number 8 wire

Hey y’all I’m changing my handle to "ropata", and writing on a new blog. I’ll leave this old thing up for a while. Yes I’ve moved a little to the left in some of my views, and I want to move away from some of my more obnoxious, Tamaki-like utterances of the past. Don’t worry, I’m still a Jesus freak. And now let the usual programming continue :)
–Blessings, (ex) peasant

In case you haven't noticed, this blog is hardly maintained any more. I have been hanging around mainly at Ian Wishart's blog, "The Briefing Room" (TBR.cc), where there's some interesting controversies raging, and some highly annoying characters.

For reference: some of the major discussions of Science, Philosophy, and Genesis over at TBR.cc, newest at the top.

When science is a religion
The weaknesses of Dawkins
Which comes first, the atheist or the egghead?
Without ever invoking God, Davies argues for a grand cosmic plan
Enlightenment becomes new Dark Ages under secularism
Why Atheism is a religious belief
An amusing and quite clever take on the ID debate
Old fascists never die
In answer to Peter
Big Bang "shows fingerprints of maker"

The weekend saw another of the mass-scale events designed to reinforce climate change as a form of holy scripture which only the heretical or foolish would dare to question, writes The Press in an editorial.

Live Earth was inspired by the high priest of this new theology, former United States presidential candidate Al Gore. A series of rock concerts held around the world to reinforce his gospel, it proved strangely empty, with little of the immediate impact of the previous global music-based campaigns that it was trying to emulate.

The criticism that it lacked a clear goal seems to be a fair one. The fact that it was preceded by various rock stars frantically and unconvincingly attempting to gain a footing on the climate-change bandwagon underlined the slipperiness of the whole business. Events such as Live Earth invite scepticism, and not just from those who are dubious about the true extent and causes of climate change. For one thing, it hinted at how prone the cause is to capture by group-think and political agenda. Similarly, it reflected how easy it is to let the debate slide into one-upmanship and obsessing around the edges of the problem – the futile fashion of calculating and comparing one's "carbon footprint" is the obvious case in point.

Nevertheless, it also leaves little doubt about a building public mood for action. A few people may be placated by a song lyric or a bit of posturing, but most will demand more from the leaders of governments and industry, for whom spouting on is no longer an option.

I have sincere reservations about the intentions of those discussing the so-called "National Statement on Religious Diversity". I would prefer it to be a "National Statement on Religious FREEDOM". The pre-eminence of "The State" in Principle #1 is egregious. The claim that NZ has no established religion is anti-historical, false, and unbelievably arrogant. Principle #2 is problematic and self-contradictory. It is likely to be used to enforce "secular" principles on believers and violate their personal values & beliefs.

On Maori TV last night Dover Samuels stated that (paraphrase) "religious beliefs DO NOT MATTER; what matters is peace and harmony". I am all for peace and harmony, but Samuels' statement is a typical ignorant leftist platitude. Peace and harmony do not exist when someone's religion teaches them to kill the infidel, nor when someone's "enlightened" secularism tells them to outlaw homeschooling (Germany), smacking (NZ), freedom of speech (Australia, Canada), hiring practices of Catholic social services (UK).

Direct Quotes from the proposed Statement:

1. The State seeks to treat all faith communities and those who profess no religion equally before the law. NEW ZEALAND HAS NO OFFICIAL OR ESTABLISHED RELIGION.
   
2. New Zealand upholds the right to freedom of religion and belief and the right to freedom from discrimination on the grounds of religious or other belief.
   

Thankfully, dear reader, I have come into possession of Labour's secret "Statement of Religious Perversity", which reveals their altogether benevolent scheme to lead NZ on the path of (self-)righteousness.

1. There is only one State, and Helen is its Prophet
   
2. The people shall respect no power or authority other than the edicts of Helen and her Great Bureaucracy
   
3. The people shall hold no "fact", "truth claim" or "belief" to be propositionally true, ultimately true, verifiable, or legitimate -- other than the statements in this document
   
4. The people shall hold no values, mores, or cultural standards higher than the Eternal Secular Principles of "tolerance, diversity, and inclusion".
   
