The Atom. Monists say that Each Individual, All Humanity, All Life, Love, Artistic expression, Every Moral crusade, Politics, Religion, Every Conscious thought, Every moment of Ecstasy and wonder are nothing more than the interaction of Atoms.
Its been one of those days…Reading the Waikato Times pg 7.
So much Atheist Bullshit… So little time to Rub their noses in it!
One of the favorite Atheist ‘Group hugs’ is their Self delusion that their beliefs are planted in ‘superior soil’ to Balmy Religious ‘Hocus pocus’.
They claim to dwell at the pinnacle of the evolutionary advance, having Superior Intelligence and Superior Education to their Lesser Religious cousins, and having escaped the primitive mindset which is religiously prone, they claim *Reason* as the mighty Rock upon which they stand.
Now if the stench of vanity is not enough to make you question the validity of these claims, The Exploits of one of their Sects ought to.
I refer to that sect of atheists known as ‘Evolutionary psychologists’ whose primary ambition is to take the mind of mankind and using scientific jargon make up a rationale to vindicate their faith that everything in the universe conforms to their Atheist Naturalistic Cosmology.
That is their brief, their duty, their delight.
What is important to realize about this process is that insodoing they De-Humanize Mankind from being a Freewill/ reasoning/ Moral Agent into a mere Automation… a robot.
This can be clearly seen in such declarations as this….
How Flocking Ridiculous!
They want you to believe your little Tot has a Pre-disposition to vote Left! (Or Right, or Whateva)
What more via this notion that Genes make our political decisions for us, they have negated your power of reason and freewill …which is what the very purpose of their conclusions are aimed at achieving… forcing the Mind to comply with materialistic determinism, and just as importantly undermining the Moral culpability which underpins The Christian Argument in respect to freewill and Divine judgment.
Many Atheists will get warm fuzzies from this announcement and say to themselves…”Yes! Freewill is a myth! Everything in the Universe has a purely Naturalistic explanation… There is no God and Man is not a Moral Agent.”
“Everything that is… from the Moon, to Leonardo’s Mona Lisa was Pre-ordained in the Big Bang”
Ie they will accept these findings simply because they conveniently integrate with their Materialistic faith…. Ha ha…. Think about that! Blind leading the Blind…
I ask you this…Why would anyone believe any such research produced by such a partisan lobby to be objective and valid?
To think this sect is capable of Real Scientific Objectivity is as Nieve as believing the Waitangi Tribunal’s Ruling that Maori own the Water rights of New Zealand was an objective and impartial judgment in respect to 1840 British Law, and the treaty!
To expect the Evolutionary psychologists to present findings that were contrary to their personal Materialist delusions would be as Naive as expecting Anti-slavery Abolitionist John Brown to have been found ‘Not Guilty’ of treason and insurrection by the Slave State Virginia court!
John Brown did not receive justice, and like shambolic rulings of The Waitangi Tribunal, in declaring Politics to be a Genetic trait, the Priests of Materialism have simply dictated their own prejudices.
This is not Science!
It’s a scam!
And these ‘findings’ fly in the face of Common experience!
Materialism is absurd!
(I had the option of saying Materialism is Ridiculous!… ie we exercise freewill every day!)
We change our political opinions based upon convincing enough Rationale.
*If The Atheists apply their own arguments upon themselves and their Atheism… they must concede that their atheism is not based upon Reason at all but that their rejection of the Idea of a God is simply a Genetic Predisposition!
They ought to conclude that they are not more intelligent…. Not more rationale…. Their education counts for Naught…. They are simply Genetic Atheists… and no amount of reason will convince them God exists.
Thus their own arguments render them stupid.
In the light of this ramification by what act of self delusion do they continue to insist that they are guided by reason, or that Reason is the preserve of atheism?
They have utterly destroyed Reason and enshrined Chemistry!
Our thoughts have been reduced down to chemical actions.
This is where Monism leads to.
The annihilation of the Human being.
Reason is a Theistic/ spiritual concept. Understandable in the Idea of God *THE CONSCIOUS REASONING SPIRITUAL BEING*.
It involves Liberty, and Choice.
Things which are completely alien to Materialistic determinism, and random chaos.
Computers don’t Reason.
Humans Reason. We are not computers… We are like God. We are Free, and we can make real choices. We are Moral Agents.
An ‘Educated’ friend of ours tells me he finds the notion of dualism to be incomprehensible… He’s been saturated in materialism too long!
I must remind him that the fact that we may not be able to understand something (ie Dualism) does not necessarily make it irrational or superstition to accept it and believe in it.I accept Dualism and Biblical morality because it’s explanatory power is vastly superior to Materialism Naturalism.
You cannot expect science to synthesize God, or weigh/ measure the Human soul.
That does not negate their reality. It merely sets limits to the power of science.
(The materialist Tech-myth of artificial consciousness is sooo in fashion!)
I accept spiritual Being as absolutely necessary because materialist naturalism is woefully inadequate to explain reality, and laugh at the pathetic efforts of Materialists to render everything sterile and dead… and accidental.
Scientifically speaking The Human soul is like The Higgs Boson. It’s a Theoretical spiritual particle postulated to explain Consciousness and freewill. Nobody has ever seen it. It’ cant be directly observed. Yet we can trust/ believe in it’s existance because of indirect observations …
Re: The Freewill vs Materialist determinism debate.
Today I found an interesting scientific study done in New Zealand vindicating skepticism in the fashionable ideas of Evolutionary psychology, which as a ‘Naturalistic Doctrine’ argues that all human morality is determined by Genetics… ie that there is no such thing as freewill moral choice.
This New Otargo research now says Babies lack morals… (Suprise!….not.) This overturns previously Reaserch submitted in 2007 by Yales Kiley Hamlin whom argured that 6-10mth old infants could already make moral choices and that these must be Innate .
