Santa, is he real?

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What’s wrong with teaching kids about Santa? The message of love, kindness and giving at Christmas time, is Christianity for young kids. So what has Santa got to do with the Christian message? Remember Santa is for kids. When we educate five year old kids for the future, we don’t give them university medicine text books, instead we give them cute little picture books to learn to read.

Who is Santa?

How real is Santa?

Let’s face it. In schools we teach kids that climate change is real. We also teach them the theory of evolution, and not to mention Marxism. Now who do we trust? Karl Marx’s ideals about ending poverty with collective ownership of property, or Father Christmas’s attitude of self producing, and willfully giving?

ps Don’t ever let anyone tell you belief in Santa is anti christian, or false religion.

What have I been using for brains? (Friday ramble)

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Nathaniel Branden, best known for his adulterous liaison with Ayn Rand, has died at the age of 84. And Jim Peron, best known in New Zealand for his forthright views on pedophilia, has written an approbatory encomium for the Huffington Post.

Regarded by my co-blogger Tim as “probably the best Objectivist of them all,” Branden is better known as the author of the self-help book The Psychology of Self-Esteem. Branden’s work is well regarded, and not just by Objectivists. Really, I suppose, it’s a book I should read. (And I am without excuse. I confirm that I own a copy. I just exhumed it from the stacks!)

Let’s hear it from the man himself on the topic of self-esteem and libertarianism. The talk below is insightful and thought-provoking and has an important message for libertarian activists.

Awesome, huh? Now, let us praise with faint damnation.

I realised just the other day that all libertarians I’ve ever known (including me) are apt to commit a nasty semantic sin. See if you can spot it in the transcript below.

I think that one of the toughest battles in conversations with people and trying to get people to understand the libertarian vision is to understand ourselves and to find a way to communicate that we take something for granted that many people do not. The libertarian mentality is a non-entitlement mentality. The libertarian mentality presuppposes a person’s willingness to accept responsibility for his or her own existence.

Did you spot it? The libertarian mentality is absolutely an entitlement mentality! Libertarians emphatically believe that they are fully entitled to the fruits of their own labours. Entitlement? Check it out in any dictionary. Or Google it. You’ll see that entitlement is “the fact of having a right to something.” Am I entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? Yes I am!

But you’ll also see that a second sense of the word ‘entitlement’ now also has currency. This modern entitlement is “the belief that one is inherently deserving of privileges or special treatment.” In other words, ‘entitlement’ has come to mean entitlement to that which one is not entitled. And that, dear readers, is the death of the word ‘entitlement’. It’s been turned into an abominable auto-antonym.
(Why is my language not clear to you? Because you are unable to hear what I say.)

Now, let’s get back to the salaciousness of it all. What was Rand using for brains when she decided to cuckold poor old Frank O’Connor? Commenter Brendan Hutching has the answer to that on the Objectivist forum SOLO.

I’m plumping for the moistie. Rand would not be the first woman to be led astray by the stirring of her loins, prompted by a silly, adolescent fantasy about the redemptive power of a white knight’s mighty sword.

So, what about Branden? What was he using for brains? Was he thinking with his big head or his little head? Hutching has the answer to that, too.

Branden was an ambitious young man, keen to make his mark. An affair with a mentor is a standard behaviour for people on their way up.

Perhaps you can now see why many Rand-worshippers despise Nathaniel Branden. (They despise his ex-wife Barbara Branden, who passed away last December, even more so.) On Facebook, my co-blogger Tim notes

no one having the Balls to pay her the Tribute she was due… and I’ll eat my hat if any Kiwi objectivist writes a tribute for Nat.

So I checked out Tim’s prediction. So far, so good. The tributes to Nathaniel Branden on SOLO are from Tom Burroughes (a British Objectivist) and Kyrel Zantanovich (a U.S. Objectivist). Then I popped on over to PC’s blog, Not PC. Nothing there so far …

But I did find an interesting recent post with the title Brain science without the brain, tagged with the label Philosophy.

Daniel Wolpert thinks we don’t have a brain to “perceive the world or think” (presumably then he thought up with his own notion with his appendix, or perhaps his descending retroperitoneal colon). That, he says, “is completely wrong.”

No, “we have a brain for one reason and one reason only,” says our Mr Wolbert, “and that’s to produce adaptable and complex movements. There is no other reason to have a brain … once you don’t need to move, you don’t need the luxury of that brain.”

So while philosophers and psychologists have for centuries investigated the modes and magic of human thought, and even as we speak computer scientists are busy trying to replicate the thinking human brain in silicon, alleged neuroscientists like Mr Wolbert are instead trying to study the repository of human thought and perception without reference to either perception or thought.

Recently, I said that I’d be blogging more on philosophy and less on politics. In today’s world there’s a desperate need for more philosophy and less politics. So I’ll begin with pointing out the confusion (and implicit contradiction) in PC’s post.

