Certain

Posted on March 19, 2014 by ehurst

You can have certainty, but not certitude.

It’s not so much the precise definitions of the words, but the connotations. The latter implies something outside of you, a basis in external reality, while the former is distinctly internal. In that sense, certitude is the desire, the myth, the demand of fallen souls, seeking an anchoring point in this realm of existence. Certainty is possible only because you can reach beyond this realm.

Even if I use the term “astral plane” it still assumes the Platonic-Aristotelian model of the universe. It’s rather like a cheap imitation of the real thing. While the term might serve well enough as a parable, that’s only because it is still something lesser than the reality. It’s indicative, but the definition falls short.

Here’s the crazy part: When we find symbolic images from the ANE, a significant number of Western scholars assume a literal meaning. These scholars are convinced ancient Hebrews uniformly believed in a flat earth. It’s as if symbolism cannot exist and that figures of speech are not permitted the ancients.

How do we break through this barrier?

We don’t. Could we rewrite common education, it would still take at least three generations to return to the ancient truth. We’d still have to deal with a literal bloodthirsty rage from those determined to keep materialism alive and dominant. Much of human government assumes the necessity of stamping out any hope of escaping their power. Thus, if you bear the certainty that this world really isn’t that important, you are a major threat, because there’s really nothing they can do to you.

Prepare yourself to explain the truth, but don’t presume to assertively sell the idea to those not seeking it already. Until you establish the credibility of your internal sense of peace from Heaven, you have no grounds for discussion. At the same time, it’s not as if we are pressing something new, because hints of this truth can be found all over the place. God is not silent. Your simple choice to walk in this truth will speak to the souls of those not spiritually dead.

Portray that certainty.

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Information Activist

Posted on March 18, 2014 by ehurst

We could characterize the US Constitution’s 1st Amendment as: freedom of conscience, freedom of expression, freedom to assemble and express your conscience. The convention delegates didn’t use those terms because they were facing contextual problems that seemed more pressing than probing for deeper, underlying principles. Further, they lived in a social context that was far less tolerant than we tend to believe. They were together a fair representation of where Western Civilization was headed, where the dominant body of thought was repressive materialistic middle class social expectations only lightly flavored with the pretense of being open and intellectually free.

The single greatest flaw in modern political discourse is the dispute over whether rights are absolute or must be granted by some authority. The question itself if anti-Christian, so long as you understand that Christ was an eastern mystic, and virtually nothing in Western Civilization actually follows His teachings. And if you don’t like “Jesus talk,” quantum moral reasoning finds the whole question of rights entirely artificial. It is the nature of the beast: The very existence of a government that is not based on tribal-family social structures means you are dealing with people who are hostile to good moral reasoning. While a certain amount of resistance is wholly necessary for those of us with a quantum awareness, we dare not be sucked into their false structures. Be aware of the structures so that you know where they fail and how to resist without violating cosmic moral standards.

That cosmic morality starts by warning us that we who seek it will always be in the minority. Get used to it. We cannot know the truth without leaving the majority behind, so what we know will never, ever be the basis for seeking broader social and political change. It is immoral to apply leverage against anyone unwilling. Cosmic morality is first and foremost voluntary in nature. Our mission is to bring attention to ultimate reality so that those capable of receiving it can discover the answer to their inner longings. It is something we freely offer as the fundamental reason for continuing this life, but we have zero choice in who receives it. Truth cuts its own path in the human heart, or it’s not truth.

Your mission is giving full vent to that truth within your own context. You give it life, and it gives you back a life worth living. It’s not a matter of content; the very act of free expression is the truth. If you don’t expect to get things wrong in the process, you don’t understand how truth works. Sorrow and conflict come for many reasons. At the minimum, you should expect at least some folks to be offended simply because they will find the demands of truth afflicting their conscience. These are the folks who are the most likely to receive the message, just not right away. Our mission includes persisting in the joy of truth in the face of their resistance, whatever form it takes. Dreading that resistance is to retreat from truth.

