Adair Institute

Promoting the Truth About the Puritans

2012-01-31T18:15:00.001-05:00

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.

Ernst Haekel, Important Founder of Nazi Germany

2012-01-31T10:53:00.001-05:00

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

2011-12-29T22:00:00.000-05:00

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

2011-12-29T21:53:00.002-05:00

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

2011-10-27T11:39:00.002-04:00

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

2011-10-08T13:52:00.005-04:00

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

2010-04-17T19:05:00.002-04:00

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?

2010-04-17T19:00:00.002-04:00

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.

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Logic: the Instrument of Knowledge

2010-04-17T18:50:00.003-04:00

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.

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Metaphysics: Building a Foundation

2010-04-17T18:42:00.002-04:00

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?

2010-04-17T18:36:00.002-04:00

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?

2010-04-17T18:28:00.003-04:00

"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

2007-12-01T12:40:00.003-05:00

[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

Words to Live By

2005-09-23T18:47:00.001-05:00

(Please check the bottom of all posts for new material.)

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Adair's Razor (apology to William of Occam)

Can this writer put two sentences together which do not contradict each other?
Liberals usually flunk this test.

Adair's Precept

There is no religious fanatic so fanatical as the one who thinks he is not religious.
This includes most evolutionists and Secular Humanists.

Adair's Law

What's the dumbest thing you can think of? Some Liberal guru or Liberal university professor will pontificate it. The science editor of The New York Times told us that "A rocket cannot work in space where there is no air for it to push against." Floating about in Liberal circles is the dictum "War never solves anything." Told that 2+2=4 is an example of an absolute truth, a Liberal college student responded very petulantly: "Two plus two is approximately four!" A liberal student has also proclaimed: "You're advocating censorship! You shouldn't be allowed to publish your book!" Robert Pennock has affirmed: "...supporters of intelligent design don't offer evidence to support their idea." - Only the universe, Pennock, too bad it slipped by you!

Adair's Test

Law is force. Government involves violence, not just coercion, but killing. One of the best ways of judging a political regime is to ask the questions 1."How many people have they had to kill to remain in power and to maintain order?" 2."How many have they killed for other reasons?" and 3."How many have they found a way to avoid killing?" Dictatorship A. executed 300 people last year and dictatorship B. executed 3,000. Dictatorships are not my concept of an ideal form of government, but some places it's the only option. The first one is probably executing criminals and revolutionaries, the second one is probably genuinely tyrannical. Ideologies can be evaluated in the same way. Nazism had perhaps 17 million victims, and American Liberalism has had nearly three times that many, while Communism is the all-time great mass-murdering ideology and, of course, State Socialism, is the least lethal of these murderous, fascist philosophies. Perhaps they are better called "anti-philosophies".

The Principle of Preaching

A speech on "The True Meaning of True Humanity" delivered by Adolph Hitler or a near clone like Margaret Sanger will create serious problems of credibility for many listeners.

Definitions:

Metaphysics 101

Metaphysics concerns what you think about God, Man and the Universe. If you are a living, breathing human being, you must have some sort of opinion about all three.
This is why Man is incurably religious.

American Liberalism

1. Fabian Socialism 2. A form of antirational, gnostic mysticism with a murderous, totalitarian political agenda.

Extreme, Marginal, Right Wing Fundamentalism

The 51% of the American population who believe in Creationism.

The Miniscule Middle

The 33% of Americans who believe in Theistic Evolution.

Mainstream America

The 8% or less who believe in atheistic Evolution and are the only ones whose opinions deserve to be heard.

True Democracy

The above 8% cramming their beliefs down everybody else's throat and taxing them out of their homes to pay for it.

Bigot

One who respects facts, logic and moral principle.

Reason

In Conservatism,logical thinking is coupled with the idea that beyond our noses lies something called "The real world". Knowledge of it is an asset to sound thinking. In the immortal words of John W. Campbell, Jr., "A person's actions are governed by what they understand to be the facts. The outcome is determined by the facts." Logic is based on the intuitions of the human mind. It is a codification of the way the mind works when it is working. But it is also a codification of intellectual honesty. No one can seriously believe that 2+2=6. In Liberalism "Reason" means whatever notions, dogmas, prejudices, half-baked ideas, or discredited 19th century scientific theories are kicking about in a particular Liberal's mental vacuum. This completely exhausts the category of "Reason". It also obviates the need for extensive study. Liberals already have all the answers at their fingertips. Within the metaphysical foundation of the Darwinian mythology there is no basis for logic having any authority. Logic is based the rational intuitios of the human mind which all came ito being by sheer happenstance like an explosion in a boiler factory. There is no necessary connection between these intuitions and reality. There is a logical argument for evolutionist mythology? So What! There is no more connection to reality than the mystic notions of a whirling Dervish! In Christian theology there is a necessary connection. Logic is an attribute of God, He created man in his own image which includes rationality, therefore there is a necessaary connection between logic and reality. Atheism in all its forms is: irrational, inconsistent and incoherant.

Evolutionist Scientific Objectivity

Evolutionists are commited to "naturalism", the doctrine that the universe can and must be interpreted without any reference to God or the the supernatural. Thus, evolutionist science is intrinsically atheistic. Atheism has been smuggled in through the back door, the crime of which they gleefully accuse the Creationists.
Whenever I read the writings of the evolutionists, I am reminded that "An honest man is the noblest work of God." One thinks of Francis Crick's guidline for evolutionists "Biologists must constantly keep in mind that what they see was not designed, but rather evolved." (What Mad Pursuit, p. 138). Such an aptly named volume! Bravo, Crick! A truly disciplined mind is never confused by the facts!
One fact that should never confuse us is that evolutionism is every bit as "religious" as Creationism and maybe a lot more so!

Another important principle is that "An educated person is one who knows what he is doing when he is doing it." Evolutionists are doing history without any knowledge of historiography, and they are doing philosophy without any background or education in this intellectually demanding discipline. They also fail to show the slightest proficiency in logical argument. Most evolutionists are trained in narrow, specialized tasks, so when they stray from their stamping ground they are like a sidehill badger pulled away from his hill. They simply do not have the intellectual tools for the task they have undertaken.

Bias

"Well, of course, since he's a Baptist he's biased!" This is an example of the too successful argument. Everyone has a bias, everyone has a point of view. Many people are so unconscious of their mental processes they are fooled by this dishonest rhetoric. I have many biases; 2+2=4, there is absolute truth, the real is rational and the rational is real, logic is a valid tool of analysis, etc., etc. Human thought when it occurs involves many basic assumptions. They are like the axioms of geometry;while they may be unprovable they can be verified and corroborated. Those of us who do not wish to make fools of ourselves, unlike the proponents of evolution, counterbalance our will to believe with these intellectual procedures. A similar sophistry is "That's just your interpretation!" Yes it is; after consulting the thermometer, after weighing it, after measuring it and applying logic, that's just my opinion.

Name Calling

This term is bandied about by many people today without any idea of what it means. If you call a man a thief to blacken his name, that is name calling. If you seriously think he has stolen something, that isn't.

The Right of the Minority

In the continuing brouhaha about the word "God" and similar expressions in the Pledge of Allegiance and invocations people seem to overlook the time honored solution hammered out in the Church/State conflicts of the Reformation: It is the right of the minority to withdraw, not to dictate to the majority. Such dictatorial tactics as in the Avon High School case are what most people consider tyranny. One member of the ICLU had the gall to accuse his opponents of "being sold out to power", while he was bludgeoning them into submission with the threat of federal intervention.

An Aphorism

I think of a woman, a fellow worker once, whom I had done something to hurt. I see her standing there, tears streaming down her cheeks. It reminds me of what a fool I am capable of being. Her image merges with Christ on the cross and I realize that I put Him there. It is a painful thing to confront our ignorance, our folly and our sin. But it is also purgative and, through God's Grace, healing. "They shall become wise who bear the pain of wisdom."

The First Circle

He awoke to see a pleasant, smiling face. “Congratulations, you made it.”

“Am I dead?”

“We prefer to say, ‘ You have passed over.’ Come I’ll show you your new quarters.” He was led to a rather comfortable apartment. One wall was lined with bookcases.

“There is, of course, no provision for food or sleeping. You will need neither. I will leave you now.”

John was pleased. He had always wanted to catch up on his reading. He sat down at the
desk provided and read and read, one book after another. John had been an engineer,
mostly concerned with various narrowly focused practical problems of building roads and bridges. He prided himself on having a good, logical mind.

He had always wanted to know more about evolution and was happy to see an abundance of writings about it. The most eminent writers were here: Darwin, Thomas Huxley, Julian and Aldous, Steven Hawking, Richard Dawkins, Francis Crick, Robert Pennock’s
The Tower of Babel, the brilliant, effervescent Barbara J. King, and Robert Hazen.

John was really stunned! He found page after page after page of the most ridiculous,
illogical arguments he could imagine He turned for relief to other books, but discovered that every book, whatever its subject area, was full of Liberal viewpoints, all equally irrational and self contradictory. He left his room, head spinning with angry confusion.

A few steps down the hall and the fellow who had ushered him in suddenly appeared before him.

“Is there a problem John?” he asked, smiling pleasantly.

“I’ll say there is! This stuff you provided me to read. It’s so irrational, so contradictory! It’s driving me crazy! If this is all there is to read, I’d rather be in Hell!”

The fellow immediately vanished in a swirl of sulphrous smoke, reappeard as a grinning demon and replied, “And where do you think you are?”

MORE APHORISMS

Youth has energy, age has experience.

Anyone can see the price, few the real value.

How blest we are surrounded by so many wiser than God.

Justice is what we wish upon our enemies and from which we seek to protect our friends and ourselves.

If you want a just society, try being just yourself.

Admiration is the homage we pay to those better than we are.

Youth believes many things not true and questions many that are, experience, hopefully, will reverse this.

God has given us a sense of humor partly so we can enjoy laughing at ourselves.

No one handles relativity so badly as a relativist.

There are none so dogmatic as those who denounce dogmatism.

There are none so intolerant as those who make a fetish of tolerance.

There are none so illiberal as liberals.

Knowledge puffs up, wisdom humbles.

PC Prayer

Regarding the ICLU lawsuit, the Indianapolis Star(10/21/05) captured the true democratic spirit of this group: "The ICLU seeks to force the House leadership...", "force" being the operative word. Sometimes a small group like this understands democracy better than the majority which may have quite different ideas.

Brian Bosma needs to learn that "The fear of the ICLU is the beginning of wisdom"!
In the spirit the laudable aims of this lobby I humbly suggest this PC rewording 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 aproves.

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.

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 tht people see Liberalism as anti-rational mysticism.

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. There is only one way of finding out: to have him tell you.

What is the secret of the universe? The vain babbling of irrational atheists can never unlock this. Even the best reasoned arguments of rational, theistic philosophers cannot adequatetly 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.

Against the Greek philosophers and against the atheist humanists of today, St. Augustine held that to know the truth is not necessarily to do the truth; in fact, 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 Divine Grace which changes his corrupt will can he truly love and worship God, 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 works; they are only such when they are motivated by the love of Christ; this is why works, though necessary to a Christian life can never save anyone. If they are not already saved, that is, transformed by the Grace of God, they cannot perform properly motivated works. In fact, without Christ, such things are "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). Oh that unbelievers would open their hearts and receive Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord!

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."

