Category: Questions & Answers

More Nonsense of The New Atheists

Posted on by Lyle Duell in Apologetics, Atheism, Nonsense

More Nonsense of The New Atheists

I hope the reader will bear with me as I share with you some nonsense about something that I’ve inherited from the new atheist. It is nonsense, which means that my response is also probably nonsense as well. At least what I have to say will give you something to think about, but I’m not completely certain because it is a non-belief and I’m unsure as to whether you can actually think about it.

The new atheist claims that they have no burden of proof because atheism is not a belief but rather a non-belief[i].  Right.  Atheists, along with everyone else, can or cannot prove or disprove a non-belief.  Nor can they argue for, or against, a non-belief. In fact, you could argue that you cannot even speak from a non-belief other than simply to say, “I do not believe it,”  i.e. I’ve never made an argument for or against the existence of a spaghetti monster.  If you’re talking about spaghetti monsters, the first thing you must do is define it, which no one has ever done for me, so I would have to say that when it comes to spaghetti monsters, I’m agnostic. However, I know of only a handful of atheists who refuse to speak about the subject of God and offer arguments against his existence. They must believe something about the God they are arguing against. Of course, the truth is they build a straw man God in their imaginations and then argue against it.

If you are arguing for or against something, you are not arguing from a non-belief because that is impossible. Moreover, when arguing against something, the argument “I don’t believe” is insufficient because that is an opinion, not an argument. If you argue, you must argue from some other position or ideology not a non-belief. You cannot as atheists do, argue against God and then claim atheism as a non-belief that you have no burden of proof to justify. Atheists must argue against God from either materialism or naturalist ideology, which are beliefs. In other words, the minute they open their mouths the burden of proof lies on the one trying to prove their unbelief by means of other beliefs. In essence, they have to borrow a belief structure from other ideologies in order to speak against a belief in God.  If they don’t want any burden of proof, they should simply not speak and quit arguing from materialism, scientism and naturalism.  Once they argue from these other “isms” or ideologies, they then have the burden of proof to demonstrate its truthfulness. [1]

[i] what is a non-belief? If I hold a belief in my mind that is not true is that a non-belief or is it a false belief? Actually, the only non-belief that a human being can entertain is that God is nothingness. Nothingness is the only non-belief that a human can entertain.

Diversity Destroys Social Cohesion in the West

Posted on by Lyle Duell in Christ and Culture, Modern Myths, Nonsense, Science

In my study of ancient history I found that ancient empires after conquering a nation would import foreign immigrants for the purpose of weaken that nations culture in order prevent it from rebelling against the Empire. After reading this it struck me that this is exactly what Western governments are doing to themselves and their people. Did these ancient rulers know something that are governmental leaders don’t? Watch the video and decide for yourself.

Dogma?

Posted on by Lyle Duell in Apologetics, Atheism, Nonsense, Religion

“Man can be defined as an animal that makes dogmas.  As he piles doctrine on doctrine and conclusion on conclusion in the formation of some tremendous scheme of philosophy and religion, he is, in the only legitimate sense of which the expression is capable, becoming more and more human.  When he drops one doctrine after another in a refined skepticism, when he declines to tie himself to a system, when he says that he has outgrown definitions, when he says that he disbelieves in finality,  when, in his own imagination, he sits as God, holding no form of creed but contemplating all, then he is by that very process sinking slowly backwards into the vagueness of the vagrant animals and the unconsciousness of the grass.  Trees have no dogmas. Turnips are singularly broad-minded” C.K. Chesterton.

The world is filled with ideas, and many of those ideas could be classified as dogmas.  Now, a dogma is an idea that has hardened to a point that is no longer thought about but just accepted on authority.  The word dogma is not used as much today, this may be because it sounds too religious for a secular age, which itself has accepted the dogma of secularism.  However, we do have a word or idea that is very close to it.  It is the word presumption.  A presumption is an idea that we take for granted without much thought or for the most part, without any or little thought.

