Tag: LGBT

David Silverman’s Regret

What happens when you defeat your opponent only to unleash something worse? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Remember the new atheists? For a while, they were all the rage with people talking about them regularly. They made atheism more public than it had been before. While they had declared a war on religion, it was mainly Christianity. After all, Sam Harris began writing The End of Faith when 9/11 took place, and yet most of that was not geared towards Islam but Christianity.

And what is Sam Harris doing today? He’s well-known now for his remark about the 2020 election that he didn’t care if Hunter Biden had the bodies of dead children in his basement. All that mattered was getting Trump. Whatever you think of Trump, Harris’s statement is extremely problematic. He was willing to go with a known lie and sacrifice truth and lie to the public because, well, he knows what is better for them.

Silverman looks at what he saw and is aghast at it. I was recently pointed to an article he wrote on substack.

I cannot quote it entirely seeing as it is behind a paywall. (Remember, I have a Patreon below) However, I do have a friend who quoted a large part of it in sharing it. Basically, it’s about how the new atheism was supposed to destroy religion and thus create a utopia of freethought and rationalism where the days of insane religious ideas was behind us.

It didn’t work out that way.

First off, I am in no way saying the new atheists were really a formidable force. They weren’t. I have several blogs here on that front. However, they were certainly a force rhetorically. They had cute little slogans that seemed sensible, but most people weren’t interested in the unpacking necessarily to show their numerous errors.

Second, I am also sure if he were alive today that Christopher Hitchens would be one against this movement as well. That cannot be known for sure, but I do remember him as being one very interested in American history. When he visited SES for a debate, I was told he was impressed by the seminary and even offered to teach a course on Thomas Jefferson.

Third, and this is really important, I do want to commend Silverman on this. It takes a lot of guts to write a public article and say “I was wrong.” Silverman did that. We should not be attacking him for this. We should be commending him.

Now let’s look at the part that I have to quote.

