Tag: Liberalism

Liberalism And Christianity

Posted on by Lyle Duell in Liberalism, Progressivism

Liberalism And Christianity

“Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls.” Jer 6:16

Before talking about some of the contrast between liberalism and Christianity we need to note some of the basic characteristics of liberalism. The first carnal doctrine of liberalism is the autonomy of the individual. It’s therefore, humanistic and not theistic because it begins with man and not God.  Its roots go deep in the soil of the atheistic enlightenment and surprisingly the Christian religion.  It makes the individual and Reason the ultimate authority and not God. It is a convoluted belief system that contains many religious and secular ideas that cannot possibly be reconciled In the real world if taken to their logical conclusions.[1] In the end liberalism because of its lack of authority always leads to making the state God. One of the fathers of the enlightenment Charles Hobbs said, “the state is God walking on the earth”. Ultimately, his remarks reflect the liberal view in general. If there is no God, raw power becomes the only authority.

Of course, like all ideologies and religions, there are various degrees in which people embrace this belief system of liberalism. First, there is the advanced liberals which are the furthest left and often embrace socialism or communism and are often hostile towards religion and traditional culture. They represent the liberalism of the French revolution. Whose mantra was “No king, no God”. In other words no authority. The other most common form or degree of liberalism is the classic view which is less hostile towards religion and may embraces capitalism to varying degrees. I think it would be fair to say that liberalism is the secular religion of western culture. A religion that has influenced all of us to some degree. However, like all false religions, its problems begin to surface at the extremes.  Two of these extremes are radical individualism and radical egalitarianism. Both of which will lead to the total collapse of all authority except for an authority forced on the populace by the state[2].

What about the failures of Christianity? The failures of Christianity were and are that it was not truly practiced. The failure of liberalism is and was that it is practiced too much. The madness going on in our culture is the result of the fruit of advanced liberalism and the chaos will only worsen until the state comes in and takes control. Liberalism dogma of unlimited human freedom and its propensity to want to fix the world at any cost will always lead to an authoritative and ill-liberal State.

Three other myths that have been created by liberalism is its faith in the goodness of humanity and its unfounded belief in continuous progress and the ultimate perfecting of the world in some future utopia, a belief it has inherited from a misunderstanding of Christian eschatology. The Christia message nowhere teaches that the world can or should be fixed by humanity. The best we can do is attempt to fix ourselves. And even that is near impossible. We need the help of God. If we have not learned that, it’s probably because we have not attempted to fix much of yourself.

I’m old and I have seen a lot of world fixers in my lifetime. Most of them have screwed up the world more than fixing it. It seems that all the world fixers that have ever existed all imagine themselves to be more intelligent and reasonable than everybody else. If true, you would think the world would be paradise. Unfortunately, there are large numbers of Christians that believe that the purpose of Jesus coming into the world was somehow to fix and perfect the world. when this happens  Jesus is usually reduced to nothing more than a moral teacher.

However, the world does have a system baked into it that is self-correcting to some degree. It is called death. Moreover, sometimes God intervenes and fixes things. Sometimes, He uses men to fixes a few things. Sometimes; he leaves things broken to remind us to look up.

[1] The greatest problem with liberalism is it’s a failure to deal with the rights of the individual and the rights of sociality to protect itself against the individual. Mills’s book on liberty fails to resolve the question and actually adds to the problem.[2] Like all atheistic systems, Mills’s had a hard time answering the question “By who’s authority”. Ultimately, he has nothing but the state and the deification of human reason.

Libertarianism A Christian Heresy?

Posted on by Lyle Duell in Liberalism, Libertarianism

Libertarianism A Christian Heresy?

It is common knowledge that Christianity has been the predominant worldview for 2000 years in the west.  Whether people like it or not you can see traces of its influence in every area of western life.  It has influenced every paradigm and ideology that has been created in the west from philosophy to political ideology.  Even its greatest critics have been influenced by it, such as Nietzsche and his idea of the Overman.

In this article, I’d like us to look at some of the strange similarities between libertarianism and early Christian thought.  However, before we can do this you must understand what the Bible, mainly the apostle Paul, says about the relationship of Christians to the law.  The apostle Paul in his writings sets forth the doctrine of salvation by grace, through faith, apart from keeping the laws of religion (Eph 2:8-10).   Paul taught that when a person accepts Christ as the Messiah, they would be given the Spirit of God which would be equal to giving them a new internal moral compass to live by, resulting in them no longer needing the law of Moses or the religious law.  In other words, in his thinking becoming a Christian would be similar to becoming a new person under a new constitution.  This experience was so dynamic that Jesus spoke about it as a new birth (John 3:5).  It was as though God would give a person a new heart or mind, on which the law was written.  This new spirit would change people’s will from their own self will, to desiring to do God’s will and the power to do it.  This is the reason why Paul could claim that Christians don’t live by the law, but by the Spirit.  He could say that the law kills, but the Spirit gives life.  He also could admonish Christians not to put themselves back under the law, but to live by the Spirit. Paul even went so far as to say that the law, or the Commandments, were abolished by the death of Christ (Eph 2:15-16).

It doesn’t take much thought to see the similarities between Christianity and the attitude that Libertarians have towards law. Their attitude is that the law is not sufficient because it does not change the person.

However, the problem with libertarianism in contrast to Christianity is not so much its teachings, as it is the raw material that it has to work with, i.e. people without the Spirit of God. The whole of Paul’s theology was based on the belief that believers had the Spirit of God that empowered them to will and to do God’s will.  What the Libertarians have is nothing more than philosophical dogma which has no power to change the hearts and minds of people which is the real problem to begin with. In actuality, the Libertarian movement has enshrined their philosophy as another law similar to how the Jews and other religious people have done with the 10 Commandments and the Bible.

