Saturday, February 05, 2005

Death

A little while back, Nate laid down a blog entry that posited that disasters such as the recent tsunami are natural. I responded that they, in fact, are not actually natural, but a result of our sin, not part of this world as it was created. His response was, “I would argue that Sin is also a natural part of this world.”

Plainly, sin is not a natural part of this world.  We are not meant to die.

Just to take a pragmatic angle on the whole mess for a moment, how would we explain in these contemporary times in which we live how someone could live for almost 1000 years as documented in Scripture? If someone these days lived that long, not only would we have article after article written documenting such a person, we’d have several governments, if not the U.N., performing extensive experiments on him or her trying to figure out how in the hell he managed to live so long. This sort of thing just doesn’t happen.

This is true. It just doesn’t happen… anymore. But in actuality, no one has ever actually defeated death. Ever. Except for One. Isn’t it interesting, though, that it seems that with today’s contemporary attitude, if anyone actually rose from the dead, unless it happened in Christianity, no one would pay a whole lot of attention to it.

“Hank was resurrected from the dead?  Didn’t he die a couple weeks ago?  Hmm… imagine that.  Well, I hope he stops by.”

We’ve seen too many movies.  Who was the last one you saw step out of the grave?

I’m tired. I’m tired of having to explain to a post-modern world that death is not natural. The disasters with which we’re so used to dealing are products of sin, they are not part of the natural (created) world. If it didn’t exist and if it wasn’t pronounced ‘good’ when Jesus created this planet, then don’t consider it part of the natural world.

With regard to death, and whether or not it is natural, there are a couple main points to consider:
1.  Is death part of the original creation (Is it one of the things God looked upon and declared ‘Good’?)
2. If death is natural (and therefore to be endured or, as is often the case, shrouded in celebration rather than honest grief), why is it that God upon seeing Mary and the Jews coming before him and weeping about the death of their friend Lazarus was deeply disturbed and began to weep? Why would God weep about the death of His friend, especially when He knew He was going to raise him?

This is a very important point to consider, mostly because it reveals much about the nature of the God of the created universe as well as His relationship to such an important event as death.

As a matter of fact this is relatively easy in light of the Gospel. God does not like death. He rails against it. If the God of the created universe hates death and fights against it that greatly, is it something to be accepted? Is it part of nature?

Nature was created by God.  It is part of His creation.  Death is not.

Why is it so bad that people die? We can sense that it is not right. When you lose your mom or dad, your sister or brother, your wife or child, is it easy to take? Is it something most people would hear about and shrug and say something like, “Really? Hmm, well, that’s not something I expected to happen today.” Nope. Most people, sooner or later, break and sob and do everything they can think of to deal with the pain of the loss.

It hurts that much, in part, because it’s not meant to happen. We’re not meant to be without those people, and deep in ourselves, we know that. But that’s not enough. We know it mostly, if we can hear it, because the Father of the known universe tells us that it is not okay. It is so not okay that He’s going to make it go away forever. As a matter of fact, He already has.

He died that we may have eternal life. Because we were always meant to spend eternity in the presence of our eternal Father, our Creator, walking through the garden in the cool of the day, having conversations about which we can now only dream.

Death is not natural. As with the natural disasters mentioned by Nate, it is not part of the original created world. Death is purely a creation of the sin of Adam and the sins of the world. Our God was tortured, died, was buried and rose again on the third day so that death would be defeated and would never again have sway over us. Never forget that. And don’t let anyone ever tell you differently.

Sunday, November 14, 2004

Freedom, actually

People aren’t used to thinking about their lives and politics in terms of freedom. They don’t think about freedom they actually still have and certainly don’t mourn freedom they’ve lost.

When was the last time most people actually got frustrated because there was an activity they enjoyed or something they enjoyed owning that they suddenly could no longer because a legislator or large group of people decided that it should be against the law? At this point, people who get frustrated like this are still considered pretty much on the ‘fringe’ by the rest of society.

