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Notes on second publish:

Turns out blogger actually tells me when this was originally published. There's like a history for it in the editor. That's pretty nice. This post was originally dropped 5/31/2019

Around that time (I am doing this from memory, and I moved very frequently to new housing situations at that time, so I'm not 100% sure...) I think I was living in Arizona still, and I was probably in Ahwatukee. Based on my attitude in the post, I believe this is from before our housing situation became a crisis.

The verbiage I used in this post has not aged well. 

In those days, I (very naively) thought that I was coining "Christian Nationalist" anew. I took it to refer to someone who believed that Christians are a distinct nation (that is, having Jesus as king, rather than whatever government happens to rule the secular environment around them). Back then, there was even a time when I elected to put "Christian Nationalist" on my drivers license as my declared political party.

Nowadays, however, I have been made aware that Christian Nationalism seems associated with race realism and prudence-legislative systems like natural law jurisprudence. I'm very much opposed to Christian Nationalism anymore.

Also, it seems that "theocrat" has recently taken on some meaning which is different from what I intend. I often see it used by people who advocate a human Christian monarch other than Christ, or a state enforced denomination. I am opposed to both of those things.

The uncommon pejorative "Christofascist" does not seem to have caught on with any popular groups. Insofar as I take it to mean that Christ has authority by virtue of his ontological position relative to ourselves, I am still comfortable with the term.

The term "theonomist" has become an umbrella term for various groups which claim to respect God's law in the Bible. I like the term, but it is unfortunately misleading because of the relative prevalence of Christian Nationalists who call themselves theonomists. It's not enough for me to say "I'm a lancastrian theonomist", because people don't get it. I don't think there is a term for my position which can be readily discerned by laypeople to sum up my position ("non-legislative" is pretty good, but it's such a mouthful that it seems to go over people's heads without entering).

Based on my comments about proposed anti-abortion laws being unjust by failing to demand accountability from fathers, I think that I had not yet adopted my present form of Christian separatism (maybe this is the term I should adopt?). I was still basically arguing for legislation. I hint at it in the post, ("the Bible is a complete system"), but I don't know if I had fully realized the implications of that systematization. You can't hold men accountable justly without Biblical forced marriages or bride prices. You can hardly force a marriage without regulating divorce, and can't enforce a Biblical bride price without something to account for nonpayment (i.e. Biblical slavery). You can't have Biblical slavery without Biblical protections against battery and the jubilee release of slaves. You can't have Biblical release of slaves without Biblical land laws. You can't have the Biblical land laws and Biblical protections without Biblical judicial structures. And so on and so on.

So, basically, I'm an abolitionist. I'm opposed to incrementalism, but not just to incrementalism in abortion legislation. I'm opposed to incrementalism as an approach to the total government.

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Listening to the classics today:

That song always gets me pumped to be more open about my faith. Every time I hear this, it makes me wanna go buy a shirt with the words "Theocrat, Theonomist, Christofascist, Christian Nationalist" on it and wear it everywhere.

I revived Fido the Spider. He died with Flash a long time ago, but Bunny Hero Labs recently(?) made an option for sites that don't use flash. He's not interactive anymore, but it's good to see him hanging out in the corner of my blog again. Maybe someday they'll make him interactive without flash 😵.

Also, been thinking more about my epistemological argument. I think I struggle a lot with describing the form of the argument. What I present isn't, "here's the proof that solipsism is wrong". In fact, I think I injure my argument by referencing solipsism at all.

Rather, perhaps the only way to approach the argument is by asking, "If it is true that we are able to know things, what possible scenario can there be to justify our knowledge of the truth?" or "Describe a world wherein we have a justified awareness of the fact that we are able to justify knowledge of truth. What must be true in that world?"

I've also been thinking hard about my views on Christian Nationalism. The more I consider my circumstance and the world, the more my feelings about the issue become a mix of discouragement at my own inability to affect change and encouragement at the changes I see happening slowly around me.

I know I've talked about this several times now, but...

