Stephen Roney's Blog, page 199

Are You Going to Hell?

 

In the video clip. A college student asks Frank Turek whether she is going to hell. 

Turek of course does not want to say so. He dodges the question. But in fact, she is a good example of someone bound for hell.

She says she is a “good” person. She of course hopes this is sufficient. But her definition of “good” is “according to the standards of our society,” and in the expectation that others will treat her the same.

This is what the Bible condemns in the passage 

 “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. 14 But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.”

Doing whatever society expects is an abdication of moral responsibility. It is taking society and your own well-being as God. Idolatry is a far graver sin than lying, theft, or murder.

Speaking of which, some of my students troubled me recently. The text was on lying. And the book asked the question, “Is it ever all right to lie?” 

“Sure,” they answered. “If nobody finds out.”

At the beginning of the clip, Turek has just asked the student, “If God exists and if Christianity were true, would you become a Christian?” 

She answers “there is no proof that I would be able to accept.” 

When he offers her a book to read on condition that she promise to read it, she at first will not do so. I wonder if Turek meant this as a test. It demonstrates that she is not looking for the truth.

This is the essential qualification for heaven. This is what true faith means: to seek truth. The Christian God is “the way, the truth, and the light.” 

Not wanting truth means rejecting God. And Turek is right in his definition of heaven: heaven is the presence of God, hell is the absence of God. If we reject God in life, we choose for ourselves to go to hell.

I suspect in the end this woman will find her way. I sense a tremor in her voice when she asks about hell. She finally does promise to read the book. Part of her is seeking; otherwise, she would not have come to the talk. She is at least hearing the voice of her good angel.

It is those who will not read the book if offered, who are surely going to hell.

Each of us, before our deaths, perhaps gets that offer.

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Why Germany Started World War Two

 

Useful and I think accurate background for why Hitler started World War Two. I suspect the situation for China today is similar.

'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.

The Coming Holocaust

 

The Economist has published an alarming analysis of the situation of Taiwan.

Apparently, China has established naval dominance in the Eastern Pacific. The proximity of the Chinese mainland ensures air dominance over Taiwan. This dominance cannot be reduced without bombing the Chinese mainland. 

American wargaming now shows the Chinese winning any confrontation with the US over Taiwan.

The Economist, as always, is relatively sanguine about the prospects. Why would China risk upsetting the global applecart so long as the situation for them is improving year over year?

I am less sanguine. If this were their calculus, why march in and take Hong Kong? Why rattle sabres in the South China Sea? Why cross the Zone of Actual Control with India?

It is not clear that things are really improving for China year over year. The calculation in Beijing may be the opposite: that things are likely to collapse unless something is done to reshuffle the deck. 

What is really going on in China in economic terms has never been transparent. We must rely on government reporting on their own performance. It seems likely the figures are fake. The prosperity is real, so long as everyone thinks it is real. But it can pop like a soap bubble.

China is progressively less competitive on their prime advantage, cheap labour. Without that, can they compete with the West on innovation and efficiency? I suspect a centrally-planned society intrinsically cannot. The officials in Beijing see the real accounts, and they may look grim.

This, after all, is the obvious explanation for the rapid rise of Xi Jinping’s totalitarian domestic policies. The government feared unrest. Loosening up failed to save the old Soviet regime in Russia; they were determined to do the opposite. 

The Soviet Union hit a wall and collapsed: this seems to have been because their economy was all smoke and mirrors. Nazi Germany faced the same dilemma: their impressive economic performance towards the end of the 1930s was based on cooking the books and printing money. Hitler had no choice but to invade neighbouring countries and seize assets to meet the next payroll or debt repayment.

Xi’s China may be in the same situation. They may have taken Hong Kong because they needed the assets. They may have been probing for weakness elsewhere.

They may see a pressing need to take Taiwan.

Taiwan is the world’s largest chipmaker. That is an immense asset. China could rule the market in high-tech.

For this reason, taking Taiwan could also change the balance of power globally. According to someone The Economist quotes, losing Taiwan could be “America’s Suez,” the effective end of US dominance.

