9 Things You Should Know About Down Syndrome – Reblog Gospel Coalition

JOE CARTER | 8:38 AM CT

9 Things You Should Know About Down Syndrome (original post)

October is Down Syndrome Awareness Month. Here are nine things you should know about the condition.

1. Down syndrome occurs when an individual has a full or partial extra copy of chromosome 21. This additional genetic material alters the course of development and causes the characteristics associated with Down syndrome.

2. Down syndrome is the most commonly occurring chromosomal condition. The Centers for Disease Control in 2011 estimated the frequency of Down syndrome in the U.S. is 1 in 691 live births

3. Down syndrome is named after the English doctor, John Langdon Down, who was the first to categorize the common features of people with the condition.

4. A few of the common physical traits of Down syndrome are low muscle tone, small stature, an upward slant to the eyes, and a single deep crease across the center of the palm. Every person with Down syndrome is a unique individual and may possess these characteristics to different degrees or not at all.

5. People with Down syndrome are significantly predisposed to certain medical conditions including congenital heart defects, sleep apnea, and Alzheimer’s disease. There is also evidence of an increased risk of celiac disease, autism, childhood leukemia, and seizures. It is rare for a person with Down syndrome to have a solid tumor cancer or cardiovascular disease, including heart attack and stroke.

6. Life expectancy for people with Down syndrome has increased dramatically in recent decades – from 25 in 1983 to 60 today. The dramatic increase to 60 years is largely due to the end of the practice of institutionalizing people with Down syndrome.

7. All people with Down syndrome experience cognitive delays, but the effect is usually mild to moderate and is not indicative of the many strengths and talents that each individual possesses.

8. Approximately 67% of prenatal diagnoses for Down syndrome result in an abortion, according to estimated pregnancy termination rates from 1995-2011.

9. Mothers of individuals with Down syndrome typically exhibit better psychological well-being profiles in comparison to mothers of individuals with other intellectual and developmental disabilities. There is extensive evidence that mothers of young children with Down syndrome experience lower levels of stress, more extensive and satisfying networks of social support, less pessimism about their children’s future, and they perceive their children to have less difficult temperaments. A major study also found that divorce rates were lower (7.6 percent) for families of children with Down syndrome as compared to 10.8 percent in the population group with non-disabled children and 11.25 percent for families of children with other congenital birth defects.

[Image credit: Noah’s Dad]

Enslaving Our Children

There is a coming generational crisis, the scale of which America has never suffered. The young will face slow growth, low employment, limited choices, and a collapse of the entitlement state we erected with their inheritance. Adding to the combustion is the decay of our common cultural understanding of what it means to be American.

The Loving Intolerance of God – Reblog Gospel Coalition

thegospelcoalition.org / View Original / Melissa Kruger / October 11th, 2013

Tolerance. The modern, cultural elite praise this virtue in every school setting, media outlet, and job training workshop. There seems to be no truer way to love another person than to fully accept everything about them. Christians have often joined the tidal wave of this mainstream value and often long to be known for their acceptance of others’ opinions and lifestyles. On the surface it seems to be a positive virtue, one that exemplifies the life of the Christian.

But have you ever considered that tolerance is never encouraged in the Bible? The fruit of the Spirit includes love and kindness, but missing from the list is tolerance. In fact, Christians aren’t called to tolerance, because we serve an intolerant God.

Just consider a few stories from the Old Testament:

The Garden: God didn’t tolerate Adam and Eve’s sin. He didn’t accept their lifestyle choice to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. He banished them from Eden and left an angel with flaming swords to guard the entrance so they couldn’t return.

Noah and the Flood: While the sanitized version of this story is pleasantly detailed in children’s storybooks, we cannot forget this story is about immense judgment. Picture a tsunami of destruction instead of a nursery filled with smiling stuffed animals. The flood involved terror, suffering, and death. It was a catastrophic event that only one family survived.

Uzzah: One of the most uncomfortable accounts of divine intolerance is found in 2 Samuel 6. This story recounts Uzzah’s attempt to steady the ark of the LORD after an oxen stumbled on the journey back to Israel. When he reached out and touched the ark (an expressly forbidden action), God didn’t say, “Well, his heart was in the right place. I know he was just trying to help.” Uzzah’s instinctive response was met with God’s intense anger, and Uzzah was immediately struck down.

We could go on and on throughout the Old Testament, considering Achan, Korah, Aaron’s sons, the Canaanites, and the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah, just to name a few. All perished by the very hand of God. He did not tolerate their sin; he punished it.

Greater Judgment

Lest we somehow think Jesus represents a different God than the one of the Old Testament, though, consider his teaching to the disciples in Matthew 10:14-15:

And if anyone will not receive you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet when you leave that house or town. Truly, I say to you, it will be more bearable on the Day of Judgment for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah than for that town.

