All too often atheists assert in objection to Christianity that the Church is just a business that is interested in making money out of people. By their view the Church is some evil empire that sucks the life blood out of people because of simple greed.
But is this a fair and factual objection?
Well lets consider some organisations that are solely intent on making money for the services they provide.
- Fast food restaurants like McDonald and Pizza Hut are businesses that only operate to make a profit
- Music producers like Sony records or EMI are businesses that only operate to make a profit
- Universities are Harvard and Oxford are businesses that solely operate to make a profit
- Private doctors surgeries are businesses that solely operate to make a profit
These are just a few examples, but if we consider these, would any atheist object to people going to Harvard university, eating at McDonalds, listening to Sony music and visiting a private doctor's surgery?
No they would not object. I am certain that there are plenty of atheists that would be happy to do all of the above themselves and also have no problem with others doing them. In fact you would be hard pressed to find any atheist that would object on some moral basis to even one of the above.
Ask yourself, how many atheists are made to give money to the church? None, they have no obligation to give to the church because they are not members of the church.
So if the atheist objection is about Church members being expected to pay, then let us consider other organizations where members have to contribute money.
- sporting club
- recreational clubs
- historical societies
- yoga clubs
- yacht clubs
- chess clubs
- writing clubs
- scrapbooking club
These are just a few examples, but if we consider these, would any atheist object to people paying money as part of being a member of one of these clubs?
No they would not object. I am certain that there are plenty of atheists that would
be happy to pay fees as a member of any or all of the above clubs themselves and also have no problem with
others doing so. In fact you would be hard pressed to find any
atheist that would object on some moral basis to even one of the above clubs expecting some payment from its members.
So if an atheist has no moral objection to fees being charged, by psychologist, doctors, food providers, carpenters, taxi drivers, nurses, meditation clubs, literary clubs, music producers, educational facilities, recreational clubs etc then there can be no moral basis for them objecting to the Church requesting money from its members when it often provides services similar to these to its members.
The fact is that this is one of the atheists' least thought out objections to Christianity, but it is one of the most heart felt, because it is driven by the love of money.
The love of money make people protect their money from anyone they believe might want some of it.
The fact is that we don't want the atheists' money. We can take care of ourselves with God's help.
The Church is a family, it is the family of God's children through Jesus Christ.
Family members happily share with each other what they have and come to the aid of those brothers and sisters that are in need. The church does this. It cares for its members in times of need, it provides ministers who serve the Church family, it also reaches out to people outside of the church. The church leads the way in caring for the homeless, the sick, the abandoned, the elderly, the lost and the needy.
If you resent the Church for teaching its members to be generous with their money, to care for fellow Christians and for the needy, then stay at home and let your money comfort you in whatever way it can. If you find the love of money no longer gives you any comfort, then rest assured that the love of God is the comfort you need. Embrace God and you will be blessed. When you learn that giving is receiving, you will no longer be without.
God bless you all.
Monday, May 24, 2010
Sunday, May 2, 2010
What is the Meaning of Life?
The meaning of life is one of the foundational questions that people ponder in addressing matters of religion and philosophy.
So what is the meaning of life? What are we doing here?
Fans of Douglas Adams' fantasy book Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy would probably tell you the answer is the number 42. This may be a comical response, but unfortunately 42 is just a funny way of saying, "We cannot know the meaning of life because it is all too confusing".
Some times we might not want to think about the meaning of life and 42 might seem like a good enough answer at that time, but when we lose a loved one, or when we come near to death ourselves, or perhaps even when we bring a new life into this world and become a parent, we want to be sure that we are not wasting our lives on frivolous things, and be sure that we have done something worthwhile. We want to be sure we are getting it right because this is our only shot at it.
To start to think about what the meaning of life is, I will look at something that might seem irrelivant at first.
What is the meaning of a softdrink can?
First let's list what it does:
- It provides a container to hold softdrink
- It allows softdrink to be easily transported to people
- It keeps the softdrink in hygenic conditions to avoid contamination and spoiling
- It keeps the softdrink under pressure to retain the gas in the softdrink
- It provides a place to adhere labelling to identify the contents as being softdrink
So why do we want it to do all these things?
-Because people require water and energy to survive and softdrink contains both water and energy so softdrink is useful to people to aid in sustaining life
People are constantly working and making things in order to aid in the sustainance of life.
eg: most economies are centered around things which relate to life sustaining products such as food & drinks, water, heating and cooling, accommodation, medicine, clothing.
So why do people want to survive? Why is life so valuable?
It is inherent in human nature to want to live, and only severely abnormal circumstances alter that inherent drive to live. But even the harshest of circumstances may still not overcome a person's will to live.
In the concentration camps of Nazi Germany people were subjected to the cruelest of conditions and yet those prisoners continued to eat, drink, breath, sleep and do the things that sustain life as much as they were able to.
Even today, prisoners who are on death row awaiting certain execution still eat and sleep and exercise and do the things necessary to sustain their life up until the very moment that their life ends.
If during the time from when the prisoner entered death row until the time they were executed, they had nothing to do except wait to die, then was there any reason for them to continue to sustain their life any longer? Is each moment of life that precious that we should take every last breath we can get?
The people on death row certainly appear to think so!
Some will reduce human existance to an animalistic nature, suggesting that we live in order to reproduce and serve the preservation of the race.
By that principle once we are not able to contribute to the propogation or preservation of the race our lives become meaningless and worthless. Some would say that in those circumstances our lives would actually become a burden to the race and that we are better off dead in order not to burden others.
Charles Darwin in his book On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life argued that some persons were not fit to reproduce and that the human race would benefit if these allegedly inferior persons would just die without reproducing.
That logic was adopted by Charles Darwin's half-cousin Francis Galton who began the Eugenics movement responsible for the forced sexual sterilization of persons deemed as inferiors.
If a person is born dissabled then is their life worth living? If you ask them they will certainly tell you it is worth living. After all, they continue to breath and eat and drink and do what is required to sustain life don't they? Their lives are just as valuable as any other person's life.
But as demonstated by Charles Darwin and his relative Francis Galton, not all people place the same value on life. One person might place one value on a human life and another person might put a differing value on a human life. So where does the value of life come from?
The value of anything is a measure of what someone is willing to give in exchange for it.
The value of the item is not measured by what the lowest bidder is willing to pay, but the value is always defined by what the highest bidder is willing to pay for that item.
Some people would not value your life more than a 40 cent bullet and would beat you to death to save money on the bullet. Another person may be willing to pay a million dollar ransom for your life. And yet another person may be willing to give up their own life and die for you. So the value of life is measured by the highest price that someone will pay.
God has set a price for the life of each and every human being, by offering his Son Jesus Christ as a ransom for your life. Jesus has died as an offering for each and every person to receive eternal life because we were all guilty of sin and subject to be penalized by death.
No higher price can be set on a human life, than the price set by God in his Son Jesus Christ.
He has paid for your life with the life of His Son Jesus Christ, so every human life is valuable to God.
This may help us to understand why even someone on death row will not stop eating or drinking or breathing until his life is snatched away by force. Life is precious and God who created us has imprinted that knowledge into our hearts, into our minds and into our soals.
So why would God value our lives so much?
Well what is valuable to us?
Sometimes it is hard to tell what is valuable to us because we have so much in life; but those who are about to leave this life can offer some good insight into what is valuable in life..
Ask them if they want a new car.
Ask them if they want a million dollars.
Ask them if they want to be intelligent.
Ask them if the want to be beatiful.
None of these things really matter when you have only days or hours left to live.
What people close to death want most of all is typically to give love to and receive love from the people that they are about to leave behind, and they want to know that when they pass into the afterlife, they will still be loved.
When God created mankind, He created them in His image.
The human desire to love and be loved is a reflection of the nature of God.
God wants to be surrounded by people that love Him.
God wants to be loved by you so much that he would pay the greatest price to bring you out of death row and into life in his presence.
King Solomon was notoriously pesimistic and unsure about his relationship with God when he wrote the book of Ecclesiates, but it can still offer some insightful views into the meaning of life.
Ecclesiastes 12:1-14 (ESV) says:
Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come and the years draw near of which you will say, "I have no pleasure in them"; before the sun and the light and the moon and the stars are darkened and the clouds return after the rain, in the day when the keepers of the house tremble, and the strong men are bent, and the grinders cease because they are few, and those who look through the windows are dimmed, and the doors on the street are shut when the sound of the grinding is low, and one rises up at the sound of a bird, and all the daughters of song are brought low they are afraid also of what is high, and terrors are in the way; the almond tree blossoms, the grasshopper drags itself along, and desire fails, because man is going to his eternal home, and the mourners go about the streets before the silver cord is snapped, or the golden bowl is broken, or the pitcher is shattered at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern, and the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it. Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher; all is vanity.
Besides being wise, the Preacher also taught the people knowledge, weighing and studying and arranging many proverbs with great care. The Preacher sought to find words of delight, and uprightly he wrote words of truth. The words of the wise are like goads, and like nails firmly fixed are the collected sayings; they are given by one Shepherd. My son, beware of anything beyond these. Of making many books there is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh. The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil.
So King Soloman is saying that the vigor and bravery of youth fades in time as we wither like old flowers. All wealth and achievements are swallowed up by the grave and our health fails us. Unavoidably we will end up before God, and we should fear to upset Him because He holds all power over us and He knows all of all the things that we have done in this life.
If we want to be able to give love and receive love in the afterlife, then we must come into relationship with God and love Him and receive love from Him. If we are not willing to love and obey God then how can God live with us for eternity? If we reject the loving sacrifice that He made for us in sending Jesus Christ to die for us then how could we live with God for eternity? The only alternative is to spend the afterlife without God, in a place without love; and that would be unbearable.
When a baby is born, it knows instinctively that it is meant to love its parents and recieve love from its parents. God is calling us all to be born of the Holy Spirit so that we will be his children. So that He can love us and we can love him back. If you have not received the Holy Spirit of God into your life, then you can do that now. If you accept and confess Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour having died for your sins to bring you into relationship with God, then you will be able to ask God to send the Holy Spirit to dwell with you, and you will be a child of God and receive His love eternally.
Just as a softdrink can has many aspects to what it does, there may be many aspects to what we do in our lives, but really there is only one reason that we do them, and that is to learn how to come into relationship with God. Everything is a learning experience to become better equipped to living in relationship with God.
No matter what value people in this world place on your life, nothing can compare with the value that God has placed on your life. You were born to be in relationship with God. Now is the perfect time to accept your destiny; to receive the love of God and to know that God wants to recieve your love.
So what is the meaning of life? What are we doing here?
Fans of Douglas Adams' fantasy book Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy would probably tell you the answer is the number 42. This may be a comical response, but unfortunately 42 is just a funny way of saying, "We cannot know the meaning of life because it is all too confusing".
Some times we might not want to think about the meaning of life and 42 might seem like a good enough answer at that time, but when we lose a loved one, or when we come near to death ourselves, or perhaps even when we bring a new life into this world and become a parent, we want to be sure that we are not wasting our lives on frivolous things, and be sure that we have done something worthwhile. We want to be sure we are getting it right because this is our only shot at it.
To start to think about what the meaning of life is, I will look at something that might seem irrelivant at first.
What is the meaning of a softdrink can?
First let's list what it does:
- It provides a container to hold softdrink
- It allows softdrink to be easily transported to people
- It keeps the softdrink in hygenic conditions to avoid contamination and spoiling
- It keeps the softdrink under pressure to retain the gas in the softdrink
- It provides a place to adhere labelling to identify the contents as being softdrink
So why do we want it to do all these things?
