Humans must die for earth’s survival – “Go Green” to the extreme

by Sheryl Young in Arts & Culture

The Green Movement, enlisting humans to save the planet by “going green,” is no longer enough for some environmentalists. The fast-spreading word is that humanity must die out to save the earth.

Listed with a starting date of 1996 at their website, the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement is several steps ahead of the old Hemlock Society. The Hemlock Society, now called Compassion and Choices, came to the forefront in the late 1950’s to advocate “death with dignity”—voluntary euthanasia for people with terminal illnesses. The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement (VHEMT, pronounced vehement) simply suggests humans should no longer procreate.

While voluntary euthanasia goes against the biblical principle of waiting for God’s timing, VHEMT simply suggests not to breed any further humans for the sake of the earth. They equate God’s leaving one family behind to re-populate earth after the flood as an “OOPS,” and state that some other “being” will be needed to help in this situation (see this page at their website, under the question “When and Where did VHEMT start?”).

Come to the End of Yourself

by Rick Warren

“It is not that we think we are qualified to do anything on our own. Our qualification comes from God.” (2 Corinthians 3:5 NLT)

Life is a struggle, but what most people don’t realize is that our struggle, like Jacob’s, is really with God! We want to be God, and there’s no way we’re going to win that struggle. But we try anyway.

A.W. Tozer said, "The reason why many are still troubled, still seeking, still making little forward progress is because they haven’t yet come to the end of themselves. We’re still trying to give orders, and interfering with God's work within us."

We aren’t God, and we never will be. We’re humans, and the times when we try to be God are the times we end up most like Satan, who tried to be equal with God, too.

We accept our humanity intellectually but not emotionally. We give mental assent to the idea, but when faced with our own limitations, we react with irritation, anger, and resentment. We want to be taller (or shorter), smarter, stronger, more talented, beautiful, and wealthy.

Like a Father : "As a father has compassion on his children"

“As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him; for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust.” — Psalm 103:13–14

In Psalm 103, King David writes, “As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him.”The Sages ask: Like which father? They explain that this verse isn’t talking about just any father who has compassion for his children; it is talking about the Patriarch Abraham. He, more than anyone else in the Bible, demonstrated endless love and compassion for all humanity.

Abraham’s unique love for people was best demonstrated when he prayed on behalf of the people of Sodom. It’s one thing to have compassion for good people who slip up once in a while; it’s another to feel empathy for people who are prone to evil. The people of Sodom were cruel, immoral, and godless. Yet Abraham made every attempt to save them when God informed him about their imminent destruction.

Fulfilled Prophecies at the Birth of Christ

by Tim Chaffey, AiG–U.S

Another Reason to Rejoice this Season

Then the shepherds returned, glorifying God and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, as it was told them. (Luke 2:20)

Millions of Christians around the world choose to celebrate the birth of Jesus during this time of year—some on December 24 or 25 and others around January 7—while some choose not to celebrate at all. Whenever a Christian decides to celebrate, or if he elects not to celebrate His birth, we can all rejoice in the fact that, by putting on humanity, the Son of God became one of us to deal with our sin by dying in our place before conquering death when He rose from the dead.

History in Advance

What We Learned About Humanity in 2012

By Charles Choi, LiveScience Contributor | LiveScience.com

The controversial extinct human lineage known as "hobbits" gained a face this year, one of many projects that shed light in 2012 on the history of modern humans and their relatives. Other discoveries include the earliest known controlled use of fire and the possibility that Neanderthals or other extinct human lineages once sailed to the Mediterranean.

Here's a look at what we learned about ourselves through our ancestors this year.

We're not alone

A trove of discoveries this year revealed a host of other extinct relatives of modern humans. For instance, researchers unearthed 3.4-million-year-old fossils of a hitherto unknown species that lived about the same time and place as Australopithecus afarensis, a leading candidate for the ancestor of the human lineage. In addition, fossils between 1.78 million and 1.95 million years old discovered in 2007 and 2009 in northern Kenya suggest that at least two extinct human species lived alongside Homo erectus, a direct ancestor of our species. Moreover, fossils only between 11,500 and 14,500 years old hint that a previously unknown type of human called the "Red Deer Cave People" once lived in China.

Why did 70,000 die while the sinner lived?

This week's reading: 1 Chronicles 21:14

It doesn't seem fair. Even David was distressed by the consequences his sin had on innocent people (see 1Ch 21:17). We may make our own choices, but we cannot control the extent of the consequences of sin.

Because of our Western individualism we struggle to understand the Eastern tradition in which the head of a family, tribe or nation represented the people under them. The members were treated as a whole, sharing in the blessings or punishments resulting from the actions of their leaders. Adam's sin had consequences for all humanity (see Ro 5:12). When Achan sinned, God said Israel has sinned (see Jos 7:1-11). Joshua had to identify the tribe, clan and family to which the sinner belonged.

In this case, it may have been Israel's sin as a nation that led to David's sin. The Lord was angry with Israel before David was incited to take a census (see 2Sa 24:1). For this reason, some see this as a plague upon a nation of people who had themselves sinned.