Daoist Philosophy and the Cult of Relativism.

In certain circles, those identifying themselves as relativists are hugely drawn to Eastern philosophies such as Daoism and Zen and I think there can be much confusion between them. Nowhere is the popular Taiji (or Yin - Yang) symbol more misused than in the hands of those relativists and nihilists who are drawn to Eastern alternatives to Western spirituality.

Invariably these secular mystics focus in on one specific aspect of the most popular rendition of the Taiji symbol, that of the presence of the spot of Yin within the Yang half and the spot of Yang within the Yin. This, they think, means essentially that nothing is real, for each state contains within it an aspect of its opposite thereby canceling out the validity of either state as anything absolute. In truth this reveals a coffee table book understanding of Taiji philosophy.

It is true that Daoist philosophy along with Confucian philosophy (the Taiji symbol belongs no more to one than the other) does make certain observations of the phenomenal world inasmuch as day is seen to transform into night and from there back to day again. Seasons come and go in a continuous fluctuating cycle of change. Virtue might be said to be found in moderation - balanced between extreme behaviours. But none of this calls into question the validity of those extremes. Nor does it obliterate the reality of night and day, or that of winter and summer.

Something that the modern relativist thinkers don't get about Daoism is that it is a prescribed way - the fist classic writing is called the Classic of the Way of Virtue, acknowledging that there is a right way to live one's life and that there is such a thing as virtue.

There is a world of difference between recognising that virtue might be found within the delicate balancing of opposing stimuli and stating that neither vice nor virtue exist at all. There is also a vast difference between recognising the existence of subjectivity and relativity in the world and declaring that great self-contradictory battle-cry of the relativist, that everything is relative. Further, while the truth may at times reveal paradoxes, not every paradox is true. Paradox itself is not a virtue, sometimes it can simply be a meaningless and unhelpful intellectual conceit.

It is true to say that Daoism reveres what Aristotle and Confucius might have described as the Golden Mean - the desirable middle between two extremes, but in order to be able to recognise this state of balance, one must first acknowledge the reality of the two opposing forces being balanced and to do this one must be able to recognise the truth of absolute or objective existence. Any attempt to compromise between two subjectively shifting states would arrive at nothing other than confusion. But then every angle this new popular relativist philosophy takes makes no sense when simply taken to its natural and very real conclusion.

Crucially it is also necessary to re-iterate that for the balance to be seen as virtuous it is necessary to acknowledge that certain behaviours are considered to be more desirable or virtuous than others, thereby creating a scale with right action at one end and wrong action at the other.

Finally, relativism and situationism are not the same. Whatever subjective or extenuating conditions you place on a thing and however many shades or degrees you designate along the way, (and here it may be worth pointing out that the Taiji symbol depicts clear halves of back and white rather than being a circle of mid-grey) for those conditions to relate to anything at all you must begin by discerning the reality of this and that.

I'll finish with a quote from an Incredible String Band Song:

"I mixed stones and water just to see what it would do
and the water it got stony and the stones got watery too.
So I mixed my feet with water just to see what could be seen
and the water it got dirty, and the feet they got quite clean."

Virgin Birth

I had a very simple thought yesterday about a significant component of our contemporary pagan culture that is in direct opposition to the virgin birth of Christ.

Whereas the Virgin Mary gave birth to life without having sexual intercourse, the current trend is to have sexual intercourse without producing life (thwarting the development of life by use of various contraceptives or exterminating life through abortion).

Mary allowed her life to be reshaped by this gift of birth whereas the modern trend is to not allow life-making (the natural outcome of sexual intercourse) to interfere with one's lifestyle. People want the orgasms without having to take on the responsibility of child raising that naturally accompanies such activity.

This has led me to a more general train of thought. It is quite curious the extent to which our culture appears to set itself up to be the precise opposite of Catholic Christianity, but then paganism always was in direct opposition to Judaism and Christianity.


The simple choice is between:
a) voluntarily doing what is morally right, and
b) simply being compelled to obey physical urges, the natural outcome of which is to become enslaved by them.

Do you wish to live in a world of:
a) people willingly sharing and giving, or
b) people taking what they want by force.

Free will can only exist in a world where we consciously temper our temporal desires and are prepared to actively conquer our weaknesses. We should aim to go from strength to strength in the knowledge that whenever we stop fighting we will inevitably slip into decline. It is a battle of mind over matter - of hope over fatalism - of virtue over vice. Lasting joy comes from prudently conquering one's short-sighted physical self for the sake of the greatest good. Without such self-mastery there can be no heroes or heroines.

Good, Bad or Indifferent?

A person can decide that good is really bad and that bad is really good - all that is then required is to swap the terms around so that henceforth good becomes the word that describes what they now call bad, and vice versa.

But if a relativist protests that both things are in reality neutral, they rob themselves of the faculty of discernment that allows us to think, to create and even to live. Without discernment, how could we distinguish nutritious berries from poisonous ones?

I'm sure some relativists might argue that physical facts and moral issues are not the same, but that being the case, without discernment, how do they distinguish the two?

Furthermore, if they argue that the moral dimension does not really exist and that morality is merely a subjective conjuration of the mind and that the mind is purely physical (biological, bioelectrical and biochemical) then isn't that an inadvertent recognition of the tangible and effective reality of morality?

Today Is Human Rights Day!

Apparently it is "Human Rights Day" today. I hope they remember the unborn. See my previous post.

Abortion Is Murder

I've been meaning to write something about this subject for a while, but find it too emotive to quite find the words. I don't necessarily blame mothers who have abortions when they have been raised in a culture that says abortion is an acceptable procedure or even actively encourages it. The society that permits and promotes abortion is the murderer.

I think I'll let pictures say the rest of what I wish to say. First is a "foetus" or preborn baby at 16 weeks:



Here's a preborn baby at 20 weeks:



Next is a remarkable picture of a 21 week old preborn who was operated on for spina bifida. He is called Samuel Alexander Armas and is seen here being operated on by surgeon named Joseph Bruner.

