Exploring the Psalms

I love the Psalms and have modeled many of my poems after them. I love the deeply personal character they have. David begins in the 23rd Psalm to tell you about God "The Lord is my shepherd..." But then he shifts gears when he thinks of his deep danger, being pursued by the king who sought to kill him: "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, Thou art with me,..." In Hebrew and in 17th century English, we the personal and the impersonal, are "you and thou." David did not have a faith that was just about God but a real personal faith relationship with God. We see this many places in other psalms: "Out of the depths have I cried unto Thee..."Psalms 130, "Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy loving kindness..." Psalms 51, "As the hart panteth after the water, brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God." Psalms 42.

This brings up one other point, the King James Version was translated by people who had studied old fashioned Rhetoric as modern translators have not. A hart is a male deer, when they become thirsty their tongue hangs out of their mouth, a powerful image of thirst! Modern translations are likely to say "as the deer longs for water, substituting a powerful image for a very weak statement. Deer are no more intelligent than cows, neither are capable of deep, deep feelings or longings and "water brooks" tumbling over the rocks, are more poetic than plain water.

Hebrew poetry is not rhyming poetry. Many people have the idea that it's not poetry if it doesn't rhyme. There are many kinds of non-rhyming poetry, Haiku, Tanka, Free Verse and Blank Verse, to name a few. A great deal of the Bible is poetry. One really good thing about modern translations is that the poetry is set out in poetic line form. I think of Milton's Paradise Lost, one of the greatest poems in the English language: "Of Man's first disobedience and the fruit of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste brought death into the world and all our woe with loss of Eden, till one greater man restore it, ... sing heavenly muse...". Milton, "the organ voice of England"! Pity they don't teach great literature in schools anymore.

What makes the Psalms poetry? First of all the use of the poetic device of parallelism.
"Hebrew poetry is constructed around parallelism rather than rhyme or other features. One line of verse often contrasts (antithetical parallelism), or repeats (synonymous parallelism) or builds on the first line (synthetic parallelism).

1. Antithetical (contrasts or compares opposites):
Psalm1:6 For the Lord knows the way of the righteous,
But the way of the ungodly shall perish.

2. Synonymous parallelism (repeats):
Psalm 2:3 "Let us break their bonds in pieces
And cast away their cords from us.

3. Synthetic parallelism (the second line builds on the first).
Psalm 1:5 Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in judgment.
Nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous."

(Quoted from
a syllabus by J.J. Edwards of Denver Conservative Baptist Seminary)

Other characteristics are internal rhythm: "And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season." Sound this out, all poetry should be read aloud. "Like a tree", is a simile, something is like something. Metaphor is a comparison or an analogy such as "I am a rock". one of the most poetic of poetic devices is imagery "a tree planted by the rivers of water", this paints a pleasing and compelling picture. I think of a group of willow trees along the riverside. Imagery tends to engage the reader and draw him in. What does this image suggest to you? Perhaps some scene dear to your childhood memory. In other words, good poetry is evocative. Then there is the appeal to the desires and longings of the human heart, "Why art thou cast down, O my soul?...Hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him,..." Psm. 42: 11. There is the well turned phrase, the word of wisdom and the affirmation of hope and encouragement. All this can be found in the Psalms.

Some of my favorites are Psalm 1 for its wonderful imagery already mentioned.

Psalm 8:5
" What is man that thou art mindful of him?... Thou hast made him little lower than the angles, and dost crown him with glory and honor." What is man? This includes women. One of the most profound questions of metaphysics. Evolution wants to turn us into a bunch of apes, brother to the Gorilla and the Chimpanzee. What are the fruits of this? "Are figs gathered from thistles? By their fruits ye shall know them." The voice of Wisdom in Proverbs says "All they that hate me love death." It's so funny that "That old book, the Bible, keeps pace with today's headlines. Europe, where the entire population practically has forgotten God, is dying. the birth rates run from 1.1 to 1.4. It has no future. Think about it.

Psalm 19:1-2 "The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament showeth His handiwork. Day unto day uttereth speech and night unto night showeth knowledge." According to God's Word, intelligent design is self evident. Simple minded evolutionists ask "What is the mechanism of intelligent design?" One of the classic rhetorical tricks, when a person doesn't want to believe in something, is to set very high standards for acceptance.

Hemlock Jones, Master Detective, walks into a room, the body is lying on the floor in six pieces. "Hmm. I suspect foul play!" And Dr. Whatso exclaims "Brilliant deduction!" The history of intelligent design goes back to ancient times, Plato and Aristotle considered it self evident that there must be some intelligent being behind the Universe. Aristotle's classic "Cosmological argument" is based on the fact that it is self evident that the order and complexity of the world showed the work of a creator god. The same thing was true of many other thinkers back then. If you are walking across a field and observe the figures on Mount Rushmore and find a watch lying on the ground, in neither case are you likely to say "What an interesting natural formation!" The DNA molecule is full of information. Where does information come from? The existence of God is self evident. God says so and History confirms it!

In the words of a great Christian hymn: "I rest me in the thought of rocks and trees, of skies and seas, His hand the wonders wrought."

Psalm. 51 "Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy loving kindness; according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions." We see here one important recurrent theme of the psalms, redemption. We also see the interesting fact that in Hebrew there is only one word for "tender mercies" and "loving kindness". This has always seemed to me to show the superlative nature of the goodness of God. We can be merciful without tenderness, kind but not loving, but for God, whose goodness surpasses all that any of us are able to do, these things are just one solid mass in God who can do exceeding, abundantly, above all that we ask or think!

Then, there is that wonderful passage which goes beyond mere outward religion to heart of it: "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise."

Then there is Psalm 100 one of the most beloved and most quoted. It was versified in the Scottish Psalter and by many other writers. It asserts the authority of our Lord and that we are His creatures, under His authority. That authority is not a tyranny because He cares for us as the sheep are cared for by their shepherd,

Psalm 100

Make a joyful noise unto the LORD, all ye lands.

Serve the LORD with gladness: come before his presence with singing.

Know ye that the LORD he is God: it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.

Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name.

For the LORD is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations.

Psalm 103 is a psalm of thanksgiving. It emphasizes forgiveness for our sins as the most important of God's blessings. It is interesting to reflect that praise is physically good for the body. Modern medicine has determined that people who go about always bitter, negative and pessimistic are hurting themselves physically. Rejoice and be glad in the Lord, it will be a blessing to your soul and healing for your bones!

"Bless the LORD, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name.

Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits:

Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases;

Who redeemeth thy life from destruction; who crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies;

Who satisfieth thy mouth with good things; so that thy youth is renewed like the eagle's"(106:1-5)

Psalm 106 is typical of many psalms. It recapitulates the history of Israel. "the mighty acts" is a telling phrase, our God is not the God of abstract philosophy but the God of History, the God who is involved in human affairs and the God who answers prayer and delivers His people from destruction.

"Praise ye the LORD. O give thanks unto the LORD; for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever.

Who can utter the mighty acts of the LORD? who can shew forth all his praise?" (Psm. 106:1-2)

Psalm 107 is a great psalm concerning redemption and salvation of mankind from the more physical consequences of sin. "Such as sit in darkness and the shadow of death..." should speak to us in this age of tyranny and Christian martyrdom. Another notable phrase is: "They that go down to the sea in ships..." In the first half of the 20th century it was very common to use Biblical phrases for book titles such as "The Valley of Decision", "The Good Earth", etc. Biblical words and phrases permeate the English language such "The four corners of the earth", not meaning that the earth has corners, but simply as far as one can go in each of these directions, whatever that is.

"Let the redeemed of the Lord say so." is an important command, too little regarded by American Christians today. With Atheist fanatics screaming from the housetops "God is not great!", we should be one mighty chorus of praise for His goodness and His wonderful works!

"O give thanks unto the LORD, for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever.

Let the redeemed of the LORD say so, whom he hath redeemed from the hand of the enemy;

And gathered them out of the lands, from the east, and from the west, from the north, and from the south.

They wandered in the wilderness in a solitary way; they found no city to dwell in.

Hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted in them.Then they cried unto the LORD in their trouble, and he delivered them out of their distresses.

And he led them forth by the right way, that they might go to a city of habitation.

Oh that men would praise the LORD for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men!

For he satisfieth the longing soul, and filleth the hungry soul with goodness.

Such as sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, being bound in affliction and iron;

Because they rebelled against the words of God, and contemned the counsel of the most High:

Therefore he brought down their heart with labour; they fell down, and there was none to help.

Then they cried unto the LORD in their trouble, and he saved them out of their distresses.

He brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death, and brake their bands in sunder.

