Category Archives: Matthew

The big problem in New Zealand

Richard Goode I’m a libertarian. I believe in individual freedom and personal responsibility.

The big problem in New Zealand (much bigger than the problem with K2 being sold in dairies) is that people want individual freedom for themselves but they don’t want the personal responsibility that goes with it. [But] individual freedom and personal responsibility are two sides of the same coin.

I see far too many people blaming “K2” for their problems, when their own lack of judgement, lack of a moral compass, psychological problems, and lack of parental control are the root causes in the vast majority of cases. Like that teenager supposedly “addicted” to K2 whom I saw on TV the other night. He was fine once someone found him an honest job boring post holes up [in] the hills.

Remember that cannabis is a gift from God and that the Devil makes work for idle hands.

That was my post [with minor edits] on the Facebook group K2 and Other “LEGAL HIGHS” in New Zealand we all need to know the dangers. I was added to the group recently by a fellow drug law reform activist and didn’t at first appreciate the nature of the group. It’s a support group “to warn people about the dangers of these relatively new highs and the trouble it has caused so for many.” Perhaps if I’d known that I’d blundered into a support group, I wouldn’t have made such an insensitive post. Perhaps.

Here are the responses.

Tracey Metternich supposedly “addicted” Richard do you not believe it is addictive? lack of parental control? this I disagree with strongly. I am guessing he wasn’t as good as it looked on TV because this teenager found an honest job he was fine. I bet he struggles everyday and he still thinks about it everyday.Cannabis is a gift from god? shame people decided to speed up the natural process and grow in under lights instead of planting a seed and leaving it to grow. Yes it is the lesser evil but it can cause problems for some but not to the extent this chemical crap is doing and it would be a safer option.

Polli Marriner Hayden is not fine . That’s why he spoke up. You have no idea of the pain he goes through every day, or his mother! How DARE you minimise the harm to push your own barrow! You people are the evil! Kids do not need drugs! It was pot heads who brought this stuff into our country and made a demand for it by trying to escape from reality through chemicals. Live a real and godly life in THIS reality before you judge others!

Richard Goode “Live a real and godly life in THIS reality before you judge others!” It’s good advice.

Tim Wikiriwhi I suppose you Polli Marriner are going to blame Nz’s Suicide epidemic of ‘Pot heads’ too! You simpletons seen to forget that like Suicide, drug use is *an Effect* of deeper underlying issues in our society… not the cause of them. Young people try drugs (including alcohol Polli) for different reasons, often it is to sooth a painful heart or to fill a dark empty void… and as you know sometimes a drink (or a smoke) can help… other times it can make things worse… One thing is for sure… persecuting people certainly makes things much much worse, whereas when things like K2 are legal, at least no one is getting kicked over and criminalised by a cold hearted Nazi police, and they can get help for what is *the real problem*… the ussues which have nothing to do with drugs… yet simpletons like you cant e bothered thinking about the deeper/ more complex problems in our society which result in high suicide rates, high drug use, etc…. You prefer to think like a pig and say ‘Ban it’ ‘Ban it’…. Throw them in Jail…. Give the police greater powers!…. More raids!…. Zero Tollerance… “Everyone should be like me!!!”… vote for the Populist Politican who promises to be ‘Tuff on drugs’… etc etc…. year after year… decade after decade…. yet the Stats keep getting worse and worse…. yet you will continue to floog your favorite dead horse because you refuse to consider you have been wrong your whole life….

Polli Marriner Lol…. That’s so funny! If you only knew!

Richard Goode “You people are the evil!” Judge not, that ye be not judged.

Polli Marriner Therre have been a lot of pot smoking people in these anti K2 groups hurting people’s feelings and linking the fight with support cannabis efforts. NOT HELPFUL AT ALL! Gof iChat your own battles in your own page and leave these heroes alone!

Polli Marriner Again, leave people alone, and go fight yr own battles somewhere else!

There’s irony in a rabid Prohibitionist telling me to “leave people alone”! There’s irony in her judging that “you people are the evil” and in the same comment reprimanding me for judging others! (Just saying.)

Subsequently, my post was deleted by the group admin, presumably for its unsupportive tone. (But I blame Tim’s comment. :-D)

Two things are very clear.