I failed to consider that the members of my movement could reject skepticism yet label this rejection as skepticism to excuse their actions—and get away with it! I never envisioned that every significant player in the movement (save the fledgling Atheists for Liberty, on which I currently serve as Advisory Board Chair) would abandon our core principles and embrace the political hard Left, forsaking every belief and individual that was even slightly to the Right. I did not anticipate that the movement would leave the movement, become swallowed in Critical Social Justice, and lose its relevance and effectiveness in the process. I did not see it coming.
Man by nature is a religious creature. If you remove something for him to worship, he will find something else. That something could be himself, his own happiness. God is often a restraint in many ways on what a man can do. If a man knows there is a judge that He will stand before someday who has all the omni qualities, that can affect his living. If he knows what he does impacts for eternity, that should definitely affect his living.
While there is often something consistent between Christians and the right, the atheist movement saw it necessarily so. So why jump on the bandwagon to defend the LGBT group? Well, they oppose the Christians so let’s go for it! Anything that opposes Christianity is a friend since Christianity is seen as a great evil that has to be eradicated.
If man becomes the god, ultimately, that will pass to the state and who will become the new rulers? It will be those who consider themselves the elites. (Perhaps the term “brights” comes to mind?) It is a parallel with how the new atheists saw Christianity. After all, their opponents were the ones who were people of faith (Which they did not understand) and the new atheists were the people of reason. Obviously, reason is superior to faith. Right? Obviously then, what should be rejected are the standards the Christians lived with.
Thus, get rid of all of this outdated morality, especially when it comes to sex. Get rid of anything that is said to be “Faith-based” (A term I don’t like anyway.) If the Christians tend to want the people on the right to be our governing leaders, then we will reject that. Whatever we can use to paint Christians as the enemy, it will be done. If your identity is not to be found in Christ, then it will be found in your tribe instead.
So, what has happened since we “killed God”? Not atheist Utopia. We won the booby prize—the religion of wokeism has completely taken over the Left side of politics, splitting both families and the nation itself. Riding on a wave of vapid emotion and a juvenile refusal to apply skepticism, the Woke Left—mostly atheists—have embraced this belief system as though it were the greatest new religion ever. Maybe it is.
Any attempt by man to bring about Utopia on Earth has always failed. Always. My ex-wife was once going through a book about how what was being sought was progress and not perfection. Progress though requires a true goal. If progress is just wherever you are going, then everything is progress. However, if you are going the wrong direction, progress is turning around and going the other way.
Silverman is also right in that this has split families and our nation. The best way to split the nation is really to split the family. The family is the foundation. Remember that meme that was shared years ago before the Supreme Court redefined marriage about what would happen if “same-sex marriage” was allowed?
That bottom one? Yep. Happening now. It didn’t start falling apart when marriage was redefined, but that was a killing blow in many ways. I blame a lot of this going all the way back to the sexual revolution. We unleashed a power that we did not know what it was capable of.
And ironically as a Christian, I think what the chart says would happen didn’t, since two people of the same sex can’t marry each other no matter what the court says.
Could it be the sexual standards of Christianity had a point? Could it be there was a reason abortion was a great evil and reproduction was a great good? Could it be that there was a reason that marriage should be for life for the majority of people and that marriage isn’t about your personal happiness? Could it be there’s a danger that happens when sex is removed from the confines of marriage? Could it be there was a reason marriage was established as between one man and one woman?
The new atheists also saw Christians making their decisions based on emotion alone, something I have spoken against as well here, but made a mistake of thinking themselves immune to that. After all, they were the men of reason. They would not fall to such a thing. Unfortunately, they have. One of the surest signs you will fall for something is that you think you cannot fall for it.
I have said before that I am the man who has avoided pornography throughout my life. So in my dating life, I throw caution to the wind. Right? Wrong. Nowadays, I don’t go up elevators alone with women or ride in cars with them and if on a date, I would never go back to her place or have her come to mine. The moment I think I am above the temptation, I have started my fall.
However, lacking a deity, it allowed wokeism to reside within—and be propagated by—the state. This is why the Left has adopted it. We may have subdued the lion of Christianity, but we failed to eradicate religion; we merely revealed that the lion might have been safeguarding us from the Woke Kraken. This creature is now unshackled, entrenched in our government and education system, and is literally coming for your children.
Pay attention to that first part. Remove the deity, and the deity becomes something within. What is the means of the new evangelism? It is the State. When the Christians disagreed with you, they disagreed. They didn’t try to force their way. When the left disagrees, here comes the power of the State!
Silverman did not eradicate religion as was his goal. He instead just moved it somewhere else. He defeated in his mind what was the greater evil without realizing that that “evil” was keeping something else at bay. Chesterton said years ago that before you remove a fence, you should see why it was put up in the first place.
Christianity did serve to contain man’s great evil and propel him to something greater than himself, and not the state. It still does for many of us. It teaches us that there is a real king named Jesus and we owe our allegiance to Him. It teaches us that there is a real right and there is a real wrong and there is a purpose to our lives here and we are to seek more than just the temporary good.
This idea—that atheists should stop resisting and instead actively promote Christianity, perhaps even joining churches, in an attempt to fortify it so that it may defeat wokeism—is gaining traction. Evan Riggs wrote in the European Conservative: “This is a call for sheer pragmatism… Of the two inescapable religious choices before us, Christianity is undoubtedly the better option.” My friend Peter Boghossian echoed a similar sentiment, tweeting, “Better to believe that a man walked on water than all men can give birth.”
I have been pleased with what I have seen from Boghossian and Lindsay lately on this front, two writers I have critiqued on their work on atheism before. However, a word of caution to the atheist movement. You might just wind up seeing that there is a lot more reason and truth to Christianity than you thought. Be prepared. The king will not be used. Christianity is not a means to an end. We go with Christianity not because it produces the best end result, which it does, but because it is true.
Maybe you should consider that question as well.
In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

The Loss of FInal Causality

What happened to the why questions? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

We all know about little children. The constant question they ask is “Why?” Many groups will try to claim them as their own. Those include scientists, journalists, lawyers, philosophers, theologians, etc. There are many professions where one of the questions you ask is “Why?”

Except we don’t really ask that much anymore.

There’s a quote said to be from Polkinghorne where he gets asked the question “Why is water boiling on the stove?” One such answer is “Because heat is being applied to the water thus causing its molecules to move further apart and thus turn from a liquid state into a gas state.” There’s another answer to the question as well.

“Because I am going to fix tea.”

Too often in our scientific age, we think the answer is the first one, but that is not what we have in mind. The first question merely describes what is going on. The second question asks a different question, the question of purpose.

In Aristotelian thought, a final cause is the reason why something is. What purpose does it serve? What is the end goal? This does not imply that the agent is acting intentionally. Kudzu grows and spreads. So do viruses. It’s not said that these are acting with an intentional plan.

Thomist Philosopher Edward Feser gives an example of an iceberg floating through water. As it goes on its way, the water in its area of effect becomes colder. It does not become cotton candy. Yes, this gets us into the fifth way for the existing of God, but that is not the point today.

Even if one holds to evolution, evolution depends on final causality. The goal is the passing on of the genes so that the most fit can survive. It’s literally described as the survival of the fittest.

Over a week ago, I saw an atheist make this argument in a group. I only still have it because it’s so monumentally stupid that I couldn’t believe anyone made it. Lo and behold, the capacity for human stupidity ever increases. So here is one of the stupidest arguments ever in all its infamy.

