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08 Feb 2018

The Overman

image

Waking up, to a world with no meaning.

We live in the great nothingness.

Ideas have consequences.

Super heroes have developed as the ultimate expression of transcending the boundaries of society.  We love the idea of being free to fly above the masses while having the ability to make the world a better place. Our culture reflects our belief that we can choose our own reality. The temporal realm is kept at a surface level of understanding and it’s our interpretations of that reality that is nurtured.  We are led to create a world where our feelings and experiences are key. Whether we lock ourselves in a repetitive cycle like Momento or Inception, take our blue pill, or our soma, we are encouraged to escape the truth.  We are attracted to the ideas of individual freedom and non-conformity, but without a transcendental source of truth we become fragmented into an existential darkness and an ultimate state of apathy.  Our world has erased all absolutes and therefore we choose to dwell in individual bubbles of distraction, finding short-lived temporal comfort in our fragmented state of purposelessness.  This has created an overall society of individual perspectives that are so apathetically detached, the only possible eventuality is a tyrannical police state.  Of course, as in A Brave New World, our sense of purpose will be so far removed we will likely embrace the tyranny as if we could be bothered to engage long enough to even notice.

 This cycle will result in the snake eating his tail scenario.  Ironically our longing for individual freedom leads to its own demise.  In our quest to break free from the bonds of society, we get lost in trying to secure our own imaginative state of autonomy. Then we willingly relinquish our freedom for dependency.  Like Batman, feeding the Joker’s psychosis,  we create our own monsters. We sow the seeds of our own destruction. We willingly blur the lines of truth to justify our emotional reality.  We feed the hatred, play both sides, so in the end we are not even sure which side was which. This false confidence we look for within ourselves, trusting our own constructs, has a cyclical nature, but also leads to a linear progression in the pschycosphere.

From romanticism, to transcendentalism, existentialism, and finally the ultimate nihilism we have today, authors like Faust, Emerson, and Nietzsche, have been systematically deconstructing our reality for centuries. They have all contributed to the ideal image of the “overman” or “ubermensch” that became our “Superman” that we now hold dear. Sadly though, instead of a the moral and just hero we associate with Superman, we are really being prepared for the coming anti-Christ. Hitler used the idea of the overman to justify killing millions of Jews, we use it to justify post modernism.

We have gone from reason to non-reason. The French Revolution, communism, Nazi Germany, and the war on terror, all show us how idealism fails to translate to reality in an ever increasingly relativistic society. The most deadly century in history is our result.

It’s no wonder that Carl Jung’s solution of escaping reality to find the god within ourselves is the epitome our culture’s inability to live in and comprehend the real world. We are ill-equipped to deal the potential threats and convoluted entanglement of consequences that will come from our detached reality, whether we are warding off real and imaginary crime villains, or trying to deal with our own everyday hum drum problems and commitments.

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23 Apr 2017

Why is “science” demonizing science?

Happy Earth Day Ya’ll! It’s no coincidence that Earth Day is on Lenin’s birthday, or maybe it is. Certainly promoters of Earth Day will say that the connection is just silly. Right wing conspiracy making lunacy from logic. That doesn’t change the fact that it’s purpose is completely aligned with communism.

Earth_Day_Poster_Lenin_Earth

Let’s not forget the obvious intentions of the UN toward global equality and it’s connections to use environmental policy as one way to shape that goal. But lets take a closer look at the techniques used to promote their policies. Take this quote for example from UNESCO, the UN’s educational, scientific and cultural division,

“…taking the techniques of persuasion and information and true propaganda that we have learnt to apply nationally in war, and deliberately bending them to the international tasks of peace, if necessary utilizing them — as Lenin envisaged – to ‘overcome the resistance of millions‘ to desirable change.

The past several years have brought about an intensity in the campaign to employ soviet type propaganda tactics to marginalize and demonize anyone who dares to question to current mainstream narrative of so-called “science”. A platform has been created for political ideas that has been lumped together with the overall idea of empirical scientific advancement in order to solidify it as unconditional truth. This platform includes a broad scope of evolutionary ideas and origins, climate change caused by human behavior, the safety of vaccines, GMO’s, and other environmental issues.

These political issues share a common global perspective in the larger agenda for population control, redistribution of the wealth, and the elimination of societal institutions like religion and the family structure, that are blamed for national allegiance and the prevention of globalism.

Today marks yet another clichéd demonstration called “The March For Science”.  People are outraged that in this day and age, some have the audacity to question so-called proven science. Things like global warming, whoops, I mean climate change, and evolution are the issues. The rhetoric is that a few ignorant, unscientific, illiterate, rogues are challenging of the scientific method used to prove empirical data. They are accused of intellectual destruction and leading masses of poor children back to the abuses of the medieval dark ages.

I was always under the impression that “science”  meant asking questions? More specifically,

sci·ence ˈ sīəns/

noun
  1. the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment.

So, since when is questioning the status quo unscientific? Neil Degrasse Tyson is a spokesperson along with Bill Nye the Science Guy, (not actually a scientist), for the “March For Science”. They have put forth a vitriolic campaign, likening the decline of the American way of life to the questioning of “established” science. Videos are being widely circulated online working to marginalize anyone who drifts from the global agenda.

How established is the science we are talking about? More importantly, how trustworthy are the scientists who are establishing these facts?

Should we not consider the possibility of corruption of facts for a bigger agenda? Why is big brother telling us the way to scientific progress is asking questions on one hand, but we dare not question on the other? It seems more like statist propaganda to me. Lets not forget 1984’s, “2+2=5”. What is truth? What the state says it is.

So what about the truth of established mainstream science? We are always hearing that these facts have been proven by the empirical method and we might as well believe in unicorns if we try to call this into question.

