Category Archives: Old Testament

Land of the free

A yellow and black "Private Property Keep Out" sign attached to a barbed wire gate stretched across a dirt road.

Property rights are restrictions on freedom.

If you don’t agree that property rights are restrictions on freedom—if you think instead, for example, that property rights are a prerequisite of freedom—then either you haven’t been paying attention, or you’ve been reading too much Rand, or, at any rate, you’re using the word ‘freedom’ in a particular sense of the word that’s packed with presuppositions—and freedom might as well be just another word for nothing left to lose because with our differing conceptions of freedom now in play we’re all ready, set, go to miscommunicate spectacularly.

Other people’s property rights are restrictions on your freedom, and your property rights are restrictions on other people’s freedom. Is this not obvious from the textbook definition of property?

Property. That which is peculiar or proper to any person; that which belongs exclusively to one. In the strict legal sense, an aggregate of rights which are guaranteed and protected by the government. … The term is said to extend to every species of valuable right and interest. More specifically, ownership; the unrestricted and exclusive right to a thing; the right to dispose of a thing in every legal way, to possess it, to use it, and to exclude every one else from interfering with it. That dominion or indefinite right of use or disposition which one may lawfully exercise over particular things or subjects. The exclusive right of possessing, enjoying, and disposing of a thing. The highest right a man can have to anything; being used to refer to that right which one has to lands or tenements, goods or chattels, which no way depends on another man’s courtesy.

As wrong as it sounds on the face of it, libertarians are actually all in favour of giving up a little freedom in order to gain … what? Property rights, that’s what. Your freedom ends (where my property rights begin). Property rights are restrictions on freedom.

Ownership is the central concept in political philosophy. Every political ism (capitalism, socialism, communism, etc.) is defined by its theory of property rights. Every political ism says what belongs to whom, and who belongs to what. So it’s important to think about this topic until you actually get it.

Thomas Hobbes is the founding father of modern political philosophy. In a Hobbesian state of nature, everyone is perfectly free. And life is total shit. Why? Because

In such condition there is no place for industry, because the fruit thereof is uncertain, and consequently, not culture of the earth, no navigation, nor the use of commodities that may be imported by sea, no commodious building, no instruments of moving and removing such things as require much force, no knowledge of the face of the earth, no account of time, no arts, no letters, no society, and which is worst of all, continual fear and danger of violent death, and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.

To extricate ourselves from such a dire circumstance as perfect freedom, we need to (hopefully) agree on a few rules (and abide by them and enforce them). The first and most obvious one (subject to caveats later, but we’ll get to that) is the non-initiation of (physical) force. The NIOF principle. My freedom ends where your nose begins. And vice versa.

Voila! with this one simple rule, we have property rights, in the form of self-ownership. Your ownership of your body, your property rights in your body, are restrictions on other people’s freedom to do what they please with your body. With this one simple rule, the NIOF priniple, in place, you now own your body because you remain free to do as you like with your body, but no one else is now free to do as they like with your body.

The general point here is that all property rights correspond to a set of restrictions on the freedoms of non-owners. Property rights in tangible goods mean that owners of said goods are free to determine the use of such goods, and no one else is. Get your hands off my stuff! Intellectual property rights mean that owners of ideas can copy them, but no one else can. You wouldn’t download a bear!

Thus the central question of political philosophy is, what property rights should people have? Or, what restrictions on people’s freedoms should there be? And these amount to exactly the same question.

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Still awake?

This post is the first in a new series about property rights. And in it I want to take a look at the issue of land ownership. This is topical because the issue of land ownership is closely tied to the issue of national borders. Should we allow unrestricted “open borders” or should we control border traffic to a greater or lesser extent?

To the greatest extent, says Lew Rockwell in his article Open Borders Are an Assault on Private Property. I beg to differ, emphatically. So does Kevin Carson of the Centre for a Stateless Society, in no uncertain terms. How Low Can Lew Rockwell Go?

Wide awake?

Did you notice my equivocation on the central question of political philosophy? I said above that

Every political ism (capitalism, socialism, communism, etc.) is defined by its theory of property rights. It says what belongs to whom, and who belongs to what.

but I also said above that

the central question of political philosophy is, what property rights should people have?

