Why I Climbed Uluru Yesterday

My Attempt at Resolving Mismatched Narratives

Key points

  • Respecting the sacredness of Uluru to the Anangu people is the main publicised reason for advocating against climbing.
  • The principle of protecting religious freedoms, on the other hand, should not require that we all treat everyone else’s sacred items as sacred to ourselves. We don’t all hold each other’s beliefs simultaneously. Rather, each should be free to worship what we each regard as sacred as we each choose individually, without infringing on anyone else’s rights while so doing.
  • There is an underlying issue of land rights and ownership, for which there are no simple answers. To boil it down to a simple question of whether tourists should be allowed to climb Uluru risks reducing a complex issue down to symbolic tokenism without actually meaningfully contributing to reconciliation for our first nations people.
  • There are real human safety risks that do actually mean that the climb as it is being conducted now is not ideally suited for the present or future. This is at the forefront of the justification for closing the climb according to the Park Rangers with whom I spoke.
Hundreds of tourists climbing Uluru

After three days staying at Yulara and exploring lots of enthralling walking tracks and activities in and around the Uluru Kata Tjuta National Park, the weather cleared and the climb opened. My wife and I took turns climbing Uluru while the other one looked after our young children. It almost didn’t work out for us to be able to do it, but just hours before our departing flight and a month before the scheduled permanent closure of the climb, we scratched this controversial item off our bucket lists.

Now, lots of my friends will think that climbing Uluru is the wrong thing to do. I hear you: I too can see plenty of good reasons to close the climb. Here I outline why I chose to climb it. Not so much to justify my decision – many would say that nothing could justify it – but to highlight and challenge some complex and conflicting narratives.

First, let’s examine the stated reason for the requests not to climb prominently displayed on signs around the site:

‘Our traditional law teaches us the proper way to behave. We ask you to respect our law by not climbing Uluru. What visitors call the climb is the traditional route taken by our traditional Mala men on their arrival at Uluru in the creation time. It has great spiritual significance.’

I get that. I too am a spiritual person and regard many things in life as sacred.

If one of the Anangu people was personally offended because they knew that I personally climbed Uluru, I would think harder about my decision to climb the rock, especially if I had an existing relationship with them, or may do so in the future. When I climbed, however, I saw no Anangu people in the area. Just car- and bus-loads of tourists. It is much more likely that my choice to climb will offend (those unfairly characterised as) urban elites than anyone else.

A couple of days before I climbed, an Anangu girl was selling her artwork in the carpark where we were watching sunset. I asked her if she minded people climbing Uluru and she said she didn’t mind with a casual shrug.

Now that I’m posting this blog, there’s a risk, of course, that I may be offending local cultural and spiritual values for any Anangu who happen to read this. If you are offended, my sincere apologies, but please keep reading!

Being a spiritual person, I value my freedom to worship as I choose. I strongly affirm the right of the Anangu people to treat Uluru as sacred. Similarly I would like everyone to respect my right to keep my Saturday Sabbath as a day of rest and worship. This means I refrain from working or engaging in any form of trade or business. But for me to require that everyone honour my Sabbath and refrain from working would be an overstep. I would be moving from protecting my freedom of worship to forcing others to treat something that is sacred to me (i.e., a portion of time) as sacred to themselves too.

Incidentally, I am expecting my rights of freedom to worship to be restricted in the future in a global push for Sunday sacredness, which I would reject.

A relevant analogy here is the way that Hindus treat cows as sacred. Even Gandhi himself did not want to restrict his entire nation from killing or eating cows as he recognised that not everyone views cows as sacred. (No issue for me – I’m happily vegetarian.)

I see the sacredness of Uluru to the Anangu people as similar to sacred cows and Sabbath / Sunday sacredness. If someone gets upset because I didn’t treat the Uluru climb as sacred in the way that the Anangu do, then they should be equally upset because most of the world eats beef, and because everyone dishonours a portion of time that is sacred to a significant number of the world’s population. Muslims regard Friday as holy; Jews and Sabbath-keeping Christians such as myself regard Saturday as holy; and much of Christianity regards Sunday as holy.

To treat the sacred customs and laws of the Anangu as normative for everyone may end up being condescending tokenism. It is as though repentant colonialists are now saying ‘we regret obliterating your culture, customs and laws, and now we will force us all to abide by it (though in an area where the impact on our daily lives will be minimal yet we can engage in virtue signalling to condemn others who disagree)’.

Uluru at sunset. Uluru is sacred to the local Anangu people.

