Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Call of The Priesthood

Over the last two years I have sent out many blogs that you received and did not read. Not sure whether you were not interested or you thought “who is he to be spewing this garbage.” Never the less I can a sure you that I did my research before I wrote the blogs and for the most part they accurately portrayed the present and did a fair assessment of what lay in the future for our country and culture. However, in the future my blogs will be oriented towards Christian Ethics and not national and world politics. Why the change? I am not sure; maybe an epiphany or maybe I am just tired of politics. The following is a transition of thought into a new approach to the heart of believers and a new outlook towards the national and world landscape.  If you would rather not receive these, let me know and I will remove your name from the list. If you do want to read the blogs please read them on the Skandalon blog site. In the future you will only get the first paragraph and not the entire blog, because on the blog site is a place for your comments and impressions; this will help me in determining if I am making sense or just rambling.  If you enjoy this and find it helpful to you as you live as aliens in this lost world, please forward to your friends and relatives. Thanks.

Call of The Priesthood
Family values are a thing of the past, divorce is at an all time high, sexual perversion and homosexuality are out of the closet and increasingly being accepted, crime is rampant, the government is out of control, taxes are higher than ever, politicians are corrupt, there are places where you can’t walk the streets in the day time, Christians and Jews are persecuted and have lost any if not all influence in the world, secular humanism and paganism are on the rise, drugs and alcohol abuse are everywhere, standards of morality have been torn down, the court system is inadequate, there are not enough police to rein in crime, the culture is in a quagmire of decline. That was Crete in Apostle Paul’s time; not all that much different today, is it?
I think that we have the mental picture that it was easy for Paul to advance gospel of Christ in his day; that the world was different, a much better place in that it was open and receptive to the things of God, open to Godly values. That all Paul had to do was show up and people immediately flocked to him and embraced Christianity. Nothing could be further from the truth. Paul had come to Crete because the churches were in disarray, there were at least 100 churches on the island and most of them were engulfed in idolatry and were being greatly influenced by paganism. The world at that time was the sewer of paganism and the church was at a lost to know how to respond to the culture around it.
We live in a situation that is very similar to what confronted Paul and Titus. The great revivals of Christianity seem to be a thing of the past; they are only footnotes in the pages of history. Our government is forever passing laws making it more and more difficult for us to get out the message of Christ and to openly speak out against the evils of this world. There is a lot of talk, with books being written, about how the church needs to take a greater role in impacting the culture of our time. That we need to get out into the streets and demand that things change for the better; that we need to get involved into politics and propose laws that would mandate morality; that we need to stand against the evils of this world. But I am here to tell that is not the church’s goal. It sounds like a good idea, but our goal is not to impact our culture by changing people’s moral values. Our goal is not to impact our culture by creating laws that demand traditional family values. Our goal is not to make sure that the USA adheres to a national policy that mandates biblical morality. That is not our goal as defined by scripture. Scripture does not direct us to get involved in altering cultural morality. We are not told to be involved in advancing social conduct. Our mandate is to be interested in people being saved. That is our agenda; that is our only agenda. If we are going to change our culture we are going to change it from the inside out, not the outside in; one person at a time.
The question today is how are we supposed to respond now that our culture has declined and our society has become so pagan? How are we to react? What is the proper response of Christianity in a pagan culture?  As a Christian what are you to do in a post Christian society that is unreceptive to the gospel and is outright hostile to Christianity as a way of life? The answer lies in our divine calling.
The single divine calling of the church is to bring sinful people to salvation through Christ. As a believer we have been given the responsibility of priesthood; i.e. a person who has one simple function, to bring people to Jesus Christ, to usher them into God’s presence.
That is our only responsibility to the world as Peter says in1 Peter 2:5 (NKJV) (5) you also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Chris.  Just in case you miss the point, he says it again in 2:9  But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light. That is you are to proclaim and share the message and gospel of Jesus Christ. There is nothing there that says you are to become a legislator, a policeman, or march in the streets demanding morality. Your only job as royal priest is to share the good news of Jesus Christ to a lost world. Think of it like this, if we free someone from the slavery of homosexuality but we do not lead them to salvation, they are going to the same hell as an unsaved heterosexual. It makes no difference if you are a militant pro-abortionist, or a militant anti-abortionist, if you are not saved you are going to hell. It makes no difference if you are a policeman going to hell or a drug dealer going to hell; hell is the same for both. Our mission to present the gospel cannot be weakened because we don’t like the culture we live in. When we try to change people’s lives by changing their conduct without changing their spiritual heart we make them our enemy and ultimately enemies of Christ. As a priest we are to help change their hearts; then and only then will they change their conduct.
Jesus and Paul spent their time admonishing believers not to live like the world; but they did not spend much time condemning the pagans and their beliefs and practices. They did not call for violent resistance against unjust laws or inhuman punishments. Rather they called on believers to preach, teach, and witness to the transforming power of salvation through Jesus Christ.  They called on us to love and show compassion for the lost, while at the same time condemning the sin in all people’s lives, including the believers.
The first eight verses of Titus 3 Paul calls on Titus and us to remind Christians to remember our duties as believers, to remember our former condition of unbelief and sin, to remember our salvation through Jesus Christ, and  to remember our mission/duty to an unbelieving and lost world. This blog looked at what we are first to remember; our duties as a believer.
Titus 3:1-15 (NKJV) (1) Remind them to be subject to rulers and authorities, to obey, to be ready for every good work, (2) to speak evil of no one, to be peaceable, gentle, showing all humility to all men.