If God created everything and created everything perfect. Than God created the man’s anus to stretch large enough to fit a raccon inside of it. Just think that’s only part of humans body God created to stretch that big. God certainly wanted men to have big stuff in there

Leaving aside if God created everything perfect, it was one of those arguments that I had to have it register a bit before I said anything. I just couldn’t believe someone said something so monumentally ignorant. However, they did and so I asked a simple question.

I don’t remember the exact words, but it was asking what was known about final causality.

Because if you know what the final cause of the anus is, you know that the argument just doesn’t work. It violates that order.

When debates happen in “Pride Month”, we forget that final causality. We don’t know the purpose of so many things today. We don’t understand the purpose of sex, the family, and marriage, for a start. We think we can just change what any of these are and we’ll all get along fine.

We won’t, and I’m sure that a lot of people now are asking “What really is wrong about showing items of a sexual nature to extremely young children?” This is the normalization of pederasty starting.

When we treat sex as if it’s just a recreational activity and it doesn’t even matter the sexes of the people involved, we are lowering sex and ourselves. When we treat a family as just any group of people together, we are lowering the family. When we make marriage just a long-term relationship that anyone can leave at any time for any reason, we are lowering marriage.

Will that impact our society?

Look around and tell me what you think.

This is not to deny the role of the gospel in our society, but the gospel doesn’t dwell in a vacuum. We need good thinkers who can apply the principles of the gospel to life and in studying God’s world just as much as we should His Word, then we need to understand why the universe is the way it is. Why did God make things the way He did?

Bring back final causality.

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

Why White House Pride Flags Should Concern You.

It this just a harmless celebration? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Bud Light is losing. Target is losing. Call of Duty is losing. Even recently, Starbucks has said that they’re not going to have Pride material on display in their stores. (To which, if you can, stop by and get a drink then.) The line in the sand was drawn at children. Going after the children was way too much.

However, that memo hasn’t reached the White House where pride flags have draped the building. What does this mean? The problem with this is that it gives more power to the state.

Now all of this is going to be done from a viewpoint that will not use the Bible so no one can say that I’m just going by the Bible. I do contend the Bible does agree with my position, but I can make it without it.

So what about marriage? Sometimes people ask me if I believe in same-sex marriage. I always ask what marriage is. If you realize that marriage is a man-woman unit, then you realize you might as well ask if I believe in triangular squares. But why is it a man-woman unit?

Marriage is this because it is the building block of a society because within it is found the one act that is capable of producing children. We have made a mistake in thinking that we can have wanton sex without children and not have consequences. This does not mean that infertile couples or couples too old to reproduce can’t marry or even shouldn’t marry, but it does mean the public end of marriage is children. It is not the couple’s happiness, as good as that might be. It is not feelings of love towards one another, though that should be pursued. In the end, it is children.

The state does not come before marriage. Marriage comes before the state. No families? There can be no state. Marriage is a reality that we discover. Some people who want to bring the Bible into this will point to polygamy, but polygamy is if anything multiplying the man-woman unit beyond necessity.

This is also why interracial marriage was never invalid. Interracial marriage still has the man-woman unit in it. Removing that was actually a recovery of marriage and not a changing of it. However, changing the persons in the roles on an essential difference, their gender, DOES matter.

Now some can say that same-sex behavior exists in nature, as it does, but that doesn’t mean it is something we normalize for our species. After all, eating one’s own young also exists in nature. Are we going to pass a law saying that is allowable?

So the State creates something, an artificial reality, and they want to call it marriage also. The problem now is if the State produces it, the State will have to defend it. It’s their baby after all. In essence, this becomes a new religion of sorts. You do not question the dogma and if you do, the State comes against you.

And yet, in the new “marriage”, what benefit does society get? Why should the State care about the feelings of the people involved? When my ex-wife and I applied for our marriage license, we were never asked about our feelings or personal happiness. We were just to show that we were of age and of the opposite sex and not close relatives. That was it.

Redefining marriage gives the State more power and in the long run will have it be that if you question the dogma, you are guilty of treason. In the past, we destroyed the bodies of children in the womb. Now we are also destroying them outside the womb through “gender-affirming” care and puberty blockers.

The Bud Light pushback though has changed things. What this should show us is that when people work together and stand up, especially for their children, they can have an effect. Even if you are of the LGBT community, this should concern you. A state that can rule in your favor can make you the enemy the very next day.

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

Leave The Children Alone

Is there a problem with leaving the children alone? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Many of you reading this are not gamers, and so when I tell you there’s a big debate going on in the gaming community, you might be tempted to dismiss it. Don’t. This actually is relevant to you. If you have children in the school system, you need to pay attention to this. If you care about what the LGBT group is doing, you need to watch this.

It all started with someone complaining about the Armenian parents protesting their school considering more Pride material and the parents didn’t want this. An altercation took place and no one knows for sure who started it. One streamer posted about it and said we’re in a dark place and we should just let people love who they want.