In this, libertarianism is very much like many philosophical and religious cults that believe if you get the right doctrinal system you can fix the world.  However, many libertarians have no will to do the right thing or much less the will of God, though some strands of libertarianism lay more stress on the concept of responsibility than others, for the majority the emphasis is placed on liberty at the expense of responsibility.

Libertarianism also contains a millennial or utopian hope which reflects the belief of many early Christians.  The difference is that early Christians believed that Jesus Christ would usher in the millennium or utopia with the second coming of Jesus Christ when he sets up God’s kingdom on earth.  Libertarians, on the other hand, believe that humans can do it through embracing the Libertarian movement, mainly the free marked or by getting rid of all law and government, which also reflects the goal of communism as taught by Karl Marx.  Marx believed that government or some form of the state was a temporary state of mankind as he moved towards a fulfilled communism utopia. Marx in his own right was a copycat of Christianity in his views of egalitarianism and the future utopia.

When considered in its historical and Christian context the Libertarian movement must be considered somewhat of a cult.  Of course, some of the Libertarian’s dogma and attitudes are totally contrary to Christianity.  As a movement that was crystallized in the French Revolution, they tend to hate authority of all kinds, which includes the hatred of God’s authority.  If you remember, the slogan of the French Revolution was “no king, no God.”  Though in recent years, the idea of God has pretty much been stripped from Libertarianism making it the most secular form of Western politics.  In the past large numbers of Libertarians were non-believers and outspoken against God and religion.  Even today you will find in the left-wing of the Libertarian movement, huge numbers of unbelievers and many Libertines that have rejected traditional morality in general.

Is Libertarianism compatible with Christianity?  The answer is absolutely not.  Libertarianism not only has its roots in Christianity but also in Liberalism and libertinism.  In essence, it is nothing more than a hodgepodge of Christian doctrine and a radical form of Liberalism.  To see the similarity between it and Liberalism all you have to do is put the word radical before the foundational concepts of Liberalism; radical individualism, radical egalitarianism, which would include radical democracy, which would border on mob rule.  Its radical individualism has its source in Darwinism and the dogma of the survival of the fittest.  Therefore, its dogmas favor the rich and the strong.  I think it would be fair to say that American Libertarianism has been captured by the Koch brothers who control Reason Magazine and the Cato Foundation which in America are the leading mouthpieces for their brand of Libertarianism.

 

Liberalism and the Cult of Personal Opinion

Posted on by Lyle Duell in Liberalism, Libertarianism

Liberalism and the Cult of Personal Opinion

In talking to ordinary people who have embraced Liberalism knowingly or unknowingly, I have found a common belief.  The majority seem to have embraced what I call the “cult of personal opinion.”  It seems that they have an opinion on everything; an opinion that is more often than not grounded in nothing but their own minds and reinforced by the information that they have received over the television—a very poor source of information.  We can contribute some of this thinking to arrogance, and I would have to admit I have found this attitude prominent among males, but I think it goes much deeper.  I believe this mindset is rooted in a basic attitude that one has toward knowledge and truth

I believe that this attitude toward knowledge can be traced to the philosophy called Liberalism and two of the principles espoused by that philosophy.  The first of these principles is the belief in the autonomy or self-governing of the individual.  This principle basically says, that there is no authority outside of the individual that he must submit to.  What does this doctrine do to the individual?  It causes him to look within for knowledge instead of looking to authorities outside of himself.  After all, if the truth is within, why look outside for it?  It also instills in the individual a rebellious hubris spirit, which tends to cause him to rebel against anything or anyone that he views to have authority over him.  This is especially evident in his attitude toward religion, schools, and government.  I believe this is one of the reasons that many young males drop out of school.

Now here is the problem.  All of human knowledge is both individual and corporate.  All disciplines have a body of knowledge that has been built over a period of time which forms the authority of that discipline.  Without this body of knowledge an individual would not have a discipline or an authority to draw on.  In fact, even language must have an authority that people can appeal to as a source beyond themselves.  We call that authority a dictionary.

But what happens when people begin to question all authority and the individuals became an authority unto themselves?  The answer is educational anarchy or the dumbing down of the entire culture.  In order for education to take place, there must be a sense of authority (respect) for the body of knowledge that is being studied and submission to that authority.  In fact, a case can be made that every discipline that has accepted the Liberal doctrine of the autonomy of the individual has ended in or is on the road to anarchy.  In philosophy, it has led to relativism and idealism.  In science, it has led to positivism.  All of these “isms” represent the denial of true knowledge and rebellion against the authority of true knowledge.

The second doctrine of Liberalism that has infected reason and learning is the doctrine of egalitarianism, which in short is the equality of all men.  Before I point out how the Liberal view of this doctrine has corrupted education and learning in general, let me point out that Liberals have no grounds on which to make this claim and in the end have proven that they really do not believe it.  Can Liberals rationally demonstrate from nature that all men are equal?  No!   So, where does this idea come from? It simply is a part of the Liberal faith that they infer as a self-evident truth.  But the concept of a self-evident truth sounds more like a religious revelation than a reasonable fact.  The truth is that the equality of mankind is a Christian truth that is based on the scriptural doctrine (revelation) that all men are created in the image of God, However, the Christian belief in the equality of men is much different than the liberal one. For the Christian, equality among men is their standing with God and his law.

