Articles by PGF

The Author used to comment here from time to time. Haven’t seen him around in a while.

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It is interesting to look at American history based on the firearms owned by civilians. Americans, and of course I mean the people who built this country and not those that showed up in the last generation or two, have always had a love affair with our guns. The right of the people to keep and bear arms is paired with the right to free speech and religion in the Bill Of Rights.

In much of the first half of the 20th century, a man who was a “sportsman” wasn’t a guy in multiple fantasy football leagues. A sportsman was a guy that hunted and fished. Men hunted and fished, it was what they did. For certain, many of these hunting trips were just an excuse to get away from their wives for a week, eat like crap, drink beer and be slovenly. Guys that didn’t hunt or fish were considered to be a little soft and effeminate. Back in those days you could order a gun from the Sears catalog and have it sent to your house.

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At this stage, most of us spend most of our time with pistols. While we certainly have lots of rifles and maybe invest a lot of time shooting those rifles, we generally aren’t carrying them around with us. I have more long guns than handguns when counting shotguns and hunting rifles but most of them spend most of their time in the safe. We went out to eat with some Amish friends last night but I didn’t stow a 6.5 Grendel AR under a trench coat. I carried my Hellcat in an OWB holster under a button down shirt. While I subscribe to the school of thought that a pistol is simply a tool to keep you alive long enough to get to your rifle, right now if I get in a situation where I have to go kinetic it will be with a pistol.

He goes on to explain that the day of the rifle, or we could put it, the day of the Rifleman, is coming.

H/T WRSA

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It seems increasingly likely that there is a core group of agents inside of the FBI that have grown tired of the overt politicization of the Bureau under the leadership of Christopher Wray and the direction of the Biden administration. Another whistleblower has reportedly come forward and presented information to members of Congress about the abuses taking place inside the FBI. Congressman Jim Jordan of Ohio (R) received a complaint from someone inside the agency over the FBI’s designation of American Contingency, a veteran-led group that assists people in the wake of natural disasters, as being “facilitators of domestic terror.” And it was further revealed that the FBI already knew this wasn’t true, having previously investigated the group and found them to be on the up and up. (Yahoo News)

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So the FBI knew all of this, and yet they kept the “domestic terrorism” tag attached to his group [Mike Glover and American Contingency] anyway. You should be starting to detect a pattern here. Joe Biden has repeatedly stated that “white supremacists” or “MAGA Republicans” and “domestic terrorists” are the greatest threat the country faces. The problem is, the supply of actual conservative domestic terrorists massively lags behind the demand for them inside the White House. So Christopher Wray appears to be doing his level best to invent some just to make Biden’s claims look less far-fetched.

There’s more at the source.

https://mises.org/library/how-think-about-economy-primer

The reason the large tech companies wanted all of the social media data and search history algorithms was to build the AI. For over a decade, the tech gurus in the late 80s and 90s lamented how to build it. They knew it could be done; they just weren’t sure how. Then somebody said; just get the data; it’ll build itself from there. That was a simple and brilliant strategy.

In order to work, the machine would need loads of data about everything in the world. A computer has no soul; it will never actually be sentient. However, it can have so much data that it may “out-think” humans, appearing to have awareness. And its decision tree will be so thoroughly complex with innumerable options while being immensely quick that it will appear to make independent decisions. Like a master chess player, it will know the answer regardless of your next move. And since it “thinks” faster than anybody and has more data to act upon than anybody, it is, for all intents and purposes, the smartest evil super-genius ever.

We don’t use the word evil lightly. All the depictions of an AI turning evil are not in error. Every man knows he’s a sinner, deep in the depths of his own heart where he won’t discuss it and dares not to tread too often; we all know what we are, wicked. Here is the scary part: everything feeding the AI system is evil because you are feeding it the data. The system will appear to run after the image of its maker, fallen man.

“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” – Jeremiah 17:9

“As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:” – Romans 3:10

You are evil, totally depraved, a sinner. All men are. In fact, you’re so far gone that you’re probably telling yourself right now, “no, I’m ok, I’m not that bad.” You operate within your own capacity, in a fallen state of sin. And you, along with 7 billion others just like you, wholly wicked and full of wretchedness, every last one, are programming the AI.

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The idea of artificial intelligence overthrowing humankind has been talked about for decades, and in 2021, scientists delivered their verdict on whether we’d be able to control a high-level computer super-intelligence. The answer? Almost definitely not.