A streamer who goes by NickMercs replied with saying that they should just leave the children out of it. That’s the real issue. You can see the tweet here.

NickMercs had made a bundle collaboration with the Call of Duty game series put out by Activision. After he said this in response, the bundle was removed from the store. The response by the fans was immediate.

They aren’t happy.

Here is what Call of Duty said themselves.

One other major streamer known as Dr. Disrespect decided that that was enough. He made a livestream video of him removing the game from his library. There is language in this if you don’t want your children to watch.

Now many of these guys would really see no problem with the LGBT community. They’re in many cases for “equal rights.” However, they do not want to see children being targeted and in comments sections are often tagging the FBI to alert them about groomers and pedophiles. (Personally, I don’t think we should say pedophiles as Philia is just friendship. Pederasts is a much more accurate term.) Many of these guys grew up playing games and are not parents themselves.

Some of these people are now saying that the community as is is a cult. If you say one thing that goes out of line against them, then they shut you down. Note that this is not saying that all people who are LGBT are cultists, but there is a mindset.

And let’s consider this still. What was the supposed statement made that went against pride? Leave the children alone.

So if you are making a statement about leaving children alone, you are opposed to pride and you are anti-LGBTQ?

That says a lot, doesn’t it?

I already shared a post about what is going on here and another one recently here. However, the gaming community has found another video and are letting others know what is going on. I urge you to go to around 5:40 in this video, although if you want to watch the whole and hear more about the “controversy”, feel free. Please do not watch this with small children around.

The LGBT group is now making it clear that their goal is to get the children. Our president has also now draped the White House in the rainbow flags so you know what side he is going to fall on. The big battle of our generation is going to be for the safety of our children.

The gamer community could have been one of the worst to go after. These are people who play games where they often have to plan out strategies, get all the information they can, and work as a team. Many of them also want to pass their hobby on down to their children so you can expect they want to have a good relationship with them.

There is an active movement going on to boycott Activision and Call of Duty. It’s odd that Activision has chosen to jump on Nickmercs immediately when they themselves have a less than glamourous history. They ignore repeated complaints from gamers about their games, but they jumped right on this one. Also, it’s worth pointing out that in America, many of their games have pride flags in the games, but for some reason, if you’re in the Middle East you don’t get those. Really standing with the LGBT community. Right?

If you’re a non-gamer and you made it this far, I hope you now see that this is relevant to you. They are coming for your children and if you stand against them, you are the enemy. There is no community they will not try to get a foothold in. If you are a non-gamer, speak out against Activision and Call of Duty anyway. While I don’t play Call of Duty, I am a gamer and I am taking this very seriously. I have spent much of this weekend watching the videos on this gathering more and more information.

Parents. Please step up now. They don’t want to leave your children alone.

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

 

 

The Tolerance of Pride

Is tolerance still a thing? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I’m old enough to remember when tolerance was this awesome virtue. Everyone started talking about tolerance. That was all we wanted! Tolerance!

Now if you take tolerance in the classical sense, I agree with it. Tolerance in that sense meant that I don’t agree with your viewpoint, but I support your right to it. I don’t agree with what you say, but I do agree with your right to say it. Tolerance later was morphed to mean approval. Strangely enough, though not a shock to myself and many others, when the people wanting tolerance thought they were in a position of power, there was no tolerance shown to those who they demanded tolerance from.

Let’s consider two events from the news yesterday. One is from Londonderry Junior High in Canada. Here is a teacher going after Muslim students.

These students were skipping out on class to avoid pride events. The teacher spoke about how non-Muslims acknowledged Ramadan (And I would freely support a student’s right to skip that as well) and then went on. Fortunately, it has been transcribed so I will respond to it here.

“It goes two ways! If you want to be respected for who you are, if you don’t want to suffer prejudice for you who are, your religion, your colour of skin, your…whatever, then you’d better give it back to people who are different from you. That’s how it works, it is an exchange. And it’s not like that in all countries.

Ah. So since we showed respect for you, then you ought to show respect for us.

Lady. Respect cannot be forced. I could sit silent during something on Ramadan if I had to attend, but that sure doesn’t mean I respect it. Forced respect is an oxymoron.

Are you also saying that if these students didn’t accept what was going on in Pride, that you would show them prejudice then? Are you telling me the reason you are not prejudice towards your Muslim students is conditional on if they don’t show it to you? I frankly think I should not show it regardless of how I am treated.

As I told you, in Uganda, if they think you’re gay, they’ll execute you. And if you believe in that kind of thing, then you don’t belong here. Because that is not what Canada believes.

It’s nice of this teacher to claim to speak for all of Canada. However, how did we get from “I don’t support Pride” to “Kill all the homosexuals!” I realize they do that in Uganda, but that doesn’t mean these Muslims were advocating that. If I chose to avoid Ramadan, does that mean I want to kill all the Muslims? If this teacher didn’t want to acknowledge a presentation by someone on Romans 1, does that mean she wants to throw all the Christians to the lions?