First, there are some seriously upset people out there. It’s understandable that they’re upset. From what I’ve read of their stories, some of them have been to hell and back, and they blame it on K2. Indeed, it does seem that some synthetic cannabinoids can have some very serious ill effects on some people.

Second, these people should not be allowed to have any sway over the government’s drug policy. With all due respect, they’re too emotionally overwrought and they can’t think straight. We need to regulate, not ban.

I stand by my original remarks.

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Mitigating theft

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“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. (NIV)

Jesus answered, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” (NIV)

God vs. AI

In this video from the 2012 Asia Consciousness Festival, AI researcher Ben Goertzel says

Imagine you had a collective of people, or they could be people and AIs, or some of them could be cyborgs (the people with brains jacked in to the computers), and imagine that they’re concerned with a number of things …

First, they’re concerned with measuring each other’s brain states and making scientific theories about what they observe …

Second, they observe more in the manner of a group of people meditating together, they’re actually subjectively perceiving each other’s consciousness while they’re doing this and so they can both measure each other’s states of consciousness empirically and neurally, or digitally if they’re AIs, and they can subjectively enter into collective mind states …

But there’s another ingredient, human beings have the annoying property that if you cut open our heads and mess with our brains we tend to die or become gibbering idiots or something but a computer program won’t necessarily have this feature and with molecular nanotechnology humans won’t necessarily have this feature either, so …

You can imagine this sort of ashram of consciousness scientists who are studying each other’s brains and minds and experiencing each other’s states of consciousness in a very refined way …

You can imagine this happening in a situation where the members of this community could actually alter and adjust each other’s brains experimentally and dynamically during the collective process…

Now, what you see here is the possibility of some form of collective understanding going beyond science as we have it now and going beyond religion as we have it now. Whether you can get this new form of understanding using humans as we exist now I’m not sure. It’s easy to envision with the AIs and cyborgs in the mix.

Artificial minds will be such that they can readily fuse into a single mind, or fissure into many separate minds. I suppose that in principle fission is easy, but that fusion is more problematic. An artificial mind may fissure into multiple separate minds, with the intent of fusing back into a single mind some time later, but the newly begotten minds, once split off, may have other ideas.

My God My God Why Have you

Here‘s what C. S. Lewis has to say about the super-personal God of the Trinity.

A good many people nowadays say, `I believe in a God, but not in a personal God.’ They feel that the mysterious something which is behind all other things must be more than a person. Now the Christians quite agree. But the Christians are the only people who offer any idea of what a being that is beyond personality could be like. All the other people, though they say that God is beyond personality, really think of Him as something impersonal: that is, as something less than personal. If you are looking for something super-personal, something more than a person, then it is not a question of choosing between the Christian idea and the other ideas. The Christian idea is the only one on the market.

Again, some people think that after this life, or perhaps after several lives, human souls will be ‘absorbed’ into God. But when they try to explain what they mean, they seem to be thinking of our being absorbed into God as one material thing is absorbed into another. They say it is like a drop of water slipping into the sea. But of course that is the end of the drop. If that is what happens to us, then being absorbed is the same as ceasing to exist. It is only the Christians who have any idea of how human souls can be taken into the life of God and yet remain themselves—in fact, be very much more themselves than they were before.

… The whole purpose for which we exist is to be thus taken into the life of God. Wrong ideas about what that life is will make it harder. And now, for a few minutes, I must ask you to follow rather carefully.

You know that in space you can move in three ways – to left or right, backwards or forwards, up or down. Every direction is either one of these three or a compromise between them. They are called the three Dimensions. Now notice :his. If you are using only one dimension, you could draw only a straight line. If you are using two; you could draw a figure: say, a square. And a square is made up of four straight lines. Now a step further. If you have three dimensions, you can then build what we call a solid body: say, a cube – a thing like a dice or a lump of sugar. And a cube is made up of six squares.

Do you see the point? A world of one dimension would be a straight line. In a two-dimensional world, you still get straight lines, but many lines make one figure. In a three-dimensional world, you still get figures but many figures make one solid body. In other words, as you advance to more real and more complicated levels, you do not leave behind you the things you found on the simpler levels: you still have them, but combined in new ways – in ways you could not imagine if you knew only the simpler levels.