Oh that men would praise the LORD for his goodness and his wonderful works to the children of men." (Psm. 107:1-15)

The book of Psalms was written by many human authors, inspired by the Holy Spirit of God over a span of 1,000 years. Like all of Scripture, none of it is "of any private interpretation" ( II Pr. 1:20) which means that none of it is just some human notion but the very Word of God. Down through the ages, this book has spoken to the hearts of men and women because it reveals the loving, caring heart of God and that "...man is born unto trouble as the sparks fly upward." (Jb. 5:7). "Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord..." (Psm. 130:1) still resonates with us today as it did three thousand years ago. And faithful souls still "wait for the Lord". With tears streaming down their cheeks, they still proclaim "Let Israel hope in the Lord; for with the Lord there is mercy, and with him is plenteous redemption. And he shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities." (Psm. 130:7-8).



Books and articles to read:

The Soul of Poetry, Robert O. Adair, Associated Content.
Poetry and Evil, Robert O. Adair, Associated Content.
The Book of Psalms - Comfort from the Bible, The Psalms of the Bible Marilyn French, Associated Content
Commentary On The Psalms, Matthew Henry
Reflections on the Psalms, C. S. Lewis
Seeking the Face of God, Martyn Lloyd-Jones
The Treasury of David, Charles H. Spurgeon

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Promoting the Truth About the Puritans

Let's Clear Up the Misconceptions About These Unfairly Represented People

Puritans are hated by Liberal ideologues. Why? The Puritans were the party in the Church of England which wanted further reform, particularly to eliminate Roman Catholic practices. Puritans were so called because they wanted to "purify" the English church. The persecution they endured along with other Protestant groups, especially the Separatists, precipitated the English Civil War (1640 A. D.). This revolution abolished monarchy and attempted to establish parliamentary government. The protectorate collapsed in 1660 A. D. and was followed by the Restoration, so called because it restored monarchy. However, this reinstatement of kingship was accompanied by the clear position that monarchial powers were limited. The doctrine of the Divine Right of Kings was laid to rest. The Glorious Revolution in 1688 A. D. vindicated Puritan political principles and England now had a firmly established constitutional monarchy. This was one of the great Puritan contributions.

In 1662 A. D. the Puritans were expelled from the Church of England and Puritanism in the exact sense of the word was dead. Separatism, forming your own church, was now the only option. In the late 1600's, many began coming to America for greater religious freedom. Historians today use the term Puritan as a blanket term for nearly all the heirs of the Protestant Reformation at that time. The expelled Puritans who were left behind took small churches, mostly in northern England, and produced an outpouring of wonderful, deeply spiritual classics stessing the centrality of Scripture and the necessity of a personal relationship with Christ. They understood the Bible to address all of the concerns of life; this included education, ethics, literature, science and government. However, Jesus is our Sovereign Lord, and there is nothing outside His concern and purview. When He said, "Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God," (Matt. 4:4)the Puritans understood this to be the basis of true spirituality. For example, John Wesley once preached a sermon on choosing your life's occupation
.
The liberals prate about their concern for "the Poor" which is embodied in bureaucratic and often intrusive political programs. But Wesley's ministry went to the heart of the problem which is deeply spiritual as well as material. His preaching, which changed men's lives, got them out of the whorehouses v and stopped them from squandering their money on gambling and drinking themselves to death. His ministry was instrumental in raising a whole generation from the dregs of society to respectable middle class people who took care of their families and were useful to their communities.

The Puritans, particularly the Presbyterian and the Reformed churches, retained the Roman Catholic notion of having a state church, but by the end of the 17th century most Separatists were moving away from the idea. Baptists were in the forefront of espousing religious liberty. For example there was Roger Williams classic The Bloody Tenant of Persecution. Baptists never had a state church.

The American Revolution, far from being a product of Enlightenment thinking, was fomented by Puritan preachers,so much so, that the presence of the occasional deist in the woodpile was irrelevant to the fact that a Christian revolution set up a Christian republic. In many ways it was a continuation of the English Civil War. Edmund Burke, then a member of Parliament, said that the Americans were only demanding the rights generally enjoyed by Englishmen. Later he wrote a classic book contrasting the American and the French revolutions, Reflections on the Revolution in France. Leaky, a great contemporary historian, remembered for writing the classic, A History of European Morals, commented that the Great Awakening, the great Puritan revival in the 18th century, saved Britain from having a revolution similar to the disastrous French Revolution.

The English called our revolution "The Presbyterian Rebellion". While they were over here they burned 50 Presbyterian churches and stabled their horses in a number of others. Actually, Congregationalists and Baptists also preached this revolution as well as some Methodists and others. The American Revolution established a Christian republic which tolerated other religions. It was one of the few revolutions which established a stable government.

The constitution contained nothing about the mythical doctrine of "separation of church and state". In 1830 A. D., the state church of Massachusetts voluntarily disbanded. Nearly all of the state constitution as well as The Declaration of Independence mentioned God and His Providence. The Puritans were responsible for the best and freest government ever created.

The Puritans were also great believers in education. They established many schools and universities including Harvard, Yale and Princeton. The existence of our vast system of public education is also a Puritan contribution.

It's difficult to grasp but the Pilgrims and the Puritans were basically moderates for their times. Things we consider harsh like locking people in the stocks and the ducking stool replaced much harsher punishments like whipping. In 17th century America 120 witches were hanged. The Salem witch trials were viewed as some sort of local hysteria, which the perpetrators later admitted. In the same period in England 10,000 were executed and in Europe 40,000. Near Salem, there were two witch trials. In the first, the woman was found not guilty. In the second, the woman was found not guilty and the woman who brought the charge was fined and made to publicly apologize. Many Puritan officials had a somewhat jaundiced view of this, feeling it was difficult to prove and laid open the possibility of malicious prosecution.

Spiritually and intellectually the puritans drew upon the Reformation (Luther, Calvin and the Bible) as well as the Renaissance (Classical learning, Christian Humanism and emerging natural science).

Jonathan Edwards was not only an accomplished minister but a brilliant writer in philosophy, science and education. Many scholars believe Edwards was the greatest thinker in American history.

The idea that the Puritans were overly prudish or condemned sex is a myth. They were, of course, against promiscuity. The Biblical story of Jacob who labored 7 years for the love of a beautiful woman was a favorite.

John Calvin promoted the then somewhat radical notion of "companionate marriage," as opposed to the common political or economically pragmatic marriages of the times. This was further developed by the Puritans. They conceived of marriage as a deep spiritual union of spirit and mind as well as body. Husband and wife were to be companions, equals, soulmates. The husband was acknowledged as head of the household but on the spiritual and often the intellectual level the Puritan wife was his equal. "Souls have no sexes" preached Robert Bolton.

At the core of their marital union lay communion with Christ. As they looked daily towards God and approached Him on their life's pilgrimage, so they grew closer to each other. The Puritans are thought of as cold and loveless, when in fact, their marriages were marked by devotion and passion. Puritan preacher Jonathan Edwards' wife wrote a beautiful book about their marriage, and Puritan poet Ann Bradstreet wrote this to her mate:

"To My Dear and Loving Husband

If ever two were one, then surely we.
If ever man were lov'd by wife, then thee;
If ever wife was happy in a man,
Compare with me ye women if you can. "

The Puritans were not the joyless, hardhearted, oppressive tyrants that Liberal ideologues and immoralists like H. L. Menckin have depicted them to be.Contemporary Evangelical Christians are the spiritual heirs of the Puritans. Not cold, not loveless, not rule-bound and legalistic, but full of faith and fire.

Helpful books to read:
David Barton, The Foundations of American Government
David Barton, The Jefferson Lies:
Paul Johnson, The History of The American People
Peter Marshall, The Light and The Glory
Benjamin F. Morris, The Christian Life and Character Of the Civil Institutions Of The United States
The Politically Incorrect Guides to American History, The Founding Fathers and the Constitution.

One of the best books for setting the record straight is The Light and the Glory by Peter Marshall and David Manuel. It also has an excellent bibliography which includes the writings of Perry Miller.

This material was previously published on Adair Institute.com, although it has been slightly revised.

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Ernst Haekel, Important Founder of Nazi Germany

Evolution was founded as a religion to replace Christianity. The most important founders, Ernst Haeckel and Thomas Henry Huxley said it was. Herbert Spencer said it was a philosophy, which for practical purposes is the same thing. Not surprising to reflect upon, if Darwin were to come back from the grave, he would be appalled by some of the uses and interpretations people have put to his ideas. He might even say "Thank God I'm not a Darwinian!"

Haeckel wrote a book asserting that materialistic monism and evolution was "the true religion". He was instrumental in getting the ideas of a prominent German professor that "all absolutely useless human life should be exterminated" enacted into German law. This was before Hitler took over. "Forced euthanasia was so strongly advocated by Germans that it was known as 'Prussian science'. The popular Ernst Haeckel demanded death for "incurables" and the mentally ill, including cancer victims, alcoholics and "congenital" criminals. His books, vulgarized Darwinism, were highly popular." ( Ideology of Death, pp. 128-130). This is hardly the work of a noble humanitarian. Thanks to him elderly people who were living peacefully in their own homes, not dependent on the state for their support, were dragged out and mercilessly killed just because brutal, inhuman people like Haeckel could see no use for their lives. Haekel also took up Darwin's racism to create a hierarchy of races with black people and Australians at the bottom of his list. This resulted in the near extermination of the latter group. This was a further development of Darwin's idea that the superior races would exterminate the inferior ones.

