Category Archives: Matthew

ALCP, Cannabis, Genesis, Matthew, Voluntary Euthanasia

God’s gift to the terminally ill

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Opium-poppy

A picture is worth a thousand words.

Here’s a Biblical argument for euthanasing the terminally ill.

The argument relies on a couple of reasonable assumptions which I now make explicit.

And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat. …

And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. (KJV)

I assume that God gave us plants for all sorts of purposes, not just to eat. Creating the known universe, including our solar system, our planet and all life upon it including us was quite a feat. The account given in the Book of Genesis, of the origin of God’s green earth, is necessarily highly abbreviated. It cannot reasonably be argued that God did not intend us to use trees for building material as well as fruit, nor can it reasonably be argued that God did not intend us to use Cyperus papyrus to make the manuscripts that the Books of the Bible were originally written on, notwithstanding that these non-nutritional uses aren’t specifically mentioned in Chapter 1 of the Book of Genesis.

I also assume that we can tell what a plant is for simply by looking at its actual uses. Take any plant. What’s it good for?

Now I’m fond of using Genesis 1:29 (“I have given you every herb bearing seed”) as an argument for legalising cannabis. The Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party exists to legalise cannabis for recreational, spiritual, medicinal and industrial purposes. I think the ALCP’s cause is righteous. And I don’t think it’s eisegetical to suggest that God gave us cannabis for our recreational use among other things but I do acknowledge that it can reasonably be argued that getting high is not among the uses God intended for it. No matter, I don’t think principled exceptions disprove the general rule.

Sometimes I meet the objection, but what about deadly nightshade? Did God give that to us to eat too? But this objection just lends further credence to my view that God gave us plants for more than just food. So what about belladonna? Well, what’s deadly nightshade good for? It turns out that belladonna is a medicine and dispensable to a healthy diet.

Belladonna tinctures, decoctions, and powders, as well as alkaloid salt mixtures, are still produced for pharmaceutical use, and these are often standardised at 1037 parts hyoscyamine to 194 parts atropine and 65 parts scopolamine. The alkaloids are compounded with phenobarbital and/or kaolin and pectin for use in various functional gastrointestinal disorders. The tincture, used for identical purposes, remains in most pharmacopoeias, with a similar tincture of Datura stramonium having been in the US Pharmacopoeia at least until the late 1930s. The combination of belladonna and opium, in powder, tincture, or alkaloid form, is particularly useful by mouth or as a suppository for diarrhoea and some forms of visceral pain

Which brings us to the miracle plant that is the topic of this post, the opium poppy. Surely, God intended us to use this plant for the strongest of strong pain relief! Morphine is the predominant alkaloid found in the opium poppy, and in the 21st century it is still the analgesic of choice for pain management in the terminally ill.

Jesus himself is said to have been offered a drink containing opium (according to one interpretation) on the cross, but declined to accept.

They gave him vinegar to drink mingled with gall: and when he had tasted thereof, he would not drink. (KJV)

Now to the argument. Morphine is not just an analgesic. It is also a respiratory depressant. It slows breathing and, in sufficiently high doses, slows breathing to a stop. Its effects as a respiratory depressant are inseparable from its effects as an analgesic, both brought about by activation of the central nervous system’s μ-opioid receptors. Is it by design that these two remarkable effects of morphine are, as it were, yoked together? I suggest that it is.

I suggest that morphine’s design ensures that when a terminally ill patient is in severe pain, and the dose of morphine administered is increased appropriately, it also tends to kill the patient. That’s euthanasia by any other name.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FRwnkrolYc

Christian Libertarianism, Freedom, Libertarianz, Luke, Mark, Matthew, Nile, Romans, Thomas Jefferson

Libertarianism’s last bastion against the unrule of the godless

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in-god-we-trust-art-0b6414eb76501dc7

The terms ‘libertarian’ and ‘libertarianism’ mean different things to different people. In a broad sense, a libertarian is anyone who favours more freedom and less government. In a narrower sense, libertarianism is minarchism.