Liberals have taken their egalitarianism (all are equal) to such an extreme that they have begun to even question parents having authority over their children. Children are now equal to parents.  Link this with their questioning of authority, and what do you have?  Children who question their parents’ authority and believe that they know more than their parents.  But it does not stop there.  Those who embrace Liberalism also question the authority of their teachers.  The unpinning attitude (a Liberal one) is that children should not be required to learn anything, for this would invalidate their autonomy.  They should be left to themselves to learn what they want to learn.  There should be no outward force (authority) to compel them to learn.  This is the educational system of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, one of the fathers of Liberalism.  His ideas on education are set forth in his book Emile.  Like the majority of true Liberals, he believed educational institutions are a part of the bourgeois that corrupts children rather than teaching them.  His disdain for traditional schools and the traditional teacher-student relationship is found in every chapter of his book.  Excuse my vulgarity, but he was a nut.  If you don’t believe me, listen to what one of his lovers, Sophe d’ Houdetot, said about him.  “He was ugly enough to frighten me, and love did not make him more attractive.  But he was a pathetic figure, and I treated him with gentleness and kindness.  He was an interesting madman.”  (My emphasis)  It is this madman’s thinking that many Liberal educators hold as the paradigm of the modern education system.  It is no wonder that our schools are failing.

But now let us return to the subject of education and equality.  The doctrine of egalitarianism, when taken to the extreme, reinforces the questioning and the weakening of the authority of teachers and scholars by putting the student on an equal plane with the teacher.  Not only does this diminish the authority of the teacher, but it also diminishes the authority of knowledge itself.  If everyone is equal why should I listen to any man?  My opinion is as good as anyone else.  How many times have you heard in a discussion with people of a lesser degree of knowledge that their opinion was as good as yours?  That may be true if we are talking about matters of opinion and not matters of fact.  The problem is that Liberalism in its more vulgar form has led people to the place where they cannot discern matters of opinion from matters of fact.  For most, everything is a matter of opinion.

If everyone is equal, the scholar’s and the teacher’s knowledge is no better than the students.  In fact, maybe we should do away with the teachers altogether and call everyone students.  This would surely help the students’ self-esteem and make them feel good and equal to the teacher.  They could share their knowledge as equals.  We would not want the student to feel inferior to the teachers.  We do not want to hurt their self-esteem.  Of course, we can avoid this by getting the students together and letting them pool their ignorance (knowledge) and out of ignorance and error will come true knowledge.  This is the faith of Liberalism.   This is why our culture is filled with “know-it-alls” that know nothing.  This is the source of the cult of personal opinion, the fastest-growing religion in our culture.

But even worse is the general dumbing down that all of this is doing to our culture.  If the knower is no better off than the ignorant, the question then must be raised–why study?  Why study and read factual books?  If there is no truth, why seek the truth?  The smart thing to do is just question all knowledge and all authority.  Questioning and doubting then becomes the goal of education.  The perception then becomes that the educated man is not the man who knows the answers through years of study, but rather the one who doubts and raises questions the most.  In philosophy, we have a name for these endless questioners and doubters.  We call them deconstructionists.  If they are brave enough, they may come to a point where they will begin to doubt their doubts.  However, most will remain ignorant of their ignorance, for to doubt your doubts can only lead to nihilism.  When you believe your doubts, you are no longer a doubter, but rather a believer with a negative faith.  You must learn to doubt your doubts before you can be a true doubter.  Most men don’t have the courage of doubting their doubts.  Doubting your doubts is the very thing Nietzsche chivied his contemporaries for not doing.  He inferred that they did not have the courage to face the conclusion of their doubting.  He believed that if a man did, he would have to commit suicide or go mad.  He chose the latter.  Of course, there is another option, which was just too simple for Nietzsche.  That is simply, to believe.  To believe is to know and to know is to love knowledge and learning.

A Letter to a Liberal about the Muslim Faith

Posted on by Lyle Duell in Liberalism, Religion

A Letter to a Liberal about the Muslim Faith

(please read the footnotes)

I would like to share a correspondence that I had with a person about a number of issues pertaining to Islam and the liberal[1] Western response to it. I have found it difficult to find a general expression that would tell the reader where that person was coming from, e.g., liberal, conservative, or progressive. So, let me just give you some facts about her.  She is middle-aged, white, middle-class, well-educated with at least a Master’s degree and not overly religious. These are the facts. It is my opinion that she is probably a conservative liberal in her political and social philosophy.

Our correspondence began when I sent her a well-documented article (by someone else)on the violence committed by some of those who claim to be Muslim. The article was tasteful with full documentation which was beyond question. In response to my letter, I received a short, curt reply[2] which simply compared what the article showed about the numerous acts of terrorism committed by those affiliated with the Muslim faith with two acts of violence done by Christians in the United States. Of course, it was completely overlooked by the person that the two acts of violence by so-called Christians had nothing to do with their religion and the acts of violence were not done in the name of God. The following is my response to my middle-class, white American conservative liberal:

“You said you were surprised that I would tolerate what you call ‘that stuff.’ Well, I’m equally surprised how tolerant you seem to be of the Muslim religion. Would you be as tolerant if it were the Christian religion doing the killing and suppressing  people’s rights around the world? I did note some prejudice toward Christianity in your short remarks[3]. I also noted a judgment made without any evidence on what you call ‘that stuff.’ Now is that tolerance? If a man is wrong, tell me how he is wrong, and I will consider the evidence. To belittle someone’s thinking by calling it ‘that stuff’ would presuppose that you have a great number of facts to back up your opinion. I would sincerely be interested in seeing those facts. I’m very much into facts.

I would like to refer you to the meaning of tolerance in the dictionary. Tolerance by its very nature includes a negative judgment on the subject in view. I tolerate people who I disagree with, yet because of other principles or considerations, I remain in a relationship with them. A good friend of mine is a womanizer, and yet I tolerate him hoping he will change through my influence on him. The time might come when my tolerance wears thin, and I tell him to take a hike. Today when people use the word tolerance, they have taken the idea of a negative judgment out of it, which means that what they’re talking about is no longer tolerance but something else. If you can articulate what that something else is, please let me know (sincerely). When it comes to Muslims, I can tolerate some easier than others. My level of tolerance depends on their level of commitment to their faith, that is, their prophet and their book. I’ll say more about this later. (If you are reading this and fancy yourself as a progressive, I really would like your definition of tolerance. My friend never answered.) 