What property rights do people have? Is one question. What property rights should people have? Is another question. And why should people have those particular property rights and not others is another question altogether. It is mandatory pedantry to point out that these are three separate questions. If we confound these three distinctly different questions then we’re all ready, set, go to miscommunicate spectacularly.

Notice how loose-talking Lew mixes it up.

In order to … reach the appropriate libertarian conclusion, we have to look more closely at what public property really is and who, if anyone, can be said to be its true owner. … Certainly we cannot say public property is owned by the government, since government may not legitimately own anything.

Rockwell is quite wrong in what he actually says. Certainly we can say that public property is owned by the government. Firstly, does government have property rights in government-owned land? Yes, government-owned land is owned by the government! But, secondly, should government have property rights in what is currently government-owned land? Rockwell says no, government may not legitimately own anything. I won’t argue with that. Thirdly, why may government not legitimately own anything?

To be clear, the central question of political philosophy as such is the second of these questions. What property rights should people have? Or, what restrictions on people’s freedoms should there be? As noted already, these amount to exactly the same question. But I think it’s more instructive to focus on the question’s second formulation. So now let’s get down to business and ask it with respect to land ownership.

Comatose yet?

With respect to land use, what restrictions on people’s freedoms should there be? Exactly what forms of land ownership are available in the fabled land of Anarcho-Libertopia? And what is their justification?

I’m only going to point in the general direction of beginning to answer these questions. Suffice it to say, I have a nuanced view. The idea that there should be restrictions on land ownership, or even that people shouldn’t be allowed to own land at all, isn’t new. For example, geolibertarianism is a Georgist school of thought within libertarianism. The New Mutualists are their anarchist counterparts. So I’m in very good company.

So now let’s look at what Lew Rockwell says to discredit himself. How low does he go?

Now if all the parcels of land in the whole world were privately owned, the solution to the so-called immigration problem would be evident. In fact, it might be more accurate to say that there would be no immigration problem in the first place. Everyone moving somewhere new would have to have the consent of the owner of that place.

When the state and its so-called public property enter the picture, though, things become murky, and it takes extra effort to uncover the proper libertarian position.

What we believe in are private property rights. No one has “freedom of speech” on my property, since I set the rules, and in the last resort I can expel someone. He can say whatever he likes on his own property, and on the property of anyone who cares to listen to him, but not on mine.

The same principle holds for freedom of movement. Libertarians do not believe in any such principle in the abstract. … I cannot simply go wherever I like.

Rockwell totally plumbs it.

He gets it totally wrong. True libertarians absolutely do believe in freedom of movement as an abstract principle. We’re freedom-fighters and we believe in freedom! Derp.

Land ownership is a restriction on people’s freedom of movement. Any such restrictions on people simply going wherever they like must be justified.

The problem with unrestricted land ownership is that by buying up all the land surrounding someone’s else’s slice of heaven you can effectively lay seige to that person, cut off their vital supply lines, and kill them. Only a moral monster would give the green light to, let alone actively encourage and enforce, a system that allowed such perverse and depraved outcomes. Sadly, we in the West (that is to say, our governments) have shown ourselves to be exactly this depraved, by turning away refugees at our national borders, condemning them to take their chances back in their homelands from which they were already fleeing for their lives and the lives of their children.

Photo by Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images

From here, observes Carson from his vantage point on the moral high ground

Rockwell continues to elaborate on an argument whose basic assumptions are — I say without equivocation — mind-numbingly stupid.

As both Franz Oppenheimer and Albert Jay Nock argued, the land of the entire world will never be universally privately appropriated by legitimate means. The only way in which every single parcel of land can come under private ownership is through what Oppenheimer called “political appropriation” and Nock called “law-made property.” And it’s no coincidence, as both of them argued, that universal appropriation of the land is a prerequisite for economic exploitation. Only when people are cut off from the possibility of homesteading and subsisting on previously vacant land, and employers are thereby protected against competition from the possibility of self-employment, is it possible to force people to accept employment on whatever disadvantageous terms the property owners see fit to offer.

