MOST AMERICANS NOW SAY JESUS ACTUALLY A SINNER

Despite more than nine out of 10 Americans agreeing Jesus was a historical figure, what they believe about Him diverges widely, according to a newly released survey from the Barna Research Group, a nonprofit organization that has been analyzing cultural trends related to religious belief since 1984.

The survey of more than 4,000 U.S. adults online and by phone suggests Americans are conflicted about the central figure of Christianity and have failed to successfully pass on their faith to succeeding generations.

That Jesus once walked the Earth as a man was accepted by 92 percent of respondents, with even 87 percent of Millennials (those born between 1984 and 2002) agreeing. This overwhelming belief in Jesus’ historicity is reflected in the success of popular movies and television shows such as “Son of God,” “The Passion of the Christ,” “The Bible” and “A.D.: The Bible Continues.”

But when the divinity of Jesus is asserted, only 56 percent of Americans agreed. Among Elders – those born before 1946 – 62 percent said Jesus was God, but among Millennials, the number dropped to 48 percent. Those rejecting Jesus as God said He was a just another spiritual figure, comparable to Muhammad or Buddha.

With the question of divinity in play, it is perhaps no surprise a majority – 52 percent – of Americans said Jesus was a sinner like other people while living on Earth. The sinlessness of Jesus has always been a central tenet of Christian theology as His unique qualification to be an effective sacrifice for the sins of others.

The Apostle Paul wrote, “For He (God) made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Corinthians 5:21). The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews echoed the same point, “For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15).

Once again, Millennials showed the greatest departure from orthodoxy with 56 percent saying Jesus sinned.

“There isn’t much argument about whether Jesus Christ actually was a historical person, but nearly everything else about His life generates enormous, and sometimes rancorous, debate,” said David Kinnaman, president of Barna Group and director of the national study.

Despite the influence of secularism in education, politics, entertainment and public morals in America, a majority – 62 percent – reported having made a past personal commitment to Jesus that remains important in their life. Among blacks, 80 percent claimed to have made a commitment, while only 60 percent of whites said so. Only 46 percent of Millennials said they had made such a commitment, compared to 59 percent of Gen-Xers, 65 percent of Boomers and 71 percent Elders.

“Much has been made about whether Millennials will get more serious about church and faith as they age, but the fact is younger Americans are not as connected as older generations are to Christ,” said Kinnaman. “Jesus is a friend of sinners, but many Millennials are ‘unfriending’ Him at a time when their lives are being shaped and their trajectories set toward the future.

“This study shows the extent of Christian commitment in the nation – more than 150 million Americans say they have professed faith in Christ,” said Kinnaman. “This impressive number begs the question of how well this commitment is expressed. As much of our previous research shows, Americans’ dedication to Jesus is, in most cases, a mile wide and an inch deep.”

Credit to WND
Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2015/04/majority-of-millennials-jesus-was-a-sinner/#mJGMKaUAK0pBFq2m.99

Israel Latest US Ally to Join Chinese AIIB

As the United States continues to beg ally after ally to forgo joining the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), key nations have, nevertheless, ignored that plea. The UK, Turkey, and Australia have already applied, among others. But the latest application might sting the most, as PM Netanyahu tosses Israel’s name into the mix.

47 nations have already applied for membership in the AIIB, a multilateral development bank spearheaded by Beijing. Meant to provide financing for infrastructure projects throughout Asia – and to fill in loan gaps left by the International Monetary Fund – the bank is expected to significantly increase China’s influence.

Which is why the United States was largely against it. With a Chinese bank pumping $100 billion into infrastructure projects in the region, Washington will inevitably lose some its own clout. As such, the US has strongly dissuaded its allies from joining, but one by one, countries have flocked to the new institution.

© AFP 2015/ TAKAKI YAJIMA /POOL

47 Countries to Join China-Led Development Bank

And now the AIIB can add Israel to its list. The Israeli Foreign Ministry announced on Wednesday that Prime Minister Netanyahu had signed an application, saying membership would open up opportunities for Israeli companies to enter into one of the fastest growing markets on the planet.

The booming Asian economy isn’t the only thing pushing Israel toward the AIIB. Netanyahu’s government has been looking for ways to diversify its exports in response to a rising tide of anti-Semitism in Europe, and given that it could face potential sanctions over future conflicts.

At this point, Japan is the only major US ally who is still holding out on membership, but given the AIIB’s quickly growing influence, one can easily imagine Tokyo casting longing looks toward Beijing as Washington leads it in the other direction.

© AFP 2015/ TAKAKI YAJIMA /POOL

China's AIIB Boom Shows US Influence Over Allies Has Limits

Israel joins China, India, Indonesia, Israel, Bangladesh, Brunei, Cambodia, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Laos, Maldives, Malaysia, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nepal, New Zealand, Oman, Pakistan, the Philippines, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Thailand, Vietnam, France, Germany, Italy, the UK, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Austria, Turkey, South Korea, Brazil, Russia, Georgia, the Netherlands, Denmark, Australia, Egypt, Finland, Kyrgyzstan, and Sweden, all having applied for membership.

