"All is Relative, Except This Statement"

Self Destroying Contradictions

John Gray, in his gem of a book entitled Seven Types of Atheism, has a very clear view of the special pleading that is rife amongst so-called atheists.  The bottom line--as Gray demonstrates repeatedly--is that such atheists always end up engaged in special pleading for someone or something that escapes the mental scythe of atheism.  In other words, they are atheists except for "x" which is above the inevitable nihilistic world-view.  The "x" is the grand exception.  

Gray is honest enough to cite C. S. Lewis, a Christian philosopher/teacher, as an example of a clear-minded critic of atheism who understood that atheism was effectively a smokescreen by which its advocates sought to deny the truth claims of anything and everything, except itself except the particular cocktail of atheism which they were advocating or pushing.

He writes:

If progress means a 'more advanced' version of the human species, how do we know what is more or less advanced?  This question was the subject of The Abolition of Man, a prescient little book by the linguist, theologian, and writer of science fiction C. S. Lewis, first given as a lecture and published in 1943. Lewis argued that progressive thinkers who wanted to reshape society, and eventually the human species itself, had no way of deciding what progress meant. 

For many it involved increasing human power and using it to make Nature serve human ends.  But the power of human kind over Nature, Lewis pointed out,  means in practice the power of some human beings over others.  If society is planned so as to maximize power of Nature, other human valued will be crowded out.  Anyone who cherishes these values will be on the receiving end of power, not exercising it. 

The progressive thinkers of Lewis's day thought little of the average run of human beings.  Like Trotsky, they believed they could design a better version of the human animal.  After all, if most human beings are not just backward but obstacles, what is the point of them?  Surely it would be better to sideline these inferior specimens.  The future belonged to the post-human species.  As Lewis wrote, "Man's final conquest has proved to be the abolition of man."  [Seven Types of Atheism (London: Allen Lane/Penguin, 2018), p. 65f.]

The Fruits of Secular Humanism

Crisis of Faith

John Stuart Mill, utilitarian, disciple of his father, James Mill suffered a crisis of secular faith in later life.  He describes what it was like to find that his atheistic beliefs failed to satisfy his soul.

I had what might truly be called an object in life: to be a reformer of the world . . . . This did very well for several years, during which the general improvement going on in the world and the idea of myself as engaged with others in struggling to promote it, seemed enough to fill up an interesting and animated existence. 

But the time came when I awakened as from a dream . . . . In this frame of mind it occurred to me to put the question directly to myself: "Suppose that all your objects in life were realised; that all the changes in institutions and opinions that you re looking forward to, could be completely effected this very instant; would this be a great job and happiness to you?"  And an irrepressible self-consciousness distinctly answered: "No!" 

At this my hearts sank within me; the whole foundation on which my life was constructed fell down.  All my happiness was to have been found in the continual pursuit of this end.  The end had ceased to charm, and how could there every again be any interest in the means?  I seemed to have nothing left to live for.  [Cited by John Gray, Seven Types of Atheism (London: Allen Lane/Penguin, 2018),  p. 35.]  

This reference occurs in Gray's exposition of the atheism reflected in Secular Humanism--which has now become the virtual universal religion of the West in our day.

Real Atheism

No Improvement, No Hope

John Gray is a "professional" atheist.  He recently published a book on the subject, entitled Seven Types of Atheism.  The sum and substance is a volume of sustained criticism of the various kinds and types of atheism.  

He writes:

Today everyone is sure that civilization has improved with modern times.  As we are forever being reminded, the medieval and early modern world was wracked by wars of religion.  But faith-based violence did not fade away with the arrival of the modern age.  From the French Revolution onwards, Europe and much of the world were caught up in revolutions and wars fuelled by secular creeds such as Jacobinism and communism, Nazism and fascism and a belligerently evangelical type of liberalism. 

In the twenty-first century a potent source of faith-based violence has emerged in Islamic movements, which blend ideas borrowed from Leninism and fascism with fundamentalist currents from within Islam.  [John Gray, Seven Types of Atheism (London: Penguin Books, 2018), p. 27.] 

We might characterise the world-view of Gray as one of "atheism without hope".

Never The Twain Shall Meet

Atheism and Ethical Systems are Contradictory

The gulf between various kinds of atheism and moral or ethical systems is both deep and dire.  Yet still there are plenty of modern materialistic atheists who insist upon a moral code.  But given their atheism, it amounts to little more than special pleading for their own particular preferences.  

