Hate speech laws are for people who can’t handle their own emotions.
In the debate about whether we create or discover a writing voice, it doesn’t matter which side of the camp you land on. It’s generally agreed that a writing voice takes time to develop. When I started a blog in 2013, I had no real idea how it would develop. My plan was to use the blog as a way of networking, and as a way of improving my own writing skills. In my post-graduate world, I wasn’t sure a blog would achieve either. Looking back, I can see areas where I’ve succeeded, and I can also see areas where…
When there is nowhere else to go
There are times in life when it becomes obvious not only that the God who has revealed Himself in Christ is true, but that there is nowhere else to go. One such moment occurred for the apostles when many people who had been disciples of Jesus left Him because of His hard sayings (see John 6:60-66). Jesus then challenged the Twelve: ‘Do you want to go away as well?’ (John 6:66) Here they were, looking at the backs of the people who were their erstwhile friends and who were now leaving. They must have been asking themselves: ‘Did we get…
Christianity Is Not About Being Nice, Even Jesus Got Angry
Elshtain is right, viewing Christianity as an ethic of universal niceness and attributing it to Jesus Christ, is an aberration of Christianity. It misses the point.
The undermining of heterosexuality in the age of pride and ‘anything goes.’
Hidden away, near to the middle of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s ‘The Cost of Discipleship,’ rests a three page essay on marriage called ‘Woman.’ Why Bonhoeffer named this chapter so specifically is a mystery. My best guess here is that he was looking to the growing ease by which society has sold and objectified sex. The chapter is an analysis of Jesus’ views on marriage, divorce and sexual immortality; or as Bonhoeffer states, ‘sexual irregularities’(p.85). The texts referred to are Matthew 5.27-32, 1 Cor. 6:13-15 & Gal 5:24, and it forms part of his larger discussion on ‘The Sermon on The Mount.’ What Bonhoeffer means by ‘sexual…
Directing Light Under The Shadow Of Nihilism: How Abortion Negates Freedom
For those who believe in absolute freedom, any “no” spoken to humanity from outside humanity, is repressive, and unfairly restrictive. In the shadow of this logic, even a lighthouse or global positioning navigation is offensive. Both the lighthouse and GPS direct humanity. They protect freedom, because in their very confrontation with us, they invite true freedom. They remind us of individual responsibility. Their existence shows us the necessity and power of decision. They direct us to make responsible choices. The existence of the lighthouse warns us that danger awaits. To act in absolute freedom and ignore this warning, is to…
Does everything have to be seen through the prism of gender?
A recent opinion piece on news.com.au has argued that women should be outraged at the recent vote to decriminalise abortion by the Queensland Parliament, because of the strong gender divide between the yes and no votes. You see, we should be outraged that most female MPs voted yes and that male MP’s dominated the no vote. The picture presented here is that the vast majority of women are in favour of killing babies and it’s that evil patriarchy who are holding them back – men who don’t deserve to contribute to this debate because they don’t have a uterus. While…
Simone Weil: Marxism is a badly constructed religion.
Details about Simone Weil’s life and thought are enigmatic. Other than what’s included in the general encyclopedic biographies circling the internet, I know very little about her. Unlike someone such as Dietrich Bonhoeffer, there is no long, authorised biography written by her friends. What knowledge I have been about to find out about her, is padded by what I’ve learnt from conversations with internet friends, whose admiration for her work has increased over the years. Simone was a French intellectual. Like Jacques Ellul, Weil worked in the French resistance, was an admirer of Karl Marx, and a contemporary of Albert…
The absurd attacks on religious freedom in Australia.
During her recent appearance on Q&A, Labor MP Terri Butler made two terrible arguments against religious schools being able to discriminate against homosexual teachers: 1) Doesn’t your religion teach you to ‘love your neighbour’? 2) Homosexual teachers don’t teach maths any differently to heterosexual teachers. In response: 1) Of course Christians are to love their neighbours. But what does it mean to love your neighbour? Terri Butler’s absurd idea of love would also mean that a Christian school should not discriminate against an atheist being employed as a teacher, because after all, aren’t Christians called to love them? Indeed we are…
Ford Vs. Kavanaugh: The Attempted Hijacking of Justice?
Judgement based on raw emotion is the reason for why we have due process and habeas corpus. This system is not without flaws, but erasing due process is equal to denying the right of habeas corpus. If that happens then everyone is bound; subjected to the whim of the mob or the mood of the ruler. Due process is as important as habeas corpus. Habeas corpus being ‘the removal of illegal restraint on individual liberty.’ (Burke) Any removal, or denial of due process, would easily lead to the same thing happening to habeas corpus. Conclusions based on raw emotions about…
The confessing church is a church of martyrs.