Jesus claims a greater judgment than Sodom and Gomorrah for those who reject the message of the gospel. He warned many would believe they knew him, only to learn they have been rejected with these words: “Depart from me, all you workers of evil!” (Matt. 7:21-23; Luke 13:22-27) Rather than find welcome into God’s kingdom, they would find themselves in a place of weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Both the Old and New Testaments display a God who doesn’t tolerate sin. Yet there is one story in Scripture that demonstrates most clearly the intolerance of God.

It is the story of the cross.

Take a fresh look at the terrifying and uncomfortable reality of the cross. Here is an innocent man—whipped, beaten, nailed to a tree, bearing the sins of the world. For you. For me. Is this the picture of a tolerant God who ignores evil? No, this is a gruesome picture of divine wrath and judgment. The story makes no sense if God is a tolerant God.

The cross demonstrates God’s character in all its complexity. It shows his love, kindness, and mercy united with his justice, holiness, and wrath. It perfectly demonstrates a God who surpasses understanding. The Lord is giving us a glimpse into the immensity of his love for us. The love of God is not a tolerant love. It is much better. It is a redemptive love.

Tolerance Is Unloving

Sin must be paid for. To tolerate evil is to deny justice. God unleashes his full wrath on evil because he’s good. If good tolerated evil, it would cease to be good. Refusal to tolerate sin, then, is an essential part of loving others well. It might be tolerant for a mother to let her children play in a busy street or run with scissors, but it’s not loving in the least.

We also should hate sin because it’s harmful, even if we don’t always understand the harm that may be caused. As a child is unaware that a car may quickly appear, we must understand that we’re unaware of all the dangers of sin. God, our loving Creator who understands our frame more fully than we do, bids us to flee from evil and find abundant life in him alone. Life outside the revealed will of God doesn’t ultimately fulfill; it leads to misery and emptiness.

As his people, then, how should we live? Romans 12 provides helpful insight:

Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. Love one another with brotherly affection. . . . Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” To the contrary, “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

God calls us to abhor evil, while at the same time warning us against being agents of his wrath. We should hate the act of stealing while showing mercy and compassion to one who steals. Loving people well doesn’t mean we must embrace the choices they make. It means we openly welcome and embrace all who come into our lives with a heart of understanding and the message and hope of the gospel. We love people well when we call them out of sin into relationship with King Jesus. It may not be the world’s definition of tolerance, but it’s the truest way to love.

“Why the Left Hates the Old” – Reblog Dennis Prager

WHY THE LEFT HATES THE OLD

Why the left hates the old

By: Dennis Prager
10/8/2013 09:45 AM

The latest left-wing tactic to discredit conservative views is to dismiss the age and race of conservatives. “Old white males” and “old white people” are the left’s latest favored negative epithets for those holding conservative views.

Chris Matthews of MSNBC, Thomas Friedman and Paul Krugman of theNew York Times, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (“angry old white men”) are among the many on the left who have used this epithet.

Last week, on her nightly MSNBC show, Rachel Maddow showed a picture of an ad for Washington, D.C. talk radio station WRC that featured the station’s talk show hosts. You will notice, she said, that they are all “old white Republican males.” It was brought to my attention because I am one of those talk show hosts (and, it should be noted, nearly all of my colleagues and I are younger than her colleague, Chris Matthews, an old white Democratic male.)

What is going on here?

The answer is: quite a bit. The left’s dismissal of old people is much more than another left-wing ad hominem attack. Therefore, to understand it is to understand much of what animates leftism.

As a rule, the left rejects the old.

The left’s attack on teaching the works of “Dead White European Males” was one such example. It infuriated the left that Shakespeare was studied so much more than, let us say, living Guatemalan playwrights. As a result, one can now obtain a college degree in English — let alone every other liberal arts department — without having taken a course in Shakespeare.

So, too, in art and music, the new is almost always favored over the old. New composers and artists — no matter how untalented — are studied as much as or more than the great masters of old. And the old standards of excellence are neglected in favor of the latest avant-garde experimentation.

Rejection of the old is a reason the left has contempt for the Bible. To progressives, the idea of having 2,000 and 3,000-year-old texts guide a person’s behavior today is ludicrous.

Low regard for the old is also a major factor in the left’s dismissal of the Founders and of the original intent of the Constitution. Talk about “old white males,” the Founders are white males who are now over 200-years-old. What could they possibly have known or understood that a progressive living today does not know more about or understand better?

What, then, is at the core of the left’s contempt for the old, and its celebration of the new and of change?

There are two primary answers.

