It's 7:47pm, and the phone rings during dinner.
I leap from the table, and run to the office. "Hello can I help you?" is my standard line when answering the phone.
Silence.
Then a very brief flash of music. Aha - it's obviously a telemarketer.
A voice with not-too-thick an accent greets me. "Hello, I am calling from Dodo."
Hmmm - I have worked for Dodo Internet in the past, so maybe it's not a telemarketer after all.
"I am ringing about our services and how we can save you money. First, I have to inform you that this call is being recorded for quality purposes."
Ah - ok, so it IS a telemarketer.
He continues right on with his script :
"Let's start with your mobile phone."
Time for some fun... I love playing with telemarketers. So let's try something new :
"What if I'm a member of the Mafia and I don't want my voice to be recorded?" I enquire.
"I'm sorry?" he asks.
I repeat myself, slightly slower. "What if I'm a member of the Mafia and I don't want my voice to be recorded?"
"Sir, you don't have to be a member to take advantage of our specials" he replies.
It's a lost cause. No point making fun if his English is so bad he doesn't get the jokes. So I hang up.
But it's official : I have it directly from a Dodo Internet representative that you don't need to be a member of the Mafia to join Dodo! What a relief! My Mafia membership was due to expire soon... :o)
Friday, 20 March 2009
Friday, 6 March 2009
Women's Rights & Safe Abortion
(Continued from Women's Rights & Equal Responsibility)
Hang on a second! This is wildly contradictory.
For starters - there is no such thing as a "safe" abortion.
Almost always at least one person dies. For every abortion. That's not very safe.
Oftentimes the survivor suffers extreme depression, and occasionally they commit suicide.
And occasionally two people die as a direct result of the "procedure".
This statistics are pretty alarming.
Over 50% of patients directly involved in an abortion are dead within a week.
Sometimes it's an infection that kills the mother - pretty rare these days.
Sometimes it's a living human baby that survives the abortion, comes out into the life-giving air, only to be abandoned on a shelf, like a piece of junk or a disinteresting book, until their pitiful cries are weakened by thirst and they finally succumb to the cruel harsh reality of a compassionless industry.
Most of the time, it's just the intended, pre-meditated, calculated, and very painful --- dismembering or other cruel torture and killing of a very healthy and often very viable member of the human race.
If you killed your animal this way, without anaesthetic or other painkiller, the RSPCA would charge you - you be jailed or fined for "cruelty to animals".
But so long as its a human, its ok. At least, as long as the human has no voice and can't defend itself.
Or at least, as long as we can by some way or other get away with it... (and "legal protection" provides such a way)
---
But look at their idiotic contradictions!
"Sexual and reproductive rights", for all!
Where are the sexual and reproductive rights of the girl they killed?
That baby, supposedly, has the same sexual and reproductive rights as anyone else. After all - that's the point of a "right" - it's universal - everyone gets it.
But mercilessly slaughtered, that "right" has been stolen from the girl.
Oh - and let me talk about "sexual rights". They insist that I have the right to choose when, where, with whom, and even if I will have sex, but only so long as I am engaging in sex with someone else who is equally willing.
In other words - they claim that the will of the individual is supreme, that a person's choice or desire or intention to have sex with another is of cosmic importance, and if the other is willing, no-one should stop them.
But if this sexual right is so fundamental, so powerful, so intrinsic to humanity and life itself, then why are we denying our babies the chance to utilise this right?
If we deny them the chance to grow and mature physically, we deny them the right to exercise their "sexual and reproductive rights".
So much for abortion promoting rights. It destroys them.
---
And look at this :
So much for "representing us". Apparently your voice is only important if you agree with their predetermined agenda... nice.
---
What to do?
* Pray specifically. That God changes hearts. That people have compassion for ALL humans - including the unborn. That the idiocy that is the pro-death movement will be shown to be compassionless, contradictory, and based on bad science and bad philosophy. That UN officials will choose life or be replaced promptly. That US judges and lawmakers and law enforcers will see the importance of valuing life at EVERY age. That the US population would be unblinded and outraged at the holocaust within.
