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.

God is like a mother waiting for her child to return home

God is like that mother who waits for her child to come back home from playing outdoors and makes sure the child gets washed up, nourished and ready for the next day. (Late Elementary & Middle school memories of my Mom waiting at the front door with the door wide open come to mind here)

Of course, in some sense that's where the analogy ends because kids should totally play outside. But we who know the Lord Jesus Christ have someone ready to clean us when we get dirty in sin from time to time. ~The Proprietor

Ancient Evidence for Belief in the Rapture (Or something rapture-like)

This hits home.

Francis Gumerlock, author of "The Early Church and the End of the World," has written an article in Bibliotheca Sacra that shows that there were "rapture" beliefs before the 1800s.  As the common misconception goes, the rapture, which I do* believe in myself, was an invention of the 1800s.

A preview of that article is available here on his website. The title of the paper is Rapture in the Apocalypse of Elijah.

I first came along a similar notion when I first began reading Pagan Christianity in 2008.

From what I've read, the book doesn't actually come out and says the rapture was created in the 1800s (However, Gumerlock's paper cites a work that might. See the first footnote.). It doesn't even use the term rapture. However, it does talk about "pretribulational dispensationalism" which is linked to rapture beliefs.

From page 71:

It is also worth noting that Moody was heavily influenced by the Plymouth Brethren teaching on the end times. This was the teaching that Christ may return at any second before the great Tribulation. (This teaching is also called "pretribulational dispensationalism.")

In the footnotes on page 71, there is some unhelpful wording:

142. John Nelson Darby spawned this teaching. The origin of Darby's pretribulational doctrine is fascinating. See Dave MacPherson, The Incredible Cover-Up (Medford, OR: Omega Publications, 1975). 

Webster's New World College Dictionary, Fourth Edition defines spawned as, among other definitions, "to bring forth or be the source of (esp. something regarded with contempt and produced in great numbers)." So you could see how as a college sophomore (I finished my sophomore year I think and I was in South Carolina for the summer. Did that make me a "rising junior?) I could get a little confused about the origins of the rapture.

While my current church teaches the "rapture," it is one of the many things I disagree with at the church. And on Gumerlock's paper, I must add that he is not saying that belief in the rapture was widespread among early Christians. In fact, from the intro it only seems like a handful (to be generous), held that belief.

Read the intro here.

*Before correction, this post said that I don't believe in the rapture. That is wrong. I do. 

Bill Provine says evolution means no gods, no purpose, no life after death, etc

‘Let me summarize my views on what modern evolutionary biology tells us loud and clear … There are no gods, no purposes, no goal-directed forces of any kind. There is no life after death. When I die, I am absolutely certain that I am going to be dead. That’s the end for me. There is no ultimate foundation for ethics, no ultimate meaning to life, and no free will for humans, either.’ ~William Provine, 1994

While I somehow ran across this quote today from Creation.com (and I really don't know how I got to Creation.com, since I visit it only a few times a year, meaning 0-3; maybe I clicked on a link on a Youtube video I watched today), I actually heard Provine say this quote in his debate with Phillip E. Johnson many years ago. That's the only reason I'm quoting it; because it has sentimental value. It is otherwise pretty pedestrian, even if it is revealing. 

I watched that video back as an undergraduate; it is below.

But on the free will thing, agnostic physicist Michio Kaku would disagree.

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.