In view of the above it is a self-event truth that all men have and live by dogma to some degree. One thing that can be said about the religious man is that he has accepted parts of his faith as dogma while the secular man is still in a state of denial, believing he is living by reason alone or in some neutral zone free of presumption or dogma.  He has reached the unconsciousness of grass and he glories in it calling it tolerance or enlightenment.

Of course, there are some men who have very little dogma.  Some of these folks fancied themselves as skeptics.  Skeptics claim not to live by or believe dogma according to their dogma. The only dogma that they can believe is the dogma of skepticism.  According to them, you must doubt everything except skepticism.  Then you have the agnostics who believe nothing because they believe that it is impossible to be certain about the truth.  Of course, they are certain agnosticism is true.  We should not leave out the relativist which believes everything and nothing, and that everyone is right except the person that believes others are wrong.  Of course, they believe that the skeptics, and the agnostics are right.  The only person that they do not agree with is the dogmatist.  They do not seem to like people who think they know something which is true.

Out of all of the above, the relativist is the one most likely to be tossed about by every wind of teaching that comes along, for they lack a foundation of truth by which to judge any new ideas.  As it has been said, “a man who believes nothing will believe anything.”  In fact, the relativist really does not believe in objective truth. What they believe in, is personal truth, i.e. truth is what you believe.  What makes it true is that you believe it.  Most of these folks belong to the same cult, the cult of personal opinion.

The relativist are also the most likely to become fanatical and completely out of balance. Many  progressive folks fall within this group always moving forward without knowing which direction is forward; always seeing a cause to give their meaningless life purpose.  To me, the really progressive person is the one that when traveling in a direction that is not working turns around and goes in a different direction, like back.  Of course, if you are a relativist you don’t know which way is back.

It may be time for all of us to ask some serious questions about some of our new dogmas.  Question like, are they really taking us forward or are they simply getting us deeper into the woods.  So, deep that we will never find our way out.  Why not try putting some of your dogmas, or the lack of it to the test?  Start with your religious assumptions using the Bible as an objective standard to judge your ideas.  You do not have to believe it, but simply use it as a source of information to compare your personal dogma with.  You also might try the same exercise politically with the Constitution and other founding documents.  In doing this you might find these source documents truly refreshing and challenging.

 

Hate the Sin and Love the Sinner

Posted on by Lyle Duell in Apologetics, Atheism, Nonsense

Hate the Sin and Love the Sinner

 I have heard a number of the new atheists mock and ridicule the expression, “hate the sin and love the sinner.” Of course, it does not take a great deal of thought to realize that every morally thoughtful person applies this ideal to others and especially to themselves. We all fail to live up to our own standards and we often hate our short comings. However, we still continue to love ourselves and forgive ourselves.

If a person or a group does not learn to distinguish people’s failings from the people, we are all in trouble. In the end, the person that cannot separate the sin from the person (sinner) will become a very lonely person and perhaps a moral monster.

Out of the Box Thinking

Posted on by Lyle Duell in Christ and Culture, Nonsense

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Out of the Box Thinking

 Before you do what some call “out of box the thinking”, You might want to know something about box thinking and boxes. First, you must know what the box is that you are in and you must admit you are in it, and then you must be able to find or create a different or new box. For all thinking is done in one box or another. There are linguistic boxes, cultural boxes, ideology boxes and paradigm boxes. However, no thinking is done outside of all boxes. In other words, there is no such thing as a free thinker or out of the box thinker.  To think otherwise is to think in the worst box of all ” the stupid box.”

Now there are some huge problems to overcome for those who fancy themselves out of the box thinkers. One is that there are few, if any human beings, who are able to create a completely new box. The limitations of box building seemed to be understood just a few decades ago, when people seemed to sense that only intellectuals of the highest degree could think about box building. However, because of are fantastic education system and our love for pure knowledge, we can now all build boxes. Maybe, each of us can have our own box? The truth is, that very few are able to know the box that they are in much less create a new one. Box makers are few and far between; they are men like Moses, Plato and Jesus. In fact, most boxes are not made by individual, but by complete cultures over a long period of time with a lot of hard work.