The baby would not survive if removed from his mother's womb but Samuel's mother, Julie Armas, is an obstetrics nurse in Atlanta and she knew of Dr. Bruner's surgical procedure. Practicing at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, he performs these special operations while the baby is still in the womb.

During the procedure, the doctor removes the uterus via C-section and makes a small incision to operate on the baby. As Dr.Bruner completed the surgery, baby Samuel reached his tiny, but fully developed hand through the incision and firmly grasped the surgeon's finger. Dr. Bruner was reported as saying that when his finger was grasped, it was the most emotional moment of his life, and that for an instant he was just frozen, totally immobile.

Little Samuel's mother said they 'wept for days' when they saw the picture. She said, 'The photo reminds us pregnancy isn't about disability or an illness, it's about a little person.'

Samuel was born in perfect health, the operation being 100 percent successful.



Here is a picture of a 21 week old foetus / child living outside the womb:



Now here is a preborn baby at just 9 weeks. This might be a time when some would claim that a preborn child is not really a child at all, but "just a bunch of cells". If this little child is just a bunch of cells, then so am I:



I considered posting a picture of an aborted foetus but couldn't bring myself to do it. I'm sure anyone who needs to be convinced that abortion is murder can find their own pictures on a Google image search. If you don't want to do that, there is a link you can click on from this page, but please be warned - it is a very disturbing sight and if you're anything like me it might just break your heart:

LINK

God bless.

Balance and Discernment

I sometimes find myself at odds with prospective students. The typical student of the martial arts I teach likes to see himself as broadminded and capable of accepting alien paradigms. But what he really means is that he will accept everything Eastern and esoteric and nothing remotely Western, mundane or orthodox. I also find myself at odds with the brave new cynics who scoff at anything that is not purely material and repeatable under laboratory conditions. In truth they reject any notion of morality, soul or responsibility beyond their own physical desires and fashionable political whims.

I have been both a gullible willing believer of everything AND a hard-nosed materialist cynic. I think it is only now that I'm starting to achieve a balance of discerning that some things are true while others are false and it is not always obvious out in the world, where the truth lives. So I do not believe in magic, mystical powers and superhuman feats, but I know quite surely that there is such a thing as moral right and wrong. Such a position could not be more unfashionable as it lies somewhere outside of the two main populist factions of our time, the pagan and the atheist, the tastes of which being remarkably similar.

There are people who will remain in one worldview for their whole lives whilst others will undergo a dramatic and profound change of heart. Some may undertake a second radical change of direction, though it isn't so easy to accept that you've been wholly wrong twice. Of course, the existence of absolute truths means that some people are fortunate enough to recognise the truth from the outset. Such people are freer than the rest of us to enjoy fruitful lives.

The tools of discernment are none other than faith and reason. These are the two great winds that will steer a ship towards the truth, rather than our being tossed around at the mercy of the waves, or determinedly setting out to disprove the ocean.

40 Days For Life

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http://www.40daysforlife.com/about.cfm

Heros and Anti-Heroes

I've gradually stopped watching mainstream TV as more and more programmes have become subject to the continuous decline in standards - more and more gritty, visceral, dark, twisted plot-lines and so-called "adult themes" (it seems that adults aren't allowed to enjoy innocent or benevolent ideas in their entertainment these days). The excuses given are that the new brand of TV programme better reflects "what people want" or "more accurately reflects real life". The truth is it only reflects what is bad in everyday life - the marriage break ups, the promiscuity, the murders. Even the cop shows usually have dark anti-hero (read sinful) "heroes".

Last night a young friend was chatting to me about various films he'd watched in recent years. I inquired about the heroes in those films with a touch of dread in my heart. I know from chats with other people too that film is walking the same path as mainstream TV.

It seems people no longer want heroes. Tales of good overcoming evil are considered corny or derided as childish these days. The so-called hero in so many films will actually be the bad guy. Why is this?

I'd have to put it down to a simple lowering of standards. People don't want good heroes any more because they don't want their role models to be better people than themselves. They want flawed heroes because they make it acceptable to be flawed. The darker we make our heroes, the less good we have to be. Pretty soon we're rooting for the bad guy.

So instead of aspiring to be saints we aspire to be sinners. And people wonder why the world is going to pieces and why darker, more gritty, visceral "adult themes" "better reflect real life". Be careful what you wish for.

More of the same...

I haven't posted for a while - I've been so busy I haven't found much time to write down my thoughts on these subjects. Probably more of the same, but I see the fallout from moral relativism everywhere. Once your eyes have been opened to what is going on, it is scary some times seeing the direction human culture is headed towards. Anyway here goes with a rant I wrote on waking...

There will always be people trying to justify why it's OK to be selfish - why it's OK not to be altruistic - why it is OK to enjoy your life at the expense of other people, animals or the planet. I think the new craze for moral (or perhaps more accurately immoral) relativism in the West is the last thing we need right now. We need more Mother Teresa's, not more books called "The Selfish Gene". We're decadent enough in the industrialised West without attempted justifications for why greed and apathy are acceptable. "Moral relativism" is just another commodity we have assimilated into our rampantly consumer-capitalist culture and are using for our own selfish ends.

Bring back Good and Evil - oh - they never really went away - we just started calling them different things like "opinion" and "just another opinion"...

One of the biggest lies anyone ever told is the statement that we're all equally selfish. Tell that to St. Maximilian Kolbe.

Heaven & Hell

Eastern religions give us this idea of the perfect afterlife as being a loss of self - a re-immersion into a greater whole. But is that really your idea of heaven? To cease to exist - to be absorbed - to completely lose yourself? How does that differ from a drugged or drunken stupour?