-Because people require water and energy to survive and softdrink contains both water and energy so softdrink is useful to people to aid in sustaining life
People are constantly working and making things in order to aid in the sustainance of life.
eg: most economies are centered around things which relate to life sustaining products such as food & drinks, water, heating and cooling, accommodation, medicine, clothing.
So why do people want to survive? Why is life so valuable?
It is inherent in human nature to want to live, and only severely abnormal circumstances alter that inherent drive to live. But even the harshest of circumstances may still not overcome a person's will to live.
In the concentration camps of Nazi Germany people were subjected to the cruelest of conditions and yet those prisoners continued to eat, drink, breath, sleep and do the things that sustain life as much as they were able to.
Even today, prisoners who are on death row awaiting certain execution still eat and sleep and exercise and do the things necessary to sustain their life up until the very moment that their life ends.
If during the time from when the prisoner entered death row until the time they were executed, they had nothing to do except wait to die, then was there any reason for them to continue to sustain their life any longer? Is each moment of life that precious that we should take every last breath we can get?
The people on death row certainly appear to think so!
Some will reduce human existance to an animalistic nature, suggesting that we live in order to reproduce and serve the preservation of the race.
By that principle once we are not able to contribute to the propogation or preservation of the race our lives become meaningless and worthless. Some would say that in those circumstances our lives would actually become a burden to the race and that we are better off dead in order not to burden others.
Charles Darwin in his book On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life argued that some persons were not fit to reproduce and that the human race would benefit if these allegedly inferior persons would just die without reproducing.
That logic was adopted by Charles Darwin's half-cousin Francis Galton who began the Eugenics movement responsible for the forced sexual sterilization of persons deemed as inferiors.
If a person is born dissabled then is their life worth living? If you ask them they will certainly tell you it is worth living. After all, they continue to breath and eat and drink and do what is required to sustain life don't they? Their lives are just as valuable as any other person's life.
But as demonstated by Charles Darwin and his relative Francis Galton, not all people place the same value on life. One person might place one value on a human life and another person might put a differing value on a human life. So where does the value of life come from?
The value of anything is a measure of what someone is willing to give in exchange for it.
The value of the item is not measured by what the lowest bidder is willing to pay, but the value is always defined by what the highest bidder is willing to pay for that item.
Some people would not value your life more than a 40 cent bullet and would beat you to death to save money on the bullet. Another person may be willing to pay a million dollar ransom for your life. And yet another person may be willing to give up their own life and die for you. So the value of life is measured by the highest price that someone will pay.
God has set a price for the life of each and every human being, by offering his Son Jesus Christ as a ransom for your life. Jesus has died as an offering for each and every person to receive eternal life because we were all guilty of sin and subject to be penalized by death.
No higher price can be set on a human life, than the price set by God in his Son Jesus Christ.
He has paid for your life with the life of His Son Jesus Christ, so every human life is valuable to God.
This may help us to understand why even someone on death row will not stop eating or drinking or breathing until his life is snatched away by force. Life is precious and God who created us has imprinted that knowledge into our hearts, into our minds and into our soals.
So why would God value our lives so much?
Well what is valuable to us?
Sometimes it is hard to tell what is valuable to us because we have so much in life; but those who are about to leave this life can offer some good insight into what is valuable in life..
Ask them if they want a new car.
Ask them if they want a million dollars.
Ask them if they want to be intelligent.
Ask them if the want to be beatiful.
None of these things really matter when you have only days or hours left to live.
What people close to death want most of all is typically to give love to and receive love from the people that they are about to leave behind, and they want to know that when they pass into the afterlife, they will still be loved.
When God created mankind, He created them in His image.
The human desire to love and be loved is a reflection of the nature of God.
God wants to be surrounded by people that love Him.
God wants to be loved by you so much that he would pay the greatest price to bring you out of death row and into life in his presence.
King Solomon was notoriously pesimistic and unsure about his relationship with God when he wrote the book of Ecclesiates, but it can still offer some insightful views into the meaning of life.
Ecclesiastes 12:1-14 (ESV) says:
Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come and the years draw near of which you will say, "I have no pleasure in them"; before the sun and the light and the moon and the stars are darkened and the clouds return after the rain, in the day when the keepers of the house tremble, and the strong men are bent, and the grinders cease because they are few, and those who look through the windows are dimmed, and the doors on the street are shut when the sound of the grinding is low, and one rises up at the sound of a bird, and all the daughters of song are brought low they are afraid also of what is high, and terrors are in the way; the almond tree blossoms, the grasshopper drags itself along, and desire fails, because man is going to his eternal home, and the mourners go about the streets before the silver cord is snapped, or the golden bowl is broken, or the pitcher is shattered at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern, and the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it. Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher; all is vanity.
Besides being wise, the Preacher also taught the people knowledge, weighing and studying and arranging many proverbs with great care. The Preacher sought to find words of delight, and uprightly he wrote words of truth. The words of the wise are like goads, and like nails firmly fixed are the collected sayings; they are given by one Shepherd. My son, beware of anything beyond these. Of making many books there is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh. The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil.
So King Soloman is saying that the vigor and bravery of youth fades in time as we wither like old flowers. All wealth and achievements are swallowed up by the grave and our health fails us. Unavoidably we will end up before God, and we should fear to upset Him because He holds all power over us and He knows all of all the things that we have done in this life.
If we want to be able to give love and receive love in the afterlife, then we must come into relationship with God and love Him and receive love from Him. If we are not willing to love and obey God then how can God live with us for eternity? If we reject the loving sacrifice that He made for us in sending Jesus Christ to die for us then how could we live with God for eternity? The only alternative is to spend the afterlife without God, in a place without love; and that would be unbearable.
When a baby is born, it knows instinctively that it is meant to love its parents and recieve love from its parents. God is calling us all to be born of the Holy Spirit so that we will be his children. So that He can love us and we can love him back. If you have not received the Holy Spirit of God into your life, then you can do that now. If you accept and confess Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour having died for your sins to bring you into relationship with God, then you will be able to ask God to send the Holy Spirit to dwell with you, and you will be a child of God and receive His love eternally.
Just as a softdrink can has many aspects to what it does, there may be many aspects to what we do in our lives, but really there is only one reason that we do them, and that is to learn how to come into relationship with God. Everything is a learning experience to become better equipped to living in relationship with God.
No matter what value people in this world place on your life, nothing can compare with the value that God has placed on your life. You were born to be in relationship with God. Now is the perfect time to accept your destiny; to receive the love of God and to know that God wants to recieve your love.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Would you bet on Evolution?
I have been told by believers in Darwinian evolution that it is a fact and that it is how life came about from non-life. So in an effort to research it as fairly as possible I went to that secular source of all knowledge; Wikipedia. I thought that if anywhere would provide a pro-evolution view Wikipedia would be the place, and Wikipedia lived up to my expectations in that regard.
To get started I simply went to the evolution page on Wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution
To get started I simply went to the evolution page on Wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution
To find the very origin point of life according to evolutionary theory, the starting point if you will, the very first organism, I thought the best place to look is on the evolutionist "tree of life" which is supposed to graph the accent of life from its first origins according to evolutionary theory.
So here is the evolutionist's supposed tree of life as presented by Wikipedia.
You may need to zoom in to read the text on the picture.
Even when you do you will find it confusing because the tree does not actually tell us what is at the root. Yes thats correct, the first life form is unidentified by evolutionary theory.
So if you try to take the next step and see what that first life-form evolved into next, you will find that it is going in two different branches, but the forks in those branches which represent the next step in evolution are not identified either, so you don't know what is the first step and you don't know what the second step is either, then you go to the next branch and you find that fork is not identified either. In fact NONE of the the forks in the branches of the evolutionist “tree of life” are identified to show what the alleged common ancestors are of the eventual final life forms.
Well lets ignore that obvious hole in their evidence, and go to the lowest identifiable life form in the tree presented to us.
It is the the Nonoarchaeum Equitans and here is what Wikipedia has to say about it. (and remember they are pro-evolution)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanoarchaeum_equitans
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanoarchaeum_equitans
“Nanoarchaeum equitans is a species of tiny microbe, discovered in 2002 in a hydrothermal vent off the coast of Iceland by Karl Stetter. Since it grows in temperatures approaching boiling, it is considered to be a thermophile. Nanoarchaeum appears to be an obligatory symbiont on the archaeon Ignicoccus; it must be in contact with the host organism to survive. Its cells are only 400 nm in diameter, making it the next smallest known living organism, excepting possibly nanobacteria and nanobes, whose status as living organisms are controversial. Its genome is only 490,885 nucleotides long; the smallest non-viral genome ever sequenced next to C. ruddii's in 2006.” (emphasis added)
Now considering that it has 490,885 nucleotides, and there are four types of nucleotides (A,T,G & C) then the chance of getting these connected in the right sequence by accident is 4 to the power of 490,885. which is a number big enough to blow up my calculator, so I could not calculate it exactly but it is something in the order of 10 to the power of 30,000. which means a 1 with 30,000 zeros added after it.
Here is the details on its symbiont partner organism
Now what about that even smaller proteobacterium the C.ruddii? I hear you ask.
Well here is the article about it on Wikipedia.
It lives in a symbiotic relationship with psyllids (plant sap eating insects)
But hold on, this is the smallest non-viral genome ever sequenced and the closest to that all important first life form, so why is it dependent upon its survival for a higher life form to first exist that it can be in symbiotic relationship with? And also how can the psyllid have come about before the arrival of the C.Ruddi which it needs to digest its food?
Now the C.Ruddi only has a DNA nucleotide sequence of 159,662 pairs so the chances of getting this to happen by chance are much better at just 4 to the power of 159,662.
Again the number is big enough to blow up my calculator but it comes out to something like 10 to the power of 9000, which is a 1 with 9000 zeros added after it.
Then when you look at the psyllid (plant sap eating insect) you will find that it first requires plants to have existed that they can feed from. (sounds logical to me)
Well maybe we are barking up the wrong tree with these symbiont forms of life. What we need is to look at the smallest free-living form of life.
It is the Mycoplasma Genitalium and here is the article about it on Wikipedia:
The following is a quote from that article:
“Mycoplasma genitalium is a small parasitic bacterium which lives on the ciliated epithelial cells of the primate genital and respiratory tracts. M. genitalium is the smallest known free-living bacterium, and the second-smallest bacterium after the recently-discovered endosymbiont Carsonella ruddii. Until the discovery of Nanoarchaeum in 2002, M. genitalium was also considered to be the organism with the smallest genome.[1]” (emphasis added)
Well well well, it is not symbiotic, but it is parasitic, and so it still needs higher forms of life to survive. In fact it is living in the genitalia of a higher life form which means that it is parasitic on sexually reproducing life forms; so was it the ancestor of the sexually reproducing animal or was it a descendant of them? Considering that it needs the host in order to survive, it must have waited a long time for these sexually reproducing life forms to come along before it could first evolve.
Additionally to this nightmare of logic, the number of nucleotide base pairs for the Mycoplasma Genitalium is 582,970.
Sorry but thats worse than all the others. There is statistically no chance of its DNA sequence being randomly generated by evolutionary processes; and it owes me a new calculator!
For point of reference, your chances of winning the lottery are 1 in 45,379,620 which is 4.5 times 10 to the power of 7.
So compare that with 10 to the power of 9000 (or more) to win the evolutionary lotto. Realistically you got no chance at all.
