Search for Zach Vandermeer

That’s me with the really short hair and the glasses.

The eye alone cannot make the distinction between what it sees and what it does not see; the brain alone cannot make the distinction between consciousness and unconsciousness.  Put them together and you have neither strictly sight nor strictly consciousness.  You have something much greater than the sum of the parts.

So far we’ve learned that entering into structured relationships…

[Wrong…everyone knows that according to the doctrine of Total Depravity, truth must be bestowed, because it cannot be learned…human beings are intellectually incapable of learning truth by nature.]

…is critical for spiritual progress and those relationships need to be open, honest, and accepting.

[Traits, again, by nature impossible for those who are TOTALLY depraved.]

That’s the kind of environment that encourages us…

[Actually terrifies us, but we are too “re-educated” to know the difference.]

…to become all that God wants us to be.

[And apparently, God wants us to be DEAD, because the crux of this doctrine–and make no mistake–is the CATEGORICAL sacrifice of the individual SELF to the collective as ruled by His human proxies, which the unredeemed masses cannot, AGAIN, BY FUCKING NATURE, and shall not, distinguish from the real thing.]

But the journey from here to there will be far from smooth. The propensity to drift…

[Your “sin nature”…which, which the Bible never defines to my satisfaction, if I’m being honest.]

…is in all of us.  That’s another reason to live in community.

[Er…let me get this straight.  The reason to live in community is so that a bunch of totally depraved God-hating reprobates–who all have an equal measure (absolute measure) of the “propensity to drift” residing within them–will somehow, simply by being herded under one soaring, ostentatious roof with a giant LED screen in front with Big fucking Brother babbling on and on about our sacred duty to navel gazing and self-loathing, magically transmogrify into a fluffy, glittering pure white mist of of sweet-smelling holiness acceptable to God? My word…I cannot believe people fall for this codswallop; that I fell for it.  Crimey…He must be sick with  laughter. I mean, this is undeniable proof that human beings could not possibly have been created by God in the premeditated, determined sense. Who could worship a God who determines man to actively and methodically seek his own destruction?  For indeed, to purposely dismantle and consign to nothingness that which one purposely creates to in fact be something which is NOT nothing, is, I submit, impossible for God.  God cannot create something that is purposed to be nothing!  Which is what the doctrine of Total Depravity screams! He is NOT omnipotent thus, because He simply cannot do such a mad thing and rationally impossible thing; and this for the simple fact that God is neither insane nor a fucking idiot].

When we start to get off track…

[Inevitably, it is assumed…see? “When”, not “if”.  Speaks volumes.  I mean, really, this is Marxism 101 shit.  People are fuck-ups by nature, so we need to control them; compel-force-threaten–terrify–blackmail–them into “right” thinking and behavior. And to whom this task falls is a cosmic lottery, so to speak.  So who become these lucky royals and debs? Why, those who are called by the Primary Consciousness (that which “divinely” bestows the enlightened “Word”…the gnosis), of course.]

…,when commitment and conviction…

[To the ecclesiastical “authority”, who make a living pretending to be God.]

…start to wane, we need to be surrounded by people who will be there to pull us back.

[And since all the laity is Totally Depraved, even after salvation, the only ones in a position to “pull us back” are, again, the elders (or pastors, or priests, or whatever the fuck they call themselves these days in the protestant cults…whatever makes the totalitarianism easier to swallow) who ominously warn, “You better watch out; you better not cry; you better not shout; and you better damn tithe.]

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Now, here is the quote without the (much warranted) heckling from moi.

“So far we’ve learned that entering into structured relationships is critical for spiritual progress and those relationships need to be open, honest, and accepting.  That’s the kind of environment that encourages us to become all that God wants us to be.  But the journey from here to there will be far from smooth.  The propensity to drift is in all of us.  That’s another reason to live in community.  When we start to get off track.”

(p. 31, Community:  Your pathway to progress; North Point Ministries, 2008).

Keeping with the Total Depravity theme, and continuing with the most excellent and infinitely amusing pastime of bashing this bullshit doctrine to smithereens, let’s hone in on this manipulative doozy:

“The propensity to drift is in all of us.”

Bullshit!  How the fuck do they know?!  Have they met everyone in the whole world?!

Of course not. They are appealing to the mysticism which passes for “theology” in the Christian religion today (and, pretty much ALL days since, at the very least, Augustine).  The idea is that they have this “special knowledge” that is measured only by the yardstick of “infallible scripture”…which is really just an appeal to a particular interpretation of said scripture which they do not wish to defend, because it utterly defies reason and rational argument and they fucking know it:

“I know, let’s tell them our opinions are not really ours, but the Bible’s, which is code for “God’s”, which is code for “infallible”, which is code for “don’t disagree…don’t you dare”, which is code for… “die, heretic!”.”

All of this is first and foremost predicated upon the lie you are fed bit by bit from the day you were born until this: that you are metaphysically and thus epistemologically insufficient for apprehending and appropriating goodness or truth.  And this is the sum and substance of the doctrine of Total Depravity.  And it is used, to great and terrible effect, upon all men in all places of all creeds and all kings.

Thus, alakazam! Poof! (As John Immel says.) DISCIPLINE, PUNISHMENT, FEAR, COERCION!.  Which translated for the unreformed rebels among us is:  COMMUNITY, ACCOUNTABILITY, AUTHORITY, COVERING!  Which gets a full lathering and a fresh coat of calcimine in pretty little Marxist primers like “Community:  Your pathway to progress.” Sent out to quiet suburban neighborhoods everywhere. Devils as angels, and so it goes.

Welcome to the Christian Orthodox Ideal, circa United States, 2015.

Happy fucking new year.  Same as the old year.

“But if the only people in your circle are those who [sic] the wind blows your way, you run the risk of being pushed in directions you really don’t want to go.”