I keep an eye on Apologia's ministry, which I believe is a good ministry, and for which I'm thankful. Lately, Apologia has noted several pro-choice people arguing that there must be "other" changes made to the law before abortion can be illegal. They propose changes such as an increase in the availability of contraceptives, so I disagree with them on that point... (I don't have anything against contraceptives, but I think that only married people should be using them, so I don't think they help this argument)... But those pro-choice people are right that other changes must be made in conjunction with making abortion illegal. In fact, the Bible spends quite a bit of ink discussing the various relationships in which a woman may be with the father of her children, what legal responsibilities the father has towards her, and what moral responsibilities society has toward her. Indeed, if we simply made abortion illegal today, without those other laws, we would do injustice to the woman.

The Bible is a complete and interdependent system, and so we can't pretend to do ultimate justice by protecting children while neglecting justice to the mother. With respect to the civil law, yes, abortion should be made illegal immediately, AND also, fathers should be held legally accountable according to Biblical principles immediately. I'm convinced that we shoot ourselves in the foot by pushing for one without the other.

But when we implement just requirements on fathers, and just restrictions on parents, namely that they cannot murder their unborn children, we must also implement other codes which shape society in a way that enables those requirements on parents to make sense. Again, the Bible is a complete system. It doesn't make sense to implore the U.S. government to legislate partial justice.

That said, I would never tell Apologia to stop what they're doing. The deaths of those children are tragic, and should certainly be stopped.

The reason I brought up the abortion topic was to give an example of a place where nonChristians are slowly approaching scriptural standards -- not because of the efforts of Christians, but in spite of the efforts of Christians. The Bible says that God will do it by means of His own Zeal, for His Name's Sake, which His people have slandered among the nations. I am confident that God will do it, and I'm humbled by my inability to affect it with my own power. Nevertheless, I will wait for my opportunity, and perhaps God will show me the open door to establish a place governed by His precepts (entirely), or perhaps God will give me the opportunity to impress upon some other person, more blessed than I, the superior equity and beauty of God's perfect law.

Again, I've made that argument several times, but it's still fresh on my mind. I would like to give it to Apologia and get their thoughts sometime soon. I doubt they would disagree with me about the inconsistency in their approach, but no kind person is immune to their own emotions, and the murder of all those babies can't be allowed to continue if they have anything to say about it.

"There is nothing hidden that will not be disclosed."

I've been asked a couple of times about the Sabbath and Lord's Day recently. Why do we worship on the Lord's Day instead of the Sabbath? Why don't we observe the Sabbath religiously? What does it mean that Jesus is the Sabbath Lord? How did Jesus Fulfill the Sabbath? Why was breaking the Sabbath a capital offense in the OT? Here's how I understand all this:

The Sabbath is called "God's Rest" in scripture. There are a few other things with that name in Scripture, among them the Promised Land and Heaven (Heb 3 to 4). Old Testament Israel was built around acting out physical ceremonies in order to reflect spiritual realities (Heb 10:1, Col 2:17). In the case of the Sabbath, they were reflecting the end of God's Work on earth (Gen 2:2-3), and God's Rest in heaven which will be shared with us after the end of the world. Following the metaphor, in the OT, to reject the Sabbath physically would have been (by reflection) like rejecting heaven spiritually; a rejection of God's rest and peace. So the physical death penalty in the OT is an appropriate reflection of the spiritual death penalty which follows a rejection of God's salvation and peace with God (Ex 31:12-17).

When Israel was on its way to the promised land, they rejected God and hardened their hearts. So God said about them, "they will never enter my rest", and made them wander in the desert until that generation was gone. The psalmist later says about this, "Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as Israel did in the wilderness". Hebrews 3:7-4:13 cites both of these passages, and makes a connection between them, saying "As long as it is called today, encourage one another so that you don't harden your hearts". Then saying, "We who have believed enter that rest" and "God set aside a certain day, calling it 'today'", and, "there remains for some to enter that rest". So believers enter into that rest, and those elect who have not yet believed will enter it later. The new day of entering into God's rest, in the New Covenant, is every day that we call "today", so basically every day. Every day is the Sabbath for Christians. We are called to strive to enter into God's rest every day, and keep every day holy.

