Is there any meaning or purpose to human existence?
I’m bad to the bone.
I know this. Some might say I am unfit to write this blog article about Easter. They may be correct.
Just recently I was proscribed medication to lower my blood pressure. It’s high.
It’s partly to do with my age, partly my genes, but mostly to do with my bad habits… too much craft beer… too little sleep, etc.
Though I am a happy person, I am highly strung, and don’t ever relax… even when I’m chilling… I have inner tension at all times.
I find myself holding my breath.
Though I am ready to meet my Maker, I don’t want to die. I have a young son I wish to finish raising, and I believe I have more to contribute to society and in sowing, watering the soil for the Gospel.
My chief inner contradiction is that I’m an optimist in outlook, yet being proscribed heart meds has done nothing to alleviate my life-long fatalism.
By fatalism I esp mean my ever-present sense of approaching demise.
Optimism and Fatalism in one bag means I’m happy, yet always have a sense of urgency that I must take care of business before I check out.
I may live 20 more years, or I may not last out the day.
I have faith that if Today is the day… then praise the Lord… it’s my day! Thanks for a wonderful life. Thanks for the grace that has given me these decades, these friends, this family.
This is not a sympathy seeking ‘poor me’ article. I’m not a victim. I own my own circumstances.
I needed to say these things for context of the real message I wish to make for my Easter 2023 Blog article.
In my family, and in my associations, I’m the Black Sheep of my generation. I accept this because my thoughts are often the polar opposite of my peers. I am grateful most of them have grown to appreciate that’s just how I roll, and chuckle whenever I open my mouth. I have little doubt most question my IQ and believe I am ill informed.
Yet… and here is the punchline… to maintain even this strained relationship, requires I keep expression of certain forbidden opinions to a minimum.
For context most of my Family are Socialists politically, and Atheists spiritually. Many of my friends and colleagues are A-Political/ A-religious… so they are not open to free discourse on these subjects. They tolerate me as long as I don’t get ‘Preachy’.
I fully understand that nobody should harass others on subjects they prefer to avoid… yet still The years pass by quickly and is it not sad to think you have wonderful friends and family yet never have been able to fully discuss such essential aspects of life?
It is especially hard when you have dedicated your life in the pursuit of truth… and have discovered mind-blowing facts and arguments that you must keep to yourself for fear of being scorned and outcast by hard hearted loved ones who have no intention of challenging their own entrenched beliefs.
Remember my opening paragraph how I have a sense of urgency… and a repetitive source of despair in my life is watching my loved ones… friends, associates, and Family either sailing away never to be seen again… or pass away without having communicated with them truths I believe are essential to their Eternal well being. My own time is limited too. When I pass away my opportunity to persuade my people to Trust in the Cross of Christ, and in the miracle of his resurrection will be finished.
Yet I still have a bag of wind left in me, and I will take the opportunity that Easter long weekend provides to openly speak today.
I’m a Libertarian Christian, which means I believe in self responsibility and religious liberty.
This means I know there are limits to my duty, and ability to communicate truths to others.
The Bible says not to cast our pearls before swine… where they will not be received with gladness, but instead simply be trodden underfoot.(don’t take offence… it’s only a metaphor)
The Bible talks about the heart condition of lost souls.
Some have been softened… some are good fertile soil in which the seed of the Gospel can take root and flourish. Others cannot receive the seed.
This is my Easter message… An appeal to anyone reading this article who is honest enough to admit the origin and meaning of life has alluded them so far… to dare to remove the Blinders that prevent their minds from being able to take Christianity seriously. Ideological Blinders that render them incapable actually contemplating the possibility, that Christ really was the Son of The Almighty… God Incarnate…. Sinless… and that he willingly went to the cross to suffer a criminals death… a redemptive sacrifice…. paying for the sins of humanity.. and rising from the dead on the third day day as proof of his victory over both sin and death… and that whosoever chooses to believe that gospel… shall be freely forgiven of all sin, and shall enter God’s presence in perfect newness of eternal life.
It’s a fantastic mind-blowing thing to even contemplate!
How can *that* possibly be true?
Is not that a demonstration of humanities wishful thinking and capacity for believing absurdities?
Easter cant be relevant in 2023!
I once thought that way.
I have written several accounts of my own conversion from Militant Atheism to Christianity (links below) and it remains vivid in my mind the process… indeed the moment the scales fell from my eyes.
I won’t repeat what I have said elsewhere except to say the miracle of my own conversion depended first of all upon unusual circumstances that caused me to unwittingly lower my cognitive shield and actually give Christian apologists a fair hearing.
Holy Smoke!
For the life of me I never dreamed that I would be persuaded to believe the bible!
My conversion took many months of discussion, argument, presentation of historic and scientific facts… the miracle being that I even gave them 5 minutes of my time to discuss matters I strongly considered to be beneath contempt, ridiculous, false.
My testimony today is to tell my reader that there is overwhelming evidence and logic to Believe the Gospel is true… in spite of how incredible it appears to the atheist mind that is trapped in the false materialist paradigm.
My Easter appeal to the gospel is for any honest atheists, or people of other faiths, Is to ‘seek with an open heart… and ye shall find’… yet should you harden your own heart and remain of closed mind… there is nothing I can do. If my appeal falls on deaf ears, it is not me you have rejected… but Jesus Christ and the Love, Grace, and mercy of the Almighty.
One truth that weighs heaviest in my own soul is the knowledge of my own wickedness… my own unworthiness.
When I was an atheist I had absolutely no sense of my own spiritual corruption. I thought reality was ultimately A-moral… a nihilistic reality in which Human individuals were valueless and meaningless in a cold and indifferent Universe.
You can’t understand the importance of the cross unless you first have a realisation of your own fallen Moral condition.
Our Evil deeds really are evil, and God is not Mocked… Divine Justice is a real thing. And we will all have an appointment with the Great Judge, and will give account as to our acceptance or rejection of Christ’s work of Atonement on the Cross.
Some undoubtedly will say I’m employing fear-tactics to cajole feeble minds into religious subjection.
I know that is a thing, yet If what I am saying is Objectively true… it matters not whether or not the facts are pleasing to our personal inclinations… The truth is the truth irrespective.
God sets the terms and conditions for Salvation, not us.
It is the nature of fallen humanity to rebel against the Sovereignty of the Almighty. That is a piece of Deep irrefutable psychology. Know thyself! Understand how your deep innate nature pre-conditions your thoughts.
We are all children of Fallen Adam and eve.
These are Facts of Reality.
Facts of History.
Facts of Science.
Facts of knowledge founded upon personal experience.
The explanatory power of the Bible has no equal.
The Materialist cosmology/faith is utterly inadequate and filled with absurdities.
It cannot be honestly entertained by informed thinkers in the light of Modern science.
My advise is you go spend some time on Youtube listening to high caliber Christian apologetics, such as William Lane Craig, and Gary Habermas debating the likes of Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, etc.
The Truth is there ready and waiting for you to descover… and have your mind blown!
Christ is worthy of worship.
I’m not worthy to worship him.
My only hope is that his grace is sufficient for a wretch like me.
The Easter Story specks of the Love of God towards us sinners.
Will it still be legal to celebrate Easter in 10 years time?
The light is fading.
Satan Laughing spreads his wings.
To my last breath I will declare Jesus is Risen!
Amazing Grace!
How sweet the sound!
That saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found.
Was blind but now I see.
I have watched a fair chunk of both Rogan and Peterson materials… and have enjoyed a great portion of it all. I believe they both make very valuable and insightful contributions in the realm of thought…yet I am not a sycophant. I give praise when I believe praise is due, yet I will also call out BS when I see it.
Please watch the video below.
Man has been defined as ‘The worshipping Animal’.
The title of this video is misleading in that the question is only relevant if it pertains to Moses and the Bible rather than a generalised ‘Origin of the Religious sense in humanity’ because we have solid evidence that some Pagan religions are born of or at least make use of psychedelics as mystical practices.
But should a person then believe this is a sound explanation for what is written in the bible?
That is the question I want to address… the rest is moot IMO because it is non-contentious.
Drug taking is a fact of human history.
I don’t buy this sort of ‘Rationalist’ speculation of apostate Jewish scholars who deny their own faith (Rogan’s opening statement was that some Rabbis had claimed Moses was trippin).
I would never deny these are questions worth discussing… they clearly are worth it… I don’t have a problem with the questions… I just find Rogan and Peterson’s conclusions… or lack thereof disappointing.
I guess these guys are still wandering in the wilderness.
It is true that many people have equated psychedelic’s trips to having a religious experience complete with meeting spirit beings.
Indisputably some Psychonauts looking for meaning in life believe they have ‘found’ something real in the psychedelic experience that transcends this material universe (consciousness itself is fundamentally transcendental) . Scientists and psychologists are beginning to appreciate that going on a trip can even bring peace of mind to the terminally ill… alleviating some from the fear of death.
They experience an opening door to greater realities.
Joe Rogan himself talks a lot about this.
In my youth I experienced this very thing too.
I was already a Christian and yet magic mushrooms were mind expanding.
Modern science is today catching up to the many beneficial and therapeutic qualities of Psilocybin.
Contrary to long held phobias and prejudices Magic Mushrooms can be good for the brain and the spirit.
