Certain ways of doing things have a natural logic. Doing them differently can be at least pointless, or even damaging. For a simple example: human beings are designed to walk on two legs, not four limbs or on their arms. To do so, unless you have a disability and can't use your legs, is pointless for a start and can be damaging to the body because the load-bearing is on limbs not intended for it.
This applies also to sexuality. There is a natural and right way for it to happen, and variations on it may not just be individual preferences. They defy natural logic or law.
Sexual relations have two intended purposes if approached in the right way: the affectionate bonding of the two participants and the conception of children. Even if someone is not convinced by Christian teaching, or Jewish, or any other, pure logic shows this: the only kind of sexual relations that meet these two purposes is, consenting sex between adults of opposite genders. Any other form fails to meet one or both of those criteria.
Sex between two people of the same gender cannot produce children. It is naturally illogical.
Sex between a human and an animal cannot produce children. Apart from the disgust it may cause, it is naturally illogical.
Sex between an adult and a child can be traumatic or injurious to the child. It does not cause affectionate and safe bonding between the people involved, so it does not serve both the two purposes intended.
Forced sex, or rape, is traumatic to the unwilling partner, and denies to notion of affectionate bonding. For that reason, as well as denying the victim's rights, it is a bad idea. It can hurt someone, so it should not happen.
Sex involving multiple partners can cause uncertainty about who the father of a given child is. It also denies the bond between two individuals, dissipating it among a group.
Sex among strangers, with no real connection, denies the idea of bonding between the people involved. It is physical intimacy without emotional intimacy, thus a clash with the ideal of affectionate bonding.
God made things a certain way. Trying to vary it leads to dysfuntion and adverse side effects. God makes rules for our sake, not to be a spoiler.
Stick to the plan.
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Friday, August 7, 2009
Stick to the Plan - 1
The saying goes, why reinvent the wheel? It makes sense, but that doesn't stop people trying to do things their own way - and messing up badly sometimes.
This is all pretty direct, but then life's like that. Things need to be said.
Back in the 1960s something happened which they call the 'sexual revolution'.
It was meant to bring in an era of universal love and peace, with everyone loving everyone else and no fighting, no being possessive and controlling, and so on.
It failed. In short, it failed because it tried to do things differently from how the Maker of all things meant them to operate. More specifically, it failed because what it expected to happen was simply impossible. Human nature did not allow it.
For the idea of 'universal love' to work, everyone would have to feel included. Everyone would have to feel that they got their share of the love. Nobody should be left out, and feel rejected and unwanted. As soon as someone was, then the 'revolution' was not doing what it claimed. It was not freeing everyone and making them all feel loved and happy. What happened in the 60s was, it simply degenerated into a lot of casual sex, and a lot of emptiness and resentment.
This is the trouble with casual or promiscuous sex, sometimes called 'free love.'
Some people attract far more partners than others, and have a queue waiting to get near them. Others are always waiting in a queue. And this draws attention to the fact that, in human terms we're not all equally advantaged in the way we're born. We're all equally human, and all equally valued by God, but we are not equally valued by each other. Some people are much more admired and respected simply because of the way they look or the talents they are born with. And they have suitors by the hundred. Others just don't turn heads everywhere they go. They only look good to those who know them and see the worth of them as people. And the 'sexual revolution' drew cruel attention to the fact! Instead of making us all free and fulfilled it made the problem worse. Some people had a wild time until it all turned sour because of the shallowness of it, others were constantly reminded that they did not attract others.
Add to that, the fact that casual sex was about using someone for one thing only, and not really connecting with them as anything more than a physical body. How ironic that the 'free love' advocates talked about reaching out to others, when in fact they were making human relationships incredibly shallow.
The race started out with a man and a woman. It was not a man and several women, or a woman and several men. It was one to one. And that was the template, the Divine Plan. People who thought they knew better had slogans like 'smash monogamy', and 'share the love'; and what they got was widespread divorce, anger, estrangement, lonliness, rejection - and an epidemic of STDs. So where did they go wrong to start with? They thought they could trash the way God set things out. What was also forgotten was that sexual relations sometimes have this side effect called conception- it leads to the birth or children. Yes, that comment is ironic. But people act as if intercourse was just like having a dance, or something, with no lasting consequence at all. Another thing they forgot was that it can be immportant to know who is father to a child, which might not be known if there has been too much 'freedom' in partnering. It has happened that people who do not know, accidentally form relationships with their own siblings.
