Free Will, Science, and a Joke

I once pointed out that most, scientifically minded atheists don’t believe in free will, and noted what one had said in a book. A few people remarked that I was just “quote mining,” which wasn’t really true—I just like to take notes while I’m reading, so I typically have them on hand.

Regardless, this picture is pretty amusing, and I hope you’ll find the following quotes of some value in considering what a world without a spiritual realm would actually look like.

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Richard Dawkins:

-We feel like admiring people for what they do. None of us ever actually as a matter of fact says, “Oh well he couldn’t help doing it, he was determined by his molecules.” Maybe we should…

-Faith is one of the world’s GREAT EVILS, comparable to the smallpox virus but harder to eradicate.

-There is at bottom no design, no purpose, NO EVIL, no good, nothing but pointless indifference…We are machines for propagating DNA…It is every living object’s sole reason for being.

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A conversation between Richard Dawkins and a comedian:

RICHARD DAWKINS: I feel as though I have free will, even if I don’t.

RICKY GERVAIS: Of course. And, you know, I’d say determinism is sound. But it is when they start making these leaps that we can’t be responsible for our own actions. Well, you’ve still got to lock someone up if they go around murdering people to protect the innocent.

RICHARD DAWKINS: Yes. It wasn’t me that did the murder…it was my neurons and my genes.

RICKY GERVAIS: Of course. Yeah, it doesn’t work. There is obviously a little bit of that creeping into everything – responsibility, being adult about things. But yeah it doesn’t change a thing. I feel that I make my own choices, and if I don’t I certainly feel like I am choosing. So yeah it is not even worth worrying about. But yeah this thing that takes the art out of something or the humanity or the beauty – why? Why does it? It is strange.

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Stephen Hawking:

-Given the state of the universe at one time, a complete set of laws fully determines both the future and the past. That would exclude the possibility of miracles or an active role for God….It is hard to see how free will can operate if our behavior is determined by physical law, so it seems we are no more than biological machines and that free will is just an illusion.
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Michael Ruse, noted atheistic philosopher of biology and science:

-Ethics is illusory. I appreciate that when somebody says ‘Love thy neighbor as thyself,’ they think they are referring above and beyond themselves. Nevertheless such reference is truly without foundation. Morality is just an aid to survival and reproduction…and any deeper meaning is illusory.

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Will Provine:

–Let me summarize my views on what modern evolutionary biology tells us loud and clear — and these are basically Darwin’s views. There are no gods, no purposes, and 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 of me.

There is no ultimate foundation for ethics, no ultimate meaning in life, and no free will for humans, either.

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Bertrand Russel:

-Man…his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling, can preserve an individual life beyond the grave…only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul’s habitation henceforth be safely built.

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Sam Harris, famed neuroscientist, and one of the “Four Horsemen” of atheism:

-You are no more responsible for the state of your brain in this moment than you are for your height…thoughts simply arise in the mind. But the idea that we as conscious beings are…responsible for the characters of our minds, simply can’t be mapped onto reality.

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Paul Kurtz, father of secular humanism:

-Some people in this post-Darwinian world still try to invest human beings with some special significance, as though they were important. But we now know that is not true.

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Francis Crick, Human Genome Project:

-You, your joys and your sorrows, your memories and ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behaviour of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules.

Children Raised Without Religion Are Kinder And More Empathetic, Study Finds

Children Raised Without Religion Are Kinder And More Empathetic, Study Finds

https://www.anonews.co/children-raised-religion/

❗Read the link towards the bottom.❗

Confirmation bias can be a tough thing to overcome, especially if it is combined with intellectual laziness, or simply an unwillingness to “think about our thinking.” I am habitually guilty of this, and constant vigilance is required to combat such bad habits.

Read the article above. To this day, I still see it posted across the internet, and even, on occasion, from more reputable sources; I remember when it first hit the insta-presses. I can just say what I said then, but now the scientific community has some input, too.

The reporting in this study is not satisfactory. The effect sizes of the various variables they test are cursory, and it’s not clear whether they all belong to the same model. It’s missing a table of variables and a proper overview of the coefficients and the overall stability index (r²). Not providing this easy overview makes one suspect that they’re trying to hide other correlates, or are simply being rather sloppy in their work, and indeed there are some which should cause the curious mind to raise an eyebrow. For instance, age is more than twice as predictive for generosity as religiousness, and socio-economic status is almost as impactful.