What most people mean by “out of the box thinking” is thinking without a foundation of any authority, which in the end simply means giving your own option on a subject with no appeal to an authority outside and other than yourself. One thing that could be said for out of the box thinkers is that in appealing to themselves as the only authority needed, they have saved themselves a lot of laborious study, which is usually required for box building.

I should be careful, for if I say too much, some in the educated class might get the idea to hire these out of the box thinkers to teach everyone to build these easy self created boxes. We could even standardize the boxes, We Westerners are good at that, and then our university could mass-produce out of the box thinkers. We could have the loony bin box, the chaos box and the confused box and in this, we could all be different and the same, at the same time. The America dream comes true, everyone in their own box.

What About Gay Marriage?

Posted on by Lyle Duell in Christ and Culture, Homosexuality, Questions & Answers

Gay Marriage

In the last few months, I have had a number of people call me to ask my opinion of gay marriage, and they attempted to change my mind when I told them I did not think it to be a good idea. I listened to them politely and then shared with them my opinion.  The following is that opinion.  In this article, I have purposely tried to avoid any argument based on religion or morality.

Recently, I received a number of telephone calls asking my opinion on gay marriage.  In actuality, the calls were an attempt to convince me to vote for the state of Maine to approve gay marriages.  In some respects, I could care less as to whether the state approves or disapproves of gay marriages, as it will have no impact upon my thinking about it.  To me, the truth about any matter is not established by a mob or by counting noses.  However, I do feel it will most likely have an impact on my freedom of speech in this country.  As we see in Canada and Europe, after gay marriage was accepted, it became illegal to speak against it publicly. In Canada, clergymen are not allowed to speak against sodomy and homosexuality except in their churches and cannot even post a biblical verse in public that condemns the practice.  So, I guess as a preacher, I should speak my mind now, before my liberal friends put me in jail.

I also believe that once gay marriage is accepted by the state of Maine or our country as a whole, public schools will be forced to teach it as an acceptable lifestyle, therefore normalizing sodomy as a lifestyle that is not morally or religiously accepted by the majority of Americans.  Proponents of same-sex marriage say that this will not happen.  However, in many cases this is purely a lie for they know it is already happening in most states that have accepted same-sex marriage (California has already passed such laws).  It seems that most states that have enacted this law, find it impossible to merely be neutral on this issue.  In view of this, I do not believe we should give the state of Maine power to force the gay agenda on the rest of us.  Of course, I also know this is exactly what our progressive liberal friends want to do.

For those who will call me a homophobic, I want to point out that I have a number of gay friends with whom I have discussed this matter.  Some of them like the idea of gay marriage, while others hate it, and many are indifferent.  They seem to reflect the same feelings of the general population.  Therefore, rejecting the idea of gay marriage does not mean that one hates gays.

Is It a Civil Right?

One of my callers informed me that marriage is a basic civil right.  I strongly believe in civil rights, but I also believe that those rights can and should be limited by one’s culture, common sense, common decency, and respect for others’ customs and traditions.  When these things are violated, the government has the right to place limits on people.  Just because I want to do something does not mean that it’s my civil right.  To be a civil right, the thing I what to do should be civil.  I don’t have the right to go into the ladies’ room no matter how urgently I have to go.  Should I have the attitude that if women don’t like it, then that’s just too bad?  They’re just bigots.  They’re just hung up with a social taboo called modesty.  Maybe we could change the definition of modesty or do away with it all together?  Would that be civil?  Should I start a movement demanding that everyone be gender blind because our culture has a law that says that I have the right to use a men’s room?  Does my not being able to use the ladies’ room violate my civil rights?  I just do not believe that marriage is a civil right any more than a man going into a ladies’ room is a civil right.

The Cost of Gay Marriage

I also have some serious questions about the cost of redefining marriage in our culture.  One of the callers assured me that it would have no financial impact upon the culture.  How can that be when it has the potential of bringing millions of uninsured people into the system at a lower rate?  Someone will have to make up that difference.  Will it be heterosexual married couples or will it be single people?  Why should a single person pay more for insurance than gays?  Gays want the same rights as married couples but more rights than single people.  Is that fair?  They want the state government to do to singles what they say the state has done to them by giving married heterosexual rights that they do not have.  Moreover, what about the cost of changing all the marriage forms to accommodate gay marriages?  That should be good for a few million dollars.

