Paul's Passing Thoughts

I have a lot on my mind this week and stumbled upon an article about a waiter in Houston, Texas. After reading the piece, I said, “That ties it all together.” It’s what I needed to tie all the ideas I have together about Calvinism, justice, the magic yellow bus, God’s image, predeterminism, and dominionism—not necessarily in that order. Here is an excerpt:

A waiter in Houston put his job on the line and is receiving praise after he told a table he was unwilling to serve them.

The waiter, Michael Garcia, was waiting on a family of regulars who have a 5-yr old child (Milo) with down syndrome. Another family he was serving made comments about the noises the child was making so he moved the annoyed party to another table.

The waiter then overheard “special needs children need to be special somewhere else,” from the table. That’s when he informed them he would be unable to serve them. They left the restaurant.

Mankind is created in the image of God. For the first time in my Christian life, I think I know what that really means. It means that we are born with the works of God’s law written on our hearts and a conscience that either excuses or accuses our thinking and actions. One of the works written on our hearts is justice. Mankind can either reject this attribute of God, or live by it, but like the other attributes, it is intuitive. Living by it will not save him, he must accept Christ and escape being judged by God’s law altogether, but yet, being created in the image of God, man will display the attribute of justice as well as other attributes that are a part of God’s being.

When people display true justice that is part of God’s image, it is evident; they will be willing to not only lose their job over it, they will be willing to die for it. When a person is saved, they escape the law, but the law is also set ablaze in their hearts. Nevertheless, a person who is not saved can display and even live out attributes of God’s image, and unfortunately, at times more so than believers. In our day this is all too prevalent due to the dumbing down of Christianity in general because thinking has been farmed out to the “experts.” Traditionally, the “experts” of the Christian religion have been murdering mystic despots. So, why do we follow them?

We follow them because of predeterminism. We follow them because it is our destiny. We follow them because of the ancient doctrine of predeterminism. Part and parcel with predeterminism is the inability of mankind. Part and parcel with predeterminism is either/or, darkness or light, material or spirit. It’s man’s glory or God’s glory; to the degree that man is able—God is robbed of Glory. God will not share His glory with another; man can only glorify God by exalting his own inability. The blurred line of being created in God’s image becomes image or not image, material or spirit, damned or not damned. And the experts are the experts on our unexpertness—the predetermined few that must lead the totally depraved masses in predeterminism’s  definition of social justice.

Life is hard. Life is confusing. There are myriads of theories. Thinking is hard. Confusion is uncomfortable. Wrongness is everywhere. Who will save us from the chaos? The predetermined experts will. Whether a personal God, the Universe, or Mother Nature, they will appoint their saviors to lead us in social justice. For Plato, the definition of social justice is simply, unity. And with all of the gods, unity has a purpose, and that purpose is always utopia. Yes, within every being is the desire to be happy. Even those who seek misery are happy by it for it is their desire.

All predeterminist  religions therefore have their own magical yellow bus on its way to utopia; all aboard! Since we are all totally depraved and unable, it is an ugly bus; yet, it is the only bus going to utopia. And don’t rock the bus with concerns about unjust bus drivers, after all, though they are experts, they are the totally depraved experts that truly understand the depths of our depravity, and that road of wisdom leads to real justice and the gates of utopia. Hence, they are not above us, but rather humble souls who concur that they are totally depraved just like us.

One of the primary tenets of their totally depraved wisdom is collectivism. If we are to reach utopia, the totally depraved must understand their purpose in the ultimate purpose: they must believe and obey what contributes to the group. It all starts with the right idea, and that right idea becoming the collective idea, or the collective psyche that leads to the outcome. Individualism hinders a collective idea leading to a singular outcome. Freedom of thought can never lead to unity and its social justice of utopia. Of course, indoctrination is the first course of action and the good news that we are free from the burden, hard work, and responsibly of thinking. The experts stand in our stead before the gods. They are our saviors.

And unfortunately, for the sake of the group, those with individualist vision, and that having a contrary outcome from the vision of the good, must be destroyed along with those victimized by the group’s total depravity if they will not forgive. They must be thrown under the bus, or willingly throw themselves under it for the sake of true justice. The juggernaut is not unique to Eastern predeterminism, it is a universal concept.