Methodologically, the lack of proper control of confounding variables seems to be the greatest weakness of the paper. Consider socioeconomic status, which matters for obvious reasons. It seems to me that they derive it from the duration of maternal education, and normalize it into a scale variable with six subgroups. You could scratch your head so hard over that issue that you get brain damage. Not only is such a measure totally inadequate to represent socioeconomic status, it seems wholly unnecessary and even counterproductive to turn it into a scale variable.

Consider the further questions! How are religiousness and socioeconomic status related in the survey group? Where is income? Where are cognitive abilities? Profession? Number of siblings? All these could (and should) be intricately inter-correlated, and correlated with generosity as well. It seems to me that, if confounding variables were properly accounted for, the effect size of religiosity would all but disappear.

Finally, the paper is missing a plausible explanation of why exactly religiousness should diminish generosity in small children. While I can think of some plausible explanations, it would be helpful if the paper presented its opinion. As it stands now, the paper rests on a very doubtful methodology, and even so fails to present any meaningful theoretical development or even a plausible sociopsychological hypothesis.

Now, with that said, the scientific community also ended up giving this paper the ol’ razzle dazzle, which is what we should all be doing, even as lay-people. Logic and reasoning should never be turned over to other groups as their responsibilities.

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Nonreligious children aren’t more generous after all— New analysis sheds a different light on a widely publicized study.
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A study finding that children with a Christian or Muslim upbringing were less altruistic than their non-religious counterparts made waves in 2015. However, new analysis of the data reveals that this is not actually the case. In the study, developmental psychologists looked at five- to twelve-year-olds in Canada, China, Jordan, Turkey, South Africa, and the United States. The children were given stickers and provided the opportunity to share them with peers who were not present. The number of stickers shared provided a quantifiable indicator of each child’s altruism.

After interpreting the resulting data, the study’s authors concluded that children from religious families were less generous. However, new analysis shows that the original study failed to adequately control for the children’s nationality. After correcting this error, the authors of a newly published paper found no relationship between religiosity and generosity. We speak with first author Azim Shariff to learn more.

CONCLUSION: It is a demonstrably poor paper and shouldn’t have been published…though it serves as a warning to others. As the scholarly review of this study notes, it was “lauded” potentially due to the personal biases of the readers.

“…there is a nice sense of validation—and (dare I say) smug satisfaction—when seeing scientific support for the contrary position: that the non-religious may actually be the more moral ones….there is a tendency to be less critical of information that one wants to be true, which may have contributed to a lot of non-religious people being a bit less skeptical of this particular piece of evidence than they otherwise would have been.”

TRANSGENDERISM AND THE WAR ON WOMEN

The linked article is about about a male-to-female transgender athlete. I consider this to be a part of the war on women, but in a much newer way, and starkly more deleterious. In essence, a young man didn’t do stunningly well when competing against men, but upon “becoming” a woman, he beat all of his female competitors soundly. This makes sense, as he has a different skeletal structure and chromosomes; the internal writing on his cells, with which he was created, are different than those of his competitors. https://www.washingtontimes.com/…/cece-telfer-franklin-pier…

It is notable that, meanwhile, three Connecticut high school track-and-field athletes have filed a federal Title IX discrimination complaint over the state’s athletic transgender policy, stating that it has put them at a competitive disadvantage and harmed their chances of earning college scholarships.

Following are some of my thoughts, which represent a mere fraction of what informs my view, and I hope that I present them not stridently, but with some gentleness, and in a way that, should you disagree even most emphatically, is not angering. I also hope that it might be understood that I detest injustice; I will go to bat for anyone who is being oppressed, as I am able, because I highly value the human life, and have been helped in the past by those whom I have only hurt.

Transgenderism is a troubling and, as atheist Richard Dawkins would say, seemingly “memetic” thing. That is, once it entered into the public consciousness, it spread in a manner that is almost viral. It is also associated with a high-rate of co-morbidities. According to the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center,

“30 percent of transgender youth report a history of at least one suicide attempt, and nearly 42 percent report a history of self-injury, such as cutting. The study also discovered a higher frequency of suicide attempts among transgender youth who are dissatisfied with their weight.”