That says something right there about the kind of people whose wet dream is an entire world without an unowned place to stand on, without some property owner’s permission.

Today the Rothbard-Hoppe-Rockwell kind of people that Carson rightly vilifies for their despotism in the guise of libertarian purity call themselves ancaps. And they’re fair game. You can read the rest of Carson’s demolition of Rockwell’s “wretched turd of an article” here.

So what forms of land ownership (restrictions on other people’s movements) should we allow?

In the first chapter of the Book of Job, God convenes a meeting with his angels, and Satan shows up.

The Lord said to Satan, “Where have you come from?”

Satan answered the Lord, “From roaming throughout the earth, going back and forth on it.” (NIV)

Satan freely roams the earth, going back and forth on it. How should we restrict Satan’s movements? Because no one wants Satan trampling all over their cabbages. But we don’t want to restrict anyone’s freedom of movement unnecessarily. So where do we draw the right lines when it comes to restricting land use? And how do we justify drawing the particular lines that we determine we should?

Well, as I said, I’m only going to point in the general direction of beginning to answer these questions. But let’s go right back to Hobbes and his state of nature, and ask why we would restrict our own and anyone’s freedoms at all?

It’s so that we can have a place for industry, and the fruit thereof. It’s so that we can enjoy culture of the earth, navigation, the use of commodities that may be imported by sea, commodious building, instruments of moving and removing such things as require much force, knowledge of the face of the earth, account of time, arts, letters, and society. Without continual fear and danger of violent death.

In short, we justify having property rights (restrictions on our freedoms) on consequentialist grounds. We allow such property rights as we do for the greater good of the greater number in society.

That’s my conclusion and I don’t like it much either. I welcome your comments. 🙂

Keep calm and carry on

Suppose I’m trying to live a Christian life.

Jesus is the Word, and the Word clearly says that the most important rules in life are to love God and to love others.

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Then one of [the Pharisees], which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying,

Master, which is the great commandment in the law?

Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.

This is the first and great commandment.

And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. (KJV)

I’m an abject sinner. Nonetheless, I do try to do what’s right. In fact, I’ve mostly always tried to do what’s right. Even before I turned to Christ. You see, I have an inbuilt moral compass. A God-given moral compass. God is the font of morality.

Just as we all have an inbuilt knowledge of God, so, too, we all have an inbuilt moral compass. What is a moral compass, exactly? The term ‘moral compass’ is shorthand for a set of moral sentiments, certain basic moral beliefs and the ability to engage in moral deliberation. And empathy. Hence the Golden Rule.

Whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them. (ESV)

Your moral compasss is kind of like a speedometer in a car. If you’re trying to keep to the speed limit (as, of course, you should) then respect what your speedometer tells you.

speedometer-showing-50

We’re all supposed to have a God-given moral compass, one that points due moral north. Just in case it’s a bit broken and wavery, our parents are supposed to teach us right from wrong.

Not all parents are perfect, however. As a result of imperfect parenting, sometimes our children turn out to be gluttonous, stubborn, rebellious drunkards, who curse us.

Sometimes our children even commit heinous crimes and end up in jail.

I was in prison and you came to me. (ESV)

Remember those who are in prison, as though in prison with them. (ESV)

As parents, we stand by our children. We love them, no matter what. At least, that’s what most parents do or would do and it’s what my moral compass tells me is how parents should treat their prodigal offspring. (I’m lucky in that my own children are model citizens. 🙂 )

But certain passages in the Torah (the first five books of the Old Testament, also known as the Pentateuch) tell an entirely different story.

For anyone who curses his father or his mother shall surely be put to death; he has cursed his father or his mother; his blood is upon him. (ESV)

If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and, though they discipline him, will not listen to them, then his father and his mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his city at the gate of the place where he lives, and they shall say to the elders of his city, ‘This our son is stubborn and rebellious; he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton and a drunkard.’ Then all the men of the city shall stone him to death with stones. So you shall purge the evil from your midst, and all Israel shall hear, and fear. (ESV)

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Whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets. (ESV)

I wish that others wouldn’t batter me with rubble.

