Conspiracy and Consensus

Conspiracy research is exciting, stimulating, infuriating and exhausting.

The world operates on conspracy...oh yes it does. For those of you now rolling your eyes, your skepticism merely reveals a lack of thorough consideration because it is not a matter of whether or not you believe in conspiracies - it is a matter of which conspiracies you believe.

For example, nearly everyone believes World War Two was the result of a conspiracy. Most view the conspiracy as including the Axis powers and a plan to dominate Europe, Asia and perhaps the world. Far fewer see the war as a result of machinations of a cabal of bankers, politicians, and the like who manipulated and then profited from the carnage.

Even in the case of this example, what is deemed historical "fact" and what is conspiracy "theory" is determined by consensus reality - and consensus reality is shaped by the information available and a cultural pressure to conform.

Still, even mainstream, pop culture history, reveals the heretofor hidden information that should move the consensus reality to another position and yet, more often than not, there is no movement.

Eventually, a lot of the nuggets unearthed by conspracy researchers make it into the mainstream, sometimes even become consensus reality, and yet nothing seems to change.

Why is that?

Perhaps it is because there is another consensus which overrides even an understanding that all is not right: consensus conformity.

Consensus conformity is the recognition that truth is irrelevant to success and achievement within the world system. This is the essence of the game, the darkest of the conspiracies, the road to hell.

In order to gain acceptance it is necessary to willingly suspend knowledge and promote, defend, publish what is self-evidently untrue. See this is the soul sacrifice, because an innocent cannot be turned until he is aware and voluntarily rejects what he knows to be true.

Does this help explain why grass roots movements fail?

So a solitary judge in California overturned an expensive and divisive constitutional amendment...is anyone really surprised? His being a homosexual had nothing to do with his ruling, though, well not a lot.

This opinion now means a whole lot of money will be given to attorneys to do a lot of meaningless legal work (maybe they can get stimulus funds)and bunch of sweet, loving gays and lesbians can spend their boundless energy attacking and villifying people who dare to have an opinion and even more religious folk can fill the airwaves with senseless drivel about how the state licensing non-traditional marriage will destroy the moral fiber of the nation.

Well I call bullshit.

The judge made a correct ruling - probably for the wrong reasons, but correct.

Why, you may ask.

Because marriage licenses are issued by the state and the state makes the rules. Therefore, if the state wants to license same-sex marriage, it can. If the state wants to license polygamy, it can. If the state wants to enable NAMBLA's desires, it can and it probably will in the not too distant future.

Both sides of the conflict are populated by idiots - complete and cognitively defective idiots.

Why does anyone want the government, at any level, to decide and regulate and license who can marry who?

If either the pro or con side had spent any time in deep thought (and knew anything about history)they would be demanding the state get out of the marriage business.

Same-sex marriage will not bring the nation to ruin, it is a symptom of the ruin that already occurred because we made the state a god and forgot the real one.

Dialectic of Science

POST-NORMAL SCIENCE - Environmental Policy under Conditions of Complexity

(4882 total words in this text)
(28209 reads)




S. Funtowicz, EC-JRC/ISIS, Ispra (Va), Italy; J. Ravetz, RMC Ltd., London (England)

1. Introduction
In relation to policy, "the environment" is particularly challenging. It includes masses of detail concerning many particular issues, which require separate analysis and management. At the same time, there are broad strategic issues, which should guide regulatory work, such as those connected with "sustainability". Nothing can be managed in a convenient isolation; issues are mutually implicated; problems extend across many scale levels of space and time; and uncertainties and value-loadings of all sorts and all degrees of severity affect data and theories alike.

This situation is a new one for policy makers. In one sense the environment is in the domain of Science: the phenomena of concern are located in the world of nature. Yet the tasks are totally different from those traditionally conceived for Western science. For that, it was a matter of conquest and control of Nature; now we must manage, accommodate and adjust. We know that we are no longer, and never really were, the "masters and possessors of Nature" that Descartes imagined for our role in the world (Descartes 1638).

To engage in these new tasks we need new intellectual tools. A picture of reality designed for controlled experimentation and abstract theory building, can be very effective with complex phenomena reduced to their simple, atomic elements. But it is not best suited for the tasks of environmental policy today. The scientific mind-set fosters expectations of regularity, simplicity and certainty in the phenomena and in our interventions. But these can inhibit the growth of our understanding of the problems and of appropriate methods to their solution. Here we shall introduce and articulate several concepts, which can provide elements of a framework to understand environmental issues. They are all new, and still evolving. There is no orthodoxy concerning their content or the conditions of their application

The leading concept is "complexity". This relates to the structure and properties of the phenomena and the issues for environmental policy. Systems that are complex are not merely complicated; by their nature they involve deep uncertainties and a plurality of legitimate perspectives. Hence the methodologies of traditional laboratory-based science are of restricted effectiveness in this new context.

