Tennessee Ernie Ford sang a song that I think was called "Fifteen Tons".
Ya move fifteen tons and what do ya get?
Another year older and deeper in debt
St Peter don't ya call me cuz I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store.
The song is about the plight of the coal miners in Appalachia in the early 20th century. Coal companies would hire people to work the mines and since these were almost always in very remote areas they would provide housing for the miners for a cost. Basically the miners had to buy their houses from the coal company. The general store was also owned by the coal company as was everything else the miners needed to have but could not produce for themselves. However the companies were careful to have the pricing structure established far above fair prices to ensure that the miners would always be just a little short on their pay and consequently they would borrow money from the company which would be paid out to them in loans notes or coins called "scrip". The miners would borrow money in scrip and would then have it deducted from their pay the end result being that the miners would not only pay all of their wages back to the coal companies but would also borrow money from their employer resulting in a workforce which was not only unpaid but also forever in debt to the company.
The practice is now illegal in America.
However Wal Mart keeps the practice going in other parts of the world, such as China, where workers are compelled to live in company housing and repay to Wal Mart all of their wages which they earn producing textiles for American markets. The workers either live in the company housing or have the cost of doing so deducted from their pay to ensure that they are unable to do anything other than to subsist.
But hey t-shirts at the wally world are $10 for the back-to-school sale.
OK I know I have b---hed about this before but I want to point something out.
I have two friends who recently pointed out to me how much they love Wal Mart while at the same time boldly wearing their cause in direct contradiction to this practice.
The first was a person who declared that Wal Mart was good and Target was bad because Wal Mart was selling the Lady Gaga CD and Target was not. This person took this as a slur against gays, and for all I know it was, and recommended that people should therefore shop at Wal Mart.
The next person was raging against illegal immigrants and how they are hurting the economy and America's workforce as well as putting undue strain on our already over taxed healthcare system.
First. Are we to understand that there is a moral equivalency between Lady Gaga CD's and slavery? If you are so devoted to your cause, and hey I think gay rights is a good one, that you are willing to overlook the grossly evil practices of Wal Mart around the world for the sake of your pet issue being pandered to then you have just given everyone else reason to completely disregard your cause. Because you, by your stance, are declaring loud and clear that you don't actually care about right and wrong you just want your way and damn the consequences. Also Wal Mart has so pathologically discriminated against women that the employees of Wal Mart actually won a class action judgement against the company for sex discrimination. But that somehow is OK too.
So if I get this right, then we are to believe that evil employment practices and discrimination are to be tolerated just so long as it is not I who am being discriminated against, right?
Second. Wal Mart is the largest employer in the USofA and has a long established practice of refusing to pay benefits to their employees. They systematically keep the work hours beneath the threshold where they would be required by law to offer these benefits. Furthermore any and all attempts to unionize Wal Mart have been met with swift and harsh retribution which is why all the meat in Wal Mart is now pre-packaged and there are no butchers there anymore. The result is that the employees of the largest employer in America are forced to to take remedial pay without benefit. This means that they will have to apply for every social aid program which comes down the pike in spite of their employment which means that the free lunches, breakfasts, books, shoes etc that go to schools in your neighborhood probably are not just for illegal brown people but for the children of the person ringing up your milk at Wal Mart. Also the long lines at the emergency rooms and free clinics are also made longer by the persistent refusal of Wal Mart to care for its employees or their children by providing benefits which a generation ago were the norm. And, thanks to Nafta, the subsidized sugar, corn, grain etc which flows freely over our southern border into Mexico has destroyed the agriculture industry in Mexico resulting in the massive influx of dispossessed people coming to America looking for anything to do at all and the having to take the remedial jobs (which apparently are destroying our economy I guess) such as working at Wal Mart which means that their kids are seeking free lunch and free medicine every time they get sick.
So if you have a cause about which you are passionate, and hey passion is good, and you shop at Wal mart, just know that every dollar you spend their either directly or indirectly contravenes your cause in some way and also contributes to evil probably far greater than the one you are trying to prevent.