We believe in freedom, we believe that people can marry whomever they want. That is in the law! And if you don’t believe that should be the law, then you can’t be Canadian. You don’t belong here – and I mean it.”

Really?

So if you have a stepfather who wants to marry his eight year-old stepdaughter, do you think he can do that? He can marry whomever he wants? Really? Could a woman be allowed to marry her cat or a man allowed to marry his dog? (Wouldn’t surprise me if that has happened.) If marriage can mean anything, it really means nothing.

Also, apparently tolerance has reached its breaking point. The teacher is ready to say Muslims who disagree do not belong in Canada and are not Canadian. Friends. Many of us knew tolerance was a sham all along.

If only that were the only story.

But there’s another one.

Now I don’t really care for street preachers for the most part. I’m sure there’s some good people out there doing that, but I find most of them don’t know what they’re talking about that much. That being said, I fully agree with their right to say it.

This man had a right to speak and disagree with what was going on as long as he was being peaceful. Sergeant Bradley McClure decided to arrest him in under a minute. The Reading Police Department in Pennsylvania has been getting a lot of pushback over this.

Some of you might be atheists reading this and saying “Good! Get that guy off the streets!” However, you should not support this. If the police can do this to someone they disagree with like this, they can do it to you. Freedom extends to all of us or to none of us.

The pushback is quite relieving to see. I really hope this continues. I honestly think I’m seeing a lot of that this month. There were numerous organizations, including the Navy, that had Pride symbols up on their social media and had to take them down.

My personal thinking on this is that what really got under the skin of people with this was the transing of the kids. People are usually fine with whatever adults want to do in the privacy of their own homes. You get the children involved though and the Mama Bears and everyone else rises up.

I really hope it continues. I would be thrilled if this was the last time we ever had a month for this movement.

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

 

 

Coming To A Pride Parade Near You

What is being shown to your children? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Parents. If you have children, please watch this video, but also make sure the children are not around. (Assuming they are underage.) Even if you don’t care for TimCast, this is a video of what is happening at a pride parade and at a school. All parents need to watch this.

I wish this was an isolated event, but I doubt it is. Remember Ron DeSantis said that there couldn’t be a parade in Florida if it would involve material not fit for children. They decided to just not have the parade. What is going on at these events that this needs to be shown?

Years ago when the Obergefell case came down, the case that decided to redefine marriage to include two people of the same sex, I remember all the memes going around. “All this means is that gays will get married. Nothing more.” Those of us like myself who are conservative Christians knew better.

We were right. The first step that came after the ruling was the normalization of transgenderism and now you have kids having their bodies mutilated and healthy body parts removed. These decisions are largely irreversible. These children will never be able to have children and many will never truly experience sexual pleasure.

Now also you have men dominating in women’s sports and in any other event meant for women. Men are getting access to prisons for women and to their locker rooms and everything else. You can be sued at times for “misgendering” someone.

Not only this, but in this video, take a look at what is happening in the schools. Children are being told Happy Pride Day and celebrating running under a rainbow. Do children even know what this is? Children at the age in the video?

Parents. You should want your children coming home and asking you questions about math, literature, science, history, etc. Do you really want them coming home and asking “Mom? Dad? What does Pride Day celebrate?”

Homeschool them now or get them in good private education where this is not being taught.

When you homeschool them also, make sure you teach them at age-appropriate levels about proper sexuality from a Christian worldview. You also need more than just “The Bible says so.” You need a whole worldview to explain why this is wrong. This is not to disparage the Bible, but you need to see how it applies to all of life.

After all, if you don’t educate your children, someone else will. Even if they’re homeschooled, they will have friends, they will have internet, they will have media of some kind. You can’t isolate them from the world nor should you. In a military situation, the troops are trained before they go out into the battlefield, but it is with the understanding they will see battle. Do the same for your children. They will see battle.

Keep in mind, this does not mean that individuals in the LGBT community are our enemies. It does mean the ideology is. I suspect there are some in that community who don’t want to see this done to children as well.

I also am concerned about so many Christians who seem to hide under the rubric of love. “Well, they love each other, so what’s the big deal?” Or “Why do you hate homosexuals?” Disagreeing with someone does not mean hate. As for love, these people believe more what the world says about love than what they do Jesus and the Scriptures say about love.

Love does not mean you affirm everything someone believes about themselves. It also means you call them out if they are doing something harmful. It is love when a family stages an intervention for someone who is messing up their lives. It is love to let someone have it if need be when they are doing the same.

They also don’t understand the concept of marriage. If you think there is no essential difference between two members of the opposite sex and two members of the same sex joining together, then you do not see marriage as being about building up the next generation and the continuing of the human species and the nuclear family. It is at that point simply a glorified friendship.

