Annihilation (Part 3)


This is the eighth in a 13-part series wherein I give you Hell, a little booklet by the inimitable Dr. Jeff Obadiah Simmonds.

The image of God as a destroyer is hardly a popular one today. Personally, I think it is a much more Biblical idea than the image of God as one who tortures His enemies in hell for ever and ever. This makes God into an evil tyrant. Amnesty International does a tremendous job in opposing the use of torture in the world today. (They deserve our support for doing so.) But the torture of some African dictator or Middle East extremists would be nothing compared to the horror of a mass torture of billions of souls in hell, which lasts not for days or weeks, but for trillions of years and on into eternity. This view of God is, I believe, completely unbiblical. There is not a single instance where God commanded torture. Such forms of punishment are always evil and satanic. Crucifixion—one of the most ingenious torture devices—was the invention of the Romans, not a punishment devised by God. Christ endured the cross, but his suffering lasts for a few hours. The fires of hell would be greater torture still, and would last forever! God would not permit or tolerate the existence of such a place, since God always came to the rescue of the oppressed and the suffering.

We must be clear that we are not saying that God would never send anyone to hell because He is a God of love and will forgive everyone. This is simply not true, for God will judge those guilty of injustice or evil by destroying them. But, given that God’s judgement comes upon such nations for the suffering they inflicted on others, God is hardly likely to inflict such suffering Himself.

The doctrine of hell is often based on the idea of God’s justice. This is understood to mean that because God is just He must punish sin. However, “justice” really means to act with righteousness. When we talk about social justice we think of concern for the poor, the widows and orphans. Specifically to do justice is to side with the oppressed and the victims and to alleviate suffering and remove oppression.

This, indeed, is central to the Biblical doctrine of the justice of God. While God does indeed punish sin, God’s justice does not cause him to inflict suffering but to alleviate it. God is concerned with justice—that those who cause suffering and affliction are opposed and overthrown.

It would therefore be contrary to God’s character to become One who causes affliction and suffering. Yet the usual view of hell is a place of eternal torment. However, just as God sided with the Hebrews who were suffering in Egypt, and as He sided with the outcasts in first century Jewish society, so too the character of God would demand that He side with those who suffered in hell, if indeed it was a place of endless torment and suffering.

One evangelical writer says:

Everlasting torment is intolerable from a moral point of view because it makes God into a bloodthirsty monster who maintains an everlasting Auschwitz for victims whom he does not even allow to die. (Pinnock [1990] 253) How can Christians possibly project a deity of such cruelty and vindictiveness whose ways include inflicting everlasting torture upon his creatures, however sinful they may have been? Surely a God who would do such a thing is more nearly like Satan than like God, at least by any ordinary moral standards, and by the gospel itself. (Pinnock [1990] 246-47)

Beastmaster.

“Human Beings act according to their Ideology.
Religion is what separates Man from Beast. Theism elevates Man, whereas Atheism Devalues him. To deny the reality of Moral/Spiritual truth is to reduce Individual Man down to a mere Beast.”
Tim Wikiriwhi.

Ultimately! Bear Grylls.

“DECIDE TO SURVIVE. Skills, fitness and fortune all play a key role in the fate of the survivor. But ultimately your survival depends upon one thing: your will to survive. SO KEEP FAITH in yourself and faith in the Almighty. They can be your greatest ally and Strength.
God Speed.”

Bear Grylls. Priorities of Survival: Pocket Guide.

Proverbs 9:7-12

Whoever corrects a mocker invites insults;
  whoever rebukes the wicked incurs abuse.
Do not rebuke mockers or they will hate you;
  rebuke the wise and they will love you.
Instruct the wise and they will be wiser still;
  teach the righteous and they will add to their learning.

The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom,
  and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.
For through wisdom your days will be many,
  and years will be added to your life.
If you are wise, your wisdom will reward you;
  if you are a mocker, you alone will suffer. (NIV)

Greater love hath no man than this

This post pays tribute to Lawrence Oates (17 March 1880 – 16 March 1912), “a brave man and an English gentleman.” Oates was a war veteran and Antarctic explorer, and a member of Scott’s ill-fated Terra Nova Expedition to the South Pole.

100 years ago today, he walked from a tent into a blizzard, with the immortal words, “I am just going outside and may be some time.” Aware that his ill health was compromising his three companions’ chances of survival, he chose certain death.

Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. (KJV)

40 years of bullshit

I heard that feminist Germaine Greer, author of The Female Eunuch, is in town, where she’s a guest at Readers and Writers Week.

Germaine Greer glitter-bombed by Queer Avengers

Members of Wellington protest group the Queer Avengers have rained glitter down on visiting feminist writer Germaine Greer, who has a history of outing and denouncing transwomen, even describing them as “ghastly parodies” of womanhood.

Glitter-bombing has gained prominence internationally as a way to highlight transphobia and queerphobia, particulalry in the US where a number of politicians have been targeted.

“Transphobic feminism is so 20th Century,” says Stacey of the Queer Avengers. “It wasn’t okay then and it’s not okay now. Women’s liberation must mean the right to refuse imposed gender roles, to fight for diverse gender expression.”

The Queer Avengers also handed out leaflets stating “transphobia is bullshit,” pointing to the fact Greer was arrested in 1972 while touring New Zealand, for saying the word “bullshit.”

