By Olivia Pierson

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When Aristotle, the ancient Athenian philosopher, devised his systems of logic and metaphysics (the study of the nature of reality), he taught that all entities, be they animal, vegetable or mineral, had a distinct identity or nature (essence) and could only ever be or act according to that nature.  This became the famous Law of Identity: a thing is itself, formulaically symbolised as ‘A is A’.

When it comes to understanding the nature/essence of a human being, we are the only entity which is highly conscious of the disconsolate truth that our life is temporary.  All things change. All living things die.  But this piece of knowledge is a key essential concept in man’s nature alone; that our lives have a beginning and will soon have an end.  The thing that we call “a life” is the period in between that non-volitional Alpha & Omega.

This knowledge universally evokes a sense of melancholy, sadness, wistfulness, sentimentality or whatever term most fits with the profound feeling of loving an inestimable value which is certain to be lost to each of us - be it our own cherished life, or the life of another, or even the loss of something else; a pet, a family, a home or a country. All human beings dotted all over our great globe can deeply relate to this awareness that things change and life is temporary.

Whether one observes the forms, thoughts and emotions of a religion or does not, this knowledge instills a desire in all of us to want our temporary existence to be important in some way.  Even if people refer to the feeling of just wanting to “make a difference” in someone else’s life, that is still another way of desiring to be important (to be of significant use to another).  We want our lives to matter.. at least to someone.

But if one makes an objective cosmological analysis on the reality of man, he is just one form of natural life among billions of different species which have slowly evolved on our planet and are of no cosmic import at all. Despite the fact that he is life's most complex living organism, his life is fragile and temporary. He is subject to changing events that he has no control over: ageing, disease, accidents, loss of loved ones, natural disasters etc.  He had no control over his birth and will probably have no control over the time or method of his own death.  This is reality in the cold light of day.  Many people can’t cope with it.

Is it any wonder then that man invented the notion of an ever-loving, watchful God, a God who grants an individual purpose to each life? It is the exact counterpoint to all of man’s universal fears and existential melancholies.  Talk about making you feel important: the greatest entity in the universe, the maker of heaven and earth, created you, loves you throughout your life, gives you a special purpose to build your life around and desires your company after death.. forever. You also get to be with your lost loved ones again.. forever.  All you have to do is acknowledge his existence and try to give him any glory rather than gleaning it for yourself.

I can see why people buy into this emotionally - I have always argued that religion is an emotional decision first, second and last.  With many it is not a decision at all, but more of a following along with the philosophical/cultural tradition of family and friends,  which can impart a strong sense of belonging and support within a tribe. It’s a ready-made belief system which engages its adherents emotionally to have faith in a supernatural deity, an engagement which they describe as ‘spiritual.’    Much of what is taught and believed concerning spirituality in the differing religions revolves around the core belief that man possesses a soul which can survive the death of the body.

This is another way of saying that human beings have consciousness which does not die when our bodies do.  Our consciousness is that mysterious, perceptive and conceptual sentience which makes us an individual self, an “I”.  It is the totality of every thought, emotion, action, dream, impression, desire, smell, sound, feeling, fear and aptitude we have ever experienced.  What we do not actively remember permeates down into our subconscious often popping up in our dream-life when we sleep, but it is still part of the totality of our consciousness.  This is our soul.  We are no more than the entire content of our consciousness.  We have our consciousness because we have a body with a human mind.

Though we all have consciousness by virtue of being born a human being, some people develop their consciousness while others seem to hardly bother at all. It is on this telling front that it is made so abundantly clear that human beings are not equal to each other - certainly not in the area of development. Some create beautiful music, some learn to play the piano or cello, some study singing or learn foreign languages and poetry, some study philosophy, science and read the histories of those who came before them. Some people do all of the above and much more besides. Some people just eat, sleep, work and watch sport on TV.  Some don’t even work, they just lie around smoking weed and drinking booze while collecting a welfare check over long, wasted years.  Some people smoke weed and drink booze but will write a novel while working two jobs. The content of our consciousness is our own personal responsibility and the result of how developed we want our minds  - and consequently our lives -  to be during the short time we have on Earth.  This is a spiritual choice.  Though we don't have control over our birth and death, we do have volition through our power to reason - itself a spiritual act, for it develops our consciousness.

