunction with the F.B.I., was under way to determine how the potentially hazardous chemical came to be there and how it had gone unnoticed for more than a decade in New York.

The chemical believed to be phosgene, an old-generation nerve-gas component used extensively in the later stages of World War I and in Iraqi attacks that killed thousands of Kurds in the late 1980s, was discovered in a steel box last Friday by personnel cleaning out files and old boxes in a weapons inspection agency that is to be closed soon, said Ewen Buchanan, a spokesman for the agency.

The substance, a colorless liquid suspended in oil in a container the size of a soda can that was sealed in a plastic bag, was unmarked except for an inventory number, and nobody knew what it was, Mr. Buchanan said. A check of records indicated that the chemical was phosgene that had been taken by United Nations inspectors in 1996 from Iraq’s chemical weapons facility at Al Muthanna, near Samarra.

Tiny quantities of a second chemical, sealed in glass tubes about the size of a pen, were identified as nuclear magnetic resonance materials, which are used to calibrate chemical analysis equipment, according to United Nations officials. It was unclear yesterday if this chemical posed any danger.

The inspection agency has 1,400 linear feet of inventory files and it was not until Wednesday — five days after the discovery — that United Nations officials found the inventory number and learned that what they apparently had was Iraqi phosgene, a volatile, highly poisonous chemical made of carbon monoxide and chlorine that in gas or liquid form can severely damage the skin, eyes, nose, throat and lungs or even kill victims.

And it was not until late Wednesday that the State Department was notified. Word was passed then to the F.B.I. and the New York Police Department, which took action yesterday. Even as the joint hazardous-materials squad went to the United Nations to secure the chemicals, questions about a mysterious “nerve gas” in New York City were popping up at the White House and the State Department.

President Bush’s spokesman, Tony Snow, said at a White House press briefing that the materials had been brought in by United Nations weapons inspectors long ago, and should have been sent to a laboratory.

“These items should not have ended up, obviously, at the New York offices,” Mr. Snow said. “Normally they would be transported to an appropriately equipped laboratory for analysis. I’m sure that there are going to be a lot of red-faced people over at the U.N. trying to figure out how they got there.”

At the State Department, Tom Casey, a deputy spokesman, noted that the United Nations Security Council had decided to shut down the inspection agency that dealt with weapons issues in Iraq. Mr. Casey also said the chemicals did not appear to pose any hazard. He said an investigation by the United Nations and the F.B.I. would look into “why these items were there, why they were there for so long, and verify that there are no other outstanding issues related to it.”

The United Nations pulled its inspectors out of Iraq just before the American-led invasion in March 2003, leaving the search for unconventional weapons and the responsibility for disarming Iraq to the United States and Britain. A few months later, the Security Council voted to shut down Unmovic and remove its inspectors.

While no unconventional weapons were found, Iraq under Saddam Hussein had extensively developed chemical weapons; phosgene and mustard gas were used in attacks against the Kurds directed by Mr. Hussein’s cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid, known as Chemical Ali for his role in gassing villages in northern Iraq.

Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, spoke yesterday of a “potentially fatal chemical” at the United Nations. “The U.N. should know it’s a target,” he said. “They need to be even more careful than anyone else. The fact that a container of deadly poison from Iraq was found at the U.N. is a wake-up call that they better start living up to the higher safety standards of a post 9/11 New York.”

Normally, chemicals taken from Iraq should have been taken directly by military transport to the Edgewood Laboratories in Maryland for analysis, and not brought to the United Nations headquarters, according to Ms. Okabe.

Mr. Buchanan said the chemicals were found in a steel box 2 feet by 3 feet by 18 inches in a third-floor office of the inspection agency last Friday. There were no labels or markings other than a set of inventory numbers, he said.

“It may turn out to be nothing, but to be on the safe side we have to consider the worst-case scenario,” Mr. Buchanan said. In any case, he agreed that the discovery was bizarre. Dangerous materials, he said, “shouldn’t have come here,” adding: “We don’t have any analytical capability.”

