Category Archives: Philosophy

The Hydra.


The Hydra of Democratic totalitarian Parliament. The 120 tyrants.

The predicament of the tiny Libertarian minority living under a Socialist Mobocracy provokes contemplation. Firstly If Democracy ever delivered Justice, it would be accidental to the happy circumstance that the majority of Citizens were truly enlightened human beings whom value Liberty and equality, self reliance, and limited government, above vested interest, envy, and favoritism. For that to happen the individuals of the society must hold Private convictions, values and ethics which underpin the belief in the sanctity of individual rights, the justice of liberty and self responsibility, and the binding objective morality of Law as being more than merely an arbitrary and pragmatic convention.
Because the Majority of New Zealanders of 2011 don’t come close to holding such personal convictions, Having been utterly brainwashed it is impossible that our democracy will deliver Justice, instead the tyranny and foolishness that will emerge will reflect the Unenlightened barbarous values of the Masses.


Hitler was elected into power by appealing to the common Phobias and Bigotry of the masses (The same ploy that Winston Peters uses) .

Now I expect the tally of Libertarian votes, even if we loosen the definition and stretch it to include the votes for Act, and ALCP to be well under 5%. This is truly a frightening thing to contemplate. It is an outrage. It is a figure that you might expect of a tiny group of New world Missionaries having landed upon a Island full of uncivilized savages. That this is the current state of affairs in a Nation considered to be among the most civilized Nations of the world is staggering. It tells me much of what is mistaken for ‘Civilisation’ in our country is actually ‘Coercion’/ Control/ suppression, not real ‘Civilisation’ at all! ( I have been told that there was great ‘Order’ under Gadaffi in Libya, and little theft yet does that make His regime ‘Good’ and the resulting society ‘Civilised’? )
And the reality is that Our Current Nanny state system is rotten to the core. There is a famous saying of Olde “The more corrupt the State, the more it legislates” and the façade of ‘Socialist civilization’ is constantly being shored up by the mass production of Bad and oppressive Laws, and by those other indicators of Corrupt Government… the growth of Bureaucracy, and the rapaciousness of taxation. We are heading for a collapse and social Chaos as surely and as inescapably as The Soviet Union was. And things will get unbelievably nasty the closer to the end we become. Forgotten is the Jeffersonian Maxim “He who governs best Governs least”

Such is Life. What is a Guy like me to do? I am but one man, and a member of a small group of Fringe dwelling social rejects. The frustration of knowing the travesty which is being acted out regarding holding elections… ‘Having your say’… the mandate of the Majority… Representative Government…. Etc yet missing the vital components of The rights, liberties, and responsibilities of the Individual, and the clearly defined limits to government power is very hard to bear. Members of minorities are effectively captive to the whims of the bigger mobs. Just principle counts for Naught. It is a very dangerous/ hazardous existence as Minorities are exposed to the constant danger of popular Oppressions and suppressions.

Corrupt Coups:Two Racist Radicals whom wanted to impose rasist Laws via force.


Speights Armed Racist Coup.

Frustration at spending years and years working within the system via activism and standing for election yet to no avail, Members of Minorities might be tempted to quit and accept their serfdom, or perhaps to try more extreme measures for eg The activities of Tama Iti and the Tuhoe Terrorists, who for those whom don’t know were a bunch of Indigenous racist radicals, and Green Environmentalist extremists caught by the Police having set up terrorist training camps in the Bush, and were planning Murder, kidnapping politicians, in an attempt to overthrow the government and set up a racist dictatorship. Now these guys are a bunch of Commy psychopaths, yet their ‘solution’ to the problem of Mobocracy and bringing about the changes to the government they wanted, is a tempting proposition to Frustrated minorities whom see no hope for their ambitions via the democratic process… An Armed struggle… A violent revolution.
This is exactly what happened in Fiji Re: George Speight and Mahendra Chaudry
At that time Army Chief and Hero of the Fijian people, Frank Bainimarama put an end to the coup and restored the Democratic government, only to realize that the democratic government was becoming corrupted and subverted by the very same interests whom were behind Speights racist Coup. For the sake of Justice, He then implemented a coup himself, stepping in and removed the corrupted government by force. Since then he has been working to restore a more just Democracy back to Fiji, one that will forbid racial segregation, one that denies indigenous favouritism, one that guarantees equality before the Law… yet this is a very difficult thing to accomplish when a vast percentage of the population is steeped in racist bigotry and wants a government that gives them special rights and privileges over and above a suppressed so-called ‘migrant’ population.