I do not know about you, but I am personally weary of paying for the so-called civil rights of minorities and special-interest groups.  Recently, the U.S. Navy retrofitted their jet planes to accommodate women pilots.  This little project cost the American people millions upon millions of dollars so a handful of women could be happy and fulfill their dream.  Those modifications also disqualified males over a certain size because they could no longer fit into the cockpits.  What about their rights?  Is that fair?  Can we any longer afford such extreme policies to make a few people happy?  Recently, the government mandated that every motel in the country that has a swimming pool must also have a mechanical elevator in their pool to accommodate handicapped people.  This little law will cost the American people billions of dollars and will only be used by very few people.  How many handicapped people traveling will actually use these pools?  Would it not have been smarter to give tax breaks to motels that would install these machines, giving those motels an advantage over their competition?  Should we provide escalators up all the mountains so everyone can climb every mountain?  Is it not their civil right to have equal access?  Yes, if it is within reason and common sense, which it seems some Americans no longer possess.

Do you see where all this is going?  The concept of civil rights has morphed into a catchall term that means “the government must make me happy.”  My response is—nonsense.  If you want to climb a mountain, and you cannot walk up it, get a friend to carry you or change your desire.  If you want a contract with your partner, get a lawyer to draw it up.  Enjoy your gayness, but do not force it on my children or me.

Is Same-Sex Marriage Fair?

One big problem with gay marriage is that it is not fair for the gays to be treated as though they are a third sex.  Why should their feelings for someone give them some special rights over other single people that are not sexually attracted to the same sex?  Why shouldn’t people who are good friends of the same sex, who do not have erotic feelings for those friends, not have the same rights as married people and gays?  Because of the insurance and tax benefits of marriage, I could see in the future all single people claim they are gay in order to get the benefits.  In view of this, one would have to conclude that gays are not asking for equal rights, but special rights.  Let’s do some clear thinking and come up with a system that will protect everyone without changing a human and religious tradition that has been around for thousands of years.

You see, the thing that people are missing in this debate is that marriage was never about adults meeting their need for sexual fulfillment or even companionship; it was for the children.  Its primary purpose was for procreation and the raising of children.  Therefore, people can be friends and love each other without being married.  We can also give everyone the same rights of married people without calling their relationship marriage.  Why restrict the word marriage just to gays?  Why not apply it to all relationships where people want a legal contract to define their relationship?  However, the real question is why use the word marriage to define a relationship that religion and Western culture have held for eons to be between a man and a woman.  Why divide our culture over a word?  What the gay movement is doing makes no sense, and I suspect a large number of unspoken motives are behind this agenda.  I personally believe that if we use the word marriage to define a gay couple’s relationship, we are well on the way down the road to destroying the concept of traditional marriage, which has been defined by nearly all religions for over two thousand years as between a man and woman.

Picking a Fight

When the gay movement chose marriage as a term to denote their relationship, they should have had the foresight to see the battle that they would have with conservatives, traditionalist, and religious people.  Their attitude has been—to hell with them.  We want the world to change and give us special rights.  Why would anyone believe that people should change a tradition that has existed for as long as human history without debate and resistance?  What kind of people would do that, other than radical liberals and progressives?

As a traditionalist, the gay movement has given me no overwhelming or compelling arguments for me to change my thinking about marriage.  All I hear from them are little sound bites like “It is the fair thing,” or “It is our civil right,” or just name-calling to intimidate me.

What is Next?

I asked one of the callers what was next.  He responded with “What do you mean?”  “Well,” I said, “if people that love one another should be able to get married, what about polygamy?  His response was that would be stepping out on the slippery slope.  I then asked him if same-sex marriage might be a similar step.  His response was, “It is different because more people think polygamy is wrong.”  I then asked him if his statement would not have been true ten years ago about gay marriage, before the gay movement began their PR campaign to normalize their brand of sexuality.  There was silence.  The truth is from a rational point of view there is no difference between same-sex marriage and polygamy or for that matter, incest.  Why would it be wrong for a boy to marry one’s mother if they love each other and are sexually attracted, assuming it was impossible for them to have children?  Is not incest like homosexuality, just one of those past taboos of ancient man?  Once people embrace utilitarianism and relativism, there is nothing left but a slide into the abyss.  We are already on that slide.  Of course, there are those who think sliding down a slide is progress.