For example, when was the last time you decided to drive without wearing a seatbelt (if you live in a state where such a thing is against the law)? Not that we have much inclination to do this anyway since it’s actually a fairly unwise thing to do, and most of us know it. That isn’t the point. You no longer have the choice to do so. The state has spoken, and it said you mayn’t. If you did decide to not wear your seatbelt the next time you were driving, you would be breaking the law and would most likely be subjected to fines and possibly go to court.

Now, think about this wisdom for a moment. You don’t have a choice. You are no longer free to do the thing you were free to do for the last 60 years (during many of which they didn’t even have seatbelts yet). Who am I hurting by making such a decision? Think about that. Who is hurt if I don’t wear my seatbelt and I get in a car accident? I am. No one else. Just me. It is my burden to bear, right?

“But the costs of caring for people like you at the emergency room would be exorbitant!” cry those who look at it through taxpayers’ eyes. Another epiphany for these people: increased medical care costs to the taxpayer because of citizens making individual decisions like this is a failure of socialism, not freedom. Take away the state’s ability to manage health care, make the whole thing private, and guess what? My neighbors are no longer burdened AT ALL if I make a poor decision that leaves me mangled. (Ever consider purely charity-backed emergency rooms for those with no insurance? You say people would never be generous enough to do that? Try it. Try not stealing so much of their paychecks and see what happens.)

See, there is a reason that a free society, at its core, is based on the concept of Property Rights. If the state can tell me what to do with my body, is it really mine? We’ve heard this argument before, mostly in libertarian circles, but the concept holds weight, and it must.

Inherent in the concept of Property Rights maintained by the individual (at the highest level, state ownership of property being subservient to the rights and needs of the individual—individuals should always be able to buy back property owned by the state) is the concept that people can do whatever they want with their own property, as long as they’re not doing actual damage or harm to the property of others. This would include things like murder.

When I don’t wear my seatbelt and get in a car accident, I have hurt myself, and no one else or their property (unless I manage to hurl myself out of the car and my flying body does damage to someone or something else, in which case, as Private Property laws would hold, I am liable).

The frustrating upshot for those who are paying attention and who care about freedom is that they see that they just lost freedom. It doesn’t matter that I never really wanted to not wear my seatbelt in the first place. The point is that those who put this country together believed that minutiae such as worrying about seat belts needed to be handled by individuals. You should make your own decision about such a thing. The power to make that decision has been taken away from us.

‘Good ideas’ like these are being enacted constantly. Every time one of these piles of crap is enacted, all individuals under those laws lose something. They lose a little freedom. We’ve been chipping away at our freedom like this for decades. We’re losing it piece by piece, and each of the pieces is so small that most people can’t really understand what all the libertarian fuss is about. I mean, it’s just a seatbelt . . . and you were going to wear it anyway.

Very few people would enter a battlefield and die on principle anymore. They might consider it for a particular event that affected them deeply, but those events don’t come along very often, mostly because they reveal the state for being the evil, greedy entity that it is. (Did the IRS come and take away everything you own and social services came and took away your children while your wife began divorce proceedings? Now you’re fighting mad!)

The state moves very slowly, with a whole crew of similarly-thinking corrupt individuals in control of the helm. We could vote them out (at least for now) in a moment if we so chose. But, again, we’re back to the fact that very few get passionate enough about the principle behind losing these freedoms to fire anybody over it.

Which is why I’ve enjoyed talk radio so much over the last few years. It exposes the common masses to certain concepts, arguments and problems with their corrupt government that they would otherwise have to seek out on their own. And they begin to get involved. And things start to change.

Maybe, if we’re really lucky, enough people will start caring about freedom as a principle again. Who knows how much freedom we might get back if that were to happen?

(And if you want to be a pessimist about that particular concept, stuff it. Keep it to yourself. Hopelessness doesn’t do anyone any good.)

Saturday, October 30, 2004

I Don’t Like Cox

Okay, I’ve given them a shot, and I’ve decided I don’t like Cox.