Churches. On you then, we have to start teaching people this kind of material. We have too many sermons that are really about how to make it through your life with your problems. There is very little about Jesus. It is all application and sermons that are just application will not make a difference.

If this means having extra classes, great. This would actually be a great way. Start having classes that are not just marriage enrichment, but about what marriage is. Start really having teaching about sex in the church that will even explore why couples should not live together or have sex before marriage that will go beyond “The Bible says so.” Our young people today especially need to understand not just what the Bible says but why it says what it says.

Parents. You are in a war, and yes, they are coming for your children. If these people are willing to kill their own children in abortion and sterilize them in transgender surgeries, then the children will have to come from somewhere. Oh, if you think the idea of coming for your children sounds extreme, well….

The people that put this up took it down. They claimed it was just satire. Color me skeptical.

Folks. We are in a war. We are fighting for the next generation. At the start, they are defenseless and we must protect them.

Do so.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(I Affirm the virgin birth)

Bullying And Suicide

Is the question of suicide missing a deeper issue? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Last night I finished reading Holy Sexuality and the Gospel. There are some books I don’t review because those are schoolbooks and I will likely need to write deep reviews of them later on so I just choose not to. The author, Christopher Yuan, is someone himself who has same-sex attraction.

At one point, he talked about the idea of disagreeing with same-sex attraction being okay leads to suicide. This is also something we have heard from the transgender movement where even doctors tell parents that if they don’t do this, their child will kill themselves. It’s hardly a good position to put anyone else in.

Now perhaps I am just old school in my thinking, but I have this idea that the person responsible for what any person does is the person themselves. If a politician, left or right, says something hard about the other side and someone else goes shooting, the person responsible is the person who did the shooting.

So it is that when it comes to suicide, who is responsible? It is the person who does it. Suppose that as depressed as I was, and sometimes still am, after my wife left me, that I had killed myself. Who was responsible for that? I would be. Not her. Now we could say she was an activating factor and perhaps that is so, but the final decision comes down to me. I bear the responsibility.

So as I was reading this part of the book I was thinking that we are missing something in this. We are saying we must not do XYZ or else X will kill themselves. Instead, wouldn’t a better question be, “What has got us to the point in our culture where so many people think the best option is to kill themselves?”

Suicide is always to some degree a tragedy. I say to some degree because someone could say “Well, didn’t Hitler kill himself?” He did, and yet is it not still a tragedy to see not only the evil that he did with his life, but in the end he wasted it and ultimately turned his evil on himself? That’s still tragic. He could have done so much good with his abilities of persuasion, but he let darkness rule over him instead.

I have never been a supporter of the anti-bullying crusades. Is it because I favor bullying? Not at all. It is because I think they are wrongheaded. We are trying to deal with the problem on the end that we have less control over, the people who don’t care about right and wrong. Why not go and help the people who are likely to be victims and build them up?

We often tell our children such lies as “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” We all know that’s a lie. We know it because words have been hurtful to us. I wager that everyone reading this blog can think back to some painful words that have been said to you, even words by total strangers. I have had hurtful words said to me by strangers in Final Fantasy XIV even.

Now we can say those words only hurt if you give them power. Yes. That’s true. We can say such people should not have power over you. Yes. That’s true. However, it does take a lot of work to get to a healthy place with that and those words do sting.

Somehow, I wonder if it is because of the self-esteem movement. Perhaps if it has not been done, if someone were to look and see the rate of suicides going up in the world and especially in the West where self-esteem has been the rage, to see if there is a correlation.

We have come to this idea that it is bizarre if not everyone loves us. Well, why should they? Picture any famous person you greatly admire. Are they loved by everyone? No. Not a bit. That even includes Jesus Christ, who was so loved by His people when He walked the Earth that they crucified Him. If you’re a Christian, it’s extremely prideful to say you’ll do better than the Son of God.

Now is it a problem when people in the LGBT community commit suicide? Of course. However, what is a deeper problem is this idea of “If you do not affirm me every way I want to be affirmed, I will kill myself.” Why have we raised people to let the opinions of others hold such sway over them to that extent? We have a society that constantly needs approval from everyone else.

If someone is in a position of saying “If you do not do what I want, I will kill myself” that whole attitude is a problem. Imagine if I had said to my ex before she left, “If you don’t stay with me, I will kill myself.” That would be a major problem. That would indicate a great flaw in me that needed to be fixed. She could stay with me out of mercy and/or guilt, but what would still be there? The underlying problem that led to that need that would remain unfixed.

So you could go and affirm someone’s relationship or you could give them surgery to transform their bodies, but what is the same still? The underlying issue. If anything, you have just put a bandage on it. Not only that, if they get what they want and they are still unhappy, they are likely in a far worse place because then they will be much more prone to think there is no hope for them.