That does not mean you tolerate everything, but that absorbing some crap is a default assumption. Sometimes truth does mean hitting back, though we have to be very careful how we think about that. Truth is more valuable than your own life because it’s more valuable than all human life. Most of the time you simply run up against the limits of your contextual resources and move away from the conflict. Within your own soul you come across moments of decision when the question is: What does it take for you to continue the mission? What does your mission itself demand? It’s not about the personal insults, but the mission. Respond with mercy and stop striking when the mission is safe again. By the same token, mercy for others can mean permanently ending a threat to all at those odd moments when you are the only one in a position to do it. Truth is discerning when a threat is more than merely a threat to you personally.

More often we choose to invest in armoring so we can ignore assaults. That’s the wisdom of, for example, learning defensive martial arts over aggressive attack styles. We prefer to disengage, not destroy. That leaves things for another day, or for another servant of truth to try again later. We depend on the existence of others who serve truth because that’s how truth works; that’s the very nature of trusting truth.

In the virtual world, I admit I know precious little about attacking. I know an awful lot about defense, AKA compsec. I know that the nature of networking itself requires I promote the full freedom of all to express their content. People cannot freely decide if they don’t have the full range of what others claim as truth. It takes a silly Western legalism to assert that I am thus sponsoring evil if I help “evil” people get their message out, too. If I work to censor their message, on what grounds do I stand when seeking freedom for my own? The reality of how the Net works demands full freedom. The alternative is, in essence, no Net at all. Even malware is part of this game. It is my job to block malware on my own machine, just as it is my job to avoid saving false messages on my hard drive.

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The Value of Life

Posted on March 17, 2014 by ehurst

The questions we face in dealing with Westerners is the underlying mythology.

While you could easily round up a bunch of them and get each one to profess a different set of moral values, all of them together will remain within the matrix built on Western mythology. Even criminals who reject mainstream value systems will stand on a form of self will that is peculiar to the West. Listen to what they say and how they say it. Everything remains painted in the same color scheme.

Choosing the ANE mythologies results in an entirely different matrix. The first and most obvious issue is the otherworldly assumptions. Despite lip service, Westerners reflexively place the afterlife within this realm of existence. ANE folks reject anything like that as folly. The latter finds the otherworld so completely other that there is no comparison.

We live in the prison of shadows, where life itself is fundamentally deceitful. We do not value our lives in this world. Human life is not precious, though we have a duty to preserve it when we can. The issue is not at all a matter of the value of human life, but the necessity of divine justice. We are willing to sacrifice something in our lives for the sake of another because that’s the mission, not because life matters in itself. The mission of revealing mercy is what matters.

Can the mission ever mean taking life, too? I can’t answer that for you, but for the ANE folks broadly, the answer is “yes.” Tell me you won’t kill a rapist grabbing your children or your spouse. You have to decide, but you can’t say it’s wrong for someone else to defend life that way. That’s part of our mission thinking; each of us implements divine justice in our own way in accordance with our calling.

At the same time, if killing is truly necessary in your mission, it should be without anger or any other human passion. “Nothing personal, but if I can’t get you to stop destroying, I’ll have to kill you.” That’s written into the Code of Noah. You have to be ready to go as far as necessary to prevent someone destroying social stability as God defines it. Taking life need not be traumatic for the one who has to pull the trigger.

This is part of why we have such a boatload of PTSD cases among war veterans. The troops in the field are operating under a Western mythology. This world is all they have, as they see it, so all that death and killing tears them down inside. Not that Westerners can’t do it sanely. I had friends return from Vietnam without trauma in their souls, but they were sane and mature when they went over. Those who came back messed up weren’t very stable when they left. As time goes on, Western Civilization eats her children by making each generation progressively more stupid.

My generation saw the death of the original American Christian otherworldly viewpoint. It literally died out with my grandparents (though the effects were uneven across the social geography). Those folks believed in Heaven as totally above this realm. Their Christianity was still pretty weak in many other ways, but the single key was that assumption about reality, that there was another realm altogether. They faced sorrow and trauma on the promises of a better world in the afterlife. While the words are still part of Christian talk these days, it’s nothing like it was when I was a child. My parents’ generation was far more worldly.

But from a full ANE approach, you should be able to kill anyone, even your closest family and friends, if it’s necessary for the mission. No one but God can tell you when that’s the case, but if you find yourself wrapped up in valuing this life too much, you’ll fail the mission. You’ll fail holiness and you won’t understand reality. You won’t be able to face death with faith and confidence.

