Into the Darkening Woods – an Open-ended Fairytale

We’ve been exploring problems with leftist thinking and I’d like to continue with that discussion, but I’m going to do so by telling you a story.

Part 4 – What is Wrong with Liberal Thinking

Once upon a meme* -- which is itself a meme, which has become so trendy it’s gone from pseudo-intellectual to rancidly cheesy in under 40 years, turning up, as it did, on college campuses in the late 70’s where it was useful only under the influence of whatever was available. The word was used at first by professors trying to impress their students, and then by students attempting to impress their professors. Now it’s found in use amongst graduates who still lean college-left and want to impress each other.  But I digress. 

Back to the story. Once there was a country where all the fathers were risk-takers, all the mothers were mothers (which made them risk-takers extraordinaire) and all the children were wildly and joyfully suicidal. The country was blessed with broad open spaces, wide rivers, deep forests and oceans to keep dangerous people away. The people moved about, built farms and factories and cities and roads and cars to drive on the roads. Then they moved around more. Eventually they built airplanes and moved around more quickly. They invented many things, worked very hard, took huge risks and became the wealthiest nation the world had ever seen.

As they did all this they tried to follow the rules they believed in – tried because, like all people they weren’t perfect. Their energy and ambition sometimes got them in trouble. But through it all they remembered God, who had created them and all the blessings their country provided. They were grateful for the power they discovered all over the land – the wood, coal, oil, gas, and raging rivers. They planted crops, cut down trees, built fences, and they mined gold and silver and iron and copper. They prospered and they were grateful. 

Smoke, Mirrors, and Layers of Varnish

 For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face-to-face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. 1^st Corinthians 13:12.

Part 3 – What’s Wrong with Liberal Thinking

Well – let’s make sense of the world today, shall we? I’ll start picking at the tangled wad of yarns at this end and you start teasing at it on your end and we’ll have it unknotted in no time. Not.

Things are in quite a muddle; the Prince of Lies (not our president, but Lucifer) is hard at work and it’s the human tendency to gloss over details, call a spade a terrain relocation device, and slather every uncomfortable truth with coat after coat of varnish, so the job of putting all the puzzle pieces together in logical order is a challenge.

We’ve been talking about the faulty assumptions at the base of liberal thinking. This week I’d like to explore one of the secondary premises that fog our national bandwidth. If one starts with the self-refuting statement that there is no absolute truth and you add to that an evolutionary mindset, one comes to a third premise – that God is just a human idea – some fanciful conceit we developed to soften the edges of reality, some elaborate means mankind invented in order to tackle the vagaries of human misbehavior.

The evolutionist explanation for religious belief is a bottom-up account. From paramecium to fish to tadpole to lizard to bird to horse to ape to Neanderthal to Christian – just a natural progression. (Why they assume that Christian thought is suddenly a turn for the worst is beyond me.)

Monkey-men and Unicorns

Part 2 -- What's Wrong with Liberal Thinking

Last week we discussed the first foundation stone in the dysfunction of liberal thought. Let’s move on to the next – evolution. (I speak here not of the usual change we see within species as they react to the environment; I speak of macro-evolution only.) I’m not going to address all the scientific evidence that is accumulating against Darwinism; I haven’t space here. Instead I’d like to look at the dangerous conclusions one arrives at when one’s starting place is “random mutation” or “survival of the fittest.” The damage that has been done to our national psyche via this “theory” is incalculable and yet most of us rumble through our days oblivious to the devastation, or at least unaware of its genesis.

At the core of Darwin’s Origin of the Species (published in 1859) is the idea that, as a species moves through time, its weaker specimens die off, leaving only the genetics of the survivors to move into the future. As the eons pass by each species becomes better and better having sloughed off the bad genes in favor of the good ones and having experienced along the way random, enhancing, genetic mutations.

He even posited that all species started from a single “simple” cell (we know now that there is no such thing) and through random happy accidents (which, by the way, are almost never happy) added to the survival impetus, and gradually produced us. (I find it odd that nature kept pushing toward human existence, given the fact that it could have stopped with the cockroach. Cockroaches have survival down pat.)

So, what’s wrong with those ideas? Several important things:

Never Assume a G-D Thing – What’s Wrong with Liberal Thinking

Here we are mid-river and we can hear the rumble of approaching rapids. The river drops fast as we skim over an occasional sub-surface boulder. We know if we stay on this course, we’ll tumble over the falls, but if we can veer to the right and take it down through the slough we’ll be OK, but to do that we need every hand to paddle and paddle hard in unison. 

Let’s talk about how we do that – how do we discuss clearly, quickly and powerfully the necessity of making that hard right? It can’t be done by shouting or making wild accusations or by attacking people personally. It has to be done with logic and with love.

