Steve Jobs on Human Nature: Right or Wrong?

I can't source this quote, but someone attributes it to the deceased Apple CEO Steve Jobs:

"Technology is nothing.  What is important is that you have faith in people that are basically good and smart.  And you should give them the tools.  They'll do wonderful things with them."  

Whether Steve Jobs actually said this is of little importance. I hope no one goes around making memes of this quote (it came from a trustworthy source). But what is important is the content.

How can Steve Jobs say such things -- that people are basically good and smart -- when the U.S. government during the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations have, through its use of technology, it's military technology, destabilized the Middle East?

The United States has used all kinds of technological advancements to bomb, shoot, snipe, kill it's alleged enemies in the Middle East. Not only that, but that same technology has ended up in one of the hands of the worst terrorist organizations in the world, ISIS. They aren't using it as farming equipment.

Note that Jobs didn't limit it to computer technology. He said "technology." But even if he did limit the meaning to computer technology, the U.S. military is in the business of using that too.

One can't exempt non-government employees from these implications.

One can not say that only they -- the U.S. government -- is evil but the rest of us are "basically good and smart."

No, we are all fallen (Romans 3:23).

And this is evidenced not only on the daily but by the fact that we vote the people that make these decisions into office.

Gospel people don't put in power people who believe in the gospel of nation-building or salvation through bombing other nations.

...or any other gospel.

But that kind of politics aside...

...our fallen nature is showcased in our ability to use technology in Planned Parenthood clinics to tear babies apart ISIS-style. 

And of aborted babies that aren't killed in that way, their organs can potentially be sold.

Sometimes, the eyeballs of these aborted children fall into the laps of their murderers, and then they coldly laugh at it.

"Basically good and smart" people use internet technology to visit websites like Ashley Madison to arrange affairs, so they can discretely commit adultery on their spouses.

We use medical technology to mutilate our God-given organs. And if that's not enough, we use another kind of medical technology, or medical advancement (hormone pills), to "help" the same people "transition" away from their God-given gender.

We drug young boys who are perfectly fine or misdiagnose them and call their "condition" ADHD,

And how could I forget, we use the power of the computer to create digits in bank accounts and create money that have no corresponding token or bills in the real world. Modern central banking is nothing more than ancient coin-clipping. It is counterfeiting writ large. It is theft.

And in many of these cases, we are in agreement with them.

We rationalize them.

We intellectualize.

We philosophize.

"...They'll do wonderful things with them" we are told.

Yes, the possibilities are endless.

How many of these instances of "giving them tools" have to be listed before we lose faith in the assertion that "people are basically good and smart"?

We have technology, and we have shown that we are barbaric.

The cure to the barbarism expressed in our human nature is our ongoing sanctification and salvation in Jesus Christ.

K. Scott Oliphint on Sin

Westminster Theological Seminary gives prospective students this meaty little booklet; and, like any good piece of meat, it is packed with the right amount of flavors that are distinctive but not jarringly so. Thus we have Dr. K. Scott Oliphint's essay on "The Irrationality of Unbelief" where he exegetes Romans 1:18-32 and shows the "deep and wide" implications of this passage to Christian apologetics.

He writes: "All sin, as sin, is rooted in an irrationality that seeks in earnest to deny what is obvious and to create a world that is nothing more than a figment of a sinful imagination."

I'd like to take the implications of this a step further: If we are creating a world based on our own vain imaginations, then we should have no problem realizing that the foundations of society are seemlingly turning into sand. No one should expect this kind of society to work.

More on this essay later...

Sermon Notes: Functional Atheism -- not atheism proper -- is what Psalm 53 is all about

The sermon's text Psalm 53:1-6 (NRSV).

Fools say in their hearts, “There is no God.”
 They are corrupt, they commit abominable acts;
 there is no one who does good.

God looks down from heaven on humankind
 to see if there are any who are wise,
 who seek after God.

They have all fallen away, they are all alike perverse;
 there is no one who does good,
 no, not one.

Have they no knowledge, those evildoers,
 who eat up my people as they eat bread,
 and do not call upon God?

There they shall be in great terror,
 in terror such as has not been.
 For God will scatter the bones of the ungodly; they will be put to shame, for God has rejected them.

O that deliverance for Israel would come from Zion!
 When God restores the fortunes of his people,
 Jacob will rejoice; Israel will be glad.