Bullshit and glitter-bombs! Greer was not the first to be arrested in New Zealand for using the word ‘bullshit’. In 1971, Tim Shadbolt published his autobiography Bullshit and Jellybeans, supposedly written while incarcerated in prison cells in Mt Eden and Mt Crawford. The title alludes to the charge which led to his arrest.

Looking back, it all seems quaintly absurd. Today I can say, with impunity, “Censorship is BULLSHIT!” I can, but I won’t. Because the adjective ‘bullshit’ is too good for censorship. I’ll cut to the chase. Censorship is EVIL. And, from my point of view as a free thinker, it is one of the worst of evils.

Yes, Christians have been major culprits in the long history of censorship. Yes, that’s embarrassing. Index Librorum Prohibitorum? I deplore the very idea. Nihil obstat! Imprimi potest! Imprimatur! We live in an age of bullshit and when we encounter it we should call it what it is.

Consider the Ninth Commandment.

Thou shalt not bear false witness.

Consider censorship.

Thou shalt not bear true witness.

Now combine the two.

LOL. I just Googled “thou shalt drink a nice big cup of shut the fuck up” and top in the list of search results was Uncyclopedia’s entry on Feminism. Uncyclopedia says

Most men hate feministic bull shit and wish Germaine Greer would drink a nice big cup of shut the fuck up.

I wish that Germaine Greer would say whatever she wants to say. I don’t have to listen to her transphobic feministic bullshit.

Christian vs Wild: Bear Grylls

Walking through a Christian Bookshop I was supprised to see Super Man Bear Grylls staring at me from the cover of his Autobography ‘Bear Grylls Mud, Sweat and Tears’.

“Yes he’s a Christian”, spoke the saleslady. I should have known.
Thus the secret is out The Faith which makes Bear Grylls such a Gentleman… such a nice guy.
He’s an inspiration!
Descovering Bear is a Brother in Christ is enough to make a Hard man dance a little jig!

See what a Nice Guy Bear Is here on The Graham Norton show and watch Cameron Diaz Fizzing over Bear.

I bought my Wife Joy a Bear Grylls Knife like that for our 10th wedding anniversary… today 16-3-12 XOX Baby!

Not a Pimple on Mandela’s Butt! Tama Iti

Sometime soon I hope to write a substantial piece on the deteriorating State of New Zealand Justice and Race relations as there is much that needs to be said, yet tonight I must satisfy myself with a few words in respect to the Tuhoe terrorist Court case that is winding up in particular the barefaced delusions of the Defence which are claiming Tama Iti may be compared to Nelson Mandela!!! Thats like calling a circle a square!
http://www.3news.co.nz/Urewera-defence-likens-Tama-Iti-to-Nelson-Mandela/tabid/423/articleID/246412/Default.aspx

Now From what I remember Black south Africans Were suffering as an oppressed Ethnicity, not as a favoured one as Maori are today… and Mandela was trying to End an Apartheid system, not Perpetuate one! Yes Mandela fought for Equality before the Law…and an end to separatism, the very opposite of what Iti was doing…. planning to Murder white people.
The defence say Iti is a ‘peace activist’… and his fellow Co conspirator Green Extremists “Were immersed in the peaceful teachings of Parahaka”… I await the verdict with interest because if such blatant lies succeed in an acquittal, or a trifling sentence we shall know that There is no Justice in this country. In my view they all deserve at least Ten years Jail.

A better comparison of Tama Iti would Be the violent murderer radical Separatist …Fijis George Speight! (Whom when in the midst of his Coup for Indigenous Rule, Iti took the trouble of flying to Fiji to support!)

I personally liken Iti To Mugabe! Another Rabid violent Racist, whose policies Iti has endorsed many times.


Mandela’s words, “The struggle is my life,” are not to be taken lightly.

“I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die”.

Iti Ought to be starkly contrasted with Mandela, and Martin Luther King whom Richard has Blogged just this week…
http://blog.eternalvigilance.me/2012/03/the-negro-is-your-brother/

Tim Wikiriwhi Christian Libertarian.

Niggaz With Attitude

Further excerpts from Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Letter from Birmingham Jail.

We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct action campaign that was “well timed” in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word “Wait!” It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This “Wait” has almost always meant “Never.” We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that “justice too long delayed is justice denied.”

We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God given rights. The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jetlike speed toward gaining political independence, but we still creep at horse and buggy pace toward gaining a cup of coffee at a lunch counter. Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say, “Wait.” But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six year old daughter why she can’t go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five year old son who is asking: “Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?”; when you take a cross county drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading “white” and “colored”; when your first name becomes “nigger,” your middle name becomes “boy” (however old you are) and your last name becomes “John,” and your wife and mother are never given the respected title “Mrs.”; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of “nobodiness”—then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair.

Before closing I feel impelled to mention one other point in your statement that has troubled me profoundly. You warmly commended the Birmingham police force for keeping “order” and “preventing violence.” I doubt that you would have so warmly commended the police force if you had seen its dogs sinking their teeth into unarmed, nonviolent Negroes. I doubt that you would so quickly commend the policemen if you were to observe their ugly and inhumane treatment of Negroes here in the city jail; if you were to watch them push and curse old Negro women and young Negro girls; if you were to see them slap and kick old Negro men and young boys; if you were to observe them, as they did on two occasions, refuse to give us food because we wanted to sing our grace together. I cannot join you in your praise of the Birmingham police department.