* Continue to speak. They can ignore. But the more of us speak and the more often, the harder and harder it will be. They will try every threat and trick in the book to silence us, but if no-one else speaks for the innocents they slaughter (who cannot speak for themselves, except by writhing in pain during "procedures", and crying themselves to terminal sleep when they "survive the procedure") - if no-one else speaks for them, they will never be spoken for. Oh - and they will not be the last innocents to be mass-slaughtered...
Norway and Sweden partnered with the International Planned Parenthood Federation to host a panel on “Promoting Sexual and Reproductive Empowerment.” Both governments expressed the need to prioritize “sexual and reproductive rights.” In his brief address, Norwegian State Secretary Hakon Gulbrandsen proclaimed that “sexual rights are a cornerstone to gender equality” and that “safe abortion is a crucial component of sexual and reproductive rights.” (emphasis mine)
Hang on a second! This is wildly contradictory.
For starters - there is no such thing as a "safe" abortion.
Almost always at least one person dies. For every abortion. That's not very safe.
Oftentimes the survivor suffers extreme depression, and occasionally they commit suicide.
And occasionally two people die as a direct result of the "procedure".
This statistics are pretty alarming.
Over 50% of patients directly involved in an abortion are dead within a week.
Sometimes it's an infection that kills the mother - pretty rare these days.
Sometimes it's a living human baby that survives the abortion, comes out into the life-giving air, only to be abandoned on a shelf, like a piece of junk or a disinteresting book, until their pitiful cries are weakened by thirst and they finally succumb to the cruel harsh reality of a compassionless industry.
Most of the time, it's just the intended, pre-meditated, calculated, and very painful --- dismembering or other cruel torture and killing of a very healthy and often very viable member of the human race.
If you killed your animal this way, without anaesthetic or other painkiller, the RSPCA would charge you - you be jailed or fined for "cruelty to animals".
But so long as its a human, its ok. At least, as long as the human has no voice and can't defend itself.
Or at least, as long as we can by some way or other get away with it... (and "legal protection" provides such a way)
---
But look at their idiotic contradictions!
"Sexual and reproductive rights", for all!
Where are the sexual and reproductive rights of the girl they killed?
That baby, supposedly, has the same sexual and reproductive rights as anyone else. After all - that's the point of a "right" - it's universal - everyone gets it.
But mercilessly slaughtered, that "right" has been stolen from the girl.
Oh - and let me talk about "sexual rights". They insist that I have the right to choose when, where, with whom, and even if I will have sex, but only so long as I am engaging in sex with someone else who is equally willing.
In other words - they claim that the will of the individual is supreme, that a person's choice or desire or intention to have sex with another is of cosmic importance, and if the other is willing, no-one should stop them.
But if this sexual right is so fundamental, so powerful, so intrinsic to humanity and life itself, then why are we denying our babies the chance to utilise this right?
If we deny them the chance to grow and mature physically, we deny them the right to exercise their "sexual and reproductive rights".
So much for abortion promoting rights. It destroys them.
---
And look at this :
At a youth caucus meeting, organizers refused to incorporate pro-abstinence suggestions from a group of over 20 pro-life youths. One pro-life student told the Friday Fax, “I don’t know which youth they represent, but they don’t speak for me or any of my friends that are here.”
So much for "representing us". Apparently your voice is only important if you agree with their predetermined agenda... nice.
---
What to do?
* Pray specifically. That God changes hearts. That people have compassion for ALL humans - including the unborn. That the idiocy that is the pro-death movement will be shown to be compassionless, contradictory, and based on bad science and bad philosophy. That UN officials will choose life or be replaced promptly. That US judges and lawmakers and law enforcers will see the importance of valuing life at EVERY age. That the US population would be unblinded and outraged at the holocaust within.