I personally have done a good deal of research on the subject of Islam[4]. My conclusion is that it is a bad religion. Therefore, I have an obligation to speak out against it. However, I still tolerate the Muslim people in the true sense of the word. I wish the Muslim people only the best, which would entail their deliverance from their bad religion. As a true liberal America, I do not tolerate the Muslim prejudice and hate speech toward the Jews or other religious groups, nor their practice of polygamy, as well as much of their cultural view of women in general. Their lack of tolerance for religious freedom and free speech borders on that of the Nazis and Communists. I have little tolerance for such behavior. On the other hand, I can tolerate and even agree with some of their religious beliefs, traditions, and culture and at the same time disagree with them on other things. Tolerance does not mean that one has to pretend that you accept everyone’s beliefs as equal to your own. This includes religious beliefs. In order to do that, you would have to be a complete relativist and a perfect egalitarian. I am neither.

From your remarks, it seems that you believe that Muslim terrorism is a small isolated problem similar to that of Tim McVey and Waco. I’d have to agree that Waco was an act of terrorism, but I’m not sure who the terrorists were, the cult or the government. I respectively disagree with your comparison of Tim McVey, Christianity, and Muslim extremists. There is absolutely no comparison to a few acts of violence committed by a handful of men in a small cult, with what is happening throughout the world by the hands of thousands of Muslims, possibly hundreds of thousands or even millions. If you’re worried about offending people, I would worry about offending Christians with that comparison. You cannot point to one predominantly Muslim country where Christians and Jews are not being persecuted  by Muslims. In India, they seem to like to target Buddhists and Hindus as well. By the way, this information is suppressed to a large degree by the media in the West. It would make an interesting intellectual pursuit to understand why the media is so blind to the violence of this religion. Could it be a progressive ideology that blinds them to the fact that pluralism is nothing more than a myth? Of course, the media and academia were blind to Hitler and the Communists, as well.

In fact, the only places that have true religious freedom are Western Europe and the United States, countries that have been influenced by Christianity and classic liberalism and have not yet been brought under the spell of atheistic communism and Islam. I say this to point out that freedom is rare and should be protected from all that would destroy it. It is quite obvious that the common denominator among the nations where people are persecuted for their religious faith and speaking out for freedom is where either the majority is Muslim or the oligarchy is atheist. There is every reason to believe that when the numbers of Muslims or atheists reach a large enough number in any country, persecution of other religions and beliefs will start. In Europe where Muslims number 15% to 20% of the population, people are already being intimidated by threats of death if they speak out against Islam. There’s no reason to think it will not happen in our future. In fact, at their present birth rate Muslims will be one of the biggest political groups in the country by 2050. Some estimate the number as high as 40 to 50 million.

I have read the Koran and found the flaws in Islam are not so much in its followers as in its founder and its holy Book. There are at least 100 verses in the Koran telling Muslims to kill the people of the Book (Christians and Jews)[5]. These passages have been softened in some English versions of the Koran. Mohammad himself was a polygamist, pedophile[6], and a terrorist (of course, you may try to excuse this on cultural grounds). To say this in any Muslim country publicly would cost me my life[7]. For a Muslim to build bridges with Christians and Jews, it would involve them denying their own Holy Book and their prophet. Now that is a real possibility. We have an example of this happening with numerous Christians who deny much of the New Testament because of the secular brainwashing they have received in our public schools. I personally don’t think the Muslim community is going to buy into that brainwashing; one thing that I respect about Muslims is the level of their commitment to their faith. I based the above opinion on the fact that they have not assimilated into Western culture in Europe.

Let me also point out that there is a huge difference between Christianity and the Muslim faith. In Christianity, the flaw is with the followers and not with the leader (Jesus) or with the message of the book (New Testament). However, the very opposite is true of the Muslim faith. The flaw is not only in some of the disciples or followers but rather with the prophet and the revelation (the book).

Let me hasten to point out that I am no more friendly toward some Christian sects than I am toward some of the Muslim sects. The Calvinists of the Middle Ages were a mean lot and some Roman Catholics did some harm during the Inquisition. However, most of this abuse has been greatly embellished by atheists and secular folks to bring reproach on Christianity. I would also say that most organized religion is a form of idolatry, and I include the Christian religion. Therefore, I have very little love for most organized religion. Jesus said the truth will set you free. He did not say that religion would set you free. All religions should be watched for abuses; this includes the Christian religion. One sect of the Muslim faith, the Baha’i is a very peaceful religious sect, and I can fully tolerate their beliefs and would, from a human point of view, grade their religion as being good. However, they have been viciously persecuted by their own Muslim brothers in every country where they exist.

Before we start building bridges, I think it would be good to do some real research and have some real debate on where we are building those bridges to. In the 1930s, many were saying that we should be building bridges with the Nazis and then in the 1940s they were saying we should be building bridges with the communists. If the 30s and 40s proved anything, they demonstrated that Americans are naïve and gullible. We should learn from history to watch ourselves. Bridge building is fine if you mean by it a dialogue. I’ll dialogue with anyone who will speak in good faith and carry on an honest debate, but at the same time I’ll be watching what they do and not just listening to what they say.

