---

The following articles are compiled by:

Leo Wong

Leo@WatchmenWatching.com

 

 

 

Islam flourishes among U.S. blacks

Source: www.gulf-times.com

 

February 27, 2007 -- Islam is growing fast among African Americans, who are undeterred by increased scrutiny of Muslims in the U.S. since the September 11 attacks, according to imams and experts. Converts within the black community say they are attracted to the disciplines of prayer, the emphasis within Islam on submission to God and the religion’s affinity with people who are oppressed.

 

Some blacks are also suspicious of U.S. government warnings about the emergence of new enemies since the 2001 attacks because of memories of how the establishment demonised civil rights leaders Martin Luther King and Malcolm X.

 

As a result, they are willing to view Islam as a legitimate alternative to Christianity, the majority religion among U.S. blacks.

 

Comments:  First of all, if you’re a real Christian, you don’t become unconverted, i.e. unsaved.  Once Jesus has saved you, you remain saved eternally. Yes, you can turn your back on Christ which is called “backsliding”.  If you were never saved to begin with, then Islam would be an alternative to Christianity.

 

Misinformation can lead a person to a religion such as Islam.  Muslims don’t worship the same God as Christians.  Muslims pay homage to Allah who isn’t the same as the God of Heaven.  It’s true that a Muslim lives a more spartan life than the world’s people.  True Islam heaps scorn on prosperity and the Playboy hedonistic lifestyle espoused by Hugh Hefner.  Muslims pray (toward Mecca in Saudi Arabia) many times a day and they are very zealous about their religion. Islam’s aim is worldwide conversion of Jews, Christians and Gentiles known as infidels.  Those who refuse to bow before Allah and their Prophet Mohammed are to be killed by the sword.  If that is exciting and intriguing, then you ought to become a professional mercenary.

 

African Americans are growing disenchanted with professing Christianity which talks the talk but doesn’t walk the walk.  It’s this failure by Christianity that drives many to other faiths and religions. Islam seems more practical in comparison. We’re now reading more and more about people returning to their roots pertaining to their religion (e.g. youths returning to their Catholic heritage).  The blacks of America were originally taken from their birthplaces in Africa and transported to the Americas to work as slaves.  Africa, especially North Africa, is predominately Islamic, thus it’s only natural that Islam is viewed favorably by African Americans.  The tragedy of it all is that Islam doesn’t save; only Jesus does.

 

 

________________________________________________________________________

 

 

Conversations with Whom?

Source: Brian Flynn

 

February 27, 2007 -- Neale Donald Walsch, who wrote Conversations With God, is considered one of the most prominent people in today's New Age spirituality. His book took shape when Walsch became frustrated with his life after four failed marriages, and he decided to write a letter to God. He picked up a yellow legal pad and began to pour out his frustrations. He wrote:

 

What have I done to deserve a life of such continuing struggle? To my surprise, as I scribbled out the last of my bitter, unanswerable questions and prepared to toss my pen aside, my hand remained poised over the paper, as if held there by some invisible force. Abruptly, the pen began moving on its own. I had no idea what I was about to write, but an idea seemed to be coming, so I decided to flow with it. Out came...

 

Do you really want answers to all these questions, or are you just venting?

 

Thus begins Walsch's conversations with God, and we get to read what God says....

 

Let's take a look at some of these conversations Neale has had with God. In this particular conversation, Neale is discussing right from wrong with God:

 

Walsch: But those who have taught me all about the rights and wrongs, the dos and don'ts, the shoulds and shouldn'ts, told me all those rules were laid down by You—by God.

 

God: Then those who taught you were wrong. I have never set down a "right" or "wrong," a "do" or a "don't." To do so would be to strip you completely of your greatest gift—the opportunity to do as you please, and experience the results of that.... To say something—a thought, a word, an action—is "wrong" would be as much as to tell you not to do it.... To prohibit you would be to restrict you. To restrict you would be to deny the reality of Who You Really Are.

 

This kind of talk is sweet music to the moral relativist who loves to hear and believe people are Divine and are thus God. Walsch later asks God about good and evil only to get the following response:

 

God: Evil is that which you call evil. Yet even that I love, for it is only through that which you call evil that you can know good; only through that which you call the work of the devil that you can know and do the work of God. I do not love hot more than I do cold, high more than low, left more than right. It is all relative. It is all part of what is. I do not love "good" more than I love "bad." Hitler went to heaven. When you understand this, you will understand God.