God knew what He was doing. Who were these people who reckoned they knew better?
Stick to the plan.
This is all pretty direct, but then life's like that. Things need to be said.
Back in the 1960s something happened which they call the 'sexual revolution'.
It was meant to bring in an era of universal love and peace, with everyone loving everyone else and no fighting, no being possessive and controlling, and so on.
It failed. In short, it failed because it tried to do things differently from how the Maker of all things meant them to operate. More specifically, it failed because what it expected to happen was simply impossible. Human nature did not allow it.
For the idea of 'universal love' to work, everyone would have to feel included. Everyone would have to feel that they got their share of the love. Nobody should be left out, and feel rejected and unwanted. As soon as someone was, then the 'revolution' was not doing what it claimed. It was not freeing everyone and making them all feel loved and happy. What happened in the 60s was, it simply degenerated into a lot of casual sex, and a lot of emptiness and resentment.
This is the trouble with casual or promiscuous sex, sometimes called 'free love.'
Some people attract far more partners than others, and have a queue waiting to get near them. Others are always waiting in a queue. And this draws attention to the fact that, in human terms we're not all equally advantaged in the way we're born. We're all equally human, and all equally valued by God, but we are not equally valued by each other. Some people are much more admired and respected simply because of the way they look or the talents they are born with. And they have suitors by the hundred. Others just don't turn heads everywhere they go. They only look good to those who know them and see the worth of them as people. And the 'sexual revolution' drew cruel attention to the fact! Instead of making us all free and fulfilled it made the problem worse. Some people had a wild time until it all turned sour because of the shallowness of it, others were constantly reminded that they did not attract others.
Add to that, the fact that casual sex was about using someone for one thing only, and not really connecting with them as anything more than a physical body. How ironic that the 'free love' advocates talked about reaching out to others, when in fact they were making human relationships incredibly shallow.
The race started out with a man and a woman. It was not a man and several women, or a woman and several men. It was one to one. And that was the template, the Divine Plan. People who thought they knew better had slogans like 'smash monogamy', and 'share the love'; and what they got was widespread divorce, anger, estrangement, lonliness, rejection - and an epidemic of STDs. So where did they go wrong to start with? They thought they could trash the way God set things out. What was also forgotten was that sexual relations sometimes have this side effect called conception- it leads to the birth or children. Yes, that comment is ironic. But people act as if intercourse was just like having a dance, or something, with no lasting consequence at all. Another thing they forgot was that it can be immportant to know who is father to a child, which might not be known if there has been too much 'freedom' in partnering. It has happened that people who do not know, accidentally form relationships with their own siblings.
God knew what He was doing. Who were these people who reckoned they knew better?
Stick to the plan.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Taking back the right.
Apparently there has been an increase in home schooling in Australia. I'm told that's happening in the U.S. as well. The press reported yesterday that over 2000 children are registered as home schooled - which in Australia is a significant number, in a population of 22 million. And, the report adds, there are more who are simply not registered, the parents home school them without asking permission of the government.
I can see exactly why! After being a teacher for twenty-five years, I can see why parents decide not to hand their kids over to a school. In fact, without critisizing all schools and teachers, it may be a good thing. It could be called taking back what never should have been given away.
For a start, some kids have a really miserable time at school. Here is some horrible news. There is a school in Australia which has had four suicides in a year. Does that make the blood run cold? And all of them have been associated with cyber-bullying - abusive and cruel messages sent to a kid, or said about them and put about over the net. Can you beat that for rottenness? And bullying did not start with the invention of the internet or the mobile phone. I went to school back in the distant 1960s. Tormenting of some kids by others was horribly alive and well then. In fact it probably happened back in Hellenic Age, when the highly civilized Greeks had schools for boys whose parents could spare them from working at home.
It costs teachers, too. Those of us who try to stop it can find ourselves accused by the bullies of picking on them. They insist it's all a frame-up. They never did anything wrong at all. Sure, and the moon's made of cheese, as well!
That's not the only reason, though.