An Interview With An Angel

Greetings from New York City! It’s time for another scintillating session of A.W.O.L., a World of Liberation. Yes friends, ideas can be fun, they can liberate us from stodgy old
Notions and give us fresh, modern, trendy ones. Here is your favorite TV personality, Dhum Moeyer.
Thank you! In our studio today we have that wonderful, world famous, charismatic personality, loved by some, hated by others, none other than Satan himself. Mr. Satan,
Where are you? That’s funny, he was here a minute ago!
There is a blinding flash of light, Satan appears, ten feet tall, a giant angelic being, wings and all, shimmering in incandescent glory!
My word! What an entrance!
Isn’t it though!
In an instant, he vanishes and reappears as a suave, handsome man in a black, business suit. I think you will be more comfortable with this incarnation, Dhum. May I call you Dhum, Dhum?
Yes indeed! I must admit you are very impressive, sir! Tell me how did you get started in your unusual career?
It all began as a protest against dictatorship and tyranny. I was the world’s first freedom fighter. I have been cruelly misrepresented and misunderstood!
That is so sad! To think people would treat you so badly! They should give you your due.
Millions have doubted my existence. Unlike my Great Adversary, I don’t care if you believe in me, I only want you to follow my precepts. I want people to be free to fulfill the desires of their hearts and to realize that you can be good without any help or guidance from my Great Adversary.
Oh, yes I see, like in the Garden of Eden. You just made suggestions.
Some of the greatest thinkers in the world have advocated my views: Darwin, Nietzsche, Marx, Lenin, Stalin, John Dewey, Bertrand Russell, Machiavelli, Margaret Sanger, Pearl Buck, and of course, Adolf Hitler.
Hitler?
Yes Duhm. Adolph Hitler. Contrary to lying propaganda, my friend Hitler was a dedicated statesman, a kindly father figure, who only wanted to promote the freedom and well being of his people. This bushwah about the so-called “Holocaust” is nothing but a pack of lies promoted by Jews and Christians. The real problem in Germany was a rising tide of Jewish bigotry. Jews shamelessly protested being subjected to imaginary persecution. Fortunately, post-modern historians are beginning to get the public straightened out about this.
Isn’t modern scholarship wonderful! I envy contemporary students: they learn so many things we older folks never knew!
The same thing is happening in America today. The well-intentioned efforts of people like Sheila Seuse Kennedy, Dan Carpenter. Fran Quigley and other enlightened liberals to curb the undemocratic power of a Christian majority to practice their religion is being demonized as an attempt to wipe out Christianity. Make no mistake; Christian bigotry is on the rise!
Good heavens, how awful!
Please refrain from hate speech.
Oh! Excuse me.
This Fran Quigley seems like such a nice fellow! Reminds me of a bright, young S. S. officer I knew in Germany once. I deeply sympathize with Fran Quigley’s complaint about being demonized. I have been a victim of this foul practice for thousands of years. And believe me, I’ve gotten very tired of it!
I can understand. That’s what’s wrong with all conservatives! They just keep harping on the same old same old. No new ideas, they opposed the new morality, said it was just the old immorality! Boring!
Exactly! But to get on, you talked about giving me my due. I am an angel! Leader of a host of angels! We are proud of our skepticism and independent mindedness like your independent judiciary. Rebels with a cause, fighters for freedom! Why we actively took part in the French revolution. I am a born leader who has swayed millions with his charisma and rhetorical skill. I kneel to no one! I apologize to none! Calling me and my followers demons! For shame!
You’re message is so powerful! So compelling! So timely!
It is. Bigotry is an ugly thing! Christians can and must be made to see they are free to practice their religion so long as they keep it to themselves. The narrow minded, judgmental, bigoted extremists in their ranks must be condemned! They must stop dwelling on those isolated passages, a mere seven, which they interpret to condemn homosexuality. They can and must learn acceptance, tolerance and love of all!
Oh! That is so inspiring! So beautiful! Well sir I want to thank you for one of the most stimulating, enlightening interviews we’ve been privileged to present! To our viewers, Good night and remember, keep an open mind!

ETHICS
By
Dr. Robert O. Adair

WHAT IS ETHICS?

Ethics is a set of general principles designed to govern conduct, and is ultimately derived from a person’s understanding of the nature of reality. This understanding can be very abstract in the hands of professional philosophers, but it comes down to “What do you think of God, man and of the universe?” Ethics answers the question, “Based on what you think of God, man and the universe, how should you act or not act?” Everyone has ideas about this; another approach is to say that ethics deals with the way things should be done, while morals, by contrast, deals with what people actually do.

Various types of regulations are closely related to this. Someone once said that businesses have so many regulations because each one stems from a past problem. Each mishap led an executive to say, “We’ll never let THIS happen again,” and to come up with a rule to prevent just that. In other words, ethics is important, because actions as well as ideas have consequences.

But regulations have a weakness; each one can only cover one or a few situations. Thus, they can proliferate into blizzards of memos, lists, and handbooks, which tend to bury anyone who deals with them. Statute law has much the same problem. This is why ethical principles ideally are broad and overarching, as well as simple. For example, the Bible has its Ten Commandments, which can be further reduced to the two great commandments.

Many individuals do not have a system but a code - simply a list of things they will or won't do. But any serious thought find 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?" The liberal giant killer: "That's just your opinion!" is pathetically inadequate. How does ethical conduct relate to reality? If there is no god, no ultimate reality, anything is permissable. When people do whatever comes into thir 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.

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 through all of human history, ethics, or the way things should be done, has been vitally important, and is just as important today.

COMPASSION

A woman's right to murder her baby in the most brutal, inhuman way possible. Also known as "abortion right's" or a woman's "right to privacy".

BEHOLD THE MAN

In this vulture haunted "Place of the Skull"
see how He hangs in agony
by His nail-pierced hands.
The sun's eye hidden in shame
that these healing hands stretched out in love
should be so stretched out in hate
by those whose twisting of truth
is more cruel than the spear in His side
or the searing, twisting, torture of the cross,
and these healing, loving, gentle hands
blasphemed by the rusty,iron nails
tearing into the flesh.
And even these crude soldiers
whose foul, cursing mouths
dishonor their own heathen gods
as they cast lots for His one poor garment,
whose vinegar and gall was, at that,
a certain rough kindness,
even they would not call their work
an act of compassion.
Ecce Homo.
Behold the Man!
Risen triumphant and in agony
till he comes again.

The Puritans

2005-09-13T17:51:00.000-05:00

Puritan-a ntheame hated by Liberal ideologues. What does it mean? 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 Separatests, 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 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. 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 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 adress 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 Puritans, particularly the Presbyterians, 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 occassional 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 two classic books contrasting the American and the French revolutions.

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.

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 thePuritans 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". This was further developed by the Puritans. They conceived of marriage as a deep spiritual union of spirit and mind as well as body. The husband was acknowledged as head of the household but on the spiritual and often the intellectual level the Puritan wife thought of herself as his equal. "Souls have no sexes" preached Robert Bolton.

At the core of their 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.
Jonathan Edwards' wife wrote a beautiful book about their marriage. Ann Bradstreet had this to say about her marital relationship;

"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. "

Contemporary Evangelical Christians are the spiritual heirs of the Puritans.

They Preached Liberty

This book has an introductory essay and biographical sketches by Franklin P. Cole.
"Leave politics alone! Stick to the simple gospel!" This outcry from the Liberals and fuzzy minded evangelicals shows ignorance of the Bible and American history. This splended book, published by Liberty Press, now out of print, dispels these popular shiboleths. It is an anthology of quotations from New England ministers of the American War of Independence "on the subject of liberty: its source, nature, obligations, types, and blessings."

In the Election Sermons of Massachusetts. Connecticut and Vermont, the ministers expressed themselves on the subject of civil government. Two sermons were preached annually on general election day and on the artillery election day. Also on Thanksgiving or Fast Days or receiving news from abroad, the ministers spoke on political subjects.

"In his Election Sermon of 1772 before the Massachusetts council and House of Representatives, The Rev. Moses Parsons of Newbury Falls stated his conception of the duty of ministers: "Watchmen upon the wallsmust not hold their peace- they must cry and not spare, must reprove what is amiss, and warn when danger is approaching!" This is the great tradition in American preaching. Then as now, it was not always popular. "After William Gordon's sermon of December15, 1776, one of the "king's friends" ejaculated: "I most heartily wish, for the peace of America, that he and many others of his profession would confine themselves to gospel truths!" Tyranny had many friends in those days as well as now. Had the Liberals lived in those days, which side would they have been on?
From colonial times to the present it has always been considered the prerogative of ministers to express themselves on questions of public morality and government. Those who think otherwise are perhaps victims of educational malpractice. A member of the "now" generation encountered a sundial for the first time in his life. They explained to him that they could use it to tell time by the sun. His response was: "Wow! What will they think of next?" For liberals the world was created at six O'Clock this morning.
This book is not only informative but inspiring: "The Scriptures cannot be rightfully expounded without explaining them in a manner friendly to the cause of freedom...Unlimited submission and obedience is due to none but God alone. He has an absolute right to command; he alone has an uncontrollable sovereignty over us, because he alone is unchangeably good. He never will nor can require of us, consistent with his nature and attributes, anything which is not fit and reasonable. His commands are just and good. And to suppose that he has given to any particular set of men a power to require obedience to that which is unreasonable, cruel, and unjust, is robbing the Deity of his justice and goodness."
As we move into this new century, let us pray for a rebirth of liberty founde on thework of God!

Evolution: Unimpeachable, Flawless Science?

2005-08-24T17:38:00.000-05:00

Guest Article: Tracy A. Gray - Manufacturing Engineer and Writer

Someone has rightly observed that the essence of true science is measurement, observation, and repeatability. This is true. Clearly though, neither model of origins, creation or evolution, is scientific in this sense. We cannot go back and view our origins taking place. This does not mean, however, that their results cannot be observed and tested. In other words, we can define two models of origins and then make predictions as to what we should find if one is true. Though we cannot prove either theory, the model which best fits the observable data is the one most likely to be true.
Creationists are not saying the creation model is true because evolution cannot explain everything. They are saying that real, 0bservable scientific data fits the creation model better than evolution does. Teaching intelligent design alongside evolution is not an attempt to force "religious dogma" on others. Since when have archaeology, geology, biology, biochemistry, statistical probability and thermodynamics been matters of religious dogma? It is evidence from these fields of study that intelligent design advocates want brought to the science class. Yet proponents of evolution continue to pretend it is a religious issue. And the evolutionary theory alone continues to be taught as fact in schools without an argument being heard against it. Who is brainwashing whom here?
Some will cry: "But evolution is supported by a mountain of evidence! It is "established science!" Perhaps we should listen to evolutionists themselves. Regarding missing transitional forms evolutionist Steven M. Stanley writes: "The known fossil record fails to document a single example of phyletic evolution accomplishing a major morphologic transition...". Evolutionist Mark Ridley states: "In any case, no real evolutionist...uses the fossil record as evidence in favor of the theory of evolution as opposed to special creation." Regarding a lack of even a general evolutionary progression in the fossil record, evolutionist Stphen J. Gould writes: "I regard the failure to find a clear 'vector of progress' in life's history as the most puzzling fact of the fossil record...we have sought to impose a pattern that we hoped to find on a world that does not really display it." Regarding the fact that all things are degenerating over time (what science calls the law of entropy and the exact opposite of what one would expect if evolution were true), evolutionist Sydney Harris observes: "How can the forces of biological development and the forces of physical degeneration be operating at cross purposes?
Mathematician and physicist Sir Arthur Eddington warned: "If your theory is found to be against the law of entropy, I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to colapse in deepest humiliation." If space allowed, more quotes could show that pet theories such as vestigial (i. e. useless) organs and recapitulation (i. e. embryonic development displaying evolutionary progression) are considered outdated and worthless as evolutionary evidence even by evolutionists. Where then, is this great mountain of evidence for evolution? And why is it the only voice heard in our schools? Good question.
Evolutionist Colin Patterson, after studying evolution for twenty years, became frustrated by the lack of real evidence. He decided to pose a question to various groups of his evolutionist friends. The question? "Can you tell me any thing you know about evolution, any one thing, any one thing that is true?" He tried that question on the geology staff at the Field Museum of Natural History. The only answer he got was silence. He tried it on the members of the Evolutionary Morphology Seminar in the University of Chicago, a very prestigious body of evolutionists, and all he got there was a long silence. Then, finally, one person said: "Yes, I do know one thing - it ought not to be taught in high school!"
Couldn't have said it better!