So try and remember that the next time you plunk down $200 at Wal Mart and b--ch the checker doesn't speak English.
Just thinking.
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
John 8; 2-11
Early in the morning he came again to the temple. All the people came to him, and he sat down and taught them. The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and placing her in the midst they said to him, "Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. Now in the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?" This they said to test him, 6that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, "Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her." And once more he bent down and wrote on the ground. But when they heard it, they went away one by one, beginning with the older ones, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. Jesus stood up and said to her, "Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?" She said, "No one, Lord." And Jesus said, "Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more."
We all know this story, at least those of us who have any knowledge of the life of Jesus of Nazareth. I am writing about this very well worn story because I think it is understood (and therefore also taught) incorrectly.
The way the teaching usually goes is this. Jesus is teaching in the Temple and the Pharisees come and place this woman before Him who was caught in the very act of adultery. Then the question is posed concerning the Law of Moses. The dilemma here is that if Jesus says to stone her then He has violated Roman authority by commanding an execution for a crime which was a right reserved by the Empire for itself. Vassal kingdoms could administer laws as they saw fit but could not execute anyone. If a capital crime was committed then the procurator/governor would have to be brought in to determine whether or not the criminal could be executed. However if Jesus declares they not stone her, because of Roman Law, then He would be saying de facto that a; Rome's authority was higher than Moses' or b; that Moses' Law needed to be set aside because stoning people for adultery was just a little harsh, and therefore they could accuse Jesus of not honoring Moses and thus discredit Him. Therefore they brought this woman to present Him with an inescapable dilemma. But Jesus, knowing their thoughts, instead knelt down and scribbled in the dirt. Now this dirt writing is really important because it made the accusers drop their stones and run away shame faced. Because of this most teachers say that Jesus was either scribbling the Law, which the Pharisees knew they were guilty under, or He was scribbling specific sins which He knew they had committed because He was God after all. Once everyone leaves He then asks the woman where the accusers have gone and receiving her answer has an "awe shucks" moments with her and sends her on her way.
Everyone applauds for Jesus.
My problem with this is not the teaching that mercy and forgiveness are also part of the Law (which by the way I think is true) my problem is that I don't think THIS story teaches that lesson. The reason why is that I think the focus is wrong. Jesus is teaching and the Pharisees and present this woman. We are to believe that they are sexist because it takes two to commit adultery, and while that most certainly was true, that is not the emphasis of the story. Furthermore they ask their question and Jesus answers them by writing in the dirt, and His words having such impact convict them of their sins. The problem with this being that the very thing over which the Pharisees and Jesus clashed the most was Jesus' constant insistence that the pharisees needed the forgiveness of God. The Pharisees had persuaded themselves that they were keeping the Law and were going to Heaven based on being "good people". <-- Sound familiar? So the likelihood that they would suddenly have a change of heart in the midst of this scene seems really far fetched to me. Furthermore then we are to believe that Jesus makes light of this woman's sin because He doesn't stone her and we too, for the sake of forgiveness and mercy, are also to make light of sin.
Does anyone else have a problem with that?
So here is how I think we can rightly interpret this verse.
Jesus is teaching in the Temple and the Pharisees bring this woman to Him to test Him because of the strictures of Roman Law concerning execution of criminals as well as the command of the Law of Moses. In response to their initial questioning Jesus stoops on the ground and begins to write whatever it is on the ground. I think we should be very careful of asserting that He wrote this, that or the other thing on the ground because the writer does not tell us what He wrote, and making a dogmatic statement on a point the Bible is I think deliberately vague on is a bad idea. Furthermore we know good and well they were not perturbed by what He wrote because we already know their disposition concerning their own sin, but furthermore the Text tells us that they continued to question Him as He did this. So what is Jesus doing? I think He is ignoring them. Why? Because they are trying to hang Him using Roman Law, but in coming to Him to ask if this woman should be executed they have already implicitly admitted that Jesus' authority is higher than Rome's. So he has no need to answer their question because they have already answered it by asking Him for judgment instead of Pilate. Which it need not be mentioned that when they really did want someone executed, namely Jesus, they took Him to Pilate and not some other itinerite rabbi.
