Therefore I say to you, O nations that hear and understand, "Await your shepherd; he will give you everlasting rest, because he who will come at the end of the age is close at hand. Be ready for the rewards of the kingdom, because the eternal light will shine upon you for evermore."
– 4 Esdras 2:34-35
I just learned that Steve Jobs passed away at the age of 56.
Jobs, for those who don't know, was the founder of Apple computers. I'm typing on an Apple laptop right now. We've all dreamed at one time or another in our lives of being as successful as Steve Jobs. But God doesn't judge us by our worldly success.
Steve Jobs' legacy is one of innovation. He brought to market some of the greatest technical products the world has ever seen. But he wasn't a gifted engineer. He was more of a super salesman. Some would call him a visionary.
At around 19 years of age, Jobs traveled to India and became a Buddhist. Like many young people who were born in the 1950's and grew up in the turbulent 60's, he was a searcher for the truth.
At the time there was great optimism that young people could change the world of their fathers and bring a new era of world peace. That dream died -- not because the counter-culture was unsuccessful, but because it succeeded. It did change the world, but it did not bring peace.
One wonders if Jobs hadn't become a Buddhist, would he still have founded Apple computers? What if he had become a Catholic priest and had gone to India as a missionary instead? Perhaps he would have been as successful at that calling as he was as a high-tech entrepreneur.
I think we can say without a doubt that God doesn't care about the technical progress of mankind unless it is accompanied by spiritual progress as well. Certainly computers and the internet can be used to spread the Gospel, but for the most part that is not what we have seen.
Instead we have seen the internet used to a much greater extent to spread pornography. But that is really just a symptom of an underlying spiritual disease.
When Apple removed an application for the Manhattan Declaration, that was in some ways worse than the spread of pornography. There has always been pornography of one form or another, and it has spread through whatever technology has been available at the time. But when the truths of Christianity are labeled as "hate speech" then we are entering into a whole new level of evil.
We Christians are mostly to blame because we have not been a light to the world as Jesus commanded us. We settled for worldly success and compromised on the proclamation of the Gospel. We adapted the commandments of Jesus Christ so that we could live comfortably, instead of embracing the Cross.
Why was it that the "flower children" of the 60s felt that they needed to make a pilgrimage to India to become "enlightened" when the true source of truth and light was right here all along? But after World War II, America became complacent with material success and gradually abandoned the great spiritual gift of Christianity in exchange for worldly pleasures. She was seduced by temptation.
The apple is the symbol of temptation. To take a bite of the apple is a symbol of giving in to temptation. A man as attentive to the details as Steve Jobs was surely aware of this.
We can only pray that at some point before his last breath, he became aware of his errors and asked God for forgiveness.
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Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us.
Could you had at least waited a day before posting this? Sheesh. "iHeaven"
ReplyDeleteInkredible. The title and story are intended to get the reader to ask the question "How will God judge ME?" We should always be thinking about the "last things", which are death, judgement, heaven, hell and purgatory. This should become our guide as we go through our pilgrimage on earth. By staying focused on the last things we can achieve the "spiritual enlightenment" that so many -- like Steve Jobs -- mistakenly seek through eastern religions and drugs.
ReplyDeleteCatholic mystics teach us that we can speak with God through our prayers. As we follow the "bloody footprints" of Christ up Calvary Hill, we are led to a closer communion with God. Our hearts become more like the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
True world peace would require all of us to become saints. Even though this will never happen, we can each do our own small part by striving to live saintly lives. This requires sacrifice and remembering that we will only be truly rewarded after death.
This is the Christian version of "counter-culture" -- resisting the secular culture by submitting to God's will.
God bless you.
I just want to mention that I bought my Apple laptop prior to the anti-Christian moves on the part of Apple to ban the Manhattan Declaration and other pro-family apps. I probably would not buy one today in order to avoid supporting Apple's agenda. Although the alternatives are not very appealing: Google has a similar anti-Christian world outlook; Microsoft's Bill Gates is pro-abortion and also pro-eugenics. Probably the best we can do is to avoid buying more high-tech gadgets than we really need.
