Wednesday, 20 June 2018
To readers: please help.
I have received a notification from the site this blog resides in about a change in European Union Law requiring some notification about cookies to be shown. Not being part of the EU I cannot see this notification.
I have no patience with the tech side of things. It seems that the notice should be seen by people viewing my blog from within the EU. But I can not figure out how to see if it is there
Please notify me if you can, or cant see such a notice, by replying as a comment .
I would rather not be in infringement of law if I could avoid it
I have no patience with the tech side of things. It seems that the notice should be seen by people viewing my blog from within the EU. But I can not figure out how to see if it is there
Please notify me if you can, or cant see such a notice, by replying as a comment .
I would rather not be in infringement of law if I could avoid it
Saturday, 5 May 2018
Politics and the abuse of Good Ideas
If evil people get hold of a good idea does it not stand to reason that they will abuse and distort it to their own selfish purposes?
Before I answer who the evil people in question are or might be i will talk about some good ideas that are or may be subject to such abuse.
The Left have the good idea that people should care for one another and help each other, for no man is an island.
The Right believe that individuals should take responsibility for themselves.
I would say that both are good ideas, but as selected by both wings of the political spectrum they are forced into a false dichotomy which is simply not logically required.
So who are the evil people that would abuse such ideas?
Scripture is clear. There is none righteous, no not one. Jesus, by way of a casual throw away line, while talking about the gift of God said to his disciples "if you being evil, can give good gifts to your children . . . . " Matthew 7:11
He took the evil of men for granted.
As regards politics what do we see?
That men should look out for one another became a license for mass murder under Marxism. For what was to be done with those deemed unwilling to do so? And now people foolishly want the State to do everything for them, not only keep then fed and sheltered, a requirement I, as a former Leftist might still find valid, but to give their empty lives meaning and happiness, and if the government cannot do this they expect the governments of the Left these days to punish those who dare afflict their feelings, hence the madness which is Political Correctness. And they think that the nature of Man can be remade, re educated, to change man into something better. Such Utopian fantasies are always totalitarian
That men should be responsible for their own welfare morphed into "I'm OK, to hell with you ,mate."
Any kind of justice in the cried of the poor is written off as the politics of envy, as Jim Bolger, former New Zealand Prime Minister did back in the 1990's after the welfare state was severely cut in this country. He either had no clue as to the plight of the poor, or did not want to have any clue of such. Scripture calls this the deceitfulness of riches where by a rich man thinks he got rich by his own moral merit and thus his wealth is a sign of his own righteousness. There is very little in this world which is more foul than such an attitude. and of course the purpose of preaching individual responsibility is to keep the workers at their benches
Now I am a generous man, when both sides of the spectrum hurl accusations to each other I agree with them all, except where logic render them contradictory.
Because all are evil and all abuse everything in some way or another - even if only by means of making an idol out of it to ignore God the Spirit - it follows that it is empty self righteousness for a political party or wing to accuse the other side of being evil while trumpeting either by word or attitude that they themselves are not, for all are evil.
Thus political factionalism is always self righteous, arrogant and just plain foolish
some parties are more evil than others perhaps?
Well, perhaps indeed. But do we vote for the lesser evil?
that empowers the lesser evil if they win the election, and as power corrupts they become a greater evil than previously.
It might in the short term be saner to have a lesser evil in power, but only in the short term, and the debasement of all political parties, to be met by the self righteous naivete of new parties who think they will be different - truly there is nothing new under the sun! will indeed continue
Of course the corruption might only be a conceit and arrogance of a Prime Minister who has been in office for too long - and be assured I myself have seen this in my own country of New Zealand, but would that we could be so lucky as to have evils only come singly instead of clusters, as they always do
So what is the solution?
The Age of Reform, as I might call it, starting in the 18th century, is coming to an end as the reforms themselves unravel. and they unravel because or giving you neighbour a fair break is contrary to human nature and humans can only pretend against their own selves for so long.
My parents' generation were lucky enough to live under the humane reforms of this Age of Reform at its very peak. My parents were too young for world War II and had a lifetime of prosperity previously undreamed of until their deaths in 2007 and 2009 respectively. And they were not wealthy, but working class all their lives
This state of affairs is now unravelling and I need point to no evidence for what is plainly visible.
