^^^ 🙂 Onya Richard! Respect.
Category Archives: Metaphysics
Nyctophilia: Hiding in the Dark….
Does that actually mean anything????
This Meme is supposed to inspire Awe and portray Atheism as ‘an Enlightenment’.
Is this so?
What sort of ‘self’ is ‘discoverable’ via the loss of religion?
It can only be an ultimately worthless self… trapped within a Cold, nihilistic, indifferent universe which will inexorably pulverize and expunge all evidence of humanity’s existence into oblivion … and render our acts of love and kindness as valueless, and indistinguishable as our Acts of Violence and depravity…. When Man looses God… he suffers Eternal death.
He looses everything that makes his Humanity ‘distinguishable’, from the cold indifferent Material reality. He looses his Rights. His Moral compass looses it’s North.
What is left but to Eat, Drink and be Merry…for tomorrow we die?
I pity the man who believes this is ‘Self discovery’!
Yet there is something in all of this which I believe is *Really what such People* seek… and that is that they actually *want* to loose their ‘north pole’…because they are tired of knowing that that is the direction they ought to travel …when all their lusts and their sloth has them looking South!
When they Loose God…and seek to hide from objective moral reality… they abandon their conscience… and travel south ‘free’ of Objective morality…. Now in their new Nihilistic reality they can do as they please…
They have abandoned God to escape Moral accountability.
This is what Pitt means by being ‘Untethered’.
I ask… “For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?”
Matt16vs26
I do not deny the fact that this is a very ‘Natural’ a very powerful urge’ for The Sons and Daughters of Fallen Adam… Yet it must be resisted at all costs!
This is not an enlightenment, but the very opposite!
It is to Run from the light… into the Dark.
It is pure self Delusion!
It is not an act of bravery, but a cowardly retreat… a defeat from following the High road, and instead to take the Lower, easier path…. with all the rest who cant be bothered living as Human beings…. that is Moral Agents in a Moral reality…
They prefer to run off into the Jungle and live as beasts…
That is their self delusion…. their verdict on humanity.
Yet God is not mocked.
It is appointed unto man once to die, and after this, the Judgement.
“And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.”
John 3:19
One of the chief reasons many Atheist’s react with Demon-like Tirades and Blasphemies against Theistic declarations of faith in God is because they simply wish to remain hidden in the darkness of their own self delusion. The last thing they need is Pesky Theists… spoiling their Buzz by Being told that one day they shall stand before God and give account for their sins!
This is the very truth they seek to hide from!
It summons the deepest hatred, wailing, and gnashing of teeth.
What is truely sad about this is that they will be damned by their own choice.
God has done everything to save us sinners from Damnation if we will but simply trust in Christ and his work of Salvation on the cross.
“But God commendeth his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us”
“Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord, shall be saved”
“For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Chriat our Lord”
St Paul.
Tim Wikiriwhi
Read more…
Comfortably Numb : Confessions of a Nyctophilliac.
“Keep things in the shallow end… because I just didn’t want to know…”
Materialism renders Man Nought. Meaning-less, Value-less, Right-less
Who are you?
At tomorrow night’s meeting of the New Inklings, the paper for discussion is Derek Parfit’s classic Personal Identity, first published in The Philosophical Review in 1971.
Here’s a teaser from Wikipedia.
Parfit uses many examples seemingly inspired by Star Trek and other science fiction, such as the teletransporter, to explore our intuitions about our identity. He is a reductionist, believing that since there is no adequate criterion of personal identity, people do not exist apart from their components. Parfit argues that reality can be fully described impersonally; there need not be a determinate answer to the question “Will I continue to exist?” We could know all the facts about a person’s continued existence and not be able to say whether the person has survived. He concludes that we are mistaken in assuming that personal identity is what matters; what matters is rather Relation R: psychological connectedness (namely, of memory and character) and continuity (overlapping chains of strong connectedness).