The reality is that atheism is unable to sustain any ethical or moral system apart from its own biases or prejudices.  Philospher John Gray hits the nail on its head:

With few exceptions, twenty-first-century atheists are unthinking liberals.  But atheism has no specific political content, and many atheists have been virulently anti-liberal.  Eighteenth-century French philosophes--including Voltaire--endorsed views that can only be described as racist.  . . . Typically, exponents of 'scientific ethics' have merely endorsed the conventional values of their time.
 
Our time is no different.  The American new atheist, Sam Harris wants a 'science of good and evil'.  He assumes that this science will support liberal values of human equality and personal autonomy.  What is should do so is never explained.  [John Gray, Seven Types of Atheism (London: Allen Lane, 2018),  p. 21.]

Variations of Scientisms and Atheisms

No One World View

When someone claims to be an atheist, it is prudent to inquire exactly what sort of atheist he or she might be.  The reason that this would be prudent is due to the abundance of different types and stripes of atheism.  John Gray, in his book Seven Types of Atheism [London: Penguin Random House, 2018] writes:

If there are many different religions, there are also many different atheisms.  Twenty-first-century atheism is nearly always a type of materialism.  But that is only one of many views of the world that atheists have held.  Some atheists--such as nineteenth-century German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer--have thought that matter is an illusion and reality spiritual.  There is no such thing as 'the atheist worldview'.  [Op cit., p. 4.]

The statement that "there is no such thing as 'the atheist worldview' " is likely to shake up more than a a few modern atheists.  Fast following this discombobulation is the way Gray trims back the pretensions  and claims of many modern, materialistic atheists:

Science cannot replace a religious view of the world, since there is no such thing as 'the scientific world view'.  A method of inquiry rather than a settled body of theories, science yields different view of the world as knowledge advances.  Until Darwin showed that species change over time, science pictured a world of fixed species.  In the same way, classical physics has been followed by quantum mechanics.  It is commonly assumed that science will someday yield a single unchanging view of things.  Certainly some view of the world are eliminated as scientific knowledge advances.  But there is no reason for supposing that the progress of science will reach a point where only one worldview is left standing.  [Ibid., p. 12.]

It would seem that a little bit less arrogant grandstanding and a little more humility would be appropriate amongst the ranks of the so-called New Atheists.

Removing Jesus Christ From The Public Square

Chic Atheism

Well, that didn't take long.  Broadcaster, Mike Hoskings has begun to voice the need to suppress the Bible.  It's a dangerous book, apparently.  In this regard, Hoskings is following faithfully in the footsteps of the big atheist dudes--Lenin, Stalin, Mao, and latterly, Xi Jinping--all of whom spent a long time and much energy attempting to defame and suppress the Bible.  Nice company there, Mike.  

Hoskings was opining upon the Australian rugby player, Israel Folau's profession of faith, which includes his belief in I Corinthians 6: 9-10.

Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practise homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.

Hoskings rejects those statements.  They are untrue, false, misleading, superstitious--we can roll out pejoratives adjectives all day.   Now, the normal pattern in a Western democracy which is supposed to champion liberty of conscience, freedom of speech, and freedom of religion, is for Hoskings to say, "I disagree with your opinions and views, but I will die defending your right to say them".  One recalls the notorious atheist Voltaire uttering just this sentiment.

But the ostensible atheist Hoskings thinks these Biblical particular statements set a dangerous precedent.

Turning of the Tide in the UK

Militant Atheists Speak Hatefully

Franklin Graham is the son of Billy Graham, the celebrated Christian preacher and evangelist.  He is walking in his father's footsteps.  We well remember his father's evangelical crusades in New Zealand in 1969.  But times have changed.  Franklin Graham is scheduled to conduct some evangelical meetings in the United Kingdom this year.  Public calls have been issued for him to be banned from entering the country.

This stunning developing is a leading indicator of how pagan the UK has become.  Graham's father, Billy conducted many evangelical crusades in the UK in his lifetime.  Today it is doubtful that he would be permitted to enter the country.