It’s not a question of bringing the gospel into disrepute, if reputation is measured by this world. The world killed Jesus and He went gladly, officially marked today as a criminal. We don’t seek the world’s approval. And while Jesus did raise the dead, virtually no Westerner understands why: Because their death was morally unjust, the result of a vast moral injustice brought about by perverting the ancient Laws of God in the one nation that should have known better. Following the rules means nothing at all if you don’t understand the underlying fabric of justice in Creation. The Judean leadership were Hellenized and had no clue, so they could scarcely do anything right. King David didn’t sin by taking the lives of those who opposed his mission from God. If the mission requires it, you can raise the dead, too.

Your mission comes first. If Ultimate Reality as revealed by God, and His divine justice, isn’t more important to you than your life and my life, then you don’t understand. You can’t claim to love me with His love if you don’t love His Laws even more.

Our values are not their values, and we should never pretend they’ll understand.

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Chasing Sheep on Narrow Tracks

Posted on March 16, 2014 by ehurst

He doesn’t have too awful many, so it’s worth chasing down the few that can be found.

I’m serving the Shepherd King. That’s a parable of reality, a parable and reality few recognize, never mind what the PR suggests. He never explained why it was so selective, why it’s only a slender minority. He simply asserts it as the sad fact of reality. The closest He comes to explaining anything is through parables, after having bluntly stated that reality is too complex for human understanding.

His divine power to change us from what the world made of us into something holy requires a separation — the basic meaning behind the word “holy.” It means pulling out those few dedicated to His purposes from the defiling influence of those not dedicated. The only way Jesus could sift out the fakes was to use a method of teaching that could be accepted only by those already suffering a deep sense of longing. Somehow they already belonged to Heaven, but to enable God’s glory, these had to know of their inclusion and be fitted to live accordingly. Again, the Father never explained how this could be, only that it was. Some things cannot ever be understood to the satisfaction of the human mind.

Whatever that separation means, it doesn’t mean keeping us from being in a position to glorify Him among those who don’t belong. Your mind would make the obvious conclusion that there is some instrumentality to revealing His glory. We instinctively reduce the process to a human choice. What confuses things further is that the gospel message is portrayed in terms of making a choice to follow Jesus. It’s a peculiar human failing to assume our choices can change eternity. Paul bluntly says otherwise, yet the human intellect refuses to surrender that false perception. It’s our native born arrogance that we can somehow handle the ultimate truth of things with our intellect. It’s as if we demand God honor our intelligence and mold Himself and His actions into forms we can handle, and in the end, that we can control. Usurping the prerogatives of God is the root nature of sin and the Fall.

The reason we follow Jesus is not to buy our way into Heaven. Nothing we do can accomplish that. We follow Jesus to claim the full heritage of a spiritual reality that came before knowing Him. Whatever it is that has to change within us — spiritual birth or being raised from spiritual death — is handled by God alone. It is solely His initiative. Rather, we follow Jesus to discover what that should mean for us once we realize it.

David spilled a ton of words in Psalm 119 to explain something that should have been so simple: Mere awareness of ultimate reality and moral truth is its own reward. Whether we can ever implement any part of that truth is another matter. The real joy is simply being aware of spiritual truth. The greatest freedom possible in this life is enslaving the mind to the Spirit. The implementation is an endeavor fraught with a million ways to fail. God promised to help us with one primary point of need: He promised to light a burning desire for His truth. Once we have embraced that and poured ourselves out as fuel for that fire, He then said we could find all the points of leverage built into the system itself.

I can only assume that it is possible to love and serve His divine truth without spiritual birth. The Law of Moses should make that painfully clear. However, it was understood implicitly in previous covenants. Job lived before Moses, reflecting the religious background of Jethro (Moses’ father-in-law). While it did require some education, the whole point of that elder covenant was that you could be drawn to divine justice for its own sake, and that you could understand it on a human level. It assumed a wealth of intellectual background now denied us by Western Civilization. Do you blame me for trying to give this back to the world?