It is said, often by those who really should know better, that all it takes for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing.
If true then evil will triumph. And indeed it will. For there are no good people. I like to say that if I ever met a good person I would kick his backside and tell him to get moving, he has a world to save. But I speak in ironic jest, for there really are none.
God Himself will let Man drink the cup of his rebellion to the bitter dregs, and at some point He will remove or allow to be removed whatever it is that restrains (2 Thessalonians 2:1-4) Man from the full viciousness of his own nature.
And when in this instance all hell is let loose this will be the Great Tribulation and Christ will return only at the end of it.
Get involved in politics and be corrupted by it? Ignore politics and suffer at the hand of those contemptible or naive people who still enter it? Try to fight a rearguard action as the engineers in the Titanic did whose effort at the pumps kept the ship afloat for some 2 and a half hours?
Well this last assumes that Law is the solution to man's predicament, which it never was. To demonstrate this fact so deeply denied by men, all ,men, for i a m convinced that legalism it is which is the way that leads to death , (Proverbs 14:12) this was the very reason God gave the Law in the first place. And of course there is still the price of corruption to be paid. Is it to be said that no greater love had a man, or woman, for his nation that he gave his life to the political process that he be corrupted by it all while holding back great evil?
As the saying goes, damned if you do, damned if you don't. There is no solution whatsoever not when the solutions - liberal democracy - are falling apart before our very eyes
So what remains?
the classic gospel,
Repent and believe and be led by the Spirit
Before I answer who the evil people in question are or might be i will talk about some good ideas that are or may be subject to such abuse.
The Left have the good idea that people should care for one another and help each other, for no man is an island.
The Right believe that individuals should take responsibility for themselves.
I would say that both are good ideas, but as selected by both wings of the political spectrum they are forced into a false dichotomy which is simply not logically required.
So who are the evil people that would abuse such ideas?
Scripture is clear. There is none righteous, no not one. Jesus, by way of a casual throw away line, while talking about the gift of God said to his disciples "if you being evil, can give good gifts to your children . . . . " Matthew 7:11
He took the evil of men for granted.
As regards politics what do we see?
That men should look out for one another became a license for mass murder under Marxism. For what was to be done with those deemed unwilling to do so? And now people foolishly want the State to do everything for them, not only keep then fed and sheltered, a requirement I, as a former Leftist might still find valid, but to give their empty lives meaning and happiness, and if the government cannot do this they expect the governments of the Left these days to punish those who dare afflict their feelings, hence the madness which is Political Correctness. And they think that the nature of Man can be remade, re educated, to change man into something better. Such Utopian fantasies are always totalitarian
That men should be responsible for their own welfare morphed into "I'm OK, to hell with you ,mate."
Any kind of justice in the cried of the poor is written off as the politics of envy, as Jim Bolger, former New Zealand Prime Minister did back in the 1990's after the welfare state was severely cut in this country. He either had no clue as to the plight of the poor, or did not want to have any clue of such. Scripture calls this the deceitfulness of riches where by a rich man thinks he got rich by his own moral merit and thus his wealth is a sign of his own righteousness. There is very little in this world which is more foul than such an attitude. and of course the purpose of preaching individual responsibility is to keep the workers at their benches
Now I am a generous man, when both sides of the spectrum hurl accusations to each other I agree with them all, except where logic render them contradictory.
Because all are evil and all abuse everything in some way or another - even if only by means of making an idol out of it to ignore God the Spirit - it follows that it is empty self righteousness for a political party or wing to accuse the other side of being evil while trumpeting either by word or attitude that they themselves are not, for all are evil.
Thus political factionalism is always self righteous, arrogant and just plain foolish
some parties are more evil than others perhaps?
Well, perhaps indeed. But do we vote for the lesser evil?
that empowers the lesser evil if they win the election, and as power corrupts they become a greater evil than previously.
It might in the short term be saner to have a lesser evil in power, but only in the short term, and the debasement of all political parties, to be met by the self righteous naivete of new parties who think they will be different - truly there is nothing new under the sun! will indeed continue
Of course the corruption might only be a conceit and arrogance of a Prime Minister who has been in office for too long - and be assured I myself have seen this in my own country of New Zealand, but would that we could be so lucky as to have evils only come singly instead of clusters, as they always do
So what is the solution?
