Read about Hooters for Freedom >>>here<<<
^^^ Peaceniks *Must watch*
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Why this Pic?….. Bloody Internet would not give me a Pic of Pete!
From Stuff…. Would you vote for Peter Davies ā if you were given the opportunity?
He’s a maverick English mayor elected after promising to slash council spending, clear the streets of yobs and ditch politically correct services ā the torchbearer for how towns should be run.
On his first morning as mayor of Doncaster in South Yorkshire, Peter Davies cut his salary from 73,000 to 30,000 then closed the council’s newspaper for “peddling politics on the rates”.
Three weeks into his job Mr Davies pressed ahead with plans he hopes will see the town councillors cut from 63 to 21, saving taxpayers 800,000.
Mr Davies said: “If 100 senators can run the United States of America, I can’t see how 63 councillors are needed to run Doncaster.”
He’s withdrawn Doncaster from the Local Government Association and the Local Government Information Unit, saving another 200,000.
“Doncaster is in for some serious untwining. We are twinned with probably nine cities around the world and they are just for people to fly off and have a binge at the council’s expense.”
The mayor’s chauffeur-driven car has also been axed by Mr Davies and the driver given another job. Mr Davies swept to power in the May election with 24,244 votes as a candidate for the English Democrats, a party that wants tight immigration curbs, an English Parliament and a law forcing every public building to fly the flag of St George.
He’s promised to end council funding for Doncaster’s International Women’s Day, Black History Month and the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender History Month.
He said: “We need to cut costs. I want to pass on some savings I make in reduced taxes and use the rest for things we really need like improved children’s services.
“Politicians have got completely out of touch with what people want.”
ā These facts are from reader Ian Sprott
Does that quote “completely out of touch with what people want” sound familiar?
Would he have okayed hundreds of thousands of dollars on a brochure telling ratepayers what clever people he and the councillors are ā ignoring specialist staff warnings about the cost?
Would he have allowed yet another expensive switch on Auckland’s logo ā after $329,000 was spent on a design in 2007?
How would he have reacted to the shambles on the first night of the world cup?
The mailbag reveals other drums being beaten in Auckland’s far-flung suburbs:…. read more..
Davies Reforms mirror my own campaign policies that I have represented in Local body elections over the last decade.
Google this guy and you will see how his reforms are met by seething hatred by those whom parasite off Heavy rates Big spending Busy Body Councils.
The Devils wail and gnash their teeth… yet it is their own Vampire which has brought them to ruin!
Their Victims have had enough.
Read about my personal efforts to halt Socialist Tyranny and Bankruptcy below…
One of my favourite things to do these days while going about my day job is to listen to Ancient Faith Radio podcasts on my phone as I work.Ā Probably my favourite podcasts are by Father Thomas Hopko, a former Dean of St Vladimir’s Academy – an Orthodox Seminary.Ā He has an amazing knowledge of Church history and Orthodox theology which has been a great help to my journey of faith.
One of the podcasts I listened to recently was one in a series on the names of Jesus, where he makes the astonishing claim that “[Christian] faith is not about salvation…”Ā I have to say this blew my mind, and caused me to look at my faith in a completely new way.Ā In fact, I think what he had to say is so important, I am just going to quote a large chunk of the transcript for you verbatim:
What does it mean that Jesus is named the Savior? What does it mean that he saves us?
We know that he does. We confess that he does. Our whole faith is that he does, and heās the only one who does. What is this salvation? What is the content of it? What makes salvation, salvation?
When I was a seminary student, I was sitting in a class of dogmatic theology with my beloved professor, Professor Serge S. Verhovskoy. I discussed this issue countless hours with Professor Verhovskoy about salvation. What is it, how do you understand it? How does it work? Once in class, he said āmy dears.ā (He always called us my dears). ā…we must, we must, he used to say, avoid, this abominable preoccupation with salvation.ā
Well, that blew me away, and after I fell off my chair and got up again, I raised my hand, and I said āProfessor, why can you say such a thing? Isnāt it all about salvation? Isnāt Jesus our Savior? Doesnāt he save the world? Isnāt salvation what itās all about?ā
And he looked and smiled and said, āOf course.ā But what I would like to say is this. There are many Christians who are hardly interested in God at all. Theyāre really not interested in Christ. Theyāre not interested in life. Theyāre not interested in the beauty of creation. Theyāre not interested in their fellow man and their neighbor. Theyāre not really interested in just about anything except salvation. Translated, meaning: How to get to go to heaven when you die.