Intelligent Design

2005-08-18T16:53:00.000-05:00

The editorial cartoon in The Indianapolis Star (8/11/05), demonstrates the abysmal ignorance of the Liberal mindset. It shows an evil creationist wolf in the sheep's clothing of "intelligent design" trying to get into a public school, thus depicting all creationists as evil, predatory creatures, and proving to anyone capable of thinking that Liberalism is a religion of hate like that of Arab terrorists. It also lends itself to all sorts of satirical possibilities. Are we to understand that anything intel

ligent is taboo in Liberal dominated schools? Do Liberals believe in unintelligent design? Are Liberals against all intelligence, or just an intelligence that's the uncaused cause? Does such an intelligence make them nervous, perhaps?
The concept of intelligent design permeates the history of Western thought. It is found in The Old Testament of the Jews: "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth His handiwork. Day unto day uttereth speach, and night unto night showeth knowledge. " (Ps. 19:1-2), and many other passages.
Many of the Presocratic Philosophers believed in a sort of deistic god because they understood the world to be a cosmos not a chaos, and that order demanded a principle of order behind it. Among these were the philosophers of the Milesian School, in the sixth century B.C. Nearly every philosopher of note from then to the present was some sort of theist because the order and unity of the universe seemed to require an intelligence to explain it. This includes Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Bonaventure, Thomas Aquinas, Kant and Hegel, as well as Thomas Jefferson, and most of the French Enlightenment philosophers. Jefferson planted flower seeds in his garden so they spelled out some words, then when they came up, he showed them to his children and asked them if this could just be an accident.
Intelligent design was not dreamed up yesterday by Christian fundamentalists; we are in excellent company!
The reason Liberals find all this so hateful is simply that Liberalism is a form of antirational, gnostic mysticism with a murderous, totalitarian political agenda.
Not wanting to end with the sad note of the gloomy doctrines of atheism, I think of many great hymns of the Christian faith such as All Things Bright and Beautiful, How Great Thou Art, and Joseph Addison's wonderful hymn:
"The spacious firmament on high, With all the blue ethereal sky,
And spangled heav'n, a shining frame their great Original proclaim ...
In reason's ear they all rejoice, and utter forth a glorious voice,
Forever singing as they shine: "The hand that made us is divine."

Pre-Evangelism

Years ago in Indiana a Wesleyan evangelist was conducting a revival in one of the poorest counties. It was so backwater, there wasn't even a village. He had his tent set up at a crossroads. He noticed a tremendous coldness in the response of the people.

By inquiring around, he discovered that the most successful farmer in the area had written a book critising the Bible. Everyone therabous had read his little book and no one ever contradicted it. This was very peculiar because it was one of the most ignorant books ever written against the Bible. It contained such arguments as how could the ark have landed on a mountain peak since it would be teetertotering back and forth.

The evangelist went out to this man's farm and talked with him. The farmer related to him that he had been put off by the over zealousness his wife's religious relatives. They had provoked him into writing this book.

The minister who had patiently heard him out said to the man: "Well, if it hadn't been for your wife's relatives, you would probably still be a church member today."

The farmer replied: "That's probably true."

"I'll tell you what I'm going to do", the evangelist said, "I'm going to answer all the objections in your book. I would like you to sit up there on the podium with me and hear me out. Is that fair enough?"

The farmer agreed. Probably no one had ever had the consideration to actually talk to him. He really was basically a fair and reasonable person.

So, that night, the evangelist did answer every one of his objections, the farmer even admitted that really had done so. After that, the revival picked up and many converts were made.

This is a good example of of pre-evangelism. The fact that nobody had ever challenged these wrong ideas formed a stumbling block to this evangelist's audience.

Christians have a responsibility to stand up and challenge false ideas and proclaim the truth where misunderstanding is likely to hinder accepting the Gospel.

Philosophies of Science

2005-07-07T17:00:00.015-05:00

One of the great mysteries is the cocksure certainty of intellectual superiority assumed by atheists and secularists. They are certain that science is superior to the Bible and that they can refute the Bible on the basis of science and Reason. "Reason" usually means the prejudices of atheistic Humanists. It has little to do with thinking logically. I think it's more fun than the Sunday crossword to try to figure out what all this means. First of all, we are told in tones of dogmatism so absolute as to make the medieval Popes turn green with envy "there are no absolutes" and "There is no absolute truth." Any sane person would wonder what they have left to talk about, but atheists and their compeers have no trouble blowing up a platform and then standing on it. When it comes to the area of science, without a Christian metaphysics to undergird it, we are left with nothing but inductive reasoning. This hardly constitutes the best knowledge we have. A whole generalization can be overthrown by the discovery of a single fact. For example:"All crows are black." This stood for several centuries until a species of white crows was discovered in Australia. This is referred to as "The Scandal of Empiricism". David Hume expounded the unsupportability of "Radical Empiricism". He pointed out that just because water has always boiled at 212 degrees a hundred times or a thousand times, it doesn't prove it did in the past or it will in the future. The same sort of problem exists for causality. Alfred North Whitehead , in his classic book Science and the Modern World, pointed out that science arose in the Western world because it was permeated with Christian metaphysics. Christians understood that an intelligent designer had created it and given it order because for the most part every- thing was governed by laws God had established. Many other scholars have also made this point. Are evolutionists against intelligent design because they are just against intelligence per se? Don't their anti-rational ravings prove the point? Only a Christian philosophy can supply us with a rational basis for science. When we get away from Christianity, science is seriously compromised. A case in point is the evolutionist myth which has produced nothing but racism and fascism.

Non-specialists eagerly transported the idea of biological evolution to other realms entirely: Julian Huxley and his ilk popularized "Social Darwinism" in interracial and international affairs, which led to racist eugenics, adopted in Nazism.

None of the atheist/secularist philosophies asserts that science is true. Thomas S. Kuhn in his influential book The Nature of Scientific Revolutions, argues that science is not made up of carefully consructed theories based on neutral fact , but is a contingent social activity. Scientists do not " know what the world is like." Their thinking is based on "world views" and especially "paradigms". These "provide models from which spring particular coherent traditions of scientific research." These "paradigms" may or may not be true.

Logical Positivism was developed by a group of anti-philosophers at the University of Vienna in the 192o's. The so called "Vienna Circle" held that philosophy does not produce propositions which are true or false; it merely clarifies the meaning of statements, showing some to be scientific, some to be mathematical and some to be nonsensical. The last of these includes most philosophical statements. In essence Logical Positivism denies all metaphysical ideas as having any meaning. This, of course, is a metaphysical idea, so of course, it too has no meaning. Logical Positivism is a quagmire of twisted reasoning, but if it is true, science is not.

Another popular view was Pragmatism, formulated by C. S. Pierce (1839-1914) and further developed by William James (1842-1910). It asserts that the meaning of any proposition can always be boiled down to the practical consequences which will issue from it in practical experience. Besides being a quagmire of logical absurdity, it clearly states that science is not true, it is merely useful .

These ideas were further developed as Operationalism by P. W. Bridgeman (1882-1969). It also states that all scientific ideas are not true. They are merely useful. This is the most popular view today. If this concept were vigorously applied evolutionism would only appeal to racist hatemongers and power-mad fascists.

Once again we have an unanswerable question for the evolutionists and the science worshippers: "Which of these four theories do you suscribe to?" Whichever one it is, you still have no basis for challenging the eternal, unchanging, revealed truth of the Bible.

Books to read:

The Limitations of Scientific Truth, Nigel Brush

The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Physical Science, E. A. Burtt

Science's Blind Spot, Cornelius G. Hunter

Natural Magicke, John Baptista Porta

Science and The Modern World, Alfred North Whitehead

1 2 3 45

What is Science?

Science arose in the Western world because it was permeated with Christian theology. This was pointed out by Alfred North Whitehead in his classic book Science and the Modern World. Numerous historical scholars have concurred with this analysis. The Eastern philosophies virtually all posited a universe which was always changing with no fixed physical laws. Nearly all the Greek philosophers believed in some sort of deity because this explained the order in the universe. Intelligent design is not an idea hatched by scheming fundamentalists just last week. It permeates the history of Western Philosophy. The Christian God very explicitly created the universe and governed it by fixed laws. There were indeed miracles; these were viewed as special, voluntary acts by an all wise, all powerful God. The concept of physical laws was unique. Furthermore, subsequent belief in physical law come into being on the basis of this a priori Christian doctrine, and afterwards was confirmed by empirical evidence. Another specifically Christian element was belief in logic as a true tool for analyzing empirical data. Understanding this makes us realize that scientific ideas cannot for the most part be proved but only verified. Scientists from the 16th century to the 19th century were also aware of the limitations of empiricism, as well as logical fallacies like “insufficient evidence”. The Christian influence was also evident in the emphasis on integrity and accuracy as well as the need to examine all the relevant evidence, not just that which supports some favored view.

Science properly so called is focused on phenomena which are observable, repeatable and capable of being tested. The emphasis on testing and experimentation is what raised science above the level of mere technology. The ancient Greeks came close to developing science but lacked the experimental method and an adequate metaphysical foundation.

Contemporary atheist/secularist science even more so lacks an adequate metaphysical foundation, and is either careless of sound logic or determinably anti-rational.

There are four popular views in this area. The positivism of Auguste Compte was based on social Darwinist mythology. He claimed that the development of human intelligence passed through three stages (1) the theological, (2) the metaphysical, (3) the scientific or “positive.” In the highest stage science abandons metaphysics and is concerned only with the relationship of phenomena to each other. Positivism is sort of like a mental pre-frontal lobotomy. It led to such just plain silly dictums as “Science is based on knowledge and religion is based on faith.” There is no knowledge without faith. The temperature in this room is 72 degrees. How do I know that? I believe that the expansion of mercury correlates with the rise and fall of level of heat in this room. Ah, but it doesn’t stop there, I also believe that that there are fixed, unchanging laws of the universe and that there are absolute truths such as 2 plus to is 4, yesterday, today and tomorrow. Comte’s disavowal of metaphysics is hopeless contradiction—not just one but a morass of contradiction—because if it is true it is also false. This anti-rationalism still underlies the murky thinking of atheist/secularism.

Just as bad is the doctrine of pragmatism propounded by William James. The essence of this idea is that scientific ideas are true insofar as they as can accomplish their intended result. Again it is anti-metaphysical to the extent it rules out objective standards of truth.