There is an interesting hagiology of Haeckel whitewashing his murderous character and denying his Fascistic influence in Nazi Germany by Richard J. Roberts, The Tragic Sense of Life: It is reviewed on Amazon by another evolutionist True Believer, David Rintoul who comments on one of the principal lies in Richards' book; " Finally, Richards thoroughly debunks the thesis that Darwin's ideas, via Haeckel, were an important source for Nazi political or scientific thinkers, and thus a root cause of the Holocaust. In that regard, it is worth quoting his concluding statement, on the last page of the book. "It can only be a tendentious and dogmatically driven assessment that would condemn Darwin for the crimes of the Nazis."

In chapter 5, P. 87, we have an example of Haeckel's "scientific genius". He boasts of the discovery of Java Man, the MIssing Link", now the record of the development from ape to Man is complete. This discovery by Eugene Dubois consisted of a tooth and part of a skull' a year later, in another place, he discovered a thigh bone. From these he constructed a complete skeleton, what it looked like on the outside and what it had for breakfast. There you are! Proof positive! Incontravertible evidence! Or, in my view, really bad science fiction. You can see a picture on p.70 of Jelinek.

Contrary to the evolutionist "party line", His fraudulent drawings of the human embryo and "recapitulation theory" have been used in textbooks to mislead high school and college students to accept this myth. World famous evolutionist Stephen J. Gould commented that this practice of using Haeckel's fraudulent drawings and Recapitulation theories in current textbooks was a shameful practice.

In 1874 Distinguished German embryologist Wilhelm His, Sr. exposed Haeckel in great detail in his publication "Unsere Korperform". He concluded that Haeckel was dishonest and thereby "discredited from the ranks of trustworthy research scientists. It is noteworthy that this scholar prepared books on embryological development which are the foundation of all modern human embryology." (Ferrell p. 735). "

In1915, Haeckel's fraudulent charts were even more thoroughly exposed as the cheats they actually were. At Jena, the university where he taught, Haeckel was charged with fraud by five professors and convicted by a university court. His deceit was thoroughly exposed in Haeckel's Frauds and Forgeries (1915), a book by J. Assmuth and Ernest J. Hill (Ferrell, p. 735). When confronted with Stephen J. Gould's testimony concerning the use of Haeckel's fraudulent drawings Rintoul said "Gould died 9 years ago, What about textbooks now?" So it's alright that the evolutionists have been doing this for decades, it's just this minute that counts.

This brings us To Haeckel's religion magnum opus, The Riddle of the Universe. A book many rabid evolutionists have told me was never written. This is essentially a philosophical work written by a person with no training in that field and no understanding of how a system of thought goes together. In chapter 18 he asserts that his materialistic, Monism is the true religion, that the universe is somehow a unity of physical matter and that all psychological and spiritual things are rooted and grounded in matter. In the real world, one must believe in all sorts of non-material things, truth, duty, arithmetic, geometry, etc. However, I would like to have 100 pounds of love, 20 pounds of enthusiasm, 75 pounds of loyalty, etc. Where can I find this?

The blurb for this book published by Prometheus Books, a Radical Atheist propaganda mill, tells us: "This classic volume remains a tour de force of critical thought, free inquiry, and intellectual value." Once again I would like to see large quantities of these non-material things. But worse than this absurdity, even the absurdity that in contemporary Physics it is harder and harder to see matter as composed of anything material, is the problem of asserting the ontological significance of Logic. In evolutionist metaphysics the ability to reason is something that just cropped up like a tendency to have warts. There is no way, shape, or form which makes this ability NECESSARILY connected with reality. It is just a happenstance of of blind, irrational, quirky Nature.

The introduction credits Haeckel for his "fundamental biogenetic law of causal relationships, which claimed that the development of an organism reflects biological evolution, (In the now famous formula: Ontogeny recapitulates Phylogeny)." This is one of Haeckels biggest frauds.

In chapter 19 Haeckel purports to assert that there is some basis for ethical conduct in his religion when as a matter of fact there is not and cannot be. An empirical science can only report facts of observation such as John Doe repeatedly beats his wife, not whether this is a good thing or a bad thing. This is called Axiology, the branch of philosophy which deals with values as they relate to ethics, aesthetics, religion and metaphysics (there, I have once again used multi-syllabic words!).

As far as ethics is concerned a man who believes in arbitrarily murdering people he believes are living useless lives is not someone I wish to consult on this subject. "Haeckel at the age of 62, while his elderly wife lived at home with him, was in the midst of an almost daily love affair which he had continued for years with an unmarried woman 34 years younger. At the same time he was conducting his enthusiastic public lectures on recapitulation, using fraudulent charts which he prepared for his lectures and books (Ferrell, p. 736). Similiarly, Julian Huxley, when asked why he became an evolutionist replied that his generation wanted to have an excuse for sexual immorality.

Evolutionist ethics? It is to laugh! George Orwell got it right: "Think of an upturned human face and a boot stamping down on it forever!".

Bibliography

See my AC articles on Logic, Metaphysics, The Cosmological Argument, Ethics and The Uses of Atheistic Evolution.

Haeckel's Frauds and Forgeries, J. Assmuth

Permission For the Destruction of Life Unworthy of Life, Karl Binding and Alfred Hoche. This is the book which inspired Haeckel's program of mass murder for the elderly and other "undesirables". Pelosi tells us that "Old people shouldn't be obsessed with living a long time." Is she planning to help us out?

Why Scientists Accept Evolution, James T. Clark, Documents the fact that most scientists who accept evolution have made the statement that "I don't accept evolution because it's the best scientific explanation but because it's the only one that rules out the supernatural."

The End of Racism, D'nish D'Souza (points out that racism as well as evolution was a product of Enlightenment thinking)

Death By Liberalism, J. R. Dunn (The chapter on abortion is especially helpful. Mass murderer Carl Sagan used Fascist Ernst Haeckel's fraudulent drawings of the human embryo to justify this crime against humanity and get it enacted into what passes for Law these days.)

The Evolution Handbook, Vance Ferrell, A goldmine of information evolutionists are trying to suppress by forcibly denying any hint in the Public Schools that there is any viewpoint but theirs.

Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development, Sir Francis Galton, He explains that the religious significance of evolution is to teach us the moral responsibility of helping evolution along by sterilizing the unfit which ultimately becomes extermination.

Darwinism Under The Microscope, James P. Gills, et. al. Probes the "Darwinism vs. Design" debate. It shows that Darwinism is basically philosophy not science.

One Blood, Ken Ham (Points out that the Bible has always asserted the unity of the human race)

The Lie: Evolution, Ken Ham Excellent expose of the many frauds of the evolution myth.

The Evolution of Man, also The Riddle of the Universe, Ernst Haeckel

The Riddle of the Universe, Ernst Haeckel (This is the book many evolutionists deny was ever written)

The Pictorial Encyclopedia of The Evolution of Man, J. Jelinek (Shows most of the wishful thinking "primitive men" for which there is insufficient evidence. A marvelous work of science fantasy)

Pure Society: From Darwin to Hitler, Andre Pichot, more trenchant than Weikart in some ways.

The Tragic Sense of Life: And the Struggle Over Evolutionary Thought, Robert J. Richards (Contains the lie that Darwinism had no connection with Hitler's genocide and that vicious quasi-Fascist Haeckel was one of nature's noblemen.)

6 Modern Myths, About Christianity and Western Civilization, Philip J. Sampson, Liberals have more myths than the Greeks and Romans.

Darwin's Racists, Sharon Sebastian, Another book the evolutionists are afraid for you to see!

The Ideological Origins of Nazi Imperialism, Woodruff D. Smith

The Origins of Nazi Violence, Enzo Traverso, One of most trenchant works on the subject.

Hitler's Professors, Max Weinrich

Ideology of Death, John Weiss (Chapter 9 is especially helpful)

From Darwin to Hitler, Richard Weikart, A book no evolutionist wants you to read!

The Cambrian Explosion, Jack Wellman (AC article)

Icons of Evolution, Jonathon Wells

The Darwin Myth, Benjamin Wiker

The Decline of Poetry

There are many reasons for the decline of poetry, a somewhat paradoxical statement. There may be more poetry written today and it's easier to get published than ever before ( see the Poet's Market). However, the natural soil of poetry has been greatly eroded. Schools don't teach English, or if you like a very degraded form of it. Most high school graduates can't connect center with central. The classic book, The lost Tools of Learning by Dorothy L. Sayers, points out that schools no longer teach Grammar, Rhetoric and Logic. This shows up in recent translations of St. Augustine's Confessions. The Modern Library translation by Pusey reflects the fact that Augustine was a master of Rhetoric, recent translations show that the translators never heard of the subject: "Great art Thou, oh Lord, and greatly to be praised, great is Thy power and Thy wisdom , infinite, and Thee would man praise, he but a particle of Thy creation, man who bears about him the witness of his sin, the witness that, Thou, Oh Lord, resisteth the proud, yet would man praise Thee, he but a particle of Thy creation. Thou awakest us to delight in Thy praise for Thou madest us for Thyself and our hearts are restless till they find their rest in Thee." Read these opening lines, they are beautiful and poetic, powerful, passionate and transporting, rare qualities. n a man who was a philosopher!

