To Be a Christian: Opening Statement

***In the interest of improving our rhetorical skills, I have agreed to debate Trevor Blake on the topic of “To Be a Christian”. Trevor has posted the terms of the debate at his site. He has also posted his opening statement. The following is my opening statement. For those of you who follow the debate, we encourage a donation to Samaritan’s Purse.***

****

What does it mean to be a Christian?

There are over two billion people, coming from all races and nationalities, who call themselves Christian. These two billion have subdivided into countless denominations, organizations, and sects each having their own interpretation of what being a Christian means. In some cases, these sects even deny that other sects are deserving of the title. In an oddity of this modern age, some Christians dislike calling themselves such, preferring such terms as ‘Christ-followers’.

Despite the vast array of interpretations of Christianity, the heart of being a Christian is very simple: Christ. It is found in the word itself, Christian is literally translated as ‘belonging to or following Christ.’ To be a Christian is to belong, in heart, mind, and soul, to Christ.

For a brief period of human history, God took on the flesh of His own creation and sacrificed Himself on a cross so that man may not perish but live forever with God. To be a Christian is to accept Christ’s gift of sacrifice and to be reconciled to God.

What does it mean to be reconciled?

We must start at the beginning. Man was created in the image of God, he was imbued with a soul, to live with God in paradise, but man rebelled. He chose pride, to be wise in His own eyes, to sin. God is a God of justice; He can not abide sin, so man was cast from paradise, from God’s presence, and cursed to work the ground. Man was cut off from God.

But God had a plan for redemption. Two thousand years ago, He sent Himself, His son, Jesus Christ to earth. Christ was born of a woman and lived life as a man but did not sin. As an adult, he was innocent, yet was unjustly executed. He became a sacrifice; His blood became the payment* for man’s sins, so that man’s sins may be forgiven.

Christ died, but He did not stay dead. Three days later, He arose from the dead, conquering death itself. By Christ’s death and resurrection, man’s sins had been paid for and he was no longer a subject to death, eternal life could be had again.

By repenting of His sin, man could, by Christ’s sacrifice, once again be right with God. This is reconciliation, to be made right with God. A Christian is simply one who has been reconciled to God through Christ.

That is the basic Christian message: Christ.

To be a Christian is to put your hope in Christ’s resurrection.

Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.

But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. For “God has put all things in subjection under his feet.” But when it says, “all things are put in subjection,” it is plain that he is excepted who put all things in subjection under him. When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all. (1 Corinthians 15:12-28 ESV)

****

What is required to be a Christian?

Belief in Christ and the repentance of sins. Baptism is the outer sign of this belief and repentance.**

****

What do Christians believe?

Christian beliefs are divergent on many issues, hence why there are so many differing sects and denominations, but all Christians of all denominations hold to the Nicene Creed. Any who opposes this creed would not be accepted as a Christian by most Christians.

I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.

And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds; God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God; begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made.

Who, for us men for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the virgin Mary, and was made man; and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate; He suffered and was buried; and the third day He rose again, according to the Scriptures; and ascended into heaven, and sits on the right hand of the Father; and He shall come again, with glory, to judge the quick and the dead; whose kingdom shall have no end.

And I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of Life; who proceeds from the Father [and the Son];*** who with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified; who spoke by the prophets.

And I believe one holy catholic and apostolic Church. I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins; and I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.

****

What are the commands for the Christian?

There are two primary commands for a Christian: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.”

Love for God is shown by obedience to God:

Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words. And the word that you hear is not mine but the Father’s who sent me.

This is almost circular: We love God by obeying Him and we obey him by loving Him. How we show our obedience to and love for God is by loving our neighbours.

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Love is the command for the Christian. All other commands are but aspects of this one central command.

Love is also the primary fruit of the Christian life.

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends… So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

****

What is the result of not being a Christian?

Eternal death. The non-Christian chooses against God, against Christ and His gift of eternal life. He chooses sin. God will honor his choice and remove Himself from his life.

****

Notes:

* I know what exactly happened on the cross and the theology of atonement and justification is complex and disputed. I shall not be entering into that here.
** I also realize the theology concerning baptism’s role in salvation is complex and disputed. Once again, I’ll not be entering into that here.
*** [and the Son] is a disputed theological point. Most Western Christians include ‘and the son’, while Eastern Orthodoc Christians do not.

Lightning Round -2014/10/15

We interrupt your regularly scheduled set of links for this important announcement.

The Showdown Has Begun: Trevor Blake and I are having a debate on the topic ‘To be Christian.‘ The goals and terms of the debate can be found here.

Trevor has started it with his Opening Statement. My Opening Statement will follow on Friday.

