The China Condition

This is why China will never be anything more than a cheap attempt at freedom. “The (Chinese) government says... that myth, superstitions and reincarnation are all questionable.”

I will not do what Marx does and point out every failure of the capitalistic system within the socialist system. Instead I will point out that socialism is the vehicle of the agnostic hatred of beauty and imagination. It is it self a failure of epic proportions.

Socialism, like it's cousin, psychoanalytic theory, is a practice based completely on the ability to control. In the case of psychoanalytic theory, it is meant to control an individual and in most cases, an individual sin or condition or phobia or what have you. Socialism is that theory taken to the masses. Socialism is a group of principles that are designed to control the masses. It approached social problem the same way Freud would approach a condition or neurosis. I have no major problem with the Freudian approach to psychoanalytic psychology as long as you call a sin a sin and not a condition. However, socialism generally uses the same principles to come to it's social conclusions.

One can approach a sin or condition or neuroses in their life from the psychoanalytic perspective and successfully identify it and fix it. Often, I feel like one could get the same result by being hoest with themselves. Another words, psychoanalytic psychology attempts to get you to drop your inhibitions so that you can get to the knot of repressed desires, thoughts, actions and so on. A Christian can then attribute the cause of the repressed desire to sin and deal with the sin.

The socialist system applies the same methods to social sins or conditions. They identify the problem of discontent and weed it out. However, a political party is not the same as an individual person. In fact, the church is not the same as an individual person. This is to say that you can approach sin in a church the same way you approach sin in yourself or in another individual. Socialist pagans like we find in power in China, attempt to use the psychoanalytic method to weed out conditions in society. Oddly enough, many christian today attempt to do the same thing in the church by making sweeping statement of condemnation on a certain topic. For example, it is popular in todays church to condemn lazy parents who never have a home cooked meal by attacking the very act of going to McDonalds. This is nothing less than socialism in the Church.

The principles of psychoanalytic psychology are meant to control behavior and in turn better ones life. This is think is a very Christian attitude. However, it is very clear that when individual use these tactics at the church level it infringes all forms of christian liberties just as socialism infringes all forms of social liberties. Instead good church leadership will identify large social sins and deal with them from the pulpit as sins and in faith that the word of God to man is sufficient to weed the sin instead of idealizing a sin as a condition and legalizing an act against the actions. This is the meaning of, "For God so love the world that he gave his only begoten Son".

Idealism was owned my the church until Marx came along and made is kosher pagan's. Before Marx pagan were really just allowed to be completely hedonistic. However, Socialism has the same idealistic draws that the Roman Catholic church has to some Protestant church members. However, this time they get to proclaim that the ideals are not Roman Catholic but merely plundering the tombs of the socialists.

Lastly, this post is not against idealism. It is against socialist method of idealism. Idealism that is based in the word of God is fine, as long as it is an idealism that is based on faith.

AGNOSTICISM AND AGRICULTURE

My wife calls you trend junkies. Yes, you who consider all forms of industrialized farming to be “raping the ground.” Sure (you concede) supporting “unsustainable” farming or eating a McDonald’s hamburger is not a sin. . . technically. You would never ever say that. But you flex all of your wee holinesses attacking it anyway.

Where does this fervor for righteous eating come from? The roots of these concerns (and other similar ones) may have come down from the New Age movement that crept its significant way into the church in the 60’s and 70’s. But this essay isn’t about the New Age movement. That’s old news. This is about a newer pagan movement sneaking into the church.

Much in the same way that the New Age movement came into the church in the form of squishy liturgy, moral ambiguity, and young men and women making relativistic excuses for sin and corruption, the agnostic movement is starting to make the same kind of headway in the church. Only this time it is in the form of the most recent trend to hit Planet Earth (or at least the white and rich part of it). I am talking about sustainable agriculture, the green movement, and progressivist governmental control over the production and distribution of food.

