On Being As Clean As The Fresh-Driven Snow...

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1. When you think you are as clean as the fresh-driven snow, you're not.

2. When someone protests he is as clean as the fresh-driven snow, he's not.

Take it to the bank, Charlie Rangel.

"Come now, let us reason together. Though your sins be as as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow". -- Isaiah, chapter two.

Something else you can take to the bank; however, when you achieve white-as-snowness, it is because you are clothed in His righteousness, not your own -- something all Christians, acutely aware of their sin and shortcomings, long and strive for.

Children have ‘fundamental’ right to father’s identity, sperm donor trial hears

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Children have ‘fundamental’ right to father’s identity, sperm donor trial hears.

I'm with the young woman on this one.

Children have a fundamental, God-given right to a mother and a father, barring natural disasters. A child has a deeply engrained desire and need to know the love of both father and mother -- their father and their mother, and, if this is not possible, and adoptive mother and father.

Single-parenting, easy divorce, anonymous sperm-donor parenting, and gay-rights -- all the so-called advances of our society over the last 40 years -- have ignored or denied this basic right rooted in biology, human history, and God's command.

The fifth commandment says, "Honor your father and your mother".  For too many children today they would love for nothing more than to be able to do exactly this. 

God is good; and the constraints he imposes on us are for our benefit and the benefit of children.  Let's reconsider the path we are on and turn back to Him.

Related articles

• Lawsuit seeking info on sperm donor to begin in B.C. (ctv.ca)
• Court case seeks to strip sperm donors' anonymity (theglobeandmail.com)
• Woman seeking identity of sperm-donor father may get day in B.C. court (theprovince.com)
• Sperm Donor Stalks Lesbian Mother (abcnews.go.com)
• Sperm donor loses suit for joint custody of child (psychologytoday.com)
• Children have 'fundamental' right to father's identity, sperm donor trial hears (canada.com)
• Johnny has two mommies – and four dads (boston.com)

"Choice" Unmasked

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Western women have been busy aborting their babies under the "right to choose" (what exactly is being chosen is rarely articulated) and the right to control their bodies.  The fact that exercising these lofty rights entailed the death of the fetus was viewed almost as an incidental side-effect.

Until now.

When a B.C. couple discovered that the fetus their surrogate mother was carrying was likely to be born with Down syndrome, they wanted an abortion. The surrogate, however, was determined to take the pregnancy to term, sparking a disagreement that has raised thorny questions about the increasingly common arrangements.

What is clear in this case is what was at stake was not a woman's right to control her body or choose to terminate her pregnancy -- what she (and her colluding partner) really wanted was the right to kill her unwanted offspring.

“The child is seen by the commissioning parents as a product, and in this case a substandard product because of a genetic condition,” Prof. Baylis said.

The fact that they would seek to extend the right to abort an unborn child to another woman's womb shows the poverty of the "controlling my body" rhetoric; what is usually wanted in an abortion is not merely the termination of a pregnancy but the death of the innocent unborn child.  And, so much for the other woman's "right to choose".

As the prophet Jeremiah said, "the heart of man is desperately wicked".  The dishonesty of abortion rhetoric only adds to its wickedness.

Read more.

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• Parents Push Unwilling Surrogate To Have An Abortion [Complicated Choices] (jezebel.com)
• Couple urged surrogate to abort fetus due to defect (nationalpost.com)

Killing Disabled Children: They Shoot Horses, Don't They?

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Rejection of God and the moral law he has imprinted on a nation has consequences.

The West's shaking off of God's fetters in the 60s lead to the humanist religion of personal rights; these rights were expressed in militant sexual immorality, the undisciplined procreation of children, easy divorce, the glorification of single-parenting (and its denying the child a father's or a mother's love while insisting all will be well) and the grand climactic sacramental rite that marks a nation that has rejected the Giver of Life: abortion.

In some of the more progressive western countries,  there is also the cutting-edge-right-to-end-it-all-when-you're-done -- euthanasia.

So, sexual libertarianism, the undisciplined procreation of children, abortion, and, when you're tired of it all, euthanasia.  And Liberals look on all of this and call it "good".

In Canada, the first province to embrace euthanasia will be la corrupte province, Quebec. The first national party to embrace it will be the NDP with the Liberals looking on, taking some polls, and wondering if they should climb on board.

So, the question is not will our moral slide continue, the question is how low will we go.  We are still, in Canada at least, living on the fumes of a past Christian society, and Christian ideas, such as how we treat our neighbour (e.g., the Good Samaritan) are still deeply imprinted on the Canadian psyche. But time and the secular hell-bent of governments will continue to erode the Christian legacy of the present course is maintained. So, time will tell.

