>Sleeping Through Logic 101

>Extraordinary Ad Hominem

One of the sites we check most days is the very helpful Climate Debate Daily. Run by the folk who set up Arts and Letters Daily, it provides a great resource to keep up with the debate over climate change, with a representation of both pro and con articles and protagonists.

Every so often the site comes up with a pearler. George Monbiot writes a blog for The Guardian. He is an ardent climate change protagonist and warrior. One of the things which has been apparent for a long time is the tendency for the climate change folk to resort to ad hominem when dealing with opponents. We are certain that the other side is not guiltless in this regard. The standard ad hominem accusation is to accuse climate change sceptics of being paid by “big oil” so that sceptics are portrayed as prostituting propagandists, meaning that their arguments can be dismissed.

Ad hominem is said to be the first resort of the lazy mind. If you cannot deal with your opponents arguments, deal to your opponent’s person (education, motives, class, interests, etc) and by implication his arguments are dismissed. Monbiot recently came up with an exemplary presentation of the ad hominem fallacy.
He launched a three-pronged ad hominem attack upon his opponents, whom he labels “Climate Change Deniers.” There are only three kinds of Climate Change Deniers apparently.

The first kind is the psychologically weak or venal denier. This is the person who thinks that the burdens and threats of climate change are just too great to bear, or dealing with it is too disruptive to his lifestyle. This group is to be pitied and sympathised with. Their denial is a psychological disorder, nor evidentially or rationally grounded.

The second kind of denier belongs to a group of predominantly men (that will get the feminists swinging in behind), who are in their sixties or above (somewhat ageist, George, don’t you think), who are “not paid for their stance” (the blanket ad hominem of big oil prostitutes is wearing thin), who have achieved “a little post-retirement celebrity through well-timed controversialism”. Apparently this second group of deniers are little more than aging gadflies with too much time on their hands, who seek faux celebrity status. Clearly they and their arguments are not to be taken seriously.

Have you ever come across such a wonderful example of ad hominem as the following:

Then there is a smaller group of people – almost all men, generally in their sixties or above – who are not paid for their stance, but who have achieved a little post-retirement celebrity through well-timed controversialism. It has kept David Bellamy in the news, long after his wonderful career on television sadly (and wrongly, in my view) ended. It has lent more recognition to people like Philip Stott and Tim Ball than anything they published during their academic careers. It attracts adoring fanmail (from people in category one) for journalists like Christopher Booker and Melanie Philips. It permits men like Lord Monckton to indulge their fantasies of single-handedly rescuing humanity from its own idiocy. Their intellectual acrobatics are as blatant as that of the people in the third category, but they appear to be driven by vanity, not cash.

OK. So the first kind of denier is psychologically disturbed. The second group is driven by vanity. The third group are the traditional prostitutes who are paid by oil companies to militate against the climate change thesis.

Therefore, QED. Case over. Next please.

The climate change protagonists are arguing that on the basis of their belief in a coming devastation of the planet, mankind ought voluntarily to consent to unprecedented pain, suffering, self-imposed poverty, disease, and global human abnegation to avoid the greater harm of a warming planet. Surely this is so serious, either way, that it deserves careful substantial considered debate. Surely, Monbiot–one of the leading public protagonists in the UK for the cause–can do better than childish ad hominem against his opponents. It is not even advocacy. It is cheap misdirection and deception. If this is the best a leading public advocate can manage the climate change cause is in deep, deep trouble.

>Meditation on the Text of the Week

>Signs of the Times

Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one! And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul and with all your might.
Deuteronomy 6: 4, 5

What ought to be the outstanding characteristic of the Christian and the Christian community? The answer depends to an extent on who is asking. If it is the Unbelievers in Athens who are asking, they will have all sorts of weird notions and expectations of what Christians and their communities ought to be like. Most of these notions reflect their own self-love and idolatry. “Christians,” they would solemnly tell us, “ought not to be judgmental. They should defend a woman’s right to abort.”

If it is the Word of God which is interrogating us, the answer is plainly presented in our text. It is the last answer that Athens would ever have given. The chief characteristic of our communal and familial and individual existence must be our all-consuming love of God. It is to be the love of our whole heart, our entire soul, and all our strength.

This text became the Shema in Israel—the great and central confession of faith. In this wonderful and sacred tradition we stand. Nothing has changed with the coming of the New Covenant. Our Lord glossed this text to declare that this command was the greatest commandment of all. (Matthew 22: 37)

The all-consuming love of God. It includes our fear of God; our deep respect of God; our awe, our reverence, our service of God; our joy, boasting, faith, and hope in God; it includes our worship, praise, and adoration of our God and Father. It leads us to obey God and keep His commandments.

Our love of God is framed by two historical realities. The first is creation. The Almighty spoke and out of nothing, the heavens, earth, and man were made. The entirety of our being and existence is due to Him; therefore, it is only right that we love, honour, serve and obey Him with all our being.

The second historical reality is redemption. The grotesque sin of human kind in not loving God as we ought, and loving the creature more than the Creator, was not the end of the matter. To this wretched mistake, the Lord added His wonderful redemption. He took us out of slavery, and brought us to a wide open place where the glory of the original creation will not just be restored, but consummated.