This is my first formal debate, so there should be fun and learning to be had.

Also, we are raising funds for Samaritan’s Purse, one of the few charities I actually respect (as far as I can tell, it has not yet been lost to Conquest’s second law). If you’re liking the debate, consider a donation.

We will now continue with your regular set of links. Although, I’ve been busy, so there’s fewer than usual, but that just means more next week. Enjoy.

****

The simple math behind early retirement.

How to be a maximalist.

Tolkien on intersexual relations.

Men are literally becoming feminized.

People don’t seem to understand a father making more is a sacrifice not a prize.

What statistically makes for a stable marriage.

The slippery slope “fallacy”.

A book review of the Privileged Sex.
Related: The EZ way to get men to fight for you.

Stereotypes, honesty, and ignorance.

Ebola, Spain, and holiness.
Related: Become so holy the flesh rots off your bones.
Related: More on Ebola.
Related: The ebola curve.
Related: Ebola math.
Related: America can’t fight an epidemic.
Related: Institutional breakdown in the time of Ebola.
Related: The incompetence of health experts.
Related: The ultimate Ebola scare.
Related: Leave the volunteers in Africa.

On the War of Southern Independence.

Jim doubts current GDP measurements, thinks China will be richer by 2030.

Monarchy and technology. Related.

Commie Catholics.
Related: Catholic Church report flirts with self-immolation.
Related: Dropping bombs on the family.

On Darwinian blithering.

Women driving the delay in marriage.

Selling sin.

Unmarried cohabitation began in the 70s.

Our dystopia of single moms and masturbating bastards.

Women in the game industry.

Some hilarity from Tumblr.

Why the NFL Breast Cancer Month is a joke.

The pill destroys lake eco-systems.

They’re coming for your children.

Gender insanity at the schools.
Related: 5-year-old punished for pointing a crayon and saying ‘pew, pew’.

The slave trade in medieval Italy. Part 2.

Laurie Penny as an ‘outsider’.

Detroit: Homeowner offers to swap house of iPhone. Vote Democrat!

Doctors “euthanizing” those with psychiatric problems in Holland.

Pregnant Austrian teens who joined ISIS regret it. Ha.

The Media Party colluding in Canada.

H/T: CC, Dalrock, SDA

On Pedophiles

SoBL has noted that the NYT have tried to make pedophiles victims. He does not take kindly to this:

I do not care if they are taking their meds. We make alcoholics jump through many hoops to get their driver’s license back, so why should we be helpful to pedophiles at all? That type of attraction is a disorder, and the sign of a broken human being. I looks at pedos as people we should be hanging in the town square when caught. Sure, it is a disorder, and a crime, and I do not want your part of the gene pool to pass on your pedo-ness or be free to roam and molest kids. These are not oppressed victims; these are people who are messed up in the head and should be sequestered.

I’m going to disagree with SoBL here, at least partially.

Before I begin, I should establish some definitions because people tend to use words related to this topic in a very slip-shod manner and I’m trying to establish a nuanced view here. I will also note that there are many problems in researching this particular area of study, so a lot of these numbers have wide variance.

A clinical pedophile is someone with a primary or sole attraction to pre-pubescent children. Of clinical pedophiles, true (or exclusive) pedophiles are attracted solely to children, while non-exclusive pedophiles have normal adult attractions in addition to their pedophilic attractions. Depending on the source, anywhere from 1-7% of men are clinical pedophiles, although, most estimates I’ve seen tend to be on the lower end.  (I have not seen a number breaking down exclusive and non-exclusive pedophiles).

Besides the clinical pedophiles, there are those with pedophilic tendencies. These are men who are primarily attracted to adults, but also have some level of attraction to children. About one in five men have some level of pedophilic tendencies. (I remember reading somewhere that one study found that half of men have some level of attraction to children, but I can not find a source).

Not all clinical pedophiles are child molesters and not all child molesters are clinical pedophiles. A pedophilic offender is a clinical pedophile who molests children, while an situational molester is someone who is not a clinical pedophile but molests children. An archetypical example of a situational molester is a step-father who has a fight with his wife, gets drunk, then sleeps to his step-daughter because he’s horny and she’s available. The proportion of molesters who are pedophiles varies by source: Some sources say that less than 20% of child molesters are clinical pedophiles, while others put it up to 80%.

Many people also incorrectly use pedophilia to refer to attraction to the legally under-age but pubescent. Attraction to pubescent teenagers is not pedophilic. People attracted young pubescent teenagers are referred to as ephebohpiles and hebephiles.