Meanwhile protection for the rights of Christians to maintain their values within their own institutions in such areas as education around origins and sexuality is being progressively weakened. I’m not advocating for Christians to impose their values on others, just to be able to maintain their own values within their own lives and organisations.

There definitely is a clash of values between everyday Australian culture and the culture of the Anangu. I resonate with some of the values expressed by the chair of the Board of Management for the Uluru Kata Tjuta National Park, which made the decision to close the Uluru climb:

Whitefellas see the land in economic terms where Anangu see it as Tjukurpa. If the Tjukurpa is gone so is everything. We want to hold on to our culture. If we don’t it could disappear completely in another 50 or 100 years. We have to be strong to avoid this. The government needs to respect what we are saying about our culture in the same way it expects us to abide by its laws. It doesn’t work with money. Money is transient, it comes and goes like the wind. In Anangu culture Tjukurpa is ever lasting.

However, my own values come from different sacred writings: the Bible. I don’t expect the Board chair to honour all the laws in the Bible that are important to me. For true equality and reconciliation we should all be given freedom to choose which sacred laws to follow.

I’m a big fan of reconciliation. For me the most complete and sustainable form of reconciliation starts with each of us being reconciled to our Creator. Then we will naturally be reconciled with each other.

All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. 2 Cor 5:18-21

This reconciliation is all voluntary, based on love and freedom rather than imposition of sacred rules. There remains total freedom to reject the offer of reconciliation and choose selfishness instead. But that’s another topic.

Back to the climb, respect and reconciliation for the Anangu.

You wouldn’t climb a church, would you? This is the exact same, as Uluru is a sacred site for the Traditional owners of the land, the Anangu People.

https://ulurutoursaustralia.com.au/blog/why-you-shouldnt-climb-uluru/

OK, but this is their land, you may be thinking. Or, at least, Uluru is their land. Well, this is a complicated matter. Anyone who’s enjoyed the Australian classic The Castle probably has a good idea that native title versus terra nullius in Australia has a tortured and twisted history. I’m not a lawyer, so I’ll leave that matter to legal experts. However, right now (until 26 October 2019) the public has the legal right to climb Uluru.

I don’t condone the past forceful colonial dispossession of Aboriginals from their land. I’m not certain on the best solution for the future, but I’m guessing it probably doesn’t include handing back ownership of all Australian land to our first nations people. I honestly don’t know how much land or which land should be handed back. I do know that yesterday I simply exercised my right to be in that part of Australia, including to climb Uluru.

Back to my own spiritual values. Actually, I worship the God who created our earth. (That’s the reason I keep the seventh-day Sabbath holy, by the way; the Sabbath is a memorial of Creation.) To worship God is one of the reasons I climbed Uluru yesterday. For me, visiting and climbing Uluru was an intensely spiritual experience. I’m astounded by the beauty of God’s Creation. Uluru also happens to be a testament to the veracity of the biblical Genesis account of origins. The juxtaposed consistency of the upturned sedimentary strata that make up Uluru (and Kata Tjuta) does not match an evolutionary account of the rock’s geological origins nearly so well as the biblical flood narrative.

Me at the summit of Uluru, with Kata Tjuta in the background. I asked a stranger to take the photo then found out he knew my wife! Small world.

You may think that flood story is all a bit of far-fetched mythology; but here’s something to ponder. Local Aboriginal tribes also have a mythological Creation account for Uluru that includes a flood story with the specific detail of 40 days of rain that matches the biblical narrative. (This is only one of many similar such indigenous creation accounts around the world.)

This provides a challenge for the publicly sanctioned discourses of Aboriginal cultural sacredness and also the current scientific consensus regarding origins. Any biblical creation or flood story does not fit comfortably into socially acceptable narrative, yet provides remarkable overlaps with Aboriginal dreamtime stories and actual empirical geological evidence of the rock itself.

I do also care about our first nations people. There were many things that I saw while on holidays in the Northern Territory that warmed my heart. Aboriginal people have created sustainable tourism to grow their own economy while protecting the environment, sharing the experience and their culture with us. Anangu and other tribal leaders from Uluru to Kakadu gave us great insights into the land, plants, animals, people and culture of the regions we visited.

But there were also somewhat saddening observations. At Katherine, where my brother lives, I went into the bank where an elderly Aboriginal man was trying to withdraw money. He tried three times to provide a matching signature but each time was unable to. He was drunk. The bank teller caringly suggested that he go have some water to drink and come back after a couple of hours to try again.