The catch is that controlling a super-intelligence far beyond human comprehension would require a simulation of that super-intelligence which we can analyze (and control). But if we’re unable to comprehend it, it’s impossible to create such a simulation.

Rules such as ’cause no harm to humans’ can’t be set if we don’t understand the kind of scenarios that an AI is going to come up with, suggest the authors of the new paper. Once a computer system is working on a level above the scope of our programmers, we can no longer set limits.

“A super-intelligence poses a fundamentally different problem than those typically studied under the banner of ‘robot ethics’,” wrote the researchers.

“This is because a superintelligence is multi-faceted, and therefore potentially capable of mobilizing a diversity of resources in order to achieve objectives that are potentially incomprehensible to humans, let alone controllable.”

This article seems to be written with the intent to make you a little dumber and a lot more helpless. It could have been a very good article. Worrying that the machine will “think” of something we didn’t is self-center beyond belief; it’s even egotistical to care about such a thing. I’m not worried at all about the computer coming up with some unforeseen thing. I’d be much more worried about it perfectly emulating all that it’s learned from its input subjects.

H/T Instapundit

Proverbs 22:7 comes to mind. Source:

The U.S. has about $30.9 trillion in national debt, according to the latest data from Treasury Department, and that total will reach a record $31 trillion as early as later in the month.

Roughly $24.3 trillion of America’s total public debt outstanding consists of debt held by the public, and $6.6 trillion is intragovernmental holdings, according to Monday data from the Treasury Department.

Intragovernmental holdings include federal trust funds, revolving funds and special funds, as well as Federal Financing Bank securities, the Treasury Department said on its website.

You can be sure that nobody will pay this “intragovermental holdings” debt but you, dear reader.

Debt held by the public consists of all national debt “held by any person or entity that is not a U.S. federal government agency,” according to the Treasury Department. That includes corporations, domestic individual investors, local or state governments, Federal Reserve banks, foreign investors, foreign governments and other entities.

Last week we talked about transgender evil here at TCJ. At Post Millennial Worldview, Dr. Gentry discusses this further in part two of his short notes on the subject. Dr. Gentry shows how these laws are brought forward into the New Covenant. Here are a couple of verses from the Law of God forbidding this wicked sin.

“Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.” – Leviticus 18:22

“The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman’s garment: for all that do so are abomination unto the LORD thy God.” – Deuteronomy 22:5

What you must understand is that anarchy starts with rebellion, not against the State, but against Holy God.

There is a battle in Montana between a government department and a judge.

BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — Just hours after a Montana judge blocked health officials from enforcing a state rule that would prevent transgender people from changing the gender on their birth certificate, the Republican-run state on Thursday said it would defy the order.

District Court Judge Michael Moses chided attorneys for the state during a hearing in Billings for circumventing his April order that temporarily blocked a 2021 Montana law that made it harder to change birth certificates.

Moses said there was no question that state officials violated his earlier order by creating the new rule. Moses said his order reinstates a 2017 Department of Public Health and Human Services rule that allowed people to update the gender on their birth certificate by filing an affidavit with the department.

However, the state said it would disregard the ruling.

“The Department thoroughly evaluated the judge’s vague April 2022 decision and crafted our final rule to be consistent with the decision. It’s unfortunate that the judge’s ruling today does not square with his vague April decision,” said Charlie Brereton, director of the Department of Public Health and Human Services.

Brereton said the agency was keeping the rule it issued last week in place and an agency spokesperson said the department is waiting to see the judge’s written order before considering its next steps.

ACLU attorney Malita Picasso expressed dismay with the agency’s stance and said officials should immediately start processing requests for birth certificate changes.

“It’s shocking that after this morning’s hearing the department would allege there was any lack of clarity in the court’s ruling from the bench,” Picasso said. “It was very clear that Judge Moses expressly required a reversion to the 2017 policy, and anything short of that is a continued flagrant violation of the court’s order.”

It’s ‘shocking’ when the Right defies a judge’s order, but when the Left ignores Heller or makes burdensome with onerous requirements, lawful carry in light of Bruen, well, that’s just fine. We hold out little faith that, in the end, the government will defy the judge’s direct order. If they submit, all parties will be in open insurrection, fomenting rebellion among the citizenry against Holy God. When the government supports or defends that which is against the Law-word of God, it sides with the prince of this world and promotes spiritual warfare against the throne of the holy Creator. America’s days are numbered if it continues to choose evil over God.