An ephebophile is someone who is primarily or exclusively attracted to teenagers in their late adolescence (ages 15-19 or so). Given that I recently argued adolescence is an unhealthy, aberrent infantalization of adults, I obviously reject the category of ephebophilia as a pathology (as do psychologists), as attraction to adults is normal as is a strong preference for youth.

Someone who is primarily or exclusively attracted towards young but pubescent girls (ages 11-14 or so) is called a hebephile. There is overlap between pedophiles and hebephiles. I would say that while some level of attraction to young pubescents is normal, especially among men, a primary or exclusive attraction to young pubescents is probably unhealthy and pathological.

Hereafter, pedophile/pedophilia on their own refers to a clinical pedophile/pedophilia.

****

With words clearly defined, I will now explain why I disagree with SoBL. Pedophilia is a disorder, but non-offending pedophiles should not be “hanging in the town square.” A pre-disposition to a particular evil is not the same as committing that evil.

We’ll liken pedophilia to homosexuality. Sodomy is a sin, but those who are biologically pre-disposed to homosexuality can still have a fruitful and happy marriages without sin. Not all (clinical) homosexuals commit sodomy or try to normal homosexuality. Opposing pride parades and homosexual “marriage” does not mean we should condemn the homosexual living a healthy life with a wife and three children.

We can also liken it to rape. I’ve noted before that about one third of males have rape fantasies; a large portion of male population is inclined to this particular sexual crime. Only about one in six of those so inclined actually act on the fantasies (as I’ve noted before, about 6% of men are rapists). We do not imprison those males who merely fantasize about rape, only those who act. As well, it is not a sin to be inclined to rape, only if it the inclination becomes lust or action does it become a sin.

Likewise, just because a man is predisposed to pedophilia does not mean he can not still be a useful and accepted member of society. If he does not commit any evil actions and does not try to normalize pedophilia, he should not be condemned. He has certain inclinations, but he is not acting on them. He is committing no sin and no crime, and should not be punished as if he is.

Not to mention, we need to take into account the practicalities of the situation: Are we really going to jail/kill 2% of men? If we include everybody who has pedophilic tendencies (which SoBL seems to be indicating), then what? What could we possibly do with 20% of the male population?

This is why I disagree with SoBL. A natural inclination towards a particular temptation is not sin and persecuting people for crimethink, even if that crimethink is pedophilic in nature, is unjust.

****

This is not to say that nothing should be done. A known pedophile should not be put into position where he is left alone with children not his own (including step-children) and he should be barred from jobs that require regular interaction with children. We should not put temptation to crime and sin in front of a man with inclinations towards that particular crime/sin. Hence, we should keep pedophiles from situations where he has hidden access to children, just as we do not serve alcoholics wine, we (should) keep college dorms segregated by sex, we disallow men from leading girl guide troops, and we (should) ban homosexuals from leading scout troops.

As well, none of this is to say that a child molester should not be punished. If a man molests a child, he should be punished; in many cases executed. Given that about 25-50% of prosecuted child molesters commit future molestations, molesters who are released back into society should be watched closely to prevent them from interacting from children.

Amanda Hess, College Rape, & Good2Go

Every media source of goodthink has been hammering on about the college rape crisis over the last while. California’s Yes Means Yes law was the feminist triumph of inserting the state into college bedrooms.

But one app, and the feminist response to it, shows that feminists do not actually care about consent or preventing rape in the least. All the rage over the last few years has been nothing but expanding the power of the feminist bureaucracies.

One naive woman, Lee Ann Allman,  actually thought the college rape crisis was a real problem that needed addressing, so she developed a real, practical solution to this problem. She created  an app called Good2Go. It was fairly simple: when hooking-up, the two partners both logged onto the app, stated whether they were consenting to sex, and noted their level of intoxication. It gave each partner a moment to think about if they really wanted to have sex, initiated a conversation about consent, clearly defined consent, tracked and ensured the identity of each individual involved in the hook-up, ensured the age of the participants, and then kept a log of whether consent was established or not. The mass adoption of said app for college hook-ups would virtually eliminate date rape.

So, with a practical solution to the problem of campus rape at hand, feminists, of course, rejoiced lifting their hands in praise and showering Allman with praises. Right? Because feminists really do want a solution to the campus rape epidemic, don’t they?

Nope, instead they protested so hard that the Apple store actually removed the app for being objectionable. ‘How dare anyone try to actually solve the campus rape crisis!‘

Amanda Hess at Slate, one of the leaders in the attack on Good2Go, demonstrates fully the depths of depravity of the feminists on this issue. In her first attack she (self-contradictorily) argues it’s both inconvenient and doesn’t define exactly define every sex act being consented to in explicit detail and logging consent for each individual act. Also, the evil company logs the information so that it can be found by law enforcement if an accusation of rape is made. (How dare those assholes help law enforcement ascertain the truth of an accusation!)