At our lodge at Yulara a middle aged Aboriginal man from a neighbouring tribe (not Anangu) asked us to buy some alcohol for him. We said that we’ve never drunk alcohol in our lives and that he’d be healthier if he also didn’t drink any more. We had a friendly conversation for a few minutes but he was obviously disappointed that we didn’t support his desire for more alcohol. We were also sad for his plight brought on by the imposition of Western cultural excesses on a people ill equipped to handle such vices.

OK, so back to my climb. Yes, it was a once-in-in-a-lifetime opportunity that was too attractive to pass up. OK, I’ll admit there’s probably a bit of selfish motivation mixed in there. But if my selfishness was all about ‘conquering’ Uluru for myself, then I would have just done it without researching and posting this. True, my attempt at navigating the conflicting narratives in this post may also be tainted by selfish desire to prove my point – or gain notoriety?

But I would like to think that I’m actually making a valid point about the various conflicting narratives in our world where modern media (particularly of the ‘social’ variety) dumb-down discourse through virtue signalling and other devices that actually tend toward polarisation and away from reconciliation. (Why else would Israel Folau be vilified and ostracised as homophobic when there is scant substantive evidence for such a conclusion?)

Moving along, I regard a couple of other values as important and relevant here: safety and the environment.The safety of climbers provides perhaps the most striking of contrasts and mismatches. For the various Park Rangers I spoke to at Uluru, the real issue behind the climb closure is safety. For their own Work Health & Safety requirements rangers wear an attached harness to climb Uluru while the public goes up with no safety guidance or requirements other than one chain that goes the length of the steep climb.

The lone chain for climbers to hang onto is an anachronism. It was an appropriate response to climbing deaths in the 1960s, but in today’s litigious, risk averse and safety conscious age, one would expect to see a gondola lift or at least a harness system a la Sydney Harbour BridgeClimb. But even that would be distinctly out of place in the rugged natural environment that is Uluru. The chain itself is regarded as a scar on the naked beauty of the rock. Not to mention the buses lined up in the carpark spewing forth hundreds of tourists at once into what is ideally experienced and enjoyed as a serene and relatively solitary environment.

Then there is the mismatch of the bravado of the unfit and overweight thinking they are able to tackle the raw wilderness adventure that is an Uluru ascent. Rangers suggested that at the least there could be mandatory health screening before admission to attempt an ascent. The majority of deaths on Uluru have been from over-exertion: heart-attack. I would also suggest that a better way to ensure safety of climbers is to have a sign-on / sign-off register, and to only allow a limited number commence each minute rather than an en masse assault like an advancing army of Alexander the Great, only much less organised and more likely to wound each other than gloriously conquer Uluru.

The strain on the natural environment is another good reason to cease the climb in its current format. We saw several personal items falling uncontrollably down the rock – water bottles, camera parts, tissues, hats – all in the space of a few minutes. For those who take the better part of the day, there are the inevitable deposits of human waste (and toilet paper) in the crevasses and water courses on the rock.

There are numerous cultural clashes too. We saw angry Chinese would-be climbers shouting at the rangers because they closed the climb for safety reasons due to high winds. The tourists’ frustration was understandable when they could see other climbers beginning their ascent, lucky to have entered the gate just before the rangers assessed the risk as too great. Surely there is a better risk management approach than to simply stop more people entering the climb while those already on the rock are free to take all day with no information service to alert them of heightened wind risk.

Contrast that with the anger of virtue signalling city dwellers shaming climbers. Meanwhile the local Anangu people did not show any anger that I saw; rather indifference or sadness at the history of exploitation of their country and culture.

In my own climb I tried to resolve as many of the mismatches as I could. I took only my phone up to grab some quick pictures and climbed up and down without ever touching the chain. This made it easy to overtake the hundreds of tourists ill-prepared for such a climb. I only spent about 45 minutes on the rock in total: 20 minutes to the summit (about 10 min to top of chain) and 25 minutes down, stopping to admire the raw natural beauty of the rock and its surrounds.

As should be obvious by now, physical fitness is another value of mine. A few days earlier I also ran around the base walk in around 52 minutes (11 km). My whole family rode bikes around it on another day, taking our time (about 2 hours for 16 km). We also went to sunrise and sunset viewing places on multiple occasions each, and did the walks at Kata Tjuta.

Watching sunset at Uluru with my family

The Uluru climb actually reminds me of climbing straight up the face of The Pyramid at Girraween. The incline, risks and level of difficulty are quite similar. I have walked up the first Pyramid countless times (and the second Pyramid once) so my one and only climb of Uluru had a sense of déjà vu for muscle memory if not for the completely different surrounding terrain and type and size of rock.