I think PC is confusing what the brain is for with what the brain does. I haven’t listened to Wolpert’s TED talk (yet) so I’ll take an educated guess. I don’t think that Wolpert denies that the brain does perceive and think. What Wolpert denies is that it’s for perceiving and thinking. Wolpert, you see, is an Evolutionist and Evolutionists like to explain all human morphology and behavioural traits by reference to the selection pressures faced by our human (and not-so-human) ancestors.

Has there ever been a need to perceive and think in our postulated four billion year evolutionary history? Not directly, no, there hasn’t. There’s only ever been a need “to produce adaptable and complex movements” by some mechanism. Evolutionists ask us to believe that the miraculous human brain is what random mutation threw up to meet this need and thus was seized upon by natural selection. Now, I remain firmly agnostic about the theory of evolution, but I can’t help but smell a whiff of bullshit here.

I find it disconcerting that Evolutionists so seldom follow through and buy into the logical implications of their own atheistic materialism. Or at least acknowledge that they are maintaining contradictions. A raft of them. Rand would spew.

I suspect that Rand was smart enough to recognise that her conception of man (which is the cornerstone of her philosophy) would prove false if the theory of evolution were shown to be true. Nathaniel Branden wrote the following in his essay The Benefits and Hazards of the Philosophy of Ayn Rand.

I remember being astonished to hear her say one day, “After all, the theory of evolution is only a hypothesis.” I asked her, “You mean you seriously doubt that more complex life forms — including humans — evolved from less complex life forms?” She shrugged and responded, “I’m really not prepared to say,” or words to that effect. I do not mean to imply that she wanted to substitute for the theory of evolution the religious belief that we are all God’s creation; but there was definitely something about the concept of evolution that made her uncomfortable.

There’s no place for love, beauty or morality in a purely material world.

I’m going to give the last word on this to my co-blogger Tim because I think he nails it. He alludes to

more than just the beauty of Woman… I am saying *Beauty* itself, and my ability to experience it is evidence of God…. beautiful beaches…. sunsets……too prove this.
Thus I am saying that my sense of beauty here is more than just a genetic/ sexual urge… Thus I find a Female butterfly to be Beautiful… and a Male Peacock… and this carries over into sound, taste, smell… etc.
Why I make this point Re : Beauty is because before I was a theist, it never occurred to me just how spectacular was this relationship between the beauty of Creation, and my ability to perceive it. after my conversion it dawned on me that all this could have existed and yet if I was ‘born a tree’ I would never have appreciated any of it! Never tasted a peach… never smelled a rose…. never herd a birds song… never appreciated the sun setting over the ocean… Ie My perception was heightened as to just how miraculously God had made me… so as to be able to apprehend his greatness as an artist… The beauty of God.
On a facebook tread discussing my assertions an Atheist tried to say my ‘feelings’ and sence of beauty were merely a product of ‘Nurture’… not nature.
I retorted… Give me a break! What I am talking about is something which is a fundamental capacity designed in human beings to the degree that it’s absence would be a mental handicap… nothing to do with cultural relativism.”

To me Naturalistic theories not only struggle to explain The happy conditions of Life on Earth, they really become absurd when you realise that the Atheist must believe that not only is every beautiful thing merely the product of a giant explosion, but that our sense of beauty itself must be explained thereby… as merely another property of matter.

There is a God!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRuNr_tSqxc

Don’t be a Blowers

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Mike Blowers: Disgraced cop’s ‘fall from grace’

Blowers pleaded guilty in October to supplying methamphetamine, and stealing methamphetamine from a police exhibit room, between 2011 and 2012.

Blowers originally denied all charges, but changed his plea to guilty two days into a jury trial, which had been set down for two weeks.

In the High Court at Whangarei this morning, Blowers was sentenced to four years and nine months for supplying meth and two years and three months for theft of drugs, to be served concurrently.

I’ve got nothing against adults buying and supplying methamphetamine, and neither should you. Such drug deals are consenting acts between adults and no one else’s business. A country in which consenting acts between adults are potentially punishable by life imprisonment cannot plausibly lay claim to being part of civilisation, except perhaps in a very loose sense of the word.

But stealing methamphetamine? Like, twice? Mike Blowers is a thief, a liar and a humungous hypocrite who flagrantly abused his position of power as a high-ranking police officer.

The veteran officer had 20 years’ experience on the job, with particular expertise in battling the drug trade.

He was the officer in charge of the Northland Organised Crime Unit which carried out raids against drug manufacturers and suppliers.

The War on Drugs is a war on people who use drugs, not to mention it’s a powerful driver of corruption within our police state. Here’s an idea. Give P(eace) a chance!

I’ll just mention in closing that methamphetamine use is something that can quickly spiral out of control. My advice is, stay off the fries! Regardless, addiction is health issue, not necessarily a crime. Your addiction is no one else’s business, unless you choose to make it so. Preferably by asking for help, rather than stealing other people’s drugs. Or your mum’s television.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Retiring from Mud Wrestling… Hapless Critters,… and The Rule.