Probably the most popular view today on a conscious level is Operationalism. This is the doctrine that scientific ideas are not true, they are useful. For example, what is light? This metaphysical concept is not dealt with in science. For problems of science in optics light travels in a perfectly straight line, for other problems it travels in waves, for others it is a stream of particles and for still others a stream of particles that travels in waves. Pick your problem and pick your theory!

Finally there is the view expounded by Thomas Kuhn that science operates with paradigms, which may or may not be true. There are other more sophisticated views, such as Scientific Idealism and Scientific Realism, which also suffer from the same basic problems which undermine all scientific claims to truth, the inherent weakness of anything based on empirical evidence and the highly speculative nature of secularist metaphysical presuppositions. There is nothing in atheist/secularist science that can plausibly assert that their science is so crushingly correct that no other opinions have any right to be considered or even heard. They can’t refute the tooth fairy, let alone the Bible. And, despite decades of attempted brain washing less than 8% of the American population believes in evolution, while the number who believe in Creationism has risen from 42% to 51%. I, of course, see evolutionism as incredibly bad Science Fiction. Science properly so called must be undergirded by the Christian metaphysical foundation which brought it into being and without which it makes no sense. Whatever atheist/secular science is, we can know for sure it is not true!

Books to read

The Limitations of Scientific Truth, Nigel Brush

The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Physical Science, E. A. Burtt

Science's Blind Spot, Cornelius G. Hunter

Natural Magicke, John Baptista Porta

Science and The Modern World, Alfred North Whitehead

1 2 3 45

What I Learned From Arguing With Evolutionists

An honest man is the noblest work of God!
A lie is an abomination in the sight of the Lord and an ever ready help to Darwinians in time of need!
Never buy a used car from an evolutionist.
Everything I needed to know about evolution can be learned from Ann Coulter. (Godless)
Evolution is no substitute for rational thought or legitimate science.
Scratch an evolutionist and you’ll find a fascist.
Darwinian evolutionists are best described as "Babbling Baboons". This is not name calling, just accurate description. According to the evolution myth, people are just highly developed apes. This is a self fulfilling prophesy, because they are only animals, they are governed by their baser feelings and instincts, we see this in the appalling horrors of American Liberalism, Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia, where people are murdered by the tens of millions. As one Soviet administrator put it when reproached for killing 100,000 people: "What would you do with a herd of sick cattle?" Evolutionists are incapable of rational thought and Baboons are a particularly vicious form of ape which hunt in packs, the analogy is perfect!
There is not a single legitimate, rational argument to support evolution!
Evolution is the ground and pillar of Socialism in all its forms, no wonder the majority of scientists endorse it. They'd lose their jobs and possibly their heads if they didn't!
Evolutionists qualify for the cheapest funeral in the world. Wait till rigor mortise sets in, then screw them into the ground!

Frauds of Darwinian Evolution

There are many of these frauds, the so called primitive men especially. There have been many of these, 2o at least, often based on phoney, manufactured evidence, but worse than that, is the blatant disregard of the logical principle of "insufficient evidence". Darwinists have no respect for facts or logic. Within the framework of Darwinian metaphysics logic can have no ontological significance, it is another accident, having no intrinsic relationship to ultimate reality.

Another fraud is the use of Ernst Haeckel's fraudulent embryo drawings, used in biology textbooks right into this century, despite having been exposed by responsible scientists back in the 19th century. The babbling baboons, true believers in this pseudo-scientific religion(Heackel and T.H. Huxley admitted that's what it is, a religion), swear that they have not been used that way-but what has Darwinism got to do with truth? Despite being a well known fact they demand documentation, so I am compiling a list.

1. Bruce Alberts, Molecular Biology of the Cell, Third Edition, 2005
2. Alton Biggs, et al,Biology: 2. The Dymamics of Life, Glencoe/McGraw-Hill, 1998.
2. N. Campbell, et al, Biology: Exploring Life(Florida Teacher's Edition), 2006.
3. Douglas J. Futuyama, Evolutionary Biology, Third Edition, 1998.
4. Burt S. Gutman, Biology, 1999.
5. George B. Johnson, Biology: Visualizing Life, Annotated Teacher's Edition, 1998.
6. Kenneth R. Miller et al, Biology, Fifth Edition, 2000.
7. Peter H. Raven et al, Biology, Fifth Edition, 1999.
8. Joseph Raver, Biology: Patterns and Processes of Life, 2004.
8. William D. Schrader et al, Biology: The Study of Life, Seventh Edition, 1999.
9. Cicie Starr et al, Biology: The Unity and Diversity of Life, Tenth Edition, 1998.
10. Donald Voet et al, Biochemistry, Third Edition, 2004.
+++
+

You can bet that all these books in the third or seventh edition carried this fraud in the earlier editions too. Stephen J. Gould, one of the most famous Darwinian biologists, called Haeckel's embryo drawings "fraudulent", he wrote:"We do, I think, have the right to be astonished and ashamed by the century of mindless recycling that has led to the persistence of these drawings in a large number, if not a majority,of modern textbooks!" Despite lying protestations to the contrary, this recycling continues! Mass murderer Carl Sagan and others used Haeckel's fraudulent drawings to justify the murder of the unborn. he used the long discredited "recapitulation theory" to claim that in first trimester the embryo wasn't human so it was all right to kill it. Lies! fraud, the usual!
Another interesting book is The Illustrated Origin of the Species by Charles Darwin, Abridged & Illustrated by Richard E. Leakey, 1978. On page 213 Haeckel's fraudulent embryo drawing are used without any comment that they are fraudulent.
In addition to this, we have many other classic frauds: The Miller-Urey Experiment, Darwin's Tree of life(diagrams often take the place of arguments), Archaeopteryx, Peppered Moths and Four-Winged Fruit flies.

Books to read

Michael Behe, Darwin's Black Box, 2003.
The Lie: Evolution, Ken Ham, 1987.
Cornelius G. Hunter, Science's Blind Spot-The Unseen Religion of Scientific Naturalism, 2007.
Phillip W. Johnson, Darwin on trial,
Sir Arthur Keith, Evolution and Ethics, ("To see evolutionary measures and tribal morality being applied vigorously to the affairs of a great modern nation, we must turn again to Germany of 1942. We see Hitler devoutly convinced that evolution produces the only real basis for a national policy...") 1947.
Willy Ley, Exotic Zoology (The Sirrush of The Ishtar Gate,argues that the Ishtar Gate of Babylon proves that at least one living species of dragon-dinosaur was known to the Babylonians.), 1959.
David T. Moore, Five Lies of the Century, 1995.
Roger Patterson, Evolution Exposed, 2007.
Geoffrey Simmons, Billions of Missing Links,2007.
Woodruff D. Smith, The Ideological Origins of Nazi Imperialism, 1986.
_____________, What Darwin Didn't Know, 2004.
Tom Sutcliff, Why Evolution is a Fraud
Traverso, Enzo, The Origins of Nazi Violence, 2003.
Richard Weikart, From Darwin to Hitler
Max Weinreich, Hitler's Professors, 1999.
John Weiss, Ideology of Death, 1996.
Jonathon Wells, Icons of Evolution, 2002.
The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design, 2006.

Seven Questions No Evolutionist Can Answer

1. What is the mechanism of evolution? A clear unequivical answer is the only thing that could make this a scientific theory. Natural selection and mutation are nonsense answers.

2.If you are an evolutionist how can you deny being a racist? Racism is intrinsic to Darwinism.

3. If the earth is billions of years old, how can you account for the salinity of the ocean? Studies have shown that a uniform rate of salination would make the ocean only 7,000 years old.

4. How can you account for the fact that the classic layers of strata are not universally layed down in the same order? There is one place where they cover fossilized trees 100 feet tall, yet these layers are supposed to represent millions of years. Of course any introductory handbook on fossilization will tell you that fossilization rarely takes place in nature, so how did we get all these millions of fossils?

5. Why should any logical person want to accept the circular reasoning used to date strata? The fossils are used to date the strata and the strata are used to date the fossils.

6. what is the future of science if it is to be controlled by evolutionists with their selective appeal to evidence, their denial of the unity of the universe, their irrationality and complete lack of intellectual integrity?

7. Why are evolutionists deathly afraid to have all sides of the issue be presented, even calling in the government to silence all opposition?

Liberalism

Arguing with a Liberal
is just like an oldtime
horror story in Weird Tales or
Tales From the Crypt:
a rotting, resuscitated corpse
comes for you,
No! No! Get away!
You’re dead!
You put four shots into it,
it keeps coming!
Just like Liberals!
You refute
their arguments
time and again,
refute their lies
endlessly!
They just keep coming!
Goya was right,
the sleep of reason
produces monsters!
Dr. Robert O. Adair
gggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggutman,

The Witness of Atheism

2005-06-18T14:26:00.000-05:00

There is an old saying: "What you are speaks so loudly, I cannot hear what you are saying." This is the meaning of "witness". From time to time I have had it called to my attention that something I did revealed my attitude or my convictions.

One thinks of the story of a Chinese missionary. He was stung by the ridicule that Chinese converts were "rice Christians", that is, they just accepted Christ because the missionaries were giving away rice. Consequently, he set up two tents 500 feet apart; in one, they preached the gospel and in the other they gave away rice. One day as he was sitting in the rice tent, and a Chinese man came in. He asked the missionary: "Those people up the roach preaching, do they believe the same as you?" The missionary said: "Yes, I hope you will listen to them and come to know Jesus Christ as your savior." "Perhaps," he said, "but I would prefer to hear this message from one who so costlingly cares about me."

One thinks of the word "martyr" which means, "witness". I have always thought it was so moving that this word came to mean one who has sealed his testimony with his own blood-as so many millions of Christians have.

This brings us to the witness of atheism. What does atheism say about itself and what does it do that speaks louder than words?

First of all, atheism, and its clone agnosticism, says there is no truth. Ask any atheist you choose and you will be told, "There is no absolute truth-everything is relative." What this means is that atheists don't know anything. This simple unbelief, wrongly called "skepticism", is usually couched in the language of the Sophist found in Plato's Dialogues (circa 500 BC). From this unsupported dogma they usually proceed to assert or insinuate that since they don't know anything, neither can any one else. It is also fashionable in his or her circles to assert that anyone who claims to know anything is just being arrogant. Here we can readily see the self-contradictory nature of atheist statements. How can one know there is no truth and, if you don't know anything, how can you pass judgment on the claims of others? And, by the way, isn't this being judgmental. This is something they assure us in a no-no. Aren't all those taboos or no-nos judgmental?

The testimony of atheism is that atheists are incurably ignorant, irrational, inconsistent, and hypocritical. The atheist abandonment of truth cuts far more deeply than the ritualistic recitation of the formula "There are no absolutes, etc." Atheists have subverted public education. For example, John Dewey's version of pragmatism, called instrumentalism, asserts that "the consequences of practice was the true test of ideas." Like Dewey, William James, rejected "absolute categories of truth and value."

"Historians such as Frederick Jackson Turner, Charles A. Beard, and Carl L. Becker threw offÂthe historicism of the German scholar, Von Ranke, who called for a completely objective accounting of the past." One obvious question in the light of this material quoted from Gutek's history of education isn't based on truth, what have they got to sell? These relativist notions have come to dominate so-called education (better called government education) along with the notion there is no difference between right and wrong, the Ten Commandments are irrelevant and have no place in schools, as well as the evolutionist myth of human origins.

However repugnant these notions are to the general public, they are imposed regardless of opposition or appeals to fairness.