Sure, the world needs Jesus. But the moment you repackage Him in a form the world will embrace, you have taken away the very essence of who He is. There are times and places when the first efforts to share His truth can fill a pent up demand, so that vast numbers will crowd into the narrow way. Yet the way remains narrow and tough. We should expect a significant presence of spiritual camp followers. Whether they really understand is not the point; it’s the nature of the thing. But when those who are called to do the work of sharing start doing things specifically designed to draw large numbers, it’s already a lie. All the more so if those efforts include restricting the flavor of the message to just one narrow understanding.

To the degree my service as an undershepherd means finding a few lost souls who hunger for the truth I bear, it’s not me to whom I want you clinging. My books aren’t designed to appeal to the market for entertainment. My blog isn’t just a technology blog with religious chatter thrown in for fun. My Facebook page is not simply a way to stay connected to family and friends. There’s no intention to keep you from wandering, only to let you wander where it will do you some good. If I can convince you of what good pasture and water look like, and what the Shepherd’s voice sounds like, I know I can trust your instincts to take care of the rest. Whatever else we might need is handled by goats He chooses (hint: that’s human government).

This is my reality.

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Job 31

Posted on March 15, 2014 by ehurst

Let’s recall that the early chapters state Job did not sin against God in his words. That doesn’t mean he was without error in the sense of how his words affected others. We recognize that the elder trio provoked him beyond measure and he should have sent them packing, but instead he endured their taunts and bad doctrine. He made the mistake of letting them get to him, encumbering his witness with their folly. So his words here don’t defame God, but he goes too far in defending his honor instead of allowing God to handle it.

These are not Hebrew people; they are under the Covenant of Noah. There are indications for a good bit of oral lore attached to this that was left out of Scripture as largely impertinent. We see Job’s understanding of it, which does reflect somewhat the same underlying concept of divine justice more intricately laid out in Moses. A primary concern of all the Law Covenants was social stability.

The first few verses (1-12) refer to the social stability that arises from marital fidelity. Straying from the marriage covenant is inherently destabilizing in a tribal society. Job protests he can’t remember so much as coveting another woman, virgin or married. He reaffirms the curse attached to infidelity, that his own marriage would come apart. He’s not wishing evil on his wife, but describing how much of a loss it would be to him. Not simply losing her exclusive companionship, but it entails a scandalous situation so severe that we hardly comprehend it in our modern times. He would be the laughingstock of everyone; it would follow him wherever he went in this world. Not just making him a nobody, it would render him a has-been of the worst sort.

The second paragraph (13-23) covers the wider social obligation of charity. In that time and place, a social outcast was lucky to survive. Consider the curse on Cain. So treating others with kindness and seeking to offer at least a little of what made life possible was almost an obligation to prevent being ostracized. Job indicates he went well beyond the mere minimum expectations; he was the model of compassion to which others aspired. Again, he reaffirms the justice of the curse associated with selfish meanness to others.

The third section (24-34) has to do with various forms of idolatry. There was no sin in respecting the religious devotions of pagans, but this refers to the basest sort of religious treason. There are provocative acts that reduce God to little more than a powerful man, who couldn’t read Job’s heart, but would have to rely on human tattling or direct observation to catch Job being disloyal. The last part of this section reveals various expressions of blasphemy by not trusting in the vast provision of God. While it echoes the previous section regarding compassion and charity, in this instance it points to a different cause for such sin.

In the final verses of this chapter, Job affirms his eagerness to face the judgment of God, but can’t seem to get a fair hearing. There is a note of humility, completely willing to confess publicly his sins. He is fully confident that God would receive him. Then, one last time Job embraces the penalty for moral failure. He repeats one of the curses he would face for moral injustice as a symbol of his desire for divine justice on all the earth. We are told Job speaks no more.

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Quantum Resistance

Posted on March 15, 2014 by ehurst

The Enemy wants control.

He gets it by suckering us through our vices. Rarely does anyone have to worry about an attack unless they are already inside the Enemy’s camp. What we have to do is resist our weaknesses and learn how not to burn. As previously noted, stopping the NSA from taking control of your computer devices is the same as stopping any other criminal. There are no absolutes, only probabilities and risk factors.

Cellphones: If you use a smartphone offered by any of the regular providers, you will be vulnerable as a matter of course. Not only to all carriers sell their information to the NSA, but they also provide the means for highly invasive tools that take your phone out of your control without informing you. If you must use a smartphone, your one hope is using a device you fully own and installing an alternative operating system.

