One of the more interesting stories out of Britain is what the Mirror calls “a fierce attack on the Archbishop of Canterbury” by Prime Minister David Cameron. The Daily Mail summarized the Prime Minister’s speech as an exhortation to Canterbury to ‘speak up for Christianity’ instead of criticizing the country for not doing more to understand the rioters who recently ran rampage through Britain. But the speech itself was far more wide-ranging.
Cameron argued that religion, far from being a spent force, was actually a rising force in the world. More was the pity then that Christianity, which had done the most to lay the foundations for freedom and prosperity, not simply in religious but historical terms, had seen fit to cover its light under a bushel-basket.
The time had come, Cameron argued, to remember that Britain was “a Christian nation” and that there was pride, not shame in that. Here is an extract from his speech.
The Economist may have published the obituary of God in their Millennium issue.
But in the past century, the proportion of people in the world who adhere to the four biggest religions has actually increased from around two-thirds to nearly three quarters…
…and is forecast to continue rising.
For example, it is now thought there are at least 65 million protestants in China and 12 million Catholics – more Christians than there are members of the communist party.
Official numbers indicate China has about 20 million Muslims – almost as many as in Saudi Arabia – and nearly twice as many as in the whole of the EU.
And by 2050, some people think China could well be both the world’s biggest Christian nation and its biggest Muslim one too….
The Bible has helped to shape the values which define our country. … the King James Bible has bequeathed a body of language that permeates every aspect of our culture and heritage… The Bible also runs through our art …
The Bible runs through our political history in a way that is often not properly recognised. The history and existence of a constitutional monarchy owes much to a Bible in which Kings were anointed and sanctified with the authority of God… we are a Christian country. And we should not be afraid to say so. …
We need to stand up for these values.
To have the confidence to say to people – this is what defines us as a society…
…and that to belong here is to believe in these things.
Cameron’s speech will doubtless be interpreted as more politics than religion. Certainly Cameron himself admitted he was a rather inconstant member of the Church of England and no expert on matters of faith. But its overtly political character makes the speech all the more significant. If this is not the utterance of a man who has experienced a Pauline conversion on the road to Damascus, it is certainly the statement of a politician who has detected advantage in the way the wind blows.
He made the speech in the belief that it would catch the current winds. And what are those?
Cameron has probably noticed a slow but steady loss of pressure in the secular stuffing shoved into British society as a replacement for its former beliefs. The airy substance of multi-culti, moral relativism, non-judgmentalism, Green paganism and self-hatred has been on display in the public square for some decades now, growing steadily since the sixties. Its liturgy is on display in talk shows, television programming and what passes for educational broadcasting.
For years it grew, apparently unstoppable, until it assumed the character of inevitability. There were words people could not say, sexual practices one could not impugn, alien cultures one could not question; there were consensus gods one had to worship or be ‘criminals’. But now it is deflating, leaking air like a worn-out tire. The cause of its fall was obvious. The recent collapse of its flagship institutions, as embodied in the Green movement, welfare state, the media and transnational organizations was bound to result in the discredit of its ideology.
People who realize that the State can’t save them must necessarily go back to wondering what will. And the answer for most is individual effort, as guided by the eternal verities variously described by the great world religions. To some it will be found in a more general adherence to the ways of their fathers, in the values that once sustained Britain and may again. Cameron did not need to believe in the Bible to make that speech, though perhaps he did. All he needed to do was watch the opinion polls and the bond market to realize that the day of Rowan William’s multi-culti theology was done.
The worst thing that can happen to a god that failed is to have all of its miracles debunked before the eyes of its adherents. And this has now happened in the most spectacular manner. The failure of the welfare state, the visible strings above the global warming puppet show, and the fading attractions of the media/entertainment complex were certain to undermine their authority. Being a network anchor, or a Nobel Prize economist, or an expert from an elite educational institution — indeed being the chairman of giant bank — ain’t what it used to be. Once such figures would have been unimpeachable. Today the louder they talk of their expertise the faster we recheck our bank balances.
Clearly the recent setbacks of the old order in the area of demographics, politics and economics were inevitably going to extend into the culture wars. The Cameron speech was bound to happen, from opportunism if not from faith. The wonder was that it took as long as it did.
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May Old Blighty find herself again. We’ve missed you, wandering in the horrible nightmare thicket of the EU, Kyodo Protocols, the shocking outbursts of anti-American paroxysm in the aftermath of 9/11, and all the rest…
The worst thing that can happen to a god that failed is to have all of its miracles debunked before the eyes of its adherents.
Nice that!
Perhaps one thing that might be more humiliating to a “God” is to see his professed adherents gleefully give his commandments the finger.
I’m thinking of all my fashionably liberal facebook friends and the relief/joy they expressed today when the Republicans repealed the incandescent lightbulb ban (well, postponed).
“Whether you look at the riots last summer, the financial crash and the expenses scandal or the on-going terrorist threat from Islamist extremists around the world, one thing is clear, moral neutrality or passive tolerance just isn’t going to cut it any more.”
So, it took 100+ years for a Western politician to publicy state what has been obvious to every non-tenured person for that last 2,500 years. I suppose that’s progress, of sorts.
Meanwhile, on the other side of The Pond, the distance between the mind of Barack Hussein Obama and Reality grows even wider. “I am (at a minimum) the 4th Greatest President.”
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/theanchoress/2011/12/14/obama-i-am-the-4th-best-president-in-history/
Historians will have fun sorting through this epoch a few hundred years down the road. I’m claiming publsihing rights now to the historical term the “Age of Idiocy.”
According to a National Association of Scholars report issued in 2011, “The Vanishing West: 1964-2010,” only two percent of colleges offer western civilization as a course requirement. Remarkably, western civilization is rarely even required for history majors.
http://www.hudson-ny.org/2667/vanishing-western-tradition
It’s disconcerting to see how far we have to climb to just get our eyeballs back to dirt level. Cameron can make that speech everyday and there will not be more than a handfull of people under 40 who will have even a clue what the Judeo-Christian tradition means.
It’s a pity it had to be iDave Cameroon to say that — fresh from getting the bum’s rush at the EU. Maybe the wild jubilation with which the Brits approved of his defenestration from Europe has opened iDave’s eyes to the political opportunities for Little Englandism.
Maybe Lil’Dave will now look into buying planes for that empty aircraft carrier the Brits are building? Maybe even expand to rebuilding the Royal Navy? After all, you never know what those Germans are going to do next, and you know the Brits can never trust the French.
But rebuilding the Royal Navy would require rebuilding the shipyards, which would mean rebuilding the steel industry, which would mean re-opening the mines … Lots of CO2. Is Desperate Dave abandoning his old religion, or is he simply seeking to con the marks one more time?
Damn, there’s nothing quite like that speech to cheer some of us up after suffering from PC corrosion for fifty years. The only thing better would have been for it to come from the corrupt Rowan Williams. But since it didn’t, he should consider defenestrating himself in shame.
Is the Church of England still officially Christian? I though they came out of the Marxist closet some time in the 90′s. Weird – I could have sworn I’d read that.
Anywho, interesting speech. Not that the road back to objective morality will be an easy one. The Marxists have done just as much damage to the common culture as they have to the industrial base. I bet even most UKIP voters would have difficulty actually “judging” someone for making bad choices.
Someone let me know when the English-
1. Allow the ownership of personal arms and defense of life and property.
2. Require unmarried pregnant girls to either get married or post for adoption.
3. Ban frivolous divorce.
4. Value and honor work that produces over NGO nonsense.
Kinuachdrach,
…which would mean re-opening the mines…
Perhaps the British could sell their mines to the Chinese, who would be happy to dig coal, damn the environment.
Rather than lead to Little Englandism a revived sense of Muscular Christianity should lead to a confident Britain engaging with the world and spreading again their message, of individual dignity the rule of law and free trade, among the nations.
Peter Boston,
The three great Western Civilization survey courses were at Stanford Chicago and Columbia. The students chanted “Hey Hey, Ho Ho, Western Civ has got to go.” The schools substituted what they did best with a pallet designed to confirm the prejudices of the ignorant, by definition undergraduates are ignorant, while teaching an arid set of techniques. This is related to what happened to Britain. What they did best was law trade and the Armed Forces. The Fabians infected the universities and the results were “That this House will in no circumstances fight for its King and Country.” The long decline of Britain, punctuated by rallies under Churchill and Thatcher, proceeded.
The problem with the Archbishop of Canterbury is that the established church is designed to be ineffective. Fecklessness for the Church of England isn’t a bug but a feature. Ever since the Restoration the core doctrines of the CofE have been Non-Resistance and Toleration, meaning submission to civil secular authority and acceptance of other creeds. For two hundred years the gentry sent the fool in the family into the Church.
They should put the collected works of Kipling back into the syllabi. Start with “Puck of Pook’s Hill” and “Rewards and Faeries”.
#2 cellec
Perhaps one thing that might be more humiliating to a “God” is to see his professed adherents gleefully give his commandments the finger.
