Death is Love

So, I was reading this article and it made me think.  I now know why the American Hegemony (because it cannot rightly be called an Empire) will not endure like the Roman Empire and in fact will have a far shorter lifespan than almost any other world power.  It comes down to Tolerance.  Not Relativism as I might have thought earlier, but the Tolerance and Political Correctness branch of that Ism.

 I will lay a little groundwork for how Relativism is self-referentially incoherent and a few of it's logical conclusions, such as Multiculturalism and Political Correctivism, but I am going to assume that you have read this article.  It's not that hard to understand and it states most of what I rely on for my premise more clearly than I could.  I do not agree with it's assertion that Christianity has been disproved and some of the examples it uses to show the differences between Christianity and Relativism, but a reasonably intelligent Christian should be able to figure out where and why it's incorrect.  That being said, the premise of an objective reality is solid.

1. Relativism says that there is no truth other than the truth that there is no truth.  This is self-referentially incoherent and make Relativism the only Ism that claims not to be an Ism.  (If you think I am wrong in my assertion that Relativism is self-referentially incoherent, then I have a hint for you: Relativism, you're doing it wrong.)
2. If truth is entirely subject to the conditions of the observer as Relativism claims, then the logical conclusion based purely on this is that the best method for life is Fascism.  Fascism says basically that the person with the strength to force his truth on everyone else should and that that it is right.  So if someone can force his truth on someone else and make it their truth, that is right for him and it is right for them to accept his truth and obey him.  Nazism is one of the ends of Relativism then.  That is what Nietzsche teaches, his messiah was an übermensch (superman) that could bend others to his will effortlessly.  Of course, that's only the logical end of Relativism if Relativism is objectively true, but if Relativism is objectively true then there an infinite number of logical conclusions to Relativism and all are equally logical.  Don't worry, that makes no objective sense, it's not just you subjectively being confused.
3. Multiculturalism is Relativism saying that is no real standard, just ones that have been fabricated by consensus and become culture, and since they are all fabricated, they are all equally valid and should get along or at least try.  This became pervasive quickly because a legitimate Christian defense could not be constructed quickly enough to stem the tide.  There is one, but it relies on carefully defining what the Bible means when it instructs us not to judge one another.
4. Political Correctivism takes Multiculturalism's assertion that there is no standard and uses that as it's standard.  It makes a standardless standard, it does not demand that you be nice to people with other beliefs like Multiculturalism, but actually asks you to abandon them because of the "fact" that there is no standard.  It asks tha,t even if you do hold another belief or have an original idea, you not publically discuss your ideas for fear of giving offense and being punished for actually having a standard other than the one with no standard.  This is not freedom, but the repression of any "offensive" dissent.

Political Correctivism's tolerance makes it impossible to test ideas against one another to determine which produces a more desirable outcome.  (The desirable outcome being the ongoing survival of the happiest society in this case.)  Instead, all ideas other than Political Correctivism remain firmly in the theoretical and cannot even be discussed; this leads to a general wooly-headed foolishness because no idea is exposed to failure or criticism.  (If they could be discussed and criticised people might quickly discover that any foolishness they hold has already been tried and proven wrong by a dead Greek, and the view that most closely accord with reality has already been delivered to them by dead Jews and a Gentile.)  This means that because hardly anyone's intelligence has been put to the test, people are on the whole, less intelligent (as evinced by the fact that few recognise Relativism as self-referentially incoherent when that was widely known previously).

This whole deadening of intelligence also deadens that national will, the belief that that cultural worldview of the Founding Fathers is the correct one, in fact, Politcal Correctivism destroys that belief wholesale and replaces it with nothing but the conviction that it was in fact terribly wrong and that white American males and any who support them must be punished for inflicting a standard on people and then having the temerity to suggest that it is right, not only for all Americans but most likely right for all.  This creates an internal conflict that is almost unique to the American Hegemony.  Rome did not fall from self loathing, it fell from internal corruption that left it unable to defend itself from outside forces.  The American Hegemony stands ready to commit seppuku to absolve itself of the sin of existence.  If a society accepts everything and cannot stand up to say that an opposing viewpoint is, in fact, an opposing viewpoint and as such cannot be tolerated it will fall to an opposing viewpoint that claims objective truth for itself ans is willing to do something about it.