 

Let's examine what God is saying. God's plan is to allow you to do as you please even if it harms others. One of the few behaviors left in our society that makes even New Agers recoil is pedophilia, so let's use that as the example. Is it therefore God's plan to allow us to harm children to teach us to know what good is? God doesn't love the good of protecting children from a pedophile more than the bad of allowing it to happen? Neale's God is sick.

 

And what was that he said about Hitler? He's going to Heaven too? Why does Walsch's God write this? Is it to convince us Hell or punishment do not exist—that we can do no wrong in the eyes of God? We can do anything we want without consequences or guilt, in which case we do not need to ask for forgiveness and therefore certainly have no need for the Cross of Jesus Christ. This is the freedom man has longed for—to be autonomous, to be God. The declaration in Walsch's first book that Hitler too will go to Heaven must have caused a stir, even for New Agers, for in his second book, he clarifies:

 

God: Hitler went to heaven for these reasons: There is no hell, so there is no place else for him to go. His actions were what you call mistakes—the actions of an unevolved being—and mistakes are not punishable by condemnation, but dealt with by providing the chance for correction, for evolution. The mistakes Hitler made did no harm or damage to those whose deaths he caused. Those souls were released from their earthly bondage, like butterflies emerging from a cocoon.

 

He did no harm or damage by the deaths he caused? The families of the millions he killed never wept a tear? The children of parents who died in Auschwitz never experienced loss? The wives that survived their husbands' murders and torture never experienced pain? In this next exchange God describes the way in which to know what truth is and how to make all of life's decisions:

 

God: You cannot know God until you’ve stopped telling yourself that you already know God. You cannot hear God until you stop thinking that you've already heard God. I cannot tell you my Truth until you stop telling Me yours.

 

Walsch: But my truth about God comes from You.

 

God: Who said so?

 

Walsch: Leaders. Ministers. Rabbis. Priests. Books. The Bible, for heaven's sake!

 

God: Those are not authoritative sources. Walsch: They aren't?

 

God: No.

 

Walsch: Then what is?

 

God: Listen to your feelings. Listen to your Highest Thoughts. Listen to your experience. Whenever any one of these differ from what you have been told by your teachers, or read in your books, forget the words. Words are the least reliable purveyor of Truth.

 

Whenever you are told something different by teachers or what you have read in books, ignore them and do as you wish. I feel it, therefore it is right. I wonder if Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold who committed the murders at Columbine High School took this same type of advice.

 

It would seem that Walsch's God allows you to do anything you please, but no, wait a minute:

 

God: If you ever lit a cigarette in your life—much less smoked a pack a day for 20 years as you have—you have very little will to live. You don't care what you do to your body.

 

Walsch: But I stopped smoking over 10 years ago!

 

God: Only after 20 years of grueling physical punishment. And if you've ever taken alcohol into your body, you have very little will to live.

 

Walsch: I drink very moderately.

 

God: The body was not meant to intake alcohol. It impairs the mind.

 

Now all of a sudden God is upset with a choice. It is okay for Hitler to kill millions of people but not okay for Neale Donald Walsch to smoke or drink?

 

Walsch: But Jesus took alcohol! He went to the wedding and turned water into wine!

 

God: So who said Jesus was perfect?

 

It seems that God is now contradicting Himself. If he was the true God, wouldn't you expect him to be consistent? Unchanging? He allows you to do what you please, but if you drink or smoke, that is ... wrong? I thought no rights or wrongs existed!

 

Is Walsch's God a God of love? If you can remember back to the time when you were a teenager and your parents had control over you, I'm sure there were times when you wished they didn't. If only they would allow you to do as you please.

 

Isn't one of the expressions of love a parent shows his or her child that of setting boundaries? Telling them right from wrong? Restricting them? I'm sure you felt as a teenager that discipline wasn't fun, but now as an adult and as a parent you realize it was an expression of love and caring.

 

Walsch's God doesn't care. Does he meet the standard of the New Age as a God of love? No, he is a God of indifference.