Righteous Coup: Commodore Frank Bainimarama first halted a corrupt Coup of George Speight and restored parliament but was forced to overthrew that parliament because it had become corrupted with a racist agenda.

Now for me it is very Sad that few people seem capable of figuring out what makes a Democracy just and what makes it unjust, what makes a Coup just or unjust, or even under what circumstances a dictatorship can be more just than a democratically elected parliament. The activity by the Racist Maori Radicals and Greens show that Minorities can be even more deranged than the deluded ruling majority yet this also shows being a member of a suppressed minority does not automatically equate to an injustice. What is harder for people to grasp is that Being a member of a suppressed majority does not equate to an injustice either! What matters are the ideals that underpin the Law…ie the justness of the Law. Majority Whim does not equate to justice. (this is the problem we Libertarians struggle with under New Zealand democratic socialism). Knowing this is true does not seem to be enough to convince many Libertarians of the rightness of what Bainimarama has done in Fiji. This is a great shame. He needs to be supported and helped to achieve his Nobel ambitions for Fiji. Bainimarama’s coup was the equivalent of the Police action which halted the ambitions of Racist Tama Iti and the Radical Greens. That Libertarians cannot figure this out just goes to show how the depth of the delusion surrounding democracy.

Yet again if having condemned the activities of Tami Iti, and endorsed the Coup of Bainimarama why do I not set about to being a just revolution here in New Zealand?
If I tell you… id have to kill you!
No seriously, though there are great injustices being perpetrated in our Nation, I have absolutely no desire to use arms to overthrow the government. I have much more longsuffering and endurance before even contemplation such an extreme and horrible solution. May that dreadful day never come! Consider the blood of the American revolution. It was a just cause, yet a Horrific ordeal! It is my hearts desire to pass through this life without taking the life of another human being… even my enemies…and I have a rock upon which I can Stand. My Christian Faith.

The Bible tells me to defend the oppressed, and always be found on the side of justice, and to testify the truth… yet it is not my job to save the world. I fulfill my moral obligations to my fellowman by my Christian Libertarian activism and standing for election thereby giving them a valid moral choice to make on polling day.

Many Christians don’t understand the great dispensational differences between what Christ taught and what St Paul taught, esp the fact that Under St Pauls Gospel we are not attempting to establish ‘Gods kingdom on Earth’. Christianity under St Paul is not a nationalistic/ legalistic political movement, but a call to individuals to join a voluntary association. The only political prerequisites being the liberty to practice and preach my faith. I don’t need political power to impose my Christian values upon an unwilling population. It is enough that I may preach the truth and leave my hearers free to embrace the truth, or carry on in their delusions. If they begin to oppress others, I will use free speech to condemn them. On private property I may build schools and churches… or sit at my computer writing condemnations against the powers that be and the follies of the masses. By these means I fulfill my duties to My God, and my fellow man. Things will have to get much worse that they currently are before I would ever consider violent rebellion. Without the support of a large proportion of the population, or a New Zealand equivenlent of Bainimarama ie support of the military any armed resistance would be a futile gesture. This is not a plausible option.

Martin Luther King and Ghandi brought about great reforms via preaching, activism, protests, and peaceful civil disobedience.