Now, in this I am not saying that the Muslim people as a whole are evil. I have a number of Muslim friends who are good people. However, like most ethnic groups and ideological groups, they all tend to support the same ethnic and ideological groups that they are members of.  Most of the Germans in the 30s and 40s were not Nazis and by human standards the majority of them were nice people. Nevertheless, when it came to the war, they supported the Nazis. Most people are like sheep that will follow the leader. Many of the Muslim leaders have a will to power and are evil. Yes, I still believe in evil. Because people are like sheep and follow their leaders, you should not judge a movement, ideology, or a religion by what the average person believes or does, but rather by the foundational beliefs and the goals of its leadership. In the case of the Muslim faith, there are a large number of their leaders who want to destroy the Jews and every other religious faith that will not bow the knee to Mohammad. I personally don’t feel any obligation to tolerate these leaders, to accept them, or to ignore their behavior or speech. To me, this would border on insanity.

It is extremely important for our culture in order to stay free to label and resist any religion or ideology that would rob us of freedom. Just because a group calls itself a religion does not give it the right to be insensitive to the feelings and emotions of others. They may have a right under the Constitution to build a mosque on Ground Zero, but the same Constitution gives those whom their offending the right to protest their building of that mosque. I find it very strange that a religion, which says it wants to build bridges of peace and healing, would be so insensitive that when hearing that 70% of the people don’t want that mosque built there, would not immediately change their plans.

I would invite you to read and study some good books on the Muslim faith before building too many bridges. I purposely did not use the Bible to discredit the Muslim faith because I believe that it is self-evident that Muslim beliefs contradict much of the teachings of Jesus. Please excuse me for any “rambling on” that may be in this letter. I realize there are many other points that I could expound on that would clarify my beliefs on this topic even more, if time would allow. If you cannot tolerate my opinions, I will take you off my mailing list if that is your wish. It is not my purpose to offend or upset people but just to present facts to thoughtful people who may be seeking the truth.”

Following is a list of a few books you might be interested in:

The Hidden Origins of Islam (An academic book that researches the origin of Islam)

Islam and Terrorism (by Mark A. Gabriel Ph.D., former professor of Islamic history at Al-Azhar University Cairo, Egypt.)

The Unseen Face of Islam.(by Bill Musk)

The Complete Infidel’s Guide to the Koran (by Robert Spencer.  This book is a critique of the Koran in comparison to the teachings of the Bible and Christianity.)

The Koran (Islam’s Holy Book)

[1] When I use the word liberal I am using it to denote those people that have embraced the ideology of liberalism.

[2] This is a typical response of the liberals I have encountered. Not much content.

[3] Liberals in general have a negative biased towards Christianity. One reason for this is that Christianity rivals Liberalism for the high ground of morals and ethics and is it sole competitor on the stage of ethics and intellectual rigor. In essence, Christianity is liberalism’s chief competitor in the world of ideas.

[4] I do not consider myself an expert on Islam. However, I have read a number books on Islam and the Koran.

[5] Sometimes it is hard to determine who the Koran is referring to as unbelievers. Some Moslems believe that it is only talking about people who attack Islam.

[6] Mohammed married a nine-year-old girl and consummated the relationship. For some this can be justified culturally. I leave it up to the reader.

[7] In contrast Christianity has tolerated attacks on its belief system and its founding documents since the time of the Enlightenment. They have defended themselves not with violence but with intellectual argument.

The One True Heaven

Posted on by Lyle Duell in Christ and Culture, Liberalism, Progressivism

The One True Heaven

Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth. “But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower that the men were building. The LORD said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them.  Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.”  So the LORD scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. That is why it was called Babel–because there the LORD confused the language of the whole world. Gen 11:3-9

The intellectuals of the Renaissance were made up basically of  two groups of thinkers, those which were atheists who rejected the idea of God and organized religion and those that maintain their faith in God and yet rejected the corrupted forms of religion.  The former evolved into what we call the enlightenment and the latter evolved into the Reformation movement.  Looking back on these developments, we see these two movements traveling along through time side-by-side yet with an increasingly greater gulf growing between them.

In the beginning of the Renaissance, there was an emphasis placed on a return to reason and freedom. In order to accomplish this goal the old authorities of dogma, tradition and church had to be overthrown and replaced with the concepts of reason and freedom.  However, the two different branches of the Renaissance, the enlightenment and Reformation would develop these two concepts of reason and freedom differently.  The enlightenment side would enshrine reason and human knowledge as the ultimate authority, reason and science would become God and bring heaven down to earth.  Man would be free from all authority and be self-directed.  Out of this, thinking came the later systems of  philosophies known as humanism, liberalism and communism.

The other branch of the Renaissance, the Reformation, believed that there were limits to reason and knowledge and that in order for man to be truly human he must live within those limits. They believed, without limits mans freedom would generate into chaos and the loss of freedom to his uncontrolled passions and his own finiteness.  They believe that those limits were set forth in the revelation of God in Christ.  The Reformation, therefore, believed that there were limits to the development of culture and that any attempts to bring heaven to earth would only end in misery.  They were skeptical about the enlightenment’s blind faith in progress and in human goodness.  In this, they rejected the twin myths of unlimited progress and the innate goodness of humanity; myths that still shape the vision of liberals and progressives to this very day.

After hundreds of years, we can clearly see the movement of both  groups. The reformation group has lost its hold on Europe, symbolized by the French revolution that had its slogan “No God No king” which could be interpreted as no authority other than the individual.  The failure of the Reformation in Europe could be largely contributed to its association with the ruling class and its failure to follow through on its attempt to reform organized religion and the culture.  Its failures allowed the men of the enlightenment to hold out a secular hope to the people and actually create a brand-new faith, a faith in progress (heaven on earth) and human knowledge (science).  The populace which had already lost their faith in religion were eager to accept this new faith even though there was no historical grounds or empirical evidence for it.

