Category Archives: Christianity

“Do I Believe in God, COVID Totalitarianism & the Climate”

Dave Rubin speaks with Jordan Peterson about these issues

For simplicity’s sake, I will today just quote from the text below the video, because it covers all the essentials. It’s probably the best exposition of Jordan Peterson’s views we will get in just one hour, and I’ve seen a lot of videos with and about him. It was posted on YouTube on 14th November 2021.

Dave Rubin of The Rubin Report talks to Dr. Jordan Peterson, author of 12 Rules for Life and Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life, about what is actually informing COVID restrictions, the real choice that faces the clean energy COP26 crowd, and his response when he is asked about the existence of God.

First, Jordan discusses why we chose medical tyranny and a totalitarian state as a response to the COVID epidemic. He shares how the politics of fear, more than science, has been informing COVID policy in Canada in the U.S. Jordan also tries to understand how the left, who usually hates big corporations, has handed over it’s trust to big pharma.

Next, Jordan discusses the COP26 summit and the horrible position liberals and environmentalists have put themselves in by pushing for more expensive renewable energy while claiming to care for the poor. He explains why their more expensive energy plans will cause electricity prices to skyrocket, hurting those most vulnerable. He suggests we follow China’s lead and invest in nuclear power to create as much cheap energy as possible which can mitigate the effects of climate change without sacrificing the poor. He explains the problems of sustainable development and why you should dismiss anyone who advocates for Net Zero.

Finally, Jordan discusses what religion and spirituality mean to him. He shares the answer he gives when asked “does god exist?” He also explains why people like Sam Harris may not be as atheist as they may think they are. He also explains why science fails as a religion and what religious thoughts really are.

I will just add that Peterson announces that he is going to the UK soon, to speak in Cambridge and Oxford, with, among others, Richard Dawkins. That’s something to look forward to.

Pope Francis wants to “convert” humanity

. . . away from Christianity, it seems

Is the current Pope a Christian? When reading this article by Matthew J.L. Ehret, one can develop doubts about that.

Ehret points out what the current Pope wrote during the recent COP26 conference:

“We can confront these crises by retreating into isolationism, protectionism and exploitation. Or we can see in them a real chance for change, a genuine moment of conversion, and not simply in a spiritual sense.” [emphasis by me, PwG]

In this, Pope Francis has form. As Ehret writes:

Within the 2015 Laudato Si, the Pope took aim directly at the “old and obsolete” notion of Christianity that had seen humanity as a divine creature born with a Promethean spark saying:

“An inadequate presentation of Christian anthropology gave rise to a wrong understanding of the relationship between human beings and the world. Often, what was handed on was a  Promethean vision of mastery over the world.”

This is weird indeed – from a Pope. “Fill the earth and govern it” (Genesis 1:28), God’s first commandment to humanity, is pretty unambiguous. What’s there to misunderstand?

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Today is the 200th Birthday of Fyodor Dostoevsky

His "Crime and Punishment" taught me a lesson

Many years ago, when I was in my early 20s, I shared a flat with someone who had a copy of “Crime and Punishment” by the Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky. I borrowed it. When I started reading it, I found it easy to identify with the feelings of isolation and alienation of the (anti-)hero, the impoverished student Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov.

Raskolnikov thinks himself intelligent enough to be above the law, and do justice his own way. However, he then goes and murders someone. The victim is innocent, but the reader is not invited to find her likable. This was a brilliant move by Dostoevsky, because it forces the reader to examine himself. Do we not all sometimes harbour feelings of superiority? The rest of the book is all about Raskolnikov’s attempts to deal with the fact that he has killed someone.

The lesson the book taught me was to “consider the possibility that I might be wrong”. It taught me some humility. For that, I am deeply grateful to Dostoevsky.

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A Prayer for COP26

Dear heavenly Father,

Today is the day people around the world commemorate the end of World War One. I do not know for sure why this evil entered the world, I don’t think anyone does, but I believe what Alexandr Solzhenitsyn said in relation to the disastrous Russian Revolution applies to this war as well: “All this happened because we have forgotten God”. If this is true, I pray that people around the world heed those words for our present times and troubles, and that we, in everything we do, consider another word from the author of that sentence, namely that the dividing line between good and evil goes right through each of our hearts.

With that in mind, dear heavenly Father, I pray, with regard to climate change and our response to it, that we will learn again to trust first in you instead of in princes of the world and their paid advisers. That we learn to pursue treasures in heaven, not in this world. That we learn to care for your creation by respecting your laws, including the law not to steal from each other, and to not bear false witness against our neighbour. That we all humbly concede that we don’t know all the facts and all the answers. That we help each other by teaching each other the little we do know – and discerning what we don’t, and by listening patiently to one another.

Help us to be weary of the claim that all that is required to know is now known. Help us to discern between action that protects creation and that which, even if well intended, does not or, worse, does the opposite. Help us, and remind us every time we feel the need to act, to count the costs of our actions before we act, lest we build on sand instead of the rock of your word.

Lord, you know I am very sceptical about the currently widely favoured approach to tackling climate change, which is the one promoted and discussed at COP26 in Glasgow, by the many paid advisers of governments, by many big corporations hoping for government money in return for conforming to the ruling narrative, and by almost every established media outlet around the world. However, I pray today for your blessing on each and every participant, and on each and every observer. May those who are truly fearful be assuaged and find peace in you and your assurances – especially the children and young people, who are increasingly frightened out of their wits. May those who are distant from you be drawn nearer, so that they see your plans full of peace and joy for them and all of us. May those who are driven by power and greed be humbled and converted to your way. May those who deceive be humbled by the truth. May those who honestly seek the truth be steadfast in the face of much deception and pressure to conform.

