Saturday, December 24, 2011

Sodom & Gomorrah Film



Uploaded by on Dec 24, 2010

Summary
A real life adventure and journey to the most barren territories on this planet. Join us as we consult Scientists, Geologists, Archaeologists and Mineral experts. DON'T CONDEMN IT. BELIEVE IT.
READ THE BOOK FOR FREE VISIT-http://www.realdiscoveries.org/

THE WEEKLY CYCLE HAS NEVER CHANGED



The writings of historians, the records of chronographers, the languages of earth, the calendars of time, and the existence of the Jewish race—all testify to the fact that the weekly cycle on our calendars today is the same as in earlier centuries—going back to the time of Christ, to Moses, and beyond.

In the beginning, God gave us the weekly seven-day cycle, with the Sabbath as the last day. That pattern has never changed. The seventh day of the week today is the true Bible Sabbath. Our seventh day is the Sabbath which Jesus kept; it was the Sabbath in the time of Moses when the Ten Commandments were written down. Historians and scientists all agree that this is true.

If there had been any change in the weekly cycle, between the time of Creation and the time of Moses, a correction would have been made when the Ten Commandments were given to the Hebrews. From that time, on down to the present, there have always been Jews to testify as to the true Sabbath. It is the same seventh day of the week which is on our calendars. While all the other ancient races are now intermingled, the Jews have been kept separate so they could testify to the fact that our seventh day is the Bible Sabbath!

The yearly cycle has been changed. In 1582, the length of the year was changed to include the leap year. This changeover resulted in October 1582 having only 21 days! But each week remained the same seven days in length. Thursday, October 4, was followed by Friday, October 15. God has divinely protected the weekly cycle down through the ages. If He had not done this, it would be impossible to keep the Sabbath holy, as He has commanded. But, because He has, we have no excuse not to. The seventh day is a holy day, made holy by the command of God. All calendars agree: The seventh day is the Sabbath. Sunday is the first day; the day called "Saturday" in the English langauge is the Sabbath.

However, in 108 of the 160 languages of mankind, the seventh day is called "the Sabbath"! Did you know that? Dr. William Mead Jones of London prepared a chart proving this. (A copy of this chart can be obtained free of charge from the publisher of this book: Ask for "The Chart of the Week" [BS–28-29]. English is one of the few major languages in which the seventh day is not called "the Sabbath."

Here are ten examples: Hebrew: Shabbath / Greek: Sabbaton / Latin: Sabbatum / Arabic: Assabit / Persian: Shambin / Russian: Subbota / Hindustani: Shamba / French: Samedi / Italian: Sabbato / Spanish: Sabado.

"By calculating the eclipses, it can be proven that no time has been lost and the creation days were seven, divided into 24 hours each."—Dr. Hinkley, The Watchman, July 1926 [Hinkley was a well-known astronomer].

"The human race never lost the septenary [seven day] sequence of week days and that the Sabbath of these latter times comes down to us from Adam, though the ages, without a single lapse."—Dr. Totten, professor of astronomy at Yale University.

"Seven has been the ancient and honored number among the nations of the earth. They have measured their time by weeks from the beginning. The origin of this was the Sabbath of God, as Moses has given the reasons for it in his writings."—Dr. Lyman Coleman.

"There has been no change in our calendar in past centuries that has affected in any way the cycle of the week."—James Robertson, Director American Ephemeris, Navy Department, U.S. Naval Observatory, Washington, D.C., March 12, 1932.

"It can be said with assurance that not a day has been lost since Creation, and all the calendar changes notwithstanding, there has been no break in the weekly cycle."—Dr. Frank Jeffries, Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society and Research Director of the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, England.

It is remarkable how complete is the Biblical and historical evidence corroborating the fact that the Bible Sabbath was given to us by the God of heaven. Let us keep the Sabbath that Jesus kept! He worshiped on the Bible Sabbath, and never told us to stop keeping it. No one else in the Bible said to either. The seventh day is the Sabbath, for God never changed it.

How very thankful we can be that our God is so reliable. He does not change this way or that. He has a holy law which we must obey. But He sent His only begotten Son to die in order to enable us to do it.

Soon we will be in heaven, and praise Him for His great Gift.

For exciting proof that the weekly cycle comes down to us from the Creation of our world, as described in Genesis 1 and 2 of the Bible, click here on CHART OF THE WEEK.


 

PRESENT TRUTH

Question: "What is present truth?
Answer: 1.) Present truth is that Sin is Sin!  Being established in the present truth [2 Peter 1:12].  Which is also making your calling and election sure [verse 10] and having the more sure word of prophecy [verse 19].
2.)  Present truth is that Protestantism and Roman Catholics do no longer know what sin is, and therefore cannot preach repentance from sin!
3.) Present truth is that sin is the violation of the Ten Commandments of GOD [1 John 3:4;Rom 7:7]

Official Roman Catholic statement:  "Because by keeping Sunday, they [all others] acknowledge the Church's power to ordain feasts, and to command them under sin: and not keeping the rest by her commanded, they again deny, in fact, the same power."---An Abridgment of the Christian Doctrine [R.C.C.],p.58

Here we have the people that claim responsibility for leading the world into sin.  Besides this, they also give special dispensations and licences to sin.  The sale of indulgences into sin was very popular in the 1520's whilst still claiming to follow Christ.

Romans chapter six tells us that baptism is ending sin by dying with Christ and walking in a new life with Christ.  The apostle Paul died to self and sin daily [Gal.2:20].

On forums, when we mention the cessation of sinning, they immediately pounce and ask, are you sinless and perfect?  No, we are not, but we are striving towards the mark and Jesus asks us to be perfect like the Father in heaven.  If it was not possible, GOD would never suggest it.

So what is the answer?  Laodicea!  Not the kind suggested above where the changed the Sabbath and causes all to sin, but the counsel to Laodicea JESUS Himself gives: " Buy of Me gold tried in the fire and white raiment and eye salve that you may see [Revelation 3:18]

The Mother has led all her daughters astray into sin and false hope.  Her false doctrines originated with 1 Timothy 4:1-4.

4.) Demons have transformed themselves into angels of light
5.) The man of sin [anti-christ] stands revealed in theses last days we are living in and before the return of CHRIST! [2 Thess 2] (This is present truth according to prophecy).

