Rational Evil II
Listen to the MP3
This week I continue my discussion of the development of secular thought following the holocaust. To briefly summarize, the Holocaust had its roots in the attempt to apply the principles of evolution to society, from which the sciences of Social Darwinism and Eugenics flowed. These new sciences were rightly rejected following the holocaust because the results they produced conflicted with Human Rights, a concept grounded in the belief that we were created by God and are equal in his eyes.
As society became more secular the religious foundations of Human rights was abandoned and equal in God’s eyes became merely equal; but such an undefined equality is threatened by our clear individuality, which is defined by our differences. This attempt to maintain Human Rights in a secular worldview defined by evolution has resulted in a number of competing, and at times contradictory, lines of thought.
The first has been that since differences pose such a danger, their existence is simply denied, or at least relegated to insignificance. In short, despite any differences, we are all really the same, and therefore since we are the same, we are all equal. A whole range of absurdities have flowed from this intellectual strategy, not the least of which is the belief that there is no difference between men and women.
While historically women have not had equal status in virtually any society, that seems to have come from the importance of strength in early cultures and the role it played in survival, and from the fact that in general men are stronger than women. It did not come from the religious teachings of the Bible, but ran contrary to it. Starting in the first chapter of Genesis, God has made it clear that He views men and women as equal, and both are created in his image. As Genesis 1:27 says,
So God created mankind in his own image;
in his own image God created him;
male and female he created them.
(ISV)
In the New Testament, Paul also makes this explicitly clear. “Because all of you are one in the Messiah Jesus, a person is no longer a Jew or a Greek, a slave or a free person, a male or a female.” (Galatians 3:28 ISV)
Men and women have different strengths and different weakness. They react to things differently, and have different natures. But despite all of our differences, men and women are equal it the place that it matters most, in the eyes of God. Human nature being what it is, this core equality has not, and in some places today is not, always recognized, but where and when it has been, it has not been contrary too, but in line with, Biblical teaching.
But as equal in God’s eyes, became merely equal, this equality was difficult to maintain given all the clear differences. Something had to go, and since equality was needed for human rights, even though the differences are pretty clear to most, not to mention common sense, they were simply denied.
But then common sense was one of the first things that had to be tossed out, if one is going to maintain equality among differences that are clearly not equal. So common sense was rejected as unscientific and untrustworthy. In its place was the study. In fact I have heard more than one college professor say that they won’t believe anything unless there is a study to support it.
Such thinking, (or unthinking as the case may be) has been very convenient for secularist as the results of studies are very strongly influenced by what questions researchers seek answers to. There are pros and cons to most things. Look for the pros of any given issue and you can probably find supporting evidence. Look for the cons, and you can find negative evidence. Thus what “the research” states for any given issue will be strongly influenced by what questions the researchers are asking.
Another factor for men and women being the same was that it was so taken for granted, that it had not really been studied. Thus through a mixture of scientific mumbo-jumbo, and an absence studies showing they were different, men and women were proclaimed to be the same.
This thinking so strongly influenced people that parents began giving their boys dolls, and their little girls trucks. Distinctions in clothing began to disappear as did any distinction in roles. Those who tried to point out differences were shouted down as sexists.
Of course the problem is that men and women are different, not just in their biology, but in their natures. But the belief that men and women are the same still remain entrenched in many universities and still has a strong influence over social policy, as for example in the same sex marriage debate.
It has been one of the ironies that while we were supposedly throwing off the chains of sexual repression so as to allow boys and girls to be what they wanted to be, society was at the same time very strongly pushing them to be something they were not: the same. The result has been untold unhappiness and pain.
But this was not the only absurdity to develop out of the post WWII secularist attempt to maintain human rights apart from God. Next week I look at a different approach that has also led not only to absurdity, but also to unhappiness and pain.
This is Elgin Hushbeck, asking you to Consider Christianity: a Faith Based on Fact.