In other words, the stakes are gigantic, for both China and the US. The stage is perfectly set for a serious, total war; for neither side can easily accept defeat.

And it would probably be a world war. Australia, India, Japan, are also necessarily deeply concerned should China come to dominate. Britain and France have also recently signaled their concern, sending warships to the area. Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia, South Korea, Canada, would probably also join an American-led anti-Chinese coalition.

China may bank on the West being too decadent to pull themselves together to resist. And they may be right, Ominously, a poll suggests only 50% of the Taiwanese themselves are prepared to resist if China invades. 

But Hitler made the same calculation in 1939, and turned out to get wrong. Imperial Japan made the same calculation in 1941, and turned out to get wrong.

And we thought COVID was the big problem…

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The TED Commandments

 

TED Talks is reviving the vital art of the lecture. Lectures used to be popular entertainment--on the Chautaqua circuit, in the Medieval university. For years, teachers have been taught that lectures are boring. They are -- only if you do not know how to lecture.
Each prospective TED speaker is send these ten "TED Commandments." A decent guide for any lecturer. This is how to make a lecture interesting.
Thou Shalt Not Simply Trot Out thy Usual Shtick
Thou Shalt Dream a Great Dream, or Show Forth a Wondrous New Thing, Or Share Something Thou Hast Never Shared Before
Thou Shalt Reveal thy Curiosity and Thy Passion
Thou Shalt Tell a Story
Thou Shalt Freely Comment on the Utterances of Other Speakers for the Skae of Blessed Connection and Exquisite Controversy
Thou Shalt Not Flaunt thine Ego. Be Thou Vulnerable. Speak of thy Failure as well as thy Success.
Thou Shalt Not Sell from the Stage: Neither thy Company, thy Goods, thy Writings, nor thy Desparate need for Funding; Lest Thou be Cast Aside into Outer Darkness.
Thou Shalt Remember all the while: Laughter is Good.
Thou Shalt Not Read thy Speech.
Thou Shalt Not Steal the Time of Them that Follow Thee

'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.

Church Service Organizers

 

CBC’s The National last evening reported that two “church service organizers” in Calgary were arrested for violating lockdown orders. Global News reports the same.

“Church service organizer”? Why the awkward phrase, instead of the standard term, “pastor”?

Perhaps because the two were not ordained by any recognized large Christian denomination?

This is not required. Merriam-Webster defines “pastor” simply as “a spiritual overseer.” The Oxford English Dictionary has “A person who has the spiritual care of a body of Christians.” “Pastor” is the correct term here. 

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To Sir, With Love

 

We are at the point, in Canada, in America, in the UK, perhaps across the Western World, at which telling the truth is a dangerous, subversive, brave, even revolutionary act. 

But it is essential to keep telling the truth, whatever the consequences. Truth is of ultimate value. If we stop telling the truth, we have invalidated our very existence. Solzhenitsyn said, of the old Soviet Union, that if one day one man woke up determined to say nothing but the truth, the entire enterprise would have collapsed.

That’s where we are.

The obvious example is the one which brought Jordan Peterson to fame: that men are not women. We are now under tremendous pressure on this particular issue. We are not allowed to be neutral: we must endorse the view that men are women.

The second obvious example, in Canada, is the residential schools. We are not allowed to suggest that they were a good thing. Although we are obliged to agree that education is a good thing in all other cumstances.

But why these issue in particular? Of the infinite number of possible lies that can be told, why is all the electrical charge on these particular things?

If, after all, a real woman were addressed as “sir,” or “bro,” would she take great offense? Would this be considered a slur? That trans people do consider it so is a tacit admission that they are lying, and they know they are.

No—the issue is not “misgendering.” It is that one must explicitly endorse the premise that others have the right to lie, and further endorse the premise that those who lie have a right to silence those who seek truth.

A second clue is that this aggressive insistence on lying is focused on sex, and not, say, race, height, age, or weight. One is required to accept and vocally agree if a man says he is a woman; one is not required to accept and agree, at least not yet, if Rachel Dolezal says she is African, or if Elizabeth Warren says she is Indian, or if some sixteen-year-old insists she is eighteen.

