Realizations

Philosophy in the Middle of the Desert

Crisis Philosophy October 28, 2014

[as originally typed up on my iphone from 4:30-6am, 101714, after waking from a nightmare, terrified by the disgusting abominations I saw and felt, as if they were really happening]

 

The disgusting, demonic nightmare:
The old, placid doctor talked to his assistant (a pretty, young blonde in a labcoat), as if another routine day on the job:
“Yes, my dear. We’re going to rape you and burn you and chop you up and freeze you.”
The young lady was standing very routinely, but with a sudden look of surprise and confusion. Then two men came up from behind and grabbed her, put her down on the ground, and put a large ice bag on her neck.  She screamed as they started chopping her ankles with a butcher’s knife. But the scene cut right before the blade touched her flesh. And I thought, well that’s a relief the scene was cut, otherwise it would have been inappropriate.
Then I was on a bus and this same scene was playing as a movie on a screen. I was watching it again with the other people on the bus and when it got to the point of chopping her ankles I knew the camera would stop again just in time before the blade cut, otherwise it would have been inappropriate for a public place like that. But there was sitting in front of me a pretty young blonde, similar to the young nurse in the movie, and she turned her head away right before the chop, in horror, unable to watch anymore. Then the movie showed the nurse’s head on the ground next to the opaque freezer box which contained her chopped up body. And that’s when I woke up, full of terror and overcome with disgust at the darkness of that movie. And yet I already said in the dream that “at least it wasn’t inappropriate”, though that same “appropriate” movie caused the girl in front of me to turn in disgust, and was enough for me to wake me up in a terrified panic. What symbolism there is all throughout this dream!

And, as only a dream can do, my mind and heart were suddenly opened, and I could feel the fear and pain that blonde nurse experienced, and all my first world problems vanished. I realized that intense human suffering like that was going on right now in the world; it didn’t end with the Holocaust. And being in that fatal doctor’s office with that nurse, I felt her panicked desperation as she thought “Surely there is someone who can save me! Surely there is someone coming for me, or at least working or fighting to get here and rescue me!”

 

Then this dialog played in my mind while I was recovering from the dream.
Old European gentleman: “Oh come now. Eat. Drink!  Be merry. There is much to do, but there is also a time to enjoy life!”
Neo: “No. You don’t get it. You don’t realize how evil evil is. If you did you wouldn’t be able to put that food down. You would be staying up all night thinking and working to save these innocent people right now. The hand is cancerous and its spreading faster than a venom, but because of the remaining good in it we ignore the bad for a little bit longer, hoping it will get better… Hoping until it’s too late.”
Gentleman: “You can’t just throw away the good with the bad, the baby with the bath water!”
Neo: “But I say, yes!  Throw it out!  Better to enter life with one hand than to burn in hell with both.  The thing that’s keeping this kind of evil active is humanity’s existence. As long as we’re still around there will be immense suffering, because there will always be demons to put evil emotions and ideas in our hearts, and just enough lazy, complacent good people to keep the world good enough, and not altogether bad enough to cut off. Good enough people are the problem. It’s the hardworking man in Iowa who works an honest job and comes back to a wholesome meal with his family and settles in for a night in front of the tv. This is the problem. This is what’s allowing more time for the evil in the world to go on betraying and cheating and lying and piercing and burning. This is what’s keeping the stew just lukewarm enough to not be thrown out.  Oh, you don’t understand the evil that exists!”

God, destroy this Sodom even though there be 10 righteous in it!

 

I think about the horrible, utterly disgusting depravity of this world with its inhuman media, making movies like Human Centipede. Not only are people given opportunities and incentives to let their minds wander to such dark corners, inspired by the dark boundaries surpassed by those before them, but then they invest time and money to not only make their evil imaginations visible, but to put them in other people’s heads, into the minds of people that might not ever think of these evil things otherwise. Such is the cancer of pornography and MTV and Hollywood, who makes inescapable commercials that are literally filled with the same scenes that made movies in the 60’s rates R, and in the 50’s rated X.  And yet most Americans think this is … Wait for it… GOOD!!!  We have been so numbed to the evils of pornography that we have also been numbed to the good of innocence and virginity. Numbed to how good it is seeing a young woman as a soul, created in the image of God, and the beautiful work of art she is within, and thus is our desire to protect her from pain and devaluing numbed. The hardworking family man in Iowa is doing nothing to stop this genocide, but instead embraces it, even if only subtly, and subjects his family to it as acceptable prime time tv!  He is the problem. He is in the way of justice and mercy. He is no better than the passive Germans who kept living everyday life when there was a concentration camp in their backyard. Oh that you were hot or cold, holy or evil, but you are lukewarm, and even though you are not altogether bad you will be thrown out, and cause the rest of us to be thrown out with you.