The King James Version has been watered down because of people who don't know English, "thou" is personal," you" impersonal. In the 23rd Psalm, it starts with the declarative sentence about God: "The lord is my shepherd..." It moves on to shift gears to: "Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil for Thou art with me..." The shift from the impersonal to the personal subtly alludes to the the fact that in great personal tragedy and danger, David drew close to God as never before.But of course, psalms aren't poetry because they don't rhyme, right?

In the past, educators believed that "The formation of moral character." was the chief end of education. Indeed, without a moral compass people are blind to much of what Christians understand to be reality. "A disciplined mind and and a cultivated heart are elements of power." Horace Mann, the founder of Secularist education who also believed in basic morality in public education. A popular book in public schools was One Hundred and One Famous Poems. My grade school teachers read it to us. Much of this poetry was didactic, full of moral teaching. Consequently poets like Longfellow "Life is real, life is earnest and the grave is not its goal." are considered passe. Moral teaching is an intrusion into the proper methods of teaching which actually amount to "brainwashing". Contemporary teachers want their students "to Get" what they are dishing out without any logical analysis.

The insane obsession with originality has caused fanatical teachers to put down familiar old sayings as cliches which must be given the axe. Contra this, read Proverbs and Kipling's The Gods of the Copybook Headings. I also hope you would read some of my poetry and articles on poetry on Associated Content.

The wellsprings of poetry in the past have been a knowledge of Grammar, Rhetoric and Logic. Besides the obvious point of saying something according to correct rules, grammar teaches us to make plays on words and paradoxical statements. More important is rhetoric which teaches us such things as hyperbole, metaphor, simile and other devices of expression which go beyond bare, factual statements. Logic can be used to reveal absurdity. Lewis Caroll, a logician, is laughing at us for our sloppy, offhand statements as when one his strange characters tells Alice something absurd to put on a skinned knee. She responds by saying something else would be better. "I didn't say there was nothing better. I said there is nothing like it!" There you are! Get it right! Make accurate statements.

An elementary knowledge of semantics is also helpful, especially to the extent of seeing the difference between connotation and denotation, between telling a woman she has "a beautiful complexion " or "a lovely hide". Connotation can be very suggestive and evocative.

What is really important is that young people no longer grow up in a world saturated with serious poetry, history, good adventure fiction like Doyle's The White Company, folklore and fairy tales. There are no One Hundred and One Famous Poems, McGuffy Readers, folk poets like James Whitcomb Riley which everyone had been exposed to and for the most part had a good, underlying moral compass. This was even found in much of pulp fiction, comic books and radio drama. In the scientific field today, a la Richard Dawkins, their concept of education is "The Man With The Hoe" with technical training. "What to him are Plato and the swing of Pleiades, the long reaches of the peeks of song, the rift of dawn, the reddening of the rose?" He doesn't know the most elementary facts of English history. When evolutionists argue they tell you that eyes developed over millions of years. Eagles existed for 145 million years before they developed them. Prior to that, their nascent eyes had "other functions". Most interesting! When poetry is taught, it is more in the form of cutesy word plays, not anything that actually says anything significant. "Breathes there a man with soul so dead, Who never to himself hath said,This is my own my native land!" Yes indeed! There Are! They are teaching our children in grade school, high school and universities. People like Jane Fonda are the product. Teaching young people they are nothing but apes does not inspire great literature and the Liberal culture of death hasn't produced any.

Last of all, the reading of the Bible, which is the greatest literary influence in English and American literature and this, the greatest inspiration of all, is denigrated in public education. Huge sections of the Bible are poetry and what is not is often very poetic, the prodigal son and his waiting father, the good Samaritan, the serpent lifted up in the wilderness, the exodus from Egypt, etc.

I conclude with a beautiful, powerful black choir echoing in my ears: "When Israel was in Egypt land,. Let my people go! Oppressed so hard they could not stand. Let my people go. Go down, Moses, Way down to Egypt land, Tell ole Pharoah, Let my people go!" And behind this choir, I hear the longing of oppressed people down through the ages, the Russian peasants bought and sold with the land, the people of Jesus day comforted that their God thought that they were worth more than a pair of shoes, the slaves in Egypt, Babylon, Assyria, Greece and Rome, America, The British Empire, so many with the mark of the whip on their backs, crying out of the depths, longing to breathe free! And I hear the voice of Christ proclaiming "If the Son therefore shall make you free, you shall be free indeed." Jn. 8: 36. Such is the evocative power of a few lines of poetry!

Books to read:

One Hundred and One Famous Poems, Roy J. Cook, ed. (see all 15 five star reviews on Amazon)

101 Patriotic Poems, songs and speeches

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Favorite Poems, Dover Thrift Editions

The Lost Tools of Learning, Dorothy L. Sayers

The comments of this English teacher in a review on Amazon corroborate what I have been saying in this article. Please read the complete review.

Review of Poetic Medicine-- an English teacher's view, April 10, 2001

By Peggy Messerschmidt, College English Instructor

As a literature student, I stayed as far away from poetry as I could. It wasn't just that I preferred fiction Poetry made me feel "less than". I didn't get it, and all the terms were confusing.

Now, as an English teacher in a community college, I get a similar response from my own students, most of whom haven't read much poetry, find it difficult or overwhelming, and don't really see the point.

Happy Hiatus Week

This is the holiday of the Quiddites, a little known group, dear to the hearts of the PC Liberals.
They are the ones who might be terribly offended if Christians go about wish people a "Merry Christmas. Quiddites number about ten in every state in the union. Their sole purpose in life is to find something to be offended about something. Quiddites come out of the womb offended. This is a great time saver! They very much resemble Al Capp's student protest group in his L'lL Abner comic strip: S.W.I.N.E (Students Wildly Indignant about Nearly Everything). Their soulmates, the Quddites are highly offended by anything Christian and often Jewish and anything that looks like something "religious". Atheists are free to spout their fanatical, vitriolic hatred of everything Christian and civilized and that's OK, but Christians need to keep their religion to themselves. Tolerance is a one way street. All public expressions of Christianity must be stamped out. All sorts of public prayers in local, state and federal ceremonies which have been in place for 200 years or more must be watered down. A ruling, in 2005 by a federal, fascistic judge, pertaining to public prayer said that public prayer could not contain any doctrinal principles peculiar to that "sect". This was another Radical Liberal triumph of "freedom of speech", pinko style.

To keep up with the times and satisfy the Stalinista spirit of the ACLU, I offer this, simple, humble revision of The Lord's Prayer:
"Our whatever, which art somewhere or other, hallowed be Thy name so long as it isn't mentioned. Give us this day our daily bread, preferably from a liberal welfare state. And forgive us the trespass of thinking there are any trespasses, and deliver us from the evil of thinking anything is evil. For Thine, whoever you are, is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever, so long as the ACLU and the Quiddites approve. "

I wonder how many people see the absurdity of Judge William Hamilton's prayer ruling? He not only bans the name of Jesus Christ, but any content in the prayer that even suggests a Christian doctrine. Deists do not pray because their God is not a personal God; the same would apply to Confucians, Scientologists and the followers of many other religions. Thus, the very idea of prayer has theological implications. Of course Hamilton has made it clear that his strictures apply only to Christians. Are Jews to be forbidden to pray to the Lord God or Muslims from praying to Allah? Hamilton's ruling is inequitable and unjust, the opposite of what one would expect from a judge, a real judge, not a fascistic Liberal. We must remember I am referring to Indiana Democrats who walked out on our state legislature last session serving notice that they want a single party government run by their party.

Let's see; we Christians can't pray to our God, Jesus Christ, and the prayer can't have any Christian character. Isn't this like saying, "You can have all the electric razors you want so long as they don't have a head, a body, an electric cord, or batteries?" It's rather like dehydrated water; when you dehydrate it, there's nothing left. With rulings like this, it's not surprising that people see Liberalism as anti-rational, fascistic mysticism.

What we are supposed to understand is "Public Education". Eighty-four percent of the population is Christian, 90% percent believe in God, 10% or less believe in something else, Because of this, it is only fair that "Public Education" should be geared to satisfy the 10% and ignore the 90% who pay the biggest part of the tax bill for what they don't want.

The Quiddites are busy this season showing their offspring "How the Grinch Stole Christmas", the Grinch being the hero in their estimation. They like Dickens "A Christmas Carol", the tragic story of how a sound businessman became a drooling, sentimental weakling, poisoned by Victorian Morality. To balance this, they read their children Hitchen's God is not Great (because He tries to discourage murdering helpless babies).