That seems to suggest that the underlying truth people want to deny is sexual.

The second prominent aggressive lie is about Canada’s “First Nations.” It may not be so clear that this, too, is about sex; but it is. To our primitive minds, aboriginal culture is all about the absence of supposedly oppressive sexual mores. Accordingly, nothing bad must ever be spoken about aboriginal culture. To do so would be to criticize unrestricted sex.

We make much of missing and murdered aboriginal women. The cause is no mystery; but nobody is allowed to say it. These young girls were either abandoned, or forced to escape, by their birth families. A lack of sexual mores was the obvious problem. We are being forced to very publicly declare it was not. 

If aboriginal culture represents unrestricted sex, the residential schools represent the opposite. Because they were run by the churches, their primary intent, in the popular mind, has to have been to impose sexual morality. Or, using the standard euphemism, “erasing native culture.”

Our culture is going totalitarian and decadent, is actually prepared to destroy itself, in order to preserve sexual libertinage.

You, gentle reader, may be reacting badly to my bringing up sexual morality. Isn’t this “puritanism”? Isn’t it all nonsense and foolish inhibition? After all, who is harmed by a supposed sexual sin? Who’s the victim? 

The first and obvious answer is, the children. Sex is obviously designed, by God or by nature, for conceiving children. Engage in it randomly, and children are entirely liable to pop up. 

The initial premise behind the “sexual revolution” was that, with the new birth control pill, this connection had been broken, and we were now liberated to engage in recreational sex. 

That might have worked were birth control one hundred percent effective; but it is not. So free and unrestricted abortion became a thing: mass murder. And we are feeling deeply guilty, and in denial, about that.

But even aside from that, it is callous to suppose there is no victim. Recreational sex necessarily involves viewing another human being as a mere means for physical pleasure. Like we view a steak or a beer. On the unhappy chance that a given sex partner does not see themselves the same way, as a mere slab of meat, and does not see you the same way, as a slab of meat, you are hurting them emotionally, possibly gravely. Emotional blows are at least as cruel as physical blows, and can leave scars at least as deep.

It is time to sober up, gang.

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The Nuclear Age

 

Xerxes has seen an art exhibit on the theme of the nuclear age. He left angered, he reports, at Canada’s “complicity.” Canada; after all, was a participant in the Manhattan Project, The uranium used in the first bombs was mined in Canada, and refined in Canada.

But was unleashing the genie of nuclear power on balance a bad thing? This is far from self-evident, and an interesting question.

For example, when Canada joined in the Manhattan Project, circa 1942, there was good reason to believe that getting to the bomb first would be the difference between ending Nazism and surrendering the world to it--should they have gotten there first. Should any Canadian feel guilt? I think pride is more appropriate.

Today, many are concerned about global warming—even seeing it as some world-ending threat. Nuclear power is our best option to reduce greenhouse gases. Aside from being more practical, it is less harmful to the environment than any alternative. There is something to be said for cheap, clean, essentially unlimited power.

Of course, there is a risk of nasty accidents; that is an engineering challenge. Fire is risky in a similar way, but we have not refused to use it.

Then there is the horror of nuclear war. But even this, since 1945, has been only a theoretical danger. That’s a pretty good safety record in itself. It may be that the concept of “mutually assured destruction” was right: once both sides have nuclear weapons, there is essentially no chance of any high-intensity conflict. It would be suicidal, including for the leader who initiated it. In the first half of the last century, we had two devastating “world wars.” Right up to the invention of the bomb, it looked as though “total war” was going to become a permanent and escalating feature of our existence; the sides were already drawn up for the next big one. This is what Orwell predicted in 1984. It looks as though the bomb ended all that with an exclamation point.

Someday, someone in authority might make a miscalculation, or just not care anymore, and unspeakable devastation might result. But it seems possible that the bomb has been preventing unspeakable devastation for seventy years or so, and counting. That perhaps should be weighed in the balance.

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Racism in Canada

 

I am pleased to see that some farmers in the US are filing suit against the federal government for racial discrimination.

