Black Lives Matter was an organization originally created several years ago in response to police brutality against black people. Per their own words, it "began as a call to action in response to state-sanctioned violence and anti-Black racism." Original criticisms against the organization, as I remember the history personally, focused mostly on their failure to address other important areas of disadvantage for black people - high crime rates within their own communities, disproportionate abortion rates for black babies, cultural issues of fatherlessness and so on and so forth. These criticisms were lobbied based on the actual name of the organization - "Black Lives Matter." The argument is as such: "if black lives truly matter, why don't you focus on [xyz] issue in the black community?"
It sounds like a good argument, but it is actually not. Let me be clear - it really does SOUND like a good argument, on the surface, because the organization is called "Black Lives Matter". This is an "it's in the name" argument, which is a fallacy. But it's not a good argument, because we don't judge things based on their names, we judge them based on their actions. All people, for or against Black Lives Matter, should judge the organization based on its actions, not its name. The organization was created to fight what the creators saw as unfair treatment of black people by their own government and police force, so that's what the organization does. Arguing that they must do other things because they are called "Black Lives Matter" is the same argument used against "pro-life" organizations, since they only focus on stopping abortion, and not things like feeding the poor.
This is entirely consistent. Names are effective as the way in which we refer to things, so we can call a pro-life organization "a pro-life organization" and know exactly what that organization does, because "pro-life" is the name we have all agreed on as the colloquial term to describe someone who is against abortion. "Black Lives Matter" is the name of the organization we have understood to be against police mistreatment of black people. They do not have to focus on fatherlessness in black communities anymore than pro-life organizations do not need to feed homeless veterans.
The problem is that, while this is fair and consistent, the organization itself still - intentionally misleadingly - uses the monkier of "Black Lives Matter" to insist that anyone who is against the organization "Black Lives Matter" actually doesn't care about black people's lives. Let me clarify where we are so far, here:
1. Black Lives Matter is the name of the organization that fights against what they believe is systemic police brutality against black people.
2. Black Lives Matter does not have to do anything else, because organizations are designed to fit specific purposes and have no obligation to "branch out" into any and all related causes simply because their opposition says they must. (New organizations can simply be created to advance these other, related causes.)
3. Black Lives Matter knows this and is consistent in this regard.
4. Black Lives Matter intentionally breaches this consistency to apply the incorrect argument stated above, onto the people who oppose their organization.
What is happening is that Black Lives Matter takes advantage of the consistent and right view that they do not have to focus on every single issue in black society while turning around and enforcing that view on their opposition. If someone is against Black Lives Matter because they do not believe there is unfair treatment of black people by police, or any other reason (like their many, unrelated political issues they focus on, which can be found on their own website), then the opposition is labeled as not caring about black people in relation to all other issues, and indeed accused of believing that black lives in fact do not matter.
Despite the fact that we all understand the concept of the term "Black Lives Matter" being used as the name of the organization that has specific beliefs and goals, any opposition to the organization is seen as opposition to the actual phrase "black lives matter", absent of its context as a name of a group, and not the organization at hand. This is done intentionally to dissuade opposition to the "Black Lives Matter" organization by accusing all opposition of opposing the statement "black lives matter", using the very name of the organization "out of context" as it were.
This is intentional, a classic an easily identifiable double standard. If Black Lives Matter as an organization truly focused on all issues that black society faces, then it could be arguable that being against the organization (assuming they did not have a bunch of ulterior motives, which they do) would in fact be objectively morally wrong. The truth to the actual phrase "black lives matter" out of context of the organization is objectively true. All people are created equal in front of an all-loving God who finds every human life precious. Black lives truly do matter. "Black Lives Matter," though, is an organization with specific goals. Being against these goals is a valid stance, as there is more of them than "police killing black people is wrong." The organization, being several years old, has adopted other goals and a more defined identity, some facets of which people could find disagreeable. They are stated plainly on their website, so this should not a secret to anyone.
It would be somewhat silly for the organization to simply be a group of people who were all united against black people being killed, and yet this is what they act like they are when their opposition says that the organization is bad and does bad things. If truly the only thing the organization did was "agree that black people being murdered is wrong," how could you be against it? Only legitimately true racists would believe it was good for black people to be murdered, and thus it is so easy to turn the opposition to the organization's goals on its head and make Black Lives Matter detractors seem like they are in fact legitimately racists who want black people to be murdered by invoking the "it's in the name" argument, which is false. While there are in fact legitimately racist people who want black people to be murdered, the percentage of these people within the opposition to the organization Black Lives Matter is very small. They are used intentionally to discredit the reasonable opposition to the organization Black Lives Matter that exists because of the actions and other beliefs of the organization.
Black Lives Matter adheres to many communistic ideals and outrightly sacrilegious beliefs. They have tricked many Christians into supporting an organization that seeks to dismantle Jesus Himself by hiding behind the "it's in the name" argument. This is blatantly a trick of Satan, who often uses half-truths to manipulate people into sin. It's his number one tactic and the first one he ever used. It's proven very effective for all of history, why would he ever stop using it? It is true that black lives matter, and every true Jesus-seeking Christian would agree. But "Black Lives Matter" the organization focuses on many other things that are objectively against Christ and His commandments.
People are tricked into supporting a pagan ideology that rests firmly against Jesus by convincingly labeling all opposition as "actual monsters who want black people to be murdered." Afraid of being mislabeled as actual black hating racists, Christians opt to support an organization that seeks to destroy Jesus, because they are afraid of how the world will see them if they detract.
Friday, June 26, 2020
Thursday, March 5, 2020
The Problem with Secular Self-Help
I could write this post very quickly with one sentence, and of course, predictably, the problem with secular self-help is that it ignores our sovereign and ever-present Lord, God Almighty. The point of continuing at all is to clarify in which ways specifically this problem manifests itself.
Secular self-help focuses on ways to attempt force yourself to manage to handle all of life's problems, by yourself, as if it were ever truly possible for us to "win" at life without support, when those who deny the Son of God are going to lose at the end anyway. They play the game on hardmode, and then at the end, they only have one possible ending - regardless of any accolades, currency, or completionist goals they met along the way.
I read these secular self-help articles out of nothing more than morbid curiosity. Of course, certain advice is useful, but the possibility of actual success in either application or positive results is muted heavily by the lack of focus on the fact that God has your life in His hands. For all the advice that is actually good, and (somewhat hilariously) rooted deeply in an obvious truth of our world that is found within the Word of God (but just manages to not mention that fact), there is just as much advice that is actually poison, and the ability to discern between these is also easily found within the Word of God.
I've read some secular self-help articles that read exactly like a Christian devotional, just minus the Bible quotes. "Helping others actually makes us more joyful," "learn to be content with what you have," "be honest about your faults," and so on. The problem with speaking Biblical truths without the mention of the Bible is that there is no foundation upon which to establish the application of these truths.
You'd think "well, as long as some of the advice has Biblical backing, it's not bad that people would follow it!" If only that were true. Imagine someone giving quite generously to charity because it makes them feel good - because it does, as would be obvious to anyone who has realized the Truth of creation - but they shout it loudly from the rooftops and tell everyone they meet how much of a philanthropist they are. Without the foundations found within the Bible, this obvious truth that we should donate time and money to the least of our society, we quite easily perform them in a poisoned way that ends up not helping us. Big oof.