On Parfit’s account, individuals are nothing more than brains and bodies, but identity cannot be reduced to either. Parfit concedes that his theories rarely conflict with rival Reductionist theories in everyday life, and that the two are only brought to blows by the introduction of extraordinary examples. However, he defends the use of such examples because they seem to arouse genuine and strong feelings in many of us. Identity is not as determinate as we often suppose it is, but instead such determinacy arises mainly from the way we talk. People exist in the same way that nations or clubs exist.
A key Parfitian question is: given the choice of surviving without psychological continuity and connectedness (Relation R) or dying but preserving R through the future existence of someone else, which would you choose?
Parfit described the loss of the conception of a separate self as liberating:
My life seemed like a glass tunnel, through which I was moving faster every year, and at the end of which there was darkness… [However] When I changed my view, the walls of my glass tunnel disappeared. I now live in the open air. There is still a difference between my life and the lives of other people. But the difference is less. Other people are closer. I am less concerned about the rest of my own life, and more concerned about the lives of others.
Needless to say, I’m with Parfit on this one. His view is both liberating and … dare I say it, Christian.
(Or, at least, conducive to a Christian way of life.) (But with some startling implications for some Christian views of salvation.)
Here’s the Parfitian question again.
Given the choice of
(1) surviving without psychological continuity and connectedness (Relation R), or
(2) dying but preserving R through the future existence of someone else,
which would you choose? (Hint: what matters is Relation R.)
Related links: What are you? | Are you lego or logos? | Swallowed up by life | God vs. AI
“Keep things in the shallow end… because I just didn’t want to know…”
“And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.”
John 3:19
Ain’t nobody got time for dat!
Hayride to Hell!
Some people try and deny we have any freewill, or control over what we Believe or accept, yet I reject this.
I say that we are responsible for what we believe because we incrementally condition ourselves step by step, via our desire to know, or our desire to avoid knowing, and this grows into such an edifice that it can be a highplace from which the whole world can be Surveyed accurately… seeing it as it really is, or a self imposed ignorance can settle like a heavy fog completely blinding us from the truth.
This latter condition is all too common… the millions who have placed scales upon their own eyes so that the truth seems completely alien… completely ‘unreal’…. then they cry? How can I be blamed for not being able to believe?
They pretend they are the victims of circumstances… instead of being a victim of their own ignorant and foolish choices.
The same can be said of Hardness of heart.
As we go through life we all face times of horror and hurt, and one of the ways people seek to survive on this earth is to ‘harden up’… to stop themselves caring so much about things which they cant control, ..etc, yet this process is very dangerous… It is Dehumanizing, and we can build such ‘A Wall’ about ourselves that we become completely insensitive to the plight of humanity, and incapable of perceiving the real Moral issues and dilemma’s of life. And this hardness also blinds the individual to the need to seek Personal salvation, or to reform the world.
Yet again We are not victims of the world.
Our hard hearts are of our own creation, and we are morally responsible for our own lack of conscience and Narcissism.
We have freely created ourselves.
When you admit this to yourself you can then choose to awaken and walk with your eyes open and your heart restored.
This can be painful and taxing, yet it is the moral thing to do, as opposed to shirking morality and truth.
Dare You stand in the light of day?
Tim Wikiriwhi
Christian Libertarian.
Read more…
Hiding in the Dark….
Seether: Know Thyself. How can a Good God exist when there is so much evil in the world? Part 5.
Comfortably Numb : Confessions of a Nyctophilliac.
God’s Grace, Libertarianism, and Anne Frank
The Pharoh and the Midwives.
Being forced to choose the lesser of two evils is never a pleasant experience for an Idealist.
Though done for the right reasons, there is still a sense of compromise with evil.
Yet when I consider certain Moral dilemmas, which at times God allows us mere mortals to face, I am forced to admit that sometimes I would tell a lie rather than tell the truth, esp to protect others from tyranny or other dire evils… Trusting in God’s understanding and Grace.