We all know this story, at least those of us who have any knowledge of the life of Jesus of Nazareth. I am writing about this very well worn story because I think it is understood (and therefore also taught) incorrectly.
The way the teaching usually goes is this. Jesus is teaching in the Temple and the Pharisees come and place this woman before Him who was caught in the very act of adultery. Then the question is posed concerning the Law of Moses. The dilemma here is that if Jesus says to stone her then He has violated Roman authority by commanding an execution for a crime which was a right reserved by the Empire for itself. Vassal kingdoms could administer laws as they saw fit but could not execute anyone. If a capital crime was committed then the procurator/governor would have to be brought in to determine whether or not the criminal could be executed. However if Jesus declares they not stone her, because of Roman Law, then He would be saying de facto that a; Rome's authority was higher than Moses' or b; that Moses' Law needed to be set aside because stoning people for adultery was just a little harsh, and therefore they could accuse Jesus of not honoring Moses and thus discredit Him. Therefore they brought this woman to present Him with an inescapable dilemma. But Jesus, knowing their thoughts, instead knelt down and scribbled in the dirt. Now this dirt writing is really important because it made the accusers drop their stones and run away shame faced. Because of this most teachers say that Jesus was either scribbling the Law, which the Pharisees knew they were guilty under, or He was scribbling specific sins which He knew they had committed because He was God after all. Once everyone leaves He then asks the woman where the accusers have gone and receiving her answer has an "awe shucks" moments with her and sends her on her way.
Everyone applauds for Jesus.
My problem with this is not the teaching that mercy and forgiveness are also part of the Law (which by the way I think is true) my problem is that I don't think THIS story teaches that lesson. The reason why is that I think the focus is wrong. Jesus is teaching and the Pharisees and present this woman. We are to believe that they are sexist because it takes two to commit adultery, and while that most certainly was true, that is not the emphasis of the story. Furthermore they ask their question and Jesus answers them by writing in the dirt, and His words having such impact convict them of their sins. The problem with this being that the very thing over which the Pharisees and Jesus clashed the most was Jesus' constant insistence that the pharisees needed the forgiveness of God. The Pharisees had persuaded themselves that they were keeping the Law and were going to Heaven based on being "good people". <-- Sound familiar? So the likelihood that they would suddenly have a change of heart in the midst of this scene seems really far fetched to me. Furthermore then we are to believe that Jesus makes light of this woman's sin because He doesn't stone her and we too, for the sake of forgiveness and mercy, are also to make light of sin.
Does anyone else have a problem with that?
So here is how I think we can rightly interpret this verse.
Jesus is teaching in the Temple and the Pharisees bring this woman to Him to test Him because of the strictures of Roman Law concerning execution of criminals as well as the command of the Law of Moses. In response to their initial questioning Jesus stoops on the ground and begins to write whatever it is on the ground. I think we should be very careful of asserting that He wrote this, that or the other thing on the ground because the writer does not tell us what He wrote, and making a dogmatic statement on a point the Bible is I think deliberately vague on is a bad idea. Furthermore we know good and well they were not perturbed by what He wrote because we already know their disposition concerning their own sin, but furthermore the Text tells us that they continued to question Him as He did this. So what is Jesus doing? I think He is ignoring them. Why? Because they are trying to hang Him using Roman Law, but in coming to Him to ask if this woman should be executed they have already implicitly admitted that Jesus' authority is higher than Rome's. So he has no need to answer their question because they have already answered it by asking Him for judgment instead of Pilate. Which it need not be mentioned that when they really did want someone executed, namely Jesus, they took Him to Pilate and not some other itinerite rabbi.
Saturday, July 9, 2011
Learn your Greek
I get a verse everyday on Facebook and this is today's.