Caveat: Beware! Psilocybin Magic mushroom are currently illegal in New Zealand, and if you ingest a poisonous look-alike that could be a fatal mistake.
Prohibition Sux!
One day this will change, and as is the case now in Canada, you will be able to buy safe tripping mushroom’s from the shop.
I recently had a surprising conversation with a old friend who had always been hard of heart when it came to discussion of religion, yet had recently had what she described as a religious experience from a psychedelic trip.
This experience completely shifted her opinion about transcendent reality.
Such experiences may help people to escape the box of materialism yet it is still a long journey to the way, the truth, and the life.
I am hoping my now more open minded friend will look further afield contemplate the bigger questions for which the Bible alone has the Truth.
Her spiritual pilgrimage has only just begun.
I pray God sends her knowledgeable servants to help guide her to the truth.
We all must see the light of truth to be saved. It is one thing for me to know this (I’m alright Jack!), the problem I have is that most of the people I care about are closed off to the possibility that they are lost sinners who need Christ.
Still I must try to reach anyone who is not hard of heart.
Back to Rogan and Peterson. What grinds my gears about these two guys in particular is despite being well aware of a massive corpus of piece-meal facts that are scattered across a broad spectrum of subjects guys like Rogan and Peterson fail to think holistically and refuse to draw the most obvious conclusion about ‘the religion’ of the Bible… from a totality of what is known… that it is based upon *Real events*…. *Empirical facts*.’That is the most obvious conclusion that best fits all the hard corroborating evidence.
Instead they choose to be vain in their imaginations and flog their favorite hobby horses. Rogan likes to attribute stuff to tripping. and Peterson enjoys fabricating overly sophisticated psychological bents that make the great men of the past look like Psyche patients.
This is a well understood penchant of ‘specialists’… their tunnel vision that can only interpret reality through their narrow lens of ‘training’… exposing their bents.
Gullible people mistake their own wild ‘rationalisations’ as being valid excuses for doubting the veracity of the Bible when in reality they are feeble and fail to explain the known facts.
Doctor heal thyself!
I assert the simple truth is that the great famous men of the Bible… Moses, etc had real experiences with God Almighty. Ie The Bible is literally true.
On a psychological level we can appreciate why human beings don’t want to face the simple truth…. because it would call an end to their pet delusions… an existential crisis….
But if you admit to yourself the bible speaks of real events … the moral implications will demand you change you whole outlook on life… and call you to prostrate yourself before the Almighty.
And above all things mans pride and his desire to be his own God prevents him from acknowledging his subjection to the Divine Authority.
What is appealing to people like Rogan about the psychedelic experience is that he can make it mean whatever he wants to believe.
Sinful lost human beings are alien to the truth. They are opposed to it. many will choose to believe almost anything rather than the truth. They cannot bear it.
In this way Human beings are the children of the Devil. This is not freedom but slavery to a lie. This will damn your soul.
As a Christin it is my duty to both God and my fellow man to witness for the Gospel.
Be honest to yourself. Believe the scriptures. The truth will make you free. Look to the Cross of Christ and his resurrection… there our salvation is found… for free.
Space in this post has not allowed me to lay out all the evidence that ought to compel reasonable people into accepting the historical validity of the scriptures.
Please do not be too disappointed about this short fall.
I am aware of it, yet anyone who thinks my failure to provide such a detailed exposition makes my contention a hollow claim is not a reasonable person.
The subject is massive. and involves virtually every branch of knowledge… and this is my main contention against the proposition Rogan and Peterson are making in the featured video. It is naïve.
I will provide links to where an investigation of the facts can be started….
IMO the greatest hurdle for an entrenched Atheist materialist that prevents them from being able to grasp the validity of the Bible is their *Ideological Blindness*… an intellectual incapacity to be able to contemplate for even a moment that Spiritual realities might really exist… and that the Biblical miracles actually happened.
I am not seeking to belittle anyone… I’m pointing out the massive paradigm shift required to be able to honestly consider the alternative view.
I know this from my own prior atheist experience. I know how the Materialist mindset is utterly consumed by weak rationalisations that are fabricated to maintain the Atheist cognitive dissonance.
It is an addictive habit of the mind that most atheists mistake for intelligence and reason.
It is folly!
Materialism is founded upon the archaic and childish delusions of Scientism… a belief that empirical science can (and does)explain everything.
This is an untenable position in 2023.
“Seek and ye shall find.”
The first step to seeking the light must be an opening of the mind.
A large portion of my work published on Eternal Vigilance Blog is laying out the case for Christianity and Biblical faith. I am not a great writer, yet the hundreds of posts I have done on a broad spectrum of issues form my testimony as to why I believe the Bible is true. Thus I point to them as an archive of evidence to support my claims I am making today. Anyone with a seeking heart might do worse than to spend some time following links I post below.
A final word…
When I dabbled in psychedelics I never met any spirit beings, yet as I said above I was a wayward Christian.
I wonder if that kept them at bay?
I do not encourage anyone to take drugs, and posit the long held warning that Christians have historically associated ‘Phamikea’ with Sorcery and Witchcraft… which is understandable given the Pagan usage of psychedelics.
The Bible instead promotes the Sober mind.
And if the assertions of the Christians are correct in these matters, the spirit beings encountered while tripping could be dangerous Demons pretending to be Angels of light… and I suspect that is the case.
Before I was a Christian, in my late Teens I did have an experience… It is called ‘Entity Attack syndrome’… historically called Incubus/ Succubus encounter, yet modern rationalists call it ‘Sleep paralysis’ … my account of that can be found here…
Further thoughts that continue on from Part 1 here.
Science is no escape from the human condition… that gospel purported by many…is false.
Though we may increase in mastery over nature…certainty will always escape us… thus science is a pragmatic pursuit, not a source of absolute knowledge.
With every new answer comes new questions.
We will always rely on axioms and presuppositions… we cannot escape the need for faith… which underpins what we think we know… even the things we are most sure about….
I guess my original post could have been called… ‘Beware of Scientism’.
History shows you can ‘prove’ almost anything by fiddling with numbers.
It must be understood that not even math escapes the human condition… I know many people will be loosing their lunch over my impertinence… yet with time I hope to explain the many ways math can be corrupted.
When reading about various types of weird ‘inferred postulates’ like Dark Matter, The Big Bang, etc we always find two camps of thought.
Simpletons who think the said phenomena are rock solid facts and proceed to treat them as such in all their forthcoming activities… and others who have the intellectual depth and integrity to admit these cherished theories are full of holes… and proceed with caution in any further speculations that could follow.
It depends on which article you read as to whether or not you are encouraged to accept such phenomena are real … or to remain skeptical.
It is particularly scary when the political class pick up on certain theories… because they suit their political agendas… and begin to compel whole populations into accepting them as indisputable… and then using usurpatious powers proceed to embed them in Laws and institutions… Pouring Tax billions into the pockets of scientists who just so happen to produce politically correct ‘findings’… while critics are deplatformed and thrown out of Seats of learning… and making it nearly a crime to question ‘the official line’.
Science has died.
The Balance has been skewed.
What we are left with is Pure Pseudo science… very much like the Social Darwinism of the Nazis which Sub-humanised the Jews.
What is funny is that so many people naively assume such shocking corruption is not going on today!
The truth is there are many factors that can corrupt science… Money and political agendas being two biggies… and anywhere the State is pouring money into ‘research’… it becomes highly dubious.
Another funny yet erroneous stereotype that was born of the Materialist religion of ‘Scientism’ is the image of Doctors and scientists in white lab coats with thick reading glasses… and expressionless demeanor.
The psychological impact of this upon gullible minds is the impression that scientists are not only way smarter than other mortals… but esp that they embody a ‘Spock-like’ power of Objectivity… that all their utterances are devoid of personal prejudices… all this is designed to get the gullible to trust them.
Their white overcoats serve the very same purpose as the priestly gab of any religious cult!
The truth is the exact opposite.
You would struggle to find in any other area of life a more opinionated, conceited, biased, Vain, Greedy, unprincipled, and obstinate bunch of human beings than you find in science departments!
Pseudo-science are myths dressed up in Scientific Gab/ jargon.
Is it any wonder why there are so many pseudo-scientific ideas that hold sway among the masses???
When false postulates and theories are accepted as fact whole magnificent edifices are constructed upon these corrupt foundations.
Entire lifetimes, and reputations, and industries can be wasted building ‘White Elephants’… and strong vested interests assemble to carry on the lies… because the longer the sham continues… the bigger the mess when it topples… and people fear facing the ugly truth… and paying the price of correction.
The lies become so embedded that it seems like madness to question them…. Cognitive dissonance becomes the norm… an incapacity to acknowledge uncomfortable novel truths.
Progress has always had to battle with entrenched Mass-held delusions. What is funny/sad is so many Moderns only apply this precept in their warped conception that Science has always struggled against religion… a very inaccurate and simplistic apprehension of history… utterly failing to guard themselves against all the other personal bents that can prevent them from grasping new and challenging evidences.
esp their own modern post-Christian quazi-religious bents.
I ask people if they dare to entertain any controversial propositions that are at variance with the mainstream?
For it is a signal of an independent mind to walk it’s own path and have the courage to diverge at certain points from the herd.
