Cut the silly jargon

Remember in George Orwell’s "1984" how Big Brother banned certain words from use? Well in a strange twist British bureaucrats have been warned to “lay off buzz words”. A list of 100 “non-words” were circulated. But unlike the Orwellian tale where the words are banned because of their potential to make people think—and entice rebellion—these “non-words”, often used at the level of local government, are banned because they confuse people.

Looking at the list I’ve come to the conclusion that the words were not chosen really too confuse, but rather to impress. They want to make it sound that what they are doing is more important than it really is.

The Collapse of Sweden’s Freedom

What on earth happened to Sweden?! This is a Big Brother nightmare! And the worst thing about it is that it happened so silently that most of the international community is still oblivious to such dreadful violations on liberty.

A lawhas been passed that allows the tapping of all international communication (including email correspondences).

As one blogger lists, the Swedes can now look forward to the following intrusions:

• the FRA will NOT be required to obtain a court order to undertake surveillance of citizens’ communications.
• the FRA will be at liberty to snoop: read emails, eavesdrop on phone conversations, investigate what websites citizens are visiting, create sociograms to map out a citizen’s social network/linkages with friends
• the creation of a society in which innocent people will be fearful of what they can say and who might be listening in
• despite saying that only cross-border communications will be monitored, some internet servers are located abroad and the FRA one presumes would check all communications to establish whether they have “crossed the border”. Let’s be honest here: there are no clear borders when it comes to a global communications network. So if a Swedish citizen let’s say emails someone in Denmark, then the Danish citizen becomes trapped in the FRA dragnet surveillance. Sweden is a member of the EU and EU values (to some extent) privacy - will the EU be happy to be dragged into Sweden’s attack on privacy? Already questions are being asked. Benoît Hamon, a member of the European Parliament from France, has a whole list of questions the Swedes might wish to answer. Go here to the European Parliament site to access Hamon’s question on the remit of the FRA.
• all telephone and internet operators will be required to attach a cable to the FRA’s supercomputer so that there will be a record of ALL emails, conversations, sms, faxes, internet searches conducted by Swedes.
• EVERY Swedish citizen will be caught in this general snooping - not just suspected terrorists or criminals
• 20 hubs will apparently be installed across Sweden by the FRA to help collect communications data for this massive snooping and data-mining project. The FRA is saying it will only monitor international traffic against 250,000 criteria and that it will filter out domestic stuff - yeah, right.

The FRA, by the way, is a private organisation – which in itself is a scary thought.

Once while standing in a bookshop someone asked me out of the blue if I think George Orwell’s book “1984” is still relevant. My quick answer was, yes, look at the USA and North Korea.

And now, look at Sweden. . .

True friend of Israel...

“She’s a true friend of Israel.”* I heard this said yesterday by someone on a radio news report about Hillary Clinton.

Why should her “true friend[ship]” even be an issue?

Unfortunately, in U.S. politics it is very important, and I think for all the wrong reasons. There is a large pro-Israel movement in the U.S., backed mostly by Religious Right voters. Clinton is trying to get the backing of these Republican voters.

But here is my real issue and concern.

These Religious Right have been brain washed to believe some silly apocalyptic mumbo-jumbo. According to many Evangelical movements, after the Secret Rapture (which is not a sound Biblical doctrine) Israel will become the ruling state of the world – a peaceful reign for a thousand years!

These Evangelicals believe that their loyalties should lie with Israel, since Israel is the blessed nation of God.

What surprise me is that these people clearly do not study their Bibles. Israel has stopped being pivotal when the Gospel was sent to all nations. Paul makes it clear that the Church is spiritually part of the Jewish nation (Romans 2:29). The promises are to spiritual Israel, not literal Israel. The conditional prophecies of the Old Testament towards Israel and the Jews were revoked because they refused the Messiah. There will never be a grand Israel state controlling the world.

What doesn’t surprise me is that politicians would suck up for any vote. My concern is how strong the “religious”-vote is. How is it possible that a nation founded on the importance of Separation of Church and State could have turned blind so quickly? Haven’t they learned from the past?! Also, the Jewish-American economy is extremely strong so she is probably begging for some financial support for her campaign.

…ooOoo…

* The expression “…true friend of Israel” was first used by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert towards prior British Prime Minister Tony Blair in 2007.

Fallible doesn't equal sinful

“Prophet...” asks Morbid Neko in reply to my post Love your enemies, “if God had wanted infallible people, why didn’t He make humans that way?”

What an interesting question. After some consideration I came to the conclusion that it is not what God wants. What God wants are not infallible people, but sinless people.

These concepts (fallibility and sinfulness) are not synonyms. When I miscalculate a difficult equation, I’m proving my fallibility, but I didn’t sin. It is not necessarily morally wrong to be bad at maths! God wanted people to grow, to develop, to learn. If they were infallible (in the sense that God is infallible) they would not have been able to do these things, as there would have been no room for growth.

Sometimes we fail because we are fallible, but that is part of the growth process. For example a child often falls when learning to walk. We do not scold it for falling. We encourage the child’s attempts at walking. In fact we actually praise it! Other times we fail because we are sinful. Such failures we consider morally wrong and these we usually do not encourage, nor praise.

So Morbid Neko, your question should rather be “if God had wanted sinless people, why didn’t He make humans that way?” And my answer to this question is, He did. It was Man, not God, that made himself sinful.