Such open defiance of judge’s order is very unusual from a government agency, said Carl Tobias, a former University of Montana Law School professor now at the University of Richmond. When officials disagree with a ruling, the typical response is to appeal to a higher court, he said.

“Appeal is what you contemplate — not that you can nullify a judge’s orders. Otherwise, people just wouldn’t obey the law,” Tobias said. “The system can’t work that way.”

America is already in anarchy; it’s lawlessness. Christians are hopelessly removed from the reality of the spiritual warfare that rages for the soul of their children and grandchildren. It’s disconcerting, to say the least.

Ruger now has magazine compatible 5.7x28mm Carbine and Handguns. Compatibility is a compelling option as internal tensions continue to rise in the United States. Caliber consolidation is a budget-conscious approach to ensuring you have the resources your family and clan will need. A handgun caliber compatible Carbine can save money and storage space when considering uses in various applications along with the handgun.

The Carbine comes in a standard configuration (Pictured) and two models with less scary features for communist states. Those may not be compatible with the handgun’s 20 round magazines. The handgun comes in several designs, included on the page is a neat video showing a cutaway of the handgun’s functions.

I took the liberty of making a request to Sturm, Ruger, & Co., Inc., asking for one each of the Carbine and Handgun to write an online review of both here at TCJ. Although we don’t expect an answer, you just never know. Herschel should keep an on the Blog’s email inbox. I knew he wouldn’t mind ;-)

Dean Weingarten has broken down America’s firearms ownership numbers. The article touches on several aspects of ownership, including self-defense use as a percentage of owners.

Here are a couple of snapshots:

What’s not in the survey is American’s willingness to use these firearms for their original purposes.

Mr. Weingarten, as he’s done with bear attacks, is very astute at making these data accessible for all to understand. Read the whole thing at Ammoland.

“1 For this cause I Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles, 2 If ye have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which is given me to you-ward: 3 How that by revelation he made known unto me the mystery; (as I wrote afore in few words, 4 Whereby, when ye read, ye may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ) 5 Which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit; 6 That the Gentiles should be fellowheirs, and of the same body, and partakers of his promise in Christ by the gospel” – Ephesians 3:1-6

The so-called “Dispensation of Grace” is widely misunderstood. It’s not a new way that God saves souls from eternal torment. By the indwelling Holy Spirit, it is how God uses His disciples to dispense the ministration of works He has foreordained for them to walk in.

God gave Paul a dispensation (a thing to dispense) which was the Gospel that he shared (distributed) toward others, notably: the mystery that in the fullness of time, the Gentiles (Ephesians 3:2, 6, and see Colossians 1:25-29) would be offered to come into the Kingdom of God. It’s not some new thing, or Hebrews 11 wouldn’t exist. Hebrews eleven is the so-called Hall of Faith. It’s where notable Old Testament elders are confirmed to have been saved by grace through faith, then turning to follow God in the works He had preordained for them to walk in. It’s the same today, simply extended to the Gentiles.

Redemption has always been by grace! Men have always operated within the covenant God gave them, or having rejected God; they were functioning outside the covenant. Still, even to many of them, God gave His grace, forgiving them as they sought reconciliation with the Almighty.

The Dispensation of Grace is that God will use you to glorify His holy name as you serve in His will bringing in the Kingdom of God in the New Covenant. Old Covenant, the same grace and same service in His will. New Covenant, the same grace, same service in His will. The difference is the New Covenant is with all men in the blood of Christ; animal sacrifices have ceased, and ceremonial laws are completed in the person of Christ, once for all (men). Don’t confuse the operation of a new covenant with some change in God or His nature. The ongoing revelation of God started with one man Adam and, by God’s mercy and grace, has grown despite our wickedness to include the offer of eternal life to all men, for as many who would call upon the name of the Lord.

Adam and Eve operated within the grace of God. God created Adam and breathed life into him, making him a living soul. Without fault and blameless, Adam had eternal life from the start. Adam was presented with one rule, a Law of God, but operated within the grace of God until he broke that Law.

Noah, the eighth person (2 Peter 2:5), was saved before the flood, not by the flood! “But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD.” Genesis 6:8 Noah got saved by grace through faith to become a preacher of righteousness (2 Peter 2:5). Noah was dispensing righteous preaching to a doomed generation; that was his dispensation. And God favored him so highly for faithful service that He warned Noah of the end of the old world that then was. Noah became both a type of Adam and of Christ by the grace of God.