(Community:  Your pathway to progress, North Point Ministries, 2008, p. 17)

To begin, this question is deceptive because according to the group metaphysic to which the author(s) of this manifesto subscribe, there is no “risk”, there is only certainty.  Meaning, since your existence is only legitimate, efficacious, and actual as a direct function of the collective, you will pursue life and act in accordance with the dictates of the group.  There is no “risk” because there is no individual will.  Once you are in a group of “those the wind blows your way”, there is no maybe about it.  You will exist as a function of that group and do what that group does.  Period.  And you will then summarily become guilty of metaphysical insufficiency and moral depravity because this group of barbarian nomads is decidedly not the group which the author(s) of this primer declares is the only right group.  The assumption behind this question is that those people “blown your way” are indubitably an evil influence.  The only “good” collective is the church collective…specifically, the protestant reformed church collective.

In other words, you are either a member of the group they are espousing, or you are a member of an apostate group by default and bound for hell.  Never mind that YOU, in this metaphysic, do not exist at all and therefore it is impossible to argue that YOU will be eternally punished (for as the group rises, so the group falls…there is no individual suffering because there is no individual).  But remember, all the inconsistencies are forever punted into the cosmic abyss of God’s mystery.  All logical contradictions are only contradictions because you have not been given the grace to perceive God’s “real” truth, because you are epistemologically incapable of perception because you, individually, are totally depraved as a function of your root metaphysic.  So, in other words, shut the fuck up, do what your told, and leave the hard questions and paradoxes for the group leadership to understand, which has all divine authority over you, because they alone are standing in the stead of God.  Which literally means that they are God to you; there is no difference as far as you are concerned.

Nervous yet?  Sure you are…as you should be.

And finally, and most obviously, the idea that “the wind” indifferently blows people your way is a rank rejection of the reformed view of God’s sovereignty.  According to their determinist philosophy, not only does nothing happen which God does not ordain, but nothing happens which God does not specifically ordain for a specific purpose, which may or may not remain a mystery (well, at least in whole, for it is always a mystery in part) to those who are merely the vehicles (extensions) of His divine Will.  This means that it is then, by philosophical definition, impossible for you to randomly fall into some group by happenstance, blind fate, or even free choice (which you already know they categorically deny…even though they lie, or are ignorant, and say they don’t).  And again, this idea that things happen just because they happen even though God is “in control of all things” (and how often we are treated to that little gem of irrational thinking) is merely another paradox punted into oblivion, left to the pastors to apprehend for you.  You just gotta believe.  The acceptance of things as true which cannot possibly be true in any measure of human reality is a badge of holy faith, sure to bring the blessings of God immeasurably to all those who believe.

But of course since the root of reality is found in assertions which are mutually exclusive it makes it extremely dubious that you can or will possess the epistemological sufficiency to apprehend said blessings when they occur…but that’s not really your concern, either.  Your job again is simply to believe, by hook or crook, no matter what the consequence, and to never assume that you should ever know why you believe nor think that you should, nor have any right (because you are totally depraved) to, observe some kind of logical, and pleasant, outcomes of your faith.  For if the outcomes were logical then the belief would be logical, which means it would not be contradictory, which means it wouldn’t require much faith (again, these are the doctrinal assumptions of reformed “scholars”).  In other words, irrational faith will lead not to a logical outcome, but an irrational one, by definition.  And so any blessing derived from your faith will not be rationally observed.  Thus, you need to have that same blind faith to accept that the consequences will make sense, and be blessings to you, even though you cannot understand these blessings for the same reason you cannot understand the contradictions which form the root of what you are supposed to believe by faith.  And the reason is simply because you can’t understand.  Ever.  Because it is your very SELF which is depraved, wicked, flawed, and insufficient, and thus is categorically and perpetually exclusive of the morality and truth of God, by nature.

So the natural outcome of the reformed epistemology is belief for the sake of belief, and nothing more.  Thus, the ability to concede rationally and efficaciously impossible ideas is the pinnacle of collectivist enlightenment.

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“Simply put, your progress spiritually hinges on your willingness to enter into structured relationships with other believers…

…God works through relationships and that’s what this group is all about.  It’s about being part of a community.  It’s about doing life with a consistent group of people for the sake of spiritual progress.”

(Community:  Your pathway to progress, North Point Ministries, 2008, p. 18)

Since “spiritual progress” (whatever the fuck that means) is the only relevant progress, according to the “orthodox” Christian dualistic metaphysic, your worth, existentially speaking (meaning, as a function of your very being), is a direct function of not only relationships with other believers, but “structured relationships”.  Of course, this naturally begs the question:  Just what does “structured” mean in this context?  Because this word simply appears out of the blue, never mentioned in the preceding pages, and is given no attention once it is submitted.  The reader thus is left with the conspicuous absence of any meaningful definition of “structured”.  Nevertheless, I do not mind hazarding a guess…and truly even more than a guess, I would bet money, and I mean real money, that “structured” means “authority.  Which means a hierarchy of rulers, culminating in the Senior Pastor who possesses the full mandate of heaven to compel your behavior.  “Structured relationships” then is merely a euphemism…a Christian collectivist code for the massively unbiblical and downright villainous reformed doctrines of Authority and Submission.

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“Discussion: 

1.  Tell the group about one or two of your friends.  Why did you choose them?  What was the basis for your connection?”

(p. 19 of preceding citation)

My criticism of this section of the primer will not deal directly with it as it is stated.  Rather, I wish to discuss briefly the underlying authoritarian premise behind relationships amongst people in collectivist organizations, most conspicuously observed in the modern American neo-Calvinist movement:

No secrets.

That’s the rule which is the foundation of your relationship with the group and everyone in it.  But why is your life to be an open book to the group which claims proprietorship over it?

By now the answer should be obvious.  Your life is not your own, of course.  It belongs to the collective.  It IS the collective.  Any attempt to harbor a life of your own is likened to sinful deception and will get you labeled a subversive, and your personal life will be targeted mercilessly, and you will be hounded for information; and if you are not forthcoming and obedient, you will be summarily dismissed, ostracized, or worse, depending on how much destruction they think they can get away with.