The most general methodology for managing complex science-related issues is "Post-Normal Science" (Funtowicz and Ravetz 1992, 1993, Futures 1999). This focuses on aspects of problem solving that tend to be neglected in traditional accounts of scientific practice: uncertainty and value loading. It provides a coherent explanation of the need for greater participation in science-policy processes, based on the new tasks of quality assurance in these problem-areas.

2. Complexity
Anyone trying to comprehend the problems of "the environment" might well be bewildered by their number, variety and complication. There is a natural temptation to try to reduce them to simpler, more manageable elements, as with mathematical models and computer simulations. This, after all, has been the successful programme of Western science and technology up to now. But environmental problems have features which prevent reductionist approaches from having any, but the most limited useful effect. These are what we mean when we use the term "complexity".

Complexity is a property of certain sorts of systems; it distinguishes them from those which are simple, or merely complicated. Simple systems can be captured (in theory or in practice) by a deterministic, linear causal analysis. Such are the classic scientific explanations, notably those of high-prestige fields like mathematical physics. Sometimes such a system requires more variables for its explanation or control than can be neatly managed in its theory. Then the task is accomplished by other methods; and the system is "complicated". The distinction between science and engineering, the latter occurring when more than a half-dozen variables are in play, is a good example of the distinction between simple and complicated systems.

With true complexity, we are dealing with phenomena of a different sort. There are many definitions of complexity, all overlapping, deriving from the various areas of scientific practice with, for example, ecological systems, organisms, social institutions, or the "artificial" simulations of any of them. Here we adopt a more general approach to the concept. First, we think of a "system", a collection of elements and subsystems, defined by their relations within some sort of hierarchy or hierarchies. The hierarchy may be one of inclusion and scale, as in an ecosystem with (say) a pond, its stream, the watershed, and the region, at ascending levels. Or it may be a hierarchy of function, as in an organism and its separate organs. A species and its individual members form a system with hierarchies of both inclusion and function. Environmental systems may also include human and institutional sub-systems, which are themselves systems. These latter are a very special sort of system, which we call "reflexive". In those, the elements have purposes of their own, which they may attempt to achieve independently of, or even in opposition to, their assigned functions in the hierarchy (Funtowicz and Ravetz 1997b).

First, any "system" is itself an intellectual construct, that some humans have imposed on a set of phenomena and their explanations. Sometimes it is convenient to leave the observer out of the system; but in the cases of systems with human and institutional components, this is counterproductive. For environmental systems, then, the observer and analyst are there, as embedded in their own systems, variously social, geographical and cognitive. For policy purposes, a very basic property of observed and analysed complex systems might be called "feeling the elephant", after the Indian fable of the five blind men trying to guess the object they were touching by feeling a part of an elephant. Each conceived the object after his own partial imaging process (the leg indicated a tree, the side a wall, the trunk a snake, etc); it was left to an outsider observer to visualise the whole elephant. This parable reminds us that every observer and analyst of a complex system operates with certain criteria of selection of phenomena, at a certain scale-level, and with certain built-in values and commitments. The result of their separate observations and analyses are not at all "purely subjective" or arbitrary; but none of them singly can encompass the whole system. Looking at the process as a whole, we may ask whether an awareness of their own limitations is built into their personal systematic understanding, or whether it is excluded. In the absence of such awareness, we have old-fashioned technical expertise; when analysis is enriched by its presence, we have Post-Normal Science.

We can express the point in a somewhat more systematic fashion, in terms of two key properties of complex systems. One is the presence of significant and irreducible uncertainties of various sorts in any analysis; and the other is a multiplicity of legitimate perspectives on any problem. For the uncertainty, we have a sort of "Heisenberg effect", where the acts of observation and analysis become part of the activity of the system under study, and so influence it in various ways. This is well known in reflexive social systems, through the phenomena of "moral hazard", self-fulfilling prophecies and mass panic.

But there is another cause of uncertainty, more characteristic of complex systems. This derives from the fact that any analysis (and indeed any observation) must deal with an artificial, usually truncated system. The concepts in whose terms existing data is organised will only accidentally coincide with the boundaries and structures that are relevant to a given policy issue. Thus, social and environmental statistics are usually available (if at all) in aggregations created by governments with other problems in mind; they need interpreting or massaging to make them relevant to the problem at hand. Along with their obvious, technical uncertainties resulting from the operations of data collection and aggregation, the data will have deeper, structural uncertainties, not amenable to quantitative analysis, which may actually be decisive for the quality of the information being presented.

A similar analysis yields the conclusion that there is no unique, privileged perspective on the system. The criteria for selection of data, truncation of models, and formation of theoretical constructs are value-laden, and the values are those embodied in the societal or institutional system in which the science is being done. This is not a proclamation of "relativism" or anarchy. Rather, it is a reminder that the decision process on environmental policies must include dialogue among those who have an interest in the issue and a commitment to its solution. It also suggests that the process towards a decision may be as important as the details of the decision that is finally achieved.