Minarchism (also known as minimal statism) is a political philosophy. It is variously defined by sources. In the strictest sense, it holds that states ought to exist (as opposed to anarchy), that their only legitimate function is the protection of individuals from aggression, theft, breach of contract, and fraud, and that the only legitimate governmental institutions are the military, police, and courts.

The libertarianism on which I cut my teeth is libertarianism in the latter sense. It’s the libertarianism that was espoused by the now deregistered Libertarianz Party and is promoted by Objectivists such as Lindsay Perigo. In what follows, I’ll use the term ‘libertarianism’ in the minarchist sense.

Sadly, in today’s Western world we are very far from a minarchist libertopia. The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground. Our government departments ever increase in both size and number. Our surfeit of statism won’t be gone any time soon, let alone gone by lunchtime.

In a libertarian state, all government departments—save for the military, police and courts—would be gone. There would be no public health system. There would be no state welfare. There would be no state schools. Even the roads would be privatised.

But persuading most people—who are thoroughly inculcated in statism by the very state education system that libertarians seek to dismantle—that we should roll back the state is difficult. How can libertarians possibly justify getting rid of government-run hospitals? How can libertarians possibly justify ending state education? And how can we even envisage life without state highways? Muh roads!

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How can we justify paring back the state to the barest minarchist minimum?

Actually, it’s the wrong question. The right question to ask is this. How can we justify even the barest minarchist minimum? How can we justify having any state at all?

There are plenty of problems with libertarianism. Underlying philosophical problems. I called attention to a couple of them here, here and here. And I’m about to present another problem. It’s a compelling argument for anarchism and against minarchism. (I’m not going to go into all the reasons why I think anarchism, rather than minarchism, looks set to win the day. For that, I suggest readers follow the arguments of anarchist thinkers such as Stephan Kinsella. See, e.g., his paper What It Means To Be an Anarcho-Capitalist.)

Here’s the problem. Libertarians think that taxation is theft, and that all giving, including the giving of money to the government, should be voluntary. Libertarians (of the minarchist/Randian variety) think that the (only) legitimate functions of government are providing defence and police forces and a judiciary, and that these functions should be funded voluntarily by the citizenry. But what if the citizenry don’t want to fund a minarchist state voluntarily? What then?

Here’s an excerpt from L.P.D.: Libertarian Police Department to illustrate the problem.

“Now, which one of you punks is going to pay me to investigate this crime?” No one spoke up.

“Come on,” I said. “Don’t you all understand that the protection of private property is the foundation of all personal liberty?”

It didn’t seem like they did.

“Seriously, guys. Without a strong economic motivator, I’m just going to stand here and not solve this case. Cash is fine, but I prefer being paid in gold bullion or autographed Penn Jillette posters.”

Nothing. These people were stonewalling me. It almost seemed like they didn’t care …

Elsewhere I presented the case for compulsory taxation. In the comments section to that post, a battle erupted between Damian Grant, a libertarian in the loose “More Freedom, Less Government” sense, and Mark Hubbard, a devout minarchist. Damian didn’t manage to better my case for compulsory taxation, but Mark didn’t score any points either. The whole thing was left hanging.

When Christian libertarians confront statists, statists just love to throw the Good Book at them! There are two Bible passages commonly mentioned.

I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve been confronted with Jesus’s injunction to render unto Caesar. But this objection is easily demolished. To render is to give back. Jesus tells us to give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s and give back to God what is God’s. But what do we have that is Caesar’s? What have the Romans ever done for us?

Elsewhere, of course, the Bible tells us that all things belong to God. So the objection is easily dealt with.

Seemingly more difficult to deal with is the second objection, viz., Romans 13.

Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and you will be commended. For the one in authority is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for rulers do not bear the sword for no reason. They are God’s servants, agents of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also as a matter of conscience.

This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God’s servants, who give their full time to governing. Give to everyone what you owe them: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor. (NIV)

This objection is taken so seriously by Christian libertarians that the Facebook group of the same name deals with this passage (and only this passage) specifically in its “About” section.