JESUS condemned the Jews for making of non effect the commandments of GOD by their traditions for just one single commandment.  But Rome changed two commandments of GOD, removed the second which forbids false worship, changed the fourth, the day of worship, and split the last into two to make up the numbers again.  The Bishop calls himself by the title of GOD, namely "Holy Father" showing himself that he is god [2 Thess 2:4]

The Bible prophesied it, that this man of sin would think himself above GOD and able to change divine laws [Daniel 7:26].
The new testament teaches that when you only violate one of the 10 Commandments, than you are guilty of having transgressed all ten [James 2:10-12].   He that is faithful in which that is least is faithful also in much; and he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much [Luke 16:10

When we quote James 2:10-12, those who wish to continue in sin, tell us that these verses speak of the O.T.,  but James only mentions two of the Ten.  Jesus makes a difference between the law of Moses and the Commandments of GOD [Luke 16:16] and so does the apostle Paul [1. Cor.7:19].

Satan says, follow me.  he says, you cannot keep the moral law, you are a Christian sinner.   So one more sin won't hurt you.

JESUS CHRIST says, I am your sinless saviour from sin, follow me, resist the Devil and he will flee from you.  Resist sin by My power and every sin resisted makes you stronger to resist the next temptation.  Become a Victor and not a Victim.  This is present truth indeed!

JESUS said to the woman caught in adultery, go and sin no more [John 8:32], but at present, there are a huge number of Christians that say to the woman, go and sin a little less.


6.) Protestant America is no longer Protestant and stopped protesting long ago!
7.) Fallen Protestants in America make no secret of supporting the U.S. military in a bid for world dominion in the New World Order. 
U.S. President George W. Bush and running mate Kerry belong to the "Skull and Bones", a branch of occultism, and at the same time trying to tell us that they are practicing Christianity.
His closest religious advisers include Billy Graham [now a Roman Catholic], Jerry Falwell and Hal Lindsey the false prophet.
They maintain that Armageddon will be precipitated by an attack on Israel from the "North" by a mighty army of nations occupying what is now Russian and neighbouring territory, based on an obscure prophecy in Ezekiel ch.38,39.
The roots of this type of prophecies go back to 1830's  Darby and his dispensationalism and the secret rapture added on by the false prophetess Miss Margaret McDonald and her visions.

The early new apostolic church scanned the future in anticipation of the coming antichrist who was depicted so strikingly by Daniel, Paul, and John the Revelator..  It was generally thought he would appear on the scene after the fall of the Roman Empire.

The Counter Reformation and the Origin of Futurism
Not only did the Reformers proclaim the mighty present truth of justification by faith for the liberation of men's souls, but they nerved thousands to break from the tyranny of the dark ages of the papacy by clearly identifying the man of sin and antichrist of Bible prophecy.

The realisation that the incriminating finger of prophecy rested squarely on Rome, aroused the consciousness of Europe.  In alarm Rome saw that she must successfully counteract this identification of antichrist with the papacy or lose the battle.  She must present plausible arguments which would cause men to look outside the medieval period for the development of antichrist.

Jesuit scholars rallied to the Roman cause from Spain by providing two plausible alternatives to the historical interpretation of the Protestants.

1.) Luis de Alcazar (1554-1613) of Seville, Spain, devised what became known as the "preterist" system of prophetic interpretations.  Pre, meaning before, pointing into the distant past away from papal Rome to an antichrist before CHRIST came to earth and therefore contradicting JESUS in Matthew 24:15 as we have already pointed out in the 2300 days page.

2.) Far more successful tack was taken by Francisco Ribera (1537-1591) of Salamanca, Spain.  He was the founder of the "futurist" system of prophetic interpretation.  Instead of placing antichrist way in the past as did Alcazar, Ribera argued that antichrist would appear far in the distant future. 

And here is where Protestant America gets its present truth from!  this is why they look to a rebuilding of the earthly Temple that was destroyed in 70 A.D. instead of the heavenly Temple or sanctuary present truth, where JESUS CHRIST is officiating as Christianitiy's great high Priest of intercession.

Here is what the Roman Catholic author G.S.Hitchcock had to write: "The Futuristic School, founded by the Jesuit Ribera in 1591, looks for Antichrist, Babylon, and a rebuilt Temple in Jerusalem, at the end of the Christian dispensation.   The Preaterist School, founded by the Jesuit Alcazar in 1614, explains the Revelation by the Fall of Jerusalem, or by the fall of Pagan Rome in 410 A.D."----G. S. Hitchcock, The Beasts and the Little Horn,p.7,

Futurism Enters English Protestantism
Futurism first entered Protestantism in 19th century England by two seemingly widely separated developments.
1.)  The first was the appearance of a Romanizing tendency in the Church of England.  Briefly, the development was as follows:

a.) Dr. Samuel R. Maitland (1792-1866), curate of Christ Church at Gloucester and later Librarian to the Archbishop of Canterbury, was the first notable Protestant Scholar to accept the Riberan interpretation of antichrist as present truth!

b.)  James H. Todd, professor of Hebrew at the University of Dublin, studied and accepted Maitland's futuristic views.

c.)  John Henry Newman, famous High Church Anglican who was converted to Rome and became a Cardinal, was a leading spirit in the renowned Oxford tractarian movement.

Ladies usually know what a remnant is, especially if they are into dress making, sewing etc.. and they go to a remnant sale. Here they can get leftovers of the original. The Bible speaks of a 'Remnant' in the last days that is recognizable by two things. Firstly, it resembles the original worshippers of God and has the original teachings as well. So in Revelation 12:17 it says: 'And the Dragon (a description working through Rome vv.3-8) was wrath with the woman (or Church see Rev.19:7) , and went to make war with the remnant of her seed which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ'.

These are not the two new commands of Jesus some will tell you about, in fact they are the same, and the second is like unto it. The first table of the Ten Commandments have the first 4 which are summed up by how to love God with all your heart, soul and strength. The second command is a summery of how to love our fellow man on the second table of stone with the last six commandments.
Jesus said that it would be easier for the whole universe to disappear than one tiniest dot or comma of the Ten Commandments (Matthew 5:17-19) and one wonders why both Protestants and Catholics take no notice of it!!! Christianity discontinued the papal Sunday Sabbath as a day to worship in, in the mid 1800's and the fall is still on a slide until the world and Christianity is in corrupt harmony. The brothel is complete as soon as all the Protestant daughters have come home to Rome again.(Rev.17)

My Mother pleaded with me to return to the oldest Church again, sorry Mum, I found an older one, the original new testament church people who follow Jesus all the way according to Mathew 5:17-19 (as quoted above). The 10 Commandments, the Dragon (Satan) wars against, includes Christ's Seventh-Day Sabbath (Matthew 12:8; Mark 2:28) and the N.T. Gentiles (non Jews) did not ask Paul to come and preach on the Sunday (see Acts 13:42) because it was pagan then as now, but on their own Sabbath day. Yet we can go even further back to Adam and Eve and claim that they were also 'Seventh Day Adventists' because God gave them the Sabbath (Genesis 2:1-3) 2500 years before the first Jew was born and before they sinned which means that the Sabbath day is not mosaic. Soon as our first parents sinned, they were forgiven again and looked for the advent of Jesus and became Adventists. God also gave our first parents the vegetarian diet. He tried again to give it to the newly formed church in the wilderness and in the endtime book of Daniel 1.