You wouldn't bet your life on winning the lottery, so don't bet your life on evolution; its a long odds horse, and a nag which is sure to die before it finishes the race. In fact with odds like that it will probably die before it reaches the starting gate.
Is there a divine Creator of life? You can bet there is.
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Proof that Evolution fails - Dean Kenyon
Even though abiogenesis had been proven false by Ferdinand Cohn within 20 years of Darwin’s The Origin of Species being released, evolutionary theory not allowing itself to acknowledge design, still needed to come up with a theory how the very first life could have come about in the absence of an Intelligent Designer. Over 100 years later in 1969 Dean Kenyon with co-author Gary Steinman became the darlings of evolutionary discussion with their book Biochemical Predestination. In that book Kenyon proposed that the chemical properties of amino acids caused them to be attracted to each other forming the long chains that became the first proteins and, this proposed that life was, effectively, inevitable. Predestined by nothing more than chemistry. Evolutionists ate up the idea and for at least the next decade biochemical predestination dominated evolutionary theories of abiogenesis.
Dean Kenyon received a BSc in physics from the University of Chicago in 1961 and a Ph.D. in biophysics from Stanford University in 1965. In 1965-1966 he was a National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow in Chemical Biodynamics at the University of California, Berkeley, a Research Associate at NASA-Ames Research Center. In 1966 he became Assistant Professor at San Francisco State University until 1969.
In 1969, Kenyon and coauthor Gary Steinman published Biochemical Predestination, a book on the origins of life advocating a theory of natural chemical evolution. The book gained international attention putting well and truly abiogenesis back on the map of evolutionary theory. Kenyon was promoted to Associate Professor at SFSU from 1969 to 1974. In 1974 he was a Visiting Scholar to Trinity College, Oxford.
Dean Kenyon received a BSc in physics from the University of Chicago in 1961 and a Ph.D. in biophysics from Stanford University in 1965. In 1965-1966 he was a National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow in Chemical Biodynamics at the University of California, Berkeley, a Research Associate at NASA-Ames Research Center. In 1966 he became Assistant Professor at San Francisco State University until 1969.
In 1969, Kenyon and coauthor Gary Steinman published Biochemical Predestination, a book on the origins of life advocating a theory of natural chemical evolution. The book gained international attention putting well and truly abiogenesis back on the map of evolutionary theory. Kenyon was promoted to Associate Professor at SFSU from 1969 to 1974. In 1974 he was a Visiting Scholar to Trinity College, Oxford.
In 1976 Prof Kenyon was confronted by one of his students with the challenge of how abiogenesis worked in the absence of DNA. Prof Kenyon concluded upon deep consideration that it couldn’t work. The reality that Professor Kenyon had to face was that DNA is the instructions of how to build life, and without those instructions just having the basic elements available could not produce the end product of life, so one needs to explain where the instructions came from. Dr Kenyon realized that his theory of biochemical predestination simply could not work and that the information found in DNA could only be generated from an intelligent source. DNA could simply not be produced by random processes. In 1980, the SFSU Department of Biology had a dispute with Prof Kenyon over a presentation of Intelligent Design theories in Biology module 337 Evolution. The ID theories provide a solution to the source of DNA design by simply proposing the obvious, that an intelligent source designed the DNA. At that time, Kenyon challenged anyone and everyone on the faculty to debate him. But a vote was had instead to prevent teaching of Intelligent Design theories.
In 1989 Professor Kenyon released with co-author Percival Davis the book “Of Pandas and People” providing arguments in support of Intelligent Design. The book caused a great controversy, not least because of Prof Kenyon’s previously idolized status within the evolutionary camp. Having its lead proponent pull the rug from under abiogenesis theory has sent shock waves throughout the evolutionary camp and reactionary elements have sought to prevent any further questioning of evolutionary theory. To this end evolution supporters have gone on a campaign to attempt to ban the teaching of Intelligent Design theories in schools and universities.
Regardless of the efforts of evolutionists to keep Darwinian theory alive in some likeness of artificial life support, it appears that Darwin's theories are breathing their last breath and will soon be relegated to the shelf along side of so many other theories that have come in and out of favor over time.
Regardless of the efforts of evolutionists to keep Darwinian theory alive in some likeness of artificial life support, it appears that Darwin's theories are breathing their last breath and will soon be relegated to the shelf along side of so many other theories that have come in and out of favor over time.
Proof that Evolution fails- Ferdinand Cohn
Ferdinand Cohn – the Jewish microbiologist and plant physiologist in 1876 disproved the idea that life could evolve from non-living materials.
Ferdinand Cohn started his higher studies at the University of Breslau where, as a Jew, he could not be admitted to the candidacy for the doctor’s degree. So instead he received his Ph.D. from the University of Berlin, at the young age of 19. In 1850 Cohn was named lecturer at the University of Breslau. He became extraordinary professor there in 1859 and finally became ordinary professor of botany at the university in 1871.
In 1866 Cohn founded and in 1872 became the director of the Institute of Plant Physiology at the University of Breslau; this was the first institute of plant physiology in the world. Cohn’s early research centred on the unicellular algae, the simplest forms of plant life. He applied to these organisms the principle that the phases of growth of microscopic plants could be learned only by observing every stage of their development under the microscope.
Just as differences in the youthful and adult appearance of an oak or a fern are traced by direct observation, so he studied the growth patterns of unicellular algae. His accounts of the life histories of a number of algae species were of permanent value, and in 1855 he helped to establish the existence of sexual processes in algae, specifically in Sphaeroplea. He also instituted marked reforms in the classification of algae.
About 1868 Cohn started to study bacteria. From his accurate studies of their bodily form he was among the first to arrange the different varieties of bacteria into genera and species on a systematic basis. In 1870 Cohn founded a new journal entitled Beiträge zur Biologie der Pflanzen (“Contributions to the Biology of Plants”), in which he played such a large part that it came to be known as “Cohn’s Beiträge.” Many of the founding papers of bacteriology were to be published in this journal.
Among Cohn’s most striking contributions was his discovery of the formation and germination of spores (called endospores) in certain bacteria, particularly in Bacillus subtilis. He was also the first to note endospores’ resistance to high temperatures, and by his observations he was able to refute contemporary experiments that seemed to lend support to the theory of “spontaneous generation”.
Spontaneous Generation as defined at the time meant the ideas both that; life could generate from non-living matter (eg: primordial soup), or that life could generated from dead organic matter, (eg: random protein strings or dead DNA matter). Cohn explained the quick reappearance of bacteria in thoroughly boiled flasks of hay and turnip–cheese infusions by speculating that the bacteria within them had thermo-resistant spores and were thus able to survive the boiling intact, after which they reverted to their normal reproductive stages. This theory was later proved to be correct. He was thus able to refute other bacteriologists’ assumptions that all the bacteria in the boiled infusions had been killed by the heat, and he showed the fallacy of their reliance on abiogenesis & heterogenesis as the only remaining explanations.
Ferdinand Cohn’s testable and repeatable experiment proved that abiogenesis (as proposed in the primordial soup theory) does not work. Furthermore his experiment also proved that heterogenesis (self generating life from proteins like those in the Urey/Miller experiment) also does not work. It may be possible to get some useless assorted proteins (and toxic bi-products) but they won’t come to life.
This same principle is employed every day by companies in packaging food products in cans. Canned meat or vegetables are packed into tin cans and heated up enough to kill off even the thermo resistant bacteria. Irradiation is sometimes used also. These cans of veritable “primordial” soup contain lots of proteins, amino acids, DNA, & chromosomes, but when you open it up there is no life. This is because neither abiogenesis nor heterogenesis work. Open a can of tinned soup and see for yourself. There is no life in the can because evolutionary theory cannot explain the existence of life.
Here is a definition of Abiogenesis from http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/abiogenesis
a·bi·o·gen·e·sis
–nounBiology.
"the now discredited theory that living organisms can arise spontaneously from inanimate matter; spontaneous generation."
To put it simply, life was created, and created with such intelligence that it is adaptable to survive.
Christians agree that changes within species occur. Christian and Jews have been selectively breeding animals for thousands of years to get particular desirable traits. This speciation is fact, but there is not evidence at all to support wild theories like Darwin's claim that all life came from some primordial soup.
Let us not forget the sound science of Ferdinand Cohn that disproves abiogenesis each time we open a can of food.
Ferdinand Cohn started his higher studies at the University of Breslau where, as a Jew, he could not be admitted to the candidacy for the doctor’s degree. So instead he received his Ph.D. from the University of Berlin, at the young age of 19. In 1850 Cohn was named lecturer at the University of Breslau. He became extraordinary professor there in 1859 and finally became ordinary professor of botany at the university in 1871.
In 1866 Cohn founded and in 1872 became the director of the Institute of Plant Physiology at the University of Breslau; this was the first institute of plant physiology in the world. Cohn’s early research centred on the unicellular algae, the simplest forms of plant life. He applied to these organisms the principle that the phases of growth of microscopic plants could be learned only by observing every stage of their development under the microscope.
Just as differences in the youthful and adult appearance of an oak or a fern are traced by direct observation, so he studied the growth patterns of unicellular algae. His accounts of the life histories of a number of algae species were of permanent value, and in 1855 he helped to establish the existence of sexual processes in algae, specifically in Sphaeroplea. He also instituted marked reforms in the classification of algae.
About 1868 Cohn started to study bacteria. From his accurate studies of their bodily form he was among the first to arrange the different varieties of bacteria into genera and species on a systematic basis. In 1870 Cohn founded a new journal entitled Beiträge zur Biologie der Pflanzen (“Contributions to the Biology of Plants”), in which he played such a large part that it came to be known as “Cohn’s Beiträge.” Many of the founding papers of bacteriology were to be published in this journal.
Among Cohn’s most striking contributions was his discovery of the formation and germination of spores (called endospores) in certain bacteria, particularly in Bacillus subtilis. He was also the first to note endospores’ resistance to high temperatures, and by his observations he was able to refute contemporary experiments that seemed to lend support to the theory of “spontaneous generation”.
Spontaneous Generation as defined at the time meant the ideas both that; life could generate from non-living matter (eg: primordial soup), or that life could generated from dead organic matter, (eg: random protein strings or dead DNA matter). Cohn explained the quick reappearance of bacteria in thoroughly boiled flasks of hay and turnip–cheese infusions by speculating that the bacteria within them had thermo-resistant spores and were thus able to survive the boiling intact, after which they reverted to their normal reproductive stages. This theory was later proved to be correct. He was thus able to refute other bacteriologists’ assumptions that all the bacteria in the boiled infusions had been killed by the heat, and he showed the fallacy of their reliance on abiogenesis & heterogenesis as the only remaining explanations.
Ferdinand Cohn’s testable and repeatable experiment proved that abiogenesis (as proposed in the primordial soup theory) does not work. Furthermore his experiment also proved that heterogenesis (self generating life from proteins like those in the Urey/Miller experiment) also does not work. It may be possible to get some useless assorted proteins (and toxic bi-products) but they won’t come to life.
This same principle is employed every day by companies in packaging food products in cans. Canned meat or vegetables are packed into tin cans and heated up enough to kill off even the thermo resistant bacteria. Irradiation is sometimes used also. These cans of veritable “primordial” soup contain lots of proteins, amino acids, DNA, & chromosomes, but when you open it up there is no life. This is because neither abiogenesis nor heterogenesis work. Open a can of tinned soup and see for yourself. There is no life in the can because evolutionary theory cannot explain the existence of life.