This is to say nothing of advice poisoned from the get go, advice that tends to read in any other words as "you're your own god and have complete control over your life" (spoiler: you aren't, and you don't). I don't feel like I need to explain this any further. Advice that insists to you that you could somehow manage to stay in control of your life ignores not just Biblical truth, but very obvious lived experiences of the vast majority of human beings.
People who manage to ignore this truth are destined for failure. And even when secular self-help advice falls in line with the painfully obvious reality that we have very little control over what happens to us, it inexplicably fails to comfort anyone in any real way. They will say things like, "accept that things will happen out of your control," with no substantial advice on how to actually do this. We are to simply wake up each day and somehow relax about the fact that any number of cataclysmic things could occur to us or our loved ones today, that we may then fall into oblivion or perish without anyone paying us a single thought, destined to nothing and with no hope for us, or anyone, all of human civilization drifting aimlessly, suffering without purpose, to no end.
There is no answer to this other than leaning on the support of the Lord our God, knowing that whatever calamity does fall upon us, we have a Creator who loves us and that His will and His plans are greater than ours, whether or not we can comprehend these things at any given time.
Perhaps I tend to bring things to their ultimate conclusion too quickly when putting things into perspective, but it is truly foolish to even attempt to contextualize your existence without a Creator. Regardless of what you do or how you live your life, you will die one day and nothing you've ever done will matter. "But what if I cure cancer or make the world a better place!" you shout. Excellent, I suppose - for now. Our world, too will end. "What if we make it to other planets, spread human civilization throughout the galaxy!" you insist. That, too, will pass away - in fact, our galaxy, and all of the universe, and all of existence, will one day face oblivion - whether you believe in a religiously-inspired worldview or not. If you're an adherent to science, you would have to face the reality that every single outlet, every worldview in existence, declares that all of existence will end. Scientific evidence points extensively to the fact that the universe will eventually expand beyond the capacity of its own power and cease - everything will end.
Nothing you do will ultimately matter. And yet I have said this to people, only to have them say "well, that's not for a long time." This is a shallow and infantile outlook. They do not deny it, but simply disallow themselves to reconcile with the fact that nothing we do matters. Whether we are rich or poor, whether we help or harm others, we will pass away, they will pass away, and any impact - good or bad - that we've made on this planet or any other planets will pass away. It is all - ultimately - meaningless. There is no point in a worldview that does anything other than focus on making your short, dust in the wind life enjoyable if that worldview lacks a foundation higher than our basic, physical human existence.
And that is the failure of secular self-help - at the end of the day, it's blind to the final conclusions of its logical thought process. Why even improve your life when it's so meaningless and temporary? Secular self help is a poor band-aid over the secularist's lack of deeper understanding for the world and all the implications therein.
Secular self-help focuses on ways to attempt force yourself to manage to handle all of life's problems, by yourself, as if it were ever truly possible for us to "win" at life without support, when those who deny the Son of God are going to lose at the end anyway. They play the game on hardmode, and then at the end, they only have one possible ending - regardless of any accolades, currency, or completionist goals they met along the way.
I read these secular self-help articles out of nothing more than morbid curiosity. Of course, certain advice is useful, but the possibility of actual success in either application or positive results is muted heavily by the lack of focus on the fact that God has your life in His hands. For all the advice that is actually good, and (somewhat hilariously) rooted deeply in an obvious truth of our world that is found within the Word of God (but just manages to not mention that fact), there is just as much advice that is actually poison, and the ability to discern between these is also easily found within the Word of God.
I've read some secular self-help articles that read exactly like a Christian devotional, just minus the Bible quotes. "Helping others actually makes us more joyful," "learn to be content with what you have," "be honest about your faults," and so on. The problem with speaking Biblical truths without the mention of the Bible is that there is no foundation upon which to establish the application of these truths.
You'd think "well, as long as some of the advice has Biblical backing, it's not bad that people would follow it!" If only that were true. Imagine someone giving quite generously to charity because it makes them feel good - because it does, as would be obvious to anyone who has realized the Truth of creation - but they shout it loudly from the rooftops and tell everyone they meet how much of a philanthropist they are. Without the foundations found within the Bible, this obvious truth that we should donate time and money to the least of our society, we quite easily perform them in a poisoned way that ends up not helping us. Big oof.
This is to say nothing of advice poisoned from the get go, advice that tends to read in any other words as "you're your own god and have complete control over your life" (spoiler: you aren't, and you don't). I don't feel like I need to explain this any further. Advice that insists to you that you could somehow manage to stay in control of your life ignores not just Biblical truth, but very obvious lived experiences of the vast majority of human beings.
13 Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— 14 yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. 15 Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that."
People who manage to ignore this truth are destined for failure. And even when secular self-help advice falls in line with the painfully obvious reality that we have very little control over what happens to us, it inexplicably fails to comfort anyone in any real way. They will say things like, "accept that things will happen out of your control," with no substantial advice on how to actually do this. We are to simply wake up each day and somehow relax about the fact that any number of cataclysmic things could occur to us or our loved ones today, that we may then fall into oblivion or perish without anyone paying us a single thought, destined to nothing and with no hope for us, or anyone, all of human civilization drifting aimlessly, suffering without purpose, to no end.
There is no answer to this other than leaning on the support of the Lord our God, knowing that whatever calamity does fall upon us, we have a Creator who loves us and that His will and His plans are greater than ours, whether or not we can comprehend these things at any given time.
Perhaps I tend to bring things to their ultimate conclusion too quickly when putting things into perspective, but it is truly foolish to even attempt to contextualize your existence without a Creator. Regardless of what you do or how you live your life, you will die one day and nothing you've ever done will matter. "But what if I cure cancer or make the world a better place!" you shout. Excellent, I suppose - for now. Our world, too will end. "What if we make it to other planets, spread human civilization throughout the galaxy!" you insist. That, too, will pass away - in fact, our galaxy, and all of the universe, and all of existence, will one day face oblivion - whether you believe in a religiously-inspired worldview or not. If you're an adherent to science, you would have to face the reality that every single outlet, every worldview in existence, declares that all of existence will end. Scientific evidence points extensively to the fact that the universe will eventually expand beyond the capacity of its own power and cease - everything will end.
Nothing you do will ultimately matter. And yet I have said this to people, only to have them say "well, that's not for a long time." This is a shallow and infantile outlook. They do not deny it, but simply disallow themselves to reconcile with the fact that nothing we do matters. Whether we are rich or poor, whether we help or harm others, we will pass away, they will pass away, and any impact - good or bad - that we've made on this planet or any other planets will pass away. It is all - ultimately - meaningless. There is no point in a worldview that does anything other than focus on making your short, dust in the wind life enjoyable if that worldview lacks a foundation higher than our basic, physical human existence.
And that is the failure of secular self-help - at the end of the day, it's blind to the final conclusions of its logical thought process. Why even improve your life when it's so meaningless and temporary? Secular self help is a poor band-aid over the secularist's lack of deeper understanding for the world and all the implications therein.
Saturday, February 22, 2020
Crossed Wires - Femininity
There are a lot of women who have rejected modern feminism and like to post encouraging and inspirational information about how to embrace true femininity and be a classic kind of woman. All of this is well and good, as they are mostly on the right track. There is one department where I get frustrated with them, of course, and that's the typical behavior where they say women are better when they embrace being women, and thus behave femininely, and then define "feminine" as they desire with no true benchmark for reality other than what they think it means. Maybe they see pictures of women in the 1950s and decide that's what it looks like to look feminine, and then suddenly, poof, that's it. Being a woman means being feminine, and that means... you're pretty.