The herd has been trained to pour derision and hate upon anyone who steps out of line and does not submit to the ‘orthodoxy’ of their times.
It may amaze people that I am talking about *The scientific community*… not some religious sect.
Understand that the scientific community is as prone to Backwards, erroneous dogma as any other Human endeavor is.
What is essential then is to write a code of ethics of which the scientific method is just one aspect of what entails the correct mental processes that are conducive to the scientific enterprise.
. to guard ourselves from slipping into a mire of our own subjectivity… eg with the interpretation of evidence.
Ultimately all we can do is acknowledge the human factor will always be lurking about… like a madman.
The Bible says that all human beings have an innate knowledge of ‘Good and Evil’… ie an innate sense of right and wrong… ie a sense of morality… and this atheist is validating this Biblical claim.
Yet everything he has to say about this innate moral knowledge is just his own rationalisation that he is forced to extrapolate from his atheist premises… yet to achieve his end he must deceive the gullible that *all things of value* can be ‘conjured up’… or ‘synthesized from’… (to use ‘science-y terms’ more acceptable to his audience)… from valueless meaningless materials… that is what he claims he can do…
He *must frame his argument in naturalistic terms… not because they are a valid basis for morals and values… but because they are the only materials he is permitted to use because of his presuppositions about Godlessness.
He cannot speak of ‘ultimate higher truths. but must reduce morality to pragmatic ‘here and now’ goals.
He automatically assumes *well being* is something morally good, and that *causing pain* is morally wrong… and give no foundation for this than our own abhorrence at gratuitous cruelty (he plays upon our feelings).
He peddles Ayn Rand’s ‘pragmatism’ about ‘human flourishing’ as being ‘Ideal’… and assumes that whatever tends towards ‘human flourishing’ … progressing along his imaginary ‘continuum away from poverty and death’… must be ‘moral’…. yet all this cherry picking is no more valid than Lenin’s claims that the Party state is the highest authority in the Universe and that pragmatically speaking whatever tends to the benefit of the Party States domination of the world… those actions are deemed to be ‘moral’ (which includes justification for pogroms, assignations, terrorism, etc )… and of course the Communist too appeals to pragmatism, as justifiable because it aims at the liberation of humanity … ie it’s ideal is ‘human flourishing’ too!
Who would argue against such high ideals???
He thinks that by making out that some ‘religion’ is patently abhorrent
(the example of the Father who chooses to kill his daughter because she was raped) that this is evidence that religion is *immoral*… yet in truth he simply validates the scriptures yet again… that false religion is evil.
As for talking about ‘Pandora’s box’ …technology… and about the dire need for ethics to keep it from Evil… he fails yet again, as Einstein himself said for this very reason that *moral teachers* like Jesus Christ are more important than physicists…
He Dishonestly omits most of his deepest opinions and evaluations.
What he keeps hidden is the truth!
He *really* believes humanity is nothing more than a purposeless accident, and that our lives have zero ultimate value… and that the universe will end in Death… and all Good will and evil intent will die along with it and prove to be equally pointless distinctions.
He doesn’t confess that he does not even believe we are freewill moral agents!
He actually believes we are slaves of materialist determinism chained to physical causation leading right back to the first milliseconds of the Big bang!
He utterly fails to fulfill his original claim that he would demonstrate that Science has something to say about morality.
P.S Ted Bundy was an atheist when he did his crimes and said that his atheism was a primary factor in his actions as he chose to ‘liberate himself’ by abandon all morality.
Somehow he grew a conscience and changed his views…
He would convert to Christianity before he was executed.
It is my opinion that while she is correct about the Ideals of Capitalism and Freedom, Ayn Rand’s philosophy ‘Objectivism’ takes individualism to perverse extremes and in so doing has committed great disservice to the Libertarian cause.
She was a Megalomaniac says the late Nathaniel Branden, and by my reckoning… a Narcissist… and her cult attracts a high percentage of Disciples with similar Sociopathic tendencies.
Unfortunately The reputation of Objectivism has become entangled with that of the Libertarian movement.
Having usurped a position of authority in the Libertarian movement Objectivist teachings and character have caused the Libertarian movement to stink… All the High Ideals of Libertarianism have been sullied because of the delusion that Libertarians are selfish and dont give a toss about the poor, and as long as this is how the Voting Public veiws Libertarianism… There will never be a Libertarian Government elected into office.
Objectivists tend to drive out other types of Libertarians as it takes a very thick skin to bear their Obsessive derision of Religion and glorification of egotistical arrogance.
The accusation that ‘Libertarians are selfish bastards who dont give a shit about the poor’ is a characteristic easily assumed by Socialists and others who have the unpleasant misfortune of talking with an arrogant Randiod Egoist.
Though it is a terrible accusation… this sort of Critisism is often received by an Objectivist as a badge of Honour to be worn with pride! They think concern for others is a vice.
They assume they are imitating their Glorious master who teaches them to be absolutely impervious to the opinions of others.
Central to her Philosophy is also Militant Atheism…’Religion is the root of all evil’ type mentality that is not only overt, but also needs to be appreciated to understand that her Individualism is underpinned (and distorted) because of her Atheism.
Ironically I was prompted to write this blogpost critisising Rands contention that ‘selfishness is a virtue’ after having a Facebook conversation with an Objectivist who shares few (if any) of these common Objectivist traits, and is prepared to Diverge from Rand’s Rabid Anti-theism… Australia’s Colourful champion of Liberty… Prodos Marinakis.
From his comment below you can see for yourself he is willing to be honest and critical about the Objectivist movement.
He’s a very likable Guy.
As Facebook friends I saw one of his posts on ‘The political Compass’ which is a better ‘graph’ on which to plot peoples Political persuasions rather than the ridiculously simplistic Far Left to Far Right Linear graph that is adored by the Mainstream who only seek to maintain the two party system.
These ‘Left and Right’ parties dont like the ‘political compass’ because it outs them as anti-freedom Authoritarians.
Having answered a questionnaire to ascertain his political leanings… the result was plotted on the compass. Below is Prodos result…. and I’ll let our conversation carry on from here… yet for the record I myself am a Bible believing Christian and an Independent Libertarian activist.
*****
…Prodos Marinakis
Political Compass Test — just for fun.
Mine is below. Similar score to Milton Friedman.
More “conservative” than “libertarian”.
https://www.politicalcompass.org/test
Tim Wikiriwhi:
I’m not surprised by your result Prodos given how highly you regard Rand.
I think she distorts peoples views about the virtue of Charity and the vise of selfishness, whereas I highly Regard Jesus Christ and St Paul… and it will be no surprise to you that I usually register as a left leaning Libertarian.
And yet now having completed this test (above) I too have come out a Right leaning Libertarian … making a mockery of my earlier comment… 🙂
In fact We virtually got the same coordinates…[ Both Libertarians rather than Authoritarians …I was slightly to the left of Prodos… yet still on the right side of the spectrum]
Like me you were probably uncomfortable with the Direction of some of the questions and were forced to make some choices without the opportunity to explain your reasoning…
Prodos Marinakis:
Tim, thanks for sharing your Political Compass results & for your comments — both before and after doing the “Political Compass” test.
I’m very glad to see that we got such similar results. You are more surprised by that than I am, since I believe I understand you, better than you understand me.
You wrote, regarding Ayn Rand:
“I think she distorts peoples views about the virtue of Charity and the (vice) of selfishness …”
Well, to talk about Ayn Rand (or Jesus) and not get bogged down, it helps to have specific quotes and to also put them into the proper context. True?
Personally, I consider Charity to be a virtue — provided it’s not tainted by the Kantian notion of altruism (which, despite the modern Church’s reliance on this evil concept, is in fact a post-Christian and anti-Christian invention of Auguste Comte from the 1830’s).
As for “selfishness” as a motive … that term, in Ethics, usually refers to a bad motive.
Calling someone “selfish” usually means that they’re benefiting themselves — even when it’s at the expense of others. And they’re benefiting themselves in a way that’s indifferent to other people.
Yet, there is nothing in Ayn Rand’s fiction or non-fiction that advocates or esteems THAT kind of “selfishness”.
On the contrary, being “selfish” in the Ayn Rand sense — as she explained in The Virtue of Selfishness and encapsulated in her saying: “There are no conflicts of interests among rational men”.
Not to mention the whole model of Free Market Capitalism.
It is true, however, that Objectivism tends to underrate the value and virtue of Charity.
When a writer uses a word (or an expression) it’s important to understand what THE WRITER meant by that word (or expression).
When Jesus says “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s” … we need to study what Jesus meant.
For instance he didn’t mean (as one of my colleagues recently argued) that Jesus is a supporter of taxation and “Big Government”.
(better leave it there for now as I have to cook dinner!)
🙂
Tim Wikiriwhi:
Prodos, I think you have a better grasp than the average Objecitivist because you differ from the average in two aspects.
1. You dont have an innate hatred of religion and so you dont ‘need’ to ‘prove’ it is ‘Evil’… and that gives you a far more objective view when discussing such matters, and (2) this is a corollary (or complimentary) of the fact that you are not afraid to diverge from the Orthodox dogma of the Cult.
Now One of the reasons I accuse Rand of Sophistry is because she trains her disciples to Bastardise the English language by arrogantly abandoning accepted meaning of terms… Re-defining words to mean something other than what they have been historically understood to mean and then proceeds to pretend she can prove the whole world was wrong … *and that she is some sort of Mega-genius* when in fact she is a fraud who has literally re-written the rules.