But then why Sunday? And why do we work? Saturday is the sabbath, but Christians worship on Sunday. When Jesus died and rested in death through the sabbath, he rose again on the third day, (Easter Sunday). The church fathers wrote that they chose to worship on Sunday as a celebration of Jesus's resurrection. Jesus killed our sin, which bound us in slavery to the flesh, by dying and staying dead through the sabbath, and he rose again on Sunday, raising us to life with him.

In this new life we received, we are no longer slaves to the flesh, and so we aren't subjected to the same kind of work that we were previously bound to. We continue to work (Col 3:23), but it is restful work under our new master. Jesus says, "my burden is light, and my yoke is easy" (Matt 11:28-30), and Paul wrote, "the peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard your heart and mind" (Phil 4:7). The sabbath rest in the New Covenant is that spiritual rest in Jesus Christ, which we receive by the influence of the Holy Spirit in our hearts.

So Christians are called to observe the sabbath every day by resting in the comfort of our master, Jesus. His father, who has adopted us, provides for our every need (Matt 6:25-34), so that now rather than "living by the sweat on our brow" (Gen 3:19) in a cursed state of existence, we live in Christ as new creations, born again into spiritual purity and eternal life. So we have no worries; no concern; no struggle in this life, except to love our God in a way worthy of the name Christian.

"Either you're born twice and die once, or you're born once and die twice."

I want to be as sure as possible that nobody gets the wrong idea about what I advocate, and what being a Christian Nationalist means to me in practice....  but I really wish I had someone like-minded to talk me through some of this and help me flesh out these ideas... Some of this gets really complicated, and I have to walk my mind through from scratch to my conclusions over and over in order that I don't forget why I believe these things.

In this post, I'm going to walk through one such train-of-thought. This is, real-time, me confusing myself and then reminding myself about why I believe what I believe.

When I talk about Biblical civil laws and their penalties, I recognize that in large part, for any person or group in America to enforce those penalties would be to violate U.S. Law.

The question is not whether we ought to have a Christian government with laws that directly conform with scripture. By any imminent definition of "ought", we ought to. In fact, we are in an awkward position because there is no such Christian government on earth. There is no civil authority to execute justice justly.

As I've written before, we do have the church government, which is structurally similar (if not identical in some churches) to the Biblical civil government, and in many ways the church government is functionally identical to the system of judges in the OT. However, consider this: as I've established in prior posts, we are not to file lawsuits against our brothers and sisters in Christ according to the normal civil means. However, no such injunction exists for the "foreigner" (with respect to covenant Israel, the foreigner is the nonbeliever), and the law says multiple times, "you shall have the same law for the foreigner as for the native born" (Exodus 12:49; Leviticus 19:34, 24:22; Numbers 15:29; Deuteronomy 10:19).

We have so carefully impressed in our minds a difference between the role of church and the role of state. This difference is indeed Biblical inasmuch as the judicial government in Scripture was distinguished from the priesthood. But what does it mean, then, that the priesthood is fulfilled in Christ? Biblically speaking, what is the church if not the full body of believing people, physically indistinguishable from the people themselves? And if that is the case, can a government be anything if not composed of people? Doesn't it mean that the NT "church" is not the "priesthood" in that sense, and so the distinction is moot in the New Covenant?

Suppose we decide that the church government is suddenly the in-force civil government for Christians. Wouldn't the consequence be that we thereafter go to the church for civil issues regarding the foreigners living among us? After all, if Jesus is King over earth right now, (and he is, Matthew 28:18), then it is not us who live as foreigners among them, in their land, but they who live among us, in Christ's land. And then what? Penalize ignorant strangers for crimes against God's law according to God's civil penalties, and thereby start a war with the secular government of the land we're living in? No way! We would make ourselves seem no better than radical Muslims!

No, the NT church in the days of the apostles was surrounded by Roman lawlessness, and they conducted no such violent action in the name of justice -- neither should we. Thus, there is something seriously and dangerously wrong with the above chain of reasoning.

Why didn't the apostles immediately establish a community executing just laws? It's because they had a higher priority task, as do we. They were sent to make disciples of all nations, teaching and baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Given the injunction to not file civil suit against your brother in Christ, how could they even practice such a government among Christians alone?