The Coming Religious Persecution

Militant Atheism Will Have Its Pogrom

Atheism is on the rise throughout the West.  It is a false religion.  Normally atheism is not associated with being religious.  Nevertheless it is.  If we observed that Theravada Buddhism is a religion, most would accept the claim. Yet Theravada Buddhism has no deity, just teachers and an ethical code.  Atheism functions in precisely the same way throughout the West.

Sociologist Emile Durkheim pioneered the study of religion in terms of the functions of various belief systems maintain.  His definition is that "a religion is a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say, thing set apart and surrounded by prohibitions."  [Cited by William T. Cavanaugh, The Myth of Religious Violence: Secular Ideology and the Roots of Modern Conflict (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009)  p.106.]

This approach is helpful.  It looks at how people function and how their belief system actually effects and controls their lives.  It is consistent with the Bible's teaching.

Rotting Foundations

Holy Separation Long Overdue

It is being reported that the secularist paradise of the South Pacific is going to remove all references to Jesus Christ, the King of all kings, from the Parliamentary prayer.  

This would serve to bring the Parliament into line with official truth as it is declared daily in our government run schools.  What should Christians think of this?  Our view is that it is a move long overdue.  Let us be clear why.

We do not mean to suggest that the Lord Jesus Christ ought to have no place of honour, lordship, or kingship over our Parliament.  Quite the contrary.  It is precisely because He is the King of kings that our Parliament and government in general is duty bound to remove all references to Him.  For our governing authorities and our rulers long ago rejected the Christ and entered into a programme of rebellion against Him.  Therefore, to live denying Christ with every breath, whilst praying to Him in a vacuous, mindless way at the commencement of Parliament is the acme of hypocrisy.  It is a perilous course.

If we need reminding what the King thinks of such perversity, let us remind our readers of the seven woes pronounced by our Lord upon the established authorities of Israel.

A Call to Arms

When The Vast Majority are Secular Atheists 

The curse of atheistic secularism is scourging the land like an ancient Balrog.  Evil now comes finally to full flower.  The point of the modern world is this: man is the measure of all things, and nothing human is foreign to me.  This self-contradictory dogma places Man at the centre of the universe.  All meaning, all coherence, all truth is to be found in man.  

There are only two ways this nonsense can play out.  Either it will morph into militant libertinism; or, it will morph into the benign rule of the Great Leader.  For the latter think of Kim Jong-Un as a current manifestation.  In the case of the former think of the vast majority of people living in Western nations.

The West's version of roiling atheistic secularism places man at the centre of all meaning and truth.  The pace of integration into this nightmare gathers by the day.  Rod Dreher writes:

The Rising Religious Fervour of Political Discourse

We Cannot Serve Both God and Baal

All people worship someone or something.  In Christian terms we would say, all human beings either worship God and His Messiah, or they worship the Devil.  There is no neutral ground. Now, of course, the Satan has a bunch of "front organisations", but all, ultimately, are fronts for his grand rebellion against the Almighty.

For example, agnosticism is not a neutral place: it is a "soft" declaration that God does not exist.  Atheism is a "hard" declaration of the same.  In both cases, the agnostic and the atheist are serving the only other alternative: the one whom Christ's spokesman, Paul "outed" by calling him the god of this world.

In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.  [II Corinthians 4:4]

As atheism and agnosticism spread across the Western world the secularist's god manifests himself through the institution of the secular state.

The Problem With Materialism

All Brawn and No Brain

Sometimes the West seems to resemble a plane flying into the Twin Towers.  Western civilisation is crumbling, tearing apart, falling down.  Its centre cannot hold.  It leads many to panic.  Questions like What is going on?  or Why is this happening? are increasingly commonplace.

In Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis began by making a commonplace enough observation about society in his day.  He writes:

Everyone has heard people quarrelling.  Sometimes it sounds funny and sometimes it sounds merely unpleasant; but, however it sounds, I believe we can learn something very important  from listening to the kinds of things they say.  They say things like this: "How'd you like it if anyone did the same to you?"-- "That's my seat, I was there first"--"Leave him alone, he isn't doing you any harm"--"Why should you shove in first?"--"Give me a piece of your orange, I gave you a bit of mine"--"Come on, you promised."  People say things like that every day, educated people as well as uneducated, and children as well as grown ups.  [C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (London: Fontana Books, 1956), p. 15.]