Here is a definition of Abiogenesis from http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/abiogenesis
a·bi·o·gen·e·sis
–nounBiology.
"the now discredited theory that living organisms can arise spontaneously from inanimate matter; spontaneous generation."
To put it simply, life was created, and created with such intelligence that it is adaptable to survive.
Christians agree that changes within species occur. Christian and Jews have been selectively breeding animals for thousands of years to get particular desirable traits. This speciation is fact, but there is not evidence at all to support wild theories like Darwin's claim that all life came from some primordial soup.
Let us not forget the sound science of Ferdinand Cohn that disproves abiogenesis each time we open a can of food.
Saturday, April 3, 2010
Why does God allow bad things to happen?
One of the most common objections to Christianity is the question, "Why does God allow bad things to happen?".
So maybe it is worth us taking a look at it for a while.
Since I like to philosophize about things I guess I should first ask the question, what do we mean by "bad"?
Here are a some of the many definitions listed at http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/bad
You will note that many of the definitions relate to the moral or qualitative value of something as a measure of its worth, but the more relevant definitions to the question "why do bad things happen?" are those definitions that focus on things which affect people, such as pain or suffering. I have highlighted in bold those definitions which I think are most relevant.
Lets examine (as an example) the following definition taken from above:
12. causing or characterized by discomfort, inconvenience, uneasiness, or annoyance; disagreeable; unpleasant: I had a bad flight to Chicago.
By this definition, a flight to Chicago might be considered "bad" because of maybe turbulence, or maybe the food did not taste nice, or maybe it the flight was delayed or diverted, or maybe the person got sick during the flight. Anything which causes "discomfort, inconvenience or uneasiness etc is a "bad" thing.
So lets ask ourselves, should God have prevented all those potential things from happening, and if he did not then does he not care?
Well then, should God prevent planes from being delayed? Well there must be a reason that the plane was delayed, maybe it was because of a late arrival at check-in. So to prevent that now God has to control the person who was running late so that they will be on time. Why were they late? Maybe they slept in. Is God responsible for controlling that? Well lets assume He is, so now God can be everybody's personal alarm clock in the morning to make sure that nobody is ever late again.
Okay well what about the air turbulence, should God have prevented that? Well the air turbulence is caused by weather patterns, which are governed by the seasons, the day and night, by ocean currents, and by land forestation, by solar activity levels, by cloud cover patterns, by geothermal activity and more, so what we are asking is for God to change all those things, which the survival of the planet depends upon, so that we can have a clear flight path without turbulence. Lets assume for a moment that God does that for us. Won't we then complain about how He has wrecked the rest of the world and only left us with clear skies?
So what about getting sick, should God be responsible for that?
All those bacteria everywhere, and we go and do something as simple as use a public amenity without properly washing our hands afterwards and then we get sick from some terrible bacteria. Should God be responsible for that? Well lets assume so. Maybe God should be responsible for cleaning public amenities, or maybe he should be responsible for washing our hands. Why should we in our supreme status be humbled to the level of doing these things ourselves? Maybe a better solution would be if God would just get rid of all the bacteria in the world. Then there would be no more problems would there? Well maybe, except the fact that we actually need bacteria to digest food in our stomachs, and we need bacteria to break down and decompose all the waste and dead things in the world. So I guess if we want all life in earth to die and fill up the earth with an undecomposable heap of garbage its a good idea.
Well you may be thinking now that those arguments make sense but what about the really nasty stuff?
What about if the plane crashed and everybody on board died. Shouldn't God have prevented that?
Well again we need to look at the fact that the plane crashed for a reason. There could be many possible reasons for a plane crash, but lets take for example one actual event that I recall happening where the tail of a plane fell off because the plane had been services and during the service, the bolts that hold the tail on had been replaced with non-genuine "equivalent parts" which turned out to actually be inferior to the genuine product. Was God responsible for checking those bolts? Was God responsible for installing those bolts? Was God responsible for choosing to install those bolts instead of the genuine bolts? Was God responsible for those bolts being represented as equivalent to the genuine bolts? Was God responsible for manufacturing those bolts? Was God responsible for designing those bolts?
At which point along the long chain of responsibility does God take control of people and say to them, "Hey you stay at home today and I will do your job for you and send you the pay-cheque as if you had actually done the work yourself". Maybe God should just put everyone out of work and do it all himself.
We can just send Him a list of all the things we want done and they will magically and perfectly be done.
Sure everyone in the world will be unemployed, but at least no disastrous mistakes will every happen again.
Well those things might be easily explainable, but what about the things which come from inside, like when you love someone and they reject you. That sort of suffering is probably as painful as anything else isn't it?
Should God step in and stop people for treating each other in hurtful ways, stop them from saying and doing things that hurt each other?
Well lets look at what it is about love that is so great, and why it hurts so much when we are rejected or treated hurtfully.
Would you enjoy being loved by someone who had been given a frontal lobotomy?
Would you enjoy being loved by someone who you knew actually hated you, but had undergone hypnosis therapy to brain-wash them into loving you involuntarily?
Would you pay an actor to pretend to love you?
Would you enjoy being loved by a robot that looked and sounded exactly like a human, but which loved you only because it had been programmed to and had no other choice?
They would each be passive and easily manipulated to tell you whatever you wanted to hear from them.
The reason that love is so rewarding is because the other person has chosen to love us voluntarily, not by compulsion, and this gives us a sense of self worth, a true sense of being loved.
God has created humans in His own image, and as much as we want to be loved by others by choice, so God wants to be loved by us by choice, not by compulsion. This is why God has given all people free-will to choose to do either right or wrong, to either love or to hate, to be kind or to be mean.
Yes it hurts when people choose to be unkind, but without that choice, we would be living in a world without love, and that would be the worst thing imaginable.
The Bible states, in 1 John 4:7-10.
"Dear friends, let us love one another, because love comes from God. Whoever loves is a child of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. And God showed his love for us by sending his only Son into the world, so that we might have life through him. This is what love is: it is not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the means by which our sins are forgiven."
God himself endured the trials of this unkind, unloving world, through the life of his Son, Jesus Christ.
Lets us accept the trials of this life, for we know that without free-will, there is no love, but God has come and revealed his love to us in Jesus Christ our Lord.
So maybe it is worth us taking a look at it for a while.
Since I like to philosophize about things I guess I should first ask the question, what do we mean by "bad"?
Here are a some of the many definitions listed at http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/bad
bad 1 [bad] adjective,worse, worst; (Slang) bad·der, bad·dest for 36; noun; adverb
–adjective
1. not
good in any manner or degree.
2. having a wicked or evil
character; morally reprehensible: There is no
such thing as a bad boy.
3. of poor or inferior
quality; defective; deficient: a bad diamond; a
bad spark plug.
4. inadequate or below
standard; not satisfactory for use: bad
heating; Living conditions in some areas are very bad.
5. inaccurate, incorrect, or faulty: a bad guess.
6. invalid,
unsound, or false: a bad insurance claim; bad
judgment.
7. causing or liable to cause
sickness or ill health; injurious or harmful: Too
much sugar is bad for your teeth.
8. suffering
from sickness, ill health, pain, or injury; sick; ill: He felt bad from eating the green apples.
9. not healthy or in good physical condition; diseased,
decayed, or physically weakened: A bad heart
kept him out of the army.
10. tainted, spoiled, or
rotten, esp. to the point of being inedible: The
meat is bad because you left it out of the refrigerator too long.
11. having a disastrous or detrimental effect, result, or
tendency; unfavorable: The drought is bad for
the farmers. His sloppy appearance made a bad impression.
12. causing or characterized by discomfort, inconvenience,
uneasiness, or annoyance; disagreeable; unpleasant: I had a bad flight to Chicago.
13. easily
provoked to anger; irascible: a bad temper.
14. cross, irritable, or surly: If I
don't have my morning coffee, I'm in a bad mood all day.
15. more uncomfortable, persistent, painful, or dangerous
than usual; severe: a bad attack of asthma.
16. causing or resulting in disaster or severe damage or
destruction: a bad flood.
17. regretful,
contrite, dejected, or upset: He felt bad
about having to leave the children all alone.
18. disobedient,
naughty, or misbehaving: If you're bad at
school, you'll go to bed without supper.
19. disreputable
or dishonorable: He's getting a bad name from
changing jobs so often.
20. displaying a lack of
skill, talent, proficiency, or judgment: a bad
painting; Bad drivers cause most of the accidents.
21. causing
distress; unfortunate or unfavorable: I'm
afraid I have bad news for you.
22. not
suitable or appropriate; disadvantageous or dangerous: It was a bad day for fishing.
23. inclement;
considered too stormy, hot, cold, etc.: We
had a bad winter with a lot of snow.
24. disagreeable
or offensive to the senses: a bad odor.
25. exhibiting a lack of artistic sensitivity: The room was decorated in bad taste.
26. not in keeping with a standard of behavior or conduct;
coarse: bad manners.
27. (of
a word, speech, or writing)
a. vulgar, obscene, or
blasphemous: bad language.
b. not properly observing rules or customs of grammar,
usage, spelling, etc.; incorrect: He speaks
bad English.
28. unattractive, esp.
because of a lack of pleasing proportions: She
has a bad figure.
29. (of the complexion) marred
by defects; pockmarked or pimply; blemished: bad
skin.
30. not profitable or worth the price paid: The land was a bad buy.
31. Commerce. deemed
uncollectible or irrecoverable and treated as a loss: a bad debt.
32. ill-spent;
wasted: Don't throw good money after bad
money.
33. counterfeit; not genuine: There
was a bad ten-dollar bill in with the change.
34. having
the character of a villain; villainous: In
the movies the good guys always beat the bad guys.
35. Sports. failing
to land within the in-bounds limits of a court or section of a court;
missing the mark; not well aimed.
36. Slang. outstandingly excellent;
first-rate: He's a bad man on drums, and the
fans love him.
You will note that many of the definitions relate to the moral or qualitative value of something as a measure of its worth, but the more relevant definitions to the question "why do bad things happen?" are those definitions that focus on things which affect people, such as pain or suffering. I have highlighted in bold those definitions which I think are most relevant.
Lets examine (as an example) the following definition taken from above:
12. causing or characterized by discomfort, inconvenience, uneasiness, or annoyance; disagreeable; unpleasant: I had a bad flight to Chicago.
By this definition, a flight to Chicago might be considered "bad" because of maybe turbulence, or maybe the food did not taste nice, or maybe it the flight was delayed or diverted, or maybe the person got sick during the flight. Anything which causes "discomfort, inconvenience or uneasiness etc is a "bad" thing.
So lets ask ourselves, should God have prevented all those potential things from happening, and if he did not then does he not care?
Well then, should God prevent planes from being delayed? Well there must be a reason that the plane was delayed, maybe it was because of a late arrival at check-in. So to prevent that now God has to control the person who was running late so that they will be on time. Why were they late? Maybe they slept in. Is God responsible for controlling that? Well lets assume He is, so now God can be everybody's personal alarm clock in the morning to make sure that nobody is ever late again.
Okay well what about the air turbulence, should God have prevented that? Well the air turbulence is caused by weather patterns, which are governed by the seasons, the day and night, by ocean currents, and by land forestation, by solar activity levels, by cloud cover patterns, by geothermal activity and more, so what we are asking is for God to change all those things, which the survival of the planet depends upon, so that we can have a clear flight path without turbulence. Lets assume for a moment that God does that for us. Won't we then complain about how He has wrecked the rest of the world and only left us with clear skies?
So what about getting sick, should God be responsible for that?