Credit to Sputnik

Read more: http://sputniknews.com/asia/20150401/1020341659.html#ixzz3W7hKt400

For First Time In History, California Governor Orders Mandatory Water Cuts Amid "Unprecedented, Dangerous Situation"

Amid the "cruelest winter ever," with the lowest snowpack on record, and with 98.11% of the state currently in drouight conditions, California Governor Jerry Brown orders mandatory water cuts in California for the first time in history...

Lowest snowpack on record...

98.11% Drought...

As ABC reports,

California Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr. announced a set of mandatory water conservation measures today, as the state continues to struggle with a prolonged drought that has lasted for more than four years.

"Today we are standing on dry grass where there should be five feet of snow," Brown said in a statement after visiting a manual snow survey in the Sierra Nevadas. "This historic drought demands unprecedented action."

For the first time in the state's history, the governor has directed the State Water Resources Control Board to implement mandatory water reductions across California, in an effort to reduce water usage by 25 percent. The measures include replacing 50 million square feet of lawns throughout the state with drought-tolerant landscaping, banning the watering of grass on public street medians, requiring agricultural water users to report their water use to state regulators, and requiring large landscapes such as campuses, golf courses and cemeteries to make significant cuts in water use.

The governor’s announcement comes just a few weeks after NASA’s top water scientist, Jay Famiglietti, declared in a Los Angeles Times op-ed that California only had a year's-worth of water supply left in its reservoirs.

The last four years have been the driest in California’s recorded history. As of March 24, more than 98 percent of California is suffering from abnormally dry conditions, with 41.1 percent in an exceptional drought, according the U.S. Drought Monitor, which estimates that more than 37 million Californians have been affected by the drought. The state’s snowpack, which is largely responsible for feeding the state’s reservoirs, has been reduced to 8 percent of its historical average, and in some areas in the Central Valley the land is sinking a foot a year because of over-pumping of groundwater for agriculture.

...

“We are in an unprecedented, very serious situation,” the governor said in his January statement.“At some point, we have to learn to live with nature, we have to get on nature’s side and not abuse the resources that we have.”

*  *  *

And as we noted previously, while all eyes are focused on dry river beds and fields of dust, the maountainous ski resort areas are seing their economies devastated. As Bloomberg reports,

 

 

Last year Vail reported a 28 percent drop in skier visits at its California resorts, and the company warned investors that its financial results would be worse than anticipated.

Those numbers reflect what could be a larger contraction of Tahoe’s ski industry. Seasonal and part-time hiring has slid 27 percent over the last three years, according Patrick Tierney, a professor of recreation, parks, and tourism at San Francisco State University, and spending on ski-related services has decreased from $717 million a year to $428 million. An older analysis by the San Francisco Reserve Bank showed that the value of resort-area homes in places like Tahoe can depend heavily on climate; evena 2-degree increase could cut home values by more than 50 percent.

The drought is getting worse... not better.

Credit to Zero Hedge

Liberals Pushing Gardasil Shots on All Mexican Girls

Obama Dictates National "Cyber Security" Emergency

Credit to Zero Hedge

It's business as usual in Washington. President Obama has just signed another Executive Order declaring a National Emergency to deal with cyber threats:

• *OBAMA ORDER CREATES NEW AUTHORITY TO RESPOND TO CYBER THREATS TO BE USED IN 'TARGETED MANNER'
• *OBAMA ORDER ALLOWS SANCTIONS FOR CYBER THREATS

This new authority, yet another layer of government oversight, we are sure is for your own protection and in Obama's words will "augment work to fight cyber threats." All your internet is belong to us...

The national and economic security of the United States depends on the reliable functioning of the Nation’s critical infrastructure in the face of such threats. It is the policy of the United States to enhance the security and resilience of the Nation’s critical infrastructure and to maintain a cyber environment that encourages efficiency, innovation, and economic prosperity whilepromoting safety, security, business confidentiality, privacy, and civil liberties.

We can achieve these goals through a partnership with the owners and operators of critical infrastructure to improve cybersecurity information sharing and collaboratively develop and implement risk-based standards.

Full order here...

CyberThreat

"Arab Spring Prophecy"

Negotiating With Pyschopaths: Iran General 'Israel Must Be Wiped Off The Map' While The US Negotiates Iranian Nuclear Program

By Susan Duclos - All News PipeLine


Looking at competing headlines and articles showing the US is still in active negotiations with Iran over their nuclear program with statements made by a variety of those involved in the negotiations, then seeing that while the US is busy "negotiating" with these pyschopaths, there is an Iranian Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Naqdi making statements about how "erasing Israel off the map" is "non-negotiable." Reza Naqdi's comments also included threats against Saudi Arabia for it's counter attack in Yemen against Iran-backed Houthis, stating they "will end up like Saddam Hussein."