I’ve been using a DSL hookup at our old place for a long time and was perfectly happy with it. Now, I didn’t get the blazingly fast speeds like you can get with a digital cable internet hookup, of which Cox is the main supplier in our area now, but I got consistency. Which, by the way, is the main selling point of DSL over cable when you do the research. Not as much blazing speed with DSL as with cable at its best, but not nearly as many highs and lows in the speed, either. It’s thoroughly possible to get speeds slower than a modem when using cable. I’ve seen it here already in the few months I’ve been using cable.

For the last 3+ weeks, our connection has been sparse at best. I’d come in in the morning before work or at night after work and check out those little lights on the cable modem to see what kind of a mood it was in. Did it want to hook up today? No? Bastard. “No Internet for you!”

Of course Cox has come out to fix it a couple times. The last time I had to get a supervisor on the phone so that I didn’t have to wait 10 days for them to be here when someone could be here. I swear these people have no idea that other people work. After-hours service? “WAA ha ha ha!”

So on this last visit, what’s the answer? They replace my cable modem, a Toshiba which they tell me is the best make they offer, with some no-name model.

I come home from work and after about an hour of service… guess what?  Off it goes!

So before going postal, I decide to do a little trouble-shooting. See, our home has a couple locations where different cables are protruding from the wall. Since we don’t own the place, I have no idea where these things go once they disappear into the blackness behind the drywall. One of the two has been going to our old junker of a TV and the other one to the cable modem. A little testing and I find out one cable produces a MUCH better signal for both TV and Internet than the other one. The cable modem couldn’t hook up at all on the cable which it was originally hooked to, but could on the other one. So I take the good cable and split that baby to both the TV and the modem.

Now, I can finally do things online again consistently.  Like blog here.

But why was this not tested and figured out by the ‘tech’ who was out here? I told him on the phone while I was at work that I didn’t want to have to call them and go off on them all over again.

I probably could have fixed it myself in the first place, but aren’t I paying for them to take care of it?  Morons, all.

It reminds me of all those times when I’ve called a particular hardware or software vendor to solve a problem I was having and ticked off their support guy’s questions one after the other as he reads them off his screen on the other end…

“Have you checked that the...”; “Yup, did that.”

“Well, if you look at it are the lights...”; “Yup, they’re out.”

“Okay, have you tried going to your command prompt and...”; “Did that already.”

“Um… okay, go to your Preferences and...”; “Already did it.”

“Hmm.  Did you go over on the right hand side of the window and make sure all the boxes were checked?...”; “Yup.  All done.”

Silence.  Some clicking, typing noises.

“Well, sir, I’m not sure exactly what the problem might be...”; “Yeah, me either.  That’s why I’m calling you.”

Morons. I’m tired of calling support centers to pay them so I can give THEM support. If this happens again, even the wife is saying we should switch providers. I don’t know why I’m so damn kind to these assholes.

Saturday, September 25, 2004

What’s fair?

A series of commercials are playing on TV and radio in California that attempt to draw the electorate’s attention to the fact that Indian-owned casinos in California have managed to be exempted from paying state tax.

A while back this was not given much play, mostly because everyone was running around beating themselves about the heads for the way the Indians have been treated by big bad white America.  Many people looked upon the ‘gift’ of letting the Indians open casinos as a way to salve their guilty white consciences.  It was a good idea, and it would help the Indians.

(Never mind the fact that the guilt these people feel and by which their actions are guided is manufactured since it has, in fact, been hundreds of years since any native American peoples were conquered by any Europeans with more advanced hardware.  Only a little more recent in fact than when passive agrarian Indian communities were being conquered and absorbed by other more hostile Indians.)

Now, we return to the casinos to find that they’re making billions of dollars and… GASP!… not paying state taxes on them!  God forbid!

The commercials are centered around a series of people saying, “I don’t remember voting for that.” Let me help you with this, California.  That’s correct.  You didn’t vote for that.  You voted to increase your OWN taxes.  You always opt to increase your own taxes when you have to pay the piper for all the socialism you enacted.

