Monday, June 10, 2013
Sunday, June 09, 2013
Does "Star Trek: Into Darkness" Give A Nod To Ancient Astronaut Theory?
Isn't that the planet of the Anunnaki, the spirit beings from Mesopotamian mythology that advocates of the ancient astronaut theory believe where actually extraterrestrials that interfered in the development of early human civilization?
This idea was referenced in the film in a reversal where the primitives of that world ended up worshipping an image of the Starship Enterprise after watching it ascended into the heavens after it arose from beneath the ocean.
A Conservative Environmental Statement
This is not some radical departure from the norm. After all, Theodore Roosevelt and Gifford Pinchot, two individuals responsible for laying the framework of America's federal resource preservation programs, were Republicans.
While acknowledging that there are others in the country having different religions, American and Western civilization must reembrace its Judeo-Christian foundations in order to save the environment. Many environmentalists criticize Christianity for providing a philosophical justification for the degradation of the Earth. However, what these critics have failed to realize is that this is only one interpretation of this faith in regards to the environment.
Even though man is given the instruction to subdue the Earth, no where in Christian Scripture is he given permission to wantonly destroy what he has not created. In fact, it could be argued that the opposite is true. According to theologian Tony Campolo in "How To Rescue The Earth Without Worshipping Nature", it is in fact contradictory to man's Biblical role of stewardship over the Earth to callously destroy nature (194).
Furthermore, it could be reasoned that, since God created the universe, only He has the right to destroy it forever. Therefore, man's attempts to do so could be deemed a form of idolatry violating the First and Second Commandments.
By getting back to their religious, political and economic roots, Americans would also be helping the environment as well. In essence, modern conservatism can be good for the environment.
Often, environmental ideologues and activists promote the message that we must be saved from ourselves and that it must be accomplished through a totalitarian revolution on par with the one undertaken by the Bolsheviks. This is not the case.
The key to ecological preservation and to an extent restoration lies not in collectivism but in the very cornerstone of liberty. That is none other than private property.
No doubt to the dismay of many socialists masquerading as guardians of the biosphere, there can exist a body of thought derived from Christian and conservative conceptions of property ownership concerned with the notion of environmental preservation. Several of these works were reviewed in the 9/11/95 edition of the Washington Times Weekly Edition by Jonathan Adler, at the time director of Environmental Studies at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
One book reviewed, "Property Rights In The Defense Of Nature" by Elizabeth Brubaker argues that property ownership is the best form of environmental protection. When individuals own something, for instance land as property, they are more apt to care for it because their futures and prosperity are intertwined with it.
In a sense, this notion is related to Garret Hardin's tragedy of the commons. The commons did not ultimately suffer because of insufficient bureaucratic regulation. The commons were ravaged because the people saw them as a public resource and were not psychologically invested in the preservation of this resource in the same way if these plots were privately held.
Likewise, big government is not necessarily the savior of the environment it is often made out to be. If anything, the evidence points towards the opposite conclusion.
The largest, most pervasive governments in human history behind the Iron Curtain were guilty of the most atrocious environmental tragedies. The receding Ural Sea and the Chernobyl nuclear reactor both were within the borders of the Soviet Union, the very epitome of a planned economy.
Often in trendy environmental circles one hears that “small is beautiful”. The very same individuals mouthing this platitude then turn around and advocate for large global bureaucracies.
Historian Anna Branwell notes in “Ecology In The Twentieth Century” that it is contradictory to advocate grassroots participatory democracy as an environmental cure while at the same time laying the groundwork for a coercive globalist agenda which utterly ignores the expressed will of the people. Centralized government planning fails for the same reason that the commons ended up as such a tragedy.
A hierarchical bureaucracy takes away freedom of the individual, causing him to have no stake in the outcome. Thus, bureaucracy has the tendency to thwart many of the laudable goals it was allegedly intended to achieve.
Despite this discrepancy between the small-is-beautiful crowd and their affinity towards heavy-handed government solutions, society would do well to remember this axiom of social organization.