At the outset, I should say that I grow/raise almost all of my own food (from beef to fruits and vegetables) and believe that keeping a healthy diet is a dandy thing to do. Also, somehow, my wife has never eaten a McDonald’s hamburger. I have worked in almost every type of farming and have done so on three different continents. But I’m not using my own experiences to draw methodological conclusions. I am, however, willing to maintain that my eye is calibrated to see the latest cultural trends for what they are as they creep into the church and systemically affect every part of its ministry.

The root of the problem comes from well-meaning agnostics like Michael Pollan. There are many other agnostics and non-committal religious folks that have spoken up on this subject, but I will focus on Pollan since he is the writer that has been brought up most frequently in my own church community.

And kicking the debate up one more inflammatory notch, I need to say that the root of Pollan’s problem flows from Karl Marx. Most of the issues being made about food and agriculture within the church are the result of Christians attempting to glean godly principles from writers like Pollan. However, their principles are based on Marx’s principles of a socialist society.

At the root of Marx is a distinction between needs and wants. Needs are things that are required to support and sustain life and wants are everything else. Marx uses a Hegelian dialectic to set up his universe, and, in my opinion, this distinction is at the root of Marx’s universe. But this is not a biblical distinction.

Now this is not to say that the Bible does not distinguish between needs and wants. The Bible just doesn’t use Marx’s definitions for them. In fact, the Bible usually refers to Christians needing to die as Christ did. Taking the life of Christ as an example we see that the goal is not to live but to continuously die so that life (for others) may persist. Take the life of the apostles as an example; Christ tells them to give up everything, emphasizing that things like food and shelter will be provided by God.

When Marx looks at the world through the glasses of needs and wants, in the background there is a nice and tidy Hegelian dialectic where one can determine the next step of action, which always leads to revolution. If you don’t need a thing then it is a want. If you want a thing, then someone must be profiting off of those desires and using those wants to create and maintain leverage and control over the people—the workers. This is how capitalism creates greedy pigs that profit from placing a desire or a fetish—a want—in a society. And if you doubt that this grandchild of Marxism is in play in the whole foodie discussion, ask yourself where all the language of exploitation is coming from. Why is growing ten thousand acres of wheat and thereby driving down the price of a loaf of bread in impoverished nations considered exploitation (of the land and the consumer)? Why are fast-food laws justified as a protection of the people from the exploitation of corporations (when dollar menus are about the only reason why it’s practically impossible to starve in this country). Needs and wants, needs and wants. And in Marx’s world, wants are always points of exploitation, points where government is needed as a protection. The only thing that could make the whole push more obvious is if the co-opy wise-men started talking about gastronomical justice.

In Pollan’s books on food, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, this is exactly the line of reasoning that he is using. He argues that big bad industrial farming is unclean and cruel, and is there in order to promote the fetishes created by capitalistic pigs, marketers, and shareholders. Why would anybody want a bag of Fritos otherwise? Wants equal manufactured desire and manipulation. (Help, I’m being exploited!) He may even be occasionally right (not that I care if some Fritos salesmen don’t actually want what’s best for me—I am not actually coerced into eating those tasty, curly corn fingernails). But the way Pollan arrives at his conclusion is straight out of the godless and mechanistic Marxist playbook.

Some might think Pollan is not an agnostic Marxist bent on leaving the world with more government regulation. To that I would say, wake up. Don’t be so naive. But I’m straying a bit from the point. This is not an essay on Pollan. Not entirely, at least.

There is a Christian response to greed and materialism within a capitalistic society and it is not Pollan’s response. Greed must be dealt with as a sin with every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. It is not being dealt with that way, however. The trend junkies and culture-mongers within the church end up using agnostic reasoning to deal with broad undefined “greed.” Because the church has bought into the agnostic principles from the beginning, there can be no useful Christian methods gleaned. This would be more obvious if we were attempting to apply agnostic beliefs to marriage, or child rearing (of course, many do). But, since we are talking about food and world-wide agricultural methods it is far less obvious to us. Doesn’t the sin lie in actual greed? How can sin lie in efficient agriculture? What’s biblically wrong with a farmer attempting to keep his checkbook in the black?