Though I suffer the foolishness and injustices of our corrupt Socialist Nanny state, I can find serenity in the knowledge that I have fulfilled my moral obligations by stepping forward and testifying the truth, speaking out against oppression and injustice, and that if the world goes to hell… that is not my responsibility. I do not have to convert the world to be ‘a success’. That is beyond my humble power. My Job is to sow the seeds, and in so doing I am peacefully living my Christianity in a lost world.
We have the examples of peaceful civil disobedience from Gandhi and Martin Luther King, whom managed to bring about great political reforms via peaceful means.
These methods are to be preferred to armed struggle.
Ultimately the Gospel of Democracy is being put to the test. The Christian ought not to be supprised reality proves it to be falce and that it is not the saviour of Mankind but ultimately testifies to the sin nature of Mankind. It shows that the lust for power drives popular government to abandon the principles of justice which would limit those powers.

a href=”http://blog.eternalvigilance.me/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/wolves-and-sheep.jpg”>

Democracy has been described as two wolves and a Lamb voting ‘Whats for dinner?’


The New Zealand Hero Activist Dakta Green.

ALCP Activist Dakta Green is currently serving a prison sentence as a consequence of his civil disobedience in relation to reforming Cannibis Laws. It is a dark time for him and many thousands of Kiwi whom are unjustly persecuted by the state for growing, smoking, selling cannabis. I hope that the ALCP get a good tally tomorrow. One that reflects the efforts of this Heroic Man and his collogues.
Yet because our nation is racing towards Absolute Tyranny and bankruptcy, the Time could arrive that a minority of resolute Liberty loving Patriots can no longer tolerate the injustice and will be duty bound to reach for their carbines and march towards Wellington. Because the right to bear arms is not merely for the means of self defense from violent criminals, but as a means to defend oneself from tyrannical and corrupt governments be they Kings or parliaments.
Of course the Corrupt powers that be will attempt to suppress any uprising that challenges their Regime and without the support of the people, or the army such revolts are virtually doomed to failure.
Thus the real revolution is an idological one which must first take place on the battlefield of Ideas, in the hearts and minds of the people. This is where the true battlefront is. This is why the Political manipulation of the masses via State control of the Education system is the ultimate form of political control. From this flows the political beliefs which permeate the media, and if the Media are devout Fascists… Hitler will always win elections and Justice and liberty will always lose.
Tim Wikiriwhi.

< Gadaffi was overthrown by popular revolt(with a little help from NATO), yet what made this revolution just was not the fact that it was popular, but that Gadaffi was a tyrant.

Cluas von Stauffenburg (Far left) was one of many Germans whom attempted to assassinate Adolf Hitler. He planted a bomb, yet Hitler survived. Stauffenburg and many of his co conspirators were rounded up and executed.


Churchill was part of a Coalition that fought a world war to put an end to the tyranical ambitions of Hitler and The Japanese. Millions died in the process.


In a bid for Religious Liberty the Pilgrim Fathers left the Old World in their wake and set forth to found their own society in the New World.

The Late Great Charlton Heston, President of the National Rifle Association. The point of having an armed population is to empower them to defend their rights and liberties from tyranical Government.


Libertarians Penn and Teller ‘Bullshit!’

Atheism. The Philosophy of Small Minds.

“A little philosophy inclineth man’s mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men’s minds about to religion.”
Francis Bacon. English Lawyer and Philosopher. 1561-1626

I have just been made aware that my old Libertarianz Party comrade and Randoid Zealot Peter Cresswell has posted a Carlin vid on his Blog Not PC entitled ‘Religion is Bullshit’.

