Matt 24 Watch, 74: "Watch out that no one deceives you . . . "

Today, we need to address a neglected aspect of the church's serious business of un-deception.

The title for this post [and the wider series that now reaches post no. 74] comes from Matt 24:4, where in context we see a conversation between Jesus and his disciples during the Passion Week, as events raced to their climax on that fateful first Good Friday:

MT 24:1 Jesus left the temple and was walking away when his disciples came up to him to call his attention to its buildings. 2 "Do you see all these things?" he asked. "I tell you the truth, not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down."

MT 24:3 As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately. "Tell us," they said, "when will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?"

MT 24:4 Jesus answered: "Watch out that no one deceives you. 5 For many will come in my name, claiming, `I am the Christ, ' and will deceive many. 6 You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. 7 Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. 8 All these are the beginning of birth pains.

MT 24:9 "Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me. 10 At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, 11 and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. 12 Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, 13 but he who stands firm to the end will be saved. 14 And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.

In short, there are three major signs of the end of our age and the second coming of our Lord:

[1] the rise of mass deception,

[2] spreading tidal waves of chaos in nature, society and the political world,

[3] the countervailing inexorable communication of the gospel to all nations.

All three of these are increasingly present in our time.

In order to effectively go about the third -- the real sign of the end, and our primary mandate as the church -- we must be able to handle the disrupting, distracting, confusing and damaging implications of the first two. And, given the way the factors involved in the second sign tend to work together, it should not surprise us that desperate people wanting explanations, hope and rescue will be very vulnerable to political, ideological and religious pseudo-messianism as major contexts for the spreading of entangling deceptions.

Indeed, even science itself -- as we have seen in recent posts -- too often becomes captive to ideology, and serves the cause of deception.

So, we see that the business of "un-deception" (as C S Lewis termed it in his collection of essays on Undeceptions) becomes a key part of the gospel-based spiritual warfare that we must engage.

Also, if we are to be faithful in contending for the faith once for all delivered to the saints, we have no alternative but to engage deception where it lives. And, the habitat for deception is often at the nexus of science, falsely so called, ideology, the politics of false hopes and -- as Rev 13 points out -- with false or apostate religion in close support.

That immediately means that a relevant presentation of the gospel -- one that cuts across the popular deceptions of any time and place -- will necessarily be in part controversial. Thus, it will be resented, rejected and opposed by those who naively set their hopes on or calculatingly hope to profit by deception.

So, it is no wonder that Jesus warns of of hostility, persecution and falling away from the faith!

So also, as times race to the culmination of the age of the gospel, we face increasingly intense worldview war, with the serious possibility of persecution, suffering and even martyrdom. (Let us not forget that Stephen was both the first Christian Apologist and -- precisely because "they could not stand up against his wisdom or the Spirit by whom he spoke" [Ac 6:10] -- the first martyr.)

The Amplified rendering of 2 Cor 10:4 - 5 is especially plain on a key facet of that warfare:

2 Cor 10:4For the weapons of our warfare are not physical [weapons of flesh and blood], but they are mighty before God for the overthrow and destruction of strongholds,

5[Inasmuch as we] refute arguments and theories and reasonings and every proud and lofty thing that sets itself up against the [true] knowledge of God; and we lead every thought and purpose away captive into the obedience of Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed One),

I find it interesting that we often tend to over-"spiritualise" this passage, through an over-emphasis on the spirituality of the weapons involved. But plainly, the main issues are those of breaking the power of lies and opening the door to the liberating en-light-enment of the gospel.

But, doesn't it talk about leading "every throught away captive into the obedience of Christ?

But of course: to be captive to the truth, not the error is the ironic path of true intellectual and moral freedom!

To see that, it is illuminating to read Col 2:3 in the NIV: ". . . Christ, 3 in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge."