Instead of policing themselves for the rotten sin that lies festering within, and instead of spending their time in an effort to counsel thieves and adulterers in the community, the trend junkies have whole-heartedly attacked the idea of farming and food consumption. As long as he is eating the proper food, the Pharisee can make himself feel quite good warring against someone who does not implement the methods of proper eating. So the Pharisee stands and cries, “I thank you, God that I have the better understanding of how to eat!”

There are biblical principles to guide farmers and hold them accountable. Marx does (inconsistently) point out the sin of materialism in a capitalistic society. Pollan does wish the best for everyone’s health and for the cleanliness of this planet. However, Pollan and Marx do not start with the Bible and they definitely don’t finish with the Bible.

Christians attempting to use Marxist principles are going to end up arguing like agnostics. They define what is healthy and what is environmentally conscious without any use of the Bible, and then they hold the rest of the world to those emotional convictions, emotionally held. And because they don’t have a sure word from God, they will be passive aggressive in how they go about it. This is essentially how agnosticism has entered into the church through the guise of this “stewardship” movement.

Reject Pollan. He knows nothing of our Savior and what people actually need. Do not fall for agnostic principles shrouded in New Age relativism and propped up by a squishy Christianity (when not passive aggressive, it is simply squishy aggressive).

If you think a farmer is raping the earth by not using organic manure, and you go to that farmer and tell him so, then don’t be offended if that farmer replies that you’re full of enough manure for the both of you, manure provided by an agnostic alarmist who wants a lot more government control over everyone’s personal life because of a Marxist lie. Don’t give up godly dominion to the state in order to appease a false conviction placed in your heart by those who would swindle the world of eternal life—and all in order to eat their type of food.

Mars on Ice

Water on mars is old news. We all suspected it. What does this mean for the future of the world? I think, we as christian need to get a jump start on the idea that space travel is an inevitable step in the future history of humanity. We must place the flag of the trinity on hardened red rock soil of mars. Our children must be then astronauts of inter planetary travel and thought instead of the red fascist flag of Darwin and his white lab coated minions stepping in toe to the beat of bologna.

Hear the call of war trumpets! Listen to our advisories! Picture a destitute world ripe for nothing but research. Now imagine that the only people that live carry an ideology that rips Christ from everything and replaces Him with atoms molecules. Let us be just a vigilant on our criticism of Darwinist explanation of Mars. If we ignore the red planet, we will give up a large part of land to the red flag ideology.

With all this said, we should keep in mind that God died for the sins of the universe.

Free beer for life

It's a good 3 minutes into stoppage time of the second and possibly last game of a round robin soccer tournament. Your team was shut out of the first game and the only way they can continue playing is if you win or tie and another team looses. A penalty kick form about quarter field that has been called back twice when the referee blows his whistle a third siganals that is will now be a penalty kick from inside the goalkeepers box. He set the ball at the designated penalty kick area, where you must kick the ball past a goalkeeper who has shut your team out for the past 93 minutes in stellar fashion. On top of this, a local pub/brewery owner has promised a life time of free beer to anyone who makes a goal in this game.

Question; what is on you mind more, the goalkeeper or the beer?

We can ask Ivaiac Vastic. At 39 he is the oldest player in the 2008 Euro tournament. He made the goal and reportedly the pub owner is freighting him the first years supply within a couple of days. The kicker is that the Euro Futball commissioner is not allowing the Vastic to accept the gift. "We do not need this kind of motivation." I would ask what better motivation is there to score a goal?

What happens when it's totally hilarious

There are not words that define this video nor are there sounds to contain this performance.

What happens when Shakespeare uses the trinity as a mold for Hamlet

The causation of motive within Hamlet can be determined by observing the interaction with their fathers. What causes Hamlet to be motivated to exact revenge against his father's murderers? After all, it was not Hamlet that had would-be murderers following him in the beginning of the play. Though Hamlet was pondering the union of his mother and uncle to be a malicious one, he still had no clear knowledge of the past event that lead to his father's death. It was not until his ghost father told him of the murderous events that Hamlet took action against his uncle, et al. Warning Hamlet before he was to unfold the past, the ghost father says, "So art thou to revenge, when thou shalt hear." From this point on Hamlet's mission is well defined. It is purely revenge.

