Irrational Nobility
June 8, 2007, Wausau, Wi— It has often been pointed out that adversity reveals a person’s true character better than anything except possibly the acquisition of power. Whether it is the result of great tragedy such as the sinking of the Titanic, or the destruction of Greenburg Kansas, or great evil such as the attacks on 911 or the recent shooting at Virginia Tech, or more personal situations, when tested by great adversity minor flaws can crack wide open revealing great weaknesses, or we can find inner strengths we never knew existed.
Two recent news events have highlighted both extremes. In May we saw the story of Andrew Speaker. Speaker had been diagnosed with a strained of tuberculosis that was drug resistant. But he was planning to honeymoon in Europe, and while he was told it was better that he not fly, he was not ordered to stay away from planes. So he went to Europe as planned.
While Speaker was in Italy, doctors learned that not only was his TB resistant to drugs, the particular strain he had was both very dangerous, and “extensively drug resistant.” Dr. Marin Cetron, director of the Center for Disease Control’s division of global migration and quarantine, said “He was told in no uncertain terms not to take a flight back.”
But Speaker didn’t want to wait. Disregarding what the doctors said and the potential risk he posed to others he would come near, he took a commercial aircraft From Rome to Prague, and then from Prague to Montreal. From there he drove to into the United States. By doing so he put at risk all he came in contact with, especially the passengers in the seats around him.
Selfish? Clinical Psychologist Andrea Macari, PH.D came to Speaker defense on the O’Reilly Factor (06/01/07) claiming that “I think all acts are selfish… selflessness is just an illusion.” While such views are increasingly common in the Me-First worldview so clearly demonstrated by Speaker, they stand in stark contrast to another recent new story, the story of Liviu Lebrescu, a story I hope you remember.
Born in Romania, Librescu survived the Holocaust later immigrating to Israel. Twenty years ago Librescu came to United States where he was a researcher and lecturer in engineering. He was teaching a class on mechanics on the day of the Virginia Tech murders, when he heard the shooter coming close to his classroom. Librescu told his students to run to the window and climb out. He, however, ran to the door and blocked it with his body, to give time for the students to reach safety. He gave his life so that his student could live. If we are to believe Macari, Librescu gave his life in a selfish not a selfless act.
Later in the interview on the O’Reilly Factor concerning the TB patient Andrew Speaker, Macari couldn’t believe O’Reilly when he said that if he has been in Speaker’s situation, he would have stayed put, so as not to put other people in danger. If you live in the moment with a Me-first attitude, such moral certitude probably does seem unbelievable, even foolish. But as Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 2:14 “A person who isn’t spiritual doesn’t accept the things of God’s Spirit, for they are nonsense to him. He can’t understand them because they are spiritually evaluated.” (ISV)
However, if instead of a Me-First view of the world, you have a set of core values upon which you base your moral decisions, and you have thought about right and wrong and how your actions impact others, as God’s word teaches us, one reaches a different conclusion.
This is one of the problems with secular attacks on Christianity. They claim to want to replace what they see as the mythology of Christianity with reason and science. But if we are not created in the image of God, but merely the result of chance combined with time, there is no purpose in life, other than to live it. If all there is, is simply the here and now, the selfish actions of Speaker would be the rational action, after all survival of the fittest would argue that you should do whatever it takes to survive. On the other hand noble acts like Librescu would be the irrational one. What possible reason could there be to give up your life, if there is nothing beyond this life.
This is the problem with secular moralities. There is no firm core, no bedrock upon which to base a moral system. They are not, as they claim, based on reason, for reason is process not a foundation. Ultimately they end up being based on the self and what is in the best interest of the self. This is why secular moral views have such great difficulty not only condemning evil but also praising the noble, without having to appeal to values that have been embedded in the culture by the religion. But as secularist continue to chip away at religious values, ultimately they end up like Israel during the time of the Judges, where “,each person did whatever seemed right in his own opinion” (Judges 21:25 ISV) which is then combined with the increasingly popular line “who are you to judge.” Unfortunately I fear that the upcoming generations will contain more Speakers than Librescus.
Did Prop 187 Destroy the Republican Party?
Jeb Bush and Ken Mehlman in the Wall Street Journal argue that Prop 187 destroyed the Republican party in California. As someone who was active in California politics at the time, I think their analysis ignores several key factors, the most important being the internal struggle that existed in the party at the time, and the influence of the previous two Republican governors, George Deukmejian (1993 – 1991), and Pete Wilson (1991-1999). Their example should serve as a warning to other Republicans.
In brief Deukmejian kept very close control over the party and its resources, which while it allowed him to be reelected, also limited the ability of others to win statewide office, and thus the development of potential successors. Thus when he left office there really was nobody to take his place but Pete Wilson who had left the Senate to do so. Still, we had Pete Wilson, so it was not that much of a problem.
