He adroitly managed to tell the truth without telling all the truth; however, he was not correct when he said, “This is not a battle between different faiths, different sects, or different civilizations.” That was not only wrong but super wrong and knowledgeable people know that we are in a battle between Islam and Christianity; a battle between Sunnis and Shiites; and a battle between a culture based on the Bible and a culture based on the Koran. It is not very smart to make a public declaration that sane, honest, informed people know to be false.

But, what did Trump refuse to say? What are the issues he did not discuss?

*The president did not say that the Kingdom of Saudi Aribia is home to the Wahabi sect of Islam that is probably the most vicious, violent, and visible in the world. A 2006 report by the U.S. Department of State revealed, “Saudi donors and unregulated charities have been a major source of financing to extremist and terrorist groups over the past 25 years.”

A European Parliament report estimates that Saudi Arabia has spent over $10 billion to promote Wahabism through Saudi charitable foundations. Trump did not demand that such financial support cease.

About Saudi Arabia, Trump wrote in 2011: “It’s the world’s biggest funder of terrorism.” But Trump did not bring that up in his speech.

*He did not say that the Wahabi sect funds most of the mosques in America nor did he announce that no additional mosques would be built in America until an equal number of churches are permitted in Saudi Arabia!

*He did not say that there is not a church or synagogue in all of Saudi Arabia nor did he support my position of eight years ago that the Kingdom should permit the Trinity Baptist Church to be established in Mecca, Medina, and Riyadh.

*He did not say that females should receive equal treatment as men. They should be permitted to drive, work, and marry whom they choose, divorce on the same basis as men, and not be forced into childhood “marriages” with old dudes–or young dudes.

*He did not demand that female genital mutilation (FGM) cease in the Kingdom and the Muslim world. He did not condemn popular Saudi Sheikh Mohamad Alarefe’s statement to 8 million followers that “Circumcision [FGM] is a noble act to do to women.”

*He did not say that since we are all good friends, the Saudis should permit Christian workers in the American Embassy and oil workers to have the right to celebrate Christmas in their own homes without harassment from Muslim police.

*He did not turn to President el-Sisi of Egypt and ask for the right of churches in Egypt to get permits to repair their buildings or even build new ones.

*He did not say that any person should have the right to choose his or her religion without any coercion and change it if they don’t like it.

*He did not say that honor killings are never justified and perpetrators should pay the severest penalties.

*He did not say that since we are all buddies, it would be nice if the Saudi government recognized what everyone in the world knows: the nation of Israel is a reality.

It was significant that Melania did not wear a head scarf that is required by all women in Saudi Arabia. Nor did Trump bow to the king, as did Obama who bowed from the waist. I liked that part of the ceremony.

Some Trump critics say Trump did bow but that is desperation, deception, even dishonesty speaking. Trump was receiving a medal and had to squat, not bow, to permit the king to place the medal over his head.

But even if it were so, it was not an Obama bow (and kiss on the hand of the Saudi king) or like President George W. Bush who diplomatically kissed and held hands with Saudi royalty during the royal visit to Bush’s Texas ranch! That silly, disgraceful act gagged every buzzard on the Chihuahuan (Texan) Desert.

Americans don’t bow to any human. And they don’t bow much to God either.

Boys’ new book Muslim Invasion: The Fuse is Burning! was published recently by Barbwire Books; to get your copy, click here. An eBook edition is also available.

From the dawn of history, mankind has experienced times of sickness, sorrow, and suffering. Disease was often deadly and left as quickly and mysteriously as it appeared. Sometime, it stayed for months. Now, we face a more deadly possibility: modern terrorists with the ability, equipment, funds, and commitment to wreak destruction, disease, and death on a massive scale.

Throughout history people often reacted out of fear and ignorance, and that only compounded the problem, extending the pestilence. They ran from the towns, but found that when they arrived in a “safe haven” they were met by the same pestilence! Of course, the pestilence had been a traveling companion. Hopefully, I will provide some insight as to the mistakes made in the past so they will not be repeated in the future.

Our present threat could come from a nuclear blast, an EMP device, poisoned water or food supply, an ancient (or modern) exotic plague, or biological agents sprayed over a metropolitan area. Federal authorities declare that terror is in our near future and will be far worse than the September 11 attacks.