The second test or I.D. of the Remnant is the 'the testimony of Jesus Christ' which according to Revelation 19:10 interprets as being the 'spirit of prophecy'. Protestant Adventists were the only ones able to explain the prophetic books of Daniel and the Revelation of Jesus Christ to me. Prophecy seminars have been held all over the world since their beginning in 1863 A.D. Admit tingly they sprung out of the Millerite movement which folded and are their leftovers or remnants as well. Miller was a Protestant Baptist preacher and his movement an interdenominational affair. So widely spread in Protestant USA because the country was then full of Puritans and Miller's sermons made front pages of major Newspapers. Millerites came out of the great Protestant Advent awakening but were first day Adventists more or less. The 'Remnants' saw the Sanctuary of God in heaven which contain all the original Ten Commandments of which Moses was given only a copy (Hebr.8:1-5).

A Church of Christ minister told us, that if we put people on an island who knew nothing about GOD and gave them a Bible, they would become members of his church.  We were able to tell him that this is exactly what happened when the ship "The BOUNTY" was wrecked and stranded on Pitcairn Island after  the mutiny.
They found one Bible they found on the wreckage and studied it together.  They found in its opening pages the Sabbath of GOD and that in the New Testament none other topic stood out so prominent as CHRIST'S Sabbath.

Unfortunately, some are interpreting the sanctuary temple of God to mean Jesus Himself. Therefore I like to ask the question, does our Lord Jesus Christ need cleansing (Daniel 8:14) ? Does the ark of God's testament seen on judgment day (Rev.11:18) containing both tables of the 'Decalogue' coming out of Jesus?  I can only conclude that those are sincerely mistaken and need to have a closer look of what the Bible really has to say.
 Source

Outrage in one of the world's healthiest towns as McDonald's gets approval to open up a restaurant


By Daniel Bates

Last updated at 11:29 PM on 19th December 2011


It is one of the healthiest towns in the world with a life expectancy well above 80.
But the residents of Loma Linda in California have been left outraged and in fear for their children after McDonald’s was given permission to open up a restaurant.
Locals fear the arrival of the fast food chain will mean their boys and girls will embrace a fatty diet of burgers and fries rather than follow their virtuous example.

Health conscious: Many of the residents of Loma Linda are vegetarian
Health conscious: Many of the residents of Loma Linda in California are vegetarian 

Half of the 23,000 residents in Loma Linda are Seventh-day Adventists, or Protestant Christians who prize healthy living and are normally vegetarian.
They have banned smoking in almost any public place in the city, only certain businesses can sell alcohol and meat can be hard to come by.
Saturday is observed as the Sabbath and no work is done while locals spend time with their families.


Loma Linda has approved fast food restaurants in the past, although McDonald’s appears to have a significance beyond just a locally-run burger joint.
The company went through the tough approval process and to the dismay of some, it got the green light.
Wayne Dysinger, a physician and public health professor in the preventive medicine department at Loma Linda University’s School of Medicine, told the New York Times that he was worried about the influence of pester power.

Neat and tidy: Residents are concerned the town's children will embrace an unhealthy lifestyle
Neat and tidy: Residents are concerned the town's children will embrace an unhealthy lifestyle 

He said: 'We know from research that if a school is near a fast-food restaurant, the kids there are more likely to be obese.
'We will never eliminate unhealthy choices, and pretty much everyone has an unhealthy treat once in a while.
'I am going to drive by that intersection every day and it’s fairly likely that they will say "Oh Daddy, can we stop there’ more often. Why do we need to encourage that?'
Loma Linda was first settled by American Indians and given the name Guachama, or 'plenty to eat.'
The first white settlers arrived along with the railroads in the early 1800s and it was founded as Mound City.
It quickly became a place for Seventh-day Adventists when the church acquired a former hotel in 1905 and transformed it into a sanitarium that eventually became part of Loma Linda University.

Green light: McDonald's now has permission to open up in the ultra-healthy town
Green light: McDonald's now has permission to open up in the ultra-healthy town

In July one of the city’s residents celebrated her 104th birthday with a parade through the main street with her granddaughter.
Edna Mae Winegar said the secret to living a long life was that her mother was a vegetarian and that she lived simply.
She also saw the value in hard work well into her 70s and 80s would be out for hours each day harvesting crops.
Dan Buettner, an author and healthy living advocate, told the New York Times that Loma Linda was one of just four places in the world with a high number of people who routinely live past 100.
He said: 'You have to realise how easy it is to be healthy there, you don’t even have to think about it and it’s the default choice.
'Your social network is all concerned about the same thing. They are really trying to preserve the culture that has been established for a really long time.'
The city’s mayor Rhodes Rigsby added that he did not think that government should be stopping people from eating meat - or junk food - if they wanted.
However, he did say he would back a city-wide vote to ban fast food restaurants entirely as a way of dealing with the issue.
He said: 'I don’t think we should be getting into the business of legislating vegetarianism.
'If this is something that people are really opposed to, that’s how we should deal with it.'



Year in 60 seconds: 2011



A multimedia showcase of some of 2011's top stories, including Japan's tragic earthquake, the Arab Spring, the demise of Osama bin Laden and Muammar Gaddafi, the shooting rampage in Norway, famine in Somalia and the Royal Wedding. Multimedia editing by Jillian Kitchener.  Video

Friday, December 23, 2011

Superficial Believers Will Renounce the Faith


The work which the church has failed to do in a time of peace and prosperity she will have to do in a terrible crisis under most discouraging, forbidding circumstances. The warnings that worldly conformity has silenced or withheld must be given under the fiercest opposition from enemies of the faith. And at that time the superficial, conservative [Ellen White is not here distinguishing theological conservatives from their liberal counterparts; she is describing those who put “worldly conformity” first and God’s cause second.] class, whose influence has steadily retarded the progress of the work, will renounce the faith.—Testimonies for the Church 5:463 (1885).

If Satan sees that the Lord is blessing His people and preparing them to discern his delusions, he will work with his master power to bring in fanaticism on the one hand and cold formalism on the other, that he may gather in a harvest of souls.—Selected Messages 2:19 (1890).