• This text is not about atheism proper i.e. what Richard Dawkins spends time thinking about and what Christian apologists think about refuting; rather, it is about functional atheism.
• Functional atheism says "omniscience [God] does not see sin."
• Every sin presupposes a functional atheism.
• Paul quotes Psalm 53 in his indictment of the whole human race. Paul's point was that Jews and Gentiles are estranged from God.
• "Not the village atheist, and not the village priest" does good (Psalm 53:1).
• Functional atheists end up hating the people of God (Psalm 53:4). 
• "Atheists devour ex-atheists," that is, atheists in the functional sense, which would include atheists proper.
• Atheists proper are very tiny in proportion to functional atheists.
• Living in sin is living with functional atheism.
• Sins happens in the presence of God.
• Sin is always personal with God.
• The atheist -- the unrepentant sinner -- would kill God if he could. The incarnation, when God took on human flesh in the person of Jesus Christ, made that possible.
• This [our murder of him] revealed our nature, and it revealed God's loving nature.
• "Salvation Grace is shaped like God." 
• Yes, there should be a difference in the lives of believers and non-believers, functional atheists and functional believers, but the difference is in knowing what God is like.
• We should confess our sins because we messed up our relationship God -- not because we messed up our slate of good deeds that we wanted to perfectly present to God on the Day of Judgment.

The Ultimate Problem in the World and Why I Was Part of the Problem

The Ultimate Problem in the World

Sure. I'll drop a political status now and then. But I withdrew from making them because I knew that the ultimate problem in our society is neither a politician nor a system of thought (say, Socialism).

The problem is sin; and public enemy #1 is Satan himself (1 Peter 5:8), who keeps us in his grip (his kingdom) by sin itself.

We live in a society that loves sin and brags about it (Romans 1:32).

All those things that bring us down--antinomianism (lawlessness), to sum up the countless other "isms" that arise from that like liberalism, conservatism, relativism, libertarianism, socialism, secularism, etc. -- spring from the human heart. It's going to take a lot of people recognizing the seriousness of sin, and a lot of regeneration of human hearts by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, for nations to collectively prosper again (2 Chronicles 7:14).

Editor's Note: I make a correction in a later post to note that a return to God's law in economics is necessary. See here.

Why I'm Part of the Problem

I take blame because I served sin and was not in a position to follow Jesus Christ. Jesus says that anyone who commits sin becomes a slave to it (John 8:34). But that's not the case for me anymore.  No, sir. And it's so liberating turning your life over to Jesus Christ, having faith in resurrection, and being justified by his blood (Romans 5:9).

And the thing is, even if you are doing great in all other areas of your life, and obeying God in all other areas of your life, but denying him and rebelling against him in one, like I did; when you are allowing a "little yeast" to "leaven the whole batch of dough" (1 Cor 5:6); you are violating the whole law (James 2:10), giving up potential conquest of kingdom territory, and allowing territory to remain in the Enemy's hands. 

So when I didn't obey God years ago, in that one area of life, it slowly grew into all areas of my life.  I gave off the veneer of being righteous; when really I was pretending. Because my hypocrisy moved through the whole batch of dough slowly, I came off as a very righteous person for a while.

And so what goes for the layman (myself) also goes for politicians. 

When we deny God's law in one area, say, sexual ethics, we end up denying him in another, say, monetary policy.

I remember during the Michael Brown-Harry Knox debate a few years back when Knox (a gay Christian), once blurted out something to the effect of "why don't you spend your time criticizing all those people who are ruining the economy?"

Ahh, but if Knox doesn't stand on the Word of God in his sexual ethics, why should the financial manglers stand on the Word of God in their finances?

"Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter:

Fear God and keep His commandments,
For this is man’s all.
For God will bring every work into judgment,
Including every secret thing,
Whether good or evil."

Ecclesiastes 12:13-14

Video: Lifehouse's Everything Skit

I first saw this video about seven years ago in 2007. I watched it again for the first time in a very long time today. I cried.

Greed is not good

"Put to death, therefore, whatever in you is earthly: fornication, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed (which is idolatry). On account of these the wrath of God is coming on those who are disobedient. These are the ways you also once followed, when you were living that life." (Colossians 3:5-7)

(Update at 8:28 PM: So I am still studying and ran across this scripture. Jesus himself is speaking: "And he said to them," Take care! Be on your guard against all kind of greed; for one's life does not consist in the abundance of possessions." Luke 11:15)

Greed is, quite simply, a sin, under the category of idolatry.

Of course, Wall Street businessmen and politicians aren't the only ones capable of being greedy, or impure, or having (sexual) passion (outside of the will of God), or evil desires. The large part of society who are non-politicians have the same capacity.

And "on account of these the wrath of God is coming on those who are disobedient."

The upside to all of this in the next verse.

"These are the ways you also once followed, when you were living that life."

Through Jesus, who is also called Y'shua or Yeshua, through his death on the cross and the power of his resurrection, we are able to be forgiven for our sin and are enabled by the Holy Spirit (the Ruach Hakodesh) to live holy lives. Formerly greedy people, formerly sexually passionate people, and so forth, who once lived those lives are capable of living new ones.

May the Gospel of Jesus Christ flourish in the hearts of men...

...including the Wall Street crowd and the political class.