In the plague of A.D. 302, the pestilence had a companion–famine. The people resorted to eating grass, and the deaths from famine almost matched those dying from disease. Hungry dogs fought over the bodies of the human dead. Hieronymus tells us that the human race had been “all but destroyed,” and that the earth was returning to a state of desert and forests.

The first instance of a true pandemic (worldwide epidemic) began in A.D. 542 at Pelusium, Egypt during the reign of Emperor Justinian. In sixty years it spread to all parts of the known world. Seibel tells us that the plague was preceded by many earthquakes, volcanic eruptions–Vesuvius, in 513, was one–and famines that dropped a blanket of terror and death over Europe, the Near East, and Asia. The worst natural occurrence was the earthquake and fire that destroyed Antioch in A.D. 526, killing almost 300,000 people.

When the plague arrived in Constantinople in A.D. 542, it stayed for four months killing so many people that it was impossible for the living to bury the dead. The dead lay unburied in the streets with ten thousand persons dying each day at Constantinople. By A.D. 565, half of the citizens of the Byzantine Empire had died! Gibbon suggested that perhaps 100 million people (in Europe alone) died of this plague!

In the early 1300s, the population of Europe had outrun the food supply, and in a few years, the poor were eating cats, dogs, and other animals. Some say they even ate their own children! People were dying, but rather slowly. Bubonic plague (Black Death) would prove to be more efficient and quicker than famine, much quicker.

The poet Petrarch reported about the effects of the plague on Florence: “We go out of doors, walk through street after street and find them full of dead and dying, and when we get home again we find no live thing within the house! All having perished in the brief interval of our absence.”

George Astor wrote that, “Almost half of Europe died from the black death between the fourteenth and seventeenth centuries.”

The preceding litany of deaths could be a portent of what the world faces if Muslim terrorists carry out their threats. No sane person thinks they are playing games. It is not demagoguery to suggest that the earth could become a mass graveyard.

When the daily count of the dead reached the breaking point (different in various societies and ages), responsible people became irresponsible, calm people became terrified, and the borderline paranoid became dangerous. As people fled their homes, social and political organizations disappeared, crops were left to rot in the fields, populations were displaced, civil war was fomented, and major shifts in religious thinking occurred.

Many historians have taught that disease has changed the condition of this world more than wars. Ancient Greece might not have fallen into the hands of Rome if it had not been for malaria. Are we not fools if we don’t consider the same or similar results from possible biological terrorism we face today? If we don’t learn from history, we are doomed to repeat it.

Maybe we can learn from the plague of Saint Cyprian and not make the same mistakes people of that day made. In A.D. 250, the Roman Empire was in turbulence. The Goths had just won a major victory and the barbarians were at the gates of Rome. Then the plague of Saint Cyprian lashed the empire for fifteen years. There were problems in the palace and bickering on the battlefields. The soldiers were often unpaid because the pestilence sapped the wealth and the cash flow slowed. Rebellious soldiers broke rank and fled into the forests, and took what they wanted from those trying to eke out an existence from the land. Military insurrections, civil disorders, and civil wars became common, and the empire continued to crack along its foundations.

Zinsser, among others, believes that the Plague of Justinian (A.D. 541) was partly responsible for the demise of the Roman Empire. He wrote that the plague was “perhaps the most potent single influence–-which gave the coup de grâce to the ancient empire.”

The plague of Justinian finally ended about 590, but by that time most of Italy was controlled by the Lombards. The barbarians were no longer at the gates of Rome but inside the gates. The mighty Empire had crumbled, and when the Muslim armies swarmed out of Arabia in 634, the Roman and Persian forces gave only token resistance.

An indication of the extent of national trouble during times of disease, destruction, and death can be seen in desperate laws passed during Diocletian’s reign (ruled 285-305). Farmers were forbidden to leave the farms to take up other jobs and some occupations were made hereditary. Would Americans support such laws under similar circumstances? We have been told that terrorism justifies unconstitutional laws!

The Black Death raged throughout Europe in the fourteenth century, wiping out from two-thirds to three-fourths of the population! This loss of population impacted the work force, but at first, only the more skilled positions. However, when the second and third wave of pestilence swept across Europe, every job was affected. Farmers, servants, tinkers, and others were in short supply. J.L. Cloudsley-Thompson wrote that, “some 50,000 persons died in London alone, so that all public business was interrupted for two years” and the war with France had to be discontinued.