So we suppose that working to establish an independent or sovereign state with its own civil system in the midst of a secular nation is not high enough on the Christian priority list to fight for it. However, given the option to establish either a just law or an unjust law, we are compelled to choose the just in accordance with God's statutes. And, given the option to formulate our own system of government, we may only choose the best, which is God's government.

What then do we make of the commandment to rescue those going to slaughter? And when do zealous, active forms of civil disobedience become justified?

Guys, I have no idea.  For lack of an independent and sovereign Christian Nation, I don't see true justice succeeding in the law of the land. Only, I'm talking to an empty room! There's nobody else like me as far as I can tell! Even apologia now seeks rather to "restore america to the Constitution" somehow as if that is similar to restoring America to the Bible directly. And even if I had a following, there's no available land in the world! Where can we establish ourselves? Antarctica? I'm certain God would bless his faithful with abundance even there... but the means by which such a Christian nation would be established are so overwhelmingly wild in my mind, and my heart so discouraged by the apparent lack of people interested in God's standards of justice, that I struggle to see how any such place could come into existence.

Wait wait wait... let's examine that commandment given to the apostles again: "Go and make disciples of all nations." What if the progress of the Christian church is not just to make disciples of groups of people, but to take secular nations and establish such a large group of believers there that they conform to God's law because of the people's desire to submit to God? After all, any true believer will acknowledge that God is just, and so isn't it natural that Christians will love God's law and seek to conform our civil laws to its statutes?

The conclusion is, in fact, that we are already at war with the rulers and authorities -- the government -- of the land we live in, but it isn't a war with flesh and blood, and we fight not with weapons of this world. On the contrary, our weapons have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. And we will be ready to punish every act of disobedience, once our obedience is complete. (Ephesians 6:10-16; 2 Corinthians 10:4-6)

That path to achieving civil justice feels much further out of my reach, because my life is surely too short to see so many people converted and a nation become established in that way... it's much more easy to imagine the Christian Nation coming into existence slowly.

Then again, in scripture we regularly see God accomplishing the impossible by means of the unexpected:
God promises to make Abraham a great nation, and fulfills it by giving him a single son in his old age; God saves many nations by making an imprisoned slave into a king overnight; God rescues a trapped Israel by putting a tornado of fire behind them and parting the sea in front of them; God brings down the high court of the philistines by strengthening a slave whose eyes had been gouged out; God saves exiled Israel from genocide by revealing that the queen of Persia herself came from Israel; God brings the Messiah into a cursed royal bloodline by means of a virgin birth;

God infuriates all Israel by healing their sick; God wins the battle by dying; God proves his ultimate supremacy by simply being alive.

Perhaps God will establish justice in our land during my lifetime.... How I hope and long for it.

"Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven."

Alright! Time to talk about blasphemy and free speech. In my previous blog we looked at the nature of Treason, and what little activity can instigate accusations of treason in the United States. Today, I first want to briefly tack on to my previous post some information about freedom of speech in the U.S., then I will say a little about the Christian worldview background for this post, and then I'll dig into some passages from scripture.

Lots of people like to complain that we're losing our right to free speech in the U.S.. While it's true that police enforcement sometimes either ignores or is ignorant of the nature of our rights (link), the fact is, the Supreme court still recognizes that the speech which needs protecting most is the speech we hate (another link). Unfortunately, that's not how universities in the U.S. seem to see things (another link). I can only imagine that the establishment of "free speech zones" and "safe spaces" are a result of popular opinions about hate speech.

Last thing before I get into the verses, let me give some Biblical worldview-background for the topic:

Christians believe that there is a fate much worse than anything that can happen while we are alive in the flesh, and much worse than any death we may experience thereof. The worst possible thing that can ever happen to anyone is that they be sent to hell. Hell being real, and the Kingdom of God being the nation to which believers first owe allegiance, we find ourselves in a literal war against all false gods. If someone leads a man away from Christianity, then that man is a casualty of the worst kind. It is better for a man to die a martyr than for him to leave Christianity, because those who die apart from Christ get hell. (Point of order: Christians can't martyr other Christians.)