All those bacteria everywhere, and we go and do something as simple as use a public amenity without properly washing our hands afterwards and then we get sick from some terrible bacteria. Should God be responsible for that? Well lets assume so. Maybe God should be responsible for cleaning public amenities, or maybe he should be responsible for washing our hands. Why should we in our supreme status be humbled to the level of doing these things ourselves? Maybe a better solution would be if God would just get rid of all the bacteria in the world. Then there would be no more problems would there? Well maybe, except the fact that we actually need bacteria to digest food in our stomachs, and we need bacteria to break down and decompose all the waste and dead things in the world. So I guess if we want all life in earth to die and fill up the earth with an undecomposable heap of garbage its a good idea.
Well you may be thinking now that those arguments make sense but what about the really nasty stuff?
What about if the plane crashed and everybody on board died. Shouldn't God have prevented that?
Well again we need to look at the fact that the plane crashed for a reason. There could be many possible reasons for a plane crash, but lets take for example one actual event that I recall happening where the tail of a plane fell off because the plane had been services and during the service, the bolts that hold the tail on had been replaced with non-genuine "equivalent parts" which turned out to actually be inferior to the genuine product. Was God responsible for checking those bolts? Was God responsible for installing those bolts? Was God responsible for choosing to install those bolts instead of the genuine bolts? Was God responsible for those bolts being represented as equivalent to the genuine bolts? Was God responsible for manufacturing those bolts? Was God responsible for designing those bolts?
At which point along the long chain of responsibility does God take control of people and say to them, "Hey you stay at home today and I will do your job for you and send you the pay-cheque as if you had actually done the work yourself". Maybe God should just put everyone out of work and do it all himself.
We can just send Him a list of all the things we want done and they will magically and perfectly be done.
Sure everyone in the world will be unemployed, but at least no disastrous mistakes will every happen again.
Well those things might be easily explainable, but what about the things which come from inside, like when you love someone and they reject you. That sort of suffering is probably as painful as anything else isn't it?
Should God step in and stop people for treating each other in hurtful ways, stop them from saying and doing things that hurt each other?
Well lets look at what it is about love that is so great, and why it hurts so much when we are rejected or treated hurtfully.
Would you enjoy being loved by someone who had been given a frontal lobotomy?
Would you enjoy being loved by someone who you knew actually hated you, but had undergone hypnosis therapy to brain-wash them into loving you involuntarily?
Would you pay an actor to pretend to love you?
Would you enjoy being loved by a robot that looked and sounded exactly like a human, but which loved you only because it had been programmed to and had no other choice?
They would each be passive and easily manipulated to tell you whatever you wanted to hear from them.
The reason that love is so rewarding is because the other person has chosen to love us voluntarily, not by compulsion, and this gives us a sense of self worth, a true sense of being loved.
God has created humans in His own image, and as much as we want to be loved by others by choice, so God wants to be loved by us by choice, not by compulsion. This is why God has given all people free-will to choose to do either right or wrong, to either love or to hate, to be kind or to be mean.
Yes it hurts when people choose to be unkind, but without that choice, we would be living in a world without love, and that would be the worst thing imaginable.
The Bible states, in 1 John 4:7-10.
"Dear friends, let us love one another, because love comes from God. Whoever loves is a child of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. And God showed his love for us by sending his only Son into the world, so that we might have life through him. This is what love is: it is not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the means by which our sins are forgiven."
God himself endured the trials of this unkind, unloving world, through the life of his Son, Jesus Christ.
Lets us accept the trials of this life, for we know that without free-will, there is no love, but God has come and revealed his love to us in Jesus Christ our Lord.
Thursday, April 1, 2010
G20, Climate Change, and the New World Order
In 2009 the G20 Pittsburgh summit revealed the G20 as being the leading group of controlling interests in the world economy. So to understand where the world is heading we should understand a little about what the economic and political vision is among the G20 leaders.
Protestors against the G20 claim that the G20 represent global capitalism, and they the protestors are opposing big corporate greed, but do the G20 really represent this political position of extreme capitalism portrayed by protestors?
Well first lets look at what capitalism means
Definitions vary, but the following from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism seems a reasonable summary.
"Capitalism is an economic and social system in which capital, the non-labor factors of production (also known as the means of production), is privately controlled; labor, goods and capital are traded in markets; and profits distributed to owners or invested in technologies and industries."
So Capitalism might be summarised with the following basic principals:
1. Commodities, materials, property, and money belong to individuals and individuals decide how, when and where they want to use, or spend their wealth
2. People are able to freely trade with others with their labour, goods, materials or wealth
3. Governments should have minimal interference in the first 2 principals
So now lets look at a definition of Socialism.
Again definitions vary but here is one from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism
"Socialism refers to the various theories of economic organization which advocate either public or direct worker ownership and administration of the means of production and allocation of resources. A more comprehensive definition of socialism is an economic system that directly maximizes use-values as opposed to exchange-values and has transcended commodity production and wage labor, along with a corresponding set of social and economic relations, including the organization of economic institutions and method of resource allocation; often implying a method of compensation based on individual merit, the amount of labor expended or individual contribution."
So Socialism might be summarised with the following basic principals:
1. Commodities, materials, property, and money belong to the community, and the community should decide how, when and where they want to use, or spend the wealth.
2. The community will decide who gets what based on who is the most needy.
3. Governments (in a role of representing the community) will strictly control and administer principals 1 and 2 so that individuals don't seek their individual interest above the collective interest of the community.
Now that we understand Capitalism and Socialism, let's cast our gaze back at the G-20.
The G-20 is made up of the finance ministers and central bank governors of 19 countries:
Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Republic of Korea, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States of America; The European Union, who is represented by the rotating Council presidency and the European Central Bank, is the 20th member of the G-20.
Of the 19 countries in the G-20, only 7 could be said to be ruled by conservative governments, which means that 12 of the 19 are libertarian or left central governments that are disposed to favouring the incorporation of strong elements of socialist principals into governance.
The European Union is governed by the European Parliament which consists of 736 members including 7 major parties, and other non-party members. The balance of conservative to libertarian members in the European Parliament is approximately even, so this does not change the great imbalance of libertarian to conservative representation in the G-20.
Together, member countries represent around 90 per cent of global gross national product, 80 per cent of world trade (including EU intra-trade) as well as two-thirds of the world's population. The G-20's economic weight and broad membership gives it a high degree of legitimacy and influence over the management of the global economy and financial system.
These factors have allowed the socialist libertarian movement to initiate a push for world governance which will redistribute the world's wealth in a socialist manner. Taxing richer nations to redistribute their wealth to poorer nations.
The mean by which this is to be achieved is the Kyoto protocol, the Copenhagen Agreement, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which will allow the United Nations to tax green house gas producing nations and give that money over to non-producing nations.
There is no agreement among scientist that climate change is either at problematic levels or that it is caused by human generated carbon emissions.
Leaders around the world including Kevin Rudd, Barack Obama, and Gordon Brown are all talking about a New World Order. This New World Order with global governance by the United Nations has been proposed for decades and is only now coming to fruition as socialist libertarians have gained the balance of global power.
This New World Order turns the whole world into one community and shares the wealth among that whole community, not on the basis of supply and demand, but upon the socialist principal of who has the most need.
This New World Order grants power supreme to those at the top that are enforcing this new global taxation of carbon emissions.
If there really was a problem with humans burning carbon based fuels, then the logical solution would be to stop issuing mining licenses, drilling licenses, export licenses, approvals for port expansions, because the amount of carbon being consumed can only be as much as we dig or drill out of the ground. Governments are not slowing down production of coal and oil, but they are increasing production. That is as plain evidence as you should need to know that carbon fuel use is not a problem.
The only reason that the politicians of the world are promoting the climate changes "crisis" is to give them an excuse to implement a socialist New World Order and a global taxation system.
Vladimir Lenin, drawing on Karl Marx's ideas of "lower" and "upper" stages of socialism defined socialism as a transitional stage between capitalism and communism.
Shouldn't Lenin's words ring warning bells among the free world, that the current push toward socialism is actually a transition to communism?
If you reflect upon history then you will know what happens when you give socialists absolute power.
Should we really risk giving socialist libertarians control of the world?
Protestors against the G20 claim that the G20 represent global capitalism, and they the protestors are opposing big corporate greed, but do the G20 really represent this political position of extreme capitalism portrayed by protestors?
Well first lets look at what capitalism means
Definitions vary, but the following from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism seems a reasonable summary.
"Capitalism is an economic and social system in which capital, the non-labor factors of production (also known as the means of production), is privately controlled; labor, goods and capital are traded in markets; and profits distributed to owners or invested in technologies and industries."
So Capitalism might be summarised with the following basic principals:
1. Commodities, materials, property, and money belong to individuals and individuals decide how, when and where they want to use, or spend their wealth
2. People are able to freely trade with others with their labour, goods, materials or wealth
3. Governments should have minimal interference in the first 2 principals
So now lets look at a definition of Socialism.
Again definitions vary but here is one from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism
"Socialism refers to the various theories of economic organization which advocate either public or direct worker ownership and administration of the means of production and allocation of resources. A more comprehensive definition of socialism is an economic system that directly maximizes use-values as opposed to exchange-values and has transcended commodity production and wage labor, along with a corresponding set of social and economic relations, including the organization of economic institutions and method of resource allocation; often implying a method of compensation based on individual merit, the amount of labor expended or individual contribution."
So Socialism might be summarised with the following basic principals:
1. Commodities, materials, property, and money belong to the community, and the community should decide how, when and where they want to use, or spend the wealth.
2. The community will decide who gets what based on who is the most needy.
3. Governments (in a role of representing the community) will strictly control and administer principals 1 and 2 so that individuals don't seek their individual interest above the collective interest of the community.
Now that we understand Capitalism and Socialism, let's cast our gaze back at the G-20.
The G-20 is made up of the finance ministers and central bank governors of 19 countries:
Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Republic of Korea, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States of America; The European Union, who is represented by the rotating Council presidency and the European Central Bank, is the 20th member of the G-20.
Of the 19 countries in the G-20, only 7 could be said to be ruled by conservative governments, which means that 12 of the 19 are libertarian or left central governments that are disposed to favouring the incorporation of strong elements of socialist principals into governance.
The European Union is governed by the European Parliament which consists of 736 members including 7 major parties, and other non-party members. The balance of conservative to libertarian members in the European Parliament is approximately even, so this does not change the great imbalance of libertarian to conservative representation in the G-20.
Together, member countries represent around 90 per cent of global gross national product, 80 per cent of world trade (including EU intra-trade) as well as two-thirds of the world's population. The G-20's economic weight and broad membership gives it a high degree of legitimacy and influence over the management of the global economy and financial system.
These factors have allowed the socialist libertarian movement to initiate a push for world governance which will redistribute the world's wealth in a socialist manner. Taxing richer nations to redistribute their wealth to poorer nations.
The mean by which this is to be achieved is the Kyoto protocol, the Copenhagen Agreement, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which will allow the United Nations to tax green house gas producing nations and give that money over to non-producing nations.
There is no agreement among scientist that climate change is either at problematic levels or that it is caused by human generated carbon emissions.
Leaders around the world including Kevin Rudd, Barack Obama, and Gordon Brown are all talking about a New World Order. This New World Order with global governance by the United Nations has been proposed for decades and is only now coming to fruition as socialist libertarians have gained the balance of global power.
This New World Order turns the whole world into one community and shares the wealth among that whole community, not on the basis of supply and demand, but upon the socialist principal of who has the most need.