http://pc.blogspot.com/2011/11/greatest-bullshit-story-ever-told.html

Now I would like to point out that as a Bible believing Christian I 99.999% agree with that sentiment, yet here is the Rub. Its absolutely wrong to think that because there is a mountain of Bullshit in Religion, that that is proof that all religion is Bullshit or that there is no God! *That’s a false assumption* That is like saying Because Adolf Hitler was one of the most wicked human beings ever to walk the Earth and one of the Biggest Liars, that that means Everything he ever did was wicked, and that everything he ever said was a lie. Which is nothing but a gross assumption that no intelligent person will accept. *Yet this is exactly the sort of vacuous argument wooly headed Atheists like Carlin and Cresswell employ*. This Bogus way of thinking is also the basis for Richard Dawkins ‘The God delusion’. It is also laughable to see Atheists burry their Heads in the sands of self denial with their big fat Superstitious Butts exposed for all to see chanting “I’m not religious”. ..”I’m scientific”….”I’m Rational”. Ha! Atheism is a man made superstition not supported by Science, or clear and objective reasoning. In fact Because Atheism is a negitive, It is definitivly impossible to prove and therefore can only be embraced by blind whim and when they claim to have reason and science on their side they are trying to sell you flies. Planet Atheism is nothing more than the ‘Happy place’ for pessimistic Haters.
Tim Wikiriwhi.
“The fool hath said in his heart there is no God” Solomon ‘The Wise’. Psalm 14vs1.

Update: See another Carlin Video… “You have no rights”
Here: http://blog.eternalvigilance.me/2011/11/atheism-has-no-basis-for-rights-or-morals/

Materialism renders Man Nought. Meaning-less, Value-less, Right-less

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The Late Great Libertarian Christian Philosopher Francis Schaeffer explains why The philosophy of Libertarian Inalienable rights is the historic fruit of the Judeo-Christian world view, and that Atheist Materialism is the Death of all morality, and human value, and has no basis for objective Law. This explains why with the growth of Atheism, Democratic Nations like America and New Zealand have become exposed to unchecked Mobocracy, having removed belief in God given inalienable rights and objective morality. What remains is the arbitrary whim of the masses. In the atheist reality there is no Higher authority. Any ‘Rights’ we now possess may be removed at any moment. They are no longer Inalienable but dependent upon the whims of Parliament. To restore true Libertarian rights *As sacred* is my Mission. I preach the Gospel Of the Grace of God, so that sinners might be saved, and also to restore faith in the Judeo-Christian cosmology which underpins human value, objective morality, esp The Rights of the individual. Many modern Christians have forsaken the Political Enlightenment that followed in the wake of the Reformation, and have been led down the garden path into tyranny and subjection by the ‘Humanist’ worldview. I seek to recover them from the snare of Devil, and restore faith in the trustworthiness of the Bible and the foundations of Liberty and equality. It has taken strong delusions to blind Christianity to the truths which I hold to be self-evident: That God created Man equal and endowed him with certain inalienable rights… Tim Wikiriwhi.

Atheism has no basis for Rights… or Morals.

The Late George Carlin… Rabid atheist and Iconoclast tells you honestly what Atheism really means… The end of all value and morality. He would laugh in Ayn Rands face! He exposes Rand as a Fraud and second-hander …. whom plagiarizes the values of Christianity and foolishly attempts to ground them in the vacuum of atheist materialism! Calling her Philosophy ‘Objectivism’ no more makes it truly Objective than calling a party ‘Labour’ actually makes it truly benevolent towards the working class! Rand actually abandoned a tyrannical atheist country (Russia) for the safety and liberty of a Christian Nation (America), and then proceeded to undermine the very foundations of Freedom! Enlightened Protestant Christianity. Russia embraced the ideas of the Karl Marx, whom based his Collectivist Totalitarian State upon ‘Scientism’ (Atheist Materialism) and the denial of God given inalienable rights. Lenin further argued that ‘Whatever actions benefited the cause of ‘the Party’ (the State) and its ambitions for World socialist Revolution *was moral*. Murder etc are all acceptible means being justified by the ends (Utilitarianism). The Socialists believe the Individual has no rights but exists for the sake of the state. Under Atheism there are no objective values or ethics. Ethics are superstitions… illusory. Scientifically speaking all that really exists to the Materialist way of thinking are the cold and indifferent Laws of physics and chemistry.
Tim Wikiriwhi.
P.S You Objectivists…Paybacks are a Bitch aye! You have taken great pleasure in Blaspheming Christ so please don’t bleat too loudly that I now repay you in kind! Surely you didn’t expect Christianity to cowardly run away from your profanities and delusions?
Yet do not utterly despair. When I get around to it I will lay out the basis of a social compact by which we Christians can coexist with you silly Infidels in Liberty and equality, that is if you are capable of reaching such an accord. The fundamental principle which I shall elaborate upon as the basis of peace and hope between our conflicting worldviews is the principle of ‘The consent of the governed’ and it hinges upon the notion that there are some commonly held desires which form *an overlapping consensus* between all peoples of tolerance and peace, and that via religious liberty a civilization… a free society of equality and justice can be founded and maintained.
Then we can carry on our Ideological warfare like civilized enemies… via free speech, free press, etc.