Thus, the command to love the Lord our God with all our beings is given to Israel as a loved, redeemed, and restored people. Israel is given these commandments so that they may keep them in the land which God was about to give them—even as He had promised their fathers, a land flowing with milk and honey. (Deuteronomy 6: 1—4) Their sin was to be, and ours has been, atoned and covered in the life and death of our Lord.

Now, our fathers could, and we can, love God freely without condemnation. Without the removal of the condemnation of our sins, we could never even begin to keep God’s commandments again. Our love would ever have been a servile and crass attempt to manipulate God Himself.

Because our love of God is to be all consuming, worship is as important as service. Setting apart the Sabbath is as important as the six days of labour. Prayer is as important as good works. Joy is as important as mourning. Fear and reverence is as important as laughter and exuberance. Feasting is as important as self-denial.

About these things Athens knows nothing. It can only look from afar. But it can only look askance, with a niggardly glance. Nevertheless our joyous and reverent love of God is to he the hall mark of our lives and Christian community.

Of course it lead inextricably to the second great commandment: that we should love our neighbour as ourselves. This second great commandment (which sums up the fifth to the tenth commandments) is an outworking of the first and greatest commandment to love God with all our being. By this we testify before the watching world that we belong to God and are disciples of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Regardless of what spurious notions and expectations Unbelievers might have of Christians and the covenant community, we, the redeemed of the Lord know what we are about. In a word–we are about Him.

>An Aftermath of the Columbine Massacre

>Congress Did Not Expect This

We have heard recently of the spate of family murder/suicides, mass shootings, and other crimes with guns in the United States. This has led to renewed calls for gun controls. The ideology of the “ban” is alive and well.

A Congressional House Judiciary Sub-Committee has been conducting hearings on this matter and at a recent sitting heard from the father of one of the victims of the Columbine Massacre, Rachel Scott. Her father, Darrel Scott gave the following unexpected, profound, insightful testimony. Needless to say, it was apparently not well received nor appreciated.

Since the dawn of creation there has been both good & evil in the hearts of men and women. We all contain the seeds of kindness or the seeds of violence. The death of my wonderful daughter, Rachel Joy Scott, and the deaths of that heroic teacher, and the other eleven children who died must not be in vain. Their blood cries out for answers.

The first recorded act of violence was when Cain slew his brother Abel out in the field. The villain was not the club he used.. Neither was it the NCA, the National Club Association. The true killer was Cain, and the reason for the murder could only be found in Cain’s heart.

In the days that followed the Columbine tragedy, I was amazed at how quickly fingers began to be pointed at groups such as the NRA. I am not a member of the NRA. I am not a hunter. I do not even own a gun. I am not here to represent or defend the NRA – because I don’t believe that they are responsible for my daughter’s death. Therefore I do not believe that they need to be defended. If I believed they had anything to do with Rachel’s murder I would be their strongest opponent.

I am here today to declare that Columbine was not just a tragedy — it was a spiritual event that should be forcing us to look at where the real blame lies! Much of the blame lies here in this room. Much of the blame lies behind the pointing fingers of the accusers themselves. I wrote a poem just four nights ago that expresses my feelings best.

Your laws ignore our deepest needs,
Your words are empty air.
You’ve stripped away our heritage,
You’ve outlawed simple prayer.
Now gunshots fill our classrooms,
And precious children die.
You seek for answers everywhere,
And ask the question “Why?”
You regulate restrictive laws,
Through legislative creed.
And yet you fail to understand,
That God is what we need!

Men and women are three-part beings. We all consist of body, mind, and spirit. When we refuse to acknowledge a third part of our make-up, we create a void that allows evil, prejudice, and hatred to rush in and wreak havoc. Spiritual presences were present within our educational systems for most of our nation’s history. Many of our major colleges began as theological seminaries. This is a historical fact.

What has happened to us as a nation? We have refused to honor God, and in so doing, we open the doors to hatred and violence. And when something as terrible as Columbine’s tragedy occurs — politicians immediately look for a scapegoat such as the NRA. They immediately seek to pass more restrictive laws that contribute to erode away our personal and private liberties. We do not need more restrictive laws. Eric and Dylan would not have been stopped by metal detectors. No amount of gun laws can stop someone who spends months planning this type of massacre. The real villain lies within our own hearts..

As my son Craig lay under that table in the school library and saw his two friends murdered before his very eyes, he did not hesitate to pray in school. I defy any law or politician to deny him that right! I challenge every young person in America, and around the world, to realize that on April 20, 1999, at Columbine High School prayer was brought back to our schools. Do not let the many prayers offered by those students be in vain.

Dare to move into the new millennium with a sacred disregard for legislation that violates your God-given right to communicate with Him. To those of you who would point your finger at the NRA — I give to you a sincere challenge.. Dare to examine your own heart before casting the first stone!

My daughter’s death will not be in vain! The young people of this country will not allow that to happen!”

Hat Tim: The Patriotic Resistance

>It’s Official

>Things Are Getting Cold Up Here, Mum

Well, the official data is now out. The US has been very cold when measured against historical averages for the past year.

We reproduce below the official graphic:

What this shows is that for the past year most the the continental United States recorded temperatures below normal, and a significant number of states recording “Much Below Normal”. There was only one small area which recorded “Much Above Normal”.