This New World Order grants power supreme to those at the top that are enforcing this new global taxation of carbon emissions.
If there really was a problem with humans burning carbon based fuels, then the logical solution would be to stop issuing mining licenses, drilling licenses, export licenses, approvals for port expansions, because the amount of carbon being consumed can only be as much as we dig or drill out of the ground. Governments are not slowing down production of coal and oil, but they are increasing production. That is as plain evidence as you should need to know that carbon fuel use is not a problem.
The only reason that the politicians of the world are promoting the climate changes "crisis" is to give them an excuse to implement a socialist New World Order and a global taxation system.
Vladimir Lenin, drawing on Karl Marx's ideas of "lower" and "upper" stages of socialism defined socialism as a transitional stage between capitalism and communism.
Shouldn't Lenin's words ring warning bells among the free world, that the current push toward socialism is actually a transition to communism?
If you reflect upon history then you will know what happens when you give socialists absolute power.
Should we really risk giving socialist libertarians control of the world?
Monday, March 29, 2010
Labour & Liberal Parties - What's the difference?
Some people may be new to politics and some may not have had the time to get interested in politics before so I thought that it might be worth looking at the fundamental difference between the two main political parties in Australia; the Australian Labour Party and the Liberal Party of Australia.
Now because I am lazy, I thought I would give you a kick start into understanding the difference by recommending that you watch the following videos.
The two types of political vision
Intelligentsia and the vision of left wing politics
The discussions in the videos are held with Dr Thomas Sowell who is an American professor of economics, and political and social commentator.
The discussions by Dr Sowell are in regard to the dominant US political parties of the Democrats and the Republicans.
The politcal views of the Deomocratic and Republican parties in the USA are representative also of the two views of politics which are found in the Australian political parties of Labour and Liberal.
American Democratic Party (Obama)= left wing = libertarian politics = unconstrained vision = Australian Labour Party (Rudd)
American Republican Party (McCain) = right wing = conservative politics = constrained vision = Liberal Party of Australia (Abbott)
So when Dr Sowell talks about central planning (federal control of organisations like health care, instead of state control) you will understand why the Australian Labour party is trying to do exactly the same thing as part of their 2010 election campaign. It is intrinsic to their political vision to gain as much centralized power as they can. The Australian Labour Party tells the Australian people that it wants to federalize health care and if you dig a bit deeper you will likely find that they want to federalize almost everything and do away with state governments.
In these videos Dr Sowell highlights the dangers of this type of politics with central power for the "elite" rulers.
In essence the question that Dr Sowell is posing, is this:
Do you really trust left wing politicians and the intelligentsia enough to give them as much power as they are asking you to give them, and when you give it to them do you really think that they will use that absolute power any better than previous rulers with absolute power have done?
Now because I am lazy, I thought I would give you a kick start into understanding the difference by recommending that you watch the following videos.
The two types of political vision
Intelligentsia and the vision of left wing politics
The discussions in the videos are held with Dr Thomas Sowell who is an American professor of economics, and political and social commentator.
The discussions by Dr Sowell are in regard to the dominant US political parties of the Democrats and the Republicans.
The politcal views of the Deomocratic and Republican parties in the USA are representative also of the two views of politics which are found in the Australian political parties of Labour and Liberal.
American Democratic Party (Obama)= left wing = libertarian politics = unconstrained vision = Australian Labour Party (Rudd)
American Republican Party (McCain) = right wing = conservative politics = constrained vision = Liberal Party of Australia (Abbott)
So when Dr Sowell talks about central planning (federal control of organisations like health care, instead of state control) you will understand why the Australian Labour party is trying to do exactly the same thing as part of their 2010 election campaign. It is intrinsic to their political vision to gain as much centralized power as they can. The Australian Labour Party tells the Australian people that it wants to federalize health care and if you dig a bit deeper you will likely find that they want to federalize almost everything and do away with state governments.
In these videos Dr Sowell highlights the dangers of this type of politics with central power for the "elite" rulers.
In essence the question that Dr Sowell is posing, is this:
Do you really trust left wing politicians and the intelligentsia enough to give them as much power as they are asking you to give them, and when you give it to them do you really think that they will use that absolute power any better than previous rulers with absolute power have done?
Who Shot the Sacred Cow?
In Hinduism the cow has a sacred place. It is an animal that is worshipped, and its worshippers protect it from harm and give it a place of honour in their lives.
Mahatma Ghandi said of the cow: "I worship it and I shall defend its worship against the whole world".
In secular western societies some new sacred-cows have arisen that appear to be receiving as much worship and protection as the sacred cows of Hinduism.
Here is a hit list of secular sacred cows, which if you dare to speak against or even mention the truth about them; you may find yourself under attack by normally placid and friendly people whom hold these things to be sacred and not to be messed with by anyone.
Secular Sacred Cow #1- Santa Claus
This fictional character has crept its way into the Christian religious celebration of Christmas and usurped from Jesus Christ, the place of central focal point of Christmas.
Hundreds of Millions of little children around the world wait expectantly all year in anticipation of this fictional character bringing them presents at Christmas, riding through the sky on his magical sleigh pulled by flying reindeer from the north pole this jolly fat man in his red and white tights brings plastic fantastic toys to children by landing on their roof and slipping down the chimney (despite the fact that most people don’t have a chimney).
His face adorns shop windows, catalogue, and every piece of cheap merchandise you can point a stick at.
His message of spending big on presents to show people how much you love them lead millions of people to spend more than they can afford on stuff that nobody really needs or wants.
Those who miss out feel rejected because if you don’t get these gifts then you must be unloved or rejected by Santa.
No wonder that Christmas has turned into a time a dramatically increased conflicts, murder and suicide.
And if you dare to speak out against this fairytale commercial event and tell children that Santa is not real and that the real gift of Christmas is the gift of baby Jesus that God gave to everyone, well prepare to be attacked viciously for violating the secular sacred cow of Santa Claus.
Even among Christians you risk being attacked if you dare to expose the myth of Santa and tell children of the real meaning of Christmas.
If your child speaks the truth about these things to other children then they risk being ostracized as parents don’t want their children to know the truth about these secular fairytales, they want their children to believe in the lies and they will protect the lie of Santa even to the point of creating new lies to cover up the obvious flaws in the Santa fairytale. Parents will who protect the Santa myth will actively keep their children away from any other child then dares to tell the truth about Santa.
Secular Sacred Cow #2 - The Easter Bunny
Here is another fictitious character that has somehow crept its way into Christian celebrations.
Parents around the world teach their children that this large rabbit is going to bring them chocolate eggs are Easter time. Where did he get these eggs? Don’t ask. Why is he bringing these chocolate eggs? Don’t ask. What does this have to do with Jesus Christ dying on the cross and being resurrected in three days? Absolutely nothing so we just won’t mention Jesus Christ this Easter.
Many Christians do make vain attempts to make a link between the Easter Bunny, the eggs and Jesus Christ, however any honest person with acknowledge the fact that the bunny and the egg are pagan signs of fertility and they have nothing to do with the Christian celebration of the sacrificial death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Despite this fact the Easter bunny and Easter eggs adorn shopping windows, TV commercials, and advertising brochures for months prior to Easter in a vain attempt to promote the selling of chocolate eggs and any other garbage merchandise that they to the secular masses.
Children live in expectation of a cache of Easter eggs and Easter without chocolate eggs seems to them as though someone has let the air out of an inflated balloon.
Yes this pagan celebration of bunnies and eggs has been inflated with as much hot air as the advertising gurus could blow into it. And every dollar they can take from your open purse has been taken to fill their own pockets.
Now if you dare to mention to children that the Easter Bunny is not real, or that chocolate eggs have nothing to do with Easter but that Easter is about the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, then you will be in for trouble. And worse still if you don’t give you children any chocolate eggs at Easter then you must be some kind of monster that is out to ruin your child's life by denying them chocolate eggs, for that of course is the most important part of Easter and cannot be left out. Yes you will have violated the sacred cow and you will now be treated like the criminal that the secular masses view you as.
Secular Sacred Cow #3 - The Tooth Fairy
What could get ex-wrestling star Dwayne "the rock" Johnson into a pink dress and fake wings?
That’s right, The Tooth Fairy. Which he played in the 2010 film of that same name.
The tooth fairy according to its myth will come if you leave your tooth on or under a pillow and in its place the tooth fairy will leave some money. Why does the tooth fairy want to purchase teeth from children? Don’t ask. What does the tooth fairy do with the teeth after it has taken them? Don't ask.
Yet parents teach this fairytale to children as being a fact of life and children wait in expectation of the tooth fairy coming to leave some money in place of a tooth under their pillow.
Why would anyone want their child to believe such a ridiculous fairytale, I don’t know.
Yet if you tell a child the truth about the tooth fairy, then that child's parents are likely to think you a monster who has robbed their child of one of life great joys. The joy of being innocently deceived.
If you tell children that Spiderman or Superman are just fictitious characters then do you get the same reaction as when revealing the truth about Santa, the Easter Bunny or the Tooth Fairy?
No.
I do not know anyone that would try to trick their children into believing that comic book characters are real and then defend that lie with religious zeal when others speak to truth on the matter.
So then why are Santa, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy given sacred protected status?
Quite simply it is because these fairytales allow people to ignore the true meaning of Christian celebrations and to deny Christian truths whilst maintaining a pretence of spirituality or supernatural in their life.
I hope that people will learn to value truth, and reject false fairytales such as Santa, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy, and that they will get back to teaching the truth of Jesus Christ.
Maybe then the children will start to ask about Jesus and learn that there is truth behind the claims of Christianity, and no longer assume that is it as false as the secular sacred cows that have replaced it.
Mahatma Ghandi said of the cow: "I worship it and I shall defend its worship against the whole world".
In secular western societies some new sacred-cows have arisen that appear to be receiving as much worship and protection as the sacred cows of Hinduism.
Here is a hit list of secular sacred cows, which if you dare to speak against or even mention the truth about them; you may find yourself under attack by normally placid and friendly people whom hold these things to be sacred and not to be messed with by anyone.
Secular Sacred Cow #1- Santa Claus
This fictional character has crept its way into the Christian religious celebration of Christmas and usurped from Jesus Christ, the place of central focal point of Christmas.
Hundreds of Millions of little children around the world wait expectantly all year in anticipation of this fictional character bringing them presents at Christmas, riding through the sky on his magical sleigh pulled by flying reindeer from the north pole this jolly fat man in his red and white tights brings plastic fantastic toys to children by landing on their roof and slipping down the chimney (despite the fact that most people don’t have a chimney).
His face adorns shop windows, catalogue, and every piece of cheap merchandise you can point a stick at.
His message of spending big on presents to show people how much you love them lead millions of people to spend more than they can afford on stuff that nobody really needs or wants.
Those who miss out feel rejected because if you don’t get these gifts then you must be unloved or rejected by Santa.
No wonder that Christmas has turned into a time a dramatically increased conflicts, murder and suicide.
And if you dare to speak out against this fairytale commercial event and tell children that Santa is not real and that the real gift of Christmas is the gift of baby Jesus that God gave to everyone, well prepare to be attacked viciously for violating the secular sacred cow of Santa Claus.
Even among Christians you risk being attacked if you dare to expose the myth of Santa and tell children of the real meaning of Christmas.
If your child speaks the truth about these things to other children then they risk being ostracized as parents don’t want their children to know the truth about these secular fairytales, they want their children to believe in the lies and they will protect the lie of Santa even to the point of creating new lies to cover up the obvious flaws in the Santa fairytale. Parents will who protect the Santa myth will actively keep their children away from any other child then dares to tell the truth about Santa.