Because a lot of Christians think of salvation meaning: Do you get to go to heaven? And so, Christians will go around saying āAre you saved?ā And then theyāll even claim that to say āIām savedā means I know for sure that I have my place cut out in the age to come, and Iām certainly going to heaven and anyone who believes and is baptized will be saved, and I believe, and Iām baptized, so Iāll be saved, and Iām saved by grace and not by works, and all this kind of stuff. But then theyāll start arguing about what do you need to do to be saved? Do you need to believe? Do you need only to believe? Do you need to do works too? And then what about pietistic actions? You may not need to be circumcised, I mean that might be agreed upon, but Christians might argue and say well, you got to go to church to be saved. You got to be a member of the church to be saved. Some people might even say, you’ve got to be baptized, but thatās a spiritual reality. You donāt need to be baptized in water to be saved. And even some people who are baptized into water, theyāre pretty ugly, miserable, horrible creatures, so you know, baptism doesnāt save you. And just going to church and standing there and singing hymns doesnāt save you. Baking a cake for the cake sale doesnāt save you. Knowing the Nicene Creed doesnāt save you. Or maybe it does save you? Maybe you’ve got to never eat any meat, milk products, or anything on any Wednesday or Friday or youāre going to go to hell? And other people say no, thatās nonsense.
So there becomes a huge debate that split Christians up into literally thousands of churches, and many of those churches are the churches that claim salvation through faith and belief in the Bible and belief in Jesus, but then they argue about how does it work? There are some who will say, I must accept Jesus as my Savior or Iām not saved. There are others of a more Calvinistic, Augustinian line who would say, oh no no, God chooses you. You donāt choose God. Thereās predestination. God decides who is saved. God is sovereign. If he wants to save you, heāll save you, and if he doesnāt, youāre going to hell. And you have no case to make whatsoever, because God does whatever he wants. Heāll save whom he wants to save, and heāll damn whom he wants to damn, and youāre nothing but clay, and heās the maker, and youāre the earth, and heās the potter: so forget about it. So thereās a big debate about that. Then thereās a big debate about all the sacraments and do you need to have Holy Communion? Itās written in the Scripture, if you donāt eat body and drink his blood, you have no life in you, no eternal life in you. So some people say well, unless youāve gone to communion, you canāt be saved. Anyone who is not baptized in water canāt be saved.
So thereās so many different kinds of arguments. And what my professor that day wanted to tell us and has stuck with me forever just to this very day is that the faith is not about salvation in that sense. Itās not like figuring out āwhat do you got to do to be saved minimallyā like do you have to go to church or donāt you? Do you have to believe in Jesus or donāt you? Do you have to participate in sacraments, or donāt you? Do you have to be in some particular church and not another or donāt you? Do you have to be in communion with the Bishop of Rome who is the Pope or donāt you? And there are times when people said if youāre not in one or another particular church, you are simply not saved. You are just simply going to hell. And thereās plenty of folks around that think that we Orthodox Christians are going to hell because our understanding of Christianity is so weird.
Now, Professor Verhovskoy taught us: you canāt look at it that way. You canāt begin with what you need to do to be saved. No. In fact, in that sense, it is an abomination, almost a blasphemy, even to be interested, if not obsessed, with the issue of salvation and start trying to figure out whoās saved and whoās not and telling whoās saved and who isnāt saved, and why itās so. Real authentic Christians should never, ever get involved in that kind of thing. Never. That is my deepest conviction. Itās not according to Jesus. Itās not according to Christ. Itās not according to Scripture.
But what is? What is? What is, is that there is God. Beautiful, marvelous, magnificent, splendid, glorious God Almighty. And his only begotten Son Jesus Christ, born of a virgin on earth, the all-holy, life-creating Spirit that proceeds from God, dwells in the Son, is breathed upon us. Thereās life, thereās world, thereās reality; there is truth. There is peace. There is joy. There is the fruit of the Holy Spirit. There is God himself. And what we have to realize is that weāve got to be interested in the God who saves us, not in salvation as such. Weāve got to be interested in loving God, not salvation. God. Life is about God. The Bible is about God. Church is about God. Sacraments are about God and being about God they’re about Christ, and if they’re about Christ they’re about crucifixion and resurrection and glorification and humility and love and mercy and meekness. Jesus says learn from me, I am meek and lowly of heart. You will find rest for your soul.