* Continue to speak. They can ignore. But the more of us speak and the more often, the harder and harder it will be. They will try every threat and trick in the book to silence us, but if no-one else speaks for the innocents they slaughter (who cannot speak for themselves, except by writhing in pain during "procedures", and crying themselves to terminal sleep when they "survive the procedure") - if no-one else speaks for them, they will never be spoken for. Oh - and they will not be the last innocents to be mass-slaughtered...
Women's Rights & equal responsibility
Let's get a few things straight.
Whoa a minute. Biblically speaking, the man is 100% responsible for every aspect of family life. Biblically speaking, the man is responsible for providing food, clothing, and everything else that he, his wife, and his children, need. He is also responsible for overseeing their education, including the selection of appropriate tutors and training courses. Even yes the cleaning is the man's responsibility, if you comprehend Scripture correctly.
The role of the wife? Be the husband's helper.
There is not an "equal sharing of responsibilities between men and women" - and nature teaches us that there cannot ever be - and Scripture teaches us that there is not to be.
Nature teaches us - it is IMPOSSIBLE for a man to carry the unborn child, or give it birth, or truly breast-feed it. But according to the UN CSW, aren't we supposed to share this responsibility equally - because all responsibility is to be shared equally? It's impossible! Ah - in other words, right from the word go, the theory fails. But they'll still cling to it with everything they have.
The Bible teaches us - all responsibilities in the home are the man's responsibility - the woman is but a helper. There is no Biblically-legislated "his tasks" vs "her tasks" - he is responsible for them all, and she helps him discharge his duty. But again, nature shows us that women tend to find it easier to focus on the nurturing-oriented roles.
If one man happens to have no children, and happens to run a cattle ranch with 3,000 head of cattle, he is responsible for every aspect of the home. His wife's help may come in the form of flying their little helicopter to check the fencelines every week. i.e. the natural disposition towards the more nurturing-oriented tasks is not a prohibition against a woman helping her husband in any manner she is capable of.
But the buck still does stop - even for meals and cleaning - with the husband.
Continue reading - Women's Rights & Safe Abortion...
This week at the United Nations (UN), thousands of activists, government officials and UN officials gathered in New York for the annual Commission on the Status of Women (CSW). While the theme for the conference is “The equal sharing of responsibilities between women and men, including caregiving in the context of HIV/AIDS,” several countries and non-government organizations (NGOs) have used the annual meeting as a soapbox to promote radical ideas on homosexual rights, abortion and sex education. (emphasis mine)
Whoa a minute. Biblically speaking, the man is 100% responsible for every aspect of family life. Biblically speaking, the man is responsible for providing food, clothing, and everything else that he, his wife, and his children, need. He is also responsible for overseeing their education, including the selection of appropriate tutors and training courses. Even yes the cleaning is the man's responsibility, if you comprehend Scripture correctly.
The role of the wife? Be the husband's helper.
There is not an "equal sharing of responsibilities between men and women" - and nature teaches us that there cannot ever be - and Scripture teaches us that there is not to be.
Nature teaches us - it is IMPOSSIBLE for a man to carry the unborn child, or give it birth, or truly breast-feed it. But according to the UN CSW, aren't we supposed to share this responsibility equally - because all responsibility is to be shared equally? It's impossible! Ah - in other words, right from the word go, the theory fails. But they'll still cling to it with everything they have.
The Bible teaches us - all responsibilities in the home are the man's responsibility - the woman is but a helper. There is no Biblically-legislated "his tasks" vs "her tasks" - he is responsible for them all, and she helps him discharge his duty. But again, nature shows us that women tend to find it easier to focus on the nurturing-oriented roles.
If one man happens to have no children, and happens to run a cattle ranch with 3,000 head of cattle, he is responsible for every aspect of the home. His wife's help may come in the form of flying their little helicopter to check the fencelines every week. i.e. the natural disposition towards the more nurturing-oriented tasks is not a prohibition against a woman helping her husband in any manner she is capable of.
But the buck still does stop - even for meals and cleaning - with the husband.