Wouldn't you prefer to be re-united with those you have loved and who have gone before, not in the sense of meeting the same terrible fate of simply being re-absorbed into some unfeeling power source, but to actually meet them - you as you and they as they. Wouldn't it be better to continue being you, but in an infinite sense - and a purer sense. Not to be less than you are now, but more? That is much closer to my idea of heaven. It isn't an ego thing - to be fair, the Eastern idea of re-immersion into godhead is hardly less so. I wouldn't want any special powers or to be the boss or anything. I'd be quite happy to be a subject of the Benevolent Creator.

I consider a complete loss of self to be quite a chilling prospect - the opposite of heaven in fact. And we know what the opposite of heaven is.

The Truth Revisited

In several dialogues with people who pride themselves on having a hard, scientific outlook, I have encountered an interesting phenomenon. There seems to be no comprehension of the fact that one person can be right while other people are wrong.

Well, obviously this is only selectively applied, because they'd certainly tell me that THEY are right and I'M wrong, so I'll re-phrase that: there seems to be no comprehension of the fact that there is such a thing as fixed, immutable truth. They cannot grasp that one person's religion could quite easily be correct while others were incorrect - in an absolute sense, just as the Atlantic Ocean is made of water rather than soya milk.* (Really this shouldn't come as too much of a surprise to me, after all, the same people have difficulty accepting that things such as rape, slavery or murder are wrong in any kind of real sense - that is, a sense that transcends cultural norms. I cannot even get those people to agree with me that kindness is better than cruelty!)

Anyway, yesterday morning it dawned on me why they might have such a big problem with the very concept of truth. Despite all their claims to hold "the truth" about the material world (and every other kind of world, if they have their way), the secularists know that tomorrow or next week they are going to have to change their rendition of it, because science does so continually. Each time, the latest theory is declared as a "scientific fact". Other views are seen as untrue because the latest set of experiments has "proved" it to be so. That is until the next "proof" comes along. How the universe "really" started or why the dinosaurs "really" died out is a constantly changing "truth." So the words "truth" and "proof" take on whole new meanings. 

With "the scientific method" elevated to the status of a god, theory becomes "the truest thing there is". The actual Truth becomes devalued somewhat. It is evidently hard for people with such a mindset to have any strong faith or conviction - they don't want to adhere too firmly to an idea, only to look silly when it is yesterday's news.

Except of course, as I've already stated (in fact it is largely what this whole blog is about), they ARE certain that religion - ALL religion - is false and must be false. It CANNOT be true, even when it is proved to be - they will not allow it to be, even when it is. They have designed parameters that will not let religion in and will move them if it comes close. By declaring religion to be outside of the parameters of materialistic possibility, they aim to expel it from the whole universe. Though of course, a purely materialistic universe is not the REAL universe, but a construct of their own imaginations. The idea that the material universe is all there is, is just another uncontestable "truth" in their eyes.

I wonder if irony fits into their world view.

* Though of course, this might be quite hard to prove in a laboratory setting.

What's Your Agenda?

We are living in very paranoid times. Prevalent messages are to "trust no one" because "everyone has an agenda". But every meaningful statement has an agenda - having an agenda is not in and of itself a bad thing. What you have to ascertain is what that agenda is. 

We are also living in very individualistic times. Someone might hear a ruling from the Church about something and say "that's just about controlling people", but controlling people is not in and of itself a bad thing either. Every society has laws to try to control peoples' actions so that we do not run around freely murdering and abusing one another. So the question is what is the deeper agenda?

Some people might object to statements that we should be more charitable, because they don't like having to be charitable. That can just be put down to simple selfishness. But some people might hear statements about chastity and object because they object in principle to the idea that they should have to control their desires. They might turn such situations into a point of principle in their heads that they object to "being told what to do".

But the deep agenda of those chastity statements is to try to prevent people from having or aborting unwanted babies and to try to prevent unhappy, broken relationship histories.

Some people might hear messages about forgiveness and 'object' simply because they do not want to forgive. But the purpose - the deeper agenda of forgiveness is not to let people get away with doing bad things - we can still condemn unjust actions, but to prevent those wrong actions from doing us any more damage than necessary. Forgiveness is about not being consumed by bitterness and resentment - it does not eradicate righteous anger.

Sometimes people today are fond of pointing out that Jesus said "let he who is without sin cast the first stone", "Judge not, lest ye be judged" and "Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?", because they don't like to hear any opinions that suggest they (or others) might benefit from them changing their behaviour. People object to such advice as a point of principle. But Jesus also said "now go and sin no more". He also chased the money-changers and sellers of sacrificial animals from the temple, so his message was not simply that we should do whatever we feel like, nor that we should object as a perverse point of principle should someone dare to express any view that advises self control or restraint. James 5:20 states "Let him know, that he which converteth the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins."

I'm amazed by how often someone has genuinely asked me for my perspective on something and because my viewpoint has involved a degree of self denial or abstinence, they have objected to my "forcing my opinion" on them.* It sometimes seems like the only advice people really want to hear is "do whatever you like" or "do whatever you think is right", but then they're not actually asking you for your advice - they're just asking for the go ahead to please themselves. They don't actually need your input to do that.

"No one has the right to do evil." - Fr. John Corapi

* These days I normally warn people first that my views are not typical for contemporary society. I double-check whether or not they really want to hear my opinion and warn them that they might well not like it. It isn't uncommon for another person to hear my perspective and say "Hmm.... well that's your opinion." which is a bit of a conversation stopper. If I'm really lucky they might add on the end "... which, of course, you are entitled to. And I'm entitled to mine."

Ego and Asceticism

Some thoughts on of ego - I think it is important not to focus on it too much - not to make a potentially obsessive ego investment in humility - it doesn't matter what 'sort of person' you are so much as long as you behave correctly. Obedience to benevolent principles is more important than how it feels. Sometimes people get caught up in 'self cultivation' and it renders them useless.