We can see that Yales Kiley Hamlin was predisposed to the Evolutionary/ materialist/ genetic/ hypothesis when she presented her research which she argued that Babies are born with an original moral blueprint …
Quote: “… It also reminds us that behavior is not simply nature versus nurture; it is about the interaction of genes and their environments…”
And so we can understand why she now continues to defend her hypothesis against the critisism from New Zealand.
The new New Zealand study undermines these sorts of Evolutionary/ deterministic theories.
To my way of thinking it ought to be Obvious that Both Nature, and Nurture play significant roles in the Morality of individuals, Yet I would add a third and most critical element… an element Naturalist/ materialists are keen to Exorcise from mankind…. The Individual ‘Soul’ or inner spiritual being unique to each individual (The real ‘US’…. indwelling our bodies like a man indwells a house), which has the capacity to make freewill choices which either endorses the amoral desires of our physical being (our lusts), which Licence may or may not be sanctioned by the culture the individual has been nurtured in, or it/we may overcome both these external factors and choose to embrace either a higher’ or ‘lower’ morality than what is ‘the norm’ for his day and age. In my view it is this inner spiritual character which will determine the quality and height of morality any particular individual will aspire to….or settle for. This is why Individuals can appear in complete contrast to the Times and customs of their Peers, and forsaking the accepted norms of the society that surrounds them, and become aliens …. on a pilgrimage of either light or darkness… depending upon the intents of their heart. This Road is steep, yet is a two way street. You can simply stay put with most of your peers… and make camp at the spot you where you feel most comfortable…Why bother going anywhere?
Or you can turn your face to the mountain and labour upwards towards Heavens light…good luck finding faithful company who will not forsake you half way along your arduous journey!
Or you can turn your back and take the direction of least resistance, downward into Darkness…
What this means is that we as individuals are responsible for the sort of human beings we become (or remain). We are not simply slaves to our biology and Environment. We each have an unique inner Being which determines our moral character as individuals. This explains why a child raised in a religious home can choose to forsake the beliefs and values they were taught, and instead choose to become an atheist adult, and why someone raised to accept atheist materialism can later choose to forsake Atheism for God… demonstrating Humanity is in constant Flux… and that Liberty/ freewill and rationality are what matters most in the moral question … not Chemical determinism.
Prior to Darwin, Christians always believed that while Children posess Adams fallen Human Nature, that they are born ‘innocent’, and later develope their moral sence, at which point in time (differeing between individuals) they become morrally responcible for their actions and accountible unto God.
And Our Society also ‘believes’ this to be true in that it does not convict children for crimes.
This rationale also underpins the Doctrine that all innocent little children whom die, Go to heaven… and this doctrine is supported by various scriptures.
I must also point out that even if it was discovered that babies had some ability to make moral choices, that this would not prove that morality stems automatically from Genes.
Dawkins is not a quantum ejaculation.
He is far more easily understood as a son of Fallen Adam.
Much of Dawkins own ‘Rationalizations’ may be reflected back upon the man himself.
One way we can look at the Animal Richard Dawkins is as fairly ordinary/ typical specimen of Humanity… nothing particularly spectacular ….
He’s no mystery.
He’s Quite fathomable as a product of Human Nature and 20th century nurturing.
Dawkins, like the rest of us harbors the same basic ‘nature’….the desire to escape the restraints of Moral law. To be our own God’s…etc
What Dawkins hates the most about the Bible is … As The Highlander might say …”There can be only 1!”
“And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” (Genesis 2vs16,17)
Satan: “Yea hath God said…?
“And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: (Genesis3vs1,4)
I hope to show you that the Book of Genesis appears to have been written to expressly refute the likes of Richard Dawkins.
By the time I have finished this section I hope to have clearly shown that The Bible foresaw the rise of such personalities as Dawkins.
It explains how he was spawned.
It exposes his rationale as that of a man whom professes himself to be wise… when in fact he is a deceived fool…. Caught up in his own craftiness.
The Book of Genesis is written in such a way as to show the proper/ only rational way for man to have a loving relationship with God is to *trust in his good character* and have faith in his word.
*This is wisdom*
It is a simple matter of reason to understand that finite beings like us humans, can never know/ understand everything about The Almighty. And that though we can grow in wisdom, nonetheless it is paramount that we trust in the Goodness of our divine Father beyond our scope of understanding. The basis for this faith is that he has proven himself to be loving, and gracious towards us and therefore has earned full respect.
Life will put this faith to the test.
The deceiver will do his utmost to make you forsake God… to become like Richard Dawkins.
Satan Loves to Bamboozle!
One of the best ‘tricks of the trade’ I have learned as an amateur/ unschooled thinker is that when things get complicated (as with this thorny subject) … it is time to step to the side… and find a simple place to stand.
And it is amazing how well this works to cut through all the Din and confusion.
I want to do this right now.
I want to lay down a few basic ideas which to my mind cut though the ‘Everest of Codswallop’ Sophist rationalists have thrown up against the Good character of God as revealed in the Bible.
This Issue is ideologically speaking ‘The Mother of all Wars’. Satan and His Minions *Cannot allow Faith in the Bible/ faith in Gods word to stand*.
If (By Providence) I can at least succeed in establishing this *Essential point*, Every other Objective spiritual truth follows.
As long as Satan is able to deceive people into disputing the trustworthiness of the Bible, He has them under his Power.
I have written unto you, fathers, because ye have known him that is from the beginning. I have written unto you, young men, because ye are strong, and the word of God abideth in you, and ye have overcome the wicked one. (1john2:14)
Now I am going to go back over the Genesis story.
*Please don’t yawn!*
Put your thinking cap on!
*Pray for God to be your Guide*
Once upon a time, Long ago… God created Adam and Eve.
It is important to realize that before God created Man, Lucifer / the Father of Lies had already rebelled against God. We know this because after a short unspecified length of time, Lucifer entered the Garden *as Satan* to deceive Eve.