The problem is that I don’t see anyone talking about that issue. We’re talking about making people happy, which is subjective and fleeting by our definition of it, but we’re not talking about why they are unhappy in the first place. What is missing in their lives? What is missing in the lives of so many people today that they feel such hopelessness?

This is a deep issue and it won’t go away with one blog post or be answered with one. This is something for the sociologists and psychologists to study. However, when confronted with someone who says that if you do not do X, they will kill themselves, the best thing to do would likely be to walk along side them and ask them why they feel that way. Why is it that what you say or do means so much to them?

We live in a society of what is said to be empty selves. As a Christian apologist, I conclude it is because we have moved away from God and nothing else can fulfill to that extent in our society. If you disagree, then you really need to point to what can fulfill and what makes life worth living overall. Why do we not want people to kill themselves? Why should they not want to.

These are deep questions and even if you disagree, a pat answer won’t help. If you do agree, just saying God isn’t enough either. We need more about why He is the answer and who He is and so much more.

Simple? No. Reality rarely is though.

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

Doing No Harm

Is doing no harm a sufficient moral principle? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Often today, we don’t hear about if an action is good or evil. We hear about if it is harmful or not. Now, causing harm is one aspect to consider in morality, but it is not the only. When it comes to the idea of redefining marriage, part of the question asked is “Well who is it hurting?”

For one thing, changing the meaning of marriage for anyone changes it for everyone. Everyone’s marriage is shifted to not a union designed to bring about children for the prolonging of civilization, but rather to a sort of union from two people who are committed to one another. By this standard, we could say that two roommates could be married or a brother and sister who choose to live together are married or a son who brings his mother who is a new widow into his home are married.

However, while those are important situations to bring up, why not go back and question this principle about not harming anyone. Consider the scenario of a peeping Tom for example. he has found a peephole outside of a showering area where he can stand and watch naked women shower. He is never caught and the women never have any idea they are being watched? Are any of them being harmed? If not, then can we say this is wrong?

Consider also a dentist who has a private practice. To keep costs down, he doesn’t even have a secretary. He works alone and makes all his appointments. From time to time, beautiful women come in and he has to put them under for surgical operations. What they don’t know is that sometimes when they are unconscious, he undresses them and fondles them. The women never get pregnant and so never find out about what he’s done. Has he done any harm?

If you’re a Christian or even most any other kind of theist, you could say this man has damaged his standing before God in each case and so he has done harm at least to himself. He has lowered himself from being what a human being ought to be to being something less. If you are a secularist though, you do not have this option.

Not only that, but we know that there are times that causing harm is the good thing to do. I have a friend who just had a quadruple bypass operation. Right now, he is still in a lot of pain. I have told him some about my having scoliosis surgery and how I too was in a lot of pain and understood what that was like. In both cases, our doctors harmed us and left us with tremendous pain. The thing is, we knew this would happen and we went through it willingly and even paid our doctors for it. Why? Because we were not being harmed to be harmed. We were being given some degree of harm in order to get a greater good.

Another example is telling a loved one a hard truth. Sometimes, this is very harmful to the person for the immediate and short-term, but it is good in the long run. Again, consequences are not all that is to be considered, but they are a part of this. Consequences alone are insufficient. We need to look at the action, who is doing it, and why they are doing it.

No one being harmed by itself is insufficient. By this standard, the Peeping Tom and the dentist are both okay. By a Christian standard, they are in the wrong because they are lowering themselves as human beings and actually in the long run making themselves more likely to be the people who will take further steps to do actual visible harm to others.

Our moral thinking needs to go deeper than just utilitarianism. We need to look at who we are and why we do what we do.

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

The Failure of Bros

Is this due to “homophobia”? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I’ve seen on YouTube today a lot of talk about the failure of a movie called Bros. If you haven’t heard of this movie, it’s supposed to be a romantic comedy, but the lovers in this are a pair of men. This was the first of its kind and its fail was tremendous.

Billy Eichner, who is behind the movie, has sadly taken the lower path in handling this. Instead of looking at himself and looking at his movie and seeing why it is no one went to see it, he is instead blaming the audience. Why did it fail? It is because YOU must be a homophobe.

However, if that is the case, then even assuming everyone who saw the movie in America is gay, a lot of them even didn’t see it, so does that mean someone in the homosexual community is a homophobe? Eichner has also been on Twitter sending out regular tweets about this. Little tip here. If you want your audience to listen to you, it’s probably not a good idea to call them homophobes and anything else at the same time.

Well here are a lot of reasons most people didn’t go see this movie.

First, romcoms are normally meant for women. For the most part, men do not go to see romcoms unless their girlfriends or wives insist on it. Men would rather see an action flick of some kind. They want to see some fights, car chases, shootings, and something getting blown up. If they do go see a romcom, they want to at least see a beautiful woman in that movie.