Jesus did say to bless those who curse you.
So I did, along with God & Moses.
That’s how this “fruit” fell away from their “tree”
I’m expecting to win the lottery any day now
Blessed I will be!
When one watches PBS, the station breaks almost invariably have native-American and African chants or black gospel choirs.
This unconscious bias is quite revealing in how a nation goes from one pole of what is considered worthy to another and it almost rises to propaganda. The White Man’s Burden is still there; it’s just been stapled and mutilated.
Diversity and multiculturalism are the “D” and “M” words to me. When I want a Mexican or Muslim not born here or capable of constructing the tapestry of American brightness that brought them here in the first place telling me what to do I’ll go to their country for that. Needless to say I would never actually do that but I am forced into the equivalent.
If I’m wrong then show me the tapestry where this exists; even with blueprints on how to do it the inventers of America did NOT have they can’t do it. England’s immigration policy is worse than Wells’s Martians because there will be no last minute save.
“… intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth (read English dirt) with envious eyes, …” If you take away the “vast” it’s pretty much on the mark. The fact the Martians came from a dying world is also on the mark.
Let’s not congratulate ourselves prematurely for the victory of light over darkness. True, the false gods of secularism and relativism are dying, but this is the moment of danger: there’s no guarantee that something healthier will take their place. Empty tombs can become havens for unclean spirits. Instead of healthy Christianity, we could see people opting for a Breivik-style return to “the ways of our ancestors”. Christianity is rational, and reasoning is hard work. There will always be an appetite for self-abandonment to D.H. Lawrence’s “dark gods”, especially as they often promise sexual license. Are people who have been spoiled by the 20th century’s menu of “multi-culti, moral relativism, non-judgmentalism, Green paganism and self-hatred” ready and capable of turning back to Christianity? Or will they instead opt for gut-fluttering thrill of tribal brutalism and superstition? The English at least have the advantage of many years of Christian civilization – their days of tribal madness are many centuries in the past. Other European countries aren’t so lucky. It was less than a hundred years ago that the dark gods were rising up on the Continent; they could come back again if people aren’t quickly presented with a better alternative. This is where people like the Archbishop of Canterbury have been derelict in their duty. He should have been constantly publicizing the Christian way of life, the way the Pope does, so that when the enemy collapsed people wouldn’t have to start from scratch to find a replacement. But all these years sucking up to modernism are years wasted, and who would now trust the man who presided over the abasement of his church to now show the way to the Truth?
dm @ 11: Christianity is rational, and reasoning is hard work.
Great post except for this one line, would you not say that Christianity is faith? If one must take an analytic view of it, I would suggest religion (at its functional best) is faith in a big pile of pre-reasoned rationality and that that is exactly the point. Living up to the packaged tenets may be some work, and a proper knowledge of the canon is a rational task, but the point is to adopt the narrative both for its own virtues and to prevent the adoption of less beneficial narratives. And to keep the soul out of Hell.
–
wretchard, very nice post overall, and seasonal, too.
If this is not the utterance of a man who has experienced a Pauline conversion on the road to Damascus, it is certainly the statement of a politician who has detected advantage in the way the wind blows.
There is a middle ground here too, a man who may not (yet) have been transformed, but sees the star in the distance, perhaps has seen it for some time and now is taking some first steps in that direction. It’s very C.S. Lewis, where the character, on the edge of disaster, comes to see there is a possible answer that has only been before his eyes the whole time. Or even more modestly than that, in “That Hideous Strength” (p 337) where Mark, being asked to pledge to the Crooked, answers instead, “It’s all bloody nonsense, and I’m damned if I do any such thing”, not knowing how truly he is actually speaking, yet that is exactly the moment at which he is “saved”.
Re: rational Christianity. Well, it’s probably just a question of which strain of Christianity one comes from. I’m a Roman Catholic, and I always have in mind the many centuries of Catholic thinkers and Church Fathers, thinking and debating and reasoning out the tenets of the Faith. I expect people from the more charismatic wing of Christianity tend to favour more the emotional, mystical approach, which is something I’ve never experienced. I tend to distrust that sort of thing, precisely because it seems to undermine and short-circuit reason. It’s probably just my own personality coming to the surface there, because I can’t pretend to contain ALL possible approaches to God.
In the days to come the higher echelons of the political class will indeed hope that the little people have deep Christian values, especially those parts about forgiveness, turning the other cheek, and thou shalt not kill.
I on the other hand am beginning to see some merit in the old pagan practice of putting criminals, or at least the elected and appointed ones, in large wicker statutes and then setting them afire. But that’s just me.
A good speech by Cameron — one that will make the Brit Hitchens twirl in his grave.
Cameron could also have talked about the huge growth of Christianity in Africa.
It is time for the Archbishop of Canterbury to go–he is a fossil like Prince Charles–trying to be all things to all men–but ending up as nothing.
The thing not to overlook is how many of us are so steeped in a Judeo-Christian world view that we behave according to its mandates even as we violate them with the odious, malignant ideas and pursuits associated with liberalism/leftism. Every time I travel, including to the hollowed out cities of Europe and through the mechanized systems at airports, I’m stunned by how generally kind and considerate most people are.
The point is that the self-hatred and assaultiveness of liberals steals the ink, but the substrate laid down over the course of the past two thousand is probably much deeper and wider than we can know from our vantage point. In other words, people may not need to know much about Christian civilization in order to advance it. It may be that the “progressive era” is just a passing fancy and will dissipate more readily than we think.
That being said, we can already see the writing on the wall, in the ME, not to mention the bulk of history. The road back will involve the blood of martyrs.
Josh @ 12. St. Thomas would argue, correctly I think, that faith must precede reason.
tc @ 14: I on the other hand am beginning to see some merit in the old pagan practice of putting criminals, or at least the elected and appointed ones, in large wicker statutes and then setting them afire. But that’s just me.
Sure, it’s important to keep an open mind. I’ve always admired certain aspects of Sharia law, quick trials, quick punishment (eg floggings, amputations), and then a quick return to society. Amazingly efficient, compared to us. Has its own drawbacks, no doubt.
dm @ 13: Most of my screed about faith is just third-hand Kierkegaard denatured with a little anthropology, but if you’re all for a more rational style of Christianity and you haven’t already read some C.S. Lewis, he’s a lot more fun to read! Not to mention very British, in re Cameron et al.
@8 Richard Aubrey-
They should put the collected works of Kipling back into the syllabi. Start with “Puck of Pook’s Hill” and “Rewards and Faeries”.
So moved, and seconded. Damn the apologies, full steam ahead.
When I fail – which I must, being a human being – what is my response? There are two paths forward from failure:
1. I didn’t achieve the goal, and I’m sorry. I will try to do better in the future.
2. The goal was wrong, and I will redefine the goal in a way that turns my failure into a success.
This is the fundamental fork in the road. The first path is the religious path: there is a standard I strive to achieve, and when I fail to reach it the proper response is regret and repentance. This is the path of the rule of law and the virtues: justice (my failure has consequences that I accept), temperance (everyone fails, so we must be measured in our response to failure), fortitude (it takes courage to strive when possibility of failure is real), and prudence (given our propensity to fail, we should be thoughtful about the actions we take to achieve our goal). This is the path of sin and forgiveness, particularly original sin and God’s forgiveness.
The second path is the relativistic path: we do our “best,” and if we fall short we simply lower the bar to redefine success. The response to failure is self-satisfaction and arrogance. This is the path of personal power and vice: pride (my desires are more important than the law), greed (I want the fruits of success regardless of my actual achievement), anger (how dare they judge me?), and envy (they don’t deserve the rewards for their success, as the standard was flawed). This is the path of the perfectible man, particularly man as perfectible by man.
The second path is a dead end, which is why societies that choose that path end up dead.
Switching paths is not easy; we can’t retrace our steps to the fork. Time forces us forward. There is no going back. So we must hack through the jungle, clearing a way back to the first path. This is a dangerous enterprise, but better than the alternative.
So Cameron’s speech is interesting, but the UK is pretty far down the path toward perdition. You can see it in the birthrates.
The most important investment that any society makes is in its human capital, particularly in making and raising children. Europe stopped making those investments a generation ago, and the poverty it is facing is the result of choosing current consumption by this generation over long-term investment in the next.
This is not a surprising decision, in the absence of religious belief. Raising a family is terribly difficult work; without the support of a community and the long-term perspective that comes from faith, the average person will choose to do less of it. Faith communities, then, are critical elements of a sustainable society.
Does that mean we need an official religion established by the state, such as the CoE? Hardly. In fact, over the long haul, the state and religion are competitors for the loyalty of the people. This is a very important role for religion: as a competitor for the state. Without such competition, we would end up with totalitarianism (which is why communist and fascist states are always hostile to independent churches).
Anyway, the encouraging thing about Cameron’s speech is that it is unlikely to have been made without some poll-testing and focus group feedback. I’m sure he believes what he said, but he wouldn’t say it if he didn’t think it would resonate politically. Which means the people know there’s a problem. They feel it in their bones.