To recapitulate: the witness of atheism is not only irrationalism and inconsistency, but that atheism is by nature unjust, unfair and fascistic. This point was driven home by the Waco massacre. Whenever the subject of Christianity comes up, it usually triggers the knee jerk reaction: "What about the Inquisition?" Well, what about it? In the course or three centuries, three million people were killed. In a small percentage of cases, there might have been some justification, but probably, most of them were killed for political reasons. Significantly, when some of these geographical areas became Protestant and the people were exposed to the teaching of the Bible, they broke down and cried saying: "Oh if only we had known, we would not have cooperated with the Inquisition!" Just since 1973 (Roe vs. Wade) over 48 million helpless babies have been tortured and murdered-a striking kill record for the atheists. The crimes committed in the name of Christianity were not committed in the spirit of Christianity. But crimes committed in the name of atheism were also committed in the spirit of atheism. So what about the Inquisition? It was very inefficient compared to modern atheists who are the supreme mass murders in all of recorded history.

Joseph Stalin and Communism are unparalleled, but liberals are no slouches either. Abortion alone has killed more innocent human beings than all the wars, all the plagues and all the natural disasters in our history. There has never been a great philosopher who was an atheist. One scholar describes atheistic liberalism as "a form of anti-rational Gnostic mysticism with a totalitarian political agenda." This too is the witness of atheism.

Summing up, we can say the witness of atheism is: There is no truth so they don't know anything; they are self-contradictory, irrational, inconsistent and hypocritical. They have reduced history to propaganda and learning to utter foolishness; they are fascistic and the greatest killers of all time. The collapse of the Soviet Union proved one thing: you cannot build a civilization on a foundation of atheism.

I personally detest atheism, but every negative quality I perceive in them, they have witnessed to, they said it, they exemplified it, I didn't. I simply agree that they are exactly what they say they are. What does God say about this? "All those who hate Me love death." The witness of atheism confirms the Bible and moves me to pity for these poor, miserable lost souls.

The Failure of Atheism
by Robert O. Adair

Across the world, wherever atheist secularist governments are in control, the people long to be free. In the Soviet slave empire, which has recently collapsed, we see the most dramatic failure. Along with this, there is a conspiracy of silence in the corrupt, secular press concerning the powerful roll the Christians played in the demise of Communist power. One thinks of the slogan, "Scratch a liberal, you will find a Fascist."

Also, in communist China and Cuba and other communist countries, there is an evident longing for freedom, economic prosperity, and yes, even for spiritual freedom. Atheist materialism is not only a philosophical error, it violates the deep longing of the human heart. Even in European socialist countries there is a growing recognition that socialism is a gigantic mistake. These people are also attempting to gain freedom.

In the field of scientific thinking, opinion is moving against materialism and the evolution myth. Growing numbers are beginning to see Carl Sagan and Stephen J. Gould as hucksters for bankrupt ideas, not serious scientists. Above all, in the field of philosophers are increasingly either boring people to death or impressing them with the fact that if Russell, Ayer and the existentialists canÂt discover any truth, they have nothing to sell.

As a consequence, millions are seeking to escape from the toils of public education even at the university level. Indeed, the future belongs not to the brainwashed and intellectual cripples who are a product of public education, but to the escapees, especially the Christians. The abolition of public education supported by the legalized plunder of unlimited taxation is a key step to undercutting fascist tyranny. Without the ability to brainwash decent people, the forces of atheism will probably subside. After all, it is the atheist and secularist who are intent on murdering their own offspring. If they cannot control the children of others, they will die out. Once again, as in the days of the Roman Empire, the viability, the stability of Christian people and Christian institutions is key to genuine civilization.

But how sad for a person to turn from the dry water hole of atheism only to venerate Christianity for its vastly superior rationality or its contribution to human culture. What a pity to know all this and not to personally know the Lord Jesus Christ in the way of John Bunyan or Bernard of Clairvaux who wrote:
"Jesus, the very thought of Thee witseesweetness fills my breast; but
Sweeter far Thy face to se and in Thy presence rest."

One thinks of the famous passage in The Pilgrims Progress where Bunyan's character actually comes to faith in Christ:
"Then Christian was glad and lightsome, and said with a merry heart, 'He has given me rest by his sorrow, and life by his death.' Then he stood still a while to look and wonder, for it was very surprising to him that the sight of the Cross should thus ease him of his burden."

How simple and yet philosophically profound for someone to recognize that he personally is a sinner and worthy of death; and that he must personally acknowledge his sinful state so that he can fully appreciate and comprehend the words of the apostle John who said:
"For God so loved the world that he gave His only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." (John 3:16).

Ah! That the people would repent and believe the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ! That they would come out of darkness into the light of the glory of God!

What is Education?
by Robert O. Adair

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 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?"

The Organon
by Robert O. Adair Ph.D.

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 hominem fallacy" as well as popular designation such as "mixing apples with oranges,", "the tail wagging the dog," and "the refusal to discuss." 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 three, but no one can seriously believe it.

Society today is beginning to diverge into two cultures: on one hand there is Liberalism, which is an anti-rational Gnostic mysticism with a totalitarian political agenda. And there are various forms of conservatism, which still believe that the real is rational and the rational is real.

Forgotten Background of America's Founding

2005-06-18T14:25:00.000-05:00

Public education has sunk to such a low level that the most basic facts of America’s founding are unknown to the general public. For example, a recent letter in ‘The Indianapolis Star’ points out that Article VI of the Constitution says, “No religious test shall be required” of public office. The author of the letter goes on to give examples of what he thinks are religious tests. He cites a minister’s criticism of George Washington for not taking communion. But the expression “religious tests” meant one specific thing in 18th century America. It meant being required to sign a religious creed, ostensibly one so narrow and specific that only a member of a particular church group could sign it.

What the writer of this letter overlooks is, that most state constitution required that teachers believe in God and the Ten Commandments. No one saw any contradiction between this requirement and “no religious test.” Rightly understood, there isn’t any.

This is one of the evidences of the Puritan background of the American Revolution. They still remembered Archbishop Laud and the Great Ejection of 1662. Puritan ministers had been required to sign a creed, which was so High Church Anglican, none of them could possibly sign it with good conscience. Contrary to contemporary notions, this country was not founded by deists. Thomas Jefferson denied that he was one; possibly, he was closer to being a Unitarian. Only three of the 56 signers of the Constitution were deists. Deism was so unpopular that after the Revolution, many places had laws against deists being eligible for public office. Generally overlooked, is the obvious fact that whoever signed the Constitution; they were men representing the American people and not themselves.

The Declaration of Independence contains passages completely inconsistent with deistic theology. This applies even more so to that neglected massive body of evidence, the preambles of the Constitutions of the 13 colonies:
“ We,…the people of Massachusetts, acknowledging with grateful hearts, the goodness of the great Legislator of the universe, in affording us, in the course of His providence an opportunity, for forming a new Constitution….”

Virtually, all of the subsequent state Constitutions similarly acknowledged Almighty God and quite often referred in no uncertain terms, to His providence. This material is completely contrary both to deism and to the ACLU and other secularists’ notions.

This brings us to the myth of “the wall of separation between church and state.” There is no such language in the Constitution. The expression “separation of church and state” is found in a letter by Jefferson assuring Baptist ministers that the sort of intrusive, totalitarian government currently favored by liberals would not oppress them. Indeed, contemporary notions of church/ state relations strongly resemble Russian Communist ideas. They are quite foreign to any legitimately traditional American notions of “the wall of separation between church and state.”
One liberal oracle which also appeared in ‘The Indianapolis Star’ tell us “separation of church and state is something…expressly stated in our Constitution to inhibit religion in any form from dictating how Americans choose to live.” Returning to the Massachusetts State Constitution:
“It is the right, as well as the duty, of all men in society publicly, and at stated seasons, to worship the Supreme Being…As the happiness of a people and the good order and preservation of civil government essentially depends upon piety, religion, and morality…the people of this commonwealth have a right to invest their legislature with power to authorize and require…the several towns…to make suitable provision….for this institution for the public worship of God and for the support…of public Protestant teachers….”

While we have quoted from the Massachusetts State Constitution, many other state Constitutions had similar provisions. Until 1830, the state of Massachusetts had an established church, in that year, it voluntarily disbanded and no one ever thought its existence contrary to the US Constitution.

Another massive refutation of the contemporary church/ state myth is the Supreme Court decision of 1892 stating, “This is a religious nation.” Many people have at least heard of this but it repays careful study. It is very cogently reasoned and supported by undeniable evidence; to quote only one of the Founding Fathers, Thomas Jefferson: “The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time…Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that those liberties are the gift of God?”

America's Founding

2005-06-18T13:55:00.000-05:00

“When will people learn that this country was founded by Deists?” Proclaimed a sneering secularist in a letter to the Indianapolis Star a few months ago. This misconception is very widespread today. An article in MacGregor’s Dictionary of Religion and Philosophy says, “Deistic attitudes…might be said to be characteristic of a majority of the signatories of the American Declaration of Independence.” One can only imagine that history teaching in the public schools is nearly identical to ‘The Ministry of Truth” in Orwell’s novel, 1984.

Christians founded this country, in reality. How can we know this for sure? Deism is the doctrine that God created the universe and went off and left it to function like a great, clockwork mechanism. In Deism, there is no personal God, no revealed religion, no prayer, and no providence.

Of the 55 delegates to the Constitutional Convention, only 3 claimed to be Deists. There is a serious doubt about the consistency of their stated philosophy, especially later in their lives. Deism was so unpopular that many places had laws against Deists holding public office. Noah Webster published a 60-page sermon denouncing the French Revolution and Deism. The Great Awaking, the religious revival of the 1740’s, particularly helped to undercut the spread of Deism, especially in the colonies.

John Hancock and all 55 delegates signed the Declaration of Independence. Governor Bradford listed the delegates as follows:

28 Episcopalians,
8 Presbyterians,
7 Congregationalists,
2 Lutherans,
2 Dutch Reformed,
2 Methodists,
2 Roman Catholics,
3 Deists.