If you want to build a long-lasting Relativistic society, make it a Fascist state that passes leadership to the most able.  If you want to build a long-lasting society with general contentedness, build a society that is based in objective reality (*cough*Christianity*cough*), and be prepared to assert it's ideology as true against other truth claims.  Multiculturalism leads to the implementation of different laws for different cultures in the same country so that no one culture imposes it self on any other equally valid culture and being conquered by a country that has conviction.  Political Correctivism leads to quasi-Fascism to enforce it's standardless standard and ends up falling from a lack of will and intelligence amongst the people to a country with conviction.

Unless that American Hegemony finds some truth to cling to and to reject other truth claims by it will be taken over from the inside by Muslims who have strong enough convictions to impose their will on other.

I am sure

Am I sure? You fill me with joy

Our conversation, the music of minds in sync

Yet...

You confuse me...

I am sure that you feel as I do.

I think...

You hold on to the past and present

I can never be sure until I take that step

I know God has us in His hands

I am nervous, my old wounds begin to sting

I am afraid

I have confidence in my Lord

I am told to wait, I submerge my haste in God's will

We are friends, I don't ever want to lose that

I will come to my Princess' rescue, but the timing has to be divine.

Hold on, hold on

I promise, when the timing is divine you will forget to breathe and where your feet are.

I am coming in the timing of heaven

Lord, hasten my steps, strengthen my arm

Make my sword a flash of lightning

Prepare my beloved, make her secure in You

I stand ready, the day will come

When you no longer wonder and I am no longer afraid.

Even now you know me, yet I hide my true colours

'Till the day when we are friends eternal

And the Eternal One make my way clear.

Am I sure?

I am sure.

I am currently reading "True Spirituality" by Francis Schaeffer; the other day while I was reading I came across something huge and profound that made me re-evaluate my faith.  That's about the third or fourth time so far in reading this.  It was in Chapter 6: Salvation: Past-Future-Present.

Here Schaeffer was talking about the unity of salvation and how thanks to the finished work of Jesus on the cross, God the Father has become our Father, we are in Christ, and the Holy Spirit is indwelling us.  So, not to get all heretical or anything God basically relates to us on the level that He relates to Himself.  He relates to us in the most intimate way possibly imaginable.  God sees us as His Son, we are in the Son, and the Holy Spirit is in us; therefore we have a completely personal relationship with God, so personal it's like the relationship He has with Himself in the form of the Trinity.  God invites us into that personal relationship and make us positionally a part of Himself.

Schaeffer made the point earlier, that while it is part of the Christian's duty to prove God's moral standards through his or her life, it is primarily the duty of the Christian to prove God's existence through their lives.  This dovetails with the first point in that we are positionally invited in to the presence and fellowship of the Trinity, and then it is natural that the reality of that relationship flows out of us.

The last point Schaeffer makes that I want to touch on is that we are the Bride of Christ as the church, literally, in reality, in the present.  We are literally being prepared for Christ, and Christ is waiting for us and as soon as we step from the physical reality to the spiritual reality, He is there to receive us as His Bride.

All this to say that because we as Christians are the Bride of Christ, and it is our duty to be the reality of God in our lives, and most importantly that we are relationally let into a relationship with the Trinity on His own level, as positionally part of it, all of this is so great, how can we compromise?  We are the Bride, the reality, and the Son so how can we not have God's view towards sin and not absolutely loathe even the thought of it?  How can we compromise what we allow ourselves to watch and think on and listen to and read?  I am not saying that one cannot be saved if they read/watch/listen to things that are not edifying, I am saying that once you understand salvation how could you want that anymore?  You can still indulge your flesh, but why would you want to?

I have recently changed the name of the site from Set to Shuffle to Death is Love.  There are a few reasons for this, one being that Set to Shuffle was the name of a website that my friend and I were working on but ultimately abandoned, I just recycled the name.  However, in this new context it had lost it's earlier meaning.

The second reason I changed the name is that it was hard to tell people what the website was called without a lot of spelling confusion.

The third reason is that deathislove was originally part of a tattoo idea I had and has since morphed into a convenient summary of how I view God's love towards us as humans and how I see the ideal relationship between humans.  We show how much we love one another by what we are willing to sacrifice for one another; how much we are willing to "die to self" for the sake of the one we love.  Thus, our "death to self" demonstrates our love, and so our death to self is our love for another.  It is just a simple concise statement of belief that gets strange looks and allows me to explain and unpack my take on relationships or the Gospel and the situation calls for; that is also why I think it makes a great tattoo.

The final reason I moved away from Set to Shuffle was that the domain was taken.

Kyle