Methods used to formulate this data is suspect though. In these articles by MIT graduate and meteorologist Charlie Clough, we see that sometimes neglecting to disclose the full data leads to corruption through omission. http://www.cnsnews.com/commentary/charles-clough/climate-change-theorists-consistently-deceive-glaring-omission

http://barbwire.com/2015/12/02/7-reasons-to-oppose-any-agreement-from-the-paris-climate-summit/

If we take a deeper look we can see the bigger agenda. It really has nothing to do with “science”. In fact, using science as an omnipotent entity is a logical fallacy. “Science says” and other similar terminology are used to manipulate us into thinking there is some sort of determinate quality that is encompassed in the authoritative term, “science”.  The truth is science is an array of fluid and changing data. What may have been controversial before is mainstream today. While the scientific method is indeed a reliable source for empiricism, there is a great deal of personal interpretation involved when it comes to the issues being debated. Climate data is limited to just over 100 years of recorded history. It’s preposterous to attempt to take such a fragmented period of data and make factual claims about what will happen in the future, and how much can be attributed to humans. In the same regard, evolution is not observable.

There is also reason to believe that political agendas and fraudulent behavior carry a heavy influence over published data. https://jaysanalysis.com/2015/08/14/the-age-of-transition-and-scientism-fraud/ . And that individual agendas are also in play, https://jaysanalysis.com/2014/06/10/philosophy-phoenix-arises-to-annihilate-degrasse-tyson/ .

Of course there is also the more blatant agenda that doesn’t even attempt to hide its intentions, like the article below mentions from earlier this year that global warming was created as a motive to change the global economy. https://thenationalsentinel.com/2017/02/03/un-official-actually-admits-that-global-warming-is-a-scam-designed-to-change-worlds-economic-model/un declares purpose for climate change redistribution of wealth

Tyson and others are claiming that science is what made America great, and that having a president and vice president that challenge the status quo, is leading our country into a state of regression. Personally, I believe this is a contradiction. Science is all about challenging the status quo to discover new frontiers. So I guess it’s time we get it straight, (for our democracy and all) and pledge allegiance to the phantom named “science”, that contrary to its definition, demands that it’s predetermined truth must be left to the experts, and everyone else needs to blindly follow in line. Best to leave the science to the scientists son.

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30 Apr 2016

girl_floating_on_water_thumb

Where are the words that fill my brain?

The words that lurk unformed, peeping out in blurry bits.

Words to pick apart the blanket of silence crushing down,

Isolating, defeating, smothering.

Words to lift me out of my island to myself,

Words to travel the vast empty space.

To cast out, to catch the hope,

to latch on to living souls.

The souls are sleeping, the words are afraid to wake them up.

The space is growing, swallowing letters, leaving vapors.

The silence is up to my ears now, distorting the distant sounds,

with cool lapping to and fro, the words floating away,  a distant sailboat

as it disappears with the sun.

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07 Apr 2016

Time in a Bottle

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My story begins sometime when I was about 12 years old.  I had my own space in our new house, and lots of it.  A hidden door in my closet opened to an attic I had claimed as my secret room. I covered the walls with song lyrics and would bury myself in blankets in the winter, and sweat to death in the summer, while I spent hours upon hours in my little bunker, writing poems, painting, and listening to music. The occasional spider or spooky shadow sometimes sent me bolting out into the closet like the kids from Narnia trying to find their way home.

On a clear summer night, I would sit outside my window on the roof, and stare at the stars.  I had it in my head that I was in love with some boy from school. I never talked to him, and didn’t really know much about him, but I had this idea about love. It was self-sacrificing and deep. I didn’t care if he ever talked to me again, but I would daydream about him growing up, getting married and being happy. I would sit on my little roof and wish to the stars,  and whisper, “I love you, I love you, I love you.” Something about threes was important. Say it three times, I am not sure why. I think I had some sense of triunity, I knew that the threes held everything together.

Behind my parents house, there was a heavily treed creek, and further back, a small pond. I loved it back there. After school, I would lay and read on this huge fallen tree that made a bridge across the creek. My dad was sure I had taken all the kitchen spoons somewhere in those woods. Some days, I hiked back to the pond, through the thick brush. I distinctly remember, on many a brisk fall evening, realizing I had missed the straight path and was caught in the middle of the thorn trees, and nettles, and spider webs, right when dusk was setting in. Panic crept up as the wind carved through my clothes. There was never a good way out, I would wish I could teleport myself. Trying not to think about what was stirring in the waist-high grass, I would just starting running like a maniac in full panic mode. I generally emerged with a few bloody scratches and the cursed nettles stinging like hell. My mom’s voice in my heading saying, “I am NOT buying you any more shoes!” But as I climbed up to the bank to the pond, the sun scattered all over the surface of the water, blinking like diamonds, and the sky a million shades of pink and purple, my recent trauma would melt away, forgotten, and I would say,”I love you, I love you, I love you.”

I loved that pond so much, I used to tell people I wanted my ashes scattered there when I died. Well, a third of them, I wanted a third in the ocean, and a third in the mountains somewhere. You know, threes. I used to think about death a lot, not in a morbid way, just in a matter of fact kind of way.  I never really felt like I was part of this world. I never pictured myself growing up and doing all the traditional things people do. I would tell people, I was going to grow up and live on the beach in a VW bus, yep, I was going to be a bag lady and sell sea shells by the sea-shore. Until I was 19 of course, after that, I would most likely be dead.  Just couldn’t picture living past 20. I would also plan that for some reason I was living past 20, I would just live vicariously through my best friend’s life, I would be her nanny and help raise her children, and love them as my own. Strange how things turn out.