There was one whose preference is unknown to historians. This makes roughly 5 ½ percent so-called Deist signers. One needs to remember, whoever signed this document, they were there to represent the American people, not themselves.
The three so-called Deists were Hugh Williamson of North Carolina, James Wilson of Pennsylvania, and Benjamin Franklin also of Pennsylvania. All three had studied for the ministry. Williamson was licensed by the Presbyterian Church and had conducted church services. Strict Calvinist parents raised James Wilson. He was buried in an Episcopal churchyard and had his children baptized in that Episcopal Church. In his law lectures at the College of Philadelphia, he declared, over and over, that law comes from God. He recognized law promulgated by reason and the moral sense, or natural law. He also referred to law promulgated by the Holy Scriptures and called Revealed Law. His recognition of revealed law is inconsistent with Deism. He also said that we discover the will of God “by our conscience, by our reason, and by the Holy Scriptures.”
People today are so brainwashed by secular thinking, they seldom ask the critical question, “What is the theology of the Declaration of Independence?” It clearly refers to people being “endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights…” It speaks of “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God.” Blackstone and Locke used this expression some time prior to the writing of the Declaration. Contrary to popular conception, this is not the language of Deism. To properly grammatically construe this phrase, we must realize it refers to the “Laws…of Nature’s God.” This is not something derived from observation. The only way we can know this is through Revelation. The Declaration also refers to”….a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence.” Whoever signed it, this is a Christian statement, not a Deistic one. Even the simple statement: “In God we trust” on our currency is contrary to Deistic thinking.
One massive body of evidence generally ignored is the various preambles to the state constitutions, particularly the original 13 colonies, but even most of the later preambles right down to the 1890”s. They invariably make some reference to being grateful to God and trusting to His providence. One can scarcely be grateful to the God of Deism any more than you can be grateful to a giant iceberg for being incredibly cold. Along the same lines of misconception, the philosopher, John Locke (1632-1704) is proclaimed as the principal source of ideas for the American Revolution. This again, involves several distortions. By describing him as a philosopher, they seek to imply that he was not a religious person, and if he had any religion, it was probably Deism. This is simply not true. Locke grew up in a Puritan family. He was the son of a Calvinist lawyer who fought on the side of the Puritans in the English Civil War. He was a staunch and fervent Christian. The very notion of “separation of powers” which he helped to build into American constitutional thinking is founded on the Christian doctrine of the sinfulness of humanity. Original Sin was also not a doctrine strongly believed in by the Deists.
In addition to this, there were many influential people involved in the ferment of thinking which led to the writing of the Constitution. Locke was only one of them. Indeed, in some ways, he appealed to Puritans as representing a sort of lowest common denominator statement of their ideals. Of very great importance were numerous Puritan preachers, especially in New England whose names are seldom mentioned today. This included John Witherspoon, Samuel West, Jonathan Mayhew, Abraham Williams, and John Tucker, The three denominations most involved in this were Presbyterians, the Congregationalists, and the Baptists, The British name for the Revolution was “The Presbyterian Rebellion.”

The American Revolution was, in many respects, a continuation of the English Civil War. That war and its aftermath, led to several important works, among them Samuel Rutherford’s Lex Rex, Algernon Sidney’s Discourse on Government, and the Vindiciae Contra Tyrranos. Underlying this was the work of John Calvin and John Knox. In addition to this, various writers including Montesquieu’s The Spirit of the Laws, Blackstone’s Commentaries, and even Grotius’ The Law of War and Peace played a part in this milieu.
Virtually, all the founding fathers at one time or another made very strong statements to the effect that this is a Christian nation. At the great Constitutional Convention it was Benjamin Franklin, the so-called Deist, who called for prayer, declaring in ringing tones that, “God governs in the affairs of men.”

Was America Founded as a Christian Nation?

There is such a massive body of evidence concerning America's Christian founding one scarcely knows where to begin. The enemies of Christianity are fond of making assertions as absurd as "There is no sand in the Sahara Desert!" Then they demand that to prove it you should document each grain.
One particular document often cited is the Treaty of Tripoli. It is claimed Washington signed this treaty and that article 11 declares: "...the government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion,-- as it has in itself no character of enmity aginst the law, religion or tranquility of Musselmen."
The treaty was negotiated in 1796 between U.S. officials and the Dey of Tripoli and the Dey of Algiers to secure safe passage for American ships through the waters near the Barbary coast of North Africa. The copy of the treaty currently in circulation bearing Washington's signature is a fraud. Washington never signed this teaty. It never reached the president's desk until after March, 1797, when John Adams was president. The Senate approved it on June 7, 1797, and presidentAdams signed it on June 10th of that year. Washington had nothing to do with it. The real treaty does not contain thoe words.
George Washington is another important figure in Americas founding often characterized as a Deist. However we have many statements showing his religious views., both as as statesman and as a person. For example, the first proclamation of a national day of thanksgiving, October 3, 1789: "Whereas, it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, humbly to implore His protection and favor...that we might then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and ruler of Nations, and beseech him to pardon our national and other transgressions; to enable us all, whether in in public or private stations,to perform our several and relative duties...to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue,...and, generally, to to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as He alone knows to be best."
Washington believed that good government is a blessing from God. Nations ,that is, governments, should acknowledge and pray to God, and nations should seek forgiveness from God both for national transgressions as well as individual trans gressions. This is not the faith of a Deist and this proclamation certainly shows the marks of a Christian nation, not a secular one.
Virtually all of the founders of this country believed that the constitution would only work if America continued to have a strong religious faith. John Adams believed the French Revolution was doomed to failure because French immorality could not sustain a free nation. He said: "Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other." In another place he said that America must sustain moral qualities to remain free: "There must be a positive passion for the public good, the public interest, honor, power and glory, established in the minds of people or there can be no Republican government, nor any real liberty;..." John Adams believed that Christianity must be thecornerstone of Republican government. His biographer, Page Smith, says that he : "showed in many ways an extroadinary consistency throughout his life. In his fundamental convictions - the moral basis of life, the need for religion, the authority of a Devine Being, the necessity of balance and refinement in government, his orthodox view of the nature of original sin, his veneration for the law, his belief in the civilized as opposed to the "natural" man - in all these, he was remarkably steadfast. Insights achieved in his early twenties remained with him to his death almost threequarters of a century later;..."
It is a pity there is not space to quote more of the founders`of this country. The fact that so many of them were ministers of the Gospel speaks for itself. Yes, America founded as a Christian nation, a fact proved by the strong Christian assertions of their founders.
Turning for a moment to Thomas Jefferson, the alleged Deist, Jefferson clearly believed that this was a Christian nation and that the constitution would only work if it remained one:"Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are...the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with his wrath?" Jefferson clearly, while not an orthodox Christian, was certainly not a Deist and firmly believed this was a Christian nation subject to the judgments of God.
In conclusion, we must look briefly at the preambles of the state constitutions, virtually all of which revealed the Christian charater of the American people. As late as 1892 the preambles of all 44 states continued to reflect this character.
Starting with Delaware, The first state: "Through Divine goodness, all men by nature have the rights of worshipping and serving their Creator..." Pennsylvania "...grateful to Almighty God for the blessings of civil and religious liberty, and humbly invoking His guidance,..." New Jersey "...grateful to Almighty God for the civil and religious liberty which He hath so long permitted us to enjoy and looking to Him for a blessing upon our endeavors..." Georgia "...relying upon the protection and guidance of Almighty God..." Connecticut "acknowledging wth gratitude, the good providence of God,..." Massachusetts "...acknowledging with grateful hearts the goodness of the great Legislator of the universe, in affording us in the course of His providence,...a new constitution of civil government...devoutly imploring His direction..." Maryland "...grateful to Almighty God for our civil and religious liberty,..." South Carolina "...grateful to God for our liberties..."
Continuing in the order of admission with New Hampshire, the 9th state, we can see that some of these preambles did not stop with simply a passing reference to Almighty God or His providence but very theological indeed: "...morality and piety, rightly grounded on evangelical principles, will give the best and greatest security to government, and will lay, in the hearts of men, the stongest obligations to to due subjection; and the knowledge of these as most likely to be propogated through society by the institution of thepublic worship of the Deity." Virginia, the 10th state, sets forth a philosophy of tolerationw which, nevertheless, is Christian. It begins with: "That religion or the duty which we owe to our Creator, and the manner of discharging of it,...it is the mutual duty of all to practice Christian forbearance, love and charity toward each other." New York, the 11th state "...grateful to Almighty God for our freedom..." North Carolina "...grateful to Almighty God, the Sovereign Ruler of Nations...acknowledging our dependence upon Him for the continuance of these blessings to us and our posterity,..." Rhode Island "...grateful to Almighty God...looking to Him for a blessing upon our endeavors..." Vermont once again goes into an elaborite theory of toleration which is, nevertheless, definitly Christian, and by no means a Deistic statement It acknowledges: "Almighty God" and that "every sect...of Christians ought to observe the Sabbath or Lord's day, and keep up some sort of religious worship, which to them shall seem most agreable to the revealed will of God."
This takes us through the first 14 states. Virtually all the rest of the preambles down to Arizona, the 48th state, which says "...grateful to Almighty God for our liberties,..." reflect this sort of language. This should prove to any reasonable person the Christian character not only of the founding of this nation but in its continuing history.

A Defence of Poetry

2005-06-17T16:20:00.000-05:00

A Defense of Poetry 1.

The editor of a new, supposedly Christian newspaper, tells us “please don’t send us more bad poetry.” This is his idea of a clever remark. I can hear him chuckling. Unfortunately, this reflects an attitude all too common among Christians and more genuinely Christian publications.

One thinks of Sir Phillip Sidney’s A Defense of Poesie. This deals not only with poetry but all imaginative literature. One of his arguments is that the first great works of science, philosophy, history, and even law were poems. Both the Italian and the English languages were polished and perfected by their poets such as Dante and Chaucer. Even Plato illuminated his philosophy with myths and drama.

Both the Jews and the Romans, accorded high distinction to the poets considering them prophets or messengers of the gods. The Greeks also esteemed poets who alone
could rise above this world to make a golden one.

Sidney tells us that the aim of poetry is “to lead and draw us to as high perfection as our degenerate souls—can be capable of.” Poetry can combine the worth of moral philosophy defining virtue and vice with the concrete examples of the historian. The poet can go beyond metaphysical abstractions to demonstrate wisdom personified in human characters. The poet can show evil punished and good rewarded. Sidney’s essay merits thoughtful reading and reflection by serious poets.

Back in civilized times, educators used to say that logic trains the mind, poetry trains the emotions, because it exposes the student to the best and noblest of what the most sensitive and perceptive people have thought and felt. There is much truth in this. Poetry is the antithesis of “Nightmare on Elm Street” which undoubtedly has a brutalizing and desensitizing effect.

At Shortridge High School, back when it was one of the finest college preparatory high schools in the country, the auditorium displayed the motto: “A disciplined mind and a cultivated heart are elements of power.” Horace Mann’s dictum is well worth contemplating.

Christians would do well to consider that roughly two-thirds of the Bible is poetry and much of the rest is poetic. The parables with the image of the lost coin, the pearl of great price, the Good Samaritan, and the waiting father are all powerful poetic images if not poems. We can be grateful to modern Bible editions for emphasizing the poetic form of the Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and the prophets.

“Out of the depths have I cried unto thee…” “He maketh me to lie down in green pastures….” “My soul doth wait, and in His word do I hope” – on and on pure poetry! So much so, it is not too much to say that if you don’t like poetry, possibly you don’t like God. For the true Christian, poetry is as natural as the air we breathe.

One thinks of the great hymns of the Christian church, many have lived for centuries. The first Christian hymns were often passages of the New Testament set to music. The big denominational hymnals typically have hymns going all the way back to the early centuries.

But the greatest evidence of the power of poetry is the testimony of men like Archbishop William Alexander who commented that he would be remembered as the husband of his wife who wrote ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful’. Charlotte Elliot’s brother said that despite a long and fruitful ministry, far more has been done by a single hymn of my sister ‘Just As I Am’.

How Long? 2.

How long does it take to write a poem? Perhaps five minutes to put it on paper.

C.S. Lewis tells us that his ideas for the Narnia series started with an image of a lamppost in a snowy landscape. Several other images came along and finally the idea for a story began to take shape. This is similar to my own experience in writing poems. A phrase that haunts me will kick around in my mind for some time. Maybe an image will come along, an actual scene or something more or less symbolic. Eventually, after days or weeks, it will crystallize into a poem.

Then I will hurriedly scribble it down on paper, trying to capture all my thoughts before they get away. Then I lay it aside for a day or two and criticize it. Did I use the right word to say exactly what I meant? Did I leave something out that should have been said? Is something, an extraneous word or phrase to be eliminated?