Secular Sacred Cow #2 - The Easter Bunny
Here is another fictitious character that has somehow crept its way into Christian celebrations.
Parents around the world teach their children that this large rabbit is going to bring them chocolate eggs are Easter time. Where did he get these eggs? Don’t ask. Why is he bringing these chocolate eggs? Don’t ask. What does this have to do with Jesus Christ dying on the cross and being resurrected in three days? Absolutely nothing so we just won’t mention Jesus Christ this Easter.
Many Christians do make vain attempts to make a link between the Easter Bunny, the eggs and Jesus Christ, however any honest person with acknowledge the fact that the bunny and the egg are pagan signs of fertility and they have nothing to do with the Christian celebration of the sacrificial death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Despite this fact the Easter bunny and Easter eggs adorn shopping windows, TV commercials, and advertising brochures for months prior to Easter in a vain attempt to promote the selling of chocolate eggs and any other garbage merchandise that they to the secular masses.
Children live in expectation of a cache of Easter eggs and Easter without chocolate eggs seems to them as though someone has let the air out of an inflated balloon.
Yes this pagan celebration of bunnies and eggs has been inflated with as much hot air as the advertising gurus could blow into it. And every dollar they can take from your open purse has been taken to fill their own pockets.
Now if you dare to mention to children that the Easter Bunny is not real, or that chocolate eggs have nothing to do with Easter but that Easter is about the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, then you will be in for trouble. And worse still if you don’t give you children any chocolate eggs at Easter then you must be some kind of monster that is out to ruin your child's life by denying them chocolate eggs, for that of course is the most important part of Easter and cannot be left out. Yes you will have violated the sacred cow and you will now be treated like the criminal that the secular masses view you as.
Secular Sacred Cow #3 - The Tooth Fairy
What could get ex-wrestling star Dwayne "the rock" Johnson into a pink dress and fake wings?
That’s right, The Tooth Fairy. Which he played in the 2010 film of that same name.
The tooth fairy according to its myth will come if you leave your tooth on or under a pillow and in its place the tooth fairy will leave some money. Why does the tooth fairy want to purchase teeth from children? Don’t ask. What does the tooth fairy do with the teeth after it has taken them? Don't ask.
Yet parents teach this fairytale to children as being a fact of life and children wait in expectation of the tooth fairy coming to leave some money in place of a tooth under their pillow.
Why would anyone want their child to believe such a ridiculous fairytale, I don’t know.
Yet if you tell a child the truth about the tooth fairy, then that child's parents are likely to think you a monster who has robbed their child of one of life great joys. The joy of being innocently deceived.
If you tell children that Spiderman or Superman are just fictitious characters then do you get the same reaction as when revealing the truth about Santa, the Easter Bunny or the Tooth Fairy?
No.
I do not know anyone that would try to trick their children into believing that comic book characters are real and then defend that lie with religious zeal when others speak to truth on the matter.
So then why are Santa, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy given sacred protected status?
Quite simply it is because these fairytales allow people to ignore the true meaning of Christian celebrations and to deny Christian truths whilst maintaining a pretence of spirituality or supernatural in their life.
I hope that people will learn to value truth, and reject false fairytales such as Santa, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy, and that they will get back to teaching the truth of Jesus Christ.
Maybe then the children will start to ask about Jesus and learn that there is truth behind the claims of Christianity, and no longer assume that is it as false as the secular sacred cows that have replaced it.
The New Taboos - Politics and Religion
Are politics and religion really such taboo topics that you shouldn't mention them among friends, family or work colleges?; and if you cant speak to these people about politics and religion then who can you speak with about it?
To think about this, I guess we should first define what is a taboo:
Taboo: " 1. A ban or an inhibition resulting from social custom or emotional aversion.
2. a. A prohibition, especially in Polynesia and other South Pacific islands, excluding something from use, approach, or mention because of its sacred and inviolable nature.
b. An object, a word, or an act protected by such a prohibition."
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company
So something comes under a taboo in order to protect it's sacredness, or to protect people from the emotional aversion that is connected with the thing, or because the thing is considered so impermissible that people should not even think about it, talk about it or attempt to attain it or enact it.
The world has had many periods when both politics and religion were not discussed with genuine openness to disagreement, and at times this unwillingness to allow disagreements has fuelled conflict between religious or political factions. Today there is an enormous diversity in political and religious beliefs around the world, within nations and even within local communities.
Post-modern philosophy promotes the idea that a particular belief can be valid for one person whilst an opposite belief can be valid for another person. Whilst many people have accepted this concept as a way of avoiding conflict and allowing each person to decide what they believe, the reality is that no successful civilizations were ever built upon a philosophy of Relativism. Civilizations are built upon agreements, not disagreements. Nations are governed by laws and laws cannot allow every person to do whatever they think is best for them.
For example some may think that it is okay to have multiple spouses, some may think that it is okay to married off their children at the age of five and some may say that it is okay to kill a child in its mothers womb.
But if a nation allows each person to do whatever seems best to them and dissolves all laws that govern personal conduct then the very fabric of society is being destroyed. Each nation must determine a set of values and enforce them otherwise society does not function properly.
Now if the fabric of society depends on the proper operation of matters of religion and politics then who is to be in charge of these things?
Should we allow a minor few to speak on and determine what is right about these things, or should the population be able to discuss these things openly and freely?
If politics is only about to be discussed by politicians then are we not a step away from having our political freedom taken from us by those politicians?
If religion is only able to be discussed by religious leaders then are we not a step away from having our religious freedoms taken from us by those religious leaders?
Who has generated these new taboos that put us in political and religious peril?
Let us simply look for a regime that restricts political and religious freedoms. Can you name one? I can.
Quite simply, it is Communism!
Communism places taboos on talking about religion accept that state sanctions religion of Darwinistic Scientism, and communism places taboos on talking about politics unless it is the left wing politics of socialism.
How then are we to respond to these new taboos that have been subversively introduced upon us by socialists?
We must recognise these new taboos for the anti-democratic, anti-freedom propaganda that they are.
We must be willing to speak freely on matters of religion and politics.
We must be willing to allow others to speak freely on matters of religion and politics.
We must not allow difference of views to turn into aggressive conflicts.
We must ensure that we use political means to make and enforce laws that are consistent with nation building values rather than nation destroying values.
Australia's political and religious freedom has come under threat before, and our forefathers fought to protect those freedoms.
Every year in Australia war momorials remind us of the following sayings:
"The price of peace is eternal vigilance" and "Lest we forget"
But many people seem to have forgotten that it is the very ideologies of oppressive nations, (not just the occupants of those oppressive nations) that our forefathers fought so hard to protect us from.
Let us remember the sacrifices made to protect us from harmful ideologies. Let us value our freedoms and hold fast to the values that have been protected with so much blood.
Dwight D. Eisenhower who ruled as the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces during World War II said in his inaugural address upon being elected President of the USA:
"A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both".
Let the people of Australia and the world engage openly in political and religious discussions in a respectful and diplomatic manner, for diplomacy must be better than a new cold war.
To think about this, I guess we should first define what is a taboo:
Taboo: " 1. A ban or an inhibition resulting from social custom or emotional aversion.
2. a. A prohibition, especially in Polynesia and other South Pacific islands, excluding something from use, approach, or mention because of its sacred and inviolable nature.
b. An object, a word, or an act protected by such a prohibition."
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company
So something comes under a taboo in order to protect it's sacredness, or to protect people from the emotional aversion that is connected with the thing, or because the thing is considered so impermissible that people should not even think about it, talk about it or attempt to attain it or enact it.
The world has had many periods when both politics and religion were not discussed with genuine openness to disagreement, and at times this unwillingness to allow disagreements has fuelled conflict between religious or political factions. Today there is an enormous diversity in political and religious beliefs around the world, within nations and even within local communities.
Post-modern philosophy promotes the idea that a particular belief can be valid for one person whilst an opposite belief can be valid for another person. Whilst many people have accepted this concept as a way of avoiding conflict and allowing each person to decide what they believe, the reality is that no successful civilizations were ever built upon a philosophy of Relativism. Civilizations are built upon agreements, not disagreements. Nations are governed by laws and laws cannot allow every person to do whatever they think is best for them.
For example some may think that it is okay to have multiple spouses, some may think that it is okay to married off their children at the age of five and some may say that it is okay to kill a child in its mothers womb.
But if a nation allows each person to do whatever seems best to them and dissolves all laws that govern personal conduct then the very fabric of society is being destroyed. Each nation must determine a set of values and enforce them otherwise society does not function properly.
Now if the fabric of society depends on the proper operation of matters of religion and politics then who is to be in charge of these things?
Should we allow a minor few to speak on and determine what is right about these things, or should the population be able to discuss these things openly and freely?
If politics is only about to be discussed by politicians then are we not a step away from having our political freedom taken from us by those politicians?
If religion is only able to be discussed by religious leaders then are we not a step away from having our religious freedoms taken from us by those religious leaders?
Who has generated these new taboos that put us in political and religious peril?
Let us simply look for a regime that restricts political and religious freedoms. Can you name one? I can.
Quite simply, it is Communism!
Communism places taboos on talking about religion accept that state sanctions religion of Darwinistic Scientism, and communism places taboos on talking about politics unless it is the left wing politics of socialism.
How then are we to respond to these new taboos that have been subversively introduced upon us by socialists?
We must recognise these new taboos for the anti-democratic, anti-freedom propaganda that they are.
We must be willing to speak freely on matters of religion and politics.
We must be willing to allow others to speak freely on matters of religion and politics.
We must not allow difference of views to turn into aggressive conflicts.
We must ensure that we use political means to make and enforce laws that are consistent with nation building values rather than nation destroying values.
Australia's political and religious freedom has come under threat before, and our forefathers fought to protect those freedoms.
Every year in Australia war momorials remind us of the following sayings:
"The price of peace is eternal vigilance" and "Lest we forget"
But many people seem to have forgotten that it is the very ideologies of oppressive nations, (not just the occupants of those oppressive nations) that our forefathers fought so hard to protect us from.
Let us remember the sacrifices made to protect us from harmful ideologies. Let us value our freedoms and hold fast to the values that have been protected with so much blood.
Dwight D. Eisenhower who ruled as the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces during World War II said in his inaugural address upon being elected President of the USA:
"A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both".
Let the people of Australia and the world engage openly in political and religious discussions in a respectful and diplomatic manner, for diplomacy must be better than a new cold war.
Friday, March 26, 2010
What is Pornography?
If you have been noticing an increasing trend in the media of displaying sexually provocative photographs and videos then it may lead you to ask yourself, when do we draw the line between what is acceptable for general distribution and what is pornographic in nature or intent.
Historically the amount of flesh displayed was used as an indication of pornographic content, however current secular standards on how much flesh is acceptable in public have drastically altered the way secular society defines what is pornographic.
Prior to world war two public views on sexuality were typically conservative and sex outside of marriage was seldom considered let alone acted upon by the majority of the western populace. However as a consequence of the Eugenics movement the had been started by Charles Darwin's cousin Francis Galton in the late 1800's and promoted by many prominent people including Theodore Roosevelt and Margaret Sanger the Eugenics movement was popularized and was firmly fixed into the ideology of Nazism. So Nazi Germany and many other countries that had bought into the idea of fighting a race war by breading up what they viewed as their superior race, needed a way to encourage people of their own race to breed successfully.