I want to thank Pastor and theologian John MacArthur for his writings and inspiration for this blog. He is one of the great theologians of our time and I would encourage all to read his books and sermons. 

Monday, January 17, 2011


Friday, January 14, 2011

Smart Enough To Do It Again

It has been two years since BHO was sworn into office and as I sit here I cannot help but wonder, “HOW DID HE GET ELECTED?” Really, we need to think about this so that it cannot possibly happen again. Let’s face it, this guy is the worst of the worst; Jimmy Carter has to love the joke that he is no longer the worst president ever. My point is valid; we must analyze how this happened or it is bound to happen again and again and I am not sure we can survive another two years let alone another six years.
So, how did Obama get elected? Can you find one pundit that has a plausible answer, an answer that satisfies your sensibilities? The left are constantly telling us that no mistake was made, that he is truly the best of the best. Immediately we have to discount them as either stupid or that they have no clue as to what has really happened; either way that makes their argument not worthy of consideration. Only a utopian ideologue could possibly believe that American is headed on the right course. Therefore, please don’t leave a comment to the contrary, cyberspace is limited and we don’t need to take up valuable KB’s with this non-sense.
The RINO’s and the elite on the right tell us that he got elected because of “white-guilt.” Now, the Bible tells me that I am guilty but I cannot find where it says that I am guilty because I am white, a Caucasian, or a light skinned cracker.  But I thought the race issue was solved by LBJ? Haven’t  we spent over a trillion dollars since 1970’s to end racial prejudice and make up for our racial hatred and slavery? Yes we did spend the cash; but the jack-booted thugs, Jackson, Sharpton, etc, keep their foot on the necks of the black community and would not allow them to take advantage of the opportunities mandated by government. Should I as a white cracker feel guilty about that? That lead us to the question, did we really vote for BHO because he was black? NO! If the color of his skin had been a issue for the white and guilty then why wouldn’t that same conservative community have voted for a black man who was clean, articulate, and really smart; I am referring to Alan Keyes, not BHO. Keyes is one of the smartest men I know, white or black. He is one of the most articulate men I know; he uses words I never heard of and uses them correctly. I have never stood next to him, but I am pretty sure he is clean. So why did so many conservatives and independents vote for Obama when they would never have voted for great men like Keyes? Obviously race had little or nothing to do with it. Keyes just happened along at the wrong time with the wrong party affiliation. So, what led us down the road to ruin and vote for Obama?
First, we were tired of George Bush and his elite buddies in the Whitehouse. Bush was a big spending, big government liberal. The only thing he got right was the war on terror. He summarily allowed congress to spend us into oblivion. What he did was incredible stupid; he spent when he should have been saving. Yes he did lower tax rates and that was a good thing; but there was no way that trickle-down could keep pace with the Bush spending habits. Realizing that the average conservative American is stupid  the elite RINO’s then nominated John McCain as a replacement for Bush. McCain was more of the same; and worst than that he was a political has-been that never was. Be honest, do you really think he got elected to the senate because he is so smart; or was it because he was a war hero?  The American public has a tremendously soft spot in their hearts for war heroes, and rightly so; but let’s not be so maudlin again when it comes to veterans. They deserve every chance to succeed post military service; but they also need good leadership in government like everyone else. The point being we were tired of Bush and we all knew that McCain was not the answer, so we voted for BHO.
What we desired from the bottom of our heart, or maybe it was from the bottom of our wallets, was change and change is what BHO offered, and to our chagrin it was not the change that we wanted. But I don’t understand why everyone is so surprised; he repeatedly told everyone exactly what kind of change he was offering up. Remember the speech in California, “you can’t eat as much as you want, you can’t drive as much as you want, you can’t keep your house warm in the winter and cool in the summer like you want.” There was also the confrontation with Joe the plumber; “we are going to spread the wealth around.” What makes us amazingly stupid is that  BHO words were simple and easily understood; he told all of us that his intent was to fundamentally change America, that he was going to move it to a socialistic society where the middle class would no longer exist. How could we have possibly missed that?