Those who have had privileges and opportunities to become intelligent in regard to the truth and yet who continue to counterwork the work God would have accomplished will be purged out, for God accepts the service of no man whose interest is divided.—Ms 64, 1898.

As trials thicken around us, both separation and unity will be seen in our ranks. Some who are now ready to take up weapons of warfare will in times of real peril make it manifest that they have not built upon the solid rock; they will yield to temptation. Those who have had great light and precious privileges but have not improved them will, under one pretext or another, go out from us.—Testimonies for the Church 6:400 (1900).






Thursday, December 22, 2011

Back to Chaos in Iraq



15 Dec 2011

The US military officially retired the flag of US Forces-Iraq at Baghdad International Airport in a ceremony to mark the final withdrawal of American troops from the country.

Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iraq/8958508/US-Defence-Secretary-marks-end-of-US-war-in-Iraq-at-flag-ceremony.html


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Uploaded by telegraphtv on Dec 22, 2011

A series of bomb blasts coinciding with rush hour have been triggered in the Iraq capital, killing at least 57 people and injuring over 130 more.

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Sunday Observance : Democracy In America Alexis De Tocqueville

Appendix E


Although the Puritanical strictness which presided over the establishment of the English colonies in America is now much relaxed, remarkable traces of it are still found in their habits and their laws. In 1792, at the very time when the anti-Christian republic of France began its ephemeral existence, the legislative body of Massachusetts promulgated the following law, to compel the citizens to observe the Sabbath. We give the preamble and the principal articles of this law, which is worthy of the reader’s attention: “Whereas,” says the legislator, “the observation of the Sunday is an affair of public interest; inasmuch as it produces a necessary suspension of labor, leads men to reflect upon the duties of life, and the errors to which human nature is liable, and provides for the public and private worship of God, the creator and governor of the universe, and for the performance of such acts of charity as are the ornament and comfort of Christian societies: – Whereas irreligious or light-minded persons, forgetting the duties which the Sabbath imposes, and the benefits which these duties confer on society, are known to profane its sanctity, by following their pleasures or their affairs; this way of acting being contrary to their own interest as Christians, and calculated to annoy those who do not follow their example; being also of great injury to society at large, by spreading a taste for dissipation and dissolute manners; Be it enacted and ordained by the Governor, Council, and Representatives convened in General Court of Assembly, that all and every person and persons shall on that day carefully apply themselves to the duties of religion and piety, that no tradesman or labourer shall exercise his ordinary calling, and that no game or recreation shall be used on the Lord’s Day, upon pain of forfeiting ten shillings.

“That no one shall travel on that day, or any part thereof, under pain of forfeiting twenty shillings; that no vessel shall leave a harbour of the colony; that no persons shall keep outside the meeting-house during the time of public worship, or profane the time by playing or talking, on penalty of five shillings.
“Public-houses shall not entertain any other than strangers or lodgers, under penalty of five shillings for every person found drinking and abiding therein.

“Any person in health, who, without sufficient reason, shall omit to worship God in public during three months, shall be condemned to a fine of ten shillings.

“Any person guilty of misbehaviour in a place of public worship, shall be fined from five to forty shillings.

These laws are to be enforced by the tything-men of each township, who have authority to visit public-houses on the Sunday. The innkeeper who shall refuse them admittance, shall be fined forty shillings for such offence.

“The tything-men are to stop travellers, and require of them their reason for being on the road on Sunday; anyone refusing to answer, shall be sentenced to pay a fine not exceeding five pounds sterling. If the reason given by the traveller be not deemed by the tything-man sufficient, he may bring the traveller before the justice of the peace of the district.” (Law of March 8, 1792; General Laws of Massachusetts, vol. i. p. 410.)
.
 
On March 11, 1797, a new law increased the amount of fines, half of which was to be given to the informer. (Same collection, vol. ii. p. 525.) On February 16, 1816, a new law confirmed these same measures. (Same collection, vol. ii. p. 405.) Similar enactments exist in the laws of the State of New York, revised in 1827 and 1828. (See Revised Statutes, Part I. chapter 20, p. 675.) In these it is declared that no one is allowed on the Sabbath to sport, to fish, to play at games, or to frequent houses where liquor is sold. No one can travel, except in case of necessity. And this is not the only trace which the religious strictness and austere manners of the first emigrants have left behind them in the American laws. In the Revised Statutes of the State of New York, vol. i. p. 662, is the following clause: -


“Whoever shall win or lose in the space of twenty-four hours, by gaming or betting, the sum of twenty-five dollars, shall be found guilty of a misdemeanour, and upon conviction shall be condemned to pay a fine equal to at least five times the value of the sum lost or won; which shall be paid to the inspector of the poor of the township. He that loses twenty-five dollars or more may bring an action to recover them; and if he neglects to do so the inspector of the poor may prosecute the winner, and oblige him to pay into the poor’s box both the sum he has gained and three times as much besides.”

The laws we quote from are of recent date; but they are unintelligible without going back to the very origin of the colonies. I have no doubt that in our days the penal part of these laws is very rarely applied. Laws preserve their inflexibility, long after the manners of a nation have yielded to the influence of time. It is still true, however, that nothing strikes a foreigner on his arrival in America more forcibly than the regard paid to the Sabbath. There is one, in particular, of the large American cities, in which all social movements begin to be suspended even on Saturday evening. You traverse its streets at the hour at which you expect men in the middle of life to be engaged in business, and young people in pleasure; and you meet with solitude and silence. Not only have all ceased to work, but they appear to have ceased to exist. Neither the movements of industry are heard, nor the accents of joy, nor even the confused murmur which arises from the midst of a great city. Chains are hung across the streets in the neighborhood of the churches; the half-closed shutters of the houses scarcely admit a ray of sun into the dwellings of the citizens. Now and then you perceive a solitary individual who glides silently along the deserted streets and lanes. Next day, at early dawn, the rolling of carriages, the noise of hammers, the cries of the population, begin to make themselves heard again. The city is awake. An eager crowd hastens towards the resort of commerce and industry; everything around you bespeaks motion, bustle, hurry. A feverish activity succeeds to the lethargic stupor of yesterday; you might almost suppose that they had but one day to acquire wealth and to enjoy it.

Source

On Christmas Day, some churches rest

12:00 PM, Dec. 22, 2011
Written by
Bob Smietana | The Tennessean

Most Sundays, cars pack the parking lots of local megachurches like CrossPoint and Oasis churches in Nashville, Long Hollow Baptist in Hendersonville, the People’s Church in Franklin and New Vision Baptist in Murfreesboro.