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/31/nyregion/31un.html?_r=1&ref=world&oref=slogin

TERMINATED FOR PRAYING TO JESUS

Hospital chaplain fired for praying to Jesus

Last Edited: Thursday, 30 Aug 2007, 2:54 PM EDT

Created: Wednesday, 29 Aug 2007, 10:55 PM EDT

Pastor in fight with hospital Source: http://www.myfoxorlando.com/myfox/pages/Home/Detail?contentId=4212040&version=2&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=VSTY&pageId=1.1.1 Florida Chaplain Says Hospital Fired Him for Saying 'Jesus' in Prayers Thursday, August 30, 2007 A Florida hospital chaplain says he was fired from his position for including the word 'Jesus' at the end of his prayers, according to report on MyFoxOrlando.com Reverend Danny Harvey, who worked for the Leesburg Regional Center for more than seven years, claims to be the victim of religious discrimination after he says the hospital staff forced him to resign from his post. • Click here to view report on MyFoxOrlando.com Hospital officials deny any discrimination against Harvey and said that his departure was brought about because his services were not consistent with center's various faiths. Louis H. Bremer Jr., LRMC president and chief executive officer, said in a statement: "The interpretation many Christians are getting is that prayer is completely banned from the hospital, which couldn't be further from the truth." "It would be very appropriate to say Jesus' name in the presence of a Christian family. That's no problem," Bremer said in the statement. "What must be understood is knowing the audience and what is appropriate for that particular situation." Hospital chaplains regularl offer comfort to patients and/or their famiies through scriptures and prayers. If the person was a different faith, a representative of that faith would be contacted, according to officials. "I would approach a family and offer them the chance for me to pray for them, but they have the option to say no," Harvey told the Daily Commerical. "I have never imposed my beliefs on others." Source: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,295334,00.html For more than seven years, Reverend Danny Harvey was employed as a Chaplain at Leesburg Regional Medical Center. His employment at the hospital has recently been terminated, and the former baptist minister believes it's religious discrimination. LRMC believe he was insensitive to other beliefs, but Harvey says that he never heard a complaint from those he prayed with.

WATCHMEN ON THE WALL

Watchmen on the Wall

Presently there are many ministries which intercede for the United States and for the nations of the world. No serious Christian can doubt that evil men have come to power in the world, whose purpose is to overthrow free forms of government and to suppress the Gospel of Jesus Christ. However, few Christians seem to be aware that this same anti-Christ network has infiltrated the Church with a hidden agenda of subverting the true faith and converting believers to their false religious system.

This quiet intrusion of false brethren into the life of the Church was foretold in the New Testament. Paul stated that, for three years, he did not cease to warn the Church day and night with tears: “For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock. Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them.” (Acts 20:29-31)

The book of Jude confirms Paul's prediction: "Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints. For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and deny the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ." (Jude 4)

The Lord Jesus Christ must have foreseen this great danger to His church when He related the following parable: “Take ye heed, watch and pray: for ye know not when the time is. For the Son of Man is as a man taking a far journey, who left his house, and gave authority to his servants, and to every man his work, and commanded the porter to watch.” (Mark 13:34)

Just as some are called to positions of authority within the Body of Christ and others to serve in various ministries, there are also those who are called to be watchmen. In Israel, the watchman stood on the wall and notified the porter or gatekeeper of the identity of anyone who was approaching the city. Using a similar analogy, Jesus says that the gatekeeper will only open the door of the sheepfold to the true Shepherd of the sheep. "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber. But he that entereth in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the porter openeth; and the sheep hear his voice: and he calleth his own sheep by name, and leadeth them out." (John 10:1-3)

Apparently, it was the duty of the watchman to warn and of the porter to protect the city from foreign invaders. Accordingly, there must be a parallel operation within the Church to protect it from outside enemies. God has called some to be 'watchmen on the wall' to warn those who labor inside and 'gatekeepers' protect the sheep.

The Lord Jesus also prophesied that the period just before His return would be a time of unprecedented deception. In Matthew 24:24, He says that even the very elect would be deceived ~ if possible. II Thessalonians 2:3 reveals that during this period there would be a great 'falling away' from the faith that was once delivered to the saints. It is difficult to comprehend how this could happen, until it is understood that this deception would come from within the Church ~ just as Paul said it would!

Today, the New Age Movement and other elements of the New World Order have infiltrated the Bible-believing churches and are posing as Christian ministries. According to Constance Cumbey, their expressed goal is to use the Evangelical Church as the primary instrument to bring the New World Order with its One World Religion to birth. As a result of this conspiracy, many sincere Christians are being led into deception by the abundance of false teachers and prophets on the Christian scene and organizations that have the appearance of doing good works, but are apostate in their doctrine and practice.