I can’t advise you about Firefox OS, but I’m inclined to trust it already. Tizen is probably the best hope for maintaining your independence. Sailfish and Ubuntu’s phone OS are probably a good compromise. Everything else chains you to the ground again.

Windows: If you use Windows, they own you at their leisure. You may have never had trouble with it in the past; that indicates good habits. You also may have something lurking in your system and not know it. Honestly, folks, I work with Windows machines all the time and the malware-virus field outpaces the number of hours I could devote to reading about the new threats every day. We can pretend for a moment Microsoft hasn’t left some back door open for them, but there are so very many security openings even MS and security researches haven’t found yet.

Nobody has to tell me Windows works better with most hardware configurations, that almost everything you do on Windows tends to be as convenient as it gets, and that it’s much easier to find really good free software that works much better for common user needs. The issue is that Windows is insecure from the start, and security is an afterthought. You need AV and anti-malware protections and I highly recommend Crypto Prevent which tightens permissions to what should have been the default security settings. However, you will never have real control over your Windows computer because MS specifically prevents it. You are just renting their OS, remember?

Mac is generally fine if you an afford it, but I can’t so I don’t mess with it much. It doesn’t matter how much you get for your money if you don’t have any money. Macs will never be priced for average consumers. You’re on your own, but I will give you a hint: Mac includes the IPFW firewall from FreeBSD and it has several really simple options you can choose with only minimal script editing. Look at the client or workstation options.

Linux: You would naturally think that, since I wrote a book on learning to use Debian, that’s what I run. You’d be right. Of all the various kinds of Linux out there, it’s the one I consider the most trustworthy, as in least likely to cooperate with the NSA accidentally or intentionally. Download the free book and get started learning how to take back control of your computer. I’ll be right here to help you.

I have learned to use multiple browsers for different kinds of surfing. I don’t ever use just one for all tasks. I use Lynx for reading generally, and some sites are simply too visually noisy. Lynx is the one browser least likely to react to any attempts to hijack. If I have to see the pictures, the next best things is Dillo. I still use Opera for email and some specific sites because Opera does a better job of securing your passwords. Opera has not yet given Linux users the fancy new toy they have for Windows, but it’s probably coming. Otherwise, I use Chromium, the Open Source version of Google Chrome. My book discusses how to make Chromium encrypt the password storage on Linux.

Each browser has dozens of options, controls, add-ons, etc. — any number of ways to change how it behaves. On top of that, you should always run a cache cleaner (BleachBit or CCleaner). Become an expert in what it takes to reduce tracking and threats of all kinds.

I cripple the email display in Opera Mail. I don’t want images autoloaded and attachments are kept in cold storage until I peel them off the message. I use some of the most primitive means of examining all attachments because those are the safest ways: Evince for PDFs, Libre Office for most Office attachments, Ristretto for images, Parole for media. The only AV you can get for Linux is to protect from Windows viruses — typically used on Linux machines that handle files transferred to Windows computers. Linux is simply not as vulnerable to attacks of that sort, and viruses are exceedingly rare. Most of them become obsolete as soon as the developers figure out how it works. Debian doesn’t wait for a “Patch Tuesday” once a month. You have to check manually for updates, but things are fixed quickly.

As you can see, it boils down to avoiding unjustified convenience. That is, if convenience equals risk, do it the hard way. I still install WINE so I can run Notepad++ because nothing in Linux comes even close. I still run either Word 97 or Word 2000, both working well under WINE. For all the other Windows-based stuff, I keep a virtual machine compliments of VMWare with XP. I can decide whether it connects to the Net (which is almost never). I also keep a backup copy of the XP image in case something nasty gets into the one I use.

As noted previously, these measures do not keep the NSA from targeting me individually. Rather, these measures make them pay a higher price so that is has to be very intentional. It is wholly unlikely they’ll scoop me up with a bunch of other people and take over my system. It has already been revealed that they have been trying for quite some time.

Paranoid? Call it what you like, but I’ve used Linux for years and I’m quite comfortable with it. I’m not pushing it, just trying to make it as easy and reasonable as possible. Mainly, it’s simply my best gospel tool for the moment. The issue of self-discipline is resolved when you are committed to the mission.