For as long as I can remember, people have been saying 'schools should be doing something about...' whatever problem has come up with kids. Whether it is teaching them road safety, teaching them the law, teaching them to drive (yes, I've heard that said!) the things traditionally done by parents have been shifted onto schools and their staffs. This can be a huge cop-out by parents who don't want to raise their own children, they want someone else to take care of that and they just enjoy the finished product. Or if they're not happy with the result, they blame the school. That's far easier than doing it themselves. But it is not how it should be. The proverb says "It takes a village to raise a child", which means that children grow up in a community of which all members help to care for them and show them how to get on with the world and be part of it. And God did not invent schools. God invented families. Children need families to care for them. A school is not the same thing, at all. A school, like a hospital, has a specialized function. A hospital is for health treatment and care - hopefully only for a limited time. A school is for education, and only for a limited time. It should not be the whole of a child's care-giving and nurture. In fact, a school, even if the staff really care, would be a poor substitute for a caring family.
There can be a more sinister side to it, in addition. Without getting into too many conspiracy theories, it really is true that totalitarian societies try to reduce the extent of family loyalty. They aim to fix the individual's allegiance on the state, or the leader of the state. People like Karl Marx derided the family. The Khmer Rouge, Cambodian communists, made of policy of trying to turn children against their parents. And years ago the hard line left in the West said things like "until you people are prepared to kill your parents, we will never change this society." (I think that was Jerry Reuben, before he changed sides.) Even without going that far, the family can be an focus of attachment that takes precedence over a person's allegiance to political leaders. And dictators do not like that.
There is a growing number of Christian schools in the English speaking world, because parents object to the secular state trying to teach their children things that contravene Christian teaching. For that matter there have long been Jewish schools, and in Australia there are Islamic schools being founded. Some people object because they say it divides society. Sure, it is not a good thing if a community fractures into groups hostile to those not of their own belief, or race, or anything else. But if a public school system tries to be all things to all people it can only end up not really including some. Secular thinkers, or the politically correct, teach things which Christianity and Judaism reject. And Christians, Jews and others do not have to give up their beliefs to please the state, or the self-appointed judges of what is right. So it is not only understandable that some families decide not to let the school system take charge and decide what beliefs to teach. It is understandable that some parents decide to spare their children the misery of being in a place where they will be miserable and feel victimized. And it is quite right if parents undertake to bring their children up themselves, NOT try to get a government agency to do it for them.
Some teachers I've known respect parents' rights, and just want to educate children in the curriculum in a pleasant environment. But some teachers I've known think it is their right to indoctrinate and programme children. They assume the right to contradict parents, undermine the family's attempts to pass on their beliefs to their kids and treat students as a captive audience for themselves. I do not accept their right to do that to my children, or anyone else's and I when I was teaching didn't claim the right to take kids' loyalty away from their parents. No-one has that right. So the schools system should not be a way of sweeping away parental right and influence, and setting up a society of politically indoctrinated subjects.
I can see why some people talk about unschooling society. The school has been used to substitute for parents, and as a way of getting kids away from the counsel of their parents. God did not invent schools. He invented families. Sure, kids may want to do things in groups so that the learning can be shared. And we all need to learn to get on with others. But families should be the ones in control, not a faceless government bureaucracy. And the school system should not be a way of messing with peoples' minds. It could be that we need more home-schooling.
Critics of home schooling say kids need to learn about the world. School does not necessarily teach people about the world, only that other people can be horribly cruel. Also, the world is full of things we try to protect ourselves from. The world is full of disease and danger. We try to avoid falling victim to them. The bad peer groups that exist in some schools might be another thing worth protecting vulnerable kids from.
I don't know what I would have done if I hadn't been a teacher. But God would have put me where I should be, no doubt. Things change. I wonder what education will be like in another hundred years.
I can see exactly why! After being a teacher for twenty-five years, I can see why parents decide not to hand their kids over to a school. In fact, without critisizing all schools and teachers, it may be a good thing. It could be called taking back what never should have been given away.
For a start, some kids have a really miserable time at school. Here is some horrible news. There is a school in Australia which has had four suicides in a year. Does that make the blood run cold? And all of them have been associated with cyber-bullying - abusive and cruel messages sent to a kid, or said about them and put about over the net. Can you beat that for rottenness? And bullying did not start with the invention of the internet or the mobile phone. I went to school back in the distant 1960s. Tormenting of some kids by others was horribly alive and well then. In fact it probably happened back in Hellenic Age, when the highly civilized Greeks had schools for boys whose parents could spare them from working at home.