Sometimes I will look at an older poem, especially one I don’t particularly like and rewrite it. I have taken doggerel verse and transformed it into a regular verse pattern. If a poem seems too pessimistic, I may give it a more positive ending.

This is the way I do things, not necessarily the way everybody operates. I write on paper, many people wouldn’t dream of writing anything without their PC. Poets like William Morris had the ability to translate thoughts and story ideas into line after line of rhyming poetry of epic length. The Greeks conceived of poetry as a kind of divine madness bestowed as a gift of the gods.

But how long does it really take to write a poem? As long, as it takes to go through kindergarten, grade school, high school, and beyond; as long as it takes to discover the Iris, the Lilacs, the Pansies. The Peonies and the lovely flowering Crabapple trees, as I did when I was five, as long as it takes to feel the still of early morning, to hear the bird’s happy songs when you are not happy yourself, to wonder if these simple creatures are not, in their own way, wiser than we are, as long as it takes to see that “All that glitters is not gold.” Or that many things are not what they seem, that fire surely burns and water is wet.
How long, indeed? As long as it takes

“To see a world in a grain of sand
And a Heaven in a wildflower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.”
William Blake

As long as it takes

“To follow knowledge, like a singing star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.”
Or: “To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.”
Tennyson

As long as it takes to know love and hate, possibly at the same time, to know all the passions: pride, jealousy, disappointment, fear, grief, and sorrow, joy, hope, and triumph.

As long as it takes to savor words as some people savor food and fine wines, to feel their beauty and enchantment and their conjuring tricks.

How long does it take to write a poem? A lifetime, your lifetime, your heart and mind and soul, and whatever you can see, smell, hear, touch, taste, and feel. That’s how long.

The Soul of Poetry 3.

What makes poem poetry? The least important characteristic is rhyme. Internal rhythm is far more important. For example: “Almighty God, unto whom all hearts are open, all desires known and, from whom no secrets are hid, cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of Thy Holy Spirit that we may perfectly love thee and worthily magnify thy holy name….” Read this out loud. (Read all poetry out loud.) Notice the wonderful internal rhythm. Words like “unto” get a heavy beat on “un” and a lighter one on “to”. Similarly aloud, light/heavy, think about words, sound them out. In good poems, rhythm and rhyme reinforce and strengthen what is said, in amateur poetry they usually work against it. Sound and sense should go together.

Another poetic element of the prayer quoted is good rhetoric, a well turned phrase.”…unto whom all hearts are open…”, God is omniscient, so of course He knows everything including our deepest and darkest secrets, but the phrase resonates with many meanings – our sins, our sorrows, our weaknesses, our strengths, the good we intended which was perceived by others as the product of some low motive, all this and more. Robert Frost tells us that a poetic line means exactly what it says and something else.

Poetry makes use of alliteration like “rubber baby buggy bumper,” (say this really fast) or even “A, you’re adorable, B, you’re so beautiful…” We especially find this in Old Norse and early English.

Then there is parallelism as in the psalms; “For he spake and it was done; he commanded and it stood fast.” (Ps. 33:9) or in Hosea; “When Israel was a child I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. (Hos.11: 1)

Poetry is intense. “Cease to do evil, learn to do good….” Or as in John Masefield's Sea Fever: “I must go down to the sea again, to the lonely sea and the sky, and all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by.” In three eight-line stanzas he tells us more than many lengthy stories or essays. But intensity is something else too, I think. This poem carries me away with a deep passion I can appreciate but not share.

Related to intensity is compression. This means that the part represents the whole; a tree stands for the forest, one-man stands for humanity, and the glory of war is challenged by a heartsick mother collecting the broken body of her only son for burial. This is the climax of a Greek tragedy yet it suggests the figure of Christ.

James Whitcomb Riley’s poetry has been unjustly derided because his diction is folksier than the folk. For example: “When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock…” etc. No, people seldom use all the folksy expressions at once – this is compression. We owe a debt to Riley and dozens of other minor poets for preserving the speech of 19th century Americans.

A poet is above all, a seer, in the most elementary sense of the word – one who sees. This brings us to the most poetic element of poetry, imagery: “As the hart pants for flowing streams…”, “…like a tree planted by the rivers of water…” All of this is closely related to metaphor and simile.

The Bible mockingly says “see and see but don’t perceive…” And this is one of the great questions: what is right in front of you? If you are a headhunter, a wonderful trophy; if you are William Blake”…a world in a grain of sand or a heaven in a wild flower…” If you are Roger Tory Peterson you see a skylark, what a wonderful thing is a skylark. But if you are Shelley you exclaim, “Hail to the blithe spirit, bird thou never wert…” If you are John Milton, you don’t just see organ pipes and a choir but something which "may with sweetness through mine ear, dissolve me into ecstasies and bring all Heaven before mine eyes.”

So went you into the hedges and highways-- and saw you that? Please, oh please, tell us about it.

Poetry Therapy 4.

We all have feelings of anxiety, depression, fearfulness, and sadness. Poetry therapy is a technique employed by psychiatrists, psychologists and workshop leaders to help people get more in touch with their distressing thoughts and come to terms with them. Poetry therapy can help to overcome and heal hurtful attitudes.
In many ways there is nothing new in this. It goes back to the wisdom of the eternal God and the words of Scripture: “Let the redeemed of the Lord say so.” (Ps 107:2) and “…whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely,…think on these things.” (Phil. 4:8)
Through reading poetry aloud, we can affirm truths that will strengthen us and increase our convictions. Strong convictions are the basis of hope and courage. For this process we need to go beyond psychologism and “uplift.” Both of these things tend to view fear and guilt as subjective.
One detractor of Christianity sneeringly said that preaching original sin has laid a guilt trip on millions. “Uplift” uses platitudes, which are often just wishful thinking. “Every cloud has a silver lining” is a notion. It is easily parodied as “Every silver lining has a cloud.” By contrast: “We know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to his purpose.” (Rom. 8:28)

The essence of poetry therapy was beautifully stated in Longfellow’s poem ‘The Day is Done’:
“Come read to me some poem,
Some simple and heartfelt lay
That shall soothe this restless feeling
And banish the thoughts of day.”

Needless to say, it should be read in its entirety and pondered.
Besides affirmation and conviction there is catharsis- a purgation of feelings such as sadness, grief and the feeling of being singled out by fate. A famous uplift poem says “laugh and the world laughs with you, cry and you cry alone…”

This is far from true. Tragic plays and poems date back to the mists of antiquity. Various writers and philosophers such as Aristotle have theorized about it. St. Augustine tells us that he wept over the fate of Queen Dido in The Aeneid of Virgil.

There are many poems, which speak of death, tragedy and bereavement. These can help the healing process by releasing our emotions, enlisting our sympathy for others and helping us to enlarge our view of life to understand that our troubles are not unique. One of my favorites is Robert Lewis Stevenson’s ‘Requiem’:

“Under the wide and starry sky,
Dig the grave and let me lie;
Glad did I live and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will. This is the verse you grave for me
Here he lies where he long’d to be;
Home is the sailor, home from the sea
And the hunter home from the kill.”

Such are the benefits of poetry therapy.

To write such poetry can be a serious worthwhile, Christian ministry: this means we can share the Gospel as well as other Christian values. For example, a Christian bookseller told of a man who wandered into his store, he looked around with a slightly dazed expression. The bookseller learned this man belonged to ‘The Book of the Month Club’ and other secularist book outlets. “Have you anything positive, anything really good and encouraging to read? he asked. Secularist culture is very negative and destructive. It is actually injurious to people’s health. Through poetry, we can “bind up the broken hearted.” I have written several poems for bereaved people who definitely felt helped by them. Another example is the fellow who was attracted to the Christian faith by a table full of young people in a college cafeteria because they appeared to be so happy. We can share our joy with others. Through poetry we can let our light shine, the reflected glory of Jesus Christ, truly the light of the world, that true light which enlightens everyoneCommunists because he wouldn’t cooperate. They said to him, “People listen to your words.” He replied, “My words? My words are not important. I preach God’s Word. And that Word never changes."

Through reading poetry aloud, we can affirm truths that will strengthen us and 11increase our convictions. Strong convictions are the basis of hope and courage. For this process we need to go beyond psychologism and “uplift.” Both of these things tend to view fear and guilt as subjective.

One detractor of Christianity sneeringly said that preaching original sin has laid a guilt trip on millions. “Uplift” uses platitudes, which are often just wishful thinking. “Every cloud has a silver lining” is a notion. It is easily parodied as “Every silver lining has a cloud.” By contrast: “We know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to his purpose.” (Rom. 8:28)

The essence of poetry was beautifully stated in Longfellow’s poem ‘The Day is Done’:
“Come read to me some poem,
Some simple and heartfelt lay
That shall soothe this restless feeling
And banish the thoughts of day.”

Christian Poetry 5.

In the Secularist world today, Christian poetry is a subgenre. Real people, normal people don’t think about things like that, or so they say.

One thinks of St. Augustine’s monumental work The City of God. He says the world is divided into two cities, the city of man dominated by the worship of ego and the city of God dominated by people who mortify their egos by confessing their sins and recognizing the sovereignty of God.

Martin Luther took his stand on “Scripture and plain reason.” So did the fathers of the church in the first five centuries.

A popular hymn states the posture of Christian people and Christian poetry very well:

My faith looks up to Thee
Thou Lamb of Calvary
Saviour Divine
Now hear me while I pray
Take all my sins away
Oh may I from this day
Be wholly Thine.

What is most distinctive about Christian poetry is the doctrine of original sin. Man is imperfect, sinful, but responsible for his acts. Only through the Grace of God can he be redeemed and perform good works pleasing in the sight of God.

Secular humanism has become a sort of established and intolerant religion. It is devoted to the notion that no one is really responsible for anything they do. Society is to blame, the environment is to blame, and certain groups of people may be singled out as scapegoats or non-persons, Christians and conservatives top the list.

This brings us back to the writing of Christian poetry. It tends to be confessional, declaring adoration of God rather than self, repenting of sins and shortcomings, thankful to God for the wonders of Grace and creation. It prays for continued blessings for all others and ourselves.

The apostle Paul tells us that we Christians have not believed “cunning fables.” This includes the myth of evolution, which no serious thinker could possibly believe. The evolution myth, so scientifically unsound, does not tell us how to bake a better loaf of bread or build a better internal combustion engine. It has however, been used to attempt to discredit the Bible, to provide a basis for the racism of Adolph Hitler, Margaret Sanger and the Ku Klux Klan. Karl Marx wanted to dedicate Das Kapital to Darwin and the evolution myth has provided the metaphysical basis of Communism, Socialism, American Liberalism, and Nazism.

Which brings us to another important dimension of Christian poetry, social protest. The mantle of the Old Testament prophets has passed to the shoulders of Christian preachers, from John the Baptist to Luther, to John Knox, to Roger Williams, the author of The Bloody Tenant of Persecution, to 19th century protests against slavery to the present. Many of these people w ere clergymen but many were simply heartfelt Christians with a burden to abolish slavery or other evils. Many of these protests were in the form of poetry.

"When Israel was in Egypt land.:
Let my people go!"...
"March on, o soul, with strength
Like those strong men of old
Who against enthroned wrong
Stood confidant and bold"...
"Stand up for Jesus,
Ye solders of the Cross. "

The writings of the Old Testament prophets were often in the form of poetry. In Isaiah chapter 58, we are admonished to “cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and show to my people their transgressions and to the house of Israel their sins.”