—”Suicidality, Self-Harm, and Body Dissatisfaction in Transgender Adolescents and Emerging Adults with Gender Dysphoria. Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior” (19 AUG 2016)

So, before I mention anything else, I need to be up-front and say that being vicious, cruel, and unloving is simply not needed, nor is it profitable. There is a tendency to simply lose perspective, and to become human steamrollers, covered in spiked words and fueled by bile. This is not what any of us are called to do, nor should we behave so unbecomingly. Every life should be regarded as having amazing potential, no matter how much we disagree with its current state. That said, examining ideas carefully and with charity can be helpful in considering a portion of the population that is seemingly statistically worse-off. We must always be vigilant to tear down ideas, but not people.

At the most fundamental level, I think that encouraging gender transition is not only damaging, but also represents a profoundly troubling view of the human body and mind. Under this view, the body may become a persistent and seemingly damaging impediment to the mind, as one sees the two as entirely disconnected. Broadly speaking, there are three views of the mind-body interaction in this regard. They can be construed as,

• A. The body provides guidance as to who one (the mind) is and how one lives one’s life.

• B. The body is disconnected from the mind and provides no guidance, but may act as an impediment to the mind/spirit.

• C. There is no such thing as the will or mind, and such is an illusion. (This is the terminus of atheistic thought, as I’ve noted before.)

Transgenderism seems to fall along the lines of view “B” above. The body has no guiding force in one’s life; it is a mere collection of cells; an allocation of atoms that, in some cases, are seen as having given one a collection of 50% of the wrong chromosomes. It causes a person to ask,

“Why should my body, my identity as male or female, have any voice in my moral choices, what I do sexually? Why should my chromosomes determine in any way who I am?” More specifically, Jessica Savano, a male-to-female model, commented, “Why are you even looking at my penis anyway? I am a woman!” on Kickstarter. Jessica requested funds on Kickstarter as,

“Jessica’s mission lies in helping people love themselves and break free from dogma and mediocrity and to live a life of true fulfillment and Joy.”

Yet it seems that with the memetic spread of transgenderism, true fulfillment does not result. How can it? At the most basic level, it’s a view that is thoroughly disrespectful to the human body, which says, “No, my body is not my authentic self.” And so, the implication is that all that counts really is my mind, feelings, and desires.

But consider the desires. A person wishing to transition to a different gender often attempts to model the exterior, classic appearance of the other sex as well. That is, one denies that gender is based on exterior genitalia or chromosomes, but, when transitioning, still desires to mimic the exterior of the other sex (upon, which, remember, we are saying that gender is not based).

How can one have true fulfillment when one knows that, no matter the external change, one’s external genitalia have been altered? That, no matter what, one’s skeletal structure is different than that of what one wishes to be? That one’s entire chromosomal makeup is 50% “incorrect?” It is a creeping thorn in the flesh that one can deny, but of which one can never truly be rid.

It seems to me that we have a number of different options. We can encourage people to take atheism to its terminus, in which there are no actual choices or free will, and in which case, none of this matters. We can teach people that their DNA—the information that makes them, them—is not only faulty, but that their bodies are not their authentic selves, and that this must be challenged, altered, and trod upon.

Or we can teach people to embrace and love the bodies they have been given; to align the mind and body in harmony. A memetic spread that appreciates the body as a part of the authentic self might perhaps have a population wherein the following is not true:

“30 percent of transgender youth report a history of at least one suicide attempt, and nearly 42 percent report a history of self-injury, such as cutting. The study also discovered a higher frequency of suicide attempts among transgender youth who are dissatisfied with their weight.”

There is much more that we should all examine, and ultimately, it is my firm conviction that we need to decide if there is anything such as the mind/spirit, or if determinism is fully sound.

With love, always,

Luke

The fight-or-flight response and what it does to our thinking.

When you feel ganged up on, it's easy to lose control and act unbecomingly. I know. I've done it far too often.