However Pete Wilson brought what he called “compassionate conservatism.” What this really amounted to was a proposed $15 Billion increase in state spending, while trying to run conservatives out of the party. Eventually he made a deal that “cut spending” by $7.5 billon so he only needed a $7.5 billion dollar tax increase, which included the infamous “Snack Tax” which was quickly repealed angry voters.
If this was not enough, rather than holding out an olive branch to conservatives and unifying the party by appointing someone like Bruce Hershenson to fill his empty senate seat, Wilson made an in-your-face appointment of John Seymour, further angering conservatives. Things were so bad that when Seymour ran for reelection in 1992, the Republican party had trouble meeting in fear that the party would condemn their own candidate. Not too surprisingly – he lost.
Frankly if 187 did anything, it helped revive the Republican party, and Pete Wilson saw his poll number increase with the proposition. In addition the proposition passed with strong support. But then the courts overturned it. This combined with several other propositions that were overturned caused many people to ask “What the point of voting?”
This was compounded by rampant voter fraud, such as when Bob Dornan lost his house seat as a result of illegal aliens voting, fraud which was never prosecuted. Then Republican office holders in the state decided that it was better for them to make deals with the Democrats so as to guarantee a safe seat in redistricting. As a result politicians in California now effectively pick their voters, rather than the other way around. Republican Presidential candidates also write off the state, making it a self-fulfilling prophecy.
As a result of the decline in the state, and the rise of liberal regulation, overcrowding, rampant illegal immigration (In San Bernardino, a old Sam’s Club location recently was turned into a large store catering to those who speak Spanish) many Republican voters began to write the state off and those who could started leaving. (It’s a prime reason I am no longer in California).
The problems of California are very similar to the problems of the Republican party nationally. While Bush has been ok on the war, he has been marginal at best, and often poor on domestic policy. Frankly it was my experience with Pete Wilson that caused me concern when Bush also ran on “compassionate conservatism.”
As a general rule, when Republicans run on a upbeat and positive conservative message that expresses hope for what this country could be if government would get out of the way, we win. When we run with apologies for being conservative and promise to be sort of Democrat-Lite we lose. Yet too many Republican politicians never seem to learn this simple lesson.
Iraq War – Should we have gone? Part II
While many reasons could be, and have been given for why we should have gone to war in Iraq, the three that were always the strongest for me were, WMD, humanitarian, and strategic. While the subsequent failure to find large stockpiles of WMDs has cast some doubt on the first reason (as was discussed last time), subsequent discoveries of mass graves, and the records of Saddam’s evil have more than confirmed the second reason. One of the problems when confronting evil as tremendous as Saddam’s is that it is so disturbing there is a tendency to avert our eyes and ignore it. Any student of history knows that there are few limits on man’s inhumanity to man. I still remember reading in Will and Arial Durant’s 11 volume The Story of Civilization the description of a particular means of killing prisoners that still unsettles me whenever it think of it. When it comes to inhumanity, Saddam and his sons are right there with history’s worst. Reading accounts of what Saddam and his son’s did only took what would have been best left as unthinkable into new areas.
Now I admit there is some room for legitimate disagreement on this point. Some think that however horrible the atrocity, US forces should only be used for US interests. I disagree. At some point the atrocities in a country become so horrific that the world can no longer sit by, but has an obligation to put a stop to it. Most see the holocaust and say “never again.” But sadly, it does happen, and ‘never again’ becomes empty rhetoric, as we saw with Cambodia, and more recently with Rwanda and now Darfur. Granted, we don’t want to be the world’s policemen for every grievance, and we do need to take into account a number of factors such as feasibility, but when we can do something, do we really want to stand by while hundreds of thousands of people are not just killed but brutally tortured and do nothing other than say “that’s terrible” or, if we are really outraged, pass some meaningless UN resolutions?
Yet what is so ironic about the current situation, is that many of the same people who are so critical of the Iraq war, were very supportive a war based solely on humanitarian reasons in Bosnia, and currently argue for sending troops into Darfur. Given their support for these actions, and the opposition to the Iraq war, it would seem that for many critics, humanitarian reasons are valid only if there is no national interest stake. If there is an national interest at sake, then humanitarian reasons are to be ignored, and the war opposed.
Before moving on to what I have always believed was and is the most important reason, there are the secondary costs to the world community for failing to act. Whether it was the result of Saddam’s bribing key countries with oil for food money, an attitude of appeasement, self-interest, pacifism, or whatever, the failure of the UN to doing anything other than pass resolution after resolution after resolution shows that it resolutions are meaningless and can be ignored. The last resolution was put forward as a last chance, and even then Iraq did not comply. As Hans Blix, hardly a supporter of the war, report to the security council when the deadline passed, “Iraq appears not to have come to a genuine acceptance – not even today – of the disarmament, which was demanded of it and which it needs to carry out to win the confidence of the world and to live in peace.”