God supports His mission and will honor your efforts to secure the tools dedicated to His Kingdom.

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Quantum Moral Dominion

Posted on March 14, 2014 by ehurst

As always, I cannot tell you what path to take; I can only explain mine.

I lack the time and expertise to read purposefully all the released documents on NSA spying. That means I rely on people I trust who know more than I to write about it. What I have read indicates the spying is confined to an identifiable technology profile that isn’t all that hard to avoid. The summary I offer will offer tomorrow is not meant to suggest you are wrong for using something they target. Rather, it simply indicates you are exposing yourself and you need to be aware so that you can make wise choices.

The NSA spying is a threat to you and I. They are zealous to invade our computers and seize control from us. Not so much individually, but their insistence on controlling every factor in their work turns into a demand that is tantamount to chaining you to the ground in the ready position for rape at their convenience. That such chaining leaves you wide open to abuse by other parties is of no concern to them, except that they deny it in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. In case you are a little slow: They don’t give a damn about you and will lie about their motives. Declarations that we aren’t the target of their spying means nothing, because they willingly ruin lives as the price for their absolute power to do anything they damned well please.

So the threat is not that they can gather information and see what we are saying to each other. The threat is the methods they use for that spying. Their methods disable every means of protection we have against criminals. They become criminals in the process. I’ll be discussing things I do that reduce my exposure to criminals, and more pointedly the NSA’s criminal activity. Block the NSA and you will also block the other criminals.

First, let’s deal with some broad generalities. Consider how you use your computers and phones. The single greatest factor in surrendering is the collection of habits that expose you to their intrusions. The single greatest human weakness is seeking entertainment. I can’t fix that for you. If your mission commitment is that weak, it’s something only you and God can work out together. This is hardly the silly puritanical nonsense you might think it is; it’s not a matter of discipline. The issue is what you love most. If the mission isn’t your highest joy, you have a ways to go. If the Internet and phone networks are valuable to you in themselves versus simply a tool for the mission, then the Devil owns you anyway.

My particular mission is communications. Not just the gospel, but all communications as the primary means of ensuring the gospel gets through. This is not about my particular version of the gospel or controlling the media so that only the gospel gets through. It doesn’t work that way. If you don’t understand how my assertion reflects God’s divine justice, I cannot help you at all. Maybe you need to read my book linked on the lower right column of this blog so you’ll understand, but I have a mission from God to ensure complete and total freedom of all humans to communicate anything they wish. My God is big enough to work His divine will in that environment, and any restriction will simply become another tool of Satan.

The whole point is that you keep your restrictions inside the domain God has delivered to you. You have no mandate from God to work toward controlling anything but your own life. Yes, that means you can place whatever restrictions you sense are needed for your dependents. The primary injustice in this world is asserting dominance contrary to God’s definitions of what constitutes dependency. That’s what this whole post is about: We are using God’s divine justice as a weapon to fend of sinful attempts to restrict our mission.

Now that we have established the underlying concepts, tomorrow I’ll post the specifics.

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Quantum This-n-That

Posted on March 13, 2014 by ehurst

Dear readers: I need to bounce this off you. It assumes a certain amount of knowledge on your part, so don’t be concerned if you think it’s simply over your head. That’s the way some things in life are. This is an effort to define terms and how I use them.

quantum: of or related to finitude; implying a precise amount based on the smallest measurable partitioning; as an adjective, indicating an attempt to reduce something to the lowest discernible level, getting down to the fundamentals or the essence of the subject and often associated with paradoxical results

Quantum logic or quantum reasoning is an attempt to reduce bias in thinking. Given the indisputable fact that the human mind cannot operate without an established context, the endeavor makes no pretense of removing all bias. Rather, it is concerned with reducing bias by recognizing various types of reasoning from other contexts and comparing them.

In particular, we as Westerners need to confront the false assumption that our rules and form of logic are the universal standard. By comparing with the wider range of intellectual cultures from other civilizations, we can begin to understand the limits that Westerners unknowingly place on their investigation of things. A particular question is sources of knowledge, and what constitutes valid knowing (epistemology). The West has drawn upon the Greco-Roman Civilization and rejects any source that is not drawn directly from humans: sensory inputs processed through binary analysis. “A thing cannot be both x and non-x at the same time.”