…often giving terms the very opposite meaning… and most importantly… she has ‘Pre-loaded’ the new meanings so that they will now appear to mathematically add up to the conclusion she wants to achieve… eg ‘that selfishness is now ‘a virtue’…. Objectivists dont even speak the same language… they are disconnected from the historical dialogue and dont even realise they have been swindled… mainly because they share Rands hatred of Christianity and are consumed by their own Egos… and think they too are super geniuses… ‘John Galts’ far above the average savage…. This is not the mentality of ‘Objectivity’… but a type of psychosis that blinds the mind of those who are not aware of what game she is playing.
Now though I know what her nefarious motives were… to discredit Charity… esp religious charity … therefore casting a devious lie to destroy faith in the goodness of Christ and the Christian faith… I can entertain her ‘Revisions’ and understand her silly definitions of ‘Rational selfishness’ vs ‘Irrational selfishness’ …(obviously by her reckoning the historical meaning of selfishness *was this irrational selfishness* and nothing more… not independence… not self-reliance… not self responsibility… and certainly not slavery to the collective!), yet her distortions of Egoism and selfishness, and twisted ideas about altruism as a form of slavery rather than voluntary Individual virtue of charity have contorted the average Objectivists views on Capitalism and Voluntary community Action.
Objectivists are always praising Blatant *Greed*… Rand has crippled their minds so that they are incapable of forming moral arguments that condemn Largess by CEOs at the expense of the well being of the average worker … because the average Objectivist cant understand that simply because a person may have the liberty to act a certain way… that this does not of necessity make it Just, or wise, or of Good character.
Likewise Objectivists tend excuse themselves from supporting worthy voluntary associations and community activities under the pretense that to ‘feel obliged’ to contribute is some sort of ‘psychological slavery’…. yet if any free society is to function it will rely Heavily on exactly these sorts of virtues and voluntarily self imposed moral duty’s.
These are my thoughts on why I suggested that On the Libertarian spectrum I would expect myself to be to the Left of you (Prodos), though I appreciate you are not ‘the average Objectivist’…. yet still your thinking will be ‘coloured’ to some degree by Rands Bents.
I have seen many of your posts that I have enjoyed very much in particular many that could not have been written by the’average Objectivist’ because they are Antireligious-lite… even commending… and that is not a common trait in the Cult.”
******
That is where I’ll finish this dialogue with Prodos.
I think think he is is a very interesting, and intelligent Man… a Champion of Liberty… a Man of Reason… who in my opinion avoids sycophantic Rand worship.
Someone a Christian can have a meaningful discussion with… free of petty conceit.
Despite the fact that Long Blog posts are unpopular, I do need to make one further clarification, and that is to say that though Christianity regards Charity as one of the highest virtues, and that People tend to associate this as a mentality common among left leaning political supporters, that it is a grievous error to automatically assume this means Christians ought to be socialists!
The notion that Christ was a socialist has been around for a long time, yet was systematically propagated and grew predominant among Western Christians in the 20th century when Communists infiltrated the churches and began to systematically sway Christians into supporting socialism… despite their Nations Prosperity,Freedom and capitalism being founded upon Christian protestant political reforms and values of Individual Rights, Private property, Hard work, Thrift, Voluntary charity, Honest Free-trade, etc.
This is quite a complex conundrum to untangle, yet when properly understood the confusion and false teaching gives way to definite clarity and broad understanding.
The Key is to understand the dispensational scheme of the scriptures and how things fit in properly with the plan of God.
Reading the Bible there are verses in the Gospels, and early Acts that appear to the unlearned to support the idea that Jesus was anti-wealth and promoted ‘Communism’… yet such an interpretation fails to take into account what Jesus was offering the Jews at the time, and that these instances… such as when he told the Rich young man to sell all his possessions and give the money to the poor… and follow him… are not representative of the future Kingdom Christ had come to establish but was a special time of transition … from the Kingdom of Mammon… into the Messianic Kingdom of God on Earth whereby these injunctions were tests of worthiness to enter his kingdom… repentance for rebellion and sin… and a willingness to forsake the gains achieved under Mammon.. wealth… power… social status… and to enter the kingdom ‘Naked’… fully trusting that Christ would reward them when he had overthrown the Romans and established his rule in Jerusalem.
And here is the real Jam: Christs Kingdom will not be a Communist Utopia!
There will be private property!
The Lazy will not reap the harvests of the Virtuous and hard working, etc!
So the Important thing to appreciate about Christs Message to the Jews at that time and his injunctions to Sell their possessions, and have all things common, and to Turn the other cheek, and to endure persecution unto the end were not instructive of how his Kingdom would function… but tests of Faith and repentance… ie to be found worthy to enter his Kingdom The Jews had to have faith Plus works!
When this is understood the claim that Jesus promoted Socialism collapses… and is exposed as a wicked false doctrine used to deceive Christians for Evil political ends.
Sadly this False doctrine has been very successful with millions of Deceived Christians voting for Big Government Nanny State socialist Tyranny instead of for Liberty and self responsibility guided by personal ethics.
How Ironic that these Christians fail to see they are unwitting supporting Leviathan… enthroning the all powerful State as God… Mammon!
As this Blog post is already too long I will simply ad links to some of my other Blogposts that go into more detail about Christs Kingdom ministry to the Jews… and how that differs from the Christian Age of Grace that we live in today… which is a different dispensation, and has a different gospel..
I will add a link here to show that true Christian Charity is vastly different from the Atheist pseudo-morality of Socialist Tyranny and the forced redistribution of Wealth via welfare…
And finally below is a Link to a speech I delivered in 2006, at the Tenth anniversary of the now disbanded New Zealand Libertarian party… ‘The Libertarianz’ in which I tried to expound why I thought Rabid Objectivism needed to take a back seat to a more Humane and tolerant activism if the party was to have any hope of success at the polls… as can be seen from the date posted to the blog was in 2012… and I was still very angry about what had happened to the Libertarianz party… I was of the opinion that Objectivism was/ had suffocated the party.
I saw the party as becoming little more than a propaganda machine to further the Atheist Cult of Rand… I had already walked away from it by then.
Fanatical Objectivists have convinced themselves that by coining the phrase ‘Egoism’ that they can escape the the accusations of Egotism! another example of Rand’s Sophistry are work!
Egoism… self worship…they say is the highest Individual character trait!
New Zealand still needs a Libertarian Political Choice… yet if this is ever to rise again lessons need to be learned from the Objectivist Dominated Libertarianz party.
If a New Libertarian party is to rise it cannot become a recruitment tool for the Cult of Objectivism… Rands Philosophy cannot be adopted as the last word on Party Policy… and certainly Objectivist Intolerance towards religious views or Charity… cannot be allowed to set the tone of Party Literature and conduct.
A far more Libertarian and enlightened Character and charter needs to be set and presented to the voting public…one in which Libertarianism is expounded that shows Liberty is far more compassionate and Humane than Socialism ever was… and when you Look a a guy like Prodos Marinakis and his moderated style of Objectivism compared to the Rabid Rand worshiping Egoist and Millitant Atheists… the contrast is stark.
Its the difference between an enlightened and Tolerant, and thinking Libertarian… from an indoctrinated Fanatical Zealot of a God hating Cult of selfish arseholes!
This Caricature of Rand and Objectivism may be an exaggeration yet it is not wholly Unjustified as anyone who has had anything to do with the Objectivist movement will tell you… and you can read about just how delusional Rand was in person by one of her closest and most dedicated disciples… Nathaniel Branden… Read “My Years with Ayn Rand”.
When Judgement day comes for Any Rand she will be exposed as a fraud… In Reality she was not Great at all but a Delusional Woman full of the worst Character traits… and her toxic beliefs bring out the worst in those that are deceived by her.
Fortunately there are some New Zealand Objectivists and Libertarians who share the same virtues as Prodos… those that are prepared to think for themselves more and quote Rand less.
Any New party would need to maintain a separation of the Church of Ayn Rand and State… as much as a separation of any other personal ideology.
This is where hope lies and could be the basis for Cooperation between Libertarians of all persuasions.
Getting things all in their correct context and this way Libertarianism will have a much broader appeal… including winning Christians and others out of Socialism and into supporting Freedom where they ought to be. This will only happen when Egoism, and Atheism, and Selfishness are not the defining traits of the Libertarian party… But Enlightened tolerance and adherence to just principles, equality before the Law, and a desire to downsize Government and abolish unjust tyrannical laws and taxes… “He who governs best… governs least”. Thomas Jefferson.
Maybe sometime soon Kiwi Libertarians can have a Reunion… a few Beers… and talk about what could be… what should be in the near future.
The following argument has been in my mind for decades… ever since I was converted from Atheism to Bible believing Christianity.
I am not a trained academic or Logician myself, Yet have attempted to solicit dialogue on my conjectures from several ‘Trained academics’ yet so far have had no response.
Thus I have never received any Rebuttal that might dissuade me from my conclusion… simple Atheist assertions that ‘God does not exist… or Satan does not exist’ are not arguments but groundless (and in my opinion erroneous) claims, and this post will attempt to prove the idea that even if I cant say Satan’s existence today is knowable… that at one point back in history of all reality… his existence was a certainty.
