Carson-Newman defeats North Alabama 24-21

Carson-Newman advances in the playoffs after beating North Alabama 24-21 on Saturday. They will now play Grand Valley State and it will be aired on ESPN beginning at 3:30 EST.

Be sure to tune in!

The Semester Will Be Over Soon

Thanksgiving Break will last a week beginning next Wednesday. The Fall semester will be ending in mid-December. The semester has gone by fast. I am registering for classes for Spring and should complete it by the end of the week. Among the classes I will be taking are Teaching P.E. in Elementary School, Weightlifting and Political Science. While I would ultimately like to get into coaching, preferably football, I am also open to coaching other sports and willing to acquire the knowledge or skills necessary to teach. I ran track in high school and played baseball in Little League, so I have some first-hand experience in those areas. It is just that my lack of natural athletic ability and size kept me from going further. I would also be willing to coach a women's softball team too.

By the way, the football team is playing Western Alabama this Saturday.

Who Are The Rothschilds?

How many people are familiar with Bill Gates? Warren Buffet? John Rockefeller or perhaps J.P. Morgan? It is safe bet that most people have heard the name even if they aren't entirely familiar with everything about them. If you were guessing that one of these at one time or another was the "World's Richest Man" or amongst the "World's Richest Families", you would be partially correct. Now would you like to take a guess as to who the world's richest family would be? It is a safe bet that it would be by the last name of Rothschild. It is odd how no image shows up when viewing the slide.

Little is known about the Rothschild family other than scattered information on the net. No photographs are known to exist publicly and their own "Rothschild Archive" is pretty standard especially for having the level of international influence that they have had over the past two centuries.

From what research I have done over the past ten years or so is that the Rothschild (which means either "at the sign of the red shield" or "red shield") family began in local textile trading and currency exchange. Via shrewd manuvering, beginning with Mayer Amschel Rothschild, they financed the French Revolution, then Napoleon's rise to power and eventual fall. They even knew the outcome of the Battle of Waterloo before the field commanders did.

Beginning in 1809, the Rothschilds began to deal in gold bullion exploited from Africa and South America. Mayer Rothschild also speculated in financial instruments such as foreign bills and government securities related to such ventures as the theft of entire countries and their resources later eumphemistically described as colonialism. It was about this time that he first began in the slave trade while with what few public statements he made claiming that he was opposed to slavery. The Rothschild's operations with human trafficking continues to this day.

The Rothschild branch in London financed the North while the Rothschild branch in Paris financed the South during the American Civil War. It was a way to claim interest on the bonds that were being underwritten by Rothschild, bought by the government with promises via taxation to repay and then made a fortune on the bonds when they became due.

The Rothschilds are also one of the principal stockholders in the Federal Reserve, financed all the royal families of Europe during World War I, the Russian Revolution as payback for the Russians refusing to establish a central bank a century earlier, Hitler and Stalin's rise to power not to mention up into current times, manipulating the stock market to usher in recessions and depressions.

For all this, and we know so little about them. At least for those who are even remotely aware that they exist, so little is known about them. By the way, they also have a wonderful vacation spot at Corfu off the western coast of Greece.

Who Killed Jesus?

"People were also bringing babies to Jesus to have him touch them. When the disciples saw this, they rebuked them. But Jesus called the children to him and said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it." Luke 18:15-17

Who was responsible for Jesus’ death? The simple answer to this question is the Romans did because Israel as an occupied nation could not exactly punish or condemn a man to death. There are others who say the Jews killed him citing that he was betrayed by Judas Iscariot, denied by Peter and the other disciples, and condemned by the Jews in general. However, the backstory is much more complicated. Keep in mind that Jesus was touring and preaching across the land during Roman rule. But he was never stopped from doing so by the Romans. The Romans had removed the right from the Jewish High Priests to exert the ultimate punishment of death after they had conquered Palestine.

For a more detail account of the area in question, check out Land of Israel and Palestine.

As it relates to the modern conflict, the central claims that physically possessing the land will usher in the return of Christ violates the scripture. Not even Jesus knew when he would return. Yahweh, (the name of God as it appeared to Moses in Exodus) is the one who will decide this and Yahweh doesn’t operate according to our agendas nor on our time schedules. This indicates to me that these particular people especially certain ministers in the United States have led their congregations astray and are preaching a false doctrine especially when it comes to Revelation. Yahweh is not a real estate agent. Yet we have reduced him to being one. Likewise, the notion that committing suicide bombings will lead to meeting 70 virgins upon entering Heaven is equally absurd. Is it any wonder why logic and reason are important!

Judaism during the time of Christ had many sects and diverse beliefs. There was no one type of Jew. Among these were the Sadducees, the Pharisees and the Essenes.

The Sadducees were of the wealthy aristocratic land-owning families who controlled the priesthood and oversaw the daily affairs of the Temple. We find in the Bible that the Jewish High Priests (who claimed to the spiritual heirs to Zadok, the High Priest under David and Solomon) had arranged a “marriage of convenience” with the occupying Romans which would enable to remain in power so as long as they kept the populace in line and paid tribute to the Romans. In short, they were sell-outs and certainly saw Jesus being a threat to their power. Read Mathew 26 & 27. The life of the Sadducees centered solely around temple worship and were extremely rigid in their interpretation of the Written Law. After the Temple was destroyed during The Great Revolt, this group disappears from the pages of history.