So, as card carrying global warming protagonists, we now have to explain away–err, interpret this data. Here goes:

“The cold year is only weather, not climate.”
“It’s all consistent with the models.”
“The data is skewed. Temperature reading stations have been placed in particularly cold locations, giving an artificially low temperature result.”
“Underlying warming continues to taking place, like an invisible cancer growing in the body; it’s just not showing up yet.”
“When the warming trend resumes, it’s going to be far worse than ever before.”
“We should take this hiatus of cooler temperatures to make real progress in climate policy–we may not get another chance.”
“One swallow does not a summer make.”
“The climate is complex.”
“Pseudo sceptics use data selectively.”
“The National Climate Data Center is funded by Big Oil.”

One is reminded of Lord Keynes acerbic retort: “I change my opinions in the light of the facts. What do you do, sir?” Well, actually, we know that this was a cheap shot. Humans, being limited and finite creatures, always pre-interpret data according to their prevailing paradigms and assumptions. They always reason in an ultimately circular fashion. That is what it means to be a creature, after all.

But it is entertaining to watch the ideologues and zealots for anthropogenic global warming duck, and weave, and dive. They can out-Marshall Benji at his best.

Meanwhile, there are some far more cosmic events taking place. No living scientist has seen the sun this quiescent and inactive. Recall that there is a long long data set showing a high correlation between an inactive sun and cooler earth temperatures. The scientific community is not sure why this would be the case, although various theories have been offered. A recent articles in The Independent profiles this issue:

The missing sunspots: Is this the big chill?

Scientists are baffled by what they’re seeing on the Sun’s surface – nothing at all. And this lack of activity could have a major impact on global warming. David Whitehouse investigates

Could the Sun play a greater role in recent climate change than has been believed? Climatologists had dismissed the idea and some solar scientists have been reticent about it because of its connections with those who those who deny climate change. But now the speculation has grown louder because of what is happening to our Sun. No living scientist has seen it behave this way. There are no sunspots.

The disappearance of sunspots happens every few years, but this time it’s gone on far longer than anyone expected – and there is no sign of the Sun waking up. “This is the lowest we’ve ever seen. We thought we’d be out of it by now, but we’re not,” says Marc Hairston of the University of Texas. And it’s not just the sunspots that are causing concern. There is also the so-called solar wind – streams of particles the Sun pours out – that is at its weakest since records began. In addition, the Sun’s magnetic axis is tilted to an unusual degree. “This is the quietest Sun we’ve seen in almost a century,” says NASA solar scientist David Hathaway. But this is not just a scientific curiosity. It could affect everyone on Earth and force what for many is the unthinkable: a reappraisal of the science behind recent global warming.

Our Sun is the primary force of the Earth’s climate system, driving atmospheric and oceanic circulation patterns. It lies behind every aspect of the Earth’s climate and is, of course, a key component of the greenhouse effect. But there is another factor to be considered. When the Sun has gone quiet like this before, it coincided with the earth cooling slightly and there is speculation that a similar thing could happen now. If so, it could alter all our predictions of climate change, and show that our understanding of climate change might not be anywhere near as good as we thought.

Sunspots are dark, cooler patches on the Sun’s surface that come and go in a roughly 11-year cycle, first noticed in 1843. They have gone away before. They were absent in the 17th century – a period called the “Maunder Minimum” after the scientist who spotted it. Crucially, it has been observed that the periods when the Sun’s activity is high and low are related to warm and cool climatic periods. The weak Sun in the 17th century coincided with the so-called Little Ice Age. The Sun took a dip between 1790 and 1830 and the earth also cooled a little. It was weak during the cold Iron Age, and active during the warm Bronze Age. Recent research suggests that in the past 12,000 years there have been 27 grand minima and 19 grand maxima.

Throughout the 20th century the Sun was unusually active, peaking in the 1950s and the late 1980s. Dean Pensell of NASA, says that, “since the Space Age began in the 1950s, solar activity has been generally high. Five of the ten most intense solar cycles on record have occurred in the last 50 years.” The Sun became increasingly active at the same time that the Earth warmed. But according to the scientific consensus, the Sun has had only a minor recent effect on climate change.

Many scientists believe that the Sun was the major player on the Earth’s climate until the past few decades, when the greenhouse effect from increasing levels of carbon dioxide overwhelmed it.

Computer models suggest that of the 0.5C increase in global average temperatures over the past 30 years, only 10-20 per cent of the temperature variations observed were down to the Sun, although some said it was 50 per cent.

But around the turn of the century things started to change. Within a few years of the Sun’s activity starting to decline, the rise in the Earth’s temperature began to slow and has now been constant since the turn of the century. This was at the same time that the levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide carried on rising. So, is the Sun’s quietness responsible for the tail-off in global warming and if not, what is?

There are some clues as to what’s going on. Although at solar maxima there are more sunspots on the Sun’s surface, their dimming effect is more than offset by the appearance of bright patches on the Sun’s disc called faculae – Italian for “little torches”. Overall, during an 11-year solar cycle the Sun’s output changes by only 0.1 per cent, an amount considered by many to be too small a variation to change much on earth. But there is another way of looking it. While this 0.1 per cent variation is small as a percentage, in terms of absolute energy levels it is enormous, amounting to a highly significant 1.3 Watts of energy per square metre at the Earth. This means that during the solar cycle’s rising phase from solar minima to maxima, the Sun’s increasing brightness has the same climate-forcing effect as that from increasing atmospheric greenhouse gasses. There is recent research suggesting that solar variability can have a very strong regional climatic influence on Earth – in fact stronger than any man-made greenhouse effect across vast swathes of the Earth. And that could rewrite the rules.