A very common question new members have is, “What do you think about Romans 13?” One member has shared a Facebook doc with links to the various discussions we have had:
http://www.facebook.com/groups/290101931017604/doc/491608790866916/

Here are two additional essays on Romans 13:
http://libertarianchristians.com/2008/11/28/new-testament-theology-2/
http://libertarianchristians.com/2013/04/02/theology-doesnt-begin-and-end-with-romans-13/

But, far from dooming minarchist libertarianism, Romans 13 is its salvation! For, without this crucial passage, there is nothing in the Bible or anywhere else to stop the slide into anarchism.

I’ve been looking for a Biblical justification of libertarianism ever since I heard this speech. Now I think I’ve found it. In the last place I ever thought to look.

Romans 13 is libertarianism’s last bastion against the unrule of the godless.

Hypocrites, Jesus FTW!, Matthew, Necrophagist

Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord

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woe_to_you_scribes_and_pharisees_hypocrites

“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to.

“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when you have succeeded, you make them twice as much a child of hell as you are.

“Woe to you, blind guides! You say, ‘If anyone swears by the temple, it means nothing; but anyone who swears by the gold of the temple is bound by that oath.’ You blind fools! Which is greater: the gold, or the temple that makes the gold sacred? You also say, ‘If anyone swears by the altar, it means nothing; but anyone who swears by the gift on the altar is bound by that oath.’ You blind men! Which is greater: the gift, or the altar that makes the gift sacred? Therefore, anyone who swears by the altar swears by it and by everything on it. And anyone who swears by the temple swears by it and by the one who dwells in it. And anyone who swears by heaven swears by God’s throne and by the one who sits on it.

“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.

“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean.

“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.

“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You build tombs for the prophets and decorate the graves of the righteous. And you say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ So you testify against yourselves that you are the descendants of those who murdered the prophets. Go ahead, then, and complete what your ancestors started!

“You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell? Therefore I am sending you prophets and sages and teachers. Some of them you will kill and crucify; others you will flog in your synagogues and pursue from town to town. And so upon you will come all the righteous blood that has been shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Berekiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. Truly I tell you, all this will come on this generation.

“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing. Look, your house is left to you desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’” (NIV)

Distracting from
your deficiencies
while you point at others.
(Once) enlightened
you judge and execute.

To be the only one
to discover the seven,
(To) toss open and pass
the gates to heaven.

1 Peter, 2 Corinthians, 2 Thessalonians, John, Mark, Matthew, Psalms, Sheeple, Tax

Let them eat worms

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please_do_not_feed_the_birds

Behold the fowls of the air beneficiaries of welfare: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father welfare State feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? (KJV)

Now, if I meant to sound particularly harsh, I’d add that

if any would not work, neither should he eat. (KJV)

But that was the instruction of the Apostle Paul to his brothers and sisters in Christ in the church of the Thessalonians. Whereas, the bread of life himself explicitly instructed us to give food to the hungry and also remarked that the poor we will always have with us. So, no excuses!

What about welfare state? The welfare state is the biggest excuse around for not giving food to the hungry! “It’s not my job, I pay my taxes, no one starves in New Zealand, we have government welfare handouts to which everyone is entitled in times of need …” No doubt, you’ve heard it all before.

Real Christian charitable giving has nothing to do with paying taxes to fund a welfare state. In his post on Real voluntary private Charity vs the evils of welfare and Political force my co-blogger Tim makes this point exceptionally well. I have little to add.

libertarian-jesus

But I will say this much. It seems to me that the Bible implicitly instructs us not to fund the welfare state. Jesus famously told us to “render to Caesar [i.e., unto the government] the things that are Caesar’s.” (KJV) Does that mean that, to follow our Lord’s instruction, we should gladly pay our taxes? No, not at all! ‘Render’ means to give back. Give back to the government that which already belongs to the government. But what is that which already belongs to the government? Your hard-earned dollars? No, I don’t think so. I think your hard-earned dollars belong to you. And you must not give them under compulsion.