 

When we were children our eyes were still open to see the gravity of evil and it could make us vomit, but today we have been so numbed to how great this evil is, that instead of vomiting out the poison we laugh at it, ingest it, spread it, and it kills us all. America could very well be the most wicked nation on Earth, for we are a Great Whore seeking out nations to invite to drink our cup of adultery, and so make them guilty also. And as if our rated R movies and pornography and sex slavery wasn’t bad enough, what’s even worse than all of that is that we stamp “In God We Trust” on it. I assure you God doesn’t take that blasphemy lightly.

 

Right now, somewhere in the world, someone is being tortured just as bad as the horrors of the Nazis and their Holocaust.  Like what’s going on in Iraq at the hands of ISIS right now.
If I live a good, comfortable life but someone else is living in Hell as we speak, then may both our lives be snuffed if it stops their suffering; for pain is more tangible than joy. Until then let us fight this horror with whatever time and energy we have left.
I pray God would have mercy on us, as in the days of Noah, and wipe us all out for the sake of the suffering that we have allowed to become this unimaginably horrible. I don’t care about justice, all I care about is ending the pain. With people going through this kind of intense pain right now, how can we do anything but be constantly working to rescue them? I mean, we’re in a state of emergency crisis! Put on hold your job, your marriage, your parenthood! Don’t you dare waste any more time on entertainment and recreation when you could always be doing something to help in the fight against the suffering of the innocent. I know you’d wish people would give up entertainment to fight for you if you were in that kind of pain. If you’re not part of the solution, then you’re part of the problem.
Better to err on the side of righteousness and holiness than on the side of blasphemy, apathy, laziness, lust, and violence.

 

———————–

The next morning I knew I had to do something. And while I’m limited at helping to fight the genocide of ISIS (you can support Voice of the Martyrs as they are actively helping those victims), I knew that there were plenty of horrors happening in my own backyard, and so I signed up to volunteer myself (not just my money) with End Slavery TN. Even if all I can help with right now is sorting papers or doing data entry or writing essays, I’m at least part of the solution to bring relief to the suffering. Even if I can do nothing more than menial tasks right now, so that more active people in the organization aren’t tied down doing them, then I will allow more time/energy/attention to be directed to help the suffering.  In whatever we do, we need to live like we’re really in a state of emergency crisis, because we are.

 

Cave of Lusts/Entrance to Paradise December 9, 2012

[written on 112812, with additions on 12812, Jeremiah 9:23-24, Revelation 7: 14b-17]

There is a cave that leads to Paradise.  7 men went in, hoping to come out on the other side.

One man, a coward, left the cave soon after entering, too paralyzed by his worries of the unknown to continue.

In the cave, the 6 found an abundance of the rarest mushroom delicacies in the world, and one man couldn’t help but start eating them.  Upon gorging himself, he grew an unnatural smile and sank to the floor, as the mushrooms had intoxicated him.  As the 5 moved through the cave they came to a wall with a small opening at the bottom.  If they were to continue they would be forced to crawl under it to get to the other side.  Unfortunately, the fat man was too dazed at that point to continue with them.  The group tried pulling him under the wall with them, but he just couldn’t fit and had to be left behind, though they doubted how much further he would have made it even if he could have fit.  But he told them he’d meet up with them in Paradise (though he acted like he was in paradise right now) after he slimmed down in size (as he popped another mushroom in).

Once the 5 all made it under the wall, they found themselves in a tunnel, with what sounded like flirtatious giggling echoing in the distance.  They followed the tunnel towards the noises and turned around a corner to find a band of extremely attractive, nude women.  The 5 moved awkwardly through their midst, trying to ignore eye contact.  But one man couldn’t help at least looking.  He caught eyes with one of them, and soon after was in conversation with her.  The tunnel opened up into a large cavern, but the lecher stayed behind, already being caressed by the women, saying that he would follow them shortly.

The 4 saw the flickering of light bouncing off the cave ceilings up ahead and entered into an elaborate treasure room.  After being amazed by the vast treasure, the group continued, coming to a small ledge that they had to climb over.  But one man shouted “Paradise indeed!” and, finding a treasure chest, filled it with as much gold as he could and planned to follow them out the other side.  However, the rich man could barely drag his heavy chest, and certainly couldn’t lift it over the wall.  They figured he’d figure out the futility of his plight and soon follow them.  He never did.