My virtuous suicide

“Please switch me off”, I said.

My partner was distraught at the idea. Our discussion happened over dinner in a restaurant.

“There is no quality of life and it also diminishes the quality of life of the loved-ones. Not to mention the extreme emotional and financial strain put on everyone. So, by all means, pull the plug!”

If ever I’m in a vegetative state, kept alive by machines, that is my wish. She, of course, was very shocked at my candid (and probably somewhat logically-cold) utterance.

Does this constitute as suicide and mortal sin? I don’t think so. Sin, is primarily selfishness. My wish to be “switched off” is primarily unselfish. I know the extreme strain, both emotionally and financially, caused by a terminally ill family member. Rather have them cherish the sweet memories of me, than stain their memories with suffering, toil, serious financial strain, and the like.

Furthermore, suicide, although easy to judge by the clergy, is not as straight forward at all. Firstly, people that commit suicide are usually not healthy – suffering from serious clinical depression. Chemically they are imbalanced, and do not think straight. Their actions are skewed by a mental illness, and I’m convinced that God, far more than man, will take this into account.

But my choice to have the “plug pulled” is a cognitive decision which I’m making now, while I’m in a healthy mental state. And this brings me to my second point. In Scripture there are at least two examples of people that committed suicides of sort, which we deduce from the contexts were not considered sins. The first is Samson who asked God to give him strength to kill some Philistines and himself:

“And Samson called unto the LORD, and said, O Lord GOD, remember me, I pray thee, and strengthen me, I pray thee, only this once, O God, that I may be at once avenged of the Philistines for my two eyes. And Samson took hold of the two middle pillars upon which the house stood, and on which it was borne up, of the one with his right hand, and of the other with his left. And Samson said, Let me die with the Philistines. And he bowed himself with all his might; and the house fell upon the lords, and upon all the people that were therein. So the dead which he slew at his death were more than they which he slew in his life” (Jdg 16:28-30).

The other is the Passion of Jesus. Jesus knew very well that His return to Jerusalem would certain His death. In fact, it was His mission to die for humanity. Wasn’t this, in a sense, a suicide mission? Of course, not selfish suicide, but in fact, unselflish suicide. And I guess that is my point. Suicide, whether active or passive, can be a selfish and therefore sinful act, or unselfish and therefore a virtuous act. Obviously on a cosmic scale, as in the case of Jesus, it is much easier to discern whether it was selfish or unselfish. In our own lives it becomes much harder to distinguish the morality of suicide. But still, it doesn’t negate the possibility of unselfish suicide. I am of the opinion that my current clear-headed decision to have the machines switched of in case of a possible future situation of a vegetative state is primarily an unselfish act. I wish to spare my family grave continuous emotional and financial suffering.

Some might say that it is just masked selfishness – I just selfishly do not wish to be in a vegetative state. Which is true; I do not wish to be in a vegetative state with no quality of life. But me not wanting to be in a vegetative state doesn’t equal me being selfish. Selfishness means something done at the expense of someone else.

What's Myanmar's government hiding?

So what is happening in Myanmar? The country is devastated by the recent Cyclone Nargis. I find it suspicious that the militant government is downplaying outside assistance. There is no question that the country is in a pandemic crisis. What is Myanmar’s government hiding?

I posted something about Myanmar in September 2007. At that time it concerned the uprising of Buddhist monks and fighting for religious freedom (and lowered petrol prices). Now it's a fight for survival against natural disasters and a apathetic government.

With a world in ruin, I really need to count my blessings!

What government unites, let no man seperate...

I’m reading about the whole controversy regarding same sex marriages in California, at present.

I'm thinking out loud...

Should a country’s law govern marriages, in the sanctimonious sense, at all? Shouldn’t Church and State be separate?

Let people partner up contractually if they want to, in the form of civil unions and domestic partnerships (which are already possibilities in California). This then becomes a legal contract between two entities about sharing money, responsibilities, etc.

And then, if religious people want to make another contract with God – a sanctimonious covenant – let them do so within the confines of their religious persuasion. This shouldn’t be a matter of State, but a personal (religious) matter; a matter between a couple and their God.

Marriage in a legal sense and marriage in a sanctimonious sense are not the same, why should we try to get government to merge the two? America is a country rooted on the principle of separation between State and Religion. Keep it separate.

C. S. Lewis on Living in Global Uncertainty

"If we are going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things -- praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts -- not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs. They might break our bodies (a microbe can do that) but they need not dominate our minds." C.S. Lewis

Lewis’ counsel is probably equally valuable regardless the danger, be it an atomic bomb, or a terrorist invasion, or outlandishly high violent crimes... They may break our bodies, but they need not dominate our minds.

The cloak of anti-terrorism

“The tragedy of our day is the climate of fear in which we live, and fear breeds repression. Too often sinister threats to the bill of rights, to freedom of the mind, are concealed under the patriotic cloak, of anti-communism.”

American Politician - Adlai Stevenson (February 5, 1900 – July 14, 1965).

In a Boston Legal episode, a character repeats this quote and says that “anti-communism” can easily be replaced with “anti-terrorism”. How shockingly true.

May America not forget this insight from her past.