The question arises, How did the enlightenment thinkers believe they would  accomplish bringing heaven down to earth?  Well, it’s not a hard question, they simply had to bring God down to earth. That is exactly what the thinkers of the enlightenment did. They created the modern state.  As one of them said,” the state is God walking on the earth.”  This idea was set forth in varying degrees by a number of enlightenment thinkers and perfected in the writings of Karl Marx.  In Marx, you see the state exalted to the place of God and the animosity of the enlightenment towards religion and any moral authority other than the state (human authority).  For in the new heaven, no other authority can exist but that of the state which is nothing more than a human oligarch of authority.  Of course, that authority should be based on reason alone and science, the two demon gods of the enlightenment.  However, we also see in this system of unbelief a denial of free will and of human dignity.  Man is nothing more than an animal predetermined by biological forces; life is not scared but is expendable for the higher good. Of course, the state is the higher good.

We now know that reason is never alone, and that science is limited and controlled by many things other than reason, such as money and the ideological taint.   We also know from experience that the state never really promotes individual freedom, but rather it oppresses freedom.  Though history has shown us the failure of the secular movement; those that have placed their faith in it continually are on the same course today, just as their ancestors of the enlightenment did. How do you explain this blind faith?  I personally believe that it all comes back to their first presupposition of unbelief.  Once you get on the road of unbelief, there is nowhere to go other than statism (God walking on the earth).

It only takes a glimpse of the last century to see what this new heaven on earth looks like.  It looks like Russia and communist China.  Where 100,000,000 people have been killed, and untold numbers persecuted for not bowing down to the new God of the state.  Could it be that the materialist of the enlightenment promised one thing (heaven) and created the very opposite on earth?  If we are the heirs of the enlightenment, what do we have to look forward to?  It seems, if we continue on the same course of the enlightenment, there can only be one end; the ultimate state, a one-world government and George Orwell’s 1984.

 

Why Liberalism, Progressivism and Communism Are Surely Wrong

Posted on by Lyle Duell in Apologetics, Christ and Culture, Liberalism

Why Liberalism, Progressivism and Communism Are Surely Wrong

  You might gather from the title of this article, that it would be of some length and quite deep, not so. The reason is that what I am about to say is a self-evident truth that anyone with a lick of honesty and an ounce of  awareness already knows.

How can I say that all these movements are wrong?   I can say it because their key assumption is flawed.  Therefore, all the models built upon their false assumption are flawed.  What is the key assumption, which all these movements have in common and form the basis of their philosophy?  It is fundamentally the belief in the goodness of mankind or the neutrality of human nature.  Some refer to this as the Blank Slate theory.  Because of this basic assumption, all these philosophies believe that with the right education and the power of the state, our flawed human nature, which is not natural to us, can and will be rectified.  This assumption then progresses into a corporate view that believes, that through the force of the state (which they call public education), an utopian state will be ushered in and all the wrong will be made right.The problem with this assumption is that there is not one bit of evidence to support it. To the contrary, all evidence points to the fact that it is a total fallacy. Science, history, religion and personal experience all stand against it.

Science

In his book The Blank Slate: “The Modern Denial of Human Nature”; author and scientist Steven Pinker demonstrates the basic error of these three philosophical ‘isms’. He repeatedly demonstrates that man does have an inherent nature and by no means is a blank slate  that can be written on by the state or any other elite educators who believe that they are going to remake mankind and restore him to the garden of Eden (Noble savage). Pinker also points out the great harm, which the Blank Slate theory has done to individuals and culture. He shows how it has led to moral and cultural relativism that has undermined Western civilization.

It is interesting to read some of the reviews of Pinker’s book. It seems that many in academia have accepted his views for some time and feel that he is simply rehashing something, which has already been accepted. However, I find it strange that the majority of those which have accepted his views have not rejected the philosophies which are grounded in the theory that he refutes. It seems that the majority of academia is still deeply rooted in liberalism and progressive ideology. In this, are they admitting that their philosophy is nothing more than a dogma?

History

In late 1800s and early 1900s, the three ism of liberalism, progressivism, and Communism were all-pervasive in Europe and the United States. All three were making promises of a new world order followed by an earthly utopia, which would shortly be ushered in. All of them preached the Blank Slate doctrine and that the demons of mankind would soon be driven out by the forces of the modern state and the progressive educational system. In this country, John Dewey was the champion of this movement and he predicted that a modern educational system would usher in a brave new world. His failed predictions have proven him to be a false prophet and a false teacher[1].

The first obstacle to the liberal progressive movement came when World War One broke out with Germany. The new heaven on earth was beginning to be tarnished by the hatred and cruelty of educated men. After the war, the movement began to pick up steam again and just as it was beginning to rise once  more to respectability it received another black eye with the advent of the Great Depression.

The Great Depression, which was caused by corruption and greed, again set the movement back to square one. It was hard to convince the masses that mankind was good when they knew that they could not trust their brokers, bankers or lawyers. Then on top of this came the second great war and all of the atrocities that were committed  by the highly educated Germans. Again,  this setback made it difficult to believe that education in itself and the goodness of man was anything but a myth.  Many of the leaders in the progressive movement and the communistic movements were disillusioned with their own ideology.  When Stalin rose to power in Russia many intellectuals in the West, were hopeful that his regime marked the beginning of the Golden Age and the fulfillment of the progressive era.  In America a number of our own intellectuals like John Dewy and Roger Baldwin[2] the father of the ACLU, were sympathetic supporters of the communist movement.  Of course, it was not long before human nature again raised its ugly head and dashed the hopes of the deluded. However, the reality of history has not broken the delusion of the true believers and to the present-day progressives and liberals continue to believe the great fallacy.