I thought this through high school, so it didn’t bother me at all when I left my sophomore year and took my equivalency test to start classes at the community college.  I didn’t mind missing prom and graduation, or the college experience, I just never expected to do those things anyway.

When I did eventually grow older than 19, my thinking did not really change. I got married about a month after my 22 birthday.  I didn’t think about it ahead of time, we had known each other only a few months and decided to elope one weekend without telling anyone. I never thought I would get married.  I got pregnant within a few months after that, and I just kept moving forward. I never thought I would have kids. Of course I was happy though, I loved my family, and I was grateful for my life.  I just never expected it to happen that way.

For the next several years I was just busy just living, and I didn’t have a chance to think too much. Always in the back of my mind, though, I would still look at the stars and think, “I love you, I love you, I love you.” Somewhere along my path, all the questions that I had been pushing down over the years, came popping up, like that little squirrel in Ice Age trying to plug all the holes. Maybe the cliché’ questions like, “Why am I here?” were a bit of a stretch, but I knew there was so much more than I could see. I had always felt like a vessel passing through, my soul watching out the window, trees and people whizzing by. Buildings and landscape until it just fades into a blur. Time and space ticking along, suppressing the eternity trapped inside.

You see, that’s what it is, God put eternity in all our hearts, and we go through life pushing it down, or trying to turn it into something else. We have eternity in our hearts because we are made in Gods image.  Because he is eternal, we have a sense of eternity, an internal understanding. Yet we toil away in time, trying to hold on to what is already passing away.

We all know God. Not just an idea of a god, something that connects us all,  or some sort of cosmic designer.  We know HIM. Personally.

For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what is made, so that we are without excuse. Romans 1:20

Obviously, we are born and begin at a given time, but God is eternal and has known us throughout eternity. He has always known outside time everything He would ever carry out inside time. He is in control of every aspect of time and space. We sometimes like to think of the universe as eternal. The universe cannot be eternal because it was created by God, and if it were not, there could be no purpose to anything. Something that’s eternal could not be designed because it would precede any designer, so that would make the universe and everything in it, right down to every subatomic quark, completely random and without purpose. So either you have random eternal matter, or an eternal designer , and that would, therefore, give everything in the universe purpose.

God tells us that the day will come when nothing we see will exist. He will put an end to time and space as we know it. Even death itself. Up to this point we have a choice, it’s simple really. Do we want life or death? There is only one source of life. God offers us eternity, as a free gift. Yet, sadly, we often choose darkness over light. We choose death.

And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead which were in them; and they were judged, every one of them according to their deeds. Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire. Rev 20:13-15 Then I saw a new heaven and new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and there is no longer any sea. Rev. 21:1

 

Last summer I was visiting my parents, and I again hiked back to the pond. My son and I braved the nettles and thorn trees with panic at dusk.  The sunlight greeted us as we climbed the bank. Of course, time had moved on, the water was covered in moss and the overgrowth was so thick we could not get too close to the water. That’s the trouble with time, it keeps going. We look to the future with hope and faith, and to the past with judgement and regret. Trying to make our way to the things we want to find, but hold on to the things we lost, but we only grasp at dust.

In eternity, there will be no judgement, no hope or faith, for all is realized and we will see as we are meant to see. No more glimpses of what is to come, no more regret for things past. But, what remains forever will be the most important thing, LOVE.

For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known. But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love. 1 Corinthians 13:12-13

I know that this is what I want to cling to, that is why I am here on this planet. I know as I pass through in my vessel, those sparkles on the pond’s surface, and far up in the night sky, those people I meet along the way, my family, and my babies I hold tight, these are  glimpses into eternity. This is where my heart lives. I cannot hold on to anything in this world, but I will listen to Him as He calls me from eternity, as I have heard Him since I was young, and I will answer Him back from time, “I love you, I love you, I love you.”

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09 Dec 2015

Circular Reasoning and the Beauty of Balance

Isn’t funny how our brains can migrate from a glimpse of absolute clarity to complete vacancy in what seems like a nano second?  How does that happen?  Thoughts go from conceptualizations to vapors before they are made into actual thoughts, much less words.  I really hate that.  It is sort of my version of circular reasoning, of the unintelligent kind.  I go from nothing back to nothing.  Of course it is hard work getting there too!  It reminds me of Vizzini from the Princess Bride trying to rationalize which cup has the poison.

I believe these glimpses or fragments are finite versions of some sort of whole.  We spend our lives trying to replicate this whole in one way or another. We often reason ourselves from one side of an issue to another, trying to find it’s truth, trying to find it’s purpose.  It is an endless quest of futility. We search to find balance or unity through the many paradoxes we encounter everyday.  Sometimes, we even try to understand the greater why that fuels them all. We try, but we are just finite beings, we are just grasping at fragments. There can never be purpose or understanding if all we have is a part of a whole. We may try to figure out the whole, the “one” that unites all these parts. Perhaps with the proper logic or experience we can fill in the blanks.

What was the whole again? What were we talking about?

Oh, right, there I go again.

We assume the whole is just everyone’s fragments. Naturally, right?  All the bits and pieces of everything, the ideas and experiences, matter and energy all rolled into one.

I don’t think so. I mean, I am sure they make up some sort of whole. I just don’t think they are the whole we are looking for. They are our counterfeit whole. In their grand sum they are still just fragments, just parts.  There is nothing to tie them together and give them unity. So if that is true, then there is no purpose to anything.  We can find only temporary meaning or purpose, but no real truth, nothing eternal.