John Henry Newman articulated this feeling in his Apologia Pro Vita Sua:
More than a century later, this still rings true. Either there is no God, or we are all sinners. There is no “third way.”
The rejection of reality of sin – the rejection of standards that we will, inevitably, fall short of – is the first path, away from God. Strewn along that path are the bodies of hundreds of millions who have been murdered by states hostile to religion. Regardless whether you believe in God or not, why would you want to choose that path?
Still, I really do thank God for His forgiveness. It sustains my hope.
L3
Edit thingy isn’t showing up – so correction of the above:
Like I said, I’m a big fan of forgiveness…
L3
At the risk of redundancy, I am attaching this link to another very important religion speech made by a British leader this week:
The Chief Rabbi in the U.K., Lord Sacks, made a profound speech in Rome earlier this week on the current crisis that I recommend highly to all BCers. Enjoy:
http://catholicismpure.wordpress.com/2011/12/14/has-europe-lost-its-soul-chief-rabbi-lectures-at-the-pontifical-gregorian-university/
And again, risking sounding like a one note piano, if you have enjoyed this thread I recommend Arnold Toyenbee’s magisterial 7 volume ‘Study of History’.
From today’s Wall Street Journal http://tinyurl.com/7mf4ehp
Wrapped Up in Russia’s ‘Mink’ Revolution
” “The only thing we don’t have are good leaders,” laments activist Maria Gaidar.
Mr. Putin—who says that he’s too busy to use the Internet—can still mobilize his backers from the ranks of the demonstrators’ parents and grandparents, especially outside the big cities. On Thursday, in his first major public appearance since the elections, he belittled the demonstrators in his characteristically salty way, saying that the white ribbons they donned as a sign of support for clean elections reminded him of “condoms.”
But even the Putin electorate is showing signs of wobbling. Sergei Belanovsky, who studies public opinion for a major Moscow think tank, says that he started picking up “anger” about the Kremlin among older, more conservative voters in focus groups about 18 months ago. In recent weeks, top officials, including Mr. Putin, have been booed at public events for the first time. “The presidential elections will be a powerful catalyst for these political forces,” Mr. Belanovsky says.
The new generation has already transformed Russian politics, sooner and more deeply than anyone expected. Of course, the original Decembrists did the same almost two centuries ago—and were rewarded, for their trouble, with arrest and exile to Siberia. ”
Those looking for leaders need to check for an ethical core in potential candidates. Otherwise they sound like 1980′s American Yuppies and DINKs.
Look for those who can GIT ‘ER DONE! What you are trying to create is a meritocracy, led by someone who floats to the top based on merit not connections.
Bravo! Excellent blog post.
Too little too late?
Ride the tiger, Dave.
Dr. Mabuse, 11: “Christianity is rational, and reasoning is hard work.”
Josh, 12: “Great post except for this one line, would you not say that Christianity is faith?”
Atheists have decided that “God is Dead” because they cannot observe God. Without revelation no one can observe God, yet the great majority of people believe that God is not dead — including our Founding Fathers. Despite the inability to observe God, the great majority of people believe that God created the Universe and its self-evident scientific laws. Despite the inability to observe God, our Founding Fathers believed (as did Cicero and John Locke) that God established the self-evident moral law whereby all men and women are created with equal unalienable rights to their life, liberty and fruit of labor in pursuit of happiness.
Science is the process of determining the behavior of matter (the universe) using observation, testing (controlled observation), and reason; with reason defined as the ability to observe, comprehend and accept self-evident truth. Faith is any belief undiscoverable by science, which is to say any belief based on that which is unobservable and un-testable, which is to say any belief which is beyond the discovery of reason and science. Religion contains faith that eternal God created matter (the universe) with a finite beginning – a supernatural belief not based on direct observation of that which preceded the Big Bang. Atheism contains faith that matter (the universe) is uncreated and therefore eternal; a supernatural belief which likewise cannot be based on direct observation. On the other hand, atheism may be the expression of belief that the universe created its self de novo; an irrational and un-scientific belief which violates the first law of thermodynamics.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_law_of_thermodynamics
The question arises: If the universe was not created by God, then where did it come from? We know from the first law of thermodynamics that without supernatural force neither mass nor energy can create its self, nor can mass or energy be destroyed; mass and energy are limited to interchangeability (E = MC2). Thus, according to the most fundamental laws of science, a self-created universe is an un-scientific belief – an irrational belief. If the universe was not created by God, then, since it did not create its self, and since it cannot be destroyed, it must be eternal in time, both in the past and in the future. Since faith is any belief based on that which is unobservable (such as belief in God), and since no one was or could be present to observe the beginning of a Universe with no beginning, belief in an eternal un-created universe (atheism) is based on faith. Thus, like belief in God, atheism is a faith. The most basic laws of science tell us that outside power is a requirement for the creation of nature’s mass and energy; so, we are left with either an eternal God who created our finite universe with a Big Bang or a series of Big Bangs (religion), or an eternal un-created universe (atheism), so choose your faith, and realize that by choosing either faith one is not required to abandon reason.
OT, but these poll numbers suggest that Obama is going to have to declare a Racism Crisis and suspend the constitution if he wants to continue living the high life.
Perhaps Europe will provide a financial crisis in time.
I suppose it doesn’t help that the Archbishop of Canterbury appears to be a loon. Is he still painting himself blue and running through forests, an imagined druid? The last I saw of him he was embroiled in the contest over homosexual bishops, trying to put lipstick on that one. He’s one from the progressive line of thinking that the church must “get with the times”, it must discard broken ways of the past and accomodate the moderns if it is to survive.
That line of thinking does have much power if you accept the premise that morality is rational. Modern thinking is that human rights are symmetric and reflexive regardless of any boundaries of station, gender and, increasingly, sexual orientation. If it is bad to deny women the vote, why is it good to deny them the pulpit? If heterosexuals can be married, on what basis can you deny homosexuals? What is wrong with the Pope in so many ways, such as condoms? Does not he, in fact, have blood on his hands given AIDS problems in Africa? These are the avenues by which progressivism gets through the vestibule and into the sanctuary. The solution is clear and thought to be unavoidable to many religious “brights”. Churches must adapt or die.
The great problem is that when they do go progressive, they die. The fundamentalist church with the bible thumping firebrand preacher is the one likely to grow to megachurch status, the dainty one down the street with the woman pastor is likely to dwindle. The Catholic parish doing the Latin rite is likely to be packing them in, dwarfing the pull of the Novo Ordo church across the way. The paradox is eternal in the Christian world: to be in the world and yet not a part of it. Having ceded stewardship of traditional values, or of magisterium, to the progressive marches, of what use is a church, really? And it is a progressive march afoot, a Gramscian highway to Unitarianism and, frankly, irrelevance.
What has been magnificent about the past two popes has been their stalwart defense of the Church’s teaching against the progressive assualt, even if their record of victories has been mixed. Yet there are, no doubt, men like the Archbishop of Canterbury in the Cardinal College who will push for the next pope to be more a transitive figure, one who will allow Rome to “get with the times.” I hope they are not successful. It is good that thoughts like David Cameron’s are popping up in no less than a British Prime Minister (a most unexpected source!). Gives me hope, at least.
Dr Mabuse @ 13 – America was founded by Pilgrims who entered into a covenant with God to abide by the Great Commandment “to love your neighbor as yourself”. It is by keeping to that sacred covenant that God Blesses America. The Pilgrims denied allegiance to any mortal man and embraced personal responsibility for one’s own allegiance directly to God. No Popes, no Archbishops, no Rabbis, just a direct personal two way street. Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s, and render unto God that which is God’s.
Americans are universally admired for their generosity because they continue to abide by their covenant.
Storm-rider said:
So, did God create itself de novo then? However, if the claim is that God has always existed, what need do we have for God when we could simply claim that the universe has always existed. While it is easy to abuse Occam’s Razor, it would seem to apply here.
I think there is a statement about removing the beam from one’s own eye first …
30
But ALL of our current cosmology points to a time ZERO when the universe simply started up.
Which kills the ‘always been here’ line of logic.
Cowboy…
The sine qua non of any religion is its role as a cultural anchor across time and the generations.
Being ‘hip’ is the antithesis of stability.
More than we know we are witnessing the collateral cultural damage wrought by the KGB et. al. to subvert ALL Western norms.
So we have twenty-somethings trying to ‘reinvent’/redefine morality — resting on the shoulders of algae!
It’s a slippery foundation indeed.
——-
Star Trek’s episode fighting a planet killer left over from some alien super-war is pertinent: it kept on mission long after the principals were extinguished.
So, too, the KGB/SVR…
Witness Putin…
We have an entire sweep of generations befouled by Soviet agitprop — blinded to its existence.
As Bezmenov well said they are ruined for life and must die to be cured. No amount of evidence or admission can bring them around.
Witness 0bama…
And with such as these we see the power of faith — faith in man over God.