The following is an expanded form of my assertion, just to lay down the framework/ context of my contentions plainly.
That I say Satan’s existence is a Logical necessity is based upon the Title Jesus Christ called Satan… “The Father of Lies”… ie Satan *invented Lies* and deception… or at least he was the first *to actually lie*… and this brings up the principle of non-materialist *Free will*.
Christ calls himself… The Way… *The Truth* and the life and the Bible says that *all things were created by him and for him*, and many Infidels who cannot get past their notions of Determinism therefore argue that ‘if the God exists… then *God himself* is responsible even for Satan’s lies… because God made Satan, yet as I have already said they are unable to accept any notion of any created being having autonomous free-will that may differ from the ultimate will of God himself.
Yet the concept of Free will is fundamental to Christian Morality… It permeates the whole Bible from the very Beginning when God commanded Adam not to eat of the forbidden fruit, and it is what makes us *morally culpable* for our own actions while exonerating God for giving us the Liberty to make choices … for good or ill.
“…And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. 16 And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” (Gen 2)
The Fallen Angel Satan entered the garden and deceived Eve… Adam then chose to disobey the commandment of God Almighty and ate of the Forbidden fruit… and then tried to blame God for what happened by saying “… And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.” (Gen 3vs 12)
Yet God was not responsible for Adams choice to mistrust and disobey God… even though God did create *the possibility* for Adam to so choose… It was Adam who was the free will moral Agent who made the choice and that is why Adam was morally culpable… and God without blame.
God is completely within his right to so order his creations of both the Angels and Humanity with the *potential to sin against him*… Not making us *mere robots*… but True *Children* whose love and ongoing obedience to his Divine rule is not something imposed upon us by our nature… but something *real* and special… and moral… none the less this requires having so ordered things that *the potential to rebel against God* was an inescapable necessity to the dynamic of being able to freely submit to his Sovereignty.
So Like the temptation of Mt Everest in the distance calling vain Men to their doom… trying and Conquer its peak… so to Did God create *the potential for Evil*… for Rebellion… yet that was only as a counterpoise for Freewill love and submission.. not because he *wanted* anyone to rebel… yet still to have *Loving Children* rather than Robots… God Deemed this risk to be worth it… and their would be few honest people who would prefer to be like Ants… wholey driven by their instincts and physical drives, than to be as they are… with Freewill to determine their own lives and activities… Taking credit for their own virtues and successes.
Now I have laid out the groundwork, I can address the main point of which the Title of this post… God Created The Highest Heaven… God Created The Holy Angels and that was When Satan was ‘Lucifer’… the highest Angel in that Order of beings.
I have already explained that God created them with Freewill and gave them the scope to exercise this essential component of their being for which they were created.
An unknown length of ‘time’ passes, and then God Created ‘the Heavens and the Earth'(yet not Mankind)…. and it was sometime after this that Lucifer became jealous of God… and desired to be worshiped… and that is when Evil grew in his ‘heart’ and he chose to Rebel against God.
This is when Satan decided to start telling lies… To corrupt many of his fellow angels into following him instead of God Almighty.
So While the *potential to tell lies* had always existed in counterpoise to being able to tell the truth…. Satan was the first Being to *ever exercise* that potential… he became ‘The father of Lies’.
and it is here that I now posit my Logical challenge… We exist in a reality in which *Telling lies* is a fundamental fact of Human existence… liars exist… Down here on Earth Lies are a currency as often traded in as the truth, which of necessity raises the question… who… in the entire existence of all reality… was the first being to ever tell a lie?
We know that because lies exist today that somewhere someone back in eternity past *must have been the first Lying being*… and it is this Being The Bible calls *Satan*… the Father of Lies.
Satan is therefore a Logical necessity!
And Satan is the Being responsible for Bringing All Evils into the world… even though We as Freewill moral agents are responsible for our own choices to follow Satan’s lies rather than trust in God Almighty.
This is a fundamental Dynamic to our existence!
Change my mind!
Satan Laughing… spreads his wings.
Some Atheists may say… “The father of Lies must have been a human being”… I admit that this ‘Idea’ is worth contemplating… yet when you consider that there is virtual universal consensus on the conjecture that the Human race has not existed for very long… and that even the Earth has not existed for ever… and that Most Atheists also harbour Ideas that we are probably not the only intelligent beings in the universe ( that this is a belief for which they dont have any more *Physical evidence* for such alien beings than I do for Satan seems to escape them… they base their conjectures on no more firm unproven rationale than I do for mine)… yet still does not their own conjectures make the notion that ‘the father of lies’ must have been a Human being uncertain?
Could not *another being* that pre-dates Humanity have told the first lie? (He would then be Satan!)
And then Atheists have an even greater problem… *How lies*… or even *telling the truth*… can even be concepts… if we exist in a Purely Materialistic Reality in which everything is inextricably locked into a chain of physical causation right back to the big bang?
Tim Wikiriwhi.
Christian Libertarian.
Dispensationalist.
King James Bible believer.
To be edited: this piece will substantially improve over the next week… it is an idiosyncratic process of mine.
🙂
Criticizing the recently deceased is a Politically incorrect Sacrilege… yet I find it necessary to say a few words about Stephen Hawking, given Social media is flooded with such claims that he ‘Was the greatest mind’ of our times… even though … it is also claimed ‘almost nobody knew what he was talking about’.
His Book ‘A Brief history of Time; is claimed to be ‘the least read best seller of all time’… still virtually Everybody says they knew he was super smart.
I would like to make a few comments about why I disagree.
He may have been able to count better than I yet he was in many ways… very foolish.
Why Tim do you feel the need to write ill of the dead?
Because I see much of his adoration by the masses was not because of His Scientific achievements… but because he was a Champion of the Religion of Materialist Atheism.
His Death is in fact being used as some sort of Hero worship for Atheism and in particular his many Statements that appear to many as an un-assailable Authoritative testimony that Materialism is supported by the Facts of science.
This is an Old claim… which is patently false… yet I will have to justify my rejection of his assertion about the superiority of Materialist science over the Judaeo-Christian Theistic interpretation of science.
Why do you dare to question the so-called ‘Greatest scientific mind’ of our era?
I will delve into this shortly.
Tim… who the hell do you think you are to question such an intellectual Giant?
What… if anything at all… could a nobody like you have to say that anyone should consider of value or weight?
To this I would like to demonstrate how the thinking Ordinary man may contend with the claims of experts and authorities of highly obscure and specialized fields such as Theoretical Physics.
To bring the stratospheric claims and Ideas down to an altitude that we can make rational and informed decisions.
Many of Hawking’s adoring atheist fans will be operating on the worst kind of *Blind faith*… that *He said* science does away with God is good enough for them… so Ultimately the vast percentage of these Atheists are guilty of precisely what they say is wrong with Religion!
These Atheists are accepting pontifications from their ‘High Priest’ that they make no attempt to understand or to independently investigate if in fact they are justified in accepting Hawking’s assertions as gospel… its just that their ‘High Priest’ wore a Lab coat rather than a Cassock.
The morons even make a big deal that he died on Einsteins birthday!
On Obscure technical Theories and subjects, quite often there are available to Lay-thinkers Expositional simplifications that can greatly help form some rudimentary understanding upon which Judgments can be made… avoiding blind faith in the otherwise unsubstantiatible claims of Theorists, yet to alleviate some of the incredulity about my competence to critisise Hawking what I have to say does not need to go into particular details about his *scientific theories*, but rather I am interested in *His *Extra scientific* conclusions and conjecture* that he made public with regards to the ultimate nature of reality.
In the end I will present *Reasons* for my claims… and if these reasons are well founded, then they will stand on their own merit against the claims of Hawking.
Materialism is an absolutely Godless, Spirit-less, Miracle-less faith, and Its chief appeal to the Godless masses is that they think it does away with any notions of Moral duty, and Divine judgement, and that *all thing* must be understood, and explained, in purely Physical terms of matter and motion.
This means the Godless masses can turn their backs completely upon Religion… and morality that sets rules that they dislike.
If such a Cosmology is true, then the whole universe and everything… including Human beings are merely Matter… and the only laws we are subject to are the laws of Nature… physics, and chemistry.
As evidence of this I need go no further than point to the Rabidly anti-Christian Lefty Liberal psychosis that is gripping western civilization.
This movement is Hell bent on making Christian values and ethics *illegal*.
On a psychological basis it is relatively easy to infer Stephen Hawking’s degenerative condition of Motor Neuron Disease and subsequent life lived in a Robotic chair, will have had a large, yet non-scientific impact upon what he believed about the Ultimate nature of Reality.
He may have harbored quite contemptuous feelings towards any Idea that there could possibly be a God in the light of his affliction… and I would not pretend to write off such feelings as if they were petty, and in Fact it is very amazing testimony of faith when we see people afflicted with severely debilitating conditions *Still believing* in a Loving God!
One of the great challenges/ arguments against the existence of a Loving God is the problem of Evil.
That Human beings have a sense of Justice is one of the strange things about being human that defies Materialism (which must say Judgments of right and wrong are Objectively speaking *Meaningless*)… yet on the other-hand when a child is born with severe abnormalities… or in dire poverty… or exposed to Wars… we all question the *Fairness* of life.