Some say the dispensation of grace is a new operation of God. We disagree that the “Dispensation of Grace” is the “Church Age.” It’s not; salvation was always by grace. Every breath we take is by grace. What’s new is the indwelling Holy Spirit of God that operates through us to dispense works in His holy name; if you would only do them.

The Church of Jesus Christ is under blood covenant, not a dispensation. Noah was under the covenant that God made with every living thing, for example. God changes not; he makes covenants, each building upon the prior ones, either by abolishment or addition, until Christ rose from the grave, ascending back to the throne, the Lamb which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.

Having defeated sin and the grave, Christ was worthy to open the seals (Revelation 6), ending the Old Covenant and fully instituting the New Covenant.

God always has a people bringing them to the revelatory knowledge of His will in or through the person with whom His covenants are made. This makes those men types of Christ, for Jesus did all the work necessary to bring in the New Covenant. This is why the so-called dispensations, or eras in history, that Dispensationalists claim are unsound teaching. Every so-called dispensation has, at its root, a covenant Holy God made with a person and, through that person, with His people in that timeframe. Christ is the final and great high priest.

The Dispensationalists can’t agree on the instances, conditions, or number of dispensations because they refuse to acknowledge, by ignorance perhaps, but we think by agenda with most, that God is a covenant-making God. Any so-called dispensation in history is a period under which God has entered into a covenant with His people. Any “Dispensation” that does not have a covenant of God at its root is merely something somebody made up. Starting with Adam, under the first covenant, to dress the Garden refraining from the fruit of the one tree, Father God has since had a people and continuously satisfied each covenant with His people. Some covenants have been fulfilled, some remain, and others are eternal operating principles of heaven and earth so that men might know that God holds all things together, understanding creation by seeing God in the design of His handiwork.

The Apostle Paul persecuted the Church being a Pharisee of the Pharisees, and considered all the Gentiles unclean dogs. God took one type of sinner and wholly transformed him through the dispensation of grace. Paul was recreated into a new man in Christ Jesus, having the dispensation of grace (sharing the Gospel) toward those same Gentiles he previously hunted to have imprisoned, and killed.

The Spirit of God in the new man desires, draws, and calls, compelling us to do what we in our old nature would not do. This is why many won’t serve God. God calls them and drives them to that which is entirely contrary to all they knew before salvation, and they think; how can this be?

Here’s an example: a young couple is becoming serious; one, however, is lost; the couple are not equally yoked together with Christ. By dispensing His grace, God can use an adulterer to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ, leading that lost soul into an equal yoke before their marriage. In the adulterer’s old nature, he would have attempted to destroy the budding relationship to satisfy sinful lusts. But in Christ Jesus, full of God’s love, the adulterer now only desires that the couple be fellow yoke servants of Christ, faithful until death one to the other. Don’t fear your old nature but embrace the new to be as bold in your service of Christ as you were in the lusts of your sinfulness!

The dispensation of grace is why a lowly shepherd boy would slay Goliath and become king. It’s how a nobody descended from unremarkable lineage, such as Amos, dispensed God’s prophetic warnings to the ruling elite, then set out returning to his simple life. It’s why you, whatever you were, are to take up the sword given by the grace of Jesus Christ and do the works, however unqualified, however crazy sounding, or contrary to what you were before salvation, and dispense the grace Christ has foreordained for you to carry out.

“25 Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men. 26 For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called: 27 But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; 28 And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are: 29 That no flesh should glory in his presence.” – 1 Corinthians 1:25-29

The dispensation of grace is why 1 Corinthians 1:25-29 make sense to you intellectually, but you are not to only marvel at the verses. Walk in those works He has for you; however disparate they may be from what you once were! When you walk in those works, doing those things the Almighty has called you to accomplish, then you will genuinely marvel at God’s power to bring to fruition the life He has offered you, in Christ, since before the foundation of the world.

Dr. Gentry:

Our culture is now in such a state of rebellion against God that it cannot even tell the difference between male and female, such is the blindness of unbelief. The postmillennial hope involves a deep and abiding commitment to God’s word and his law to shine a light on our path forward. Unfortunately, so many Christian churches have become so invested in fun and entertainment instead of worship and study that Christians are confused in how to respond to our collapsing culture.

It’s God that draws a man to Jesus, and Christ that shines the light of the glorious Gospel in the heart of a man opening their eyes. John 12:40 speaks specifically of the first-century generation, referring to Isaiah 53:1, 6:9-10. As in the time of Isaiah, the first-century rulers were blinded. We can make an application today.