Thank you, dear heavenly Father, for your promise that those who meekly emulate your love will inherit the Earth.

May you, dear Lord and Creator, be glorified, and may your peace reign forever. 

Amen.

Why Are We So Rich?

The Industrial Revolution happened after Calvinists in the Netherlands claimed that personal wealth was legitimate

One of the big, maybe the biggest, unsolved mystery of recorded human history is that of the origins of the industrial revolution. Why did it happen at all? Why then, and not earlier or later? Why there, and not some other place?

In a time when many denounce the Industrial Revolution, and even the Prime Minister of the country of its origin says that it marked the point when “the doomsday machine began to tick”, one might expect people to want to get to the bottom of this mystery, so as to “correct” it properly, and not make an even greater mess of it.

For the record, I’m not in the camp of those who think that the Industrial Revolution was on balance more evil than good. I think it has so far saved billions of human lives, most of which would otherwise have died in infancy, most of the rest before age 6.

However, in this post, I’m not going argue whether the Industrial Revolution was good or bad for us. Instead, I will analyse a talk given by Dr. Gary North in 2013, where he discusses a very likely reason for the origin of this revolution.

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Name two issues . . .

. . . impacting your life on a daily basis that have not originated from Government

Here you will find lots of wrong answers. And the only correct one.

This is an impressive way of showing how modern governments have entered into the vacuum left by the widespread loss of faith in society.

Climate fear: The anti-science, anti-industrial revolution

"Misanthropic prejudices of the depressed middle classes" are driving policies

Brendan O’Neill writes about the current COP26 Climate conference in Glasgow as “a severe outbreak of Climate Derangement Syndrome”.

Unfortunately, he is right.

He continues:

“Prime ministers, bishops, princes and noisy greens all tried to outdo each other with their apocalyptic warnings. It has been a grim competition of catastrophes, an orgy of hyperbolic prophecies that wouldn’t look out of place in the Book of Revelation.”

Do they even listen to themselves? You might think not, considering some of the utterances:

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Repealing the century of collectivism, mass destruction and genocide

Our hope resides in a resurrected God

“We shall repeal the 20th century.” These were words spoken by American economist Murray N. Rothbard (1926 – 1995) near the end of an article he wrote in 1992. Another American economist, Gary North (b. 1942), who is a historian and theologian as well, used these words near the end of a lecture he gave in 2010.

Rothbard made clear why he wants to repeal it, when he asked, ironically:

“Who would want to repeal the 20th century, the century of horror, the century of collectivism, the century of mass destruction and genocide, who would want to repeal that! Well, we propose to do just that.”

With “we” he meant what he hoped would be a resurrected movement which in America is called the Old Right, a movement that was libertarian in its core, supported decentralised structures, laissez-faire economics and minimal interference of the government into private lives. This movement was effectively killed off around the year 1900 and replaced by interventionist, imperialist, big-government and big-business supporting politics.

Similar things had happened, or were happening, in Europe. Nationalism was the name of the game, and that sentiment lead to centralised governments continually increasing their interventions into the economy to suit their lust for power. Imperialism was the natural outgrowth of this development. This in turn lead to the original catastrophe of our time, World War One.

Considering that we are by now one fifth into the next century, it is clear that we have been unable to repeal the 20th century. For, as an idea, or phenomenon, the 20th century, in all its awfulness, is still firmly with us. So, how can we go about “repealing” it?

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A Jesuit’s quest to “reform” Christianity

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin’s contribution to destroying western civilization

Before reading this illuminating article, I had heard of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. But all I knew was that he was a Jesuit cleric who lived in the early 20th century and who had somehow tried to reconcile Darwinism and Christianity.

However, according to the author of the above linked article, Matthew Ehret, Teilhard de Chardin’s role in shaping today’s discourses that are occupying and exercising minds is quite large. And he seems to have been one of the culprits responsible for the weakness of Christianity in the West today. For, as Ehret says in conclusion, it seems to have been Chardin’s conviction that “Christianity had to evolve with the times like any creature wishing to avoid extinction within a Darwinian fight for survival.”

Moreover, Chardin seems to have been a proponent of eugenics. I’ll get to that shortly. First, another thing I learnt is that Chardin seems to have been in the centre of contriving the Piltdown Man hoax and the “discovery” of the Peking Man, very likely a hoax as well.

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Wrong Again, and Again on the End of the World

50 Years of Failed Eco-pocalyptic Predictions

As we approach the COP 26 conference in Glasgow on climate change, it’s worth remembering the many false alarms with regard to the climate so-called scientists have uttered over the past five decades or so.

The Competitive Enterprise Institute has compiled an illuminating list of false alarms which have over the years scared untold millions of people witless. So witless, that they are happy to sacrifice their wealth and that of their children, their children’s children and their neighbours, and the not yet even existing future wealth of the world’s poor in the hope of preventing climate change. So witless, that some of them are happy to resort to frankly terrorist methods in order to externalise their fear. (I’m speaking, of course, of “Extinction Rebellion” and their road-hugging soulmates from “Insulate Britain”).

It may not have been the purpose of those scientists, but the main consequence so far is that many people in the West are now practically begging for tyranny and offering themselves up for slavery to save their skins. It’s a sad spectacle of widespread witlessness. Worse is the mental illness this constant barrage of scaremongering is causing in many children.

But that’s not the scientist’s fault. That is the fault of people who thrive on scaremongering. I’m thinking in particular of the media and many sections of politics.

And the reason the scaremongers can run rampant is that there is no strong counternarrative. The churches, whose holy scripture contains hundreds of times the reminder and commandment to not be afraid, have in this regard been an embarrassing failure.