The Government and Same-Sex Marriage

The young man who called me stated he did not believe that the state should be involved with marriage.  However, from my point of view, petitioning and lobbying the state to approve something is not getting the state out of it, but rather an attempt to get the state on your side of the issue.  Whenever this is done, it is for using state power to force one’s agenda on others.  You can be assured that the militant gay leaders have an agenda for state power.  Could it be to use the public school system to normalize homosexuality?  It may be a good idea to get the state out of the marriage business altogether, and I think I would support the gays in that effort, but I really do not think that is their goal.  In defense of the state (an institution that I do not like too much), I believe it was quite rational for the state to favor marriage over singleness.  Marriage produces families, and families produced good citizens; consequently, they passed a number of laws to help people in their marriages for this in turn strengthens the state.  So, I believe the state was acting in good faith and for the general welfare when it gave married couples certain privileges.  I still have no problem with that position.

A Dangerous Experiment

One of my main concerns about same-sex marriage is that there has at no time been a culture in the history of the world that has accepted, or notwithstanding, proposed same-sex marriage.  Even the Greeks and Romans in the height of their perversion never suggested the acceptance of same-sex marriage.  Is it really a wise idea to undertake such a huge social experiment without a lot of thought and debate?

Marriage has been from the dawn of civilization between a man and a woman.  Even our language is built around that supposition.  When I refer to my wife, people instinctively know that I am taking about a female partner.  If we legalize gay marriage, men will have to be called wives and woman will have to be called husbands.  If we don’t do it, the politically correct police will probably sue us or call us homophobic.  Will the male playing the female partner in a gay marriage be able to go into a lady’s room, or will we have to build another set of bathrooms?  Remember, we cannot put any traditional norms on people without violating their civil rights.

I mentioned something along these lines to my callers, and their reply was that we are more moral and progressive in our thinking than the Romans and Greeks.  From my study of history, there was a time in Rome and Greece when the people would have thought that we were the barbarians, and they would have been right.  Only a radical liberal could believe and apply the concept of progress to Western culture in the last few decades.  Western culture in the last one hundred years has been sliding into the worst declension the world has ever seen.  In the last century, there has been more genocide, abortion, and war than all the rest of humanity has perpetrated together from the dawn of time.  In business and government greed and narcissism reigns.  Addictions have enslaved millions of individuals.  Sexual perversions have escalated beyond the imagination of Greeks and Romans.  Yes, we have come a long way, baby.  Liberals and progressives need to face the fact that the high humanists of the Enlightenment are dead and gone, and all that remains are a new hedonism and paganism cloaked by a thin veneer of liberal self-righteousness.

The Real Source of Gay Marriage

What the gay movement is attempting is far beyond anything that could have been imagined 20 years ago.  What changed?  The change did not begin with the gay movement.  What is happening in our culture is the fallout of a philosophical movement called postmodernism, which began in our universities a few decades ago.  Those involved in this movement are called deconstructionist (for a good reason).  Out of this group came our radical feminists, radical environmentalists, and our radical gays.  This movement and those involved believed that our culture and institutions are so corrupt and flawed that they must be destroyed and replaced with something totally different, even though they cannot quite yet define what the other looks like.  One of the larger contributors to this movement is the radical feminist who believes that the institution of marriage was created for establishing and continuing male dominance over women.  This means that in their brave new world, marriage between a man and woman must go.  It also means that our culture must become gender neutral.  This means same-sex marriage, same-sex bathrooms, same-sex classes, and same-sex dorms.  This movement will continue to force same-sex norms on the world until the world is gender neutral.  Their goal is a sexually vanilla world.  (It sounds pretty yucky to me, if not purely boring.)  The ACLU is one of the promoters of the deconstructionist movement.