No one knows what will happen or how it will effect our understanding of climate change on Earth. If the Earth cools under a quiet Sun, then it may be an indication that the increase in the Sun’s activity since the Little Ice Age has been the dominant factor in global temperature rises. That would also mean that we have overestimated the sensitivity of the Earth’s atmosphere to an increase of carbon dioxide from the pre-industrial three parts per 10,000 by volume to today’s four parts per 10,000. Or the sun could compete with global warming, holding it back for a while. For now, all scientists can do, along with the rest of us, is to watch and wait.

Dr David Whitehouse is author of ‘The Sun: A Biography’ (John Wiley)

>Is that Writing on the Wall Graffiti or Something More Sinister?

>All Hail the Bureaucratic Plan

Several days ago the blog, MacDoctor drew our attention to a recent decision by public health officials to ban childhood education centres from being close to “dangerous” industrial sites. When reading it, the instinctive response is, How could the government and its bureaucratic agents be so stupid? We reproduce part of the MacDoctor post below. Be ready to shake your head in disbelief. How could it have come to this, you may ask?

Parents face tough choices over their children’s education after health authorities declared large parts of Auckland unsafe for early childcare centres because of pollution.

Concerns about health risks for young children mean new centres are unlikely to get medical approval to open within newly created “buffer zones”.
Existing centres may come under pressure to move if they fall within the zones.

. . . . The dangers of pollution on small children’s lungs is (sic) well-known. This is not about any new danger, just about a rather stupid policy that supposedly will reduce this danger.

This is a fine example of the perils of making public health policy without properly looking at the entire picture. Public health officials has (sic) decided on arbitrary “no-go” zones for early childhood care centres. They are not within (sic) 300m of an industrial zone, 150m of a motorway or truck route, 100m of a petrol station and 60m of a main district road. The astute will immediately realise three things:

1. These areas comprise a large chunk of most cities.

2. These areas are where low-income people tend to live because they are cheaper

3. Childcare centres will inevitably cost more to build if they are located outside of these areas.

The net result of these policies will be to increase the costs of childcare centres and place them in areas where low-income parents will have to travel long distances to use them. Moreover, the actual health gains for the children will be small. The air at 100m from a main road is only marginally better than the air at 50m. Does anybody really think that being 400m from an industrial area will be any better than 200m? What if the industrial area is mostly warehousing with little or no pollution? Arbitrary zones (as opposed to an actual air quality check) are a stupid way to attempt to deal with this issue.

But the real silliness is demonstrated at the end of the article. As Sarah Farquhar of the Early Childhood Council points out:

Why early childhood centres and not homes where children are spending much longer?

“Why not schools, churches, shops? If it’s as damaging as the service is saying, then nobody should be given consent to build houses in these areas, and motorways shouldn’t be allowed to be built near houses.

“Will it mean now that homeowners will be able to seek compensation for the fact that building consents were given for houses so close to the motorway?”

Exactly. Lots of traveling and dozens of childcare centres out of business – for five hours a day of slightly cleaner air.

This excerpt shows us that the Bureaucratic Plan for our nation is alive and well—and growing, mutating, assimilating in leaps and bounds. The Borg is here. The present government has done little to reverse this affliction. Our expectation is that it will not. The Bureaucratic Plan has a life of its own. It is self-sustaining. The Bureaucratic Plan increasingly masters the government, not the reverse.

Let us be clear. The present Government has proclivities toward the centre-right. They see themselves as basically decent chaps and chapesses who pride themselves on applying pragmatic common sense to government and the law. They are opposed in principle to the excesses of state welfare, socialism, and the extremes of left-wing social planning. On exactly what principles they ground their opposition is less clear. It’s a bit of this and a bit of that. But they are all bound together with by a common, deeply held belief. They all want to employ and deploy the powers of government to “make thing better”. And in this they are no different from their political opponents. In this they are all dyed-in-the-wool Athenians.

They, along with just about every Unbeliever in our country, would affirm that the fundamental role of the State is to reduce social problems of whatever sort (drug taking, crime, drunkenness, road accidents, family violence, poverty, disease, unemployment etc. etc.) and improve the lot of everyone (higher living standards, education, justice, wellness, happiness, success, etc. etc.) We suggest that if you asked all politicians, every current government minister, and virtually every New Zealand citizen whether they believed it was the fundamental business of the State to improve things for its citizens, the overwhelming response would be in the affirmative. Political disputes and arguments between right and left, therefore, are merely over tactics—which is to say, they are debates over relatively minor matters.

This social consensus has not come about by accident. The Bureaucratic Borg has assimilated almost everyone; resistance is futile. It is a deeply religious position. It is completely consistent with the tenets of Unbelief. Because all mankind lives in a Fallen world, death and a whole host of other imperfections exist. Problems, shortfalls, mistakes, errors, and suffering, are intrinsic to the human condition. But Unbelief insists that this ought not to be. This is fundamental to the Unbelieving mind. Things can and should get better. Nature evolves; never devolves. (Have you ever stopped to think how pervasive and fantastical this assumption is. Intrinsically, impersonal matter constantly improves. Devolution is impossible, because–errrr, we believe so, hope so, wish so. Universal intellectual and spiritual myopia on a grand scale.)