The understatement of the day comes from Iran's negotiator, who says "problems" remain in the nuclear talks.

You think?

In the video below we see Israel's Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu blasting the "deal" being made as well as the silence by the International community over the latest threat to Israel's very existence, where Bibi states "Yesterday an Iranian general brazenly declared and I quote: 'Israel's destruction is non-negotiable', but evidently giving Iran's murderous regime a clear path to the bomb is negotiable." 

"This is unconscionable," Netanyahu declared.

Via Israel National News:

Turning from Iran's nuclear program to its increased use of terrorist and other proxies to expand its control over the wider Middle East, the prime minister noted how "at the same time, Iran is accelerating its campaign of terror, subjugation and conquest throughout the region, most recently in Yemen," where Shia Houthi rebels, backed by Iran, have ousted the Yemeni government.

"The concessions offered to Iran in Lausanne would ensure a bad deal that would endanger Israel, the Middle East and the peace of the world," he continued, echoing statements he made earlier this week in which the PM warned the deal under discussion is worse than he had feared.

"Now is the time for the international community to insist on a better deal," Netanyahu insisted.

"A better deal would significantly roll back Iran's nuclear infrastructure. A better deal would link the eventual lifting of the restrictions on Iran's nuclear program to a change in Iran's behavior.

"Iran must stop its aggression in the region, stop its terrorism throughout the world and stop its threats to annihilate Israel. That should be non-negotiable and that's the deal that the world powers must insist upon."

In the meantime, according to CBS News, the The French, Russian and Chinese negotiators had all left by Wednesday and all that has been accomplished by extending the so-called "deadline," is a statement from the talks "Negotiators have a tentative agreement on the rough outline of a possible public statement on the progress they have made so far that would also highlight areas of disagreement, diplomats close to the talks said."

Ed Morrissey sums up the "negotiations" to date quite succinctly:

In other words, the Iranians want to stick with their demands to keep all their enriched uranium and have all sanctions lifted, plus be able to keep developing more efficient centrifuges that will accelerate their run to a nuke. The only question appears to be whether the Obama administration is desperate enough to go along with it, in order to have a foreign-policy achievement about which they can brag … at least until the first mushroom cloud appears in the Middle East. By that time, they’re all hoping to be long gone, though, so it won’t be their problem.

All one has to do is take a look at history, the long list of sanctions imposed on Iran for lying multiple times about their nuclear programto understand that any promises, any deal, will only be upheld by one side.

For example, in 2002 Iran was caught lying about their "secret nuclear plants; 2003 Iran lied about "suspending" their nuclear programand in 2004 they were charged with "violating" that agreement. 

By 2005, using "contents of what they say is a stolen Iranian laptop containing more than a thousand pages of Iranian computer simulations and accounts of experiments -- studies for crucial features of a nuclear warhead." 

In 2006, sanctions against Iran began. 

In 2009 "American, British and French officials declassify some of their most closely held intelligence and describe a multiyear Iranian effort, tracked by spies and satellites, to build a secret uranium enrichment plant deep inside a mountain."  

In 2010 "The report also concludes that some Iranian weapons-related activity apparently continued “beyond 2004," contradicting an American intelligence assessment published in 2008 that concluded that work on a bomb was suspended at the end of 2003."

Read the full timeline HERE.

Jump to March 2015, the very month these "negotiations" are occurring,  we see "IAEA Warns of Possible Iranian 'Activities Related to Development of a Nuclear Payload', which states "The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has “further corroborated” information indicating that Iran “has carried out activities that are relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device,” the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog says in its most recent report on Iran."

Expecting a proven compulsive liar to honor any deal or committment is insanity and yet the US claims it is hopeful that a deal, which wouldn't be worth the paper it was written on, can be reached?

Dealing with psychopaths never ends well.... neither will this.

The question we are left with is who is crazier? The psychopathic liars or those negotiating with them and expecting any deal made to be honored?

Zechariah 14:1-5

1 Behold, the day of the Lord cometh, and thy spoil shall be divided in the midst of thee; 2 For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle; and the city shall be taken, and the houses rifled, and the women ravished; and half of the city shall go forth into captivity, and the residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city; 3 Then shall the Lord go forth, and fight against those nations, as when he fought in the day of battle; 4 And his feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east, and the mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the east and toward the west, and there shall be a very great valley; and half of the mountain shall remove toward the north, and half of it toward the south.; 5 And ye shall flee to the valley of the mountains; for the valley of the mountains shall reach unto Azal: yea, ye shall flee, like as ye fled from before the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah: and the Lord my God shall come, and all the saints with thee.

Credit to all news pipeline