When we're in such situations, we tend to get the same sort of fear as an animal backed into a corner. The fight-or-flight response kicks in. Catecholamine hormones, such as adrenaline or noradrenaline, perfuse the body and facilitate immediate physical reactions and vocalizations, associated with a preparation for violent, muscular action. Our digestive systems shut down, along with the parts of our brain associated with cognitive deliberation. We literally lose the ability to calmly reason.

In effect, in such situations, we truly lose our senses. It's important to quickly realize when we're getting into such a situation, and to take control by gently neutralizing or simply exiting the situation. A graceful departure is of some value, before we lose our minds and say something we regret.

"Death and life are in the power of the tongue, And those who love it will eat its fruit." (Pro 18:21)

The Christ Myth (Merry Christmyth)

Have you seen a meme like this before? I see people posting ones like it, and information like it, quite often. Is it fake news?  Let's look at just these three, and in fact, not all of the points they make, because to be honest, that's not a good use of time. Note: Jesus was never said to have been born on 25th December in any part of early Christianity or the Bible, so I'm not going to address that, as it's irrelevant. 

1.) Horus. 
—Was ol' Horus born of a virgin? No. Horus was conceived when Isis had sex with Osiris. Osiris' body parts have been scattered all over the land, and Isis put them all back together and managed to have sex with the construct. Creepily enough, she does this while in the form of a bird, so it's interspecies sex with a reanimated-ish corpse. 

—Did Horus have 12 disciples? No, try like 4. 

—Was Horus dead and resurrected after 3 days? No. There is no record of Horus even "dying," unless you count him merging with another God and then becoming cyclical. 

2.) Dionysus. 
—Was ol' Dionysus born of a virgin? No, unless you count Zeus impregnating his mom as "being born of a virgin."

—Was Dionysus resurrected like Jesus? No, he was, in most stories, torn apart and eaten by Titans. He is said to be "a god who renews himself and returns every year rejuvenated," whatever that means. So not exactly much like Jesus. 

3.) Mithra. 
—Did Mithra have 12 disciples? Depending on legend, it's either one or two. So that's a no.
 

—Was Mithra born of a virgin? Mithra was born from solid rock. Are rocks virgins? Not in the traditional sense, and it probably is best to avoid trying to take one's virginity. 

—Did Mithra die on the cross only to later be resurrected? Given that Mithra is nowhere said to have died, that seems unlikely. 

Blessings,

-Lucas

Is mankind wholly depraved?

There is often the thought that mankind is wholly depraved, yet Jesus identified a class of people that He appreciated, saying,

"But the seed in the good soil, these are the ones who have heard the word in an honest and good heart, and hold it fast, and bear fruit with perseverance." (Luke 8:15)

Having a good and honest heart is certainly not an attribute of being totally depraved, so let's show that by holding Jesus fast and bearing fruit!

Why did God create atheists?

Take a look at this picture. It's been said that Christians doing good only do it because it's an order from a superior, whereas atheists do it simply because they love and choose to be moral, using free will. Sounds nice, huh?

But stop for a second. What is free will? We know that all actions are responses to a stimuli. We know that we are vastly complex biologic machines. You see an orange. Light has reflected off of it and hit your eye. Nervous impulses travel along your neural pathways and interact with cells in the brain. Chemicals fire and change in response to this stimulus. You eat the orange.

Your mind is a vast array of cells and chemicals, all responding to physical forces. But what is free will? Willpower supposes that some disembodied "force" can change the chemical reactions going on inside our bodies. Instead of eating the orange, you can "choose" not to. But free "will" is the equivalent of the spirit—a nonsensical illusion to any true atheist. Can you prove that you could have done anything different? No. Can you pinpoint this "force" that lets you "choose" to behave this way or that? No. Can "you" somehow "force" the chemical reactions happening in response to stimulus to react differently? To have one chemical outcome instead of another? No.