I was once a stubborn and rebellious son who didn’t obey the voice of his father. Had I been stoned to death with stones by all the men of the city I wouldn’t be writing this here today. Luckily all that happened was an interview with my school headmaster. Hang all the Law and the Prophets!

When my moral compass and the Torah collide, I follow Jesus.

Evolutionism vs. Rube Goldberg

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Rube Goldberg machines are AWESOME! 🙂

Hand of the alarm clock strikes the hour … nek minnit roll the credits!

The red ute is OK Go … nekminnit … band members splattered with paintballs of many colours!

Pull the lever … nek minnit rain falls on the righteous and unrighteous flowers!

Let there be light … nek minnit Pee-wee Herman eats his daily breakfast!

Rube Goldberg machines are AWESOME!! 🙂

The essence of a Rube Goldberg machine is that there is a simple starting event … then follows a series of events that happen entirely automatically in a complex causal chain leading inexorably to … breakfast is served, the flowers are watered, there’s lots of pretty colours and the credits roll. No intervention required. AWESOME!!! 🙂

So are you ready for the AWESOMEST Rube Goldberg machine of them all? 🙂

You’re living in it.

Big Bang … nek minnit you’re reading this blog post!

Approximately 13.8 billion years ago there was a singular starting event. An unimaginably small speck containing the mass of the entire known universe and the space-time continuum itself expanded. After the initial expansion, the universe cooled sufficiently to allow the formation of subatomic particles, and later simple atoms. Giant clouds of these primordial elements later coalesced through gravity to form stars and galaxies. Later, on a small rock circling an unremarkable star near the edge of a galaxy’s spiral arm, primitive life spontaneously appeared in a primordial ocean. This first cell divided and divided and biological evolution happened. Our species evolved from ape-like mammalian ancestors and human history unfolded. And here we all are.

In brief, the history of everything is no different in principle from a line of falling dominoes. From the moment of the Big Bang, the complex causal chain of events that lead to us happened by itself. Even the Big Bang happened by itself, like the alarm clock going off in the Rube Goldberg machine at the top of this post. While familiar flora and fauna may appear to be intelligently designed, and intelligent design needs an intelligent designer, it is really no more than appearance. A new study hints at spontaneous appearance of primordial DNA. All things bright and beautiful? Abiogenesis and the blind mechanical process of natural selection of chance mutations made them all. Over the epochs the ball bearings of genetic transmission rolled down the available pre-existing causal channels, and the evolutionary tree of life branched and blossomed, in the manner of drought-ending flood waters flowing to the sea down the already etched out causeways of a dry river delta.

So what’s the take-home message?

Evolutionism is true and our world is just a Rube Goldberg machine on a grand cosmic scale. It’s all ball bearings and clockwork writ large.

Checkmate Creationists! Where is your Rube Goldberg God now?

Who rolled away the stone?

I missed the deadline for an Easter Sunday blog post, partly because, unlike Jesus, I’m not an early riser, and partly because I got a bit carried away studying scripture. I might have to lay off the Bible study for a while, because I’m starting to see things that aren’t really there. Or are they? Incipient psychosis or hidden meanings in scripture?

Notwithstanding the foolishness of Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code, would it really come as a surprise to learn that the Bible is an integrated message system, the product of supernatural engineering?

So I was listening to my favourite metal band, Slayer. In particular I was listening to my favourite track on their Christ Illusion album, Skeleton Christ. And reading the lyrics. And I got to wondering, is Slayer, in fact, a crypto-Christian band and their lyrics also the product of supernatural engineering?

Psychosis. That’s what you’re thinking. But bear with me. The idea is not as crazy as it might at first seem. A strong case can be made that the band who gave birth to the entire heavy metal genre, Black Sabbath, was the first Christian rock band. If Black Sabbath is a crypto-Christian band, then why not too the undisputed (by me) masters of the genre, Slayer?

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Here’s a verse from the Second Epistle of John.

many deceivers, who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh, have gone out into the world. Any such person is the deceiver and the antichrist. (NIV)

And here’s an excerpt from the lyrics to Skeleton Christ.