It costs teachers, too. Those of us who try to stop it can find ourselves accused by the bullies of picking on them. They insist it's all a frame-up. They never did anything wrong at all. Sure, and the moon's made of cheese, as well!
That's not the only reason, though.
For as long as I can remember, people have been saying 'schools should be doing something about...' whatever problem has come up with kids. Whether it is teaching them road safety, teaching them the law, teaching them to drive (yes, I've heard that said!) the things traditionally done by parents have been shifted onto schools and their staffs. This can be a huge cop-out by parents who don't want to raise their own children, they want someone else to take care of that and they just enjoy the finished product. Or if they're not happy with the result, they blame the school. That's far easier than doing it themselves. But it is not how it should be. The proverb says "It takes a village to raise a child", which means that children grow up in a community of which all members help to care for them and show them how to get on with the world and be part of it. And God did not invent schools. God invented families. Children need families to care for them. A school is not the same thing, at all. A school, like a hospital, has a specialized function. A hospital is for health treatment and care - hopefully only for a limited time. A school is for education, and only for a limited time. It should not be the whole of a child's care-giving and nurture. In fact, a school, even if the staff really care, would be a poor substitute for a caring family.
There can be a more sinister side to it, in addition. Without getting into too many conspiracy theories, it really is true that totalitarian societies try to reduce the extent of family loyalty. They aim to fix the individual's allegiance on the state, or the leader of the state. People like Karl Marx derided the family. The Khmer Rouge, Cambodian communists, made of policy of trying to turn children against their parents. And years ago the hard line left in the West said things like "until you people are prepared to kill your parents, we will never change this society." (I think that was Jerry Reuben, before he changed sides.) Even without going that far, the family can be an focus of attachment that takes precedence over a person's allegiance to political leaders. And dictators do not like that.
There is a growing number of Christian schools in the English speaking world, because parents object to the secular state trying to teach their children things that contravene Christian teaching. For that matter there have long been Jewish schools, and in Australia there are Islamic schools being founded. Some people object because they say it divides society. Sure, it is not a good thing if a community fractures into groups hostile to those not of their own belief, or race, or anything else. But if a public school system tries to be all things to all people it can only end up not really including some. Secular thinkers, or the politically correct, teach things which Christianity and Judaism reject. And Christians, Jews and others do not have to give up their beliefs to please the state, or the self-appointed judges of what is right. So it is not only understandable that some families decide not to let the school system take charge and decide what beliefs to teach. It is understandable that some parents decide to spare their children the misery of being in a place where they will be miserable and feel victimized. And it is quite right if parents undertake to bring their children up themselves, NOT try to get a government agency to do it for them.
Some teachers I've known respect parents' rights, and just want to educate children in the curriculum in a pleasant environment. But some teachers I've known think it is their right to indoctrinate and programme children. They assume the right to contradict parents, undermine the family's attempts to pass on their beliefs to their kids and treat students as a captive audience for themselves. I do not accept their right to do that to my children, or anyone else's and I when I was teaching didn't claim the right to take kids' loyalty away from their parents. No-one has that right. So the schools system should not be a way of sweeping away parental right and influence, and setting up a society of politically indoctrinated subjects.
I can see why some people talk about unschooling society. The school has been used to substitute for parents, and as a way of getting kids away from the counsel of their parents. God did not invent schools. He invented families. Sure, kids may want to do things in groups so that the learning can be shared. And we all need to learn to get on with others. But families should be the ones in control, not a faceless government bureaucracy. And the school system should not be a way of messing with peoples' minds. It could be that we need more home-schooling.
Critics of home schooling say kids need to learn about the world. School does not necessarily teach people about the world, only that other people can be horribly cruel. Also, the world is full of things we try to protect ourselves from. The world is full of disease and danger. We try to avoid falling victim to them. The bad peer groups that exist in some schools might be another thing worth protecting vulnerable kids from.
I don't know what I would have done if I hadn't been a teacher. But God would have put me where I should be, no doubt. Things change. I wonder what education will be like in another hundred years.
Monday, July 6, 2009
The right stuff
I had a joyful surprise one day, quite out of the blue. My daughter, then aged 7, was playing with her toy horses. Two of them, an adult and a foal, were close together, the big one was protecting and looking after the small one.
"That looks nice" I said, "the mother and the baby together."