Does an atheist, then, really "choose" to be good or bad, in a universe where we are simple science? No. There is no good. There is no evil. There are the illusions of them—intangible thoughts; nothing real. To believe that one has some "will" outside and superior to biophysical mechanics is truly superstitious—and yet inevitable and pointless. The logical conclusion for the atheist is that everything is casually determined. Two famous atheists really summed it up, saying,

"“You, your joys and your sorrows, your memories and ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behaviour of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules.” —Francis Crick

“Given the state of the universe at one time, a complete set of laws fully determines both the future and the past. That would exclude the possibility of miracles or an active role for God....It is hard to see how free will can operate if our behavior is determined by physical law, so it seems we are no more than biological machines and that free will is just an illusion.” —Stephen Hawking

Happy New Year

Happy New Year! What are your resolutions? I liked this quote by Francis Chan: "Our greatest fear should not be of failure, but of succeeding at things in life that don't really matter." What does really matter? Here are two items that really cut to the chase of Christianity, so let's work on them

"Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age."  (Mt 28:19-20)

"Pure and undefiled religion before our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their tribulation; to keep oneself unstained from the world." (James 1:27)

We're Christ's team in 2016! Let's do it!

What if the take my guns?

Here's a question: what if the government takes your guns? What if it specifically targets God's people as being too dangerous to own even swords or knives? As a proponent of the right to keep and bear arms, I know that such a thing might happen, and I'm NOT a fan.  As it turns out, this has happened before: 

"Now there was no blacksmith to be found throughout all the land of Israel, for the Philistines said, “Lest the Hebrews make swords or spears.” But all the Israelites would go down to the Philistines to sharpen each man’s plowshare, his mattock, his ax, and his sickle; and the charge for a sharpening was a 7 pim for the plowshares, the mattocks, the forks, and the axes, and to set the points of the goads." (1 Sam 13:19-21)

The point being that we shouldn't be hugely worried. God's in control. Converting people to Christ is our best and only true weapon. 

Star Wars and evil people.

Did the Empire consider the Jedi evil? Have you considered the horror of the recent killings in Paris and California? In Peter Haas’ book, "Morality after Auschwitz," he noted,

....far from being contemptuous of ethics, the perpetrators acted in strict conformity with an ethic which held that, however difficult and unpleasant the task might have been, mass extermination of the Jews and Gypsies was entirely justified. . . . the Holocaust as a sustained effort was possible only because a new ethic was in place that did not define the arrest and deportation of Jews as wrong and in fact defined it as ethically tolerable and ever good.

Haas’s point is that the Nazis were not moral relativists or nihilists, but rather objectivists who had a different value system than those of us who see all persons as intrinsically valuable. Something similar could be said of Islamic terrorists today.

Without a God, there is no such thing as objective evil or good—that is, good or evil apart from what any of us believe about it. That's a scary world. 

Am I genuinely concerned? Are you?

It's true that people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. Pure and undefiled religion truly is taking care of widows and orphans in their distress; keeping ourselves unstained by the world. (Jms 1)

Paul wrote of Timothy and said that he sent him because, "I have no one else of kindred spirit who will genuinely be concerned for your welfare.  For they all seek after their own interests, not those of Christ Jesus."  (Phil 2)

Let's be genuinely concerned for the welfare of those around us, which is the interest of Christ Jesus!

A fraudulent bomb-detection device.

There is a fraudulent bomb-detection device that has sold thousands of units to countries around the world, and may be responsible for untold numbers of deaths. When a member of the company approach the CEO with his concerns, the CEO replied, "It does exactly what it's supposed to—it makes money." ( http://j.mp/fraudbomb )

In Ephesians 6, God tells us to put armor on. He says, "and take the helmet of salvation..."  Helmets, like bomb detection devices, are meant to protect us. Satan is the great deceiver, though, and would love to give you a fraudulent lookalike. Would you take a helmet that was missing a critical part? That looked so good but was made by an enemy? Could you tell which was which?

Would you reject even one thing that God says saves you? Can you name different things that God says are a part of our salvation?

How serious is deception?

God lamented in Jeremiah that the religious leaders had led His people astray. 2 Timothy 3 addresses this problem in the lives of Christians and says in part, 

"But evil men and impostors will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.  You, however, continue in the things you have learned and become convinced of...All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work."

Christians can't "just trust" the preacher, but there are very FUNCTIONAL reasons for that beyond just hysterical paranoia. Getting very familiar with God's word is what equips us for "every good work," and part of that good work is sometimes pointing out Satan's deception.

So let's get to know the word for ourselves and become stronger warriors! :)

What do you serve?