That shouldn't be shocking to anyone. It's no secret that this is what Christians believe, and Christians still make up more than 1/3 of the population of the U.S. (indeed, nearly 1/3 of the population of the whole world is Christian). Side note: Bernie Sanders made a hilarious fool of himself when he pretended that Christianity was un-American (the video).

So, on to the Biblical laws themselves. There are four kinds of speech against which God imposes civil law; all others are ignored by the law (and, by extension, all others are protected from civil sanction). As we get into this, ask yourself, "Do I really believe what the Bible says about hell and our war with the devil?" and "Is God just?"

The first civil law is about bearing false witness in court; I mention it here only to complete the list of laws about speech. If someone is falsely accused in court, then the false witness receives the penalty that the defendant would have received if he was found guilty (Deut 19:16-19). We try to do something similar with our laws about lying under oath; only the penalty isn't anywhere near as scary.

The other three laws are about blasphemy, proselytizing for false gods, and false prophesy, which I argue are the spiritual equivalents to our laws about treason. Treason is to aid the enemies of America; blasphemy and proselytizing for false gods aids the enemies of humanity and of the Kingdom of God. Christians, remember that you are first citizens of the Kingdom of God.

Blasphemy is discussed in Matthew 12:31, Mark 3:28-29, Luke 12:10, and Leviticus 24. Leviticus is the only one of these verses which talks about the civil implications of the law, and the penalty is death. The rule is straight-forward; anyone who blasphemes the Name (YHWH) is put to death. It makes sense, given that Christians are defined by their love for God; this is almost identical to proselytizing for false gods.

Proselytizing is discussed in Deuteronomy 13:6-18, and again, the penalty is death. Note, though, that there are two specific cases given here. The first is where an Israelite calls people to go after other gods, and the second is where an entire town rejects God.

In the first case, if an Israelite calls people after other gods, then it can only mean that he was an Israelite at the time when he called them after other gods. That is to say, since we know that Israel is composed of the children of the promise (Romans 9:6-9), this is a citizen of God's kingdom who performs the proselytizing for other gods. There is no law restricting foreigners (non-believers) from proselytizing, unless they are very successful. In the same way, America doesn't execute emissaries from their enemies as soon as they set-foot on American soil.

However, in the second case, it only says "if you hear that troublemakers have arisen among you and have led people of their town astray, saying 'let us go and worship other gods' (gods you have not known)". The troublemakers are not identified as either Israelite or non-Israelite. Thus, this law applies if foreigners are the troublemakers, but it only applies if the town follows after them. The town is viewed as an invasive force or a cessation from the Union. America rolled tanks over Waco when they tried to declare independence, and that's pretty much exactly what the Bible is calling for. Once a town identifies as Christian, it is a part of the Kingdom, and the law enforces that it should remain Christian. That said, I don't see any injunction in here to hunt down people who flee the city prior to this siege; I imagine that a good Israelite would flee the town as soon as they saw it begin to turn away from God in a big way.

The last law pertains to false prophets. Relevant passages can be found in Deut 12, Jer 23, Jer 29, and Ezek 13. Again, this is a straight-forward law. The prophet comes, claiming to be an Israelite, but calling Israel after false gods. The civil penalty is death.

Laws against treason protect the lives of American citizens, and they protect the American nation from falling apart due to internal division and disunity. The laws against blasphemy and proselytizing after false gods protect the eternal souls of Christians, and they protect the Christian nation from falling apart due to internal division (on non-adiaphoral issues mind you) and disunity.

That's it!

"That book doesn't describe anything."

I wrote this blog a few weeks ago, and I've been sitting on it, because I didn't want to commit myself to doing the comparison I promise at the end here. But then the Mueller report came out, and I figure I should go ahead and post this before it loses its relevance.

Today I want to talk about treason.

According to Title 18, U.S. Code Section 2381, the maximum penalty for treason in the United States is death, and the minimum penalty is either five years in a cage or $10,000, depending on how much you value your time. Treason is defined in the law as being when someone "owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere".

