Two Tracks, One Choice

The person who attempts to live life with one foot on the world's rail and the other on the rail of Christ eventually discovers how divergent these two tracks are, for there comes the moment when he must choose: life with Christ or death with the world.

Time

TIME is more precious than gold, so spend it wisely, and invest for the long haul.

Random Thoughts

Aspirations are the source of much success, but expectations are the source of much disappointment

profiling (ˈprəʊˌfaɪlɪŋ)
— n
the practice of categorizing people and predicting their behaviour according to particular characteristics such as race or age: racial profiling

OK, let me get this straight: Frail old pasty white people and young children must submit to being touched on every part of their body by complete strangers because terrorists from Islamic nations would like to kill us. But 'we' must pretend to be blind to any physical clues and instead do random searches rather than targeted ones, because to do otherwise is to commit the awful act of, say it with me, profiling.

So explain to me how in the hell affirmative action ever got passed?

What is Truth?

“What is truth?”. Pontius Pilate, Roman governor of Jerusalem in the first century AD, asked this question as he stared into the face of a prisoner brought before him on charges of sedition against the ruling religious leaders of his day. And while Pilate failed to grasp the truth, at the very least, he asked the question.

In today’s post-modern world the situation is much bleaker, particularly In the Western world, where we seem to make little inquiry as to what the truth of a matter is, any matter. Truth does not matter. Truth is relative and has become a commodity leveraged for its political or economic sway. Truth exists to whatever degree we manage to make it, market it and influence with it. Relativism has become so entrenched in the DNA of Western society that it is easy to believe that there is no such thing as truth in the absolute sense of the word; there's only 'your truth' and 'my truth' and 'their truth'.

But the ramifications of such reckless handling of so seeming a passive entity as truth are far reaching. Humans know that to craft a lie is to aim for deceiving someone, with a desired end result in view. Meanwhile, the truth, more often than not, sits mutely on the sidelines, awaiting discovery, always ready to be revealed, but rarely, if ever, the subject of the grandiose production that goes into the manufacture of the lie.

In 2007 the Kansas state school board was involved in a shooting match vis-à-vis the state’s science standards. During the debate Kansas became fruitful fodder for late night television hosts and scientific opinion journals alike. The world lined up courtside to denigrate or congratulate the wheat state, depending upon their personal worldview.

But the missing link in this debate would seem to be none other than Pilate's query, ‘What is the truth?’ Because in the end this debate was not about seeking and discovering the truth, but about promoting agendas and worldviews.

The science standards implemented in 2007 are a move away from broader inquiry and toward the narrower view of naturalism. Naturalism, commonly known as materialism, is a worldview in which everything can be explained in terms of natural causes. Physical matter, i.e. the atomic world, is presumed to be the only reality, so everything can in fact be explained in terms of matter and physical phenomena. By definition, Naturalism excludes any supernatural agent. It is not a stretch to say that naturalism is atheism, and the natural moral climate in the absence of God is moral relativism.

What is truth? The question is deep, and deserves much thought and reflection, and I will leave that part to you. But it is fair to state that those who genuinely seek The Truth have always fought uphill battles, have always encountered resistance. Because if someone is in the position of seeking the truth, than they are seeking something that is thought to be unknown at present, meaning they do not accept the prevailing wisdom or professional edict regarding the matter in question. Otherwise, why would they be seeking it? It would be plain as day and a known quantity. Galileo and Copernicus studied the heavens and arrived at a conclusion that rocked humanity’s belief about where the Earth sat relative to the sun and the remaining planets (hint: we are NOT the center of the universe), ending the 1000 year supremacy of the Ptolemaic premise that the Earth sits at the center of the solar system.

Newton pondered the fall of apples from a tree, and eventually uncovered the truth of one of the four fundamental forces of the universe, gravity. Yet today no one has seen gravity, held or smelled or heard gravity, let alone touched gravity, but no one denies it exists. Why? Because we see its effects all around us. Newtonian gravity is reliable and predictable… at least until we enter the world of quantum mechanics.

Van Leeuwenhoek refined the microscope of his day and discovered a world that had previously been invisible to humans. The twentieth century saw the invention of the electron microscope, enabling scientists to magnify objects otherwise invisible up to 2 million times, and alas, another previously unknown world was unveiled, a world where life's simplest manifestation, the single-celled microorganism, is found to be comprised of exceedingly complex molecular factories possessed of exquisite molecular-sized machinery.

The truth is always present, but it is not always detectable. And if the public education system teaches ‘truths’ that turn out not to be true at all, can such a belief system be undone spontaneously? Naturalism and evolutionary theory take on a worldview-shaping function, namely that there is no God; and worldviews shape values, and values shape people and their actions which in turn shape a society. What is reaped originates from what is sown.