Many people (including many Christians/ ‘Young Earther’s’/ Bible skeptics) mistake the First chapter of Genesis as being the Bible story of the Creation of the Universe, and the Planet Earth when in fact this was a restoration of an already pre-existing Universe which God had passed judgment upon/ destroyed due to the Rebellion of Lucifer, and the Earth was laid waste…Flooded and in Darkness.
(Gen 1vs 1,2)
The Biblical account of the actual creation of the Universe is found in the 1st chapter of the gospel of John.
Genesis 1 is the story of God’s restoration the Dry land (Earth) for his new creation Mankind.
There was no death (for man).
He Put Adam in the wonderful Garden of Eden, and because he cared about Adam, he made him his Wife Eve, for company, and for Procreation… to share and enjoy life in the garden and to enjoy the presence and companionship of God their Father.
At this blessed time there were no floods, no earthquakes, no plagues, no pestilences, etc, in the Garden.
According to God’s Determination…*Everything there was ‘good’.*
Yet because God did not want to create clockwork toys, but desired fellowship with beings with which he could truly commune, he made the Earth, and Mankind, in such a way that the potential for Evil and death existed.
Adam was called the Son of God, and it was a Loving trusting relationship which God wanted with Mankind.
God wanted Beings whom could reciprocate true love, could reason and appreciate God’s greatest characteristics, ie his Love, generosity, and Artistic glory, ie appreciate his creative power.
(We shall later see how even the Fall of Mankind allowed God to reveal even deeper parts of his character, and to create even more wonderful beings than Adam and Eve… all perceived in the mind of God before the foundation of the world)
And to established his Sovereignty, and give man opportunity to show his love, trust and respect for his Father, God gave Man one simple prohibition.
The test was to have faith in the Good character of God…
*Though it appeared that he was with holding ‘a good’ from mankind.*
The Test was for Adam to respect Gods Law, and to trust in his goodness.
“And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” (Genesis 2vs16,17)
I know that all sorts of Pre-conceived alarm bells will have been triggered by the ‘dominos’ I have push over, yet I ask you to switch off your ‘automatic’ security system you mistake for thinking, and actually truly *Contemplate what is going on here*.
Ask yourself… Does God have the right to deny Adam the right to eat that fruit?
Ie Does God have the Right to make a Law that appears to withhold something good from us? And can he do so… and yet still be considered to be absolutely Good?
This is a fundamental question in respect to God’s Sovereignty, and Good character.
Let me state that you take extreme care regarding what rationale you choose to apply to arrive at your judgment in respect to this ultimate moral question, as your choice may have more to do with your inner desires, rather than Objective reason.
You are taking the Audacious step of Standing in Judgment of God Almighty!
We ought to tremble at such a dreadful notion.
The extreme presumption of the act!
That we even dare tells us something about us… something dangerous… something awful about our predicament.
After contemplation, My answer to the above questions is rather simple.
*YES!* God is completely within his Sovereign right to make such a Prohibition.
And because of all the many blessings God had already given to Adam, Adam *Ought* to have trusted and obeyed his Father in respect to the Forbidden Fruit.
It is only via a convoluted Sophistry that my simple affirmative answer may be denied.
…Yet it was exactly via such sophistry that mankind was deceived into dis-obeying God, and bringing death and destruction upon himself. Take note ye Rationalists…
Satan enters the Garden….
Satan was able to rationalize a cunning deception which brought the character of God into question, and convinced Eve that God’s word was untrustworthy.
“Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?
2 And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden:
3 But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.
4 And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:
5 For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
6 And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.
7 And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.
8 And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God amongst the trees of the garden.
(Gen3vs1-8)
From this we can tell that at the time of Adam and Eve, God, in his wisdom, had not ‘imprisoned’ or annihilated Satan for his rebellion, and so we may reason that God allowed Satan *the Liberty* to continue his wicked ways and to enter the Garden, and to tell lies, in direct contradiction to God’s word.
Satan used a rationale to deceive mankind into distrusting God’s good character by implying God was mean spirited because he was withholding something Good from them, and convinced them into disbelieving God’s word… that they would not die if they ate the forbidden fruit.
What is even more interesting to consider is this:
I have often thought that the forbidden Fruit may have been a ‘poisonous berry’, but not so poisonous as to bring immediate death, but toxic enough to corrupt Adams Genes so as to spoil his physical perfection and ultimately result in his death, and begin the start of Mankind’s hereditary death and genetic degeneration… (the exact opposite direction in the passage of time postulated by the theory of Evolution)… which degeneration is actually scientifically vindicated in respect to the deterioration of the human genome.
I reasoned that if the Fruit was indeed toxic, then we may understand God’s warning that Adam must not eat that fruit lest he die, as being a bona-fide warning of physical danger.
(Question: Is the creation of Poisonous fruit compatible with the notion of a Good God? Ie Doe’s god have the right to make poisonous fruit?)
Yet this Idea that the fruit was toxic is not necessarily so.
I have come to realize a far more plausible yet radical understanding…
*Satan may have indeed been telling the truth when he said ye shall not die!*
Ie The fruit may have indeed been as vs 6 says …*Good for food*… and thus Satan was able to *use the truth* to destroy mankind!
This is Radical. This is Profound!
Satan was able to sow ‘truth’ and into a cunning lie, which presented itself as a valid reason to distrust God.
His Rationale appeared to justify disobeying Gods command.
What this shows is that God was not talking about a physical ‘cause and effect’ scenario, but a purely Moral cause and effect scenario, and Satan was able to get man to focus on the mundane.
Thus Man’s sin, and Fall was purely the act of faithlessness in Gods goodness and his Rebellion via disobedience… and the Fall was a faithless… reason based delusion.