The reader may naively assume that the majority of Evangelical leaders could not possibly be false teachers and false prophets because they are so widely accepted. For a more Scriptural perspective on this matter, we recommend reading The Preacher As A False Prophet by Rev. James Stalker who stated concerning Israel, our example:

“The false prophets were strong, not only in their own numbers, but in their popularity with the people. This told heavily against the true prophets; for the people could not believe that the one man, who was standing alone, was right, and that his opponents, who were many, were wrong. The seats and the trappings of office always affect the multitude, who are slow to come to the conclusion that the teachers under whom they find themselves in providence can be misleading them... If they are going wrong, they will generally get the majority of the people to follow them. So completely may this be the case, that by degrees the popular taste is vitiated and will not endure any other teaching than that to which it has been accustomed, though it be false. There is no sadder verse in all prophecy than the complaint of Jeremiah, ’The prophets prophesy falsely, and My people love to have it so.’ Like prophet, like people; the public mind may be so habituated to what is false, and satisfied with it, that it has no taste or even tolerance for the true. Jeremiah could not gain a hearing for his stern and weighty message from ears accustomed to the light and frivolous views of the false prophets; and to Baruch, his young coadjutor and amanuensis, who was starting on the prophetic career with the high hopes of youth, he had to deliver the chilling message, ’Seekest thou great things for thyself? seek them not.’ The path to popularity and eminence was not open to anyone who did not speak according to the prevailing fashion.”

Foreseeing the great end-time apostasy, when the multitudes would not endure sound doctrine, our gracious Lord advised us how to recognize and avoid the spiritual deception that would engulf the Church. In many passages, such as Luke 21:34-36, He cautions his disciples to 'watch and pray' that they may be accounted worthy to escape the time of deception that will surely come to pass. I Peter 4:7 warns, “But the end of all things is at hand: be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer.” The apostle Peter had learned well the antidote to temptation, for these were the very words of warning that Jesus spoke to him prior to his own falling away and denial of his Lord. (Mark 14:38) Because he had learned to heed these words of Jesus, Peter ultimately glorified the Lord through his life and death. (Excerpt)

Source: http://watch.pair.com/default.html

MONOPOLY MEN

Monopoly Men (Federal Reserve Fraud) (1999)

47 min - Apr 8, 2006 -
No ratings yet (339 ratings)

The Federal Reserve, or the Fed as it is lovingly called, may be one of the most mysterious entities in modern American government. Created during Wilson's presidency

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7065177340464808778

Watch video here Hide video - Related videos

BOOM OF CONDO CRASH LOUDEST IN MIAMI

Boom of condo crash loudest in Miami
The pain is acute here but unbearable in S. Florida.


SUSAN STOCKER/SOUTH FLORIDA SUN-SENTINEL, August 7, 2007
Multiple construction cranes fill the skyline off Brickell Avenue in downtown Miami, where the nation's most glutted condo market can be found. Orlando has 4,440 condos listed for sale; Miami has 23,000.


Maya Bell Sentinel Staff Writer
August 27, 2007
MIAMI

The champagne-popping days are over for Natalie and David Luongo, who banked enough money flipping a South Florida condo three years ago to stage a $100,000 wedding.

Now the couple are spending restless nights wrestling with the question that looms like a guillotine: Should they walk away from the $117,000 deposit they plunked down on another investment condo in the ritzy Miami-Dade enclave of Bal Harbour?

Or should they close on the one-bedroom unit, which is similar to others now on the market for less than the $585,000 they agreed to pay?

Related links
Big real-estate slowdown spurs legion of condo opportunists
Orlando's condo boom a thing of the past
Condo market goes bust in Miami Graphic
The Big Slowdown: The end of Orlando's condo boom

"It's painful and scary," Natalie Luongo, 31, said. "We saw the frenzy, and we bought in. Now we're paying the consequences."

Just how many other speculators face the same dilemma in the nation's most glutted condo market will become clear during the next two years. That is when 25,000 new condo units, most of them rising in or near Miami's downtown, will flood an area already saturated with 23,000 condos listed for sale. An additional 40,000 units have been approved, but analysts doubt the majority will break ground. (See map with condo locations.)