The problem is worse in Canada. The Trudeau government is blatantly setting tax funds aside for female-run and black-run businesses.

Unfortunately, while racial and sexual discrimination is ultimately illegal in the US, it is legal in Canada. The Canadian Constitution has a carve-out:

“Subsection (1) does not preclude any law, program or activity that has as its object the amelioration of conditions of disadvantaged individuals or groups including those that are disadvantaged because of race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability.”

As well as a separate carve-out for “aboriginal people.”

Any government can therefore discriminate against any group so long as they declare their intent to be to balance out some supposed advantage.

Hitler insisted that ethnic Germans were disadvantaged by the Jews in 1930s Germany. Mussolini insisted that Italians were disadvantaged as a nation in the 1920s. Jim Crow began in the US South because white Southerners saw themselves as disadvantaged by the North.

And so it goes.

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What Are those Three Little Pigs Really Afraid Of?

 

Odd that I had forgotten about “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf.” An eccentric friend just posted a belated review on his website; I’m grateful for the reminder of something that was once very important to me. When I applied to take a film course back at Queen’s, I cited it as one of my three favourite movies; the other two were “Bonnie and Clyde” and “2001: A Space Odyssey.”

The best thing about it was of course the dialogue. I love me that snappy dialogue. I also find the classical unities compelling, here as in “High Noon,” or “Culloden.” That is, events in the movie take place in real time, centre around the same action, and do not jump (rather than move) to another place. This gives an immediacy, like watching news live as it happens. 

I also think the acting was a tour de force, by Burton, Taylor, and Dennis. Especially Dennis.

I have actually met the stage manager for the original run of the play on Broadway. He scoffed at the movie, on the grounds that Taylor was miscast and just did not have the talent to hold up her end as Martha. A cheeky claim, considering that she won a Best Actress Oscar for the role. I think she went all out to prove she was more than just a pretty face, and she succeeded. I suspect my acquaintance just resented the greater fame of the movie version, with which he had no association. “You haven’t really seen it done right if you haven’t seen my version.” Burton is always compelling to watch, and is ideally cast as a history professor.

Although it was Mike Nichols’ directorial debut, I am amazed by his framing. Especially when George goes for the gun; that plays a lot like Hitchcock, the way Nichols uses depth of field to show different things happening in the foreground and background, the swinging light, the gun as it is revealed from under an old carpet, the living room seen from George’s perspective returning, the reaction shots, Martha’s face in closeup. And I think Nichols uses this to make us think we are about to see a Hitchcockian turn, an actual murder. Damn fine.

Watching it all again now, the one thing that doesn’t work for me—is really the most important thing of all. The ending.  The problem is, you cannot kill an imaginary character. George and Martha are not facing the cold light of dawn; mourning someone who never really existed is just continuing the fantasy. And logically, since it is a story, and utter improbabilities have already been allowed, and breaking of all conceivable rules, it would be perfectly easy for either George or Martha to declare that the report of Sonny Jim’s death was, after all, mistaken. 

Perhaps that was supposed to be the point, that there is no way out for them or for us, that there is no reality, only stories, that Godot does not come.

But if so, if everything is fantasy, why get so worked up in the first place? Why all the drama? Why not Buddhist detachment? One is left feeling cheated. It seems to me there really has to be a hard reality, something worth concealing. But in the movie or the play, we do not get to see what it is. It cannot be the death of an imaginary son, and it cannot be something so pedestrian as not having been able to have children.

I think Martha and Honey are very powerful portraits of two types of narcissism. George and Nick act out two roles family members take to try to cope with narcissism. This is, I think, what really most hooked me on the movie back in the day. I remember having seen it at least three times by second-year Queen’s; no small thing back before VHS or the Internet. Having grown up in a dysfunctional family, I recognized these people, knew them well, and the chaos they brought with them. It felt liberating to see it all portrayed on a big screen for the world to see. 

And yet, in the end, we do not see where this all comes from, or how it ends.