Up until today I had no literal scriptural vindication for this position, only a trust in God’s Goodness, and Grace.
Yet it is with gratitude to the face book page called ‘if libertarians are crazy, who wants to be sane?… that I can now say a very important scripture in Exodus (Ex1vs15-21) actually vindicates making such a choice, by describing a Historic event whereby some Midwives were forced to choose between obeying a Murderous decree from a tyrant…which they knew was a morally evil command/’Law’, or instead doing what they believed was right… and disobeying it, and covering their tracks with a lie.
15” And the king of Egypt spake to the Hebrew midwives, of which the name of the one was Shiphrah, and the name of the other Puah:
16 And he said, When ye do the office of a midwife to the Hebrew women, and see them upon the stools; if it be a son, then ye shall kill him: but if it be a daughter, then she shall live.
17 But the midwives feared God, and did not as the king of Egypt commanded them, but saved the men children alive.
18 And the king of Egypt called for the midwives, and said unto them, Why have ye done this thing, and have saved the men children alive?
19 And the midwives said unto Pharaoh, Because the Hebrew women are not as the Egyptian women; for they are lively, and are delivered ere the midwives come in unto them.
20 Therefore God dealt well with the midwives: and the people multiplied, and waxed very mighty.
21 And it came to pass, because the midwives feared God, that he made them houses.”
(Exodus 1vs15-21)
This portion of scripture is pregnant with Libertarian Ideals!
It is exactly the sort of vindication for my conviction that If I was a Christian Libertarian living in the Netherlands during the 1940’s Nazi occupation, that I would have been fulfilling my Christian duty by Disobeying the Official/ Legal obligation to turn in all the Jews, and instead to help hide them from the Demon Swastka… like many brave Christian Netherlanders actually did during the war… for example those who helped hide … Anne Frank and her Family.
I believe those Good souls were Christians because after the War her Father Otto,who survived the death camps, and though being a Jew, set up a charity to help poor European Christian’s with the money he received from his murdered Daughters dairy… the best selling ‘Diary of Anne Frank’.
Anne Frank.
There can be no doubt that the Exodus story of the Egyptian Midwives, and the story of those whom hid Anne Frank, are perfectly matched, and that God blesses those brave enough to resist evil tyrannies for the sake of doing what is right, and He is prepared to forgive such things as telling lies under these curcumstances.
This does not make these lies ‘Good’. It only makes them ‘better’/ lesser evils than betraying innocent people to murderers, and because the world does throw such moral dilemma’s at us, and we sometimes have little or no time to think of perfect solutions, that God pours out his grace and mercy upon us… exactly as I hoped and trusted he would do… before I became aware of the Libertarian principles in this scripture.
The Apostle Peter before the Sanhedrin.
I have always believed as Peter said when he disobeyed the Authorities command to cease preaching the Name of Jesus… that there is a limit to the obedience the Christian owes to any Human power, Law, or command.
Act’s 4…
13 “Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marvelled; and they took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus.
14 And beholding the man which was healed standing with them, they could say nothing against it.
15 But when they had commanded them to go aside out of the council, they conferred among themselves,
16 Saying, What shall we do to these men? for that indeed a notable miracle hath been done by them is manifest to all them that dwell in Jerusalem; and we cannot deny it.
17 But that it spread no further among the people, let us straitly threaten them, that they speak henceforth to no man in this name.
18 And they called them, and commanded them not to speak at all nor teach in the name of Jesus.
19 But Peter and John answered and said unto them, Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye.
20 For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard.
21 So when they had further threatened them, they let them go, finding nothing how they might punish them, because of the people: for all men glorified God for that which was done.”
And again in Act’s 5 vs 29
29 Then Peter and the other apostles answered and said, We ought to obey God rather than men.
There are plenty of verses throughout the Bible which demonstrate this principle, yet Peter did not tell any lie to the Authorities, and was prepared to suffer for his forthright profession.