As a result of this, and numerous previous examples of inaction, the UN had proven itself to be worst than inactive. With their flat out refusal to take any action combined with their willingness to condemn any who do, they have placed themselves into the role of defenders of dictators. Dictators know that UN resolutions are ultimately not worth the paper they are printed on. Thus the UN is far more effective at protecting those who commit atrocities than stopping atrocities. Is it any surprise then, that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad responded to the UN threat of passing resolutions condemning its nuclear program by saying “Iran does not give a damn about such resolutions.”
I believe that one of the reasons for the war in Iraq, was Saddam’s miscalculation that the UN and his allies such as France and Russia, would be able to keep the US from attacking, or force them to withdrawal quickly if they did. He falsely believed “time was on his side and that the Coalition would never be allowed to attack” and so could continue flaunting the UN resolution. Theodore Roosevelt taught that we should speak softly, but carry a big stick. The UN seems to be speak loudly, but do nothing to back it up. If the UN had clearly supported strong action in Iraq, there is at least a chance that the Iraq war would never have happened, and Iran would not now be threatening the world with its nuclear program. But they didn’t, and it was thus left to the US and its allies to act.
A Review of Sam Harris' The End of Faith Part VI
June 1, 2007, Wausau, Wi— I will conclude my review of Sam Harris’ The End Of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason, by looking at the alternative that Harris presents. Harris fundamentally argues for a view of life that seeks happiness through the process of reason and evidence. In his attacks on religion, Harris is not arguing for secularism per se but for reason. This is how he attempts to avoid the charge that the greatest evils in human history ( the holocaust, the massacres in communist countries, of Russia, China, Cambodia, Vietnam, etc) have been the result of secular regimes not religious one. As we saw in part one Harris’ claim that religion is at the root of most conflicts in human history is false. Still religion has been responsible for evil. Yet secularism made up any gap and far surpassed religion in just one century.
Harris seeks to avoid this problem by claiming that the evils caused by secular governments were because of secular dogmas and thus similar to the religious dogmas he condemns. The problem is that while hindsight is always 20-20 and thus allows a small fig leaf to avoid such culpability, this is really no different than the Christian who tries to claim that those who did evil in the name of Christ are not really following the true teachings of Christ. Frankly, I think that Harris’ view is even worse off for at least the Christians can point to clear a foundation (the Bible) about which we can discuss. Harris has no foundation other than happiness, and no means to pursue clarifying what this means than science.
But the history of science is full of problem, wrong turns and downright errors. This is not really a criticism of science; this is just part of the nature of discovery. But it is hardly a firm basis for morality. For example Harris tries to lay the blame for the holocaust on religious anti-Semitism, ignoring the fact that many of Christianity’s strongest critics were extremely anti-Semitic showing that anti-Semitism is not simply an Christian or even religious phenomena. Still if the holocaust had been lead by Christians had been limited to the six million Jews, Harris might have had a point. But 12 million died in the holocaust. What about the other six million others who died along with the six million Jews, or the fact that Hitler was not religious? While religious anti-Semitism sadly did play a role, it pales in regards to the role played by science and “reason.”
Both Fascism and Communism saw themselves as scientific alternatives to religion. In particular for the Holocaust there was the science of eugenics and others theories that trace themselves back to Darwin and the theory of evolution and its survival of the fittest. While justly rejected now, in the early part of the 20th century this was the “scientific” view of the day. Hitler did not seek to exterminate the Jews because of the false religious view that they were Christ-killers, but because of the false scientific view that they were inferior people who were corrupting the purity of master race. Harris rejects this view now as just another false “dogma” but that is the nice thing about hindsight, it is always 20-20. Someday I hope that the current ban on DDT will also be seen as a false dogma, but it is still in effect and still defended, and is resulting in the deaths of between one and two million people each year for a total in excess of 40 million people since it went into effect.
The key problem with Harris’ view is that his choice of happiness both vague and subjective. For example, China argues that the group is more important than the individual, and thus individual rights can be superseded by the state as it seeks to better the whole. Someone else might see that acquisition of power as the key to their morality, or as Hitler, the building of a master race through selective breeding and the elimination of the mentally ill etc, to make the best people possible. Without an objective standard by which to measure, it would simple be a matter of personal preference which of these to choose. Nor would one be able to say, for example, that building of a master race was wrong and therefore not a valid option, as what is being chosen is the foundation for morality, that it, the basis by which we would decide was right and wrong. This is how those secular regimes in the 20th century were able to kill hundreds of millions of people, for as strange as it sounds they lived in a moral systems that said it was good.