It’s as if Moses never came down the mountain.
“Being a network anchor, or a Nobel Prize economist, or an expert from an elite educational institution — indeed being the chairman of giant bank — ain’t what it used to be.”
Power corrupts and the scions of legitimacy have soiled themselves publicly so many times they are not trusted.
What’s more is though Christianity may be on the rise, the Church of England or the Anglican Church are not. At least the later is not in the UK. They have despoiled themselves trying to out green, out left, out self abase Western civilization. They themselves are a tainted brand just like the list of leftist neerdowells.
Oh my! Oh my! Now we are at the heart of the matter. What can one say that may be useful to others?
King James Version. James I, son of Mary, Queen of Scots, ascended after the death of that little red-headed child of Ann Boleyn. Relied heavily on the Tyndale translations. Tyndale argued with another clergyman who was more subservient to the “laws of the Pope”, words to the effect…before I’m done, the boy plowing the field will know more about the bible than you. Of course, he was branded a heretic, hanged first, then burned.
Under Bloody Mary, predecessor of Elizabeth Regina, historians reckon more than 100 people or families were burned in one year as heretics for having a translation of the bible in their own language. The Pope said, I will translate, you just do what I say, and keep sending money. We today cannot fully comprehend what was involved in throwing off the yoke of religious tyranny.
To our detriment, we have not a clue how much we owe to the success of the protestant reformation in the kingdom.
The entire structure of the constitutional republic is based upon concepts brought to fruition during that bloody struggle.
Cowboy, I suppose you know this, but seems to me that you’re pointing to an essential problem with the Reformation, in that it was a reaction to the behavior of participants but threw the doctrinal baby out with the bathwater. Once you jettison the megisterium, you really consign yourself eventually to running about the woods all painted blue. I might add, now that I read epi’s comment, even if you manage to make political and legal progress along the way. The so-called religious tyranny had a lot to do with the fact that the delicate balance between the influence of church and state that had held for half a millenium was finally upset and resolved in favor of the latter.
And Blert @ 31. Not really. Time and space look clearly to be within God. And re. 32, I think the sine qua non of any religion is its capacity to provide access to the overarching Truth, not that that really contradicts what you said.
16. maineman
My experience has also been that most people are kind. That includes people who live in places neither Judeo or Christian. In my experience religious belief doesn’t have a special correlation with kindness. Religion recommends kindness but among the meanies I have encountered, professed Christian church goers have equal representation with other folks. Same goes for Hindus and Moslems. Haven’t run into many Buddhists so I can’t account for them.
You can’t practice religion unless you believe in God so belief comes first. But belief doesn’t guarantee practice. I wonder sometimes if church-going is mainly to reinforce belief and practice is left outside the church door. By the same token, going through the motions of practice without belief isn’t religion either.
Regarding Cameron’s speech, it sounds limp-wristed like the man himself appears to be. I never met him so that may be unjust.
The Archbishop of Canterbury seems to believe in Marx instead of God. Just a big woolly head filled with confusion. Never met him either.
Mr Fernandez,
Thank you for the article pointing to Mr Cameron’s speech. Taking his point, however, the cover image of your book, Storming the Castle, is to be regretted.
LTM
@32 blert , in all my efforts to read, research and try to figgur it all out, I’ll be double derned if I don’t manage to fail to realize what you have said in the above (and other comments too) comment, which is the point of your comment. But my conclusions result from a lacking of the firsthand knowledge that you and about three others here at BC (with that first hand experience) have invaluably shared and included in your comments with us here. (The four horsemen? (well….in a manner of speaking)).
May God help us.
I think, sometimes, many times, the Catholic church had to raise funds in order to fight off the muslim advance so as to keep Christendum Christendum, and the pagan hordes at bay, and they did this also to try and help keep Mongols and Khans and Tartars out of Europe via the corridor of what is now Poland a millennium ago, so they had a lot on their plate. This all came at a great financial, material (and spiritual) cost. And if one looks around, fighting off the barbarians, and barbaric ideas and practices (such as infanticide, for example, in the form of you-know-what) is still the order of the day, and the war as we find it.
By the way, if you click to post a comment and the edit function doesn’t come up, try going (back) to the main page, select that particular blog post (and click on “comments”) again, and then the edit function should appear beneath your recently posted comment. Then you can edit this time where before the option did not appear.
Indeed it was religious tyranny. Attempting to, by threat of horrible death, control what religious practices will prevail. Much like Islam, today. I get to kill my neighbor if he attempts to “leave the church”. I get to persecute “people of the book”. I will enforce my laws upon everyone. There is not much room for doubt.
Elizabeth Regina expressed it thus “I have no desire to create a window into the soul of man”. She did an excellent job, at the age of 14, of summarizing the doctrine of the sufficiency of Christ in a letter to step-mother Catherine Parr, as she was concerned about the true salvation of her father, Henry VIII. It’s a good read for those who understand the complexities. Who knows where she came by this powerful rooting in reformation theology at such an age.
In the Constitutional Republic, we have enshrined important principals. First a moral structure or basis. Thou shalt not kill means entitlement to life. Pursuit of happiness is entitlement to the blessings of liberty, the fruits of labor. We face adversity in life, because the earth has grown thorns and thistles against us. We eat our bread by the sweat of our brow. Government is enjoined against depriving us of those fruits. We are free to believe and practice or not believe. We owe no tithe to the church. This is our liberty.
Limited government and enumerated powers recognizes that I have not right to compel my neighbors activities, even for his own good. Government has no right to enslave a percentage of his labor or wages to prepare for his retirement or health care.
We are not here to create a more equitable outcome by demanding increased control over other’s lives. Compelled charity is not charity. Compelled religious practice is not faith.
@ 32 — “We have an entire sweep of generations befouled by Soviet agitprop — blinded to its existence.” I’m told that Putin is actually an Orthodox believer by sources within the Orthodox Churches, but as for the rhythmic gymnast with the kid named Vladimir or the state of his soul, of course I would not know.
http://www.sfaturiortodoxe.ro/orthodox/orthodox_advices_seraphim_rose_the_end_of_the_world.htm
Fr. Seraphim Rose: The Future of Russia and the End of the World from the early 1980s, in which he predicts the collapse of Communism and a spiritual revival in Russia before the End, which he says the hieromartyrs predicted even as the Bolsheviks were seizing power in 1917-18.
There will be a storm. It may shatter America or leave us severely weakened. But then there will be Revival. It will confirm what Solzhenitsyn prophesied in the 1970s that a post-Soviet Russia could not merely blindly copy a Western culture that by that point was already in rapid decline. The Russians tried that and got the 1990s for their pains, which gave them, for better and lately for worse, Putin.
Another excerpt from Fr. Seraphim Rose:
“To our detriment, we have not a clue how much we owe to the success of the protestant reformation in the kingdom.” It was the Orthodox of Byzantium/Constantinople who first refused to recognize the Pope as the exclusive and final arbiter of Church teaching and doctrine, when a Pope elevated himself above the traditional role of first among equals and sought more temporal power that was not conciliar. The Great Church Councils had nearly all operated by consensus. That was thrown aside and so we’ve received 19 centuries doctrines (the Immaculate Conception of Mary, which some Orthodox are less concerned about than others) for the Roman Catholics and the ‘Rapture’ or Dispensationalism which arose, not coincidentally, among British Protestants in the 19th century after the Crimean War. The Orthodox on the other hand correctly understood the plain meaning that Christ will come again once and for all, not invisibly but visibly, as it says in Matthew. Besides, the Orthodox Christians of Russia, Armenia and other places were not ‘raptured out’ of horrific persecution in the bloody 20th century. Why would we be raptured out in the 21st century?
MBM 30: “So, did God create itself de novo then? However, if the claim is that God has always existed, what need do we have for God when we could simply claim that the universe has always existed.”
Exactly. Either an eternal uncreated God created a finite universe, or there is no God and our uncreated universe is eternal. Either choice requires faith because, without revelation, God cannot be observed, and no one was or could have been present to observe the beginning of a universe with no beginning. BTW, I am not denigrating atheist faith; I’m just pointing out that it is a faith which is on a level playing field with religious faith in regards to reason. Reason cannot help us choose between these two faiths; the choice must be made on moral grounds. If atheism renders man a random accident of nature, and therefore an entity with measurable (and often little – and unequal) value, then I reject atheism on that ground, because the value of all men is infinite (and therefore equal) if man is made in the image of God.
MBM 30: “While it is easy to abuse Occam’s Razor, it would seem to apply here.”
Occam’s Razor: “Simpler explanations are, other things being equal, generally better than more complex ones.”
“It has been suggested that Occam’s razor is a widely accepted example of extraevidential consideration, even though it is entirely a metaphysical assumption. There is little empirical evidence that the world is actually simple or that simple accounts are more likely than complex ones to be true… There are many examples where Occam’s razor would have picked the wrong theory given the available data. Simplicity principles are useful philosophical preferences for choosing a more likely theory from among several possibilities that are each consistent with available data. A single instance of Occam’s razor picking a wrong theory falsifies the razor as a general principle.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_razor
Occam’s Razor is a useful maxim because it is often true in the natural world, but not always true. As Isaac Newton pointed out, Occam’s Razor only applies to things observed in the natural world; it was never intended as a maxim for use in relation to the supernatural.