So I’m happy to have immersed myself in some of the natural, cultural and historical world of Uluru. At least, enough to have formed my own perspective on the many clashes of culture, ideology and values that it highlights. Unsurprisingly, with such conflicting values and narratives, I leave with mixed feelings about the upcoming permanent closure of the climb, and invite you to form your own views.

My wife Renee at the summit with our boy’s little teddy.

My Modern 95 Theses

500 years ago Martin Luther kick-started the Protestant Reformation with his own 95 theses posted in Wittenberg on 31 October 1517. Much has changed in our world since then, and Martin Luther’s protest was a significant moment in improving many things.

But there’s still a lot left to protest about. I’ve chosen my own 95 points of protests about various social, environmental and religious issues relevant to our world today.

Second coming & prophecy

  1. The same revolutionary Jesus Christ who literally restarted how we count history 2017 years ago promised He would come back to earth and restart history again.
  2. The Bible prophecies of Daniel 2 and Daniel 9 give astoundingly accurate predictions of future events, culminating in Jesus first and second comings. Dead sea scrolls demonstrate authenticity. Jesus’ first coming was exactly as predicted, as were major world events through to now. One event still outstanding: Jesus’ second coming.
  3. I have told you these things before they happen so that when they do happen, you will believe. John 14:29 – Jesus
  4. And you will hear of wars and threats of wars, but don’t panic. Yes, these things must take place, but the end won’t follow immediately. Matthew 24:6 – Jesus
  5. I will come and get you, so that you will always be with me where I am. John 14:3 – Jesus

(Ir)relevance of the church

  1. Protestant = one protesting against misrepresentations of God and the Bible. 500 years after Luther posted his 95 theses, such protest is very much still relevant. But Christians fighting amongst themselves to be “right” is rather missing the point.
  2. I protest the child sex crimes of the church!
  3. When church is done right, it’s one of the very best things on earth. When church is done wrong, it’s antichrist. – David Asscherick
  4. The aim of most religion is to work to improve one’s standing. Sadly, that’s why religion is losing its relevance – there are far more effective self-help programs out there. Religion IS relevant if it helps us rest in God’s goodness, not pursue our own. He took our bad and gave us His good.
  5. Church done well is a hospital for the sin-sick, not a museum for saints.
  6. Biblically, the church’s role is proclamational not salvational. We have something to SAY but we are powerless to SAVE. Jesus alone saves. – David Asscherick

Separation of church & state

  1. Religious freedom and separation of church and state: one of the best things to come out of the Reformation. Surprisingly, Luther himself didn’t embrace this principle. It’s being obscured again today.
  2. The conservative right wants to impose religious values on society. The liberal left correctly separates church and state. However, the left imposes secularism and makes it difficult to uphold one’s own religious values without being treated – even punished – as a bigot.
  3. When you vote, ask not “Who will legislate my religious values?” but rather “Who will allow freedom of religious values and beliefs, even those opposed to my own, and freedom to express and share religious beliefs and values with others?”

Government & economy

  1. Polarised partisan politics combined with the shallow social media analysis are unravelling Western liberal democracy.
  2. On evidence to date it seems the best of bad options for political systems is liberal democracy. But the jury is out again now thanks to 24/7 (fake?) news cycle, ‘scrutiny’ of social media and plethora of self-serving leaders.
  3. Capitalism: a logical extension of the Reformation and Protestant work ethic. Great source of individual freedom and opportunity, but also basis for huge inequality, populist uprising and global conflict. “Income from labor is about as unequally distributed as has ever been observed anywhere. “ – Thomas Piketty
  4. Given the fundamental selfishness of human nature, it makes sense to legislate on the assumption of homo economicuseven though this presents a less-than-ideal foundation.
  5. I still believe that free market capitalism, with regulatory intervention to protect externalities, is the best of bad options in current circumstances. Only the permanent and complete removal of selfishness and greed will present a better system, but we have to wait for God’s final perfect solution for that.
  6. American exceptionalism only gets off the ground as an idea if the role of government is celebrated (as opposed to minimised) or if the foundational ideology is racist. Otherwise America is just like any other nation, but with a unique set of chance characteristics that happen to put it in a position of global dominance for a limited time.

Salvation & sacrificial atonement

  1. Jesus took the guilt, shame and death that we each deserve so that we could have the abundant life that only He deserves. Amazing!
  2. Jesus on the Cross: the unique story where the hero voluntarily dies for the villain. The best news ever!