5. Any person who contravenes (3) by publishing any kind of "fact, truth claim, or belief" shall be deemed a bigoted violator of (4); subject to public vilification; proclaimed a public nuisance; and investigated by the People's Police Force
   
6. The people shall respect the values of the Green Party and the illustrious Susan Bradford, whose research has found that 80% of New Zealanders are criminally violent to children
   
7. In light of (6), and some disturbing references to a primitive Judaic belief system in the history books, an extensive re-education programme shall be implemented. All references to "Israel", "the Holocaust", "Jesus Christ", "Christianity" shall be expunged.
   
8. You shall not covet your neighbour's property, unless you happen to work for the IRD.
   
9. You _shall_ covet your neighbour's ass. Especially if thy name is David Benson-Pope
   
10. Thou shalt enlarge the power and glory of the Prophet Helen, her almighty State, and its many-splendoured Departments, at every PR opportunity
    

See also:

David Farrar: A Christian Nation?

Ian Wishart: Brian Tamaki's Christian statement; perceptive commenter "baxta" observes:

New Zealand's heritage is one of Christianity trail blazed by the likes of Missionaries Marsden, Hadfield, Volkner, Colenso, the Nun Aubert and others often at the cost of their lives. Their teachings were accepted and embraced by Maori and their legacy as important as that of the Treaty. That we are a Christian country can be seen in our National Anthem, and most of our ceremonies including the plea made by our Parliament before each session. Among the most devout were former Labour leaders particulary Savage,Nash, and Nordmeyer. Ironical then that the atheist Klark leading our most corrupt and godless cabal ever should endeavour to overule the majority of people in our recent census,without consultation, and declare that we are secular.

The D(r)aft Statement

Glyn Carpenter: Does Religious Diversity Undermine Christian Faith?

Maxim: No State Religion in New Zealand?

Christianity and the Judeo-Christian ethic have a special place in our society as the faith which the majority of our citizens profess, as the foundation of our moral and legal codes and as an integral part of our cultural history and custom. The National Anthem, the Parliamentary prayer and expressions of faith at public events like ANZAC services are all customary rites by which we engage with the transcendent and which point to an authority outside of the state.

More than that, the Judeo-Christian ethic is the foundation of much of what we cherish. A belief in the equality and dignity of human beings under the law originates from this ethic and is one of the foundations of the liberty of conscience. We should treasure the faith elements of our heritage, because they make a common social ethic possible. If we dismiss them, for whatever reason, we risk destroying what we have built on them.

Permit me one final quote, from James Kurth, 'Western Civilization, Our Tradition':

The rejection of the Christian faith by Western elites does not mean that they have rejected all faiths. Despite the claims and conceits of rationalists and scientists, every human being believes in some things that cannot be proven (and therefore cannot be established by reason) or that cannot be seen (and therefore cannot be established by science) and that therefore have to be taken on faith. Ever since the coming of the Enlightenment, Western elites have adhered to a variety of secularist and universalist faiths, which in effect have been religions without God. Kenneth Minogue has identified these ersatz faiths as (1) the idea of progress, (2) Marxism, and (3) "Olympianism," which is the contemporary belief that an enlightened intellectual elite can and should bring about "human betterment...on a global scale by forcing the peoples of the world into a single community based on the universal enjoyment of appropriate human rights."8 As Minogue demonstrates, each of these secular religions has identified Christianity as its enemy.

posted by ropata  # 6:57 PM 0 Comments Links to this post

Clark's radical communist coterie is promoting a religion of secularism, in which the State becomes God, and any prior claims to truth or authority are deemed traitorous. It's not lunacy, it's a long range plan of sinister subtlety.

MrTips writes:

In each and every one of these cases the approach of the factions pushing these barrows of societal change has been to: 1) open the issue up for debate and then lie about the data, 2) lie about the real intentions of the legislation, 3) brand any opposing argument as hateful, bigoted or not trustworthy, 4) buy the votes of the younger generation (ie. less than 25) as they are more easily sucked in by the dollar and 5) turn votes of conscience into matters of political survival for MPs by whipping them into line. These are the traits of a dictatorship, driven by complete cynicism for the general population and lack of respect for due Parliamentary process.

But why would such people behave in this manner: what could possess them to be so malevolent towards society? The answer obviously is that they don't think they are being malevolent, rather they view their ideas as our salvation.

One would think there was an unseen mastermind playing a discordant tune, and Labour are mesmerized puppets, manipulated by their own arrogance, lust for power, and scorn for tradition.