The Apostle Paul wrote

Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. (ESV)

We are to give generously, not grudgingly. Any gift of ours is to be given

as a willing gift, not as an exaction. (ESV)

Furthermore, the Apostle Peter wrote

I exhort the elders among you, as a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, as well as a partaker in the glory that is going to be revealed: shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you; not for shameful gain, but eagerly; not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock. (ESV)

We are to look after the sheeple not under compulsion, but willingly. And we are not to domineer over those in our charge. This brings me to a further and final point.

We are not to exact. Instead, we are to act. As examples.

Do not treat the poor and needy like trained circus seals! Do not seek to make welfare beneficiaries jump through hoops. Freely scatter your gifts to the poor! Dignity for dignity. (NIV)

Don’t be a Carol Gaither!

700

Antidemon, Gospel music, Hell, Matthew

Welcome to Death

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OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell[a].

a. Matthew 10:28 Greek Gehenna

A couple of years ago, I posted a 13-part series wherein I gave you Hell, a little booklet by the inimitable Dr. Jeff Obadiah Simmonds. And I posted an index to the instalments … elsewhere.

Everything you ever wanted to know about Hell (but were too afraid to ask)

I just discovered an awesome Christian death metal band called Antidemon with an awesome song about hell, so I figured now is as good a time as any to post the index … below.

Hell #1: Welcome to Hell
Hell #2: Hellish doctrines
Hell #3: The Immortality of the Soul (Part 1)
Hell #4: The Immortality of the Soul (Part 2)
Hell #5: Hell as Eternal Torment
Hell #6: Annihilation (Part 1)
Hell #7: Annihilation (Part 2)
Hell #8: Annihilation (Part 3)
Hell #9: Hell in the Teachings of Jesus (Part 1)
Hell #10: Hell in the Teachings of Jesus (Part 2)
Hell #11: Hell in the Teachings of Jesus (Part 3)
Hell #12: Hell in the Book of Revelation
Hell #13: Final Doom

1 Corinthians, 1 John, 1 Peter, Black Sabbath, Matthew, Romans, Satan Laughing Spreads His Wings

What does the Bible say about drug addiction?

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No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. (KJV)

“I have the right to do anything,” you say—but not everything is beneficial. “I have the right to do anything”—but I will not be mastered by anything. (NIV)

Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour: (KJV)

Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. (ESV)

amy-winehouse-antes-depois-fama-1-7955481

For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. (ESV)

So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.

So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. (ESV)

Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? (ESV)

Acts, ALCP, Genesis, Jihad on Drugs™, John, Matthew, Peter Dunne, Psychoactive Substances Act

What does the Bible say about drug dealing?

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a-bartender-is-just-a-pharmacist-with-a-limited-inventory

There’s nothing wrong with responsible drug dealing. It’s an honest trade.

Some of my best friends are drug dealers. 🙂

But what does the Bible say about drug dealing? I thought I’d briefly research the question … but I quickly realised that briefly researching what the Bible says about drug dealing is not a live option!

There’s a school of thought according to which the sins of the people of Sodom and Gomorrah, in penalty for which they and their cities were destroyed, included drug dealing and drug-fuelled debauchery. The same school of thought has it that the so-called sorcery that Paul the Apostle rails against several times in his Epistles is actually drug dealing. Supposedly, ‘sorcery’ is a mistranslation of the Greek word, pharmakeia. That makes sense, because it’s the same Greek word from which we get the English words pharmacy, pharmacist, pharmaceutical, pharmacopeia, etc. And, apparently, the Bible mentions two drug dealers by name. (They’re Simon and Elymas, mentioned in Acts 8 and Acts 13 respectively.)

I’m not going to get into this debate. (I found a lengthy discussion here for those interested.)

Anyway, there’s an alternative to the strictly scholarly approach to studying the Bible on any given issue, and that’s the prayerful approach. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to me about drug dealing!

This leapt off the page at me the first time I read it. (I’m baffled as to why I haven’t seen this particular verse mentioned in any of the discussion forums I briefly perused.)

Woe to the world because of the things that cause people to stumble! Such things must come, but woe to the person through whom they come! (NIV)

I think what Jesus is teaching here is actually something akin to our modern-day notion of host responsibility. (Notwithstanding that stunt he pulled at the Wedding at Cana.)