Despite a radical change in the dominant world-and-life view from what held fast in Lewis's day to our own, we can all identify with the kind of discourse Lewis describes above.  People still think and speak in these kinds of categories.  What are we to make of this?  Lewis continues:

Hard Pressed and In Pain

Embarrassing and Awkward

One of the delicious ironies swirling around cosmology and the study of matter is that the possible options are few and far between.  What makes the universe a law-complying realm?  Or alternatively, "What is it that makes the electrons continue to follow the laws?"

The possible answers to that question are only three.  One solution is to presuppose the eternal, all controlling, all commanding, all conditioning Conditioner.  But this answer is disturbing and offensive to fallen man, the one asking the question.  The reason is that man to consider God as the One who makes the universe follow laws with any degree of objectivity.  Why?  Because man cannot be neutral on the subject.  Man has form in denying this as the solution to the problem because of a fundamental and abiding conflict of interest.  To acknowledge the existence of such a Being is necessarily to require worship, adoration and service to Him.  No other consequent would make any sense.  But since fallen man hates God and His threat to human autonomy, man cannot be neutral or objective in dismissing this solution to the problem of "why?" the cosmos acts in the law-abiding way it does.  It is the answer that is the least palatable and the last to which he will give consent.

The second answer offered is that electrons follow natural laws because the laws of nature are necessary--they just are.

Void of Chaos

The Paine of Secular Atheism

Thomas Paine is the current ideological apostle of the West.  He is its true muse.  He has inspired millions of people down a certain causeway of thought and action.  One cannot understand the modern Western world without understanding Thomas Paine's work.  We are sufficiently bold to assert that the regnant place held by Marx in the collective mind fifty years ago is now held by Thomas Paine.  

Consider carefully the account of Yuval Levin:

For Paine, the natural equality of all human beings translates to complete political equality and therefore to a right of self-determination.  The formation of society was itself a choice made by free individuals, so that the natural rights that people bring with them into society are rights to act as one chooses, free of coercion.

Each person should have the right to do as he chooses unless his choices interfere with the equal rights and freedoms of others.  And when that happens--when society as a whole must act through its government to restrict the freedom of some of its members--government can only act in accordance with the wishes of the majority, aggregated through the political process.  [Yuval Levin, The Great Debate: Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine and the Birth of Right and Left (New York: Basic Books, 2014), p.91.]

Now, consider the following:

A Typical Profession of Faith of Our Age

An Apple Not Fallen Far From The Tree

In one of our local blogs, a contributor has taken it upon himself to profess his faith: he is an atheist and he wants all people to share his faith.  

Normally, we would pass this sort of thing by, but his contribution is worth thinking about if for no other reason than he represents the mindset, or we may say "blindset" that characterises so much Unbelief.  Here is a chap who confidently asserts what he believes, but without a skerrick self-awareness.

Here is his profession:

I’m a little worried about God.

Not only does God not exist, the reasons for needing him to exist are fast fading. The human race is approaching the end of its adolescent years and is heading for maturity. We have the ability to control our world. Only a couple of centuries ago, control was local, regional and for some European nations, pan continental. But now we all think in global terms.

Climate change is evidence of our race’s planet wide ability to get things wrong. But most of us believe we have the capacity to end global warming, though the willpower is still lacking. We aren’t waiting for God to step in, as once would have been the case.  [Your NZ]

The lack of self-awareness shows up in not realising that he has just made some statements that are thoroughly and profoundly religious.  This is not at all untypical. It is also getting close to the first signs of sociopathy.

The Rise of Superstitions and the Demonic

East Meets West, and West Meets East

The Christian faith drives out demons.  It also drives out superstition.  During the public ministry of Jesus, demonic possession was commonplace.  Modern secularist scholars have asserted that what passes for demonic possession in the Gospels was actually mental illness.  Thus, they interpret the testimonies concerning the demonic in Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and Acts to be superstitious ignorance.

There is nothing new in this: it is precisely what one would expect secularists to claim.  Demons, according to the secularists and atheists, don't exist because we can't see, touch, taste, or empirically put them in a lab to experiment upon them.  The Bible, however, is emphatically clear on these matters: the Serpent in Genesis is the liar from the beginning.  Those who don't believe in the existence of the Satan are those most enthralled under his deceit.