For an example of this plurality of perspectives, we may imagine a group of people gazing at a hillside. One of them "sees" a particular sort of forest, another an archaeological site; another a potential suburb, yet another sees a planning problem. Each uses their training to evaluate what they see, in relation to their tasks. Their perceptions are conditioned by a variety of structures, cognitive and institutional, with both explicit and tacit elements. In a policy process, their separate visions may well come into conflict, and some stakeholders may even deny the legitimacy of the commitments and the validity of the perceptions of others. Each perceives his or her own elephant, as it were. The task of the facilitator is to see those partial systems from a broader perspective, and to find or create some overlap among them all, so that there can be agreement or at least acquiescence in a policy. For those who have this integrating task, it helps to understand that this diversity and possible conflict is not an unfortunate accident that could be eliminated by better natural or social science. It is inherent to the character of the complex system that is realised in that particular hillside.

These two key properties of complex systems, radical uncertainty and plurality of legitimate perspectives, help to define the programme. They show why environmental policy can not be shaped around the idealised linear path of the gathering and then the application of scientific knowledge. Rather, the formation of policy is itself embedded as a subsystem in the total complex system of which its environmental problem is another element.

3. Post-Normal Science as a bridge between complex systems and environmental policy
The idea of a science being somehow "post-normal" conveys an air of paradox and perhaps mystery. By "normality" we mean two things. One is the picture of research science as "normally" consisting of puzzle solving within an unquestioned and unquestionable "paradigm", in the theory of T.S. Kuhn (Kuhn 1962). Another is the assumption that the policy environment is still "normal", in that such routine puzzle solving by experts provides an adequate knowledge base for policy decisions. Of course researchers and experts must do routine work on small-scale problems; the question is how the framework is set, by whom, and with whose awareness of the process. In "normality", either science or policy, the process is managed largely implicitly, and is accepted unwittingly by all who wish to join in. The great lesson of recent years is that that assumption no longer holds. We may call it a "post-modern" "rejection of grand narratives", or a green, NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) politics. Whatever its causes, we can no longer assume the presence of this sort of "normality" of the policy process, particularly in relation to the environment.

The insight leading to Post-Normal Science is that in the sorts of issue-driven science relating to environmental debates, typically facts are uncertain, values in dispute, stakes high, and decisions urgent. Some might say that such problems should not be called "science"; but the answer could be that such problems are everywhere, and when science is (as it must be) applied to them, the conditions are anything but "normal". For the previous distinction between "hard", objective scientific facts and "soft", subjective value-judgements is now inverted. All too often, we must make hard policy decisions where our only scientific inputs are irremediably soft.

The difference between old and new conditions can be shown by the present difficulties of the classical economics approach to environmental policy. Traditionally, economics attempted to show how social goals could be best achieved by means of mechanisms operating automatically, in an essentially simple system. The "hidden hand" metaphor of Adam Smith conveyed the idea that conscious interference in the workings of the economic system would do no good and much harm; and this view has persisted from then to now. But for the achievement of sustainability, automatic mechanisms are clearly insufficient. Even when pricing rather than control is used for implementation of economic policies, the prices must be set, consciously, by some agency; and this is then a highly visible controlling hand. When externalities are uncertain and irreversible, then no one can set "ecologically correct prices" practised in actual markets or in fictitious markets (through contingent valuation or other economic techniques). There might at best be "ecologically corrected prices", set by a decision-making system. The hypotheses, theories, visions and prejudices of the policy-setting agents are then in play, sometimes quite publicly so. And the public also sees contrasting and conflicting visions among those in the policy arena, all of which are plausible and none of which admits of refutation by any other. This is a social system, which, in the terms discussed above, is truly complex, indeed reflexively complex.

In such contexts of complexity, there is a new role for natural science. The facts that are taught from textbooks in institutions are still necessary, but are no longer sufficient. For these relate to a standardised version of the natural world, frequently to the artificially pure and stable conditions of a laboratory experiment. The world as we interact with it in working for sustainability, is quite different. Those who have become accredited experts through a course of academic study, have much valuable knowledge in relation to these practical problems. But they may also need to recover from the mindset they might absorb unconsciously from their instruction. Contrary to the impression conveyed by textbooks, most problems in practice have more than one plausible answer; and many have no answer at all.

Further, in the artificial world studied in academic courses, it is strictly inconceivable that problems could be tackled and solved except by deploying the accredited expertise. Systems of management of environmental problems that do not involve science, and which cannot be immediately explained on scientific principles, are commonly dismissed as the products of blind tradition or chance. And when persons with no formal qualifications attempt to participate in the processes of innovation, evaluation or decision, their efforts are viewed with scorn or suspicion. Such attitudes do not arise from malevolence; they are inevitable products of a scientific training which presupposes and then indoctrinates the assumption that all problems are simple and scientific, to be solved on the analogy of the textbook.

It is when the textbook analogy fails, that science in the policy context must become post-normal. When facts are uncertain, values in dispute, stakes high, and decisions urgent the traditional guiding principle of research science, the goal of achievement of truth or at least of factual knowledge, must be substantially modified. In post-normal conditions, such products may be a luxury, indeed an irrelevance. Here, the guiding principle is a more robust one, that of quality.