In short, Christ is Truth himself, and Reason himself; manifested to us with power by the resurrection from the dead, with over five hundred eyewitnesses and awesome supernatural resurrection power shown in the transforming impact of the gospel, right down to today. So, the church's task embraces that courageous prophetic intellectual and cultural leadership that targets the critical cracks in the foundation of deceptive worldviews, then proclaims, explains, correctively warrants and calls for appropriate response to the truth.

Paul's opening words to the Athenian intellectuals in Acts 17 are an iconic, classic example:

AC 17:22 Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: "Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. 23 For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you . . .

Here, the proud guardians of the West's intellectual, artistic and democratic traditions had been honest enough to literally build a monument to their ignroance on the single most important point of all knowledge: God. And, in passing through the Agora that was yet haunted by the ghost of Socrates, the Areopagites met there a man preaching and discussing what it meant with passersby; similar to what the founder of Western Philosophy had been wont to.

Now, the Areopagites of Paul's day were disciples of Socrates, not like their forebears who had unjustly put him to death for being an intellectual gadfly. But, Paul seemed to them to be a half-baked intellectual seed-plucker purveying half-understood ideas:

Ac 17:18 A group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began to dispute with him. Some of them asked, "What is this babbler [spermologos] trying to say?" Others remarked, "He seems to be advocating foreign gods." They said this because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection.

At least, they had the basic "brought-up-cy" to be civil to him, expressing that civlility with a subtle urbanity that reflects well on their sophistication and schooling:

Ac 17:19 Then they took him and brought him to a meeting of the Areopagus, where they said to him, "May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? 20 You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we want to know what they mean."

Of course -- as we just saw -- they got a lot more than the intellectual titillation they bargained for. For, with his opening words, he laid bare the key crack in their whole system of thought and life. Then, he spoke to the God who is our Creator, and who has not left us without an adequate witness to his divine nature and moral requirements, as Romans 1 - 2 so eloquently amplifies.

Then, as he brought his challenge to the Athenian intellectuals to a climax, Paul remarked:

AC 17:26 From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. 27 God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. 28 `For in him we live and move and have our being.' As some of your own poets have said, `We are his offspring.'

AC 17:29 "Therefore since we are God's offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone--an image made by man's design and skill. 30 In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. 31 For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead."

Paul also sets out the challenging ethical standard for Christian preaching and persuasion:

2 Cor 4:1Therefore, since through God's mercy we have this ministry, we do not lose heart.2Rather, we have renounced secret and shameful ways; we do not use deception, nor do we distort the word of God. On the contrary, by setting forth the truth plainly we commend ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God.

A sobering challenge. And, the marker of the border between a proper call to repentance, renewal of heart mind and life, and reformation of the community, culture, civilisation and its institutions, and deceptive manipulation, distortion and brainwashing.

Indeed, this brings back to mind the shock I felt when some twenty years ago, I first studied the Schein-Lewin model of change as a social-psychological process, in the context of having to address a manipulative sect preying on students in my university. For, that model shows that change rests on a basic, fairly simple process, one that is common to many, many situations, ranging from the innocuous and inconsequential to the utterly destructive:

I --> FROZEN: Normally, our social and institutional environment tends to lock us into roles, expectations, perceptions and relationships. that may be a happy experience, or an entrapping one that we find hard to escape.

II --> UNFREEZING: If one is isolated from that matrix, physically, situationally, emotionally, or by its real or imagined collapse, one finds oneself disoriented and open to . . .

III --> CHANGING: Based on the example of others in a new situation, or on "discovering" and using then internalising messages and models for a new way of operating that seems to work "better," one is induced to move to a new way of thinking, relating, speaking and acting. (Too often, the new messages and models are "conveniently" available, and their limitations, gaps or fallacies are even more "conveniently" neatly suppressed.)

IV --> REFREEZING: Over time, the new way may gel, setting itself in a locked-in condition similar to the old. This may be based in part on a new set of views and values, or it may simply be a sustained response to the imperative to get along with the powerful and thus survive and if possible thrive in a new situation.

