Book Plunge: Hearing the Voice of God Chapter 4

Should your conscience be your guide? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

In this chapter, Newton tells us that God speaks to us through our conscience and that if you carefully study the New Testament, you will see this. Unfortunately for him, only if you read it from a Western individualistic mindset. For those from the biblical mindset in which the book was written, conscience was the mindset of the group, not the individual. You did not do anything that would violate how you appeared before the group.

No. Ancient people didn’t go by feelings.

Consider King David. He knew in the law it was wrong to sleep with Bathsheba, but he did it. When does he repent? When he is called out on it. Then he knows he has violated the standards and then does he pen Psalm 51.

Newton talks about one time he heard foul language in his mind and he began to bind the devil to make him leave. (Yes. Because the #1 way the devil will take you down is by using words that are deemed dirty.) Never mind that Scripture tells us to take every thought captive and not bind the devil, but Newton is told the Spirit told him it wasn’t the devil but him because of content he was watching with foul language.

Look. I never use profanity, but I don’t think it’s a big deal if others do provided that not every other word is what is deemed a curse word. I find it strange when I talk about Diehard as a Christmas movie and some Christians say they won’t watch it because of profanity. Never mind that there’s a lot of other reasons I can think of that some people probably shouldn’t watch, but yeah, somehow profanity jumps up there to the top of the list.

Our attitude towards profanity could sometimes be a bigger problem than profanity itself.

But ultimately, the problem is Newton just takes a few references to conscience and then equates that with the voice of God, which is dangerous territory. It is going incredibly beyond the text. Not only that, but some people have damaged consciences. Some people are overly scrupulous about matters when they shouldn’t be. Some people are way too lax when they shouldn’t be.

Our personal emotions are often not very good at telling us hard and fast rules.

Now if only when it came to making moral decisions we had some sort of guide that we could use. If only there was something like a book or something like that that contained general principles of wisdom that could be useful in helping us know how we ought to live.

This brings us back to one of the big problems with this movement. I am sure it is not the intention of the people who are teaching this, but generally, Scripture takes a backseat to whatever the person is thinking or feeling at the time. We are already a culture of narcissists. This just makes us more so.

Next, we’ll look at other ways the Spirit leads according to Newton.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

 

Book Plunge: Hearing the Voice of God Chapter 3.2

What about nudges?

So I goofed a little. I apparently got ahead of myself with chapters and one section was the introduction so I am calling this 3.2. Awkward, but what am I to do? I make mistakes.

So Newton now says the second way God speaks to us is by an inward nudge, a prompting of the Holy Spirit. He turns to Romans 8 and at least this time gives some surrounding context to verse 14. Unfortunately, none of this addresses the point.

He talks about being in services where he knew something was not being said right and he couldn’t show it, but that little nudge told him what was being taught was wrong. The problem is, I can’t exegete an experience like this. I have no context and then what about the times that nudges come and everything is actually right, or at least right enough? There might be something wrong, but it’s not heretical. Newton gives no measure for this. It is easy to accept a test when you accept all that agrees with you. Mormons do it regularly with the burning in the bosom.

Naturally, the next passage he goes to is the still small voice of Elijah. Do you know how many other passages refer to the still small voice?

None. Not a one. No other prophet says anything. Jesus says nothing about it. Paul says nothing. No apostle speaks anything about it.

But this movement has banked so much on this verse.

Never mind that in the very passage, the still small voice says NOTHING and later God speaks to Elijah in an audible voice as he had just as when the narrative of the aftermath of the showdown with the prophets of Baal started. This is not to be taken as a normative passage. It is our modern hubris that insists that this event that happened to Elijah is supposed to be just like what happens to us. Strangely, that never includes having food be miraculously prepared for us.

He then goes to Proverbs 20:27

The human spirit is the lamp of the Lord
    that sheds light on one’s inmost being.

Newton then says this means the Lord will use your spirit to give you guidance. What? Does my spirit know something that it is not telling me? The idea really here is that God is capable of searching us and knowing our inmost hearts. It is not about God giving us guidance. It is a message of warning that God knows our inmost being.

I wish these people who spoke about how we need to treat the Scriptures so seriously would follow their own advice.