Just as this fails when applied to matter at the level of quantum mechanics, quantum reasoning is not constrained by binary assumptions. A thing can associate simultaneously with conflicting states. Thus, decisions need not pretend to be objective, but highly nuanced and contextual. Truth is assumed rooted outside the reach of human intellect.

Quantum morality — A primary pursuit of reason and logic is defining what is good, right or best in human behavior. Building on quantum reasoning, we recognize a source of input that comes from outside human senses and intellect. Moral reasoning assumes the need for higher faculties that inform the intellect. A thing can be both good and evil at the same time; moral choices need not be regarded as objective and binary. Indeed, it becomes the root assumption that they cannot be so regarded because ultimate moral reality is not confined to the reach of mere intellect.

Moral absolutes are virtually impossible. Questions of human government cannot be reduced to simplistic and objective regulation. For example, rigid penalties in crime and punishment are inherently wrong by quantum moral reasoning. The assumption that government can be structured to be fair and just assumes a false definition of fairness and justice. Modern Western reasoning will invariably fail on such questions because it will not admit to the limitations of human reasoning. Westerners struggle to rig up just systems that crash on the rocks of quantum reality.

Quantum reality is equivalent to ultimate reality. It’s more than reality as one might perceive through human effort; it’s the awareness that there are things we cannot possibly understand. However, we can account for such ultimate reality by building a logic that takes into account the broader human experience with quantum moral reasoning. Once we include in our assumptions about reality that not everything will yield to binary logic and analytical reasoning, we are prepared to investigate the broader factors of ultimate reality.

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Virtual Activist

Posted on March 13, 2014 by ehurst

There is no place for absolutism in this world.

I’ve already stated often enough that I am not a political activist of any stripe. It’s not that my actions have no political meaning, but politics is never the point. The real meaning of passages like Romans 13 is that we don’t directly interfere in God’s plans regarding human governments. He’s in charge and the only human government that ever had a chance of working directly with Him executed His Son. So His covenant with them died on the Cross. While the Laws of God expressed through His Law Covenants still apply to all human activity, there is no covenant nation on this earth. From the standpoint of divine justice, no government on this earth pleases Him. They might be useful to Him on a limited basis, but not a one can claim any special favor from Him.

We have been adequately warned that our mission on this earth will surely get us in trouble with human governments sooner or later. While governments these days tend to avoid openly labeling us troublemakers, that’s not the point. Serving Christ cannot avoid pissing off someone who serves Satan, whether they serve knowingly or otherwise. That’s the way it is in this world. Even if they could scarcely care less that we love Jesus, we cannot obey divine justice without coming into conflict with human government at some point.

Consider again my post on the fiery furnace ordeal. Remember that death is just a circumstance.

While we are here, we defend only our mission. Even then, we give no thought to changing how government acts, but doing as much as we can to ensure the mission is not hindered. The fundamental mission for all of us is communicating the truth. In my world, that currently requires Internet access. If there is one thing in this life wherein I’ll most seem an activist, it’s the Internet.

For the record: I am not anti-government; I am deeply cynical. Despite my complete cynicism about government institutions, I still regard life in the US Army as my “home.” It’s where I would still be most comfortable today, but I can’t imagine how I could return to that without radical changes in the current system, not even as a civilian employee or contractor. So I am not particularly interested in tearing down the US government or any of the institutions. But I’ll be the first to tell you don’t ever trust them to do the right thing, particularly regarding the Internet.

Not that I would imagine forcing anyone to keep their hands off of it. This is not a question of imaginary rights, because I have no financial or legal interest in the vast collection of wires, servers, etc. Leverage is a very slippery thing here, but while it’s available, I do have a lot to say about how I access it. As with all things in meat space, I can’t control the reality in which I live, but I can control me and my actions. In virtual space I’m a force to be reckoned with.

Right now, there is no distinction between the actions of the NSA and any cyber criminal. The same goes for all the other spying services, but the NSA is getting all the attention right now. They operate with a criminal negligence of human property and safety and any claim to serve our interests was blown away long ago. It’s not as if I could pretend that any government is going to put their spies back in the box, but I will not be told I can’t treat the spies the same as crooks.