So there are three key actions qualifying as treason: "levies war against [the U.S.]", "adheres to their enemies", and "giving [enemies] aid and comfort". Having done some looking around, I concluded that "adhere" and "aid" don't have a explicit legal definitions outside of their commonly understood meaning. So, a more complete understanding of treason requires a definition of the term "War". According to Title 18, USC Section 2331(4),

The term "act of war" means any act occurring in the course of -- (A)declared war; (B)armed conflict, whether or not war has been declared, between two or more nations; or (C)armed conflict between military forces of any origin.

In order to understand that, it would be nice to have a clear definition of "military force". I couldn't find a positive definition, but Title 18 happened to have a negative definition in USC Section 2331(6).

The term "military force" does not include any person that -- (A)has been designated as a -- (i)foreign terrorist organization by the Secretary of State under section 210 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C 1189); or (ii)specially designated global terrorist (as such term is defined in section 594.310 of title 31, Code of Federal Regulations) by the Secretary of State or the Secretary of the Treasury; or (B)has been determined by the court to not be a “military force”.

Honestly, not that helpful, but based on the definitions I found in a few dictionaries, I'd say it's safe to summarily qualify a military force as "an organized group of armed persons, serving as part of a larger military group", where a "military group" would be any group existing for the purpose of carrying out military (violent, either defensive or aggressive) action.

If you do a Google image search for the word, "treason", on the day that I post this, you'll see several caricatures of Donald Trump. The accusation against him is that he colluded with Russia, by means of verbal communication, to undermine the democratic election process here in the U.S.. Whether or not that qualifies as "adhering to the U.S.'s enemies" is not a matter I'm prepared to determine, but given that Russia does not appear to be an enemy of Trump, and in spite of his failures Trump seems to have benefited the economy here, and he is the de facto figurehead of the United States, I lean toward supposing that Russia isn't an enemy, per se. Now, again, whether or not Russia "should" be our enemy is something that I don't quite know how to answer, for lack of Russian troops actively killing Americans on American soil. If Russian meddling by means of a mostly-unverified mix of true and false internet words is an attempt to undermine our democracy, and if anyone attempting to undermine democracy by means of their words is an enemy of the U.S., then I think we would find that many Americans fit the description "enemy". But we protect the free speech of those individuals on the grounds that they are American, and I've never heard anyone propose that we impeach an American president based on the fact that some or most of his followers spread lies on the internet. I'll do what the rest of the media does and avoid talking about whether or not those "lies" are actually "truths" and the opposition's ideas are actually mistaken.

For the record, I, here, with my words, oppose the notion that an American should have more right to share words online, whether the words are knowingly true or false, than any other group of humans, simply on the grounds that those humans are from another part of the world. Suppose the group of people disingenuously spreading true or false information about Hillary or Trump in order to affect the elections were all from Ohio [arbitrarily]. Wouldn't we just call them an activist group? What if they were all SJWs?

For the sake of time, I'm going to close out this post... But I wrote this blog intending to devote a future blog to a closely related topic: blasphemy. I want to eventually compare U.S. feelings and legislation regarding treason, hate-speech, and falsehood to Biblical Law regarding blasphemy, freedom of religion, and freedom of speech.

"...created an opportunity for scammers, given a voice to those who spread hatred, and made all kinds of crime easier to commit."

Baby is still cute. Not much to report there. Chowon still working hard. Good mom; good wife. We're tired.

Today I want to talk about Platonic Forms. The reason I originally decided to read the Republic was to learn about Forms and find out for myself whether the refutation of them that I've heard is accurate.

First, I want to encourage my nonexistent readers to do as I have done. Why read me (or anyone else) telling you about Platonic Forms when you can go read Plato himself? The fact that people are writing about Plato's works means that Plato's works are available to read and criticize. It's the same with any other person. The realization that these works are not out of my reach, and that they are written in common English, struck me like lightning after I graduated college. I've been consuming ancient authors ever since. I recommend it to everyone. It's easy! Don't be intimidated by it!

Alright, now the main point of this post. The problem Plato was trying to solve is the distinction between external objects and our internal understanding of them. He frames it in terms of the One and the Many, which is to ask how we can identify many different types of a thing by means of the same descriptor. For example, there are many different kinds of tables, but we know them all to be of the type "table". Only, we experience much difficulty attempting to describe the perfect representation of a table, in order to apply that to any object and identify it as such (using tables as an example). This is closely related to the issue about how we can identify and accurately classify any true information about the world external to us.