Those churches alone draw about 20,000 people to typical Sunday services. But this year, the calendar will change that.

For the fifth time since 1983, Christmas falls on a Sunday. That can be a problem for megachurches, which often use Christmas Eve as a major outreach event for newcomers. They sometimes run more than a dozen services in the days leading up to Christmas and rely on hundreds of volunteers per service.

So on Christmas Day, some will rest.

The Rev. Brady Cooper said it takes more than 150 volunteers to staff a single service at New Vision Baptist Church in Murfreesboro, including 52 in the preschool program alone. The church will run five services on Christmas Eve.

“Asking them to be there all day Christmas Eve and most of the day on Christmas is hard,” said Cooper. “Our staff is very thankful to have the chance to be home with their family.”

Crosspoint Church in Nashville will have 15 Christmas Eve services in five locations. The first started at 5 p.m. Thursday, the last at 6:30 p.m. Saturday. About 500 volunteers are involved.

“We are giving it all we’ve got,” said Rev. Pete Wilson, pastor of Crosspoint.

Wilson is encouraging church members to read the Christmas story from the Bible and pray together at home this Sunday.

At least one Nashville megachurch is taking the opposite approach.

Mt. Zion Baptist Church isn’t planning any Christmas Eve services. Instead, leaders are going all out on Christmas Day, seeing it as an opportunity that only comes around every seven years or so.

“We are having a birthday party for Jesus,” said Bishop Joseph Walker III, pastor of Mt. Zion.

Having church on Christmas Sunday gives Mt. Zion a chance to take the focus off commercialism and onto the gift of Jesus, Walker said. His congregation is inviting friends and family to be part of the celebration.

“The gospel is the birth the life and the death and the resurrection of Jesus,” he said. “We always celebrate the death and resurrection – and nobody cancels church on Easter. Very rarely do we get to celebrate Christ’s birth on Christmas.”

Among the nation’s top 20 largest Protestant churches – as ranked by Outreach Magazine – three will be closed on Christmas, and 10 will be having only one service. But a survey from Nashville-based LifeWay Research found that 91 percent of Protestant churches overall plan services on Christmas Day this year, with 69 percent open on Christmas Eve as well.

American churches haven’t always celebrated Christmas, said Stephen Nissenbaum, author of The Battle for Christmas and professor emeritus of history at the University of Massachusetts.

Celebrating Christmas was illegal in Massachusetts from 1659 to 1681.

That was because the Bible, while it recounts Jesus’s birth, never tells people to celebrate it. And the Puritans disapproved of people using Christmas as an excuse to drink and sleep around.

“We tend to think of the old-fashioned Christmas being very religious,” said Nissenbaum, “but I don’t think it was.”

Some religious groups tried to make Christmas more Christian before the 1600s and failed.

“The Puritans knew it was a losing cause, and they decided not to try,” he said.

Protestant churches like Baptists and Methodists didn’t embrace Christmas till the mid-1800s. Before that, they saw it as too Catholic, said Paula Cooey, professor at Christian theology and culture at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minn. So they were closed on Christmas – unless it fell on a Sunday.

She’s not surprised that some megachurches are closing on Sunday. Those churches are often more like revival meetings – focused on attracting newcomers – than traditional churches that focus on weekly communion and liturgy.

Megachurches are also often run like businesses, she said.

“It’s not unusual to give their workers a day off for Christmas,” she said.

The last time Christmas fell on a Sunday was in 2005, and some of the nation’s largest congregations, such Willow Creek Community Church near Chicago, North Point Community Church near Atlanta, and Fellowship Church in Grapevine, Texas, were all closed.

That year, critics claimed those churches were practicing consumer Christianity for not holding worship on Sunday and said they should be ashamed. This time, the reaction has been tamer. And some larger churches are holding one service with a few extra programs.

Willow Creek Church, which seats 7,000 people on its main campus, expects 80,000 people to attend their 12 Christmas Eve services, which run all week.

They’ll have one service on Sunday. Church spokeswoman Susan Delay said the main point is that people celebrate Christmas in some way.

“Whether it is at a service on Christmas Eve, on or Christmas Day, we believe it is important to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ and the gift He is to all people,” she said in an email.

But that celebration can be done at home, some pastors contend. Lifechurch.tv, an Oklahoma-based megachurch with locations in five states, including one in Hendersonville, will be closed on Christmas.

The Hendersonville campus, which draws 2,000 people on weekends, will have seven Christmas Eve services at a converted movie theater on Indian Lake Boulevard.

“We celebrate Christmas all week with the church and then at home with the family on Christmas,” said Rev. Chuck Dennie, the campus pastor.

Contact Bob Smietana at 615-259-8228 or bsmietana@tennessean.com, or follow on Twitter @bobsmietana.


Source


P.S. Highlights added.

.

Brzezinski: Can US contribute to greater Mideast stability?



P.S. 
How about this?
Today on NBC's morning joe: Brzezinski interviews Brzezinski.
Talk about job security?

This is similar to Andrea Mitchell interviewing Alan Greenspan;  It's a Family Affair.



 

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

The National Defense Authorization Act Explained:

December 21, 2011

Part One in a Two-Part Series of Columns on the Act


©iStockphoto.com/SKLA

Passed by the House and Senate last week, the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) now awaits the president’s signature. Because of its controversial provisions on indefinite detention, President Obama had threatened to veto the bill back in May, when the House passed one version of it, and again in November, when the Senate passed another, somewhat different version of it.

But last week, after the House and Senate reconciled their two versions of the bill, the president lifted his veto threat. His press secretary explained in a written statement that the revised bill was considered acceptable because problematic provisions had been removed, and because “the most recent changes give the President additional discretion in determining how the law will be implemented, consistent with our values and the rule of law.”

Numerous human rights advocates, civil libertarians, and members of Congress disagree. Human Rights Watch said that President Obama’s decision not to veto the bill “does enormous damage to the rule of law both in the US and abroad.” The ACLU said, “if President Obama signs this bill, it will damage both his legacy and American’s reputation for upholding the rule of law.” Representative Jerrold Nadler, who voted against the bill, said that it presents a “momentous challenge to one of the founding principles of the United States—that no person may be deprived of his liberty without due process of law.”

The bill’s congressional supporters reacted with outrage to such criticism, calling it false and misleading. “Rarely in my time have I seen legislation so consistently misunderstood and misrepresented as these detainee provisions,” complained Senator John McCain, one of the bill’s main drafters.