It is here that I want to challenge the delusion of Scientists as Higher beings… aloof from the chaos of the human condition… the delusion they are committed to Objectivity and truth… following the evidence where ever it may lead.
I want to point out that they are most often the very opposite personality types… committed ideologues… with agendas, and vested interests to substantiating their own theories… and they are affected by the same personal experiences as the rest of us.
Because of his confinement to the chair, Stephen Hawking’s thinking must be understood in light to this to a far higher degree than just the average atheist who questions God’s existence simply because they were born poor.
Stephen Hawking was Human.
On this basis alone it would have been amazing if He had thrown his weight in behind the Idea that God exists… and we should not be at all surprised that he did not.
Nick Vujicic (Above photo)is an inspiration and an absolutely amazing man of Christian faith!
What makes his testimony so powerful is that he loves God *In spite* of his heavy physical afflictions that he was born with… no fault of his own.
Compared to Nick Vujicic faith, Stephen Hawking’s *Unbelief* is not sectacular… We may consider it what many ordinary people might think if they had to contend with the same physical imairments he suffered.
Even if Stephen Hawking did not harbour resentment towards God, still he may have taken his personal condition as evidence no loving God exists, and that feelings of injustice against such things… and the great atrocities and evils of humanity are for sentimental fools.
He may have steeled his soul and said The Universe does not care about us and our problems… it just is.
Stephen was given over to the philosophical trap of *Scientism* (look it up). It is primarily a belief that all *Real questions* ultimately have scientific answers, and that everything else (like justice) is illusory.
This automatically closes the mind to any possibility of Real things that exist *outside the scope of science*.
This is a severe hobbling of the mind.
It causes circular reasoning … ‘Because we assert all realities are Material realities, and there is no God, No Ghosts, no Miracles, any claims of a God, or Ghosts, or Miracles must be false and instead the true explanation for any phenomena must be materialistic’.
It is in light of this that any ‘inconvenient occurrence’ or phenomena must be … pseudo-scientifically rationalised to either be mundanely materialistic or Illusory.
This is not a’scientific’ world view at all… it is in fact a philosophical fallacy… that has been utterly overthrown by science itself.(I will explain this below)
Scientism is a corollary of Atheist materialism and leads to philosophical Nihilism.
It tends to travel accompanied by an absurd notion of scientific infallibility… the idea being that in primitive times Mankind was Brutish and ignorant, and worshipped Gods, and believed in Ghosts, yet with the process of time and the discovery of the scientific method *and rationalism* that the history of science has been an inexorable march of factual /’Secular’/ Materialistic truth overthrowing the miraculous fables and superstitions of the Religious… yet his is delusional… a fairy story invented by atheists!
In Truth while technological advance has been fairly constant.. the theories of ‘Science’ with respect to the nature of Ultimate truth has been a succession of fallacies… each in turn being discredited usually with the aid of better technology.
Thus those that have said they place their faith *in science* rather than religion have been *proven* to have believed in one fallacy after another!
Yet this did not prevent them from claiming they had ‘absolute truth’ at each erroneous step… and claim they stood on more solid ground than the religious.
And this process is playing out as we speak with the Delusions of the theory of Evolution.
The Fool places his faith upon the shifting sands of Human scholarship and rationalism. The wise man stands upon the Rock of Divine revelation… The Bible!
It stands sure.
And a classic example of how *true science* in cosmology and physics has overthrown the Delusions of Atheist materialism has been with the conclusive proofs that the Universe had a beginning… and that one-directional time means it will also end in a type of *Death* within a finite space of time… things that Jueado-Christian Theism claimed to be so via Divine revelation!
By the beginning of the 1800s ‘Science’ was being hijacked by the atheist materialists who boldly proclaimed the Universe was eternal and the laws of physics as being absolute.
This… the materialists of the day claimed was proof that atheist materialism was founded upon ‘science’ and that it proved the Bible’s claim that the universe had a beginning was a religious superstition!
How embarrassing for them when in not too many decades later *Science* proved their most vitally essential tenet of Materialism to be false… and that the Bible was correct all along!
Via several proofs, esp the 2nd law of thermodynamics the Universe is found to have had a beginning!
The Universe is not eternal but temporal.
The Laws of Physics are not absolute… but are contingent… and this ought to have sunken the Materialist superstition like the Titanic!
Yet the fact that the materialists refused to abandon their sinking ship just goes to prove their materialist faith was not based upon science at all… but upon a fanatical prejudice against belief in God… esp a God that lays down moral laws and that Judges humanity.
Thus There are far greater and more fundamental and primary realities *outside* ‘above’and beyond this fianite universe that may be best described and rationally understood as being *Super natural*.
And these lie beyond a wall that renders physical science is impotent .. and strictly relative.
Yet Stephen Hawking was born *after* this period of ‘eternal universe’ materialist superstition in an era in which Materialists were busy trying to re-conceive their beliefs in this new era in which they now had to explain away the fact that the universe was not eternal… and some how was *Created*
Hawking Quote: “Before we understand science, it is natural to believe that God created the universe. But now science offers a more convincing explanation”.
He said during an interview with El Mundo in 2014.
Is this *really* what science represents?
Let me explain why this is a frighteningly deceptive and infantile claim!
First of all when you study the history of the philosophy of Science it is not that hard to discover the massive debt Modern science owes to The theistic world view!
At its most fundamental level Modern science was born from the belief in a Rational Divine creator who made the universe in a Rational and ordered way, and that God endowed us humans with the power of Reason so that we may comprehend his wisdom and genius by investigating the wonders he has made.
This is why virtually *all the founding fathers of the branches of *Real science* from Physics (Newton) to Genetics (Mendel) were all *Theists*.
Thus it is a false dichotomy to suggest that religion is at variance with Science!
Stephen Hawking is misleading the gullible masses from the very start.
Religion is only at variance with *wild Atheistic conjecture that is framed in pseudo-scientific terms*.. not with science proper… And Stephen Hawking is being absolutely dishonest when he claims he is speaking scientifically when he says things like ” because of a force like gravity we can explain how the universe can be created out of nothing without God…”
That is pure nonsense, and I challenge *anyone* who disputes me to prove how Gravity can create the universe out of *nothing*.
Its a patent absurdity…. sheer superstition… and those who accept Hawkings assertions on this do so in complete ignorance… solely on Blind faith… out of Cognitive dissonance.
And the Problems go further for Stephen as he needs to explain how the blind material forces… like gravity… can construct and animate Living Beings… a subject that may be out of his field of expertise … yet is in fact *Out of all scientific expertise*… because its Mind-blowing complexity defies Materialist assumptions about ‘Simple cells’ etc.
So from Beginning to end Stepehen’s claims that Materialist science ‘Better explains’ reality is shot through with holes you can drive a bus through!
It is in fact false.
He may have been a great mathematician and made many bold theories… yet he was a poor philosopher, and in Irony I say Friedrich Nietzsche would be forced to declare Hawking’s atheist conclusions “Human… all too human”.
Science has little to do with it.
Hawkings conclusions are found to be as much influenced by his personal feelings as by his terrible philosophy.
He was typically the sort of Materialist (like Dawkins) who argued for Non-design in nature yet was always invoking *Design* in his writings and comments!
Why?
Because this is the inescapable perception that confronts the scientist at every level!
From the grandeur of the cosmos to the marvelous nano technology of living cells under the electron microscope!
Hawkings challenged us to wonder about ‘the grand design’, and compared our brains to a computer (which is a typically naive materialist thing to do) … yet the obvious question that needs to be answered is *how the hell can anyone believe our brains could come to be *without a Grand Designer?*???
Even Dawkins admits that “…Biology is the study of complicated things that look like they have been designed for a purpose..”
So by comparing our Brains to computers… it is reasonable to invoke the Intelligent design argument as *that is the only way computers can come into Being* in this universe.
Think about that… The Bible declares “That from the creation of the world god is clearly seen being understood by the things that are made.”
Why would Hawking make such rash un-scientific statements about Materialism overthrowing God ?
I have already given you psychological reasons why he most likely favoured Nihilism, and the view that ultimate reality is uncaring, yet there are also powerful social pressures at stake… Because of the Current climate in academia Stephen had a professional vested interest to champion materialism… to insure his reputation and reverence among his peers whom are as committed ideologically to materialism as he was.
The thing to appreciate is that Science has now brought us to the very boundaries of our physical reality.
Tools like the Hadron Collider are attempting to crack open the very fabric of the universe to get glimpses of layers that are not normally available for us to observe.
*And the conversation* is now fully in *the supernatural domain*… yet the Materialist still chooses to ‘secularise’ this non-physical / spiritual domain that is not beholden to the Laws of physics.
They persist in pseudo-scientific terms and Anti-theistic mythology… postulating such science fictions as ‘Multiverses’, etc…
yet here we are! right where the Theists always said ultimate reality lies… and within a supernatural domain superior to and more primary than our tangible universe.
Again it is the Materialist who has been proven to be in error… and the theistic philosophy that has been vindicated.
The Materialist is *HELL BENT* on their rejection of God… not from science… but from ideological fanaticism.
Now This Blog post is already obscene in length by accepted norms, and so I will close it with two final statements.