Man, the rationalistic, intelligent being can turbo-charge this improvement process–working congruently with impersonal upwardly evolving matter–to make things right. A fundamental tenet in modern Western Unbelief is that since Man can makes things right, he has a duty so to do. In Unbelief the messiah and redeemer is Man himself. In this sense, every Unbeliever is a fundamentalist.

But, in order to improve things, Man has to have resources and capital—both monetary and human. In Unbelief, the State is the nexus of power. It has access to practically unlimited resources and capital; it can garner them and command them by law—which is to say, by force. Therefore, the second fundamentalist position of modern Unbelief is that the government is the delegated agent of redemption, improvement, and perfection. The State is Man corporately personified, if you will. The government is the prime problem solver. The government exists to make things better. These things are part of the undoubted non-Christian faith. But an idolatry it is and ever will remain. The Living God is a jealous God, and will not tolerate any idol whatsoever in His presence.

But how can the government make things better? It must have a plan and a programme. Resources need to be gathered (taxes), policies needs to be promulgated (legislation and regulations), and then the policies and regulations need to be carried out (bureaucratic agencies of government develop implementation plans, programmes, policies, rules, regulations, reporting, information gathering, and compliance regimes.) Within a very short space of time the bureaucratic agencies of government develop an individual life of their own. The bureaucratic plan to improve things (in whatever area—and they are legion) becomes the powerful tail wagging the government dog. Rapidly the State and the burueacracy converge into one. Politics becomes a side show.

Why do bureaucracies inevitably end up controlling governments? Firstly, the Law of Unintended Consequences mean that every attempt by government to break out of its God-given sphere of competence and “improve things” creates manifold additional problems, which require further rules, regulations and bureaucratic plans to solve. The bureaucracy becomes self-propagating as it moves incessantly to solve additional downstream problems which it has created in the first place or exacerbated by its meddling.

Second, governments do not exist in a vacuum. They receive advice and briefing papers and “information flows” from bureaucrats. Therefore, the context in which government decisions are made is dominated by the bureaucratic mind and shaped by the agendas and realities of national life as the Bureaucratic Plan has created them to be.

Thirdly, once the Bureaucratic Plan becomes multi-form, multi-level, and multi-complex, addressing problems of second, third, and fourth tier which the Plan itself created in the first place, dismantling the Plan becomes a truly revolutionary act. It becomes painful. It results in problems. It makes things worse for many, many people. It is akin to an addict coming off a drug. Withdrawal can be a difficult and painful business. The pain of coming off is greater than the pain of continuing.

The seduction of having a duty to make things better, not worse is powerful to the Unbelieving mind. It is easier to promulgate one more programme, one more policy tweak, one more funding boost. It plays to the fundamentalist beliefs of the non-Christian that Man can make things better. The opposite is impossible for the Unbeliever to contemplate. It is blasphemous. It attacks the very fundament of the modern secular humanist’s self-concept.

Let us trace just one example. Compulsory education is one Unbelieving response to improve the lot of mankind. It requires that all children will be treated in fundamentally the same way, and that all schools will operate at (or above) certain minimal levels. But the State is neither a true messiah nor a true redeemer. It cannot achieve these naively utopian goals. Inevitably a proportion of children are disengaged from school from an early age. They operate below the minimum level required by the Plan. Resentment, boredom, and frustration mount as their compulsory years of service within the state educational reformatory continue. Truancy levels rise. Drugs, drunkenness, and vandalism increase. The result? More programmes, more reporting, more bureaucratic plans, more staff, more courses, more remedial attempts, more government spending, more research, more pilot programmes. And so the cycle continues.

But the next generation of children are sons and daughters of already disfunctional parents: therefore, their disaffection and disengagement occurs much earlier than their parents. It is also more extreme. These children likely come from broken homes; their parents are second or third generation welfare dependants; they don’t know who their biological fathers are; oftentimes their parents or successive caregivers are in prison. The solution? The government tries harder. It needs more programmes, more plans, more bureaucracy. On cue, the proportions and incidence of truancy, vandalism, disengagement rise still further. More programmes, more spending, more planning, more rules, more corrective regulations result. The reach of the Bureaucratic Plan becomes far greater than ever before. In order to “deal” with the problems, the Plan becomes more pervasive and far reaching, extending now into homes, families, pre-schools, and into every aspect of human life. Resistance is futile.

Eventually we get the to ridiculous kind of situation exposed by MacDoctor. Public health officials and other bureaucrats increasingly plan in greater and greater detail every aspect of peoples’ lives and endeavours, because the problems crop up everywhere, incessantly and inevitably. The result is that any government of the day dances to the tune of the Bureaucratic Plan, not the reverse. The all governing Plan is an inevitable outcome of Unbelief. If Man is the redeemer and saviour, the dead weight of government bureaucracy will end up crushing humanity. It is an inevitable corollary of secular humanism.

Some of the quantum leaps in bureaucratic planning and control in New Zealand have come from National governments: the Resource Management Act, the Occupational Safety and Health regime, the Children Youth and Family Services regime, to name but three. All were promulgated with the best of intents: to solve problems. We believe the present National Government will prove to be no exception. It will go on to extend the reach and orbit of the Plan much, much further. But the “right” will be strangely silent. Somehow it feels better when “we” are doing it. If the previous regime had done something similar, they would have been outraged.