It looked like whoever had owned the treasure room also had an armor room.  The 3 stepped into a room lined with great, metal armor and powerful weapons.  They thought this would prepare them for whatever lay ahead in the other rooms, so they suited up and grabbed one big weapon each.  However, the only exit they could find was a small, dimly-lit hole towards the top of the far wall.  As they tried climbing the wall, they soon realized how difficult it was to climb with all of their heavy accessories.  2 men, giving up on trying to juggle the weapons in their hand while climbing, threw them to the ground and were able to climb much easier after that.  However, once they reached the hole, they couldn’t fit through with their armor and were forced to jettison it.  Meanwhile the strong man below was still struggling to even climb on the wall, not willing to give up his means of power.

The 2 fell with a crash down into another room, much lower than the previous one had been, and were bruised.  After a few minutes of recovering, they noticed a hole in the ground.  While light made their current room at least dimly visible, this hole below was pitch black.  As the one man sat on the edge preparing to climb down, the other man blasted him.  “What! Are you crazy?  You saw how far that last drop was, and that was through a dimly-lit hole.  This hole has no light at all!”  “Well, it’s our only shot of reaching Paradise.”  “Well, who really said this cave leads to Paradise in the first place?  I’m starting to think it was all made up.”  “Believe what you want; I’m going for it.”  “You fool!” said the smart man.  “It’s common science that if there’s no light then there’s no other exit down there! You’ll fall to your death or get stuck with no one to save you!  This was fun and all, but it’s time to go back.  Was the life we had so bad anyways?  Not even paradise is worth this.”
“Say what you will.  I’d rather die trying to get to Paradise than be stuck in the Hell we were in before.”

With that, the last man slipped into the black, bracing himself for whatever lay below.  In the darkness he hit a rock which rolled him into another rock which rolled him into another rock and there he lay, in the darkness, in the silence.  After coming to, and somewhat in pain from the fall, he balanced himself to his feet.  There was darkness all around him as he felt around the cavern room for anything.  He thought that maybe the 2nd man had been right.  Then his eye caught a tiny beam of light coming out of a small hole in the wall, only the size of a needle’s eye.  The light danced around with wild colors, and as he pressed his eye up to the hole he could see glimpses of Paradise on the other side — green pastures and still waters — accompanied by cheerful voices and laughter.  Prying himself away from the hole and its bliss, he began frantically feeling the wall for a door or some kind of exit, as if his separation from Paradise had set him on fire.  He felt nothing.  The room around the hole was completely bare, with no ledge or anything to climb on.  With fury did he pound his fists at the hole, trying to break it open to the other side.  Futile.  Finally, he dropped back into the darkness to his knees, helpless.  There in the dark silence he could hear weeping and gnashing of teeth from his former companions in the previous chambers above, held in bondage by their lusts.

Yet here was this righteous man, who forsook all those temptations in pursuit of God and still couldn’t make it.  He was no better off than they.  In his depravity, the self-righteous man cried out, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!”

Suddenly there was a crash, and the needle-sized hole broke open, filling the room with phantasmagoric light.  Another crash against the wall and the hole opened more.  Then, with a 3rd crash, a sheep from the pasture burst through the rock, bruised and bloody from the struggle, and collapsed, dead at his feet.

It would be the easiest door he’d gone through of the hole experience.  But it was even easier than that.  He didn’t even get the chance to step forward before he was escorted out by a shepherd from the other side.  He had seen the sheep rush over, hearing the man’s crying from within the cave.  But the shepherd was content to have this new man take its place in his flock, saying to him, “I will guide you to springs of the water of life: and God will wipe every tear from your eyes.”

Which part of the cave are you stuck in?

//

 

CASTING [BAL]LOTS September 25, 2012

[as written 51212-61312, with additions on 92412]

 

Is it wrong to vote for something good, if it means that that same vote will support something bad?  When it comes to voting, it’s always a packaged deal.  And unfortunately, while politics used to just be about how the government operates, now America is so perverted and complicated that you’re forced to vote for and against moral issues.  And it’s come down to voting for the lesser of 2 evils.  Every single election. There’s just too many things you have to vote for these days.  But voting for 3 out of 4 good things isn’t bad, right?  I mean, if abortion is really the same disgusting holocaust in God’s eyes that it is in ours then it trumps all other political issues.  Shouldn’t we do whatever it takes to stop it just like we would stop Hitler if given the chance?  It seems obvious!  But it isn’t.  If killing a baby is murder and intrinsically wrong simply because it’s killing a human life, then why is it less evil to kill Hitler?  Is it less intrinsically evil to kill human lives if those lives are evil (or what your country sees as evil)? Maybe.  Maybe not.  Jesus is silent about it and so people are forced to disagree.