Itās about the grace of God coming in us and being manifested for our salvation. The grace of God has appeared for the salvation of all people. God desires all to be saved and come to a knowledge of the Church. God is the Savior of all human beings, especially those who believe. So, our confession has to be that God, in Christ, has already, on the Cross, saved everyone and everything. Thatās the gospel. Thatās the glad tidings: that he has come for Jews and Gentiles, men and women, slave and free, whoever we are upon the earth, and even the whole earth, and even all the galaxies and the stars and the sun and the moon. God, who created all of that, is saving all of that, and heās saving it all in Jesus Christ. And thatās what we have to be thrilled about. Thatās what we have to confess. Thatās what we have to live by.
Now, if we do, then we will glorify God, and we will try to keep his commandments because we will love him. And we will try to love him with all our mind, all our soul, all our heart, all our strength. Weāll try to love our neighbor, even our worst enemy as ourselves. We will not judge anyone for anything. Our holy fathers teach us that we judge no one for nothing. Who are we to judge? God who is the Savior is the judge, and guess what? He judges us by saving us. He came to save the world, not to condemn it. So the judgment of the world as we just heard from St. Johnās gospel is his salvific act in Jesus. Itās that salvation that judges the world. But what is that salvation? That salvation is God. You can put it this way, quickly. Itās God acting to destroy everything that is ungodly, everything that is not according to Godās good creation, everything that he does not want.
So we are saved first of all, from. The salvation is a salvation āfromā. We are saved from ignorance, from darkness, because he gives us the truth, and he is the truth, and gives us the spirit of truth. We are saved from our sins. We are saved from our madness our insanity, from our diseases, from our transgressions. We are saved from our own self, from the vain imaginations of our own heart and mind. We are saved from everything that destroys and ultimately the last enemy to be destroyed is the destroyer itself which is death. So we are saved from death. So you can speak about being saved from. And so weāre saved from everything that is no good. Everything that is not true. Everything that is not beautiful, everything that is ugly, everything that is diseased, everything that is corrupted, everything that is just plain rotten and no good. Everything that is morbid and dead and demonic. Weāre saved from the power of the devils. It says that in I John, the reason for the epiphania, the appearance of the son of God is to deliver us from the works of the devil. So weāre saved from the works of the devil. Whatever they are, thatās what we are saved from by God.
And then we are saved for. Not only from, but āforā. We are saved for life. What makes life, life? According to the Holy Scripture, what makes life life is the glorification of God. Not trying to figure out who gets saved and who is not saved, and what you got to do to get to go to heaven and then do the minimal amount of things that you need. Professor Verhovskoy would say it would be like saying how often do I have to be with my wife? Do I have to see her every day? Can I see her every other day? Can I see her just on Sunday mornings for two hours? What do I have to do with her? What do I have to give to her so that I can be quote, unquote āin good standingā with her? Thatās an abomination. Thatās a blasphemy. Human beings who are created in the image and likeness of God do not act that way. In fact, we do everything to be in communion all the time, to love all the time, give everything, to share everything, to enjoy everything. Thatās what itās all about. Itās not about some kind of minimal standards or rules that if we fulfill them externally, we get to go to heaven.
And itās very interesting that many Christians who claim to be saved by faith alone and not by works, theyāre still very interested in what works you need to do to be saved. And I would even suggest letās strike once and for all from our life this question: what do I need to do to be saved? The answer is: everything and nothing because thereās nothing I can do to be saved if God doesnāt save me. But once God saves me, then I have to do the works that he does, and that means I can never rest assured of my salvation. Oh yes, I can say and I must say the gospel of God in Jesus Christ is that we are all saved. Iām saved, youāre saved. Joseph Stalin is saved. Osama bin Laden is saved. Whoever you want to think of is saved, as far as God is concerned. And then the question is, do we accept that salvation? Do we live by that salvation?