We missed this because we were desperate for a government that would be responsive to the people and one that would do the right thing no matter the consequences of the next election.  Unfortunately the American populous lives in a dream world because it thinks that you can elect a left wing liberal that gives a darn what the people want and what is the right thing to do. Reid, Pelosi, and Obama have proven that to be true by their pompous patronizing over the last two years with bail-outs and health-care legislation.
We snookered ourselves; we believe the teleprompter and failed to see that it read only words; words without meaning, words that had no foundation of morality and American constitutional values. We bought into the idea that America was not the great country that it should have been. We were told, and believed, that we had intentionally keep the poor, the weak, and the racial minorities down at the bottom of pit.  We were told that we lacked compassion and concern for those who were less fortunate.  We were told that “good people” would want to share the fruits of their hard work, and that the way to do it was to give it to a government bureaucracy that really cared and could most efficiently handout our money to others. We were told that if we didn’t vote for and elect BHO that we were filled with racial hatred.  We were told that smart people would vote for BHO, and that those that didn’t were middle America hicks, and who would want to be a “red-necked” hick?  What is sad and pathetic is that many people believed the hype; add to that, that we were so desperate for change that we failed to hear what BHO said about his intentions and you have an electorate that is headed for catastrophe.
You may be shaking your head and saying to yourself, “how could we have allowed ourselves to be duped?” Well, as they say, “it isn’t over until the fat lady sings.”  What I am implying is that the deception isn’t over,  we are only two years away from the next election and polling data indicates that in all probability BHO will be re-elected. Just this morning new data shows that his approval rating is up four points to 48%.  We made a difference this last election, we sent people to Washington who wants the same change we want. Now we have to hold their feet to the fire; but more importantly we have to keep our eye on the goal and not get apathetic. We have to put this change out of office and elect a change we can believe in.
Ask yourself the question this question, “are we smart enough to do it again?” Do what again, elect BHO? No, are we smart enough to vote in change? The apostle Paul dealt with a similar issue concerning the church and told his protégé, Timothy, (3) For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; (4) and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables, 2 Timothy 4:3-4 (NKJV). Paul was addressing the issue of teaching God’s word to the church, his ministry had little or nothing to do with politics; but the principle is the same, we seek the cheap, the easy, and what we desire to hear; when what we really want and need is the truth. One more time, ask yourself, “are we smart enough to do it again?”



Monday, January 10, 2011

Definitions Are Important

How do we define a word? We go to a dictionary. How do you define a person? We look at their character and how they live out their life. How do you define a political movement? We evaluate what they claim to be and how they carry out their agenda.  Defining a word, a person, or a movement is not all that hard if we are willing to do the research and accept reality as truth. Thus, if we were to define the progressive liberal left (just so you will know for sure who we are defining we will be looking at the Democratic party and those that they continually respond to) we would rely on what they say and what they do with and emphasis on the doing. Looking at recent history of the actions of the left I draw the following conclusions as to how the progressive left should be defined.

1.       The left are crisis seekers. They will use any crisis of national import to support their agenda and activities. They have crudely used the tragedy in Arizona to foment hate of Sarah Palin, the right wing media, and the Tea Party. It was a high official in the Obama administration that said, “we must not let a good crisis go to waste.”

2.       The left by definition are liars. Again look at the tragedy in Arizona; they blatantly lied about who the shooter is and why he did the shooting. This is not a new tactic; they have never denied that the means are justified by the ends even if they have to lie to get there.

3.       They believe in a extremely progressive taxation system. Their goal is to increase the size of government by reducing the size of the private sector.