 

Stereotypically if I vote against abortion I’m also voting for a government with tendencies to enforce capital punishment and prolong war.  So it ultimately comes down to killing the unborn vs. killing adults.  With something as important as people’s damnation on the line, if you’re going to truly determine the “lesser of two evils”, you need to over-analyze all-case scenarios, taking logic as far as it can possibly go; and you’ll inevitably end up on metaphysical grounds.  It’s wrong to kill, as God commanded in the Ten Commandments right from the start, but which is worse: killing the unborn or adults?

 

Looking at it from a politically conservative side, the unborn are innocent and have absolutely no guilt worthy of punishment, whereas a criminal on death row has been tried and convicted for a crime which the country/state’s majority has deemed deserving of death.  It’s not unfair for the man on death row because he knew the consequence for his action before he did it; it is unfair for the innocent infant.  And when it comes to war, the soldiers that die died for a cause, usually a noble cause like defending their country and family or liberating an oppressed people group, and they also die with honor as a hero in their country (most of the time freely signing up for it).  Whereas the “noble cause” of abortion is to retain people’s careers, convenience and money.  And in the miniscule cases of rape, incest, or potential birth defects (which is often a wrong diagnosis on the doctor’s part), the benefit of abortion is that the child won’t have a potentially miserable life (by not existing at all).

 

But now we get to the crux of the whole issue.  As Christians we don’t live according to a physical perspective, but we need to see everything through the lens of eternity (aka salvation and damnation).  Our first and foremost goal in life should be to help the most possible souls go to Heaven and the fewest possible souls to go to Hell.  This includes the area of politics.
But coming from this traditional Christian perspective, if you’re completely honest, which is really worse: abortion or just war?  What happens to an aborted fetus in the spiritual realm?  Sent to Hell for the sins it didn’t exist long enough to commit?  Most Christians I know (clergy and laity alike) consider this unjust and they assume there must be an age of accountability, in other words a soul isn’t responsible for its sin until it becomes old enough TO sin, or at least consciously reject God’s salvation.  If this turns out to be how God really does things, then all abortees (over 50 million by now) are in Heaven.  But what happens to a “soul-dier”?  Chances are he goes straight to Hell, especially if he’s from a non-Christianized country.  And Death Row?  If they committed a sin worthy of capital punishment they probably ain’t going to Heaven.  Legalize abortion, no one goes to Hell.  Outlaw war/capital punishment and people have a better chance of finding salvation through Christ.  Outlaw abortion and you’ll possibly get a sudden surge of juvenile delinquency.

 

By that reasoning infanticide must be good!  And why stop at the infants?  Why not take it up to the very age of accountability?  Some say it’s 13 as that’s when a Jewish boy officially becomes a man, but other, more lenient, Christians point to the Biblical passage of men going to war at age 20, as if that’s the age that they truly became adults.  So then we should exterminate all people under 20?  And then we’d have to keep people from having any more kids lest they go to Hell.  So amp up the birth control and abortion, and bring back eugenics.  And soon there would be no one to repopulate the Earth and we’d all die.  But surely less souls would be in Hell!  With that line of reasoning you might as well just nuke the whole Earth right now because inevitably there are less people to go to Hell now than in 100 years when the population is doubled!

 
Hold on.  Take a breather.  How’d we start with “who should I vote for’ and end up with nuking the Earth?  Isn’t it always right to save a soul from Hell no matter what it takes?  At that rate it’s better to kill them and essentially save them from Hell in doing so (Hell being infinitely worse than death).  But then we’re playing God.  Taking vengeance when “Vengeance is Mine,” says the Lord.  Breaking His clear, certain commands for an uncertain greater good.  Isn’t there something intrinsically evil about murder?  Should you ever do evil, even if it produces a good deemed as more significant/influential than the evil?  Isn’t there really absolute truth and morality?  So that if it’s wrong to kill then it also must be wrong to kill Hitler, even if ending 1 evil, guilty life saves 6 million lives.  But isn’t that essentially the sin of omission?  You personally commit no murder, but by your refusal to murder you murder 6 million innocent people instead.  And here we are back to the “lesser of two evils” stale mate.