“We are to admit no more causes of natural things than such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances.” Isaac Newton
Is Christianity rational? Gloming on to the discussion initiated by Josh #12 and Dr. Mabuse:
I submit it is. Going all the way back to Eden God gave warnings; You shall do this, you shall not do that. Violation of the warning had consequences. Fast forward to Abraham and a deal was made: Have faith and you will be a father of nations. He did and he is. A people were chosen to demonstrate that God’s word is true. Deals were made with Sarah, Isreal, Judah, Moses….,call them prophesies, promises or blessings what you will, a covenant or contract law. If/then stuff. If A then B. If not A then C. Very logical and rational. So far, from my reading of the bible and history it appears that God has done what He said he would do.
To this Christian, Jesus is the fulfillment of Gods end of the contract and a new more demanding contract has been added for Christians.
Josh, you are correct about the element of faith that predicates our actions, but given the history of events, i.e., the demonstration that God’s word is true, acting in faith is not an irrational act.
But if I am missing your point or splitting hairs then I welcome your input.
Briton, the once great Christian nation who spread Christianity across the globe, and had as it’s pound the global currency.
It is now cursed for it’s hate for G-d’s love called Christ, and it’s embrace of all things New Age.
America, born from it’s Mother the United Kingdom, is on the same path. The next election means everything to the unwashed Americans who believe in Nationalism, hard work, weapons, and the Bible vs the CFR global Marxists who worship power, and money.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMUZIVYuluc
And some more Nor Laup material. He’s getting a very warm reception, surprising from a Jay Leno audience. If nothing else, he’ll succeed in knocking Newt out of this race.
maineman@17 – “St. Thomas would argue, correctly I think, that faith must precede reason.”
L3@20 – “I didn’t achieve the goal, and I’m sorry. I will try to do better in the future.”
How are we to perceive faith in a false god or a false goal if faith comes before reason?
Even this speech is too PC. How can he possibly think China will have more Muslims than Pakistan or Indonesia? That is to suggest massive conversion by Chinese to Islam. Even though it’s censored, the Chinese have the internet and brains. Not gonna happen! No way, no how. So, to insert that wild claim in the speech shows Cameron is still sucking up to Islam.
MSO 46,
Reason comes before faith because faith is any belief beyond the discovery of reason. The use of reason will help us to identify falsehood, because reason is the ability to observe, comprehend and accept self-evident truth.
“Where revelation comes into its own is where reason cannot reach. Where we have few or no ideas for reason to contradict or confirm, this is the proper matters for faith… that Part of the Angels rebelled against GOD, and thereby lost their first happy state: and that the dead shall rise, and live again: These and the like, being beyond the discovery of reason, are purely matters of faith; with which reason has nothing to do.” John Locke
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/locke/
bb @ 46: Josh, you are correct about the element of faith that predicates our actions, but given the history of events, i.e., the demonstration that God’s word is true, acting in faith is not an irrational act.
But if I am missing your point or splitting hairs then I welcome your input.
I have no point.
I refer you to “Fear and Trembling” Kierkegaard or some more modern guys whose names I forget. After the Enlightenment which is so unpopular around here, it was thought that rationalism could not precede faith, but the question was whether one could (should) have faith on some other basis, which is, perhaps, something like what Kierkegaard said.
… I keep writing and deleting further screeds on the matter, let’s go with deleted. Just say, history suggests we need both faith and rationality, and it won’t ever be easy or simple.
Not to sound like a heretic for a practicing Catholic, but I have never believed that the Pope was to be infallible. In Christ’s words, Peter, the first Pope, and by implication the example for all the Popes to follow, was to be the “rock’ of the church.
Christ never said infallible. Oh, btw, Christ knew Peter would at times would fail him; indeed the first Pope “failed” or denied Christ three times in his greatest time of need.
The infallible thing came much later in Vatican I under the spell of mere mortals. Not God.
That being said, Christ did designate Peter, to be the first Pope and to be the rock of his church to be. Therefore, if you want to follow Christ, the criticism of following a man (the Pope) stuff is as equally off base to my way of thinking as the doctrine of infallibility.
49. Josh
“..the Enlightenment which is so unpopular around here”
Not unpopular with everyone. Some of us think the Enlightenment was the best thing since the invention of the longbow.
Unsk, the doctrine is not that the Pope is infallible but that infallibility is present when he is conveying infallible church doctrine.
“How are we to perceive faith in a false god or a false goal if faith comes before reason?” We are to perceive it as misplaced. Which is why, incidentally, liberalism is always wrong.
Infallibility is a 19th Century doctrine. There is no basis for it prior to the late 1800s.
I was raised a Catholic but after much reading and study I have concluded that the theology and practices of the Eastern Orthodox Church are as close to the “authentic” as any organized church can get. There are some subtle difference. For example, Othodox theology does not encompass Original Sin.
The notion that the Bishop of Rome was more equal than other bishops did not arise until late in the 1st Millenium, and well after all the major theological issues of the first 8 centuries had been settled.
I am a charismatic Calvinist, who’s discipleship path is informed by both reason and experience, as well as enough knowledge of quantum mechanics to know i will never understand. Perhaps the most important thing to realize is that we are all heretics. When we think we know God, and are sure we are right is when we are the most dangerous.
Regarding reason and faith, or experience, or communion with God: My religious experience is rich in both. I have read and studied many books, read the entire Bible. Heard hundreds of sermons, and actually listened. I have also heard from God. Heard a voice that could only be his, since it answered a question I didn’t ask. Both reason and experience are needed.
Perhaps the best way to describe it is to contrast a 60 year old professor and a four year old. The professor has studied love for all his years, but never been loved, or loved another. This man may be able to tell you everything there is to know about love, yet he doesn’t know it. Then take a four year old girl who has been loved all her life. She knows love, even though she would have little language to describe her experience. Who would know love the best? Or is it both at the same time.
So much of both theology and quantum mechanics is paradoxical. Both halves are 100% true at the same time. Jesus is 100% God, and 100% man. An electron is 100% particle and 100% wave. The more you understand either, if your head doesn’t hurt, you didn’t understand.So truth is paradoxical. My current fave paradox is to be a cynical-innocent. 100% both at the same time. Fully aware, at my most Calvinist, of the utter depravity of all, and at the same time live fully innocent and trusting. The Christmas hook for this is that this is one paradox that helps describe Jesus, fully both at the same time.
Regarding time. God seems to be either outside time, or have a very different relationship to it than we do. We think events happen, then other events happen, and so cause and effect. I suspect that for God time is three dimensional. He can move forward and backward, and sideways. The big bang seems to have created all 3+ dimensions of space and the 1+ dimensions of time at the same time. Note language is lacking to describe how an event happens, without time to act as a marker. When does something happen, if time hasn’t been invented yet? Which direction does space expand into? If the bang creates the dimensions?
One of the most interesting things, (when you know enough to be dangerous), about how the universe was created is that the universe seems designed for free will. I am very impressed with this design. We have tried to develop computers with Hal’s or Mike’s awareness. All we have learned is how little we know about what it means to be aware of who you are. My cat knew who he was. He knew about future. He could tell time. A complex creature. Either all this awareness is just chance, or there is a deeper purpose to creation.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_ZP8impw3Q
Stirlitz (Vyacheslav Tikhonov) watches the cranes flying — from 17 Moments of Spring (7 МГНОВЕНИЙ ВЕСНЫ), the series that made little Volodya in Leningrad want to be a chekist when he grew up.
Machias — tomorrow (Monday December 19th) is Vladimir Vladimirovich’s professional holiday.
День работника органов безопасности Российской Федерации (literally Day of Security Organ Workers in the Russian Federation)
c @ 28: Yet there are, no doubt, men like the Archbishop of Canterbury in the Cardinal College who will push for the next pope to be more a transitive figure, one who will allow Rome to “get with the times.” I hope they are not successful.
I was going to ask about that, but then let it pass, but now see Drudge has an article about the Pope’s current health:
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20111217/D9RMBAQG0.html
My concern with the Catholic Church is only as an observer, but don’t you think it could use some reforms, before for instance the American Catholics feel the need to separate from Rome? Perhaps choosing a Pope who is not the oldest man in the room and keeping him on the throne for life, would lead to a more vigorous church? And probably ending priestly celibacy so even the American church could raise its own clergy? None of this is doctrinal, as such.
To Josh @56
A dynasty is a sequence of rulers considered members of the same family…
re: your comment (ending priestly celibacy so even the American church could raise its own clergy?)
there is a list there: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynasty
regards !!