To put the cherry on the top of her attack she writes this:

That record may help the falsely accused, but it’s unlikely to aid a real victim.

Remember, if you are falsely accused of rape you are not a real victim. You can suffer slander, have your reputation ruined, be booted out of university, have your life-plan destroyed, and  even go to jail, but that doesn’t make you a real victim. Aren’t feminists lovely?

In her article announcing the shutdown of Good2Go Hess concisely summarizes why the app is so horrible:

When Good2Go launched last month, I tested it out and concluded that it was impractical (who wants to fill out a four-minute horniness/sobriety quiz before having sex?) and insecure (the app kept a database with sexual consent records that could be accessible by law enforcement)… one college student interviewed on Today said it was “a buzzkill.”

So, according to Amanda Hess, rape is bad, but inconveniencing a horny woman is even worse. The horrors of rape can not compare to the horrors of a small quiz and being “a buzzkill”.

Also, according to Amanda Hess, law enforcement should not be allowed to investigate accusations of rape. In fact, she states that law enforcement doing so is an invasion of privacy.

It’s obvious that Amanda Hess doesn’t think college rape or accusations thereof are in any way serious.

It is possible that the app may not be the platonic ideal of a perfect consent mechanism which exists solely in the imaginary world of feminist forms but it was a serious, practical attempt to tackle the problem. But feminists rather than accepting this attempted solution and trying to help improve it so it came closer to their ideals of consent, instead jumped on it and quashed it.

What the Good2Go episode clearly demonstrates is that no one, not even feminists (other than maybe Allman), actually believes there is a campus rape epidemic occurring and that it is a serious matter that requires a real, practical solution.

Anybody paying attention can tell from this incident that the college rape epidemic is not an issue anyone thinks actually exists, nor is it an issue that actually needs to be solved. Rather it is just another talking point for feminists so they can expand feminist bureaucracy further into the university system.

In fact, feminists will attempt to destroy any real solution (and saying ‘please don’t rape’ is not a real solution) solving the issue of campus consent because that would eliminate the supposed ‘need’ for kangaroo courts, rape crisis centres, safe spaces, and other feminist bureaucracies on campus leaving otherwise unemployable feminists unemployed. Solving the issue would also rob feminists of a talking point. This is why feminists must destroy any real attempt at a practical solution and why Good2Go had to go.

Lightning Round – 2014/10/08

Self-defence and situational awareness.
Related: Killing in self-defence.
Related: Remember, always shoot to kill.

How to conquer the fear of success.

Where the sexes work and some career advice.
Related: Will found some career advice.

Avoiding seasonal affective disorder. Not something I get, but maybe it will help someone.

The need for hope.

Inspiration: An interview with the founder of 8chan. Related.

5 bench press mistakes which will stall your progress.

A primer on Canadian commonlaw relationships. (ie. Don’t let a gal move in).

Inspiration: A truly strong woman.

Single men with jobs becoming a scarce commodity.
Related: Fewer men are working and marriage is dying.
Related: Some remarriage rate charts.
Related: It is women who are causing the increasing delay in marriage.
Related: Are young, unmarried women sincere about wanting to be married “some day”?

How to treat rebellious spouses.

Neoreactionaries don’t plan to be a ruling class.
Related: Moron bites: On the idiots who ‘wonder’ if we think we’ll all be aristocrats.

Libertarians ask: What is neoreaction?

Towards organization.
Related: The superversity.

Scot writes an excellent post on out-groups and the blue tribe. More feces to fling.

The red and blue empires.

The social justice industrial complex.
Related: What is an SJW?

Shut them up twice as hard.

Secession will not be clean.
Related: The dissolution of Austria-Hungary as a model.

The free speech entryist strategy.

The totalist media.
Related: Press silence and black privilege.
Related: NYT cutting 100 newsroom jobs. A good start.

Ebola and leftism as the great filter.
Related: Ebola, the great filter, and the abstract threat.
Related: Some stuff on Ebola.
Related: Homeschool or die: Ebola version.
Related: A lesson on disease containment from the Spanish flu.
Related: Ebola: Patient #2?

Evola versus evo-psych on ethics.

The presumption of racism.
Related: What’s racist and what is not.
Related: Lesbian sues because her baby is black.

Why immigration matters.

The silver linings to the long march through sports and games.

Gamersgate hits back: Intel pulls ads from Gamasutra.
Related: Did Intel stand up for white males?
Related: GameJournoPros set to close down.
Related: How sloppy, biased video game reporting almost destroyed a CEO.
Related: Gamersgate: One simple test.
Related: GG News: Eron’s hearing. Related.