It was hard to break the social and religious morals regarding sexuality and so Nazi German (as one example) set out on a campaign to give the German woman a sexual image. They had scantily clad fitness girls travel the country and promote person fitness to achieve a body shape of sexual potency so that the German woman could breed better. The small outfits that these promotional girls wore was at that time scandalous in its immodesty. Also at about the same time bans on pornography were lifted and limited amounts of pornography were authorized for production. The Nazis actually commissioned official pornography materials of a nature that they thought suitable to promote the breeding of the German peoples. The Nazis also actively encouraged its male members to take on mistresses so that in addition to breading with their wives, they could breed with as many women as possible.
This culture of sexualization and breaking with cultural norms was also taking off in France during the late 1800's and early 1900's and can be recounted in the famous can-can theaters of Paris. One such can-can theater was the Moulin Rouge built in 1889 which has been recorded in books and movies.
Since the wooden box camera had come into use in Paris in 1826 there had always been an underground market for pornography. The early 1900's was a time of increased drug use, prostitution and pornography in Paris. The popularity in Paris during the early 1900's of the Bohemian lifestyle was a draw card to those of a similar inclination to join this movement in Paris and spread the idea of non-monogamous sexual relationships.
During WWII sexual attitudes continued to change due to a number if factors including stresses of war bride marriages and soldiers being promiscuous when abroad.
Post WWII sexual attitudes had been well and truly challenged and in 1946 when French lingerie salesman Louis Reard thought to himself that he would like to see women wearing lingerie in public, the bikini was born.
Even at this time no reputable professional model would dare to wear such a revealing outfit in public and so Louis hired a stripper from the Casino de Paris to demonstrate the bikini in public. It was a hit firstly among men and sales took off.
Within the next two decades television would bring the rock and roll rebellion era to the mass western populace, and sexuality was brought into the homes of the nation through pop idols like Elvis Presley and males crooners like Frank Sinatra, and female bomb-shells like Marilyn Munro and Sophia Loren sexed up the big screen.
Liberal attitudes towards sexual displays in public have grown in popularity ever since the 1970s, most likely because the generation of people that grew up in that age of the "free love" movement and "sexual revolution" are now the ones running the media outlets of the world that form public opinion.
This however has not changed some portions of society that still retain traditional values in regard to public displays of flesh and sexual behavior.
Additionally western societies are now having to reconsider these issues as immigration from Muslim and Catholic areas of the world into western countries is increasing and our secular societies are needed to learn how to live in harmony with people of different cultures and conservative values.
One question now could be asked; Knowing that some people in society are happy to have obscene images and behaviors allowed in public, does that mean that those who don't accept such things should be subjected to it against their will anyway, and told insolently to shut their eyes if they don't wish to see things that offend them. Or we might ask, what exactly is considered pornographic now, or unacceptable for public viewing?
It seems to me that most libertarians who wish to assert there alleged right to do something despite causing public offense, never take into consideration that such offense can actually harm people.
To demonstrate this fact is easy. It is the very reason that we have media restrictions in the first place.
So take the example of a war documentary which graphically shows people being shot dead. This may be suitable (although unpleasant and distasteful) for a health adult to see, but it is certainly not suitable for a child of 7 years old to watch people being killed in war because this will cause disturbance to the child's mind. Similarly we do not show children images of sexual activity or nudity because this too can cause disturbance to a child's mind. It can also be demonstrated by science that watching pornographic or violent images can cause serious damage to the mind of adults. So although some claim that they have the right to these things it is easy to see that, that does not translate into a right to impose such onto someone else and potentially cause harm or offense.
Here is a definition from The American Heritage® New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition:
"Books, photographs, magazines, art, or music designed to excite sexual impulses and considered by public authorities or public opinion as in violation of accepted standards of sexual morality. American courts have not yet settled on a satisfactory definition of what constitutes pornographic material."
So if pornography is what is considered by public opinion as a violation of accepted sexual morality, then how much of society needs to be offended before we say you cant do that or show that in public?
And if there is not objective standard then when sexual immorality become popular enough then does what is pornography now cease to be pornography?
I know what I find offensive and too much of it is going on in public, on TV, in magazines, online, and in the movies. There are no restrictions and anyone can see anything with the click of a button. If you want to see a woman passionately kissing a monkey then its a click away, if you want to see one kissing another woman its a click away, if you want to see men doing the same its a click away, if you want to see people exposing themselves its a click away, if you want to see people doing obscene things to themselves or others then it is a click away. And the biggest problems is that it is very often that you did not know that this thing were going to be presented to you before you click. You just go to a site expecting some non-offensive content that is suitable for public viewing and they have these sorts of obscene images and or links to obscene content.
I believe there should be more regulation of the internet so that website which are for public consumption are actually suitable for the public and not of an offensive nature to children. Content of an offensive nature to children should only be accessible by those that know that they are going to be subjected to such content.
Admittedly some publishers are self regulating on this and do a very good job of keeping it clean, but there is certainly room for improvement not only on the internet, but also in teen magazines, public television, advertising, and public decorum.
I am sure that the libertarians are pulling there hair out at the very idea of determining some level of public decorum, but guess what? We already have standards and they say that you can't walk down the street naked or you will be arrested for indecent exposure. The problem is that the word indecent is too rubbery and libertarians are always pulling that rubber as far as it will go before it snaps and societal morals are destroyed.
Lets get back to some public decency, please if not for our own sakes then for the sake of the children that are being subjected to this obscene culture.
Historically the amount of flesh displayed was used as an indication of pornographic content, however current secular standards on how much flesh is acceptable in public have drastically altered the way secular society defines what is pornographic.
Prior to world war two public views on sexuality were typically conservative and sex outside of marriage was seldom considered let alone acted upon by the majority of the western populace. However as a consequence of the Eugenics movement the had been started by Charles Darwin's cousin Francis Galton in the late 1800's and promoted by many prominent people including Theodore Roosevelt and Margaret Sanger the Eugenics movement was popularized and was firmly fixed into the ideology of Nazism. So Nazi Germany and many other countries that had bought into the idea of fighting a race war by breading up what they viewed as their superior race, needed a way to encourage people of their own race to breed successfully.
It was hard to break the social and religious morals regarding sexuality and so Nazi German (as one example) set out on a campaign to give the German woman a sexual image. They had scantily clad fitness girls travel the country and promote person fitness to achieve a body shape of sexual potency so that the German woman could breed better. The small outfits that these promotional girls wore was at that time scandalous in its immodesty. Also at about the same time bans on pornography were lifted and limited amounts of pornography were authorized for production. The Nazis actually commissioned official pornography materials of a nature that they thought suitable to promote the breeding of the German peoples. The Nazis also actively encouraged its male members to take on mistresses so that in addition to breading with their wives, they could breed with as many women as possible.
This culture of sexualization and breaking with cultural norms was also taking off in France during the late 1800's and early 1900's and can be recounted in the famous can-can theaters of Paris. One such can-can theater was the Moulin Rouge built in 1889 which has been recorded in books and movies.
Since the wooden box camera had come into use in Paris in 1826 there had always been an underground market for pornography. The early 1900's was a time of increased drug use, prostitution and pornography in Paris. The popularity in Paris during the early 1900's of the Bohemian lifestyle was a draw card to those of a similar inclination to join this movement in Paris and spread the idea of non-monogamous sexual relationships.
During WWII sexual attitudes continued to change due to a number if factors including stresses of war bride marriages and soldiers being promiscuous when abroad.
Post WWII sexual attitudes had been well and truly challenged and in 1946 when French lingerie salesman Louis Reard thought to himself that he would like to see women wearing lingerie in public, the bikini was born.
Even at this time no reputable professional model would dare to wear such a revealing outfit in public and so Louis hired a stripper from the Casino de Paris to demonstrate the bikini in public. It was a hit firstly among men and sales took off.
Within the next two decades television would bring the rock and roll rebellion era to the mass western populace, and sexuality was brought into the homes of the nation through pop idols like Elvis Presley and males crooners like Frank Sinatra, and female bomb-shells like Marilyn Munro and Sophia Loren sexed up the big screen.
Liberal attitudes towards sexual displays in public have grown in popularity ever since the 1970s, most likely because the generation of people that grew up in that age of the "free love" movement and "sexual revolution" are now the ones running the media outlets of the world that form public opinion.
This however has not changed some portions of society that still retain traditional values in regard to public displays of flesh and sexual behavior.
Additionally western societies are now having to reconsider these issues as immigration from Muslim and Catholic areas of the world into western countries is increasing and our secular societies are needed to learn how to live in harmony with people of different cultures and conservative values.
One question now could be asked; Knowing that some people in society are happy to have obscene images and behaviors allowed in public, does that mean that those who don't accept such things should be subjected to it against their will anyway, and told insolently to shut their eyes if they don't wish to see things that offend them. Or we might ask, what exactly is considered pornographic now, or unacceptable for public viewing?
It seems to me that most libertarians who wish to assert there alleged right to do something despite causing public offense, never take into consideration that such offense can actually harm people.
To demonstrate this fact is easy. It is the very reason that we have media restrictions in the first place.
So take the example of a war documentary which graphically shows people being shot dead. This may be suitable (although unpleasant and distasteful) for a health adult to see, but it is certainly not suitable for a child of 7 years old to watch people being killed in war because this will cause disturbance to the child's mind. Similarly we do not show children images of sexual activity or nudity because this too can cause disturbance to a child's mind. It can also be demonstrated by science that watching pornographic or violent images can cause serious damage to the mind of adults. So although some claim that they have the right to these things it is easy to see that, that does not translate into a right to impose such onto someone else and potentially cause harm or offense.
Here is a definition from The American Heritage® New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition:
"Books, photographs, magazines, art, or music designed to excite sexual impulses and considered by public authorities or public opinion as in violation of accepted standards of sexual morality. American courts have not yet settled on a satisfactory definition of what constitutes pornographic material."
So if pornography is what is considered by public opinion as a violation of accepted sexual morality, then how much of society needs to be offended before we say you cant do that or show that in public?
And if there is not objective standard then when sexual immorality become popular enough then does what is pornography now cease to be pornography?
I know what I find offensive and too much of it is going on in public, on TV, in magazines, online, and in the movies. There are no restrictions and anyone can see anything with the click of a button. If you want to see a woman passionately kissing a monkey then its a click away, if you want to see one kissing another woman its a click away, if you want to see men doing the same its a click away, if you want to see people exposing themselves its a click away, if you want to see people doing obscene things to themselves or others then it is a click away. And the biggest problems is that it is very often that you did not know that this thing were going to be presented to you before you click. You just go to a site expecting some non-offensive content that is suitable for public viewing and they have these sorts of obscene images and or links to obscene content.
I believe there should be more regulation of the internet so that website which are for public consumption are actually suitable for the public and not of an offensive nature to children. Content of an offensive nature to children should only be accessible by those that know that they are going to be subjected to such content.
Admittedly some publishers are self regulating on this and do a very good job of keeping it clean, but there is certainly room for improvement not only on the internet, but also in teen magazines, public television, advertising, and public decorum.
I am sure that the libertarians are pulling there hair out at the very idea of determining some level of public decorum, but guess what? We already have standards and they say that you can't walk down the street naked or you will be arrested for indecent exposure. The problem is that the word indecent is too rubbery and libertarians are always pulling that rubber as far as it will go before it snaps and societal morals are destroyed.
Lets get back to some public decency, please if not for our own sakes then for the sake of the children that are being subjected to this obscene culture.
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