It could well be argued that quality has always been the effective principle in practical research science, but it was largely ignored by the dominant philosophy and ideology of science. For post-normal science, quality becomes crucial, and quality refers to process at least as much as to product. It is increasingly realised in policy circles that in complex environment issues, lacking neat solutions and requiring support from all stakeholders, the quality of the decision-making process is absolutely critical for the achievement of an effective product in the decision. This new understanding applies to the scientific aspect of decision-making as much as to any other.



Figure 1

Post-Normal Science can be located in relation to the more traditional complementary strategies, by means of a diagram (see Figure 1). On it, we see two axes, "systems uncertainties" and "decision stakes". When both are small, we are in the realm of "normal", safe science, where expertise is fully effective. When either is medium, then the application of routine techniques is not enough; skill, judgement, sometimes even courage are required. We call this "professional consultancy", with the examples of the surgeon or the senior engineer in mind. Our modern society has depended on armies of "applied scientists" pushing forward the frontiers of knowledge and technique, with the professionals performing an aristocratic role, either as innovators or as guardians.

Of course there have always been problems that science could not solve; indeed, the great achievement of our civilisation has been to tame nature in so many ways, so that for unprecedented numbers of people, life is more safe, convenient and comfortable than could ever have been imagined in earlier times. But now we are finding that the conquest of nature is not complete. As we confront nature in its reactive state, we find extreme uncertainties in our understanding of its complex systems, uncertainties that will not be resolved by mere growth in our data-bases or computing power. And since we are all involved with managing the natural world to our personal and sectional advantage, any policy for change is bound to affect our interests. Hence in any problem-solving strategy, the decision-stakes of the various stakeholders must also be reckoned with.

This is why the diagram has two dimensions; this is an innovation for descriptions of "science", which had traditionally been assumed to be "value-free". But in any real problem of environmental management, the two dimensions are inseparable. When conclusions are not completely determined by the scientific facts, inferences will (naturally and legitimately) be conditioned by the values held by the agent. This is a necessary part of ordinary research practice; all statistical tests have values built in through the choice of numerical "confidence limits", and the management of "outlier" data calls for judgements that can sometimes approach the post-normal in their complexity. If the stakes are very high (as when an institution is seriously threatened by a policy) then a defensive policy will involve challenging every step of a scientific argument, even if the systems uncertainties are actually small. Such tactics become wrong only when they are conducted covertly, as by scientists who present themselves as impartial judges when they are actually committed advocates. There are now many initiatives, increasing in number and significance all the time, for involving wider circles of people in decision-making and implementation on environmental issues.


The contribution of all the stakeholders in cases of Post-Normal Science is not merely a matter of broader democratic participation. For these new problems are in many ways different from those of research science, professional practice, or industrial development. Each of those has its means for quality assurance of the products of the work, be they peer review, professional associations, or the market. For these new problems, quality depends on open dialogue between all those affected. This we call an "extended peer community", consisting not merely of persons with some form or other of institutional accreditation, but rather of all those with a desire to participate in the resolution of the issue. Seen out of context, such a proposal might seem to involve a dilution of the authority of science, and its dragging into the arena of politics. But we are here not talking about the traditional areas of research and industrial development; but about those where issues of quality are crucial, and traditional mechanisms of quality assurance are patently inadequate. Since this context of science is one involving policy, we might see this extension of peer communities as analogous to earlier extensions of franchise in other fields, as allowing workers to form trade unions and women to vote. In all such cases, there were prophecies of doom, which were not realised.

For the formation of environmental policy under conditions of complexity, it is hard to imagine any viable alternative to extended peer communities. They are already being created, in increasing numbers, either when the authorities cannot see a way forward, or know that without a broad base of consensus, no policies can succeed. They are called "citizens' juries", "focus groups", or "consensus conferences", or any one of a great variety of names; and their forms and powers are correspondingly varied. But they all have one important element in common: they assess the quality of policy proposals, including a scientific element, on the basis of whatever science they can master during the preparation period. And their verdicts all have some degree of moral force and hence political influence.

Along with this regulatory, evaluative function of extended peer communities, another, more intimately involved in the policy process, is springing up. Particularly at the local level, the discovery is being made, again and again, that people not only care about their environment but also can become ingenious and creative in finding practical, partly technological, ways towards its improvement. Here the quality is not merely in the verification, but also in the creation; as local people can imagine solutions and reformulate problems in ways that the accredited experts, with the best will in the world, do not find "normal" within their professional paradigms.

None can claim that the restoration of quality through extended peer communities will occur easily, and without its own sorts of errors. But in the processes of extension of peer communities through the approach of Post-Normal Science, we can see a way forward, for science as much as for the complex problems of the environment.