Men who believe women should be more feminine and reject feminism also tend to believe this, and also tend to believe a lot of other things that are also questionable. The big problem with all of these people is that there is a definite and specific way women should behave, as outline by God Himself, and none of it requires women to be pretty. Some women are ugly and it would be very odd to believe that it was not possible for them to be feminine and traditional because they can't look pretty. It's a little bit of an eye-roller for a random man to believe he's the arbiter of how women should behave and appear, but it's a little wild to see a woman who is supposedly for "empowerment through God's will for His creation" say that women should work really hard on their appearance so that they look pretty.
There are a lot of facets here that make it a complicated subject. There are some instructions in the Bible that insist women do behave and dress a certain way, but most of those instructions relate to how women should be modest and proper (e.g. in the sort of way that honors God) and not so much that women should spend a lot of time and money on make up and jewelry so that they look nice, or that they need to wear sun dresses, or dress in any particular style or fashion. It's of course important to take care of your bodies, as the Holy Spirit resides in us, making them temples (which is where that whole thing comes from) and so it may seem right to tell women they aren't supposed to be fat. But there is not actually anything sinful about being fat. Being fat can be a symptom of any given sort of sinful behavior, like gluttony, or not taking care of your body, but you can't simply look at any given fat woman and assume she is not behaving womanly because, well, "clearly, she simply shouldn't be fat!" It doesn't work that way.
While there are Bible verses about dress, they mostly refer to how women should dress modestly, and does not specify the type of garment this insists upon. Clearly women can wear whatever they want, but only if it's modest. It's not complicated. Further, some people refer to a certain verse, which another website has explained for me:
Some women argue that it's not right for a woman to wear a "man's uniform" which appears very reasonable given Deut. 22:5, except that "uniforms" aren't prescribed one way or another in the Bible. What's a "man's job", what's a "man's uniform" as far as the Bible is concerned? The only thing I could see here would be that a woman should not dress as a pastor, I suppose. God doesn't consider police officers or firefighters to only be men's jobs, since He never said anything about it one way or the other. Women who decry working men's jobs or wearing men's uniforms or not dressing "femininely" in any given form one way or another are surely and most definitely just making that up themselves. Even if they say they are followers of Jesus, this is something they inferred themselves via being ingrained in the world, and they did not gleam it from God's word. You can have the opinion that "women shouldn't work men's jobs" if you want, but you're going to have an issue finding support for your opinion in the Bible.
Women are to dress modestly and behave modestly, and that's about it (without going into all the stuff about how they should behave as wives, of course). God's intention for the behavior of men and women alike revolve around 1. their unique roles as they relate to one another and 2. being modest and pious, behaving in a way that honors God. That's it. Stop acting like women have to be pretty to be proper, godly women. Sometimes women have to do hard, backbreaking labor, or wear a uniform. Sometimes women don't have the money or time to dress for a party every day, or sometimes women are fat despite trying their best. Our bodies get messed up after we have kids, messed up with age, and "looking in a way that is considered pretty by the standards of the pop culture world around us" is definitely nowhere in the Bible.
Men who believe women should be more feminine and reject feminism also tend to believe this, and also tend to believe a lot of other things that are also questionable. The big problem with all of these people is that there is a definite and specific way women should behave, as outline by God Himself, and none of it requires women to be pretty. Some women are ugly and it would be very odd to believe that it was not possible for them to be feminine and traditional because they can't look pretty. It's a little bit of an eye-roller for a random man to believe he's the arbiter of how women should behave and appear, but it's a little wild to see a woman who is supposedly for "empowerment through God's will for His creation" say that women should work really hard on their appearance so that they look pretty.
There are a lot of facets here that make it a complicated subject. There are some instructions in the Bible that insist women do behave and dress a certain way, but most of those instructions relate to how women should be modest and proper (e.g. in the sort of way that honors God) and not so much that women should spend a lot of time and money on make up and jewelry so that they look nice, or that they need to wear sun dresses, or dress in any particular style or fashion. It's of course important to take care of your bodies, as the Holy Spirit resides in us, making them temples (which is where that whole thing comes from) and so it may seem right to tell women they aren't supposed to be fat. But there is not actually anything sinful about being fat. Being fat can be a symptom of any given sort of sinful behavior, like gluttony, or not taking care of your body, but you can't simply look at any given fat woman and assume she is not behaving womanly because, well, "clearly, she simply shouldn't be fat!" It doesn't work that way.
While there are Bible verses about dress, they mostly refer to how women should dress modestly, and does not specify the type of garment this insists upon. Clearly women can wear whatever they want, but only if it's modest. It's not complicated. Further, some people refer to a certain verse, which another website has explained for me:
God instructed the nation of ancient Israel in Deuteronomy 22:5 as follows: “The woman shall not wear that which pertains unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman’s garment: for all that do so are abomination unto the LORD your God.” This is a command against transvestitism and still applies to men and women today! However, some have mistaken what God is referring to here, believing that it is wrong for a woman to wear pants—this is not the case—clearly, God is referring to a woman dressing up to look like a man and vice-versa.
Some women argue that it's not right for a woman to wear a "man's uniform" which appears very reasonable given Deut. 22:5, except that "uniforms" aren't prescribed one way or another in the Bible. What's a "man's job", what's a "man's uniform" as far as the Bible is concerned? The only thing I could see here would be that a woman should not dress as a pastor, I suppose. God doesn't consider police officers or firefighters to only be men's jobs, since He never said anything about it one way or the other. Women who decry working men's jobs or wearing men's uniforms or not dressing "femininely" in any given form one way or another are surely and most definitely just making that up themselves. Even if they say they are followers of Jesus, this is something they inferred themselves via being ingrained in the world, and they did not gleam it from God's word. You can have the opinion that "women shouldn't work men's jobs" if you want, but you're going to have an issue finding support for your opinion in the Bible.
Women are to dress modestly and behave modestly, and that's about it (without going into all the stuff about how they should behave as wives, of course). God's intention for the behavior of men and women alike revolve around 1. their unique roles as they relate to one another and 2. being modest and pious, behaving in a way that honors God. That's it. Stop acting like women have to be pretty to be proper, godly women. Sometimes women have to do hard, backbreaking labor, or wear a uniform. Sometimes women don't have the money or time to dress for a party every day, or sometimes women are fat despite trying their best. Our bodies get messed up after we have kids, messed up with age, and "looking in a way that is considered pretty by the standards of the pop culture world around us" is definitely nowhere in the Bible.
Wednesday, November 20, 2019
"Why Doesn't God Just Prove He Exists?"
A common argument from atheists is, just as the title reads, "If God exists, why doesn't He simply prove it?" Funnily enough, this is actually answered in the Bible itself.
In Mark 8, the Pharisees demand a sign of Jesus (Then the Pharisees came and began to argue with Jesus, testing Him by demanding from Him a sign from heaven. Mark 8:11). The following verse answers the atheists' hypothetical:
"A generation incapable of appreciating such demonstrations shall not be gratified with them." - Jamieson, Fausset and Brown Commentary
Why would Jesus give a sign to a group of people who had already witnessed such miraculous signs and ignored them? They would not be satisfied with any sign Jesus had produced, as He has already produced multiple and they ignored them. They will not believe regardless. You must be open to seeing the miracles of the Lord for them to have any meaning or value to you. If you would ignore them anyway, you don't deserve them. Do not be surprised that unbelievers do not witness miraculous signs. Why ask God, "if You are real, give me a sign," if you would ignore that sign when it was given? You may think "oh I'd certainly believe God existed if He reached down from heaven and smacked me in the face!" but you would not, because your disbelief is emotional in nature. You refuse to believe in God not because there is no evidence but because you have rejected the evidence. Plentiful signs have been given already and you've denied them all. God does not "simply prove He exists" because He has already, and you've ignored it.