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The Road to Hell

 

Acts 4: 8-12

Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said: “Leaders of the people and elders:

9 If we are being examined today about a good deed done to a cripple, namely, by what means he was saved,

10 then all of you and all the people of Israel should know that it was in the name of Jesus Christ the Nazorean whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead; in his name this man stands before you healed.

11 He is the stone rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone.

12 There is no salvation through anyone else, nor is there any other name under heaven given to the human race by which we are to be saved.”

Lumen Gentium:

16. Finally, those who have not yet received the Gospel are related in various ways to the people of God. In the first place we must recall the people to whom the testament and the promises were given and from whom Christ was born according to the flesh. On account of their fathers this people remains most dear to God, for God does not repent of the gifts He makes nor of the calls He issues. But the plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator. In the first place amongst these there are the Muslims, who, professing to hold the faith of Abraham, along with us adore the one and merciful God, who on the last day will judge mankind. Nor is God far distant from those who in shadows and images seek the unknown God, for it is He who gives to all men life and breath and all things, and as Saviour wills that all men be saved. Those also can attain to salvation who through no fault of their own do not know the Gospel of Christ or His Church, yet sincerely seek God and moved by grace strive by their deeds to do His will as it is known to them through the dictates of conscience. Nor does Divine Providence deny the helps necessary for salvation to those who, without blame on their part, have not yet arrived at an explicit knowledge of God and with His grace strive to live a good life. Whatever good or truth is found amongst them is looked upon by the Church as a preparation for the Gospel. She knows that it is given by Him who enlightens all men so that they may finally have life. But often men, deceived by the Evil One, have become vain in their reasonings and have exchanged the truth of God for a lie, serving the creature rather than the Creator, Or some there are who, living and dying in this world without God, are exposed to final despair. Wherefore to promote the glory of God and procure the salvation of all of these, and mindful of the command of the Lord, "Preach the Gospel to every creature", the Church fosters the missions with care and attention.

An interesting theological back-and-forth on YouTube, based on last Sunday’s first reading, from Acts, given above. It is a topic of deep interest to me. For some years, I could not see myself as a Catholic due to the misunderstanding that the Church held that only Catholics could be saved. This is obviously wrong, and offensive. No just God would accept this. 

So I agree with Bishop Barron, and disagree with Father Goring, here. On the other hand, Bishop Barron is too eager to allow everyone into heaven. Dr. Martin adds a valuable corrective.

To accept Jesus as God is not simply to acknowledge “Jesus” as the name of God. This is silly and trivial. It is not to declare oneself Catholic without actually studying the teachings of the Church, and sincerely believing them. To do this is to follow the Evil One, having “exchanged the truth of God for a lie.”

Jesus is not just a guy. He is the Cosmic Christ: the Logos of creation. He is the Way, the Truth, and the Light. The person who follows Jesus and is a member of his Church is the person who sincerely and wholeheartedly seeks the way, the truth, and the light. 

Any nominal Catholic who has not made a sincere effort to examine the faith, or is not fully in agreement with it, is not Catholic, and is emphatically not saved. Conversely, any Muslim of Buddhist who has made a sincere effort to examine their faith, and is fully in agreement with it, and seeks wholeheartedly to do as it requires, is a true follower of Christ, a true Christian, and is saved. The Church is the community of believers, living and dead. These people are members in good standing.

Bishop Barron focuses on conscience: he seems to say that anyone who sincerely follows his conscience is saved. This is not true; I agree with Father Goring on this. As Dr. Martin points out, this overlooks the critical last three sentences of Lumen Gentium 16. One must not just seek the Good, but also Truth. 

Dr. Martin holds that the great majority of humanity is doomed to hell. He cites Matthew 7:

Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the way that leads to life, and only a few find it.

I’m not sure this is what that passage means. It means one must seek truth and morality for oneself, not simply do what those around you are doing. We must examine the stones the builders have rejected.

It does seem to me that most people avoid making choices about truth and morality by simply doing this, by going along to get along. Anyone who does this is condemned. They are not following God or Jesus: they are following society, profit and self-interest. 

This does appear to be the majority of mankind.

'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.