Let me make a few observations, the first one being that I do not believe that postmodern ideology is going to usher in any kind of utopia.  Those who believe this are naïve and outright foolish, as most central planners seem to be.  Based on our past liberal utopian experiments, the odds would indicate that we are heading toward another fiasco of epidemic proportions, like the loss of our civilization.  This, however, does not bother the deconstructionist for they believe that the system must collapse so the unknown can take its place.  The problem is they don’t know what the new looks like, but they do believe that they will be in power to shape its future.

When you understand that nature is not very forgiving, it should be obvious that Western culture should be extremely selective about the roads it travels.  This includes changing the meaning of marriage.  It takes thousands of years sometimes to build a civilization, especially one like Western civilization.  However, civilization is fragile and can be destroyed easier than most could imagine.  We need to be very much aware of the deconstructionist among us, and there are many.  They are angry and often hateful people bent on destruction.  Unfortunately, a lot of nice naïve people get duped into aiding them in their mission.

Where Does This End and When Will It Stop?

When does this all stop?  If our culture compromises common sense and morality for every group that can organize and create some civil unrest, where does it end?  Does the culture have to surrender its civilization to be liberal?  Do we have to stop thinking to make people happy?  Can a culture make everyone and every lifestyle equal?  Should we accommodate the North American Man/Boy Love Association, which wants to lower the age of consent in order for older men to have sex with boys?  Their group is growing.

Canada is an example of a liberal government trying to make a moral-free culture where no one can make a negative judgment about other people’s lifestyle.  A judgment-free culture is not a culture, and it will not be a free culture for very long.  In order for a culture to be judgment-free it must restrict the free flow of information and restrict freedom of speech as they have done in Canada.  In fact, with all the reading I do, I have not seen one honest debate on homosexuality or gay marriage.  Why?  I’ll tell you one reason—homosexuals and advanced liberals intimidate any dissenters by calling them homophobes and other names (as one of my callers did).  I personally think it is time to draw a line in the sand and take a stand on traditional marriage.

Before you vote for gay marriage, please take the time to think through the issue very clearly.  Take into consideration all the consequences and implications of voting for it.  Do not be swayed by propagandists’ arguments based on emotionally charged expressions like: “It is only fair.”  “It is the right of two people who love one another to get married.”  Remember, the gays I talked to do not believe that people should have the right to enter a polygamist relationship.  So they really do not believe that everyone that loves each other should have the right to get married.  Why not?  Where is the fairness?  Polygamists love one another as much as other people.  Is it not fair to put limits on their relationships?  What about the brother and sister who love one another?  Should we deny them the right to get married?  Why not, if they love one another and do not have children or for that matter, why not a mother-son marriage?  Do we really as a culture want to open up these debates?

My Conclusion

My conclusion is that we should be cautious about legalizing gay marriage.  If this cultural experiment fails, it may be extremely hard to correct it.  I ask you to exercise prudence and caution in voting for gay marriage.

I have purposely left out of this discussion any appeal to religion or any discussion about the myths created by the radical gay community to justify homosexuality and gay marriage.  However, for those interested in an exchange that I had with a pro-gay marriage person in which I do bring religion into the discussion, please drop me an email, and I will send you a copy.

The following is an interesting video on homosexuality.

Is Socialism Christian?

Posted on by Lyle Duell in Christ and Culture, Questions & Answers

Is Socialism Christian?

A letter to a young Christian

In your letter you asked if socialism is Christian.  By asking this question, I am assuming you are asking whether or not it is compatible with Christianity.  Before answering the question, we might need to ask another question.  Does it work?  Socialism, like so many other theoretical systems of man, looks good on paper, but in real life, it doesn’t seem to work very well.  History seems to verify that socialism is flawed and not a workable system.  In fact, it has never worked anywhere in the world.  It promises equality and plenty for all but seems to make everyone equally poor, except the top two percent.  Of course, all those who endorse or promote it imagine themselves as being a part of the two percent.