Sometimes drugs do cause people to stumble. (Alcohol, literally so.) They’re notorious for it. The plain fact of the matter is that some people can’t handle drugs, that’s why we have reality. And Jesus is here issuing a warning to drug dealers. Be very careful whom you deal drugs to. Best restrict your customer base to responsible adults, whom you trust not to get themselves—and, thereby, you—into trouble.

GH1qbf1

Why this post, at this time?

Because I’ve just downloaded a consultation document on the Psychoactive Substances Regulations and am about to fill a submission form (on behalf of the Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party) as should anyone who wants to have a say on the development of the Psychoactive Substances Regulations as prescribed by the Psychoactive Substances Act.

The Psychoactive Substances Regulatory Authority is seeking

input from interested parties into the development of regulations to support the Psychoactive Substances Act 2013 (the Act) which came into force on 18 July 2013.

The Psychoactive Substances Regulations will provide the operational detail on how the Act will work.

Once in force, regulations will end the interim provisions of the part of the Act to which they apply, bringing the full regime into effect. This paper consults on proposals for regulations relating to licensing, product approval processes, labelling and packaging details, place of sale and advertising, and fees and levies.

It’s an exercise in mitigating evil. Evil because regulations are actually prohibitive—if government defines the one way they will allow something they are really prohibiting all other ways.

The time is now to tell the government what the one way they will allow something should be.

Here are the leading questions to which Peter Dunne, the prohibitionist wolf in sheep’s clothing, is seeking answers.

  1. Is the list of proposed information requirements for licence applications comprehensive enough? If not, what else should be required, and why?
  2. Should retail licence applications be accompanied by evidence of compliance with a local approved products policy if one is in effect in the applicant’s area?
  3. Should retail licence applications be accompanied by evidence of compliance with a generic local approved products policy if no policy is in effect in the applicant’s area?
  4. Are the factors the Authority should take into account when determining whether a licence applicant is a fit and proper person or whether a body corporate is of good repute in section 16(2) enough? The section 16(2) factors are:
    • whether the applicant has been convicted of a relevant offence
    • whether there has been a serious or repeated failure by the applicant to comply with any requirement of the Act
    • whether there are other grounds for considering that the applicant is likely to fail to comply with any requirement of the Act
    • any other matter that the Authority considers relevant.

    If you think these factors are not enough, please give examples of additional factors the Authority should consider.

  5. Should the regulations require applicants to provide details of their involvement in other regulatory regimes, such as alcohol licensing processes?
  6. What records should the regulations require licence holders to keep?
  7. How long should licence holders be required to keep records for?
  8. Do you think there are factors or issues that the Authority should consider when setting discretionary conditions? If so, please provide details.
  9. Should the regulations prescribe other matters the Authority must take into account when deciding on an application? If yes, what should these matters be?
  10. Do you agree a product approval application should include information on proposed manufacturing methods and how they will comply with the Psychoactive Substances Code of Manufacturing Practice?
  11. Do you think any further particulars, information, documents or other material should be prescribed in the regulations? If yes, what should these be?
  12. Do you agree with the proposal that the regulations require applications to contain information and data on the toxicity, pharmacology and related clinical effects of the psychoactive substance they are seeking approval for?
  13. Do you agree with the proposal that the regulations require product approval applications to contain information and data on:
    • the psychoactive potential and related behavioural effects of the substance
    • the addictive potential
    • the proposed directions for use
    • previous use, including use in clinical trials and in the wider population?
  14. Are the proposed requirements and restrictions on labelling sufficient? If not, please make specific suggestions for further requirements and restrictions.
  15. Are the proposed requirements relating to health warnings sufficient? If not, please make specific suggestions for further requirements (for example, advice on what to do in the case of an overdose).
  16. Are the proposed packaging requirements and restrictions sufficient? If not, please make specific suggestions for further requirements.
  17. Do you agree with the proposal to restrict a packet to one dose? Please give reasons for your answer.
  18. Do you agree with the proposal that a dose, in whatever form the product takes, is split wherever possible?
  19. Do you think there should be restrictions on the form products can take? If so, what forms do you think should and shouldn’t be allowed?
  20. Do you think there should be restrictions or requirements on the storage of psychoactive substances? If so, what should the restrictions or requirements be?
  21. Do you think restrictions or requirements should be set for the storage of approved products? If so, what should they be?
  22. Do you think restrictions or requirements should be set regarding the display of approved products? If so, what should they be?
  23. Do you think restrictions or requirements should be set regarding the disposal of approved products? If so, what should they be?
  24. Do you think there should be signage requirements in the regulations? If so, please give specific suggestions.
  25. Do you think the regulations should specify further places where approved products may not be sold? If so, please provide specific suggestions.
  26. Do you think the regulations should prescribe restrictions or requirements for advertisements of approved products? If so, please provide specific suggestions.
  27. Do you think the regulations should prescribe restrictions or requirements on internet sales of approved products? If so, please provide specific suggestions.
  28. Do you think the regulations should prescribe restrictions or requirements on the advertising of approved products? If so, please provide specific suggestions.
  29. Do you agree with the proposed fees for the different licences? If not, please provide specific suggestions.
  30. Do you support a fixed fee or an hourly charge for processing applications for product approvals?
  31. Should fees be set for other specific functions? If yes, please state what they should be set for.
  32. Do you agree with the proposed list of items and process for setting levies? If not, please provide specific suggestions.
  33. What have you been being smoking?