The Age of Reform, as I might call it, starting in the 18th century, is coming to an end as the reforms themselves unravel. and they unravel because or giving you neighbour a fair break is contrary to human nature and humans can only pretend against their own selves for so long.
My parents' generation were lucky enough to live under the humane reforms of this Age of Reform at its very peak. My parents were too young for world War II and had a lifetime of prosperity previously undreamed of until their deaths in 2007 and 2009 respectively. And they were not wealthy, but working class all their lives
This state of affairs is now unravelling and I need point to no evidence for what is plainly visible.
It is said, often by those who really should know better, that all it takes for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing.
If true then evil will triumph. And indeed it will. For there are no good people. I like to say that if I ever met a good person I would kick his backside and tell him to get moving, he has a world to save. But I speak in ironic jest, for there really are none.
God Himself will let Man drink the cup of his rebellion to the bitter dregs, and at some point He will remove or allow to be removed whatever it is that restrains (2 Thessalonians 2:1-4) Man from the full viciousness of his own nature.
And when in this instance all hell is let loose this will be the Great Tribulation and Christ will return only at the end of it.
Get involved in politics and be corrupted by it? Ignore politics and suffer at the hand of those contemptible or naive people who still enter it? Try to fight a rearguard action as the engineers in the Titanic did whose effort at the pumps kept the ship afloat for some 2 and a half hours?
Well this last assumes that Law is the solution to man's predicament, which it never was. To demonstrate this fact so deeply denied by men, all ,men, for i a m convinced that legalism it is which is the way that leads to death , (Proverbs 14:12) this was the very reason God gave the Law in the first place. And of course there is still the price of corruption to be paid. Is it to be said that no greater love had a man, or woman, for his nation that he gave his life to the political process that he be corrupted by it all while holding back great evil?
As the saying goes, damned if you do, damned if you don't. There is no solution whatsoever not when the solutions - liberal democracy - are falling apart before our very eyes
So what remains?
the classic gospel,
Repent and believe and be led by the Spirit
Saturday, 28 April 2018
PC Demands for Native Pronunciation
Political correctness in my home land is going to the extent of now demanding correct pronuncation of Maori - our indigenous people - place names. A voice artist hit local headlines just today for refusing to pronounce such names as Waimate "the white way" calling such racist. We say Why Mat ee. The Maori way is something i cannot produce here though I am , I believe competent enopugh to say it as they require, if I saw the point
So I wrote to our country's Maori language comission, an august body set up to oversee the development of Te Reo Maori - the Maori Language
Sirs,
well might i approve your support of the voice artist refusing to pronounce
the name waimate the white way as appeared on todays MSN news feed.
But i would encourage you to apply this fine principle consistently. If it
is low level racism to mispronounce Waimate or Hauraki it is surely by the same
principle racism to mispronounce Paris . It is Paree with the r slightly rolled.
Moscow is Mosk va – stress on the second syllable. Berlin is Bare Leen,
Nuremberg is Nourn berg – very very careful attention being paid to the umlaut,
which my computer cannot produce, over the u in the name. Rome is Roma. Warsaw
is Varshawa and don’t get me started on names really out of the European
comfort zone like the proper form of Jerusalem – Yaru Shalayim. And perhaps if
we were to listen to native Cockneys then London is Lunnin
Let us not confine ourselves to being Politically Correct over local Maori
place names, lest that be seen to be selectively racist in its own light. You
want a sacrifice of effort over Maori place names? then be prepared to make it
over other place names
Of course you see the irony here.
Demands to pronounce place names are in fact coerced speech; and coerced
speech is tyranny.