The principles of sorcery.
Related: The branches of magic.

FSD vs. 4GW.
Related: An interesting sounding book: The Node.

Hong Kong needs an inquisition.
Related: The great circle of despots.

If Dwight Eisenhower could see us now.

Linguistic functional fixedness.

The inevitability of infertility eugenics.
Related: Lesbian eugenics.
Related: Prog hypocrisy in one delicious package.

The validity of twin studies.

Songs about killing teachers and simpler times.

Do you live in London? The Nietzche club is looking for members.

There’s been some debate between Christians and ethno-nats recently. I’ve already addressed the issue here.
Related: Race as the most important issue of our time.

The demolition of what remains of Catholicism begins.
Related: The beheading of marriage.

It isn’t mercy to send someone down the road to hell.

Atheists Kickstarting their own religion. Hilarious.

Young, churchy evangelicals actually believe the Bible.

What keeps men out of church?

Give the rebellious wife what she ‘needs’ or the baby gets it.

Heartiste on California’s affirmative consent law.

Feminism is on the retreat.

Men continue to oppress women by working hard for free.

Male and female predators.

Narcissism, rape culture, and why millennial girls are monsters.

Why men are pissed.

A typical day in the patriarchy.

How gamma’s are made.

The lament of the desouled woman.

Anti-feminism morphing into the new feminism.

Transgender and transage. I think Vox is nudging against Poe’s Law there, though.

I’m gonna save the NIH $466,642: Fat girls get less dates because they’re less attractive and they engage in riskier sexual behaviour because they’re more desperate and therefore more likely to give into male demands for risky behaviour.

The Onion: ‘I’m sorry to say this but you’re just not the man I blindly hoped you would transform into.’

An article advising women to lower give themselves better standards.

The anti-dowry.

Slavery and buying children.

An idiot’s guide to the right.

Another firearms incident.

Obama and the bell curve.

Political correctness and anti-harassment efforts create mistrust in the navy.

4 females guards ‘rape’ prisoner.

The college experience isn’t worth it.

The incredible shrinking labour force.

A captcha program defines human as a liberal.

Did you know: Norway and Finland had the highest per capita rampage shooting fatalities.

16-year-old goes to jail for 3-years without trial for being (falsely) accused of stealing backpack.

Preferred music style is tied to personality.

10% of Americans are alcoholics.

H/T: RPR, SDA, CC, SSC, Pollack, VD, Wright

Dear Dianna Anderson

You recently responded to some criticism we here in the Christian manosphere have pointed your way. There are a few points I would like to make.

First, the most important point:

In their eyes, I was a “slut,” a “whore,” and a “temple prostitute,” as well as a “liar,” and a “deceived, wicked jezebel,” all for having the gall to fool around with someone on a loveseat before I was married to them.

You are not a wicked Jezebel or a false teacher for having pre-marital sex. We all commit sins, which is why Christ died in the first place. Forgiveness can be had by all through repentance.

This leads to the actual reason you are a wicked Jezebel and a false teacher: you do not repent your sins. In fact you do not even state that you probably should repent but are struggling, instead you proudly proclaim no repentance for sin is necessary for you have not sinned, calling your sins holy. Not content even with this, you even go farther by declaring your sins a form of sacrament.

This is what makes you a false teacher. You lead the flock or rather, given that you have been writing these pieces for secular audiences, non-Christians into damnation. Not content to repent, or at least keep your sins private, you publicly flaunt them to draw others away from Christ and his message of salvation.

For the sake of your own soul, please repent your sins and declaim them as sins as publicly as you have previously lauded them.

****

With the most important matter out of the way, I’ll note a few other concerns.

Your article is little more than ‘those evil, white, sexist, cishets!’ I must admit I’m kinda disappointed you missed racist, homophobic, transphobic, and classist from the litany of crimethink we have committed. That being said, something more substantial, using reason and the Bible would have been preferable.

Second, we are (mostly) not MRA’s and, in fact, we mostly reject the MRA label. Although we do share some MRA concerns and goals, particularly in the area of family law, a degenerate pro-male liberal modernity is no more desirable than a degenerate pro-female liberal modernity.

Third:

If you are assigned female at birth, you must live with this burden of motherhood and servanthood.

All Christian are called to “the burden” of servanthood. The difference is only in whom they most immediately serve on this earth. As well, not all woman are assigned the burden of motherhood, some, those called to singleness, may be workers for the Lord in other ways, just as some men are not called to fatherhood.