She replied, "That's not the mother, this one is," and held up another toy horse.
"Oh, right," I answered, "which one is that?" meaning the one right beside the foal.
She replied "The father."
That was such a small thing, but I was exhilarated - clean over the moon. So that is my daugther's view of a father, a protector she is safe with! It got me thinking because then, as now, there were some news headlines about wildly abusive fathers, and it gets so bad that all male parents seem to be under suspicion. To know my own child does NOT distrust me and think of me with suspicion is a huge relief!
Like any parent, unless they've got serious issues, I like to think I've got the 'rigth stuff' as a father. It is not only bringing home the pay. Mothers do not only wash and cook, they also nurture. Fathers do not only bring home the cheque, they should protect and nurture. The trouble is, you can never feel perfectly sure that you're doing it right - until something like this happens, and it gives you a lift.
Just today there was news about another 'Josef Fritzl' type of pseudo-father. He made a sex-slave of his own daughter. How do you get to be such a freak that you'd do that?!
Some commentators, especially of the hard-line feminist (or female chauvinist) type say that fathers are not necessary. When you hear of a bad bad case like this one they play it right up to the max. But they choose to forget that there are some horror female parents around, too. Just listen to the news if you want to know how bad it gets!
Male and female He made them. Human children need two parents to be conceived and born, and both have a responsibility to make sure their children are cared for. That includes teaching them respect and self-control, and making them feel appreciated and welcome in the world. Or if you want to put it sentimentally, loved.
It is easy to see your own faults as a parent. I feel like a serious failure sometimes. But my wife and I pleaded with God to make us the parents we should be. We just had to make sure we listened. Perhaps with His help we got some things right.
"That looks nice" I said, "the mother and the baby together."
She replied, "That's not the mother, this one is," and held up another toy horse.
"Oh, right," I answered, "which one is that?" meaning the one right beside the foal.
She replied "The father."
That was such a small thing, but I was exhilarated - clean over the moon. So that is my daugther's view of a father, a protector she is safe with! It got me thinking because then, as now, there were some news headlines about wildly abusive fathers, and it gets so bad that all male parents seem to be under suspicion. To know my own child does NOT distrust me and think of me with suspicion is a huge relief!
Like any parent, unless they've got serious issues, I like to think I've got the 'rigth stuff' as a father. It is not only bringing home the pay. Mothers do not only wash and cook, they also nurture. Fathers do not only bring home the cheque, they should protect and nurture. The trouble is, you can never feel perfectly sure that you're doing it right - until something like this happens, and it gives you a lift.
Just today there was news about another 'Josef Fritzl' type of pseudo-father. He made a sex-slave of his own daughter. How do you get to be such a freak that you'd do that?!
Some commentators, especially of the hard-line feminist (or female chauvinist) type say that fathers are not necessary. When you hear of a bad bad case like this one they play it right up to the max. But they choose to forget that there are some horror female parents around, too. Just listen to the news if you want to know how bad it gets!
Male and female He made them. Human children need two parents to be conceived and born, and both have a responsibility to make sure their children are cared for. That includes teaching them respect and self-control, and making them feel appreciated and welcome in the world. Or if you want to put it sentimentally, loved.
It is easy to see your own faults as a parent. I feel like a serious failure sometimes. But my wife and I pleaded with God to make us the parents we should be. We just had to make sure we listened. Perhaps with His help we got some things right.
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Not sentimentality - science.
Someone told me years ago why orphanages were closed down, and foster caring became the way of caring for children without parents. It was a bit of a shock! The mortality rate was higher among children brought up in orphanages than among those raised in family homes. The reason was, children need to feel loved. This is not just mush and sentiment - it is actual health science. Just having a balanced diet, a regime of exercise and all the material stuff was not adequate. To live, human beings need to have a reason to live. And the best place is in a proper home.
Now for a slightly different angle on the issue. An article I read told of a people complaining that they were lonely and could not find a partner. There just (they said) 'wasn't anyone out there.'
Right, so I can't claim to know all about them. But I've heard said, by someone who runs an introduction agency, that some of those searching for partners are just too hard to please! If male, they want a cross between Cleopatra, Queen Guinevere and Miss Universe. If female, they want a cross between King Arthur, Romeo and Superman. The expectations are not just unreasonable, they are plain shallow! The idea is that you draw up a set of specifications and the partner has to match them. They have to be what you want, like the man in "Pygmalion" who made a statue of his 'ideal' woman.