A top tax rate of 39 minutes

I’m inordinately fond of this quotation from comedian Katt Williams.‎

If you ain’t got no job, and you not smoking weed, I don’t know what the fuck you are doing with your life, I really don’t.

Some people seek to spend their every waking hour hard at work. Some people seek to spend their every waking hour hard at play. And some people seek an elusive “work/life balance”. Are you keeping busy?

This post is a bit of a follow-up to why I am a libertarian. I am a libertarian because one cannot consistently argue for personal liberties and at the same time be opposed to economic liberty.

I have been a drug law reform campaigner my entire adult life. I joined NORML over thirty years ago – or tried to. I was told to wait a year or two until I turned 18. The idea of persecuting people for choosing to smoke a herb that makes them feel happy and relaxed, and enhances their appreciation of food, music and sex always seemed to me both ludicrous and wrong. There are too many smokers to arrest!

The fact that there are too many cannabis smokers to arrest makes cannabis prohibition ludicrous, but it does not make it wrong. At university I once attended an introductory lecture on critical thinking. The lecturer devoted his time to demolishing most of my long cherished arguments in favour of drug law reform. I was aghast! And chastened. I realised that deploying bad arguments for good causes is not a good idea. I also realised that I needed only one good argument in favour of drug law reform. That argument is the argument from human rights. I have a moral right to smoke cannabis! It ain’t nobody’s business if I do! The state should leave peaceful people alone to enjoy smoking weed, if that’s how they choose to spend their time.

It wasn’t until a few years later that I realised that my one good argument was actually an entire political ideology. That’s when I realised I was a libertarian. I have a moral right to earn money! It ain’t nobody’s business if I do! The state should leave peaceful people alone to enjoy earning money, if that’s how they choose to spend their time. And it should leave peaceful, productive people alone to enjoy the fruits of their labours. Prohibition is violence and taxation is theft. Both institutions depend, ultimately, on coercion by the state. Both are wrong, and for the same reason. Whatever may be open to disagreement, there is one act of evil that may not, the act that no man may commit against others and no man may sanction or forgive.* So long as men desire to live together, no man may initiate—do you hear me? no man may start—the use of physical force against others.

But, from a governmental perspective, there are differences between smoking pot and earning money. Time is money. The government can tax your money, but it can’t tax your time. Unless you try to combine smoking pot with earning money. Then you run the risk of a tax bill of several years in jail. This happened to one of the great heroes of New Zealand’s drug law reform movement, Dakta Green. Right now, he should be out campaigning for the ALCP vote in New Lynn. Instead, he’s rotting behind bars. Dakta Green says

After you’ve spent a little time in jail for growing a little weed, it tends to focus your mind on whether or not that’s a fair and proper response from authorities to our citizens. I, along with millions of others around the world, have decided that cannabis should be legally available for adults.

I’m one of those millions of people who’s decided that cannabis should be legally available for adults. That’s why, this election, I’m standing for the Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party. I’m the ALCP candidate for the Mana electorate, and #9 on the party list. Tick, tick!