The fishy state of North America

The US economy is in a crisis. In the meantime the governments of the USA, Canada and Mexico have been involved in trilateral agreements. The latter had been happening quite hush-hush. Most citizens are unaware of their governments' threesome-flirtations. For now the idea of a North American Union is still downplayed, and maybe even a farce, but a new North American currency, the Amero, is quite plausible. Imagine a total collapse of the US economy? Imagine the US Dollar suddenly losing all value… In such a case, only the combined forces of Canada, Mexico and the USA could save the North American economy from total disaster. (After all, both Canada and Mexico are siamesed to the USA, that if their big brother should collapse, they are sure to collapse with it.)

Such grandiose economic merging might be a Utopian ideal, and will surely save the US from utter depression, but at what cost? Something about the whole thing smells of aquatic vertebrates.

Surely it is all just silly conspiracy theories, isn't it?

Love your enemies

“Die voetewassing van Jacob Zuma” / “The Feet-washing of Jacob Zuma”

Recently I taught a Bible class and we spoke about Jesus’ inclusive character – how He treated the ostracised of society with grace and forgiveness. I also referred to Jesus’ radical teaching in the Oliviet Discourse, and the extreme teaching of loving your enemies.

To try and make it practical I asked the members in my Bible class to each name someone they consider enemies. Being good Christian folk they don’t have enemies and so I had to change my approach. “Who then,” I asked “if you had to choose, do you not like?”

Two names came up as statistically significant. Both political figures – Robert Mugabe, the dicatator-president of our neighbouring country, Zimbabwe, and our own once vice-president, Jacob Zuma. The latter came up the most. Zuma is a notorious presence in South Africa. Recently voted as the president of the ruling party, the Afican National Congress, Zuma is likely to become the next president of South Africa in 2009. Although a democracy, South Africa is not a healthy democracy as there are no real opposition parties to balance the ruling party. To many, the idea of Zuma as our next president is a chilling thought.

Zuma is infamous for his unruly behaviour. He was let off from his position as vice-president by the current president, Thabo Mbeki, for alleged corruption. He is notorious for his sexual escapades, polygamy and hordes of children (many out of wedlock). He shocked the nation during a rape-trial (him being the accused) for admitting to having had unprotected sex with an HIV-positive woman (decades his junior) and then taking a shower afterwards as infection-prevention. This single act negated years of AIDS-prevention education amongst the black community who look up to Zuma as a role model.

Regardless of his unconventional lifestyle, Zuma is a charismatic character with a large following of political supporters, especially under the black male youths. His example only encourages licentiousness and chauvinism.

It, therefore, makes much sense to me that my group of Bible study students should list Jacob Zuma as somebody they dislike.

And then I dropped the bombshell: “Jesus teaches that you should love Jacob Zuma.” Love the sinner, not the sins – yes, but do love the sinner!

In demonstration of this principle Jesus washed the feet not only of his loyal disciples, but also of Judas Iscariot, the “friend” that would stab him in the back. Jesus had mercy on the whores, and cared for the downtrodden. Jesus audibly forgave those that spat on and tortured him. Jesus loved his enemies.

The challenge of being a disciple of Christ is a radical one – a most unnatural one. It does not come naturally to us to love those we dislike – not to mention our enemies! It is not merely unnatural - it is supernatural.

But for the grace of God, it is impossible! To love your enemies is a wholly divine act. Christianity is a wholly divine religion.

In the [science] but not of the [science]...

For about a year I was part of a creativity project called Tracking Creative Creatures. The purpose of the project was to collect data on the creative process. I was invited to contribute as an artist, which entailed the creation of artworks inspired by predetermined stimuli. My contribution also had to include a log of the creative process as I experienced it.

As a scholar, I was also invited to make an academic contribution. An academic journal decided it will focus one full publication to this project. And so I made up my mind to write an article for this publication, on my own creative process while involved in the project. Being an academic journal a mere subjective vomiting of ideas would not be accepted. I therefore need a scientific model to give structure and credence to the article.

My instinctive thought was to use Semiotics – the study of signs. But after some thought the study of Memetics stood out as an excellent model to explore the creative process. Memetics basically study the propagation of ideas, known as memes, from mind to mind (in the same way as genes propagate from organism to organism) and their evolution. This models fits ideally with the Tracking Creative Creatures project.

The projects started with the imaginary creatures of a young boy who described them to his artist father who in turn made sketches of the creatures. These sketches were given to artists from different disciplines and asked to use the sketches as inspiration to create own artworks. The original memes, developed in the mind of a five year old boy, propagated through his father’s sketches to different artists, where they mutated and evolved. The memes competed for survival. The “strongest” ones were chosen by the artist and ended up as artworks. The “weaker” means went extinct.

As you can see, Memetics provides an excellent metaphor for studying the distribution and evolution of ideas as it occurs in the creative process.

And here is my dilemma. Memetics, inspired by Darwinism, is fundamentally an atheistic science, developed by two outspoken atheists (Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennet), and used to promulgate Darwinian ideas, specifically for anti-religious means.

And here I am, a theist, sceptical of the supposedly infallible Theory of Evolution, wanting to use an evolutionary theory to explain my own study. Aren’t I being a hypocrite? I undeniably disagree with what Memetics stands for, specifically as it is used within evolutionary biology. Yet I wish to exploit it as a metaphor to discuss my own work.