But all this is not entirely the fault of Secularists. Christians have been foolish enough to sell their birthright for a mess of Liberal pottage. In the spirit of "Our Whatever..." we have Happy Holidays!" So let's look at holidays: there's the Aztect Revival, perhaps they have reverted to sacrificing their victims by cutting out their hearts and placing them, still bleeding, on the altar. Surely we would want them to be happy! Then there are the present day Druids, who still practice human and animal sacrifices. Surely they should be happy! Socialism, world wide, murders helpless babies (You don't have to call it murder). The Quiddites have Hiatus Week in the middle of Summer when they don't bitch about anything for a week. But they are just fictional! Yes, and so are most of the people we are supposed to be offending. But the important principle here is that when the minority dictates to the majority what can and cannot be done, we students of Government call that tyranny. And that is what this is all about. So MERRY CHRISTMAS to one and all! It's the reason for the season! And Tiny Tim says "God bless us every one!"

Footnotes
1. In November 2005, Hamilton drew headlines for ruling that because "the Establishment Clause was intended in large part to protect religious minorities from religious majorities who might try to harness the power and prestige of the government to advance their sincere religious beliefs", the Indiana state legislature is not permitted to begin its sessions with Christian prayers imploring conversion to Christianity or representing Christianity as the only true faith. He held that invocations that use names like Jesus Christ or Christian terms like savior are sectarian, but that names for God in other languages are permissible unless there is evidence that those words are used in order to advance or disparage a particular religion. ^{[ 13 ]} Hamilton concluded that using proselytizing words in invocations at the statehouse violated the United States Constitution. "All are free to pray as they wish in their own houses of worship or in other settings," Hamilton wrote. "Those who wish to participate in a practice of official prayer must be willing to stay within constitutional bounds." ^{[ 14 ] [ 15 ]} The ruling was overturned by the Seventh Circuit on the grounds that the taxpayers lacked standing. ^{[ 16 ]} Wikipedia article David Hamilton
Footnote 2

Revealing facts on the ACLU, from its own writings

by Diane Dew

Ever notice how the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) seems to take on only cases that are anti-Christian - pro-sodomy, pro-abortion, anti-family, pro-pornography, pro-prostitution, pro-euthanasia, pro-homosexual, pro-infanticide, pro-crime, pro-humanism, anti-God -- and, except for atheism, anti-religion?

It calls itself the American Civil Liberties Union, but the ACLU is not American; it is uncivil (to the unborn, which are shredded mercilessly to pieces without anesthetic); and it knows nothing of true liberty, which can only be found in Jesus Christ, when one is set free from the bondage of all the SIN this evil organization PROMOTES!

Stated Goals

The ACLU's founder, Roger Baldwin, stated: "We are for SOCIALISM, disarmament, and ultimately for abolishing the state itself... We seek the social ownership of property, the abolition of the propertied class, and the SOLE CONTROL of those who produce wealth. COMMUNISM is the goal." (Source: Trial and Error, by Geo. Grant)

Books to read:
Agenda: Grinding America Down, Curtis Bowers (Agenda is the most powerful expose of the communist, socialist, progressive attempt to take over America produced so far." Ted Baehr, Movieguide)
Coercing Virtue: The Worldwide Rule Of Judges, Robert H. Bork
Trial and Error, George Grant
So Help Me God, Judge Roy Moore
America's War on Christianity, Brad O'Leary
Growing Intolerance For Christianity in U.S., Baptist Banner, December 2011.
ACLU vs. America, Alan Sears
The New Persecuted, Antonio Socci

Besides this extensive documentation, there is my background. In the process of obtaining my doctorate in Philosophy I have studied Philosophy of Government, Comparative Religion, The History of Civilization and many other relevant subjects.

Ridiculous Aspects of Evolution

Edward J. Larson, in his book, The Theory of Evolution: A History of Controversy, tells us that in 1859 when Darwin's Origin of the Species came out, though evidence was considerably lacking, many people jumped on board believing that it would be found. We need to understand that evolutionists have been looking for it ever since. Evolution is based on blind, irrational faith in Atheism. As many evolutionists have stated "I don't believe in evolutionism because it's the best scientific theory but because it's the only one which leaves out the Supernatural." (Why Scientists Accept Evolution). Evolutionists, typically do not believe that any such thing as absolute truth exists. Christianity is based on Truth and evolution on Atheist fantasy. Such books written in defense of Christianity such as Evidence That Demands a Verdict, are dismissed with one liners not rational refutation. John Grove, is a man with no background and obviously lacking an education, some sort of technical training, perhaps, but no real education, had this to say about my arguments: "Let's look at your arguments:1. Please take a course in logic (red herring) 2. Learn how thinking is done (red herring)". What Grove is asserting is that neither Logic nor clear thinking has anything relevance to discussing evolution. This I certainly believe because I have never seen a logical argument for evolution. I have seen numerous ones based on logical fallacies such as Insufficient Evidence, one tooth or four fragments of bone from which evolutionist "experts" can deduce an entire skeleton, whether it was six foot four or four foot six, what it looked like on the outside, including hair and what it had for breakfast! Quite an amazing performance! As Aristotle said "One Swallow does not make a Summer." One tooth does not make a primitive man! However I have a challenge. Hey Grove! Let us extract one of your teeth. We'll turn it over to one of your Experts and see if he can reconstruct your skeleton, what you look like on the outside and what you have for breakfast! Sounds fair to me. How about it?

Grove goes on: "3. Also get a great big dose of intellectual honesty (red herring, rant) " This of course is unjustified on my part just because evolutionists have told lie after lie after lie. Nebraska Man And Piltdown Man were complete frauds, both doctored evidence and Insufficient Evidence. Political Fascist Ernst Haekel, instrumental in laying down the foundations of Nazi Germany, produced fraudulent drawings of the human embryo, used right down to the present day to huckster evolution to young people. Grove continues: "4. I am a teacher (red herring). I am a scientist, so what? Do you teach high school, college or a University? I have taught classes at many Universities. (this is irrelevant, Grove's teaching career is not under discussion here. Maybe instead of a teacher he's a purple penguin.).

5. If a student turned in a paper like your ravings, he would get an "F" (red herring, off topic)

6. He would also be told that he didn't know what he was talking about (Red herring, off topic, rant)" What Grove doesn't understand is that teaching is about standards. If a student doesn't correctly do an Arithmetic paper, he will be marked down for it. That is why we have grading. I have taught at schools where it was understood that there were right answers and wrong answers to questions, mainly because there is such a thing as truth. Whatever institutions Grove has taught in, apparently have no such standards. Post Modernist teachers are of the same persuasion as Grove. A question they cannot answer is "If there is no truth, what have you to teach that is worth learning?" But this is what I find so funny about Secular Humanism, There is no absolute truth but there are things that approximate it or approach it. There are no Booglegums but things that resemble them, do tell! It doesn't exist but there are things that resemble what doesn't exist. The real kicker is that there is no truth so that leaves them free to tell everybody, who's who, what's what and where everybody, except them, should get off! Interesting!

Grove continues: "7. how would you like to own a famous American landmark (Red herring, rant) 8. I think I could put you in touch with a fellow who would be glad to sell one to you for a fraction of it's appraised value (red herring, off topic)" Being intellectually challenged, Grove doesn't understand that if you believe in non-logical logic and that that there is no truth, you should be gullible enough to buy the Brooklyn Bridge. Oh! Well that's what he has done or it's equivalent!

Jeremy D. Pike, no background, no identity, no qualifications, he just pops up, says:
"I completely agree -- most Americans hold the belief that (at least) all men are created equal. But since this is a belief asserted on axiomatic grounds without scientific foundations, we know it is simply untrue; on the basis that it is not scientific" Most people assert this on the basis of Theistic belief. "We hold the truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal..." But what we should say is that Chemistry 101 proved, verified(?) that all men are created equal. In the real world, scientific ideas are verifiable not provable and pertain to things observable, repeatable and testable. Some of the best accredited Philosophers of science hold that scientific ideas are not true but merely useful!

One of the most ridiculous aspects of evolutionist's so called thinking is their denial of absolute Truth. This is what has made their ideas so popular with tyrants and oppressors. But to deny absolute truth is to assert an absolute truth which is also unprovable. The anti-metaphysical bias of evolutionist True Believers is another monumental irrationality. To deny that metaphysics has any relevance is to make a metaphysical assertion. Metaphysics concerns what you believe about the nature of God, Man and the Universe. Such opinions are inescapable and evolutionists have not escaped them, they hold a bunch of them unconsciously. The mark of an educated person is to know what you are doing when you are doing it. Evolutionists think they are doing science when they are really doing religion. Fanatical, irrational self-contradictory religion. They have more myths than the ancient Greeks.