SF
correction:
I didn’t mean “raise” literally … although that is exactly why the celibacy rule was put in in the first place! And neither church not king liked that idea, they both wanted a hand in appointing new priests, to keep parishes from breaking off into independent regions (ie, not paying taxes to Pope or King).
I just meant “recruit”.
little Freudian slip there mebbe …
To paraphrase what they say about Mexico because it is just as apt for the UK = “Poor Britain so far from God, so close to Europe.”
In the great scheme of things it is not important for God to be on the side our country. It is only important that we be on His. Perhaps Ben Franklin best made the argument for a public faith in his letter to Tom Paine regarding “The Age of Reason”
“You yourself may find it easy to live a virtuous life, without the assistance afforded by religion; you having a clear perception of the advantages of virtue, and the disadvantages of vice, and possessing a strength of resolution sufficient to enable you to resist common temptations. But think how great a portion of mankind consists of weak and ignorant men and women, and of inexperienced, inconsiderate youth of both sexes, who have need of the motives of religion to restrain them from vice, to support their virtue, and retain them in the practice of it till it becomes habitual, which is the great point for its security….If men are so wicked with religion, what would they be if without it?”
Religious news resembling a script from “Dynasty” sounds more like Megachurch Protestant scandals than anything the Catholics have to deal with. A few years ago the Italian Church did have some tabloid ready financial problems but the Priest’s sexual failures with children are vile and lack the ability to sustain any show other than Law & Order. Although the RC Church has a profusion of fancy hats and costumes they lack the one essential element of Dynasty, big hair.
Never mind, no harm meant.
On the issue of Counciliar Church governance, and much doctrine, the Anglicans are close to the Eastern Orthodox. Their radical innovations are social accretions and not repudiations of their links with the pre-Reformation ideal of a unified Church as constructed after the early Councils. To some extent the radicalism of the current Anglicans, like the recent assertion of Infallibility by the Papacy, is a defense mechanism or poison pill designed to prevent the absorption of one denomination or sect, not using the word in a pejorative sense, within a larger dynamic.
The world is poorer for not having Christopher Hitchens response to Cameron. Our host’s desire not to have his eulogy of Hitchens commented on, as he did not want comments on his tribute to Mrs Aquino, should be respected. Perhaps I may comment on the limits of Secular Sybaritic Stoicism as a philosophy that can not serve more than a narrow elite, and is therefore inappropriate for both Leftists or Conservatives.
Hmmm. Seems a lot has happened since I left.
The notion that reason can provide access to truth is a matter of faith, is it not. For that matter, is not Truth another name for God? Does not any scientific inquiry emanate from faith in the order of the Cosmos?
As for infallibility, I see the date of origin of doctrine as a moot point. The Church is alive, not something stamped in stone thousands of years ago, and figuring out what it meant that God came to visit us here has been a very complicated and extended matter.
Finally, my problem with the enlightenment has to do with my understanding that it involved the prioritization of reason over faith. That seems to me to be an act of primary narcissism, evident in the empty promises and ultimate failure of its offspring, modernism and post-modernism. Perhaps I’m mistaken.
RE Josh 56
In many ways, a split in the American RC community has already occurred.
Once upon a time, a teaching on how to decide how many children you wanted was being debated. Exactly WHAT was decided on is not the concern. HOW it was decided is. It wasn’t pretty. It had all the petty elements of corporate in fighting and small-town politics.
To explain the current state of the relationship between the community and Rome, think about it this way – imagine if, after Toto had pulled back the Wizard’s curtain, he had stepped out and said in a huff “The four of you need to march out of here, and come back in and pretend you never saw me!” Then imagine two of the four saying, “Well, you heard him. Let’s do like he said.”
In western Asia there are 3 dominant religions
1–Christianity-Catholicism–in the Philippines
2–Islam–mainly Sufi –in Indonesia
3–Hinduism
All are adopting free market ideas and democracy
They all want a better life for their children
They all seem to reject any of the current Muslim, Hindu, Christian and Israeli form of fascism –good for them
Mr X – “Oh beautiful for heroes proved in liberating strife, who more than self their country loved and mercy more than life..” http://tinyurl.com/7a62aod
A white city upon a hill http://tinyurl.com/5dt9ga
Worth noting that the Mirror misconstrued Cameron’s comments and speech and spun it as though it was a personal attack directed at Rowan what’s-his-name. PC pagan faith is almost always practiced passive-aggressive.
http://tinyurl.com/6t6lduv
Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall!
http://tinyurl.com/yu3mo7
What do I know, sitting here in Chicago, but it seems to me that Cameron may be getting UK people ready for a larger break with the EU by telling them that their national and cultural identity is something different from and larger than merely “being EUropean.”
OT
RIP Vaclav Havel.
http://enews.earthlink.net/article/top?guid=20111218/ccc8ffd3-6b9a-47b4-a8c5-73cafe57f284
Once I met him when he came to NY after 9-11. A little giant. I heard that he used to go drinking at CBGBs.
2009, you refer to the split between Catholics and non-Catholics. Nancy Pelosi, to take an example, is what you might call a canonical Catholic but has excommunicated herself, even though she would argue otherwise.
At any rate, the current split in the Anglican church is more like your analogy. And it results from the “freedom” to monkey around cavalierly with doctrine that originated in the Reformation.
Os Guinness wrote in Prophetic Untimeliness that the more the Church seeks to be “relevant” the less relevant it becomes, if by relevant we mean adapting itself to conventional tastes and ideas. This is because the conventional wisdom will soon become outdated, quaint, even absurd, as we see with Rowan Williams and the CoE in Britain. He is not prophetic; he is merely regurgitating the philosophy of the skeptics. The reason that the Church is still around and still relevant is because its message is timeless and eternal. Those particular churches who forget or disbelieve that risk becoming historical footnotes.
Maineman 61,
Reason provides access to scientific and basic moral truth because both forms of truth are ultimately self-evident, and reason is the ability to observe, comprehend and accept self-evident truth. Faith is any belief undiscoverable by science, which is to say any belief based on that which is unobservable and un-testable, which is to say any belief which is beyond the discovery of reason and science. Reason is not a matter of faith – reason is a matter of observation.
The enlightenment, as expressed by John Locke, did not prioritize reason over faith; it merely separated the two – each to its own mutually-exclusive domain. Reason is in the domain of self-evident observable truth, faith is in the domain of anything (such as God – or the origin of an eternal un-created universe) which, without revelation, cannot be directly observed by the human eye.
“The state of nature has a law of nature to govern it, which obliges every one: and reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind, who will but consult it, that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions: for men being all the workmanship of one omnipotent, and infinitely wise maker; all the servants of one sovereign master, sent into the world by his order, and about his business; they are his property, whose workmanship they are, made to last during his, not one another’s pleasure: and being furnished with like faculties, sharing all in one community of nature, there cannot be supposed any such subordination among us, that may authorize us to destroy one another, as if we were made for one another’s uses, as the inferior ranks of creatures are for our’s.” John Locke
http://history.hanover.edu/courses/excerpts/111locke1.html
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Thomas Jefferson
http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/document/index.htm
“Aristotle is the champion of this world, the champion of nature, as against the supernaturalism of Plato… Reality is comprised, not of Platonic abstractions, but of concrete, individual entities, each with a definite nature, each obeying the laws inherent in its nature. Aristotle’s universe is the universe of science… The Renaissance represented a rebirth of the Aristotelian spirit. The results of that spirit are written across the next two centuries, which men describe, properly, as the Age of Reason and the Age of Enlightenment. The results include the rise of modern science; the rise of an individualist political philosophy (the work of John Locke and others); the consequent spread of freedom across the civilized world; and the birth of the freest country in history, the United States of America.” Leonard Peikoff
http://www.peikoff.com/lr/review_rand.htm
…Blest with victory and peace, may the heav’n rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: “In God is our trust.”
http://tinyurl.com/7ghxde5
Ref Maineman 70
I’d beg to differ. The split goes into the clergy itself.
Rome is doing its best to stamp out the idea that priests should be ‘flexible.’
The Church is alive, not something stamped in stone thousands of years ago
That is the very seed of postmodern tinkering with faith and theology. Maybe the institution of the Church is alive, as is any human made organization, but if the core principles are not forever enduring then you get the nonsense of a Rowan or a Medici pope, as the case may be.
Judaism is fundamentally unchanged for 4,000 years. To me, that is about as much a proof of God as we’re going to get.
In the end, I think the varied and hands-off approach of government in regards to religion has made religious institutions in the United States much more resilient and robust than in countries, like England or France, where the government took a much stronger hand in deciding religious matters.
However, it is true that the government (mostly through intervention in education) has started to take a very active hand in indoctrinating our nation. Instead of teaching about God, children are now being filled with doctrine regarding environmentalism, diversity, and many other matters where the facts remain uncertain.
One of the things that I think distinguished the United States from many other countries is that I think our people have been able to maintain a patriotic pride in the country, combined with a strong self reliance and confidence that still allowed them to take a skeptical view of the federal government. All 3 of those things have been eroded over time due to the doctrine taught in our schools. Maybe the first and most bold step that we can manage is to demolish the educational infrastructure that has been so successful in eroding many the strongest components of what made American successful.