You’ll never touch God’s hand
You’ll never taste God’s breath
Because you’ll never see the Second Coming
It’s all a fuckin’ mockery
No grasp upon reality
It’s mind control for compulsory religion
And the Skeleton Christ

What if this song is not the attack on Christianity it superficially appears to be, but an attack on corrupt organised religion (“mind control for compulsory religion”) and the false gospel of the antichrist and those he’s deceived into worshipping a false Skeleton Christ? A skeleton, you see, is not “coming in the flesh”, it’s all dead bones, such as you might find in a whited sepulchre. It’s worth a thought, don’t you think? Feel free to take it cum grano salis.

Speaking of sepulchres, back to the main story.

I got to pondering the symbolism of stone in the Bible, and found this verse.

Jesus is ‘the stone you builders rejected, which has become the cornerstone.’ (NIV)

You see where I’m going with this? Jesus is the stone. It’s no wonder the women couldn’t find Jesus in the tomb. He’d been rolled away! But by whom?

As evening approached, there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, who had himself become a disciple of Jesus. Going to Pilate, he asked for Jesus’ body, and Pilate ordered that it be given to him. Joseph took the body, wrapped it in a clean linen cloth, and placed it in his own new tomb that he had cut out of the rock. He rolled a big stone in front of the entrance to the tomb and went away. Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were sitting there opposite the tomb.

The next day, the one after Preparation Day, the chief priests and the Pharisees went to Pilate. “Sir,” they said, “we remember that while he was still alive that deceiver said, ‘After three days I will rise again.’ So give the order for the tomb to be made secure until the third day. Otherwise, his disciples may come and steal the body and tell the people that he has been raised from the dead. This last deception will be worse than the first.”

“Take a guard,” Pilate answered. “Go, make the tomb as secure as you know how.” So they went and made the tomb secure by putting a seal on the stone and posting the guard.

After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb.

There was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and, going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow. The guards were so afraid of him that they shook and became like dead men. (NIV)

Please understand that I do not deny that it was “an angel of the Lord came down from heaven” who rolled away the stone. That is the plain meaning of this passage from the Gospel of Matthew.

But please do consider the possible hidden meaning in the possible alternative scenario I’m sketching.

Who would roll Jesus out of the way, so that his own disciples couldn’t find him, finding instead a decaying soon-to-be-Skeleton Christ? One of the Devil’s angels, for sure, if not the Devil himself.

Here are a couple of clues.

[Jesus] replied, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.” (NIV)

And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. (NIV)

The angel’s appearance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow … like an angel of light or, indeed, Jesus himself transfigured. And, in a final coup de disgrâce, the angel then sits on the stone, making the Devil’s most feared enemy a buttstool for his sulfurous butt.

It’s a complete inversion of Bible truth. Which is, of course, the Devil’s calling card.

Beware of false prophets and false messiahs. And the Skeleton Christ.

Make them suffer

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Blogger and voluntary euthanasia campaigner Mark Hubbard’s latest post is mercifully brief, just like a painful death from a terminal illness should be.

Letter to Editor: Euthanasia Does Not Devalue Lives of Disabled

According to Ken Joblin, Press 12 March, voluntary euthanasia quote, ‘makes people with disabilities feel less valued’. The arrogance of that remark is breath-taking: no person can judge another’s unhappiness. To say an individual must die in agony against their will because a total stranger might feel ‘devalued’ is non-sequitur, offensive and selfish; and this applies even if that stranger is living in similar circumstances of pain they yet find acceptable. The apt word in voluntary euthanasia is ‘voluntary’: it’s only for those who want that option, as many do. Every argument against voluntary euthanasia is the busy-body argument an individual must be left no volition over their own life. Adults self-manage health issues throughout their lives: managing one’s death is merely the end of that grown-up process. The disabled rightly tell the able-bodied to see issues from their point of view: well I’m afraid the opinion voluntary euthanasia devalues the life of a disabled person is as blind as Mr Joblin is partially sighted. No disrespect Mr Joblin, but please remove your opinion from those who have died or are dying in circumstances, sometimes appalling, against their wishes; just over last 12 months to put names to this issue: Rosie Mott, Faye Clark, lawyer Lecretia Searles – who still argues superbly for her right to that option as she manages life with brain tumours – Clare Richards and the list continues to grow, as long as we have no civilised euthanasia law.