And once Adam had broken his covenant with God, he brought Death upon himself… As God had clearly warned that if he ate of the forbidden fruit, he would surely die.
The Father of Lies had succeeded to seducing Mankind into rebelling against God and brought death upon them… yet it was Adam who freely chose to follow Satan rather than God.
And thus God cursed mankind, and the ground we walk on (The Earth). We lost our physical perfection and became mortals, and threw them out of the Blessed Garden. (yet still made a promise to send Christ)
Paradise was lost.
Now primarily… Morality is morality because our actions effect not only ourselves, but other people for good or ill.
It is a fact of Nature that Children ‘inherit’ the earth their parents have bequeathed to them… for good or ill. Hardworking and thrifty parents may raise their children in a nice house, with Good clothing, and buy them Books to learn etc, while slothful and vice ridden parents may raise their children in want and squalor. The first parents showing their Good values and love by fulfilling their moral duties and responsibilities, the second Parents displaying wicked irresponciblity. The innocent Children of the first parents reap the benifits of their parants moral virtues, while the innocent children of the second parents wrongfully/ unjustly suffer because of their parents wickedness.
To be able to appreciate this and to grasp the ‘wrongness’ of the second parents shows what it means to be Moral agents inhabiting a Moral Reality. The sence of wrong also exposes a need for Divine judgement and justice to correct this wrong.
There are at least two ‘orders’ of evil which we children of fallen Adam must endue as a consequence of Adams Fall. 1. is the Evils Mankind inflicts upon himself and each other…The bible teaches these evils stem from our fallen nature eg. The first born Man was Cain,. He would go on to murder his younger brother Abel. The 2nd order are what we call the Natural evils, Disease, Floods, earthquakes, etc which the Bible says resulted by God cursing the Earth, and destroying its perfect goodness which Mankind enjoyed before the fall. And God Separated himself from Mankind as well.
Thus were the circumstances which brought about all the evils we suffer today.
The Evils which make many people to think there is no God, esp no Good and loving God.
The order of events is important.
Mankind First sinned… that destroyed the blessings and pure goodness of creation as God had created it , God’s judgment bringing all Natural evils upon us and being true to his word, God passed the sentence of Death upon us.
That’s the biblical order.
God repented making Man…before the flood. He was compelled to destroy mankind because of their wickedness!
What the Fall, and the Curse also tell us is that *things are happening on the Earth that are not Gods will*
The evils we suffer were not how God originally made things.
Mankind’s wickedness….Wars, murders, rapes, thefts, etc are a testimony to the rebellion against God.
*They are a part of the moral continuum*
God has separated himself from us so that this ‘Goddless world plays out it’s charade…yet he has not forsaken us… he sent Christ to save us from Damnation, and gave us his Written word… his revelation so that we can come to a knowledge of the truth.
What is also profound to grasp is just how ‘serious’ was the command not to eat of that fruit!
From what we may consider a very ‘minor’ sin…. All the chaos and destruction followed! Rationalists will no doubt stagger at the implication that from such small origin did all the wickedness and separation from God …of human history.
They fail to grasp the quality of God’s holiness, and that sin is a disease… “a little leaven leveneth the whole lump”.
Question: Ought God have locked up Satan in hell before he made man?
He obviously planed to allow Satan to tempt mankind.
Was this wrong?
Who O man are you to stand in judgment of God?
From the Fall of man we can understand where Atheism came from… where is God?
From the fall we can understand where mans Rebellious nature to moral law comes from… Why must I conform to any Laws?
We can understand where the Rationalist spirit of unbelief and sophistry has its root… in the eternal desire to undermine God’s word, and to deny God’s right to make prohibitions, and to judge… ie Rationalism is the Spirit that denies God’s Sovereignty.
The Bible is not like every other Book.
It is God’s Holy, and Authorotive word.
God’s Preachers and Apostles, and Teachers instruct those whom seek after God to trust the scriptures, and present proofs that the Bible is worthy of adoration.
These teachers are not ignorant men. But skilled also in the Arts, histories, and sciences of Mankind.
On the other hand we have the Children of the Devil… the unbelieving sophists…. the contemptible and spiritually lost/ Ignorant Rationalists.
The rationalists tell us we must not ‘revere’ the Bible.
(They revere nothing but the own interlectual vanity…their own grand delusions!)
They say we ought to treat the Bible the same way as we would the Epics of Homer.
Yet by doing so they have already deceived you!
They Don’t believe it is the true Revelation from God!
They then automatically begin to apply their own Naturalistic anthropology to the interpretation of Scriptures.
All miracles are *automatically* rendered fables.
Any conversations Man is said to have had with God, any Judgments God is said to have visited upon mankind are firstly decried as being monstrous delusions of Barbaric minds, and then relegated to the realms of Myth and allegory etc.
By Rationalist logic, All the Gods of Mankind are Guilty of Cruelty and capriciousness by association.
Why should not Jehovah be compared with Moloch?
That The God of the Bible has visited mankind with deadly judgements is proof enough in their minds that he is a power crazy, melicious, tyranical being.
They make no distiction between the God of Abraham who judged The antideluvians and the Cananites because of their violence and wickedness, from the Blood thirsty Gods of the Azteks whom simply lust after Blood!
This is because it suits the Rationalists purposes to Deny God has any right to pass moral judgements upon mankind.
People like Noah and even Jesus are said to be inventions of Savage minds… like Hercules, Maui, etc. Little sleep is lost over the discoveries which prove many of the ancient personalities were real people.
This short little exposé on Materialistic Rationalism merely points out some of their grand assumptions…all of which can be challenged and exposed as sloppy wishful thinking which does no justice to subject it pretends to master.
Yet the pitiful antics of the Rationalists has been sufficient to convince the scholars studying the philosophy and ‘history’ of religion that he may handle the Bible with no more dread than any other ancient book of folk lore.