The shocking part is that such processes can equally happen in beneficial, high-integrity ways, or in destructive, deceptive, manipulative ones. Indeed, the real difference between repentance and renewal on one hand and outright brainwashing on the other is in the integrity of the process and its leaders. A high integrity change process respects people, and acts in light of the truth and the right (as well as the struggle we all have to consistently do the truth and the right).

Manipulative change processes, by contrast, use deception, indoctrinate the naive and trusting with half-truths, suppress material truth that would lead people to make a better -- but not so agenda-serving decision -- and, in general, show themselves in a ruthlessness that disrespects people and the Rom 13:8 - 10 duty to do no harm as a key expression of neighbour-love. The Gramsci-Alinski Rules for Radicals methodology [in which US Presidential Candidate Mr Obama was trained, as Alinski's son testifies], unfortunately, abundantly (and highly relevantly) illustrates the latter. And, in light of its evident impact on our region, we must address it. So, we now turn to this highly relevant example of the challenge we face.

First, the Hoover Institution in a 2001 policy study on "Why there is a Culture War," aptly sums up the Neo-Marxist (surprise! -- NOT . . .) way of thought of Antonio Gramsci, the key theoretician:

Gramsci’s main legacy arises through his departures from orthodox Marxism. Like Marx, he argued that all societies in human history have been divided into two basic groups: the privileged and the marginalized, the oppressor and the oppressed, the dominant and the subordinate. Gramsci expanded Marx’s ranks of the "oppressed" into categories that still endure. As he wrote in his famous Prison Notebooks, "The marginalized groups of history include not only the economically oppressed, but also women, racial minorities and many ‘criminals.’" What Marx and his orthodox followers described as "the people," Gramsci describes as an "ensemble" of subordinate groups and classes in every society that has ever existed until now. This collection of oppressed and marginalized groups — "the people" — lack unity and, often, even consciousness of their own oppression. To reverse the correlation of power from the privileged to the "marginalized," then, was Gramsci’s declared goal.

Power, in Gramsci’s observation, is exercised by privileged groups or classes in two ways: through domination, force, or coercion; and through something called "hegemony," which means the ideological supremacy of a system of values that supports the class or group interests of the predominant classes or groups. Subordinate groups, he argued, are influenced to internalize the value systems and world views of the privileged groups and, thus, to consent to their own marginalization.

Far from being content with a mere uprising, therefore, Gramsci believed that it was necessary first to delegitimize the dominant belief systems of the predominant groups and to create a "counter-hegemony" (i.e., a new system of values for the subordinate groups) before the marginalized could be empowered. Moreover, because hegemonic values permeate all spheres of civil society -- schools, churches, the media, voluntary associations -- civil society itself, he argued, is the great battleground in the struggle for hegemony, the "war of position." From this point, too, followed a corollary for which Gramsci should be known (and which is echoed in the feminist slogan) — that all life is "political." Thus, private life, the work place, religion, philosophy, art, and literature, and civil society, in general, are contested battlegrounds in the struggle to achieve societal transformation.

. . . . Marx had argued that for revolutionary social transformation to be successful, the world views of the predominant groups must first be unmasked as instruments of domination. In classical Marxism, this crucial task of demystifying and delegitimizing the ideological hegemony of the dominant groups is performed by intellectuals. Gramsci, more subtly, distinguishes between two types of intellectuals: "traditional" and "organic." What subordinate groups need, Gramsci maintains, are their own "organic intellectuals." However, the defection of "traditional" intellectuals from the dominant groups to the subordinate groups, he held, is also important, because traditional intellectuals who have "changed sides" are well positioned within established institutions.

The metaphysics, or lack thereof, behind this Gramscian worldview are familiar enough. Gramsci describes his position as "absolute historicism," meaning that morals, values, truths, standards and human nature itself are products of different historical epochs. There are no absolute moral standards that are universally true for all human beings outside of a particular historical context; rather, morality is "socially constructed."