And here the teaching of Scripture and the saints would be that nobody could claim to do it. Nobody is righteous, no, not one, even after baptism. And weāre always sinners saying God be merciful to me, a sinner. Weāre always saying, I am not worthy, I am not worthy. I am not deserving. Certainly I am not deserving of the grace of the Holy Spirit, and the fire of God, and the broken body and the spilled blood of Jesus. I am not worthy of salvation. Itās a gift. But once I realize that there is that gift, then I have to take that gift, and I have to repent every time I donāt take it. I have to repent every time I neglect it, forget it, and worse, that I would just refuse it and live by my own standards and my own life. Thatās hell. That is hell. Hell is being and doing what you want to be, not according to what God wants, which is salvation.
So once I know that I am saved by Jesus, then what I do is that I pray without ceasing. I give thanks in all circumstances. I rejoice in all things. I try to share everything I have. I try to do everything as well as I can, and I know that even if I do that, I am not deserving of salvation. And I know thereās nothing I can externally do. I could go 100 Divine Liturgies and give all my body to be burned and everything, even as St. Paul says, but if I have not the love of God in me, if Iām doing out of arrogance and pride or trying to get to go to heaven when I die, and earn my salvation, then Iām still in the hands of the devil. My life is still an abomination. I have not yet understood salvation. Why? Because I have not yet understood God. So to understand salvation and to receive salvation, you have to understand and receive and love God. We love God, not salvation. God. We love God. And therefore, we are saved for loving God, glorifying God, praising God with every breath, more than we breathe the holy fathers say. We are saved for work. We are saved for activity. We are saved for rejoicing in one another. We are saved for serving each other. We are saved for repenting, in fact. We can only repent because weāre saved, because that salvation is always available to us.
For as often as we sin, when we get up again, that very salvation once and for all accomplished on the cross by God with his son Jesus, God our Savior, and Christ our Savior, that allows me to repent. Thatās one of the elements of salvation, the ability to repent daily. And the holy fathers would even say, we are saved for tears. We are saved for weeping over our sins and the sins of the world. We are saved for weeping over how we have ruined our world and corrupted our planet, and destroyed our universe and killed our economy, and how our greed and how our competition, and how our, I donāt know what, racisms and all kinds of have stuff have created a hell on the planet Earth. Well, God has saved us in Christ from that hell, but itās not only from the hell, itās for the paradise. And thatās why St. Simeon the New Theologian said, we are saved so that each day we can become a fresh paradise to everyone around us, including our most horrible hated enemy. We are saved to be by grace everything that God in Christ is by nature. Thatās what weāre saved for.
And so a person who knows that, that person is no longer interested or obsessed in salvation as such. They are totally devoted to God as the Savior, to Christ who is the Savior, to the eternal life to the gifts of the Holy Spirit and the fire into which they are baptized into which they are saved by the Savior Jesus, by his broken body and spilled blood. Theyāre not looking around, figuring out salvation. In fact, a saved person who is not interested paradoxically in salvation anymore at all, a saved person is not trying to figure anything out. A saved person is just praying to be illumined by God to testify to the fact that we are saved, that salvation is here, eternal life is here. Joy is here. Peace is here. God is with us. Emmanuel is Christās name also. God with us, that everything has been redeemed, saved, delivered, protected, purified. All the enemies have been destroyed. All of Godās enemies have withered up and are like smoke vanishing in the fire, and nothing over stands against God anymore. And to be saved is to be in that reality, and even more modestly, to want to be in that reality. To struggle to be in that reality, to confess with tears that we are not in that reality, and to confess that we have no claim on salvation. We cannot name anything, we canāt claim anything.
And we certainly cannot dare to claim, thereās my place in heaven, made for me because I accept Jesus as my Savior. Because the question would be, do you really accept Jesus as your Savior? Then your works will show it. Thatās the teaching of Holy Scripture. Your deeds will show it. What do you do? Oh, no. We come before the face of God always as penitents and sinners until he comes again in glory, and we say, āSave me, O Lord.ā We pray all the time in church, help us, save us, have mercy on us, keep us, oh God, by your grace. And what we will see is that the content of salvation is the outpouring of the divine chesed, the divine mercy, the divine love upon us, and we bask in that as our salvation. And to the measure that we are in that, to that measure we are saved. But it isnāt over until itās over.