So what do the detention provisions of the NDAA actually say, and who, in particular, do they affect?

Background to the NDAA
To fully understand the NDAA’s provisions on detention, a brief review of recent history is needed.
During the Bush years, despite massive public and press attention to the administration’s detention policies, Congress remained largely out of the picture. While the USA PATRIOT Act contained some provisions on detention, they were never put to use; the Bush administration preferred to create a detention system that was, it assumed, largely free of legal constraints and judicial oversight.

The military prison at Guantanamo and the CIA’s secret prison system were therefore created by executive fiat, without congressional input or restriction. When cases challenging Guantanamo and the military detention of US citizens on US soil got to court, however, the administration claimed that the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), a joint resolution passed by Congress in September 2001, gave congressional approval for those detentions.

The AUMF, which authorizes the president to use “necessary and appropriate force” against those whom he determined “planned, authorized, committed or aided” the September 11 attacks, or who harbored such persons or groups, is silent on the issue of detention. A plurality of the US Supreme Court agreed with the administration, nonetheless, that the power to detain is necessarily implied by the power to use military force.

Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, the 2004 ruling that upheld the US government’s detention power, left many questions unanswered. Because it involved a prisoner who was captured during the armed conflict in Afghanistan, it did not raise the Bush administration’s broad claims of a “global war on terror,” in which terrorism suspects far from any battlefield were treated like enemy soldiers. It did not even give much guidance regarding the scope of the armed conflict, geographic or temporal, although it included, in dicta, a skeptical reference to the administration’s broadest claims.

Congress maintained its hands-off approach to detention during the entirety of President Bush’s two terms in office, even as it legislated on closely related issues like minimum standards of humane treatment and the rules for military commission proceedings. When Obama took office in January 2009, however, Congress’s attitude changed. Many members of Congress reacted negatively to Obama’s stated goal of closing Guantanamo, and, since that time, Congress has imposed various ever tighter restrictions on the release and transfer of detainees.

One last historical fact that is important to remember, when considering the scope of the NDAA, is that the Bush administration held two American citizens in indefinite military detention, Yaser Hamdi and Jose Padilla. While Hamdi was picked up as a combatant in Afghanistan in 2002, Padilla was arrested in a civilian setting in Chicago that same year. The Padilla case was never definitively adjudicated—Padilla was finally moved to the civilian justice system in 2006 — but it underscores the Bush administration’s claim of power to hold even American citizens picked up in the United States indefinitely without trial.

Subtitle D of the NDAA
What is now known as Subtitle D of the NDAA—the section on detention—made its first appearance in March of this year. Called the Detainee Security Act in the House, and the Military Detainee Procedures Improvement Act in the Senate, the bills, introduced by Representative Buck McKeon and Senator John McCain, respectively, were meant to shift counterterrorism responsibilities from law enforcement to the military. The clear goal of the two bills was to require that suspected terrorists either be tried before military commissions or be held in indefinite detention without charge.

By May, the House version of the bill had been added to the NDAA, a $662 billion spending bill that finances the military’s annual operations. It passed by a vote of 322-96, even as President Obama issued a veto threat, complaining that the bill improperly limited the government’s ability to fight terrorism effectively.

The Senate version of the bill, which also became part of the NDAA, passed in November on an overwhelming 93-7 vote. Prior to the Senate’s passage of the bill, nearly every government official with responsibility over counterterrorism, from FBI head Robert Mueller to CIA director David Petraeus, had voiced concerns that the bill would have a negative impact on US counterterrorism efforts.

President Obama again issued a veto threat after the Senate vote, but as soon as the bill was modified slightly during the process of reconciling its House and Senate versions, the threat was dropped. The final version of the bill passed both houses of Congress last week with large majorities.

Substance and Procedure in the NDAA
Subtitle D of the NDAA consists of twelve sections, covering issues that range from the military’s power over detention to technical amendments to the Military Commissions Act of 2009. Overall, the thrust of its provisions is to create a presumption of military jurisdiction over terrorism suspects, expand post-hoc congressional scrutiny of decisions over the detention and prosecution of such suspects, and effectively prevent Guantanamo from being closed.

Rather than establishing categorical rules to achieve these ends, however, the bill mostly relies on an array of procedural techniques like reporting, briefing and certification requirements. The substantive rules that it does establish are, in large part, qualified by waiver options and other potential loopholes.
Nonetheless, nearly every provision in subtitle D is objectionable from the standpoint of human rights and civil liberties. Among the controversial provisions are sections 1026, 1027 and 1028 of the bill, which restrict detainee transfers and releases from Guantanamo. But while human rights organizations are worried about these limitations, their gravest concerns pertain to sections 1021 and 1022.

Sections 1021 and 1022
It is sections 1021 and 1022 that human rights organizations have in mind when they say that the NDAA enshrines indefinite detention without charge into US law.

Section 1021 purports to “affirm” the military’s authority to hold people in indefinite detention without charge pursuant to the AUMF. Although the original House version of the bill would have stated explicitly that the US continues to be in an armed conflict with Al Qaeda, the Taliban and associated groups, the final version of the bill is somewhat more circumspect.

Section 1022 takes a subset of the persons possibly subject to military detention under section 1021—focusing essentially on persons with a stronger connection to terrorism—and creates a presumption that they will be held in military detention.

The bad news is that, as passed, sections 1021 and 1022 represent clear congressional approval of what, up to now, has been solely the executive branch’s decision to hold people in indefinite detention without charge. (Remember that the AUMF itself was silent on detention questions.) Giving the practice a firm and explicit statutory grounding not only makes it less vulnerable to legal challenge, it may well make the practice more permanent.

The good news, to the extent there is any, is that neither section 1021 nor section 1022 defines the “war” or the “hostilities” at issue. They do not, in other words, explicitly embrace the “global war on terror” paradigm that equates terrorism with armed conflict and suspected terrorists with enemy soldiers. By failing to address that question, they leave open the theoretical (if unlikely) possibility that a court could give the statute a narrow reading consistent with international law understandings of armed conflict.

Yet even this qualified success should be further qualified. First, some of the people explicitly covered by section 1021—who, for example, harbored persons responsible for the September 11 attacks—might have no meaningful link to armed conflict. More importantly, the focus of section 1022 is clearly terrorism, not armed conflict: it covers Al Qaeda members and members of groups that act in coordination with or under the direction of Al Qaeda. Although the people subject to presumptive military detention under section 1022 are supposed to be a subset of the larger group of people covered by section 1021, which includes a requirement of a nexus to armed conflict under its subsection (b)(2), the thrust of the provision is still to equate armed conflict with terrorism.