That which we call the spiritual impulse has evolved with our nature as human beings - the tendency to be awed by the majestic power of a transcendent mountain peak, to survey in wonder the staggering immensity of the night sky, or to feel pure, thankful reverence for the musical compositions of Rachmaninov, Beethoven or Mendelssohn who presented us with beauty so undeniably sublime that one just wants to worship at the altar of their genius. These feelings evoke a strong sense of something powerfully divine or numinous, but really they speak to what the human spirit has the potential to be - utterly magnificent!  Why give that away to a deity?

I know that the religionists will say that all human beings have an inborn knowledge of God which inspires these spiritual feelings toward nature and beauty because He made us in His image. But it is clear to me that it is exactly the other way around.  We have made God in our human image - hence we know stories about him feeling jealousy, wrath, love, neglect, disgust at evil and pleasure at seeing good.  These are human emotions that we have projected onto him.  The evidence for this lies in the thousands of spiritual traditions and deities which have been observed over time - all holding a very common absolute: no religion is true but our one. All gods are jealous gods, and as the late Christopher Hitchens once put it: all believers are atheists when it comes to the gods of others.

Personally I find what moves me spiritually too important to project onto a supernatural God whom no one has even come close to proving exists. The best that believers can do is to reference subjective emotions, numinous experiences and holy books written by men. 

Unless one is a psychopath i.e; grossly defective as a human being, most people on this earth have the capacity to create, to love, to be moved by beauty, to love goodness and to hate that which is evil, if we develop it in ourselves. We are also inspired by greatness when we see it or read about it in human form.  These spiritual attributes are ingrained in our very nature as human beings and we owe it to ourselves to not give them away to a God who isn’t there.  They are our unique human character which distinguishes us from all other life forms. A is A.

I will end with an insightful thought from Epicurus, an ancient Greek philosopher who lived and died 300 odd years before Jesus of Nazareth was even born.  He was famous for dedicating himself to his philosophy of joy, to his friends and to his beautiful garden:

    “Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.  Is he able, but not willing?  Then he is malevolent.  Is he both able and willing?  Then whence cometh evil?  Is he neither able nor willing?  Then why call him God?”  [Epicurus of Athens]



If you enjoyed this article, please buy my book "Western Values Defended: A Primer" ​

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By Olivia Pierson
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Last week a friend and I trailed along to a public lecture at Auckland’s Massey University given by Professor Rouben Azizian, who is Massey’s illustrious Director for Defence and Security Studies.  He was co-speaking with his Canadian colleague, Dr. Marc Lanteigne, a senior lecturer and specialist on China and East Asia. The topic up for examination was New Zealand’s role in the Asia Pacific region in an ‘increasingly unstable world’ (that’s code for a world with Trump as U.S President).

I had the small hope that we would not be subjected to a whole lot of Trump Derangement Syndrome, but alas, of course we were.  All university professors these days are ‘rattled globalists’ whose agenda has been.. well, rattled by two major 2016 events: the election of President Donald J Trump and the Brexit referendum in the U.K. They often reference these events, as Professor Azizian and Dr Lanteigne did on at least four occasions in the short space of 1.5 hours.

Professor Azizian is a Russian Armenian who has had a long diplomatic and academic career which started in Moscow. He has written and/or edited a mix of around 30 articles, chapters and books on geopolitical diplomacy and security.  He is widely respected as being extremely knowledgeable on diplomatic/security issues in the Asia Pacific region from Russia to Nepal, from Fiji to North Korea and from Indonesia to China - and all else betwixt.

His two main areas of concern were the increasing closeness of the relationship between Russia and China - two massive nations who are both currently on expansion missions: Russia into Ukraine, China into the South China Sea. Also of concern is the looming crisis of North Korea going nuclear and the conflict between the Kim regime and the Trump administration.  Professor Azizian’s theme for the evening was that New Zealand could step up to be more vocal about these geopolitical problems instead of waiting until we were officially asked to contribute - given that we and Australia are central to these issues because we are located in the heart of the South Pacific.

Dr. Marc Lanteigne spoke about the mysterious China Belt & Road Initiative and the heavy investments in trade route infrastructure by air, sea and railroad now set up through China, Russia and the Pacific, an initiative that New Zealand, unlike Australia, is now officially a participant as the route has expanded into the South Pacific region, due in part to our free trade agreement with China. Australia has refrained from signing off on this initiative, preferring instead to be more closely allied to the United States rather than Asia (and Kiwis like to imagine that Ozzies are dumber than us).