The nature of the ghost father or, "Thy father's spirit" as he calls himself to Hamlet, is widely left up to the interpretation of performers and scholars. Is the ghost real or is it a figment of Hamlet's seemingly wide imagination? Hamlet's mother cannot see or hear the ghost in act 3 scene 4, but Marcellus, Horatio, and Barnardo do recognize the ghost as Hamlet's father in act 1. The only thing that matters for my argument is that there is an acknowledgement of a parental connection between the ghost and Hamlet.

The ghost is telling the truth. The events that he unfolds are steadfast in reality as we learn later in the play. Therefore, if the ghost is only his imagination then Hamlet is able to prophesy about the past. I do not think this characterization of Hamlet fits with anything else Shakespeare has written. Rather, I believe the nature of the ghost is that it indwells within Hamlet.

Hamlet is single-minded in his mission. He is the ghost of revenge. The metaphysical depth of the character Hamlet is overwhelming at times. I believe that the character of Hamlet is a mold of the structure and interaction of the Christian trinity itself. Hamlet is presented as son, father, and spirit. It is obvious that Shakespeare assumes that the characters in this play presuppose traditional Christian values. Hamlet would have had no qualms killing Claudius if he was not a good Catholic. Nevertheless, he does not kill him. In fact, his reaction to Claudius's private repentance is utter dismay over the fact that he did the only thing that could have stopped Hamlet from killing him.

The interaction between Hamlet and his father is very mysterious by nature. Hamlet is alive and his father is a ghost. I must catch myself and say that I do not think that Shakespeare is trying to emulate or explain the nature of the Christian trinity. He is merely molding his character Hamlet around the structure of a single character being three things at once. This concept of three in one can only be draw from Trinitarian theology since it is not present in any other explanation of existence. Likewise, the concept of a monotheistic trinity can only be found in Christian theology. I think Shakespeare understood the amount of mystery that such a concept would bring to a character and masterfully molded one of his most complex characters around it; mysteries that even Shakespeare could not explain.

What I am not saying is that Shakespeare understood the mysteries of the trinity. Rather, he knew that If he used a concept that was as profound as the trinity to mold Hamlet around, the mysteries would occur naturally. He understood that there was unknown mystery in the Trinitarian theology and he wanted to use it to write a truly horrifying and bloody tragedy.

Hamlet's steadfastness to keep a vendetta with his father's enemies points toward the ghost and son to become one. The father indwells in Hamlet making the house a castle of ghostly revenge. It is truly creepy how much blood is spilled in the name of revenge." Hamlet is right up there as the scariest story I have ever read with King Lear and Macbeth.

Let's pull back even further from the play. In Hamlet you have a Father imposing or working out his will (revenge) unto his enemies through his son. But, the father's will is only able to be imposed or work out because his spirit has revealed the truth. Come on. This is blatant use of Trinitarian structure. Now, read Hamlet again and it all makes sense. I hope at least.

What happens when your red blood cells hold lots of oxygen

This dude is having a worse day than you.

What happens when you have a semantic debate about censorship in a Shakespeare class

The word censorship is defined way too broadly. The dictionary defines it as, "The removal and/or withholding of information from the public by a controlling group or body." This definition is talking about two very separate issues. It is talking about the way that writers want you to define censorship. This is adding on the connotation of human rights violations so as to make argument against crap writing a sin. The second is actual definition of penalty not censorship or even persecution for that matter.

Writers, these days, use the word censorship to make excuses for crappy writing. I can't believe that censorship is anything more than group or body not allowing you to perches a particular manuscript. Likewise, censorship is not allowing a person to publish a manuscript even though the author has the financial means to endorse the publishing of their manuscript.

The dictionary definition assumes that human are obligated to hear (or in this case read) anything ever written. It is up to the writer to produce a product worth reading. If the public doesn't want to read the manuscript, it can still be written. I find that a large amount of "writers" want to complain that because a large group of people don't want to pass on or interact with the information or ideas presented in their manuscript, they are being censored. No, that is merely penalty. Think of a penalty in a football game. You roughed that passer so you get something taken away from you that would otherwise want in order to succeed. “Writers” use the word censorship to explain the penalty that a large group of readers impose because of their common dislike for the manuscript’s content.