ReplyDeleteAlso, Bloomberg has published an excellent article on the life of Steve Jobs:
Apple’s Steve Jobs Dies
i will not judge any man on earth as this is not the right thing for any Christian should do,
ReplyDeleteBut there is only One way and that is Jesus Christ and there is only One Truth and that is Jesus Christ, and there is only One way and that is Jesus Christ, who is Lord and Savior for all that seek Him a Lone,
if you do not do so as to accepting Jesus Christ who is Lord and Savior for your life,
when you pass away, your spirit ether have to go to hell or Heaven, so please choose for your self,
and i say to all of you who are reading this please choose wisely, by accepting Jesus Christ as your Lord of your life and then and then alone that you will go to Heaven, ( John 1/12 Bible )
May the Lord Bless you and your Family's and am sorry to say that Steve Jobs is now in hell with the Devil,....
I do not judge, but God does. Too many Christians believe that only the worst criminals go to hell. They believe that almost everyone is going to heaven.
ReplyDeleteThis is because the secular culture teaches us that sin does not exist. Even most Christians have accepted this position. And until we recognize our sins we cannot repent and ask for forgiveness.
Many even say that God does not exist. They do not accept a God that punishes those who have fallen into sin. They claim to be able to judge themselves. What a foolish concept. The one who judges himself always finds himself to be innocent of any serious charges.
But God does judge us. And we need to try to live our lives according to His will. He is a merciful God. It is never too late to learn to "love God with all your heart. and all your soul, and all your strength, and all your mind." (Luke 10:27)
UPDATE: Apple has announced that Steve Job's "virtual DNA" will be preserved through a program to teach others how to think like him:
ReplyDeleteSteve Jobs' virtual DNA to be fostered in Apple University
And if Job's looked ahead and founded a program to preserve his "virtual DNA", wouldn't you think that he would also preserve his physical DNA as well? I have no doubt that Jobs has done this in one way or another. He might have preserved tissue or even whole body parts. It certainly not inconceivable that he might have his head frozen as Ted Williams did.
And beyond that, he might have had sperm preserved. Or who knows, there may even be some Steve Jobs clones already implanted in the wombs of some surrogate mothers. Such are the times we live in.
UPDATE: Ironically it is the saints of the Church that probably have the best preserved DNA from centuries gone by in the form of relics. First class relics are actual body parts of the saints. But the Church would never use that DNA to create clones. Of course, with God all things are possible.
ReplyDeleteGod? Steve Jobs was Buddhist.
ReplyDeleteAnon. True. I pointed that out in the article. He rejected the Christianity of his homeland and went searching to India for a religion more suited to his objectives. Buddhists don't believe in God. How convenient. That still does not invalidate the truth of Jesus Christ. There is only one God and we will all be judged by Him. Remember that when you are face to face with your maker. Who knows? He may still have mercy. With God all things are possible. But why wait? God is calling you now.
ReplyDeleteI don't think the intention of the article was to judge Steve Jobs, but to give readers a call; a remainder that no matter how many earthly possessions we have, we will die.
ReplyDeleteWhen you live aware of the fact that our days in this earth are counted then life itself changes.
God bless you.
Hi Ride! I'm glad you understood what moved me to write this article. I was actually thinking of Hamlet. Because at the end of the play, all the main characters die. And in his analysis Catholic author Joseph Pearce said that the audience of Shakespeare's time would have been left thinking about what the eternal fate of their souls would be.
ReplyDeleteThink of how far we have sunk since then. We don't even think about the person's soul at the moment of death. Yes, we are saddened -- I don't know if most people actually mourn. Unless it is someone very close to us. And then I think all but the most atheistic feel a spiritual loss.
My cousin passed away recently. I know she had a rough life. I have been praying for her. I never had a chance to spend that much time with her, but I don't think I have ever been so saddened at someone's passing. She was much younger than me. I know that she had tried to overcome her own demons and had turned to Christ at a difficult time in her life.
Dear cousin, I miss you so much. I pray that you are in the company of the angels and of the Virgin. Pray for me.