Let’s be clear. It’s wrong to torture people to death. And

To say an individual must die in agony against their will

is to condone torturing people to death. And those who oppose assisted suicide in the sort of cases where it is typically requested are really no different from would-be torturers. It really is that simple.

Of course, you may say that I ride roughshod over the distinction between actively bringing something about and passively allowing something to happen. That I ignore the distinction between killing and merely letting die. That I fail to differentiate between causing suffering and allowing suffering simply by failing to prevent it when one could.

It’s an important distinction, to be sure. In the Parable of the Good Samaritan, should we lump the priest and the Levite in with the robbers? Or, morally speaking, do they stand apart as somehow less deserving of our condemnation?

But no. The distinction here is between actively bringing something about and actively preventing those who would otherwise prevent something from happening from doing so. (Think of an embellished parable in which the Samaritan is impeded and threatened by bureaucrats when he goes to the aid of the man attacked by robbers.)

Current NZ law makes it a criminal offence to assist suicide under any circumstances.

Aiding and abetting suicide
Every one is liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 14 years who—
(a) incites, counsels, or procures any person to commit suicide, if that person commits or attempts to commit suicide in consequence thereof; or
(b) aids or abets any person in the commission of suicide.

A prison term not exceeding 14 years? Bit harsh, just for complying with a loved one’s wishes to help hasten the end to their terminal suffering. (Could be worse though. Consider the case of Aldous Huxley. On his deathbed, he asked to be given LSD. His wife obligingly injected him with LSD. She could have faced life imprisonment for that!)

Make them suffer? Hell no! That’s just the name of the Cannibal Corpse song below, and the implicit maxim of sadists, psychopaths and assorted Parliamentarians. (Also clickbait.) If it’s not abundantly clear by now, I’m with Mark Hubbard on this one. In principle, I support legislative changes to legalise voluntary euthanasia. My lingering concern is with the form such legislative change might take. If the Psychoactive Substances Act is Parliament’s idea of drug law reform, then we could be in trouble. I don’t want my legal end-of-life choices limited to bureaucrat-approved modes of dying!

Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all. (ESV)

See also the Parable of the Flood.

The Hobbit is a Biblically Inspired Story

[Guest post by Julian Crawford, Leader of the Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party.]

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It is well known that J.R.R. Tolkien was a devout Christian, who attended church daily and was responsible for bringing fellow author C.S. Lewis to faith.

What is less well known are the vast parallels between The Hobbit and The Bible, particularly the Old Testament.

While the Hobbits were based on English people and Elves speak a Celtic language, the Dwarves resemble the Jewish people. “The Dwarves… wouldn’t you say that in many ways they remind you of the Jews? Their words are Semitic, obviously, constructed to be Semitic,” Tolkien said in a 1971 interview.

In The Hobbit the company of Thorin Oakenshield travel to the Lonely Mountain of Erebor to reclaim their homeland and its vast gold reserves from the dragon Smaug. The Lonely Mountain shares many similarities to Mt Zion in Jerusalem, otherwise known as the Temple Mount.

The Dwarves had been driven out of their homeland and forced to “wander the wilderness” following Smaug’s capture of the mountain. The Jewish people were also forced into exile from their holy land.

The Dwarves lived in a grand cavern where their king’s throne was located while Mt Zion became the site of King David’s palace. His son Solomon build the temple there, which was the throne room of God.

Erebor is full of vast treasures particularly massive amounts of gold, just as the Jewish temple was full of gold ornaments.

The most precious treasure of the Dwarves was the Arkenstone, known as the King’s Jewel which was kept above the throne. The holy of holies in the Jewish temple was the site of the Ark of the Covenant. Inside the Ark were two sapphire stone tablets with the ten commandments written on them.

“He prepared the inner sanctuary within the temple to set the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord there.” – 1 Kings 6:19.

“Solomon covered the inside of the temple with pure gold, and he extended gold chains across the front of the inner sanctuary, which was overlaid with gold. So he overlaid the whole interior with gold. He also overlaid with gold the altar that belonged to the inner sanctuary.” – 1 Kings 6:21-22.