As a member of the group in good standing you are obligated to disclose the deepest and most intimate aspects of your existence to people whom you may have only recently met.  How often have you been in a new church “home ” or “care” group and scarcely three or four meetings go by before the moderator begins to speak about the importance of “accountability”?

Incidentally, accountability is merely the protestant form of Confession.  But at any rate, ideally your accountability “partner” will be a member of the same care or home group, but must at least be a member of the same church.  By no means shall they be someone who attends a different “local” church; or worse, one who does not regularly attend church at all.  The purpose of keeping accountability “in house” ensures that your “areas of sin” or “struggles” are owned exclusively by the leadership of the church, tucked away for a rainy day, so to speak, brought up in case of church disciplinary actions or for convenient manipulation.  A great example of this is the outright blackmail of former Sovereign Grace Ministries (SGM) pastor, Larry Tomzcak, by SGM president C.J. Mahaney, whereby Mahaney threatened to go public with some very personal and intimate information concerning Tomzcak’s son.  The vicious evil of this kind of rank criminal behavior by church leadership, that is, the using confidential information to manipulate the behavior of church members and/or subordinate employees, should cause us all to shudder in fear and set our jaws in anger.

The moral is: think long and hard before agreeing to “be held accountable”.  You better believe that if you ever dare to threaten the reigning status, power, and wealth of the ecclesiastical authority you motherfucking will be.

But the point of a question like the one excerpted above is to surreptitiously teach you that there should be no pretense of self-ownership; which means that there shall be no pretense of any personal (read individual) context.  Once the group is made aware of the intimate details of your life, the group is at liberty to compel your responses in any and all contexts whereby those details have occurred (e.g. work life, family life, personal thoughts, dreams, desires, lusts, emotional struggles, even hobbies, likes, or sundry interests).  And remember–and this cannot be stated often enough–the point of suggesting you cough up the secret details of your life is for leverage, period.  There is no other rational reason…and there is certainly no Biblical reason for any of the people in these churches to know your personal business, period.  Full stop.  They are entitled to know nothing beyond what you freely choose to share; they haven’t the authority to demand to know what you fucking had for breakfast let alone your deepest emotional struggles.  And further, might I add that if the group is the only legitimate manifestation of your existence because it is the only means by which God has given to pursue your “spiritual progress” (again, whatever the fuck that means), and your spiritual progress is the only progress which matters, then your personal life, including your emotional struggles, is irrelevant.

Lay that shit on them the next time they ask you how your “quiet times” are going.  Or…you could say, “They are still very quiet, thanks, and I would prefer to keep them that way.” And conclude it by muttering (audibly, though) something to the effect of “nosy git”. 

And sure, you may lose your accountability partner, but on the upside you’ll finally get a bunch of pretentious tools to mind their own damn business for a change.

Last week I received this very honest and despondent comment from someone on the comments thread of another article.  I have kept even their pseudonym anonymous because I did not obtain direct permission to publish this as a separate post, and given the nature of the comment, I simply thought it considerate.  (I know that I don’t ask permission from other commenters to publish their contributions in articles, but the nature of those comments, compared to this, is usually quite different).

I have added my response to the body of the article, but I would love to get your counsel and opinions and ideas as well, because you have all, I think, experienced similar things, and each of us offer unique and personal insights which may very well be extremely enlightening to both this person and the rest of us.

And so, my brilliant readers, one and all, please add your two cents, or even a tithe, to this fellow victim of the philosophy which kills and wrecks, but which will never ultimately vanquish.  I say up the individual!  And let them who cry out for life and the God-ordained right to pursue the interest of the SELF without fear or shame or harm be validated, elevated, promoted, and affirmed, both by us and by the Divine, who continuously observes the distinction between Himself and His children, whom He loves because they are uniquely THEMSELVES, and their LIFE is theirs to live; and this the most beautiful gift!

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I am a survivor of a calvinist takeover in my church, and a husband who has became a narcissist. This has been a slow fade for about 10 years. He started attending a mens bible study which was teaching biblical manhood. He was taught that men were the head of the house, and their job was to make the wife and children submit. Even if the wife protests, she really does not mean it because she desires and want to have someone rule over her. Of course, this was packaged with a beautiful bow. It made the men think that having a family was like being the CEO of a company. The family did not have feelings or opinions, but they were to be managed like a company. I would try to express my feeling, hurts etc., and he would justify his behavior, twist and turn his words, lie, tell half truths, and finally say that I am unforgiving which means that I am the one with the problem. I would go away, pray, read my bible, cry out to God to change me and help me forgive him. I have even asked him to pray for me that I would be able to forgive him. The whole time he was guilty of the accused action , but he would never never never admit it. He let me suffer for years. How could someone say that they love you when they are willing and causing your suffering. I began to think I was crazy. I lost myself. I became depressed and gained a lot of weight. I was involved in a church that had a calvinist pastor who lied when he was hired. He knew the church he was going into was not reformed. The church ended up splitting, we left, but the abuse continues on. My job (according to this theology) was to never talk bad about him to anyone and to make him look good. I did my part, but I have recently found out that he threw me under the bus to my kids. He turned them against me by using brainwashing and subtle hints to accomplish this. If he wanted them to clean their rooms, he would not just tell them he would say, “Your mom is so tired, and you should not make her do all this work blah blah blah.” My kids were convinced that I was complaining to him, but I never did. He is a coward. This theology tears people and homes apart. They may look beautiful on the outside but the victims are just shells because the narcissist has snuffed out every bit of life from the family.”

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Welcome to the blog, and thank you for sharing. I know how hard it is to talk about these things and how difficult it can be to put into words. I think you will find many understanding voices on this blog; almost all of us, like you, have witnessed first hand the destruction Calvinism can wreak upon a church, and not the least of the fallout is the obliteration of individuals and their families, as you well describe. Indeed, the individual and the ones they love most are a purposefully chosen target of this vile doctrine.