Rational Evil
In my review of Christopher Hitchens’ “God Is Not Great” I was discussing the relationship of reason to evil, which has taken me beyond the scope of Hitchens’ book. So I have decided to make this an independent series of posts, and will return to my review of Hitchens’ book when I am done. To summarize for those who have not read my comments on Hitchens’ book that got me here, I looked at how reason, unguided by moral values, can result in great evil, in particular how the secular evolutionary worldview when applied to society and culture resulted in Social Darwinism and Eugenics which supplied the rational underpinning for the Holocaust.
After the holocaust these sciences were rightly rejected. Yet they were not rejected for the normal scientific reasons. At the time the Judeo-Christian worldview still held great influence even if many were beginning to reject its underlying foundation. As such, these sciences were rejected more for the result they produced than any new scientific discovery that showed them to be wrong.
More importantly people embraced the Judeo-Christian based concept of Human Rights a concept developed from the beliefs that we are all created in the image of God and are all equal in God eyes. Human Rights stem from this, as not even a King has the right to interfere with what God has given.
As the Judeo-Christian worldview weakened in the decades since WWII, so did the foundation of Human Rights. What does it mean to be equal in the eyes of God, if there is no God? Worst, the underlying rational of secular evolution remained in a question few would dare to seriously ask: If evolution is true, and we are just animals why shouldn’t we treat each other as the animals we are and order society on the principles of evolution; on survival of the fittest?
To avoid having to deal with this question, a number of strategies have developed over time; all with their own serious problems. Most seriously, reason itself was depreciated, replaced instead by emotion. Thinking implies thought, questions, examination, contemplation, analysis. Express a thought and people are libel to ask you what you mean, and worse, they might ask you to justify your thoughts, to back them up, with the simple question: Why? Feelings need no justification, they just are. “That’s just how I feel about it” is a perfectly acceptable emotional answer to the question: Why?
As a result, we normally do not ask people what they think about something we ask them how they feel about it. To be sure, the avoidance of the implications of secular evolutionary thought has not been the only factor in this or the other things we will look at. Here for example, there has also been the rise of the importance of visual media (which appeal first to the emotions), and the corresponding drop in reading (where symbols must first be process intellectually to be understood). Still, the avoidance of the implications of secular evolutionary thought have not only been a factor but also a unifying principle.
The depreciation of reason in favor of emotion meant that uncomfortable questions and implications could just be ignored and thus avoided. But the attempt to avoid the rational implications of secular evolutionary thought through depreciation of reason resulted, not too surprisingly, in considerable irrationality.
As the foundation for Human Rights was rejected, equal in the eyes of God, became merely equal, which may sound good to those influenced by modern post WWII thought, but what does it mean to be equal? Equal in what sense?
I am certainly not equal with Tiger Woods when it comes to playing golf, and perhaps it is just my vanity, but I like to think that there are probably a few things where he is probably not my equal. In sports, work, knowledge, background, illnesses, health, in virtually every aspect of life equality is the rare exception if it exists at all. Each of us is different. Each of us is an individual with different strengths and weaknesses, advantages and disadvantages. So in what sense are we equal?
For the Judeo-Christian worldview this is not a problem. God transcends all of this. Thus to be equal in his eyes is far more important and transcends any of the differences among us. To be a better golfer, or have more knowledge of history; to be taller or faster; to have more money or power all may show a lack of equality in these areas, but the equality before God, is an equality of worth that transcends everything else. It can transcend everything else, because it is based in God who transcends everything.
But the secular worldview does not allow for God. Thus there is no transcendant equality, because there is nothing transcendent in which to base such an equality. More importantly survival of the fittest argues strongly against equality in the first place. Therefore the question, and thus the problem remain.
Normally the question has been answered with dogmatic and undefined statements of equality. We are equal just because we are. But with such an unthinking approach, the differences among us become an ever present danger, lurking in the shadows threatening to bring the whole system down. Next time we will look at how the attempt to avoid this danger has changed how we look at everything, often with very negative effects.