Fourth:

One would think that such a view of women would be checked simply by the idea that identifying as Christian means that we are part of a Body, with one God. Moreover, the Bible explicitly calls Christian brothers to respect their sisters. That seems to be hugely overruled, however, by masculinists’ so-called distress that sisters aren’t doing the same for their brothers.

Christians are to respect their brothers and sisters, yes, but respect requires correcting people on their sin. Calling out sinning Christians on their sin is the respectful and loving thing to do, and sometimes harsh words are encessary to do so, especially in an age where less harsh words have been deprived of their meaning and/or emotional impact.

Fifth:

Conservative Christians need to confront the extremes to which their movement has been taken and the things that are being said in the name of their God. Conservative Christianity and the Christian manosphere have different intentions—supporters of the former ostensibly just want to put the world back on track, while those of the latter are using their theology to fuel explicit hate for women.

Our goal is to put the world back on track as well, we have just realized that the mealy-mouthed liberalism-of-30-years-ago we now call “conservatism” is the wrong way to go about doing so.

Also, it is not about hate. Women have been hurt just as much as men by feminism and progressivism and we wish for them to have godly, happy, healthy lives rather than the unsatisfying lives of loneliness, bitterness, and pill-popping unhappiness they have now.

You yourself missed out on a loving marriage to a man you cared about while following what feminism indoctrinated into you, causing you to feel “totally abandoned and misled by this God”. We would like other young women to not have to go through that as well.

Teenagers Don’t Exist

Recently the topic of teenagers, and how awful they are, came up in a Twitter conversation I involved myself in. While I’ve mentioned the topic in the past, I thought I’d write a bit more on them here.

Adolescence is a modern invention/perversion. Until about the 1800s or so, a person of about the age 13 was considered an adult. Since about that time, better nutrition has led to puberty occurring earlier (in the 1800s it occurred at about 15-16, it now occurs at about 12-13), but at the same time independence has also decreased. A teenager is a biological adult. (Mentally, a person continues maturing until sometime in their mid-20s).

The problem of rebellious or destructive teenagers is not a fault of the teenagers, but rather a fault of society. A teenager is an adult being treated as a child. A 14-year-old should be learning independence and self-sufficiency by going out into the world on his own (on an apprenticeship, to college, to his own shack on the family farm, etc.) and should be looking for a wife shortly therefore after. Instead, in our modern world teenagers live under the dominion of their parents as a child.

Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. (Genesis 2:24 ESV)

Of course teenagers rebel, any adult treated as child will rebel against being infantilized. They lash out because they know at some level that their parents having dominion over them is wrong, because an adult still under their parents is against the natural order. It is not teenagers that are the problem, it is the parents and the society.

Now of course, teenagers are not always going to make the best decisions because they are new at being adults and are learning the basics of adulthood, but in our current order, instead of learning about adulthood at age 15 so they are responsible adults by their 20s, people are now making the same failings in their early-20s and sometimes even their late-20s/early-30s, so your average person is not a responsible adult until their 30s.

Despite this, most modern teenagers would probably break is left on their own. This is, again, not the fault of the teenagers, but most children nowadays are so thoroughly over-protected and over-controlled by their parents and infantilized by the school system that they have never been learning the kinds of independence a healthy adult needs.

Children nowadays are being raised to learn a horrible combination of lack of freedom and lack of discipline. A child learning both will be the most self-actualized and most successful. A child with freedom but no discipline will generally pick up some level of discipline through trial and error, and a child of of discipline but no freedom will usually be able to survive although possibly not thrive, but one with neither will drown.

Ideally, we should start training our children to become adults when they should do so, in their mid-teens.

****

This is not going to happen on a society wide scale because infantalized adults are useful for the long march.

Adolescence gives the public school system an extra 4-6 years (8-12 extra if he goes to university) to condition a person to the docility and obedience necessary to get a man to be willing to work in a cubicle or factory for 3-4 decades of his life. It conditions a man to accept schooling and academics as being the primary measures of worth, so that he is willing to feed his mind, time, and money into the progressive college system. It prevents early family formation and helps keep the squeeze on the family so the state can continue to interject itself. It conditions dependence and a slave mentality in a man so he is more likely to see dependence on the state as normal. Adolescence is just another case of how its all related; the long march continues.

Lightning Round – 2014/10/01

Drinks and gendering objects.

Never trust a man who hasn’t been punched in the face.
Related: Civic virtue.

Mangan has a new book on supplements.

Being from a large family reduces divorce risk.
Related: Science: Predictors of infidelity.

On the Iliad.

The culture war is turning.
Related: The SJW’s mistakenly think they have won.

Men don’t share feelings.
Related: Attempting the impossible.

Weimar Germany and America.

The way of the gang.

The lumpenintelligentsia.

Reaction, Jews, and Christianity.
Related: Jews and divided loyalties.