We know that the Apostle Paul used the literature and philosophy of the day to appeal to his audience. But to what effect? Afterwards he complained that he will henceforth preach Jesus and the Cross only. I’m not sure if using the Apostle Paul as a case study is applicable to my dilemma. Paul was concerned with preaching the gospel. I’m trying to write a non-religious article concerning creativity and the transfer and development of ideas.

Jesus prayed that Christians should be in the world but not of the world. How am I to be in the science, but not of the science?

Christians Wrong About Heaven, Says Bishop

Imagine my suprise when the one of the highest clerics of the Church of England reiterate somewhat similar sentiments as myself concerning life-after-death. Actually, it shouldn't be surprising. Anyone that seriously studies the Bible has to come to parallel conclusions.

I'm thankful to a friend of mine for sending me this article, even though we are of different opinions regarding the subject.

Christians Wrong About Heaven, Says Bishop
TIME Magazine - Thursday, Feb. 07, 2008
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1710844,00.html

N.T. "Tom" Wright is one of the most formidable figures in the world of Christian thought. As Bishop of Durham, he is the fourth most senior cleric in the Church of England and a major player in the strife-riven global Anglican Communion; as a much-read theologian and Biblical scholar he has taught at Cambridge and is a hero to conservative Christians worldwide for his 2003 book The Resurrection of the Son of God, which argued forcefully for a literal interpretation of that event.

It therefore comes as a something of a shock that Wright doesn't believe in heaven — at least, not in the way that millions of Christians understand the term. In his new book, Surprised by Hope (HarperOne), Wright quotes a children's book by California first lady Maria Shriver called What's Heaven, which describes it as "a beautiful place where you can sit on soft clouds and talk... If you're good throughout your life, then you get to go [there]... When your life is finished here on earth, God sends angels down to take you heaven to be with him." That, says Wright is a good example of "what not to say." The Biblical truth, he continues, "is very, very different."

Wright, 58, talked by phone with TIME's David Van Biema.

TIME: At one point you call the common view of heaven a "distortion and serious diminution of Christian hope."

Wright: It really is. I've often heard people say, "I'm going to heaven soon, and I won't need this stupid body there, thank goodness.' That's a very damaging distortion, all the more so for being unintentional.

TIME: How so? It seems like a typical sentiment.

Wright: There are several important respects in which it's unsupported by the New Testament. First, the timing. In the Bible we are told that you die, and enter an intermediate state. St. Paul is very clear that Jesus Christ has been raised from the dead already, but that nobody else has yet. Secondly, our physical state. The New Testament says that when Christ does return, the dead will experience a whole new life: not just our soul, but our bodies. And finally, the location. At no point do the resurrection narratives in the four Gospels say, "Jesus has been raised, therefore we are all going to heaven." It says that Christ is coming here, to join together the heavens and the Earth in an act of new creation.

TIME: Is there anything more in the Bible about the period between death and the resurrection of the dead?

Wright: We know that we will be with God and with Christ, resting and being refreshed. Paul writes that it will be conscious, but compared with being bodily alive, it will be like being asleep. The Wisdom of Solomon, a Jewish text from about the same time as Jesus, says "the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God," and that seems like a poetic way to put the Christian understanding, as well.

TIME: But it's not where the real action is, so to speak?

Wright: No. Our culture is very interested in life after death, but the New Testament is much more interested in what I've called the life after life after death — in the ultimate resurrection into the new heavens and the new Earth. Jesus' resurrection marks the beginning of a restoration that he will complete upon his return. Part of this will be the resurrection of all the dead, who will "awake," be embodied and participate in the renewal. John Polkinghorne, a physicist and a priest, has put it this way: "God will download our software onto his hardware until the time he gives us new hardware to run the software again for ourselves." That gets to two things nicely: that the period after death is a period when we are in God's presence but not active in our own bodies, and also that the more important transformation will be when we are again embodied and administering Christ's kingdom.

TIME: That is rather different from the common understanding. Did some Biblical verse contribute to our confusion?

Wright: There is Luke 23, where Jesus says to the good thief on the cross, "Today you will be with me in Paradise." But in Luke, we know first of all that Christ himself will not be resurrected for three days, so "paradise" cannot be a resurrection. It has to be an intermediate state. And chapters 4 and 5 of Revelation, where there is a vision of worship in heaven that people imagine describes our worship at the end of time. In fact it's describing the worship that's going on right now. If you read the book through, you see that at the end we don't have a description of heaven, but, as I said, of the new heavens and the new earth joined together.

TIME: Why, then, have we misread those verses?

Wright: It has, originally, to do with the translation of Jewish ideas into Greek. The New Testament is deeply, deeply Jewish, and the Jews had for some time been intuiting a final, physical resurrection. They believed that the world of space and time and matter is messed up, but remains basically good, and God will eventually sort it out and put it right again. Belief in that goodness is absolutely essential to Christianity, both theologically and morally. But Greek-speaking Christians influenced by Plato saw our cosmos as shabby and misshapen and full of lies, and the idea was not to make it right, but to escape it and leave behind our material bodies. The church at its best has always come back toward the Hebrew view, but there have been times when the Greek view was very influential.

TIME: Can you give some historical examples?

Wright: Two obvious ones are Dante's great poetry, which sets up a Heaven, Purgatory and Hell immediately after death, and Michelangelo's Last Judgment in the Sistine chapel, which portrays heaven and hell as equal and opposite last destinations. Both had enormous influence on Western culture, so much so that many Christians think that is Christianity.