Bible

  1. The Bible is full of profound and timeless wisdom. Such gems as “do to others what you would like them to do to you.” It’s worth regular reading.
  2. “A simple layman armed with Scripture is to be believed above a pope or a council without it.” Martin Luther

Hell & death

  1. Eternal torment in hell: if true, then God is not love but a tyrant. Thankfully, not true. Imported into early Christianity from Greek philosophy.
  2. Ghosts, witches, séances, apparitions, Wicca, etc – all propped up by two wrongs: the myth that the soul cannot die and the real but passing presence of evil supernatural beings.

Health & health care

  1. A vegetarian diet was largely scoffed at just a few years ago. Now it is the rage. 150 years ago Ellen White received prescient health insights and set up a whole demographic for longer healthier living. #AdventistHealthStudy
  2. Affordable universal healthcare saved my life. Thanks Australia!

Abortion

  1. How can a mother’s rights over her womb trump her unborn baby’s rights to life while after birth, a baby’s rights to life trump a mother’s rights to her breasts and uninterrupted sleep? I’m all for consistency: let’s also prioritise the rights of the unborn child.

Judgmental intolerant society

  1. The moral relativism, ‘tolerance’ and non-judgmentalism of the left unfortunately tends to lead to absolute intolerance and judgmentalism of anything deemed not to fit the new ethic.

Sabbath

  1. Marriage and the Sabbath. Two institutions given by God right at the beginning in a perfect world. Both under extreme attack.
  2. The Sabbath is the most misunderstood gift to humanity. It is an institution of rest. The exclusion of work. Yet for many it is confused as a works-based approach to God. How can: (no work + rest) = work?

Marriage

  1. “Professing to be wise, they became fools” (Rom 1:22). The prevailing wisdom of the age on sexuality, gender and reproduction is foolishness. – David Asscherick
  2. Arguing for ‘marriage equality’ from an ‘evolutionary origins of species’ point of view has no principled basis for restricting ‘equality’ to two consenting non-related adult humans. From a genetic perspective, ‘marriage equality’ arguments should either let any combination of any number of organisms marry or restrict it to identical twins. Something between those extremes is ‘optimisation’ which negates the whole argument for ‘equality’. I’m all for optimisation. Enough genetic difference (e.g., X & Y chromosomes) yet similarity (e.g., homo sapiens) to optimise life for succeeding generations.
  3. The truest thing about each human’s identity has little to do with their sexual identification or sexual preference. It is that each of us is created in God’s image, and is loved by the Creator of the universe, enough for Him to die for us!
  4. Marriage provides an amazing foundation for a resilient family unit, the building block of a successful society. It is more about fierce uncompromising commitment than about feelings of romance or sexual attraction. Let’s move the conversation to setting the bar high for healthy resilient marriages rather than merely defining legally what marriage is and isn’t.

Gun control

  1. Thanks John Howard for Australia’s gun control. Americans seem to have a hard time figuring out why controlling access civilians’ to personal nukes would be a bad idea.
  2. If you’re going to argue that gun rights are sacred, please articulate a principle that logically differentiates a civilian’s right to bear guns from their right to bear nukes.
  3. The NRA and its ties to conservative politics in the US (actually, both sides for that matter) has totally warped American perspectives on gun violence. One American’s personal stance on never touching a gun speaks volumes: the story of Desmond Doss. #HacksawRidge

Conspiracy theories & polarised discourse

  1. Conspiracy theories are much easier to concoct than accurate explanations of complex realities. Some ‘alternative facts’ may end up proving correct; but there is very little value in peddling conspiracy theories.
  2. Any debate these days tends toward extreme polarised points of view. Truth usually comes with at least two associated error traps often at opposite ends of a spectrum. Slogans and strawmen arguments abound, but wisdom and understanding requires committed engagement.

Inequality & social justice

  1. Thank you Jesus for positively discriminating to assist the downtrodden and disadvantaged.
  2. Act your wage: “People buy things they don’t need, with money they don’t have, to impress people they don’t like.” – Clive Hamilton, Growth Fetish
  3. “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.” – Jesus, Luke 12:15
  4. But if someone who is supposed to be a Christian has money enough to live well, and sees a brother in need, and won’t help him—how can God’s love be within him? Little children, let us stop just sayingwe love people; let us really love them, and show it by our  1 John 3:16,17

Gender & sexism

  1. The biblical view that I hold is that both genders are of equal value but are created to be different and complementary both ontologically and functionally.
  2. While I don’t believe women should be actively prevented from doing things that men traditionally do, nor valued or remunerated less, I question whether an objective of 50-50 splits or equivalent sameness in all functions and roles is helpful. Men will never be able to perform the incredible functions of women in bringing children into the world.