Some are blinded to the glorious Gospel of Jesus Christ even now.

“3 But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: 4 In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.” – 2 Corinthians 4:3-4

But some have been handed over to vile affections. This was a problem at the beginning of the fall of Rome. And it’s a problem today as the American Empire begins to disintegrate. You can read Romans 1:18-32; it would seem that within every phrase of each verse is our current trajectory. In verse 21, their foolish heart is darkened, and in verse 28, God gave them over to a reprobate mind. You see, God did not create them this way.

They were not born wrong, only born sinners.

Gender Identity is the latest rage among postmodernists. Especially since the June 2015 transformation of Bruce Jenner from a male to the female Caitlyn Jenner, transgender discussions have exploded on the scene. And many Christian leaders and laymen have gotten on the politically-correct bandwagon. But what does the Bible have to say about this phenomenon? Much, in every way.

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The word “gender” is derived from the Latin genus, which means “kind, type.” Thus, God established two kinds of people: male and female. And then he declared this (and all else that came from his creative activity): “very good” (Gen. 1:31).

The King James Version is correctly translated from the Hebraic texts using the word kind in the creation account. On the fifth day, God created every living thing that moves and has life in the water “after their kind” and winged foul of the air “after his kind.”

“And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.” – Genesis 1:21

All of creation, God’s created order, is set upon each creature being its own kind, reproducing with (after – KJV) its own kind. And even the plants bring forth seed “after his kind” on the third day in Genesis 1:11-12.

This post may seem like an unnecessary review, but Christians must learn to argue from the Bible perspective if we are ever to see the fulfillment of the hope of the Kingdom of God while we await His return. Too often, in a classic debating technique, the secularists control the frame of the argument. Christians have got to stop allowing this to happen. The Holy Bible defines everything about our world and life view; it is the only viable frame of reference for a believer. Holy God already framed the heavens and earth and all the worlds along with every creature in them, and any attempt at reframing God’s created and ordained order is a sin in violation of God’s Law-word and all that is holy, right, good, and true.

The Word of God brings faith. We are to argue within the Scriptures and use the Scripture citing verses. Arguing from your own logic alone against sin has little effect on the lost sinner.

The article goes on to cite Jesus: “But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female.” – Mark 10:6

Jesus is speaking of divorce. Read that section of Scripture in Mark 10:2-12; clearly, divorce (and abortion) is a slippery slope that has led to the destruction of the family. Marriage is a covenant with Holy God, not a contract with the State! Sin begets more sin until God’s order means nothing within civilization as God removes those tremendous blessings to which we have become accustomed.

And on the sixth day, God created everything that goes upon the land, including man and woman, “after his kind.” If only those of firm understanding about this, yet being not Christians, would seek to understand how God has ordained one man to one woman, male and female created He them (Genesis 5:2).

Creation is not a random accident. Prove to us anything, anything at all, in the whole universe; that ‘just happens.’ No, all have a cause and effect, God being the first cause of all things. Denying cause is not science but religion and one that has no basis in nature, let alone in the Almighty. Nature did not create itself from nothing, for this violates its own laws. All is within the Law of God, and He is the Creator.

In verse 28 of Genesis 1, God told them to be fruitful and multiply; that happens by procreation, not by attempting to undo, or redo, what God has created in the body of a man or woman. Read Genesis 1:24-28 for a wider context of this first iteration of the sixth day.

Off-topic but essential instruction: the creation apocalypse is an unfolding account, as most are including Revelation. It’s a separate post, but while we’re here, by example, Genesis 2:7 and Genesis 5:2 add to our understanding of how God created man, building upon what we’ve already learned in Genesis chapter 1. That’s one example. If Christians would study the Holy Bible, understanding that God uses iterations (or reiterates) building upon the original and other prior points about that topic. So, Jesus Speaking in Mark 10 of divorce is further instruction built upon the creation account God gave Moses.

Sin complicates matters; life is not simple with sin present Sin disrupts all of life’s activities, causing broken marriages, crime, war, and more. And today sin is even complicating the most basic identity of man as male and female.

Until fairly recently, all agreed there were two genders. And if you check any obstetrics ward you will find two genders represented there. But sin elevates the subjective over the objective, desire over reality. And the Bible calls this elevation: lust.

So you see, it’s not confusion nor subjective; it’s sin. Read the rest at Postmillennial Worldview.