So to get to the point, is that approach really loving someone?
Love does not mean you have to be a doormat. It DOES mean that you care about someone for themselves, and not just because they please you. Loving a wife or husband does NOT mean they make a good trophy to be seen with, or a good social connection. It means you value what they are, warts and all. Because we all have some crinkles and imperfections. And if you get too picky and critical of others, you invite them to say, 'look in a mirror. Aren't you only human too?'
This is the frightening bit. It seems some people really do not know what love is. Now there is an irony! The word 'love' gets thrown around like a confetti at a mass wedding. People talk, sing or joke about it all the time. Do they really know what they mean? Mushy stuff all aside, love is something people need to live. And it is about giving to someone one, not just enjoying them for yourself. But some people do not seem to realize that.
So what is a good example? Try this. The human race has nothing that Jesus Christ needs, because He can make anything He wants any time He chooses. As He said, God can turn stones into bread, or into people, if He chooses. So why did He bother to go through Hell (literally!) to save us? Because He cared enough to suffer that, for us not for Himself. To give, not just take.
Humans need to get that. Loving is giving, not just getting what you want.
And I need to remember that too. To coin a phrase: lecturer, learn thyself.
Now for a slightly different angle on the issue. An article I read told of a people complaining that they were lonely and could not find a partner. There just (they said) 'wasn't anyone out there.'
Right, so I can't claim to know all about them. But I've heard said, by someone who runs an introduction agency, that some of those searching for partners are just too hard to please! If male, they want a cross between Cleopatra, Queen Guinevere and Miss Universe. If female, they want a cross between King Arthur, Romeo and Superman. The expectations are not just unreasonable, they are plain shallow! The idea is that you draw up a set of specifications and the partner has to match them. They have to be what you want, like the man in "Pygmalion" who made a statue of his 'ideal' woman.
So to get to the point, is that approach really loving someone?
Love does not mean you have to be a doormat. It DOES mean that you care about someone for themselves, and not just because they please you. Loving a wife or husband does NOT mean they make a good trophy to be seen with, or a good social connection. It means you value what they are, warts and all. Because we all have some crinkles and imperfections. And if you get too picky and critical of others, you invite them to say, 'look in a mirror. Aren't you only human too?'
This is the frightening bit. It seems some people really do not know what love is. Now there is an irony! The word 'love' gets thrown around like a confetti at a mass wedding. People talk, sing or joke about it all the time. Do they really know what they mean? Mushy stuff all aside, love is something people need to live. And it is about giving to someone one, not just enjoying them for yourself. But some people do not seem to realize that.
So what is a good example? Try this. The human race has nothing that Jesus Christ needs, because He can make anything He wants any time He chooses. As He said, God can turn stones into bread, or into people, if He chooses. So why did He bother to go through Hell (literally!) to save us? Because He cared enough to suffer that, for us not for Himself. To give, not just take.
Humans need to get that. Loving is giving, not just getting what you want.
And I need to remember that too. To coin a phrase: lecturer, learn thyself.
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
You should see us now!
In some ways life is good in the 21st Century. I love hearing about new discoveries in medicine, and new treatments for sickness and injury. I also like being able to travel several hundred miles or kilometres in a day, in a car. Horse powered travel might seem quaint but not everyone wants to take a week to cover the distance that takes a day with a powered vehicle. Some modern things are precious. But there is another side to it, maybe.
Centuries ago, even decades ago, more than half of the world's people lived on the land. They grew crops or raised livestock. Or they worked at trades. In each case, they actually made something, to use or to consume. Or they provided a service, for the direct benefit of others. Today, in areas like finance and investment, people do not actually make anything new, they manipulate things to their own advantage.
Tell me if I'm wrong. I'll stand corrected if need be. But is that right or not? Thousands of people do not actually make, grow or gather anything. They just mess about with what other people have made. They make huge salaries messing about with money, buying and selling shares or arranging loans to make their own profit without actually producing or value-adding.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not a communist. It is quite legitimate to work as a trader making things available to people who want to buy, and providing a service to those who need to sell and haven't the time to do their own marketing. I've got some small business ventures going myself. But it seems a huge amount of commercial activity is about getting hold of some money, thinking up things to do with it and getting a profit without making anything new. Nobody's car gets repaired. No new food crops are grown. No clothes are made. No person's health is restored. No new medications are discovered. No new houses are built. If you saw the film "Greed", that's what it showed. Find new ways of doing things with money to make more money, instead of making any new product or service.