And this is clearly a different moral circumstance to the one in Exodus or the one facing the Christians in the Netherlands… as these circumstances involved the safety others…
*Oppressed Jews* under Satanic Attack.
God actually promised Abraham that He would “Bless them which bless thee and curse them which curse thee” … the Jew having a special relationship with God.
And the situation of Anne Frank and her family relied on their helpers not being found out or arrested, so that they could continue to aid them, thus Subterfuge is essential.
In such circumstances I am glad to know that God is not an uncompromising Moral Tyrant, but will have mercy upon the Brave soul who makes such a difficult moral decision.
He is indeed Full of Grace, understanding, and mercy.
I would also think this sort of grace is applicable for the Stratagems of the Righteous Commander in the deception required in warfare to overcome the Armies of Evil…eg Operation Mince Meat.
Today has been a great day!
I love it when I learn New Libertarian insights are buried in the Scriptures!
We now have another arrow in our Bow to shoot at those followers of Satan who preach that the Christian cant be a Libertarian, and must slavishly obey all Government decrees no matter how wicked, or that in warfare he must disregard common sence and march straight into cannon fire without devising cunning ways to fool the enemies into error.
Tim Wikiriwhi
King James Bible Believer, Dispensationalist, Libertarian, Christian.
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.
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?”
Do you want this again and innumerable times again?
What if some day or night a demon were to steal into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: “This life as you now live it and have lived it you will have to live once again and innumerable times again; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything unspeakably small or great in your life must return to you, all in the same succession and sequence—even this spider and this moonlight between the trees, and even this moment and I myself. The eternal hourglass of existence is turned over again and again, and you with it, speck of dust!” Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: “You are a god, and never have I heard anything more divine.” If this thought gained power over you, as you are it would transform and possibly crush you; the question in each and every thing, “Do you want this again and innumerable times again?” would lie on your actions as the heaviest weight! Or how well disposed would you have to become to yourself and to life to long for nothing more fervently than for this ultimate eternal confirmation and seal?
— Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science
Concerning the notion of Liberty, and of moral Agency.
The plain and obvious meaning of the words Freedom and Liberty, in common speech, is The power, opportunity, or advantage, that any one has, to do as he pleases. Or in other words, his being free from hindrance or impediment in the way of doing, or conducting in any respect, as he wills. — And the contrary to Liberty, whatever name we call that by, is a person’s being hindered or unable to conduct as he will, or being necessitated to do otherwise.
If this which I have mentioned be the meaning of the word Liberty, in the ordinary use of language; as I trust that none that has ever learned to talk, and is unprejudiced, will deny; then it will follow, that in propriety of speech, neither Liberty, nor its contrary, can properly be ascribed to any being or thing, but that which has such a faculty, power or property, as is called will. For that which is possessed of no will, cannot have any power or opportunity of doing according to its will, nor be necessitated to act contrary to its will, nor be restrained from acting agreeably to it. And therefore to talk of Liberty, or the contrary, as belonging to the very Will itself, is not to speak good sense; if we judge of sense, and nonsense, by the original and proper signification of words.— For the Will itself is not an Agent that has a will: the power of choosing, itself, has not a power of choosing. That which has the power of volition is the man, or the soul, and not the power of volition itself. And he that has the Liberty of doing according to his will, is the Agent who is possessed of the Will; and not the Will which he is possessed of. We say with propriety, that a bird let loose has power and liberty to fly; but not that the bird’s power of flying has a power and Liberty of flying. To be free is the property of an Agent, who is possessed of powers and faculties, as much as to be cunning, valiant, bountiful, or zealous. But these qualities are the properties of persons; and not the properties of properties.
There are two things contrary to what is called Liberty in common speech. One is constraint; otherwise called force, compulsion, and coaction; which is a person’s being necessitated to do a thing contrary to his will. The other is restraint; which is, his being hindered, and not having power to do according to his will. But that which has no will, cannot be the subject of these things.— I need say the less on this bead, Mr. Locke having set the same thing forth, with so great clearness, in his Essay on the Human Understanding.