Further reading of interest lies in Luke 16:19-31, the parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man. The rich man in hell pleads to Abraham to allow him to warn his brothers of the perils of eternal damnation, where the final exchange takes place in verses 29-31:
God's word contests further that we have all the evidence we need.
How did they tempt Him in Massah? By raising the unbelieving question, “Is the Lord among us, or not?” - Ellicott's commentary for English readers
In Massah, humans attempted to test the Lord our God by asking Him to prove His presence, which is what the unbeliever does when they posit this argument.
You must be sincere in your prayers and without pride or spite if you wish to ask the Lord of any miracle - humble and genuine. God will not be tested by an unbeliever, to give a miraculous sign to one who asks in unbelief and scorn. God may choose to answer genuine prayers of the faithful and sincere. Faithful people who pray to the Lord are not testing Him, as they know God is capable of such miracles. They know God does not need testing because He is capable of infinite amounts of anything and everything. This is why it is said, James 1:6 "But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind."
The unbeliever and the doubter both receive the same response from the Lord, as the problem is the same - the unbeliever is the doubter. The doubter is the unbeliever. They are the same. If you believe you are faithful, but doubt the Lord can answer your prayers, you are no better off than the unbeliever. God is the Maker of Heaven and Earth, the Creator and Lord of all. It is not wrong to have doubt at times, it is a struggle we all have periodically (or even very often), but if we pray with doubt and ask of the Lord while simultaneously believing He cannot perform our request, we will see no signs. Doubt is a temptation and can be overcome, refusal of God's plentiful signs is a choice and you can choose differently.
If you will not believe the Lord when he answers you, He will not answer you.
Further reading here.
In Mark 8, the Pharisees demand a sign of Jesus (Then the Pharisees came and began to argue with Jesus, testing Him by demanding from Him a sign from heaven. Mark 8:11). The following verse answers the atheists' hypothetical:
And he sighed deeply in his spirit and said, "Why does this generation seek a sign? Truly, I say to you, no sign will be given to this generation." Mark 8:12 ESVWhat has happened here is that Jesus, being fully human and fully God, is keen to the Pharisees and acutely aware that they have already denied many signs and would certainly not respond to another. The sign would be wasted. Despite the multitude of signs they had already witnessed, they demanded a sign of Jesus.
"A generation incapable of appreciating such demonstrations shall not be gratified with them." - Jamieson, Fausset and Brown Commentary
Why would Jesus give a sign to a group of people who had already witnessed such miraculous signs and ignored them? They would not be satisfied with any sign Jesus had produced, as He has already produced multiple and they ignored them. They will not believe regardless. You must be open to seeing the miracles of the Lord for them to have any meaning or value to you. If you would ignore them anyway, you don't deserve them. Do not be surprised that unbelievers do not witness miraculous signs. Why ask God, "if You are real, give me a sign," if you would ignore that sign when it was given? You may think "oh I'd certainly believe God existed if He reached down from heaven and smacked me in the face!" but you would not, because your disbelief is emotional in nature. You refuse to believe in God not because there is no evidence but because you have rejected the evidence. Plentiful signs have been given already and you've denied them all. God does not "simply prove He exists" because He has already, and you've ignored it.
Further reading of interest lies in Luke 16:19-31, the parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man. The rich man in hell pleads to Abraham to allow him to warn his brothers of the perils of eternal damnation, where the final exchange takes place in verses 29-31:
“But Abraham said, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them.’ “But he said, ‘No, father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent!’ “But he said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be persuaded even if someone rises from the dead.’”Here Abraham contests that the rich man's brothers have all the testimony they need to understand and heed the words of the prophets, but they deny it. They would not be persuaded by any more "signs".
God's word contests further that we have all the evidence we need.
For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. Romans 1:20Further, asking God to "prove He exists" as a nonbeliever is testing the Lord (as it was when the Pharisees tested Jesus in Mark 8:11), which He surely does not appreciate: "You shall not put the LORD your God to the test, as you tested him at Massah." Deuteronomy 6:16
How did they tempt Him in Massah? By raising the unbelieving question, “Is the Lord among us, or not?” - Ellicott's commentary for English readers
In Massah, humans attempted to test the Lord our God by asking Him to prove His presence, which is what the unbeliever does when they posit this argument.
You must be sincere in your prayers and without pride or spite if you wish to ask the Lord of any miracle - humble and genuine. God will not be tested by an unbeliever, to give a miraculous sign to one who asks in unbelief and scorn. God may choose to answer genuine prayers of the faithful and sincere. Faithful people who pray to the Lord are not testing Him, as they know God is capable of such miracles. They know God does not need testing because He is capable of infinite amounts of anything and everything. This is why it is said, James 1:6 "But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind."
The unbeliever and the doubter both receive the same response from the Lord, as the problem is the same - the unbeliever is the doubter. The doubter is the unbeliever. They are the same. If you believe you are faithful, but doubt the Lord can answer your prayers, you are no better off than the unbeliever. God is the Maker of Heaven and Earth, the Creator and Lord of all. It is not wrong to have doubt at times, it is a struggle we all have periodically (or even very often), but if we pray with doubt and ask of the Lord while simultaneously believing He cannot perform our request, we will see no signs. Doubt is a temptation and can be overcome, refusal of God's plentiful signs is a choice and you can choose differently.
If you will not believe the Lord when he answers you, He will not answer you.
Further reading here.
Tuesday, October 22, 2019
Veganism Stands in the Way of Animal Welfare
In following chicken lovers and chicken farmers alike, I view a strange juxtaposition. People who keep chickens all have different viewpoints, reasons, behaviors, and motivations. One person I noticed rescues hens from egg operations where they are being mistreated, but normally only after they have been ditched by uncaring chicken farmers. For instance, on the side of the road, feathers a mess, awaiting a death by predator, where their former owner intended for that very thing to happen. It sounds cruel, surely, to dump your domesticated chickens with no survival skills on the side of the road to be eaten at a passing fox' leisure.
Keeping the chickens in the first place, of course, is seen as just as cruel. To the vegan animal activist, the only correct option is to go back in time and stop animals from becoming domesticated for use by humans. Barring that, we should simply stop "exploiting" animals for their products and meat. The whole animal-based food industry should dissolve and we should release all the animals into the wild, or something.
The problem I mainly have with veganism is that we were given dominion over animals. A strictly biblical interpretation reveals we can, actually, use animals for their resources. However, when we love and respect God and His creation, we would treat animals with respect, too. This does not mean not killing them for their meat or keeping them for their products, but doing these things with the reverence of God on the forefront of our minds.
Many of the chickens this woman rescues have missing feathers, wounds, are pale, and scared of the outside. They were raised trapped in a coop with no nighttime - chickens naturally lay more consistently with more exposure to light. Artificially encouraged to lay as much as possible and fast as possible, they are discarded long before they stop laying entirely, but merely when they are not as productive as a young hen, replaced with a new one that lays more reliably. When you make a chicken lay as nonstop as possible, they entirely stop laying, sooner. You burn them out, so to say. Chickens lose feathers because all their protein and energy goes to laying eggs. One of the ways to tell when a chicken isn't laying anymore is actually if her feathers are nice looking - it means fewer resources are going to eggs.