Thereās a wonderful story of St. Macarius of Egypt, who when his life was over was entering into paradise. According to the story, he had one foot into paradise, he heard a voice saying, Macarius you have conquered. Actually, the voice should have said, Macarius, Christ has conquered in you, Christ is the victor. Heās the Savior. But when the voice said, Macarius, you have conquered, Macarius turned around and looked, and it was the devil. And Macarius looked at the devil, and he said to him, not yet. Until both feet are safely in, not yet. We presume nothing, while at the same time we confess that everyone and everything in all of creation has been saved by God in the blood of Jesus. Itās our task to receive that salvation and to re-receive it, take it again, and again, and again, every moment of every day with every breath to be again loving God and loving our neighbor and trying to keep the commandments.
And if we do that, then God will save us if he wishes, and he will know how. But we wonāt be interested in salvation anymore. We will be interested solely in pleasing, glorifying, worshipping, and loving God, who is love, who has loved us so much that he sent his beloved Son into the world to save us and to pour his saving power and love of the Holy Spirit into us, even now while we live in this fallen and corrupted world. So every day we say to the Lord, Lord have mercy, Lord save me, Lord be with me. And then we say Lord let me be worthy of your great salvation. Lord, let me be an instrument of your salvation, your love, your truth, your reconciliation, your victory over death and the devil to every single person around me. And when I fail in that, oh Lord, have mercy on me, and I know that you will. Why? Because you have saved me, and you have saved everyone and everything.
So this should serve as a sufficient rebuttal to Ayn Rand’s view that “The first duty of a Christian is the salvation of his own soul”.Ā To be a Christian and merely seek salvation is a bit like buying a girl flowers and dinner just so you can have sex with her.Ā When what we should really be interested in is getting to know the girl and loving her with a view to spending the rest of our lives with her.Ā The sex, like our salvation, will happen naturally if we put love and the relationship first.
It is quite a shameful thing for me to confess that I have neglected to investigate such an important historical figure as Samuel Marsden… yet it’s true.
All I can say is that he appears to to have been a Man of Iron will.
I have focused my attentions on the Heroic activities of the Church missionaries whom followed soon after, and the amazing *Civilising power* of Christianity… which Light dawned in this land of Savage Darkness… *Before British Rule of law* was established… in 1840.
For an awesome account of the exploits of the Church Missionaries I recommend ‘Mission and Moko’ Aspects of the Work of the Church Missionary Society in New Zealand, 1814-1882 by Robert Glen.
One of the great advances The birth and spread of pre-treaty Christianity bestowed upon the ‘Indigenous people’ was the virtual eradication of Cannibalism, which was universally practised here in Pre-European times.
Many Heroic deeds were performed on the part of the Missionaries themselves and their Early Maori converts to bring about this gigantic change of world-view.
The Mission to New Zealand corresponded with a Humanitarian Enlightenment flourishing in Protestant England … The end of Slavery in Britain… many of the Same Great reformers of English society participating in the same Church societies that sent the missionaries to New Zealand.
This was the Benevolent spirit of the English protestants that it was God’s will that the Maori people receive the Gospel of Grace through Christ… which is a universal message oF Good news to all mankind.
Tim Wikiriwhi.
Libertarian Christian.
Dispensationalist.
1611 KJV Bible believer.
Read more by Tim Wikiriwhi…. Looking Forward, not Backwards: Dynamic Culture vs Stagnation. Why British Colonisation was good for Maori.
Kai Mate! Kai Mate! Eat you when Your Dead! Copyright Tim Wikiriwhi
Like my Grandfather, Marsden was one of the many exceptional individuals whom served the Anglican faith .
Read >>> The Gospel of Godās Grace.
Samuel Marsdenās Account of Christmas Day 1814 (below)
Duaterra [Ruatara] passed the remaining part of the day in preparing for the Sabbath. He enclosed about half an acre of land with a fence, erected a pulpit and reading-desk in the centre, and covered the whole, either with black native cloth, or some duck which he had brought with him from Port Jackson. He also procured some bottoms of old canoes and fixed them up as seats on each side the pulpit for the Europeans to sit upon; intending to have Divine Service performed there the next day. These preparations he made of his own accord; and in the evening, informed me that everything was ready for Divine service. I was much pleased with this singular mark of his attention. The reading-desk was about three feet from the ground and the pulpit about six feet. The black cloth covered the top of the pulpit and hung over the sides. The bottom of the pulpit as well as the reading desk was part of a canoe. The whole was becoming and had a solemn appearance. He had also erected a flag-staff on the highest hill in the village, which had a very commanding view.