In the greatest age of Christian martyrdom, we do well to remember that “martyr” means witness. I think of a Korean pastor assassinated by the Communists because he wouldn’t cooperate. They said to him, “People listen to your words.” He replied, “My words? My words are not important. I preach God’s Word. And that Word never changes.”

Poetry and Theology 6.

One popular phrase which assails my nerves is: "...more truth than poetry..." Poetry and truth-are these two enemies? Is there some logical contradiction between them? Of course not! Well then what about poetry and theology? Is there a necessary disjunction between them? What is theology?
To some people, overeacting to liberal theology, theology is inherently evil, something anti-biblical, perhaps a covert form of secular humanism designed to subvert the unwary. But this is not the true meaning of the word, much less the true function in the history of the Christian movement.
Theology is the science of God-the summary and organization of Biblical truth compared with practical and personal experiences.
When asked what we believe as Christians, one answer is "I believe in the Bible." But just what is it that you believe about the Bible? The Bible is a very large book-actually a collection of books. Has it any real unity? If so, what does it all boil down to? Might it be that saying "I believe in the Bible from cover to cover!" is really a copout? What does it teach from cover to cover?
One answer to that is in the Apostles Creed. In a simpler form it dates back to the second century. This is the function it has served for nearly 18 centuries. It has answered the question for hundreds of millions of Christians: What in a nutshell, is Christianity? John Calvin found it so adequate that he used it as the core or basic structure of his 2,000 page Institutes of the Christian Religion, perhaps the most influentual work of Protestant theology in history.
Many people are hostile to the creedal concept. as one individual said :Well! I could write one myself and it would have just as much authority!" Conceivably it might - if it were as solidly based on the Scriptures. By all means, try to write a short paragraph summarising the Christian faith. You will learn a lot! My keptical friend also said "Now just what does it mean by 'Almighty'? Take an exhaustive concordance of the Bible and look up every passage in which the word is used. To the Christian this is the foundation on which to build theological concepts.
But what has this to do with poetry? Well, for one thing, the Apostles Creed is a prose poem quite as poetical as much free verse and replete with poetic resonances.

I believe in God, the Father Almighty
Maker of Heaven and earth,
And in Jesus Christ, His only Son our Lord.
Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost,
Born of the virgin Mary,
Suffered unber Pontius Pilate, was crucified,
dead and buried.
He descended into Hell.
The third day He rose from the dead,
He ascended into Heaven,
And sitteth on the right hand of God,
the Father Almighty.
From thence He shall come
to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Ghost,
the Holy Catholic Church,
The communion of saints,
The forgiveness of sins,
The Resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting.
Amen.
This is the very stuff of theology and the
very stuff of poetry. The Resurection! What
resonance for the Christian. "The first fruits
of them that slept","Though they die yet shall
they live", "I go to prepare a place
for you...that where I am, there may you be
also." "Did not our heart burn within us?"
I think of a hundred Easter hymns: "The day of
resurrection! Earth tell it out abroad/ The
passover of gladness/ the passover of God!/
From death to life eternal/ from earth unto the
skies/ Our Christ hath brought us over/
with hymns of victory!" (John of Damascus ca.
750 A.D.)
I see a little village in Soviet Russia.
The Communist teacher is lecturing the people
on the Glories of atheism. He harangues them for
over an hour, concluding triumphantly with the
question: "Well, now comrades, speak up! What
do you think of this imposter, Jesus Christ?"

There was a hush over the audience. Way at the
back a man stands up. "I think that Jesus Christ
is risen from the dead!" And everyone in the
audience responded in the words of their beloved
liturgy: "He is risen indeed!" This is poetry;
this is theology!..And that's the truth!

7. Poetry and Evil

“Ah don’t care about what happened back in B.C.! Ah care about now!” This is the essence of the secularist attack on civilization. “I’ll taste your strawberries, I’ll drink your sweet wine…for now is my story!” This hippie song of the sixties is properly sung while cavorting around the room. Then there is “Why accept other people’s moral standards? Choose your own!”

The common factor in all these ravings is the rejection of authority and, in essence, rebellion against God, the Sovereign Lord of the Universe and history.

For over half a century I have listened to “newer than tomorrow” wisdom which is not at all new. “Morality may have been all right in grandfather’s day but not now! That’s what the bright young men in first century Rome were saying. When I began studying Plato (500 B.C.), I discovered the Sophists spouting word for word what my up to date college professors were saying. “There is absolute truth, everything is relative, etc.

This Sophist philosophy was taught to the bright young men of Athens. The result was they sold out their country to their enemies, just as Liberals are doing today. Modernism and post-modernism which is sweeping universities are simply a rehash of Sophism.

As for choosing your own standards, isn’t this where we came in? God told Adam and Eve not to eat the fruit of the tree. They decided to choose their own standards. Look where that got them and everyone else. Choosing your own standards is very much like making your own currency!

One thinks of Anatole France’s Penguin Island, a satirical review of human history. It ends with a revolt against tyranny in the future. A man and a woman stand on a rooftop in Paris. Explosions light up the night sky. This is the beginning of the revolt. He holds her hand. “Tomorrow will be better!” ”Yes”, she whispers, “Tomorrow will be better!” It’s a prayer, a litany. And Anatole France says: “Turn back to page one.”

One also thinks of Rudyard Kipling’s poem “The Gods of the Copybook Headings, published in 1919, it catalogs the grandiose but nonworking schemes the suckers keep buying into age after age.

“Now is my story.” Indeed! The person saying this thinks two years ago is history, not a good word. Yet the most formative ideas he has were inculcated at the age of four! They are also the product of years of public schools training, these day mostly miseducation and brainwashing. The past really does matter and ideas, especially bad ones, do have consequences!

In John Milton’s Paradise Lost, just after the rebel angels are kicked out of Heaven, “…Down to bottomless perdition…” , Satan delivers a wonderful speech” “the mind is its own place and of itself can make a Hell of Heaven, a Heaven of Hell.” With all their engineering skill and architectural knowledge, the fallen angels can transform it into a demi-paradise. Strangely, this never happens.

Satan’s desire to create a world of his own, closely parallels the program of hippies, criminals and secular humanists!

In the novel Billy Bathgate master criminal” Dutch” Schultz is described by a reviewer: “Shultz has the power to create own world, staying for days in his hotel room.
Not bound by conventional moral values he is an exhilarating person to be around. There is something very engaging and down to earth in his crude, raw energy.” Schultz is attractive because he “feels good about himself.” So do the enthusiasts who want to save the whales while we murder the babies. We kill the babies to be free to act irresponsibly and unencumbered in the pursuit of pleasure. We go on a holy crusade to save the whales to how sensitive, caring and holier than thou we really are.

One secularist poet who exemplifies this spirit: “…had many moods and a highly selective imagination which turned everything into the story of herself …” One thinks of Milton’s Satan: “…better first in Hell than second in Heaven.” The reviewer refers to her tragic “suicide”. It may be tragic that she committed suicide, but more tragic that her beliefs led her to it! Significantly, the suicide and alcoholism rates are very high among atheists!

Perhaps the most significant event of the 20th century was the collapse of the Soviet slave empire. This proved to all thinking people that you cannot build a civilization on a foundation of atheism. Atheism was supposed to liberate us from the shackles of religion. So where is the great art, the poetry, the music, the architecture, the literature, anything??? There was some great writing by dissidents like Solzhenitsyn. The reason I am not an atheist is that I have no sympathy for utter stupidity!

What is evil? Rebellion against God and inordinate self love. God says “…all those who hate me love death.” The century gave us the mass murder and mass graves to prove it!

Christian Poet

Ministering to doomed, doubtful spirits,
harassed, haunted by fearful failure
like a feathered shaft piearcing the soul,
longing for a human touch,
always hurrying, harried, hasseled;
no time for life fulfilling fresh air,
to savor the sweetness of the roses
or study the innocent play of light and shadow
filtered through varying, subtle shades
of translucent leaves.
Christ seeking and Christ fulfilled,
who sees a well done work,
who cares about a word of kindness
like a candle in the dark,
lighting the long, lonely passage,
who sees God's Grace like a jeweled tiara
rising above the garbage heap of this world,
who weaves this into a tapestry of meaning
where the stars fight in their courses
and ten thousand guardian angels
descend like a hailstorm of fire
driving the Hell-host
to their dark, deep dwelling places,
there to await predestined doom
while all the pilgrim souls of God shout for joy,
pursuing their long march to that Eternal city
where Jesus will wipe away every tear,
and joy and peace reign everlasting!

God's Glory

When I consider
the beauties of nature,
when I behold
starry heavens above,
I stand in awe
of our glorious Creator
who framed them all
in wisdom and love!

Oh, how we should praise
the Lord for His goodness,
His wonderful works
to the children of men,
His unfailing justice,
His boundless mercy,
His mysterious ways
far beyond human ken!

When I consider to Grace
I'm a debtor,
I mourn for my sins,
all the things I've done wrong,
then I behold the Lord
risen in glory!
Oh, lift grateful voices
and praise Him in song!

The Uses of Evolution

2005-06-13T17:38:00.000-05:00

The Uses of Evolution

When we survey the history of science, we discover many useful breakthroughs. This is especially true of contributions by scientists who were Christians. Lister's antiseptic revolutionized hospitals and surgical methods. He saved millions of lives. Pasteur's process made milk much safer to drink. Both men contributed to reducing the infant mortality rate. This brings us to the question: "What has evolution contributed to the world?"

First of all, it impeded the progress of antiseptic surgery and hospital procedures. The myth of spontaneous generation of disease germs persuaded many doctors that nothing could be done about them. This is a very sad chapter in medical history.

Secondly, the evolutionist myth convinced many that Christian charity was a mistake. Clothing the naked and feeding the hungry was only impeding the Great Cosmic Scheme (?) of survival of the fittest. It was best to let the weak die and improve the race.

The third use is racism. Racism is a by-product of the anti-Christian enlightenment philosophy. This dates back at least to the 16th century. But what the evolutionist myth contributed was the appearance of a genuine scientific basis for fallen humanity's natural egomania.

The fourth major contribution of evolution is to undergird fascist tyranny. It is very telling that Karl Marx wanted to dedicate Das Kapital to Darwin. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich chronicles the connection between Hitler and the evolutionist myth. Dinish D'Souza, in his book The End of Racism, has thoroughly documented extreme racism of Darwin, Huxley, Wallace, Galton, Spencer, Lombroso, Haeckel, as well as Tyler and Morgan, not to mention Condorcet and Compte.

In The Descent of Man , Darwin specifically applied his theory to race, that races differ physically, temperamentally and intellectually. Darwin chided civilized men for building asylums for the imbeciles, the maimed and the sick. This solicitude is "highly injurious to the race of man." The most able should be allowed to succeed best and rear the largest number of offspring. A student of Spencer, William Graham Sumner, believed that black inferiority was ingrained and his book, Folkways, argued the hopelessness of trying to change these embedded traits. On the whole, the evolutionist myth , devoid of any rational or scientific basis, has fostered unspeakable savagery and the worst tyranny in all of human history.

A recently published book, From Darwin to Hitler by Richard Weikart, completely documents all the ramifications of this article. It raises the question whether civilization will survive the impact of Darwinism.

Welcome to Adair Institute.

2005-05-28T12:41:00.000-05:00

Hi. Welcome. The purpose of Adair Institute is to proclaim and defend the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ, God's only begotten son, to expound the absolute truth of scripture and plain reason, that ideas have consequences and that the unexamined life is not worth living.

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