What if all that energy and matter and bits and pieces, all those rabbit trails of fragmented reasoning are really a reflection of something bigger? A reflection of the real whole? Something outside of all of those things. Something where each of those fragments represent an entire whole? What if all of those parts are actually given purpose by the whole, the “One” that creates union and balance? If that is true, if things can have balance and purpose, and they must have been designed that way. If not, we go back to our random parts, back to our meaningless fragments.

Many attribute this design to some unseen force or power in the universe.  They think that somehow all the molecular structure of everything is connected and works together to guide and unify.  I suppose that makes sense in a way. Everything consists of the same elements, things do connect in many ways.  There is something missing though.  The universe may be a natural leap because it is seemingly infinite and the largest thing we can attempt to fathom.  While the universe is indeed large, it cannot compare to the intricate vast depth of a conscious being.  It is not capable of logic or reasoning, it has no nature or personality.  So it becomes impossible to connect the randomness of a universe of matter, space and energy with the abstract world of a conscientious personality.  Even if you could somehow combine both realms into one reality, you would still be left with an incomplete whole.  There is nothing to connect the physical and spiritual world together to give it meaning.  We can only wonder from one side to the other as the emptiness of one side fuels the other.

So one can either bounce along this path indefinitely, or reach the end of their existential rope.  Either way, they are powerless and left with vapors.

So maybe those fleeting moments of clarity are just electromagnetic impulses in our brains.  Or perhaps they are a glimpse of something more.  I believe they are both, I believe both have purpose.  However, the only possible way for both to exist with purpose is if what unifies them is eternal.  Eternal in all ways.  Eternal in space, omnipresent. Eternal in consciousness, omniscient.  Infinite, or outside time, and sovereign in all ways.  There is nothing like that in our universe or even in the depths of our imagination, nothing at all for comparison.  Anything we use to try to represent this, no matter how large, is temporal.

Yet somehow we all innately know the only thing to describe this is God.  He must contain all of these attributes, and what we see both within the physical universe and within our abstract minds are finite versions of His infinite attributes.  They all reveal Him, and Him as their creator.  This is why He can be the only answer, the meaning to all things.  The beginning and end to all reasoning.  The difference between endless circular reasoning, and a beautiful balance and unity in all things.

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07 Feb 2014

Whooo Arrre Youu???

dsc00872.jpg    Being willing to question is good.  It is often thought that going against foundations is a rebellion to be avoided, that straying from what you have been taught is a path that     leads to danger.  Christians often associate the fall of man with questioning God and eating the forbidden fruit.  It is a misconception to believe that God doesn’t want you to ask why.  Why is a good thing.  It is usually what proceeds it or what accompanies the why that is the problem.  As humans we are limited in our perspectives but we are also fallen and clouded in our every viewpoint.  Our questions are often equipped with so much baggage, the answer is already predetermined in our minds.   We are simply looking for a way to justify our position.
In fact God loves to disrupt our preconceived notions.  It is only when our positions are shaken that we are able to hear His revelations of truth.  We feel guilty questioning what comes natural to us, it goes contrary to all our instincts.  This is exactly what He wants, for we can never trust in Him if we are trusting in ourselves.  Sometimes this can be very confusing, because sometimes it is easy to confuse asking why with not trusting God.  It is actually the opposite, trusting God to guide you and to reaffirm viewpoints helps us learn and grow closer to knowing God.  Without repentance we are unable to believe.  I am not  referring to repentance as remorse or contrition, but as in changing one’s mind.  If we are set in our views and trusting in what we see, we are willingly blocking what God reveals.  We are unwittingly choosing not to believe.

There is actually only one sin that is unforgivable, and it is unbelief, or rejecting that Christ was the son of God, whose death and resurrection paid the full penalty for our sins so they we may have eternal life.  Of course it is easy to see how a person that rejects God because of the shame of exposure makes bad decisions where the consequences lead to a spiraling effect that condemnation.  It is more difficult to see how a person can be trapped in unfolding effects of good decisions.  This person is walking by sight and not by faith exactly the same as the person who falls in the stereotypical lost category.  Satan is the Prince of this world, and his realm is the temporal.  When we walk by sight, all of our actions are building a sequence that solidifies unbelief, and firmly plants us in this world under his rule.

God’s most distinct quality is His holiness, this means He is unequal to anything else, He is set apart in every way.  He would also like us to manifest this quality by setting ourselves apart from the temporal world.  This doesn’t mean living in an arrogant bubble, but rather to avoid trusting in what we see.  As we have said this is difficult because it our nature and our instinct, so to do this we must deny ourselves, and put our trust completely in Him.  Walking by faith is a constant effort.  We may attempt to use this faith as a foundation and settle back into our own perspectives.  We need to be disrupted constantly so we are able to look to Him and not fall back on ourselves.  This is why people hate to hear the truth, it convicts us.  This why the controversial parts cannot be left out, we need to be convicted.  God knows we will never see our need for Him if we are not knocked off of our foundation first.  We will fail many, many times, but it is that initial trust, that first time we let go of our foundation and let Him replace it with His truth that changed our fate from the temporal to the eternal, from death to life, from the bonds of time to the freedom of eternity.