Dr. Lanteigne informed us that the Belt and Road Initiative will be the main item on the agenda at the end of October 2017, when the highly secretive Party Congress (ruling communist party) gathers in lockdown in Beijing - a congress held every five years to discuss military, economic and defence issues facing China.  It would be safe to conclude that the other main item on the agenda will be North Korea (that the United States has strong armed China into finally dealing with).

One can only imagine the impact on China of the spanner now thrown into the works by President Trump’s upping the ante on North Korea with talk about a military solution!

Professor Azizian pointed out, as if it were a bad thing, that in his recent and very statesmanlike address to the United Nations, “President Trump used the term sovereignty 21 times”.  Ye gods!  Aside from who the little brain was doing the counting, since when can nations in some sort of union talk to each other with any sincerity without the concept of sovereignty being important?  By way of analogy, that would be like individual humans talking about their problems with a relationship counsellor without being able to reference the concept of “self”.

Hence my previous comment about university lecturers being “rattled globalists”.

When it came to the lecture’s Q & A allocation, I found the questions from the audience to be of sound quality, but the answers were weak and evasive.  They were, however, telling of where Dr. Lanteigne and Professor Azizian actually stood on some of these matters (they were futile in their attempts to not let it show).

After our lecturers made a pathetically flimsy case for peaceful negotiations with North Korea being “the only way forward despite Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric” (meaning the world just has to accept a nuclear armed North Korea), one elderly gentleman asked if a reunification of Korea might be on the agenda - he didn’t say clearly whose agenda, but both Dr. Lanteigne and Professor Azizian denied that this was even a possibility and certainly not in Kim Jong-un’s mind.  This answer absolutely flies in the face of many experts who write extensively about North Korea and South East Asia, like author and commentator Gordon Chang, who wrote in September of this year:

  “The overarching goal of the Kim family—and the core of its legitimacy—is the reunification of the Korean nation under its rule, something the United States would have to resist. Therefore, the North Koreans could start a chain of events that leads to conflict and perhaps the world’s first nuclear exchange. “  [Gordon Chang, 8th September 2017]

To read more of Gordon Chang’s outstanding commentary on China and North Korea, go here to the World Affairs Journal. 

If North Korea becomes a fully fledged nuclear power, the Korean peninsula may well be reunified but only on the terms of the brutal Northern regime.  Remember the reunification of Vietnam with its death toll of millions and its 2.5 million refugees?  Does anyone want a repeat of that, only this time with nukes in play?  This possibility is what Trump is trying to avoid, as well as trying to avoid having a North Korean intercontinental nuclear missile having the capability to hit the United States homeland.

Dr Lanteigne and Professor Azizian gave the distinct impression that North Korea has never been a problem until Trump came along and made it one. Not once did either of these learned men ever mention the epic failure of President Obama, President Bush, President Clinton or President Bush Senior to address in any meaningful sense the aggressive actions, threats and intentions of the North Korean regime.  But Azizian did take the time to address Trump’s latest tweet about Secretary of State Rex Tillerson “wasting his time talking with North Korea” as if the tweet were so terrible.

Of course neither lecturer ever once mentioned the disgusting, cruel and unnecessary torture and death of Otto Warmbier, the young American boy arrested in North Korea for the alleged crime of taking a poster off the wall in a hotel - kidnapped and arrested on President Obama’s feeble watch, then tortured into chronic brain damage and delivered back to his parents to die in Ohio on President Trump’s watch.

How the hell was this naked North Korean aggression toward an American citizen a result of “Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric” when it happened during Barack Obama’s presidency?

If these lectures are a way to try to lure the public to come to Massey University to enrol in this course, nothing could be more off-putting. If I want to hear globalist anti-Trump sentiment 24 hours a day all I have to do is tune in to CNN, Al Jazeera, the BBC or NZ TV1 and TV3, not go and fork out thousands of dollars a year to be lectured at university level with this unintelligent, irrelevant bias.

Massey University should perhaps try to lure professors and specialists who are well versed in American history and American exceptionalism if they want to stay relevant and educate people to be effective in a changing world.

It is worth making the point that New Zealand would do well to form stronger ties with the country who saved our bacon during the Second World War - when the rubber hit the road, it was an Asian Empire who sought to make us subjects and the American Republic which fought for our survival at great loss to themselves until they won the war. To opt for closer ties to communist China and oligarchic Russia at the expense of our ties with the liberty oriented United States - our real ally - does not say very much for the kind of democracy we as New Zealanders like to think we are.  Ideology actually does matter when it comes to close alliances in my view.




If you enjoyed this article, please buy my book "Western Values Defended: A Primer" ​