Continue reading - Women's Rights & Safe Abortion...
Friday, 23 January 2009
Deflation is upon us
Inflation limits your buying options.
Deflation increases them.
Inflation makes the dollar in your hand worth less relative to the goods & services you may wish to consume.
Deflation makes it worth more.
What most people forget is that neither inflation nor deflation ever work uniformly across an economy. Different sectors of an economy - and even individual businesses (and thus individual products and services) all respond to the same inflationary/deflationary forces in a staggered manner, with prices in one sector increasing/decreasing before other sectors are affected.
Various governments have verbally committed themselves to "fighting deflation" (why? - but that's another story...).
The point of my present article is simply to show that deflation has already set in, and quite strongly so.
Oh - perhaps the "feds" will successfully "fight deflation", and bring inflation back online. But it'll take a while. And in the meantime, deflation is here, and some places in a big way.
Example : Flights from Melbourne, Australia to Auckland, New Zealand - cost around $550 return just 12 months ago (purchased in advance, low season). Today, all taxes, fees and surcharges inclusive, you can buy the same flight for $254. The cheapest I ever saw such flights was around $450 - and that was ten years ago. So $254 return is practically unheard of.
But that is only representative of an incredible collapse in flight prices across the board. A year ago one would not have imagined such cheap flights - cheaper than I have ever previously seen.
Every airline is participating.
This means that the purchasing power of the Australia dollar has increased relative to the services offered in one sector of the Australian market. And not a small increase either - up to 100% increase.
This is powerful deflation.
Retailers are seeing fewer customers.
Their response?
Run more sales, give bigger discounts.
The effect?
The same dollar can now buy more.
Or stated more technically : "The purchasing power of the dollar has increased."
In a word : deflation.
House prices are lowering. Oh - in Australia, they've been hit (so far) very mildly - but decline they have. Maybe only around 5% across the board. But what is this? Fewer Australian dollars are required to purchase an Australian house.
i.e. the purchasing power of the Australian dollar has increased.
i.e. deflation.
Note that deflation hits different sectors of the economy at different rates. Flights : 50% deflation. Houses : 5%. And individual suburbs will vary - some have (reportedly) even increased in value.
In other words : deflation is inherently non-uniform. It works its way across the economy in fits and starts.
But it definitely is here.
And in a big way.
And it'll take a mighty big "stimulus" from governments to stop it. (But again, why not let it run its course, instead of "fighting it"? - but that's a story for another day...)
And if the governments do succeed in creating such an immense stimulus in the short term that a massive tide of deflation is reversed... then we will overshoot heavily into inflationary territory. Or so I speculate...
At any rate, it's kinda fun to watch... :o)
Deflation increases them.
Inflation makes the dollar in your hand worth less relative to the goods & services you may wish to consume.
Deflation makes it worth more.
What most people forget is that neither inflation nor deflation ever work uniformly across an economy. Different sectors of an economy - and even individual businesses (and thus individual products and services) all respond to the same inflationary/deflationary forces in a staggered manner, with prices in one sector increasing/decreasing before other sectors are affected.
Various governments have verbally committed themselves to "fighting deflation" (why? - but that's another story...).
The point of my present article is simply to show that deflation has already set in, and quite strongly so.
Oh - perhaps the "feds" will successfully "fight deflation", and bring inflation back online. But it'll take a while. And in the meantime, deflation is here, and some places in a big way.
Example : Flights from Melbourne, Australia to Auckland, New Zealand - cost around $550 return just 12 months ago (purchased in advance, low season). Today, all taxes, fees and surcharges inclusive, you can buy the same flight for $254. The cheapest I ever saw such flights was around $450 - and that was ten years ago. So $254 return is practically unheard of.
But that is only representative of an incredible collapse in flight prices across the board. A year ago one would not have imagined such cheap flights - cheaper than I have ever previously seen.
Every airline is participating.
This means that the purchasing power of the Australia dollar has increased relative to the services offered in one sector of the Australian market. And not a small increase either - up to 100% increase.