I am terribly sorry for what has happened to you. But know this: you are not alone. Many of us have had our families and our psyches wrecked by this deceptive philosophy, and for as many as it spits out and destroys, that many are able to rise from the swaths of smoldering ashes it leaves behind as it attempts to cast the individual into the abyss of oblivion; an objective which it cannot ever truly or finally accomplish, as its foundations are dry sand, and brittle are the pillars which bulwark its assertions.  For its assertions need only a speck of the light of reason cast upon them, and the rest of the philosophy quickly flames and withers.  It burns bright for a moment, but it is the fire of mere kindling; for there is no substance to sustain it, so it is quickly snuffed out, offering neither lasting heat nor light.  Of this I am convinced.

And you must further understand that by simply questioning the lies…by seeing, though perhaps not altogether articulating, the contradictions and observing the massive discrepancies between what is taught and what is observed, you already know more than those who abuse you. You are already beginning your journey to recovery. Don’t stop. Don’t give up. And never forget that what you are rejecting, having witnessed its very real destruction and felt its very real pain, has nothing to do with the Christ they pretend to promote. It is a lie. It is unworkable. It is death worship. NEVER forget this. No matter how cleanly packaged and scrubbed the philosophy may be presented to you, it is no angel of light. On the contrary, It is an evil which rejects both God and man, and those who demand you concede its rule over you have NO interest in YOUR life; indeed, they reject it out of hand. You exist to be exploited and consumed for THEIR good pleasure, nothing more. And even if they themselves are too intellectually lazy or vacant to apprehend the depths of its evil, the reality is that by that very small, first glimpse of its dissonance, you have shown that you are absolutely not.  And though that first glimpse may seem small, you are already intellectually and philosophically and theologically and morally miles and miles ahead of those who sell their souls to Satan, and exchange truth for lies just to acquire a little comfort, a little momentary power.  They exchange perpetual heaven for brief flash of self-importance and the illusion of metaphysical superiority.  But you are NEVER obligated to participate in their make-believe; the cartoons which pass for legitimate interpretations of reality.  On the contrary, reason and morality demand that you reject it as patently false, and pursue, happily, your SELF as the only legitimate, God-affirmed metaphysic.

You are on the right track. Just never forget that YOU are good and YOU are SUPPOSED to exist as YOU, and that YOU and the pursuit of YOUR own life are necessary to truth, reason, and reality. YOU have nothing to be ashamed of. YOUR reflection in the mirror is God’s perfect will for you. Pursue that, and LIFE, even life eternal, shall be your reward.

Blessings to you,

Argo

I wasn’t going to go here, but things moved quickly for me today…I explain in the text below.  So, after working through a big issue today I figured I am in a position to post an explanation of what’s going on here, if that makes any sense.  Maybe it doesn’t.  Anyway, it’s nothing earth shattering, just…er, details I suppose.

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Thanks everyone for you kind words and encouragement. You guys are all great..and I mean you, too, Dee. 🙂

Nothing big is going on. I just have an awful lot of material here and I’m trying to decide where to focus the blog, or even if I need to focus it at all. Meaning, should I continue to do what I do here and just post whatever catches my fancy, or should I make a concerted effort to keep myself to some of what I consider my most pertinent themes and write articles specific to those themes, and little else?

The problem I’m having is, again, I have a LOT of content here at home that never makes it to the blog because I always seem to get “sidetracked” (by my own fickle attention span) into writing articles that are more impromptu…that is, written on the fly, as opposed to a concerted effort to post the stuff that I spend hours and hours both thinking about and also writing down in article form.

So, there’s that.

The other issue I was having is trying to decide who I thought my reader should be. I never stopped to think about what kind of “market” I’m going for. Not that I’m interested in the blog as a means of financial profit…that’s not what I mean by that at all.  I’m not in a position where that’s necessary (thankfully, because I’m not convinced it’s possible anyway…I’d have to go get a day job 🙂  ). I have a sugar momma for that, who sees fit to take care of my material needs because I watch the kids and do the homeschooling, and because she makes three times what I made doing what I used to do and loves her job where I hated mine.  So, we both win!  (But I have a doctorate and she only has a masters…so I win in the education category; that’s how my ego deals with that, LOL).

But I figured that if I could decide who I’m writing for it might help guide my content so that it isn’t so scattered.  (But the other issue is that I’m not sure that scattered is a bad thing.) Please know that I welcome ALL readers, of course…but I think having a specific audience in mind really helps to organize not only my article content but even the writing itself.

Today I solved that problem. I thought to myself: I don’t believe in “groups” except as an abstraction. So I stopped thinking of the “market” in terms of bunches of people and began to realize that everything is rooted in the individual, even an “audience” for a blog. For “groups” is merely how we conceptualize a specific number (also an abstract concept) of individuals (existential singularities of SELF). So I stopped asking myself which “group” should be the focus and began to ask myself which PERSON I am writing for. The answer came quickly: the people who already read here. People who are no longer interested in blindly accepting the philosophical ideas that pervade society and the world and which find their most abusive and oppressive conclusions, thanks to their obvious-but-sort-of-not inherent contradictions, in organized “orthodox” religion (specifically dealing with the neo-Calvinism movement, which I know WELL) and in government; and in some instances, even in personal relationships. People like me who for years have been told they are crazy and now are on a quest to determine if that really is so, or if there is something inherent in the thinking which disallows us to truly exist as a SELF, instead maintaining that we are nothing more (or should strive to be nothing more) than a “component” of some external standard (outside the existential singularity of SELF)…just because it is assumed that the people who are the “keepers” of the standard simply know better. People who wonder if “knowing better” is nothing more than conceding a bunch of fucking contradictions and then resorting to some form of violence to silence those who have the gumption to stand up and say, “Er, wait a minute…”.