4.       The left believes the government has the right to confiscate private property and use it not only for public purposes but also maintains the right to take private property and give it to another private party of their choice. This is playing out in the northeast through confiscation of private housing for the purpose of building private shopping malls.

5.       The left believes that the constitution is a living document and must change as the culture changes.

6.       The left believes that laws can be changed through executive regulation and not necessarily though congressional legislative actions. The Obama administration is using cabinet departments to initiate cap and trade and other issues that he knows will not pass the legislature.

7.       The left lack the virtues of charity and compassion. They historically give only 1/3 as much to charity as the conservative right. They lack compassion because of their constant use of tragedy to move forward their agenda.

8.       The left is willing to use people, in the negative sense, to move their agenda. Their historic leader, Soviet Lenin, said, “the masses are useful idiots.”

9.       The left believes that the constitutional bill of rights is the enemy of the state. This is proven out by their constant attempts to stifle free speech and to take guns away from the populous. Here again we see the Obama administration trying to use regulation to control free speech on the internet.

10.   The left is typically hypocritical. When the Muslim major killed at Fort Dix we were told to use restraint when identifying who he was and what he was associated with. There was no call for restraint when the left was wrongly identifying the Arizona shooter.  

The list could be much longer but those are the basics. We could give many more examples to prove each point but that would be redundant. The left is the movement of hate; they hate the American ideal, they hate the American patriot , and they hate anyone who stands in the way of their agenda. Is it fair to classify them as un-American in a country that thrives on free speech? Is it fair to classify them as American when their pronounced goal is to fundamentally change the American ideal destroying the constitution and the republican system of government? Is it fair for a small minority  to steal away the rights of the large majority?  Fundamental change is much different than laws that set the constructs that government use to regulate how a society relates and acts towards one another. Laws that regulate actions and far less reaching than constitutional changes that prohibit activity.

Skandalon believes that the left is un-American and that all who respect the constitution and love their country must continue the fight at the ballot box; holding our politicians accountable to the constitution. Politicians who don’t follow their pledge and mandate to uphold the constitution must pay by being voted out of office and shunned from the political arena.

 

 

Killing The Truth

Today the media is filled with pundits from the left trying to lay cause at the feet of various individuals and movements who are the right of center. They are totally ignoring the fact that this individuals was probably from the extreme left if not completely a-political.  The reality is that the shooter is a nut job; he either schizophrenic, a sociopath or both. As soon as the left figures out that laying the responsibility to those on the right will not work; they will begin the rhetoric of gun control as if guns kill people and not the idiot pulling the trigger.  If guns are responsible then where is the cry for making airplanes illegal; were they not the cause of 9/11? That is a stupid association and so is the feeble attempts to associate the shooter with Sarah Palin and the Tea Party.  So we come to the question; what are the underlying causes, what is it that drives someone to do this and more importantly what is it that allows it to be done?

The triple-crown of any successful culture is truth, virtue, and self-discipline. These are the foundation stones of a culture that has a worldview that leads a society to become exceptional, a society that guides the world into goodness, compassion, and liberty. It is these virtues that the left claims is fomenting the hate that leads people to shoot and kill. They would have us believe that truth, virtue, and self-discipline are root causes of hate and are the enemy of the state. Why do I say this? Let’s analyze.   

Truth to the left is relative; i.e. you find truth within yourself, thus truth for you may not be truth for me. This leave a culture without constructs to guide and bring purpose to lives of its populace. This young man was said to have a love for communism and totalitarian forms of government. His favorite writings are the Communist Manifesto and Mein Kampf. In a society where truth is relative how can we condemn him for the beliefs that lead him to shoot? In a society where truth is relative who and what was there to teach him the context and the ultimate consequences of what he professes as a belief system? The answers are obvious; NO ONE! Where there are no absolute truths there is no accountability; where there is no accountability there is only chaos, confusion and anarchy.

Secondly, to the left virtue is silliness and for the feeble of mind. Ideals such as faithfulness, love, charity, hope, and kindness are to the left character flaws and must be overcome by the strong and dominate. But without virtue where is purpose in life? Without virtue how do we become responsible for those less fortunate? Without virtues where do we find the do’s and don’ts that control our actions; where do we go to define right from wrong? Unfortunately in our culture today the teaching of virtue is taboo. Instead of teaching little Johnny not to have sex outside of marriage we teach him how to properly wear a condom. Instead of teaching that our country was founded by men and women seeking religious freedom we teach that they were a vile group of aliens who came to destroy and conquer the Indians. We have become a culture where political correctness is the new and only appropriate virtue. As a result there are no virtues because political correctness is constantly changing from one day to the next.