Orlando and other Florida cities -- Naples, Fort Myers, Tampa and Sarasota among them -- also have huge condo gluts. With 4,440 condos listed for sale, Orlando has an unprecedented 29-month supply, and last month sales plummeted 64 percent lower than a year ago.

But Miami, with its unmatched volume and untold number of speculative buyers, is ripe for the hardest fall in the U.S.

"Miami is the poster child for the condo bust," said Jack McCabe, CEO of McCabe Research & Consulting, a real-estate market-analysis firm located in Deerfield Beach. "There are probably only two cities in the world with more construction: Shanghai and Dubai. Unfortunately, there is going to be a lot of foreclosures . . ., and developers, lenders, title companies and real-estate companies will go under."

Many analysts, McCabe among them, predict the area's condo collapse will drag the rest of the state into recession. Other experts scoff at that notion. But nearly all agree grim times lie ahead.

Usually joyous milestones, closings in Miami are about to become somber days of reckoning for electricians, waiters, retirees and other amateur speculators who counted on making a quick killing in a market they thought would rise forever.

No one knows how many units speculators bought. But as early as 2004, McCabe and Lew Goodkin of Miami-based Goodkin Consulting warned that up to 70 percent of the condos rising in Miami were being snapped up by people who didn't plan to hold on to them, much less live in them.

That was evident from the hordes who camped overnight, fought over lottery numbers, even paid homeless men $20 and a pack of cigarettes to hold their places in long lines, all for the chance to put 20 percent deposits on condos that existed only in brochures. The frenzy for some projects was so fevered that some developers raised their prices hourly.

"It was a nightmare. Lines around the corner. People screaming into phones. I would look at them, and think, 'You don't know what you're doing,' " said Mark Zilbert, president of Zilbert Realty Group.

Many told a similar story: They had a friend who made $100,000 flipping a new condo, and they planned to ride the same wave of escalating prices. All they had to do was put down $60,000 on a $300,000 pre-construction unit and resell it when the value climbed to $400,000 -- before the building opened, and before closing and mortgage payments, maintenance fees, insurance and taxes kicked in.

That meant anyone could risk $60,000 and pocket $100,000 without actually buying anything.

Some investors were experienced players like Barry Beschel of Aventura. After the dot-com stock-market crash in 2000, he said he had no trouble persuading his buddies to park their money in Miami's sizzling condo market.

"All my guys in New York were like, 'Yeah, flipping condos in Miami.' It was a sexy commodity, and it was fun to make money," Beschel said.

It was also easy. Beschel, 50, said his group followed well-known developers such as The Related Group's Jorge Perez to their next project. The king of Florida's condo market, Perez has built or manages more than 55,000 units in the state and is building at least nine new towers in Miami as well as a 441-unit, luxury condo hotel in Celebration.

From 2001 to 2005, Beschel said his group bought about 50 pre-construction condos, sometimes 10 or 12 at a time. They would pay about $300 a square foot and, once the building sold out, return the condos to the developer, who would resell them at $350 a square foot. The difference between the original contract price and the new one -- $100,000 on a 2,000-square-foot unit -- would go to Beschel's group, minus a commission.

"The developer would take his commission, and we'd take our profit and everybody was happy. When the market was cranking, it was a brilliant business model," Beschel said.

But beginning in 2006, Goodkin said, it became clear the market was saturated. Speculators, at least the wise ones, had fled. Buyers stopped walking through the sales-office door. Some developers halted resale programs to concentrate on their own inventory.

And whoever held a contract was stuck -- with prices at their peak. Now, foreclosure filings are up by 30 percent in greater Miami over last year.

For Beschel, whose group still holds contracts on two condos with falling values and looming closing dates, financial ruin isn't a worry. He figures his group made "a few million dollars," so walking away from two $100,000 deposits is no big deal.

But for untold others, such as the Luongos, losses could be devastating. Owners of a gourmet shop, the transplanted New Yorkers poured their life savings into deposits on four condos they had planned to flip for a quick profit.

The plan worked for a one-bedroom condo conversion at The Residence in Hollywood. They agreed to buy it in 2004 for $207,000 and sold it before closing for $330,000.

But they were forced to close on a condo in Boynton Beach, where they now live, and they face the prospect of losing nearly $200,000 they put down on two condo conversions at the Harbour House in north Miami-Dade County. One is a $350,900 studio, which Natalie Luongo said is smaller and in a different location than the one she agreed to buy in December 2005. It is the subject of litigation.