This is Elgin Hushbeck, asking you to Consider Christianity: a Faith Based on Fact.a
Hitchens – God Is Not Great V
Listen to the MP3
Last time I discussed Christopher Hitchens’ contrasting of reason and religion in his book, “God Is Not Great.” In addition to the problems mentioned last time, Hitchens premise that atrocities, religious or otherwise occur because people are not completely rational is itself flawed. Some evil can be very rational, as modern history has shown.
This is one of the core weaknesses in atheism and thus it is not too surprising that atheists try to avoid its implication, as Hitchens does later in the book. I will discuss Hitchens’ defense when we come to it, but here I want to lay out the problem and why it is so difficult for atheists.
In simple terms, atheists as a general rule see the conflict between atheism and religion as at its core one between the rational and the irrational, with atheism being on the side of reason. If humanity would only abandon its irrational, that is religious, past, we could establish a sort of secular utopia grounded on the principles of science.
This all sounds very good and wonderful but in this sense atheists are sort of like use car salesmen selling an old clunker that will hardly make it off the lot, as if it were a new sport car. It all sounds so nice as long as you don’t look too closely or ask too many questions. The main difference would be that unlike a shady used car salesman, the atheist is being completely honest for they really believe what they are saying.
As we pointed out last time, reason is merely a tool, and is only as good as the data it has to work on and the framework in which it works. With the right data and the right framework, tremendous evil can be very rational. Atheists are often allowed to avoid this problem because making it involves pointing out how rational evil can be, and thus this often puts the theist in the position of seeming to argue for evil.
However, I believe that such arguments are important for two reasons. First, it shows the serious problems with relying only on reason as the atheist claim we should. Second, and more important is that these argument are effectively being made today, even if not directly. In short as society is becoming more and more secular we are moving slowing and incrementally in this direction as each small step is justified with this reasoning, even if few are willing to point out where this line of reasoning will ultimately lead.
A key difference between the Judeo-Christian world view and the atheistic worldview is over the view of who we are. The Bible teaches that we are not only creations of God, but that we are created in his image. In fact it is from this view that the entire concept of human rights was developed for what right does anyone have to interfere with what God has given, even if they are the King?
The atheistic worldview, on the other hand, sees humanity as simply another animal, the result of a long series of random mutations and chance happenings that have resulted in human beings. In short we were the result of a process governed by the survival of the fittest.
From the time that Darwin published the Origin of the Species; the concept of evolution by natural selection was embraced by atheists. Not only did they immediately incorporate it into their attacks on Christianity, they also began to look at ways they could apply these new scientific principles to governing humanity. The result was the now discredited sciences of Eugenics and Social Darwinism.
Where Christianity teaches we are to care for the poor, the weak and the infirmed, Social Darwinism taught that those that succeeded in life must be the fittest. Those that didn’t were being selected out and little or nothing should be done for them as that only weakened society. The science of eugenics applied the principles of evolution to procreation arguing that by limiting procreate among those that were deemed inferior on the one hand, and the use of selective breeding on the other we could make better people. In fact, it was the science of eugenics that spurred efforts for birth control and were a major factor in formation of groups such as Planned Parenthood.
Ultimately these new sciences were discredited when Hitler and the Nazi’s took them to their ultimate conclusions in the Holocaust. While atheists frequently attempt to find a link between Hitler and religion, Hitler did not want to exterminate the Jews for religious reasons; he wanted them exterminated because he believed them to be inferior people who were contaminating the pure Arian or master race.
More importantly, his choices were not all that irrational, when seen in framework of Social Darwinism and Eugenics. After all people have selectively bred and or destroy animals for thousands of years so as to enhance certain traits and eliminate others. If the atheists are correct and we are just another type of animal, why not do the same with people?
The answer initially was that people have rights. But human rights are an inherently religious concept grounded in the belief that we are created in the image of God. As that foundation has been weakened the evolutionary rational of Eugenics and Social Darwinism is reemerging and next time I look at this in more detail.
This is Elgin Hushbeck, asking you to Consider Christianity: a Faith Based on Fact.