It is strange how much that Satan loves to mimic God.  Dialectic thought that is so prevalent in this world is an imitation of Gods way of leading people to truth.  I suppose that is why it is so brilliant and seemingly effective.  Deriving order out of chaos makes use of a destabilized situation and uproots old ideas leaving a space for new ideas to be  molded.  The Marxist mentality is a cheap copy of Gods providence throughout history.  Again we go back to the foundation of the idea.  It is not change itself that is good any more than asking questions is bad.  Faith is only as good as the object it is placed in, it really is what you believe in that is important not just the act of believing   It happens that Gods attributes are absolute and eternal, and the changes promoted through the ideas in this world, the things seen, are only temporal.  So simply put, putting our faith in this world, or ourselves, or anything in this universe, is something that will eventually fail no matter what, so it’s only hope is finding purpose in change itself.  This is sold to us as growth or progress, and it’s ugliness is called duality.caterpillar

I used to believe in balance. Duality made sense to me.   I grew up fond of Alice in Wonderland, the absurd logic that also seemed very practical was attractive.  I loved the questions it proposed, my favorite was when the caterpillar asked, “who are you?”  To me this question spoke volumes, it was inevitably unanswerable and dismissed as irrelevant, but it pulled me to the bigger question of, “What is the purpose for anything? ”  It seemed to call attention to the contradictions in all thought.  This spiral effect of circular reasoning was very intriguing.  It was this, “what’s the point?” that eventually opened the door to finding the true purpose in all things, which cannot exist without God.  See all unbelief contradicts itself, it is dualism by nature.  I now have learned that Alice in Wonderland is just a glorification of that dualism, and probably a lot of other esoteric things and should probably be avoided.  However, I still like the way it gives itself away.  I go back to the beginning and say, it is good to ask why.  It is not bad to be curious. It goes both ways, asking why is the only way to find truth, but you have to be willing to believe a new perspective and one that probably is not the same as your own, but most importantly, you must consider your source.  When Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit they did not fall because they dared to ask a question, Man fell because his heart filled with unbelief and instead of asking God why, He trusted in himself.

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07 Feb 2014

IF or IS 

 We were all born into the world. The world since we were born 
has always taught us “IF“. 

We learn that the world is our oyster so to speak, full of possibilities. 
That IF we try hard enough we will prevail! We learn to listen to
 our hearts, be true to ourselves, find ourselves. Be whatever we 
want to be. We learn that we determine right or wrong, we choose
 our own paths. We learn perseverance brings perfection. 

Our movies teach us to root for the hero, their courage will 
defeat the villain. That even against great evil, we can find 
strength within ourselves to overcome in the end.

This theme is not just for fictional stories though, it is ingrained in
 everything we are. Most of our religions teach us the same. 
 If you try hard enough, follow the right rules, incorporate the
 proper steps, you can create a path to the afterlife. 

We see things as cyclical, organic. Our schools teach us Naturalism.
That there is no distinction between nature, animals, and mankind. 
We all share the same elements and could just as easily end up
 anywhere in the cycle of time. We take what we see from the
 seasons, that the cycle of death and regeneration is a harmonious
 balance. 

 
 In fact, if you really boil it down, every part of the world teaches
 us relativity. Anything is possible. There is nothing that is 
 real, nothing constant that we can rely on, that will
 never change, or didn’t just happen by chance. Nothing absolute. 
Time is even relative to whatever situation it is being measured by. 
 Without space and matter would it still even exist? 

So truth itself is whatever we make of it. Cycles and naturalism show
 us that behavior is also relative to our nature and circumstance.
And what is the motivation of all these IF's?
 It removes our accountability.   We are able to rationalize our shame, hide behind 
a multitude of excuses. 
 Then somewhere within this denial, we learn
 to find consistency within it. We start to depend on it, and argue it, as 
we would if it were something absolute. Our relative theories become
 fact and our minds settle into a certain path and it gives us peace. 
 This is our understanding of the way things are, according to the 
world of "IF". 

 
 God asks us to look at things in a different way. To say IS and
 not IF. However, this is difficult in the world we live
 in.  We like choices. One right answer is considered intolerant.
Lack of absolutes say, "Who are you to say your way is the right way?".
 
The Bible tells us, that things are not at all random. They were
 designed by a creator, and that history is moving along with a 
purpose. That we all have a destiny and a purpose. That God is in
 control of everything and that everything happens for a reason. 

 It teaches there is only one answer. One path. God is light, 
everything else is darkness, God is truth, everything else is a 
distortion of that truth, so therefore everything else is lies. That the 
world is fallen and broken and we are part of that brokenness and 
the only path to freedom is to trust in God.

 It shows us that no matter how hard we try we can’t control our
 fate. It is impossible for us to find the strength within 
ourselves to prevail in the end. We cannot trust in ourselves,
 that we will always end up in the same place, failure. We are slaves
 to our world, powerless and deceived by it. Unable to see the truth 
because we are part of the corruption. 

 But wait, that doesn’t sound like a good movie. In that movie, the 
Invaders from outer space are the good guys and we are the bad 
guys! That idea just doesn’t sit right with us, we have always been 
taught that WE are the good guys! But what are we
 really trusting in if nothing is real or constant ? Do we really 
want to completely be left to ourselves?
 
 Even so, it is scary, letting go of the natural trust we have in 
ourselves, and trusting in something to take care of us when deep down
 we are so afraid, we know we are full of mistakes, failures, and
 really, darkness. And in order to seek the light we must first face 
our own darkness. 

 
As Alexander Solzhenitsyen said,
“If only it were all so simple, if only there were evil people 
Somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds and it were 
necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy 
them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart 
of every human being, and who is willing to destroy a piece of his 
own heart?”

 
 So we have to be ready to let go of ourselves because that is 
where the true deceit really lies, we must allow for our own hearts to
 be cut back to be able to change the way we see things. 

 And as scary as it is to think of things being predetermined, it 
Can be comforting to know there is a constant. An unmoving, 
unchanging, Presence. Something that knows all things, controls 
all things.
 But what if God doesn’t accept us? After all, we just
 Learned to see ourselves as utter hopeless failures right? I mean 
the world has been trying to convince us we are worthy and good 
at heart forever right? Now something just came along 
and disrupted everything we have come to know. 

