Monday, June 17, 2013
Who cares about the role of women in the Bible?
Really, who cares? They are just as trifling as men. The object of scriptural investigations is to apprehend the nature and purpose of God. Attempting an anthropology of scripture and then calling it a day is like counting a bundle of dead leaves on the side of a trail and calling it a hike. For goodness sakes.
Paul wasn't really a Jew.
I can't think of any veritable Jew who would call the totality of his heritage σκυβαλα (shit, rubbish, dung, excrement, waste, slime) (Phil.3:8). Nor can I imagine any scholars doing him a favor by focusing on those aspects of his past that he himself considers worthless as if those very aspects were THE MOST IMPORTANT ASPECTS. Once again, behold the sheer stupidity of the modern scholar!
Paul is not a Jew. He is no more a Jew than I am a Mennonite, though I come from that background and flit about a few vestiges of its cultural σκυβαλα.
Paul is not a Jew. He is no more a Jew than I am a Mennonite, though I come from that background and flit about a few vestiges of its cultural σκυβαλα.
Friday, June 14, 2013
Coming out from the Mennonite Church.
It is difficult. I realized a few years ago that something was horribly wrong with the denomination, nay, the culture that I have belonged to since my birth. Since that time I have come to see the movement of Menninism as a false religion; as false as the Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons. You can scarcely find a witness in the whole heretical lot of them who will stand up and testify that "τη γαρ χαριτι εστε σεσωσμενοι δια πιστεως. και τουτο ουκ εχ υμων, θεου δωρον. ουκ εξ εργων, ινα μη τις καυχησηται." (Eph.2:8). NO ONE STANDS FOR THIS. Mennonites, as a corporate whole, truly believe that they are saved by their faithful and righteous obedience to Jesus. God help them. They are worse than the Judaizers, who at least limited their soteriological requirements to circumcision and feast days.
I am left adrift, without a family, without a denomination or a body of believers to call my home. Like David on the run, I know not where to turn. This is the season of doubt. To be sure, I will always love Mennonites in the midst of my hatred and contempt. Hatred and love are not so averse as one might think. I love the school that I attend (Canadian Mennonite University) and look forward to continuing my studies there. I also have grown inexorably attached to certain Mennonite intellectuals, most especially Gordon Zerbe but also Sheila Klassen-Wiebe. These strike me as people whom God dotes on. I don't know how to describe it. I love them so much.
I am left adrift, without a family, without a denomination or a body of believers to call my home. Like David on the run, I know not where to turn. This is the season of doubt. To be sure, I will always love Mennonites in the midst of my hatred and contempt. Hatred and love are not so averse as one might think. I love the school that I attend (Canadian Mennonite University) and look forward to continuing my studies there. I also have grown inexorably attached to certain Mennonite intellectuals, most especially Gordon Zerbe but also Sheila Klassen-Wiebe. These strike me as people whom God dotes on. I don't know how to describe it. I love them so much.
Thursday, June 13, 2013
Salubrious thoughts from Genesis
"Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you." -Gen.3:16
I have heard blithe egalitarians attempt to wax subtle on the distinction between descriptive and prescriptive words of God. This is a convenient sophistry, for it enables the egalitarian to look on this troubling verse and say, "Ah but here God is not telling us how things must be how they will be." Once this has been settled they go on surreptitiously adding to their wickedness by suggesting that what God describes ought not to be, and finally (good pelagians that they are!) that it doesn't have to be like this at all.
I have no doubt in my mind that the above verse is a curse. It is a curse of God. And when God curses, it is no small thing. It creates precisely the wanton reality that He has uttered; immutably. This is shown quite clearly by the inability of the Israelites to enter Canaan after God swore that they would not; mauger their genuine repentance, mauger their seeking after the blessing with tears. The Word of the LORD stands firm in the heavens. Would that egalitarians could comprehend this!