Hitchens – God Is Not Great IV
Listen to the MP3
This week I continue my extended review of Christopher Hitchens, “God Is Not Great,” At the core of much of Hitchens’ problems with religion is that he sees it in opposition to reason. This core can be seen in many of his statements, such as when he writes, “Past and present religious atrocities have occurred not because we are evil, but because it is a fact of nature that the human species is, biologically, only partly rational.” (pg 8 ) For Hitchens’ religion comes from the irrational part of our nature and is to be resisted.
There are many problems with Hitchens’ view. For one the idea that “evil” comes from a lack of reason is an overly simplistic one that simply will not stand any serious scrutiny. Reason is a tool of learning, a process or a way of thinking that helps us organize data into meaningful conclusions. But like any tool, such as a hammer, or a gun, whether is it is good or bad, depends on how it is used. Reason can be either good or bad, because intrinsically it is neither. A hammer can be use to build a house, or murder someone. A gun can be used to protect innocent life or take it. Likewise reason is neither moral nor immoral. Reason is amoral.
Another problem is that the results of reason, the conclusions that are reached using it, are only as good as the raw data used and the framework in which it is applied. To use a phrase common in computers: ‘garbage in garbage out.’
A recent and visible example of this problem can be seen in the conclusion reached concerning WMD’s in the run up to Iraq war. While critics of the war charge Bush lied, the simple fact is that the conclusion that Iraq had WMD’s was the rational conclusion given the information that was available at the time.
This is demonstrated by the fact that this conclusion was reached, not just by Bush, or even just by those who supported the war, but was also reached by many who opposed the war. The conclusion was also reached by intelligent services around the world, again even in countries that opposed the war. In fact many of Iraq’s own general’s though they had WMDs. The problem was not that the conclusion was irrational; rather the problem was that data upon which the conclusion was based was flawed.
Now some would argue that this is not a problem with reason itself, but a problem with the data reason had to work with. Perhaps; and if reason is seen merely as a tool, then there would be little problem. But if reason is seen as a comprehensive worldview in competition with other worldviews, such as those found in religion, then this remains a serious problem for we will never have all the data we would like.
An even a more serious problem is that if reason is just a tool and requires a framework in which to work, how can the framework be chosen? Hitchens seems to ignore this problem and simply assume the atheistic worldview is the only rational worldview and as such religious worldviews are inherently irrational. Yet reason can function just as well using a Christian worldview as an atheistic worldview. The difference in the conclusions is not because, one is being irrational and the other rational, but rather is driven more by the different fundamental assumptions built in to the respective frameworks.
For example, Christians look at all the evidence that points to the existence of a god who created the universe. As a result of all this evidence, the conclusion that there is a God who created the world is a rational and easy conclusion to reach. The evidence is pretty clear that the natural universe is not eternal, but rather had a beginning. Since self-creation is a logical absurdity, something else had to cause the universe to come into existence. When one begins to explore what could create the universe as it is, the conclusion that it was God is not at all hard to reach.
Yet one of the fundamental assumptions of the atheistic worldview is that the material world is the only thing that exists. Given this belief, the only valid evidence would be evidence of the material, which is why atheists so frequently claim there is no evidence for the existence of God. In their worldview the only valid evidence would be direct material evidence sufficient to constitute proof that God exists. Anything else, is deemed insufficient and not really evidence. Thus their claim, that there is no evidence. For the atheist there cannot be, their worldview precludes it.
How do they explain the origin of the universe? Despite the evidence to the contrary, they believe that it must have been by natural means, as that is the only thing their worldview allows, and any problems are simply explained away as a lack of sufficient knowledge.
But there are still more problems with Hitchens’ view for as I will point out next time, evil is not always the result of a lack of reason. When unguided by morality, at time evil can be quite rational.
This is Elgin Hushbeck, asking you to Consider Christianity: a Faith Based on Fact.