Now this next part is amusing really:

But someone may say, “How can I know when I am being led by the inward witness? Can you give me an example?” Well yes I can. One very specific experience I remember along this line happened when I was a younger minister of the Gospel, just learning some of these things. I was at a church service on one of our family islands. A minister had preached, and afterward walked to the back of the church. This particular church had wooden pews. The minister slowly walked up to the front of the building touching each pew as she walked up. Then she said something to this effect, “If you did not feel anything when I touched your pew, something is wrong and you need to come to the altar.” Immediately, somewhere down on the inside of me, it seemed like someone was ringing a doorbell. I heard something, not with an audible voice, just a strong inward knowing, an inner witness. I heard, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.

Newton, Sheldon D.. Hearing The Voice of God: Discerning God’s Voice From All The Other Voices (pp. 16-17). Sheldon D. Newton. Kindle Edition.

He then goes on to say that

When I got back home, the Spirit of God, through the Word of God showed me that He never judges His relationship with us based on physical feelings. Our walk with God should be based upon His Word, not upon how we feel. Feelings change. The Word however, remains the same.

Newton, Sheldon D.. Hearing The Voice of God: Discerning God’s Voice From All The Other Voices (p. 17). Sheldon D. Newton. Kindle Edition.

And yet, what are we judging what God is speaking with here but an inward nudge? Also, I would not need such a nudge myself to know that what this preacher was speaking was nonsense. You just had to know your Bible.

He then tells a story about how a man was waiting at a red light and when it turned green had a nudge that told him to not move. At that point, a car sped through running the red light. The problem is again, I can’t exegete an experience. Even if I accepted this, why should I take it as normative? My claim has never been that God cannot speak. It is that it is not to be normative.

Next time, we’ll see what Newton has to say about the conscience.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Book Plunge: Hearing the Voice of God Chapter 3

How does God speak? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

This chapter comes with the heading of the #1 way God speaks. Now if you asked me, I would say God has spoken best by Christ and we see that revelation revealed to us in Scripture. We don’t have the incarnation among us now, but we do have the account of His journey on this Earth.

Let’s see what Newton says.

At the start, he says this:

Hearing God’s Voice accurately is a must in these trying times. To not know or recognize His leading can cost a person his or her life, literally.

Newton, Sheldon D.. Hearing The Voice of God: Discerning God’s Voice From All The Other Voices (p. 11). Sheldon D. Newton. Kindle Edition.

A must? Well, I seem to be doing just fine so far. Meanwhile, I know plenty of people who make disastrous decisions that go against the path of wisdom because they are convinced God is telling them to do something. You know, what would be really good is if we had some one source that was a depository of the wisdom that God had for us, maybe like a book….

Not a shock, but Newton goes to the passage of “My sheep hear my voice” immediately. Let’s see. If I went to that time period, I’m pretty sure everyone there who was in the audience heard Jesus speaking. Thus, everyone who was in the audience was one of His sheep because they all heard His voice. Right?

“But it’s not a literal voice!” you say.

Correct. The voice is the call to salvation. It is not a still small voice of the heart. Jesus never says anything like that and this text has not just been ripped out of context. It has been taken in a stranglehold and beaten relentlessly until the text will confess what HVG teachers want it to say.

Newton then goes to Romans 8:14 about being led by the Spirit. Of course, he doesn’t look at the text. He just wants to find out what the key saying is in the text and then put his idea of what it means to be led by the Spirit in there. I suggest we look at the surrounding context.

12 Therefore, brothers and sisters, we have an obligation—but it is not to the flesh, to live according to it. 13 For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live.

14 For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. 15 The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.”

If you do this, you see that being led by the Spirit is being put in contrast to living according to the flesh. This is not about hearing a voice to help you make decisions. It’s about being faithful to what we know in Christ and living a moral life.

Newton then rightfully says the #1 way God speaks to us is by His Word, but then looks at John 16L13 saying that the Spirit will lead us into all truth and then John 17:17 with “Thy Word is truth.” He then says the Spirit will quicken the Word inside of us so that we can live as we ought. If that is what he wants to say is the work of the Spirit, I have no problem with that.