This is powerful deflation.
Retailers are seeing fewer customers.
Their response?
Run more sales, give bigger discounts.
The effect?
The same dollar can now buy more.
Or stated more technically : "The purchasing power of the dollar has increased."
In a word : deflation.
House prices are lowering. Oh - in Australia, they've been hit (so far) very mildly - but decline they have. Maybe only around 5% across the board. But what is this? Fewer Australian dollars are required to purchase an Australian house.
i.e. the purchasing power of the Australian dollar has increased.
i.e. deflation.
Note that deflation hits different sectors of the economy at different rates. Flights : 50% deflation. Houses : 5%. And individual suburbs will vary - some have (reportedly) even increased in value.
In other words : deflation is inherently non-uniform. It works its way across the economy in fits and starts.
But it definitely is here.
And in a big way.
And it'll take a mighty big "stimulus" from governments to stop it. (But again, why not let it run its course, instead of "fighting it"? - but that's a story for another day...)
And if the governments do succeed in creating such an immense stimulus in the short term that a massive tide of deflation is reversed... then we will overshoot heavily into inflationary territory. Or so I speculate...
At any rate, it's kinda fun to watch... :o)
Monday, 11 August 2008
Economics
Modern economic theory is the voice of fools trying to create absolute certainty in a world where uncertainty is inherent and inescapable.
The Marxists try to create absolute certainty of income to every worthy citizen.
They fail.
More recently, the Greenspans pronounce they have perfected economic theory, and that we will never experience a major recession again.
It sounds ominously like the makers of the Titanic, who purportedly quipped that even God Himself couldn't sink it.
God didn't bother. It only took an iceberg.
Even as Greenspan utters his senseless rhetoric, a great gaping hole has been ripped in the side of the ship of the U.S. Economy.
So much for certainty.
Some things are inherently uncertain.
Minimise the uncertainty, sure. But you're an idiot if you think you can eliminate it.
Life is uncertain. Always has been. Always will be.
Those who thrive will be those who learn how to live with inherent uncertainty.
My own wife was desperately impatient to find out if she's pregnant or not.
Waiting until five days before the first missed period to use the pregnancy test was just too painfully long.
Others, for thousands of years, amazingly managed to wait for days after the missed period, and even then not be totally sure.
And amazingly, the human race survived.
What's wrong with not knowing for a while?
What's wrong with finding out a little down the track?
Science can tell us more things sooner, but we're less patient than ever, even for the things that we can find out quicker than ever before!
The real problem is that patience requires trust. Trust that things will work out OK.
The more you trust, the less a bit of wild uncertainty will bother you.
But what's to trust?
For Greenspan and Marx, not much. Human incisiveness. That's about all.
If I can't trust that somehow, things will work out OK, then I have to force things to work out OK. Without trust, fear compels us to convince ourselves that we've worked God out of the picture, and that our clever policies or special programmes will guarantee the end result.
At such times, God doesn't need to lift a finger. Nature itself comes and devastates our plans. Or God rewards us with the fruit of our own ideas. We got what our programmes guaranteed us. Only it wasn't what we thought.
Amidst the wash of competing ideas, there is one idea that holds true. It doesn't guarantee fiscal success to every applicator. But it does guarantee general success, societal success, success over time to the vast majority of average adherents. And even for what few don't "succeed", it does provide a place. And not a place of exploitation. A system where all can prosper, and if any don't, they still are cared for.
The idea is embodied in the Biblical principles of economics. Ideas as old as the world itself, but as relevant as the sun.
Give. Create. Produce. Invest.
Avoid debt like the plague.
Treat others in all transactions as you would want them to treat you.
There is enough to go around. And Biblical principles would go a long way to ensuring all are fed.
In fact, they'd guarantee it. If only we all followed them. But of course we won't.
God's idea of certainty is "do it My way, and I'll see to it that your needs are met as I see fit".
But we don't like that.