1. I respect the guy for his heroic life.
2. Stephen Hawkings was famous for making several ‘Bets’ over the years on the validation of various theories… and it is amusing to note that he *lost* those bets… and had to buy a Penthouse magazine subscription for Kip Thorne … so Hawking’s own history says he is not at a racehorse upon which anyone should place their bets.
The New Zealand Herald ran a story on Friday march 16 titled ‘Hawking showed it’s alright to be wrong’.
The 2nd paragraph says… “Its very difficult to engage him [Hawking] in discussion, and so he has got away with pronouncements in a way that other people would not”
Higgs is quoted as saying “His celebrity status has gives him instant credibility that others do not have”
Higgs has reason to feel aggrieved.
Two years earlier Hawking had placed a very public bet US $100 bet that the Higgs Boson. a sub atomic particle theoriesd in the 1960s, would never be found…”
Hawking even warned that the quest to discover the Higgs Boson might destroy the universe!!!!
Hawking would be proven wrong on all counts.
Anyway my last point is a sad one… and that is to say that we can be certain Hawking has now lost his ultimate bet… against another famous mathematician.. Blaise Pascal… as to the existence of the Almighty.
He will know He’s lost now… and the price he will pay for his error is Terrible indeed.
We Human beings are Free will moral agents… not soul-less Robots… and so a fundamental part of what being a human is that we are responsible for our choices and actions.
We are not like rocks and stones shifting in the floodwaters… not like comets and meteors inexorably fated by the deterministic chains of the material world.
We get to chose our path… and our fate.
Please dont be deceived by the vacuous claims of people like Stephen Hawking.
The Bible says ‘Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools’.
Wrong Bet Stephen.
May God have mercy.
Tim Wikiriwhi
Christian Libertarian.
Today I want to make my rebuttal of a friends defense for Larkin Rose’s expressed position on God/ Deism.
Larken Rose Recognizes the fingerprint of Intelligence within the incredible design of living things yet appears ambivalent towards any further thought or discussion about the ramifications of this Revelation.
He reminds me of the late A Flew… the once High priest of Atheism who in the face of the discoveries of Modern science esp the complexity of living things abandoned his Atheism for belief in Intelligent design… yet never made the full traverse to Bible believing Faith in THE LORD.
Flew was an honest thinker yet ran out of Time…whereas Larken Rose still has time to discover the truth… yet his attitude appears to me to be that of a Man who does not really want to go down that road…and I question his motives.
I argue why Deism may once have been forgivable/ understandable in the distant past, yet is inexcusable today, and that now Reason and Logic are on the side of the Theist.
While both entail the belief in a Creator God, what distinguishes Deism from Theism is that Deism rejects Divine interventions in the affairs of Men… No Miracles to circumvent the laws of Nature… and esp No Divine special Revelations to mankind.
It will be necessary for me to skip over large portions of history and related material for the sake of brevity such as the Deism of the 18th century.
(I will have to do a separate Blog post on these important aspects of this topic at some later date, and insert a link to it here)
Watch Larken Rose Here…
*********
Ten or more years ago I was asked to debate Hamilton based Atheists for the existence of the Christian God.
One of my opponents was Garry Mallett from Act.
Now The only reason I have mentioned this debate is because the 2nd part of my argument was the logical assumption that *If there is in fact a God (in the Full context of the word) and that he made us human beings…as Rational, conscious beings… that it would be a reasonable assumption to think that surely he would communicate with us some how… who he is… why he made us…etc rather than just leaving us Ignorant about such things.
That was my premise for why it is rational to at least consider the possibility that the Bible’s claim to be the Divine Revelation from the Creator of the Universe to be a plausible possibility at least… and that the honest thinking person having first concluded that the Universe and Living things are best understood as the products of intelligent design… that following upon that, that The Bible answers the questions that naturally flow on…. The *Who* is this Great designer of the Universe… and what message does he have for us… his Conscious Rational Moral Free Agent Creations… and most importantly… that such a Revelation is precisely what the rational mind would expect from the God who is there… rather than silence.
This is an argument that places Theism as superior to mere Deism and in fact renders belief in Deism today to be a cop out…poor reasoning at best… mostly willful ignorance.
Deism and Theism both draw upon what has been described as ‘Natural religion’… Ideas about God derived from looking at Nature… looking at what has been described as ‘The Book of God’s works’.
Yet Theism makes an additional claim that we have a second Book that we may also gain direct and infallible knowledge about God.. The Book of his actual words.
Deism/ Natural Religion is great up to certain point, yet severely limited as it can never tell us Human beings *who God is*… only that he is there… and that he is super intelligent and super powerful, and that there is some sort of Objective moral law which We Human beings ought to at least try and live by… that gives our Moral sence some legitimate foundation and purpose… rather than simply being some sort of illusion… mere sentiment… mere feelings.
An Idea such as ‘Kharma’, or ‘Reaping what you sow’… These are the sorts of ideas human beings have arrived at via contemplating nature… ‘Do unto others as you would have done unto you’ … ‘Be Good’… we know that’Theft is evil’…because we hate it when someone steals from us… so dont steal from others… yet still none of this has anything higher than our own opinion to rest upon… or the opinion of ‘wise others’… and is therefore not impervious to arguments of evil men that assert that all such moralizations are vacuous.
Dark minds may posit the question… Maybe the Deity is Malevolent?
Do not Floods and Earthquakes signal that our creator is far from a caring God! ????
Is the only Moral Rule …contrary to what the wowzers would have us believe…that the Strong may subject the weak?
Are they trying to subject the strong to whiles of the weak?
What the heck is really going on?
Deism cant definitively answer this… yet it gives those whom cling to it a certain self-justification for not being Nihilistic… for claiming they are Moral and good. (something that is necessary because of what the bible describes as our innate knowledge/ consciousness of Good and evil)
“For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:…”
St Paul. Romans 1:20.
Yet Deism says *Nobody can claim to really know*.
Now I love many of the Great heathen thinkers of classical times, whom both believed a God exists, and that Humanity should be moral, and because of the times and places in which *they lived* I accept that they really had taken ‘Natural religion’ to its highest forms and that they had no ‘Rungs upon which they could possibly ascend higher and closer to God’, and that they were Good, wise, Moral men…In the context of how good any man might be under such circumstances. (Separated/ aliens from Israel, mostly living before the advent of Christ)
It is at this plateau that many of the Great Heathen moral thinkers had arrived.
The Stoic Marcus Aurelius is supposed to have said…
Though Aurelius lived post-Christ and had ‘herd’ about the Christians and held negative opinions about them, I am not sure to what degree he had any real first hand communications with them, or any familiarity with the Old testament/ Book of Genesis, thus I tend to consider his situation as very similar to that of the *Pre-Christ* Gentile thinkers… Aliens from the Divine revelation.
He was a very interesting thinker…God will judge him. Here is an interesting link to this Topic
Now As a Christian Theist who believes the Bible, I know there are Mountains of the most vital truths missing from this Natural/Deistic Faith position because I have the Divine Revelation… The Holy inspired and preserved words of God Almighty himself esp the Facts That Humanity is under a curse because of our Sin, and that our Sin separates us from God and puts us in danger of His Judgement and Damnation.
*It is possible*… because it is so obvious… without the aid of scripture to apprehend by the power of reason alone Humanities fallen/ sinful condition… our wickedness… our depravity… our Cruelty…. and perhaps from this a rationale may be conceived of the need to somehow appease the anger of the God(s)… for justice sake… all sorts of weird Ideas have been proposed… *Yet via reason it would be impossible to conceive of the doctrine of Christs virgin birth, and substitutional atonement for our sins, and resurrection*…from nature alone.
Indeed many Naturally minded people find these Doctrines repugnant… which leads to my main contentions for this blog about Deists living today in western civilization… and their willful ignorance/ rejection of the Divine Revelation… the Bible in which all these doctrines are laid out in the most Logical fashion from the very beginning in Genesis.
As I have said Deism is severely handicapped to what degree it can reveal the nature of God to us… limited in its certainty of moral precepts, etc, none the less *Today*…far from these limits as being considered by trendy thinkers as pitfalls… these people actually *enjoy* them!
Most of these are people *Today* … follow a trend that became fashionable from the end of the Great reformation who… for various reasons…good or bad… *hate organised religion* (which tends to be where Theistic claims of having ‘Divine revelation’ are most prevalent) … they also enjoy what they see as ‘the Freedom to do as they please… the only moral restraints being their own conscience… and esp that Deism can make no emphatic claims of Divine Judgement for moral failures… it cant even emphatically state the validity of any Human Judgement derived from Nature.
They will say that ‘Reason’ is the only Authority they will subject themselves to, and as they have reached to limits of Reason… they cannot be subject to any higher Moral authority or law.
Philosophers love to quote Hume … “you cant get an ‘Ought from an Is”.
Its Funny though that ordinary people seem to be able to do just that without much trouble appealing to sentiment… they are not moved by arguments that say we can have no confidence in these… in fact to my thinking …the rational approach to this mystery of consciousness to the ideas of Good and evil is not to say ‘We cant ever know’… but instead to set out *in faith* on a Pilgrimage to discover some means by which our sentiments can find Objective validation… It is a quest of discovery for the Divine revelation from the Intelligent Creator whose existence is testified to by his Natural handiwork.