Note that this is where the fallacy of the touted “Social Liberal, Economic Conservative” is revealed.  How, exactly, Mr. Conservative/Liberal, did you plan to pay for all those social programs you’ve enacted all this time?

Just like all liberal socialists, the programs are eventually paid for with ‘forced generosity’.  Didn’t vote for it?  Says the government redistributionist, “Tough.  Pay me.” Don’t believe in the programs on which your tax dollars are being spent?  “Tough.  Pay me.” Would you like to opt out of the whole system and put your money into something more worthwhile, like a real charity?  “Tough.  Pay me.”

Now, we come to the Indians and their casinos.  What’s fair?  If most Californians are being raped financially at gunpoint by the state and someone has somehow managed to avoid this sentence, what is the answer?  Here’s a hint:  Look to freedom for your best answer.  In freedom is the least miserable answer.  In socialism, fairness is defined by everyone being equally miserable.  In freedom, there are financial tiers based on who has yet to ‘make it’ by using their own ingenuity.

In freedom, when your neighbor manages to avoid the shackles you have fashioned for yourself, you do not condemn him but rethink the torture and misery into which you have cast yourself and others.  Do not raise the casinos’ taxes, but rather re-think the tax system that screws the rest of California.  Get rid of most of the (damnable) social programs that are killing us to lower the state’s overhead and significantly cut the taxes for all of California.

Only in socialism do we punish our neighbors for their success.  Remember, socialism demands your neighbor be just as miserable as you.

Sunday, September 19, 2004

Church music:  old, new, and meaning

Okay, so you grab some of the music that you find in your average evangelical church (i.e. praise band/overhead display). You check the lyrics to make sure they are theologically sound and make proper adjustments, while staying as close as possible to the original song text. Then you take the whole kit-and-caboodle down to the local cathedral and play the same music on an immense well-tuned pipe organ.

Would that be acceptable to play in a worship service in the average traditional church in America today?  Some would say ‘yes’.

I mean, one of the main arguments given by Lutherans, at least in the Missouri Synod, is that hymns in the hymnal should be as close to the original composition as possible. A song prepared as previously mentioned is pretty dang close to the original, right? I mean, the order and timing of the notes would be exactly the same. So it passes the ‘originality’ test.

Which brings us to the crux of the discussion… What other criteria are being used to select hymns in today’s hymnals, for churches that still use them?

Something to consider is why it takes very little effort or musical ability to recognize a hymn of which the tune has been written somewhere in the 20th century. This is also true of ones written in the 19th century, though it’s not quite as obvious. After that (18th, 17th, 16th, 15th centuries and so on), it gets a bit tougher to recognize by ear in which century the tune for a hymn was written. You would know it wasn’t written in the 20th or 19th centuries, but the musical layman would probably be guessing if it were 17th, 16th or earlier.

The point is this: what meaning is being imparted by the arrangement and timing of the notes? I believe contemporary music imparts a different meaning. And I think the changes prevalent in 19th century hymns were the beginning of an evolution that has produced today’s contemporary praise songs (no longer hymns). A friend of mine once said in a discussion about old hymnal tunes versus today’s praise music, “This would assume that the music doesn’t have its own meaning.”

If an old hymn (18th century, say) was played on a big pipe organ in a large old cathedral, followed immediately by a contemporary praise song, what do you think would be the reaction by someone who’d never stepped foot in a church before? If someone who’d never thought of what they believed and had never been in a church in their life, but happened to walk in to hear those two pieces played back-to-back, how would each one come across? What meaning would the listener get from each one?

I’ve come to believe that the old stuff (18th century and earlier) carries a sound that imparts reverence. I do not believe the large majority of today’s arrangements do this same thing. And I think it’s in the math of the composition. I don’t know enough about music to break that down for you note by note, but there is certainly a distinct difference. And I don’t think the instrument on which the music is played is enough to mask the differences in the styles of old and new compositions.