Religion

One of the strange things about the rise of liberalism and progressivism is that it rose to power in cultures that were rooted in Christianity. A religion that would emphatically deny the Blake Slate theory and the doctrine of the goodness of man. The Christian religion in all of its forms, Catholicism, Calvinism, and Wesleyans all teach that the nature of mankind has been tarnished by sin and the lower nature of mankind.  With this in mind, we must ask  “where did these modern philosophies come from?”  Of course, the answer is that they were all grounded in the atheism of the enlightenment and reflect a strong anti-Christian bias.

There really was nothing new about the thinking of the enlightenment. It reflected a mixture of ancient philosophies, Christian dogma, paganism and atheistic concepts cloaked in a new paradigm. Many of the teachings of the new paradigm were knavishly softened at first, to accommodate and expedite their entrance into Christian culture.  The men of the enlightenment had to deny the taint of sin because one of their presuppositions and dogmas was, and is still believed today, that man’s reasoning can be pure and therefore, it can be trusted to lead men out of darkness.  This is also a belief, which has  been debunked by science and history.  We now know that human reason is never alone nor is it ever pure.  It is always tainted by self-interest, finiteness and ideology.

Personal Awareness

If we are honest with ourselves, we all know that we and all humans have a propensity to carry out unrighteousness. We hear the ring of truth in Scripture when we read “All have sinned and have fallen short of the glory of God ” and “there is none righteous, not even one.”  The prophet Jeremiah said, “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure”.  The truth of human nature is a self-evident truth, which no one could deny or should I say should deny.  In denying it one would only commit the greatest sin of all which is spiritual pride or self-righteousness. It is no wonder that the chief sins of liberalism and progressivism is self-righteousness, hubris’ morality and intellectualism.

Contrary to The Founders

One of the problems with any ideology that promotes the goodness of man is that it will invariably lead to a tyrannical form of communism. The reason being that these ideologies which herald the goodness of the individual will also promote the goodness and trust of the state, which from the liberal point of view is made-up of humanistic angels[3] looking out for the public good (rights). This leads to the state becoming more and more powerful.  We all know (or do we?) that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

The Founders of our nation were not all Christian, but they all share the same estimate of human nature and its corruption. They were not humanists that put their trust in the goodness of man. Therefore, they set up numerous safeguards to limit the power of government. We should thank God for their skepticism of European progressivism and liberalism.

The great fallacy of liberalism, progressivism and socialism is still with us today and is growing in its popularity. If we continue on this course we can expect to receive a wake-up call from reality in the not so far off future. The horseman of the apocalypse will soon be riding again (Rev 6:1-7).

[1] One of the demons which John Dewey wanted to drive out was what he called the superstition. The superstition was Christianity.

[2] Roger Baldwin was a communist sympathizer until he was disillusioned by Lenin and Stalin’s reign of terror. Baldwin eventually left the organization that he had founded ACLU because of their extreme leftist views, which views many in that organization still maintain. The ACLU still supports their extreme leftist views by selectively supporting some liberties and playing them against ones they dislike. Therefore, they are more about supporting ideology than liberty.

[3] Most liberals and progressives have a high opinion of themselves and view themselves as more principled and moral than other men. They tend to be modern Pharisees.

Religious Phobia and Liberalism

Posted on by Lyle Duell in Atheism, Liberalism, Progressivism

Religious Phobia and Liberalism

Many of my atheistic and progressive friends are constantly accusing religious people of being homophobic and of having some other biases.  That may be true of some religious folks.  However, I have found that many progressives and many who fancy themselves as liberals have their own phobia, i.e., a religious phobia.  In other words, they fear religion.  Of course, one tends to hate the things that one fears.  So I have found that many of my liberal and atheist friends have a dislike that approaches a loathing for religion.  This has caused me to do a considerable amount of thinking about where these fears came from and whether they are real or imagined. Of course, a fear is real to the one who has it, but this raises the question of whether or not there is really something in reality on which to base their fear.

I began my research by asking my liberal friends if religion or religious people had done any personal harm to them that would cause them to hate religion.  The majority of them said they had received no such hurt.  I did find some who said that their parents had made them go to church when they were little. However, this to me seemed to be the normal thing for good parents who believed in their religion to do.  Yet, many of my friends felt that this was reason enough for them to reject religion.

I did find some people who told me that they hated religion because religious people are hypocrites.  I’ll admit this might be a good reason if we were not all hypocrites.  Most human beings are guilty of saying one thing and doing something else.  If we all stopped doing everything that hypocrites do, we wouldn’t do much.

My research did lead me to a few books whose authors seem to hate religion.  I gathered from these books that the authors hated religion for all of the terrible things that it had done in the past, such as the witch hunts and the Inquisition.  Of course, if you were to count noses, you could say that religion has killed its tens of thousands, but atheism and liberalism has killed its millions.  It was atheistic communism that killed twenty million of its own people in Russia and even more in China, and it was Western liberalism that spread its philosophy with the sword. It looks to me like it’s not religion that kills people, but it’s people who kill people.  If truly analyzed, it is usually people who have a will to power who do the killing, whether religious or not. You will find these people in religion, business, and government and for that matter, virtually in every walk of life.

However, all of the above does not explain the irrational fear and hatred of some people toward religion.  I believe the truth is that liberalism as a world view and philosophy itself has a propensity to dislike religion.  Liberalism belief in the autonomy of the individual tends to color its views of all authority but especially religious authority.  This bias was embodied in the French Revolution, whose motto was “no master, no God.”  A quick review of history reveals that at the time of their revolution, the French had reason to fear and hate religion.  During that period in their history the church had been captured by the governing class and was being used to oppress the people.  However, the hatred and bias of the liberals and progressives of the French Revolution are still with us today.  Like all bias and prejudice, these are passed on blindly from generation to generation.