Climate change & environmentalism

  1. There is overwhelming evidence that anthropogenic global warming is a major global issue. The conservative right, with its ties to the energy and resources industries, has manufactured unreasonable doubt, successfully obfuscating the evidence.
  2. With strong links between evangelicals and right-wing politics, Christians have fallen for twisted logic to believe that humans could not possibly alter earth’s climate.
  3. I’m no leftie, but the left is far more realistic than the right on the diagnosis of climate change, even if not all their proposed remedies are ideal.
  4. Christians take note: caring for the natural environment and animal welfare are very much biblical principles and responsibilities of all humankind.

Foreign policy, immigration & armed conflict

  1. A softer stance on foreign policy happens to be in harmony with biblical principles of “turn the other cheek”, “love your enemies”, and so on. I’m not saying there is never a place for the use of armed forces, but I resonate with stories such as that of Desmond Doss. Far too much is spent on military. #HacksawRidge
  2. Jesus told the story of the good Samaritan as an example of showing open friendship and love to foreigners, who Jesus preferred to call neighbours.
  3. For people who claim to be children of God, having open borders and sharing our wealth and resources makes a good deal of moral sense.
  4. The example of modern Germany, being prepared to take in Syrian refugees, is much more similar to the principles of Jesus than aggressive border protection policies of other Western countries.

Globalisation vs nationalism

  1. Nationalism – putting self first – is against Jesus’ principles of open friendship and sharing. But globalisation can easily entail attempts at coercive central government control.
  2. Globalisation is inherently socially disconnected and isolating. To the extent we embrace global connectedness, we lose local connectedness. We simply do not have the capacity to maintain loving close relationships with that many people.
  3. Christians take note: neither extreme of globalisation nor nationalism is in harmony with biblical counsel and the wisdom of Jesus. How about open, sharing local communities whose open borders are more for the purposes of giving than accumulating and protecting?

Islam

  1. The left sees nothing wrong with Islam; while the right sees many things wrong. Yet the right is unable to see own faults. Christians take note: Jesus called out the faults of those who claimed to be God’s followers far more vehemently than He called out the faults of the ‘heathen’ religions outside of Israel.
  2. Jesus continually said good things about Samaritans. He was a friend of the Samaritan; and is a friend of the Muslim today.
  3. The Samaritans were the equivalent of modern day Muslims. Yet somehow Jesus seemed to ignore the hostility of a few of them and focus on the hypocrisy of His own chosen people.
  4. I open my heart, wallet and the place I call home to refugees of all faiths. I’m all for shielding and protecting Muslims, even if not the religion of Islam, or any religion, for that matter.

Morality & law

  1. Finding a basis for moral laws is a philosophically fraught area. It is difficult to argue for any version of foundational morality without appealing to religion (e.g. the Judeo Christian moral law). There does not appear to be any better alternative.
  2. Abandoning the foundation of Judeo Christian law usually diminishes law and order. However, I would only make a pragmatic appeal to a solid foundation of morality rather than attempt to impose religion.
  3. If morality was solely defined by consensus or utilitarian ethics, it seems doubtful that there would always be protection for the basic human rights of minorities or the voiceless – e.g., the unborn.
  4. While I do think that the last 6 of the 10 commandments are the best basis for upholding morals in society, the challenge is finding an appropriate extent to legislate these. For example, it makes sense to outlaw rape, in harmony with the seventh commandment (against adultery), but probably not to outlaw consensual adultery. Similarly, it makes sense to outlaw perjury, but probably not lying about the size of the fish you caught. I can’t think of any reasonable legal application of the commandment against coveting.
  5. To me it seems hypocritical to fight against same sex marriage while not fighting, to the same extent, against the legal provisions for ‘no fault’ divorce. But equally it is hypocritical to claim that opposition to same sex marriage must necessarily be imposition of one’s religion on non-believers.

Personal revival of spirituality

  1. Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. John 17:3
  2. God can be more than ‘proved’ – He can be known and experienced – David Asscherick. See Psalm 34:8
  3. Faith rests on evidence and reason, but God offers more (not less) than this: firsthand experience and personal relationship (Heb 11:1). – David Asscherick
  4. Letting go of self and pride, admitting you were wrong, and continually learning. This is the most liberating way to live, and enables us to grow spiritually.