On Sunday morning (December 25th) when I was upon deck I saw the English flag flying, which was a pleasing sight in New Zealand. I considered it as the signal for the dawn of civilization, liberty, and religion in that dark and benighted land. I never viewed the British colours with more gratification, and flattered myself they would never be removed till the natives of that island enjoyed all the happiness of British subjects.
About ten oāclock we prepared to go ashore to publish the glad tidings of the Gospel for the first time. I was under no apprehensions for the safety of the vessel, and therefore ordered all on board to go on shore to attend Divine service, except the master and one man. When we landed we found Korokoro, Duaterra [Ruatara], Shunghee [Hongi Hika] dressed in regimentals which Governor Macquarie had given them, with their men drawn up ready to march into the enclosure to attend Divine service. They had their swords by their sides and a switch in their hands. We entered the enclosure and were placed in the seats on each side of the pulpit. Korokoro marched his men on and placed them on my right hand in the rear of the Europeans and Duaterra [Ruatara] placed his men on the left. The inhabitants of the town with the women and children and a number of other chiefs formed a circle round the whole. A very solemn silence prevailedāthe sight was truly impressive. I got up and began the service with the singing of the Old Hundred Psalm, and felt my very soul melt within me when I viewed my congregation and considered the state they were in.
After reading the service, during which the natives stood up and sat down at the signal given by the motion of Korokoroās switch which was regulated by the movements of the Europeans, it being Christmas Day, I preached from the Second Chapter of St. Lukeās Gospel, and tenth verse: āBehold! I bring you glad tidings of great joy.ā The Natives told Duaterra [Ruatara] that they could not understand what I meant. He replied that they were not to mind that now for they would understand by and by, and that he would explain my meaning as far as he could. When I had done preaching, he informed them what I had been talking about. Duaterra [Ruatara] was very much pleased that he had been able to make all the necessary preparations for the performance of Divine service in so short a time, and we felt much obliged to him for his attention. He was extremely anxious to convince us that he would do everything for us that lay in his power and that the good of his country was his principal consideration. In this manner the Gospel has been introduced into New Zealand; and I fervently pray that the glory of it may never depart from its inhabitants, till time shall be no more.
When the service was over we returned on board, much gratified with the reception we had met with, and we could not but feel the strongest persuasion that the time was at hand when the Glory of the Lord would be revealed to these poor benighted heathens and that those who were to remain on the island had strong reason to believe that their labours would be crowned and blessed with success. In the evening I administered the Holy Sacrament on board the Active in remembrance of our Saviourās birth and what He had done and suffered for us.
Source: J.R. Elder, ed., The Letters and Journals of Samuel Marsden 1765-1838, Dunedin: Coulls Somerville Wilkie, 1932, pp.93-94.
This facebook screenshot is an excellent example of the sort of Socialist thinking that Libertarians must endure night and day.
It contains political/ ethical ideas which are evil and unjust, and so easily provokes the wrath of those of us who know better… yet is wrath really the most appropriate reaction?
I apologize to Eternal vigilance fans for my recent absence.
Home life is hectic at the moment, and after the Whore-fest/ Parliamentary elections, it is quite common for me to enter a period of meditation… like the survivor of a train wreak.
Im sitting here in a Muddle… tryin to figure out a new Game plan…. the old one clearly does not work.
Having arrived at the conclusion that *Stupidity and ignorance* are the chef enemies of Liberty, Truth, and justice rather than simple malice, envy, etc I am hoping to temper my Seething disgust and rage against the Zombies, and to see the situation as requiring more compassion on my part… seeing that the Zombie Sheeple know not what they do.
That Face-booker above is sincere in their desire to improve society…no malice… just very Bad reasoning.
I am trying to convince myself that a more meek approach than my usual explosions would conform better to the Christian Ideal of holding up a light…. and may yield more positive results.
It may help to moderate my moods… make me more resilient, and a closer imitation of St Paul.
I’m not sure about this… yet I want to try….
The moral test comes when confronted with such pig headed Socialist lunacy as below….
I have to bite my hand… pour myself another shot….
Sometimes Saying nothing is better than tearing up all your shirts.
Can I re-program myself to better deal with Human realities???
That is my mountain I must scale.
I cant expect my ideological adversaries to do me the same courtesy.
To simply attribute your antagonist to be Evil is the most simplistic…. the most gratifying… and often the most *un-thinking* thing a person can do.