If public policy is to be sculpted so as to forever eliminate anything that echoes even faintly of Judeo-Christian teachings, here are some further topics the school board may be forced to consider for removal: Love. Honesty. Honor. Kindness. Gentleness. Self control. Peace. Respect. Wisdom. Integrity. All of these concepts are taught extensively in the bible, from its beginning to its end. And all are taught as being traits of the God of the cosmos, traits which have been conveyed to humans as standards of behavior, rules for living, just as the atomic world is subjected to the laws of nature.

The bible instructs that murder is wrong, lying is wrong, abusive language is wrong, bigotry and prejudice are wrong, rape is wrong, battery is wrong, neglect is wrong. And yet, where there is a wrong, by definition must there not be a right, a quality that exists in opposition to these wrongs? But this quest is summarily absent from public discourse and education, precisely because it deviates from the underpinnings of scientific naturalism and its inherent atheism. Are we skewing the quest for knowledge away from the truth in our eagerness to presume against the existence of God? Why would anyone do that?

It is safe to say that as a society we covet the fruit of the bible, namely the decency and uprightness it prescribes, but we are loathe to attribute such traits to anything outside of the material world. Are we really so dull of mind that we never ponder what might lie beyond this veil of atoms which we have declared to be the sum of all reality? Who are the power brokers that have taken it upon themselves to dictate via the public education system that God is dead and the one who seeks Him is on a fool's errand? Who are you?

Lords of Deception

"Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them." Romans 1:28-32

I read this in my quiet time this morning. In a pretty unspiritual change of focus, my immediate thoughts went to politics, as in of the American variety, but also politics as a collective manifestation of the heart of man.
I dwell on politics too much. I don't deny it. My predilection, however, may be defensible, because politics in every nation on the planet is only minimally about taking up the torch of righteousness and justice for the governed, and is far more a malignant enterprise aimed at gobbling up power rightfully belonging to the people. Politics is just another manifestation of the lust for power inherent in the darker regions of the human heart. Check out J.R.R Tolkien;s Lord of the Rings Trilogy, and if you aren't up for slogging your way through the novels, the movies deliver stunning depiction of the complicated landscape that resides in the inner man.

America's political stage is overflowing with a cast of characters manifesting unashamedly the lust for power that Tolkien revealed. And make no mistake... power does not stand alone as a harmless choice that some make while others feign disinterest. Power does not exist in the absence of the powerless. To possess power in the sense we are discussing, the possessor must have an entity over which to lord this dominion. Without subjects, power cannot be precipitated. Power is very much like love, which exists only given the existence of a person or object to love, because that person or object precipitates the potential for love that resides in the human heart. Power is a verb, just as love is a verb. But whereas love seeks the good of the loved at the expense of self, power seeks the good of self at the expense of the other.

Power concentrated in the hands of a select few hundred people is not so very different from the power concentrated historically in the hands of the singular kings and dictators that have inhabited the world's stage over the centuries. It is still a concentration of power, and will lead to tyranny. Power must be distributed across the individuals making up the governed, or they will become the ruled.

And even knowing this, we in America speak soothingly to ourselves and say over and over, 'We live in a democracy (which isn't true at all). This is the will of the people at work.' And as we coo ourselves back into our disengaged stupor, the forces of darkness continue unabated, in fact, often to the applause and accolades of mindless television talk shows whose main duty seems to be to parrot back to the people a positive rationale for the theft of power being executed on the main stage. And well, golly shucks darn, if a Hollywood star or starlet embraces the power grab, its gotta be a good thing.... right?

So as a Christian, and to my Christian friends, I ask: what is expected of us, as Believers living in a fallen world destined for destruction? I know that God is the author of liberty, as he demonstrates by imparting and preserving free will in man. And again by His decree that Christ's sacrifice serve as atonement for our unrighteous state, thereby liberating us from the certainty of eternity in hell. And as the author of liberty, God surely does not wish to see his creation subjugated to the will of a handful of Utopian-eyed Statists whose only use for God is in the public square as a means to instituting Social Justice via a Social Gospel... does He? Such changes are not real if they do not flow from a changed heart, they are only symptomatic of a dogma turned policy turned coercive.

And why is it suddenly OK for politicians to coax through their agendas on the wings of 'What would Jesus do?', anyway? I thought we had to keep religion and politics segregated, lest the citizenry hear something that offends them unto the point of incomprehensible agony?
Like so many pawns are we, being drawn across a mammoth board following first this soothing promise and then that one, yielding up our inalienable rights to the seductive tune of the charmer who has neither the authority nor the capacity to deliver on these empty promises.