The problem is that Newton doesn’t do what he says. He points us outside of the Bible to the idea that God will still speak to us today. If God is saying something to us today like that, then should that not count as Scripture?

Newton rightly says that any leading that goes against Scripture is not of God, but I have to ask why do I have to take something completely subjective like this and compare it when I have something that I do know comes from God? Why do I have to take a practice never done by anyone in Scripture and follow that when I have the Scriptures themselves? It’s as if Newton is really just paying lip service to the Bible but his main emphasis is on the experience. It would be better to write a whole book on how to better read and understand the Bible, but alas, more people think it’s preferable to just have God give you the answers.

Next time, we’ll see a problematic way God allegedly speaks with inward nudges.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Book Plunge: Hearing the Voice of God Chapter 2

Does God speak to us today? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

So now, Newton says that since we have reasons why we should hear from God, let’s see what the Scripture says. Of course, having reasons why does not mean that it will happen. I can think of plenty of reasons why a lovely young lady should want to marry me. So far, I still remain divorced.

To make his point at the start, Newton’s first passage of Scripture is from Psalm 115:

Not to us, Lord, not to us
    but to your name be the glory,
    because of your love and faithfulness.

2 Why do the nations say,
    “Where is their God?”
3 Our God is in heaven;
    he does whatever pleases him.
4 But their idols are silver and gold,
    made by human hands.
5 They have mouths, but cannot speak,
    eyes, but cannot see.
6 They have ears, but cannot hear,
    noses, but cannot smell.
7 They have hands, but cannot feel,
    feet, but cannot walk,
    nor can they utter a sound with their throats.
8 Those who make them will be like them,
    and so will all who trust in them.

Unfortunately, this proves too much in Newton’s case. He has looked at one part in verse 5 and tried to say that this is a statement about YHWH. It is not. It is about the idols. The Psalmist is saying that based on all the characteristics the idols have, they should be able to do what fits those characteristics. They can’t. That does not mean in itself that YHWH can.

However, while YHWH is certainly omnipotent, if Newton interprets this passage to be about YHWH, then he needs to be consistent. He needs to say YHWH has a mouth and can speak, eyes and can see, ears and can hear, a nose and can smell, hands and can feel, feet and can walk, and a throat that can make sound.

Which is actually materialistic concept of God that would be more akin to Mormonism. Yes. I know about the incarnation but God in His essence does not have a body.

The next passage is Hebrews 1:1-2.

In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, 2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe.

Yet once again, we have a problem, The text says God has spoken by His Son. First ,the soken is past tense. Second, it does not say God is speaking by a still small voice or dreams or internal nudges or feeling a peace or anything like that. That has to be added to the text. Newton even says about this text that God speaks to us through His Holy Spirit, but the Spirit is NOWHERE in the text. It is only the Son.

Next is John 16:13-15.

But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. 14 He will glorify me because it is from me that he will receive what he will make known to you. 15 All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will receive from me what he will make known to you.”

This is said to the apostles. Does Newton give any warrant for applying it beyond them? None. It is just assumed.

The last is John 14:26 where the Holy Spirit will teach you all things. Newton adds we need to establish this fellowship by spending time in the presence of God. The problem is Jesus NEVER says anything like this. Not a single Biblical author says you need to learn to spend time in the presence of God to learn how to hear His voice. This doesn’t mean I am opposed to time in prayer and Bible study. Far from it. I am opposed to doing so for the wrong reasons.

So thus far, nothing I have seen establishes the claim and more argues against it.

Next time, we will look at what he says about the way God speaks.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Book Plunge: Hearing the Voice of God Chapter 1

Why do I do this? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I had recently finished Priscilla Shirer’s awful book on this chapter and figured I could read another one when I found one on sale in email notifications. So I downloaded it to my Kindle and found lo and behold, it was only 32 pages. Good thing I got it on discount. You can read this easily in an hour or so, and it will be time horribly wasted. Anyway, the book is available here if you are interested.

I realize I am a lone voice in evangelicalism saying something like hearing the voice of God is not meant to be a normative practice, but I will say it. I must stand for what I see as biblical truth and against what I see as a dangerous threat to biblical truth. It is mind-boggling to me how such a movement as this has caught in with people who claim the Bible as their sole authority.