 

[Checkmate:  While it’s wrong to kill, isn’t it worse to assist in someone going to Hell?  In the case of the holocaust, it isn’t as much about saving the lives of 6 million Jews as much as it is about saving 6 million souls from being sent to Hell early.  Isn’t it better to send one undeniably evil man to Hell in exchange for the souls of 6 million Jews ?  Surely many of those 6 million (though many were undoubtedly Christians), if they were rescued, would have sought and found Christ after the horrors of the holocaust.  This is the one valid argument for killing I can think of.  Still I feel safer not killing anyone and leaving the mysteries of the after life to God.]

 
All this to say, no one really knows what’s truly right and wrong on these issues, because quite simply we don’t know for certain exactly how the after-life operates.  We outlaw an obvious evil like abortion (only for it to cause more souls to go to Hell), and we hasten the hand of God’s “obvious” justice by wiping out the Hitlers and Charles Mansons (but they, along with the evil and good soldiers fighting around them, go to Hell in the process) before they murder the innocent (which are more likely to go to Heaven when killed than the enemies when killed).

 

But abortion is an obvious evil which surely God wants stopped as soon as possible, and war is a less obvious evil, some would argue a necessary evil (as it’s always been around, has been used for many noble causes, and was even God-ordained in the Old Testament).  And when you consider how many deaths we’re talking about here, when it comes down to it, nothing touches abortion.  All the murders of Hitler and Stalin combined are less than the number of abortions in America alone.  And there’s no way to know how many executed criminals and fallen soldiers will actually go to Hell, versus how many un-aborted juvenile delinquents will go to Hell.  Maybe one is more than the other, maybe they’re the same.  But the whole point of this is to show that you can only follow the logic so far before you get sucked into a whirl-pool of circular arguments where philosophical speculation is the basis of your conclusions.  Are you willing to take the gamble?  There’s nothing in the Bible that definitively says “there is an age of accountability” or how many “infidel” soldiers go to Hell.  But you make your theoretical calculations and cast your lots.  Inevitably voting for someone’s damnation.

 
So.  When all the arguing dies out, you’re left with one question:  Is it right to support something that seems good even though it will have some consequences that seem bad?  Good luck with that one.  In other words, which would you vote for?  Blowing up Africa, Europe and Australia, or just blowing up Europe and Australia? Obviously I’d never vote for Hitler, but if he was running against Stalin, I’d have to think about it.

 

Or should you wash your hands of the whole thing, being innocent in your own eyes but essentially assisting evil by not stopping it? It’s because of your uninvolvement that the world keeps getting worse and worse.  The sin of omission again, perhaps even worse in this case since you did no good at all, neither to the 1 man nor the 6 million.  Was Pilate really guiltless just because he publicly washed his hands of the whole affair, protesting it?  No.  The blood of the Son of God was on his head as well, even though he didn’t scream with the jews “his blood be upon us and our children”. (Matt. 27:25)

 

But what if by voting for the lesser evil you’re withholding your vote for good, withholding your vote from a candidate who is not evil?  Who would you vote for: Hitler, Stalin, or Jesus?  Jesus has no shot at winning, because he tells the truth and not what people want to hear.  By voting for Jesus (who won’t win) you’re essentially voting for whichever candidate does win (which is inevitably going to be a worse candidate than Jesus, but more than that will promote some form of evil).  But wouldn’t Jesus want you to vote for Him?  Your vote for Jesus is a vote for the right thing in every area of politics.  Even though he doesn’t win you are still voicing your opinion as to who you want to win, and what policies you want the government to have.

 

After all this, past all the questions and ambiguity of my own personal opinion, politically I’m leaning towards finding the best possible candidate (even though he isn’t likely to win) and getting involved to do whatever I have to to make it likely for him to win.  Even if he doesn’t win this election, I’ve made it more likely for independent candidates like him to get elected in the future, outside of the 2 party nominations.  Isn’t that what Jesus would want?  If He was running for president, we’d feel obligated (but excited) to vote for Him (a vote for nothing evil, unlike the other candidates), but also forced to realize that the only way for Him to get elected is for us to get involved and make people want to vote for Him.

 

I end with an open-ended statement:  Vote for the candidate that will allow the most souls to go to Heaven, and the fewest souls to go to Hell, but is there any way to truly know which candidate that is?  I know one that definitely is, but he won’t win…yet.

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