Penalty is not always bad. In fact, in most cases it can be used to stop an action that is harmful. Think of the roughing the passer analogy. Just to be clear, I am defining censorship as a penalty not as a punishment. The writer is being penalized by the public. The public is not going to give him their support, both monetarily and morally, because they don't want to. I want it to be clear that I am not defending censorship. I am redefining it as a monetary and moral penalty. Then I am saying that my redefined censorship can be used to weed out bad writing.

The dictionary definition of censorship assumes a moral homogeny. Another words, it does not take into account the antithesis. It assumes that there is no one truth. This is the same old tune that pagan relativistic ninnies try to foist onto the world. They do this so that they can pretend that their crappy writing means something. The most annoying use I have ever read of this is Jonathan Safran Foer commenting on his book Extremely loud and Incredibly Close. He told an interviewer, “Why do people wonder what's "OK" to make art about, as if creating art out of tragedy weren't an inherently good thing? Too many people are too suspicious of art. Too many people hate art.” –Jonathan Safran Foer, on why he wrote a 9/11 book. Here we have an author calling his work, “Art”. So if you dislike his book then you dislike art. Foer is interpreting dislike for his book as artistic persecution. He even uses the word hate. It a real asshole thing to do.

The definition also assumes a communistic society. How might it assume a communist society? Well it’s simple. In the society we live in it is impossible not to hear any information. True or false, all information is jammed into our senses. We are made to sleep with it and told that it is good and warm and tender. Just as soon as we realize that we are in bed with a lie, we are told not to worry because some of it is still true.

Today I heard the stupidest thing ever. I was educated (at $357.49 per credit nonetheless) that there exist such a thing as self censorship. This is when an author feels that what he or she is writing will bring persecution upon themselves; so they don’t write it. This is the biggest load of crap I have ever heard. I would like to see one example in the last 100 years of an English language writer that silenced themselves because they were afraid of the consequences. You would have to go to China or Cuba to find examples of that. And, those examples would be persecution against Christian doctrine. This is why it assumes communistic society. The only real place you see censorship is in communistic societies.

In my opinion if a writer does not have boulders large enough to say what is true then he shouldn’t be saying it at all.

What happens when you turn the sound down

This is great commentary on the first Harry Potter movie. Stay tuned throw the whole thing as it get crazier bu the second.

What happens when you have a child

Toady I watched my child from noon to 3:00 while her mother was sleeping. We went to cougar country and ate fries and a a burger. She got full and wanted to leave so she just started shoving the fries in my mouth. She would take a fry dip it in ketchup lick off the ketchup then dip it again and eat the fry. I realized that for the first time in her 17 months of existence she realized that things have multiple purposes. In this scenario a fry was both a spoon and a thing to eat. But really, she was just being cool. She was just eating fries with her dad.

What happens when the universe speaks

Today, I remembered a class that I took about 2 years ago. The prof, an unapologetic narcissistic daft dink, decided to prove the nonexistence of a god by showing us an audio of rain on Titan, one of the moons of Saturn. There was a student sitting to my right that interjected right around the, "And so you see mankind has to create a concept of "god" in order to keep themselves" by standing up and saying, "This is the creepiest thing I have ever heard". The sound bite is an audio recording on the surface of Titan. It has been said that if God could tell a joke we would die from laughter. Well, if God told a scary story this would be the soundtrack.

This is all beside the point. Watch this movie about Enceladus and this movie about Titan too.

What happens when Shakespeare

Read a play! Here, there is no need.

What happens when you are have no subtlety.

This kid is going to be a rich prick some day.

Then lets take our babies to Arkansas. Or lets not. The stench from the bench could make you barf.


Then, the whats that happen when there is no point to a point.