If you as native English speakers cannot master the correct pronunciation
of Paris etc you grasp my point. Not only that but you manifest it. Native
English speakers cannot get Maori place names either and your demand that they
do, being inconsistent, is mere petulant
You do not get a genuine sense of national identity by coercion and your
petulant demands will alienate many
By the way, lest you think me a racist, the common mispronunciation of
Maori as Mari bothers me. I like to say I have in fact met a Mari person. She
came from the autonomous republic of Mari El, one of the regions of Russia,
properly called Rossiya, some 300 miles east of Moskva. But then i have no
intention of forcing this on anyone
in celebration of my own European roots i beg the honour or remaining your
most obedient and humble servant
Stephen Meikle ( that would be Stefanos to you for the name is
Greek)
I do have some Maori ancestry but do you think i would rejoice in that when
you want to foist by force of law Maori culture on people. Consider it
Christchurch
28 04 2018
END EMAIL
These are of coure first world problems from people in enough luxury and wealth to now demand that their feelings be regarded as sacred by our viewing things sacred that they do. Of course they regard white culture with contempt and loathe christianity, but flatly refuse to see the racism in their own demands, for they define racism as only white hating - or only didsagreeing with, for to them that is hatred - black
These are of coure first world problems from people in enough luxury and wealth to now demand that their feelings be regarded as sacred by our viewing things sacred that they do. Of course they regard white culture with contempt and loathe christianity, but flatly refuse to see the racism in their own demands, for they define racism as only white hating - or only didsagreeing with, for to them that is hatred - black
I will some time soon, as the mood takes me, do a piece on why i am not politically correct
Sunday, 1 April 2018
How Do I Know that I Believe
I have always been given to philosophic rumination, so the question of what is belief, as opposed to knowledge, and how do I know I believe something, given the nature of the sin of unbelief, has worried me for a long time.
But it now occurs to me that I will know that I believe something when it becomes to my mind simply the way things are, almost - but perhaps only almost - something to be taken for granted as regards it s propositional truth.
I hold this to be the case with any belief, this, I submit, by being the nature of belief, for I am not considering the TRUTH of any belief in this instance. Just the nature of it.
But as regards true christian belief, a different matter, I agree, it will be something that I no longer have to pick at, worry about, be quick to defend, or even talk about very often. Unless it fills me with joy, of course.
It will be my life but not my obsession, no longer driven by the guilt ridden awareness of my own deep seated unbelief.
I contend that I see this in many preachers and even apologists. It is a waste of both time and effort for if they are to grow in Christ they will have to acknowledge the unbelief and thus their wasted efforts to reach honest belief and the peace that comes from it
Of course as regards spiritual things I get there by being convicted of the sins of my own resistance to the thing in question and then by His grace as my counsellor, one on one, to repent of them.
I have found this a process over time, for it is a quarrel between God and me which I must engage in and indeed go through lest I hide my sin and perish.
In this instance it is a particular idol that has ruled my life so strongly that prefer it to the love of the Father.
As I repent as led by the Spirit my thinking will be changed, as I now suspect is the nature of belief itself as I have described it above.
Intellectual assent to a proposition, what so many Christians call faith, is nothing of the sort. it is the bare beginning.
But the goal is to be transformed by the renewal of the mind
But it now occurs to me that I will know that I believe something when it becomes to my mind simply the way things are, almost - but perhaps only almost - something to be taken for granted as regards it s propositional truth.
I hold this to be the case with any belief, this, I submit, by being the nature of belief, for I am not considering the TRUTH of any belief in this instance. Just the nature of it.
But as regards true christian belief, a different matter, I agree, it will be something that I no longer have to pick at, worry about, be quick to defend, or even talk about very often. Unless it fills me with joy, of course.
It will be my life but not my obsession, no longer driven by the guilt ridden awareness of my own deep seated unbelief.
I contend that I see this in many preachers and even apologists. It is a waste of both time and effort for if they are to grow in Christ they will have to acknowledge the unbelief and thus their wasted efforts to reach honest belief and the peace that comes from it
Of course as regards spiritual things I get there by being convicted of the sins of my own resistance to the thing in question and then by His grace as my counsellor, one on one, to repent of them.
I have found this a process over time, for it is a quarrel between God and me which I must engage in and indeed go through lest I hide my sin and perish.
In this instance it is a particular idol that has ruled my life so strongly that prefer it to the love of the Father.
As I repent as led by the Spirit my thinking will be changed, as I now suspect is the nature of belief itself as I have described it above.
Intellectual assent to a proposition, what so many Christians call faith, is nothing of the sort. it is the bare beginning.