 It is only natural for us to think we will be rejected. So what do we do? 
 Well, we can look at the Bible and see that God said that He loves
 us, and God cannot lie. The Bible also says that perfect love will cast out 
fear.  
 
 The Bible is full of God's promises to take care of us. It says he loves 
the whole world and does not want any to perish. And let's think about
it, why would God not care for his creation? What benefit would it be to
 him to condemn us? On the other hand, ask yourself if you were
 already condemned would you have the motivation to convince 
yourself and the rest of the world that there must be another way, 
an IF? perhaps? That it would be beneficial to try and prove God
 unjust or wrong?
 
 And because God is just, He also proved he loved us, enough to
 sacrifice a part of himself, his only Son, to save us.
 That sacrifice was so big that it paid the price for everyone’s sins.
 It paid for every failure and horrible thing that was ever done and
 ever will be done, and all we have to do is believe it. It is our choice.
 
 
 Seems simple, but that means letting go of that belief you have been
 taught your whole life that anything is possible, and you can control 
your own destiny, or that there are several doors to choose from.
 We have to trust God to be in charge and not us. Our hearts cannot
believe both. For one belief contradicts the other, they both 
cannot be true. So we pick, it is never God rejecting us. We will 
always pick a God, and it will either be Him or ourselves.
 
 If we do believe what God said, it is like the vale lifts up from our
 eyes little by little, and the more of Gods words we believe the more 
we can see the world for what it is. Completely temporal, it loses it’s
 power over us, the power to deceive us into thinking we can be in
 control, it’s power to convince us that God doesn’t really love us or
 worse that HE is the one deceiving us. 

 So sooner or later we will have a choice, we can keep the veil 
over our eyes and continue to believe what the things around us tell
 us. The IF’s and possibilities! Convince ourselves we actually can
 choose our own reality. Or we can choose to believe the IS. That 
there is real truth and light and hope for the future. Hope in a 
complete and total victory that we don’t have to do anything to 
achieve but just accept. A gift we did not earn and cannot
 repay, but because of God’s love and promises we can be assured, 
unafraid, and walk with confidence in the path He has given us.
Posted in apologetics, articles, August 2011, Index, September 2011 | Leave a comment
19 Oct 2011

The Price of Liberty

How do we place a value on life?  I recently saw a video of a little girl in China that was run over and left bleeding in the street.  People were walking around her like a piece of trash and then she was run over a second time before someone pulled her broken body out of the street.  It’s hard to imagine living in a society where that is possible.  We never think that we could be numb to someone else’s suffering, that we have some sense of humanity that protects us from cruelty.  The truth is history has us shown differently.  We can be influenced by society and fear of consequence and general persuasion can lead us to condition ourselves to become accustomed to all kinds of atrocity.  In Nazi Germany, by the time anyone felt the problem was serious enough to speak up, the consequences were so severe they kept any protests quiet.  Within the past century our own country has stood by and watched racial hatred as if it were normal behavior.   During the Civil War we had a country split in half over whether or not people should have the freedom to own slaves.  Many things that we now see as absolutely horrific have been viewed as normal or even majority view at some point in time.

Societies have always struggled with the emphasis of the importance of the individual versus the good of the whole.  We all can agree that a society needs structure and order to keep life from being complete chaos, but should it be as the cost of personal freedom?  The problem is the value of life will decline at either end of the spectrum.  If personal freedom prevails, then what is to stop a person from exploiting others for their own gain?  Child labor, slavery, domestic abuse, the way workers were treated during the industrial revolution are a few examples of how individual liberty can lead to declines in society.  However if the pendulum swings in the other direction we can end up with tyranny and oppression, genocide, fear and complacency, where people look aside when they see suffering.   Again if the pendulum swings to the side of personal freedom, the value of liberty can prevail against the value of human life and lead to rationalizing issues like mercy killing, euthenasia or abortion, after all, people are just exercising their personal freedom right?  Who are we to tell them they are wrong?  This is why it is sometimes difficult to see the difference between far right and far left, you usually end up in the same place.  Fascism and communism have many similarities.

So what are we left with?  Either extreme leads to relativism and a devaluing of life.  As important as freedom and democratic ideals are, they are really more of a result than something you can strive for.  Society often tries to model itself after other successful societies throughout history only to fall miserably off track.  Liberty itself can mean different things to different people, and can become a complete farce if imposed upon a society without the morality to uphold its value.  We associate democracy with ancient Greece, but as Plato said, “Democracy leads to despotism.”  His view was people’s freedom should be based on their voluntary submission to the elite representatives that composed their laws and represented their culture and ultimately defined their truth.  So a person could achieve personal freedom as long as they were able to redefine their definition of what that meant.

The liberty that we idealise today generally assumes morality is intrinsic within the individual, that given the right environment, personal conscience would prevail.  This is a logical assumption when we look back upon times in our history when personal freedom was paramount, but the conditions that led to liberty must be understood to see how it was achieved.  We take advantage of the morality we have been taught in that we don’t see how it colors our decisions and the consequences of our ideas.  Our American culture is fortunate to have a history and constitution that instills value for human life, and personal freedom in that our system of justice defers to a higher law.  The Beauty of this higher law is partly derived from the ten commandments.  In fact we have them printed on the doors of our Supreme court.  They are usually taken for granted, simplified or considered outdated.  However if we listen to the wisdom behind these ten simple laws we can unlock the key to a successful society.  The commandments have a chiastic structure that unifies the importance of all of them to a single element, the value of life.