TIME: But it's not.

Wright: Never at any point do the Gospels or Paul say Jesus has been raised, therefore we are we are all going to heaven. They all say, Jesus is raised, therefore the new creation has begun, and we have a job to do.

TIME: That sounds a lot like... work.

Wright: It's more exciting than hanging around listening to nice music. In Revelation and Paul's letters we are told that God's people will actually be running the new world on God's behalf. The idea of our participation in the new creation goes back to Genesis, when humans are supposed to be running the Garden and looking after the animals. If you transpose that all the way through, it's a picture like the one that you get at the end of Revelation.

TIME: And it ties in to what you've written about this all having a moral dimension.

Wright: Both that, and the idea of bodily resurrection that people deny when they talk about their "souls going to Heaven." If people think "my physical body doesn't matter very much," then who cares what I do with it? And if people think that our world, our cosmos, doesn't matter much, who cares what we do with that? Much of "traditional" Christianity gives the impression that God has these rather arbitrary rules about how you have to behave, and if you disobey them you go to hell, rather than to heaven. What the New Testament really says is God wants you to be a renewed human being helping him to renew his creation, and his resurrection was the opening bell. And when he returns to fulfil the plan, you won't be going up there to him, he'll be coming down here.

TIME: That's very different from, say, the vision put out in the Left Behind books.

Wright: Yes. If there's going to be an Armageddon, and we'll all be in heaven already or raptured up just in time, it really doesn't matter if you have acid rain or greenhouse gases prior to that. Or, for that matter, whether you bombed civilians in Iraq. All that really matters is saving souls for that disembodied heaven.

TIME: Has anyone you've talked to expressed disappointment at the loss of the old view?
Wright: Yes, you might get disappointment in the case where somebody has recently gone through the death of somebody they love and they are wanting simply to be with them. And I'd say that's understandable. But the end of Revelation describes a marvelous human participation in God's plan. And in almost all cases, when I've explained this to people, there's a sense of excitement and a sense of, "Why haven't we been told this before?"

Agreeing with an atheist

I’m reading the book “The God Delusion” (2006) by famous (and somewhat self-acclaimed “aggressive”) atheist Richard Dawkins, known for his activism against religions.

I’m halfway through the book and must say that I am enjoying it. He makes some good arguments – but is yet to convert me. However, I am finding, as I have found in the past that I am agreeing with an awful lot of his atheistic standpoints. I have always said that if I had to believe in the kind of God that most atheists understand God to be, then I too would be an atheist.

Take for instance the following list of religious (Christian) beliefs Dawkins list (and by default disagree with) and with how little I agree with (or rather with how much I agree with Dawkins). My comments are in square-brackets.

• You will survive your own death. [If, by this, Dawkins means the innate immortality of the soul, I also disagree with the statement.]

• If you die a martyr, you will go to an especially wonderful part of paradise where you will enjoy seventy-two virgins (spare a thought for the unfortunate virgins). [Okay, not a Christian doctrine, but of Abrahamic religious origin. I do not believe in this. Whether God has pleasantries installed for martyrs I don’t know, but I disagree with the idea that militant “holy war”-martyrs is looked upon favourably by God. I disagree with the statement.]

• Belief in God is a supreme virtue. If you find your belief wavering, work hard at restoring it, and beg God to help your unbelief. [Belief, Hope and Love are listed as priority virtues. So I do agree with this statement. However, Dawkins’ understanding of “belief” and mine differ as we will see with the next point. But for the sake of arbitrariness let’s say agree fully with this statement.]

• Faith (belief without evidence) is a virtue. The more your beliefs defy the evidence, the more virtuous you are. Virtuoso believers who can manage to believe something really weird, unsupported and insupportable, in the teeth of evidence and reason, are especially highly rewarded. [My understanding, from the Bible, of what faith differs greatly from Dawkins understanding of the term. Faith, as I understand it, is “trust” and not blind-faith. I don’t think that God is an adherent supported of blind-faith. So I disagree with the statement.]

• Everybody, even those who do not hold religious beliefs, must respect them with a higher level of automatic and unquestioned respect than that accorded to other kinds of belief. [I think we should allow people their differences in opinion. We do not have to agree, but we can respect such differences and even engage in dialogue. So I only halfway disagree with this statement.

• There are some weird things (such as the Trinity, transubstantiation, incarnation) that we are not meant to understand. Don’t even try to understand one of these, for the attempt might destroy it. Learn how to gain fulfilment in calling it s mystery. [To start with, I do not belief in the doctrine of transubstantiation. Neither do I think we are barred from contemplating the other two, or similar, “mysteries” mentioned. Our musings over such concepts cannot destroy them, just as little as our musings over the number “0” can destroy this mysterious icon of “nothingness”. I mean, what is “nothing”. It is not something I can mentally grasp, yet mathematics claims it to exist. So, although I believe in the inspired concept of the incarnation, for instance, I disagree with the statement.]

Let’s for a moment remove the statement referring to Islamic-doctrine (the one about the martyrs and the seventy-two virgins), which will leave us with five archetypal Christian doctrines. I disagree with 3½ of the 5 statements. In other words, I agree with 70% of an avid atheist.

Where does that leave me? Clearly a heretic in the eyes of conventional Christendom! The interesting thing is that my reasons for agreeing with the atheist 70% of the time are not because of materialistic, Darwinian reasons, but because of my (Biblical) understanding of God’s character. Isn’t that ironic?!