Utopia and true social justice defined by collectivism is hard work and will require a unified effort. It is the hard work of dominionism. Therefore, those who will not contribute must be destroyed for the sake of the group, but those who cannot contribute to the group must now be considered. They themselves cannot contribute, but they require the time of others as well, also eliminating them from contributing to the collective. The unable unabled are a significant hindrance to progressive collectivism. They are predetermined sacrifices to the god’s of collectivism. It is their sad destiny determined by a personal god or nature’s evolutionary survival of the fittest. They hinder the progressive glory unto glory that eventually leads to utopia’s ultimate social justice however defined. The ideas must be collective, the obedience must be collective, and ability to blindly obey must be as collective as possible if dominion is to be achieved. It is the result of the collective psyche, and this also depends on the ability to understand such. The mentally handicapped can nether understand or contribute to dominion.

Protestantism is no stranger to collectivism. It has its own Western version of the juggernaut. Martin Luther believed that the ability of man is completely antithetical to the glory of God. He, the father of Protestantism, believed this to the degree of interpreting all reality through the dualism of man’s glory and God’s glory. Therefore, God sent His Son to earth to set the example of self-annihilation via the cross. The cross and self-depravation is the key to understanding reality. The ability of man to invent and accomplish was deemed by Luther to only contribute to the glory story, the story of man. If man is to understand reality, it must be interpreted via the cross story; the total inability of man as set against the glory of God. This is the very foundation of Redemptive Historical hermeneutics. This laid the foundation for present-day socialism in the secular realm, but is no stranger to its religious twin. John Calvin created a full orbed philosophical treatise based on Luther’s redemptive metaphysics in his Institutes of the Christian Religion.

This brings us full circle to why the story in a Houston diner is really the story of Western civilization, and the power of Milo. The annoyed patrons represent collectivism, and Michael Garcia represents individualism. I don’t know Michael Garcia, he may be a good man, or he may not be a good man, but he lives according to his individual conscience informed by God’s image created in him. Regardless of Milo’s inability to contribute to the group, Garcia’s conscience preaches the message of treating others the way one would want to be treated and Garcia heeds the message. Garcia, as one who is thankful because he compares himself to the less fortunate, shows his thankfulness by demanding just treatment and respect for the “less fortunate.”  This can also be defined as “mercy” and “compassion.” These attributes transcend a concern for one’s own life, that is how we know they are genuine.

Though these attributes are honorable, they still do not answer the question of the purpose and role of the mentally disabled in our world. As a fire inspector, I was assigned to inspect residential facilities that housed and cared for the mentally disabled. Those experiences invoked deep pondering. At times, perhaps due to superstitious tendencies in me, I suspected that some were angels sent to test me. I at least knew that their lives preached some kind of message, but I was not sure what it was. Now I think I know at least one; certainly there are many more.

The fact that the mentally disabled cannot contribute to the group is the power of their message. They beckon humanity to reject collectivism by the very service to them. As they are cared for by us, it is their gospel rising up to God in a sweet aroma. According to the quality of the care, the pleasure of God is increased.

America was founded on individualism, even the rugged form sometimes called “rugged individualism.” Though Americans still suffer from the bad genes inherited by collectivist Puritans who unfortunately made it over the pond, America stands in stark contrast to other nations in the care for those who cannot contribute to the group. My time as a fire inspector in those homes made me thankful for America’s compassion. Collectivist ideology has always driven the extermination of the handicapped because of its focus on the collective value. The contrast in ideology could not be more vivid: one believes that strong individuals and the value of human life make a strong group, while the other believes weak individualism creates a strong group. It’s either/or. It’s either weak individualism or a weak group—it can’t be both.

The care for the infirmed is an identity, a message about who we are; ie, “special needs children need to be special somewhere else,” like, for instance, in mass graves, versus special among us in messages to the world about who we are as a people. Be not deceived: the socialist’s concern for the oppressed never pertains to those who cannot contribute to the group.

And we who have healthy children need not feel guilty because our children are the soldiers of freedom,

but the special ones are the prophets.

paul