A sort of manual for Post-Normal Science practice has recently been produced by the UK Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution. In its 21st Report, on Setting Environmental Standards, makes a number of observations and recommendations reflecting this new understanding. Thus, on uncertainty, we have:

9.49: No satisfactory way has been devised of measuring risk to the natural environment, even in principle, let alone defining what scale of risk should be regarded as tolerable;

on values:

9.74: When environmental standards are set or other judgements made about environmental issues, decisions must be informed by an understanding of peoples’ values. …;

and on extended peer communities:

9.74 (continued): Traditional forms of consultation, while they have provided useful insights, are not an adequate method of articulating values;

and on a plurality of legitimate perspectives:

9.76: A more rigorous and wide-ranging exploration of people’s values requires discussion and debate to allow a range of viewpoints and perspectives to be considered, and individual values developed.

(UK Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution1998) Chapter 9 - Conclusions].

4. Conclusion
The inadequacies of the traditional "normal science" approach have been revealed with dramatic clarity in the episode of "mad cow" disease. For years the accredited researchers and advisors assured the British government that the risk of transfer of the infective agent to humans was not significant. They did not stress the decision-stakes involved in the official policy, in which public alarm and government expense were the main perceived dangers. Then infection of humans was confirmed, and for a brief period the government admitted that an epidemic of degenerative disease was a "non-quantifiable risk". The situation went out of control, and the revulsion of consumers threatened not only British beef, but also perhaps the entire European meat industry. At this stage there had to be a "hard" decision to be taken, on the number of cattle to be destroyed, whose basis was a very "soft" estimate of how many cattle deaths would be needed to reassure the meat-eating public. At the same time, independent critics who had been dealt with quite harshly in the past were admitted into the dialogue. Without in any way desiring such an outcome, the British Ministry of Agriculture, Forests and Fisheries had created a situation of extreme systems uncertainty, vast decision stakes, and a legitimated extended peer community.

The Post-Normal Science approach needs not be interpreted as an attack on the accredited experts, but rather as assistance. The world of "normal science" in which they were trained has its place in any scientific study of the environment, but it needs to be supplemented by awareness of the "post-normal" nature of the problems we now confront. The management of complex natural systems as if they were simple scientific exercises has brought us to our present mixture of triumph and peril. We are now witnessing the emergence of a new approach to problem-solving strategies in which the role of science, still essential, is now appreciated in its full context of the uncertainties of natural systems and the relevance of human values.

References
- Descartes, 1638: Discours de la Methode, Part VI.

- Futures, 1999, Special Issue: Post-Normal Science, J. R. Ravetz (ed), 31:7.

- S. O. Funtowicz and J. R. Ravetz, 1992, Three Types of Risk Assessment and the Emergence of Post-Normal Science, in Krimsky S. and Golding D. (eds) Social Theories of Risk, Westport (CN), Praeger, pp. 251-273

- S. O. Funtowicz and J. R. Ravetz, 1990: Uncertainty and Quality in Science for Policy, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht , NL, 1990.

- S. O. Funtowicz and J. R. Ravetz, 1993: Science for the post-normal age, Futures 25:7, 739-755.

- S. O. Funtowicz and J. R. Ravetz, 1994: The worth of a songbird: ecological economics as a post-normal science, Ecological Economics 10 (1994) 197-207

- S. O. Funtowicz and J. R. Ravetz, 1997b : The Poetry of Thermodynamics, Futures, 29:9, 791-810.

- T. S. Kuhn, 1962: The Structure of the Scientific Revolutions, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL.

- UK Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution. Setting Environmental Standards, 21st Report, Chapter 9 - Conclusions.




http://www.nusap.net/sections.php?op=viewarticle&artid=13

Burdens

When Jesus said, "For my yoke is easy and my burden is light" He was not speaking to us on the nature of Christian labor. Jesus was making a promise to us of deliverance.

It is not God who burdens us with the weights of life; it is the world and the master of its hierarchy, the Adversary, that layer upon us unceasing demands for labor, blood and treasure.

In this world all must be bought with a price calculated to be just beyond the boundaries of your ability.

Every man, whether in the lowliest station or at the heights of power, is left wanting, just short of satisfaction. The poor man is beset by a dearth of means and presented the promise of an apparent escape, if only he will give a little more, do a small thing, give up something dear. The man of power is led along the trail of accomplishment with the seeds of pride and the bread of position.

At the end, all proclaim with Solomon "...vanity of vanities, all is vanity."

Jesus promises us nothing here for the world to admire.

There are no men of renown who belong to God - no titans of industry, no giants of the intellect, no paragons of virtue - those all belong to the world and they already have their reward.

God requires simplicity and He returns understanding. God requires trust and He provides sufficiency. God requires weakness and He infuses strength. God requires obedience and He is faith. God requires surrender and He gives us liberty.

If you are tired, broken, lonely, burdened by the world, the escape is Jesus. Give Him everything and He will give you more.

Sorting It Out

I come from a long line of ordinary people - common folk - from among those who conform to the world because that is what you do. You conform and hope that with some sweat and toil, with yes sir and yes ma'am, giving it all up, that everything will work out. The American dream can be had if you only do it right.