What is the significance of the Genesis curse? Simply that women will always attempt to get the upper hand over their husbands, and that husbands will respond in kind by subduing them. A war has entered into the cosmos between male and female, without hope of armistice, without hope of abjuration, without hope of end. To be male with respect to the female means to be in conflict with the female. And vice versa. Feminism all too readily proves this point with its parasitic machinations.
I have heard blithe egalitarians attempt to wax subtle on the distinction between descriptive and prescriptive words of God. This is a convenient sophistry, for it enables the egalitarian to look on this troubling verse and say, "Ah but here God is not telling us how things must be how they will be." Once this has been settled they go on surreptitiously adding to their wickedness by suggesting that what God describes ought not to be, and finally (good pelagians that they are!) that it doesn't have to be like this at all.
I have no doubt in my mind that the above verse is a curse. It is a curse of God. And when God curses, it is no small thing. It creates precisely the wanton reality that He has uttered; immutably. This is shown quite clearly by the inability of the Israelites to enter Canaan after God swore that they would not; mauger their genuine repentance, mauger their seeking after the blessing with tears. The Word of the LORD stands firm in the heavens. Would that egalitarians could comprehend this!
What is the significance of the Genesis curse? Simply that women will always attempt to get the upper hand over their husbands, and that husbands will respond in kind by subduing them. A war has entered into the cosmos between male and female, without hope of armistice, without hope of abjuration, without hope of end. To be male with respect to the female means to be in conflict with the female. And vice versa. Feminism all too readily proves this point with its parasitic machinations.
Wednesday, June 12, 2013
Dualism lives on in reasonable philosophy.
"Now the body, whatever may be its function, appears first as the known. We can not therefore refer knowledge back to it or discuss it before we have defined knowing, nor can we derive knowing in its fundamental structure from the body in any way or manner whatsoever." -Sartre (Being and Nothingness, p.297 ET).
Very true! There is a distinction between knowledge and body. And as knowledge is merely one mode of consciousness, there is ultimately a primacy of consciousness over body and thus a greater distinction between the two. But what is this simple, self-evident truth of reflection; what is this elementary thesis but a return to dualism? The human subject is not a monad in the sense of an indistinguishable interpenetration of soul and body. Every time we say or think the concept "body" we are already cutting a void between ourselves and IT. The void becomes veritable; an ontological fact. And since this void is possible and perpetually common (how often consciousness posits its body throughout the course of its existence need not be demonstrated), it can never be reasonably said that soul and body are inseparable. I just fucking separated mine. Maybe the fact that you can't means you are a philistine.
It is a shame that the church's cache of intellectuals have lately attached themselves to monism with a ferocious provincialism. It is a shame because monism is a treachery and a falsehood, or, in the words of Mr. Karl Barth: "A supreme betrayal of religion."
Very true! There is a distinction between knowledge and body. And as knowledge is merely one mode of consciousness, there is ultimately a primacy of consciousness over body and thus a greater distinction between the two. But what is this simple, self-evident truth of reflection; what is this elementary thesis but a return to dualism? The human subject is not a monad in the sense of an indistinguishable interpenetration of soul and body. Every time we say or think the concept "body" we are already cutting a void between ourselves and IT. The void becomes veritable; an ontological fact. And since this void is possible and perpetually common (how often consciousness posits its body throughout the course of its existence need not be demonstrated), it can never be reasonably said that soul and body are inseparable. I just fucking separated mine. Maybe the fact that you can't means you are a philistine.
It is a shame that the church's cache of intellectuals have lately attached themselves to monism with a ferocious provincialism. It is a shame because monism is a treachery and a falsehood, or, in the words of Mr. Karl Barth: "A supreme betrayal of religion."
Capitalistic materialism and a common misunderstanding with respect to it.
The strawman: in materialism we attempt to find meaning by purchasing as many glamorous goods and services as we can. This is a sham because the material will never satisfy. A meaningful life can be gleaned through pursuing love, self-sacrifice, community endeavors and other such gaseous baloney.