The first chapter is about why Sheldon Newton wrote this book. The first is that God is our creator and since He has a perfect plan for our lives, we should want to know what it is. That God is our creator will receive no pushback from me. That He has a perfect plan will. This is stated nowhere in Scripture and frankly, since we’re all sinners, if there was a perfect plan, we would have all blown it already.

The second reason he wrote this is because there are so many prophets and prophetesses out there and we need to know who is of God and who isn’t. Well first off, if we can all supposedly hear the voice of God, why should I need to listen to anyone else? Is God’s voice insufficient?

The next point is I discount anyone immediately who puts a title on their name like that. Call yourself an apostle or a prophet or something similar and I don’t listen. Send me a Facebook request with those titles on there and it will be a hard pass.

He then says with mediums and physics running around, it would be good that we are not deceived. No. That is not a typo. He says physics. That being said, again, I have to ask. Is Scripture insufficient?

The fourth is that we need to stay focused on Christ and what is good for our lives. Again, I agree. The problem once again rises up. Is Scripture insufficient? It’s amazing that Protestants who are to have a high view of Scripture discount it so easily with this nonsense.

The fifth reason is that many children of God have not learned to hear the voice of God. Thank God for that one. Maybe these people will do something radical like, I don’t know, read the Bible more? Maybe focus less on what they’re feeling and everything around them and focus on Scripture? We couldn’t have that could we?!

The sixth reason is that Newton has seen years of people being deceived by erroneous doctrines. Geez. That is a problem. If only we had something like a book that God had left us that we could know came from Him that we could study and learn what we needed to learn. Pipe dream. Right?

The final reason he gives is that many people are running to prophets and others to get what they think is a real word from the Lord. Again, it sure would be nice if we had a sure word from the Lord that we could count on. If only there was some work like, again, maybe a book, that had stood the test of time and could be trusted as the Word of the Lord.

Well, those are his reasons for why Scripture is insufficient, I mean, why we need to hear the voice of God. Let’s see in the next section how well he does at arguing for that position.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

Step Out Of Your Echo chamber

How many perspectives are you getting? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

“What are you reading?”

“A book by Herbert Marcuse.”

“What’s he doing now?”

“Not much since he’s been dead for several years, but I consider him one of the most wicked men of all.”

“Then why are you reading it?”

So someone asked me at my job recently. It’s a good question. I told them that it’s important to know what your enemy is doing. I told them this is one of the starting places for DEI and other such ideas. I have read many books I disagree with. Now, I also make it a point to always be going through at least one book that I disagree with.

I interact frequently with JWs on Facebook and they never seem to really interact with opposing arguments. I challenge them to read books they disagree with. No interest. I ask atheists if they will read something they disagree with. No interest. It’s become so common that I make it a point of saying these people are scared of contrary thought. It’s usually demonstrated when I just ask “What was the last book you read that you disagreed with?”

Why should you do this?

For one thing, it shows you’re taking a position seriously. If I go to a Muslim, it’s good for them to know I have read their material. I have read the Qur’an and the Hadiths of Al Bukhari. I have read all the Mormon Scriptures and a number of their other supplementary works. I still remember one time I asked a Muslim if he had ever read the New Testament and he said “No. Have you ever read the Qur’an?”

Conversation ended quickly when I said “Yes.”

Second, you can actually learn some things. I have learned things, and not just what I disagree with, from reading Bart Ehrman. Sometimes, an outside perspective can cause you to see things in a new light. You can miss what your blind spots don’t let you see, and we all have blind spots.

Third, hypothetically, they could be right. You could read about a position and wind up changing your mind on it. I remember someone read my co-authored book Defining Inerrancy and left a review saying they went in sure they would disagree with what we advocated, and they left agreeing with it. If your end goal is truth, what do you have to lose?

Fourth, you show respect for your intellectual opponent that way. If you come to me and I know that you know my position and not only that, understand it and can articulate it, then I am more likely to listen to you. If you go to me and you totally misrepresent my position, then I have no reason to listen to you on anything.

Now some of you might be firm Christians and aren’t interested in dialoguing with atheists and cultists and others. I think you should, but aside from that, you can still read something you disagree with. Pick a position you strongly hold in Christianity and read something that disagrees with it.