Regarding asceticism - I would call myself ascetic (for ease) in relation to our consumer culture, but again, it isn't about investing ego in the identity of being ascetic.

The way I see it, it isn't really about self denial - it is about not indulging sensory pleasures that can potentially grow and become more insistent and from there habitual. I see it more as not cultivating desire in the first place, rather than eliminating desire. if you never smoke, you don't become hooked. There's no self-denial - it is not asceticism not to smoke, it is just common sense. You can extend that to coffee, chocolate, alcohol, meat... it isn't like we arrive in the world with a belly full of Mars Bars, Big Macs and booze...

"There's so much more to life than likes and dislikes." - Fr. Pablo Straub

A Circular Argument

I've had many debates with atheists about the existence of God, and I just wanted to post here an argument I made recently. The general consensus between them seemed to be that:

1) There was no evidence for the non-existence of God
2) They did not know how the universe came into being, nor how life started but that was not relevant
3) They were confident that scientists would one day know these answers.

To this I posed the following hypothesis:

Imagine if I were to declare that the earth was not really round without giving any evidence; saying that I didn't know what shape it was but that I knew it wasn't round; and that while I didn't know what shape it was, I felt sure that scientists would know one day.

Would my theory be given any credence?

Apparently it wasn't a valid argument :D

Laughter is the best medicine?

I was having a little debate recently with some guys on a forum and one of them posted a clip of a "comedian" who was trying to rip apart the Ten Commandments. He was also saying obscene things and pushing all the right buttons about how the commandments were just created to control people. Perish the thought.

The audience was laughing away - enjoying themselves - all united in their love of hating faith and the faithful and seeing them get pulled to pieces. I don't think the comedian laughed once - he seemed kind of angry. He was pacing up and down the stage looking rather tense, intense and intent on doing his gladiatorial job of slaying the Christians. Well, I suppose that always was a crowd pleaser.

Going back to the forum, point by point I critiqued the "comedian's" theology, pointed out that his material was rather obscene and told them that I didn't find it funny. Apparently that means I lack a sense of humour.

Don't they say "laughter is the best medicine" and "you've got to be able to laugh at yourself". Who says those things? Where did those little bits of "wisdom" come from? Pretty soon everyone is laughing at everyone else - another little bit of human ingenuity turned sour. Well, we rarely bear fruit when we branch out on our own - when we insist on going our own sweet way.

No - laughter isn't the best medicine - especially not when it's at someone else's expense - then it'll just darken your heart and weaken your mind. Now love, faith and hope - those are good medicines - they're also virtues. They can make you happier too - not cackling happy, a more contented kind - a kinder kind. But laughter looks a bit like happiness doesn't it? Kind of like a fake Rolex sort of looks like the real thing, but it's just a cheap copy.

Darkness can masquerade as light. The moon can shine if it borrows a little sunlight - if it copies the sun. But I hear it's actually pretty cold up there.

I am therefore I think that "I think therefore I am." Or not...

Descartes has a lot to answer for. He turned the way people think on its head by declaring "I think, therefore I am." This deifies the concept of thought - it is a magician's argument, implying that we can simply will things into (or out of) existence and that things only exist if, or critically because, we think they do. It is actually nonsense - we do not think first and exist second - we are alive first, and that enables us to think.

So when Moses asked God who to say had sent him to speak to the Hebrew people, God replied with 4 words that translate literally from Hebrew as "I Am Who Am". In other words - "I Am What Is - I Am He Who And That Which Exists." God did not think first and therefore come into being - He first "Was" - as the only Unproduced Producer he always was and by virtue of His existence He was able to think and create.

As we are said to be made in His image, we follow the same basic principle - we have to have life in order to be able to think and be creative. The being comes first - we must "be" before we can think - the saying should really be "I am therefore I think."

A dangerous side-effect of the "I think therefore I am" culture, is the aforementioned deification of thought. "Thought" or "Argument" rather than Being is elevated to the status of God. That which is not viewed as thinking is devalued. So consequently a fetus is not really seen as alive and people consequently decide that it is morally acceptable to exterminate it if its existence is deemed as inconvenient. Many see nothing wrong in having recreational sex and then aborting any unwanted life that results from their pleasure making.

A senile elderly person is seen as having no quality of life and therefore the concept of euthanasia becomes considered acceptable. Sanctity of life is replaced with utilitarianism: "I think therefore I am" becomes "I think therefore I have a right to existence". Simply "being" is no longer valued in its own right - we are no longer valued if we are unable to be cognitive and creative and / or lack any further potential to become so, or simply if we are inconvenient within the lives of others - i.e. if we get in the way of their pursuit of pleasure: the pursuit of pleasure being another thing that has become elevated to the status of a right. Pleasure is another god of our time.

Another dangerous side-effect of the Descartes culture is that God is reduced to the status of a human concept. So even though we do not have any alternative explanation for how we or the universe came into being unless we were created, by elevating thought to be the god of our time, we declare that we do not need to know - we no longer need to exist so that we may be able to think. To think is enough, now that we can take our existence for granted. It is as if we are now declaring that we somehow managed to think ourselves into existence without first having to exist. And that makes no sense.

"To be or not to be - that is the question." If you want to think, you'd better be.

It is precisely because people love the product above the producer, the creature above the creator, that people love thought itself above the life that allows thought to happen - people love themselves more than their own parents and more than the God who made them.

God is...

God is...

Some people say that God is love.

Some people say that God is mercy.

Some people say that God is truth.

All of these things are true, but it could also be said that each of these definitions is only a partial truth. Each of these things are also good, so if I were to try to describe God's attributes in a single word, I would say that God is good.

Now the reason that self-indulgence is NOT good, is that it is concerned solely with the interests of the self, rather than the interests of the greater good. The more we indulge our selfish desires, the more they grow and the more our being becomes shaped and defined by the pursuit of those desires. Indulgence of those desires becomes increasingly habitual to the point of becoming all-consuming. The result is that the more self-indulgent we become, the more self-centred we become and vice versa (pun intended).