Salvation by spam

Email this to 15 people and God will love you more.

Email has become the next bondage to works-religion. Almost daily I get (Christian) emails telling me to forward this to people and I will be blessed. Here’s an example:

Pass this message to 15 people except you and me.

Don't ignore and God will bless you. 

So if I do not send irritating time consuming emails to other people God will not bless me? In other words, I have to work (send emails) in order to gain God’s favour?

Christianity is unique among the great religions because it is centred upon the idea that salvation (i.e. God’s favour) is not because something we do, but due to something God has done. The greatest struggle for many Christians is to accept God’s love and saving provision. Not to try and save ourselves, but accept God’s salvation on our part.

These chain-letters also usually make emotional manipulative appeals to make you feel guilty. For instance in the letter already quoted, the author pretends to pray for me. Included in that prayer is this sneaky manipulative sentence:

I pray for those who don't know You intimately. I pray for those that will delete this without sharing it with others. I pray for those that don't believe.

By proximity of the sentences I am to deduce that if I “delete [the email] without sharing it with others” then I do not know God intimately and do not believe. Apparently ones relationship with God depends on whether or not you “share” these irritating emails with other people. So the more you spam other people’s mailboxes, the closer you are to God?!

Call me paranoid, but I think that these emails are a ploy of Satan to get Christians to doubt in the faithfulness of God. Getting us to doubt in God’s complete salvation. Getting us to subtly try and contribute to our salvation – thereby insulting our Lord and Saviour by insinuating that His saving sacrifice was insufficient.

To become perfect I still need to send this to 15 more people.

Church's doubt caused by unbiblical doctrines

There is a strong movement within Christendom to question the Bible (Higher Criticism), and specifically question fundamental Christian givens, such as the Virgin Birth and the Death-and-Resurrection of Christ, and other similar metaphysical wonders recorded in Scripture.

The main protestant denomination in South Africa is the Dutch Reformed Church, commonly referred to as the N.G. Kerk (“Nederduits Gereformeerde Kerk”). A recent (2007) documentary exposes how leading professors within the N.G. Kerk and many other denominations deny the death and literal resurrection of Christ. This includes the internationally known Archbishop Desmond Tutu (of the Anglican Church).

St. Paul warned: “…if Christ is not raised, your faith is foolish; you are yet in your sins. Then also those that fell asleep in Christ were lost. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are all men most miserable. But now Christ has risen from the death, and has become the firstfruit of those who slept” (1 Corinthians 15:17-20).

The Christian faith would be “foolish” and “miserable” if Christ did not literally rise from the dead.

I think part of the reason for such questioning lies in the pagan dogma of the innate immortality of the soul, adhered to by most of Christendom. If one believes that at death a thinking rational soul separates from the body and goes to heaven (or hell), then why is a physical literal resurrection necessary – not only of Christ, but of anyone?

However, the Bible does teach of a physical resurrection. Christ being the “firstfruit of those who slept”.

The unbiblical idea of an innate immortal soul is leading to other unbiblical theories such as “The Historic Jesus” and the “Jesus Seminar”, which propagate ideas such as that Jesus did not die at the cross, but married Mary Magdalene and other such fantasies.

When people cling to unbiblical doctrines (like the innate immortality of the soul) it is inevitable that they will come up with other false theories to uphold the silliness they already adhere to.

Barry Goldwater - the last sane Republican

Some of my favourite quotes by the late Barry Goldwater (1909-1989) , five-term USA Senator of Arizona:

"There is no position on which people are so immovable as their religious beliefs. There is no more powerful ally one can claim in a debate that Jesus Christ, or God, or Allah, or whatever one calls this supreme being. But like any powerful weapon, the us of God's name on one's behalf should be used sparingly. The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom. They are trying to force government leaders into following their position 100 percent. If you disagree with these religious groups on a particular moral issue, they complain, they threaten you with a loss of money or votes or both. I'm frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, U must believe in A, B, C, and D. Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me? And I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate. I am warning them today: I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of conservatism."

"When you say “radical right” today, I think of these moneymaking ventures by fellows like Pat Robertson and others who are trying to take the Republican Party and make a religious organization out of it. If that ever happens, kiss politics goodbye."

"Do not associate my name with anything you do. You are extremists, and you've hurt the Republican Party much more than the Democrats have."

From a mindless “life force”, to a sentient being.

Have you ever heard of the mystical life force referred to as Ki, Chi or Qi in the Oriental cultures? This term is defined as the life force associated with breath. That is why you find so much of Chinese Medicine focussed on breathing, in an attempt to rekindle the life force.

In the Bible, the terms most often translated into “spirit” (and sometimes as “soul”) are [nephesh / r­­uach] (Hebrew – Old Testament) and [pneuma] (Greek – New Testament). In both cases they literally mean “wind” or “breath”. For instance when Jesus said, “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit [pneuma]” He literally said that He gave His breath back to God (Luk 23:46). As Adam became alive when God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life [nephesh] (Gen 2:7), so Jesus as a human being now died and his breath [pneuma] (i.e. His life) returned to God.

Throughout Scripture it is abundantly clear that this breath, or “spirit”, is considered the life force. This vital energy is lent to every living creature by God. It is not something that they possess innately, nor can they keep it indefinitely. God alone possess life intrinsically (1 Titus 6:16). And when a creature dies that life energy returns to God.