Last, to the left the final element of the triple crown, self-discipline, is found only in those who are motivated by selfishness, greed, and the pursuit of personal pleasure. Humanism, materialism, secularism, and the pursuit of sexual gratification are the marks of individual excellence.  When these fail and leave a hole in our conscience we result to drugs and the occult to numb the psychological pain. When you have no sense of reality you have no need for self-discipline.

This is our culture and when we see the consequences we wring our hands and cry out who, why, how could this possible happen?  We look for someone to blame that stands in opposition to our personal agenda. We care little for the truth, we have no time self-reflection, we are unable to share grief and concern; our goal is to destroy the resistance, those who stand on the other side of the fence. Will we ever really know why he shot all those people; my guess is that we won’t, because we don’t want the truth, we can’t stand the truth, and never will we won’t stop and take the time to find it. Within  a few days we will move on to other issues on our personal agendas like gun control, speech control, and needed societal regulations that will prevent this from happening again. You can be assured that we won’t discover the truth, we won’t become more virtuous because this happened, and we won’t demand self-discipline and personal responsibility.  We have lost our way and no one has left any bread crumbs so we can find our way back.

But often, in the world's most crowded streets,
But often, in the din of strife,
There rises an unspeakable desire
After the knowledge of our buried life:
A thirst to spend our fire and restless force
In tracking out our true, original course;
A longing to inquire
Into the mystery of this heart which beats
So wild, so deep in us—to know
Whence our lives come and where they go.
~
Matthew Arnold, "The Buried Life"

 

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

The Consensus of Consensus

Yesterday while perusing my library I found a book that I have had for years but hadn’t read in a long time. Yes it actually was made of paper and had a front and back cover; there is just something about a real book that an electronic gadget cannot replace. The book was written by Francis A. Schaeffer some 34 years ago. Schaeffer was a philosopher and religious scholar of excellence. He had an understanding of the world, and what was coming to the world, that was at least 30 years ahead of his time.  He was able to articulate the concept of what a “worldview” is, and how it determines what we think and how it causes us to react to the world around us. In his book How Shall We Then Live he puts together history and the development of our current worldview, postmodernism. After reading his book you come away with a complete understanding as to why the world is the way that it is and how postmodernism is destroying the America that many of us have love so much. Does he leave us with much hope; hope will only come if we change the way we perceive and think about the world around us. Most, if not all of his writings are now available in a five volume series for a low price of about $50. I encourage everyone to get this set of books and take the time to slowly read and absorb what he so elegantly puts forth about the quandary of mankind. The following is my understanding and application of Francis A. Schaeffer’s How Shall We Then Live, chapter eight. It would be fitting and worthwhile for you to read his entire book.

There are three lines of thought that effect the intellectual ideas of man; philosophic, scientific, and religious thoughts. Plato understood this but had the concern that if there are no absolutes, no universal truths, then the world around us and those disciplines have no meaning.  It is the absolutes that give us, and the things around us, unity and significance.  The question becomes what gives import to the finite things of the universe; plants, animals, stars, and most importantly man.  Jean-Paul Sartre believed that if the finite does not have an infinite reference point then it becomes part of the absurd. His concern was with morals; if there are no absolute moral principles than whom or what determines right from wrong; or can there even be a right and wrong. To correct this man has established courts with judges to determine between individuals a resolution of right and wrong when in conflict; but that is man setting in judgment of man; but this judicial process is necessary because without courts we are left with only conflicting opinions and the resulting consequences of an unsettled argument. Because man’s knowledge is limited he therefore must seek an absolute beyond his understanding; there must be an absolute that man can turn to when the ideas and rationale of men leaves them with nothing but conflict and muddled reasoning.

If our existence is to have meaning we must have absolutes in all three areas of thought and ideas, philosophic, scientific, and religious, that are given from a higher authority than man; mainly because man cannot hold long to the “absolutes” of self-reason before someone else decides they are not true. There is one absolute truth of man; there are no absolute truths of man.  This certainty validates that transcendent truths are necessary because they give meaning to life and are necessary for our existence. For example, obviously without the absolute of gravity and an understanding how it controls and affects our lives we could not exist; but even more profoundly we must have absolutes that lead to a solid epistemology, an absolute that explains that our faith is real, and absolutes that allows us to be able to exist next to each other in the close quarters of this earth, etc. If these disciplines are not founded on absolute truths then things such as morals, values, the meaning of life, and the basis of knowing, are all lost to us; we have no way to bring understanding and meaning to ourselves. We would be lost in our own ignorance not understanding what the lack of knowledge of absolutes has done to us. Where would this lack of belief in absolutes lead us?