Atheism ultimately submits to biology and amoral laws of nature, thought it dresses the idea up in fancy clothes. Without objective morality or truly free will, the impulse of the moment and the desires of the flesh are the ruling guide. God explained,   "For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator." (Rom 1:25)

As Christians, we need to check ourselves, too. Sometimes we can be indulging in some fleshly behavior, and we can get defensive when exposed—but when confronted with the truth, we've got to take it, even if we don't like how it's delivered. Otherwise, we ourselves exchange truth for a lie. Let's take the truth even if it knocks us down a peg or two. 

What is morality?

Without God, we are mere biologic machines. One consequence of a Godless existence is that there is no such thing as objective good or evil.   Michael Ruse, an agnostic philosopher of science, observed:

“Morality is a biological adaptation no less than are hands and feet and teeth. Considered as a rationally justifiable set of claims about an objective something, ethics is illusory. Morality is just an aid to survival and reproduction...and any deeper meaning is illusory.”

In Isaiah 5:20, our God said, "Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; Who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness!" With utter atheism, mankind has gone one logical step further to the final conclusion: that there is no such thing as good or evil; there is only what pleases us or doesn't. 

Do we have free will?

Have you ever thought about the implications that atheism would have on free will? Many prominent atheists have. Consider the logical conclusions of a world without God.

Francis Crick, co-discoverer of DNA, concluded, “You, your joys and your sorrows, your memories and ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behaviour of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules.”
 

Stephen Hawking likewise said,  “Given the state of the universe at one time, a complete set of laws fully determines both the future and the past. That would exclude the possibility of miracles or an active role for God....It is hard to see how free will can operate if our behaviour is determined by physical law, so it seems we are no more than biological machines and that free will is just an illusion.”
 

Isn't it so much nicer that God created a world where we have free will! "And if it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve." (Josh 24:15) It is a privilege to serve such a Creator!

When should I encourage my brother?

When Paul wrote to Timothy, he said something that I love. It was simply, "Fight the good fight of faith; take hold of the eternal life to which you were called, and you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses." (1 Tim 6:12)

When brothers and sisters are going through tough times spiritually, we need to remind them to FIGHT that good fight, to TAKE HOLD OF that eternal life. Let's help each other out, have each other over for studies and dinners; be there to pray with each other in tough times! As spiritual battle buddies, let's have each other's backs! 

What if I've already sinned so much that it's impossible to change?

Many Christians let their past failures accumulate to the point where they have a hard time resisting temptation. They think, "What difference would one more sin make?"

There's a way to beat that. 2 Cor 5:17 says, "Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come."  That's a beautiful statement, but God alsosays, "you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus." (Rom 6:11)

We ARE new creations. We ARE dead to sin. But we have to actually believe it—we have to consider it, buy into it, and act in faith on that. Do you really consider yourself as dead to sin? If not, start today. 

When should I stop getting drunk?

Boy oh boy, God is a heavy hitter when it comes to His people. Take a look at this gauntlet that He throws down in front of us and tell me if ya like it! I know that I thought it was flat-out impossible and insane for a while:

"For the time already past is sufficient for you to have carried out the desire of the Gentiles, having pursued a course of sensuality, lusts, drunkenness, carousing, drinking parties and abominable idolatries.  In all this, they are surprised that you do not run with them into the same excesses of dissipation, and they malign you." (1 Pet 4:3-4)

So God just tells it like it is, huh? There are no excuses! Time's up, now move on into Godliness! By the way, my main point for this is actually that, if you have bad habits and stop, you might see your old party/sin buddies get kinda mean. Guess what! That's a good thing. Time to make new buddies! And it's a sign that you're growing. If the old crew doesn't see a change in you, you've got a problem! :)

Deceit and backsliding...they're just like, the best friends ever, man.

Have you considered what happens when Christians start to fall away, or when they start to backslide and regress?  God expressed his frustration in Jer 8:5 saying,

"Why then has this people turned away

    in perpetual backsliding?

They hold fast to deceit;

    they refuse to return. (Jer 8:5)"

Deceit is almost always present when Christians start to regress. In fact, it's deceit that allows backsliders to get around the pain of leaving God. And like a child taking a piece of duct tape off his skin, it's often done a little bit at a time.  As Christians, let's pray that we don't deceive ourselves, and that if we start to, we realize it quickly and return humbly!