More Than Words
Time 2021-10-21 10:05:35Web Name: More Than Words
WebSite: http://mothwo.blogspot.com
ID:208916
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keywords: description: More Than WordsThe personal weblog of David Anderson
Saturday, 11 September 2021 Nothing more than survival adaptations?Some Internet atheists are found of Carl Sagan's dictum, "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence", which they then apply within a framework in which atheism is accepted as a default belief, and anything which is not atheism is a priori deemed to be extraordinary.
There are many problems with this approach. Who got to decide that an ultimately uncaused universe was deemed a default, and a caused universe was extraordinary? Arguably, the idea that anything at all can result from nothing is extraordinary. It's also a naked assertion that there needs to be a "default" at all. Again arguably, a claim should be accepted on the basis of the strength of the evidence for its truthfulness, independently of any (likely value-laden) prior assessment of how extraordinary it is or isn't supposed to be.
But in any case, let's run with the idea. According to the atheist, with his belief in the evolutionary myth, all human faculties - all human faculties (please think about that for a moment) - are explainable as beneficial survival adaptations. Or stated the other way round, there are precisely zero human faculties or abilities which are anything other than an adaptation to allow individual humans to be more successful, not just at any activity in general, but at breeding in particular, and breeding only.
That's quite an extraordinary claim, isn't it?
Let's talk about Afghanistan, and the West's "nation building" program that's been carried out there for the last two decades there since the West established control over the territory. How's it going?
All the wisdom, technology, finances, material resources, etc., of the contemporary Western world. Enough military might to enforce their will, enough financial resources (a few trillion dollars invested) to do whatever they like, and 20 years to do it in. The task: to carry out the West's view of "nation building".
That view is essentially that, given those time, money, resources and technical expertise, a country can be turned into a peaceful modern democracy. Whatever issues of culture, whatever other issues exist - we have the power and the intelligence to build a working nation!
So, how's that turning out? We all know, as indeed many have known (and been saying) for years (think of Rory Stewart MP - I believe for at least a decade since he stopped being the governor of a province, he's been proclaiming that we have really not the slightest idea what we've been doing there, or how to go about it).
Is it a surprise? Not to anyone with a Bible. Not to anyone who reads what's written there.
The West has still-mostly functioning societies (for how much longer?) not because of its resources of expertise, but because of the grace of God working through a sufficiently Christian understanding of the cosmos - mediated through respect for the Bible as the word of God, to be the ultimate basis for life and society in general - and enough will to actually see that implemented; and implemented in a Biblical way (which means that the implementation depends on vast amounts of bottom-up spade work, seeing individual lives changed by Jesus Christ, not simply top-down force, in the style of, say, political Islam). Yes, mixed up with lots of bad things, other motives, and other things (everything's a work in progress, with plenty of room for version 2.0 to supersede 1.0, until Jesus returns). But there was, by the grace of God, enough of it, mixed with grace in its implementation, to see something quite remarkable: societies based on the rule of law, care for the weakest, universal human dignity, etc. The good done to the world has been immense.
We have been busy for some time throwing all of that away. And the current mythology to justify throwing it away is that Christianity has little to do with the historical success of Western societies. (And they have been successful - freedom, peace, human dignity respected across society - these are historically astonishing anomalies, not the norm). The belief promulgated by those desirous to rid their own societies of Christianity is that secular government, with its wise technocratic leaders, can just achieve these things with the right policies. But this is a myth. It's the same sort of myth promoted by the new Lord of the Manor, grandson of the original Lord whose sweat and toil built the place, and son of the second Lord who was taught and trained by him and managed to maintain it. It's the mythology of the know-nothing self-indulgent dilettante who has his own hair-brained scheme which will remove the foundations, whilst proclaiming to the world that this is simply a fresh new take on the original vision, with clever modifications just suited to a new time (c.f. David Cameron, proclaiming that the reason he was in favour of radical redefinition of marriage was because he was a conservative!). They don't want to believe that the Cross of Christ ultimately built the good things in the modern West (with some notable exceptions, even amongst non-believers, such as the historian Tom Holland). The implications of accepting that are too uncomfortable. So they have to proclaim that whilst jettisoning the Cross of Christ, they have preserved the bits that were essential to making the world still work.