Plato argues that the way we are able to classify an external thing is by referencing our sensory data against a set of perfect forms which exist in our minds. These forms were created by the gods and placed in nature so that we have them in our minds. Furthermore, he says that the gods created just one of each of these forms because they wanted to be able to claim responsibility for having generated the first and most perfect object of every type. For example, we see some platformed object and identify it as a table by comparing it against the perfect form of a table, which some god invented and placed in our minds.

The problem with Plato's theory is that the gods themselves are only identifiable inasmuch as they, themselves, conform to the natural form of a god. So the form "god" had to exist before the first god. But the forms are not self-existent; they are created. Therefore, the gods cannot be ultimate, because they are members of the type described by the Platonic Form 'god'; but the forms cannot be ultimate, because they are created by the gods. It is impossible that a god created the perfect form of a god, because the god's own existence is prerequisite to the form's existence. But then, since forms are created, who created the perfect form of a god? As far as I know, Plato offers no answer for this. So, while there may be some merit to the theory as a tool, it is not a complete epistemological framework. This kind of paradox is symptomatic of a failing system, perhaps due to a faulty premise.

This problem is solved in Christianity (get ready for the super-abridged summary) by abandoning the idea that a "perfect form" exists on its own as an abstract object. Instead, I think we would say that types of things are differentiated according to their compliance with abstract and imperfect forms which we ourselves create, and that the means by which we create those abstract forms is by partitioning and arranging a universal set of "building blocks" (that's not a formal term. I just now came up with calling them 'blocks' in order to illustrate my point). The building blocks are applied logical rules, and we are aware of these rules because they are imbued to us by God. God did not create the rules, and the rules don't exist on their own apart from God; they simply describe God's nature. God has always continually embodied all logical laws perfectly. They are expressions of his unchanging character. We apply them incompletely because of our nature, and we know them incompletely because of our nature; our nature is that we are created in the image of God, containing in our minds an incomplete embodiment of those rules. So, we generate abstractions by applying self-references to our sensory data, and our self-references are references to an expression of God's own qualities, his image in us. In this way, inasmuch as we are correctly applying the logical laws which we contain in ourselves, our self-references are effectively references to an external standard: God's character.

OK, last thing, I am digging into political activism groups around Arizona to learn how activism is done in the U.S.. I've begun to explore Represent-Us, and look into my options for vocalizing opinions to the local legislature. I'm exploring the options, but I have not clarified in my mind what level of involvement is conscionable to me. I'll ramble about it here when I've dug deeper into it.

ETA almost forgot to quote something.

"Like a gentleman stranded on an island populated by a race of indiginous butlers."

Baby is growing! He's in the 99th percentile for length, and he's right in the healthy middle for weight gain. Chowon is an excellent mom, and her condition is improving, but she still has some serious joint pain.

I just finished book 8 of The Republic. I had to listen to it a few times, because I listen at work and it was dense. Eventually I had a less taxing task to accomplish, and I was able to focus better on it. It was a little bit upsetting to listen to Plato's observations about the demise of his contemporary democracies. America, being a sort of democratic republic, appears to be constantly in the state of being probed for weaknesses leading to the same sort of destruction that Plato describes.

A sweeping summary: the lowest financial class, fearing that members of the highest financial class seek to become oligarchs, (though he notes that the highest class does not necessarily seek to change the system through which they have become wealthy), enlist the middle and most politically active class to "squeeze" the upper class for resources. The upper class therefore does the only sensible thing: they use what influence and wealth they have to take steps to protect their own property. Who wouldn't? These steps, however, make them seem even more like aspiring oligarchs, and serve only to inflame the people against them. The lower and middle class incite fear in one another against the upper class, pressing them harder, forcing them to protect themselves with more serious measures, until the upper class has become oligarchs in reality. At that time, the lower and middle class, remembering freedom, naturally congregate around a political figure, who they imagine will protect them against the oligarchy. That figure, in doing so, becomes accustomed to forcibly destroying what are essentially his fellow men. Every oligarch he overthrows finds him more powerful than before, and his unbridled support is contingent on him maintaining a continuous war against wealth, and eventually against the middle class, becoming the enemy of anyone he can identify as the most wealthy and the most happy. Over time, his actions become recognizably deplorable, and the only way for him to maintain power is by delegating influence to whatever group of people were previously the most impoverished and uneducated. By means of this group of people, he is able to subjugate the rest of the nation. Tyranny.