Looking at philosophers without faith, before the modern area, they came to this question with three things in common: First they were rationalist; they assume that man through the thought processes of his mind could acquire enough knowledge to institute his own set of absolute truths.  Since rationalism rejects the existence of God, they therefore believed that there is no knowledge outside of the mind of man. The only thing Man could do was to determine his own truths.

Their second commonality was that man’s reason is valid; that man can come to absolute truths.  If man acquires enough knowledge he can know for certain what is right or what is wrong. He can know that an apple is not an orange; he can know for sure that he exists. He can know with certainty that some things are true and others are false, that if A is A, then A is not non-A. Thus he can determine his own absolutes and know for certain that they are true and valid. This revelation seems not to be so profound until you apply it to philosophy and particularly religion as these disciplines are put forward as constructs to guide life in the way we live and relate to one another.

Third, they were optimistic; they actually believed that with enough time man would solve all the mysteries of the universe and evils of mankind. They knew that through reason alone, they could determine reality and what it means. They believed that they could find the life force principle that would unify all knowledge and all life in the universe. They believed that man would find peace for man. They would come to the conclusion that through the establishment of government man would garner his utopia.

In the modern era things have changed. Before the modern era most of man believed that there was something transcendent, something outside of man’s five senses. Not everything could be known by man through his five senses, God and even man was beyond and different than his surroundings. This is referred to as an open system of belief, that God and man are outside of the cause and effect apparatus of the universe; that they could and do influence the mechanism of the universe.  The modern era has changed all of that, man now believes he lives in a close system, and that there is nothing that he can know or can be known outside of his five senses. Thus everything that exists is part of the system including him-self; that the system has a responsibility in and of itself; that the demands of the system displace the demands of the individual. Otherwise the system has a value in itself that is above the value of mankind. This leads us to believe that saving the snail darter is of more importance that protecting an individual’s ability to provide food, clothing, and shelter for his family. To say this a different way, before the modern era the mechanical cause and effect perspective was only applied to science; today cause and effect is applied to psychology and sociology as well. Therefore, science tells us that if you make a bullet and put it in a gun and pull the trigger it will fire the bullet at a certain velocity with a specific trajectory. In sociology it means that if you put a bullet in a gun and shoot someone the gun and bullet will kill that person, leaving man outside of the cause and effect. The cause of death would then be the gun or maybe the man’s environmental up-bringing; but not the man; he is a product of his surroundings. Today we believe this not because science has proven it to be true, but because we now look at our existence with a different worldview; we come to the conclusion with a different set of presuppositions. We are now naturalistic and materialist leaving no place for God or man in the way we understand the meaning of life.

From this Schaeffer draws the conclusion that for modern man God is dead; there is no longer any place for Him nor any place for man in his surroundings. When psychology and social science become part of the closed cause and effect system, along with the physical sciences, the values and doctrines of God and values of mankind have died. There is no place for ideals like love one another and morals. Concepts like freedom and independence are lost with man becoming a zero, a non-entity that cannot live off of and in the system, but rather lives as a part of the system.

The point is that man has consumed himself in his own reasoning; man as mankind is dead, life is pointless and devoid of meaning. This reasoning has resulted in the development of ideas such as evolution and environmentalism. This makes man to be part of his environment and his beginnings from natural selection and survival of the fittest. He is no better than nor has more value than say a tree or rock, or a cow, we are all part of the greater one.  It is to no wonder that we then look to government as an entity that has the right and power to control every aspect of our lives.  If man is not transcendent to his environment than he must develop structures that control how he lives in and uses his natural resources, even if it means giving his environment greater value than himself. Thus government has taken on a life of its own; it is now that transcendent being that determines right from wrong, it is the final arbitrator of conflict; it is what man now turns to for moral values and absolutes. Where does government acquire its absolutes? Through the compromise of consensus.

The question for you and me is this; do we want to live by consensus? Before you answer, remember this; you can be sure that consensus is not always determined by what is right and morally good; the only thing you can be sure of is that the consensus is the consensus.