Have I got this right? The world's financial wizards built this huge Tower of Babel out of paper wealth, and then it collapsed and caused shocking damage to millions of others. The ones who put it there were not the only ones to suffer.
Is this the heart of the problem? Instead of growing something, making something or providing a service the clever thing is to buy what is there already, transport it three times round the world, get others to buy shares in it and sell it for heaps more than it cost - without the ones who provided it getting much of the proceeds. Is this another way of getting further and further from the way God intended us to live and communicate with Him?
If this is wrong, I'll learn from anyone who can show me how. I need to learn, not just lecture to others. Now I think of it, when there is a recession going on people might have more important things to do than read my scribblings. But any and all comments are welcome.
Centuries ago, even decades ago, more than half of the world's people lived on the land. They grew crops or raised livestock. Or they worked at trades. In each case, they actually made something, to use or to consume. Or they provided a service, for the direct benefit of others. Today, in areas like finance and investment, people do not actually make anything new, they manipulate things to their own advantage.
Tell me if I'm wrong. I'll stand corrected if need be. But is that right or not? Thousands of people do not actually make, grow or gather anything. They just mess about with what other people have made. They make huge salaries messing about with money, buying and selling shares or arranging loans to make their own profit without actually producing or value-adding.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not a communist. It is quite legitimate to work as a trader making things available to people who want to buy, and providing a service to those who need to sell and haven't the time to do their own marketing. I've got some small business ventures going myself. But it seems a huge amount of commercial activity is about getting hold of some money, thinking up things to do with it and getting a profit without making anything new. Nobody's car gets repaired. No new food crops are grown. No clothes are made. No person's health is restored. No new medications are discovered. No new houses are built. If you saw the film "Greed", that's what it showed. Find new ways of doing things with money to make more money, instead of making any new product or service.
Have I got this right? The world's financial wizards built this huge Tower of Babel out of paper wealth, and then it collapsed and caused shocking damage to millions of others. The ones who put it there were not the only ones to suffer.
Is this the heart of the problem? Instead of growing something, making something or providing a service the clever thing is to buy what is there already, transport it three times round the world, get others to buy shares in it and sell it for heaps more than it cost - without the ones who provided it getting much of the proceeds. Is this another way of getting further and further from the way God intended us to live and communicate with Him?
If this is wrong, I'll learn from anyone who can show me how. I need to learn, not just lecture to others. Now I think of it, when there is a recession going on people might have more important things to do than read my scribblings. But any and all comments are welcome.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Know what you're messing with.
A columnist I read wrote something worth repeating today. Miranda Devine, in the Sydney Morning Herald, commented: "In the end, men's drives are not all violent and predatory. Most have a deep, possibly hard-wired, desire to be noble and chivalrous. That's why in situations such as the Port Arthur Massacre, so many men died shielding their wives or women around them."
In crises, people of both genders (and all races) sometimes show their best and you can see how they are, after all, made in the image of God - even if that image gets distorted and blurred by the downside of their human nature.
Devine is replying to a litany of bitter critisism about mens' behaviour and their attitude to women. The background to this is a major news story getting ongoing coverage in Eastern Australia: another sex scandal, involving a major Rugby League club.
It seems that in 2002 the team, Cronulla Sharks, were in New Zealand to play and after the game two of them pursuaded a young woman to accompany them back to their hotel room for sex. Then, the story goes, other players came to the room and joined in. At the time, the woman agreed to it; and according to some of her workmates, she boasted about it to them the next day. Years afterwards she came forward to tell a journalist that the experience had left her feeling used and abused.
It's gross behaviour, rightly enough. The men involved simply used the woman and probably regarded her another notch to mark up in their list of 'conquests'.
But in all the commentary, some women have been honest enough to say that they too treat men like trophies. Some (not all,not even most, but some) women treat it as bagging a trophy to have an encounter of that kind with male celebrity.
Dare I say that this is a really bad idea? Or is that 'being judgemental' etc etc?
