Saturday, July 4, 2015

Human Depravity and Bad Spiritual Genetics

I am not a Calvinist and I'm not sure I am Armenian either. In my theology though, I do recognize the spiritual and physical brokenness of humanity and, indeed, all creation. Since the days of the first humans, there has been a desire in us to be like our Creator. We want to be in control of our environments, our own lives and our own destinies. We want to create, unhindered by external rules and regulations. We want to know. We want to enrich ourselves. We want to satisfy ourselves, our desires. While those thoughts were not initially our own, this suggestion that came from a negative spiritual source, was taken up by our ancestors in rebellion against their Creator.

The question arises, why would God create us with the ability to make choices that were not in line with His desires for His creation?

It is a question for the ages. The answer to it does not matter. The fact is that He did do that and we did decide against His will. We took up the mantle of self interest and carried it into a human history that was not intended. We were intended to serve Him. We chose to serve ourselves. The blood soaked pages of our history proves that we take everything that we have and corrupt it. We corrupt what we received from God and we corrupt the things we make ourselves. It is why even the most holy among us have issues in our lives and the most depraved find new ways to continually to increase human misery, even if it's our own.

The original humans that took this step against their Creator passed on this tendency toward spiritual rebellion to all future generations. It was at once both a physical and spiritual inheritance. Both our bodies and souls are afflicted with it. Even creation itself has been afflicted with it. The entire universe is out of it's natural harmonious rhythm because we choose to act apart from the Creator's will.

Did He know what would happen?

Again, it does not matter. What matters is the path back to Him. He used the course of our history to make peace with Him possible again. It cost Him a part of Himself to make this happen, but He did create a road home for us. Yes, I'm talking about Jesus. You all know the story of Jesus. Non-believers know His story. Muslims know His story. Hindus know His story. So do the Buddhists, Shintoists, Confuscists, and animists. It is the greatest story ever told. It is the road back to God paid for and built by His own sweat and blood and tears. We can go home. We can all go home. We just have to believe in the reality of the Man with the Plan.

So who gets in under those conditions?

Anyone that meets them.

Simple eh?

No matter how bent, broken, corrupt of perfect you are, if you believe in the Man with the Plan, you are in brother.

"Well", you might say, "Ghog, how is that fair? I've been good all my life while others have been murderers, adulterers and thieves. Why should their terms be the same as mine?"

To which I say, is it fair that the Creator of the universe should have to come here and take up a human body to save our sorry backsides from our own self destruction?

Fair is as fair does. Human fairness and divine fairness are two different concepts. Because we lack understanding, because we cannot not know as God knows, our childish perception sees unfairness where there is none.

Beyond that, God is God. Our fate does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy. We can sit around and debate why God made us one way or another, but it does not matter. What matters is God and His mercy. We can say, "well God made me this way". Did He? It was not the original plan. That propensity toward sin (oops, I said it) that we embrace is as old as the choices of our original ancestors, and even with them, God exercised mercy and restraint.

So instead of sitting around and arguing with God or ignoring Him because He doesn't see what ever it is in our way, why don't we try embracing Him in faith and see what happens. He might surprise you. It's bend the knee now or bend it later. Doing it now will produce far better results.

We can choose to go home, even with a bad gene pool. You might as well come with us. It's gonna be a good time and it will last forever. He's waiting again for our decision. I'm going.

Thank God for His Mercy and Grace. It trumps a bad gene pool every time.
    

Speaking of July 4th...

I came across an article today at lewrockwell.com that was written by David Hathaway. He "is a  former supervisory DEA Agent. He is a cowboy and aficionado of Latin America where he has lived and traveled extensively. He is a homeschooling father of nine children and maintains the website charityendureth.com."

His post entitled "American Freedom" lists 7 things that are required to be a patriotic, freedom loving American in our age. The entire post is a bit tongue in cheek and sarcastic, but he has some very good points. Two of them directly concern his perception of American Christianity, particularly the evangelical variety. I reproduce them here and encourage you to follow the link to read the entire article.