There was just one small issue: I couldn't do it. I really tried! Really I did! But there was nothing in the world, at least the ordinary world, that attracted me.

Don't take that the wrong way. I'm not saying I wasn't attracted to worldly things...pretty women, exotic ideas, mind-alteration - big things, weird things.

All I knew then was that I couldn't do what I saw everybody else doing, the way they did it, for the reasons they had.

And most of my life I have paid for it.

For years and years I was convinced that my problem was that I was lazy, or rebellious, or, sometimes, stupid. I'm still not sure that there isn't some truth there. But I find that when I start to work on something that is interesting or that I enjoy or important to me, I can work hard and long and well.

Rarely, however, do I find that what I want to do coincide with what I know the world deems to be important.

I am very dysfunctional in the ordinary world.

So the question before me is one of sorting out priorities - separating responsibilities from conformities, desires ffrom needs, right from wrong.

I am not even sure how to go about that, well, perhaps I really know, but I am finding distractions to keep me from the really hard work - the work of turning away from the world and turning to God.

The full truth is that I am sitting on the proverbial fence...and I despise myself for doing that.

What I really need to do is throw everything at the feet of Jesus and wait for Him to tell me what to pick up and work on.

Can I do that?

I don't know, but I think it is a matter of life or death.

Take No Thought for the Morrow...a Question on the Parameters of Faith

Okay, I am venturing out into new and unexplored territory...for me.

Some are probably already here, by choice or by circumstances, patiently waiting for me to arrive. Well, here I am.

The subject is health insurance. Paying for healthcare is the uppermost topic of conversation all over the nation and has been for the past few months. If you are reading this, it is likely you are familiar with all sides of that debate, and just as likely you are tired of the fight and worried about the outcome.

And that leads to the issue I wish to consider in this article: Is it appropriate for a believer and follower of The Way to purchase health insurance in any form?

Up until a few days ago, there was no doubt in my mind that it was irresponsible and imprudent not to carry health insurance if at all possible financially - especially if I had others to provide for (spouse, children)who depended on my provision and care. Frankly, I don't believe I would have given a suggestion to the contrary a moment's consideration.

Yet, here I am, seriously questioning it.

What happened?

For a number of years I have been researching what is generally called alternative medicine - primarily herbalism and traditional medicine but also including modern concepts which are outside of the mainstream of medical practice yet relatively recent and similarly presented (vitamin therapy, chelation, sound therapy, and the like). An inevitable corrollary of this research is uncovering a great deal of information about the process and problems of contemporary allopathic medicine.

Most insurance will not cover herbal, traditional or any other natural or alternate approach to health and healing. Likewise, most mainstream physicians are ignorant about traditional or alternative therapies - a large percentage reject them outright and it is not uncommon for one to reject or terminate a relationship with a patient who chooses alternative medicine as a supplement to or instead of generally accepted practices.

The same goes for insurance. Patients who refuse to adhere to allopathic methodology can find themselves cancelled, and, in effect, blackballed, uninsurable for choices ranging from refusing vaccines to forgoing chemotherapy.

Insurers dictate to patients which courses of treatment are acceptable and covered by the policy. Deviation from the approved parameters are refused payment.

Fear of accumulating large medical debt forces patients to conform to the system and take what is offered - even if they don't believe in the effectiveness of the treatment.

My questions are derived from this understanding of how the system works:

1. We are told that we are not to be conformed to the world, but to Yashua. If we have health insurance which prevents us from using treatments we think are more effective or requires us to accept measures we know are ineffective or even harmful, aren't we conforming to the world?

2. Believers are not supposed to be in debt because the debtor becomes the slave of the lender. Isn't health insurance in a very practical sense the creation of debt - both because we commit to the payment of the costs of the coverage (premiums and deductibles, copays, fees) and because we are pre-paying for a surety against future debt. Are we then slaves to the insurer and, possibly, the employer?

3. Then there is Revelation 9:21 which warns us of the evil of "pharmakea" - drugs - termed in some translations as "sorceries". Modern medicine is very much a practice of sorcery using chemical compounds as magic potions. If you have health insurance, this is the predominant treatment option you will have.

4. The issue of faith. Do you trust Yahweh or will you make your own provision? The letter to Laodicea is very much about this. They had such great substance that they thought they had no need to depend on Yahweh for provision. They became spiritually poor as they ceased to act in faith. If we carry health insurance is that an act of self-reliance and placing our faith in ourselves and other men?

Yashua says we have not because we ask not.

The Scripture says by His stripes we are healed.

Insurance companies are deeply rooted in the world system of materialism and financial manipulation. Insurance is a core business of the worldwide financial order that demands conformity or else be excluded.

If we are to be in the world but not of it, is health insurance one of those deceptions formed by the adversary for the purpose of directing us away from God and strip us of faith and power?

I can't say for certain my family and I have decided in fact to go without insurance and rely totally on Yahweh for health and provision, but we are leaning that way.