So this woman rescues these chickens, gets them back into shape, and sells them to people who are looking to keep chickens as pets. Her clientele are the kind of people who also think animals shouldn't be used for our benefit, and they give these chickens a "retirement".
All of these behaviors lie in the concept that they believe animals have rights and that each one of their lives is as unique and valuable as a human life. These are bastardized concepts of our broken world - we get our wires crossed and apply truths in a false way. Animals should be respected, and there is nothing innately wrong with giving a chicken a retirement, but their motivations are born out of a warped worldview. If all they were doing was offering to give chickens a retirement as opposed to using them for meat simply because they enjoyed pet chickens, there would be no fault. The fault lies in the application of thought of believing that it is wrong to use the chicken for meat or eggs in the first place.
What does it really mean to "have dominion over animals"? Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. Genesis 1:26 - As God has dominion over us, He gave us dominion over animals. In the beginning, people and animals lived in harmony, but immediately after the fall we see God Himself create clothes for his disobedient creation out of animal skins. Now, we are clearly not congruent with God, but what this display shows is that the death of animals is a result of the fall. In this broken world, animals die and are used as resources for our needs.
Even still, we did not have permission from God to actually eat animals until after the great flood. In Genesis 9:3 we see "Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything." Of course, some animals were still unclean, and yet later still when Jesus came to fulfill the law, we were given permission to eat what were formerly classified as unclean animals as well. And he said to them, “Then are you also without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him, since it enters not his heart but his stomach, and is expelled?” (Thus he declared all foods clean.) Mark 7:18-19 - Why would all these things be in the bible if we were not actually supposed to eat meat at all? We could not fathom being given permission to eat animals without the expectation that we would then eat those animals. It would make absolutely no sense for God to permit these things but then expect us to not do them. It's simply an illogical and absurd claim that should require no further attention.
Personally, I'm staunchly opposed to raising chickens locked inside, covered eternally in artificial light. I definitely don't condone the process of keeping hens like robots and not animals - but the need to do this arises from the way egg farming and selling in the large-scale is regulated. The farmer is likely operating barely above breaking even, if not merely breaking even. They must, to make a living at all, treat their hens like robots. If the hens must be treated this way to keep the farmers human family fed, then it's acceptable. That's the final truth - human lives are more valuable than animals'. But what situation is making the farmer require such robotic operation of his hens?
I am against not the farmer but the obtrusive regulations of the big government who force the people who make our food to behave certain ways to survive. Ethical animal treatment isn't profitable, not because people don't want to pay for the difference, but because the government forcibly makes it less profitable due to their regulations. Small scale operations where a farmer has perhaps a couple flocks of chickens and sells them on the roadside or to the local grocery store would be great - but the government makes it nearly impossible to get into that business.
It varies state to state, but at least I know here you can't have, say, 35 chickens and sell ten dozen eggs a week to the grocery store - the licenses and fees and government intrusion is excessive. First, you must own enough land to be permitted to have so many chickens. Secondly, you must be open to intrusive and surprise inspection and be held to a standard higher than that of a large operation. As a residential person simply looking to own chickens and sell eggs, you must submit to more regulation than a company or business that operates a chicken based business. Why? It's designed that way on purpose by bloated government regulations intentionally looking to keep small suppliers out of the way of larger operations.
You have to expand to a larger operation to be able to start making money this way - and depending on your state, you may have to bend to intense regulations to sell even one dozen a week, to any human person. It's illegal for me to sell any amount of "unregulated" eggs to any person. If I want to make $3.50 a week selling eggs I have to have a $125 license that needs to be renewed every year and subject to random and unannounced inspections of my single coop containing fewer than 10 chickens. To sell to a grocery store requires an even more expensive license subject to the same renewal fees and additional regulation and intrusion. Once you've expanded to a larger operation, you've spent so much on the whole project - superfluous fees that don't actually have anything to do with raising your chickens - that you're starting out in debt, in the negative, and to push anything close to a profit, you have to cut corners. And for whatever reason, the government lets the larger businesses cut those corners, while tiny operations cannot.
The vegan would say the solution to this is to simply stop eating animal products. No amount of keeping animals is ethical, just because they have concluded so through faulty logic. They magically improvised human attributes to chickens and now it's unethical to keep a chicken for eggs no matter how many, how much attention is paid, how well kept, or whether they will be allowed to live their entire natural lives even after they finish laying. But we see this is simply not the case - that elevation of animals to the level of a human soul is based in a biblical truth that has been warped into something nonsensical. Even removed from a biblical standard, it is nothing more than a fantasy to think humankind could simply forgo animal products entirely in a safe way. Unfortunately I've seen more than one vegan admit - either accidentally or proudly - that it does not matter to them if human lives suffer in exchange for the end of animal suffering. For the most part, vegans know it's impossible to remove animal products from our food web without people dying - but they're okay with it. Not only have they attributed human value to animals, but they've devalued human life in the process.
So the real world, non-fiction solution to animal cruelty in factory farming lies in removing the intense, intrusive government regulations so that people who keep animals can make a living and feed their families while treating their animals with respect, as reverence toward God to His creation. Five modest egg operations could easily supply a grocery store with more than enough eggs to feed a local community. Providing you have the right chicken breeds, you get about as many eggs per day as you have chickens, and if you're operating intentionally to sell eggs, you've surely done your research. The problem has nothing to do with the inability for such a system to exist, the problem is in the intrusive regulations of government. Surely, people say, government regulations are good because they keep people safe. This is naive, as these regulations are not designed to keep people safe, but exist mostly as a result of lobbyists for factory farm conglomerates attempting to keep competition out of their way. Indeed, why else would small operations be subject to harsher regulations than large operations? What is good enough for the chickens living in an enormous egg bunker with 20,000 other chickens is surely good enough for 35 chickens in a modest coop in someone's backyard. It's illogical to propose otherwise - they are the same animal. Varying regulations based on operation size is arbitrary and not based in science, fact, or logic - and especially not in the interest of the animals.
I'll take a couple more moments to address another veganism argument. First, we see the "animals are valuable and should be respected for having souls" juxtaposed to "animals can eat meat because they are unthinking and acting on instinct and don't have a choice" argument. This is even further juxtaposed toward the idea that we could feed our dogs vegan diets (as they are omnivores and "can thrive" on vegan diets). Some vegans would of course say they shouldn't be keeping the dogs as pets at all, while PETA goes around killing as many pets as possible including abducting and euthanizing them.
It should be obvious that these stances are all unable to stand next to one another. The idea is that, as advanced humans who can make choices, we should make the choice not to eat animals. Animals can't make that choice, and so a fox killing an outdoor cat is just nature and the fox is at no moral failure for doing so. It shouldn't take a lot of thinking to conclude that, perhaps, this places the animal on a lower pedestal as far as consideration toward containing a human-congruent soul. This does not forgo respect toward them, but continuing to keep them on the same level of respect requirements as humans would be an illogical conclusion of these stances. And yet they continue to believe both of these things at once.