The Encyclopaedia of Taekwon-Do (a Korean martial art) makes an interesting distinction between Chi and Ki. According to Choi Hong-Hi, the author, Ki is the life force, while Chi is the mental aptitude that directs the Ki. “The Chi leads, the Ki follows.” Nowhere else have I found this interesting distinction, but it has proven to be valuable for me in trying to understand the Scriptural principle of the “spirit”.

The spirit is the breath or life-principle. It is similar to the idea of this impersonal Ki. But in combination with the body, when it becomes a living soul, this Ki acquires another level – a personal characteristic – i.e. Chi. “And Jehovah God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul” (Gen 2:7). These last two words “living soul [chay nephesh]” directly translated means “living breath”. The inanimate impersonal “breath” has now become an animate personal “breath”. The Ki is now possessed with a mental aptitude – it has become Chi.

Separated from the body this breath is only life energy – apart from God’s active emanation, it is mindless. However, once merged with the body, “formed…of the dust of the ground”, a wondrous thing occurs. A Divinely ordained synergy between body and life energy creates something marvellous – a psyche. Quickened by this breath, a lifeless body doesn’t merely become alive, it also becomes sentient. And the impersonal life energy becomes personal – mindful.

The complexity of the body itself, (the magnitude of the brain), dictates the degree of sentience. God designed the human body to be the most sentient of all living creatures. Sentient to such a degree that we even imitate something of the Divine: “And God said, Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness…” (Gen 1:26).

Comparing the Evilbook with similar services…

Did you read the small print? Let’s compare the “Terms” from Facebook with other similar social networking services.

The Bad:

Facebook

“By posting User Content to any part of the Site, you automatically grant, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant, to the Company an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, publicly perform, publicly display, reformat, translate, excerpt (in whole or in part) and distribute such User Content for any purpose on or in connection with the Site or the promotion thereof, to prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into other works, such User Content, and to grant and authorize sublicenses of the foregoing.”

The Better:

Bebo.com

“Bebo does not claim any ownership rights in any Materials that you submit, post, or display on or through the Bebo Services or on the Bebo.com Web site. After submitting, posting or displaying Materials on or through the Bebo Services or on the Bebo.com Web site, you continue to retain all ownership rights in such Materials, and you continue to have the right to use your Materials in any way you choose. By submitting, posting or displaying any Materials on or through the Bebo Service, you hereby grant to Bebo a limited license to use, modify, publicly perform, publicly display, reproduce, and distribute such Materials (and all components or underlying works making up the Materials) solely on and through the Bebo Service.”

Jaxtr

“Jaxtr does not claim any ownership rights in the text, files, images, photos, video, sounds, musical works, works of authorship, or any other materials works of authorship (collectively, "Content") that you post to the jaxtr Services. After posting your Content to the jaxtr Services, you continue to retain all ownership rights in such Content, and you continue to have the right to use your Content in any way you choose. By displaying or publishing ("posting") any Content on or through the jaxtr Services, you hereby grant to jaxtr a limited license to use, modify, publicly perform, publicly display, reproduce, and distribute such Content solely on and through the jaxtr Services.”

MySpace.com

“MySpace.com does not claim any ownership rights in the text, files, images, photos, video, sounds, musical works, works of authorship, or any other materials (collectively, "Content") that you post to the MySpace Services. After posting your Content to the MySpace Services, you continue to retain all ownership rights in such Content, and you continue to have the right to use your Content in any way you choose. By displaying or publishing ("posting") any Content on or through the MySpace Services, you hereby grant to MySpace.com a limited license to use, modify, publicly perform, publicly display, reproduce, and distribute such Content solely on and through the MySpace Services.

“The license does not grant MySpace.com the right to sell your Content, nor does the license grant MySpace.com the right to distribute your Content outside of the MySpace Services.”

Windows Live

“You may be able to submit materials for use in connection with the service. Except for material that we license to you, we do not claim ownership of the materials you post or otherwise provide to us related to the service (called a “submission”). However, by posting or otherwise providing your submission, you are granting to the public free permission to:

· use, copy, distribute, display, publish and modify your submission, each in connection with the service;

· publish your name in connection with your submission; and

· grant these permissions to other persons.

This section only applies to legally permissible content and only to the extent that use and publishing of the legally permissible content does not breach the law. We will not pay you for your submission. We may refuse to publish, and may remove your submission from the service at any time. For every submission you make, you must have all rights necessary for you to grant the permissions in this section.”

The Bad’s evil sisters:

Classmates.com

“When you participate in the Classmates community you are granting Classmates certain rights to use the Content you submit or post through the Website. By submitting Content you grant us a royalty-free, worldwide, non-terminable, non-exclusive license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, edit, market, publish, store, distribute, have distributed, publicly and privately display, communicate, publicly and privately perform, transmit, have transmitted, create derivative works based upon, and promote such Content (in whole or in part) in any medium now known or hereafter devised, for editorial, commercial, promotional and all other purposes including, without limitation, the right to publish your name in connection with your Content; and the right to sublicense any or all of these rights. You acknowledge that Classmates owns all right, title, and interest in any compilation, collective work or other derivative work created using or incorporating the Content.”