And while I am hardly expert enough to fight them on equal terms, I can most certainly raise the cost of messing with me. If they target me individually, they’ll win. So long as I am just another source of packets on the Net, you can be sure they will gleefully run over me and you and anyone else. It has gotten to the point that they refuse to be accountable to Congress or anyone else, so screw `em.

Remember: We have a mandate from God to communicate, and when their activities hinder ours, they cannot claim a priority. That’s not at all what Romans 13 is about. They are already in defiance of God, so the angelic protections are on our side, and the demons are on theirs. They serve Satan. That doesn’t mean God will save us from the fiery furnace necessarily, but He would be inclined to support His own message. It’s a factor in His inscrutable and ineffable calculus of things.

The issue is not absolute control over their naughty activities, but reducing the threat as much as possible. More on this tomorrow.

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A Higher Power

Posted on March 12, 2014 by ehurst

Daniel 3: The Hebrews in Nebuchadnezzar’s Furnace

Ancient Hebrew culture was contemplative. You were supposed to read or hear something and think about it, extrapolating and expanding on it. You were training the mind to obey something much higher than intellect. There were boundaries to the expansions, but you learned those by spending time listening to someone who had lived longer and much more wisely than others. You went looking for sages whose very lives called out to you, and you spent the time necessary to discern if their reputation matched your own drive for moral truth.

Yeah, it looks like a crapshoot, but your confidence in God meant trusting Him to lead you out of something that might be deceptive at first. God has time to wait for you to grow up and human experience necessitated making mistakes along the way. Death was just a circumstance in the bigger picture.

So when Daniel’s buddies in Nebuchadnezzar’s imperial court got into trouble, they walked in faith. Daniel takes the time to explain the background, but Westerners invariably get it wrong. In a polytheistic culture, the idea was to raise revenue, though not in the raw materialism it would be in our culture. It was so obvious that no one bothered to mention that you don’t pray to any god without making an offering. Neb’s other advisers told him it would be a good idea, probably based on alleged astrological reckoning, to briefly restrict such activity to some arbitrarily chosen deity, represented by the statue. That particular deity’s treasury would then increase due to the monopoly. The idea of a permanent monopoly would have shocked their consciences, not to mention causing a religion-inspired revolt that would have likely succeeded. But a temporary demand of this sort was generally tolerable to the people of that time and place.

The Hebrews lacked the sort of leverage to represent much of a threat. At this point the Chaldeans didn’t quite get the Hebrew religion on this one essential point: Just because Jehovah permitted their conquest and enslavement does not mean He’ll share their religious loyalties, too. Those who did understand it didn’t explain their motives to the Emperor. These Hebrews were a threat to their power within the imperial court. This lesson had to be repeated again later and with other imperial governments, but we notice the Romans had caught on by the time it was their turn. In Daniel 3, it was a lesson yet to be learned.

So when they were called in for violating the edict, their answer does not translate well into English. In essence, it was the equivalent of nolo contendere. “We have no defense because we aren’t disputing the facts.” What mattered was that they weren’t worried about the consequences, either. As far as they were concerned, Neb had no leverage in this matter. If it meant dying, then they’d die, but these young fellows had no doubt their God could handle it with them alive or dead. Most emphatically they were sure He was able to keep them alive, contrary to Neb’s stated assumptions.

Thus it happened. Neb realized that, in at least this point of imperial law, it was out of his jurisdiction.

His anger at their attitude is so common today that we often mistake all the opportunities to provide the same lesson to far lesser humans. It first requires you walk through the Valley of Death; you have to make utterly certain for yourself that the consequences for walking in truth are of no significance compared to the value of the truth. Strive for a clear conscience and enslave your mind to the truth. Take your lumps for missteps, but learn to recognize when God actually approves. The psychology of that is covered in other posts; just do it.

The point is recognizing when people try to make you bow down to their gods.

A crazed feminist bitch demanding you apologize for making her feel bad? The facts are more important than your feelings or mine. (This assumes you didn’t speak with the intent to provoke.)

Someone accusing you of racism? I’m content with your failure to understand my motives. (You can’t fix stupid.)

Threats to make you uncomfortable for daring to suggest social orthodoxy might be in error are hardly in the same league as Nebuchadnezzar’s fiery furnace, but is made of the same substance. The issue is not who is right, but Whom you serve.

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