Ideologies and Morality

Crimes and atrocities are committed by those of all beliefs. In the great struggle between Christianity and atheism each has blood on it’s hands, though it is clear that atheist inspired ideologies have caused far more causalities in one century than religious conflict has in the whole history of humanity. But this isn’t the topic of this post. Instead I want to discuss the distinction that separates the two.

When a Christian gives alms; cares for the vulnerable; is patient or humble, he is practicing the moral principles that are commanded of him by his ideology. Conversely when he murders; steals from; rapes or slanders somebody, he is violating the clear moral principles of his ideology. There is a transcendental moral code that he believes he is held accountable to.

The atheist on the other hand, has no obligation or responsibility to do either good or bad. When God is eliminated from one’s ideology, morality goes with it too. If an atheist gives alms or cares for the sick, it is of his own personal volition. He may think it is his moral obligation, but this is just his personal opinion. He has no objective reason to do so.

Similarly, his raping of the child next door, is just as much his moral obligation. Both are morally equal actions. He is in perfect harmony with his amoral atheist ideology. He can rape or care; assault or mend; steal or give alms, no particular action by a mere human ‘bag of carbon atoms’ has any more moral significance then the action of a particular cloud of stellar dust. At least a cloud of stellar dust doesn’t have the arrogance and audacity to claim that the actions of his particular arrangement of up-quarks and down-quarks is any more significant than the human atheist’s mix of quarks! He is at least a humble bag of quarks!

Thus when a Christian rapes someone, he is in clear violation of his ideology. But when an atheist does the same, he is in perfect harmony with his own ideology.

Atheism, when taken to it’s logical conclusion, is absurd. As Calvin (in the cartoon above) found out the hard way!

Monogamy vs Sexual Liberty

Sexual liberty is the most obvious vice today. It is assumed through apathy alone that no harm can come, and only pleasure will be obtained, from liberal sexual activity.



Yet in contrast to this, no one would argue against the intuitive fact that the human spirit only finds peace in monogamous habitation. One finds the most satisfaction and fulfilment is in giving oneself to only one other. We naturally pine for subservience of another, and in turn to be subservient to them. Monogamous sexuality is the greatest expression of this. Why else would such pain and grief be felt in the wake infidelity?







To give oneself in sex to only one person is the greatest expression of love. Therefore to give oneself to many is to diminish the love one has to give, even in a future monogamous relationship. Sexual liberty degrades the power and effect of monogamy. Monogamy is never as strong as when lovers have only given themselves to each other.



The ideal of sexual liberty, even through indirect social influence from the media, degrades the potency of monogamy, which in turn engenders the idea of sexual liberty, which then further degrades the potency of monogamy, and on and on in a vicious circle. In the end, the mind of the sexual libertarian, monogamy becomes worthless and untenable.







Instead if one believes the truth that monogamy is sexually sufficient, as our spirit tells us, then both the spirit and the body will be fulfilled. As opposed to sexual liberty, where only the body is sexually fulfilled, and only temporarily anyway.



It seems to me that the spiritual desire for sexual monogamy should take precedence over the bodily lust for unrestrained sexuality. One should fight against the body’s extra-monogamous impulses because of the knowledge that monogamy does suffice, and is actually the more fulfilling when more perfectly practiced.





http://www.crosswalk.com/family/marriage/marriage-and-the-virtue-of-loyalty-1414150.html



http://www.forgottenvirtue.com/

The God Delusion

Having read The God Delusion this second time, I have come to appreciate much of what he says. While there is no doubt that much of the content is intellectual drivel, most of his criticisms of the church hit the nail on the head. The God Delusion to me seemed to act as a very efficient ‘Occam’s’ razor to various religions, and various practices within religions. I really think that if the Christian church implemented this razor to their theology and to their general practices, they would come out much stronger and fitter as a result. Though this is certainly not Dawkins intention!

The thing that shocked me the most was how surprisingly short on scientific evidence it was, while being long on speculation. Page and page went by where Dawkins indulged in fantastic speculation as to the origin and possible Darwinian reason for religion, yet he never substantiated any of his arguments with anything remotely resembling empirical data. It is for this reason alone that religious people can simply ignore this book and it’s claims, because they are nothing more than spectacular speculation.

Most people seem to think that this book is an argument against the existence of a god, specifically the Christian God. This is certainly how it is portrayed. Yet this couldn’t be further from the truth.

The basic argument that Dawkins uses against the existence of God falls in to the trap of the Genetic Fallacy; the denigration of the origin of an idea or the people who believe it, does not disprove it’s existence. For example, if I were to call Dawkins and imbecile, this wouldn’t invalidate his arguments. It may or may not be true, but it has no impact on his actual arguments.

Dawkins quite rightly bemoans the ill that religious people cause, but wrongly assumes that just because some religious people do bad things, that God mustn’t exist.

The second argument that falls into the Genetic Fallacy is Dawkins’ attempt to explain the belief in God as being just a delusion in the human’s brain. But yet again, speculating as to the workings of the human mind doesn’t even begin to address the actual existence of God Himself.

The main bone that I have to pick with Dawkins is his extreme intolerance towards those who disagree with him. He seems to be a hardcore anti-pluralist. He seems totally unwilling to even consider the idea of just living with people who disagree with his own worldview.

In critiquing religion, his chosen method is to throw the baby out with the bath water. He isn’t interested in live alongside even the many religions which shun all forms of violence. Instead he tarnishes all religions with the dirtiest brush that he could find, and proclaims that even the most benignly pacifist religions must be eliminated. This type of dogmatic intolerance sadly reminds me of the oppression techniques of communist China and Russia where everybody who disagreed with the rulership was systematically eradicated. Dawkins rhetoric is shockingly similar to this horrible time in history.