The other is a $585,000 one-bedroom unit similar to others now available for about 25 percent less. As the September closing looms, the Luongos are distraught. If they can't secure another mortgage, the decision will be made for them. They will have to walk away from their $117,000 deposit.

But if they secure financing, they know they will be stuck with a property that could be as difficult to rent as it is to sell.

Gregg and Mary Mullins, 70-year-old retirees living near Fort Myers, learned that the hard way.

Last month, they finally rented out the two-story $885,500 penthouse they closed on last year in Blue, a concave tower overlooking Biscayne Bay. But the $2,800-a-month rent they're collecting is less than half their monthly mortgage payment, maintenance fees and property taxes. Yet, as Mary Mullins said, something is better than nothing.

The couple never planned to live in the condo, but jumped at buying it at pre-construction prices in 2004 after friends shared a familiar story.

"They said they made lots of money, so they told us to try it and maybe we could make lots of money, too," Mary Mullins said. "But that didn't happen. We don't know what happened."

A sheepish Tom Leon says he knows. The retired businessman from Illinois said he knew he had made a mistake about six months after he put down $200,000 on two $500,000 condos at the end of 2004.

"Every 2 inches, I'd see another [construction] crane, and I knew: There is no market that can absorb these many units," said Leon, 72. "It doesn't take a rocket scientist to say, 'Gee, who's going to live in all these buildings?' "

Jerry Jackson of the Sentinel staff contributed to this report. Maya Bell can be reached at mbell@orlandosentinel.com or 305-810-5003.

more articles in /business

Copyright © 2007, Orlando Sentinel

SUNDAY, HOLY SUNDAY?

---

TESTING THE FAITH
Sunday, holy Sunday?
Pastor resurrects Sabbath debate
with $1 million reward

---

Posted: October 13, 2001
1:00 a.m. Eastern

By Joe Kovacs
© 2001 WorldNetDaily.com

One of the longest running disputes in the history of Christianity – Saturday vs. Sunday – is having new life breathed into it with a cash reward of up to $1 million toward a resolution.

A. Jan Marcussen, a Seventh-day Adventist pastor in Illinois, is starting with $50,000 of his own money if someone can produce "a verse from the Holy Bible showing that God commands us to keep holy the first day of the week" – Sunday – "instead of the seventh day" – Saturday – "as is commanded in the Bible."

He says the reward will increase in $25,000 increments each week for 40 consecutive weeks if no one sends him such a verse, with a final cap at $1 million.

"The $50,000 offer is to wake people up out of a stupor," Marcussen tells WorldNetDaily. "People wake up when there's money involved."

A. Jan Marcussen (right), and wife Vennita

Marcussen, who says he has the money ready to pay if someone is successful, is making the offer to encourage people to read the Bible for themselves, instead of accepting without question what religious leaders have been instructing.

"Millions of people believe and have confidence in their clergy that what they're being taught is true," says Marcussen. "They'll find out that the clergy is not teaching from the Bible."

Marcussen, 52, is not only a preacher in his local church, he's also a physical therapist, nutritionist, marriage counselor and author of six books. One of those works, "National Sunday Law," focuses on the Saturday-vs.-Sunday debate. Marcussen is asking people to read that book before applying for the reward. (It can be read for free online.)

As a college student in the 1970s, Marcussen made a similar, albeit smaller, challenge. He posted an ad in a local newspaper starting with a $500 reward and ending up at $1,000. "Certain preachers really got excited," he says. "But the only thing they couldn't do was produce a Bible verse [as proof]."

Experts on biblical scripture tell WorldNetDaily that Marcussen has little need to worry about paying out the money.

"I am afraid that you are not going to find an exact Bible verse to counter the good pastor's challenge and collect," says James Efird, professor of biblical interpretation at Duke University Divinity School in Durham, N.C. "As far as I know, there is no verse which specifies that Sunday is the day for Christians to observe the Sabbath."

Indeed, neither the words Saturday nor Sunday appear anywhere in most translations of the Bible. Days of the week are referred to by number, starting in the first chapter of Genesis in the account of creation. It was after the work of creating that God made special note of one day of the week: "And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made" (Genesis 2:3).