And It is an Irony that in a work by the great skeptic himself David Hume called ‘Dialogues concerning Natural religion’ in which there is a debate about the existence of God, in which Hume deploys his skeptical arguments in the person of ‘Philo’, yet stunningly… in the final analysis his Book ends by giving the victory to the Theist ‘Cleanthes’!
My contention at the Debate was that not only did the Deity Communicate his existence and expectations of Humanity via Prophets and the written word… He intervened into Human affairs in the Most personal manor…. He visited us… and Walked among us… God was manifest in the flesh.
“Then he said unto them, O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken:…”
Now when you add up all the components I have briefly discussed above you ought to be able to grasp why it is that I myself am a Theist… a Bible believer… That the fact that we westerners have easy access to the King James Bible and the book of Genesis therein, that willfully seeking to remain ignorant of the Divine revelation is inexcusable… and why it is that I have a pet dislike for modern Deism… esp its corruption/heresy of what I call Christian Deism which I see as a pathetic retreat from true Christian Theistic faith…caused by a weakness in faith and Bad reasoning… in the face of Atheist sophistry. (Topic for another Post)
I actually struggle to contain my contempt!
I need to take 5… and chill… and remember that it is only by Gods grace that I myself am a Christian at all.
I need to remember *How alien* I once was… How utterly incapable of apprehending the existence of God let alone the truthfulness of the Bible!
It is with all this in mind that I decided to keep calm and write this post..
Recently A friend of mine tried to justify the Deism of one of his Favorite thinkers Larkin Rose, which I had critisised as being pathetic… because he refused to make the most basic inference that Intelligent design demands *GOD* and that from this obvious conclusion… if he was an honest thinker… would demand he then begin a personal pilgrimage to discover *Who* this Grand designer is.
My friend began to repair to the arguments *of Classical Deism* and the limits that Logic faced in that direction… as if that excuse… which of course appears quite valid when looking back to heathen lands… and times before Christ… aliens to the Divine Revelation, Yet This blogpost is my express rebuttal to that argument when applied to modern thinkers like Larkin.
It is invalid for Thinkers today to simply rest on that ancient Plateau… because they live post Christ and have access to the Bible and history.
This makes them fully culpable for rejecting Jesus Christ.
Socrates on the other hand was not privy to the Bible… and I even conjecture that he would have become a Christian had he been given the opportunity… so many of his conclusions about Divine things being in perfect harmony with the scriptures… that he never had opportunity to read.
I say that If Socrates would have considered the Gargantuan explanatory power for the first chapters in the book of Genesis…plus all the rest… the Biblical explanation for the existence of Evil…The explanation of why God has separated himself from mankind… why we die… why there are Natural disasters, etc etc that it is very possible that he would have realised that this divine revelation gives a great logical basis for Biblical theistic faith when one applies it to the world about him.
That in fact the Bible *Is the Revelation* of the Intelligent designer of everything…his message to us his creatures… esp telling us *Who he is*… and what is *Really* going on.
So I question why it is that though Larken Rose sees through the delusion of atheistic evolution, he still is apathetic towards discovering *Who God is* and challenge him to Read the King James Bible… to really contemplate it’s message… and that in doing so he would no longer be in a position to argue that Logic ends at the plateau of Natural religion.
The Bible is a logical extension from the Plateau at the top of the Mountain… upwards out of the stratosphere all the way… a direct line of communication to the Deity… a logical vindication of Bible believing christian Theism.
Of course Satan and his minions have been attacking the Bible, and via sophistry undermining faith in its veracity as The Bible is the Ultimate Fortress of God for the believer. It is the Ultimate Lighthouse in the storm of life Shining its beams upon the treacherous Rocks of peril, and a Guide of Safe passage… salvation to every soul who sees its light and navigates into the Harbour of God’s love and Grace.
Satan is the enemy Of God and Men’s souls…The Father of Lies… it was by cunning craftiness that he was able to deceive Eve, and get her to disbelieve Gods word and to Eat of the forbidden fruit, and he has been at this game the whole time… Deceiving… yet the word of God remains like a Rock
Happy Resurrection Day!
Tim Wikiriwhi.
Protestant, 1611 King James Bible believer, Dispensationalist, Christian Libertarian.
The last paragraphs of Humes Dialouges concerning Natural religion…
If the whole of Natural Theology, as some people seem to maintain, resolves itself into one simple, though somewhat ambiguous, at least undefined proposition, That the cause or causes of order in the universe probably bear some remote analogy to human intelligence: If this proposition be not capable of extension, variation, or more particular explication: If it affords no inference that affects human life, or can be the source of any action or forbearance: And if the analogy, imperfect as it is, can be carried no farther than to the human intelligence; and cannot be transferred, with any appearance of probability, to the other qualities of the mind: If this really be the case, what can the most inquisitive, contemplative, and religious man do more than give a plain, philosophical assent to the proposition, as often as it occurs; and believe that the arguments, on which it is established, exceed the objections, which lie against it? Some astonishment indeed will naturally arise from the greatness of the object: Some melancholy from its obscurity: Some contempt of human reason, that it can give no solution more satisfactory with regard to so extraordinary and magnificent a question. But believe me, Cleanthes, the most natural sentiment, which a well-disposed mind will feel on this occasion, is a longing desire and expectation, that heaven would be pleased to dissipate, at least alleviate this profound ignorance, by affording some more particular revelation to mankind, and making discoveries of the nature, attributes, and operations of the divine object of our faith. A person, seasoned with a just sense of the imperfections of natural reason, will fly to revealed truth with the greatest avidity: While the haughty Dogmatist, persuaded, that he can erect a complete system of Theology by the mere help of philosophy,
KS 228
disdains any farther aid, and rejects this adventitious instructor. To be a philosophical Sceptic is, in a man of letters, the first and most essential step towards being a sound, believing Christian; a proposition, which I would willingly recommend to the attention of Pamphilus: And I hope Cleanthes will forgive me for interposing so far in the education and instruction of his pupil.
D 12.34
Cleanthes and Philo pursued not this conversation much farther; and as nothing ever made greater impression on me, than all the reasonings of that day; so, I confess, that, upon a serious review of the whole, I cannot but think, that Philo’s principles are more probable than Demea’s; but that those of Cleanthes approach still nearer to the truth.
Another Meme posted to FB by an atheist who claims…
“To wish to be under a celestial dictatorship is the wish to be an abject slave.” -Christopher Hitchens
…. riding that wooden horse that claims Belief in God is *Anti-Reason*.
Or as Ayn Rand’s Objectivists like to claim… “Faith [In God] is the abandonment of Reason and therefore leads to force”.
Is this True?
Does belief in God require a person to ‘abandon Reason?’ ….
It is *Staggering* to me to see such a Patently absurd assertions like this to hold such weight in the minds of atheists… and that they have the Gall to do this with such an arrogance.
*Yet arrogance* is definitive trait of these sorts of minds because they infer *That they know everything!*
This fails on so many levels as to be almost unworthy of comment.
Yet as it is so prevalent a delusion… we must suffer ourselves to make remarks…
Reason *itself* relies on the *REASON* … the rationality that underpins the Universe… Its laughable that Atheists can delude themselves that *Dead materialism* could ever produce *Reasoning Beings*…. They also confound *Reason with Automatons*… like calculators… yet these cant reason at all!
All the ‘Reasoning’ apparent in automatons *Precedes their reality*… ie happens in the immaterial minds of their creators.
It was the Judeo-Christain Cosmology that Gave birth to Modern science.
The Belief that the Universe was Created in a Rational Orderly fashion….Obeying Divine Laws.
The Meme Below was posted by an Atheist named ‘Christopher’ to a Facebook group I belong to, and because it really is definitive of the Level upon which Atheism/ infidelity in general functions I feel my response is worthy of being Blogged… esp because these topics keep popping up time and time again… so like a Cake I have prepared earlier for the Cooking show… I like to have my enlargements ready for when they are needed… and blog posts work best for this.
2017 resolution: I am going to put more effort into Blogging this stuff… even if they are just a single paragraph.
Tim Wikiriwhi to Christopher….
Christopher is King of tripping over pebbles… Its his thing… He enjoys it.
He cannot understand that these pebbles exist for the sake of giving the ‘Christophers’ of the world something to to reveal their inner nature…. a hell bent need to come up with ‘Rationalisations’ to stand in accusation of the Christian God…. so that they can tell themselves their rebellion is some sort of ‘wise and principled stand’…. (even though Atheism renders every act of humanity Nill… neither good or evil).
So God as Luke correctly states… God is God… and He sets the standards for what is right and wrong… *not the Christophers of this world* (who in fact have Zero as their standard)…. and he (God Almighty) in this special case is seen exercising his Sovereignty… and its this Sovereignty… this Right to Judge… that Christopher hates the most about the Judeo-Christian God.
Thus Stated: God Judges *All Sin*.
Onan Sinned.
God Judged him.
The End.
Now for 5 cents let me add that I myself practice ‘Onanism’ as a form of Birth control *all the time*… yet By Gods Grace I am still here… Which Proves that God Sovereignty *also* includes his Divine right to be merciful and show grace…. yet of course ‘The Christophers’ of this world are not interested in hearing about *The Gracious God*… as that does not feed their childish Hate and rebellion…