It is sufficient to convince the ‘schooled intellectual’ that Bible believers are crackpots, and that creationism should have no place in the education of Children.
This whole business is based upon a single premise… that all religion is merely human invention. If indeed the atheists are correct that there is no God, then it rationally follows that all religion must be born in Human imagination.
Yet if they are wrong… and I say they are… then they are making a huge error…If one of the Great religions of the world is actually true, then this whole business is a giant smokescreen, which is burying the truth amongst a pile of lies!
As a Christian I have no doubt that many religions are pure fiction… the inventions of Human imagination. Others are deviations from an original purity. Others still are half truths derived via Natural theology, moral experience, and consciousness.
Yet it is my testimony to mankind that The Bible is different to every other Religious text in that it is truly the inspired and preserved revelation from Almighty God!
The Bible tells the History of Mankind’…warts and all!
The Bible is not a wishy washy fabrication.
I hope that this post at least hints at how Mankind…including ourselves… can be fully understood… even our passions and rationalizations… our violence, our rebellion, our vanity.
Ie The Bible holds true to reality and experience!
Please understand that I am not trying to shield the Bible from rigorous investigation!
By all means investigate!
What I am saying is take care not to be fooled by the atheist rationalizations…sloppy colectivisations… such as equating Jehovah with Zeus… and fall into the trap of putting both Gods on the same human Pantheon.
As a Bible believer, I have spent 27 years studying religion comparatively, and this is a very rewarding subject, yet I have always taken care to measure up any criticism held against believing the Bible to be infallible, to see if it ‘holds water’… and always… always I find the criticism are full of leaks… full of assumptions, etc and so I always return my eyes to the Bible with reverence and faith… For I always give the benefit of the doubt to God and his precious revelation. And after 27 years my faith in the veracity of the King James Bible is such that I am dedicated to propagating faith in it’s trustworthiness to whomsoever will hear. There are few things that are more worthy of my fleeting moments.
St Paul. (2Thes5vs23)
“And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the comming of our Lord Jesus Christ”.
Tyndale. Myrtred for Translating The Bible into English.
It has taken me several weeks to start writing this 4th part .
I have been stricken with a nasty does of the flu, and also had to take care of my baby boy, whom is likewise afflicted. This affected my ability to focus. And on top of this I have also been pondering how best to proceed , not from lack of material, but how best to systematically present it.
Now that I am over the worst of this Bot, the time for procrastination is over and I will now attempt to build upon the previous posts.
And I must say those previous posts have laid down some very important foundations, and moved the subject onto the heart of the matter.
The difficulty with moving forward is that are at least three main streams of thought which must flow together, and this tests my writing skills.
All hope of keeping this series brief is now in vain.
Those who seek to avoid the just judgment of the Almighty are legion.
They may all attempt divers means of escape, yet they all may be classified as belonging to one club.
The Club of Infidelity.
The members All argue that the Bible ought not to be believed to be the perfect and inerrant word of God.
They attack the existence of God.
They attack the reliability of the biblical claim to be Divine revelation.
And on top of a myriad of other angles, They attack the Moral character of the God it professes to Reveal.
And this series of blogposts is attempting to Defend the character of the God of the Bible, yet it is important to understand that this argument is but one sector of an all round assault on the veracity of the biblical claim to be the infallible word of God.
It is therefore absurd to attempt to discuss this subject of the character of the Biblical Deity in isolation of this greater question.
Now what is both interesting, and very important to appreciate about the above truth is that it separates those who, like myself believe the Bible is 100% reliable, from everyone else.
And thus the Bible believing Christian must be distinguished from those Christians who don’t believe the Bible is 100% reliable.
It is interesting to understand that the attacks upon the veracity of the bible do not merely come from outside the church, ie from atheists and heathens, but that Many/ most Christians have themselves come to accept many of the arguments which undermine faith in the trustworthiness of the scriptures, and thus have join ranks with the atheists and heathen in attacking the Bible believers position.
Furthermore not only do many so-called Christians think the Bible believers position is intellectually untenable, they relish the Idea with as much fervor as the infidel, and for the very same reasons.
Ie They don’t like portions of the scriptures, and seek to justify their rejection of them as authorotive with as much fervor as the infidel.
The main cause of this Christian Apostasy is that they have succumbed to the ‘Logic’ of the rationalist attacks on the trustworthiness of the scripture, and character of the God it describes.
What more this Rationalist skepticism is what hold sway in most of the centers of learning.
Bible believing Faith as I hold has been in retreat for over a century, and with the progression of atheist Materialism there has been a century of Anti-biblical rationalism so that my type of faith is now very rare in Academia, and very unpopular in general.
By shear force of numbers my position is today considered ‘Unenlightened’, Backward, and Barbaric… especially by contemporary Schooled Christian Intellectuals.
And of course the ‘Educated’ will always peer downward at their pitiable ‘uneducated’ fellows like myself.
Thus it is against the weight of the world that my faith must contend, and It is in a pond of utter contradiction and confusion which I must swim.
Why do I bother?
Because to my mind nothing less that the whole Christian faith is at stake, and the hope of Salvation via the Gospel as well!
All this, in my mind hangs upon the veracity of the Bible and it’s accuracy in respect to the character of God.
And to Defend the faith I must thwart the False dichotomy that Faith and Reason are opposites.
Accepting this false dichotomy Academia seek to present my bible believers position as mere superstition… and imply reason, (and all the arts of Learning) are squarely on their side.
And so it is under this incredible weight and ferocity with which faith in the trustworthiness of the Bible is assailed, that has caused the majority of Christians to surrender it, and to even go on the offensive… on the side of infidelity. And by doing this they will today swear by Heaven they are doing Gods work and are defending Christianity… from the block heads like me who trust the Bible!
Thus it may be thought the height of arrogance and futility on my part to dare defy such a universal army!
For Christs sake Tim Nobody believe the Bible anymore!