We are not surprised. Both the political left and the right share the same fundamentalist views about life and being. In their pneumopathic world all agree that Man is the measure and master of all things. Therefore, governments exist to solve problems and make things better. In the end, political discourse in Athens retreats to debates over tactics. But as the Bureaucratic Plan comes to exercise more and more control over governments, tactical differences inevitably reduce. All that is left is ad-hominem debates. “We are better, nicer, smarter people than you ‘rich pricks’ or ‘socialists’ or whatever.” Politics devolves into a mere spectator sport to entertain the Colosseum crowd, while the Bureaucratic Plan assimulates everyone.

The Living God is not mocked. Sow to the wind and we will reap the whirlwind. If we will not thankfully acknowledge and accept His Son as the only Redeemer and Messiah of mankind, He will ensure that we will experience in time the consequential curse of all false alternatives. In the world of Western Unbelief, that curse is the crush of the Bureaucratic Plan, ever growing to siphon the life blood out of the people.

Those whose god is Government will end up being broken under its weight.

>Who Owns What

>A Yoke too Heavy to Be Borne

As a response to our last post on Fighting Yesterday’s Battles, LaFemme asked, “What about God’s view of who owns what? Where does that come into it?”

Good question. In our previous post we argued that historical grievances are often used to justify armed conflict. We see this on patent display in the Middle East–but also in many other places in the world. All historical grievances turn around the following general matrix: “our forebears were the victims of a criminal act; as descendants, we have inherited the damage, hurt, humiliation done to them. Justice requires that due punishment be inflicted upon the descendants of the historical criminals, and proper restitution be made to us. Only then will the evil be cancelled.”

Now, without doubt, many evils and crimes were perpetrated upon our respective ancestors. Also, without doubt our own ancestors committed their fair share of crimes, rapine, murder and pillage. The guilt of historical crimes, even when proven beyond reasonable doubt, cannot justly be imputed to descendants. The descendants are not the perpetrators of the crime.

The City of Unbelief has no religious or conceptual framework to deal with this kind of problem. The City of Unbelief does not believe that there is a Final Judgment, where all sins, crimes, and misdemeanours will be justly punished by the Living Omnipotent God. Therefore, the doing of complete justice in the City of Unbelief requires all crimes, past, present and future legitimately fall within the bailiwick of the courts of the day.

Thus it has become fashionable and acceptable for governments to restitute and compensate for past crimes and sins. Present generations must pay for what their forbears did. The Crown expropriated land from a Maori tribe in the nineteenth century? The present generations shall pay back and restitute the descendants, so that justice can be done.

Even future crimes become subject to the justice system. Criminals who are believed to be likely to reoffend are treated more severely or harshly than those who are not: they are punished in advance for crimes which they have not yet committed.

The consequence in the domains of Unbelief is an endless cycle of grievance and counter grievance as the human judicial authorities vainly try to establish universal justice in the earth. The restituting of a past injustice creates new grievances, requiring restitution in their turn as the new victims gain political traction (usually in the next generation or two)–and so it goes on.

Jerusalem has a very different perspective, which effectively cuts through the gordian knot of vaunted rationalistic pride. Firstly, Jerusalem is built upon the truth that God alone is the original owner of all things. To Him belongs the cattle on a thousand hills. All property, all land, all territory, all wealth, and all possessions belong to Him: as their true and original and perpetual owner, He can dispose of them as He wills, as seems good to Him.

Jerusalem, therefore, utterly rejects the doctrine of eminent domain. This pernicious idea is a vestige of that terrible and destructive doctrine of the divine right of kings. The doctrine of eminent domain asserts that the government is the original and final owner of all property (that is, in principle,of the entire material world). The doctrine of eminent domain implies that the government originally and fundamentally owns one hundred percent of its subjects’ income and accumulated property. Private property is “granted” or “permitted” at the indulgence of the state.

Jerusalem asserts that property is granted by God, not by the state. The Scriptures recognise three legitimate ways in which the Lord allows people to acquire property: work, trade, and inheritance. When property has been acquired legitimately in one or all of these ways God protects the ownership or stewardship over that property by the eighth and the tenth commandments (thou shalt not steal, nor covet). Therefore, no entity, whether public or private, has authority to take or damage another’s property. To attempt to do so would be to act as one who would overrule God Himself.

Justice requires that the government recognises and protects the property rights of its subjects. When disputes arise over property, justice requires that the judge and court make decisions which reflect the rights of ownership.

Now this begs the question: what does one do with claims of injustice which pass across generations? Consider, for example, a Palestinian family which would have inherited a farm from their grandfather, but which was expropriated years ago. Israeli settlers now live in a high rise apartment complex on the old family farm. Do the descendants have a claim? Clearly, the property of their ancestors was stolen; as a result they did not inherit. Their lives are still being affected to this day.

The position of Jerusalem is that the courts have no jurisdiction. This is not to say, of course, that historical wrongs and crimes were not committed. Rather, it is to assert a statute of limitations upon crimes. Those who belong to Christ and have submitted to His gracious reign can accept this with complete equanimity, because the final court of justice is yet to sit.

In the meantime, though his or her parents and grandparents were illegally dispossessed, the citizen of Jerusalem accepts the providence of God, and meanwhile turns his hand to being a good steward of the creation, seeking to acquire control of and administer properly such wealth and property as the Lord is pleased to give.