"I continually hear the words freedom and liberty chanted around me and prominently displayed on American homes and vehicles and in social media, so I know this must be something important.  I’ve also noticed that individuals, groups, and political candidates that oppose government intrusion into our lives are treated as social pariahs, so we have to dig a bit deeper to see what this American Freedom actually is.
It is a package deal that has primarily been assembled by neocons.  Mix together the various ingredients for the recipe and then add some red, white, and blue stuff that says “freedom” on it and you should be well on your way to American freedom.  It involves the following:
  1. Brand yourself as a Christian. But beware; the precepts of Christianity may get in the way.  So, the branding should not be accompanied by a practice of the faith.  Confusing?  Well, it’s not actually that hard if you apply yourself to a diligent study under an apt tutor.  To accomplish this, it is beneficial to seek out a subset of “Christianity” that concludes – through theological somersaults – that the actual practice of the tenets of Christianity when dealing with your fellow man is inappropriate manifesting “legalism” or “salvation through works.”  This really is the key which allows you to subdue the objections of your conscience and to strive for a relaxed mindset while carrying a Book around that says to not steal, to love your enemies, and to live peaceably with others.  Actual practice of the teachings of the New Testament must be portrayed as trying to “earn your way into heaven.”
So, to be clear on this point, call yourself a Christian, but to avoid the practice of the faith and to have a relaxed mindset with your hypocrisy, adopt a convoluted intellectual argument  – surrounding New Testament verses negating Old Testament rituals – that concludes that those verses require you to avoid New Testament teachings as well.   I know that last sentence is complicated, but you will need to grasp this complex doctrine in order to put your mind at ease to fully implement your unique American Freedom.  It’s hard to do if you have an un-seared conscience, but work on it.  You can probably get there if you make fervent efforts to beat down the feelings of hypocrisy.  There are plenty of paid ministers of the fallen one to help you arrive at the uniquely American sweet spot on this bundle of spiritual issues.
And, since we are talking about freedom and liberty, call this new libertine aspect of your faith “Christian liberty” or “Christian freedom.”   There are no requirements to subdue bloodlust or covetous tendencies since we, after all, must sin all day every day.  To work in another direction would be evil.  Advocating goodness and the Golden Rule would be gross heresy.  Go down the wide easy path and preach continually – lest you forget – that true faith means that we must all sin continually, and that this realization is what makes us true Christians.  Easy peasy.  Behave horribly and wretchedly because this, in essence, is your new “Christianity.”  See how easy that was?  Good is evil.  Evil is good.  If it gets confusing, drop some more money in the plate and get a refresher.   In short, call yourself a Christian, but don’t act like one and you will have this one covered with plenty of lucre-generating theological literature and preaching to back you up.
  1. Give vocal and ballot box support to the police state and military industrial complex. Now that we have Christianity out of the way and we have numbed our conscience into accepting perpetual evil in the name of our faith, it should be easy to ignore verses saying things like, “Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.”  We can’t do right anyway, so we might as well get all our basal urges to shed blood and enrich ourselves blessed by the state by claiming  that the American state, unlike us, is capable of taking the moral path.  Distorting Romans 13 to make the state into a god is key here.
If “we the people” vote for politicians that want to kill a lot of people and lock everybody else up, then this is a theologically endorsed expression of “Christian” freedom – which is actually a need to perpetually commit evil – if you were paying attention to item 1 in this list.   Get it?
So, to wrap up this point, “we the people” rule the government.  We vote for war-mongering politicians.  Violence and vengeance is not bad because the orders come from the state as per our ballot-expressed desires to kill ‘em all and let God sort ‘em out.   It takes some refreshing to remember how all the doctrinal pieces fit together into a cauldron of death and thievery.  If you accidentally stumble onto the Sermon on the Mount and read the Prince of Peace saying “love your enemies” and you need to get your evil spirit rekindled and re-justified, there are plenty of paid servants of hell who will re-shape your simple-minded reading of a doctrine of love, and get you back on the road to obligatory personal destruction – as a theological precept.    You know, so you can be “saved” from your confused thoughts that Christianity somehow relates to goodness."

He seems to understand the inherent, nationalistic contradictions within American conservative Christianity. Go read the whole thing. If it pisses you off, then stop and consider that he might be on to something and while I am here, let me add this...Most of the founding members of the neoconservative movement are Zionists or Jews or both. They are the Pharisees of our day. Should we as Christians really be following their lead? Our future is not with Israel. Our Kingdom is in Heaven. Just sayin'.  

One Tin Soldier (1971) - Joni Mitchell



Listen children to a story that was written long ago

'bout a kingdom on a mountain and the valley folk below

on the mountain was a treasure buried deep beneath a stone

and the valley people swore they'd have it for their very own



CHORUS: go ahead and hate your neighbor

go ahead and cheat a friend

do it in the name of heaven

justify it in the end

There won't be any trumpets blowing

come the judgment day

on the bloody morning after

One tin soldier rides away



So the people of the valley sent a message up the hill,

asking for the buried treasure, tons of gold for which they'd kill.