Not only has socialism failed in other countries, it has failed here in America as well.  The first two settlements in this country attempted a pure communistic type community.  These communities had common storehouses and no currency.  In other words, they had no money.  Everyone could take from the storehouse what they needed.  I believe these communities included Jamestown and Plymouth.  Now keep in mind that these were deeply devoted Christians who loved one another.  In a short time the storehouses were empty and the communities were near starvation.  The leadership was forced to change to a purely capitalistic system.  “If you don’t work, you don’t eat.”  In a short time the community was thriving and people were back working.  Even those who were sickly and weak miraculously got better and went to work.  There is something about the grim reaper of starvation that seems to motivate people to work.

For socialism to work, massive power must be given to the state in order for the state to be able to manipulate and control the masses.  The state must have enough power to change human nature and do away with sloth and greed.  The problem with this is that the state can never have enough power to change human nature for human nature cannot be changed.  The people who believe that it can are materialists who believe that humanity has no nature, which contradicts our faith and is rejected by science. However, if you do believe that the state can, with enough power, change human nature, you then have a problem with who will control the state.  Once the state has been given this massive power it will soon become demonic as it begins to plan and control the lives of every individual.  No group of men should ever have this kind of power.  Remember that “power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”  Here is where we see the wisdom of the founding fathers of our nation.  They knew for men to be free there must be limits placed on the size and power of government, lest government exalts itself to the place of God.  We should be thankful to our founding fathers who instilled in our form of government limitations on the power of government.

It is a well-kept secret that the founding fathers knew all about socialism and communalism.  Benjamin Franklin ran into it in France and was less than impressed.  He saw the theories of socialism as the source of the bloody French Revolution and the chaos that followed.  Samuel Adams said of socialism:  “The utopian schemes of leveling (redistribution of the wealth) and a community of goods (central ownership of all the means of production and distribution) are as visionary and impracticable as those which ivest all property in the Crown.  (These ideas) are arbitrary, despotic, and in our government, unconstitutional.”

The reasons for socialism failing are many.  One of the greatest, I believe, is the fact that it is based on a false view of human nature.  It assumes and arrogates that man is basically good and born totally neutral in his nature toward good and evil.  In other words, he is born into the world as a blank slate on which his environment writes the script of his life.  This theory sets in motion a number of dangerous concepts.  One is that through centralized planning the government can manipulate the very nature of man.  The government can remake man to be unselfishly seeking what is the best for the community.  They believe that government can undo all the faulty programming put into an individual by the institutions of a capitalistic system.  If the institutions cannot be reformed or captured by the government they must be destroyed.  This is why socialistic and communistic governments are never friendly toward Christianity or any religion.  They see religion as a major hindrance to their central planning and manipulation.

Moreover, this centralized planning and its corresponding manipulation raises some serious questions.  Who will do the planning and who will choose the agenda?  Who will determine what constitutes the good?  This view of man as a blank slate is also in conflict with the Christian faith which teaches that man basically has the propensity to do evil.  Some refer to this propensity toward evil as original sin.  However, you do not need the Bible to tell you that men are prone to evil; just read a newspaper.  It is one of those self-evident truths that the founders spoke about.

Now, the greatest danger with this false worldview of man and his nature is that there is enough truth in it to make it believable.  The truth is that man is both good and evil.  In this, man is a unique creature who has a dual nature.  He stands uniquely between heaven and earth.  He has a will both to do good and evil.  In other words, every man has a shadow.  Therefore, our faith teaches that man needs God to strengthen his desire to do good and grace to keep him from doing evil.  Left to himself, he will tend to gravitate toward the evil.  It is also true that many men and maybe even the majority can be manipulated by controlling their environment, but there are always the exceptions, and we all like to think that we are the exception.  These exceptions are what demonstrate that the humanistic view of man’s nature is false.

Now, if we compare socialism and Christianity, we will see a tremendous contrast.  First, the church never was constituted by Jesus to force people to pay taxes or give to their neighbor.  It is not an institutional Robin Hood.  In the same vein, Jesus never took away from the rich to give to the poor.  In fact, Jesus never commanded His disciples to give to the poor.  He simply assumed that they would out of their love for their brothers.  He did command them to love one another.  He knew that out of love would come a freewill offering from their hearts.  He had no need to level taxes or ties on them.  “Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.  And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work” (2 Cor. 9:6-8).