Woe to the Pharisees is commonly cited as proof that the Pharisees were the main opponent of Jesus (Matthew 23). However, keep in mind that Matthew and Luke were written during a time of increasing tension between the Jews and the followers that would come to be known as Christians. Both Gospels, thought to be written sometime between 75-90 A.D. occurred in a time of tremendous upheaval. The Temple was destroyed in 70 A.D. The Jews and Christians were amongst themselves at odds over who was responsible for removing God’s protection and various other matters such as sacrificing of animals and ritual purity laws. The Pharisees were lay ministers and considered Jesus to be one of their own. The main differences were over certain aspects of Mosiac laws and the rules that grew up around them such as divorce, taxes and Sabbath observance in addition to the “tradition of the elders”.

The third group is the Essenes. It is thought that Jesus spent a few years with them before embarking on his public ministry at around age 30. The Essenes emerged out of disgust with the other sects. This sect believed the others had corrupted the city and the Temple. They moved out of Jerusalem and lived a monastic life in the desert, adopting strict dietary laws and a commitment to celibacy. The Essenes are particularly interesting to scholars because they are believed to be an offshoot of the group that lived in Qumran, near the Dead Sea. In 1947, a Bedouin shepherd stumbled into a cave containing various ancient artifacts and jars containing manuscripts describing the beliefs of the sect and events of the time. The most important documents, often only parchment fragments that had to be meticulously restored, were the earliest known copies of the Old Testament. The similarity of the substance of the material found in the scrolls to that in the modern scriptures has confirmed the authenticity of the Bible used today.

The Sadducees outraged at Jesus’ new teachings of love and teachings considered an affront to temple worship, sent a group of their temple guards to arrest him. Once arrested they passed him over to the Romans conspiring false accusations until they managed to get him crucified for being "King of the Jews", an outright frontage to the Roman Emperor, punishable by death. Yet once again, this particular group disappears after the destruction of the Temple. Perhaps justice has already been served in this case.

So who do we blame? The Pharisees? They emerged as the main group in Judaism after 70 AD. But in modern times, this group has come to be known as a symbol of blind adherence to rules and regulations.

Should Christians be angry with the Jews for the Crucifixion of Christ? As a general rule, Jews don’t believe Jesus is the Messiah and didn’t Jesus die for those who believed in him?

How about his followers, mostly aptly named Christians? Perhaps so, but Christians didn’t emerge as a distinct sect until at least a decade after the cruxificion. Jesus’ followers were still Jews during his time on Earth. In a nutshell, Judaism didn’t give birth to Christianity. There were more like siblings and certainly after the fall of the Temple, sibling rivals.

So who is to blame? Perhaps the central focus shouldn’t be on who is to blame for the death of Jesus, but the fact he rose again. Didn’t God send his own son to take our place on the Cross? Perhaps the Apostle Paul gave the answer as to who is to “blame” when he wrote in Galatians:

"Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster. For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise." Galatians 3:24-29

Ultimately, the story of Jesus is a story of redemption and rebirth, not death and destruction. Think about that for a moment!

Knowing Too Much Can Cause One To Become Inhuman

All things are wearisome,
more than one can say.
The eye never has enough of seeing,
nor the ear its fill of hearing.
What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.
Is there anything of which one can say,
"Look! This is something new"?
It was here already, long ago;
it was here before our time.
There is no remembrance of men of old,
and even those who are yet to come
will not be remembered
by those who follow.
Ecclesiastes 1:8-11

The Earth is estimated to be around 4.5 billion years old. The universe to be around 14 billion years old. There could be as many as several hundred billion galaxies in a universe that is getting larger all the time. There have been as many as 100 billion people who have lived on Earth at some point. There are laws of gravity, the speed of light and rotation of the planets.

Then you turn around and realize that there are also atoms, nucleus, and cells, viruses, germs and other micro-organisms. Truly the natural existence of ourselves and what world, galaxy and universe are a wonder even to the most skeptical.

In the overall scheme of things, humans are micro-organisms, nations are specks of dusts and planets are marbles in some cases, tennis balls in others and maybe in Jupiter's case, a basketball.

Understandably, many of us are upset about what happened on November 5. But isn't that true every other day? We live in an age of instant although not always accurate information. On Facebook, I've witnessed status updates from people that even took me by surprise, removed a few people for crossing the line (and before this, I have only removed three people in the 18 months or so that I've had an account) and in no uncertain terms let it be known what I thought was going on too.

I am certainly not the same trusting individual that I was ten years ago when I gradually came to know what was pulling the strings on the affairs of the world. The strings being pulled by the likes of the Council on Foreign Relations, Trilateral Commission and what not. I am absolutely convinced that what we are witnessing here is a satanic plot to usher in a one-world government. Some people think this is crazy talk and everyone is entitled to their opinion. But then I take a step back and ask myself: If Satan was going to destroy the Earth, it would have been done probably billions of years ago. My point being is that we are very limited in what we can see and what we know and what we can do.

Knowledge is a good thing when properly channeled and kept in its proper perspective. I do not understand why a loving God would allow evil to flourish instead of just wiping it out like wiping dust off a table. I do not know why God doesn't just end it all now. Why even bother with creation in the first place. Why couldn't we just all be created in Heaven and not have to deal with this world? Why would Jesus come to us as a baby in a cave and be laid to rest in a cave? Why couldn't we have superpowers? Again, we have limits. No matter how technologically advanced we are or how smart we become, we will always be limited from generation to generation.

So I have to remind myself that as a human being, a certain species, a Christian, a sinner, a man, a son, brother, perhaps in the future, a husband and/or father, that I am limited as all of us are. None of us will have all the answers, be able to fix all that ails us, completely eliminate our concerns, problems, struggles nor make everything perfect.

"The superman in the measure that his power increases, becomes himself poorer and poorer...
The more we become superman, the more we become inhuman." Albert Schweitzer