"If it doesn't involve a fixed salary, a certain quality of goods on my table, and a night at the theater at least twice a month, I'm not interested."
We want our T.V.
But more than that, we want to see the mechanisms by which our livelihood will be preserved indefinitely into the future.
If we can't see it, we don't trust that God can figure it out.
So we resort back to our halls of folly, fiddling with numbers, debating ideas, creating "perfect" systems that fail catastrophically, time and again.
Uncertainty is inherent. God promises to provide - if we follow His ways - and that provision does not necessarily mean we'll get exactly what we want, and it especially means we will not always be able to see where tomorrow's food will come from!
So we have a choice :
- do it God's way? Inherent uncertainty but the certainty of overall progress and God's provision at least for our most elementary needs - not necessarily enough to keep us in the manner to which we've become accustomed! But an environment in which goodwill, companionship and universal charity prevail.
- or follow yet another scheme, supposedly destined to give us certainty at the level of comfort we set for ourselves, without reliance on an external God. Nice idea. Never works in practice. Death and misery are the common results.
So what are these "God's ways" of economics that supposedly lead us to a higher plane if applied universally and consistently?
I thought you'd never ask.
They're principles that I apply in my business and family life. And so do thousands of others.
They don't work overnight miracles. But they do work lifetime cures, and intergenerational and societal transformation.
It involves looking at how God designed things, and - shock-of-shocks - actually fitting in to the overall design, instead of fighting against it!
* God never designed man to be in debt. Avoid it. (In stark contrast, every modern monetary system is predicated on debt.)
* God never designed man to be lazy. Get up and invent something. Or help someone else. There is unlimited potential wealth if we would all just rally to a good cause - whether the menial cause of growing vegies for ourselves and our neighbours, or the mammoth cause of fighting the exploitation of women. If you don't know where to start, just start somewhere! Take initiative, and support others in their initiatives.
* Consume moderately.
* Produce more than you consume, and give and sell and save the balance. Savings are not selfish - they increase your ability to help others around you - whether by direct gifts at times when their own resources are insufficient, or by investment in production infrastructure which results in greater production output which results in more to give.
* Respect the land. Grow some of your own vegies. Plant some fruit trees. Support natural and organic farming methods. God designed us to live off well-balanced land. Treat land in the way God designed!
* Give. You never have too little to share.
* Follow God's principles of morality. Murder and other crimes bring natural and supernatural retribution. You might not believe it, but history shows it. Innocent blood defiles land. Kill innocents -> nation ruined. Cambodia. Russia - with all of Stalin's purges. Nazi Germany and Germany's current economic misery. Oh - don't get me wrong. There are myriad factors involved. But morality is certainly one of them. And God's morality was designed for optimal human health and happiness.
* Whatever you want people to do to you, treat them the same way.
And there are many more, or at least, the preceding could be broken down into many sub-points.
If we live as God intended, we can embrace life's inherent uncertainty with the certainty that in the end, everything will work out OK. Fight that, and your "certain" castles will sink in the sand.
The Marxists try to create absolute certainty of income to every worthy citizen.
They fail.
More recently, the Greenspans pronounce they have perfected economic theory, and that we will never experience a major recession again.
It sounds ominously like the makers of the Titanic, who purportedly quipped that even God Himself couldn't sink it.
God didn't bother. It only took an iceberg.
Even as Greenspan utters his senseless rhetoric, a great gaping hole has been ripped in the side of the ship of the U.S. Economy.
So much for certainty.
Some things are inherently uncertain.
Minimise the uncertainty, sure. But you're an idiot if you think you can eliminate it.
Life is uncertain. Always has been. Always will be.
Those who thrive will be those who learn how to live with inherent uncertainty.
My own wife was desperately impatient to find out if she's pregnant or not.
Waiting until five days before the first missed period to use the pregnancy test was just too painfully long.
Others, for thousands of years, amazingly managed to wait for days after the missed period, and even then not be totally sure.
And amazingly, the human race survived.