So the problem of “who is the audience” was resolved very quickly, to my surprise, and happily so. That’s fully half the battle there, so I would think that this hiatus shouldn’t be very long. Perhaps a few days or a week or so to think about what I actually what to SAY to everyone now that I know who “everyone” is, so to speak. Do I want to continue to post seat-of-my-pants retorts to things I read on other blog articles, or responses to commenters (which are my favorite things to write), or should I discipline myself to post the material which I spend 90% of my time musing over and writing with the intention of posting but never sees the light of the LCD (I hand write most of my material…I just love to write with a pencil; something about being in elementary school…I miss those days)? Is that stuff of any interest to people? Too esoteric…theoretical…heavy? And should I care? It is important stuff…no, I wouldn’t be reserved in admitting that, but it may be dry…and why should that make a difference?  Where is the line between reader consideration and personal fulfillment in posting material I think is fresh and enlightening but which may not be appreciated by an audience who might (rightly and understandably) reject its…hmm, more clinical and less sardonic nature?

Anyway…that’s what’s going on. Like I said, nothing big, just a little administrative thinking with respect to where to take this thing, and how to get it there. I mean, I guess in the grand scheme of things it’s not a big deal; I’m not particularly popular relative to other blogs (DEE 🙂  ). Still, with the amount of time I invest in this thing I do want to try to get it as right as I can.

I will be taking a break from blogging for a while…the length of hiatus is not determined, however.

Thanks to all who read and share here.  Your contributions to this site are very much appreciated and very highly regarded.

I know I have a few articles with subsequent parts still pending.  I apologize for my truancy regarding their completion.  There’s a lot to think about and discuss and only so much time.  I hope to conclude them at some later date.

The blog is not closing…I am just taking a hiatus from posting new articles for the time being.

Very kind regards,

Argo

A reader here, Jason Coates, left this excellent observation in the comments thread of the last post:

This the church is not: “We are the Borg. Lower your shields and surrender your ships. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Your culture will adapt to service us. Resistance is futile.”

Sitting at a church conference this weekend I was not surprised to hear the WOF/Hillsong preacher start babbling on about the believer not being separated from church and the importance of tithing and rightful submission to apostles. These guys are from the Delta quadrant after all.

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Jason,

The Borg.  LOL.  That’s a good way of putting it.

The irony about the Borg…they say, as you quoted “we will add your…distinctiveness to our own.”  But the very fact that they feel it is their right to absorb you into their collective is proof that they, in fact, deny your distinctiveness.  They deny that you have any right to BE you, and instead declare that your existence is the sole property of them. That you don’t actually possess you; but that they possess you, which means that YOU don’t exist in the first place; which means that YOU, by definition, cannot be “distinct”.

Kinda like the local…

Wait.  Let’s think some more about this.  This is fascinating.  Jason, you’ve hit upon something here.

For all their “logic”, it came down to one thing only with the Borg:  force…which is violence.  They sounded impressive with their robotic voices and their unemotional waxing eloquent about their efficiency and power, but when the metaphysical assumptions are taken to their logical conclusion, the only thing the Borg really knew was that the the supreme ability to destroy is the root of existence.

That is…what they believed was that the destruction of all OTHERS is what leads to the perpetual existence of the SELF.  And what this really means is that death is the sole vehicle for life. That the creative process is accomplished solely via the banishment of what IS (in this case, YOU) into the endless chasm of what is NOT (in this case, NOT YOU, but them; that is, YOU are them, and as such YOU, strictly speaking, are NOT).

This is of course impossible; anyone with ten seconds of free time to spare mulling this over will realize that this is a rank a contradiction in terms. If OTHER is destroyed then how can one know the SELF?  Without OTHER by which to juxtapose the SELF, the SELF ceases to have any meaning.  In order to say I AM, one must be able to say I AM NOT.  If AM is endless and absolute, to the exclusion of all OTHER, then AM cannot have any definition. What is, is, goes the “logic”.  AM…or IS, becomes a circular and irrelevant concept. In other words, without an IS NOT, the IS means nothing.  There is no such thing as what IS unless there is also something which that IS, IS NOT.

It is hard to get your head around this, but give it a try.  Here, get ready for some fucking egregious discursive logic:

The point I’m trying to make is that without OTHER the SELF cannot be given a value.  The SELF is what it is, period…SELF is the sum and substance of its definition.  And if the sum and substance of the existence equation–where x is the SELF and SELF is infinite–is:  x = x, then x cannot even be qualified as existing in the first place.  You see?  Existence at its root is movement and movement is relative.  Think about it:  If there is no movement (and think of movement not only as directional (linear) but also as “existence through time”, or “temporal being” if that makes it easier) then there can be no relationship with OTHER; and if there is no relationship with OTHER then there is no inherent value to the SELF.  And if the value of the SELF is zero then existence is, by definition, NOTHING.  So, in order for the SELF to have any relevancy it must understand–via consciousness/self-awareness–how it is distinct from OTHER and then it must interact with OTHER in order that its efficacious-ness as a distinctive SELF can be realized (which is why God cannot simply create and then dash away as the deists believed).

Think of it this way:  What is consciousness without senses?  And I don’t simply mean sight; I mean all your senses.  No smell, taste, sound, nor touch either.

It is simple:  without sense, there is no way for the consciousness to realize that it is, in fact, conscious. And this makes consciousness what?  It makes consciousness, by default, unconscious.  Which is a contradiction in terms.  Meaning that sense and consciousness must exist in tandem or there is NO practical consciousness at all.  Now, I say “practical” because I am not suggesting necessarily that sense and consciousness are metaphysically one; that your consciousness is a direct function of your senses.  There is something interesting about, and something to be said for, the fact that even with all of your amazing five senses you cannot observe your own consciousness.  This makes your consciousness indeed the infinite singularity of your existence, which always IS, without any qualifiable or quantifiable location in “space or time”, which means that you cannot directly observe its relative relationship to OTHER.  Hmm…yes, very interesting.  You cannot look back in on yourself, so to speak.  So what I’m saying is not that the consciousness does not exist without the senses but that the consciousness cannot be defined as existing without the senses.  I know this seems like the same thing but I submit that their is a delicate difference.  The senses allow the infinite SELF to be aware of itself, by observing OTHER–which is a purely relative relationship–and thus acknowledge its “existence”.  Without the senses, existence cannot be valued or defined, and thus, it can have no practical application or efficacy…it is irrelevant.  And irrelevancy is FUNCTIONALLY–according to how we observe our relative existence with OTHER in our reality–the same thing as non-existence when practically applied.