All you need to know about this masonic drone can be gleamed from his insidious company's luciferian logo (and indeed name) - celebrating the corruption of Man by satan in the garden of Eden, with Adam's eating of the apple from the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
ReplyDeleteNot to mention the true nefarious purposes of the devices it produced (tools for dumbing down Humans even further and for tracking the freemasons' "slaves" [as per their terminology / evil world view])
Wonder what circle of hades Stevie Boy resides in now with his beloved lucifer!
@eyeswideopen - I think you are making the mistake of becoming the judge, rather than letting God be the judge. Remember that we will be judged according to the way that we judge others. Remember the words of the Lord's Prayer. Then forgive. And more than just forgive, pray for those who have offended you. In this way you do great good not only for the lost soul of a fellow sinner, but for your own soul as well.
ReplyDeleteWe should call out evil where we see it and warn others of it to avoid the scandal from spreading in the community of Christians. I made mention of the symbolism of the Apple logo in my article. But I think you have gone too far by referring to it as a "luciferian logo".
If Apple had chosen to, it could have turned their logo into a symbol of goodness. A rainbow can be a Christian symbol of peace and hope as in Noah's Ark or a symbol of perverted sexuality. We are in an age of a war of symbols, since they are a language on their own as modern corporate marketers are well aware of and the Church has always been aware of.
In American folklore, apples are symbols of goodness and wholesomeness as in the story of Johnny Appleseed and in sayings about "motherhood and apple pie". I'm sure that is how most people view the Apple logo. We can only guess at Steve Jobs' real intention and hope that it was not an evil one .
As for the technology that Apple produced, I have always had high hopes for computer and internet technology that it would bring the world closer together by allowing us to communicate with each other more easily. I think this has certainly come to pass. Now it is up to us as to what we do with this technology and the capabilities that it unleashes.
I don't think however that all technology is neutral. For example, Bio-technologies that interfere with the natural human ability to have children have always been condemned by the Church. And as computer technology increases to the point of possibly producing artificial intelligence, then there are some critical ethical decisions that must be made about the use of that technology.
Some articles in Christian publications have applauded Steve Jobs for keeping pornography off of the iPhone. Others may complain that this is censorship. In our never-ending quest for freedom we have forgotten that some forms of censorship are necessary for a healthy society.
I'm not sure whether Apple made its decision based on morality or on marketing. By restricting access to sexual images it was able to assure parents that this was a safe device for their kids to use. And it also gave it a more respectable image in the corporate world.
At the same time, Apple did allow apps that were pro-abortion and pro-homosexual. This is of course a contradiction from the Christian point of view, but is perfectly consistent from a secular humanist point of view. So yes, Apple has always been a company that has actively promoted the liberal agenda. Their whole marketing image has always been based on being "counter-cultural" .
Steve Jobs was able to focus that "counter-cultural" energy into creating great products that challenged the accepted paradigms. That was his genius. And then he used the public platform that this gave him to promote his liberal ideas. That was his downfall.
It is what the Greeks called hubris. It is challenging the gods as symbolized by Prometheus stealing fire from Zeus on Mt. Olympus and giving it to mankind. Christians understand this in a different way. It is best symbolized by the Tower of Babel, when men tried to build a tower that would reach heaven and it was destroyed by God. When man attempts to become God, then there will be divine retribution. This is a lesson that each generation needs to learn anew as the secular plans of man are confronted by disaster time and time again.
A Washington Post article speaks of Steve Jobs as a "saint". It just goes to show that people have no concept of what it means to be a real Saint. And it also shows that secular society yearns for God, but instead ends up searching fruitlessly for something to worship. I touched on this in a previous article titled "Pope Benedict's speech before the Bundestag". We have devolved into pagan idol worshipers of technology. And so naturally Jobs is viewed as a high priest of this cult.
ReplyDeleteIt's official. Steve Jobs is no longer a secular "saint". The New York Times says so:
ReplyDeleteShort Sainthood for Steve Jobs
He went to India, when there is a church two blocks from his house. Sad.
ReplyDelete