For a society to be successful in longevity certain elements must be protected, labor and property, marriage and family, and truth.  There is a commonality in the third and ninth commandment,  Thou shalt not take the Lord’s name in vain and Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.  Both protect truth.  If we start calling God what he is not, or using God’s name with a different meaning or intention it is the beginning of redefining truth.  This is important because if language is not protected and words begin to mean whatever we want them to mean, they become corruption and truth becomes relative.  Bearing false witness against your neighbor is an obvious example of this corruption.  The fourth and eighth also relate, Thou shall respect the sabbath and keep it holy and Thou shalt not steal.  On the sabbath not only were the Israelites supposed to rest, but their animals, their labourers and also their land.  Every component of a person’s property was to be respected and held in high regard.  Thou shall not steal is another example of how property and ownership was to be respected.  Another connection lies between the fifth and seventh commandment, Thou shalt honor thy father and mother and Thou shalt not commit adultery.  These both protected the family structure.  Family is what society is based on, they are the first small businesses as well.  They are the backbone of education and economy and when families fall apart, everything falls apart.  Finally respecting our elders leads to and ties in the ultimate commandment, Thou shalt not murder.  A respect and value for life is the cornerstone for all morality that a society should be based on.

However none of these can be possible without the second and tenth commandment,  Thou shall have no other gods before me and Thou shall not covet.  These cannot be judged or dictated by society and this is the foundation that makes liberty possible.  These are what brings forth freedom.   These are commandments of the heart.  We cannot measure them by actions and if they are not there or insincere the rest will fall apart.  Having no other gods before Him, means putting God first, ahead of yourself.  That means a lot more than most people think it means and it is that humility that allows a person to sacrifice their own gain to respect others.  Thou shall not covet means more than not wanting a house or a wife like your neighbor, or simple jealousy.  It means being content with what you are given.  Having a thankful heart for everything God sends your way.  That means every time we complain or grumble, or long for a situation to change, we are coveting.  These commandments are difficult and some would say downright impossible, and ultimately they can only come from God’s grace, but they can be the wisdom we look to when the pendulum swings.

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13 Oct 2011

Psalm 22

Sometimes when we think about Christ it is easy to think of Him only as divine and we forget that He was also human.  It is hard to understand how undiminished deity and true humanity can go together but it is precisely where these two streams converge that gives meaning to everything. It’s hard to fathom His Impeccability, how a perfect deity could actually be tempted.  We forget that He was also man, that He felt tired, hungry and thirsty.  He felt sadness and pain.

We read about His prayer in the garden, Luke 22: 42 “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.” 43 An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him. 44 And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.”

It is His humanity that makes Him qualified to be our King and our Judge.  To truly understand and love us.  In Matthew 27 it said that while there was a time of darkness before Jesus died on the cross he cried with a loud voice,  “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”  At that time, Psalms were not known by numbers but were titled according to their beginning verse.  It’s likely that Jesus was reciting the entire Psalm entitled, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” which would be what we know as Psalm 22.

1 My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning?
2 O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer,
and by night, but I find no rest.
3 Yet you are holy,
enthroned on the praises[a] of Israel.
4 In you our fathers trusted;
they trusted, and you delivered them.
5 To you they cried and were rescued;
in you they trusted and were not put to shame.
6 But I am a worm and not a man,
scorned by mankind and despised by the people.
7 All who see me mock me;
they make mouths at me; they wag their heads;
8 “He trusts in the LORD; let him deliver him;
let him rescue him, for he delights in him!”
9 Yet you are he who took me from the womb;
you made me trust you at my mother’s breasts.
10 On you was I cast from my birth,
and from my mother’s womb you have been my God.
11 Be not far from me,
for trouble is near,
and there is none to help.
12 Many bulls encompass me;
strong bulls of Bashan surround me;
13 they open wide their mouths at me,
like a ravening and roaring lion.
14 I am poured out like water,
and all my bones are out of joint;
my heart is like wax;
it is melted within my breast;
15 my strength is dried up like a potsherd,
and my tongue sticks to my jaws;
you lay me in the dust of death.
16 For dogs encompass me;
a company of evildoers encircles me;
they have pierced my hands and feet[b]—
17 I can count all my bones—
they stare and gloat over me;
18 they divide my garments among them,
and for my clothing they cast lots.
19 But you, O LORD, do not be far off!
O you my help, come quickly to my aid!
20 Deliver my soul from the sword,
my precious life from the power of the dog!
21 Save me from the mouth of the lion!
You have rescued[c] me from the horns of the wild oxen!
22 I will tell of your name to my brothers;
in the midst of the congregation I will praise you:
23 You who fear the LORD, praise him!
All you offspring of Jacob, glorify him,
and stand in awe of him, all you offspring of Israel!
24 For he has not despised or abhorred
the affliction of the afflicted,
and he has not hidden his face from him,
but has heard, when he cried to him.
25 From you comes my praise in the great congregation;
my vows I will perform before those who fear him.
26 The afflicted[d] shall eat and be satisfied;
those who seek him shall praise the LORD!
May your hearts live for ever!
27 All the ends of the earth shall remember
and turn to the LORD,
and all the families of the nations
shall worship before you.
28 For kingship belongs to the LORD,
and he rules over the nations.
29 All the prosperous of the earth eat and worship;
before him shall bow all who go down to the dust,
even the one who could not keep himself alive.
30 Posterity shall serve him;
it shall be told of the Lord to the coming generation;
31 they shall come and proclaim his righteousness to a people yet unborn,
that he has done it.

Posted in apologetics, articles, Christmas, Index and tagged , , , , | Leave a comment
11 Oct 2011

That’s Logic!

   I always find it curious when a person makes an absolute statement.  How a person that is restricted by boundaries, limited in knowledge, information and reason in every possible way, can be an authority on anything!  The very idea of saying something is or is not true is essentially saying they have access to infinite knowledge.