A human being is not an article to be toyed with, some sort of plaything. Collecting celebrity autographs might be a harmless hobby, but collecting more intimate souvenirs of other human beings becomes a gross misuse of what was made by God, for God's purposes and which should be respected because the Creator should be. You would not collect a piece of the Mona Lisa to show off, because that is a misuse of a famous work of art. You would damage it for your own bad satisfaction.
It is worse to help yourself to part of a human being in a way which demeans them.
Most people agree that it is wrong to kill. What they don't always realize is, it is just as bad to damage something by misusing it. And they don't seem to get that using someone in some sort of ego trip is damaging because it makes them into a target, or a trophy if you can get them. And it is not just men who do this.
Some men try blaming women for their own bad behaviour: 'she led me on', etc. To do that is to deny responsibility for your own actions. So many things that people regret afterwards would not happen if we all just 'got it'; a human being is not a plaything or something to use for your own pleasure.
So here's the irony. Some 'modern thinkers' say that we're all too 'hung up' about sex, and should be more 'liberated' about it. Then when some individuals act in a 'liberated' way - do just what they feel like on the spur of the moment - it can end in anger and tears.
I could be accused of trying to impose my views on others here, but the reply to that is: look what happens around you, and see if what I'm saying is wrong.
If you wrote a history of bad ideas in human history, they would all have one thing in common. They ignored the guidelines and advice given by God's Word about how to live. The way I heard it put once is this: the Bible is the owner's manual for how to run your life. God is not just a spoilsport or dictator, He knows what will and will not work in trying to make life good. If you reckon you know better, you might find He knows better than people realize. Trust me! I've had some bad ideas, and found out after the event just how bad they were!
In crises, people of both genders (and all races) sometimes show their best and you can see how they are, after all, made in the image of God - even if that image gets distorted and blurred by the downside of their human nature.
Devine is replying to a litany of bitter critisism about mens' behaviour and their attitude to women. The background to this is a major news story getting ongoing coverage in Eastern Australia: another sex scandal, involving a major Rugby League club.
It seems that in 2002 the team, Cronulla Sharks, were in New Zealand to play and after the game two of them pursuaded a young woman to accompany them back to their hotel room for sex. Then, the story goes, other players came to the room and joined in. At the time, the woman agreed to it; and according to some of her workmates, she boasted about it to them the next day. Years afterwards she came forward to tell a journalist that the experience had left her feeling used and abused.
It's gross behaviour, rightly enough. The men involved simply used the woman and probably regarded her another notch to mark up in their list of 'conquests'.
But in all the commentary, some women have been honest enough to say that they too treat men like trophies. Some (not all,not even most, but some) women treat it as bagging a trophy to have an encounter of that kind with male celebrity.
Dare I say that this is a really bad idea? Or is that 'being judgemental' etc etc?
A human being is not an article to be toyed with, some sort of plaything. Collecting celebrity autographs might be a harmless hobby, but collecting more intimate souvenirs of other human beings becomes a gross misuse of what was made by God, for God's purposes and which should be respected because the Creator should be. You would not collect a piece of the Mona Lisa to show off, because that is a misuse of a famous work of art. You would damage it for your own bad satisfaction.
It is worse to help yourself to part of a human being in a way which demeans them.
Most people agree that it is wrong to kill. What they don't always realize is, it is just as bad to damage something by misusing it. And they don't seem to get that using someone in some sort of ego trip is damaging because it makes them into a target, or a trophy if you can get them. And it is not just men who do this.
Some men try blaming women for their own bad behaviour: 'she led me on', etc. To do that is to deny responsibility for your own actions. So many things that people regret afterwards would not happen if we all just 'got it'; a human being is not a plaything or something to use for your own pleasure.
So here's the irony. Some 'modern thinkers' say that we're all too 'hung up' about sex, and should be more 'liberated' about it. Then when some individuals act in a 'liberated' way - do just what they feel like on the spur of the moment - it can end in anger and tears.
I could be accused of trying to impose my views on others here, but the reply to that is: look what happens around you, and see if what I'm saying is wrong.
If you wrote a history of bad ideas in human history, they would all have one thing in common. They ignored the guidelines and advice given by God's Word about how to live. The way I heard it put once is this: the Bible is the owner's manual for how to run your life. God is not just a spoilsport or dictator, He knows what will and will not work in trying to make life good. If you reckon you know better, you might find He knows better than people realize. Trust me! I've had some bad ideas, and found out after the event just how bad they were!
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