Came an answer from the kingdom "with our brothers we will share.

All the secrets of our mountain, all the riches buried there."



Now the valley cried with anger,"mount your horses, draw your swords"

And they killed the mountain people, so they won their just reward.

Now they stood beside the treasure, on the mountain dark and red.

Turned the stone and looked beneath it; PEACE ON EARTH was all it said.



CHORUS: go ahead and hate your neighbor

go ahead and cheat a friend

do it in the name of heaven

justify it in the end

There won't be any trumpets blowing

come the judgment day

on the bloody morning after

One tin soldier rides away

So Who Needs a Haircut? Apparently the Greeks.

From the Financial Times:

"Greek banks are preparing contingency plans for a possible “bail-in” of depositors amid fears the country is heading for financial collapse, bankers and businesspeople with knowledge of the measures said on Friday.
The plans, which call for a “haircut” of at least 30 per cent on deposits above €8,000, sketch out an increasingly likely scenario for at least one bank, the sources said.

A Greek bail-in could resemble the rescue plan agreed by Cyprus in 2013, when customers’ funds were seized to shore up the banks, with a haircut imposed on uninsured deposits over €100,000.
It would be implemented as part of a recapitalisation of Greek banks that would be agreed with the country’s creditors — the European Commission, International Monetary Fund and European Central Bank.
“It [the haircut] would take place in the context of an overall restructuring of the bank sector once Greece is back in a bailout programme,” said one person following the issue. “This is not something that is going to happen immediately.”"

It happened in Cyprus and now they are talking about it in Greece. When your economy teeters on the edge of bankruptcy and the nation can no longer pay its creditors, the bankers simply help themselves to your bank deposits. This is legal in almost every country of the world now in case you were wondering - yes, even here in the good old US of A. In Cyprus, they only hit deposits of 100,000 EUR or more. For Greece, they are talking about taking it down to 8,000 EUR.

I think the Greeks need to consider taking the route that Iceland chose. Simply default. Reboot the economy, prosecute the criminal banker and political class and go back to a metal based currency. And what ever else...they need to get out of the EU. This is where their troubles started.

So do you think this cannot happen here? Do not get overly optimistic about our financial future. The debt of the US government is deep and heavy. Should the right dominoes fall on a given day, both the bond and stock markets could collapse. Cash would be King for a bit, followed by wholesale dollar printing, followed by staggering inflation. The bankers will endeavor to recover their largess by giving you a haircut long before that last bit happens. There will be nothing you can do about it. They will simply help themselves to what is yours because they view your deposits as unsecured loans to them. Actually, I believe they think it's their money that they let us use.

Anyway, as this nightmare scenario proceeds, a barter economy is inevitable unless the people will be willing to take control, by force if necessary, of the reigns of government and finance. There are states in the current US union that are making preparation for this possibility. Texas come to mind. I believe that North Dakota is also prepared economic dooms day.

Some will say that their money is invested at brokerage houses or investment firms and is therefore safe. Let me tell you, when the feces hit the oscillating wind device, those with power will take what they want to save their sorry hides no matter where it is stashed. I look for them to pass the Mattress Seizure Act to be sure to get everything. There will be no place that is economically safe.

Gold and silver will not save you in the long term either. In the great and terrible day, I think we will be swapping bottled water and cans of Campbell's cream of tomato soup. People need to eat. You can't eat gold. Just my thought. It would be nice if I was wrong.

So what should you take from all this? Greece and Cyprus are rehearsals for the real deal. The bankers and politicians want to see what works and what does not work. They failed in Iceland.

We need to tell them now, that if it happens here, a giant Iceland will be their fate. They need to back off or they will have more trouble then they ever bargained for.

Jade Helm 15 is practice for the government handling of such a crisis. It is taking place in late summer and early fall in many states of the southwest. Some say it's merely a military drill. 9/11 happened during a military drill. Oklahoma City happened during a military drill. The subway bombings in London happened during a military drill. It could well be that there is a plan in place to artificially collapse the economy during this period to avoid a natural catastrophic melt down. Jade Helm 15 may be the way they intend to take control of an unruly populace. If this is the plan, look for it by September 23.

Here is to hoping none of that happens and that the Greek thing is localized and does not spread. That would be preferable to other scenarios. But just in case...lay in some bottled water and Campbell's tomato soup. I kind of like the chicken noodle too.