If dogs can be fed vegan diets opposed to their natural inclinations to eat meat, that would violate the dogs' instincts. So by doing this, I would contest you aren't respecting the natural order of the dogs' behavior. You are forcing a choice on them, your own human-led decisions made with your advanced human brain you already established is capable of making choices while animals' brains aren't. Of course the dog will eat whatever you give it, it's hungry. When I was younger once I put a bunch of vegetables in my dogs' food bowls because I thought they were hungry. They were so excited to see that I put food in their bowls - and they dove in only to stop short, smell everything, and walk away.
Dogs may be biologically omnivores but that doesn't mean they actively eat vegetables. They crave meaty protein, and can merely digest and process non-meat to their advantage as a survival benefit. We all know cats require a strict protein diet and could never be forced by a vegan owner to eat a vegan diet and not suffer immensely for it, but vegans see the omnivore and go rogue, feeding their dogs processed protein feed disguised as being meat flavored by additives and act like their dog is a vegan. Honestly it's nuts.
It's possible to be cruel to animals, and I would contest the main problems here are overbearing governments and humans without reverence for their Creator. Of course, regulations for the safety of consumers are not intrinsically immoral, but many of these are actually money grabs by the government in disguise of "consumer protections". Why should the license to sell one dozen eggs a week cost the same as the one to sell five hundred dozen a week? Why create a roadblock like this? Why make it require renewal every year, for the same initial price? It's just a money grab to the detriment of communities as a whole, which would surely benefit from small scale egg operations providing food to them.
They could have easily made the license not only not require money to be renewed, but free in the first place and only require an inspection - surely a negligible cost to the government, truly only for "consumer safety", for the good of the local community who now has a new source of food. The license fee doesn't help them make money toward insuring small scale agriculture is regulated properly, it does nothing but stops you from starting up entirely unless you have enough money to put in at the get go to make sure you make more money than you're going to spend on regulations and licensing - and make enough money that the additional daily effort you will have to put in to satisfy the intrusive, heightened regulations is worth it.
The fee of $125 is so much for someone looking to sell a dozen or two per week that they wouldn't break even for nine months of selling one dozen a week at $3.50/doz, resulting in a profit of $42 at the end of the year, with the same overbearing regulations as someone making ~$680 a year profit selling give or take four dozen a week (which is still pitiful, if we're honest). Some people do want to keep just a few chickens - two or three chickens will make just short of two dozen a week. Assuming you keep some and sell the remaining dozen a week for profit, the only real option to you in light of the government overhead is to simply eat way more eggs a week, as the effort required to sell that extra dozen "legally" is absurd. Now a potential customer who would love your eggs from loved and nurtured chickens they could stop by and personally watch frolic in your backyard is resigned to mystery eggs from the grocery store. The only winner is the sustainment of the factory farm conglomerates and the government that profits from them.
So, if we are honest, vegans are part of the problem of animals being mistreated because they mask the true problem and provide the incorrect solution as loudly as possible. People with the right solutions are smeared as animal haters by the vegans (keeping animals at all is wrong!) and seen as suspicious and entitled by regulation-lovers (the outrageous fees and upkeep is for our safety!) while the government continues to dictate how we can make, eat, and buy our food. The key to the alleviation of animal suffering is fewer factory farms and an increase in small operations that make it easier to treat the animals like living creatures, but the system is set up specifically to avoid that result. This obvious reality is drowned out by a sea of ideological and impossible cries for the total and complete "liberation" of "animal slaves", making it even more difficult to acknowledge that it is actually bad for animals to suffer without being dismissed out of hand by people tired of loud and obnoxious vegans.
Keeping the chickens in the first place, of course, is seen as just as cruel. To the vegan animal activist, the only correct option is to go back in time and stop animals from becoming domesticated for use by humans. Barring that, we should simply stop "exploiting" animals for their products and meat. The whole animal-based food industry should dissolve and we should release all the animals into the wild, or something.
The problem I mainly have with veganism is that we were given dominion over animals. A strictly biblical interpretation reveals we can, actually, use animals for their resources. However, when we love and respect God and His creation, we would treat animals with respect, too. This does not mean not killing them for their meat or keeping them for their products, but doing these things with the reverence of God on the forefront of our minds.
Many of the chickens this woman rescues have missing feathers, wounds, are pale, and scared of the outside. They were raised trapped in a coop with no nighttime - chickens naturally lay more consistently with more exposure to light. Artificially encouraged to lay as much as possible and fast as possible, they are discarded long before they stop laying entirely, but merely when they are not as productive as a young hen, replaced with a new one that lays more reliably. When you make a chicken lay as nonstop as possible, they entirely stop laying, sooner. You burn them out, so to say. Chickens lose feathers because all their protein and energy goes to laying eggs. One of the ways to tell when a chicken isn't laying anymore is actually if her feathers are nice looking - it means fewer resources are going to eggs.
So this woman rescues these chickens, gets them back into shape, and sells them to people who are looking to keep chickens as pets. Her clientele are the kind of people who also think animals shouldn't be used for our benefit, and they give these chickens a "retirement".
All of these behaviors lie in the concept that they believe animals have rights and that each one of their lives is as unique and valuable as a human life. These are bastardized concepts of our broken world - we get our wires crossed and apply truths in a false way. Animals should be respected, and there is nothing innately wrong with giving a chicken a retirement, but their motivations are born out of a warped worldview. If all they were doing was offering to give chickens a retirement as opposed to using them for meat simply because they enjoyed pet chickens, there would be no fault. The fault lies in the application of thought of believing that it is wrong to use the chicken for meat or eggs in the first place.
What does it really mean to "have dominion over animals"? Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. Genesis 1:26 - As God has dominion over us, He gave us dominion over animals. In the beginning, people and animals lived in harmony, but immediately after the fall we see God Himself create clothes for his disobedient creation out of animal skins. Now, we are clearly not congruent with God, but what this display shows is that the death of animals is a result of the fall. In this broken world, animals die and are used as resources for our needs.
Even still, we did not have permission from God to actually eat animals until after the great flood. In Genesis 9:3 we see "Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything." Of course, some animals were still unclean, and yet later still when Jesus came to fulfill the law, we were given permission to eat what were formerly classified as unclean animals as well. And he said to them, “Then are you also without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him, since it enters not his heart but his stomach, and is expelled?” (Thus he declared all foods clean.) Mark 7:18-19 - Why would all these things be in the bible if we were not actually supposed to eat meat at all? We could not fathom being given permission to eat animals without the expectation that we would then eat those animals. It would make absolutely no sense for God to permit these things but then expect us to not do them. It's simply an illogical and absurd claim that should require no further attention.
Personally, I'm staunchly opposed to raising chickens locked inside, covered eternally in artificial light. I definitely don't condone the process of keeping hens like robots and not animals - but the need to do this arises from the way egg farming and selling in the large-scale is regulated. The farmer is likely operating barely above breaking even, if not merely breaking even. They must, to make a living at all, treat their hens like robots. If the hens must be treated this way to keep the farmers human family fed, then it's acceptable. That's the final truth - human lives are more valuable than animals'. But what situation is making the farmer require such robotic operation of his hens?
I am against not the farmer but the obtrusive regulations of the big government who force the people who make our food to behave certain ways to survive. Ethical animal treatment isn't profitable, not because people don't want to pay for the difference, but because the government forcibly makes it less profitable due to their regulations. Small scale operations where a farmer has perhaps a couple flocks of chickens and sells them on the roadside or to the local grocery store would be great - but the government makes it nearly impossible to get into that business.