Finally, it should also be noted that the set of “covered persons” subject to possible military detention, as defined in section 1021(b) of the NDAA, is far broader than the set of persons mentioned in the AUMF. While section 1021(b)(1) relies on the wording of the AUMF, section 1021(b)(2), which defines an additional category of potential detainees, is based on the Obama administration’s definition of “unprivileged enemy belligerent” (which, itself, is just a slight tweaking of the Bush administration’s definition of “unlawful enemy combatant”).

This provision covers not only persons who are members of Al Qaeda, the Taliban and associated forces (all broad and possibly inchoate categories in themselves), but also persons who “substantially supported” those groups. The concept of “substantial support” is potentially quite broad (what kind of support is covered, and might opinion or expression count?). Also, support is an extremely controversial basis for law of war detention, even in traditional wars, and the issue has sparked enormous litigation at Guantanamo.

The Indefinite Detention of American Citizens
In my next column, I will address the most vexed and contested question about the scope of the NDAA’s detention provisions: the extent to which they authorize the detention of American citizens, including citizens picked up in the United States.

For the moment, I’ll just note some recent remarks of one of the NDAA’s key drafters. In applauding the bill’s passage last week, Senator McCain spoke of its “strong, unambiguous language that recognizes that the war on terror extends to us at home.”
Joanne Mariner
Joanne Mariner, a Justia columnist, is the director of Hunter College's Human Rights Program. She is an expert on human rights, counterterrorism, and international humanitarian law.
 
 

Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays? The history of a pagan celebration


Dec. 20, 2011


People are testy this time of year. It's not nec-essarily the stress of gift buying, party preparations, or making sure the turkey doesn't burn. It's the increasing politicization of the season.

Hearing a cheery "Happy Holidays" can send some people into orbit and into a lecture about Christ being the reason for the season. The secular or non-Christian person might cringe at hearing Merry Christmas. It's too bad that so many people get bent out of shape over these things in our increasingly politically correct culture.

The truth is, there were Christmas-like holiday celebrations well before the birth of Jesus in a Bethlehem manger. In fact, most ancient human societies celebrated some sort of festival that marked the end of one year and the beginning of another. As the sun sinks ever lower in the sky and the days reach their shortest period of the year, ancient cultures used this time — at least those in the northern hemisphere — to celebrate and begin anew.

The celebration that most Americans know as Christmas is related to the ancient Roman festival of Saturnalia. This was a weeklong festival that began around Dec. 17 and was marked by parties, visits to friends, and the giving of gifts, especially candles to signify the returning light after the winter solstice. Ever-greens were popular decorations around the home. It was the most anticipated time of the year.

During the Saturnalia, business came to a halt. Certain restrictions were relaxed and the social order inverted. Within the family, a Lord of Misrule was chosen. This person presided over the holiday revelries, which often included drunkenness and practical jokes.

Slaves did not have to work and were treated as equals. They were allowed to wear their masters' clothing, and be waited on at mealtime. These role reversals were related to the idea that the sun would soon reverse its course thus lengthening the light of day.

In the fourth century, Christianity adopted the Saturnalia hoping to take the pagan masses in with it. It largely worked. After the emperor Constantine converted to Christianity after 312 A.D., its leaders succeeded in converting large numbers of pagans by promising them that they could continue to celebrate pagan festivals, including the Saturnalia.

The problem was that Saturnalia wasn't very Christian, so bishops simply named Saturnalia's last day, Dec. 25, Jesus' birthday.

The Christian reform movements of the 16th century brought some changes to the celebration of Christmas. Because of its pagan origins, one group, the Puritans (called thus for their desire to purify the Christian faith) banned the holiday. They found no scriptural justification for its celebration, and they disliked the waste, extravagance, disorder, and immorality associated with it. They also saw Christmas — or, more properly, Christ's mass — as a Roman Catholic ceremony. The ban was lifted in 1681, but for more than a century afterward its celebration was decidedly subdued and sometimes frowned upon.

In the early American South, however, Christmas retained much of its ancient tradition for irreverence, disorder and indulgence. Many plantation owners allowed slaves a few more freedoms than were normal, including a cessation of work, feasting and alcohol. Slaves who had been hired out for the year were often allowed to return home and visit their families, but only for about a week as Jan. 1 began anew the slave hire season.

Christmas as we know it today began its modern evolution when it became a federal holiday in 1870. The harsh Puritan view had relaxed, and Amer-icans fashioned the day into one of commercialism and nostalgia, helping to lessen the religious tension between newly arriving Catholic immigrants and their Puritan-Protestant neighbors.

So, next time someone says Merry Christmas, or Happy Holidays, perhaps a hearty "Io Saturnalia!" might offer the oppor-tunity to come together in the spirit of the season and discourse on the history of this most celebrated time of year.

R. Matthew Poteat is an assistant professor of history in the Virginia Community College System. Email him at rmpoteat@gmail.com


Source

The Bible Explicitly Forbids Christmas Trees

This is a thing I did not know:


Jeremiah 10:2-4

Courtesy of Russell’s Teapot‘s Know Your Bible series. Great stuff, eminently quotable.
And, just in case you were wondering. No, they don’t lie: that is what the bible says.


Source

New York Times editor calls Santorum an evangelical


New York Times editor calls Santorum an evangelical

Joshua Mercerby Joshua Mercer
118 days ago
RSS
 
Bill Keller is the Executive Editor of the very proud New York Times. One has to be pretty sharp to climb up the journalistic ladder to land such a perch.
Or not.
Keller wrote:
We have an unusually large number of candidates, including putative front-runners, who belong to churches that are mysterious or suspect to many Americans. Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman are Mormons, a faith that many conservative Christians have been taught is a “cult” and that many others think is just weird. (Huntsman says he is not “overly religious.”) Rick Perry, Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum are all affiliated with fervid subsets of evangelical Christianity, which has raised concerns about their respect for the separation of church and state, not to mention the separation of fact and fiction.

Wait, wuh?
Rick Santorum is not an Evangelical. He is a Roman Catholic. And we Catholics aren’t subsets of anything else. Listen, Mister, every other Christian group broke off of us



But seriously, how does one miss something that easy? Santorum has been in the national spotlight on the issues of abortion and marriage for almost 20 years. Is it that Keller sees a passionate defender of life and marriage and just assumes “Yup, he’s got to be an evangelical Christian”? If an average voter made that mistake, I wouldn’t be surprised. But Keller is Executive Editor of the New York Times!