What's wrong with not knowing for a while?
What's wrong with finding out a little down the track?
Science can tell us more things sooner, but we're less patient than ever, even for the things that we can find out quicker than ever before!
The real problem is that patience requires trust. Trust that things will work out OK.
The more you trust, the less a bit of wild uncertainty will bother you.
But what's to trust?
For Greenspan and Marx, not much. Human incisiveness. That's about all.
If I can't trust that somehow, things will work out OK, then I have to force things to work out OK. Without trust, fear compels us to convince ourselves that we've worked God out of the picture, and that our clever policies or special programmes will guarantee the end result.
At such times, God doesn't need to lift a finger. Nature itself comes and devastates our plans. Or God rewards us with the fruit of our own ideas. We got what our programmes guaranteed us. Only it wasn't what we thought.
Amidst the wash of competing ideas, there is one idea that holds true. It doesn't guarantee fiscal success to every applicator. But it does guarantee general success, societal success, success over time to the vast majority of average adherents. And even for what few don't "succeed", it does provide a place. And not a place of exploitation. A system where all can prosper, and if any don't, they still are cared for.
The idea is embodied in the Biblical principles of economics. Ideas as old as the world itself, but as relevant as the sun.
Give. Create. Produce. Invest.
Avoid debt like the plague.
Treat others in all transactions as you would want them to treat you.
There is enough to go around. And Biblical principles would go a long way to ensuring all are fed.
In fact, they'd guarantee it. If only we all followed them. But of course we won't.
God's idea of certainty is "do it My way, and I'll see to it that your needs are met as I see fit".
But we don't like that.
"If it doesn't involve a fixed salary, a certain quality of goods on my table, and a night at the theater at least twice a month, I'm not interested."
We want our T.V.
But more than that, we want to see the mechanisms by which our livelihood will be preserved indefinitely into the future.
If we can't see it, we don't trust that God can figure it out.
So we resort back to our halls of folly, fiddling with numbers, debating ideas, creating "perfect" systems that fail catastrophically, time and again.
Uncertainty is inherent. God promises to provide - if we follow His ways - and that provision does not necessarily mean we'll get exactly what we want, and it especially means we will not always be able to see where tomorrow's food will come from!
So we have a choice :
- do it God's way? Inherent uncertainty but the certainty of overall progress and God's provision at least for our most elementary needs - not necessarily enough to keep us in the manner to which we've become accustomed! But an environment in which goodwill, companionship and universal charity prevail.
- or follow yet another scheme, supposedly destined to give us certainty at the level of comfort we set for ourselves, without reliance on an external God. Nice idea. Never works in practice. Death and misery are the common results.
So what are these "God's ways" of economics that supposedly lead us to a higher plane if applied universally and consistently?
I thought you'd never ask.
They're principles that I apply in my business and family life. And so do thousands of others.
They don't work overnight miracles. But they do work lifetime cures, and intergenerational and societal transformation.
It involves looking at how God designed things, and - shock-of-shocks - actually fitting in to the overall design, instead of fighting against it!
* God never designed man to be in debt. Avoid it. (In stark contrast, every modern monetary system is predicated on debt.)
* God never designed man to be lazy. Get up and invent something. Or help someone else. There is unlimited potential wealth if we would all just rally to a good cause - whether the menial cause of growing vegies for ourselves and our neighbours, or the mammoth cause of fighting the exploitation of women. If you don't know where to start, just start somewhere! Take initiative, and support others in their initiatives.
* Consume moderately.
* Produce more than you consume, and give and sell and save the balance. Savings are not selfish - they increase your ability to help others around you - whether by direct gifts at times when their own resources are insufficient, or by investment in production infrastructure which results in greater production output which results in more to give.
* Respect the land. Grow some of your own vegies. Plant some fruit trees. Support natural and organic farming methods. God designed us to live off well-balanced land. Treat land in the way God designed!
* Give. You never have too little to share.