MSO @46,
How are we to perceive faith in a false god or a false goal if faith comes before reason?
Well, a great question and I won’t pretend like I really know the answer. But I’ll riff on it for a bit if you’ll indulge me.
Approach 1
What we’re trying to get at is truth. Reason uses deduction to get there: if A and B, then C. The rules of logic apply, so we can be pretty certain of the conclusion, if the premises hold. But where do the premises come from? Descartes chased this argument back to what he believed was the root: I think, therefore I am. But even that is unprovable, it was just taken as so obvious to ol’ Rene that he stopped there. So it, ultimately, is an article of faith. Even if you don’t go that far back in the chain of reasoning, you have to start with unproven premises that are taken as true. IOW, faith. So faith, in a logical sense, precedes reason.
Approach 2
Gödel famously proved, using logic, that there are true statements that cannot be proven. If you pick any set of logical rules, and apply them consistently and formally to a set of axioms, there will always be true statements that are unprovable. You can believe these true statements as a matter of faith, but that’s it. So faith, in a philosophical sense, is prior to reason.
Approach 3
The scientific method – the principal tool of reason – cannot prove; it can only disprove. But as a practical matter, we can’t live life with the extreme skeptic’s view. I wake up in the morning, and there is a non-zero probability that in the next 30 seconds Earth will be sucked into a black hole and we will all be compressed into really dense speck the size of a grain of sand. So I have to accept as a matter of faith that I won’t become a singularity. I can’t prove it, at least before I get out of bed. Practically speaking, then, I need faith before I need reason.
Approach 4
Knowing something (reason) is different from accepting something (assent). I can accept something even though I don’t understand it. For instance, I can type “illative sense” into Google, and it comes up with a list of websites. How does it do that? I kinda know, but not really. That gap between knowing and accepting is filled with faith. I have faith that Google returns sites that are relevant. Since I can assent without reasoning, but can’t reason without assent (I have to accept reason to use it), then faith precedes reason.
—
Now, as you point out, just because I believe something doesn’t mean it’s true. A false god is the example you raised, and a good one. But that’s where reason is so valuable; if faith contradicts reason, it can’t be true.
The tricky part is that reason is not so rock solid as it appears. Since reason can only disprove, it’s pretty narrow and can miss things. For instance, for centuries we believed that Newtonian physics was true. As it turned out, it was approximately true in the normal range of things, but it didn’t work in all cases (relativity, quantum, etc.). So you could believe that light travels in a straight line, and you’d be correct based upon your experience, but it turns out later you’re wrong in a strict sense.
The thing about the great faith traditions is that they’ve survived a long time with their core articles of faith intact and unchanged, and that implies that those traditions seem to map pretty well onto reality (I happen to think Catholicism is the best map, but YMMV). As presbypoet point out, there are aspects of reality that – as we learn more about them and understand them – appear to bring us back to those tenets of faith that at times appeared to be irrational (e.g. Jesus Christ as 100% God and 100% man).
That is why there is such a thing as development of doctrine (which does happen), which is different from change of doctrine (which can’t happen). It’s as if we were in elementary school, and someone gave us a book on differential calculus. It’s unlikely that we can fully comprehend calculus just because we have the book. In fact, most of it will make no sense. But as we grow and learn about algebra and trigonometry, as our brain develops and our experience deepens, one day we’re ready to understand it. We read the first chapter on limits, and we get it. And then the next chapter. And the next. And, pretty soon, we understand. And, once we understand, we can talk about it, and even teach it.
Did that mean calculus wasn’t true when we got the book? No. It was true before we understood it. It just takes time for us to wrap our head around things that are rich and complex. Like, say, papal infallibility.
Since this started with the Bible and Shakespeare, I’ll wrap up with them. First the Bard:
And now King James (Luke 2:9):
Faith is something that is strange, and we should give it welcome. We are given it to keep and ponder. But we should never forget that it starts with the Gift, and the Giver.
Cheers,
L3
75. Peter Boston: Judaism is fundamentally unchanged for 4,000 years. To me, that is about as much a proof of God as we’re going to get.
The Israelites began as henotheists, but gradually became monotheists. This is encoded in their scriptures, which still make idolatry such a terrible thing. If God is the only real deity in the universe, then offering food to Zeus has no effect whatsoever. Even the New Testament forbids idolatry.
The Torah did not exist until the period of the Babylonian Captivity, 587-538 BC. The global Deluge was read back into Jewish scriptures from the 11th tablet of the Gilgamesh epic, and the Sabbath was a reversal of the four “evil days” every month in the Babylonian lunar calendar, when people didn’t go out for fear of misfortune, rather than to commemorate creation.
LL3 77,
What we’re trying to get at is truth. Reason uses observation to get there: A is A, and B is B, therefore A is not B. The rule of self-evident truth applies, so we can be certain of the conclusion if the observation holds. Aristotle chased this argument back to the root: I observe, thereby I reason, and therefore I am. That is provable because truth is self-evident, so, ultimately, it is an article of reason. If you go that far back in the chain of reason, you start with self-evident observation which underpins all science that is taken as true. Faith applies to all that is unobservable; so, reason and faith, in a logical sense, are in mutually-exclusive domains, and thereby never in conflict.
I’m not getting how strictures against idolatry encode anything contrary to monotheism. The idea is that there is one true god, the other gods are false, and the harm of following a false god is, I’d think, self-evident. To follow a false god is to be in a state of error, which does have harmful consequences. For example, let’s say I knew communism was a sham and couldn’t really work out. So would I then conclude there’d be no real harm by adopting it? Hardly.
In fact, I’d argue that the greatest problem of our own time is idolatry, it is the following of false gods, it is the humanistic belief that we can create heaven on earth by our own hands. This is as old as the tower of Babel problem, or the worship of Baal and Astarte which the Jews believe led to their captivity in Babylon. No less than the entire story of the Old Testament presents as a cautionary tale of the personal and societal harms that can arise by following false gods. And those are just the “historical” books; every Hewbrew prophet’s cheif concern is fidelity to Jehovah and the lamentations that follow when this breaks down; Job’s central problem is a test on this matter; the Psalms as body contain this admonition as their major theme. And it is all reflected again in the New Testament’s “straight and narrow” way and admonisions against false prophets. When St. Paul arrived in Athens he performed a miracle that was witnessed by a priest of Zeus. The priest then brought an ox before him, for blood sacrifice, thinking St. Paul was a god. Horrified, St. Paul stopped him, and corrected him, striving from keeping the man from error. He saw harm in it.
80. Cowboy: No less than the entire story of the Old Testament presents as a cautionary tale of the personal and societal harms that can arise by following false gods.
Perhaps you don’t understand that henotheism is the belief that other gods exist, but that one’s own god (YHWH in the case of the children of Israel) is supreme.
Monotheism is the belief that only one God, the creator, exists.
So you see that the injunction against idolatry is a vestige of the earlier henotheistic period when the Israelites believed their God was “jealous” of worshiping other gods.
By analogy, imagine you are married to a jealous girl and you live on a desert island with 500 other girls. She has a commandment against adultery. But then, one by one, all the other girls die off, until there’s only you and your wife, but the commandment against adultery remains on the books because the books never change. But it is no longer possible to break that commandment.
Off Topic:
Refer to the following:
http://www.dailypaul.com/192852/friday-ron-paul-tea-party-moneybomb-december-16-2011
It’s almost a sure bet that a significant fraction of the money going to Ron Paul is coming from the Obama campaign. Ron Paul can’t win the Republican nomination but can run as a third party candidate and split the conservative vote. Ron Paul either doesn’t know it or refuses to accept it but he’s a force for Obama (the socialists) dressed up as a Libertarian.
LLIII @ 77. Thank you, thank you, thank you for stating so eloquently what I lack the acumen and clarity to do similar justice to myself.
I want to press the point further, that we have been nibbling at the tragedy of our era, the amnesia of whole cultures regarding the existence of the absolute.
When you say, SR, that “we’re trying to get at truth,” you are making a statement affirming the existence of absolute truth. (If there is no absolute, if truth is relative, then there can be no such thing as the truth, only matters of opinion based on different perspectives – call that the liberal’s fatal error, a flawed first principle from which only error can flow.)
The existence of truth, which any argument assumes, even the self-refuting ones of liberalism, therefore insists on the existence of something beyond us which permeates everything we know.
This then means that reason and faith cannot possibly be separate from one another on pains of universal annihilation. (If two things are completely distinct and have no common, transcendent aspect, then there is no basis for existence within the same universe, hence no way for such a universe to exist.)
Eggplant,
While based on your track record I accept that you’re an actual person making the comments re: Paul, check out this PJM thread, where there’s some pretty strong evidence of talking points being issued and zombie sock puppets sallyingf forth from a handful or a single IP address/es:
http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2011/12/17/paul-campaign-rolls-out-lew-rockwell/#comment-224033
These idiot bots even think Rand is named for Ayn Rand rather than being short for Rand-al Howard Paul. If people can’t get simple facts like that right that can be discerned with a five second Google search, how credible are their other smears of Paul?
