I pressed the “Delete” button on Facebook yesterday.
The last straw for me was the suspension of President Trump’s account. I put up with the claims of political censorship, the manipulation of algorithms, the massive privacy breaches, the ever-increasing ads….
When an American platform deletes the current President of the United States, it seems to me that there is a line of political contempt and arrogance that has been crossed.
I am sad to be missing out on the opportunities for sharing with people and for the huge platform that Facebook offers. On the other hand, I did live most of my life without Facebook.
I am sure there will be another better, more free medium that emerges, and when it does I will be there. In the meantime I will be blogging more and I am also on mewe.com and xapit.com
On entering the home, they saw the child with his mother, and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure chest, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.
Observation
After Jesus’ birth, the Magi come from the East. They ask the rulers where the King of the Jews is born. Herod is frightened when he hears this, and he finds out from the priests and scribes where the Messiah was to be born. They tell him that it was to be Bethlehem.
Herod calls for a meeting with the Magi. He tells them the baby should be born in Bethlehem. He tells them to seek diligently and report back to him when they find Him.
The Magi follow the star to the place where Jesus and His mother are. They worship him and Give Him gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.
Application
In the Christmas story we find three broad classes of people:
those who hear the Good News and recognise instantly that the baby is the Son of God
those who know with the intellect that the baby might be the Messiah, but are not that committed to seeking Him out
those who are driven by hatred or fear of the baby
We can know all the facts about Jesus as the priests and scribes did, and still not know Him. We can have an intellectual knowledge of the Bible and miss the heart of the author.
We can even hate and oppose God because we know that He wants a different focus in our life.
Or we can worship Him, recognising that in Christ everything finds its place.
Prayer
Lord Jesus I offer myself to you again. Use me as you choose and enable me to worship you in every situation. Amen.
Scientists continued defying the “unprecedented” global warming narrative by publishing nearly 150 papers in 2020 that show large regions of the Earth (a) haven’t warmed in recent decades, (b) were as-warm or warmer within the last several centuries, and/or (c) were 1-7°C warmer than today just a few millennia ago.
Here is the link to the 2020 (and 2019) Non-Global Warming scientific paper database:
“Tyranny in democratic republics does not proceed in the same way, however. It ignores the body and goes straight for the soul. The master no longer says: You will think as I do or die. He says: You are free not to think as I do. You may keep your life, your property, and everything else. But from this day forth you shall be as a stranger among us.” – Alexis De Tocqueville, Democracy in America
Imagine a future where a benevolent all-seeing and all-powerful censor quietly manipulates everything you see, hear and watch; tracks and limits everyone you communicate with and determines what information is spread, and what is suppressed. No form of communication exists which does not pass through the filters of the censors.
So powerful are these censors that they can suppress not only information, but people too. No one is immune from this gentle yet persistent form of persecution, and even the most senior in government are routinely ‘non-personed’; though they still live, they are rendered voiceless. This is not the theme of some 20th century dystopian novel, but the world we inhabit in 2021.
The spotty tech-geeks of Silicon valley have accrued, along with their billions and our indifference, an overwhelming monopoly over communications during the past decade. They have now matured from adolescent cyber-nerds tinkering with their early IT systems into greying and sinister tyrants who mouth slogans like “Don’t Be Evil” as they continue to consolidate their domination over the most advanced tool of social control ever built; the centralised internet.
We have been sacrificing our privacy and free expression in return for centralised convenience online for some time, but 2021 is already proving to be the year when the libertarian pretensions that typified the early internet are finally falling away like dross, leaving behind the glistening ore of raw power. While the rest of us spent 2020 largely muzzled, in 2021 their mask has slipped.
So complete is their monopoly that they can now silence even the most powerful man in the world; the President of the United States. Since protestors broke into the US Capitol Building, Facebook and Instagram have blamed the President Trump with inciting an ‘insurrection’ and banned the President from communicating with the public indefinitely. Twitter has permanently banned the President from their platform. YouTube have introduced a removal policy for accounts that question the US election results, and regularly bans dissenting content.
Tiktok have cancelled Trump-related hashtags, claiming that ‘Hateful behavior and violence have no place’ on the Chinese-owned platform. Reddit has removed Trump-related Subreddits. Shopify has cancelled Trump’s online stores. Google and Apple have removed alternative social media competitors from their app-stores, and Amazon, claiming that they “pose a very real risk to public safety” has ceased web-hosting such rival platforms as Parler, effectively removing it from the internet until it can rebuild the site, as Parler’s CEO John Matze said, “from scratch” with another host. Why is this happening?
New Life Narrabri 