Romans 12:3 And because of God's gracious gift to me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you should. Instead, be modest in your thinking, and judge yourself according to the amount of faith that God has given you. (GNT)
Now this struck me as odd because it seemed to say that we should judge ourselves (which is the first sin committed in the Garden) in the Faith based on the amount of Faith we have. That is if someone has more faith than me then he/she is higher in the Faith than I am and visa versa. Apart from this being an odd thing to see in any Bible verse it would be especially odd given that Paul wrote Romans and he repeatedly called all religious achievements dung. So I looked it up.
The English Standard Version (the one I use most often) renders it like this...
For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.
It seemed to say the same thing, but it still struck me as incongruous with the rest of Paul's writings so I went to the Greek.
Λέγω γὰρ διὰ τῆς χάριτος τῆς δοθείσης μοι παντὶ τῷ ὄντι ἐν ὑμῖν μὴ ὑπερφρονεῖν παρ᾽ ὃ δεῖ φρονεῖν ἀλλὰ φρονεῖν εἰς τὸ σωφρονεῖν ἑκάστῳ ὡς ὁ θεὸς ἐμέρισεν μέτρον πίστεως.
Does that help?
Actually the Greek says, "I say for through that grace that is given unto me to every man that is among you not highly to think more of himself but thinking into the thought to every man according as the God has dealt the measure of faith."
Did that help?
OK I'll stop messing around now. I think it is better rendered...
"For I say through the grace that is given to me to every man among you do not think more highly of yourselves than you ought but think clearly according to the thought that God has dealt the measure of faith to every man."
In other words do not compete with each other about the amount of faith that you have but rather remember that all faith comes from God and therefore should never be the subject of boasting.
Which oddly enough is exactly the opposite of what the Good News Translation and the ESV rendered this verse to be saying.
Food for thought.
Romans 12:3 And because of God's gracious gift to me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you should. Instead, be modest in your thinking, and judge yourself according to the amount of faith that God has given you. (GNT)
Now this struck me as odd because it seemed to say that we should judge ourselves (which is the first sin committed in the Garden) in the Faith based on the amount of Faith we have. That is if someone has more faith than me then he/she is higher in the Faith than I am and visa versa. Apart from this being an odd thing to see in any Bible verse it would be especially odd given that Paul wrote Romans and he repeatedly called all religious achievements dung. So I looked it up.
The English Standard Version (the one I use most often) renders it like this...
For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.
It seemed to say the same thing, but it still struck me as incongruous with the rest of Paul's writings so I went to the Greek.
Λέγω γὰρ διὰ τῆς χάριτος τῆς δοθείσης μοι παντὶ τῷ ὄντι ἐν ὑμῖν μὴ ὑπερφρονεῖν παρ᾽ ὃ δεῖ φρονεῖν ἀλλὰ φρονεῖν εἰς τὸ σωφρονεῖν ἑκάστῳ ὡς ὁ θεὸς ἐμέρισεν μέτρον πίστεως.
Does that help?
Actually the Greek says, "I say for through that grace that is given unto me to every man that is among you not highly to think more of himself but thinking into the thought to every man according as the God has dealt the measure of faith."
Did that help?
OK I'll stop messing around now. I think it is better rendered...
"For I say through the grace that is given to me to every man among you do not think more highly of yourselves than you ought but think clearly according to the thought that God has dealt the measure of faith to every man."
In other words do not compete with each other about the amount of faith that you have but rather remember that all faith comes from God and therefore should never be the subject of boasting.
Which oddly enough is exactly the opposite of what the Good News Translation and the ESV rendered this verse to be saying.
Food for thought.
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
I can see Russia
Sarah Palin once said that she was qualified to comment of foreign affairs because "Ya know you can see Russia from Alaska." So I thought we should give her a chance to tell us which of these places cannot be seen from Russia to see if she's got the stuff.
Norway, Sweden, Estonia, Latvia, Belarus, Urkraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazanhstan, China, Mongolia, Japan, and Santa's Workshop.
We would appreciate a prompt response.
Have a nice day
Norway, Sweden, Estonia, Latvia, Belarus, Urkraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazanhstan, China, Mongolia, Japan, and Santa's Workshop.
We would appreciate a prompt response.