Submitters should be aware that the Psychoactive Substances Regulations adopted under the PSA will apply to cannabis if cannabis is removed from the schedules to the Misuse of Drugs Act 1975.

Removing cannabis from the MODA is the most probable path to legalising cannabis at this juncture. (But hell of a messy. The PSA approves products, not substances and certainly not plants. It would have to be rewritten to accommodate cannabis.)

All other drugs not classified as either foods or medicines would also be subject to these regulations if the MODA is simply repealed. (Why the hell not? It’s well past time that the maximum penalty for committing a consenting act between adults—which is what drug dealing is—was downgraded from life imprisonment to something a little less draconian.)

Addiction, Deuteronomy, Exodus, Free will, Good, Hedonism, Intellectual Property, Jesus FTW!, Liberate your Mind!, Love, Matthew, Metaphysics, Philippians, Pink Floyd, Psychology, Self-ownership, Self-sacrifice, Shrinkage

More nous, less nows

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procrastinationdemotivator

A friend gave me this excellent DEMOTIVATOR® from Despair.com several Christmases ago. And, recently, I finally got a round tuit. I put the damn thing up on the wall of my home office!

The poster represents an ever timely life lesson.

Perhaps life’s greatest lesson is that life itself is a lesson. That was my ex-wife’s sort of New Age spiritual viewpoint, in a nutshell, anyway. She had a firm intuition that we are each thrown into this mortal sphere of existence for a reason or reasons—to learn our spiritual life lesson(s). Of course, being a committed atheist and moral nihilist at the time, I mocked the idea. It’s only now, a repentant worldview and a decade of divorce later, that I’m wondering if she was right, after all. (And kicking myself for not asking the obvious question at the time. If life is a lesson, who sets the curriculum?)

Or, perhaps, life’s a Stanley Milgram experiment.

A test of your Moral character and conviction.
The decisions you make throughout your life are all being observed and recorded.
One day you will be asked to give account.

God as teacher and/or God as experimenter? I don’t think that Tim’s suggesting that life on Earth is, quite literally, an experiment. So I will! (A misbegotten experiment, perhaps? No, I’ll leave it to a detractor to suggest that. Also, I’ll leave it to the apologists for God’s supposed omniscience to explain this.)

How did you do? If life’s a classroom and every day’s a school day, did you study hard? Or did you just fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way? If life’s a Stanley Milgram experiment, did you go with the Word or go with the crowd?