While Christianity has nowhere near a perfect record, I believe that any objective review of the evidence would show thatven with its faults and missteps, Christianity has been and continues to be a very positive force in human history. In the last 150 years since science has attempted to separate itself from religion and replace it as a guide for society, the results have often been disastrous. In effect Harris is asking us to abandon what has a proven track record, what has for example provided the intellectual and moral back ground for countries like the United States, and instead embrace what had never worked and when tried as lead to the greatest evils in history. Now that is a real leap of faith.
This is Elgin Hushbeck, asking you to Consider Christianity: a Faith Based on Fact.
Part I Part II Part III Part IV Part V
A Review of Sam Harris' The End of Faith Part V
May 25, 2007, Wausau, Wi— The previous parts (I, II, III, IV ) of my review of Sam Harris’ The End Of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason, focused on how distorted Harris’s view of religion was, and pointed out that his critique does not really apply to Christianity. In part IV we looked at how Harris tried to support his erroneous views with an erroneous understanding of scripture. But Harris not only has problems with his views of religion and the Bible, he also has problems when it come to the alternative he is supporting.
Towards the end of his book Harris says that “it is possible to have one’s experience of the world radically transformed.” He then charges that “The problem with religion is that it blends this truth so thoroughly with the venom of unreason.” As an example of unreason, he cites that Jesus was “the Son of God, born of a virgin, and destined to return to earth trailing clouds of glory.” (pg. 204) But why are these beliefs unreasonable? We saw in part IV of this review, that it was Harris’ use of the Bible in an attempt to discredit the belief in the virgin birth that was itself grounded in error and irrationality. Earlier in his book he simply dismisses the virgin birth as “an untestable proposition.” What he means by untestable is not clear.
It is certainly is untestable in the sense that we cannot duplicate the virgin birth in a laboratory, as by definition are all miracles untestable in this sense. They are unique acts of God, not repeatable events governed by natural law. In a similar fashion all of history is made up of a series of unique acts of men. We cannot put the holocaust into a laboratory and run experiments on it to see if we can duplicate it, nor would we want to if we could. But to deny the holocaust is correctly seen as itself irrational. Some believe in the Holocaust because the suffered through it. Most believe in the holocaust because of the historical evidence, i.e. the records and sources which because of examination are deem to be reliable and trustworthy. When the last holocaust survivor dies this will be the only way.
This is normally how we get all of our history. It is the same for the virgin birth, Christians deem the writers of the Bible to be not only reliable and trustworthy, but inspired by God. Not only is this proposition testable, as I show in my book, Evidence for the Bible, it is the rational conclusion to reach. And despite Harris, testing is not a concept foreign to the Bible. After all Paul wrote in 1 Thessalonians 5:21 “Test everything, hold on to the good.” In 1 Corinthians 15, writing about some who rejected the resurrection, he pointed out that Jesus “appeared to over five hundred of the brother at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep.” Paul clearly saw the resurrection, not as some abstract theological belief, but as a testable historical event, and there was a implicit challenge in his reference to “most of whom are still alive” that if you do not believe it, you should go and talk to the hundreds who saw it. Of course with the passing of the first century, and the death of the last eyewitness, all that we have left are the sources, but the fact is that there are more sources for Jesus than we have for most events in antiquity and with the discoveries made during the twentieth century, once again it has been the critics that have had to revise their view of the Bible, and believers who were supported.
In fact, when you look at the arguments for and against the reliability of the Bible critically, as I point out in my books, the critics have a huge problem for at best their arguments are based on an a priori rejection of the supernatural and at worst are circular. When you get past all the blustering, and boil it down, they start with the belief that there is no supernatural. Since there is no supernatural, there can be no real miracles. Since the Bible contains descriptions of miracles, either the writers did not know what really happened or they lied. Either way they are unreliable, and thus we cannot trust anything they say unless it shown to be true by other means. This is a nice and neat little package and everything flows from the initial premise, but notice that no actual evidence is required. Sure evidence is often thrown in, often haphazardly as we saw in part IV with Harris’ attempt to refute the virgin birth from scripture, but it is really just window dressing and not really needed to reach their conclusion.
What Harris neglects is that all worldviews have fundamental propositions that must to some extent be based on faith. Within the confines of his worldview, the automatic rejection of things like Jesus really being “the Son of God, born of a virgin, and destined to return to earth trailing clouds of glory.” (pg. 204) may seem unreasonable leaps of faith. But that does not change that fact that Harris also must have faith in his fundamental premises. As such, in many respects, is argument is self-refuting.
This is Elgin Hushbeck, asking you to Consider Christianity: a Faith Based on Fact.
Part I Part II Part III Part IV Part VI