However, much of the dislike of religion comes from the fact that religion tends to cramp the lifestyle of some people.  Some people just don’t like the idea of being told that they are going to stand in judgment for their behavior.  Jesus hinted at this when He said, “This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.  Everyone who does evil hates the light and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed” John 3:19-21.

It is obvious from the above words of Jesus that a strong anti-religious bias can come from a godless amoral lifestyle.  This bias goes much deeper than many liberals would like to admit.  This bias comes from a deep-seated prideful rebellion that exists in the human heart, and like all bias it is hard to detect by those possessing it, and like all biases it can be passed on for generations.

My conclusion is that my far left liberal friends have been biased toward religion by the traditions and the propaganda of their own philosophy more than by reason or clear thinking.  This is not to say that religion should not be watched.  Religion is a power that can be abused, but it is also a power that can be a blessing to people.  However, it is irrational to hate all religion because some men have abused it and used it as a means to gain power over others.

 

Two Kinds of Liberals

Posted on by Lyle Duell in Atheism, Liberalism, Progressivism

Two Kinds of Liberals

Today we hear a lot about liberals and conservatives, but much of this talk is misleading.  All Americans are liberal to some degree.  The liberal philosophy is so broad that it would take in the majority of Americans.  There simply is no fixed definition of liberalism.  Liberalism only has some vague principles, which most Americans would endorse to some degree.  They would be things like democracy, equality, individualism, the rule of law, and the free market.  How these things are defined and to what degree a person takes them is where the great divide in liberalism takes place.

For the sake of argument, let’s say that in America we have two kinds of liberals–not liberals and conservatives–but two kinds of liberals, and for our discussion one can call these two groups French liberals and English liberals.  Note that one can only take this allegory so far for it will break down because of the diversity of the liberal view.

Let’s look at these two kinds of liberals.  First are the French liberals.  These are the children of Voltaire and the French Revolution.  They are characterized by a dislike of authority, a dislike of religion, and distain for the upper class.  They tend to be populists and feel comfortable with socialism.  They tend to put more emphasis on collectivism than on individualism.  They believe that mankind can trust in reason alone, apart from a faith that informs reason.  They also seem to put more stress on the concept of equality and define it differently than their English counterpart.  Because of their negative view of faith and religion they seem to be informed more by their vices than their virtues.  For this reason, I sometime refer to this group as profane liberals.

The extreme French liberals come closer to being classified as revolutionaries rather than liberals.  They see man’s greatest need to be liberated from tradition, morality, and superstition (religion).  Many of them would preferred to be call progressives rather than liberals. I often call these folks advanced liberals.  Of course, many scholars today would call their form of liberalism something other than liberal.  The champion of French liberalism is in fact not French but English.  His name is John Stuart Mill, and he is most famous for his small book entitled On Liberty. However, to be fair to Mills’ he probably would be shocked by much of the thinking of modern advanced liberals. Mill himself did not believe in socialism.

On the other side we have the English liberals who in some degree reflect many of the French liberal characteristics, but to a lesser degree.  However, there are some marked differences.  One is that English liberals see religion as a positive force in culture and at worst a necessary evil.  Their view of religion varies from true faith to seeing it from a pragmatic point of view.  A great example of this is the American philosopher William James who was the father of the philosophy of pragmatism.  English liberals also believe more strongly in the free market and the concept of limited government.  They seem to have a respect for government, but at the same time a healthy distrust.  Many of our founding fathers embraced this form of liberalism to some degree.  It is this group of liberals who today are called conservatives by many people.  Their champion in the time of Mill was James Fitzjames Stephen.  He is famous for his rebuttal of Mill in his classic book Liberty, Equality, Fraternity.  In his book he completely dismantles Mill’s form of liberalism. (Note: John Gray, Liberalism)

What causes people to be in either camp?  Well, that is difficult to say, but I think we can say that no form of liberalism is based on reason alone.  If it were, there would not be such diversity in liberalism.  Liberalism, like all systems of thought, is diversified because people come to it with diverse presumptions.  What are some these presumptions?

One of the obvious is a belief or lack of belief in a deity.  Belief or lack of it tends to shape one’s attitudes on a host of subjects, but especially on the concept of authority.  Authority seems to be a thing that all liberals struggle with, especially the French liberals.  Religion tends to temper this rebellious spirit, so large numbers of religious people seem to lean toward the English side.  However, by religious I do not necessarily mean Christian.  Most knowledgeable Christians would have some problems with any form of liberalism.  However, you will find vulgar Christians in both camps.

Still, another factor could be the geographies of where a person was brought up or lives.  Rural people seem to lean more toward the English side than city dwellers.  This can be contributed to by many factors like the fact that rural people tend to be self-sufficient and independent from the system and have less trust in any form of government, even a liberal form.  Also rural people are closer to nature and often have more of a God consciousness which the city dweller may not have.  An example of this is a study I saw on how the people in California voted in a recent election.  All the counties that had large cities in them were blue and the rest of the counties were red.

Other factors that may contribute to the tribe of liberals you belong to could be: family ideology which greatly affect the values and beliefs of an individual, the educational institution attended, one’s chosen profession and one’s social economic level.  All this is to say that the source of one’s liberalism has very little to do, for most people’s, with intellectual choice.  In fact, for the most part, liberalism of all kinds has many intellectual inconsistencies.  Therefore if you fancy yourself as a liberal intellectual, think again.

For those that would like to know more about Liberalism the following are interesting books on the subject, Liberalism and Its Discontents by Patrick Neal, The Tyranny of Liberalism by James Kalb, Two faces of Liberalism by John Gray and The Betrayal of Liberalism by Hilton Kramer and Roger Kimball.