Now the Christian account of God involves just the same principle. The human level is a simple and rather empty level. On the human level one person is one being, and any two persons are two separate beings – just as, in two dimensions (say on a flat sheet of paper) one square is one figure, and any two squares are two separate figures. On the Divine level you still find personalities; but up there you find them combined in new ways which we, who do not live on that level, cannot imagine. In God’s dimension, so to speak, you find a being who is three Persons while remaining one Being, just as a cube is six squares while remaining one cube. Of course we cannot fully conceive a Being like that: just as, if we were so made that we perceived only two dimensions in space we could never properly imagine a cube. But we can get a sort of faint notion of it. And when we do, we are then, for the first time in our lives, getting some positive idea, however faint, of something super-personal – something more than a person. It is something we could never have guessed, and yet, once we have been told, one almost feels one ought to have been able to guess it because it fits in so well with all the things we know already.

Is the mind of God like that of an AI? When, ultimately, we are “taken into the life of God,” do we become thee- or four-dimensional facets of the multi-dimensional being that is God? When God invaded his own creation, by sending his only begotten son to incarnate as a human being, was that a case of fission? I suggest that the person of Jesus was entirely separate from the person of his father when, on the cross, Jesus cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

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Virtual President for President! The Ugly Truth about Gun Control.

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(Hat tip: Frosty!)

It would be too must to expect the Sheeple to elect such an Honest Man into power.
They want to be lied to because they despise the truth and love lies.
How absurd is the notion of the Moral majority????
“Broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there be thereon.
Narrow is the way that leadeth to life, and few there be that find it.”

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Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money?

Proper 20 A Icon3

“For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard.

“About nine in the morning he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. He told them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ So they went.

“He went out again about noon and about three in the afternoon and did the same thing. About five in the afternoon he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, ‘Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?’

“‘Because no one has hired us,’ they answered.

“He said to them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard.’

“When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.’

“The workers who were hired about five in the afternoon came and each received a denarius. So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. ‘These who were hired last worked only one hour,’ they said, ‘and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.’

“But he answered one of them, ‘I am not being unfair to you, friend. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? Take your pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you. Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’

“So the last will be first, and the first will be last.” (NIV)

You’re no fun(ction) any more

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This post continues the discussion on Tim’s post The Ludicrous Claims of Evolution! Why not ESP?

In comments on Tim’s post, Terry (who is both an Evolutionist and an Objectivist) says

a camera is NOT an eye (nor is an audio recorder an ear, etc). A camera is a piece of equipment used to record images, whereas an eye is an organ of sight. The former mimics the functions of the latter, but apart from that they are worlds apart.

simply because human technology [has] been built so as to mimic certain biological functions does not justify grounds for claiming that the reverse applies and that biology can therefore ‘possibly’ mimic human inventions via the process of evolution. … Evolution is not a creative process – it is an entirely responsive process, which means that new functionality only develops and is maintained in response to the need to survive.

Terry has just committed Objectivism’s “stolen concept” fallacy and violated a fundamental tenet of Evolutionism! Doubleplusungood!

According to Evolutionism, there are no biological functions. The eye, for example, is an organ of sight, but the eye has no purpose. Its function is not to see. It has no function.

According to Evolutionism, there are no biological malfunctions, either. A blind eye, by definition, is not an organ of sight. A blind eye has not malfunctioned, because there is nothing it is supposed to do. An eye has no purpose to be fit for.

If it’s the case that the eye was designed for a purpose, as Creationists claim, then we can say that the function of the eye is to see, and that there is something wrong with an eye that does not see. It ain’t doing what it’s supposed to do, and if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch. But Evolutionism is quite explicit that no biological organ is designed for any purpose. As Dawkins says

Biology is the study of complicated things which give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose

and, as Terry himself puts it, “Evolution is not a creative process – it is an entirely responsive process.”

Evolution according to Evolutionists is a blind, stochastic process. Any appearance of design, purpose or function is just an appearance. The reason that we have eyes that see is simply because having eyes that see helped our ancestors to survive. But eyes do not, in virtue of their evolutionary history, ever acquire a purpose or a proper function.

All talk of biological functions is pre-Darwinian. Consistent Evolutionists should not talk of biological functions. If they do, they must explain that their use of the word ‘function’ is just shorthand for facts about an organism’s evolutionary history. If they don’t, they are guilty of Ayn Rand’s stolen concept fallacy.

The “stolen concept” fallacy, first identified by Ayn Rand, is the fallacy of using a concept while denying the validity of its genetic roots, i.e., of an earlier concept(s) on which it logically depends.