Well, Afghanistan is the ultimate putting to the test of that set of beliefs. The modern secular (read: atheism with marketing) technocratic mindset with all the resources you could want, has now met reality. And reality, as it always does, has won handily.
If you want to build a real nation, you'd do better to just give free visas and invites to orthodox evangelical missionaries who are ready to suffer for the sake of serving Jesus and teaching his word. It's less politically correct. It's less pleasing to the egos those who think they are the masters of the global-acronym-organisation universe and just need a large enough stage to demonstrate their brilliance to us on. But 2000 years of history all proclaim that it builds the sort of nations in which people learn how to live together, beat their swords into ploughshares, and learn how to serve people instead of killing them. Christ has conquered, and carries out his conquest, by shedding his own blood. And until the world learns that ultimately you do it *that* way, rather than by shedding other people's blood, we're going to have a lot more hard lessons to learn, if we are listening at all.
"Over the past 20 years, a vast, global pornography industry has sprung up online. This commercial behemoth dwarfs its print predecessor in every way - in scale, profitability and extremity - making old fashioned porn mags seem almost quaint by comparison. However, unlike other global industries, online pornography has avoided virtually all regulation, scrutiny and accountability, which has allowed it to pursue profit without restraint.
Make no mistake, the online porn industry is neither naive nor neutral. Free from oversight, it has monetised videos of rape, abuse and other non-consensual sex acts, failing victims and survivors who call for help. Always at the forefront of tech advancement, the porn industry has designed its sites to ensure that vast numbers of visitors stay for as long as possible and return again and again - even if they are child"
Did you know that one big, powerful company that you've probably never heard of (but which receives more web traffic than Twitter, Instagram, Netflix, Zoom, Pinterest, and LinkedIn combined) has a virtual monopoly on the billions of pounds of profit being generated from 24/7 exploitation?
Read the full report and what can be done here: https://cease.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/210607_CEASE_Expose_Big_Porn_Report.pdf
Caleb was a genuine and kind friend and brother in the Lord to me for as long as I can remember him (we have been part of the same church - with various periods in which we have been elsewhere - since 1986). Caleb is somewhere in the region of 6,7, 8 years older than me, but when I was an awkward adolescent and he was an adult, this didn't stop him in the slightest from taking a genuine interest in me, catching up on how I was doing and encouraging me in the Lord - which is what he kept on doing ever since.
You can read some of Caleb's more recent history on his blog, "Meso Far So What", here. The title is a reference to Mesothelioma, a major factor in his life the last 5 years (he outlived the average life expectancy of a diagnosee by around 4). But not the major factor. If you head over, you can see what all those who knew him experienced - not just in this cancer (which was his third, the first coming in teenage years), but throughout his life, his testimony was that to live was Christ, and to die would be gain. As a believer, a husband, a father, an elder and just general all-round good bloke, Caleb kept on through the years pointing us to Jesus and serving him. Much more could be said, but it'd be better to head over to his blog and read him directly.
When even vendors of breakfast cereals are going all-in on promoting the idea that your child might need to mutilate their body in order to express their true self, then it really is time for Christians to think about what living their lives in exile from mainstream society and its institutions, and for churches to be well into the process of creating their own institutions for their children, isn't it?
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/wokeness-creating-monsters-summoning-demons/
https://www.christian.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/secular-humanism.pdf
No comments: Tuesday, 16 March 2021 Liberty redefined - families, individuals and libertyThis is very clear and timely, and sadly something a lot of Christians are very muddled (or have never really thought) about: https://dougwils.com/books-and-culture/s7-engaging-the-culture/liberty-redefined.html
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