. . . . All of Gramsci’s most innovative ideas -- for example, that dominant and subordinate groups based on race, ethnicity, and gender are engaged in struggles over power; that the "personal is political"; and that all knowledge and morality are social constructions -- are assumptions and presuppositions at the very center of today’s politics. So too is the very core of the Gramscian-Hegelian world view — group-based morality, or the idea that what is moral is what serves the interests of "oppressed" or "marginalized" ethnic, racial, and gender groups.

If that sounds in part familiar adn insightful, but also in part dangerous and potentially deceptive, it should.

For, we see that the ethical controls on the change process have been taken out through a resort to ethical relativism.

In short, might makes right, so it is only a question of whether the establishment or the insurgents have the bigger rhetorical and socio-cultural firepower and impact. Indeed, we see here the key idea that the "oppressed" are inherently the ones who hold the moral high ground, and that their (perceived) interests define morality.

In light of the dynamics and issues over change highlighted through the Lewin-Schein "ice Cube" change-model, that should raise serious warning flags.

Saul Alinski, the Chicago-based practitioner, teacher, movement and institution-builder turned Gramsci's principles into a tested, ruthlessly effective community-based socio-political strategy. Andy and Berit Kjos provide a helpful summary, excerpting and commenting on Alinski's 1971 Rules for Radicals:

"True revolutionaries do not flaunt their radicalism, Alinsky taught. They cut their hair, put on suits and infiltrate the system from within. Alinsky viewed revolution as a slow, patient process. The trick was to penetrate existing institutions such as churches, unions and political parties....

In this book we are concerned with how to create mass organizations to seize power and give it to the people; to realize the democratic dream of equality, justice, peace.... "Better to die on your feet than to live on your knees.' This means revolution." p.3

"An organizer working in and for an open society is in an ideological dilemma to begin with, he does not have a fixed truth -- truth to him is relative and changing; everything to him is relative and changing.... To the extent that he is free from the shackles of dogma, he can respond to the realities of the widely different situations or society presents." pp.10-11

"The end is what you want, the means is how you get it. Whenever we think about social change, the question of means and ends arises. The man of action views the issue of means and ends in pragmatic and strategic terms. He has no other problem; he thinks only of his actual resources and the possibilities of various choices of action. He asks of ends only whether they are achievable and worth the cost; of means, only whether they will work. ... The real arena is corrupt and bloody." p.24

"The means-and-ends moralists, constantly obsessed with the ethics of the means used by the Have-Nots against the Haves, should search themselves as to their real political position. In fact, they are passive — but real — allies of the Haves…. The most unethical of all means is the non-use of any means... The standards of judgment must be rooted in the whys and wherefores of life as it is lived, the world as it is, not our wished-for fantasy of the world as it should be." pp.25-26

"...the organizer is constantly creating new out of the old. He knows that all new ideas arise from conflict; that every time man as had a new idea it has been a challenge to the sacred ideas of the past and the present and inevitably a conflict has raged." p.79

"And so the guided questioning goes on without anyone losing face or being left out of the decision-making. Every weakness of every proposed tactic is probed by questions.... Is this manipulation? Certainly...." p.88

"From the moment the organizer enters a community he lives, dreams... only one thing and that is to build the mass power base of what he calls the army. Until he has developed that mass power base, he confronts no major issues.... Until he has those means and power instruments, his 'tactics' are very different from power tactics. Therefore, every move revolves around one central point: how many recruits will this bring into the organization, whether by means of local organizations, churches, service groups, labor Unions, corner gangs, or as individuals."

"Change comes from power, and power comes from organization." p.113

"The first step in community organization is community disorganization. The disruption of the present organization is the first step toward community organization. Present arrangements must be disorganized if they are to be displace by new patterns.... All change means disorganization of the old and organization of the new." p.116

"An organizer must stir up dissatisfaction and discontent... He must create a mechanism that can drain off the underlying guilt for having accepted the previous situation for so long a time. Out of this mechanism, a new community organization arises....