* Follow God's principles of morality. Murder and other crimes bring natural and supernatural retribution. You might not believe it, but history shows it. Innocent blood defiles land. Kill innocents -> nation ruined. Cambodia. Russia - with all of Stalin's purges. Nazi Germany and Germany's current economic misery. Oh - don't get me wrong. There are myriad factors involved. But morality is certainly one of them. And God's morality was designed for optimal human health and happiness.
* Whatever you want people to do to you, treat them the same way.
And there are many more, or at least, the preceding could be broken down into many sub-points.
If we live as God intended, we can embrace life's inherent uncertainty with the certainty that in the end, everything will work out OK. Fight that, and your "certain" castles will sink in the sand.
Saturday, 26 July 2008
Faith On Film Festival
So me an' my newly wed got ourselves over to the Faith On Film festival to watch The Disposable Ones and Trade.
Trade. Watch it.
Or don't.
The Disposable Ones. Don't watch it.
But Trade...
... watch it.
Or don't.
See, it's rated R18+. And it does contain some short snippets of nudity. And it does portray ("without showing anything") an act of rape.
So in fact, it's not all rosy.
But then again, neither are the facts on which the movie is based.
50,000 to 100,000 young women are kidnapped and smuggled into the USA every year, as sex slaves.
Never to see their family again.
Never to have a family of their own.
Never to work the jobs they want, or visit the places they want.
Never to choose whom they'll have sex with, or when.
Never to see the light of day, except when their captors want.
50,000 to 100,000 of them.
Every year.
"Trade" is not for everyone.
But it may be for you.
Watch it.
Or don't.
http://www.movieschangepeople.com/
Trade. Watch it.
Or don't.
The Disposable Ones. Don't watch it.
But Trade...
... watch it.
Or don't.
See, it's rated R18+. And it does contain some short snippets of nudity. And it does portray ("without showing anything") an act of rape.
So in fact, it's not all rosy.
But then again, neither are the facts on which the movie is based.
50,000 to 100,000 young women are kidnapped and smuggled into the USA every year, as sex slaves.
Never to see their family again.
Never to have a family of their own.
Never to work the jobs they want, or visit the places they want.
Never to choose whom they'll have sex with, or when.
Never to see the light of day, except when their captors want.
50,000 to 100,000 of them.
Every year.
"Trade" is not for everyone.
But it may be for you.
Watch it.
Or don't.
http://www.movieschangepeople.com/
Saturday, 9 February 2008
Why betrothal?
Short answer : Because this is the relationship between Christ and His bride, and because human marriages are explicitly intended by God to reflect Christ's marriage.
Christ has made an irrevocable commitment to His bride, and His bride is irrevocably promised to Him in marriage. The wedding feast has not yet taken place. The marriage is not yet consummated. Christ waits patiently and eagerly for the day He comes to claim His bride.
Right now, Christ is in Heaven, preparing a place for His bride.
He can return at any time.
He will return.
This is the explicit Scriptural teaching of the relationship between Christ and His bride (the Church). It also exactly fits the Scriptural clues as to the definition of betrothal.
Caveat : Does this mean that any Christian who chooses engagement instead of betrothal is sinning? No. But does it mean that Christians who wish to honour the Lord in this way can do so by way of an irrevocable engagement, also known as a betrothal? Yes.
Christ has made an irrevocable commitment to His bride, and His bride is irrevocably promised to Him in marriage. The wedding feast has not yet taken place. The marriage is not yet consummated. Christ waits patiently and eagerly for the day He comes to claim His bride.
Right now, Christ is in Heaven, preparing a place for His bride.
He can return at any time.
He will return.
This is the explicit Scriptural teaching of the relationship between Christ and His bride (the Church). It also exactly fits the Scriptural clues as to the definition of betrothal.
Caveat : Does this mean that any Christian who chooses engagement instead of betrothal is sinning? No. But does it mean that Christians who wish to honour the Lord in this way can do so by way of an irrevocable engagement, also known as a betrothal? Yes.
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