Surprisingly, there is a consensus developing between a number of grassroots activists on both the left and the right that Washington is often ill prepared to handle local environmental problems. Too many environmental bureaucrats, institutions, and special interest groups have intertwined themselves with the entrenched political establishment. Certain varieties of both liberals and conservatives have lamented the tragedy wrought by government subsidies such as the case of the Forest Service selling the nation’s timber resources below their assessed market value.
The tone of this analysis should not be taken as that of a libertarian manifesto. As a fallen and sinful creature, man will always need some level of governmental regulation.
However, at the same time, it needs to be realized that government must have checks placed upon it because it is ultimately staffed by those having the same sin nature these agencies were instituted to guard against. Rather than harassing an innocent individual for removing a tree from his wetland property, governments should instead concentrate their efforts on rogue corporations harboring loyalties to no nation or overriding moral principles. Profit, in and of itself, is not evil; however the way it can be earned is.
The preservation of the environment does not require a radical transformation of human values and society. Rather, the effort requires Americans to reembrace those core values at the heart of their unique national identity --- thrift, nobility, and individual responsibility. Over the years, a number of Americans have lost touch with these values in part as a result of interferences on the part of a government thinking it knows best.
However, through the curtailment of government subsidies and through the punishment of known polluters, the beneficent invisible hand described by Scottish economist Adam Smith will guide the nation in the selection of policies felicitous to freedom, flora, and fauna. Dominion over nature does not always translate into its conquest or destruction, but rather the oversight of these treasures and resources in the name of their omnipotent Creator.
by Frederick Meekins
Friday, June 07, 2013
Is the perspective exhibited on the part of the Obama administration seeking to curtail the expression of assorted Tea Party organizations really all that much different than that exhibited by a number of these very same Tea Party organizations that refused to allow me to post my column on their own social networking sites or threatened to bar me for simply referring to God in a explicitly nonsectarian manner?
Thursday, June 06, 2013
Wednesday, June 05, 2013
Why Should What Turns You On Get You Special Medical Treatment?
The Secretary of Health & Human Services announced certain preferences will be extended to the members of the gay COMMUNITY in terms of directing resources to address the health struggles plaguing those insisting upon pursuing this lifestyle preference.
Data to guide the oversight of these programs will be collected through a variety of questionnaires and surveys. So apparently what one does in the privacy of one’s bedroom is indeed the government’s business after all.
Will these survey’s also include questions as to what positions those answering prefer to conduct carnal relations?
Such information could prove invaluable in determining which partner in a respective relationship might be eligible for knee replacement surgery.
Will there be questions determining if an individual is attracted to those of significant physical girth so that doctor’s can screen for injuries resulting from being squashed such as hernias and the like?
A part of Bono's claim to fame is his tendency to travel around the world lecturing we mere working slobs how we ought to direct our finances assisting the downtrodden rather than upon frivolous luxuries. So will he condemn the nearly $30,000 paid by the IRS to a performance artist to paint on stage a portrait of the global rock star?
Marco Rubio claims that the majority of Republicans and conservatives will support immigration reform if the proposal resolved the issue permanently. The piece of paper held aloft by Neville Chamberlain was also suppose to resolve once and for all the particular dispute he was negotiating regarding people pouring over a disputed border, wasn't it?
The same ones insisting that the minimal requirements to join a church should be increased to include not only a profession of faith but some kind of tangible evidence probably rank among the same ones that sneer down their noses at those that attend a particular congregation quite regularly (even faithfully) but are reluctant about joining formally.
Tuesday, June 04, 2013
Monday, June 03, 2013
In the attempt to garner Republican support, initially immigration reform proposals would have required illegals seeking amnesty to pay backtaxes for those years these deadbeats suckled freely off the teats of Lady Liberty. However, it's now suggested that such a task might be too difficult. One guesses so with the agency's resources dedicated into harassing conservatives regarding what books they are reading and if any family members intend to exercise their civic rights to run for public office.