Ordinary racism and future hyper-racism.

Hawks, doves, and game theory.
Related: Population, decline, and productivity.
Related: Game theory and the omega point.

Neoreaction as an analytical rightward synthesis.

The real culprit is the government.

Pulling the centre.

How standardized testing undervalues men.

Ethnic cleansing in Europe.

Britain: the sick man of Europe.
Related: Britain is only getting what they wanted.

A brief history of black riots.

Woman is culturally enriched, diverse vibrant stopped by armed man.

Repatriation is off the table.

Land has some fun with one Michael Rectenwald on Twitter.

Disconnected NYT alienated from Christianity.

White evangelicals and discrimination.

Philosophy vs. tradition.

Truth, love, and tolerance.

Christian college’s accreditation threatened because it adheres to Christian values.

More on our previous conversations on the Israelite genocides. My opinion remains as it was. I still need more than ‘it’s wrong because it’s wrong’ to be convinced.

“There are 65 employed [unmarried] men for every 100 [unmarried] women.”
Related: Vox: Get the Fed to fix women’s marriage prospects.

A war on men waged through false accusations and courts.
Related: Men are fighting back against false rape accusations.
Related: It has come to this: A ‘yes means yes’ app.
Related: Any man accused of rape should be immediately convicted with no evidence, even 2 years later.
Related: Man fired from Forbes for trying to protect women from rape. The article.
Related: If we applied feminist logic to other crimes.

University of Michigan: Withholding sex and ignoring feelings are abuse.
Related: Indian court: Denial of sex is cruelty.

Women commit domestic violence as much as men.

The BETA shield.

How feminism holds women back from high achievement.

Men unemployed; women hurt worst.

Why there are so many marriage problems today.

Modern women follow those with indifferent contempt for them, rather than their loving husbands.
Related: Stay-at-home moms are happier and have stronger sense their life is worthwhile.

Those aging eyeballs.
Related: Science: Men like women in their mid-20s. Surprising.

Science discredits feminism.

An anecdote of why you should avoid loose women. Another.
Related: Another alpha widow.

Remember: Women self-admittedly bang the assholes & losers, while making responsible men pay full price.
Related: Woman spends youth with bad boys, now wants to find someone ‘who deserves her’. Just as she hits 31 too.

Feminist: Feeding illegal, potentially unsafe drugs to your child is awesome if it’s to do an abortion.

25 signs of the destruction of modern women by the sexual revolution.

The back-up plan. Half of women have a plan B.

“Emma Watson wants you to know her life – that of a pretty, rich, famous, popular female megastar – has been monstrously traumatic, because of sexism.”
Related: Feminist Emma Watson: Says men should move from gender stereotypes, dates says dates alpha male rugby star.
Related: Emma Watson’s banal hypocrisy.

Laci Green is trying to censor Youtube.

Trolling and the business of rage.

Transgender man joins women’s MMA, seriously injures woman.

College allows old perverts to expose themselves to little girls.

Female secret service agent overpowered.

No fault divorce hurts women as well.

An actual objective mainstream article on #gamersgate. Bravo TechCrunch.
Related: No need to be a whiny bitch.

The bureaucracy of a bulldozer.

China has fewer bureaucrats than us, but still let go of 100,000 employees who did no work.

Gladwell was wrong: 10,000 hours won’t make you great.

One of my friends once recommended Mister to me.

German Ethics Council: Incest a fundamental right.

On asexuals.

Nerds, science, and testosterone.

Streetlight psychology.

Scientist argues black holes don’t exist.

The leftism of Wikipedia.

Neil Degrasse Tyson: ‘Maybe you can’t find that quote in official records, but I cite the highest authority: me.’
Related: Criticize Neil Degrasse Tyson and they’ll delete your Wikipedia page.

Buzzfeed has a list of evil authors. Wright is number 6.

Appearing on the Daily Show is a bad idea.

Global warming ‘97%’ figure is a lie.
Related: Science: Wind farms create more CO2 than they prevent.

On cannon fodder.

An amusing twitter conversation.

H/T: RPR, SCC, SDA, RoM, VD, Dalrock

Euler and Tradition

Scott writes on what he calls getting Eulered: when someone tries to convince you of something or rebut something you believe using arguments (particularly mathematical ones) you are either not intelligent or not trained enough to understand.

I’ve never heard the term before, but I’ve thought of this. I am intelligent, but not exceedingly so, there are a number of things I won’t be able to understand, at least not fully or without much more effort and time than I am willing to put in.

So, I follow a simple heuristic: what does someone smarter than me who agrees with me on things I understand and is willing to put in time/effort think on the issue?