It varies state to state, but at least I know here you can't have, say, 35 chickens and sell ten dozen eggs a week to the grocery store - the licenses and fees and government intrusion is excessive. First, you must own enough land to be permitted to have so many chickens. Secondly, you must be open to intrusive and surprise inspection and be held to a standard higher than that of a large operation. As a residential person simply looking to own chickens and sell eggs, you must submit to more regulation than a company or business that operates a chicken based business. Why? It's designed that way on purpose by bloated government regulations intentionally looking to keep small suppliers out of the way of larger operations.
You have to expand to a larger operation to be able to start making money this way - and depending on your state, you may have to bend to intense regulations to sell even one dozen a week, to any human person. It's illegal for me to sell any amount of "unregulated" eggs to any person. If I want to make $3.50 a week selling eggs I have to have a $125 license that needs to be renewed every year and subject to random and unannounced inspections of my single coop containing fewer than 10 chickens. To sell to a grocery store requires an even more expensive license subject to the same renewal fees and additional regulation and intrusion. Once you've expanded to a larger operation, you've spent so much on the whole project - superfluous fees that don't actually have anything to do with raising your chickens - that you're starting out in debt, in the negative, and to push anything close to a profit, you have to cut corners. And for whatever reason, the government lets the larger businesses cut those corners, while tiny operations cannot.
The vegan would say the solution to this is to simply stop eating animal products. No amount of keeping animals is ethical, just because they have concluded so through faulty logic. They magically improvised human attributes to chickens and now it's unethical to keep a chicken for eggs no matter how many, how much attention is paid, how well kept, or whether they will be allowed to live their entire natural lives even after they finish laying. But we see this is simply not the case - that elevation of animals to the level of a human soul is based in a biblical truth that has been warped into something nonsensical. Even removed from a biblical standard, it is nothing more than a fantasy to think humankind could simply forgo animal products entirely in a safe way. Unfortunately I've seen more than one vegan admit - either accidentally or proudly - that it does not matter to them if human lives suffer in exchange for the end of animal suffering. For the most part, vegans know it's impossible to remove animal products from our food web without people dying - but they're okay with it. Not only have they attributed human value to animals, but they've devalued human life in the process.
So the real world, non-fiction solution to animal cruelty in factory farming lies in removing the intense, intrusive government regulations so that people who keep animals can make a living and feed their families while treating their animals with respect, as reverence toward God to His creation. Five modest egg operations could easily supply a grocery store with more than enough eggs to feed a local community. Providing you have the right chicken breeds, you get about as many eggs per day as you have chickens, and if you're operating intentionally to sell eggs, you've surely done your research. The problem has nothing to do with the inability for such a system to exist, the problem is in the intrusive regulations of government. Surely, people say, government regulations are good because they keep people safe. This is naive, as these regulations are not designed to keep people safe, but exist mostly as a result of lobbyists for factory farm conglomerates attempting to keep competition out of their way. Indeed, why else would small operations be subject to harsher regulations than large operations? What is good enough for the chickens living in an enormous egg bunker with 20,000 other chickens is surely good enough for 35 chickens in a modest coop in someone's backyard. It's illogical to propose otherwise - they are the same animal. Varying regulations based on operation size is arbitrary and not based in science, fact, or logic - and especially not in the interest of the animals.
I'll take a couple more moments to address another veganism argument. First, we see the "animals are valuable and should be respected for having souls" juxtaposed to "animals can eat meat because they are unthinking and acting on instinct and don't have a choice" argument. This is even further juxtaposed toward the idea that we could feed our dogs vegan diets (as they are omnivores and "can thrive" on vegan diets). Some vegans would of course say they shouldn't be keeping the dogs as pets at all, while PETA goes around killing as many pets as possible including abducting and euthanizing them.
It should be obvious that these stances are all unable to stand next to one another. The idea is that, as advanced humans who can make choices, we should make the choice not to eat animals. Animals can't make that choice, and so a fox killing an outdoor cat is just nature and the fox is at no moral failure for doing so. It shouldn't take a lot of thinking to conclude that, perhaps, this places the animal on a lower pedestal as far as consideration toward containing a human-congruent soul. This does not forgo respect toward them, but continuing to keep them on the same level of respect requirements as humans would be an illogical conclusion of these stances. And yet they continue to believe both of these things at once.
If dogs can be fed vegan diets opposed to their natural inclinations to eat meat, that would violate the dogs' instincts. So by doing this, I would contest you aren't respecting the natural order of the dogs' behavior. You are forcing a choice on them, your own human-led decisions made with your advanced human brain you already established is capable of making choices while animals' brains aren't. Of course the dog will eat whatever you give it, it's hungry. When I was younger once I put a bunch of vegetables in my dogs' food bowls because I thought they were hungry. They were so excited to see that I put food in their bowls - and they dove in only to stop short, smell everything, and walk away.
Dogs may be biologically omnivores but that doesn't mean they actively eat vegetables. They crave meaty protein, and can merely digest and process non-meat to their advantage as a survival benefit. We all know cats require a strict protein diet and could never be forced by a vegan owner to eat a vegan diet and not suffer immensely for it, but vegans see the omnivore and go rogue, feeding their dogs processed protein feed disguised as being meat flavored by additives and act like their dog is a vegan. Honestly it's nuts.
It's possible to be cruel to animals, and I would contest the main problems here are overbearing governments and humans without reverence for their Creator. Of course, regulations for the safety of consumers are not intrinsically immoral, but many of these are actually money grabs by the government in disguise of "consumer protections". Why should the license to sell one dozen eggs a week cost the same as the one to sell five hundred dozen a week? Why create a roadblock like this? Why make it require renewal every year, for the same initial price? It's just a money grab to the detriment of communities as a whole, which would surely benefit from small scale egg operations providing food to them.
They could have easily made the license not only not require money to be renewed, but free in the first place and only require an inspection - surely a negligible cost to the government, truly only for "consumer safety", for the good of the local community who now has a new source of food. The license fee doesn't help them make money toward insuring small scale agriculture is regulated properly, it does nothing but stops you from starting up entirely unless you have enough money to put in at the get go to make sure you make more money than you're going to spend on regulations and licensing - and make enough money that the additional daily effort you will have to put in to satisfy the intrusive, heightened regulations is worth it.
The fee of $125 is so much for someone looking to sell a dozen or two per week that they wouldn't break even for nine months of selling one dozen a week at $3.50/doz, resulting in a profit of $42 at the end of the year, with the same overbearing regulations as someone making ~$680 a year profit selling give or take four dozen a week (which is still pitiful, if we're honest). Some people do want to keep just a few chickens - two or three chickens will make just short of two dozen a week. Assuming you keep some and sell the remaining dozen a week for profit, the only real option to you in light of the government overhead is to simply eat way more eggs a week, as the effort required to sell that extra dozen "legally" is absurd. Now a potential customer who would love your eggs from loved and nurtured chickens they could stop by and personally watch frolic in your backyard is resigned to mystery eggs from the grocery store. The only winner is the sustainment of the factory farm conglomerates and the government that profits from them.
So, if we are honest, vegans are part of the problem of animals being mistreated because they mask the true problem and provide the incorrect solution as loudly as possible. People with the right solutions are smeared as animal haters by the vegans (keeping animals at all is wrong!) and seen as suspicious and entitled by regulation-lovers (the outrageous fees and upkeep is for our safety!) while the government continues to dictate how we can make, eat, and buy our food. The key to the alleviation of animal suffering is fewer factory farms and an increase in small operations that make it easier to treat the animals like living creatures, but the system is set up specifically to avoid that result. This obvious reality is drowned out by a sea of ideological and impossible cries for the total and complete "liberation" of "animal slaves", making it even more difficult to acknowledge that it is actually bad for animals to suffer without being dismissed out of hand by people tired of loud and obnoxious vegans.