Suicide, mental health, screen time

  1. There is a direct correlation between the amount of screen time and the decline in mental health of our current generation. – Numerous scientific studies.
  2. Enjoy the outdoors with family and friends but without technology!

Is God real? Creation vs evolution

  1. “In the beginning God.” – the Dawkins delusion, by God (apologies to Alister McGrath)
  2. I’m against pseudo-science. But atheists who are respected scientifically get away with speculative and unprovable ideas such as SETI and the multiverse. So it seems reasonable to let Christians get away with the idea of “God” being the answer to SETI or the multiverse. Atheism 0 Theism 0
  3. The common picture of God has been so badly distorted from reality so as to make atheism attractive in comparison. Like the erroneous doctrine of eternal hellfire. That one piece of distortion makes the atrocities of Hitler and Stalin look like child’s play. And God an absolute tyrant. Own-goal by theists.
  4. Theism wins easily, in terms of utility, risk management & opportunity maximization, and philosophical/logical coherence. And, according to John Lennox, empirically, to boot. #PascalsWager Theism 1 Atheism 0.
  5. Accounting for free will. in a materialist (atheist) worldview, everythingis known or determined (even if humans do not yet have insight into the future). There is no freedom. No choice. Just the illusion of it. It is in this (atheist) worldview that I have to conclude that my choices are pointless, that there is no free will, and that everything that was going to happen is already determined. The script is already written. Theism 1 Atheism 0.
  6. The fact that freedom exists is what the new atheist unwittingly tries to take advantage of when he or she tries to persuade others to choose to abandon belief in God. But freedom of choice does not exist in a purely material universe.
  7. The fact that true freedom exists powerfully argues that a powerful intelligence (God) designed it that way. That God loves you enough to give you the choice of whether to believe His claims or not. To serve Him or not. And to love Him back or not.
  8. Abiogenesis: a major stumbling block to an evolutionary explanation for the origin (not just diversity) of species. Theism 1 Atheism 0.
  9. Consciousness: another major hurdle for material explanations of the universe. Theism 1 Atheism 0.
  10. Morality: either it has a transcendent and absolute quality, allowing (say) paedophilia to be vile under any circumstances, or it’s entirely a relative social construct which may change across time and place. Theism 1 Atheism 0.
  11. Meaning, purpose, destiny: without these, life is axiomatically meaningless, directionless, and pointless. Theism 1 Atheism 0.
  12. Material explanations for the universe are struggling to come up with any sort of compelling explanation for the presence of information (e.g., genetic code), logic, and finely tuned physical laws. All from nothing!? Theism 1 Atheism 0.
  13. In the years ahead there will be two massive pendulum swings away from atheism. One will be true (Rev 14:6-12), the other will be false (Matt 24:24-25). The false correction will swing from atheism to experience-based spiritual phenomena (2 Cor 11:14-15). The true correction will swing from selfishness to self-sacrificing love (Jn 13:35).

The great controversy between good & evil

  1. Evil may look like it has a strong foothold, even the upper hand. But love has already won the war. Evil and death have been forever defeated at the cross!
  2. I’m keen for the world as we know it to come to an end, but not because I want conflict and destruction. Instead, I am looking forward to God restoring our lives and planet to the perfect eternal love and happiness He intended.
  3. Christians please note: the Bible teaching regarding the ‘investigative judgment’ as a mechanism for transparently dealing with evil totally makes sense and comes naturally if you believe in ‘soul sleep’ and Arminianism (i.e., personal freedom of choice). It’s a natural fit into the narrative that “God is love”.
  4. God is love! Love requires freedom. Freedom entails risk.

God’s presence in and direction for my life

  1. As our loving Father, God wants us to learn to make good decisions for ourselves based on the principles and values of His character of love and freedom. Not to treat Him as a Divine fortune-teller.
  2. I miss my dad, who died a year ago. He had a big positive influence in my life. He was an atheist who found God and totally changed his direction to live for God. I look forward to seeing my dad again.
  3. I love my wife, Renee, and my kids. They have taught me much about selflessness, love and God. I have found marriage to be the best way to refine one’s character, reduce selfishness, and increase happiness.
  4. I have had numerous life experiences that demonstrate to me that God is real, life has purpose and meaning, and authentic love and freedom truly exist. A ‘chance’ meeting at a train station and recovery from a freak accident are just two of many life-shaping experiences that confirm experientially the empirical and philosophical evidences that God is real and God is love.
  5. Jesus of Nazareth: my guru, friend and Saviour. God of the universe. Yours too.