In the Ten Commandments, the seventh day was made the focus of the fourth mandate: "Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy ... thou shalt not do any work ... For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it" (Exodus 20:8-11).

The word sabbath comes from the Hebrew root word "shabbat," meaning to rest, cease or desist. Scholars say the word in Bible scripture not only refers to the weekly day of rest, but also the annual festivals of God such as Passover and Day of Atonement. It additionally refers to a sabbatical year, and it's the term denoting one week. The phrase "first day of the week" occurs eight times in the King James translation of the New Testament, mostly dealing with the circumstances of Jesus' resurrection.

In the lexicon of modern society, the debate over which day is holy – that is, set apart to God – goes unresolved by the editors of Webster's New World College Dictionary. While the first definition of sabbath calls it "the seventh day of the week (Saturday), set aside for rest and worship and observed as such by Jews (from Friday sunset to Saturday sunset) and some Christian denominations," its second meaning defines it as "Sunday as the usual Christian day of rest and worship."

"There's a fear factor among preachers," says Marcussen, on why churches don't have their members look into this issue. "They're afraid their sheep will start reading the Bible, and they know they'll lose their sheep."

One expert who has spent his career researching and explaining the Sabbath debate is Dr. Samuele Bacchiocchi, a retired theology professor at Andrews University in Michigan. He tells WorldNetDaily two factors are responsible for the shift from one day to another: "Anti-Judaism caused the abandonment of the Sabbath, and pagan sun worship influenced the adoption of Sunday."

Bacchiocchi says the Church of Rome, which grew into the Roman Catholic Church, had great influence in promoting Sunday observance.

"The Church of the capital of the empire, whose authority was already felt far and wide in the second century, appears to be the most likely birth-place of Sunday observance," he writes in his book, "From Sabbath to Sunday: A historical investigation of the rise of Sunday observance in early Christianity."

In May 1998, Pope John Paul II issued an apostolic letter on the subject, entitled Dies Domini (The Lord's Day). In it, the pontiff refers to the origins of Sunday-keeping.

"In the weekly reckoning of time, Sunday recalls the day of Christ's Resurrection," writes the pope. "It is Easter which returns week by week, celebrating Christ's victory over sin and death, the fulfillment in him of the first creation and the dawn of 'the new creation.'"

The pontiff goes on to state that though Sunday has become a time for cultural, political and sporting events, it has a significance that shouldn't be ignored.

"Unfortunately, when Sunday loses its fundamental meaning and becomes merely part of a 'weekend,' it can happen that people stay locked within a horizon so limited that they can no longer see 'the heavens.'"

Though Protestant churches have some significant differences with Catholicism, one thing often agreed on today is Sunday observance.

"The church always met on Sunday throughout the New Testament," says Rev. Jerry Falwell, chancellor of Liberty University in Virginia. "Saturday is clearly the Sabbath as is recorded many times in the Old Testament. In Christian Church tradition, Sunday became 'the Lord's Day' when Jesus rose from the grave."

The actual times of Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection are not universally agreed on either.

"I personally believe he was crucified on Wednesday evening ... and rose after 6 p.m. Saturday evening," Falwell tells WorldNetDaily. "Others believe he died on Friday ... But the point is, he did rise on Sunday, which, in Jewish tradition, started the evening before at 6 p.m."

Falwell is among those who believe which day is chosen is not of great significance.

"I don't think Saturday or Sunday are more sacred than other days," he says.

He also points out there have been so many calendar changes over the years, chronologists are not even certain that a day of the week in the 21st century matches the same day from centuries ago.

Most scholars agree that biblical references to "the sabbath day" denote the seventh day of the week. But in the years to come after Jesus rose, the first day of the week came into competition with Saturday, and at times both days were being observed side by side. The ostensible church was divided on the issue, choosing different days to regard as holy.

"It may be that Sunday was originally one of the [pagan] Roman festival days," explains Professor Efird at Duke, "but so were several others that the church adopted in its evolution, [for example:] Christmas."

Marcussen condemns the change in day of observance.

"It's the greatest hoax of all time, foisted upon the world for hundreds and hundreds of years," he says. His zeal on the matter reflects his belief that citizens of the United States and other countries will be forced to choose sides on the issue in the so-called "end time" mentioned in Scripture.