We are very aware that this answer will not satisfy those in Athens–and particularly not those who believe themselves to be victims of past injustices. But that is the point. The relentless search and quest for justice in this life leads to a storm tossed sea, where there is no peace. Life is soon over, and it will have been spent in anger and bitterness, resentment and hatred, receiving evil and doing greater evil.

The quest for comprehensive justice in this world is a yoke too great to be borne. It quickly crushes those who are foolish enough to attempt to bear it.

>Fighting Yesterday’s Battles

>Moral Myopia Kisses Indignant Self-Righteousness

A heated debate has been raging over recent weeks in the NZ blogosphere. One left-leaning blog (some would say so left-leaning as to be lying on the ground) defended good old Mahmoud’s rant at the recent UN Conference in Geneva to combat racism.

That great statesman who stands as a veritable colossus astride the world stage, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, President of Iran used the occasion to denounce the state of Israel and Zionism as the essence of racism. Mahmoud is infamous for his denial of the historical existence of the Holocaust. He has also argued that Israel has no right to exist as a nation and, therefore, he wants to see it obliterated. In this view, he is not alone. It is held in common with most consistent Islamic adherents.

Writers at the blog Tumeke! have supported his remarks, agreeing that Israel was conceived in sin, theft, murder, and rapine. Moreover, since it was a state for Jews, by definition it represents institutionalised racism. Mmmm. One would have thought that Jews were found in many nations and amongst many races, as a universal religion tends to be. Really, the case would be more cogent if Israel were excoriated as “religist” or something like that. But, we digress.

So offended have been some bloggers that they have excommunicated Tumeke!, wanting nothing further to do with such extremism. But wait on–these earnest folk at Tumeke serve a useful purpose from time to time as foils to make sound and cogent arguments, do they not? Is it not useful at times to have a jester in the court?

But, allegations of racism and the monumental folly of denying the existence of the Holocaust aside, underneath there is a more serious issue at stake. What Mahmoud and his fellow travellers at Tumeke! are arguing is pretty standard stuff from an ethical perspective. They are proposing that an historical injustice has been committed with the formation of Israel in 1945 and subsequent years. They are arguing further that historical injustices must be removed and reversed. Therefore, Israel must be dismantled and the Palestinians put back or restored to a pre-1945 condition.

Now there is a plethora of groups, nations, peoples who would have a great deal of sympathy with this way of thinking. Displaced indigenous peoples the world over for one. (“We were here first and you took the land off us.”) Aggrieved groups amongst Ukrainian, Irish, Scottish, Tamil and other people groups would also raise their hands.

We, for our part, have to agree that the creation of the modern state of Israel was more a manifestation of realipolitik rather than an application of the principles of international law. The continuing displacement of the Palestinian people is an injustice pure and simple. Zionist extremism and terrorism was just as evil as any other terrorism. If the UN insisted, for example, at the behest of Britain and the United States, that displaced refugees out of Afghanistan and other places should be granted a homeland north of Whangarei to the Cape in order to right the injustice of Islamic terrorism, and that all people currently living in Northland would have to decamp southwards upon command, most reasonable people in this country would regard that as an unlawful action.

But regrettably, such things happen in a fallen world. This is not to excuse the evil, nor disregard it. But, the attempt to turn the clock back and go back to the way “things were” is the height of folly and is a further wrong. You cannot do evil that good may come. You only create bigger and worse problems. The adage, “two wrongs do not make a right” is apt here. That is why Mahmoud is wrong, if not evil, in calling for the annihilation of the State of Israel. It is also why zealots in Israel who march into Palestinian villages and towns and push out Palenstinian families so they can occupy their “rightful” land are equally wrong.

In this fallen world there is no ideal restoration where all past evils are atoned for, and the afflicted perfectly restituted. The attempt to solve problems by reverting to an earlier time is naive folly. Rather, every generation, having inherited a set of circumstances (much of which may have been wrong and evil) is obligated to do what they can to apply the Law of God to their neighbours as they find them, not agitate to reverse the course of history back to an earlier time.

Rather than living in the past, all men are obligated not to steal, not to covet, not to kill their neighbours, now. These obligations apply across borders as well as within states. Surely, this is one of the most pointed lessons of the Parable of the Good Samaritan. After all, would not the Good Samaritan have had the opportunity to reflect upon all the historical injustices committed to and upon his people by the Jews, stretching back centuries, as he walked that day down to Jericho? But he chose to live in the present and fulfill his obligations to God and his neighbour, as he found him. This is what God requires. To do something else is sinful.

The naive and foolish attempt to reverse history and go back to an earlier time in the supposed attempt to right historical wrongs and remove injustice only serves to perpetrate yet more theft, killing, injustices, and evil. The cycle never ends, and becomes increasingly vicious.

The standard of Jerusalem flies above all people groups and nations. Our restitution, our healing, our salve lies in Christ, not in a vain attempt to right historical wrongs by reversing history. Our duty is to live with our neighbours as He has commanded. Therefore, the cup of cold water needs to be offered daily by Palestinian to Israeli, and by Israeli to Palestinian. All new “legalised” theft, covetousness, and murder must be laid aside. Those who break His Law must be restrained and duly punished for their evil doing. Make restitution wherever possible. But the attempt to punish present generations for the evildoing of former generations is the height of arrogance and folly. The attempt to rewind history is an act of rebellion against the providence of God Himself.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his camp followers, together with his Western liberal cheerleaders, want self-righteously to do evil that good may come. Zionists, in denying the God given right to Palestinians to live in peace, without being driven out of their homes and off their farms for the sake of a spurious historical “title” to their lands is theft pure and simple. They would sow to the wind: they, and their victims, would inherit the whirlwind.