S. M. Hutchens observes:

[According to the ever-encroaching secularism,] Christ, the white male in his perfection, is the (as yet mostly) unnamed devil lurking behind every substantial evil that plagues the modern world, der ewige Jude, no longer the Abrahamic man through whom all the nations are blessed, but the source of the earth’s sorrows, the pale Galilean at whose breath the world turns cold, and we—we, who are too wise to believe in Satan have been trained in the name of every good thing to see the world through demonic eyes.

Unfortunately... "for conservative "classical" liberals, we are generally faced with an odious choice between the stupid party and the evil party"

A prime example of deep stupidity and grandiose error is Marxism and all of its many polluted streams, branches, creeks and crocks. That variants of this falsehood still proliferate on the left today means that, as always, intelligence alone is no unknowculation against evil, darkness, and error. Hardly.

For conservative "classical" liberals, we are generally faced with an odious choice between the stupid party and the evil party. We generally align ourselves with the former, since the former is at least susceptible to our influence, whereas the latter is not. Someone who has truly given himself over to evil is not going to be persuaded by truth. His intelligence is in the service of forces he neither sees nor understands, and there is just no point of entry in dealing with him, since he is not lacking information as such but light. Truly, you can hand them the truth on a silver platter, and they will not only reject it but be quite hostile to it.

I no longer think politics has much say in the future of mankind. However, the Gospel of Jesus Christ has been the mightiest civilising force in history, and the Son of God has plenty to say about the future.

Some inspired words from Psalm 146:

Do not put your trust in princes,
in mortal men, who cannot save.
When their spirit departs, they return to the ground;
on that very day their plans come to nothing.

Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob,
whose hope is in the LORD his God,
the Maker of heaven and earth,
the sea, and everything in them—
the LORD, who remains faithful forever.

How dare these petty bureaucrats dictate to reasonable parents. What pigheaded utopianism could possibly commit such a crime against common sense. Bradford's bill is no law. It is lawlessness in every home.

Leftist academics and politicians are a very strange breed. Their enlightened mission is to free the misguided, grubby masses from the shackles of tradition, morals, personal property, and responsibility. It's Helen's diabolical marxist dream come true.

The consequences of this slimy piece of legislation are already being seen. Labour's pet union, the teachers, will be reporting all misdemeanours to Big Sister [See NZConservative.blogspot.com]

Q: What kind of self-righteous a**hole thinks they know better than 80% of the population, rams through controversial laws with no regard to the long term outcomes, & attempts to turn human nature on its head?

A: A deluded fool? OR A dishonest, aggressive ideologue who is determined to mould NZ into the image of failed totalitarian toilets like Sweden, Cuba, or Russia.

PS. Happy ANZAC day Helen. May all true-hearted Kiwis see through your lies and vote against the corrupt, power-mad Labour party.

References:

NZConservative: Worry about teachers asking about smacking

Herald: Your Views: The debate on the smacking deal continues

Ian Wishart: Labour adopts version of Key s59 amendment

posted by ropata  # 6:57 PM 4 Comments Links to this post

Alistair.Adversaria has created an Advanced Bible Quiz. Certainly a challenge! Give it a go. Looks like I need to read more of the Word, less of the Net :o/

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
--Hamlet (I, v, 166-167)

The Observer's Robin McKie writes of the demise of String Theory (HT: the Press). For decades physicists have been enamoured with String Theory's promise to explain the universe in a handful of complex equations. Now many are starting to fear their theories have led down a cul-de-sac. (expert opinion here and here.)

Dark Energy remains "a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma". LATimes correspondent Thomas H Maugh reports on observations from the Hubble telescope. Apparently dark energy, the enigmatic force that is causing the universe to expand, has been present and constant for at least 9 billion years, a finding that eliminates many of the theories developed to explain its mysterious role in the cosmos.

Research into the Human Genome has discovered dramatic variation in the "copy number" of genes. "The copy number variation that researchers had seen before was simply the tip of the iceberg, while the bulk lay submerged, undetected." But what no one anticipated after the full sequence was finally published was just how complicated the genetic landscape would become. Instead of carrying just two copies of each gene - one from each parent - it now appears that we have several copies of certain key genes. On top of the variation in the DNA sequence between people, there seems now to be an added layer of complexity.