In Sikhism, this kind of self-indulgence is called being "Manmukh" (literally self-centred) and this is contrasted with being "Gurmukh" (literally God-centred.) To be God-centred means being focussed towards the greatest good for the whole of creation - not just yourself. To be God centred is to be good-centred - the addition of a single letter "o" might make the concept that little bit more palatable for the atheistically inclined.

Pope John Paul II explains in his book "Memory & Identity - Personal Reflections" pp. 6-7 that the nature of the "original sin", as described by Saint Augustine is:
"amor sui usque ad contemptum Dei - self-love to the point of contempt for God. It was amor sui which drove our first parents towards that initial rebellion and then gave rise to the spread of sin throughout human history. The book of Genesis speaks of this: 'you will be like God, knowing good and evil" (Gen. 3:5), in other words, you yourselves will decide what is good and evil.
The only way to overcome this dimension of original sin is through a corresponding amor Dei usque ad contemptum sui - love for God to the point of contempt of self."

The Church, through the power of the Holy Spirit, attempts to 'convince the world about sin'
"...and the purpose of this 'convincing' is not to condemn the world. If the Church, though the power of the Holy Spirit, can call evil by its name, it does so only in order to demonstrate that evil can be overcome if we open ourselves to amor Dei usque ad contemptum sui."

So the ultimate aim for us all is to become as fully good-centred as we can be, and to keep pushing the boundaries of what we can achieve - Mother Theresa talked of "giving until it hurts". Naturally, we all fall short of this ideal much of the time, but we should at the very least agree with the basic premise of seeking to become increasingly good-centred through right action and less self-centred through self-indulgent pleasure seeking. You may be surprised by how many people today will attack even that basic premise.

God bless.

Original Sin in Brief

I just wanted to briefly explain the concept of original sin, as so far, I've only touched on it. 

Original sin was the sin of succumbing to the temptation of "eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil" even when we'd been told not to by God. This is quite a powerful metaphor for us human beings trying to go our own way and decide for ourselves what right and wrong are, (based on our own desires and using our intellect to try to justify our selfish actions) rather than obeying the knowledge of right and wrong that is imprinted on our hearts. 

Original sin is said to have darkened our minds and weakened our hearts. Because of our self-serving natures and our ability to use arguments and philosophical tricks to try to "prove" just about anything, we've actually made it much harder for ourselves to recognise the difference between right and wrong, and we've made it harder for ourselves to do the right thing. We lack faith and commitment, so even when we know the right thing to do, we often find that we are unable to do it. 

Faith can move mountains, but if we convince ourselves that we're not sure what right and wrong are "really", we will inevitably lack that faith.

We've got original sin - what's your excuse?

Atheist evolutionists are often keen to point out imperfections in the world as some kind of indication that God is not really all-powerful or all-loving.

Everything, they say, is solely a result of evolutionary changes - all creatures pre-programmed with a mechanism that seeks constantly to improve itself through genetic mutation and evolution. In such a world, all changes are put down to "evolutionary advantage".

So, what are the evolutionary advantages of the rampant obesity, wanton drunkenness, drug taking, cigarette smoking, serial adultery, prostitution, people trafficking, gangland killings, cash crops, terrorism, war and other destructive and self-destructive behaviours so prevalent in the world today?

Atheist evolutionists often point to theists and say - "well if God is perfect, why did He make people imperfect?" I'd like to pose that question back to the atheists for a moment - not because we don't have an answer - we do have one - but how is it that this intrinsically self-correcting evolutionary process has gone so wrong? If we are subject to a mechanism by which all living things strive for perfection, why are people now as they are?

Why are human beings so decadent and self-indulgent that in spite of having devised fantastic theories such as evolutionary science and even making scientific claims to the effect that "science has eradicated the need for a creator God," we are in grave danger of destroying the planet we live on? 

Why are we in the "developed world" eating ourselves to death? Sure - evolutionists can point to evolution and say we have evolved to survive in famine conditions, but we have not always had massive obesity problems - are we now going backwards instead of forwards? I'm sure they'll try to put it down to having such efficient access to food now that we never need to go hungry, but why haven't we evolved a solution to our overeating? Is that mutation still to come? Can we be sure it will arrive in time? 

We've been killing each other through war since history began - the last century produced the biggest wars and revolutions ever seen, with people being slaughtered on an astronomical scale. Why haven't we yet evolved a solution to war? Why have the numbers of casualties of war steadily increased? 

And why haven't we yet evolved a fairer world? Is consumer capitalism really the best we can do? Is it really efficient to let half the world starve while the other half eats itself to death? It really doesn't take a genius to work out the solution to that little problem. (People usually put it down to greed - oh, so they do have sin then, after all?)

Atheist evolutionists might argue that evolution has not yet had time to evolve solutions to all our problems, but why hasn't evolution yet evolved a solution to this shortcoming within its own mechanism - namely that evolution takes vast amounts of time? Couldn't that problem have been ironed out by now? And, crucially, why can't we simply put into practice the knowledge we already have?

We know that if we eat too much, it kills us. We know that if we smoke cigarettes or take heroin it kills us, so why can't we put our amazingly evolved brains into action and just not do it? We have the knowledge, why are we so willful in our refusal to use it? Why do we abuse ourselves ever more? Are we complacent in the knowledge that medical science will probably be able to patch us up and even if it doesn't, we've got to die of something, so who cares? OK - I'll be blunt - why are we so stupid? I'll also point something interesting out - it isn't just uneducated or supposedly unintelligent people who indulge themselves to death.

So, are we actually quite a poor design - one that is destined for failure? Are we doomed to suicidal decadence? Is evolution actually a self-destructive mechanism when all is said and done, designed to destroy the very creatures it has allegedly been perfecting? And if we can do nothing to halt our own demise, can we really be so sure that our scientific theories are so perfect? As a species, we could hardly be described as a great success right now.