Not even the Christians are on your side!
Surely Tis a display a suicidal Fanaticism!
A testament to the impregnability of superstitious Ignorance!
Modern evolutionary Psychologists might reason that I, (along with most of the most the Religious whakos of the ages) suffer a deranged mind… a collection of perversely stupid genes…etc
Satan laughing spreads his wings.
It was by getting Adam to doubt God’s character and word, that he convinced his to disobey God and bring Death and separation from God upon himself and his offspring.
It is in the wisdom of apprehending this fundamental error that I refuse to abandon those precious pages which introduced me to my God and Saiour!
I stand upon the Rock!
I defy the Storms of infidelity.
Though the tempest Roars, my position is not moved.
My reputation means nothing.
What matters to me is my testimony to my Children, friends and loved ones, and that when I stand before my God that in some measure my life has made a difference for truth, righteousness, and salvation of the lost.
Though many ‘Credentialed’ fellows will attempt to smear me as being Anti-intellectual …anti-schooling, and therefore dismiss me with a wave of the hand… that is more a testament to their utterly caged minds, and vested interest in maintaining the charade that their schooling gives them a status above ‘rude amateurs’ like myself rather than a valid criticism. It is an Ad Hominem attack, and certainly is not a rebuttal.
I know the power of the rationale which underpins my faith.
It is powerful enough to endure every Fiery dart of Satan and infidelity.
It is my deepest hope that I can transmit this wisdom onto my children, and anyone else who seeks to know God.
“I have written to you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God abides in you, and you have overcome the evil one.” 1 john 2:14)
“Let God be true and every man a Liar” Saith I. (Rom 3:4)
“And he [Abram] believed in the LORD; and he counted it to him for righteousness..” Gen 15:6
“ Heaven and earth shall pass away but my words shall not pass away” (Mat24:35)
“Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman who needeth not to be ashamed; Rightly dividing the word of truth” (2 Tim 2vs15)
The word of the Lords are pure words,as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times. Thou shalt keep them O Lord, thou shalt preserve them from this generation forever” (Psalms12:6,7)
“We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts:” (1 Peter1vs 19)
“ Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine.
For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears;
And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.
(2Tim4vs2-4)
In this series I can only present a tiny fraction of the Biblical doctrine about trusting Gods word over Atheist Rationalist doubt, I hope it is sufficient to cement my contention that the moment the Bible is believed to be 100% true that this will force many Christians to re-evaluate their faith in respect trusting in the goodness of God…in spite of the apparent difficulties involved with believing a Good God could destroy the world by flood, or condemn the wicked to eternal damnation.
When presented with the truth… will they still worship God, or will they be exposed as fundamental Infidels and haters of the Lord God, and instead prefer to maintain their position beside Dawkins and others who call Christ and the Father, Moral monsters?
I know by taking the side of infidelity in attacking the word of God All such Christians have sold the farm. I find their convoluted intellectual wranglings which attempt to incorporate the ideas of infidelity into a bastardized/ watered down version of Christianity to be a pathetic exercise in futility. The Infidels laugh along with Satan at the pathetic Christians who today endorse such things as The Theory of Evolution, and do backflips attempting to suggest things like Noah’s flood were never intended by God to be believed as literal. What these fools don’t appreciate is that they have already abandoned the high ground! The forces of Darkness are advancing.
Only a Revival in Faith in the trust worthiness of the Bible can stop the slide into the abyss.
All right then.
I think I can now get back to business…
Tim Wikiriwhi
One alternative to the atheist amoral world view (see part 1) in which the moral question regarding suffering and death of children is written off as ignorance….. is that there really are objective standards of ‘ought-ness’ in the universe… and that having feelings of injustice are not silly delusions… not mere evolutionary expedients… but valid. Ie that such feelings are an awareness that some experiences and realities ‘ought not to be thus.’
If we accept this second view to be correct, immediately we must ask then how are we to know what is truly moral and what is not?
What is the standard by which we may rightly judge events, actions, and cultures as being Good or Evil… how do we escape mere subjectivity and cultural relativism?
And what about ‘Natural evils’ like floods and disease and distinct issues from Man made evils?
It is this second type of question which most people struggle with, and it raises the prospect that though indeed God may exist yet still he may not be Good at all!
Was the universe created by a malevolent being?
Is God a capricious tyrant?
I want to focus on this second line of questioning today. I will only touch on the Human factor in respect to evil in the world…‘why does God allow men to commit evil actions?’… by simply saying we are freewill moral agents and that as such we are free to live good lives or to be evil… and yet inspite of the apparant ‘licence’ we have to commit evil that I believe that one day we shall give an account… justice will prevail.
Does ‘Shit happen’ because God is not Good?
Aztec Human sacrifice to apease the Gods.
The Aztecs believed The Gods were in fact blood thirsty monsters!
They believed that if they did not satisfy their demand for Blood by plentiful human sacrifices that the Gods themselves would sleight their thirst by visiting them with Natural calamities… famine, Earthquakes, disease, etc.
This is their explanation for why ‘evil shit happens’… Satan is god!
That is a horrible thing to contemplate… and believe!
It actually vindicates monstrously barbaric behavior!
The Aztecs used to prey on their neighbors and feed them to the God’s.
There is a rationale here: either slay people to appease the Blood thirsty Gods… or suffer Plagues, pestilence, and disaster!
Some atheists will argue that this sort of barbarism is representative of religion in general. Ie Absurd superstitions which inspire Evil actions. And while I have already discussed the paucity of the atheist position, I confess that if I thought that Aztec-type rationale and practice definitively represents all religion… I would have never have forsaken Atheism! I could not worship such Monsters!
While I know that belief in a cold and indifferent universe cannot put moral restraints upon Human depravity, tyranny, and barbarism, I also know it does not expressly encourage it! Nor does it postulate a malevolent universe as does the Religion of Mexico.
