 |
| Billy Te Kahika Busted: In this age, the Internet has taken the place of God. And why not? It feels as powerful and omniscient as the Almighty, and seems to possess the same ability to reward the pious seeker with all manner of alarming insights and arcane knowledge. Jehovah is said to have communicated with Moses through a burning bush. Is a cellphone, laptop, or PC, any less preposterous as a vessel for the word of God? |
WHAT DO THEY WANT? These motley collections of the angry and the ignorant in whose eyes the Covid-19 Pandemic is a “Scamdemic”. What do they hope to achieve? Some part of them, aware of their pitifully small numbers, must know that they have placed themselves beyond the comforting approbations of the tribe. How do they deal with such painful awareness? Human-beings are social animals: they draw strength and confidence from one another. So, to deliberately locate oneself outside the circle of the tribal firelight requires a motivating force of enormous power.
At the heart of their decision to step away lies an unshakeable conviction that they possess special knowledge. By “doing the research” they have discovered that the world is not as the Government and its “experts” would have them believe. They are convinced that these, the Powers-That-Be, mean them and their unenlightened fellow citizens harm. It is, therefore, their moral duty to call out these malign “mis-leaders”, and to bear steadfast witness to the “Truth” – no matter what.
This very old delusion (if ‘delusion’ is the right word) can lay claim to a surprisingly honourable cultural pedigree. For what else were the religious leaders and prophets of the past, if not a motley collection of individuals who believed fervently that they had been vouchsafed a vision of the Holy City, and had been chosen by God himself to rescue the sinful masses from themselves?
Nobody who has read the Old Testament will have the slightest difficulty in recognising the prophetic archetype: the outsider who descends upon the city from the wilderness: wild, unkempt, eyes ablaze with the certainty of God’s mandate; to stand before the King and rebuke him for his sinful failure to safeguard the welfare of the people.
In this age, the Internet has taken the place of God. And why not? It feels as powerful and omniscient as the Almighty, and seems to possess the same ability to reward the pious seeker with all manner of alarming insights and arcane knowledge. Jehovah is said to have communicated with Moses through a burning bush. Is a cellphone, laptop, or PC, any less preposterous as a vessel for the word of God?
Once the prophetic archetype is understood, it becomes much easier to comprehend why a group as tiny as the one which gathered outside the TVNZ studios in Auckland on Wednesday morning (18/8/21) did not feel in the least embarrassed. The prophetic narrative doesn’t work if the world around the prophet nods in enthusiastic agreement. The masses have to be so mired in sin and ignorance that they can no longer recognise the truth – even when it is laid bare before them. The evil mis-leaders, similarly, cannot slap their foreheads and cry ‘My God, you’re right! How could we have been so blind?’ They have to remain as steadfast in their vice as the prophets remain steadfast in their virtue.
An open confrontation with evil is critical to the prophetic narrative. One cannot be a true prophet in secret (or even online). It is crucial that the eyes of God, or, in this case, the cameras of TVNZ, witness his servant in action. Proof must be supplied of the prophet’s willingness to suffer for the Truth.
A man as well-versed in the Bible as the charismatic Billy Te Kahika knows that a true prophet goes Kanohi ki te Kanohi with the Devil, and that, in this fallen world, the Devil usually wins. Which is why, when the Police closed in upon him outside TVNZ he was at pains to calm his angry disciples, telling them that the officers were only doing their job. It wasn’t quite “Forgive them Father, for they know not what they do.” – But it was close.
The conundrum which presents itself to Billy TK – and to all others who aspire to be the mouthpieces of God – is how to differentiate the lies of the Devil from God’s truth. For the Devil is deceitful and delights in pretending to the wisdom and beneficence of the Almighty, while all the time leading the deluded down the primrose path to perdition. How can one know that what one believes to be the truth isn’t a big fat fib?
The greatest of all the biblical prophets, Jesus of Nazareth, wrestled with this question. This was his answer:
Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.
What manner of evil king – or queen – would encourage her “team of five million” to be kind and keep one another safe? What true prophet would feed evil fruits to his people? Only the Devil craves the chaos and division in which evil takes root. If your harvest is all thorns and thistles, Billy, then maybe you’re barking up the wrong tree.
This essay was originally posted on The Daily Blog of Thursday, 19 August 2021.
7 comments:
Most of these people haven't actually read the Bible, or at least not the whole Bible. Many fundagelicals in fact show a distressing ignorance about the Bible, particularly the Old Testament. Most of them have only read the selected portions that agree with their sense of morality, because people tend to take their morality to their religion rather than from their religion.