[Cross-posted to SOLO.]

(*This is the Objectivist version of the NIOF principle, due to Ayn Rand. Christians may not sanction, but they must forgive. Yes, even the tax collectors.)

We are not Robots Ayn Rand. We are Moral Agents.

Though we are wonderfully designed beings *we are not Robots!* This is a monumental fact that raises human beings into another League far above the rest of creation.
One of the most self-evident of proofs that we Humans are dualistic Spirit beings, and part of a higher reality than the materialistic realm is that we possess Libertarian free will. Atheist Materialism is at a complete loss to explain this. Therefore they deny it. Evolutionary Psychology is the new big thing in atheist academia, and it specializes in theorizing away freewill morality. In Contrast the Biblical theistic explanation of reality actually has the explanatory power to deal with the issue as to how and why freewill and freedom are possible.
Materialism is a very shallow faith… a purely convenient atheistic whim that does not square with the facts of experience. They abitralily impose it upon reality by sheer force of will. The fatal problem is in a purely Materialistic Universe Liberty and freewill are impossible because everything is enslaved to deterministic causation. Atheist Materialists infer that everything in existence from the moon and the stars to Ford cars and lustful thoughts all were pre-determined within ‘the big bang’. Of course even admitting the universe had a beginning is a recent novelty for Materialists. They used to believe the universe was eternal and would mock Christians fo believing God made the universe out of nothing… that is until science proved that the universe did in fact have a beginning just as The Book of Genesis declared.
Now having quietly corrected themselves on that thorny issue, it is staggering to apprehend just how outrageous and blundering the atheist assertion of materialism still is! Not only does it deny freewill, It actually infers that Henry Ford was compelled to invent the Motor car! They are supposed to be inescapably determined by the Laws of physics! They assert everything that exists and happens, from the Big Bang to Entropic Death is supposed to be nothing more than the ‘settling of Cosmic dust’…the blind result of an explosion! It ought to be obvious to anyone with a modicum of common sense that this is absurd! Many Atheists (Richard Dawkins included) hate discussing this matter. Many bury their heads in the sands of denial. In contrast Freewill *And design* is fundamental to Theism and the teaching and ethics of the Bible.
For eg. The Bible clearly teaches Gods will is currently * not being done* on Earth as it is in Heaven. The Earth is filled with Rebellious evildoers whom freely commit atrocities and perversions …. And The Bible says God holds mankind accountable for our wicked works… We are accountable to God because we are not compelled by materialistic forces to commit evil, Nor does he impose his will upon us. We act via our own choices. We are moral agents. Christ taught his Jewish disciples to pray to Their heavenly Father “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in Earth as it is in heaven…”. They were praying for an end to the free reign of unchecked evil. In the meantime we need Just government to mitigate the evil urges of fallen man.
Freewill Morality begins back in the Garden of Eden. When God made Adam he gave him the liberty to disobey Him. God gave Adam a choice, and it is in the Genesis story that the principles of Libertarian ethics find their origins. It is here where Man gets his God-given inalienable right to Life, and the liberty to exercise his own moral judgments as a freewill agent.
Consciousness and free will are Theistic realties. The problem of slavery to determinism is the ultimate proof that if Atheist Materialism were true, it would render reality Amoral as it not only negates the Libertarian ethics of inalienable rights, by rendering Man a mere chemical reaction, but destroys morality absolutely! Moral law has not foundation in a cold materialistic universe and Materialistic beings cannot be moral agents as they don’t possess freewill. It is a double dilemma. Most Materialists claim we horribly delude ourselves as to the existence of morality and freewill… They say the scientific man has exorcised these bogeymen ( This is what the foolish superstition of Materialism leads to and a good example of this reasoning can be found in the writings of honest atheist Bertrand Russell)
And then flying in the face of all this you get the psychotic delusions of Objectivist atheists whom pretend they can squeeze Inalienable rights out of stones. They are Bat shit crazy… bordering on dishonest.
Rabid atheist Ayn Rand was 100% wrong in her John Galt’s speech when she called The Adam of the Bible a Robot! The truth is *It is Her Atheist Materialism which renders Man a mere amoral machine!*
That is an inescapable fact! Rand was absolutely wrong! She is deranged! Her whole argument is Bunk. She is the enemy of Libertarianism because she sets about to destroy faith in the bible… and it is from the Bible that all the essential principles of Libertarian Individual rights and limited government are derived. (eg. Study John Locke). Thus it is my duty as a Lover of Liberty and a believer in The objective reality of Individual rights to expose the fraudulent delusions of Ayn Rand… a wolf in sheep’s cloth. A deceiver of Souls.
Theism escapes this amoral prison because man gets his life and freewill conscience breathed into him from the spirit of God himself. Ie our conscience is not a product of or determined by Matter. And the honest man must admit this view makes far more sense! It can explain why I am free to write this sentence… I could have watched TV instead. My wife was not a Robotic slave to inescapable laws of causation… she does love me! YES! Theism is far more rational than Atheist Materialism! Its explanatory power takes in the full scope of Human experience. We didn’t need to touch on the fact that atheist materialism is also complete at a loss to explain the origin of Life whereas The Bible has a brilliant explanation for that too… completely supported by Science proper! And it is from the Christian scriptures that Libertarianism and the conceptualization of Inalienable rights was born. I shall be expanding upon this assertion in future posts… so stay tuned. …Anyone hear the howling of Wolves?
Tim Wikiriwhi

