The Golden Rule is Not Enough

In their attempt to argue that effective and binding codes can be developed without a deity, atheists often mistake inferior codes of “common decency” for absolute moral systems.  The Golden Rule, or doing as you would be done by , is such a code.  But the fact that people can arrive at the Golden Rule without religion does not mean that they can arrive at the Christian moral code without religion.  Christianity requires much more and, above all, does not expect to see charity returned.  To “love they neighbor as thyself” is a far greater and more complicated obligation, requiring a positive effort to seek the good of others, often in secret, sometimes at great cost, and always without reward.

Peter Hitchens, The Rage Against God, pg.142-143

Morality Must Come from a Higher Source

For a moral code to be effective, the code must be attributed to, and vested in, a non-human source.  It must be beyond the power of humanity to change it to suit itself.  If that non-human source can be shown to be false, then the moral code that it endorses cannot be absolute.  It will become a matter of choice, or have to be kept in place by the threat of force, or a mixture of both, like any other code of human invention.

Peter Hitchens, The Rage Against God, pg.142

Without Objective Morality, If You Do It, It’s Wrong; But If I Do It, It’s Right

Left to themselves, human beings can in a matter of  minutes justify the incineration of populated cities, the mass deportation—accompanied by slaughter, disease, and starvation—of inconvenient people, and the mass murder of the unborn.  I have heard people who believe themselves to be good defend all these things and convince themselves as well as others.  Quite often the same people will condemn similar actions committed by different countries, often with great vigor.

Peter Hitchens, The Rage Against God, pg.141-142

Soviet Communism IS Linked to Atheism

Soviet Communism is organically linked to atheism, materialist rationalism, and most of the other causes the New Atheists support.  It used the same language, treasured the same hopes, and appealed to the same constituency as atheism does today.  When its crimes were still unknown, or concealed, it attracted the support of the liberal intelligentsia who were then, and are even more now, opposed to religion. …

Even after its evils became widely known, the same liberal intelligentsia continued in many cases to sympathize with the USSR and defend it against conservative and Christian critics.  Soviet power was—as it was intended to be—the opposite of faith in God.  It was faith in the greatness of humanity and in the perfectibility of human society.  The atheists cannot honestly disown it, and it is because they know this is in their hearts that they panic and babble when confronted with the problem.  Nothing else can explain the absurd denials they issue.

Peter Hitchens, The Rage Against God, pg.137-138

God is the Leftists’ Chief Rival

God is the leftists' chief rival.  Christian belief, by subjecting all men to divine authority and by asserting in the words “My kingdom is not of this world” that the ideal society does not exist in this life, is the most coherent and potent obstacle to secular humanism.  Christ’s reproof of Judas—“the poor always ye have with you”—when Judas complains that the precious ointment could have been sold to feed the poor rather than applied to Jesus’ feet …, is also a stumbling-block and an annoyance to world reformers.  By putting such socialistic thoughts into the mouth of the despised traitor-to-be Judas, and by stating so baldly the truth known to all conservatives that poverty cannot be eradicated, the Bible angers and frustrates those who believe that the pursuit of a perfect society justifies the quest for absolute power.

The concepts of sin, of conscience, of eternal life, and of divine justice under an unalterable law re the ultimate defense against the utopian’s belief that ends justify means and that morality is relative.

Peter Hitchens, The Rage Against God, pg.134-135

Why the Fury Against Religion Now?

Why is there such a fury against religion now?  Why is it more advanced in Britain than in the USA?  I have a good reason to seek the answer to this question, and I have found it where I might have expected to have done if only I had grasped from the start how large are the issues at stake.  Only one reliable force stands in the way of the power of the strong over the weak.  Only one reliable force forms the foundation of the concept of the rule of law.  Only one reliable force restrains the hand of the man of power.  And, in an age of power-worship, the Christian religion has become the principle obstacle to the desire of earthly utopians for absolute power.

Peter Hitchens, The Rage Against God, pg.112

Atheist Virtue

Unlike Christians, atheists have a high opinion of their own virtue.

Peter Hitchens, The Rage Against God, pg.25

Don't Surrender Reason!

Man, once surrendering his reason, has no remaining guard against absurdities the most monstrous, and like a ship without rudder, is the sport of every wind. With such persons, gullibility, which they call faith, takes the helm from the hand of reason and the mind becomes a wreck.

Thomas Jefferson (1822)

The Attitude of Anti-Theists

The difficulties of the anti-theists begin when they try to engage with anyone who does not agree with them, when their reactions often a frustrated rage that the rest of us are so stupid.  But what if that is not the problem?  Their refusal to accept that others might be as intelligent as they, yet disagree, leads them into many snares.