Unlike most other religions, evolutionists deeply resent being called what their religion says they are. According to their religion, they, all people, are apes. Darwin referred to our "Simian ancestors", Simia is the Latin word for ape. Look up the word "primate", "human beings, Gorillas and Chimpanzees", apes! So why don't they go ape over being apes!

A Passover Plot

Aliens from Altair Four were visiting Earth. They were very much put off by what they perceived as the senseless ravings of Atheists like Richard Dawkins, Hitchens and others, so they contrived a plot, the Atheists were castigating God for "sending people to Hell", not letting everyone go to Heaven.

They decided to hatch a plot. They picked a dozen of them, Vicious Van Black, Dawson Delusional, Itchy Hitchy and nine others. As these individuals were walking down their various streets, someone slipped up on them and dropped a metal disk in their pocket. This enabled the matter transmitter to reference them and they were instantly transported to a wonderful place. There they were greeted by a friendly being clothed in shimmering light.

"Welcome, gentlemen! How fortunate you have passed over! Make yourselves at home!"

They were ushered over to a carriage and bidden to climb in for a tour. It was a carriage such as they had never seen. It had a sleek, almost streamlined appearance with rubber tires and shock absorbers which gave it a smooth cushiony ride. It was pulled by four splendid silvery white horses. The streets were paved with translucent gold which after thousands of years of use showed not a scratch. The buildings were fashioned with precious stones and metal much more wonderful than their earthly counterparts! There was a sea of shining crystaline beauty and a river of liquid Emerald which flowed past the throne of God. The Atheists became more and more restive. Whole legions of angels stood on the ground accompanied by redeemed saints of God pealing out "Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised!" while others soared through the air caroling "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God of Hosts!" The music was sweeter than the sweetest music ever heard on Earth! The air was filled with the most delicious odors which swirled about like breaths of Springtime! The sky was full of a raging, pulsating, golden fiery glow! The distilled essence of the Glory of God!

The Atheist crew grew more and more uncomfortable till they could stand it no longer! They began to scream.

"Take it away! Take it away! We'd rather be in Hell!"

The Angel of the Shining Light appeared immediately.

"Sorry you're so uncomfortable, gentlemen. We can't send you to Hell. You'll have to do that by yourself But we can send you back to where you came from!" He snapped his fingers and it was done!

The Atheists were confronted by the Altairians: "Hope you had a good time, we certainly did! By the way, the place you actually went to was like the holodeck of the starship, Enterprise in your Science Fiction story, Star Trek. We think it's so funny that you condemn God for not sending you to a place you couldn't stand to be in!

A Poet Ponders the Isms

Relativism has little appeal,

I have so few relatives!
Libertarianism
takes too many liberties.
Solipsism
lacks mass appeal.
Liberalism
fails to liberate.
Pragmatism
is too unpragmatic!
Utilitarianism
is so inutile.
Idealism
is less than ideal.
Nominalism
fills me with nameless horror!
Existentialism
deals with the nonexistent.
Evolution is really regressive!
Scientism
so unscientific!
Communism
destroys the community!
Scholasticism,
so scholarly and educational!
Creationism, so creative!
Intelligent design,
so completely intelligent!
Capitalism
is capital!
Conservatism
so worthy of conserving!

Previously published on Associated Content.
For more of my writings, click here.

What Is Education?

Lying and Cheating Were Once Considered Inconsistent with Education

Prior to 1900, practically every serious educator understood that the primary purpose of education was "the formation of moral character." American liberal arts colleges treated lying and cheating as completely inconsistent with being an educated person. Those caught doing this were generally expelled and seldom reinstated.

We Christians have the Word of God, which is eternal Truth, settled in heaven forever. By contrast, there is secular humanism, which asserts, "everything is relative," and "there is no absolute truth." Both statements are logical contradictions. If they are true they are also false.

For Christians, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom:"(Prov. 9:10) fear meaning awe and respect. The revealed truth of Scripture should be the first foundation of education. "Hear instruction, and be wise, and refuse it not."(Prov. 8:33) The Book of Proverbs is what particularly inspired the great flowering of universities in the twelfth century, which has carried down to the present day. Most universities, including the ones now dominated by secularists, were founded by Christians. They were part of the Christian cultural milieu. And as Christian influence declines the elements of genuine education evaporate. Morality and integrity are disappearing. History is conceived as propaganda a la 1984 and the evolution myth is misrepresented as science, which it is not and cannot be.

Logic is another bedrock of serious education. Only if the real is rational and the rational is real do we have a basis for knowledge and education. Logic is formalization of the way the human mind works. You cannot seriously deny that 2+2=4. One liberal student confronted with this replied petulantly: "2+2 is approximately 4!" How can you know something is approximately something without a standard?

Contrary to much popular opinion, morality is also a bedrock of education. Without it science becomes myth and history is mere propaganda. Everything becomes just a matter of opinion. The basic question is simply: "Is there any absolute truth?" If there isn't, there is not, of course, any relative or approximate truth. What resembles a Snark? If you don't know what it is, you can't tell if it approximates or resembles anything. Lewis Carroll had a lot of fun with fuzzy minded people. Those who deny the existence of absolute truth, and there are many, have nothing to teach. Western philosophy really got off the ground when Plato developed concepts of knowledge which were plausible and acceptable.

As for building on these foundations, this brings us to Dorothy L. Sayers' classic essay The Lost Tools of Learning, in which she asserts that schools need to get back to the medieval trivium of grammar, rhetoric and logic. If you have a firm grasp of these, you have a basis for tackling any subject.

The study of history is also an essentially Christian concern. Without history you do not know who you are or who God is. He is the Lord of history, who created the heavens and the earth and man; who called Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Moses; who is incarnate in Jesus Christ who died for us and our salvation; who has surrounded us with a cloud of witnesses, and who is coming again to wrap up history and to usher in a new heavens and a new earth.

Another dimension of history is cultural or social history. To understand any subject, we need to understand something about its development and its cultural milieu. Is Islam a religion of peace? 13 centuries of warfare deny this idea, as a reading of the Quaran will confirm. This brings up the fact that there is a moral obligation to be intelligent and not bear false witness.

You cannot understand American or English literature apart from the Bible and the histories of these countries. Literature represents the very soul of the people. This includes religious writings, such as the Bible, the Quaran, along with the writings of the Confucians, Hindus, and Buddhists, etc.

True education has a moral, a Biblical and a logical foundation. "Wisdom is the principle thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding." (Prov. 4:7) In this frantic, restless, secularized world, we can do nothing better than ponder the Book of Proverbs to find the answer to "what is education?"

This article was previously published on Associated Content.

For more of my writings, click here.

Logic: the Instrument of Knowledge

When I attended high school I heard many discussions and arguments in the classroom, in assemblies and in the Shortridge Senate. What bothered me most was that I would hear arguments on one side of an issue that sounded good and arguments on the other side, which also sounded good. To some extent, I realized I simply needed more information, but the question, which really concerned me, was, "How do you get to the bottom of a question?"

The answer was to be able to distinguish between sound arguments and fallacies. So when I attended Duke University, I took a good thorough course in logic. To my surprise, I discovered that most logical concepts are little more difficult than arithmetic. It is fairly simple to add up a column of figures and get the right answer. It is almost equally easy to spot logical fallacies and determine whether an argument is valid or not. Though Parmenides (515-440BC) and Plato (427-347BC) were important pioneers, it is Aristotle (384-322BC) who really established the science of logic. He articulated it as "The Organon" or the instrument of knowledge. So it was very widely understood until irrationalist 20th Century with its dissolution of the university and its anti-philosophical ideologies and just plain superstitions.

What is important to understand about logic can be dealt with briefly under three headings. First that "definition" is essential to a disciplined and intelligent discussion. One often finds such weasel words as "authoritarian" used by people. Does this mean "having genuine authority" or "a pretense to authority which is unjustified"? One thinks of Lewis Carroll, the logician who spent a lot of time laughing at our loose, sloppy ways of saying things in Alice in Wonderland and the Hunting of the Shark. Definition controls? Can one species evolve into another? First of all, what is a species? Socrates' tireless exposure of such sloppy thinking earned him the hemlock.

Second, the study and analysis of the syllogism is the key to understanding the heart of logic. This is the formalization of argument into a major premise, a minor premise and a conclusion. For example:
"All men are mortal.
Socrates is a man,
Therefore Socrates is mortal."
The validity (or falsity) of a conclusion is something we can know for sure. By changing the major premise or the minor premise we can invalidate the conclusion. "Aha! Socrates isn't a man, actually he's an angel" or "the men on Altair IV are just as human as we are but they are immortal." Well, if either of these propositions were true, it would invalidate the conclusion.

Significantly, people don't often speak in syllogisms but if you unpack what they say, you will find it. "Bob, your father told you to mow the lawn." One sentence. This translates into:
Your father told you to mow the lawn.
If you don't do it there will be bad consequences.
Therefore, to avoid the bad consequences, mow the lawn.
This is also like "Freeze!" which unpacks to:
If I move I'll be shot.
I don't want to be shot,
So I won't move.
People make these connections intuitively; the study of logic lays bare the underlying structure. Logic does for the mind, what time and motion studies do for the workplace.