The Lonely Mountain and other dwarf kingdoms feature huge mines where the precious stones and metals were mined, while King Solomon also commissioned massive mines, known as King Solomon’s mines.

The vast wealth of the mountain corrupted the Dwarvish kings just as Jewish kings also became corrupted following the establishment of monarchy.

Five armies surround Erebor just as armies have often surrounded Jerusalem to try and capture the Temple Mount.

When the dragon drove the Dwarves out he become king under the mountain. In The Bible Satan is described as a dragon. Babylonian, Persian, Greek, Roman and Islamic empires have all conquered Jerusalem and are represented in the bible as beasts.

Babylon captured vast amounts of the gold in the Jewish temple and took it for itself until it was returned by the King of Persia, who allowed the destroyed temple to be rebuilt.

The Hobbit is an epic battle between the forces of good and evil involving many armies. It is apparent that an epic battle has also been raging for millennia to control Jerusalem’s Temple Mount. That battle continues right up until the present day, with Islamic groups such as ISIL and Hamas determined to make it the capital of their Islamic Caliphate. While Zionists are equally determined to rebuild Solomon’s Temple on the same site and solidify Jewish control of the Old City.

Should Christians kill all the homosexuals?

I chose the title of this post carefully in order to comply with Betteridge’s law of headlines.

Should Christians kill all the homosexuals? (Let’s be clear. The answer is NO.)

Not even Pastor Logan Robertson thinks that Christians should kill all the homosexuals. He thinks that’s a job for the government.

I believe every single one of them should be put to death. Obviously Christians shouldn’t be doing it. I’m not going to do it. It’s the government’s job to be doing it.

Which is worse? Pastor Logan Robertson’s appalling homophobia or his abject statism? (Let’s be absolutely clear. It’s NOT the government’s job to kill homosexuals. It’s no one’s job. No one should kill anyone. Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.)

Presumably Robertson is somewhat cynical about the government’s ability to do whatever it is they’re supposed to do, and that’s why he says he’ll pray that Marjoram tops himself, rather than patiently wait for the state to embark on genocide.

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I’m downgrading my assessment of Pastor Logan Robertson from stooge to sitting duck.

I was by no means the only one to suspect that Marjoram and Robertson were colluding and that it was all a set-up to gain publicity for and sell Marjoram’s book. Or, worse, that it was a cunning plan by new atheists to discredit Christianity. Investigative journalist Ian Wishart says

Maybe it’s the investigative journalist in me, and the sceptic in someone else who shall remain nameless, but something seems fishy about this story of the pastor abusing the gay author.

Logan Robertson does not seem to have much of a digital footprint pre-dating this. In fact, his “church” is so obscure it runs from a house and its website was only established a matter of weeks ago. Frankly, I’m surprised Jim Marjoram was able to find so obscure a church to send an email to…because I couldn’t find it in the usual church email directories he would ordinarily have used..

Maybe I missed something…

What Wishart missed, and what I missed, is that Robertson has a history of serious mental illness.

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Here ends the short sad sorry saga of Pastor Logan Robertson and his Westcity Bible Baptist Church with its congregation of three.

Or does it?

What about the elephant in the room?

Let’s grab it by the tail and look the facts in the face. The Bible quite clearly tells us, as Pastor Logan Robertson reminds us in his email, to kill all the homosexuals.

If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them. (KJV)

So shouldn’t Bible-believing Christians be coming out and putting homosexuals up against the wall?

There’s a standard form of reply to this last question, which has to do with covenants and/or dispensations. A typical reply goes something like this.

The prohibition on homosexuality in Leviticus is part of what Bible scholars often call the ‘Holiness Code’. Its purpose was to maintain the distinctiveness of the Israelites from the Canaanites.

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So we’re no longer required to kill homosexuals? Well, that’s nice and all, but I just don’t swallow the dispensationalist defence. Do I worship a God who, at one time, commanded the Israelites to stone their gay brethren to buggery? Or not? That’s the question I ask myself and my answer is NO.