And yet we see high-profile anti-theists like Harris, Dawkins, Moran, and Myers pontificating at a forum called "Beyond Belief: Science, Religion, Reason, and Survival". The New York Times headlined the event as a Free-for All on Science and Religion.

We're being talked about (looking at you NotPC), I mean religious believers, as a problem that has to be dealt with somehow. The problem is that we are the ones who are threatening the planet and, according to Nobel (you know the "Peace Prize" people) laureate Steven Weinberg "the world needs to wake up from its long nightmare of religious belief."

Another commandment from Weinberg "Anything we scientists can do to weaken the hold of religion should be done and may in the end be our greatest contribution to civilization." Never mind that science itself is a gift of Christianity:

The scientific quest found fertile soil only when this faith in a personal, rational Creator had truly permeated a whole culture, beginning with the centuries of the High Middle Ages. It was that faith which provided, in sufficient measure, confidence in the rationality of the universe, trust in progress, and appreciation of the quantitative method, all indispensable ingredients of the scientific quest.
-- Stanley L. Jaki, SCIENCE AND CREATION : from eternal cycles to an oscillating universe, Scottish Academic Press, Edinburgh, 1974

Lawrence Krauss called for respect for religious belief and for scientists to "stop being so pompous." Dawkins announced he was "utterly fed up with the respect that we -- all of us, including the secular among us --are brainwashed into bestowing on religion."

No. 11 on Amazon is another atheist screed — "Letter to a Christian Nation" by Sam Harris. His epiphany came, he tells the Washington Post, when he took the drug Ecstasy before dropping out of Stanford and "realized that it was possible to be a human being who wished others well all the time, reflexively."

Harris' 2005 attack on religion, "The End of Faith: Religion, Terror and the Future of Reason," got a prestigious award from the PEN literary association and still ranks No. 33 on Amazon. Harris is as eager as Dawkins to kidnap your kids and bring on the day when "the practice of raising our children to believe that they are Christian, Muslim or Jewish be widely recognized as the ludicrous obscenity that it is."

Imagine the government forcibly preventing you from inculcating your children with your values and convictions, and substituting its own instead. Even when it's Darwin — instead of Hitler or Mohammed — being worshiped by the state, fascism is fascism.

Science can tell us many things. But it's running out of the ability to even get to the bottom of things: infinite universes and mult-dimensionalities that we can never test or see. The honest scientists admit this is getting metaphysical, even philosophical. If they can get metaphysical, why can't we get metaphysical? Science just cannot tell us everything that is true. And besides, aren't we also interested in the Good and Beautiful? Will science give us the blueprints for those things? It can't give us blueprints for reality as we live and experience it. Or maybe it's all an evolutionary illusion? Where is the proof of that?

Finally, science cannot answer the most important question that we have before us today: just exactly what is man? What are we for? If you're limited to what's in the bag of tools of science, then you're a beast. Or maybe just a viper.

Chris Rattue of the Herald penned some vulgar but funny commentary on the state of Welsh rugby. The once-hearty Cymry apparently can't take a joke. One of the (numerous) outraged Herald correspondents, claims NZ can't beat the Welsh place name, Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch. Sorry dude, but the longest place name recognised by the Guinness Book of Records is in NZ: the East Coast town of Taumatawhakatangihangakoauotamateturipukakapikimaungahoro-Nukupokaiwhenua kitanatahu (Taumata for short). It translates as the 'place where Tamatea, the man with the big knees, who slid, climbed and swallowed mountains, known as land-eater, played his flute to his loved one'.

Also, Māori is more poetic than the mangled Welsh Gaelic!

Here's my personal attempt to outdo the postmodernist essay generator. This post was sparked by some philosophical emails flying around at work, analyzing the works of two great 20th-century philosophers:

The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you've got it made!
-- Groucho Marx

Money can't buy you happiness.. but it does bring you a more pleasant form of misery.
-- Spike Milligan

My observation:
Spike Milligan's problems exemplified the philosphical conundrums inherent in challenging the paradigms of a modernist culture with deconstuctivist irony and consequent existential confusion related to the perception of departure from established social norms. However such norms are an illusion propagated by those attempting to conflate their countercultural ideology with cultural tradition. The enterprise is doomed to fail, for the prevailing cultural notion of "truth" is no longer a concrete concept highlighted by its counterpoint "error". Truth in the contemporary conception is a plurifom abstraction ultimately signifying nothing.
-- <:ob