This begs more thought, and warrants a post of its own at some later time

Wheeeeeeee….wasn’t that fun?

So, anyway…back to my point.  What are the senses for?  They are explicitly for making the SELF aware of what it is NOT in order that it may define itself.  And the definition of the SELF is the root of ALL existence relevantly and practically speaking…even for God.  And this requires the existence–the presence–of OTHER.  Which means that if we seek to integrate all OTHER(S) into the SELF, then we are, in fact, destroying the very SELF we think we are perpetuating.  And that is the great logical fallacy of the Borg.

Which is why the Borg were murdering thugs and nothing more; and this is evident from their rank philosophical hypocrisy.  They were murdering thugs for the same reason ALL murdering thugs are murdering thugs; for the same reason that ALL despots are despots:  They held irrational, incompatible, and irreconcilable root assumptions concerning the metaphysics of reality.

And you know what…

This makes the Borg a perfect metaphor for the theo-marxist collective known as the neo-Calvinist “local church”.

Well done, Jason.

I haven’t forgotten about my series on abstract value hierarchies.  But I had to get to this first.  Any time Wade is presented front and center on Wartburg Watch, apart from his usual Sunday e-church stint, I find that I am unable to hold my tongue.  And since it has been has been over eighteen hours since I added my comments and they are still in moderation oblivion (which always happens when they are about Wade, by the way), I figured a full on examination of the article was in order for my blog, where I cannot be censored to protect the neo-Calvinist leadership.

The proverbial wool of “sound doctrine” that constantly masquerades as the solution to human abuse and church dysfunction over at that blog is absolutely exasperating.  I know Dee and Deb are much smarter than this…but they fall for the trap over and over and over.  I submit they concede the evil premises because they cannot bring themselves to acknowledge that they could have been that wrong for that long (I had the same problem).  I submit that through Wade, they seek reassurance for the vile doctrine they used to accede.  I could be wrong, of course, but I just can’t see it any other way. They want to believe that it is as easy as spotting the few bad seeds, when the the reality is that these “seeds” are are really just men, like C.J. Mahaney, for instance, whose evil practices became so great that not even two thousand years of orthodoxy could run blocker for them anymore.  I mean…shit, when the children come out and start crying “rape!”, even a brilliant preacher like C.J. has to boogie on out of town.  Which, as you recall, is exactly what he did.

The hypocrite.

If you haven’t yet, I recommend you read Wade Burleson’s guest post on www.thewartburgwatch.com, called “Be in Awe of Jesus and Love Yourself” posted on Monday, February 16, 2014.

It is hard to know just where to start with an article written by Wade, but especially this one…I agonized for some time about this.  I guess I’ll just jump right in with this ostensibly compassionate quote:

“Everyone knows from personal experience that real, genuine heartfelt love is drawn from a heart that is being loved!.”

Um…okay.  Yeah.  Wrong.  To be blunt, this is just rank nonsense.  Love can never be present in a person who cannot or will not accept that there is an infinite amount of inherent value in their existence as a distinct SELF.  As a creature of God, the inherent value of BEING a person is the root of all love.  It is how you can receive love from God and anyone else, and how you can love yourself and share that love with others.  If there is no inherent value in simply BEING, then man does not possess any sufficiency for being a receptacle for love.  Love cannot be reconciled to what is conceded to be fundamentally worthless at its physical and metaphysical root.  Worthlessness is completely antithetical to love.  As much as I do not like to appeal to the Bible as my “final authority” for truth (for truth is a function of reason; and reason is a function of reconciling ALL ideas to the only objective standard of TRUTH, which is individual human life (existence)), the Bible is a useful work for some arguments.  For example, where in the Bible to we ever see God declaring his abject, “unconditional love” (a phrase which I do not believe appears in the Bible… there is no such thing; for all love is contextual, by definition, and thus, it is conditional, by definition) for worthless things?  Answer:  NO where.  Worthless things are counted worthy only of destruction, never salvation.  What is worthless has no practical value, making its existential essence functionally ZERO, or nothing.  And it is impossible to save “nothing”.  Or, think of it this way:  unconditional love for an unconditionally worthless object equates to a product of ZERO.  Infinite love times infinite nothingness equals nothing.  Or, probably better said, infinite love added to infinite nothingness makes the love irrelevant.

Later Wade says:

“I propose to you that only when you are utterly captivated by what Jesus has done for you will you become overwhelmed with the value, worth and dignity of your person.”

According to Wade, your value is rooted in what “Jesus has done”, not in any inherent value you possess as a function of the SELF of your own existence.  There was NO value in humanity, goes the logical extension, until Jesus “did it”.  This is pure Reformed gnosticism, and is far from what the Bible teaches, period.  Full stop.  The truth is that Jesus died on the cross because you had infinite and inherent existential and moral value already.

And he follows shortly after with this:

“God died for you while you were yet a sinner, but it is the love of God for your sinful soul that makes you valuable.” [Emphasis, mine]

Now…did you catch what Wade just did there with those two quotes?  It is very subtle so you may not see it right away.  But that’s okay.  I’ll wait.

…this little piggy went to the market…baa baa black sheep have you any wool…here I aaaaaaam, and here I staaaaaaand, let the storm rage oooooooon!!!!!! The cold never bothered me anyway. (I have two little girls…what, you didn’t think I’ve seen “Frozen”?  Twice, baby.)