Peter Hitchens, "The Rage Against God," pg.12

What Courage and Manhood Isn't

His idea of courage and manhood is to get together with a bunch of his punk friends and ride around irritating folks too good-natured to put a stop to it.

Hub McCann, "Second Hand Lions"

Same-Sex “Marriage” vs “Interracial” Marriage

Proponents of same-sex marriage claimed that legal efforts to clarify the definition of marriage was a ban on same-sex marriage, but that wasn’t the case at all. A ban requires something already be in effect, have a history of practice. Same-sex marriage wasn’t being banned, and that’s a significant difference with the supposed parallel with interracial marriage. That was a ban in fact. 

Legal restrictions against interracial marriage was a revision to millennia of human history. Race had never been part of the definition of marriage, so the efforts to ban it were revisionistic, not an effort to conserve and protect marriage as an institution. Of course, same-sex marriage is also revisionistic, overthrowing the definition of marriage for all of human history. And this is, ironically, the actual parallel between the two.

Opponents of same-sex marriage weren’t seeking to ban any practice of common law well-established in human history, such as was the case in banning interracial marriage. It was a revision of current law, just as the efforts to legalize same-sex marriage were revisionistic and revolutionary. In both cases, those that sought to protect the institution of marriage from revision were consistent in the efforts to keep marriage from being fundamentally changed, to maintain a definition well-established in law.

Melinda Penner, Anniversary of Loving v. Virginia

Importance of 2nd Amendment

The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them.

Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, 1833

Liberals and Fools

My aunt sent me an article from the “Senior Beacon,” (pg.37) where the author, Dennis Campbell, changed the word “fool” in various Proverbs passages to be “Liberal,” followed by short commentaries.  The result is what follows:

Proverbs 1:7:  “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge, but Liberals despise wisdom and discipline.”  The evidence of this can be found on just about any college campus.

Proverbs 10:23:  “A Liberal finds pleasure in evil conduct, but a man of understanding delights in wisdom.”  Homosexuality, sexual promiscuity, abortion, euthanasia, foul and profane language, violence toward those who disagree with them—the list of the dark and dismal things Liberals hold dear is long.

Proverbs 12:16:  “A Liberal shows his annoyance at once, but a prudent man overlooks an insult,” and Proverbs 14:16: “A wise man fears the LORD and shuns evil, but a Liberal is hotheaded and reckless.”  Just visit a liberal blog, or listen to most of Hollywood.

Proverbs 15:2:  “The tongue of the wise commends knowledge, but the mouth of the Liberal gushes folly.”  Have you listened to Liberal callers to any of the conservative talk-show hosts?

Proverbs 17:16:  “Of what use is money in the hand of a Liberal, since he has no desire to get wisdom?”  Yet, they demand that we giver more and more of it to them!

Proverbs 18:2:  “A Liberal finds no pleasure in understanding but delights in airing his own opinions.”  Full of emotion and vituperation, but little substance.

Proverbs 20:3:  “It is to a man’s honor to avoid strife, but every Liberal is quick to quarrel.”  Just try to debate one.

Proverbs 23:9:  “Do not speak to a Liberal, for he will scorn the wisdom of your words.”  On second thought, perhaps you should not waste your time arguing with them.

Proverbs 27:22:  “Though you grind a Liberal in a mortar, grinding him like grain with a pestle, you will not remove his folly from him.”  Presenting a reasoned and factual argument to a Liberal is futility.

Proverbs 29:9:  “If a wise man goes to court with a Liberal, the Liberal rages and scoffs, and there is no peace,” and Proverbs 29:11:  “A Liberal gives full vent to his anger, but a wise man keeps himself under control.”  This can be verified by those who try to debate Liberals in our colleges and universities, or conservative speakers who face hostile Liberal students.

Finally, when you wonder why Liberals never learn from their disastrous social, economic and political policies, Solomon has the answer:

Proverbs 26:11:  As a dog returns to its vomit, so a Liberal repeats his folly.”

Political Action and “Social Justice”

In brief, America’s experience to date demonstrates that pursuing social justice through political action generates at least six serious problems:

1. It tends to play into the hands of interest groups seeking beneficial legislation and the politicians who service them, thus becoming about self-interest rather than social good. (In other words, social justice becomes a fig leaf for self-interest!)

2. It tends to overlook the negative effects of high levels of government expenditure (including transfer payments) on the private sector. As a result, larger expenditures on programs that actually combat poverty deter private sector growth and thus become counter-productive at some point. The increase in the welfare of the poor as a result of the transfer of payments is more than offset by a decline in the number of jobs available to entry-level personnel, and so on. (Surely killing the goose that lays the golden eggs can’t be justice issue!)