But one thing more I would observe concerning what is vulgarly called Liberty; namely, that power and opportunity for one to do and conduct as he will, or according to his choice, is all that is meant by it; without taking into the meaning of the word, any thing of the cause of that choice; or at all considering how the person came to have such a volition; whether it was caused by some external motive, or internal habitual bias; whether it was determined by some internal antecedent volition, or whether it happened without a cause; whether it was necessarily connected with something foregoing, or not connected. Let the person come by his choice any how, yet, if he is able, and there is nothing in the way to hinder his pursuing and executing his will, the man is perfectly free, according to, the primary and common notion of freedom.
– Jonathan Edwards, Freedom of the Will, 1754
Are you up for A Careful And Strict Inquiry Into The Modern Prevailing Notions Of That FREEDOM OF WILL Which Is Supposed To Be Essential To Moral Agency, Virtue And Vice, Reward And Punishment, Praise And Blame? Then feel free to come join us at the next meeting of the New Inklings. (Tuesday 30 April, 5:00 pm, Trax Bar and Cafe, Platform 1, Wellington Railway Station.)
Are you old enough?
The word of the Lord came to me, saying,
“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
before you were born I set you apart;
I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”
“Alas, Sovereign Lord,” I said, “I do not know how to speak; I am too young.”
But the Lord said to me, “Do not say, ‘I am too young.’ You must go to everyone I send you to and say whatever I command you. Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you and will rescue you,” declares the Lord.
Then the Lord reached out his hand and touched my mouth and said to me, “I have put my words in your mouth. See, today I appoint you over nations and kingdoms to uproot and tear down, to destroy and overthrow, to build and to plant.” (NIV)
The Metaphysics of the Miraculous
[Article by Mark I Rasskazov, Editor in Chief of the Transegoist Daily Journal. Syndicated.]
The Metaphysics of the Miraculous
My metaphysical model is monism, which means that I believe that there is one reality, and that everything in it is subject to a single set of physical laws (the Standard Model of Physics — until something better comes along). Now, most monists do not believe in miracles. Why? Because the term “miracle” typically denotes something which is supernatural — i.e., something which defies the laws of physics; something which requires that we appeal to metaphysical dualism: the idea that there are two planes of existence; a physical one, and a separate one, a spiritual one, which can override the physical.
The majority of people who believe in the existence of a Deity (or deities) accept some dualistic metaphysical model. I believe in God, and I accept a monistic model. I also believe in miracles. Is this a contradiction? No; but I’ve had to manipulate the concept of “miracle” somewhat.
It has been said: “That which seems miraculous is actually merely the unexplained.”
I consider that statement to be accurate.
I add one twist:
That which is, admittedly, physically explicable, yet is clearly not coincidental must be considered to be miraculous.
The Ten Plagues of Egypt can be explained as a severe natural disaster. Does that mean that it is coincidence that it happened to occur just as the time was right for the Israelis to leave?
The parting of the Red Sea in the book of Exodus has been explained as being the result of comet activity. Does this mean that it is coincidental that it occurred just as it began to look like the children of Israel had their backs against the wall?
When the Israelis arrived at the Promised Land, on two separate occasions, the walls of a city they were attacking spontaneously crumbled at a strategically advantageous moment. This could have easily been the result of seismic activity. Coincidence?
I think not.
What I think is that this entire universe is a magnificent machine, which operates in a flawless, albeit brutal and bittersweet manner.
God does have love for mankind. That’s not to say that He’s very nice. He’s not.
God’s miracles are physical events that He has set into motion long beforehand.
In that sense, inasmuch as God is sovereign, every waking moment that you experience is a clear and present miracle.
Do not squander the beautiful and terrifying miracle that is your life.