Strong Calvinist? Read an Arminian.

Strong Preterist? Read someone arguing for dispensationalism?

Cessationist? Read someone advocating for miracles today.

Old-Earth creationist? Read a young-Earth creationist.

Believe you can lose salvation? Read someone who holds to eternal security.

This also applies to political views. Strong liberal? Read a conservative. Strong conservative? Read a liberal. Hate Trump? Read a book by someone defending him. Can’t stand Democrats? Read a book by someone defending them.

Also, when you choose another book, try to read someone who looks like they know what they’re talking about. Pastor Bob’s reasons to believe God exists is quite likely not the best resource to go to if you’re an atheist. “Why God is Stupid” is probably not the best atheistic book title. (And no, as far as I know, those are not real books.) Try to take on something that will challenge you.

If you’re curious, since a student here asked me about Black Hebrew Israelites, I’m going through a book about them now by someone who advocates the position. This is the one I chose. It didn’t cost a lot on Kindle and it’s a little over 1,000 pages which told me the guy had to be really dedicated with it. Do I think it’s nonsense? Yes. Do I think he uses poor argumentation? Yes. Am I better informed still for going through it? Yes. If I meet someone who holds this position, I can say that I have read such  work and I could be seen in a more respectable manner also.

Step out of your echo chamber. You could learn something.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Is Masculinity Bad?

Is it bad to be a man?

Recently, I was still going through The Bully Society and I was reading about the bully economy. While the book has a lot to say about the problem of bullying, it fails a lot in the area of solutions, and in this case tying the problem in with capitalism. Am I to think that if we went to socialism, all the kids in the world would join hands and sing Kum-Bu-Yah together?

Anyway, the author notes that some of the attributes given to masculinity are also similar to capitalism. Those are aggressive, competitive, and powerful. That is the way the market is seen sometimes. I could defend capitalism here, but I have done that in other posts.

For now, I notice that it seems that being aggressive, powerful, and competitive are bad things inherently. There is no doubt these can be used for evil purposes, but that does not mean that they are evil. I can use my car in my apartment parking lot to drive to work and church. I can also use it to drive over little old ladies crossing the street. The car is not the issue. The person is the issue.

You can think it wrong for a man to be powerful, but if a man is going to make a positive change, he needs some power. You can think it is wrong for him to be aggressive, but if he is going to go forward in pursuit of a goal and stand up to evil, he needs to be powerful. You can think it is wrong for him to be competitive, but if he is going to want to excel, he needs to want to be better than those who don’t.

I can say on my end that while I do not see myself as aggressive or powerful, competitive does ring true, but that is what has caused me to study academically far more. It is wanting to be the best at what I do that has got me here. Had I not had this kind of spirit in me, I would have heard the doom and gloom about a diagnosis of autism and said “Oh well. Guess I’ll never amount to anything.”

What would be better is to ask the question of what a man is instead of saying that those ideas of masculinity are bad, or at least implying that they are. This is part of the problem. We do not know what men are, but usually it is assumed that whatever they are, they are bad.

If society does not know what men and women are, it should not be a shock that we have issues like failing to understand marriage and relationships or that we have debates over transgenderism. I acknowledge that in some ways, the question of what a man or a woman is is a simple question. In another way, it is a complex question. It gets to a question of essences, which I consider a problem for a purely materialistic position.

So if a man does not have any indicator that he is a man, then what will he do? He will try to seek it elsewhere. He could do so by being powerful in a gang. He could do so by being competitive in sports or even video games. He could do so by being aggressive in business or with women. Some of these are fine, but some aren’t. It is fine to be competitive on the athletic field, provided you are not wronging the others out there. It is not fine to be powerful in a gang and seek to do wrong to other men and women. It is fine to be confident with women. It is not fine to be so aggressive that you force your way onto them.

If a man doesn’t know if he is a man, he could still try harmful ways. He could think he has to sleep with as many women as possible, highly persuasive since sex often leaves a man feeling like a man. He could be willing to cheat to get ahead in sports, say by taking steroids. He could seek power by trying to beat up other men or even kill them. He could try to get material possessions as a status symbol to everyone else.

By the way, women will also try counterparts, but seeing as I am a man, I am talking about them.