Okay, I’m sure you have it now.  Yes. Mm hm.  That’s it exactly.  Notice how God’s love for you is a prerequisite for you loving yourself.  Meaning that your love for yourself is a direct product of God’s love for you.  Unless God directs his love personally AT you, you have no justification to love your self.  Your value is in”what Jesus did”; it is in “God’s love”.  It is NEVER due to any autonomous or inherent value of YOU, by yourself, by the simple fact of your existence.  And without this…without an inherent value to humanity as distinct objects and agents apart from God, there is no such thing as any real, efficacious value, which means that man is, at his root, utterly incapable of being loved, of receiving love, and thus of loving himself.  And this makes any love you might have for yourself merely a direct function of God’s determining force of your “election”.  There is no YOU in the equation.  YOU have no value.  God’s love for you is in SPITE of you.  Thus your love for you must be in SPITE of you.  Or, put another way, and I will reiterate this later, God loves you FOR you.  Meaning, you don’t ever really love you, God loves you as an extension of his arbitrary determining election, which again, is always in spite of you, and NEVER because you have any inherent worth.  And thus, it is impossible to love yourself.  Because YOU?  Are never really part of the equation.

And this is what makes Wade’s message so dastardly.  That it is couched in compassion makes it even that much more vile because it adds an element of deception.

Wade is extremely convincing in his article…his heart seems genuine; his love for people seems objectively apparent.  He seems legitimately concerned that people understand the importance of accepting themselves as products of God’s divine pleasure in Christ.  Fortunately those of us who are by now sensitive to all manner of irrational mysticism and hip to the jive of the REAL message of the American theo-marxist oligarchy are no longer fooled by devils passing for angels of light.  This is not to say that I think Wade is a devil…I’m not really convinced he understands the mutually exclusive premises which form the crux of the steamy bottom of his philosophy.   And this is true for most Christians I would say.  That is why I am careful to categorize the BELIEFS and not necessarily the messengers as evil.  For I agree with Jesus in most cases that forgiveness is warranted because “they know not what they do”.

Of course, for Wade, as one who pretends to be a man of God, and who undoubtedly feels no shame in labeling himself a teacher of the “word”, he really should know better.  As to whether God will take that into account when judging Wade for the gut-wrenching destruction he is wreaking across the lives and souls of humanity…well, that’s up to Him.

At the beginning of his article Wade opens up with, “I am about to blow away everything you’ve ever been taught by mainstream religion”. That’s a nice try, but the fact is that Wade does just the opposite.  Wade confirms the very root of the typically Reformed orthodoxy of mainstream religion (by this I assume he means mainstream Protestantism, since he would undoubtedly need to be a scholar and an expert on countless world belief systems in order to blow away everything we’ve been taught…or he’d have to know absolutely that no one in his audience has any experience with any other religion outside of his peculiar and destructive brand of western gnosticism).  The fact is that there is simply nothing hopeful nor comforting about Wade’s article.  It is a false compassion and it espouses a false understanding of love, which is rooted in his impossibly irrational understanding of God and man at the metaphysical, moral, and epistemological levels.  And this?  Is nothing LESS nor MORE than mainstream religion.  This is the same shit we’ve always heard.  In his article, Wade operates under the assumption that what people are really missing…what they really need and that which has been sorely lacking in their lives is a “proper” (meaning…somehow reconcilable to the idea that God must naturally hate your guts the moment you are born, for this is precisely the bedrock assumption of Wade’s Reformed interpretations)…yes, a “proper” understanding of why they should love themselves.  But the fact is that that message is entirely irrelevant to Wade’s standard of doctrinal “truth”.  The only thing which man needs to understand is why they shouldn’t love themselves.  And, true to his Reformed roots, Wade’s article simply reinforces that tired old notion.  Because there can be no such thing as a love which can be reconciled to that which is its absolute opposite.  And that?  Is man.  Man is the very definition of what love is NOT.  Man is utterly at odds with love at his root.  And THAT is the message Wade is really proliferating in this article.  

And the worst and saddest part isn’t that I think he is aware of it, but that I’m pretty sure he is not.

Let me explain.

Wade’s article is a good example of how adept these Reformed pastors are at making an evil philosophy appear entirely altruistic, and themselves sanctimoniously concerned with the lives of everyday human beings. But the fact is that after two thousand years of codification and systematic integration into the psyche and culture of half the world, Reformed theology has become the default spiritual zeitgeist of our nation, and so it is no longer that difficult to present this evil and destructive world view as serious charity and compassion.  It has been done before, by many other devotees, and has successfully convinced whole nations to follow the presumption over the cliff and straight into hell where the logical conclusions always, always lead.  You simply cannot espouse a philosophy that worships the death of man and demands man’s utter banishment into determinist obscurity (i.e. the separating YOU from YOU) and concomitantly find that anything resembling love results.  And certainly the greatest evil is in implicating God in the scheme of reducing man to nothing but an extension of the violence of despots.

God is the Creator of man.  If we accept that (and we should…for there is no rational argument which excludes God for the existence of man or anything else) then we must accept that man has an objective and inherent VALUE which is rooted in his very existence; in his very SELF.  This naturally destroys the Reformed lie of Total Depravity, which is the bedrock of the entire school of thought.  Anyone who concedes the Total Depravity of man cannot possibly speak of an actual and efficacious love FOR that same man.  Anyone who says humanity is existentially a moral and epistemological failure and yet can be loved is a liar.  For it is impossible for that which is depravity incarnate to be made righteous or to receive righteousness; and thus, it cannot receive love nor in any way be joined to love.  For depravity is diametrically opposed o love by definition.  Depravity is rooted in the hatred of of the GOOD, by definition; but what is more is that that which is depravity itself is never in the position to make any sort of moral distinction.  And that is why Total Depravity is so vile.  It doesn’t assume humanity is merely evil; it assumes that humanity is evil and is completely unaware that it is evil.  It cannot recognize good as good because it has no frame of reference.  It is infinitely depraved which means that it only sees itself, by definition.  This removes God entirely from man, never ever to be reconciled; and it makes man the victim of his own epistemological failure.  He cannot know God because he cannon properly define God.  And a humanity which can never define God by virtue of its absolute metaphysical, epistemological, and moral  failure can never be in a position to receive God’s love.  But according to Wade’s article, we are to love ourselves because God loves us.  However, when Total Depravity is parsed out and taken to its only logical conclusion it becomes obvious that that which is totally depraved CANNOT EVER receive God’s love because, again, it is diametrically opposed to it.  It can never commune with God’s love because God’s love presents a contradiction to the absolute infinity of TOTAL depravity; and remember, Total Depravity says that man is not merely depraved but that he is depravity itself.  So if God loves man the assumption must be that man can efficaciously and rationally receive it.  Which must assume that man has some inherent VALUE to God which then can be reconciled to God’s affection; that man is INHERENTLY capable of receiving it .  And if this is true then man cannot be totally depraved, by definition.