In the attempt to appear more pious and religiously enthusiastic, it has been suggested that Christians seeking church membership should have to present evidence more rigorous than making a profession of faith and assenting to the foundational doctrines of the faith. One cannot help but notice that these legalists never provide up front a clearer idea of what exactly this would entail. Shouldn't one's word regarding one's relationship with Christ and what that means be sufficient grounds until the individual proves otherwise by a major transgression? And that lapse should consist of something more than someone going to a move theater, women wearing pants, or a tendency not to come to Wednesday prayer meeting. One shouldn't have to complete the labors of Hercules in order to be extended the hand of fellowship. But I suppose even making an allusion to classical mythology would be enough to get me kicked out of many of these churches.
Sunday, June 02, 2013
Dying for an Answer: An Attempted Theodicy to the Problem of Evil
In the hopes of gaining just a bit of perspective into such an overwhelming universal mystery, it is probably best to start out by formulating the problem in a summarized written form. Norman Geisler in “Introduction To Philosophy: A Christian Perspective” states the problem in the following manner: “(1) If God is all-powerful, He could destroy evil. (2) If God is all-good, He would destroy evil. (3) But evil exists. (4) Therefore, there is no such God (Geisler, 274).” To establish a credible defense to these charges, the Christian must show that evil does not necessarily upset the divinely appointed applecart and is allowed to exist because of the purpose it serves in subordination to higher, more important realities even if these do not always make sense to finite human sensibilities.
At the heart of this debate is a discussion as to both the nature of God and the nature of evil. As to the ethical nature of God, Matthew 5:48 instructs the reader, “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your father which is in heaven is perfect.” However, that goodness is not like unto that of a saintly grandmother, though kind and loving in all of her intentions, who is helpless to prevent the world from deteriorating all around her.
In the spirit of the Rooseveltian axiom of speaking softly and carrying a big stick, God has the power necessary to carry through implementing how He thinks things ought to be. Colossians 1:17 says, “And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.” This is further elaborated and extended in Acts 17:28 which reads, “For in him we live, and move, and have our being...”
Pretty much nothing happens without God knowing about it and at least allowing it to happen by not intervening to prevent it even if He himself does not endorse the action, behavior, or event in question. Evil, by its very nature on the other hand, is a thought or deed violating God's nature of absolute goodness as expressed in the form of His natural and special revelation to those who inhabit the universe He created.
Yet, if God really does have the whole world in His hands as the old spiritual suggests, there needs to be a bit of explanation on the part of the apologist or theologian. For if God really is in sovereign control, one must show how this fits together with passages such as I John 1:5 which says, "This then is the message we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all."
The first step in eliminating the apparent contradiction arising between the existence of both God and evil is to show how evil might serve some purpose or be allowed to exist as the unfortunate byproduct of some more comprehensive good. Perhaps the best response Christian thinkers have provided thus far over the centuries is probably the so-called "Free Will Defense".
The underlying assumption of the Free Will Defense posits that the fault and consequences for evil in the world lies solely on the shoulders of those who commit moral transgressions and exhibit ethical shortcomings rather than upon a God imposing them upon the world from the outside. Scripture bears much of this idea out in passages such as Romans 5:12 which reads, "Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men for that all have sinned..." Thus, it is pretty much our own fault as a species as a whole for the misery rampaging across the face of the earth and in individual lives.
While such a theory might help account for things such as crime, war, and even sickness since none of us have escaped the stain of sin, by itself it does not provide enough explanation to account for the tragedy arising from natural disasters (often referred to as so-called “acts of God”) or why God does not normally intervene to prevent ne’er-do-wells from inflicting pain and suffering upon their victims innocent in terms of instigating these particular acts of malice. Both of these quandaries find their answer in what Ronald Nash calls the “Natural Law Theodicy” or what John Frame refers to as the “Stable Environment Defense”.
Frame notes in “Apologetics To The Glory Of God” that a stable environment is fundamental to human existence (164). Ronald Nash writes in “Faith & Reason: Searching For A Rational Faith”, “Free rational action requires a world of natural objects governed by natural laws (200).”
C.S. Lewis adds to this perspective in “The Problem Of Pain” , “But if matter is to serve as a neutral field it must have a fixed nature of its own ... if you were introduced into a world which thus varied at my every whim, you would be quite unable to act in it and would lose the exercise of your free will (19).” Lewis continues in the following paragraph, “Again, if matter has a fixed nature and obeys constant laws, not all states of matter will be equally agreeable to a given soul, nor beneficial for that matter which he calls his body (20).”