Critics of materialism (here roughly defined as a lifestyle or philosophy which endeavors to acquire THINGS) are wrong in assuming that we seek meaning in purchase and acquisition. They are dead wrong. Meaning is the plaything; the idol of the delusional. It exists as much as the ghost of Christmas past exists. It exists like a pair of sexually appealing lingerie for overweight women exists. In other words, it doesn't exist. Life is not meaningful. In capitalism, which is the art of individual ownership of divers means to production and distribution, and its subsidiary: materialism, which is the art of multiplying private property by means of these previous instruments....we have no desire to attain to a meaningful status. We have renounced meaning from the get-go. We acknowledge that life is a vapour, a chasing after the wind, and that there is no possible way to escape from chasing after the wind. Thus, we attend to chasing after the wind all the more readily, for such is life, and we endeavor to live the life that is ours with vigour and joy. All of the things which spiritualists and socialists call "meaningless" (as if the word carried within itself an ethical dimension or a prohibition) we sweep up into our purview and take hold of. This is scriptural wisdom, for the sacred and unerring scriptures say:
"Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for in the grave, where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom" -Ecc.9:10
"I denied myself nothing my eyes desired; I refused my heart no pleasure. My heart took delight in all my work." -Ecc.2:10
"Moreover, when God gives any man wealth and possessions and enables him to enjoy them, to accept his lot and be happy in his work- this is a gift of God." -Ecc.5:19
What is the evil which may be mentioned in this regard? "God gives a man wealth, possessions and honor, so that he lacks nothing his heart desires, but God does not enable him to enjoy them. This is...a grievous evil." Ecc. 6:2
This is also precisely what the church of pietism and the socialists esteem as one: shame over one's possessions. They think they are doing a service to God in such devious business; but they are really doing the very opposite.
In conclusion, we do not buy and acquire materials to find meaning. We are wiser than that. We buy and acquire because the very act is meaningless, the very materials are meaningless, and we enjoy them as such.
Critics of materialism (here roughly defined as a lifestyle or philosophy which endeavors to acquire THINGS) are wrong in assuming that we seek meaning in purchase and acquisition. They are dead wrong. Meaning is the plaything; the idol of the delusional. It exists as much as the ghost of Christmas past exists. It exists like a pair of sexually appealing lingerie for overweight women exists. In other words, it doesn't exist. Life is not meaningful. In capitalism, which is the art of individual ownership of divers means to production and distribution, and its subsidiary: materialism, which is the art of multiplying private property by means of these previous instruments....we have no desire to attain to a meaningful status. We have renounced meaning from the get-go. We acknowledge that life is a vapour, a chasing after the wind, and that there is no possible way to escape from chasing after the wind. Thus, we attend to chasing after the wind all the more readily, for such is life, and we endeavor to live the life that is ours with vigour and joy. All of the things which spiritualists and socialists call "meaningless" (as if the word carried within itself an ethical dimension or a prohibition) we sweep up into our purview and take hold of. This is scriptural wisdom, for the sacred and unerring scriptures say:
"Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for in the grave, where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom" -Ecc.9:10
"I denied myself nothing my eyes desired; I refused my heart no pleasure. My heart took delight in all my work." -Ecc.2:10
"Moreover, when God gives any man wealth and possessions and enables him to enjoy them, to accept his lot and be happy in his work- this is a gift of God." -Ecc.5:19
What is the evil which may be mentioned in this regard? "God gives a man wealth, possessions and honor, so that he lacks nothing his heart desires, but God does not enable him to enjoy them. This is...a grievous evil." Ecc. 6:2
This is also precisely what the church of pietism and the socialists esteem as one: shame over one's possessions. They think they are doing a service to God in such devious business; but they are really doing the very opposite.
In conclusion, we do not buy and acquire materials to find meaning. We are wiser than that. We buy and acquire because the very act is meaningless, the very materials are meaningless, and we enjoy them as such.
Monday, November 12, 2012
Christopher Rollston should be fired
It is so obvious that this champagne-and-lace, culture loving, bible- embarrassed heretic departed from the statement of faith he freely signed a long time ago. He should be fired. Screw tenure. We force politicians to resign before term end on account of their disgraceful behavior. Why not teachers?
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