It is disconcerting that this book is in the hands of the pleb. While I recommend it to those who are properly educated in religion (specifically Protestants), ‘The God Delusion’ is a dangerous propaganda tool in the hands of those people whose only real knowledge of religion is from these types of biased books. These people are totally unable to critically evaluate Dawkins claims, and balance them against what the Bible really teaches.

As a Protestant young earth creationist, I found that virtually no criticism of Dawkins was applicable to my worldview. I could almost feel the bullets rapidly bounding off of me!

Virtually all of his attacks were directed against various Catholic doctrines and practices which clearly don’t apply to Protestants.

His other major point of attack was against the various inconsistencies that arise by trying to amalgamate belief in God with the theory of evolution- and again, none of this applies to the YEC worldview.

For me, I came out the other end of this book smiling. Dawkins razor was only ever directed at the dross that prevents Christianity being a credible alternative to atheism. If you eliminate all that Dawkins recommends, you get YEC; a worldview tempered in the crucible of Dawkins vociferous attacks; a worldview, by virtue of Dawkins tempering, that is immune to all weapons that he has in his arsenal.

The Bible like a Jigsaw Puzzle

The Bible like a Jigsaw Puzzle

Christians are constantly bombarded with challenges from critics who claim that the Christian religion is nothing more than a delusion. They say that there are many inconsistencies, contradictions and faux pas which are consistent with Christianity being a manmade phenomenon.

Making sense of such a manmade religion would be like trying to piece together a puzzle that is made up of pieces that are from many different puzzles; they just won’t form a coherent whole.

But I have found that these criticisms are merely superficial challenges, and when you set your mind to investigating them, all the alleged incongruent pieces tend to eventually fall quite neatly into place.

The cynical atheist when he looks at the Bible, sees a huge pile of puzzle pieces jumbled together. He nonchalantly picks up a few random pieces but can’t make them fit together. He does this a few more times then just gives up. The cynic, being overawed by the complexity and the fact that he has never done a puzzle before, simply throws his hands in the air and claims that the pieces simply can’t be put together.

But the Christian has faith that the Bible is true and does make sense, he knows that you just have to work a bit harder at it, just like a 5000 piece jigsaw puzzle. The complexity of the puzzle means that it is not just going to fit together easily in a short amount of time, you have to have patience and dedication in sitting down to analyse and try different combinations of pieces. But eventually the whole puzzle starts to come together, piece by piece, cluster by cluster, into an intricate and complex, but stunningly beautiful and rewarding apogee.  

And this is certainly true of the Bible and Christianity, the more that I have been challenged by often abusive critics, and the more that I have researched and pondered the problems, the better the alleged inconsistencies fit together. Things like the alleged contradictions between Old Testament Law and the New, or the faux pas cruelties of the Old Testament; you just have to look a bit deeper and try a bit harder.

In the end, when you have studied the Bible and all the criticisms charged against it, you see that it is entirely consistent, not just within itself, but with the world around us. It is no wonder why Christianity has been such a powerful force for so long; it just makes so much sense!

The Secular State and Religion in the Classroom

It is a common claim charged against creationists that they want their theory of creationism taught in schools. This then, it is claimed by creationist’s critics, would violate the main premise of the secular state; the separation of church and state, or the favouring or discrimination against any one particular religion.

But it seems to me that the very action of forbidding creationism from even discussion in the classroom is itself such a violation. It also seems that forcing evolutionism down the throats to teachers and students is also a violation because the state is choosing which worldview is or isn’t to be taught.

Casey Luskin explains all this in the article linked to below, here is a brief excerpt:

A “Supreme Court decision described the rule that “government should not prefer one religion to another” as “a principle at the heart of the Establishment Clause.”8 Yet it is this very principle that some latter-day defenders of Darwin would disregard in their zealous advocacy for evolution education.

“In the public controversy over evolution, the common stereotype holds that Darwin’s defenders are the ones guarding public school curricula against unconstitutional entanglement with religion. The evidence cited in this Article shows this stereotype is wrong: Zeal for Darwin causes his latter-day defenders to encourage public schools to attack, inhibit, oppose, and disapprove of purported religious views that dissent from evolution, and to prefer both theistic and non-theistic religious viewpoints that support evolution. The hypocrisy of the evolution lobby is untenable, for it will lead to violations of the U.S. Supreme Court’s unequivocal ban on “denominational preference” in public schools.”

To set the record straight, creationists aren’t concerned with making teachers teach creationism in the classroom. Making teachers, who have a very poor grasp of creationism, teach creationism would more than likely do far more harm than good.

Instead what creationists would rather see in the science classroom is that both teachers and students be able to discuss, without fear of chastisement, any theory of origins like creationism as long as the questions and answers are scientifically orientated.

But unfortunately at the moment there are so many cases where students are ridiculed by their teachers for raising such honest questions, and even teachers are sacked or demoted for not adhering to the hardnosed evolutionary dogma.

It is truly a sad day when free inquiry in our education centres is so severely restricted. It reminds me of the type of intellectual control that Soviet Russia had on it’s places of learning.

ZEAL FOR DARWIN’S HOUSE CONSUMES THEM:
HOW SUPPORTERS OF EVOLUTION ENCOURAGE VIOLATIONS OF THE ESTABLISHMENT CLAUSE

By Casey Luskin