Thus in essence, the same system of reasonably stable natural laws that allows man to survive and even thrive in an otherwise hostile universe can also end up allowing the very same components of nature that man requires for his very existence to be turned on him and to inflict harm upon him. Lewis points out how fire can either warm the flesh or burn it.
This is wrought with consequences as to why both nature and man seem capable of raining down misery with impunity. As to the issue of natural disasters, Romans 8:20-22 explains, "For the creation was subjected to frustration not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it... We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time (NIV)." Thus, the very physical setting of creation is under the curse not unlike that imposed upon humanity for the fall of the species into sin.
Though the providence of God no doubt often spares certain individuals from befalling the ferocity of a world out of control, the system of physical laws through which the natural world is governed is usually left in place for the overall benefit of finite kind. For we would be unable to adjust in our current condition to a constantly changing and fluctuating cosmos. This principle readily applies to those bent on using physical matter to inflict their own corrupt wills upon secondary by-standing parties.
For example, one can use a baseball bat to enjoy an afternoon of leisurely recreation or to work someone over during an armed robbery. While we would all like God to intervene to prevent physical matter and natural forces from wreaking havoc upon us, in all likelihood doing so would inflict even greater harm upon the human species and the world in their current condition than simply allowing these contingent entities to continue on until the so-called end of history and the beginning of eternity.
Much of this theodicy is focused upon the preeminence of freedom in the relationships established under the terms of the divine economy. But some might argue that it is at this point of imbuing the actors in the universal drama with their own sense of freedom that God erred in His drafting of the cosmic screenplay. However, it is because of His absolute goodness that God has seen fit to grant some degree of say-so to those He loves the most.
It is because of the overwhelming sense of importance placed upon love that freedom must take precedence over order and control though freedom and love take place within the boundaries established by this order and control. For as any lovesick high school student turned down for the prom eventually realizes, love must be given freely or it is not true love.
The Scripture says in Joshua 24:15, "....choose you this day whom ye will serve." The text does not say that the decision will be thrust upon you. The Lord will hear enough whining on the Day of Judgment. He does not need to make His task more difficult by assigning the responsibility for our eternal fates and destinies to any party other than ourselves.
For centuries, skeptics used the problem of evil to chip away at the foundations of theism. However, the fact that the objection can be raised at all points towards the affirmative in its conclusion to the God question.
Human beings recoil in horror as they do to the pain and unfairness of the world since it is such a shocking affront to the way things were originally intended to be. Atheism uses this reaction deep within the soul to make its case for a totally naturalistic universe. But if evil, pain, and suffering are simply a part of the natural order, on what grounds are we justified in railing against it, and for that matter, how are we even capable of determining something has gone awry in the first place?
If evil is nothing more than part of the backdrop against which life plays itself out, man should barely notice it. For example, most normal people do not lie awake at night wondering why there is oxygen in the world or work themselves up into having an anxiety attack despairing as to why they will have to eat breakfast in the morning. The ability to complain about and speak out against evil points to the reality of some transcendent standard existing above the fray by which to justify this innate tendency towards making judgments.
One might counter that these standards simply exist within the individual as personal conscience. Yet both the daily news and the pages of history are replete with examples of how competing interpretations of these principles differ considerably and the conflicts that often arise without appeal to a yet higher arbitrating authority.
Thus, some external standard must exist in order to tell the difference between right and wrong. The only sufficient basis for this criteria is found in God. Alister McGrath provides the following proof in “Intellectuals Don’t Need God & Other Modern Myths“: “(A). Unless there is a God, there cannot be objectively binding moral obligations. (B). Objectively binding moral obligations exist. (C). Therefore, there is a God (40).”
At this point, the Christian thinker ought to take the problem of evil, invert it, and turn it against the critics of faith. John MacArthur writes in "Terrorism, Jihad & The Bible", his response to the September 2001 terrorist attack upon the United States, “The question we ought to ask is not why disasters happen sometimes. What we ought to ask is why don’t disasters happen all of the time (65).”