3. It tends to involve the creation of very large government programs and bureaucracies, which in turn tend to generate bad unintended consequences.

4. It tends to reinforce self-righteousness and intolerance. (Anyone who opposes social justice is, by definition, unjust - a bad person!)

5. It tends to coercion. (Bad people who oppose social justice need to be coerced and it is a good thing to do so!)

6. Too much social justice leads to increasing levels of social discord, as supporters and opponents become much more polarized in their beliefs, and angry at those on the other side of the political debate.

Michael DeBow, “Social Justice: Reasons for Skepticism,” Areopagus Journal, Summer 2010, pg.21

Sodomy's Destructive Force

Planting the seed of human life in the passage designed for the expulsion of waste not only causes disease, but also exerts a destructive force upon the individual soul and on the value of all human life.  

Scott Lively & Kevin Abrams, The Pink Swastika, p.358

The Importance of REAL Marriage

Marriage “sanctifies” what is otherwise merely self-centered pleasure-seeking, while also protecting individuals and society from most of the problems associated with “unwanted” children, sexual diseases and serial relationships.  (How many of our most pressing social problems today are directly or indirectly related to these factors?) Once a society abandons marriage as the prerequisite for sexual relations, however, there remains scant logical grounds to restrict any form of sexual deviancy or promiscuity.  For example, on what grounds can a society deny homosexuals freedom of conduct if non-homosexuals have been permitted to engage in similar disease-transmitting sexual acts?  And if public health considerations no longer outweigh the ‘right’ to sexual freedom under the law, what justifies continued limitations upon sado-masochism, incest, beastiality and even pedophilia?  A society is left with no basis for regulating sexual conduct but its surviving moral standards and the legal concept of “mutual consent.”  

Scott Lively & Kevin Abrams, The Pink Swastika, pp.318-319

"Playboy" Magazine and Social Engineering

Playboy magazine serves as a tool of “gay” social engineering in that the existence of a thriving pornography industry serves the “gay” cause by morally corrupting the men who use it.  It logically makes them less likely to oppose homosexuality on moral grounds and more likely to support public policies which legitimize sexual license.  Exposure to pornography, especially at a young age, can also be a gateway into the “gay” lifestyle itself.  In the same manner, the “gay” cause is advanced by a successful abortion industry (which also arose in response to the sexual revolution).  The choice to kill their unborn children morally compromises both men and women (making them unwilling to criticize the choice to engage in other forms of immoral behavior), and ensures that the outcome of an unwanted child will not be a lasting deterrent to those who have chosen sexual license over family.  This explains why homosexuals, who by definition cannot bear children together, are among the most militant advocates of abortion on demand.  

Scott Lively & Kevin Abrams, The Pink Swastika, pp.307-308

No Such Thing as Innate Homosexuality

In a letter to the editor of the Toronto Globe and Mail newspaper, February 26, 1992, Dr. Joseph Berger, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, University of Toronto, writes, “in my 20 years of psychiatry I have never come across anyone with innate homosexuality.  That notion has been a long proclaimed gay-activist political position, intended to promote the acceptance of homosexuality as a healthy, fully equal alternative expression of human sexuality.  It has zero scientific foundation, though its promoters  latch on to even the flimsiest shreds of atrocious research in their attempts to justify the notion.”

Scott Lively & Kevin Abrams, The Pink Swastika, pg.11

The Christian Worldview and “Transgenderism”

The Christian worldview cannot countenance a movement that plays haphazardly with biological sex and the promise of self-resurrection. The picture seen in the first two chapters of Genesis is one where divinely orchestrated binaries are fixed, intentional goods: Heaven and Earth, Night and Day, Land and Sea, Male and Female. The Christian worldview can, however, countenance a world like that of the third chapter of Genesis—a world in which people have broken perceptions of themselves brought on by the Fall.

The Christian worldview accepts the validity of people’s testimony that gender dysphoria is a real experience resulting in heartrending distress. The Christian worldview cannot, however, countenance the idea that men can become women or that women can become men. No amount of self-assertion or self-description, no matter the vehement sincerity, can result in individuals reconfiguring their chromosomes. Seen from this view, to exist as “transgender” is, itself, a social construct offered up by revisionists.

This is why simplistic or unwitting uses of the term “transgender” are problematic. The culture has intentions for the word that are incompatible with Christian anthropology. The culture wants individuals to accept, without a hint of hesitation, the idea that surgically altering one’s body can make a person a member of a different biological sex. Transgender may describe the range of experiences that people encounter, but for those in control of the word throughout dominant culture, “transgender” bespeaks a much weightier construct that Christians should be wary of casually adopting. “Transgender” is a neologism chock full of ideological assumptions that Christians cannot innocently use.