What he likely will not try is to try to build up character and be a man of virtue. We have lost sight of virtue as what builds up a person and ultimately a society. A society cannot last if goodness is not one of the goals of society. If all a society cares about is going for all that you can get and the vapid pursuit of pleasure, it will fail.

Unfortunately, not much is said about that. Everything else is blamed. It’s the video games. It’s the guns. It’s the schools. It’s capitalism.

No. The problem is us.

We need to change.

We need a return to virtue and men being virtuous men and women being virtuous women. Unfortunately, with moral relativism, we don’t really know what virtue is either. The more we blame everything else, the less we will care about virtue.

Masculinity is not bad, but anything we do without virtue will taint everything else. We must return to that and I contend only Christianity can truly give us the virtue we need.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

Should Elon Be Wealthy?

Is it wrong to have wealth? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I got into a Facebook debate recently with someone talking about Elon Musk and all the wealth he has. Obviously, Elon needs to do more with the money that he has. He has so much money while so many people are suffering from hunger.

This kind of argumentation has a lot of emotional appeal. In our society, many of us have come to hate some people for having money. Of course, a lot of celebrities and athletes are exempt from this because, well, we get entertained by them. We also know that we can’t be them, but a CEO? That’s different.

Let’s look at the last part first. There are a lot of people dying from hunger. Yes. The problem is that this is not just a money problem. This is a problem because of wicked governments in the world. Believe it or not, some dictators out there don’t care if their people starve or not. It’s not as if people wanting to feed the hungry are allowed to go door-to-door in these countries giving out food to the poor. No. In many cases, the government will seize and goods that come in and use that as leverage to control the populace.

“Well, Elon has more money than he needs!”

Yet as I was told this, I asked back immediately if the person was using a library computer. Do they have a car? Do they have a smart phone? Do they have a place to live with a bed and with heat and air? Can they take a warm shower? Do they have food in their refrigerators and cabinets? If they answered yes, then they are actually themselves among the richest people in the world.

It’s awfully strange then that such people do not have to give away what they have. They do not have more money than they need. It is those people who are above them that are the problem. To paraphrase Thomas Sowell, it is amazing that Elon Musk is greedy for wanting to keep the money he has earned, but someone else is not greedy for wanting what they think is their share of the money Elon has earned.

Not only this, but it’s not as if Elon Musk keeps his money in Scrooge’s vault and goes swimming in it regularly. Usually, what we measure is the net worth of a CEO. He has money invested in his earnings and his business. Saying he is worth X billion does not mean he has X billion in his bank account.

We also have to ask how many people does Musk employ? There are plenty of people who have jobs today because of Musk. CEOs own the company, but who does a lot of the work also in the company? Middle-class employees.

Does Musk give to charities also? Yes. When the hurricane hit areas in the east of America, he was there to provide internet services and other goods for those in need. Someone could say Musk could give more, but when we stand before God, we won’t be asked about what Musk did with what he had. We will be asked what we did with what we had.

Let’s suppose that instead of investing in his company which would create jobs, Musk goes out and buys a yacht or a mansion. Doesn’t that hurt us? No. Hint. CEOs do not build yachts and mansions. Who builds them? Again, middle-class people. It is the rank and file that build them and thus, they have jobs. You can say they are temporary, but all construction jobs are temporary.

Let us suppose that Musk puts his money in a bank. You could say it is just sitting there, but you know who it provides opportunities for? You and I. We can take out loans from a bank because of money that has been put there by others. That money could be used to fund education or our own small businesses we want to start.

Does the Bible often seem to condemn the rich and the wealthy? Yes, but it is not because they are rich and wealthy. Plenty of heroes of the faith are also rich and wealthy. Abraham and the patriarchs were incredibly rich. David and Solomon were rich. Anyone who provided for a New Testament church and the copying of New Testament manuscripts was rich. Having wealth is not the problem. Wealth having you is the problem.

Also, in America, if you are poor, it is not because another person is rich.  If Elon’s money was equally divided among all Americans, we would all get about $777 one time. For me, that could pay my rent for one month and maybe one or two other bills and then that’s it. This is something people miss when they want to talk about going to college and getting free health care and just letting the rich pay for it. As Margaret Thatcher said, the problem with socialism is sooner or later you run out of other peoples’ money. Not only do the rich lose the money, but they have less they can do to hire other people.