Almost all the information we rely on daily is based on knowledge that is extracted or derived from other extracted or derived data.  It is the same with science.  There is no absolute data.  There is no provable information in our world that is not limited to human methods of collection and interpretation, and therefore limited and subject to error.  Science has not had the benefit of a true control subject because that would require an infinite scope of variability.  We may be able to use tools to measure beyond our human reach, but that does not set a basis for absolute information.  There are many factors that can change the state of matter, different environmental causes that alter both how data is measured and how it appears, and who knows what other factors we are not aware of.

Have you ever stopped to wonder if there is anything you can imagine that could not have a molecular transformation through either passing of time, extreme environmental conditions or perhaps just in how it is perceived?

Let’s say for example, “That desk is green.” is an absolute statement. We would not be taking into account what that desk may look like in thousand years or after a fire or a chainsaw changed it into something else completely.  Or maybe we should say, “That desk is green right now.” but even that doesn’t account for altered perception, lighting, or how the categories are classified.  With no perfect categories classification is largely a system of assumption.  The color green has thousands of different variations and desks come in all shapes and sizes.  Even the idea of right now could be interpreted to mean any number of things like this century, this era, or this second, all of which have entirely different implications.

So we can choose to accept this or not.  We can take the information around us and we can trust in it, believe that it has qualities that are absolute,  believe that it cannot change or that the world around us will continue as it always has.  Two plus two will always be four, right?  We know certain things transform but overall we can measure that, we can learn enough to determine constants.  Anything that doesn’t fit into the constants can simply be interpreted metaphorically, or allegorically.

Have you ever heard anyone say? ” I only believe in what I can hear, see or touch.”  Basically they are saying they only believe in themselves.  They will be the deciding authority on the information around them.

The other side to the coin is to have an authority outside of yourself.  To acknowledge we are limited in every way and that we may have the ability to ascertain certain things, they are always subject to forces outside of ourselves.  Two plus two does equal four using our form of logic and reason but we know that is variable.  We did not create ourselves or the world in which we live.  So therefore the only source of truth or absolutes that we can rely on must come from something infinite, something that cannot change, something omniscient.  That everything we see around us is temporal and could cease to exist.

Now those who choose the path of the things seen tend to rely on the natural world around them.  Ideas replicate balance, hot and cold, order and chaos, light and dark, life and death.  Good and evil are just the polarity of nature, forever present.  Nature is neutral and consistent, setting a cyclical, seasonal harmony that brings continuity.  With that comes randomness, things don’t happen for a reason, it’s all just cause and effect, action reaction.  No one knows why anything happens.  It is just chance, random, it just is.   Sometimes the authority for empirical knowledge ends up in a physical representation of a King, a common viewpoint ,democratic majority or the state.  Truth is determined by a monarchy or the will of the people. If there is a natural chain of being all things from the most insignificant to the most powerful can become one.  The hope for truth and power comes from the top of the chain, embodied in the state, king or democracy.  The consequence of this as history has shown is without a standard of transcendental authority a majority rule can be influenced in any direction, as a result we have had wars, slavery, and even genocide to show for it.  Obviously the same is true for a monarchy or state.

As a reaction to the pitfalls of fallible authority came Humanism.  Accepting all actions as a just the nature of being and determining truth relative to ones individual perspective.  This viewpoint is also random and if things don’t happen for a reason, it only follows that you can be the only one that creates purpose.  Life is what you make of it.  All aspects of reality end up in a relative state dependent on each individual situation.  Both viewpoints are inevitably essentially religious.  A faith in science, state, reason or perception.  Of course you may say you believe in god, but it is really an abstraction.  A form to fit the unknown, an abstract being that is always neutral, perhaps with a random nature for wrath and need for placation, sometimes gentil like the seasons.  It may be a force, spirit, mother nature or cosmos. It may be polytheistic.  Or often it is the God of the Bible, but reinterpreted to fit into an ideal neutral box.  A god that would not judge so therefore is likely to be either dormant and uninterested, or mostly metaphorical.

That is why so many people do not believe the Bible is inspired by God, it’s too disruptive.  It challenges everything that they believe to be true. Miracles would mean something could disrupt the physical absolute world around them.  They would be more likely to believe anything written by man because it would be much less threatening to their viewpoint.

2 Peter 3: 3 “knowing this first: that scoffers will come in the last days, walking according to their own lusts, 4 and saying, “Where is the promise of His coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation.” 5 For this they willfully forget: that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of water and in the water, 6 by which the world that then existed perished, being flooded with water. 7 But the heavens and the earth which are now preserved by the same word, are reserved for fire until the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.
8 But, beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. 9 The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us,[b]not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.”

Now those who choose the path of the things unseen,  trust not in the world around them but in who controls it.  They believe that the world as they know it is at the mercy of its creator.  That things have a purpose, there is a reason why things are the way they are.  Each cell, structure and molecule has an intricate design that is not random but reveals the character of its creator.  There are specific truths that eliminate any form of relative perspective.  The only absolutes are in the character of the creator.

So while we all rely on our surroundings to give us clarity on life, and we all proclaim our belief’s, the difference is in the authority.  It really boils down to two perspectives, are we going to interpret and define our existence with a human, limited viewpoint either collective or personal, or submit to an outside authority that is infinite and in control of everything we know and see.  Of course the real problem is believing in an infinite transcendental authority means being accountable to it as well.  That is why we all have the tendency to hide in the darkness of our perceived reality, it is our only protection from exposure.

So the next time you catch yourself stating something as a fact, ask yourself, “How do I know what is truth? Who makes it true? and What is the purpose?”

Posted in articles, Index, October 2011 | Leave a comment

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