Hitchens – God Is Not Great III
Listen to the MP3
This week I return to my extended review of Christopher Hitchens, “God Is Not Great,” Similar to Dawkins and Harris, serious problems abound in the early pages of the Hitchens’ book. Many are simply statements of personal opinion with at best questionable background or support, such as his claims that “Religion spoke its last intelligible or noble, or inspiring words a long time ago: either that or it mutated into an admirable but nebulous humanism.” (p 7)
Other statements go straight to the heart of Hitchens critique. An example of the latter can be found in his claim that “the believer still claims to know! Not just to know, but to know everything.”(Author’s emphasis) This would be a valid criticism if it were true. But it is not. In fact not only does this fail as an accurate description of religion in general, or even of Christianity in specific, it would be hard to find believers who would actually make this claim.
Now a few paragraphs later, Hitchens does qualify this statement somewhat, by restating this criticism as “the sheer arrogance to tell us that we already have the essential information we need.”
While this is a somewhat more defendable statement, its open ended nature, and the general context of the discussion leads to the conclusion that Hitchens is still referring to essential information about everything.
One problem with this restatement is that “essential” is a somewhat relative term as there are many degrees of essential. Ask someone what essential knowledge is to live in the United States, and you will likely get completely different answers than if you ask someone who lives in a third world country. Essential knowledge for one, such as how to grow food or find it in the wild, may be completely irrelevant for someone who buys their food at a market.
Yet, if one tries to provide some definition to Hitchens’ use of “essential knowledge” either his argument disappears, or the definition is invalid. If “essential knowledge” is defined as the knowledge needed for our relationship with God, then I would say that this not only applies to Christianity, but that it has a biblical warrant. Jude 3 speaks of “the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.” In the Bible we have all the knowledge that we need for our relationship with God. But even here, there are few Christians that would say that we know everything there is to know about the Bible.
But a view of “essential knowledge” limited to our relationship with God renders Hitchens’ argument somewhat empty, has he spends a great deal of time contrasting this belief in “essential knowledge” with all that we have learned in science. While we have learned a lot with science, Hitchens would hardly argue that a more detailed understanding of Gravity or knowledge of quantum mechanics is needed for salvation. Thus an understanding of “essential knowledge” limited to our relationship with God renders his argument a non-sequitur.
Hitchens needs believers claiming to know everything about everything because it justifies what would otherwise be a major inconsistency in his argument. Hitchens is highly critical of the pre-scientific beliefs of early believers and he sees this as a reason why religion as a whole is to be rejected today. For example he says “Augustine, Aquinas, Maimonides, and Newman [may have] been laughably ignorant of the germ theory of disease or the place of the terrestrial globe in the solar system, let alone the universe, and this is the plain reason why there are no more of them today, and will be no more of them tomorrow.”(p 7)
Yet when it comes to atheists, such erroneous beliefs are explained away by Hitchens, for earlier atheists were “great and fallible imaginative essayists.” Atheists don’t claim to know everything about everything, so it is ok if they made mistakes in the past, as that is part of the learning process.
This distorted view of religion can be seen in much of Hitchens’ criticisms, such as when he asks “How many needless assumptions must be made, and how much contortion is required to receive every new insight of science and manipulate it so as to ‘fit’ with the revealed words of ancient man-made deities?” (p 7)
Though I would drop the slanting found in words such as “needless” and “contortion,” pretty much the same could be asked of atheism. Just look at the assumptions and efforts they go through trying to explain how life started, some even going to the point of arguing that life was brought to earth by aliens from another planet.
The history of Christianity can be seen as a people striving to come to a better understanding of, and relationship with, God. This journey has been full of missteps and even back steps, of wrong turns and dead ends, but on the whole has been marked by a better understanding; and the fruits of this have been seen in what I would argue have been great advancement made by society that came out of Christianity, from the birth of modern science, to the origin of Human Rights, from end of slavery, to the advancement of civil rights.
Throughout the world Christians working through their churches are ministering to those in need, not only in their local communities, but around the world. They have been, and continue to be a tremendous force for good.
This is Elgin Hushbeck, asking you to Consider Christianity: a Faith Based on Fact.