Anyway, the main point of Keller’s article is that, gosh, so many of these Republicans candidates are members of religious communities that are so “weird.” I imagine East Coast elites like Keller consider evangelicals weird. I mean, these are Protestants that take their faith seriously! Can’t have that!

But most Americans don’t think of evangelical Christianity as weird. Billy Graham and Rick Warren are beloved by millions of Americans.

But Keller is actually right about the potential problems facing Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman. Liberals hate Mormons because they financially support the effort to keep marriage as a union of one man and one woman. (I know, an irony that would have surprised our 19th century ancestors.)

But there are millions of evangelical Christians and certainly some Catholics that would have trouble supporting a Mormon for president. How many? I don’t know. While Mormons claim to follow Jesus, they do not believe in the Trinity — a core teaching of the Christian faith shared by Catholics and Protestants alike.

My problem with Mitt Romney is his liberalism and his history of flip-flopping, not his Mormon faith. After all, I would certainly be willing to vote for Sen. Mike Lee if he ever ran for President.

HT: Guy Benson

Source

Top Iowa faith leaders endorse Santorum



Top Iowa faith leaders endorse Santorum


John King USA|Added on December 20, 2011

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Response: 33 Catholic Bishops 'Illegal Alien Remarks' is Sedition!


The email below is in response to this video:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21jwNee1ynU&feature=channel_video_title



Subject:Re: 33 Catholic Bishops 'Illegal Alien Remarks' is Sedition! - Alex Jones Tuesday Edition 1/2
Date:Thu, 15 Dec 2011 12:01:10 -0600
From:Tom Friess 
To:XXXX


XXXXXX,

If Alex Jones only knew how involved the Vatican is in, not only Mexican immigration, but the Ford Foundation and both the Democratic AND Republican parties and all the other things he mentioned, maybe he'd have spent more time putting all the blame on Rome where it belongs instead of cluttering our minds as though Rome were only a small part of it. Rome is behind gun control (both political parties), taking away the right to own private property (Rerum Novarum), Gardasil (sterilization of young girls), the union of church and state to establish a state religion of Roman Catholicism (Counter Reformation, Vatican Council II), creating a total police state (hierarchical Roman Catholic government just like Nazi Germany, the Patriot Act, Romeland Security), destruction of free speech (no one may criticize the Pope or the king), destroying U.S. national sovereignty (UN control, CFR), bankrupting the country through the Vatican bankers (Rothschilds) who own the Federal Reserve, redistribution of U.S. wealth (Caritas in Veritate), destruction of the middle class to make it a two class system just like all other Catholic countries, and on and on and on.

Did Alex ever once mention that 98% of Mexicans are Roman Catholic? He mentioned that they all vote "Democratic". But in reality, Catholics vote for Catholic candidates for BOTH political parties. And that's exactly why neither party will finger ROME! Precious few dare to put the finger on Rome fearing charges of "bigotry" and "hatred" and "religious persecution". But what is the end in view here in America? A total Roman Catholic Church/State and government sponsored INQUISITION. But by the time America wakes up and finds the courage to call the Pope "Antichrist," it will be too late.

On Inquisition Update, I put the focus where it belongs. ROME! If Alex Jesuit Jones ever mentions Rome, he then covers it up with so much other stuff that everybody forgets he even mentioned Rome. People in our camp notice that Rome is merely an occasional side issue with Jones. We believe that his occasional mention of Rome is merely to silence some of his critics in our camp and to draw listeners out of our camp. But America will never understand what really ails our country until we begin to comprehend it in terms of the "Counter Reformation." The target in this country is Protestantism, the Bible, Liberty in Christ, and the ascendency of the Biblical Antichrist, the Pope of Rome. The endgame is the complete destruction of Biblical Christianity (true Bible Protestantism) and a total Roman Catholic superstate and a full blown concordat with Rome. The New World Order is only the Old World Order revived on a global scale. It is a global Roman Empire and the king of kings and the lord of lords is the Papacy. Alex Jones wouldn't dare suggest it. I do every single day.

Listen to Inquisition Update M-F at 10 AM Central on www.firstamendmentradio.com

Tom Friess
Inquisition Update

Monday, December 19, 2011

Windows 8 to feature image sign-on system

Gesture on touchscreenThe sign-on system will track gestures forming lines, points and circles
19 December 2011 Last updated at 09:53 ET
Using Windows 8 devices could involve signing on by tapping, circling or touching images.
Microsoft has revealed details of a login system for the next version of Windows based around pictures a user stores on a touchscreen device.
Only when parts of an image are tapped or touched in the right order will a user be able to access a device.
Experts said it might stop people using weak passwords but could lead to other loopholes that are harder to solve.
Press here
Microsoft aired the idea of using images to sign on to a device via a blog written by engineers working on Windows 8 - the next version of the Windows operating system expected to be released in late 2012.
Windows 8 is designed for touchscreen devices such as tablets and the novel sign-on systems makes use of the sensitive displays they are likely to sport.
The familiar process of getting to use a desktop PC or laptop by typing in a password made of up lower and upper case letters as well as numbers was felt to be too "cumbersome" for tablets, wrote Microsoft engineer Zach Pace on the blog.
The replacement system proposed by Microsoft employs a picture chosen by a user from their collection of images on a device.
On this image, users are encouraged to tap on, underline or circle the parts that are important to them. The sequence of gestures, including start and end positions and orientation act as a key to unlock the device.
'Interesting and cute'
User-testing suggests that the image-based system can grant access to a portable gadget far faster than was possible through text-based passwords, wrote Mr Pace.
He stressed that the system would work alongside text-based passwords rather than replace them. If a user failed to properly reproduce the correct gestures fives times in a row they would be prompted for the password they set up when they first used the device.
The permutations of taps, touches and circles that could be drawn on a picture was likely to be far higher than those available from text-based passwords, said Prof Alan Woodward from the department of computing at the University of Surrey.
That was especially true, he said, when one considered the limited number of words from which most people picked their passwords.
"The initial calculations show that it is likely to provide a level of security that is at least as strong as a password, and frankly, stronger than most passwords chosen by users," he added.
Graham Cluley, senior security researcher at Sophos, said the research was "interesting and cute" but may introduce other security problems.
It could, he said, make people vulnerable to "shoulder surfing" - a practice better known from cash machines where crooks try to spot a victim's Pin as they tap it into a number pad.
"With normal password entry, what you're doing is asterisked on the screen," said Mr Cluley. "With this gesture input, folks may find it easier to see the movements you are making."
There might be more value in operating systems encouraging people to use stronger passwords by refusing to let them use dictionary words or ones that are easy to crack, he added.