What happens when you are icredibly loud and extremely close to an ok book

Jonathan Safran Foer’s book Extremely loud and Incredibly Close is indeed extremely loud and incredibly close to a good book. This book follows a boy named Oskar Schell through his adventures around the five boroughs of New York City. With his father having just died in the tragedies of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center, Oskar seeks to find meaning in a name written on an envelope and the owner of a key that is found inside the envelope. The question, “Why do we exist” on pg. 13, is asked very early on in the novel. Questions permeate this novel. Questions of identity and meaning can be found in all of the characters. Even questions of believability, both within oneself and in one’s environment, are posed on virtually every page. Questions soak both the city and its people in a downpour of unbelievable circumstances. Foer gets to the very heart of the existential dilemma.

Foer has an uncanny ability to describe vividly New York City. As Oskar follows a precise stratagem to find the person’s whose name is on the envelope and the owner of the key found inside the envelope, Foer constructs a community of people so real that it is down right edible. With a vivid use of descriptive language, each scene is set in bright detail. Foer also messes with the medium of the novel by giving us visual snapshots throughout the novels. These snapshots could be his use of letters or pictures taken by certain characters. In each instance, these snapshots add depth to the novel. Foer’s novel is definitely an original take on an old medium. This novel begs the questions, “What is art?” and, “Where does literature belong in art?” Although he generally comes across well, Foer’s organization does bring stylistic limitations to his work.

Foer organizes his book in an entirely original way. However, some of the actual context and story line, like the love between two characters or the inner turmoil with one, take a back seat to his order. This hierarchy of style is usually in balance, but it can sometimes become very obvious, repetitive and loud

One of the main criticisms of this book is that the main character, Oskar, is not believable. Would you find Oskar in the real world? Most critics of the book would say no. However, Oskar does fit very well in the world Foer has created. This leads to the question, “Is the world that Foer created believable?” The world that Foer is describing is a post 9/11 New York City. He sculpts a city that is emotionally bare and raw with questions. Oskar is distraught and looking for meaning. The five boroughs are also looking in much the same way as Oskar. Oskar is just as much a product of his environment as his environment is product of him. The give and pull between Oscar and New York City lend the book its true believability.

Foer’s world is believable because the very nature of the subject he is writing about is almost fantastic. It is not the fantastic you get when you clean you floors of finish a project, it is the fantastic you get when you read fairytales and legends. The story shocks and startles you into an unknown right in you back yard. Readers don’t have much of a context to judge the psychosomatic effects of a tragedy like that of 9/11. Foer also uses sub-stories like the carpet-bombing of Dresden and the bombing of Hiroshima to set the tone of his book. All three of these settings are unbelievable because of the violence and inhumanity.

As the reader follows young Oskar through his excursions through the five boroughs, he is presented with the very heart of the existential dilemma. What is the meaning of life? Why do we exist? Foer answers these questions through the characters. He answers these questions in a completely original way; for instance, Foer answers his questions through different story lines. Specifically speaking, Foer uses the story line of Oskar’s grandmother and grandfather to answer questions of existence and being that a child might not be able to understand. Grandma and grandpa can delve into questions surrounding an intensely confusing sex life that has been present for several years.

Throughout the novel, the story of a sixth borough acts as another story line that Foer uses to answer the overarching question. How does a community like post 9/11 New York City keep on existing? A tortured community survives only if the people help each other and stick together. Likewise, the question is asked, “Why does a post 9/11 community exits”? Foer answered with a resounding, “So that they can continue helping each other and stick together.” Foer shows us that post tragedy existence depends on a community.

At the books end, all of the questions are answered. Foer has limited his aspects of his novel with his artistic organization. With themes surrounded by pictures and repetition, this novel lacks a certain level of subtlety. Themes are repeated not just with words, but also with items like pictures, letters, and business cards. The themes tend to stack and crescendo into falling roar. The novel becomes a little too extremely loud and incredibly close on occasion. Themes of loss and victimization come across so strong that it is hard to separate them from their sentimental roots. However, taken with a grain of salt, this aspect of the novel is also fitting with its overall theme. Tragic attacks are loud and close and not at all subtle. Most importantly, this book is a relief to finish but a pleasure to read.