End note: I take no pleasure in conflict. And as a Libertarian Christian I respect the rights of others such as Objectivists to believe what they like and say whatever they like even if it is against my own personal views. This is what freedom is, and freedom of conscience, freedom of religion is the most fundamental of all freedoms. It would be nice if I did not have to level accusations against ‘Objectivism’. Unnecessary conflict is to be avoided. A cardinal rule put down by the great founder of this Blog is in the side Bar. “ Let no unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen”. The primary goal of this blog is edification and the promotion of toleration, yet it must be remembered that Truth is the highest of values, and that Lies damn men’s souls and prop up tyrannies, and that as such Christians are called to ‘earnestly contend for the faith’. It must also be remembered that in a free society that there will still exist conflicting values and world views locked into a War of Ideas. Yet this is a war of minds not swords. Reason, and the power of persuasion are the weapons. It is in the contexts of Individual rights that makes a free society a more civil and just society having removed violence and political coercion from the Ideological Battlefield. Objectivists wage this war with relentless fanatical zeal in emulation of their Idol… The fanatical Atheist Ayn Rand. Thus it behooves Me to meet this Horde head on, and swing the ‘Sword of the Spirit’ at their conceptual throats and to decapitate their Ideological Queen. Objectivists should expect nothing less.
They give no quarter and none shall be given them.
Tim Wikiriwhi. Soldier for Christ.

Read more on Free will and morality…

Sick Puppies.

Monism: Evolutionary Psychology and the Death of Morality, Reason and Freewill.

Update 4/12: http://blog.eternalvigilance.me/2012/03/what-are-you/#comment-8796

Friday focus

Tim Wikiriwhi sent me this. It’s from Fonterra focus, October 2011.

I am the head of sales of a large automobile dealership. A customer is prepared to buy a vehicle from me on the condition that I record the transaction as having been made two weeks ago. It is now 14th January. For tax purposes, the customer wants to have the transaction recorded in the previous year. What do I do?

1. I doctor the accounts in accordance with the customer’s wishes.

2. I tell him that I will not honour his request.

3. In order to buy time, I promise him that I will think about his offer. This will make it more difficult for him to buy from one of my competitors in the meantime.