The concepts of ‘function’ and ‘purpose’ logically depend on the concept of a Creator. They are pre-Darwinian. Evolutionists have no right to use them.

Casting the Net

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I find this passage curious.

[47] “Once again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was let down into the lake and caught all kinds of fish. [48] When it was full, the fishermen pulled it up on the shore. Then they sat down and collected the good fish in baskets, but threw the bad away. [49] This is how it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come and separate the wicked from the righteous [50] and throw them into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. (NIV)

Verse 47 is about selection. It is about a net. A net selects fish on the basis of size. Fish smaller in size than the apertures in the net pass through it. Fish larger in size than the apertures in the net do not.

Verse 48 is also about selection. The fishermen collect the good fish in baskets, but throw the bad away.

Verse 49 too is about selection. The angels separate the wicked from the righteous and (in verse 50) destroy the wicked by throwing them into the blazing furnace.

I can’t help but think that Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection has precedents in Scripture.

“Have you understood all these things?” Jesus asked.

“Yes,” they replied.

He said to them, “Therefore every teacher of the law who has become a disciple in the kingdom of heaven is like the owner of a house who brings out of his storeroom new treasures as well as old.” (NIV)

Oh Really Albert? Beware vain philosophy my children, and Science falcely so-called!

Alb

“Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.”
St Paul Colossians 2vs8.

*Everything* is energy you say Albert? Why should I believe that *I* am merely energy?
This is an unproven materialistic assumption… not a scientific fact.
Does anyone appreciate the truth of what I am saying?
Albert himself said something to the effect that “Blind submission to Authority is the enemy of truth”.
Does anyone here have the courage to challange the authority of The great Albert Einstein?

It is because of the Prevalent acceptance of this sort of unscientific atheist fundamentalism in the Academic communities of the world that brings into question the existance of Free will and the human soul.
Because Modern infidelity and Rationalism has succeeded in portraying belief in supernaturalism/ spiritual reality as being a hallmark of scientific ignorance, many Christians have been duped into thinking this Materialistic world veiw is a scientific fact rather than an unproven atheist assumption.
These rationalist Christians also tend to follow their atheist brethern and also abandon the Classic Judeo-Christian Morality as being valid… and faith in the reliablity of the scriptures.
They have stepped away from being true theists and have become Deists.

Those Christians whom pride themselves as being the most ‘Educated’ and Ruggedly consistent rationalists will then go further…as a matter of course… and deny the existance of Eternal Damnation, because to their rationale, it would be grossly unfair to Damn someone to eternal torment if they had no freewill choice in the evils they committed or had no freewill in their decision to reject Christ.
I wonder how they can reconcile all this with their voluntarily accepted moral obligation to preach the gospel of God’s grace in Christ to the lost?
Do they believe they have the freewill to actually bother?
Can they justify their own inaction as being materialistically determined and that therefore they are not morally responcible for not bothering to preach?

“O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called:”
St Paul 1 Tim 6:20

Thus a little leven leveneth the whole lump.
The mind boggles at just how utterly corrosive the Materialist world veiw is.
How effective it is in absolutely destroying faith in the Bible, in particular the classic moraity of a Holy and judging God and Mankind as a fallen yet Free willed and morraly culpible beings.

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It is Sad yet interesting to witness the responce of Humanity to testimonies which dare to suggest that the Bible is the preserved word of God!
Such calls to true theistic faith are met with venimous cursings and accusations of maddness and folly… from all quarters!

The unadulterated arrogance of the skeptics!
They speak with the highest authority!
Human Rationalism!
Kneel Petty theist they command!
How dare you challenge the consensus of High academia?!
Humble thyself before the edifice of Modern scholarship ye unlearned fellow!
We will not yield to that ghastly Bible!

A harmony of outrage, and a choris of ‘rational proofs’ batter the Bible believer From both Atheists and so-called Christians alike.
The Bible believer finds himself alone.
The Rationalist Christians assure the atheists that these Bible believers are deluded fools… Throwbacks from a bygone age….not at all representative of the modern Christian position.