 

Comments:  A year ago in a Chapters bookstore, I noticed Neale Donald Walsch’s books about talking with God and I felt queasy when flipping through his many books.  Something just didn’t feel right. There was something demonic and New Age about his writings, yet based on his titles, his books would entice many Christians to purchase them and many have.  Walsch is a very wealthy man due to his pact with the Devil to disseminate such doctrine of demons.  He says we are God and that evil isn’t what it is according to the Bible.  Hitler is in Heaven and there’s no Hell.  God is not a God of wrath but love only.  You can see how many mainline Protestant churchgoers would be duped by his God is love only lies.  Even Catholics love his messages of universal love and humanity’s oneness with the Creator.

 

The Devil is as smooth as silk.  He deceives religious people so readily because unless they’re solidly grounded in the Word, they’ll be blown every which way by nice sounding doctrines that appeal to human pride.  Nobody likes to be told that their heart is inherently evil.  We all like to have our self-esteem built up and told that we can be divine creatures.  And when we’re told that we can actually talk with God and God would respond in likewise fashion, wow, that would blow the fish out of the water!  Never mind that much of what Neale Donald Walsch says in his writings was dictated to him by the Devil himself.  Professing believers without spiritual discernment to warn them fall into the Devil’s trap.  There are plenty of Neale Donald Walschs in this world, false prophets (who claim to speak for God) whose aim is to lead souls to Hell.  Wouldn’t that be ironic if a soul found himself in Hell and cry out, “But, Neale Donald Walsch said there was no Hell!!”  Matthew 24:[11] And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many.

 

________________________________________________________________________

 

 

Iranian president faces criticism on home front

Source: Ali Akbar Dareini of The Associated Press

 

 

 

February 27, 2007 --  President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad faced a new round of sharp criticism at home Monday after he said Iran's nuclear program is an unstoppable train without brakes. Reformers and conservatives said such tough talk only inflames the West as it considers further sanctions

 

The criticism came even as new signs have arisen that Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is growing discontented with Ahmadinejad, whom he is believed to have supported in 2005 presidential elections.

 

Last week, Khamenei voiced rare criticism of the domestic performance of Ahmadinejad's government, and the president was notably absent when a group of cabinet members and vice-presidents met with Khamenei, who has the final word in all political affairs in Iran, including the nuclear issue.

 

The increasing criticism reflects public worries about the course of the country's confrontation with the United States and the West. Washington has taken a more aggressive stance toward Iran, building up the U.S. military presence in the Gulf and accusing Tehran of backing militants in Iraq. That has heightened fears among Iranians of possible U.S. military action.

 

Comments:  President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a loyal lapdog of Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.  Whatever his boss tells him to do, Ahmadinejad does it without questioning.  But, apparently, Ahmadinejad has gone too far and his boss had to rap him on the paws.  He now has to tone down his rhetoric or faces losing his prestigious albeit ceremonial post.  You see this in the corporate business world where the loyal to a fault supervisor kowtows to his manager and carries out his leader’s directives even to the detriment of his subordinates.  Those whom he supervises accord him no respect but scorn for following orders without seeing the impact they have on human lives. Whether the boss’s decisions are right or wrong carry no moral judgment from his faithful underling.  Deep down though, his boss detests him just as much as his subordinates.  He has shown no fortitude whatsoever.  He’s spineless in his dealings with the higher ups.  Such people are the scums of the business world.

 

Ahmadinejad finds himself in a quandary.  He is in no win situation.  By licking his boss’s boots and doing as he was told to do, he thought he would endear himself with the supreme leader.  He has already alienated much of the Iranian population who now wishes he would be replaced with a more moderate president.  Ahmadinejad’s incessant threats against the U.S. and Israel are making the Iranians worried about their economic livelihood and more importantly, the increasing possibility of U.S. and/or Israeli bombers and jets dropping bomb after bomb on top of Iranian towns and villages.  If Iran does indeed have nukes, then let Ahmadinejad deploy them now.  Don’t threaten the pit bulls if you don’t have the moxie to take them head on. There’s a saying, “It’s not about the dog in the fight, but the amount of fight in the dog.”

 

 

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

 

 

 

 

Keep watching (Matt 24:42)!

 

Until next time,

Shalom!

 

 

Watchmen Watching HOME PAGE

Millennium Weekend Ministries Home Page