Tuesday, July 23, 2019
Literally the Bible
Whether or not something in the bible is literal is useful for discussion when we're trying to decide what a certain biblical excerpt is trying to tell us. For example, Jesus' parables were not literal stories of events that occurred, probably, but an example of using story telling to portray a certain message in an understandable way. This affects their impact and purpose for us. There are, however, events as detailed in the bible where their literal-ness is naively debated, like Jonah's story. Other events are debated like literal Creation, literal Eden etc. These debates are harmful and stem wholly from a position that denies properties of God and truths as revealed in the bible.
The story of Jonah, very abridged version, is this guy is swallowed by a big fish or whale, in there for 72 hours, then literally thrown up onto a shoreline where Jonah then preached a bunch of people to repentance. He wasn't chilling in the mouth like Finding Nemo - he was in the stomach, presumably, as the bible says he was "swallowed". This is what people take issue with to try and argue this story is figurative.
There are even more aspects to this that are in fact very relevant as they too require miracle work, but those details aren't important for this point. The fact of the matter is that people are arguing whether or not Jonah is literal, and the only reason they could really feel compelled to argue that it is not literal is because it is so chock-full-'o-miracles that it seems to us in our ignorance to be very unlikely to have happened. How could a man survive in a whale stomach? Stomachs are where food goes to get digested. Clearly this must be metaphorical as no man could survive in a stomach for longer than a few agonizing moments, let alone three days.
Here is the problem: the only position it makes any sense to be in, to argue that Jonah was not literal, is if you are an atheist or anti-theist attempting to disprove the bible. When believers question if things like Jonah as described in the bible could be figurative because they are such wild stories, they are not simply questioning the logistics of surviving in a stomach, they are losing the plot entirely. They claim to believe in an all-powerful God capable of any number of incomprehensible miracles, but somehow draw the line here, at a man living in a stomach for three days.
You cannot reconcile believing in an omniscient, omnipotent Creator who willed space, time, and matter into existence through unimaginable circumstances with "man can't live in fish!" This is nothing more than attempting to appeal to atheists who refuse to believe in miraculous, supernatural phenomena, by saying "whoa bud, I'm not one of those irrational Christians who believe in crazy stuff like "man live in fish", I am a smart, reasonable Christian, who just believes in the bible as, like, a guidebook for good behavior, or whatever." Maybe even a naive attempt at finding common ground with these atheists, saying "no, that's fair, some of these crazier stories probably didn't really happen, so it's not that crazy to believe in the bible" forgetting that they will never believe in Jesus's resurrection if they are obstinately opposed to miracles.
Yes, believing that a man could survive in a fish for three days and three nights just to be barfed onto shore somewhere else is the sort of thing that anti-theists look at and go "Christians believe things that are not scientifically possible, and thus, they are dumb," but whether someone thinks it's impossible for a man to live in a fish for 72 hours doesn't affect whether or not God could perform such a miracle if He desired. There is another story in the bible where three men are cast into a furnace so hot that the men operating the furnace died from the residual heat alone, but they emerge alive and unharmed. This is also obviously not possible, even moreso than Jonah and the whale, but I see very few atheist-appeasing Christians argue that the story in Daniel 3 was somehow figurative. It seems almost that the more farfetched the story is, the more likely most Christians accept that it's a miracle from God, but as soon as a story sounds like it could maybe be scientifically explainable but falls short, it's suddenly not legitimate.
It is not defensible as a believer to question whether or not an event as described in the bible could happen, if you simultaneously believe in God, especially if you believe in Jesus rising from the dead, which is so much more intensely unscientific than any other biblical miracle. If you want to debate Jonah's literalism for another reason, just because you truly believe it is metaphorical for some reason perhaps. But you really can't justify arguing that it's not literal just because it is farfetched. If you can't reconcile Jonah's story with your belief in a God that can in fact do absolutely anything, then you have much worse problems facing you can "can man live in fish".
The story of Jonah, very abridged version, is this guy is swallowed by a big fish or whale, in there for 72 hours, then literally thrown up onto a shoreline where Jonah then preached a bunch of people to repentance. He wasn't chilling in the mouth like Finding Nemo - he was in the stomach, presumably, as the bible says he was "swallowed". This is what people take issue with to try and argue this story is figurative.
There are even more aspects to this that are in fact very relevant as they too require miracle work, but those details aren't important for this point. The fact of the matter is that people are arguing whether or not Jonah is literal, and the only reason they could really feel compelled to argue that it is not literal is because it is so chock-full-'o-miracles that it seems to us in our ignorance to be very unlikely to have happened. How could a man survive in a whale stomach? Stomachs are where food goes to get digested. Clearly this must be metaphorical as no man could survive in a stomach for longer than a few agonizing moments, let alone three days.
Here is the problem: the only position it makes any sense to be in, to argue that Jonah was not literal, is if you are an atheist or anti-theist attempting to disprove the bible. When believers question if things like Jonah as described in the bible could be figurative because they are such wild stories, they are not simply questioning the logistics of surviving in a stomach, they are losing the plot entirely. They claim to believe in an all-powerful God capable of any number of incomprehensible miracles, but somehow draw the line here, at a man living in a stomach for three days.
You cannot reconcile believing in an omniscient, omnipotent Creator who willed space, time, and matter into existence through unimaginable circumstances with "man can't live in fish!" This is nothing more than attempting to appeal to atheists who refuse to believe in miraculous, supernatural phenomena, by saying "whoa bud, I'm not one of those irrational Christians who believe in crazy stuff like "man live in fish", I am a smart, reasonable Christian, who just believes in the bible as, like, a guidebook for good behavior, or whatever." Maybe even a naive attempt at finding common ground with these atheists, saying "no, that's fair, some of these crazier stories probably didn't really happen, so it's not that crazy to believe in the bible" forgetting that they will never believe in Jesus's resurrection if they are obstinately opposed to miracles.
Yes, believing that a man could survive in a fish for three days and three nights just to be barfed onto shore somewhere else is the sort of thing that anti-theists look at and go "Christians believe things that are not scientifically possible, and thus, they are dumb," but whether someone thinks it's impossible for a man to live in a fish for 72 hours doesn't affect whether or not God could perform such a miracle if He desired. There is another story in the bible where three men are cast into a furnace so hot that the men operating the furnace died from the residual heat alone, but they emerge alive and unharmed. This is also obviously not possible, even moreso than Jonah and the whale, but I see very few atheist-appeasing Christians argue that the story in Daniel 3 was somehow figurative. It seems almost that the more farfetched the story is, the more likely most Christians accept that it's a miracle from God, but as soon as a story sounds like it could maybe be scientifically explainable but falls short, it's suddenly not legitimate.
It is not defensible as a believer to question whether or not an event as described in the bible could happen, if you simultaneously believe in God, especially if you believe in Jesus rising from the dead, which is so much more intensely unscientific than any other biblical miracle. If you want to debate Jonah's literalism for another reason, just because you truly believe it is metaphorical for some reason perhaps. But you really can't justify arguing that it's not literal just because it is farfetched. If you can't reconcile Jonah's story with your belief in a God that can in fact do absolutely anything, then you have much worse problems facing you can "can man live in fish".
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