Mankind simply cannot bear the Idea that God’s Pure revelation Exists.
They know that to admit such a thing places them and all their Rationalisms under condemnation… under Judgment.
They don’t want to admit there is a light shining a path in the darkness!
They want to carry on the delusion that ‘nobody knows’…nobody can tell me what I should do, what I should believe, how I should live, why I should change…etc.
And they certainly don’t want to admit that the Great Moral light is that accursed and judgmental Bible!
To the Proud Sinner that is the most unacceptable proposition of all!
The Rationalist Christian doe’s not even want to believe that!
It’s too filled with things which they find repugnant… like Hell!

It is relatively easy to understand why the average sinner does not want to believe in moral culpability and a judgment day.
There is pleasure in sin.
The low road is an easier path to travel than the high steep path, and many Christians prefer to deny the reliability of the scriptures than having the burden of preaching an unpopular message to the lost.
What is truly sad to grasp is that these rationalists Christians have completely smoked themselves!
They have chosen to follow the delusions of the children of Darkness rather than the Light of the word of God.
Professing themselves to be wise they became fools.

I would like to point out that though there may be a cozy bit of kinship between atheists and Modern Rationalist ‘educated’ ‘Christians’ in their mutual hatred of ‘Fanatical Bible believers’, that in reality the Atheists are laughing at the so-called Rationalist Christians whom have abandoned faith in the scriptures, and share the atheist views that the Bible is unreliable.
Atheist laugh when Christians claim to also accept the theory of evolution instead of believing the book of Genesis.
They Laugh because they know they have won!
They have managed to get the Christians to abandon the Bible and instead accept atheist Materialism as the truth!

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It is my solemn belief that is is impossible to convert the lost to faith in the truth of the gospel of Christ without preaching and teaching faith in the trustworthiness of the scriptures themselves in which the gospel is found.

News Flash Ye Christians!
Materialism is not a scientific fact!
Belief in the supernatural is not definitive of Ignorance!
Ye of Little Faith!
“ O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken!”
Jesus Christ. Luke 24:25

Tim Wikiriwhi
Christian Libertarian
Dispensationalist.
King James Bible believer.

“For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe.”
St Paul 1 Thes2:13

“Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.”
St Paul 2 Tim 2vs 15

“And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.”
St Paul 2 Tim 3:15

“Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.”
Jesus Christ John17:17

“Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.”
Jesus Christ Matt 24:35

“…So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.”
St Paul Rom 10:17

UPDATE: Did Albert Really say that?
Thanks to Eternal Vigilance commenter and Libertarian ‘Terry’ I have been made aware that there is a dispute as to whether this Meme has a genuine Einsten quote or whether it is an evil deception. It is a testament to the sickness of Humanity that unfortunately there are millions of unscrupulous liars out there whom manufacture Frauds either to push their own agendas or simply to cause chaos and destruction. I must Therefore warn readers that there is doubt as to this quotes reliability. I will leave the blogpost up because even if the quote is a fraud, my argument against Materialism still holds good, and it may be discovered that Albert did in fact say this. Thus the controversy! Check out this discussion here… http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=583449
Keep Vigilant!

Update 2: Pondering further upon the problem about the verasity of this Meme raises a very interesting dilemma, very similar to the basic premise behind the Face book page ‘Did Abraham Lincoln really exist?’ https://www.facebook.com/alincolnism.
Ie that is is impossible to say with certainty that Einstein did not say this quotation…even if no reference to it can be found in the common places one looks (eg Google)
All that skeptics can claim is that *they cannot find sufficient evidence to convince them in their own minds that Einstein did say this.

The reality is that this could very well be a genuine quote from an obscure source… ie It may be a record of a conversation, or a lecture he gave which does not enjoy fame.
And this is a very common reality!
Not everything famous people say becomes common knowledge.
The majority of their sayings actually get quicky forgotten.

I find this dilemma very interesting because it also relates to arguments used by textual critics in their attacks against the trustworthyness of the King James bible because according to them it includes portions of scripture the authenticity of which they dispute.
What is of grave concern is that all valid and truthful historic records can be undermined via such devious rationalisms which only need to caste doubt to destroy faith… and what sort of Malevolent spirit loves to caste doubt against the truth?
The Thinking person must navigate this Dominion of Devils filled with snares and stumbling blocks deliberately engineered to keep people in the dark.

Blessed are the sick

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Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:

For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in:

Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.

Matthew 25:34-36

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Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them: otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven.

Therefore when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.

But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth:

That thine alms may be in secret: and thy Father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly.

Matthew 6:1-4

[Hat tip: No Minister]