Finally, there are anywhere from 40 to 115 logical fallacies. Usually, they have a technical name such as "the ad hominum fallacy" (attack the man). Sometimes they are expressed as popular designations, such as "mixing apples with oranges," "the tail wagging the dog," "the cart pulling the horse" and "the refusal to discuss"-- anything relevant to a topic that is embarrassing to one's position. And there are many more. Knowledge of these is like the tilt sign on a pinball machine. It almost instantly warns us that something is wrong. Logic can be considered a codification of intellectual honesty. One can say two plus two equals five, but no one can seriously believe it because it is intellectual dishonesty. Much of illogic is simply a form of denial, like the man who said "You'll never convince me that abortion is anything more than scraping some tissue from a woman's uterus," an assertion totally refuted by one glimpse of an ultrasound.

Society today is beginning to diverge into two cultures: on the one hand the emotional and irrational culture, which refuses to look at factual information contradicting their position; on the other, various forms of conservatism, which insist that the real is rational and the rational is real, that facts really count, and that objective moral principles are not just a matter of opinion.

It is interesting that there has been a revival of interest in the study of logic in schools and universities, inspired in part by Dorothy L. Sayer's essay, "The Lost Tools of Learning."

Source:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/6048828/The-Lost-Tools-of-Learning

Previously published on Associated Content.

For more writings on Truth, Philosophy and Metaphysics, click here.

Metaphysics: Building a Foundation

Metaphysics deals with the nature of God, Mankind and the Universe. If you are a living, breathing human being, you will have opinions about these things. This is the reason humans are incurably religious. Contrary to what Atheists often assert, not believing in God is just as much a religious belief as believing in Him. There are really very few real Atheists. Most who claim to be are actually in rebellion against the God they profess not to believe in, and angry with Him. So many are asserting in effect: "I don't believe in God and I hate Him!" I don't believe in the Tooth Fairy, but I don't hate her. How can you hate a being who does not exist?

Prior to Metaphysics, in systematic thinking, is Epistemology or theory of knowledge which deals with "Is there any absolute truth, what is it, how do we find it?" This is the foundation of all other thinking. If there is no absolute truth, there can be no other kind, neither relative truth nor approximate truth. Atheists are very fond of asserting "There is no absolute truth." But this is, itself, an absolute truth. Bertrand Russell, world famous Atheist, tried to save this absurdity by saying, in effect, there is a sort of a super category above ordinary statements of truth. This evasion doesn't save this intellectual bankruptcy. If there is no truth there is no truth by which you can establish or prove that there is no truth. It would make a lot more sense if these people who claim nothing can be known, since they know nothing, would simply shut up. That, of course will be an interesting day, indeed!

Without truth, or the possibility of truth, there is no basis for our metaphysical ideas or Ethics or Politics or Aesthetics. Many people including Liberals are fond of asserting all sorts of rights and ethical and social principles for which their metaphysical ideas provide no support. If people are only more highly developed apes and there is no God as their evolutionist metaphysics asserts, what intrinsic value is there for human life? We can see how this has played out in the Hitler and Soviet Union regimes. As one Communist official said when reproached for killing 1,000,000 people "What would you do with a herd of sick cattle?"

Atheist Metaphysics gets worse the more you look at it. The Atheist's evolutionist foundation is irrational, inconsistent and incoherent. But the worst thing about it is that they boast of their rationality and logical arguments without having any and if they did, there would be no basis for any connection with reality. Logic is based on the rational intuitions of the human mind. In Atheism, these intuitions are like everything else in evolution, accidental developments like an explosion in a boiler factory.

In Christian metaphysics, logic is an attribute of God who made man in His own image so there is a necessary connection between logic and ultimate reality. In Atheism, logic is just an accidental development like having warts or being green rather than brown. There is no necessary connection between these accidental things and ontology. The Big Bang theory is a typical example in which everything came out of nothing, and in fact, nothing is the cause of everything. If this were true, there would be neither unity, nor order, nor physical laws in the UNI-verse.

Science arose in the Western World because it was permeated with Christian metaphysical ideas without which the universe makes no sense. There is a lot being said about rights these days. But such concepts make no sense without a supporting Metaphysics. This is beautifully spelled out in the Declaration of Independence. "We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights." Let's do this with Atheism: "We hold these relative notions to be self-evident: That all men are animals, that they have no basis for rights because there is no God, only animal instincts and desires, some for freedom, some for tyranny, to be determined by who shouts the loudest and has the most guns."

Neither German Nazism or Russian Communism were able to create a civilization because there was no basis for genuine Law or Ethics. To them, Law and Ethics are just what anybody feels that they are. At a time when Christians have made great progress toward eliminating slavery, these Fascists reintroduced the worst slavery ever known in human history and government by sheer force and terror. The collapse of the Soviet Union, having killed 300 million people, demonstrated this inability. Where is the great literature, where is the great art, where is the great architecture, the great poetry, the great advancements in Law and Philosophy and Religion? The Soviet Union was culturally, completely bankrupt.

One of the problems of Metaphysics is that the average person tends to hold these suppositions unconsciously or semi consciously, People don't shoot their next door neighbors because in the back of their minds they understand that God forbids such murders in the Ten Commandments. It is the function of sound philosophical reasoning to raise people's conscious to understanding, these foundations of civilized thinking.

Previously published on Associated Content.

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What Is Ethics?

Many individuals do not have a system but a code - simply a list of things they will or won't do. But any serious thinker finds this inadequate.

Since ancient times, philosophers have analyzed these questions in depth. For instance, Epictetus the Stoic said, "Here is the beginning of philosophy; a recognition of the differing opinions among men, a search for their cause, and the discovery of a standard of judgment."

This takes us to the deepest question of ethics: "What should be done?" How does ethical conduct relate to reality? If there is no god, no ultimate reality, anything is permissible. When people do whatever comes into their heads, there are two alternatives: total chaos or extreme repression. The pragmatic dimension of ethics is simply that in order to function, work must be done, order must prevail or humanity will die.

Today there is a growing emphasis on multiculturalism, both within the United States, and to deal with the massive and continuing expansion of world trade and world markets. So we need to ask the ancient questions again, to understand the foundations of different religions and philosophies, and how they affect the thoughts and actions of peoples who follow them.

One way to deal with multicultural diversity is the natural law theory, which was first developed by the Romans, and which has been widely adapted and used by civilized peoples around the world for nearly two thousand years. In spite of their many religions and philosophies, most peoples, whether they're organized as a small tribe or a complex empire, have laws against stealing, murder, false testimony, and so forth. Thus, this theory says, it is possible to find common values and reach a basic consensus.

There is, as already stated, a pragmatic element to ethical thought, because actions do have consequences. Thus, when the church and state in seventeenth century France took a strong position against dueling, it was because dueling was so widespread that hundreds of their best soldiers were killing themselves fighting each other instead of an enemy. Dueling, in fact, was actually compromising France's military security. Thus, dueling was antisocial, unethical and a crime against the state.

In any event, one cannot operate on pure pragmatism alone, which deals only with what is useful, because what is useful is based on all sorts of overarching principles. Yet many of us live unconscious of the overarching principles guiding us. If man is just an ape, or an animal, killing people just because their existence is inconvenient makes a lot of sense. As one Communist administrator said when reproached for killing 100,000 people, "What would you do with a herd of sick cows?" However, if human beings are the children of God, and the creatures of the Creator, they have transcendent, intrinsic worth, which makes killing them a contradiction of the overarching principle of their value.

All ethical systems, in addition, tend to have a religious foundation of some sort. This is because men, unless they are held to a transcendent standard beyond themselves, will generally use any excuse they can think of to resolve ethical questions by brute force. The Nazis, the Communists, and the Ku Klux Klan, among others, all have used this approach; only the excuses have changed. Of course, even what men call a transcendent standard can backfire disastrously, as Islamic fundamentalism has proven again and again.

So we see that throughout all of human history, ethics or principles governing conduct have been a vital and important consideration in affairs of government, commerce, society, and relationships. It all comes down to finding objective standards for what is to be done, rather than operating from subjectivism and immoralism.

Previously published on Associated Content.

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What Is Truth?

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." (Gen. 1:1). Many preachers and theologians have broken this down into "In the beginning God"-"created"-"the heavens and the earth." For the Christian, for the genuine lover of truth, everything begins with God.

Here is a picture of man. What is he thinking? We can photograph his head, measure it, even detect brain waves emanating from it, but there is only one way of finding out what he thinks: to have him tell you.

What is the secret of the universe? Secular humanistic philosophers groping in the dark for meaning can never unlock this. Even the best reasoned arguments of rational, theistic philosophers cannot adequately deal with this. Only a revelation from the true and living God can answer this question. And in the Scriptures we have exactly this--the revelation of the mind of God.