Yet this conclusion is not conducive to constructive dialogue and enlightenment… but to war.
Thus if it is constructive dialogue and enlightenment you are seeking to promote, then you need to have compassion for those who need guidance… not hatred or disgust.
When the Founder of Eternal vigilance set up this Blog he wisely included one rule, and in typical Libertine fashion that rule has been ignored (by me)… to my folly… and to the detriment of the Cause (s)
The Blog Rule…
“Do not let any 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.”
Eph4vs29.
So this is not a new Idea… It’s a Christian principle I have struggled to apply.
Can an old Dog learn new tricks?
Dont be too hard on me if at times I resort back to my old guile slinging self… maybe just quietly post me a link to this rave so that I can remind myself of the Program. š
The news recently of a 29yo woman seeking the right to have her suicide assisted by others has brought out a few odd opinions, to say the least, especially from those who purport to be Christians.
The simplistic argument (and it is simplistic), is that it is compassionate to allow the voluntary death of someone if there is no longer pleasure in their life, but only pain and suffering.Ā Is it not our purpose as Christians to alleviate suffering?
Well… sort of.Ā Christianity is about life.Ā We, as ministers of Christ, are here to offer life, and life in abundance.Ā If it is a battle between suffering and life, then we are on the side of life.Ā However, this is not what Brittany Maynard, and others like her, face.Ā The battle is between suffering and death.Ā The argument is being made that death is better than suffering.Ā But Christians who advocate this betray a deeply flawed theological view of their faith.
At the very least, the Christian must reject gnosticism – that ancient heresy that despises the body and sees the body as a prison of the soul.Ā Unfortunately, this is a prominent view among Protestants and Evangelicals.Ā They see the body as responsible for sin and pain and death, and to die is to finally escape the body and be a “free spirit”, so to speak.Ā To escape is to be be at peace.Ā But this is not Christianity.Ā It is a damnable lie.Ā Souls and bodies are supposed to be together – that is how God created us.Ā To separate them, through death, is not God’s will, and a soul separated from the body that does not commune with Christ is by definition unfulfilled and in torment, a captive to its own passions, pride and selfishness, all of which can only be satiated by the body.Ā So on this basis alone, to take one’s own life and destroy the image of God in oneself is, without the intercession of the Church, an act that eternally condemns the soul to despair.Ā It’s better to stay alive and suffer in the body than go through that!
But this is not just about fear of what lies beyond.Ā Nor is it even about the “redemptive power of suffering”, an offensive concept to many people, although I believe it to be true.Ā (If you want to read a good explanation of redemptive suffering, Andrew Damick does it very well here).Ā It is about life and hope and faith and the conquest of death and Hades that God achieved in Christ through His own suffering.Ā It is about the image of God in us that He created in us.Ā It is because we have this hope that we seek to persevere, as so many people in the Bible persevered through trials and suffering, and we seek to affirm and cultivate that image of the loving, suffering God in us, instead of destroying it to remove some temporal physical pain we experience.
This hope is not some scholastic, intellectual, theoretical hope.Ā It is an ontological hope that naturally exists within us, that struggles for life even as we seek to suppress and destroy that hope.Ā In suffering, rather than giving in, we affirm that our life has meaning, that it has purpose, that it is valuable.Ā We struggle for it because it is worth something.Ā And that is where the contradiction in euthanasia lies.Ā Suicide is the obliteration of the meaning of one’s life – the floccinaucinihilipilification of it.Ā And yet euthanasia is sold as “death with dignity”!Ā Well what a nonsense.Ā Dignity implies some meaning to one’s life and death.Ā Either your life has meaning, and you seek life, through whatever miserable crawling struggle that entails, or it has none, and you kill yourself.Ā There is no Mr Inbetween.Ā To seek dignity of any sort is to be on the side of life, not death.Ā It implicitly recognises the Source of dignity – God’s image in us.
To struggle for no end is truly pitiable.Ā But we do have an end – a great hope! our union with Christ, which we strive towards when we undergo suffering, and we run from when we subject ourselves to indignities of any kind, whether licentiousness in food, drugs, sex, money, power, or in its purest form, actively killing ourselves.Ā This is Christianity:Ā To struggle with Christ, to suffer with Him, to restore His image in us, to seek His dignity, and to die with dignity, despite the indignities forced on us, and especially the indignities forced on Christ.Ā That’s where we find meaning and dignity in life.Ā Not in destroying our body to eliminate physical pain.