If you know he agrees with you on the things you understand for similar reasons as you, you know he reasons in similar fashion to you from similar presupoositions. If he reasons in a similar fashion as you, you then know that his thoughts on another issue you don’t understand will be the most reasonable approximation of what you would think if you were either smart or knowledgeable enough to be able to form an informed opinion on the matter.

No matter how smart you are you can’t know or understand all things. In the case where you can’t, the wise course of action is to fall back on those who think the same as you, but are either more intelligent or more knowledgeable on the subject matter.

All rational organizations outsource when it’s more efficient, so why not outsource your thinking when it is more likely to be correct if someone else does it for you?

Agreeing with someone because he generally agrees with you when you don’t understand the argument in question is usually the most rational form of action.

Of course, this is not an original heuristic, and is no different than asking, ‘what does my father, my priest, my teacher, etc. say?‘

But what if you move your intellectual outsourcing beyond a known individual to something greater. This is where tradition comes in: why outsource your thinking to a single individual when you can outsource your thinking to the collective reasoning of every single previously-existing mind of your society?

Is it not much more efficient and wise to follow the collective wisdom of thousands of minds much more intelligent and knowledgeable than yourself than to go through the intellectual labour of thinking something through for yourself and likely arriving at a rationally inferior position?

From this, is not the person saying, “I believe what my ancestors, the magisterium, my intellectual forebears believe” being more rational than the one who tries to reason everything out for himself?

Maybe, argument from authority, if the authority stands firmly upon a mount of tradition, is the most rational argument of all.

Ruining Games

I didn’t really have anything to write about today, but it’s post day, so I’ll say just a bit more on gamersgate, inspired once again by Cracked and Mark Hill. Two articles were up today.

One was yet another anti-gamergate piece, (sadly, Cracked has now reached my Unvisit list) this one so stupid. For someone who is as supposedly pro-reason as Luke McKinney this is based very strongly in unreason. Despite this I’m going to engage it from points 7 to 1: genetic fallacy, irrelevant ad hominem, fallacy of composition/anecdotal, irrelevant to anything (his argument in #4 boils down to ‘people shouldn’t be allowed to discuss’), ambiguity fallacy, straw man, and, finally, genetic fallacy again. I should also note that the asinine immaturity of Luke McKinney in this piece is rather ironically humourous given that point #1 in last week’s article on gamersgate was “We’re Incapable of Mature Conversations About Gender”.

****

At this point, I’m going to make a small aside on the term Social Justice Warrior (SJW), as Luke McKinney is not the only one I’ve seen commenting on how SJW sounds awesome.

SJW is a term of pointed mockery. The mockery comes exactly from the fact that SJW’s are the farthest things possible from warriors. Fatties who revel in their obesity, feminists that go into conniptions when its pointed out that sluttery and tattoos go hand in hand, women that become physically ill from words, people who try to ban trashtalk from games because it hurts their feewings, and psychologically ill perverts who can not tell fantasy from reality are as unlike warriors as is humanely possible.

Using the term social justice warrior simply points out, in an ironic fashion, the pathetic weakness of the SJW’s (on an individual level; as a screaming, anonymous lynch mob they do have some social power).

****

Cracked and the rest of the SJW’s seem so very confused by gamers’ motivations against SJW’s that they can posit no explanation but ‘those evil mysoginists hate women’. Which bring us to the second article, where Mark Hill goes on about why video game narratives need to change. At first glance, this article seems relatively benign, what’s wrong with making suggestions to improve video games, but if we look at it closely, his arguments essentially boil down to:

6: Stories should have fewer sociopaths. He specifically points people who do things that make games fun as sociopaths, but, in context of other anti-gamersgate Cracked articles, it is clear that anyone deviating from SJW orthodoxy is a sociopath.

5: Villains should be made more morally grey, so the difference between heroes and villains are less stark (ie. break down traditional morality and replace with prog morality).

4: Games should decide your character’s emotions and reactions for you, the game should think for you, rather than you reacting to the game yourself.

3: The reason we’re shooting at people can not be ‘fun’, there must be a justifiable reason that is very easy to understand without reading.

2: Suggestions having to do with pacing and structure, which are not relevant, one way or the other, to my point.

1: Games should dictate morality, particularly SJW morality, rather than let gamers figure out moral quandaries for themselves.

Why, oh why, would gamers be against this? Why would gamers be against people trying to remove the fun parts of games and turn games into morality lectures?

Mark Hill is a perfect demonstration of why gamers are against the SJW’s entering gaming, and it has nothing to do with misogyny. They want to turn games away from the objective of fun and towards the objective of forcing their SJW moral system on people who just want to relax for a few hours.