Logic is God’s way of thinking, for He is not the author of confusion. He is a rational God and if we are, as Paul tells us, to “take every thought into captivity for Christ,” they have to be logical thoughts. And here’s where our national problem lies – the thought patterns on the left, the thought patterns that got us into this mess – are not logical, are not rational and the approaching rapids are proof.

So is the anger and irrationality coming from the left. Think Chris Matthews. I can’t imagine the pain of hearing that impending torrent of doom and having to choose between saying, “You know, Marx was an idiot,” or trying to convince yourself that plummeting to your death is what you always wanted to do. That’s bound to make people testy and we’re starting to see some folks in the public eye crumbling around the edges. We have to reach across the rapids and grab as many as we can and pull them to safety. We’ll be better off with their help paddling and they’ll have a chance of living and living well.

Let’s do a crash course in what is wrong with leftist thinking:

Directing the Impossible Play

paulrademacher.com

Today the Republican Convention was to begin in Tampa, but the approach of hurricane Isaac has postponed it. Who knows what effect that will have on history.

On April 20^th 2010 an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico killing 11 men.  As a result U.S. oil production has dropped precipitously and dependence on foreign oil is now up to 66%.

In 715 B.C. Sennacherib, King of Assyria laid siege to Jerusalem, but they were unsuccessful – the Jewish accounts say that an Angel of the Lord killed 185,000 Assyrian soldiers. Some historians think it was cholera that killed them, but Sennacherib withdrew and Jerusalem – and therefore Israel – was preserved.

Jesus Christ controls history. Jesus Christ, as the Second Person of the Godhead, manages all the stories of all our lives so that history will come out in the end just as He wants it to, just as it has been prophesied. He is directing this play, this impossibly complicated play.

Yes, but don’t we have free will? Can God control history if He is not controlling each of us? Isn’t history merely the record of human decisions? So how is it possible then for these two ideas – individual human free will and God’s collective plan to coexist? 

News flash: human free will is not all there is. We don’t like to admit that, but it’s true. We don’t get to choose everything that happens in our lives – I didn’t choose to have my baby grandson die. I did not choose to have my new car run off the road at 70 miles an hour. I did not want my husband’s body to develop cancer cells. But those things happened nevertheless. I could still choose how to react to each situation, true, but the situations themselves I didn’t choose.

An Open Letter to our President

Dear Sir:

I have a question: which came first – the goose or the egg? Don’t wrinkle your brow and glance at your teleprompter -- this is not a difficult question – eggs don’t hatch without a goose to sit on them.

Let’s try another one. -- which came first – the taxers or the taxees? That’s evidently a more difficult question because you, the most powerful man in the world, recently got it wrong. Very wrong.

Recently you made quite a speech in Roanoke, Virginia, in which you figuratively addressed small businessmen saying, “You didn’t build that.” You went on to explain that without public works, “roads and bridges,” a business couldn’t exist. Your implication was that government agencies and activities are the foundation on which industry rests, that without public policy there would be no private enterprise.

Ruins in Detroit -- seedetroit.com

P-a-l-e-e-z-e, Mr. Obama, that statement is almost as offensive as your ignorant proclamation that this country is not a Christian nation, and don’t give me that “out of context” palaver. It is the context of your entire presidency that makes this so objectionable.

Obviously, Sir, you haven’t thought very hard or very long about this country and what it’s all about, or you would know better. The truth is that without private, moneymaking endeavors, the government would have nothing, would be nothing. I realized that yesterday when I ran across a news tidbit about California’ sales tax revenues dropping by 33.5%. No. Really?!

Scoring a Perfect Ten

Yesterday at the gym I was “biking” to nowhere, grateful that the TV in front of me was set on the Olympics and that the Olympics was set on rhythmic gymnastics. I know, I know, not everyone’s favorite sport, but I was entranced. I peddled and peddled and watched young, agile bodies perform almost impossible movements – wrapping spines around soccer-sized balls, spinning hula hoops with one over-head foot, twisting and rolling and never losing sight of the props, always graceful and fluid and elegant. It was enough to make you think that maybe humans could be perfect. It was enough to make me realize why our Christian gospel often falls on deaf ears.

Human beings are amazing. That’s why we all love the Olympics – it’s a chance to see our fellow humans achieving astounding things – running ever faster, jumping higher, performing ever more challenging dives. We are all impressed with ourselves – the proof is right there on the TV; human beings are amazing.

So what’s with this “all have sinned and come short of the glory of God” thing? Isn’t the glory of the Olympics enough? Look at what people can do, what awful conditions they can overcome, what remarkable beauty they can produce, what mind-boggling skills they can develop. And they all seem like such nice, good people; they train 24-7 – they don’t have time to get into any trouble. Original sin? Total depravity? Surely you jest.