I suggest that the repository of bigotry and bans that is the Book of Leviticus isn’t God’s word and doesn’t belong in the Bible. It’s canon fodder, i.e., expendable. (I leave everyone free to hold his own opinions. I would not have anyone bound to my opinion or judgment. I say what I feel. Let everyone think of it as his own spirit leads him. My spirit cannot accommodate itself to this book.)

Open thy mouth for the dumb in the cause of all such as are appointed to destruction

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Today I’m happy for John Banks that his conviction for electoral fraud has been overturned, and sad for my leftie friends on Facebook who have seized the opportunity to spew yet more hatred and bile. What did John Banks ever do to you?

Today it’s timely to remind readers what John Banks did in the cause of the dumb animals appointed to destruction in product safety-testing laboratories as sanctioned by the (unamended) Psychoactive Substances Act 2013. He opened his mouth and spoke up for them. He was the lone MP who did in a Parliament of 120. A big thanks to John Banks.

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OK, I suppose that if you’re gay then you can answer my question by pointing out that John Banks voted against the Homosexual Law Reform Act 1986. But that was nearly three decades ago, and more recently Banks voted for the Marriage (Definition of Marriage) Amendment Act 2013. And it was a genuine change of heart on Banksie’s part, wasn’t it?

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not sure I like John Banks. I’m not even sure that he didn’t commit electoral fraud. But (notwithstanding that his conviction’s been overturned) he is (or was until recently) a conviction politician in a sea of arse-licking populists, and I like that much about him.

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There’s much that drug law reform and homosexual law reform have in common. Both drug dealing and sodomy are victimless crimes. But drug law reform lags behind homosexual law reform by 147 years.

Homosexual male sex became illegal in New Zealand when the country became part of the British Empire in 1840 and adopted English law making male homosexual acts punishable by death. The Offences Against The Person Act of 1867 changed the penalty of buggery from execution to life imprisonment.

One of the main reasons I remain adamantly opposed to the Psychoactive Substances Act is that it cements in place the idea that dealing in some drugs (methamphetamine, LSD) is justifiably punishable by a sentence of life imprisonment, while dealing in others (“synthetic, toxic poison“) is approved by the powers-that-be. Sadly, the situation in New Zealand today re the vast majority of recreational drugs that people actually want to use is quite analogous to the situation in New Zealand prior to 1986 re people’s sexual preferences. So, no, notwithstanding my last blog post I’m not quitting the drug law reform movement any time soon …

I’m an agnostic. (Don’t ask me why.)

Last month I posted the following Facebook status.

I’m an agnostic. (Don’t ask me why.)

I meant it mainly as a joke.

Let me explain. An agnostic is someone who doesn’t know. So if you ask me why I’m an agnostic, I’m going to answer, “I don’t know!”

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I meant it mainly as a joke, but I also meant it partly as a statement of fact about me.

The term ‘agnostic’ was coined by 19th century English biologist Thomas Henry Huxley (who, incidentally, is best remembered as “Darwin’s Bulldog” for his advocacy of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution). He derived the term from the (Ancient) Greek ἀ- (a-), meaning “without”, and γνῶσις (gnōsis), meaning “knowledge”. Hence, the literal meaning of ‘agnostic’ is someone without knowledge. Huxley said

Agnosticism, in fact, is not a creed, but a method, the essence of which lies in the rigorous application of a single principle … Positively the principle may be expressed: In matters of the intellect, follow your reason as far as it will take you, without regard to any other consideration. And negatively: In matters of the intellect do not pretend that conclusions are certain which are not demonstrated or demonstrable.

Agnosticism is not a creed. Agnosticism says nothing about anything. That’s how it’s entirely possible (and, in my opinion, entirely desirable) to be both an agnostic and a Christian.

Agnosticism is not a creed. It’s a method(ology) only. And it’s about what conclusions are certain. (I’m not sure, but I think I’m not entirely certain about anything.)

I’ve studied more than enough philosophy to know not to put too much trust in the evidence of the senses or the deliverances of human reason. That’s one reason why the following is one of my favourite scriptures.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart
And do not lean on your own understanding.
In all your ways acknowledge Him,
And He will make your paths straight. (NASB)

Do not lean on your own understanding. Seems pretty agnostic to me.