Keep in mind as I say this that I am not rich myself. I have my own Patreon and I make minimum wage at my job. When it comes to voting, my policy is simple. Never vote for a new tax. Always vote for a tax cut. Does that include tax cuts for the rich? Absolutely. I trust that they can do more good with the money than the government can, a government that is $35 trillion in debt doesn’t have a lot to say about how other people should use their money. Government needs to reduce its spending, not take more from us.

Could Musk do more? I am sure he could, but that is an irrelevant question to ask. The question I should be asking is “Can I do more?” The question you should be asking is the same. When I meet someone who wants someone rich to give away all they own, but they won’t part with their smartphone, computer, automobile, etc. I just can’t take them seriously.

Do what you can with what you have. How someone else is spending their income will be between them and God.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

The Ouroboros of Feminism

Has feminism really helped women? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I have been reading The Bully Society and the book talks about how women are often treated, including by other women! Women live in a quite contradictory world. If you wish to remain a virgin until you’re wedding night, then you’re a prude. If you do sleep around with men, you’re a slut.

I have said that the self-esteem movement was a failure. Feminism was also a failure and has become an ouroboros. If you do not know, that’s the depiction you will see sometimes of a snake that eats its tail.

The first mistake is that it has been thought that men and women are different and therefore, one is superior to the other. This doesn’t follow. There are plenty of things that are different to one another, but it does not follow that one is superior. Cats and dogs are different and people have their preferences, but it does not follow that one is superior. The same could be said with various foods, colors, books, movies, etc. Sometimes there is a superior, but not just because two things are different.

There was also the question of men sometimes getting different treatment, such as in the workplace, but this was not because men are superior. It was because men and women are different in that women can miss long periods of work at a time when they have children. Men are not the same way. It was tempting to write “Do not have the same problem” but that assumes that it is a problem.

I happen to side with what the Catholic philosopher Peter Kreeft said. Men are superior at one thing, being men. Women are superior at one thing, being women.

Keep that in mind as we go along.

Unfortunately, women started seeing their being a woman as the problem. While the pill certainly helped some, it was abortion that really got the ball rolling. With that, women were able to eliminate pregnancy. Thus, they could have careers like men.

Just pause to think about that. Innocent human lives dying for the sake of a career. We read in the Bible about the Canaanites performing child sacrifice, but we’re worse. At least they saw that as a real sacrifice and did it for the good of the harvest.

Baby: Why must I die?

Canaanite: We realize what a value you are to us so we are sacrificing you as a gift to the gods so that they will bless us with a bountiful harvest so we can all survive.

Baby: Why must I die?

Women: Because your mother didn’t want to have you and just wanted to have sex without consequences and if she has you, she can’t get that promotion she wants at work and go on to have a successful career. You are an inconvenience on her path to independence.

They are both wrong, but the Canaanites make a better case.

In The Bully Society, it is claimed that many of the early feminists wanted men to start treating sex the way women did. Generally, women seem more interested in building relationships. Men generally tend to be more interested in, well, sex. Not so, instead, women started to act more like men and why wouldn’t they? They had already killed their femininity with abortion.

Fast forward past that and the LGBTQ people start making cases. “Hey! If couples get married all the time without children and we allow abortion, then really children don’t matter. Right? If marriage is not really about children, but about the happiness of the people involved, then why can’t we get married?”

And if it is true that marriage is not about building up a stable family unit for a future generation, then they have a point. Why can’t they? It is as if the whole of society had ceased to really think about marriage and what it was and decided that whatever this is, we can just apply it to another group.

With that, the sexes in a marriage became interchangeable. You don’t have to have a man and a woman. You can have two men or two women. Now we have people marrying buildings and animals and other inanimate objects and even themselves. Before long, the Mormons will surely be pushing for polygamy, and why not? After all, if male and female are artificial ideas thrust on marriage, why stop at just two people?

It was only a few years after that we went the next logical step. Note in saying logical I am not agreeing with it, but I am saying that if you accept the premises already mentioned, the conclusion does naturally follow. If men and women are interchangeable in marriage, why not everywhere else? This gets us to the transgender movement.