One day you will be asked to give account. If life’s a lab running a Stanley Milgram experiment, you will be judged on how you used your God-given faculty of free will. Did you make the right decisions, and evince moral character and conviction? (The decisions you make throughout your life are all being observed and recorded.) Whereas, if life’s a classroom, you will be judged on how you used your God-given learning ability. Were you a willing, conscientious, hard-working student of life? Did you learn and practise the right things? (Everything you learn and practise goes down on your academic record.)

Classroom or lab? Are we God’s students, or are we his experimental test subjects? I suggest that life’s more lesson than lab, for the simple reason that we do not have a faculty of so-called free will, God-given or otherwise. The concept itself is a nonsense. What we do have is the God-given ability to learn and to change our behaviour. We also have the curriculum and the learning objectives. You’ll find it all in the prescribed text.

(Is Christianity complicated? Please don’t protest that God didn’t make it clear what are the right things to learn and practise. He did. The Bible contains massive redundancy. You know, like how the Ten Commandments are repeated in Deuteronomy, just in case you missed them in Exodus.)

Now, back to the DEMOTIVATOR® at the top.

(Did you see what Despair.com did there with the wee ®? They threatened to send their statist cronies around to your place to sort you out good and hard should you ever decide to go into business selling your own DEMOTIVATOR posters!)

The poster represents an ever timely life lesson. And the life lesson is, learn the power of delaying gratification. Rejoice and be glad!

the children who were best able to delay gratification subsequently did better in school and had fewer behavioral problems than the children who could only resist eating the cookie for a few minutes—and, further, ended up on average with SAT scores that were 210 points higher. As adults, the high-delay children completed college at higher rates than the other children and then went on to earn higher incomes. In contrast, the children who had the most trouble delaying gratification had higher rates of incarceration as adults and were more likely to struggle with drug and alcohol addiction.

How to learn delayed gratification?

Rather than resist the urge to eat the cookie, these children distracted themselves from the urge itself. They played with toys in the room, sang songs to themselves, and looked everywhere but at the cookie. In short, they did everything they could to put the cookie out of their minds.

So, learning to delay gratification is not at all the same thing as learning to resist temptation. The results even suggest that any direct attempt to resist the urge to eat the cookie is worse than futile, it’s counter-productive. And, note, we’re talking about a non-starving child and a cookie. We’re not talking about a methamphetamine addict and a bag of P. And we’re certainly not talking about being offered all that you could ever want in the whole world and having it right now.

Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.”

Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’” (NIV)

Nope. Staring down temptation and simply commanding it to go away is way too hardcore for mere images of God! We can but pray, “Lead us not into temptation” in the first place. Give us this day our daily distraction!

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. (NIV)

The poster represents an ever timely life lesson. Delay gratification, do some work, and get your shit sorted. (Thanks for the round tuit.)

Beer, Matthew, Polar Bears

Cold beer anyone?

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Remember when the Roman Catholic church split in half in the 15th century AD. It was over the sale of indulgences, which were bought to minimise the extent of purgatory one would have to suffer. Interesting how history repeats itself. If you own machinery or livestock you could be imposed with a carbon tax. How does Carbon tax work? much like indulgences. If you don’t pay your carbon tax, you will anger the weather Gods and as a consequence you will be inflicted with typhoons, droughts, tsunamis and God knows what else.

Are you afraid global warming will destroy the earth?

“No one knows the day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, not the Son, but only the Father” Matt 24:36

Those on the left who think CO2 emissions are to blame for disasters, are much like those on the right who blame homosexuals and fornicators. Truth is Jesus return will cause the world to end, so be watchful!

At the end of the week, sit back, chill, and grab a cold one.

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Genesis, John, Matthew, Psalms

Let there be light

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Notice how God said “let there be light”, he didn’t say “let there be electromagnetic radiation.”

In science light is electromagnetic radiation, but what does the bible say about light?

Perhaps light(s) represents daytime, brightness, illumination, and exposure to truth.

And God said “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw the light was good and separated the light from darkness. Gen 1:3-4

You, O LORD, keep my lamp burning, my God turns my darkness into light. Psalm 18:28

“You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.” Matt 5:14-16

In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it. John 1:4-5