>Meditation on the Text of the Week.

>We Are Of Our Father, Abraham

For this reason it is by faith, that it might be in accordance with grace, in order that the promise may be certain to all the descendants, not only to those who are of the Law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all (as it is written, “A father of many nations have I made you”) in the sight of Him whom be believed, even God, who gives life to the dead and calls into being that which does not exist.
Romans 4: 16,17

In this passage Paul is demonstrating from Scripture that Abraham is the father of all believers, both Jews who believe upon Christ, and Gentiles who believe upon Christ. As such, Abraham is our example; we are to be cast after his type. What happened to him, says Paul, is not just for his sake, but it was also for us (verse 24). Both Abraham and we believe: and, consequently, to both Abraham and us, God reckons us as righteous in His sight.

Now, two questions are begged. In Whom did Abraham believe? And, what did he believe about Him? The answers are easily forthcoming. Abraham believed that the One speaking to Him was (and is) the Lord God Almighty (Genesis 17:1). He is the One who is the all powerful, all governing, all controlling, and all conditioning God. Secondly, Abraham believed that what God promised to him would most certainly come to pass.

God promised Abraham that he would bear a son, and that his descendants would be as numerous as the stars in the heavens and the sand on the sea shore, and that he would be the father of many, many nations. According to Paul, this meant in short that Abraham was promised by the Almighty that he would inherit the entire world. (Romans 4:13). Abraham believed Him.

Incidentally, this means that the current pre-occupation and fascination amongst some Christians over the land of Israel is misdirected. Israel was never the end-game of history. The world is. The Servant of God makes this abundantly clear in Isaiah 49:6. The salvation of God was ever to extend to all humanity, all mankind; Israel was just the foretaste and the beginning. The salvation of Israel was too small a matter. “I will also make you a light to the nations (Gentiles), so that my salvation may be to the end of the earth.”

Now, Abraham had no evidence, no empirical data, that this would ever take place. In fact, all the empirical data showed that it would never occur. His body was as good as dead, being one hundred years old. Sarah, his wife, was long past the age of child bearing. (Romans 4: 19). But Abraham believed in the God Who gives life to the dead and Who calls into being that which does not exist. (verse 17) When God is the One who creates ex-nihilo—out of nothing—current and historical empirical data is completely irrelevant. God is able to raise up sons of Abraham from stones, if it pleases Him. (Luke 2:8)

This is the faith that saves by grace. It believes God, all empirical evidence to the contrary, because God brings life and matter into existence out of nothing. Empirical evidence is utterly and completely irrelevant to the matter at hand. Justifying or saving faith believes in God, and therefore believes that what He promises will surely and infallibly come to pass—all creaturely, rational, empirical evidence notwithstanding.

We, in our day, have far more empirical data and evidence to warrant our belief in God and His promises. After all, we have seen how Isaac was born; how Abraham’s descendants grew into a great nation; how Messiah came forth and atoned for the sins of His people; how He rose again from the dead and ascended into heaven to subdue all enemies on the earth under His feet; how thousands upon thousands of missionaries and preachers are proclaiming His Gospel and His Kingdom in every continent; and how millions upon millions of Christians profess descent from Abraham, their father in faith.

All this empirical data surrounds us and testifies to us daily. Yet, so many doubt that God’s salvation shall be to the uttermost part of the earth and shall embrace the entire world. Why? Well, contrary empirical evidence. See how the tides of Unbelief run strong. Consider the horror of abortion—the sacrament of the pagan West. Recall the rise of Islam. Reflect on crime, drugs, wars, the breakdown of marriage. We could go on—for a long, long time.

But—and this is the point—it is all irrelevant. This current empirical data has absolutely no bearing whatsoever on the fulfillment of God’s promises, for He calls into being that which does not yet exist. True faith, saving faith says not only that God can transform New Zealand into a thoroughly Christian nation, but that He will. For He has declared that it will be so. Therefore, it must be so. And we, like our father, type, and example—Abraham—must not waver in unbelief, but must grow strong in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully persuaded that what He has promised, He is able also to perform (verse 20, 21).

To God alone be the glory.

>Unparalleled Degeneracy

>Grist for the Mill

. . . it would be a wilful and culpable blindness for us to refuse to recognize how aesthetically arid, culturally worthless, and spiritually depraved our society has become.

That this is not hyperbole a dispassionate appraisal of the artifacts of popular culture–of the imaginative coarseness and cruelty informing them–will quickly confirm. For me, it is enough to consider that, in America alone, more than forty million babies have been aborted since the Supreme Court invented the “right” that allows for this, and that there are many for whom this is viewed not even as a tragic “necessity,” but as a triumph of moral truth.

When the Carthaginians were prevailed upon to cease sacrificing their babies, at least the place vacated by Baal reminded them that they should seek the divine above themselves; we offer up our babies to “my” freedom of choice, to “me.” No society’s moral vision has ever, surely, been more degenerate than that.

David B Hart, Eastern Orthodox theologian.