The word martyr [μάρτυς] means to ‘bear witness’, this is derived from the word marturion [μαρτύριον] which is understood to mean evidence testimony; witness; to be testified. The word martyr is also connected to martyromai [μαρτύρομαι] ‘I am urging; I am bearing witness; I am declaring; I am insisting.’ Along with a lot of His colleagues, family and friends – of whom one was Karl Barth and the other Martin Niemöller, Bonhoeffer fits the profile of declaring; bearing witness; insisting. He was a martyr. Today, fascist theory might only exist in fringe elements of society, but the style of political activism employed by the Nazi’s isn’t. Rhetoric and labels offer…
Manipulative propaganda is a drug and most people in the West are hooked on it
Creating fear about an apocalyptic event such as “global warming” gives those espousing it, the power to monopolise government initiatives, elections and national economies. In short: they coerce the people into surrendering something for absolutely nothing. In this case, the thing surrendered only benefits those demanding the surrendering. The real catastrophe is in the daylight robbery this allows. Along with fossil fuels, fear powers their personal jets, pads their bank accounts and helps them position puppet politicians into places of power, where those politicians can be used to further “the crusade for the planet”. Whilst I agree that humans can,…
At what point do you become an Australian?
A few weeks back, reacting to the maiden speech by Katter’s Australia Party senator, Fraser Anning, who broadly (and in some areas of his speech, recklessly) called for a review of Australia’s immigration policies, Australian senator, Lucy Gichuhi, (who was born in Kenya) asked the question: “At what point do you become an Australian?” Lucy’s answer was, “…when I get a citizenship paper! Full stop! Period! Finished!” I follow Senator Gichuhi’s political posts. I supported Senator Bob Day, of the Family First party, passing his position over to her after his election win was declared invalid because of a candidacy conflict with the Constitution. I…
Donald Trump’s “No” to Imperialism
From the start of his candidacy, I’ve considered Donald Trump a diamond in the rough. It’s a working hypothesis that I’ve held onto in the face of an onslaught of fear and dire predictions about his alleged “reign of terror”, a lot of which came from almost everyone I know (theologians and pastors included). Joining the bandwagon condemnation of Trump, in order to spread fear, was always a darkened side-road best left in the rear-view mirror. Minus a few friends and two years on, this hypothesis still stands strong. While I believe that God can transform, and still is in…
Goodness and Meaning: Made for God
Are we made for God, the One who is all goodness and truth, or are we just intelligent slime, thrown up from some primeval soup? In A River out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life, Richard Dawkins declared: ‘The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.’ Is that true? Or does Augustine sound like he gets it right?: ‘You have made us for Yourself, and our hearts are restless till they find their rest in You.’ Let us look…
Fall of the West, Rise of Islam
Francis Schaeffer in his book, “The God Who is There,” argues that relativism has destroyed the form of society by removing structure and morality. As a result people today have an internal void which causes them to look for some kind of stability. I believe this is what has given rise to the hedonistic culture we currently see in the West. Further, this change has also contributed to the rise of Islam. In an effort to fill the void, people embraced pleasure (sex, drugs, alcohol etc.) hoping to fill the emptiness within. These temporal pleasures, however, failed to deliver what…
The Proof of Christianity Is the Absurdity of Every Alternative
The proof of Christianity is the absurdity of the contrary. That is to say, whatever alternative you offer in place of the Christian worldview it will ultimately lead to a self-refuting conclusion. Take for instance the argument that there is no God. One can’t argue for atheism without refuting atheism in the process. Often, atheism is presented as the scientific man’s philosophy. But if atheists were consistent to their worldview, science would be entirely impossible. Science is about the discovery of truth, and in order to learn anything there are certain things that need to be true first. First, the…
Arbitrary arguments for abortion allow the strong to destroy the weak, vulnerable, and defenseless.
Arguments in favour of abortion often fall into one of four categories. These categories can be summed up with the acronym SLED: Size, Level of development, Environment, and Degree of dependency. But do any of these arguments justify the murder of the unborn? Can human value be measured by any of these four categories? Size: This argument implies human value can be measured by the size of the human. The smaller the human, the less value that human has. Which is worse, murdering a 16-year-old or murdering a 2-year old? The 16-year old and the 2-year-old are both equally valuable.…
Atheistic Miracles
Those who like to think that they are rational often go back to repeat David Hume’s essay against miracles, written in 1748. Here Hume wrote: ‘A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature; and as a firm and unalterable experience has established these laws, the proof against a miracle, from the very nature of the fact, is as entire as any argument from experience can possibly be imagined.’ This is then used as an argument against God’s being the creator of the world. Philosophically speaking, Hume’s statement contains as much assertion as argument, and is certainly vulnerable at…
All Cultures Are Not Equal, Neither Are All Religions
“Religion is not a preference. Although people are allowed to hold their own opinions, they cannot make up their own truth. This cannot be done with religion any more than it can be done with mathematics.”
Tommy Robinson is the Left’s Unintended Monster
Tommy Robinson is free – for now. He’ll end up back in prison, I suspect, and that’s nothing to rejoice about. I admire Tommy because I think he is a brave man, and a man who is humble enough to admit that his earlier commentary on multicultural issues was far too simplistic. I saw many people criticise Tommy Robinson for his vulgarity, his lack of nuance, and his inflammatory rhetoric. All of this is true: he is vulgar, he lacks nuance, and he can be inflammatory (less so now than when he was starting out). But to my mind this…