We need to be very careful about what we attempt to destroy. It is one thing to destroy the planet and everything on it, but once we declare (as the Neitzschians are so keen on doing) that "God is dead," we have no excuses - we are on our own.

Whatever Happened To The Ten Commandments?

It occurred to me that society today could hardly do a better job of doing a complete turnaround on the Ten Commandments.

1) Have no god before / but Yahweh.

People seem today to be prepared to have any god BUT Yahweh. Whether their god is science, atheism,  materialism, nihilistic philosophy, the earth-mother / paganism, new-age metaphysics, oriental energetics or whatever...

2) Make no idols.

People have all kinds of idols in our celebrity-obsessed culture and most of them are not even good role models. Aside from that, people are drawn to new age mix 'n' match oriental icons, idols and Buddhas (in spite of the fact that there were no gods in traditional Chinese Daoist philosophy and Buddha said no one should make idols of him.)

3) Do not misuse the Lord's name.

How often do we hear people shouting "Oh... My... God!" and "Jesus Christ!" often interspersed with a barrage of sexual profanities?

4) Honour the Sabbath day and keep it Holy.

In our 24/7 shopping culture, the Sabbath no longer means anything to most people, except that it is seen as a great day to go shopping. Working on a Sunday can even be seen as virtuous. 

5) Honour your father and mother.

In our post-Freud culture, how often do you hear the phrase "I blame the parents" ? And how many people wrongly blame their parents for their own failings? How many adolescents tell their parents that they hate them?

(Please note - I'm not talking about people who may have good reason to feel some bitterness towards their parents here, perhaps because of genuine abuse, but about all the people who don't have good reason - people who just feel angry because they don't want to be bound by their parent's advice or ground-rules. 

It should be remembered too that this rule is part of a blueprint that everyone should be obeying. In such a society, your parents should be behaving more honourably too and if for any reason they weren't - if their actions were in contradiction to the other 9 commandments - you would be able to over-rule them on the basis that obedience to God's Law gets priority.) 

6) Do not murder.

I suppose no society has ever even come close to achieving this one. But now we do have a particularly ruthless form of murder taking place in the case of abortion, human embryo experimentation and the creation of hybrid human-animal embryos - all fully forms of life that are considered disposable if they are inconvenient (to recreational sex culture) or if they have outlived their usefulness.

Jesus told us that we should not even get angry or hold grudges - we shouldn't even think of killing or harming others. But a vast "entertainment" industry exists to peddle us an endless sea of ultra-violent (and sexual) computer games and a constant diet of ultra violent (and sexual) films and TV programmes.

7) Do not commit adultery.

It goes without saying that marriage, monogamy and fidelity are given little credence these days. Commitment has largely been replaced with pre-nuptial agreements, serial relationships and broken families.

8) Do not steal.

Aside from the fact that everything we own is stolen (under capitalism), people freely pirate films, music and software (on the grounds that everybody does it!). People also avoid paying taxes by buying smuggled and counterfeit goods.

Insurance companies also make huge profits from the material insecurity and paranoia that results from our high-crime culture.

9) Do not lie.

This is another idea that has largely been cast into the wind. Today people say "you've got to tell lies sometimes"; "everyone lies", and the moral relativist biggy "well who's to say what's true anyway?" As many people no longer recognise that there is even such a thing as truth, the concept of being truthful is quite endangered.

10) Do not covet.

This is probably the creme de la creme of reversed commandments. We live in a consumer-based culture that RUNS on coveting (though it is usually called "aspiration"). We are encouraged to covet everybody else's everything and strive to have them for ourselves. This could not be a more direct reversal of "you shall not set your heart on your neighbours house. You shall not set your heart on your neighbour's spouse, or servant, man or woman, or ox, or donkey, or any of your neighbour's possessions." The whole society revolves around our not being satisfied with our lot and encouraging us to yearn for the stuff other people have.

As society is competitive as well, we can even have stuff at each others' expense - again, consumer-capitalism depends on it. And because we live in a secular democracy, we are free to change whatever laws we like in order to better serve our temporal desires.

As Father Mitch Pacwa pointed out recently in an EWTN homily - by failing to observe the Ten Commandments, we give up our free will, perpetrators included. We are not free to walk down the street without fear of being robbed, killed or accosted. 

If we all simply observed the Ten Commandments, we'd have no need to be afraid any more and we would then truly be free.

The Rise Of Gnosis

Are we in danger of repeating the original sin?

There is a buzz word today circulating on internet forums, in books and magazines and on sensationalist TV channels. That word is "Gnosis" - the Greek word for knowledge - and its followers profess to be interested in "Gnostic" ideas or "Gnosticism." Films such as "The DaVinci Code" along with endless articles or programmes on satellite TV channels offer startling and exciting new views of Christianity that will expose the truth about "the real Jesus."

Though Gnosticism began as a heretical alternative to orthodox Christianity, the problem has begun to permeate much wider and many people are now falling again for its charms - the promise of forbidden knowledge. Sound familiar? In the Garden of Eden, God commanded that Adam and Eve may eat from every plant except one - the tree of knowledge. The tree that the serpent promised Eve would grant power that could elevate one's status to that of equality with God.

In reality, this problem is not isolated to religion, spirituality or mysticism. A concerted effort is taking place to discredit, dismantle, destroy, re-design or replace Christianity (or the other Abrahamic faiths) in modern culture, and / or to overthrow accepted scientific rationales. Those taking part include secular academics, teachers, scientists, humanists, atheists and martial artists. The promised "Gnosis" or secret knowledge takes a number of forms:

1) The hidden, occult, esoteric, secret or forbidden spells, incantations, rites, chants, meditation techniques, methods, charms, amulets, power crystals etc. that promise to bring you special health, healing, wealth, wisdom, romantic or sexual benefits, or divinatory powers. All of these things are a lie.