Important Note: The Idea of Blood sacrifice is a common theme amoung the religions of mankind.
It is very possible this is evidence of an acient common origin from which many Deviations and dark perversions have occured as mankind has spread out around the Globe… drifting into darkness.
This Anthropolocical rationale fits in well with the Bible story.
Thus an original knowledge of Noahs animal sacrifice on Ararat… which pleased God… has been perverted into the abominable Human sacrifice of the Aztecs… and Their Blood thirsty Gods.
I will now argue that such a narrow description of Religion by Atheists as being a universal Evil… is one-eyed and naive. I hope that I can present an alternative description of God and alternative explanation for why Natural calamities fall upon the innocent, the Just, and the unjust alike.
Sinner or Saint? A Victim of the Eruption of Versuvius.
There was a lot of sin and vice at Pompeii, yet this was true of many other cities too.
Why was Pompeii destroyed? Man, woman, and child?
First, before I get into the main argument as I find in the Bible, I want to say that It is not at all easy to isolate and distinguish what may be deemed to be Natural calamities, from the actions and responsibilities of Man.
Many of the ‘Natural disasters’ which befall us, and have caused Men to blaspheme and shake their fists at heaven, are actually a consequence of human ignorance and error.
Eg. Was It God’s fault that Men Built Pompey at the foot of Versuvius?
Was it God’s fault That the CTV Building collapsed in Christchurch killing hundreds of people… or is the chief blame to be place upon human error and bad design?
Even with things like plagues, floods, and diseases, mankind must take some responsibility for his own foolishness, unsanitary conditions and practices.
How many children suffer and die of Famine simply because of the Lust for political power?
When we realize this, blaming God for a huge percentage of the suffering and death of children, and ‘good people’ is misdirected indignation… He is being unjustly accused.
In the light of such reasoning, is it possible that God is neither indifferent or malicious?
Now we are getting to the Nitty gritty!
What makes many people refuse to believe in a Good God is this final kind of rationale… The apparent indifference of God. In spite of all human folly, and wickedness… ultimately Does not the fact that God allows the good and innocent to suffer still make him responsible for it all?
Why does he not intervene?
To avoid stretching this question out to far I will present the Christian answer to the problem of evil in the world in part 3. I hope to do it with economy, and so I am sure there will no doubt be questions that remain… yet hopefully they will fall within the framework of what I present in the next post.
Why, in this world of ours, do millions of Innocent children suffer and die?
This is a very important and perplexing question.
Without writing a book I would like to touch on a few points.
It is difficult to discuss this subject in a manor which will bring solace to those immediately in the Pangs of grief.
I have in the past made the great mistake of attempting to comfort people whom are grieving, or have been the victims of serious evils with long winded explanations.
That is foolish!
The best thing to do at such times is to simply share their grief with them, and let them know you care.
Only when they are ready to discuss the ‘Why does shit happen?’ question should we deliver our thoughts and beliefs.
I put forward the argument that we are faced with a set of Options from which we *must choose*.
I warn that because Evil is Evil, that even though we may pick the scenario which appears the best, the most rational, we cannot expect to be ‘filled with happiness’. I say we may be able to understand and even find serenity, yet still wish things were different… that evil did not exist.
So why does evil shit happen to good and innocent people and children?
The Atheist will tell you Religion is bullshit!
Ie that The existance of evil clearly proves that no Good God exists.
Many Atheists will say Children die simply because we live (objectively speaking) in an Amoral, Cold and indifferent universe (in which the ‘survival of the fittest’ is said to dictate who lives and who dies).
They say that in such a universe child mortality is not a moral question, but simply a cold hard fact of reality. (Richard Dawkins will tell you ‘Why Questions’ are silly questions!)
They argue that the idea of justice is a silly human/ subjective notion and as such is culturally relative… no one view triumphs as objectively true.
They argue that though we may sympathize with those who grieve the loss of a child as a legitimate cause for sorrow, yet still they maintain that any feelings we may entertain that such deaths constitute an objective moral outrage… are merely childish delusions.
There is no ‘ought’ or ‘ought not’ in a purely materialist reality.
They say everything that happens… from the formation of the Planets and stars, to the tears which flow from a mothers eye are all inescapably determined by the Laws of physics… and only a fool can believe things ought to be different than they are.
I am no doctor, yet the unspoken psychology which underpins the Atheist ‘faith’ interests me.
I think in many cases, the Cold ‘realism’ atheists claim to possess is actually self delusion.
I say many who put forward the above argument are lying, and cant actually live by their own tenets.
Why would I say such a thing?
I say because very often Atheism is accompanied by a deep hatred of Theism.
Why, I ask, do Atheists on one hand claim Philosophical indifference, while on the other they clearly harbor a passionate hatred against the idea of God?
If you think about it,… according to their own world view… they have no right to such passions. They ought to have serenely surrendered to indifferent, cold unalterable reality!
They have no basis for petty indignation!
Thus it is my contention that their vehemence betrays the fact that they harbor a sense of injustice at the way our world operates, esp when it comes to the suffering and death of children… and this rears itself in hatred towards God, and those whom claim to believe ‘God is Good’.
When Christians like me express faith in a Good God, rabid atheists often betray their acute awareness of objective morality and sense of injustice when they Hatefully retort “How Can you believe in a Good God when there is so much horror and Evil in the world!!! (Its more of an exclamation than a question)
They have let the cat out of the bag!
I say their innate knowledge of good and evil and sense of injustice.. is One of their pet unspoken psychological reasons for choosing Atheism.
Few will admit this… not even to themselves.
They will attempt a justification for their hatred of religion by such arguments as “Religion is the cause of War, and barbaric superstitions… They may quote Voltaire…“Believing Absurdities leads to the commission of atrocities”… yet insodoing they… by their own reasoning are merely expressing their own subjective morality! Ie by denying Objective morality they have no legitimate moral ground to condemn *any Barbaric practices* as they have rendered all morality to mere opinion… and thus by their reckoning their opinions in realty hold no more weight than the Satanist whom thinks raping and sacrificing children is ok.