" 'Because they lead my people astray, saying, "Peace," when there is no peace, and because, when a flimsy wall is built, they cover it with whitewash, therefore tell those who cover it with whitewash that it is going to fall. Rain will come in torrents, and I will send hailstones hurtling down, and violent winds will burst forth. 12 When the wall collapses, will people not ask you, "Where is the whitewash you covered it with?" (Ezekiel 13:10-12)

"What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun." (Ecclesiastes 1:9)


Its your move.

Our Laughable Congress

Comedy Central's Stephen Colbert will testify at a Congressional hearing on immigration.

And still some people say there is no disconnect between Congress and the People? We are SO being herded by the media as to what message(s) we will hear. I wish the dome of the Capitol building could be inverted into a giant plunger and just purge every last representative from the congress and start over with farmers, plumbers, doctors, business people, but not one single lawyer or professor! Real life, and real life problems, requires real life experience, NOT the visions of intellectuals being imposed on the people via top=down policy making that ultimately disrupts the vital, natural interactions of we the people on the ground.

Constitution

The way I see it, the Founders constructed the Constitution of the United States as a means of putting a leash on government, and a hedge of protection around the individual liberties that are given to us by God. And I think I am not alone in this view. But a foundational element for the success of this arrangement was left unspoken, unwritten in any formal treatise regarding the fledgling government they were about to birth: just as the powers of government are tethered to a stake driven into the bedrock of the Constitution, so must the heart of the individual be tethered to God. If the people desire self-rule, they must endeavor to be the gate keepers of their own heart and to constrain the darkness that dwells therein. There is no action taken, no word spoken, that is not conceived first in the heart.

As Government has eliminated God from the public discourse, and dotingly shielded students from the dangers associated with even a cursory assent to the existence of God, it has cleverly created the need to expand its own powers. A government such as ours that develops a lust for power must necessarily push the citizenry toward an unfettered and equally lusty heart that cherishes and covets a selfish, unrestrained freedom over and above the nebulous energy force that maintains order in the human world: principle.

The Judge and the Critic

While it is surely true that God is the ultimate judge, I think that human beings have donned the mantle of the ultimate critic.

With the pure and Holy God of the cosmos, it is possible to confess our failures and experience immediate restoration into relationship with Him. But humans are possessed of some strange need to publically scrutinize the shortcomings of others.

Is there some other Accounts Payable ledger of which they are arbiters?

Through Jesus, I can please God.
But man is never satisfied.

Life's a Verb

If you live with the expectation that life owes you something, your disappointments will only be compounded.

If you live each day as if it is the greatest Gift ever handed to you, your joy will be boundless.

"Living" is definitely a verb, and Life surely has an Author.

On Appeasement

Want to know how well disarmament and appeasement of one's adversaries works out?

Ask an American Indian.

What is an Economy?

Ernst Haeckel coined the term Ecology drawing on the Greek root eco, “Oikos” - a home or place to live, and "logos", being logic or knowledge. Ecology is the 'study of the house', or of the environment in which a creature lives. Since all life is energy-driven, ecology essentially maps energy flow through an ecosystem.

"Economy" stems from the same Greek word oikos (home) , and nomy derived from nomos, a law or principle. In economics, the "management of the household" is under scrutiny. Household management encompasses a lot of things, but chief among them is providing for the household's residents the basic elements of survival, namely food and shelter, both derived from energy.

Interestingly enough, in both an ecosystem and an economic system, the plant is the foundational element upon which everything will be built, since it is the plant that converts raw energy into usable forms. In an ecosystem, members of the plant kingdom convert the sun's energy into the chemical energy that fosters the development of the food web. The plant is the producer, and in order for life to exist, an ecosystem must first have a population of producers (and a convertible energy source).

In an economy, the plant that forms the underpinnings of the system is the manufacturing plant. This plant converts raw , unusable materials, such as minerals, fibers and crops, into products usable by man, the primary participant in the economic system. The manufacturing plant, through its conversion of raw materials, becomes the producer element in an economy. These manufactured products are distributed not through the familiar hunter/gatherer method of the natural world, but through mutual agreements using an exchange unit known as currency. This currency circulates through the economy just as energy circulates through the ecosystem.

Among the many differences between the energy flow of an ecosystem and the currency flow in an economic system, one stands out: consciousness.
In an ecosystem, there is no conscious oversight of how and where the energy will flow. It is purely Darwinian, since by definition, the survival of the fittest distills down to 'a klutz and his energy are soon parted'.
In an economy, however, the whole process is very much a conscious endeavor, with forethought, sound judgment and knowledge being demanded of its participants; else 'a fool and his money are soon parted.'