2) The fabled magical qi (chi / ch'i) or ki power of the martial artist - literally considered to be the power of life and death - the power to heal or kill with a single touch or possibly even without touching by projection of energy. This too is a lie.

3) The knowledge of how to master genetic manipulation in order to eradicate all genetic "imperfections" or "undesirable" human traits or characteristics. The knowledge of how to master genetic manipulation in order to make disposable human-animal chimeras for vivisection, experimentation or possibly to live and act as slaves or worker "drones". These things are an abomination that completely disregard the sanctity of life.

4) The secret so-called knowledge about what the scriptures allegedly "REALLY" meant and who Jesus "REALLY" was, what God is "REALLY" like, the so-called hidden "facts" that "the Church" censored or allegedly manipulated, about how we've all "REALLY" been worshipping the wrong God all along and even how the God we know and love is really evil. The propagators of this forbidden knowledge may also spread terrible anti-semitic, anti-Catholic or anti-Christian propaganda.

What do all of these things have in common? Secret knowledge that will give you the edge over your competitors. Hidden truths that will enable you to liberate yourself from the clutches of organised religions and enable you to realise yourself in your full glory - a fully enlightened individual with the ability to make up his or her own mind about right and wrong. Ammunition to destroy the arguments of those allegedly "evil" Catholics, Evangelical Christians, Jews or Muslims once and for all. Tell them straight about how all the world's evils are REALLY caused by adherence to religion. Again this is all lies. Adherence to religion does not make monsters, but straying from the path of righteousness might.

So there it is - the story of the Garden of Eden all over again - history threatening to repeat itself, with potentially deadly consequences. Rebellion is never in itself a good thing. Sometimes the temptation to consort with the forbidden does not make you "daring", "dangerous", "brave" or "pioneering", it can just lead you into foolishness. So watch out for snakes* in human clothing - don't fall for their lies again.

* please note that no attempt is being made to discredit real snakes here - it's just a metaphor.

On Being Fallen

Why is it said that people are "fallen"?

Well my take on it is that as humans we got too clever for ourselves and now we think we can do anything we like - hence the "original sin" story of eating from the tree of knowledge in the Garden of Eden.

Being good is about not just doing whatever we like - sure, we can curb our excesses for pragmatic motives - so that we don't destroy the planet we live on - we can do it all for ourselves, or even for future generations - for our own offspring, but that isn't as good as doing it for the sake of the animals themselves or the plants themselves or the planet itself, irrespective of whether or not we, our families or humanity continues. Now that would be genuine altruism and that would be genuine goodness - being others-orientated instead of self-orientated. That's how we make the best of that extra knowledge we acquired. If we fail to do that, we are being sinful in a way that other creatures are not.

If we know and understand the negative impact of our actions and overindulge our desires anyway, just because we are powerful enough to do so, then that's sin. If we consciously choose not to learn what the consequences of our actions are, then that's sin, too.

Responsible use of your free will.

Weigh up the pros and cons of a situation. Measure the benefit against the cost. If the pros outweigh the cons, then it's OK, right? Sound easy?

Now you have to ask yourself - what are the pros and cons for whom? Not just for yourself, that's for sure.

The reason many religions have specific rules - the reason they don't make it that easy - the reason they don't just leave it all down to us as individuals - is because they recognise that we are incapable of judging any situation from all possible angles. That would take an omniscient mind, and only God has one of those. 

We should always do our best, but we are really going to need some guidance too - some rules. Not killing, lying, coveting or stealing for example. Loving your neighbour as you love yourself. Doing for others the things you'd like them to do for you, and not doing to others what you'd rather they didn't do to you. Knowing what we do and don't like to happen to us can give us insights into what to do and what not to do to others - it can give us the gift of empathy. We do also need to bear in mind though that we were not all created identically, so just because you'd rather someone told you the cold, hard truth for your own good doesn't mean someone else is going to appreciate it. Bear in mind when your advice might fall on stubborn ears and thereby prove counter-productive. Sure you could argue that the choices that other person makes is down to them, and that's true, but if you sincerely want them to take your advice for their own sake, you might have to approach the subject with awareness of and sensitivity to the likely outcomes of your various possible approaches. We need to endeavour to develop a fairly reliable intelligent, adaptable, compassionate conscience for eventualities such as these, knowing that we'll still get it wrong sometimes.

Rewards?

We should aim to be as benevolent as possible, causing no unnecessary death, harm or suffering. We should ideally be benevolent without being motivated by the idea of any kind of reward in this world or any other, but simply because benevolence makes the world a better place. If we seek to make our actions benevolent for the sake of rewards, we will always stop short. We'll always decide that we've already done enough when the going gets tough.

Don't just compare the potential gains and losses of a situation with regard to your own life, consider the benefits or losses for your whole family. Better still, for your country. Better still, for your species. Better still for life in general. Better still, for your planet. Better still, for the entire universe. Only then are you asking, "what are the benefits and losses for God?"

Cause and effect.

Consider something that many would think of as fairly harmless - placing a small bet. Now if you win, that may seem fine, but how many people had to lose so that you could win? For you to come away with more than you started, that is at the expense of all the gamblers who lost (not to mention all the trees that had to die to make the tickets). As gambling is an industry that makes vast profits, it is easy to calculate that the number of people who gain is small when compared to the large number of people who lose, even in the case of semi-charitable institutions like the National Lottery.

And before you say "well the same criticism could be made of the stock exchange or almost any form of free enterprise", I am quite happy to say that the same rule should apply there too. (It could be argued though that gambling is even worse because here in the UK, since 2001, winnings are tax free.) People may wish to have double standards, but I think we should aim to be morally consistent and I certainly do consider a society based on consumer choice, big business and free enterprise to be immoral. Freedom to indulge desire should not be the arbiter of right and wrong in any society. If it is, then that is a sinful society.