Deflections Into False Hope

No Nirvana

We have been reading about the remarkable life of Aung San Suu Kyi, who is at present serving as the effective democratically elected leader of Myanmar, at the pleasure of its military overlords.    It remains to be seen whether the military will retire itself from politics and government and allow itself to be transformed into a servant, not master, of the state.

Aung San Suu Kyi is, like most Burmese, a Buddhist.  But her faith is held seriously, in a dedicated fashion.  She is a true believer.  In one of her published books, she gives a brief description of Buddhism in Myanmar.

The one single factor which has had the most influence on Burmese culture and civilization is Theravada Buddhism.  In all parts of the country where Burmese people live there are pagodas and Buddhist monasteries.  The graceful tapering shape of a pagoda, painted white or gilded to a shining gold, is a basic part of any Burmese  landscape.  Burma is often called the "Land of the Pagodas".  [Aung San Suu Kyi, Freedom From Fear (New York: Penguin Group, 2010), p.66.]

It is true that the visitor to Myanmar is immediately confronted with pagodas around every corner.  It is the most striking and visible form of the hold which Buddhism has over the hearts and minds of the people.

Aung San provides a brief overview of Buddhist teaching and doctrine.

Self-Destruction on a Grand Scale

Holding On to the Grenade Too Long

David Hume was (and is) the enfant terrible of modern philosophy.  His scepticism was (and is) like an acid which corroded much of what went before and came after.  By putting up a barrier between the mind (rational thought) and the senses, such that there is no necessary connection between the two, he scared Western philosophers so profoundly they all got a bad case of the heebie jeebies.  Empiricism devolved into scepticism.  

The way a good many of his successors dealt with his scepticism was to ignore it.  Actually, Hume ended up ignoring it for a large part of his output.  He could not help himself.  He retreated to the  more positive, safer realm of championing empiricism--the championing of knowledge through the application of our senses to the world around us.  But he had to assume there was a connection between rational thought and empirical observation.  He also had to assert there was a connection between cause and effect that held whether empirically observed or not.

He dismissed non-empirical philosophy in a grand manner:

. . . if we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance, let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity and number?  No.  Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of matter of fact and existence? No.  Commit it then to the flames: For it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion. [An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding.]

 Beware the universal acid--that acid so corrosive it cannot be contained and which in the end destroys all.  As Berlinski pointed out, with respect to Hume:

Analytical philosophers have been eager to commit books to the flames ever since [Hume], rather an odd vocational choice, all things considered.

Good Friday

Cosmic Personalism At Work

Many people in the West have adopted what we may call the Buddhist view of the death of Christ.  The crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth has meaning, even great significance, in the Buddhist world-view.  For the Buddhist, life is pain and suffering.  The goal is to escape existence and achieve nothingness.  For the Buddhist, the Cross of Christ signifies the essence of life, which is suffering.

 This view of life equates roughly to the materialist, secularist view, prominent in the West.  Existence and self-consciousness is a random consequence of the collision of sub-atomic particles.  The great goal--the only true goal of this life--is to escape the existence of self-conscious being which is a mirage and reach the state of impersonal non-being which is the truth and the future of all.

Both the Buddhist and the Western materialist have the same view of Jesus dying at Calvary.  The Cross witnesses to the vale of tears that is existence in this life.  It supposedly makes humans long for the state of nothingness when all consciousness will cease and personhood will dissipate like a cloud of vapour.  Both the Buddhist and the Western materialist recognise the Cross as a siren call teaching us to yearn for our future of non being and nothingness.

The Christian doctrine of Jesus on Calvary's cross could not be more diametrically opposed to these interpretations.

Douglas Wilson's Letter From Moscow

Why the Future of Atheism is Bleak

Douglas Wilson
Blog&Mablog

What can you do when you hate someone who is completely, entirely, wholly, and necessarily out of range?

When it cannot strike at the Father God, He who dwells in unapproachable light, what can the rage of impotence do? There is really only one option, and that is to strike at an effigy. You cannot reach Him because He is the one who sits upon the circle of the earth. He pulls the heavens aside like they were a curtain, and He looks down upon a host of angry men — who all breathe through their noses — and He laughs.

So one of the oldest tricks in the book, when you cannot reach the detested king, is to burn that king in effigy. When you can’t get at the one you loathe, take it out on a picture.

We can see this in (at least) three ways.