The problem really is not so much the problem of evil but rather the problem of pleasure. For human beings have done such a superb job messing up the world, that if God did not exist, how does any pleasure exist at all? And if God does exist, why does He continue to bless mankind despite the rebellion, animus, and contempt characteristically displayed on the part of the species to its benevolent Creator?
James 1:7 says, “Every good and perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.” No matter how wretched life can get, somewhere along the way most people can recall at least a single moment of fleeting kindness in their lives and usually more.
Even if the Christian takes the time to carefully delineate the case that God is not responsible for the existence of evil in the world and how the existence of phenomena morally classified as such does not contradict His nature of absolute holiness, this is often still not enough to satisfy some of the more rigorous skeptics. These voices will counter that, even though the above theistic assertion might be true, God is still the bad guy in this story. In their eyes, He has not done enough to use His immense power to rectify the situation.
Nothing could be farther from the truth. God has been far from passive in solving this problem He did not create.
Kenneth Boa and Robert Bowman write in "An Unchanging Faith In A Changing World: Understanding & Responding To Critical Issues Christians Face Today", "God has embraced this in the most intimate way possible through the abusive treatment His Son received when he was tortured and crucified (81)." These apologists continue, "Thus, the real problem of evil --- ...whether anything can be done to overcome it and bring good out of it --- has been answered (81)." In essence, the problem has already been solved. The thing is that we are so mired in the flow of time that we are not yet able to fully enjoy the effects of this resolution.
God did not run away from the problem, but instead tackled its resolution head on in the most enthusiastic manner imaginable by allowing pain and evil to be visited upon Himself and in the person of His Son Jesus Christ. Nor did God gloss over the reality of evil in the attempt to buttress His position by spinning the matter in His favor by downplaying our pain.
God comes at the issue in such a straightforward manner that His blunt forthrightness would make plain-spoken newsman Bill O'Reilly blush. Job 14:1 declares, "Man born of woman is of few days and full of trouble."
God could very well quote the following from that old country song when we grow weary of the troubles inherent to life in this world: "I beg your pardon. I never promised you a rose garden." He does, however, promise to do away with them in the next world where He will wipe away every tear according to Revelation 21:4. If God really was little more than a fairy tale, would the authors of Scripture include those texts that do little to sooth the troubled soul about the bleakness this side of Heaven and instead force the individual to confront some rather starting realities?
The problem of evil has plagued the mind of man at least since the day the first parents were expelled from the Garden of Eden for disobedience. However, the problem is not so much that God is a messed-up illogical being but rather that man is so limited in his capacity for reason that he is unable to ascend to the level of understanding necessary to comprehend the operational totality of the universe at the level of cosmic completeness.
God let's a whining Job have it in Job 38:3-4 and beyond when the Lord inquires, "Gird up now thy loins like a man [translated as "brace yourself' in the NIV]; for I will demand of then an answer thou me. Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? Declare if you hast understanding."
And while man can theodicize until he is blue in the face, such answers provide only a modicum of comfort when one befalls ill health, when a family member passes away, or when religious fanatics fly airplanes into skyscrapers. During such trials, the best one can hope for are the reassurances found in Romans 8:28: "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to his purposes."
Bibliography:
Boa, Kenneth and Bowman Robert. "An Unchanging Faith in a Changing World: Understanding and Responding to Critical Issues That Face Christians Today." Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1997.
Frame, John. "Apologetics To The Glory Of God: An Introduction." Phillipsburg, New Jersey: Presbyterian & Reformed Publishers, 1994.
Geisler, Norman & Feinberg, Paul. "Introduction To Philosophy: An Introduction." Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1980.
Lewis, C.S. "The Problem Of Pain." New York, New York: MacMillian Publishing, Eighteenth Printing, 1973.
MacArthur, John. "Terrorism, Jihad & The Bible: A Response To The Terrorist Attacks.: Nashville: W Publishing Group, 2001.
McGrath, Allister. "Intellectuals Don't Need God & Other Modern Myths: Building Bridges To Faith Through Apologetics." Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1993.
by Frederick Meekins