But the goal is to be transformed by the renewal of the mind
Saturday, 31 March 2018
The Most Hated Sin
There is an old dictum that the sin most hated by a preacher is the one he is most beset with
I know a preacher who is obsessed with homosexuality and atheism. Why would he be if he were not busily repressing these things in himself out of his own guilt and fear? He is also so afraid of the occult that he forces himself to bypass the daily horoscope he told me he sees in the daily newspaper. That is to say he takes such nonsense seriously, so is in fact some kind of occultist.
He is also very cruel,. a bully who thinks he has the right to terrorize people into conversion. He has said so while preaching in my own hearing. But he does not believe his cruelty is sin, so he does not hate it
The point is that if one hates a sin one does not have to practice that sin to be a sinner in that area. To repress it is to still be it.
How do I know these things to be true?
I have hated hypocrisy all my life. But I am a legalist.
Therefore I am a master hypocrite.
And I have hated cruelty all my life. But I nurse the most vicious vengeance fantasies against those who have wronged me. So I know myslf to have a very, very nasty cruel streak, to in fact be a cruel person. I am repressed, of course, and so a hypocrite, for that is what repression is, and I have been doing it for over 50 years now.
However I am terrified but have no regard for what is called courage, it being a species of legalist hypocrisy. So cowardice does not really bother me.
It might be retorted that scripture requires hatred of sin. I fully agree. So it does. But carnal men cannot produce this. Our hatred of sin is not righteous, for our righteousness is filthy rags even as regrads our hatred of evil.
God is having mercy on me for these but he is not aiding and never has nor will aid my efforts in dealing with it.
But that is for another post
I know a preacher who is obsessed with homosexuality and atheism. Why would he be if he were not busily repressing these things in himself out of his own guilt and fear? He is also so afraid of the occult that he forces himself to bypass the daily horoscope he told me he sees in the daily newspaper. That is to say he takes such nonsense seriously, so is in fact some kind of occultist.
He is also very cruel,. a bully who thinks he has the right to terrorize people into conversion. He has said so while preaching in my own hearing. But he does not believe his cruelty is sin, so he does not hate it
The point is that if one hates a sin one does not have to practice that sin to be a sinner in that area. To repress it is to still be it.
How do I know these things to be true?
I have hated hypocrisy all my life. But I am a legalist.
Therefore I am a master hypocrite.
And I have hated cruelty all my life. But I nurse the most vicious vengeance fantasies against those who have wronged me. So I know myslf to have a very, very nasty cruel streak, to in fact be a cruel person. I am repressed, of course, and so a hypocrite, for that is what repression is, and I have been doing it for over 50 years now.
However I am terrified but have no regard for what is called courage, it being a species of legalist hypocrisy. So cowardice does not really bother me.
It might be retorted that scripture requires hatred of sin. I fully agree. So it does. But carnal men cannot produce this. Our hatred of sin is not righteous, for our righteousness is filthy rags even as regrads our hatred of evil.
God is having mercy on me for these but he is not aiding and never has nor will aid my efforts in dealing with it.
But that is for another post
Brevity the Soul of Wit
Years ago I knew my subject, or thought i did, sufficiently that i could talk for hours on it.
Now it is my hope or at least my prayer and aspiration that I understand my subject sufficiently well that I only need talk for minutes
I came to this conclusion after seeing a video of a world famous apologist answering a question during a Q&A period . I thought of that famous quote to Mozart by the Hapsburg Emperor Joseph II, one of the few things the movie Amadeus actually got right.
His Imperial and Apostolic Majesty said to Mozart, "very good, sir but far too many notes."
I would say to this apologist if firstly I could contact him and secondly if I thought he would heed it
"very good sir, but far too many words."
Brevity is still the soul of wit and many words mask incomprehension of the sdubject all too often, or mask the arrogance of loquacity
Now it is my hope or at least my prayer and aspiration that I understand my subject sufficiently well that I only need talk for minutes
I came to this conclusion after seeing a video of a world famous apologist answering a question during a Q&A period . I thought of that famous quote to Mozart by the Hapsburg Emperor Joseph II, one of the few things the movie Amadeus actually got right.
His Imperial and Apostolic Majesty said to Mozart, "very good, sir but far too many notes."
I would say to this apologist if firstly I could contact him and secondly if I thought he would heed it
"very good sir, but far too many words."
Brevity is still the soul of wit and many words mask incomprehension of the sdubject all too often, or mask the arrogance of loquacity
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