One is the yearning for utopia. Since Marx, the left has sought utopia in this world. And that means constantly transforming every aspect of society. As then-Senator Barack Obama said prior to the 2008 election: “We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.”

By definition, those who seek to transform consider the old essentially worthless.

The other answer is self-esteem. The left began the self-esteem movement in large measure because of its own high self-esteem. Those on the left are certain that they are smarter, kinder, more moral and more compassionate than — in every way superior to — their opponents.

That is a major reason for the left’s problem with the old: If the old is great, then they and their new ideas are probably not that great.

Just about everyone who is not on the cultural left knows that all the great masters were incomparably superior to Jackson Pollock and other 20th-centuries artists who produced meaningless and talentless art. And because there are so few artists at any time who measure up to the old standards (standards that are synonymous with standards of excellence), the old standards have simply been abandoned.

This applies equally to morality. The left doesn’t want to be bound or answerable to a higher moral authority. Rather, one’s heart and reason are the best moral guides. Here, too, the old codes, especially as embodied in traditional religion, must be overthrown.

Prior to the ascendance of the left, it was assumed that the old had more wisdom than the young. Indeed, even every leftist I have asked, “Are you wiser today than 20 years ago?” has answered in the affirmative.

Nevertheless the left has transformed “old” — a title that commanded respect in every civilization prior to the pre-1960s West — into a pejorative.

As a result we live in the age of new music, new art, new families, new morality, new education, and now new marriage. If you think all these are good, then “old white males,” like almost everything else old, do indeed constitute a threat. If you think the left’s belief in “new” and “change” hurts society, “old” sounds good.

Dennis Prager’s latest book, “Still the Best Hope: Why the World Needs American Values to Triumph,” was published April 24 by HarperCollins.

9 Things You Should Know about Casinos and Gambling – Reblog (The Gospel Coalition)

See original post here on The Gospel Coalition.

This week the Council on Casinos, a group dedicated to fighting the spread of gambling in America, released a report on “Why Casinos Matter.” Here are nine things from the report on casinos and gambling that you should know.

1. Proximity: Throughout most of the twentieth-century, legal casino gambling in the U.S. existed in only two locations: Nevada and Atlantic City, N.J. Beginning in the 1990s, casinos spread across the nation at an accelerating pace. Today, 23 states have commercial casinos, a category which includes land-based, riverboat, dockside, and racetrack casinos. In the Northeast and mid-Atlantic states, nearly every adult now lives within a short drive of a casino.

2. Slots: Unlike the old Vegas-style resorts, the new regional casinos depend decisively on attracting gamblers who live in the region, who return frequently, and who play modern slot machines. In 1978, outside of Nevada, there were virtually no legal slot machines in the United States. By 2010, there were about 947,000. In 2013, the percentage of casinos’ total gambling revenue deriving from slot machines is estimated at 62 to 80 percent, with racinos (racetrack casinos) getting 90 percent of their take from slots.

3. Rigged: Modern slot machines are programmed for fast, continuous, and repeat betting. Players insert plastic, not coins; they tap buttons or touch a screen rather than pull levers; they place bets in denominations ranging from a penny to a hundred dollars on multiple lines that spin across a screen with each rapid tap of the button. The laws of pure chance or probability no longer dictate wins and losses on slot machines. Modern slots are hooked up to a central server that collects player information, preferences, and speed of play and has the capacity to program each machine to each player’s style. The trend in slot design is to provide a slow and smooth “ride,” with small wins that are less than the amount bet, but nonetheless encourage repeat bets and prolonged “time on machine.”

4. Addictive: Problem gamblers account for 40 to 60 percent of slot machine revenues, according to studies conducted over the past decade or so.

5. Seductive: A large-scale study in 2004 found that people who live within 10 miles of a casino have twice the rate of pathological and problem gambling as those who do not.

6. Family breakup: A study of members of Gamblers Anonymous found that upwards of 26 percent have gambling-related divorces or separations.

7. Social decay: A study that looked at the spread of casino gambling in 300 Metropolitan Statistical Areas found that the presence of a casino reduces voluntarism, civic participation, family stability, and other forms of social capital within 15 miles of a community where it is located.

8. Poor: Casino gambling was once a largely upper-class activity. Today, low-income workers, retirees, minorities, and the disabled include disproportionately large shares of regional casino patrons.

9. State sponsored: States typically legalize casino gambling by changing state constitutions. They create regional monopolies for the casinos. They regulate lightly and often in ways that discriminate against other legal businesses. They rescue casinos from bankruptcy. In short, without the legal, administrative, regulatory, and promotional advantages provided by state governments, casinos would not be spreading into mainstream American life as they are today and would likely still exist only on the fringes of the society.

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WHY THE LEFT HATES THE OLD

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