Have a nice day
Sunday, May 1, 2011
Bin Laden is dead
So the newsman says Bin Laden is dead and all around folks erupt into a spontaneous "Hooray" over his death. I suppose it makes me a bad American but I cannot understand why? I realize of course that the crimes he committed were heinous and that his ilk is a blot on the face of the Earth... I get it. But I cannot celebrate the death of another human being no matter who he is.
I am firmly convinced that there is a Hell and that it is place that people go to forever. That being said I cannot rejoice over a man going there.
Why?
Ezekiel 33 Say to them, "As I live," declares the Lord GOD, "I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live; turn back, turn back from your evil ways, for why will you die... "
Luke 6 "But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. To one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also, and from one who takes away your cloak do not withhold your tunic either."
Please ya'll do not allow yourselves to cheer for the death of your enemy. It is your enemy who cheers for your death and you call him a monster and a brute. So if he, by his actions, has reduced you to brutality in like fashion, then no matter what you have won you have lost.
I am happy that the world is a safer place and that one more tyrant will no longer be able to spread his hate and violence, but I am not happy that a living soul has been slain because I am sure my God is not happy. Therefore..
"We trust, sir, that God is on our side. It is more important to know that we are on God's side." Abraham Lincoln.
Ya'll be blessed.
I am firmly convinced that there is a Hell and that it is place that people go to forever. That being said I cannot rejoice over a man going there.
Why?
Ezekiel 33 Say to them, "As I live," declares the Lord GOD, "I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live; turn back, turn back from your evil ways, for why will you die... "
Luke 6 "But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. To one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also, and from one who takes away your cloak do not withhold your tunic either."
Please ya'll do not allow yourselves to cheer for the death of your enemy. It is your enemy who cheers for your death and you call him a monster and a brute. So if he, by his actions, has reduced you to brutality in like fashion, then no matter what you have won you have lost.
I am happy that the world is a safer place and that one more tyrant will no longer be able to spread his hate and violence, but I am not happy that a living soul has been slain because I am sure my God is not happy. Therefore..
"We trust, sir, that God is on our side. It is more important to know that we are on God's side." Abraham Lincoln.
Ya'll be blessed.
Thursday, April 14, 2011
The Founding Fathers Were Atheists
I was flying by a religio-politico show on the radio today and happened across someone complaining about something having to do with discriminating against Christians in America and as usual someone piped up with, "When are people gonna realize the country was founded on Christian beliefs and values?" Normally I just ignore this but every once in a while I think it is important to go over why this is not true. Since the Constitution is very specifically secular (no mention of God at all) the document most folks turn to is the Declaration of Independence, specifically the preamble, and so I will focus there.
When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.
The phrase most people appeal to is "they are endowed by the Creator...." and yet this is one of the most non-Christian phrases in the preamble which is itself basically a long diatribe against Christian thought.
How so? you may ask.
Simple. Classic Orthodox Christianity teaches that government is instituted by God and it is the responsibility of the governed to give honor to the king even if the king is unjust. For example Matt 22, Mark 12 and Luke 20 all tell us Jesus told his followers to pay taxes. Paul told people in Romans 13 to pay taxes and honor the emperor and Peter said the same in 1Pet 2. The history of the Church in arguing against her own persecution in this manner can be found in the writings of Justin of Lyon who in his Apologia argued that the civic honor of the Church was displayed by their behavior and loyalty to Caesar. (Side note: for those who think themselves Christian and will not give honor to Obama, the emperor in question in the letters of Paul and Peter was Nero, and until the President starts dipping Christians in pitch impaling them alive and burning them to light the White House lawn you probably are on shaky ground complaining about him.)
So if you want to rebel against a duly appointed monarch and the Christian Faith says such a thing is sinful then you have to do something inventive to get around the problem. Hence the appeal to "nature and nature's God" as a source of human rights; include the declaration that rights are "certain" and "inalienable" then close with the notion that "governments are instituted by men" and you may have one of the great achievements in human history but you most certainly have not produced a Christian document.
Here's why...