Businesses in their natural state are built upon the natural flow of currency generated by the needs and abilities of the individuals with whom a business must interact, known as consumers (some of which also serve as lenders) and producers. This information is signaled to the business segment through product demand, savings rates, and unadulterated interest rates.
To centralize an economy is to direct artificially where the currency will flow. Using the ecosystem as a model, we understand that artificially directing the flow of energy will have disruptive consequences at various levels within that ecosystem. Segments that are suddenly cut off from the energy flow will unravel into ruin, while others that are flooded with energy will experience population booms and/or habitat destruction. (In an economic system we call these 'bubbles').

But what happens to an economy when its currency is suddenly rerouted for political reasons, specifically designed to benefit select elements within the economic system? We see the demise of certain affected economic engines and a cascade of economic contractions in certain related veins of the economy on the one hand, and conversely the formation of 'bubbles' in other segments. (I prefer to think of these as aneurysms... a catastrophic hemorrhage waiting to happen.) And when legislation becomes egregious to the point of making manufacturing an impossible task, the conversion of raw materials into usable products eventually ceases, (or goes overseas) and with it, the currency and the economy it nourished.

Put on your tin foil Sci=Fi hat for a moment, and imagine the consequences of an entity that masterminded a way to control the amount of the sun's energy reaching planet Earth. You don't even have to think very long to figure out two things: 1) This won't end well for the inhabitants, and 2) There will be an attempt made to 'improve' something, either the planet's inhabitants (ignorant benevolence) or the well-being of the controller and his cronies. The siren call of power is simply irresistible to conscious beings.

Socialism is the centralization of the means of both the production and distribution of an economy. It is not based on the realities dictated by the participants in the economic system. It is based on the utopian fantasies of those who believe they can consolidate and control this colossal power derived from the genius and work of hundreds of millions of living, breathing human beings.

And Socialism can only lead to Communism, because such access to power must be further constricted to an elite echelon subjugated to a single ruling authority, precisely because power is a two-edged sword, and its dangers multiply at every degree of concentration within the hands of a few as opposed to when it is dispersed across the hundreds of millions of autonomous, thinking individuals inhabiting a geopolitical confine. Communism has always resulted in economic failure, large scale human suffering, and worse, by vast numbers of the population, precisely because it is based on the dreams and visions of 'the visionaries' (aka intellectuals) and NOT on the real dynamics of people living at the community level.

True free market Capitalism is absolutely dependent upon unencumbered signaling between individual producers and individual consumers. But with the Federal Reserve manufacturing imaginary currency ('energy') for Congress to inject into the economic system to effect their own political agendas and play out their ideologies and fantasies, the U.S. economy has never been the house of cards that it is today.
But then I'm guessing you already knew that.

What is Morality?

OK... here's something that has been bugging me for awhile, and some comments from an atheist have just prompted me to write this down. Question: What is morality? Merriam-Webster online defines it thus:

a : a doctrine or system of moral conduct
b: plural : particular moral principles or rules of conduct
3 : conformity to ideals of right human conduct
4 : moral conduct : virtue.

I don't know about you, but I hate definitions that rely on usage of the root of the word in question. So, here is the definition of moral:

a : of or relating to principles of right and wrong in behavior : ethical
b : expressing or teaching a conception of right behavior
c : conforming to a standard of right behavior
d : sanctioned by or operative on one's conscience or ethical judgment
e : capable of right and wrong action.

Great. How do we define 'right' actions versus 'wrong' actions? Again, I go to Merriam-Webster for some clarification on what is 'right':

1 : RIGHTEOUS, UPRIGHT
2 : being in accordance with what is just, good, or proper
3 : conforming to facts or truth : CORRECT
4 : SUITABLE, APPROPRIATE
5 : STRAIGHT
6 : GENUINE, REAL

I note that the first word mentioned by way of defining 'right' is again a form of the word in question! So here we go with 'righteous':

Righteous: 1. acting in accord with divine or moral law : free from guilt or sin
2 a : morally right or justifiable b : arising from an outraged sense of justice or morality

So let me see how this might all work: morality is moral conduct, and what is moral can be determined according to an ethical or right standard, a righteous principle.

So in essence, acting in accordance with what is just, good or proper, also known as being righteous, or practicing right behavior, is to act in accordance with divine or moral law, according to Merriam-Webster.

That last phrase interests me. Which is it? Is our society's definition of morality based on divine law, or upon moral law? And can there be a moral law apart from a divine statute? Because if morality traces its existence back to divine law, how can the very same legislators, judges and other politicians who insist, loudly and at times passionately, on a separation of church and state, turn right around and insist heisting money and property from one group of people to give to another group of people is justifiable on moral grounds? I mean, aren't they sort of crucifying their own sacred cow?

(And if it helps, divine is defined as: a : of, relating to, or proceeding directly from God or a god b : being a deity)