By atheist logic reality is indifferent to questions of morality.
Thus I argue while it is not impossible for an atheist to be a good, caring, and humane person, it is impossible for a ‘good person’ to live consistently with atheism… they will find themselves appealing to an Objective morality everyday. Thus Atheists like Dawkins are deluding themselves.
If the Atheists are correct. The question is answered, and there is little more to say. Life is brutish and short. You don’t like it? Tuff! *Harden up!* Better to be a hammer than a nail!
‘Honest atheist’ Nobel prize winner Bertrand Russell quote:
“Even more purposeless, more void of meaning, is the world which science presents for our belief. Amid such a world, if anywhere, our ideals henceforward must find a home. That man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling, can preserve an individual life beyond the grave; that all the labors of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and the whole temper of Man’s achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins—all these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are yet so nearly certain that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand. Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul’s habitation henceforth be safely built.”
The alternative to the atheist amoral world view in which the moral question regarding suffering and death of children is written off as ignorance is that there really are objective standards of ‘ought-ness’ in the universe… and that having feelings of injustice are not silly delusions… not mere evolutionary expedients… but valid. Ie that such feelings are an awareness that some experiences and realities ‘ought not to be thus.’
If we accept this second view to be correct, immediately we must ask then how are we to know what is truly moral and what is not?
What is the standard by which we may rightly judge events, actions, and cultures as being Good or Evil… how do we escape mere subjectivity and cultural relativism?
Ought we to be governed by our sentiments?
And what about ‘Natural evils’ like floods and disease and distinct issues from Man made evils?
I will give you my veiws on this in (part 2,3)
Dishonest Atheists Ayn Rand and Richard Dawkins whom pretend Atheism is not Objectively Amoral and nihilistic. These AntiChrists decieve Millions of souls!
“Blind Leaders of the Blind and both shall fall into the ditch”.
Tim Wikiriwhi 23-6-12
Read more…. >>>>> Part 2… <<<<<
Plus Links to more posts (below) ....
Car Crash
“When you believe in things that you don’t understand
Then you suffer
Superstition ain’t the way”
Lyrics from ‘Superstitious’ by Stevie Wonder.
Many People delude themselves about their grip on reality…esp many materialist Atheists… whom love to condemn *Faith*.
They agree with the lyrics of Stevie wonders Song, and pretend they only ‘believe’ in cold facts… things they ‘understand’… yet this is self delusion.
Stevie Wonder was blind within hours of his Birth.
This makes me Wonder if he understands what light, sight and colours really are?
If not, is he being superstitious in believing other people really do posess an extra sence that he himself does not?
The Hadron Collider.
Does Stevie Wonder Believe in Gravity?
How Many people… if any… understand Gravity?
Are we all being ‘Superstitous’ in believing it to be a characteristic of Mass without understanding how this is so?
Perhapse we are!
The Bible says of Christ that… For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him:
And he is before all things, and by him all things consist. (Col 1:16,17)
It interests me to speculate that the quest by Particle Physicists to find the Graviton… is in fact a search for Christ!
(The Un-created Necessary Being… The final destination of the noble quest for ‘the theory of everything’)
What more I am amused by the reality that even if they discovery such a particle that this does not ‘eliminate’ Christ, for Christ then simply may be understood as what imparts the Gravitons nature. Contray to the delusions of folk like Dawkins, such descoveries dont eliminate any so-called ‘Gap for God’…. Theism is not ‘In Retreat’.
The same may be said about the science of the Mind/ Brain in that insights into it’s Electro-chemical processes do not prove the monist denial of the incorporeal inner being as postulated by dualism. Nor does it disprove freewill.
‘Free will’ participates in the formation of Neural pathways, and in the release of neuro-transmitters like Dopamine.
It is false to think that science is proving we are merely ‘Automations’.
That is an assumption. An interpretation of the facts baced upon pre-concieved materialist bias… nothing more.
The Brain is an ‘Interface’ between our incorporeal spirit and our bodies… by which we ‘feel’ our values as physical emotions.
So I laugh at the hypocritical naivety of Atheist Materialists… their vain belief that they don’t live by faith… that they ‘know’ Materialism is true…. that it has been proven!
Socrates about to drink Hemlock
Chærephon, put the question to the Oracle at Delphi, Whether any other man was wiser than Socrates? The answer given was that there was none wiser. Not being conscious of the possession of wisdom, Socrates was perplexed, till at last, after testing the supposed knowledge of many distinguished men, he interpreted the reply of the oracle as meaning that whereas other men thought they knew, he was one of the few conscious of their own ignorance.
The reality is We all believe in things which we don’t understand.
Thus those whom refuse to accept a particular tenet of the Bible *Until they understand it* …are kidding themselves as to the rationality of such a refusal. They are imposing an impossible standard, and as such are committing an act of self delusion.
They are not (as they claim) exercising a superior epistemology which trumps Bible believing faith… but via arbitrary whim they simply choose not to believe.
Dont be duped by the modern propaganda that Science has always been in conflict with Revealed religion!
To the contrary I argue thus: By all means continue the quest for knowledge, yet has not the scriptures proven true enough in what can and has already been weighed and measured… so that we ought to consider it trustworthy in those things which are currently beyond our scope of verification?
I believe this to be both a rational approach, and a wise one. It is the very Basis of science…*Faith!*
Faith that The Universe is intelligible because it was created orderly via Divine reason.
In a purely materialist reality what is music but clatter and din?
How ridiculous it is to assume Jimi’s music is no different from the noise of waves crashing on a beach… merely the necessary outcome of binding physical determinism in a causation enslaved dead/monist reality!