First off in classic Christian thought there is no such thing as natural law. What men call natural law is rather our ability to notice the way God usually does things. Scripture teaches that the universe is upheld by the will and power of God and a "law" which exists apart from that constant governance is a deist idea, and consequently not a Christian one since Christianity is by definition a theist religion. btw the best example of deism is the notion of the "cosmic watchmaker" that God creates and winds the watch and then lets it go. Of course a lot of American Evangelicals in this post-enlightenment/ 18th century liberal/ modern culture will think the "cosmic watchmaker" is what the Bible teaches, but that is because the American/Western European Church is atheist in nearly all of its teachings and so are its adherents. This should not be surprising seeing as how our most treasured document is also deistic and therefore also atheistic just like its writers.
So any appeal to natural law is atheist. So why appeal to an atheist idea? Because the theists in the room were telling us that to rebel against the king whom God had placed over you was to rebel against God himself. This argument is of course absolutely sound and so theism and the theists' God has to leave so we can legitimize our claim to freedom. Of course the framers then say that our rights derive from nature, meaning nature itself guarantees our rights this is flatly an antichristian idea from back to front. Then we are told that these rights are certain (that is sure above reproach) and inalienable (that is no one not even God can revoke them) this is also a flatly antichristian idea. Then we close with the idea that governments are created by men and by men's consent and the Bible says exactly 180 degrees the opposite making this a thoroughly antichristian idea as well.
Add it all up and you have a, at best, deist document and deism is not a Christian worldview, and at worst a document which kicks the Christian God out into the street because the Bible is very inconvenient to our little experiment.
Of course there are those who will say, "Well if God allowed it to happen it must have been OK and America has done lots of good in the world."
A few problems with this. First God allowed Satan and Adam to fall and I don't think either of those things qualifies as 'good'. Second to say it all worked out is pragmatism, also a uniquely American philosophy and also an utterly antichristian one as well, and if you think America has been a source of great good well... read history (think Lakota/ Cherokee or Philipino/ Chillean/ Panamanian people on this one) and watch the news and see what American culture is doing in the world today.
Just a few thoughts...
Have a nice day.
God Bless
When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.
The phrase most people appeal to is "they are endowed by the Creator...." and yet this is one of the most non-Christian phrases in the preamble which is itself basically a long diatribe against Christian thought.
How so? you may ask.
Simple. Classic Orthodox Christianity teaches that government is instituted by God and it is the responsibility of the governed to give honor to the king even if the king is unjust. For example Matt 22, Mark 12 and Luke 20 all tell us Jesus told his followers to pay taxes. Paul told people in Romans 13 to pay taxes and honor the emperor and Peter said the same in 1Pet 2. The history of the Church in arguing against her own persecution in this manner can be found in the writings of Justin of Lyon who in his Apologia argued that the civic honor of the Church was displayed by their behavior and loyalty to Caesar. (Side note: for those who think themselves Christian and will not give honor to Obama, the emperor in question in the letters of Paul and Peter was Nero, and until the President starts dipping Christians in pitch impaling them alive and burning them to light the White House lawn you probably are on shaky ground complaining about him.)
So if you want to rebel against a duly appointed monarch and the Christian Faith says such a thing is sinful then you have to do something inventive to get around the problem. Hence the appeal to "nature and nature's God" as a source of human rights; include the declaration that rights are "certain" and "inalienable" then close with the notion that "governments are instituted by men" and you may have one of the great achievements in human history but you most certainly have not produced a Christian document.
Here's why...
First off in classic Christian thought there is no such thing as natural law. What men call natural law is rather our ability to notice the way God usually does things. Scripture teaches that the universe is upheld by the will and power of God and a "law" which exists apart from that constant governance is a deist idea, and consequently not a Christian one since Christianity is by definition a theist religion. btw the best example of deism is the notion of the "cosmic watchmaker" that God creates and winds the watch and then lets it go. Of course a lot of American Evangelicals in this post-enlightenment/ 18th century liberal/ modern culture will think the "cosmic watchmaker" is what the Bible teaches, but that is because the American/Western European Church is atheist in nearly all of its teachings and so are its adherents. This should not be surprising seeing as how our most treasured document is also deistic and therefore also atheistic just like its writers.