If we look at the US, it's the red states – largely religious – that are not only refusing to act with any sense of social responsibility in order to stop the spread of Covid, but are in some cases – many cases actually – actively spreading it. And I must confess, every time one of these "Christian" Covid denier anti vaxxers catches the disease and dies which seems to happen with a certain amount of regularity, I have an attack of schadenfreude.
God Bless Chris. Well said my friend, very well said.
What manner of evil king – or queen – would encourage her “team of five million” to be kind and keep one another safe?
While Jacinda preaches peace and love people experience that as largesse to foreigners. The upper decks don't sense the water lapping at the port holes.
That's why she's bringing in hate speech laws.
I always liked the cartoon - a man is on a street corner holding a sign that says 'the World will End Thursday', another man with a sandwich-board reading 'the End is Nigh' walks past, looks at the first and mumbles to himself "Bloody amateur". Should remind prophets not to be too precise.
Poor Ezekiel [26] didn't learn this and has continued to challenge those who insist on inerrancy. King Nebuchadnezzar II was prophesied to breach and destroy the island state city of Tyre, reducing it to a bare rock, but after the King failed to breach the walls? Ezekiel [29]decided that He changed his mind.
Lessons to be learnt. Prophies are more accurate after the fact. When the Jewish Maccabean revolt against the Hellenistic overlords needed a boost in the second century BC, someone came up with the Book of Daniel. Expanding on a 3rd century folk tale of Daniel, Lions and an Angel which was set in the sixth century BC, "Daniel" is full of prophesy. Supposedly from the sixth century perspective, "Daniel" of course gets most things right closest to the 2nd century, and the history / prophesy is less accurate the further back (Did Darius the Mede play for King Country? otherwise he isn't an historical figure0), of course later predictions after the 2nd century are either wrong or vague. Still, it was a fraud that has lasted 22 centuries. Who was to know there would eventually be Near East historical experts including academics specializing in ancient Hebrew linguistics? Daniel reflected 2nd century Hebrew, not 6th.
Forget the Old Testament, I have always turned to the great Jewish prophets of the 1960s, Dylan, Cohen, Simon and Reed. Famously in 1997 Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger called Bob Dylan a "false prophet", over 4 decades on Bob's a Nobel laureate, the old inquisitor became infallible, slung his hook and returned to fallibility.
Billy T.K. a prophet? No, just an arsehole.
I remember stories of 'Typhoid Mary', refusing to get treated and spreading typhoid in late 19th century New York. Later revisionist views show a woman in poverty with few choices but the meager kitchen work for the rich upstairs. I remember Vincent Ward's movie the Navigator, the brother returns to the village despite his plague because he didn't know where else to go. Poverty, insecurity and ignorance can be understandable factors in contagions.
Billy has none of this mitigation. When unmasked he yells in the face of the police, I am reminded the rights of all workers to work safety. This is right manipulation of civil rights hard won. The right of assembly and the right of expression are communal rights for the protection of the disempowered. Billy uses these rights to compromise the safety of the vulnerable. Nowhere in our struggles has the rights to endanger others have precedence.
Lee Hazelwood had an album entitled 'Poet, Fool or Bum'. Billy T.K. fails the first choice.
If we look at the US, it's the red states...
This has been quite the talking point with the US and Global left but unfortunately...
Hawaii has 54 percent of its population fully vaccinated with 72 percent having one shot. Regardless, Hawaii’s private hospital system is “functioning at or near capacity this week amid an alarming surge of coronavirus cases on the islands.”
Oregon is seeing much the same problem with 56.8 percent being fully vaccinated and 62 percent having at least one shot. Regardless, it hasn’t saved them.
“Oregon hospitals on Wednesday had just 41 adult intensive care beds available statewide, That’s 6 percent of the state’s total supply of 652 intensive care beds,” reported The Lund Report. “Availability varies from hospital to hospital and region to region. Some hospitals, especially in southern Oregon, are entirely out of intensive care beds.”
...
Washington state is 59 percent fully vaccinated, 66 percent of the population with one shot — about tenth-best out of the 50 states. Yet that state’s hospitals are characterized as “near the breaking point.”
I liked this comment on that...
You’re not better than someone else because you got the vaccine. Sure, getting it is a good thing, but it doesn’t make you invincible, and it certainly doesn’t make you morally superior. You’re still subject to the laws of nature. If Blue states feel the need to puff out their chest over their vaccination rates, these hospitals being overwhelmed should cause them to let the air out a bit.
Another idiot spoon fed sheeple, happy to see our freedoms curtailed and the country go to the wall, and this govt have control and power like never before, without mandate. How foolish and blind you are. Wealk, left and facist.
Ruthenable
I'm ever nice to my customers and infinitely saline in my truths to everyone else. It's a bloody good recipe for no friends/comrades. No disproof of my ideas of course.
Post a Comment