Contrary to the Greek philosophers and the atheist humanists of today, St. Augustine held that to know the truth is not necessarily to do the truth, nor to be able to do the truth.

Between the emotions, the intellect and the will, the essential nature of man is the will. The doctrine of the primacy of the will helps us to understand why education must always be focused on the strengthening of character, first of all, and the development of the intellect, secondly. Love is not so much an emotion as a disposition of the will. Man is created so as to be oriented toward love--that is, to orient his being toward some principle, ultimately some person, with complete devotion. As St. Augustine says "Thou madest us for Thyself and our hearts are restless till they they find their rest in Thee!" Whether the true God or some other less worthy object, everyone has this sort of supreme object. Man is incurably religious. This gives him his presupositions, motivations, rationales and goal in life. There is no one without such a "faith" or whatever you want to call it.

No one believes in God unless he wills to, and no amount of persuasion can change an unwilling will. Since fallen man is essentially self-centered and his will has been impaired by the Fall, he will always will something other than the true God. He will love some sort of wish fulfillment fantasy more than truth. Only when he is touched by Divine Grace which changes his corrupt will can he truly love and worship God as the true center of his life.

There can be no severance of philosophy from theology--no genuine reasoning to faith but only from faith. Only from a rightly oriented will turned toward God, the Redeemer, can man discover Truth. Thus we come to St. Augustine's two formulas: "I believe in order to understand" and that theology and proper skeptical inquiry are "faith seeking understanding."

The same thing applies to virtue and good works; they are only such when they are motivated by the love of Christ; this is why good works, though a necessary sign of a Christian life, can never save anyone. If one is not already saved, that is, transformed by the Grace of God, one will not perform properly motivated works. In fact, without Christ, such things are merely "splendid vices". This emphasis of St. Augustine, thoroughly grounded in Scripture, was rediscovered by Martin Luther and the Protestant reformers. They did not originate this doctrine, but found it in the early Fathers such as Justin Martyr.

This brings us to the core of the Christian Gospel: "For God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life." (John 3:16). Not "whosoever performs good works should not perish but have everlasting life." When unbelievers open their hearts and receive Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, works flow from their renewed hearts as water from a pure spring.

At the end of his masterpiece The Confessions, St. Augustine prays for a godly peace, insisting that the wisdom he has long sought is to be found in one source only: God. There is no other teacher able to bring this precious knowledge to us: "What man will give any man the actual understanding of this? What angel will give it to an angel? From Thee must it be asked; in Thee must it be sought; at Thy door must one knock. Thus, will it be received; thus will it be found; thus, will Thy door be opened."

Previously published on Associated Content.

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Shih Tzu, Chinese Philosopher

[Bob is going to explain something from a variety of aphorisms.]

Shih Tzu was a brilliant Chinese poet and philosopher who lived in the 17th century. Early in his life he studied in Tibet and traveled to many places in search of wisdom and enlightenment including India. He held a position of great honor in the court of an emperor of the Manchu Dynasty. The Empress Dowager was his greatest patron. Details of his life are rather sketchy and exact dates are uncertain, little is known of his thinking beyond his classic work “The Book of Quietude” and a few poems. Most of this book is composed of aphorisms. His book, as everyone knows, is not to be confused with the occultic book of a similar title translated into Latin by Abdul Al Hazred in the 8th century.(Abdul Al Hazred, as everyone knows is famous, or infamous, as the translater of The Necronomicon, that compendium of evil, occultic lore. Al Hazred is also known as "the mad Arab", probably his evil occupation accounts for his madness.) Authentic manuscripts are very rare, and there is some question as to whether everything ascribed to Shih Tzu is truly his or the work of a later redactor. The following are his most quoted sayings:
Deception is deceptive. They are foolish indeed who imagine themselves
too wise to be taken in.
They shall become wise who bear the travail of wisdom!
No man comprehends truth but truth comprehends all.
Truth is mysterious, the mysterious is true.
The One is all and all is the One!
You cannot behold the same sunrise twice.
The world is a place of ever changing wonder!
The fate of empires rests with the improvement of the soul!
Know thyself and thou shall have the key to all knowledge,
but if thou know not thyself all worth knowing shall elude thee!
Know evil and good for the one gives definition to the other.
Beautiful women are pleasant to look upon
but beauty without wisdom and depth of soul
are vanity and a snare!
However pleasant thy surroundings
and thy barns and coffers full,
death will overtake thee!
Live wisely that thou may die in peace!
It was said of Han Shee “If he ever lost his mind he would not have missed it!”
After his death, his head was carefully examined by the hammer craftsmen.
It revolutionized their trade.
Three babbling baboons: See no truth, hear no truth, speak no truth.
The nobler and more perfect a thing is, the slower it is in arriving at maturity.
A woman matures at sixteen, a man may still be learning at seventy.
The path of wisdom leads ever upward to mountaintop vistas of beauty.
Ignorance and folly lead ever downward to murky depths of futility and despair.
Walk in thy own way and be filled with the fruits thereof!
Let thy thoughts be deep, thy speech scanty. Not all things true are suitable to be aired
in public. Keep thy own counsel. Give advice and hear it among trusted friends.
When people unknown to thee seek to draw thee out, ask what they think.
Come before those in reputation for wisdom as an empty pitcher before a full
fountain of knowledge.
Wise men learn more from fools than fools learn from wise men! .
The wise will know and understand!
Appearance often conceals reality
as quicksand appears to be solid ground
and the strength of flexibility appears to be weakness.
More things come to him who waits
than to him who vigorously pursues them.
Justice among men should begin
with those who so fervently claim to long for it!
To study wisdom is most commendable,
to practice it far more so!
They are wise indeed, who know what they are doing,
especially when they are doing it.
If men teach wisdom but do not practice it,
follow the wisdom, not the example.
He who is brought low by misfortune
may be a good guide to where the pitfalls lie.
We may learn much from him.
To be wise is good. To become intoxicated
by praise of thy wisdom may well be the cure of it.
Experience is a hard teacher. Alas!
Even the wisest have need of this instruction!
Fools will learn in no other, if even then!
A wise man’s steps are directed by what he understands,
the outcome is determined by what is true.
Learn to be thy own best friend and thy own best critic.
Truth is always true and will go right on being true,
in spite of what men think!
The king has power to silence all opposition,
but woe to him when his critics are right!
They are foolish indeed
who think that all powerful rulers
can do exactly as they please.
Wealth and power may be good in a measure,
but greater than this is the improvement of the soul
for virtue and wisdom do not come from wealth and power,
wealth and power come from virtue and wisdom, seek them first.
All things good are good in a measure.
It is wisdom, indeed, to know the measure!
Actions have consequences
and thy thoughts bear fruit for good or ill,
learn to choose well and seek ever to walk in the right path.
A measure of dross costs a measure of gold,
when fools attain the desire of their heart, it destroys them.
The wise betimes crawl into a corner to contemplate their foolishness
as an animal licks its wounds. Fools glory in their folly.
Women are like architecture: it’s nice to have splendid façade, but it’s what’s on the inside that really counts.
Fools who need advice most, seldom seek it, seldom take it.
Thou hast many acquaintances, few friends. Most are flatterers.
Real friends will draw thee off to the side,
risking offense, to tell thee your mistakes.
Power forces, authority wins assent.
Authority is born of dignity, worth and virtue.
Error shuts out the contrary.
Truth illumines everything.
The wise follow the path of light,
fools walk in their own way
and that way leads to destruction!
Fools characterize what is right, just and true
as a product of intolerance
while they force their folly on others!
The wise hear and understand.
Only the rod compels fools and then far from always!
Go to the light, walk in the light,
for without light there is only darkness
in which all deeds are dark.
Hate the evil, love the good,
establish justice that thy days may be long and fruitful!
Fail to teach a child respect and obedience
and you will fail to teach him anything else!
The first step to learning
is to realize thy ignorance.
Those wise in their own eyes
have no reason to accept instruction!
Who can take credit for wisdom?
It comes from listening, thinking,
experience and applying standards.
Which of these hast thou made?
The wise Ming Foo has observed:
"He who rides a tiger may fear to dismount.
We must one day account for foolish words
and foolish silences.
Men stand alone, baboons hunt in packs!

Of Knowledge and Wisdom

Youth imagines old men are fools.
Old men know the foolishness of youth for certain!
Much learning makes one know many things
and gives an awareness of vast ignorance.
Ignorance always exceeds knowledge.
The study of wisdom
makes us know that we are fools.
The wise Ming Foo observes:
To practice wisdom is like climbing a hill.
When the young men come into the room
to express their opinions,
the old men edge out the door.
It is wisdom to know what can be
known for certain, which is much,
and what cannot be known,
which is greater!
When I was young,
I thought five lifetimes
would be sufficient
to study all I wished to know.
In old age, ten would be better!
Alas, that suicides
cannot give over to methe years they are throwing away