The Man Who Tasted All the Pleasures of This World

Whenever the world tells us that we have not yet fully tasted all its pleasures, we may reply: a man has gone before us so exceedingly rich according to the standards of this world, that he was able to indulge in everything his "eyes desired". He sought out all the pleasures of this world: silver was to him as common as stone and all his drinking vessels were pure gold; rulers came to him from all over the world to seek his wisdom; he had 700 wives and 300 personal concubines. Which man today is his equal in worldly attainments?

Having tasted all that this world has to offer, Solomon declared that all these are but "vanity", and that it is only in "fearing God and keeping his commandments" that man can find true happiness (Ecc 12:13).

By faith, we, God's children, know this to be true.

By faith we do not need to"try out" and "taste" the pleasures of this world to know that our Father which is in heaven is far better.

We live by His Word, which is to us the True Bread which comes from heaven, Jesus Christ His only begotten Son. We eat Him by the Spirit through faith.

We enjoy the good things of this world, but our hope is not in them. Our hope is in the return of our merciful Saviour to rescue His saints and destroy all wicked unbelievers and usher in the eternal kingdom.

Restrictions of Religious Freedom in Ireland

With the coming Civil Partnership Bill and with the passing of the Lisbon Treaty, Ireland is firmly on the road toward "tolerance" and "inclusiveness", meaning the tolerance of all false religion but the forbidding of the true. This includes the attitude of many of the false churches of our day who meekly support this view of "tolerance" and use it to oppress and attack the true church.

The official response and advise of the Evangelical Association of Ireland toward this proposed bill is typical of their Anti-Christian stance and totally in keeping with their political correctness and their idea that the kingdom of God is brought about by compromising with the world. Instead of warning against the Bill, they do not even recommend an opt-out clause so that Christians registrars, for example, can refuse to personally do homosexual marriages (or rather, "civil union"). Lot in his heart was against the sodomy happening in Sodom & Gomorrah, but because he compromised, he lost his wife and daughters and was himself nearly destroyed had the angels not taken him by the hand and dragged him out of the city. I guess EAI wants to stay in the city. As the EAI report says, "nor do we have a duty to try and impose Biblical morality on public life by force of law". I guess Christians shouldn't oppose legalising abortion either. Or any type of murder.

My hope is not in myself because I am a wicked sinner, and not in the Government, because they are also made up of wicked sinners, nor in a future earthly kingdom of Christ, because Christ's kingdom is not of this world and can never be of this world (John 18:36), but in the Christ of the heavenly kingdom, who sits on a throne on the right hand of God the Father and rules all things according to His good pleasure, for the good of all those for whom He shed His precious blood, and for the glory of the Father, and who will one day return to burn up this world and all the wicked unbelievers with fire and establish a new heaven and earth in which all God's children will reign for ever and ever.


I post this Irish Independent article by a secular Irish writer here in the hope that especially Irish people would realise that religious freedom in our country is being eroded, and that not at a slow pace. I also post it to show that some secular writers have more sense than EAI.

David Quinn: Religious freedoms under attack from equality laws
By David Quinn
Friday February 05 2010


The more equality a society has the less freedom it has. The trick is to find the right balance between the two. This is an absolute rule of politics and no one should ever be elected to office without knowing it.

The Soviet Union strove for maximum equality and it destroyed freedom in the process. Rather less dramatically, there are those in this country who want the State to take over all state-funded schools.

They want to do this in the name of equality but if they get their way they will remove from all but the richest parents the right to choose from a variety of schools for their children.

Feminists want as many women as possible to do paid work, again in the name of equality. To this end measures are introduced -- such as state-subsidised child-care -- which make it easier for women to go to work, but much harder for them to stay at home because one-income couples end up paying more tax to subsidise the child care they don't use.

All kinds of new anti-discrimination laws are now being passed around the Western world and these also have the effect of attacking freedom.

Using these laws, the Equality Authority recently tried to force Portmarnock Golf Club to accept women as members. The authority clearly does not believe in freedom of association. Happily, the Supreme Court does and the authority failed.

But the new anti-discrimination laws are bearing down hardest not on men-only golf clubs, but on religion because the practise of religion is increasingly seen as being inherently discriminatory.

Just this week the Pope, ahead of a visit to Britain later this year, got himself into trouble with "human rights" groups (meaning left-wing pressure groups) when he indirectly highlighted the extremely serious implications of Britain's proposed new Equality Bill for religious freedom.

Already British equality laws are restricting religious freedom. For example, its Sexual Orientation Regulations have forced Catholic adoption agencies to close down because they won't accept gay couples as prospective adoptive parents.

One of the implications of the new Equality Bill in its proposed form is that it will become much harder for religious organisations to employ individuals who believe in, and will show respect for, their employer's ethos. If your employees don't respect your ethos, your ethos will soon be dead in the water.

In a clear reference to this proposed law -- which has united all the major religions in opposition, including the very mild Church of England -- the Pope said: "The effect of some of this legislation designed to achieve this goal (of equality) has been to impose unjust limitations on the freedom of religious communities to act in accordance with their beliefs."

Similar laws now exist in this country. For example, if we still had active Catholic adoption agencies here and they took the same attitude as their counterparts in Britain towards same-sex couples they would be in serious trouble under the Equal Status Act.

But the upcoming Civil Partnership Bill, which will give marriage-like rights to same-sex couples, will also attack religious freedom; and with a few notable exceptions, no one in Leinster House seems to care.

For example, under this legislation a church hall that refused to rent itself out to a gay couple wishing to celebrate their civil union there could be sued. Its ethos wouldn't matter a jot.

Similarly, if a printer was asked to print off the invites, and said he couldn't on grounds of religious belief, he too could be sued.

As it is, under the Equal Status Act, if a printer was asked to print material he deemed blasphemous, he would have to or he would be found guilty of religious discrimination.

The logic of all this is inexorable. Britain's equality minister, the odious Harriet Harman, appears to believe that places of worship should be forced to host same-sex civil union ceremonies -- after all, discrimination is discrimination.

Stonewall, the militant gay rights group in Britain, agrees. It believes that in the next 20 years or so, the various religions should be forced to allow gay marriage, or else.

Even now, there is pressure in Ireland to rescind Section 37 of the Employment Equality Act which allows religious organisations to employ according to ethos. This, too, is deemed to permit unjust discrimination and therefore it too must go.

The hilarious thing is that Britain's National Secular Society told the Pope to butt out of politics, that religious belief could not be above the law.

But what if the law seeks to restrict religious belief, to limit our ability to practise our religion as we have always done? What then?

This isn't a case of the Church interfering with the State. It's a case of the State interfering with the Church and it is doing so in the name of the new moral absolute, equality. Disastrously, and shamefully, our politicians seem all too happy to impose this new absolute.

dquinn@independent.ie

- David Quinn

Irish Independent