The Addicted Mind

This post is dedicated to a serious problem within wealthy industrialized nations today - the problem of addiction or dependency. 

Most of us now live in consumer-led societies. A person is thought to have the freedom to do pretty much anything they like, providing it is both within the law and does not directly hurt others. This second proviso is actually rather tenuous. Firstly there is the fact that your legal habits may impact on someone else - if you smoke, there are secondary smokers - if you get drunk, your anti-social, inappropriate or immoral behaviour could affect someone else too - if you gamble, there will always be scores of losers for anyone who wins. Secondly, within capitalism, for you to have something, it is invariably at the expense of someone lower down the social scale within your own country; a displaced working class of slave labourers in a less wealthy nation; or the animals or environment that so often provide the resources for your indulgences. 

But I'm not really here to talk politics - I'm here to talk about the illusion of free will within our  consumer culture.

In my time I have been dependent, to varying degrees, on various substances and sensory pleasure-seeking behaviours. I have also watched others die from and / or cause great misery through their addictions. Right now I am watching two people die because they are unable to free themselves from their tobacco addictions. They are quite prepared to die rather than give up their "little pleasure." This is not the kind of decision that anyone who is thinking straight would make.  Their addiction has robbed them of their free will.

There may be people reading this who are tempted to say "well who are you to lecture people on addictions when you've been dependent on various substances yourself? You must have an addictive personality. I don't - I could give up anything I like, whenever I like. I just don't want to."

But I'm not just talking about deep down chronic addiction here. I'm talking about being anywhere on what I call "The Dependency Scale". Most of us are on it somewhere.

The Dependency Scale

To "want" can quickly escalate to "need" which can quickly become "having a right to." That's the dependency scale. We convince ourselves that we have a right to expect our desires for pleasure to be satisfied. 

Do we really have a right to expect anything? Isn't the truth that most of us actually take for granted what we have and constantly want more or possibly different things on top? And isn't it also true to say that whenever we put our own selfish desires, cravings, wants or perceived needs before the needs of others, we are, in truth, acting immorally? The grave problem in consumer culture is that DESIRE is enshrined as a RIGHT.

Maybe you could ask yourself a question right now. How often have you heard yourself say "oh - I couldn't do without my [insert as applicable]" ? You might be talking to a vegan and find yourself saying "ooh - I could never give up milk" (or cheese, or meat, or whatever). You might be talking to someone who has boycotted palm oil because of the effect that its production has on the habitat of the endangered orang outang, and you might say "I don't know how you manage without ever eating biscuits" (or cakes, or margarine or chocolate...) You might be talking with someone who has no tea or coffee because they are ethically opposed to cash crops, or to taking stimulants. You might be talking to a teetotaler and you might see your own drinking as very moderate, but really, if you wouldn't go out into a public place without drinking alcohol (or even if you only drink at Christmas, but don't think Christmas would be Christmas without a glass of wine,) then you are somewhere on the alcohol dependency scale.

Back to those people who have died as a direct result of their dependencies - three people I know immediately spring to mind who lost their lives to heroin and its substitutes. There have been others that died from alcohol related illnesses. I know three people who were murdered because they gave in to lust while under the influence of substances, slept with someone they shouldn't have, and were then killed by outraged or jealous parties - themselves acting under the desensitizing influence of drink and drugs. Substances they would "never have dreamt of having a night out" without indulging in.

Selling Yourself Short

The Hebrew word for addiction literally means "to sell yourself." and that is precisely what most people do at some time in their lives. In the process, the free will is surrendered, the conscience is silenced and the ability to act in a moral way is sacrificed. 

Give something up today - not your conscience or free will, but something that threatens them. Examine your life for any little pleasure that you know "you couldn't do without." Heed that warning sign and give it up. 

Eradicate your habits.  Regain your free will.

 

The Truth

The truth is that which exists outside of relativism.

There are, in truth, cold, hard facts, as well as some warm, fuzzy ones. You could call these facts "truths". Truths are not subject to (subjective) opinion, or desire, or will.

For example, the fact is that smoking cigarettes is very bad for you and may well kill you. It will almost certainly shorten your life. Smoking is a hazardous habit - the facts are indisputable - a phenomenal amount of evidence exists to prove this reality.

Now the problem comes when people allow things to get PERSONAL. A well-meaning aunty might advise you to stop smoking, but you may decide that she is wrong because you don't want her to be right. Instead, you want all your friends who smoke to be right when they tell you that there's nothing to worry about. Your aunty may also be a Catholic and this might make you want her to be wrong even more. There may be some people and institutions that you don't want to be right at any cost. 

I think almost all of us exercise some kind of bias like this from time to time - judging words by who says them, rather than taking statements at face value. But by doing so - by choosing to ignore the facts, we make ourselves willfully ignorant.* The next step on from believing our own, self-deceived view of the world, in spite of the facts, is to become stubbornly adherent to outright lies.

You might enjoy riding your motorcycle at high speeds - speeds that break the legal speed limits. Concerned people might ask you not to, because they are concerned for your life and maybe the lives of others who could also be injured if you were to crash. You might decide, because you LIKE riding at high speeds, that they are worrying unnecessarily. In reality, they are quite right to worry, but you won't listen if you don't WANT them to be right.

Left to our own devices, we are willful, egotistical little creatures who like to have our own way, whether it is ill-advised or not.

But the truth is out there, and it is real, whether we want this to be the case or not. Even this issue is one that people have a biased, emotional perspective on - they do not WANT there to be such a thing as irrefutable truth. "Everything is relative" they will protest, because that notion allows them to make their own decisions, based not on what IS true, but on what they WANT to be true. Opinions that are formed from passions and desires, rather than from the truth, are a dangerous thing.

So the truth is not relative. The truth is everything that is non-relative. It's true.

* credit to Evangelical preacher Eli Brayley for that great insight.