4. I tell the customer to talk to the managing director.

One reason I post this is because sometimes I “doctor” the timestamps on my posts. This is because my personal posting policy is “1 a day”. Sometimes I forget. Sometimes I post just the title of a post and a promissory note, and come back later to finish writing. In any case, built in to WordPress is the ability to write posts and to embargo them so that they are officially published later. Even when you’re dead. When the timestamp of a post bears little relationship to when it was actually posted, I usually indicate that by marking the time as 6:00 AM or 6:00 PM. (You see this when you mouse over the date immediately under the post’s title.) I’m not trying to deceive anyone. Hence this disclaimer. (If you’re really bothered by this, go talk to the managing director.)

Blessed are the Canaanites

Matt Flannagan and I have much in common, meta-ethically speaking.

Matt, like me, accepts a divine command theory of ethics whereby an act is morally obligatory if, and only if, a loving and just God commands it, and an act is morally wrong if, and only if, a loving and just God forbids it. We agree that given that the wrongness of an action consists in its being forbidden by God, and given that God does not issue commands to himself, it follows that he has no duties; and hence, God is under no obligation not to kill anyone and is free (i.e., morally unconstrained) to do as he pleases.

Matt’s Ph.D. is in theology.

Mine is in philosophy.

The present work belongs to a tradition in meta-ethics most closely associated with the work of J L Mackie. In his Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong [Mackie (1977)], Mackie argued for the claim that there are no objective values. [Mackie (1977), p. 15.] Mackie had in mind, particularly, objective moral values.

Mackie’s thesis figures prominently in the present work. I call this thesis moral anti-realism, and state it as the claim that there are no moral facts. I do not argue for moral anti-realism directly. Instead, I argue for a more cautious, epistemic variant of moral anti-realism which I call moral eliminativism—the claim that it is reasonable to believe that there are no moral facts. (Frequently, however, I lapse back into a more straightforward, non-epistemic manner of speaking—omitting the “it is reasonable to believe that” qualifier—for the sake of economy. Below, I use the symbols *{} as shorthand to denote this epistemic qualifier and its scope.)

The central argument of the present work is this.

(1*) *{God does not exist}.

(2*) If *{God does not exist}, then *{there are no moral facts}.

Therefore,

(ME) *{There are no moral facts}.

There is an important preliminary point to be made regarding this argument. Moral eliminativism is merely the conclusion. The bulk of the work, and the interest, lie in establishing (2*). My real purpose in this dissertation is to draw attention to the fact that the following form an inconsistent triad

(1*) *{God does not exist}.

(2*) If *{God does not exist}, then *{there are no moral facts}.

(MR*) *{There are moral facts}.

and to argue for (2*). I then assume (1*) simply for the sake of constructing an argument. I might equally well have assumed (MR*), and constructed a very different argument, one which would amount to a moral argument for the existence of God.

(MR*) *{There are moral facts}.

(2*) If *{God does not exist}, then *{there are no moral facts}.

Therefore,

(3*) *{God exists}.

Thus, I hope that my argument will have almost as much appeal to theists as to moral anti-realists. Nonetheless, in this dissertation I play the devil’s advocate, and argue for and from an anti-realist perspective.

The argument for (2*) proceeds in three stages. In Part 1, I establish the general conditions which must obtain before belief in moral facts (or any sort of facts) is reasonable. In Part 2, I establish what sort of facts would count as moral facts. In Part 3, I bring the findings of Parts 1 and 2 together with one further consideration to show that belief in bona fide moral facts is reasonable only if belief in the existence of God is reasonable.

God is the source of morality. Not many atheists realise this. I was an atheist once. When I realised that God is the source of morality, I became a nihilist. But nihilism is no way to live. It is only a way to die.

Which brings us to where Matt and I part company. Matt is an apologist for the God of the Old Testament. But the God of the Old Testament is an amoral monster.

I’m a Christian. But I do not love—let alone love with all my heart, with all my soul, with all my strength and with all my mind—the (hopefully fictitious) cosmic fiend portrayed in the Old Testament.

I guess that makes me a neo-Marcionite. (See here.)