Remember how I referred to Kreeft earlier saying men are superior at being men and women at being women?

This is no longer the case.

Men claiming to be women are winning sports competitions. They are winning beauty pageants. They are even winning poker tournaments. Not only that, but many women are defending this. Who are the superior women now?

Looks like men are.

Oh. What else do the men get out of this?

They still get to keep their jobs. They also get to have all the sex they want with the women who will kill the children so that men don’t have to have responsibility for them. They also don’t even have to marry the women any more to get to have sex.

Women meanwhile have lost their femininity and are being beat by men in what was supposed to be the areas for women.

This is the end result of feminism.

True femininity encourages women to celebrate being women. It tells them having children is not a hindrance but is a gift. It tells them to celebrate the differences they have from men. It tells them to have men earn sex with them by making lifelong commitments to them prior. It also tells them to stay faithful to the men that they do marry and build families together.

In this deal, women get to have a future with their DNA passed down to their children, they get to be provided for by their husbands, they get to be loved and adored, and oh yes, they get to have the sex without worrying about the consequences because having a baby isn’t a problem to them. They can also tell men to get out of women’s sports and other women’s areas. They can work if they want to, but it’s not a requirement.

Maybe it’s just me, but it looks like women are better off with a more traditional approach.

If you are a woman, celebrate it. Don’t be a feminist.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

Why I Am Enjoying Persona 5 Royal Edition

What makes this game so appealing? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

A short while back, a friend of mine gave me a $30 gift card to the Nintendo Eshop. (Anyone wanting to repeat his gift is welcome to!) One of the games I bought was Persona 5 Royal that was on sale. I have come to know it as a popular RPG series so I wanted to give it a shot.

I’m quite glad I did.

So firstly, with RPG styles, it’s one of my favorites. Turn-based. I get to think out my strategy and see how everything works together. That being said, it has to be more than just a turn-based game to get my notice and to get to this blog.

So some minor spoilers, but it’s just for the first level. You start out in a point in the story that I have yet to get to, and then the game is a flashback of when you arrived at an academy in Japan with a reputation, apparently undeserved, of a delinquent. As you are at your school though, you find yourself in a different world of sorts.

It is like a castle and the king is of all people, the volleyball coach at the school. You meet a character in the castle who becomes an ally and soon meet others who wind up in the castle with you. What you learn is that these are worlds that are based on the cognitive perceptions of people with really distorted views of the world and especially themselves.

Turns out, this volleyball coach is actually abusive to the students and likes to take advantage of the female students. Yes. This is really deep stuff going on. The first mission then is to go into his palace, which is the name of the cognitive dwellings these people have, and steal his treasure, which should lead to him confessing his sins in the real world.

The psychological side of it all is quite fascinating and I understand it borrows a lot from Jung. I haven’t read Jung, but I did just find his complete works on Kindle for less than a dollar so I’m going to take care of that. The game involves characters facing up to reality as it is and embracing their “personas”. Your main character is the only one who can embrace multiple personas and switch between them and even fuse and sacrifice them later on for different effects, including all-new personas.

The battle is not the only part that matters. As I am going through the game, I have to build up other attributes, namely guts, kindness, charm, proficiency, and knowledge. Not only that, I have to build up relationships with various people in the world and the more I do that, the more my skills in the “metaverse”, as the cognitive world is called, and other such places improves.

As someone on the spectrum, I am finding this fascinating as a prompt will pop up asking what I want to say at a certain time and I am given various options. It’s a really easy way to learn to converse seeing as I have all the time in the world to think. I have to try to think how each person I talk to will respond to what I say. The goal is to build up the relationships after all.

I have yet to finish so if you have, please do not give me spoilers on it. I am quite enjoying it now and that is leaving me thinking about my own relationships in the real world. I can see the people I know in my own life and think about improving my bonds with them. Odds are whenever I finish reading the work of Jung, I will come back and visit this some more as well.

So if you like RPGs and you want something with a psychological and philosophical style to it, give the Persona series a try. You also don’t have to play previous games to understand later ones. This one is the first I have played and I am understanding it just fine.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)