Killing children with disabilities is in the news and "on the table".  A British commentator has come out in favor of it and it is at least considered a respectable topic of conversation.  For links, go here, or here.

Will we routinely kill our disabled children?  We already kill perfectly formed pre-born children, and we have yet to plumb the depths of the post-Christian neo-pagan mind. So, with Canadian newspapers such as the National Post now turning their lonely eyes to prostitution and euthansia-loving Amsterdam as an example to emulated, I wouldn't bet against it.

As Jeremiah said, the heart of man is desperately wicked.

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• Abortion and euthanasia: was Virginia Ironside right? (guardian.co.uk)
• Hébert: Quebec leads the way with euthanasia debate (thestar.com)
• "Our Devolving and Decaying Morally Relativistic Society" (deaconforlife.blogspot.com)
• Euro-socialists want to shut down hospitals opposed to abortion and euthanasia. It's time to stop them (blogs.telegraph.co.uk)
• Garth George: 'Thou shalt not kill' must be our guide (nzherald.co.nz)
• Quebec euthanasia hearings begin (cbc.ca)
• Abortion and euthenasia: was Virginia Ironside right? (guardian.co.uk)
• Quebec to hold public hearings on assisted suicide (ctv.ca)
• Euthanasia hearings in Quebec to begin today (ctv.ca)

Quote of the day: "Christianity Provides A Framework of Hope"

"Christianity not only provides a framework of hope, but other frameworks human beings need to survive such as a moral law." -- Tom Davis.

In I Peter we are admonished to always be prepared to give a reason for the hope that is within us. Hope is thus a defining characteristic of Christianity -- that the deepest longings and aspirations of the human heart have the potential to be wonderfully fulfilled.

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• Dear Birds: I'm So Sorry (beliefnet.com)
• Billy Graham's Wrong Idea: Atheists are Immoral (breakingspells.net)
• Defending the faith, from infanticide to genocide (theglobeandmail.com)
• An Atheist Says Africa Needs God (beliefnet.com)

Help Ashley Pay It All Back

The Toronto Star reports:

... she faked cancer, ran a bogus charity and collected thousands of dollars from hundreds of people.

She shaved her head and eyebrows, plucked her eyelashes and starved herself to look like a chemotherapy patient. She told anyone she met she had been disowned by drug-addicted parents, or that they were dead. [They weren't.]

[she]... convinced local businesses and small-scale music promoters to join the cause. She persuaded a legitimate Toronto-based cancer-awareness organization...  to fly her to Disney World.

...  she began telling people she had breast cancer.

She also said she had brain cancer, liver cancer, stomach cancer and ovarian cancer, at various stages and in various combinations. She claimed to have only a few months to live.

She told her biological mother, “... I’m just calling right now to tell you, before I die, that you’re the worst mother in the world.”

It was all working brilliantly. Then, she got caught.

“What I did was wrong,” Ashley said Thursday night.

She said she wants to find a way to give all the money back. 

Which is where the Ball Bounces comes in. I know that Ball Bounces readers are the most generous readers in the world. And I just can't sit by and see a girl suffer. I just can't. That's why I'm starting the Help Ashley Pay It All Back fund. After all, doesn't a girl who thought she was suffering from breast cancer, brain cancer, liver cancer, stomach cancer and ovarian cancer, at various stages and in various combinations, deserve a break?  I mean, someone special like this shouldn't have to work for a living.

So, send your cash to me, and I will be sure that Ashley gets some of it (after taking a big small cut to cover operating costs).

Hey -- if this works it could be bigger than Adscam!

Let me know how much you will be donating.

And that's the way the fund-raising Ball bounces.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Woman accused of faking cancer held in custody (globaltvbc.com)
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Quote of the Day: "I hope the days are past where we think alcoholism is something you choose"

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ABC News reports:

Bobby Stovall, 54, was driving his truck in Round Rock, Texas, in early July when he weaved through several lanes of traffic and hit another vehicle, injuring the driver. It was later determined that Stovall had a blood alcohol concentration of .32, four times the legal limit in Texas.

And while that DWI was certainly enough to get Stovall in trouble with the law, when the judge found out the defendant had eight prior DWI convictions across several different counties in Texas, he ordered up a life sentence for Stovall.

The "unchosen" argument to the rescue:

"I hope the days are past where we think alcoholism is something you choose" -- Lawrence Taylor.

If alcoholics are going to succeed in the misunderstood, mistreated minority game, they'll need a nifty handle for their new we-didn't-choose-to-be-this-way identity. "Happies", maybe. Then, they can lobby for toleration, acceptance and equality status.

All of us are disordered in one way or another; we all "fall short of the glory of God".  But, it is never a good idea to organize society and social ideals around disorder and sin.

That's all I'm sayin'.