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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???

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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. 🙂

I’m an agnostic. (Don’t ask me why.)

Last month I posted the following Facebook status.

I’m an agnostic. (Don’t ask me why.)

I meant it mainly as a joke.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

RIP Brittany Maynard

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Jesus said they’ll know Christians by our love
Do not judge or you will be judged
Holier than though, have you never sinned?
The Bible says all men have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

Jesus came for the sinners, not the righteous
All men are sinners
He ate with sinners and had compassion for them
God poured our his love and the sinners turned and followed Him

Holier than thou
Turning people off to God because of despisement in your voice
Holier than thou
Pharisees and Sadducees
Holier than thou
Show compassion for those who do not yet know Christ
Holier than thou
Love the sinner, hate the sin

If they were only shown the love of Jesus and not your despisement and condemnation

For God so loved the world
That he gave his one and only Son
That whoever believes in Him
Shall not perish but have everlasting life
For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world
but to save the world through Him

Satan loves it when you make a mockery of God’s love
Claiming to be a Christian but spitting venom and hate
The Bible says the world will hate Christians, because it rejects Christ
Not because we acted like a bunch of jerks
Turn your self-righteousness into humility
Accept others with their faults as God accepted you
Who made you a judge, holier than thou?
It makes me want to cry to see the harm you do

The sinner you see may have never before been shown love
Pain may be all they know, but Christ can heal their wounds
As ambassadors for Christ it’s our job to lead them to Him

They should know we are Christians by our love
The Bible says they’ll know we are Christians by our love!

Won’t somebody else please feed the children?

I got an email from Metiria Turei, co-leader of the Greens.

Education is the best route out of poverty. But hungry kids can’t learn and are left trapped in the poverty cycle. Let’s break that cycle lunchbox by lunchbox. We can feed the country’s hungry kids, if we work together.

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I have taken over the Feed the Kids Bill which Hone Harawira introduced to Parliament. The Bill is at a crucial stage of its progress – part way through its First Reading – and may be voted on as early as next Wednesday 5 November.

The way the numbers stack up in the new Parliament the Bill will be voted down unless we can persuade the National Party to change its position and support it to go to Select Committee.

If the Bill goes to Select Committee, MPs will be able hear from  parents, kids, teachers and others about what they think are the best solutions for feeding hungry kids at school. There are lots of ideas about how school food could be delivered and who should get it. The key thing is to have the public debate about addressing child poverty, and come up with the best solution for helping hungry kids.

Please help this happen, by emailing John Key, asking that National support my Bill at least to Select Committee.

Because of the potentially short timeframe, you’ll need to send your emails as soon as possible and before Monday 3 November at the latest.

I’m probably not going to email John Key but if I did I wouldn’t be urging him not to support the bill. At least, not on its First Reading. If National Party MPs vote for the bill on its First Reading, it can go to the Select Committee stage. I agree with Turei that

The key thing is to have the public debate about addressing child poverty, and come up with the best solution for helping hungry kids.

Won’t somebody else please feed the children? No doubt the best long-term solution for helping hungry kids is not state food. But as quick-fix statist solutions go this one is surely unexceptionable. Paying state(-funded) schools to feed hungry kids is an advance on paying state(-funded) parents to feed them, isn’t it? The Bill targets the funding for school food at Decile 1 and 2 schools, too. The Feed the Kids program could probably be nearly fully funded by concomitant deductions in the benefits or WFF tax breaks of the parents of those children attending the schools in question. Isn’t this an advance for “a hand up, not a handout” safety net state welfare system? Or am I missing some serious unintended consequences?

I went to primary school in the U.K. in the early ’70s. We had school milk at morning break and school dinners at lunchtime. Morning milk was a third pint of silver top, and lunch was typically a dollop of mince meat, a dollop of mashed potatoes and a spoonful of (mushy?) peas. Followed by a serving of stodgy pudding and watery custard. All lovingly served by the matronly school dinner ladies. It all seemed perfectly normal, because it was. (But then came Thatcher the Milk Snatcher …)

Dinner ladies serving lunch at a school in Derby.

While our MPs debate the merits or otherwise of the bill, and alternative statist approaches such as the existing “income management” regime, my thoughts are with the children who continue to go to school without breakfast or lunch. Children like the early John Banks who grew up in poverty in the 1950s. “Of course, I support sandwiches and food in schools,” says Banks. “I would have loved some sandwiches and some food in schools, but that is not the answer.”

So what is the answer?

According to Banks, the way out of child poverty is children living in homes “with unconditional love, and I never knew anything about that,” and having access to a world-class education. But the state cannot provide unconditional love.

According to the Bible, it comes down to us. James tells us simply

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. (NIV)

Children whose parents send them to school sans breakfast and lunch are, in effect, orphans. Won’t somebody please feed the children?

Give me Liberty, or give me Death!