Splitting the Difference – on Open-mindedness and Opportunity

It’s been turning up on my Facebook feed lately, a post-it-note that says something to the effect that all the posts in the world won’t change anyone’s mind. Well, some part of my mind has been chewing on that thought  -- it’s a very dangerous one.

This is not a tirade against anyone who posted it – it showed up several times and I didn’t even notice who had put it up there, let alone what the ideological motivation might have been. It’s the utter closed-mindedness that amazes me. “My mind (what little there is of it anymore) is made up; don’t give me any information, don’t remind me that not everyone agrees with me, and above all, don’t put me in a situation where I have to defend my position because either I don’t know enough to do so, or my position is indefensible.” That’s what it means.

We can’t afford that. Not on either side. Not on any side. We are so close to extinction as a nation that it takes my breath away and such calcification of thought will end us. This is no time to dig into a sullen funk; this is a time to talk. As the bard said, “Something is rotten in Denmark,” and we better fix it and not sulk around like Hamlet did. That didn’t end well.

We – the United States of America, the greatest, most benign, most prosperous, freest nation the world has ever known – is not too big to fail. That’s ridiculous. Remember Goliath? This world is littered with the remains of great empires, great countries, great cities.

Carthage

§  What happened to Carthage? From the 7^th century B.C. until the 2^nd century it controlled all of the western Mediterranean. Now, inhabited by only 20,000 people, it is just a suburb of Tunis, the capital of Tunisia, a third world country.

§  Where is Assyria? It once controlled all of what is now the Middle East. For the last 200 years of its existence its army never lost a battle. Now it is gone. People live in the land that was once Assyria, some of their buildings have survived, but that’s it. Gone.

Stage Two Thinking and the Great Divide

Scenario 1: A drunken drug dealer (say that 10 times fast) breaks into the wrong house, shoots a single mother and her three children with a Saturday night special. Shocked by this vicious crime the city council heads up a campaign to get people to trade in or sell all their handguns.

Scenario 2: A hundred-year-old brick building in a California coastal town collapses during an earthquake. The family gets out safely, but their dog dies in a rain of falling bricks. This event sparks 42 new housing restrictions.

purplewallpaper.info

Scenario 3: The state bird, the purple-legged honey-sucker, starts dying off so the state sets up strict regulations, which disallow the use of the insecticides used to protect the state’s all-important cabbage crop.

OK – these are all fictional, but the stories must sound familiar: a problem arises – a shocking, emotional yank that scares us silly. We react in a natural way – “Mommy make it stop hurting!” The truth is that Mommy never did have much control over life’s nastiness, but we believed in her and her reassurances made us feel so much better.

windsun.com

When my children were little, we lived in Nebraska where giant, dramatic, fabulous thunderstorms frequently lit up the night sky. Lightning would suddenly brighten the world and then thunder would shake the house and the kids would cry. I’d run upstairs to their rooms and hug them down out of their fear, but before I went back to bed I’d put little wads of toilet paper in their ears. We all knew that smidgen of tissue was not going to do anything to block the next thunderclap, but the fact that I’d gone through that ritual warded off the terror and they’d go back to sleep. It was a lovely illusion.

The Dark Side of the Dark Knights

Do we get it now? The Joker isn’t a joke. The irony of the Colorado Batman shootings has me stunned. Actually, staying up past midnight to see a movie befuddles me in the first place. Taking small children along to do that is baffling. Add James Holmes, hair dyed red, taking the part of the Joker, complete with guns and armor, shooting 71 people, many of whom thought it was part of the show, has my brain running around in circles trying to make sense of it all.

How did we get to a cultural place where young people think in terms of mass murder? How do they become so evil that they act on those thoughts? And it’s becoming commonplace. Admit it, you were only half-shocked when you heard the news.

Something is really out of whack. Not only do young adults actually open fire on innocent people, but then other people, without even missing a beat, use the event to press for less freedom for the people who didn’t shoot anyone at all. I even had a conversation with someone who was – drumbeat here – blaming Bush. This was not a political event. It had nothing to do with government -- we have always had laws against shooting people in cold blood. Why would a would-be criminal obey a gun law if he has no intention of obeying one of the most ancient of laws – “Thou shalt not kill.”? No – this is way beyond politics; this event is an outgrowth of an evil we can barely understand.

What is evil? Evil is worse than the opposite of good. Evil, you see, can look just like good. It can claim to have your best interests at heart; it can be called “Honest Iago” until five good people are dead; it can look like a doctor or a nurse or a teacher, or a tall, handsome grad student. Evil does not have horns on its head, nor does it wear a red leotard. It looks like us.  

Even our heroes are starting to look a lot like our caricature of evil. The stranger our villains get, the more twisted are the good guys. Batman? Bats are blind and only come out at night. Batman is called The Dark Knight. Why dark? Isn’t good light? Are we getting so confused about good that our popular culture sees good as shadowy and secretiv?