Any ideas?

Education

Growing up in the spiritual world is similar to growing up in the material world in the sense that you start out young, lacking knowledge and experience, and in need of care and protection. In the Spirit, God is our parent and the members of the Church are our siblings.

God assumes responsibility for our care and education - duties he then delegates to one extent or another, to our brothers and sisters.

We, in return, are to be loyal and diligent, looking to our Lord for direction and to our spiritual family for edification and fellowship.

Similarly, just as the physical child gains wisdom and understanding as he develops intellectual maturity, acquires information and experiences the several common and uncommon life events, so too does the spiritual child grow and develop through study and spiritual interaction.

Recognizing that spiritual growth is a process that takes time and demands dedicated effort with education is vital to the Christian fellowship. We should no more expect that a new believer have the discernment and understanding of an older Christian than we would expect a three-year-old to operate a car like a fifty-year-old adult would.

Spiritual growth is also dependent on the relationship between the individual believer and the Godhead. Data flows and rote memorization are dry and lifeless without the inspiration of the Christian by the Spirit of God.

Because understanding and discernment become more complete and more acute as the believer grows and learns, it is reasonable to expeect that young believers will have simpler, less-developed theologies than older believers. New Christians will not perceive the spiritual natures of people nor the nature of the spirit informing events as readily as a more mature Christian. Thus it is not surprising that as we grow up in the Spirit we will find that people, acts, events, or things once viewed as benign or even acceptable in previous times may one day, perhaps in a sudden flash, be recognized as a temptation or a source of evil.

Spiritual immaturity is blindness.

Those of us who are further along in our spiritual life are as obligated to bringing light to the believers oppressed by the darkness of this material world as we are to shining the light of Christ into the physical world at large.

Blessing

Some of us are going to be called to martyrdom...prison and death are near for a few. Now is the day to be sure of your calling. Do not desire to be a martyr; rather pray that you may be a vessel for the gospel and be bold. To die is to be blessed - to live is to be a blessing. Long to bless those around you. Ask Jesus what it is you are to be about and get busy. The time is short and the fields are white.

In But Not Of...

After a period of forced silence, I return with a refined message.

Separation.

The Lord wants us to understand what separation means; how we are to understand and live in separation.

The first understanding is to know that God has created, is creating and will create all that exists in the moment of the bereshith of His choice to make and remake the universe. Because creation is in the mind of the Lord, spoken forth through His Word, implemented by His Spirit is and always is, that which He purposed is already accomplished.

In simple linear terms, the future is set, the outcome assured, the battles won.

We cannot see with our limited physical senses on up the timeline, however, with the spiritual senses of the regenerated mind we may see that Babylon the Great has fallen...and we should rejoice to see that day.

Thus we are separated from the world for what they see as destruction we know to be regeneration, the renewal promised from the beginning, the salvation given before we are born.

We are separate in Spirit and cannot be united with the spirit of this world. Our spirit is with the Spirit and we know who is of this world and who is of His Spirit.

We must recognize this separation - those on the other side do. That is why they play with you, tease you, persecute you and kill you. The world knows who, and what, you are...it is His will that you recognize as well.

We owe no loyalty to the world and to the spirit of the fallen. This is why Paul says all things are permissible: we could legitimately take spoils of the conquered without guilt. The reason we do not is because all the riches and materials of this world are meaningless and tainted and we reject them for the eternal reward of the promise...as Paul says...not all are expedient. We desire only that which enhances.

If we are aware that we are separate and not of this world and that our citizenship is in another land (a land far away and yet among us), we are no longer concerned with the worries of this land. Our only interest here is to remain separate and to find our fellow citizens of the Kingdom.

In this is the instruction on how to interact with this world: give to them only what is theirs and only what is not opposed to the requirements of our land and leave them to themselves. Wait on orders from our King.

Separation

Materialism, legalism, worldliness.

The manners of the pulpits persistently warn us to be wary of these traps. "Don't let the world pull you in," they warn us, "Don't be judgemental (fill the plate)."

They lie.

But, don't judge. The ministers of deceit have a job to do.

Materialism is everywhere and subtle in its strategy.

Do you have debt? Gotcha. How about your credit rating...do you know your score? Gotcha. Upgrading? Remodeling?

Do you rely on God for the electric bill? or are you on a budget?

What are you going to do when the Father says to give your money to the family on the corner? Argue with Him?

You want the rewards of a life of faith?

Give it all away and watch the Lord replenish ... I dare you!

And Another Thing...

While I am on a soapbox, let me add one more item:

If there is a church out there wherein a member is going to bed hungry or living in a shelter or suffering from abuse and that congregation has not worked to the limits of their ability to resolve these needs, then that is a failed church.

If you say, we did not know, then further shame on you.

I have grown weary of the endless campaigns for political positions and sniping at the opinions of others while two pews back, one of yours is in pain.

If the churches had done their job, there would be no socialism rampant today.

That's right, Mr. Christian...I blame you!