So any appeal to natural law is atheist. So why appeal to an atheist idea? Because the theists in the room were telling us that to rebel against the king whom God had placed over you was to rebel against God himself. This argument is of course absolutely sound and so theism and the theists' God has to leave so we can legitimize our claim to freedom. Of course the framers then say that our rights derive from nature, meaning nature itself guarantees our rights this is flatly an antichristian idea from back to front. Then we are told that these rights are certain (that is sure above reproach) and inalienable (that is no one not even God can revoke them) this is also a flatly antichristian idea. Then we close with the idea that governments are created by men and by men's consent and the Bible says exactly 180 degrees the opposite making this a thoroughly antichristian idea as well.
Add it all up and you have a, at best, deist document and deism is not a Christian worldview, and at worst a document which kicks the Christian God out into the street because the Bible is very inconvenient to our little experiment.
Of course there are those who will say, "Well if God allowed it to happen it must have been OK and America has done lots of good in the world."
A few problems with this. First God allowed Satan and Adam to fall and I don't think either of those things qualifies as 'good'. Second to say it all worked out is pragmatism, also a uniquely American philosophy and also an utterly antichristian one as well, and if you think America has been a source of great good well... read history (think Lakota/ Cherokee or Philipino/ Chillean/ Panamanian people on this one) and watch the news and see what American culture is doing in the world today.
Just a few thoughts...
Have a nice day.
God Bless
Monday, January 10, 2011
Sick of This
When a child is shot at a political meet and greet by a lunatic there are a great many people who attempt to explain what it means. I think we may be better served by thinking about what it does not mean.
First and foremost it does mean that speech of any sort has the power to influence action. There is no speech never in history which has had the causal power to override the free will of people. Those in Nazi Germany who listened to Hitler and turned a blind eye to the plight of the Jews did so because they wanted to. No one could feign ignorance for having suspended their moral norms because of impassioned speech no matter the speaker.
The same is true of media. No violence portrayed in media has the ability to influence the actions of a person. Some will say that there are those on the fringe who may be influenced but this speaks more of coincidence than causation. In logical terms it is known as post hoc ergo proctor hoc (after this therefore because of this) but it is not true. One could just as easily point out that in spite of increased violence in media there has been a corresponding decrease in violent crime across the board.
Of course those who want handguns made illegal will not talk about this fact because it does not fit the narrative. Which reminds me, the simple fact that this crime was committed with a gun is not proof that guns should be made illegal. The cause of this crime is mental illness not a gun.
The tea party is not to blame and those licking their lips at the thought/ hope/ prayer that this guy was a right wing nut taking out his extreme views with a gun should be ashamed of themselves and have their public speaking rights revoked forever. These are the same ones who openly speculated that the Times Square bomber was also a right wing nut but did not redact those statements when he turned out to be a jihadist. BTW I used that word intentionally because I don't think Islam has the power to cause hate action either.
However those licking their lips at the thought of revolution (usually read white anger) should also be excused from public discourse forever.
So why all of the villainizing? Why this desire to lump this criminal into the right/left/ anti-immigration/ pro-immigration/ tea party/ them group? For the same reason folks long to find a grand conspiracy in the JFK assassination. It is easier to deal with shocking violence if it come from a definable recognizable group who is guilty at large. It is much more difficult to think that Oswald was a guy sort of like everyone else, at least on the surface, who was actually delusional who went to work one day and killed the President. The villain is always more frightening when he may just be the guy next door.
Same thing here. From what can be told this guy was a troubled sort who thought the government was attempting to control his mind who lashed out at a bunch of folks who had nothing to do with his bizarre fantasy. It is sad. It is evil. But the furthering of the destruction of civility because folks are afraid this guy might actually belong to their group is proof not that we lack civility (that a given), but that we lack common sense and any sort of thought which is not group in its orientation.
We should be better than that.
God knows we should be better than score boarding each other over a mass killing.
Murder is not a sporting event.
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