A gay romcom has neither. No straight guy I know of wants to see two dudes getting it on together. Add in there are supposedly multiple orgies in this and we’re even less interested.

While men will go see action flicks wanting to be the man in the films, women go see romcoms because for the most part, they want to be romanced. They like the love story and it’s their kind of fairy tale. They are not interested in seeing two dudes either.

If you’re wanting men to go see your film, don’t make it a romcom.

Second, people don’t want to see something if they think they’re being preached to. Most people do not go to church for entertainment value and there’s a reason we’ve called a long message we don’t want to hear a sermon. There’s a reason we refer to a negative onslaught of what we ought to do as preaching. When people see a system they don’t want regularly put in their face, they lose interest. It’s the whole “Go woke, go broke.”

Consider how it is in superhero comics. Most people I know wouldn’t really care too much if someone wanted to make a gay superhero. What they don’t want is to take a traditional superhero who has never shown any inkling of being gay and then turning them gay to appeal to diversity. People go to comics for entertainment. They don’t go for politics.

Third, yes, a lot of people don’t agree with homosexuality, including myself, but it doesn’t do anything to call us all homophobes any more than calling non-Christians Christophobes is going to get them to repent or seriously examine Christianity. Instead of having any debate on the topic, instead, it is easier to just shout an insult at someone. It doesn’t help your side any.

That means when we go see a movie, we don’t want to see an orgy with a bunch of guys in it. That might appeal to the homosexual community, but not to heterosexual community. We also don’t care for a movie that tells us that we had a good run. You don’t tell us our time is done and then respond negatively when we choose to not show interest in you.

Ultimately, if people don’t like your work, no matter how passionate you are about it, you need to look to yourself. You will never have something that pleases everyone, but I have to do the same thing here. If people aren’t interacting with my content or taking it seriously, I have to look at myself mostly. Now there’s no harm in looking at my audience and asking what they want. I wrote about divorce for quite awhile, for instance, because I saw views were up on my blog when I did that. Give the people what they want.

If someone isn’t interested in my content, I can ask what I can do to make it interesting to them. I could look at my writing style or website presentation or anything else. The first place to start if someone doesn’t like my work is always with me. It is not with the audience.

So Billy, take a look at yourself. How passionate you are about the work doesn’t matter a bit. I can be super-passionate about selling overcoats, but it won’t work if I’m talking to people in the Middle East most likely. I can be super passionate about pork products, but it won’t work with Muslims or Orthodox Jews. Passion doesn’t equal success. Having a good product or service and then knowing your audience well and what they want does.

We just don’t want Bros. Time to accept that and move on.

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

On The Military on Pride Month

What is the purpose of a military? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

“And when the SJW mob passes through your area, when they see the rainbow flag on your house or business, they will pass over, but if they do not see the rainbow flag on your house and business, they will unleash their fury to get you cancelled and they will show no mercy.”

Such is what I have on my wall for what a friend of mine calls “Liberal Passover.” I get up and pretty much everywhere I go I see Pride flags. I didn’t even see this much for Black History Month or for Women’s History or Asian History or even for my own Autism Awareness Month. Mine is the one I least expect to see it for. After all, we don’t go and form mobs and shut down people that refuse to endorse us.

However, this is the first year I have seen the U.S. Military take this route and put up a statement for Pride Month on the first of the month.

So I did a search. Maybe I just missed something. I looked for Autism Awareness Month and the U.S. military. Nothing was coming up showing they celebrated it. I then replaced Autism Awareness with Pride Month and boom, it was right there immediately. Well, maybe people on the spectrum can’t serve. That was false also. There have been and are people on the spectrum in the military.

Now in a sense, I don’t really want the military to get involved. The military is not about raising awareness for causes necessarily. The military just needs to purely be America first. That is no longer happening.

My great concern with this? If the military can’t stand up to the SJW front, how on Earth can I expect them to stand up to our enemies? I can definitely assure you that the Russian and Chinese militaries are not spending their time making sure they’re supporting Pride Month or using proper pronouns or anything like that.

It’s also disappointing to see that if this is the case with Pride, then apparently the military is saying that the cause of Pride matters more than all those other causes, and this is part of the danger when it becomes political. Many of us on the right are very concerned that our military is becoming weaker because SJW causes are more important than the real point of the military, that of winning wars.

Do I still support the military? At the time, yes, but I am concerned about our future with this. I am more and more concerned that we are becoming a nation that is focusing on feelings instead of focusing on reality. I’m especially thinking about this after a great recommendation from someone that I read the book Strange New World. I have just recently started it and I am reading it on Audible and I definitely plan to review it as I am concerned about the Strange New World we find ourselves in.

I really hope the military returns to winning wars instead of political acceptance.

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