I hope and pray that Ms Maynard, and all like her who suffer in pain, find their value and dignity not in death but in life, and in the Giver of Life.
Fellow Engineering Contractor and Triumph Brother Clark and I thought we would check out this ‘Bike nite’.
Got down town about 6pm, and grabbed myself a Black Monteiths, and went for a wander around the bikes.
Road and sport had a Van and Gazeebo set up in the car park and there were bikes displayed in several groups.
Because of Bureaucratic ‘issues’ regarding drinking alcohol in the Car park we had to leave our drinks in the garden bar area of Joe’s while we scoped the bikes… and then trundle back for another swill.
Road and Sport dished out Prizes… HD torches… Talisman Bells…
Road and Sport had this V Rod Drag bike there on display…. did not look street legal, and sounded bloody awesome when they fired it up.
Cant help but wonder what it’s like to ride when you throw open the NOS!
There was a good variety of Hogs on display.
I cant tell you what models these are… yet I will add descriptions later as Peeps in the know are sure to correctly identify them.
Judging by the Fancy LED tail lights, this Harley above was probably the latest model bike on display…. or it could be this Sporty… (below)
I’m not a huge fan of Choppers mostly because they cost a fortune, are impracticable on NZ roads, and many look like they belong to David Bowie, or the Village people…. š yet I really liked this one.
And it’s a real beast… apparently the motor is 117 CI.
There was just this 1 Victory…. very nice.
It’s a Vagas owned by ‘Shayne’.
There were 3 Triumphs. A Speedmaster… owned by fellow ‘New Zealand Biker @ Facebook’ Cloudy McLeod, a Bonnie (owned by Cloudy’s wife!), and a 70s Trident in very smart condition (below)
There was even this Yamaha V Max.
^^^ That’s Matt. He won ‘Best Harley’ with his very tidy Kinda military Green 2008 Street Bob.
^^^ That’s Matt’s Girlfriend riding a very nice Wide-glide.
Go time!
The whole deal was finished as the Sun was setting… probably around 7.30, so Clark and I dropped by Biddy Mulligans Irish Pub as it was the monthly Hamilton Blues Club nite.
I got myself a Guinness and kicked back for another hour listening to Local Blues talents Jammin.
I then left Clark there as It was time for me to get back to the Missus and kid.
I had a good nite.
it was particularly good fortune that the bike show was on the same nite as the Blues Club… and Road and Sport said they were keen to put on more shows… What a good excuse to head into the City for an Ale… or 5.
Tim Wikiriwhi.
Good evening. Today is Wednesday, September the 24th, and this is my last broadcast. Yesterday I announced on this program that I was going to commit public suicide, admittedly an act of madness. Well, I’ll tell you what happened: I just ran out of bullshit. Am I still on the air? I really don’t know any other way to say it other than I just ran out of bullshit. Bullshit is all the reasons we give for living. And if we can’t think up any reasons of our own, we always have the God bullshit. We don’t know why we’re going through all this pointless pain, humiliation, decays, so there better be someone somewhere who does know. That’s the God bullshit. And then, there’s the noble man bullshit; that man is a noble creature that can order his own world; who needs God? Well, if there’s anybody out there that can look around this demented slaughterhouse of a world we live in and tell me that man is a noble creature, believe me: That man is full of bullshit. I don’t have anything going for me. I haven’t got any kids. And I was married for thirty-three years of shrill, shrieking fraud. So I don’t have any bullshit left. I just ran out of it, you see.
One thing is certain. No matter who gets elected tomorrow, we will still be getting ‘Stink fisted’ on Monday!
Democracy really is a government of Mediocrity.
It would not matter nearly so much if we Limited Government power to the defence of Individual Rights and liberties, yet it is a complete disaster when The Sheep accept a Totalitarian State which attempts to micro-manage every aspect of our lives, and helps itself to our wages.
*That 90% of Western Civilisation thinks this insanity is normal… and Best* makes me shake my head.
For Libertarians who refuse to surrender to the Bullshit… It will be business as usual.
“I want to Fly like an Eagle….”
Good Luck ye Minor parties ALCP, Act, 1Law4all, Conservatives.
A vote for a minor Party tells Labour and National that we are sick of their Bullshit.
Tim Wikiriwhi.
Election 14 Eve.
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