"Sunday worship is the mark of the Papacy's authority," Marcussen writes in his book. "Sunday worship is the 'mark of the beast!'" Yet he insists he is not attacking anyone's faith, but rather trying to lead people to the Bible, Jesus, and eventually heaven.

"I love all these ministers who teach falsehoods," Marcussen says. "Many are honest – they're not all crooks – they believe Sunday is God's day ... this offer will help them find the truth."

Marcussen expects his challenge to be eye-opening for many who never thought about the issue, and he thinks it will spark serious global attention. "The impact of this is going to be like an atomic bomb, it will mushroom all over the world."

Editor's note: Marcussen is accepting regular mail from those seeking to claim the reward at: PO Box 68, Thompsonville, IL 62890

---

Joe Kovacs is executive news editor for WorldNetDaily.com.

Source: http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=24908

ELIHU YALE

Elihu Yale

Elihu Yale

Elihu Yale, (April 5, 1649 in Boston, Massachusetts, America – July 8, 1721 in Wrexham, Denbighshire, Wales), was the first benefactor of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut in the United States.

Life

Born in Boston, Massachusetts to David Yale (1613-1690) and Ursula Knight (1624-1698). His grandmother, Ann Lloyd (1591-1659), was also the wife of Governor Theophilus Eaton (1590-1657) of New Haven Colony by a second marriage, after her first husband, Thomas Yale (1590-1619), suddenly died at Chester, in England. Yale moved to England with his family when he was four, and never returned to North America.

Yale's ancestry can be traced back to the family estate at Plas yn Iâl near the village of Llanarmon yn Iâl, Denbighshire, Wales. The name Yale is the English spelling of the Welsh place name, Iâl.

For 20 years, Yale was part of the British East India Company, and he became the second governor of a settlement at Madras (present-day city of Chennai) in 1687, after Streynsham Master. He was instrumental in the development of the Government General Hospital which was housed at Fort St George [1]. Yale amassed a fortune in his lifetime, largely through secret contracts with Madras merchants, against the East India Company's directive. By 1692, Elihu Yale's repeated flouting of East India Company regulations, and growing embarrassment at his illegal profiteering resulted in his being relieved of the post of governor.[2]

In 1718, Cotton Mather contacted Yale and asked for his help. Mather represented a small institution of learning that had been founded as the Collegiate School of Connecticut in 1701, and it needed money for a new building in New Haven, Connecticut. Yale sent Mather a carton of goods that the school subsequently sold, earning them 560 pounds sterling, which was a substantial sum in the early 1700s. In gratitude, officials named the new building Yale; eventually the entire institution became Yale College.

Corrupt Governance

As governor of Fort St. George, Yale purchased territory for private purposes with East India Company funds, including a fort at Tevnapatam (present-day Cuddalore). Yale was responsible for imposing high taxes for the maintainance of the colonial garrison and town. His regime was unpopular and led to several revolts by Indians, which were brutally quelled by garrisson soldiers. Yale was also notorious arresting and trying Indians on his own private authority, including the hanging of a stable boy who had absconded with a Company horse [3]

Death and legacy

Yale died on July 8, 1721, and is buried in the churchyard of the parish church of St. Giles Church' in Wrexham, Wales. His tomb is inscribed with these lines:

Born in America, in Europe bred

In Africa travell'd and in Asia wed

Where long he liv'd and thriv'd; In London dead

Much good, some ill, he did; so hope all's even

And that his soul thro' mercy's gone to Heaven

You that survive and read this tale, take care

For this most certain exit to prepare

Where blest in peace, the actions of the just

Smell sweet and blossom in silent dust.

Wrexham Tower, part of Saybrook College, Yale, is a replica of that of St. Giles', Wrexham.

Elihu later became the name of a "senior society" founded in 1903 at Yale.

Alexandra Robbins, in her article for Atlantic Monthly about Skull and Bones, alleges that the gravestone of Elihu Yale was stolen years ago from its proper setting in Wrexham, and is displayed in a glass case, in a room with purple walls, which belongs to a building called the Tomb of the Skull and Bones at Yale University.

In 1999, American Heritage magazine rated Elihu Yale the "most overrated philanthropist" in American history, arguing that the college that would later bear his name (Yale University) was successful largely because of the generosity of a man named Jeremiah Dummer, but that the trustees of the school did not want it known by the name "Dummer College".

Source: http://www.answers.com/topic/elihu-yale