I smell Establishment desperation and some serious money starting to be spent to discredit Paul. Look Eggplant, there’s already very strong evidence that the MSM including Fox gets talking points on RP. See this Jon Stewart video (there’s a top tier) — to suggest that even MSM drones would all simultaneously nearly all use the phrase, “There’s a top tier…” to ignore Paul requires a lot of naivete. They have their marching orders just as Shep Smith had his producer screaming in his earpiece to shut up the South Ossetian girl post 08/08/08 who said the Georgians were bombing Tskinval.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gg3EptrKOms&feature=related
August 14, 2011 “There’s now a top tier…” love or hate Ron Paul, even as a fair minded observer you’d have to admit that these are MSM TALKING POINTS CAUGHT on tape (best part is ‘Huntsman got 69 votes…enough to comfortably fit in an Ames Quiznos’)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_289773&src_vid=Gg3EptrKOms&feature=iv&v=i0nUDUYl8sA
JS: “There goes crazy ole’ Uncle Ron, babbling about the unsustainability of U.S. wars…” and daring to suggest we’ll be too broke to pay our troops and pensions. But hell, there seem to be some PJMers who’d rather see veterans pensions gutted that dismantle even half of our overseas military presence. Because that would, you know, invite aggression from Eurasia/Eastasia.
Like I said, even if Ron Paul fails, strike him down and his son Rand will come back stronger than you can even imagine in 2016 after fighting still more ludicrous, unconstitutional legislation like the NDAA and SOPA. And the Republican Liberty Caucus (RLC), if it isn’t banned as a terrorist group by 2016, will start tossing Romney RINOs like McCain and Graham left and right. After all, isn’t that what L3 and our gracious host have suggested, tossing out incumbents?
End of thread for me.
Again, sorry to be off-topic:
In the thread previously linked by Mr. X, he said:
“Paul is the only GOP candidate right now who’s actually come out ahead in the PPP nationwide poll when pitted against Obama.”
PPP is a Democrat Party polling agency tasked with shaping public opinion and putting a liberal bias on the RCP Poll Averages over at Real Clear Politics. Notice the (D) after PPP, i.e. PPP(D). The PPP(D) poll is fairly clear evidence that the Democrats want Paul to do well in the Republican primaries. If the PPP says something then it is wise to believe the exact opposite.
Sorry for this interruption. I’m done with this thread.
75. PB: Do you really maintain that Judaism is unchanged for 4,000 years? How can that stand up to review? What evidence do you have for that?
I agree, though, that the Jews are a proof of the existence of God, definitely.
And thanks to all who have brought up the Faith and Reason discussion. I have a question, though. Christianity is about Jesus, right? And Jesus rose from the dead, the miracle of miracles he worked (as he worked a boatload of miracles–some in boats!
). The Resurrection was central to the whole Church, as St. Paul said if Christ is not risen from the dead, your faith is in vain.
Now, a good number of people saw Jesus after the Resurrection and before the Ascension. Quite a few, ultimately. And of course, while Jesus was alive before the Crucifixion, He worked miracles, and His followers did so afterward.
Reason was confronted with supernatural events, in effect. Reason had things to see and test (as Thomas put his fingers into the Risen Christ’s wounds–there were a LOT of these miracles to see with one’s own eyes).
So my question is, where does all that leave the Faith/Reason issue?
An Préachán
Skeptic to convert: “Do you really believe that Jesus turned water into wine?”
Convert: “I don’t know about that, but in my house, he turned water into wine”
I thank God 34 years ago this January he rescued this reeling madman and gave me life and hope.
Isaiah 9:6- For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the
government shall be upon his shoulder and his name shall be called Wonderful,
Counselor, The mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace…
Merry Christmas!
Maybe he read Spengler MkII
http://www.amazon.com/How-Civilizations-Die-Islam-Dying/dp/159698273X
Highly recommended
Not sure I understand your question, An Preachan, but I would say that reason cannot be “confronted” by the supernatural because it is really a reflection of the supernatural.
It would strain credulity to think that we have somehow developed an ordered view of our experience and the universe in which we live exclusively by accumulated data based on trial and error. And even if we could, there would still be the problem of every perspective yielding a different reality, the impossibility of truth, or at least knowledge of it, and a self-annihilating universe, kind of like the Obama administration.
No, the internal and external templates must be identical enough for our internal reality to be matched with the external. As above, so below. So reason comes from God, just like the Resurrection or grace or avocados, none of which conflict with the supernatural but are derived from it.
At least that’s how it looks to me.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/12/19/us-korea-north-idUSTRE7BI05B20111219
Well Kim is reported dead. Can’t bring myself to say any prayers for him.
Glad I have no financial interest in Hennessy. I think he was buying about 1/3 of their booze production.
I’m expecting violence but I’m hoping it won’t be multi-country. God protect the innocents please.
It has been a bad week. Up to 500 dead in the Philippines now.
MSO@46 “How are we to perceive faith in a false god or a false goal if faith comes before reason.”
The Bible addresses this issue, in a way, in Ex 3:10-12. At the Burning Bush, God tells Moses, “I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.” When Moses pleads he may not be up to the task, God replies, “I will be with you. And this will be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship God on this mountain.”
Sometimes, one must act in faith first, and allow later results to validate that faith. If all truth is arrived at, first and foremost, by reason, then reason becomes the ultimate authority in finding truth. If this is the case, have we not then made reason our god?
Yo, Victor… The Philippines and Indonesia are in Southeast Asia, not “western Asia; both categorized as “insular” as opposed to “mainland” SE Asian countries.
India (presumably what you mean by citing the “Hindus” –although, Bali, in Indonesia is largely still Hindu, in the face of islamist pressure to convert) is in South Asia; definitely not western Asia either.
Considering how outspoken and opinionated is your large presence on this and other websites, your credibility would be strengthened at least a bit if you did your geography homework.
And pul-eeeze, spare us the “Israeli fascism” bit! Yeah, I know: scorpion inevitably stings frog halfway across the river, both then perish… That’s just the scorpion’s nature: he is what he is, and he just can’t help himself.
.
Iraq’s liberators are homeward bound in time for Christmas!!!
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord…
http://tinyurl.com/yakdkq4
Kuwait in 1991, Iraq in 2011, Afghanistan et al are next.
Santa Claus IS coming to town! 0001Z December 25, 2011
L3, thanks for taking the time.
If religion is reasoning toward purpose/wisdom and science is reasoning toward knowledge, then education is a short cut, taught by the great religions for the former and the great universities for the latter (sometimes both are taught by both).
In the software world, a C++ complier is not constrained to translate the programmer’s script into an exact series of calculations; rather it is constrained only to produce the same results as if it had translated exactly. This constraint is known as the ‘as if’ rule.
The great religions and the great universities have both, it seems to me, adopted the ‘as if’ rule when it comes to their educational efforts. In the world of science, the ‘as if’ rule is presented as theories while in the world of great religions, the rule is kept hidden with monstrous consequences for lifting its veil. The Word, it seems, must be taken on faith.
Does lifting the veil shrouding the Word, in and of itself, deny one’s own faith? This ‘eating of the apple’ has been depicted by the great religions as an irrevocable error that can be corrected only through the intervention of the Creator. We must not, it appears, attempt to understand the programmer’s original intent.
Are we required to trust the compiler writers or does the admonition to beware of false gods require the opposite?
81. Teresita – By analogy, imagine you are married to a jealous girl and you live on a desert island with 500 other girls. She has a commandment against adultery. But then, one by one, all the other girls die off, until there’s only you and your wife, but the commandment against adultery remains on the books because the books never change. But it is no longer possible to break that commandment.
There is if you commit adultery in your heart. That’s where it always starts.
#93 – “Iraq’s liberators are homeward bound in time for Christmas!!!”
Well, of course they are! And on election day, you won’t forget it was kindly Commander Obama who arranged that, will you? There are going to be video montages galore of joyful airport reunions of families as you approach November – wicked Bush sent these good men far away (and how many didn’t come back?), but Good King Barack plucked them out of danger and safely returned them to their adorable moppets and weeping women. You don’t think any of this had anything to do military strategy, did you?
MSO, first of all, both religion and science are means of acquiring knowledge, it’s just that science is limited to the material universe whereas a good religion provides wisdom and knowledge regarding what is beyond that.
Second, you can’t really be serious that Christian doctrine is antithetical to scientific inquiry, can you?
Descartes chased this argument back to what he believed was the root: I think, therefore I am. But even that is unprovable, it was just taken as so obvious to ol’ Rene that he stopped there.–Leo Linbeck III
If he had been ruthlessly logical he would have argued, “I think, therefore I THINK I am.” ;^)
We think because we are made in the image of God, who is a self-reflective being.