The Bible or our faith should not be used to justify any kind of collectivism which invariably will take economic freedom away from the individual and lead into totalitarianism of the worst kind.  Socialism seems to be an attempt by secular man to control his own greed and his love for money.  In this, those who endorse socialism fail to realize that money is a spiritual power that cannot be defined or defeated by any earthly systems.  Jesus spoke of it as a spiritual power, as an idol that rules in the hearts of men.  Only God can destroy the love of money in the hearts of men by replacing it with love for God and their brothers.

I have a friend who is a socialist and believes that the government should have a lot of programs to help the poor.  However, he believes that paying taxes is his giving.  He very seldom gives money away personally and on a spiritual level that is the only way to defeat its power.  Even in giving your money away, such giving should be done with the upmost caution and wisdom.  It should be done in humility and not for the purpose of seeking the praises of men.  The Lord said, “Don’t let your left hand know what your right hand is doing.”  Giving in secret will strengthen your heart with grace.

You also need to remember that giving money to people can often hurt them and actually create resentment.  Money is a mediator.  Do you remember the song that says “money talks”?  Money does talk; it tells you who the boss is and it mediates between the classes.  In a recent survey I read, the largest group of people that dislike the government was those who received the most benefits from the government.  Money does not bind people together; it separates people.  If you ever want to get rid of a friend, just loan him some money.  You will immediately see a change in your relationship because you are no longer his equal; you have become his benefactor.

Socialism will never serve God’s purpose in the world nor any other system of man; this includes capitalism, though at the present time capitalism seems to be the lesser of two evils.  When you take money away from one group to give it to another, it has nothing to do with righteousness or goodness in a Christian world view.  Socialists refer to their distribution of money as social justice.  In some cultures it might be called stealing.  The rich and powerful in every society including socialistic ones, give money to the poor for two reasons:  To keep the poor in their places and for their own glory and praise.  As Jesus said, “They love the praises of men.”  Look at what the presidential candidates gave to the poor a year before the election:  almost nothing.  Don’t think for a minute that any government really cares for the poor.  The poor are used as pawns in their political chess game.

Only in Christ is found the true equality of the rich and the poor.  For in Christ there are no rich and poor, professionals and nonprofessionals, educated and uneducated; for all are one in Christ.  In Christ the rich and the poor are blind to each other’s social standing.  “The brother in humble circumstances ought to take pride in his high position.  But the one who is rich should take pride in his low position, because he will pass away like a wild flower.  For the sun rises with scorching heat and withers the plant; its blossom fall and its beauty is destroyed.  In the same way, the rich man will fade away even while he goes about his business” (James 1:9-11).

Mankind has had many utopian schemes to bring heaven down to earth.  The Tower of Babel was one such scheme, and we see how it ended in misery and chaos.  Remember what the Bible said, “It is not in man that walks to direct his steps.”  In the story of the fall of man in the book of Genesis, it is recorded that when God ejected the man from the garden, he set two angels with flaming swords at the gate to make sure that mankind would never enter by his own power.  The pied pipers of progress have been trying to storm those gates since the dawn of time.  Some of them may have good intentions, but they have caused great misery and chaos in the world.  Their good intentions gave rise to communism which has killed over 100,000,000 people in the name of equality.  It has also created a welfare class that is dependent on the ruling class for its bread and circuses.  In doing this, it has stripped these people of their humanity and the dignity that comes from self-sufficiency.  These people may think they are doing good, but the devil has a way of using the misguided good to do evil.

Therefore, I encourage you to be wise in your search for social justice and in the ways that you help your fellow man.  Make sure that all you do encourages and builds up all those whom you are trying to help.  Remember the words of President Lincoln: “If you give a man a loaf of bread you feed him for a day.  If you teach him to fish, you feed him for a lifetime.”  Above all, remember to point people to Jesus Christ and the one and only true heaven.

Gratefully redeemed,

Lyle Duell