During this time, inflation skyrocketed. Goods became difficult to obtain and very expensive because so many people had died. Gary North wrote that “overnight in Pistoia [Italy], rents fell from up to half of the harvest to about five percent. So did interest rates. Wages shot upward. All over Europe governments passed wage controls. They made it illegal for people to move to new parishes. And all over Europe this legislation failed.”

In times of terror free people must be careful that we do not forget what made us a great nation, forgetting principles of justice, kindness, generosity, innovation, etc., and become what we detest in the terrorists!

(Boys’ new book, The God Haters was published by Barbwire Books; to get your copy of The God Haters click here . An eBook edition is also available.)

The face of the world has been changed more through the louse, the flea, and the mosquito than by marching armies and flying missiles. When the daily count of the dead reached the breaking point (different in various societies and ages), responsible people became irresponsible, tranquil people became terrified, and the borderline paranoid became dangerous. As people fled their homes, social and political organizations disappeared, crops were left to rot in the fields, populations were displaced, civil war was fomented, and major shifts in religious thinking occurred. Some of that is taking place in African nations at this time.

After major plagues mysteriously left a nation, interest in religion decreased because of the many deaths among the clergy and because of so many unanswered prayers. Of course, unbelievers have used unanswered prayer as an excuse for unbelief since the beginning of time. J. L. Cloudsley-Thompson wrote, “It is beyond the bounds of possibility for anyone to estimate the influence of epidemic disease on religion and philosophy. Nor can we clearly assess its influence on the material course of human history.”

Many historians believe that the empire of ancient Greece fell into Roman hands because of malaria attacks, not because of marching armies. Malaria was endemic throughout the Greek world by 400 B.C. The malarial parasite (passed to man by the female mosquito) killed infants, weakened unsuspecting children, forced the vacating of the best farmlands, and helped produce Greek citizens who were listless, lazy, and licentious. As a result, the power and glory of ancient Greece became a mocking memory.

Greek historian Polybius (204-122 B.C.), called the most reliable ancient historian, reported that the whole of Greece had been visited in his time by childlessness and a general decline of the population that resulted in the emptying of the cities and the failure of the land to render its produce. He said that men refused to marry or, if they married, refused to have children. If they had children, they refused to rear them. He said that men went out of their way to be ostentatious, avaricious, and indolent.

Quite an indictment! Will Western civilization learn from the past or will we have the same experience? If Americans must live daily with the threat of terror (as do the Israelis) will that further erode our culture and destroy our homes and churches?

Some historians, in my opinion, give too much credit to the mosquito for the fall of Greece. It was a major factor, but men must always be held accountable for their actions. Today, a man gets drunk and kills a carload of people and pleads that he was not in control and should not be held responsible. Others tell us that sugar impaired their ability, and they lost control and should not be accountable for the results they produced. No doubt, there is some truth to those claims, but we must all be held accountable for our actions. The same was true in Greece. Malaria did make them listless, therefore lazy, but they chose to be licentious.

The Greeks slowly lost their brilliance which was thought to be epitome of original thought. This degeneration is obvious in their art and literature and other areas of creativity. W.H.S. Jones wrote, “Their initiative vanished; they ceased to create and began to comment. Patriotism, with rare exceptions, became an empty name, for few had the high spirit and energy to translate into action man’s duty to the state. Vacillation, indecision, fitful outbursts of unhealthy activity followed by cowardly depression, selfish cruelty and criminal weakness are characteristics of the public life of Greece from the struggle with Macedonia to the final conquest by the armies of Rome.”

Jones, De Sanctis, Celli, and others taught that disease has changed the condition of this world more than wars. Ancient Greece would not have fallen into the hands of Rome if it had not been for malaria. Are we not fools if we don‘t consider the same or similar results from possible contagious diseases and biological terrorism we face today?

We can now add AIDS, flu, and the Ebola viruses to the scourges that have smitten mankind, taking their dreary toll. As of today 36 million people have died of AIDS! The death toll from Ebola is climbing daily and will be 1.4 million by January according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC)! Of course, they have been wrong so many times during these days.

Africa gave us Ebola, AIDS, and Obama, so what’s next?

If we don’t learn from history, we are doomed to repeat it.

http://bit.ly/1iMLVfY  Watch these 8 minute videos of my lecture at the University of North Dakota: “A Christian Challenges New Atheists to Put Up or Shut Up!”