I know I’ve been around a while and have heard many a thing in the church, but, as of several years ago, I no longer have any tolerance for contemporary music which always seems to make me think more about myself than the One who bled, died and rose for me. I don’t think mine is a reaction that everyone would have, but I would be willing to bet the reverence would be absent even to those who are new to the concept of worshipping in church.

And if it can be empirically found to be true that a certain type of arrangement not only does not impart reverence but also manages to make the listener focus on something worldly, including themselves, what are the long-term effects of listening to such things? I mean, never mind the new listeners for a moment. What happens to the faith of the long-term listener after years of exposure to the contemporary stuff? I’d love to see a study done, because I’d be willing to bet it’s not good.

Also, please let it be known that if a hymn’s lyrics (and a liturgy’s as well) are not theologically sound, they will be damaging to the listener’s faith. It is perfectly possible to make people ‘allergic’ to the sound of old hymns and liturgy by applying bad theology to those sounds. The Catholic church has managed to do this for eons, proving that, in a very Pavlovian fashion, you can train people to associate the bad feelings of bad theology with old hymnody. Such a shame.

Well, enough for now.  More on this later, I’m sure, since it irritates the hell out of me.

Monday, September 06, 2004

Instituting Change

That last post was spawned by one that Nate posted recently on his blog (see: The Trump Card) about not voting.

I challenge you this:

Name one time in all of human history when a tyranical central government has surrendered power to a vote.

I’ll answer for you. It’s never happened, and it never will. You can vote to grow government. You cannot vote to meaningfully shrink it. In all of human history, only one thing has shrunk government; the force of arms.

In response, I would ask another question. In how many countries throughout history where the people have been mired in socialism for generations have those people broken free of their chains and, by a large percentage, decided to change their votes completely to effect deep change in their government?

Is it possible that it’s never happened not because it doesn’t work, but rather because it’s never been tried? Has it never been tried because the people, in love with their state chains of socialism and the offered ‘security’, don’t want the alternative and would never vote that way?

The American origin and struggle is original, so we shouldn’t use it as a measure. What percentage of the vote would the colonists have garnered if they had access to and used today’s voting system to attempt to make the governmental changes for which they finally had to physically fight? Here in America at least the colonists had the Atlantic barrier to buffer timely retribution by the king. And even then much was at risk for those taking up the struggle.

It is not often you will find even a small portion of a country’s people deciding to risk their lives and possessions so that they may shed the chains of their oppressors.

Let them have security

From Fox News:

Putin went on national television to tell Russians they must mobilize against terrorism. He promised wide-ranging reforms to toughen security forces and purge corruption.
...
Measures would be taken, Putin promised, to overhaul the law enforcement organs, which he acknowledged had been infected by corruption, and tighten borders.

“We are obliged to create a much more effective security system and to demand action from our law enforcement organs that would be adequate to the level and scale of the new threats,” he said.

Here we go again. I suppose it’s amazing that that people lasted as long as it did without living under the government’s thumb as it has in recent decades. Terrorism? We’ve gotta save our people with the KGB! Uhh… I mean, we’ll call it something different. And it won’t be used against regular citizens who aren’t terrorists.  No really.

But, more importantly, how unfortuntate is it that those who have been stuck in the Matrix-style gel cocoon of the state for so long cannot handle being away from it?  They’ll welcome the power of the state back with open arms…

Marat Avsarayev, a 44-year-old taxi driver in Vladikavkaz, questioned why Putin and other politicians didn’t “even think about fulfilling the [terrorists’] demands to save the lives of the children. Probably because it wasn’t their children here.”

“May I please have some more security?  I don’t care if my relatives end up going to the gulag again… as long as I feel safe.”

The roots of the weeds of socialism grow deep. How many forms of American socialism can Americans already not live without?

Yet I still hold that this country in concept is original enough that, though we might guess much of the outcome of a democratic process, we might yet see a few surprises as the generations pass.