Repent now and fall on your face before an almighty God!

A Short Word

I will second that!
As if Zeph needed a word from me, but let me shoot out a confirming thought on the last audio.I have been quite uncomfortable with the survivalist meme growing among the underground church - awhile back I told an aquaitance who is building a compound in an isolated area that he was building his and his family's coffins, because the NWO would find them and target them.More importantly, to think you could outlast the world, store enough wheat and weapons, and ride out the tribulation - what a silly notion!If God can protect us from poison and vipers, can He not keep us safe from chemtrails and MSG?It is time we lambs decided to put our whole trust in Christ no matter the outcome.Listen for His voice, let Him tell you what to do. If He says to put in food for the neighbors, then we seem to be able to do that. But, if He says to sell it all and follow Him to Duluth or stay put and wait on Him...well that seems much harder.Hiding in the hills is not faith - we are to be ready to minister and be bold.The time is for prayers for strength and compassion, courage and mercy.With all that most of us have experienced, the coming tribulation will be like old times.Pray for me; I will pray for you!

How to Begin?

Jews analyze every aspect of the Torah. It is an obsession so pervasive that I could almost infer that it is a genetic trait rather than learned behavior. The Jews have dissected every word, every letter, even every blank space thousands upon thousands of times - and then each succeeding generation began anew at bereshith and incorporated and parsed the analyses of the previous generations.

If this people, whose lives are thoroughly steeped in the traditions and ideas of their near and distant forbears, can yet find room for dissent and dispute, how am I, uneducated and untrained, lacking the most basic tools to search for these truths in the manner of the Jews, ever to hope to glean the simplest precept with any clarity or certainty?

Near as I can tell, this immersion in the study of the Torah and the oral traditions did not begin with the destruction of the Temple and the Diaspora, but dates back to at least the Babylonian Exile, and probably began at the base of Sinai, where the written and oral Laws are believed to have been given.

If I am grafted into the tree and am adopted as an heir - having equal standing - would I not share equal responsibility for study? We are told to study, to meditate, that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word.

But where do I begin?

Do I start as a Jewish child would? What am I to study? How am I to study? Are there parts of the Jewish tradition, writings, teachings which I should not study? How do I meld the old and the new?

This is exciting and intimidating simultaneously.

An Exploration in Judaism - 1

The past couple of days I have been listening to lectures by Orthodox Jewish scholars on many subjects.

The coincidence of belief between Christians and Jews, when truthfully compared, teaching against teaching, precept versus precept, is strikingly dissimilar. Like many others, I just assumed that Jews were Christians without the rest of the Bible - no Christ.

That's not the case.

In fact, I was quite surprised at the hostility evidenced in many of the lectures toward Christianity (frequently disguised as a joke) and by the presentation of erroneous information about the fundamentals of Christian theology. As they were audios only, I cannot assess whether the presenters knew the information was untrue or were persuaded it was factual.

What was just as interesting to me, however, was the nature of the Jewish approach to the practice of religion and the obligations of the faith. It was so technical and precise, words and phrases being dissected and parsed, entire lectures seemed to consist of a legal analysis of God's intent.

The evident reliance on oral tradition over the written word was a further surprise.

This is not to say that I had not heard that this was the Jewish practice, but more of the case that I took what I had heard to be the biased observations of non-Jews.

The passion and sense of special-standing expressed in various ways was an additional stand-out property.

It prompted me to ask many questions as I listened and meditated on the lectures.

Is present-day Judaism consistent with the historical Hebrew practice? Besides the obvious that there is no Temple and that temple-related acts are necessarily excised, where does the current religious expression differ from 2000 years ago or 3000 years ago?

How much of the Hebrew faith are Christians supposed to continue?

Is Christianity a radically different religion, as several of the lectureres stated, and if so, is radically different because it has strayed from the true path or is it radically different because Jesus meant it to be?

I don't know, but it seems as good a time as any to explore and see what truth I can find.

I did like the idea that each person is supposed to make their own copy of the Torah.

,,,Live by Faith

Big faith is easy. It really is.

Big faith is easy because having a broad, universal faith in what God does does not connect to the small moments of our lives.

Believing that God is somewhere, outside of our earthly vision, creating all that is, knowing the end from the beginning, running the solar system, the galaxies, the universe; believing that God keeps the ships afloat is easy.

When you read in Old Testament history that the greatest army in existence is decimated and tens of thousands of soldiers slain in one night by a few angels is not that hard to believe.

Little faith is hard.

To believe that Jesus truly knows that you don't have rent money, that your a/c is broken, your car has no gas, and that He will provide exactly what is necessary just in time is very, very hard.

Yet, it is little faith that God desires from us.

Genesis begins: In the beginning God...

God is presumed. There are no debating points, just the easy faith that in the beginning was God.

God does not ask you to believe or try to persuade you to have faith that He was in the beginning. Throughout the scriptures God is the premise.

The debate is what that means to you.

And that is really, really hard.

Little faith, practical faith.