Andrew T. Walker, “What’s in a Name? Why Christians Should Be Wary of the Word ‘Transgender’"

Liberals and the Emotional Fixations

Like a crack addict who can’t seem to think about anything other than his next fix, liberals can’t seem to think about anything but spewing their emotions at the world. They may be reflexively saying something that makes them feel compassionate, outraged, sensitive or angry, but liberals usually seem to be caught in the grip of some strong emotion.

Of course, it goes without saying that emotion unmoored from logic produces a lot of warped views, but it also mires a person in short term thinking….if you could even call it that. Because when you’re emotional, most of the time you’re not thinking; you’re reacting based on your “feels.” This is where a lot of liberals live 24 x 7 and so, it’s not shocking that their behavior is so thoughtless.

John Hawkins, “How Liberal Short-Term Thinking is Destroying America”

Responsibility is Lacking in Today's Culture

“Responsibility” poses a quandary for us today, as it presupposes a standard toward which to be responsible. But as standards have been attacked as products of “white supremacy,” “patriarchy,” “imperialism,” and other nefarious forces, the notion of duty has steadily vanished.

The result has been a growing sense of entitlement and narcissism. Consider the widespread hostility toward a recent proposal to eliminate loan “forgiveness” for graduate students. The policy would stop the government from “forgiving” student loan debt after a certain number of years. The idea is that, if one is privileged enough to go to graduate school, one who isn’t shouldn’t be forced to pay for the one who is.

However, one outlet described the idea as a “sick joke. A billionaire president and billionaire education secretary, neither of whom spent a single day of their lives in public service before stumbling their way into positions of immense power, are targeting a program that’s basically meant to make life in underpaid government work a little more tenable.”

Only a mindset that says “I am entitled to graduate school on another’s dime” would argue that preventing other people from being forced to pay for (“forgive”) another’s loan is a “sick joke.” Furthermore, the idea that “public service”—meaning government employment—is nobler than private-sector work is only further evidence of our cultural entitlement. Private markets create wealth, products, and jobs, which improve lives. Government merely consumes the wealth private markets create. That those who consume feel entitled to the wealth created by others is the height of the narcissism that pervades modern society.

Without standards of virtue which transcend the self, the self becomes the standard. At that point, as Protagoras remarked, “Man is the measure of all things.” In today’s culture, that is increasingly so.

David Weinberger, “We Don’t Have An Income Inequality Problem, We Have An Ego Problem”

The Christian Faith Changes Culture

Many studies now show that religious belief and church attendance reduce the likelihood of unmarried pregnancy, crime, and many other negatives.  Even Bill Clinton asked, “Don’t you believe that if every kid in every difficult neighborhood in America were in a religious institution on weekends . . . don’t you really believe that the drug rate, the crime rate, the violence rate, the sense of self-destruction would go way down and the quality and character of this country would go way up?”

Marvin Olasky, Standing for Christ in a Modern Babylon. pg.147

False Ideas of Liberation

False ideas of liberation also have consequences when carried out in nonreligious pursuits.  For example, movies, ads, and talk shows all suggest to men especially that either being single or acting that way offers varieties of physical pleasure and a sense of psychological conquest.  Surveys show that the reality is very different, and just what we would expect from reading the Bible: Married sex beats unmarried sex in both quality and quantity.  But that’s not what some people who view only the lies of both popular and high culture would suspect.  A few of those who live the lie throughout their twenties and thirties may somehow skip their way through the minefields of abortion, broken hearts, and disease, but as young bodies become old, alienation and loneliness tend to edge out lust.  When reality doesn’t sink in until age forty or fifty, lost decades cannot be replaced.  The situation is better for people who get married, but then a false understanding of freedom frequently leads to divorce.

Ideologies have also benefited from grass-is-greener yearning coupled with misunderstanding.  Ironically, many liberals during the 1930s embraced the greatest enslaving movement of the twentieth century—communism.  Some in the 1960s became supporters of Cuba’s Castro, China’s Mao, or the Soviet Union’s Brezhnev, even though their prisons were filled with those who had defended family-based freedom.  Communism’s bait-and-switch attracted those who did not realize the complications inherent in defining the results of Karl Marx’s mantra, “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.”  Beyond a bare minimum of calories and shelter, what are needs, as opposed to wants and desires? “Power to the people,” but which people?  The classic Marxist saying should more accurately have concluded, “To each according to his demand for power—and his viciousness toward those seen as obstacles."

Marvin Olasky, Standing for Christ in a Modern Babylon. pg.101-102