I hardly did justice to Plato with that paragraph. Read it yourself.

If I am to agree with Plato, (and on many points in his Republic I have disagreed so far), then the various movements concerned with redistributing the wealth owned by "the 1%-ers" (remember "Occupy Wall Street") attempt to be the catalyst for this kind of change, and we may see this change in a matter of just a few generations if America continues to be shaped by those movements. It's true that, not being a pure democracy, we have several safeguards in place to prevent that, but it seems to me that laws are changed in America as soon as they are perceived to be "out-of-date", with the same carelessness that the Bible is rejected on the grounds that it was written by "bronze age goat herders". If people disagree with a law on principle,  then they overthrow the law rather than reevaluate their principles.  Naturally, if that is the case, then Plato's other points follow, and the only way to prevent this is by widespread education about the philosophical grounds for a republic over any other form of government.

But I've been through the public school system. I never even heard of Plato's Republic until just less than a year ago -- not that Plato's Republic, specifically, is the thing that people must learn, but why rewrite a book that's already been written? Why did I have to read "The Kite Runner", but not Josephus? Why did I have to recite the pledge of allegiance, but never read "Civil Disobedience"? Why did I learn about Confucius, but never his thoughts? Why did I learn about Karl Marx, but never take a critical eye to his Manifesto? Why did I learn about Rome, but not Tertulian? Why did I learn about Babylon, but not Israel? Why did I learn about Hitler's attempts at eugenics, but never Margaret Sanger's? Why did I learn about Europe, but never learn about the reformation? Why did I have to learn about postmodernism, but never hear any credibility given to the concept of absolute truth? Why did I have to study 3-point "persuasive speaking", but never learn to recognize logical fallacies? Why did I have to study Hammurabi, but never Moses? Which one established a more successful government?

I don't think we're equipping people to protect their freedom. Our education system, though apparently so heavily influenced by platonic thought, fails its goal of protecting the republic. Plato's republic is sustained by education,  and Plato's education is supported by the republic.  Without one, the other dies.

God help me.  How can I protect my child from these schools?

 [Sometime later, finishing this blog on my phone now]

Speaking of Parenthood, SPOILERS!!! Chowon and I have been watching that series on Netflix these days. It was really good up until season 4, when Drew's girlfriend hired an assassin to kill their baby. But we gave it a chance,  hoping it wouldn't get worse, and we just completed season 5.  Everybody is having sex all the time now.  Drew is in college and is heart-warmingly encouraged by the men in his life to have sex with as many girls as possible.  Haddie is lesbian. Joel and Julia are separated but not divorced, and Julia is sleeping with some guy who the audience doesn't even know really, and all the other ladies are telling her that it's a good thing, expressly because she hadn't slept with enough different men in her life. Sarah is all over the place. Amber is pregnant by a guy who just moved away and broke off their engagement (#consequences). The doctors, after spitting on Hippocrates' grave, offered to kill Amber's baby for her, since she's not married. They sold the family house.... and did I forget anything... oh! If the show is all I have to go on,  than apparently Christians believe that you can't be saved unless you were baptized as a baby.  Not sure if I want to to see how the one "Christian" character in this show handles Haddie. It's gonna be like watching a surgery! Do they paint us as intolerable bigots who can't even be nice to someone who has a gender identity issue,  or do they paint us as jellyfish with no convictions?  Because so far,  pop media has made it seem like you're only either one or the other of those. Maybe they'll surprise me! I'd stop watching it, but Chowon likes shows about relationship drama, and that's what this feels like now.

Dang it Bill Cosby! Why did you have to go and ruin the one good show about family values!?!?

Oh well. That's it for tonight.

"Neither will I administer a poison to anybody when asked to do so, nor will I suggest such a course. Similarly I will not give to a woman a pessary to cause abortion. But I will keep pure and holy both my life and my art."