Tribute to Dad (Eric Livingston, 1946-2016)

My Dad was my hero as I was growing up. He had a massive influence on my life. In fact livos-barefoot-grasshe still does. I’m going to miss him a lot.

I want to highlight some of the ways my Dad’s life has impacted me. His legacy lives on.

My Dad was the most frugal yet generous person I know. He would somehow manage the family finances on very little income for long periods at a time. Yet he was hardly ever in debt. Somehow he was still able to give a lot of help to people in need. He helped me out in quite a big way when my wife and I bought our first house a few years ago. Not just financially, but also spending long hours helping with all the painting and a lot of other work on our house.

One little story demonstrates his desire not to waste anything. He was painting our house – so I guess this story demonstrates his generosity too. Dad was painting in a difficult place to get to. He had to climb onto the asbestos roof of our old carport. He had a plank down to distribute his weight more evenly as the roof was old and brittle. I was in the house and heard this crash bang outside. I ran outside fearing the worst. The old asbestos roof had given way. Dad fell about 3 or 4 metres to the ground. But when I got there Dad was on his feet scrambling to make sure he didn’t lose any paint. His paint tins fell down with him but he managed to salvage most of the paint. He didn’t feel the bruises until the next day or so. That was only about 3 years ago.

In fact my dad would probably have been able to lift more weight than me even just a year ago. Throughout my entire life dad kept on working out several times a week in his garage gym. He even tried to lift some weights this year when he was doing a bit better. In hindsight that probably wasn’t a good idea. We didn’t know at the time that the cancer had spread all up his spine, so he probably very nearly broke his back.

As a boy growing up I would often work out with my dad in the backyard gym. Dad definitely encouraged my interest in keeping fit, enjoying exercise and recreation. I never quite managed to get the physique that dad got, but thanks to my dad I’ve always put a high value on physical fitness.

I can thank my dad also for a few quirks and eccentricities.

I’m getting deaf and will need hearing aids at some point soon. But like my dad, I just wish people would stop mumbling – in fact it seems like people’s mumbling just gets worse over time. In the last few years Dad preferred communicating by email – even with family. And in the last few weeks we had to write everything on a white board because he could hardly hear even if we yelled in his ear.

I don’t know if my dad ever did any of those Myers Briggs personality tests. But if he did, he would have scored off the charts in a few different areas. I can relate to some of these. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

Dad was very details oriented. In fact, a perfectionist in some areas of life, while other areas might have been neglected. He tended to have very high standards of accuracy – and achieve them often. But often at the expense of other areas of life. I can relate to that. Like Dad, I like study – reading and writing. My wife wonders why I spend so much time at the computer. I don’t have quite as many books as Dad amassed, though. His library just about fills the house – and garage! We might need some help in finding a suitable new home for a lot of them.

My dad was very task oriented. There always seemed to be things that needed to be accomplished which far outweighed the things to be enjoyed. I have that same tendency.

My dad was also quite introverted, especially toward the end of his life. His deafness probably had a bit to do with that.

And Dad would expect truth, evidence and morality to have ultimate sway for everyone and everything else. It frustrated him when injustice and falsehood weren’t immediately corrected.

That last character trait explains a lot of his big life decisions, values and priorities. It explains the years of academic research Dad put into the theology of God’s investigative judgment. I can understand why the doctrine of the Investigative Judgment resonated with my dad on multiple levels. It resonates with me too.

dad-front-of-programIn fact my dad was particularly motivated to research this truth because firstly it revealed the goodness and justice of God. And the picture of God has received a bit of unfair distortion. But also because that particular teaching itself has been distorted and maligned. My dad wanted to see it restored to its rightful state.

In fact my dad named me after the two main apocalyptic prophets who wrote the most about end time judgment – Daniel and John.

I love my dad for who he is, even with all his quirks. Because he pointed me to Jesus, the one who truly is perfect. Perfect truth and perfect love.

I’m happy that he got to see his three score and ten years. For a while there we never thought he’d make his 70th birthday in July of this year, or see the birth of Ethan which was shortly after his birthday.

I’m going to miss my dad. But I look forward to seeing him again.

Dad had two main concerns as he was dying.

The first was that someone would keep going with his research on the Investigative Judgment and vindication of God and His goodness.

The second was that we would all plan to be there at the grand reunion when death will be defeated. And we will live forever in perfect health and happiness. Dad will be young and fit again. Throughout eternity we will be with our Creator God who loves us so much.