But this is not what Wade is saying here.  You will notice in the article how Wade never, not ONCE, mentions that humanity has any inherent or autonomous value to God; that man is capable of offering something to God which God can love that is distinct to man, alone.  Wade concedes total depravity (I’ve read the statement of faith on his Church’s website).  And at the same time he is trying to convince you that loving yourself is possible.

It is not.

If you posses no autonomous, inherent value to God, then you are by definition totally depraved.  And as such, you are an insufficient receptacle for God’s love.  You are the utter antithesis of love.  So what Wade is really trying to say is that God somehow loves you in SPITE of you.  And as such your “loving yourself because God loves you” means that your love for yourself is nothing more than a direct extension of God’s love.  Meaning any “real” love you have for yourself cannot come from you, because Depravity cannot love.  The love you have for yourself comes directly from God, NOT from you at all.  Meaning that any love you have for yourself is actually nothing more than God loving you FOR you; and once again YOU as SELF are removed from the entire equation, because YOU do not really exist.  YOU are merely a function of the determining force of depravity, which somehow morphs into the determining force of God’s “sovereign grace” once he arbitrarily “elects/predestines” you.

There is nothing in Wade’s article that acknowledges any inherent moral and/or metaphysical worth within humanity, and thus there is nothing in Wade’s article which acknowledges the actual existence of man as a legitimate SELF.  This makes it impossible for God to actually love YOU…for you are NOT.

Finally, I just want to spend a moment discussing this quote, which occurs at the very beginning of the article:

“You should know my standard of truth is God’s word, not religion or the opinions of man.”

Now, I don’t want to engage in a long monologue about the fallacies of this statement because I have covered this idea somewhat in depth in the past.  However, though this statement may pull at one’s spiritual heartstrings and smack of a heavy dose of godly humility, the cold and hard fact remains that “God’s Word” as a standard of truth is simply irrational.  There is no way an argument can be made for an objective interpretation of Scripture whereby it can be said that Scripture is the sole interpreter of itself.  This results in a circular logic which makes the entire Bible completely irrelevant to man.  Since the Bible is axiomatically and categorically FOR man, man’s context must be considered in how it is interpreted.  And since all men and women are indeed individuals, the context considered must be an individual context.  This means that individual human life is the only rational standard for how the Bible is interpreted, because human life is the only rational standard of TRUTH.  If the Bible cannot exist without man, then it is logically obvious that the primary definition of truth and morality is human life.  Thus, if we want to claim that the Bible is true, its ideas must be rationally reconcilable to the objective of affirming and promoting individual human life, and the categorical right of human beings to own themselves since THEY are axiomatically and inexorably the prerequisite for all things being true; and that truth can only be born out if they are free to pursue themselves as a function of themselves.

For more information on this, you can peruse my other articles dealing with the notion of “biblical inerrancy”.

Finally, here are a couple more quotes from Wade on which I want to comment briefly:

“You come to see your absolute inability to be righteous before God by your conformity to any Law, and you come to rest by faith in Jesus!”

If human beings are “absolutely” unable to keep a law, then it must be because they are existentially insufficient.  Meaning, it is not choice that prevents them, it is the fact that they were born at all.  This makes the law irrelevant, and not only can it not be a rational standard of good it cannot point to a rational standard of good (Christ as the standard is assumed here).  For if an irrelevant law points to a standard, then the standard by extension is likewise irrelevant.

If there is a law for man then man must be able to follow it.  If he fails, it is because he chooses not to follow.  This makes doing good a function of obedience.  Of choice.  And Christians are loath to accept this because it necessitates a complete revision of their understanding of the purpose of Messiah.  And Christians in general tend to hate contradicting orthodoxy because they equate orthodoxy with God, Himself.

“Don’t misunderstand. There is a subtle difference between loving yourself and demanding others love you. Loving yourself means you are free from the pressure that others love you. What does it matter if others reject you if Jesus loves you and you love yourself?  Demanding others love you is a tell-tale sign that there is actually no self-love. Crazy as it may seem (I call it “upside-down-wisdom”),  the more you seek love the less you self-love.”

Perhaps.  But we must be sure that Wade is not conflating “self-love” with the inherent right of every individual to rationally demand that others respect their infinite worth, and not to violate their person (which includes the mind) and/or property.  This is not “pride”.  The defense of the individual’s right to life, liberty, property, and pursuit of happiness is the only moral justification for force.  Turning the other cheek may be useful in a given circumstance, but it is NOT a philosophy.  The right of each one of us to demand that we not be possessed by any other agent or entity (like the “church” or the “state”) is not indicative of a lack of self-love, it is indicative of PURE love, and of a rational mind.

“God actually owns all that you have, and you are but a steward of it all.”

No.  You eat and possess because you work, and this is biblical, not Wade’s statement.  Your property is a direct function of your work, which is a direct function of yourself.  If you don’t own your property you can have no claim to own yourself.  And only a very misleading proof text of Paul’s statement “you do not own yourself” can support the idea that humans are not the sole owners of their lives.  If you don’t own YOU then you have no claim to any justice, and this necessitates the assumption that you have no moral justification for your own existence.  Which is ludicrous and will eventually result a quick trip to the gas chamber.  Because saying that you do not own your property is a akin to the denial of human existence.  Personal property is categorically necessary to life; being merely a steward then demeans life, for it denies the single most practical thing require to LIVE: what you own.  And if it denies ownership, it denies life.

It is also a full-on assault on the idea that man possesses any rational and efficacious epistemology–that is, if you cannot be in a position to own, you are obviously not trustworthy to KNOW how to manage property in accordance with GOOD and TRUTH–but that’s a whole other article.