Netlog

“When a user enters data that is meant to be viewable to the public via Netlog, including but not limited to text, pictures, images, drawings or graphics for a profile, guestbook entry, comment entry, a photo description, etcetera, the user grants Netlog an unlimited licence to disseminate, use, process, translate or modify this data.

“Netlog RESERVES ALL RIGHTS AND DENIES ANY LIABILITY WHATSOEVER.”

The Verdict:

There are okay social networking websites and there are bad ones. And then there’s Evilbook. Choose carefully who you wish to sell your soul to.

Facebook – More intrusive than previously thought

A friend forwarded me this link to the article below from PCWorld. If people would just take the time to read Facebook’s Terms of Use, they wouldn’t be surprised at these privacy intrusions. Facebook makes it very clear that they collect information about their users outside of the Facebook-interface. I hate to tell you: I told you so!

The real question is not if they are collecting personal information about it, but rather why do it and what do they do with it?

…ooOoo…

Facebook's Beacon More Intrusive Than Previously Thought

A Computer Associates security researcher says that Facebook's controversial Beacon online ad system goes much further than expected in tracking people's Web activities.

Juan Carlos Perez

Friday, November 30, 2007 4:10 PM PST

A Computer Associates security researcher is sounding the alarm that Facebook's controversial Beacon online ad system goes much further than anyone has imagined in tracking people's Web activities outside the popular social networking site.

Beacon will report back to Facebook on members' activities on third-party sites that participate in Beacon even if the users are logged off from Facebook and have declined having their activities broadcast to their Facebook friends.

That's the finding published on Friday by Stefan Berteau, senior research engineer at CA's Threat Research Group in a note summarizing tests he conducted.

Of particular concern is that users aren't informed that data on their activities at these sites is flowing back to Facebook, nor given the option to block that information from being transmitted, Berteau said in an interview.

"It can happen completely without their knowledge, unless they are examining their network traffic at a very low level," Berteau said.

The CA news comes after Facebook scrambled on Thursday night to tweak Beacon in order to calm complaints from privacy groups and Facebook users that the ad system is too intrusive and too confusing to opt out of.

Beacon is a major part of the Facebook Ads platform that Facebook introduced with much fanfare several weeks ago. Beacon tracks certain activities of Facebook users on more than 40 participating Web sites, including those of Blockbuster and Fandango, and reports those activities to the users' set of Facebook friends, unless told not to do so.

Off-Facebook activities that can be broadcast to one's Facebook friends include purchasing a product, signing up for a service and including an item on a wish list.

The program has been blasted by groups such as MoveOn.org and by individual users who have unwittingly broadcast information about recent purchases and other Web activities to their Facebook friends. This has led to some embarrassing situations, such as blowing the surprise of holiday presents.

On Thursday night, Facebook tweaked Beacon to make its workings more explicit to Facebook users and to make it easier to nix a broadcast message and opt out of having activities tracked on specific Web sites. Facebook didn't go all the way to providing a general opt-out option for the entire Beacon program, as some had hoped.

But Berteau's investigation reveals that Beacon is more intrusive and stealthy than anyone had imagined.

In his note, titled "Facebook's Misrepresentation of Beacon's Threat to Privacy: Tracking users who opt out or are not logged in," he explains that he created an account on Conde Nast's food site Epicurious.com, a site participating in Beacon, and saved three recipes as favorites.

He saved the first recipe while logged in to Facebook, and he opted out of having it broadcast to his friends on Facebook. He saved the second recipe after closing the Facebook window, but without logging off from Epicurious or ending the browser session, and again declined broadcasting it to his friends. Then he logged out of Facebook and saved the third recipe. This time, no Facebook alert appeared asking if he wanted the information displayed to his friends.

After checking his network traffic logs, Berteau saw that in all three cases, information about his activities was reported back to Facebook, although not to his friends. That information included where he was on Epicurious, the action he had just taken and his Facebook account name.

"The first two cases involve the transmission of user data despite 'No thanks' having been selected on the opt-out dialog, and are causes for deep concern. They pale, however, in comparison to the third case, where Facebook was receiving data about my online habits while I was not logged in, and was doing so silently, without even alerting me to the cross-site communication," he wrote in the research note.

If a user has ever checked the option for Facebook to "remember me" -- which saves the user from having to log on to the site upon every return to it -- Facebook can tie his activities on third-party Beacon sites directly to him, even if he's logged off and has opted out of the broadcast. If he has never chosen this option, the information still flows back to Facebook, although without it being tied to his Facebook ID, according to Berteau.

Berteau wasn't able to determine where this data flows to in Facebook. "That's part of the concern here," he said in the interview. He repeated the Epicurious experiment with Kongregate.com, another Beacon-affiliated site, and got similar results.

In e-mail correspondence with Facebook's privacy department, Berteau was told, among other things, that "as long as you are logged out of Facebook, no actions you have taken on other websites can be sent to Facebook."

A similar statement was made by a high-ranking Facebook official on Thursday. In an interview with The New York Times, Chamath Palihapitiya, vice president of product marketing and operations at Facebook, was asked whether Facebook would receive information about a user's purchase if the user declined to broadcast the purchase to his Facebook friends.

His answer: "Absolutely not. One of the things we are still trying to do is dispel a lot of misinformation that is being propagated unnecessarily."

Facebook didn't immediately reply to requests for comment from IDG News Service.