"The job then is getting the people to move, to act, to participate; in short, to develop and harness the necessary power to effectively conflict with the prevailing patterns and change them. When those prominent in the status quo turn and label you an 'agitator' they are completely correct, for that is, in one word, your function—to agitate to the point of conflict." p.117

This strategy was then broken down into rules for action:

1. "Power is not only what you have, but what the enemy thinks you have."

2. "Never go outside the expertise of your people. When an action or tactic is outside the experience of the people, the result is confusion, fear and retreat.... [and] the collapse of communication.

3. "Whenever possible, go outside the expertise of the enemy. Look for ways to increase insecurity, anxiety and uncertainty. (This happens all the time. Watch how many organizations under attack are blind-sided by seemingly irrelevant arguments that they are then forced to address.)

4. "Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules. You can kill them with this, for they can no more obey their own rules than t he Christian church can live up to Christianity."

5. "Ridicule is man's most potent weapon. It is almost impossible to counteract ridicule. Also it infuriates the opposition, which then reacts to your advantage."

6. "A good tactic is one your people enjoy."

7. "A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag. Man can sustain militant interest in any issue for only a limited time...."

8. "Keep the pressure on, with different tactics and actions, and utilize all events of the period for your purpose."

9. "The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself."

10. "The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition. It is this unceasing pressure that results in the reactions from the opposition that are essential for the success of the campaign."

11. "If you push a negative hard and deep enough, it will break through into its counterside... every positive has its negative."

12. "The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative."

13. Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it. In conflict tactics there are certain rules that [should be regarded] as universalities. One is that the opposition must be singled out as the target and 'frozen.' ... When your 'freeze the target,' you disregard these [rational but distracting] arguments and carry out your attack.... One acts decisively only in the conviction that all the angles are on one side and all the devils on the other." pp.127-134

The blogger's summary from yesterday's post is all too apt:

. . . lie, cheat, steal, etc., while making those with American principles live up to impossibly high standards of institutional altruism, so that we and our liberal government fail in ridicule. Preach "change" and gradually build an activist army of the proletariat, motivated by (short sighted) self interest, for a crescendoing revolt. All, to pave the way for the "egalitarian state." And funny thing, Alinsky's book tosses an acknowledgment to Lucifer, "the very first radical," a refreshing lapse into candor.

The ruthlessly manipulative, destructive, immoral -- indeed, a-moral -- nature of the above is plain. Unfortunately, it also sounds entirely too familiar, as we look around us at the tactics of many pressure groups, media-promoted agendas, and indeed even too much of in what now happens in the name of education.

In this context, as a warning flag, it is worth excerpting David Alinski's letter to the Boston Globe on the occasion of the just past Democratic Party Convention:

Barack Obama's training in Chicago by the great community organizers is showing its effectiveness. It is an amazingly powerful format, and the method of my late father always works to get the message out and get the supporters on board. When executed meticulously and thoughtfully, it is a powerful strategy for initiating change and making it really happen. Obama learned his lesson well.

I am proud to see that my father's model for organizing is being applied successfully beyond local community organizing to affect the Democratic campaign in 2008. It is a fine tribute to Saul Alinsky as we approach his 100th birthday.

John Perazzo amplifies:

Obama was trained by the Alinsky-founded Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF) in Chicago and worked for an affiliate of the Gamaliel Foundation, whose modus operandi for the creation of “a more just and democratic society” is rooted firmly in the Alinsky method. As The Nation magazine puts it, “Obama worked in the organizing tradition of Saul Alinsky, who made Chicago the birthplace of modern community organizing.…” In fact, for several years Obama himself taught workshops on the Alinsky method. Obama and his fellow agitators made demands for many things in the Eighties, including taxpayer-funded employment-training services, playground construction, after-school programs, and asbestos removal from neighborhood apartments. Journalist and bestselling author Richard Poe writes: “In 1985 [Obama] began a four-year stint as a community organizer in Chicago, working for an Alinskyite group called the Developing Communities Project. Later, he worked with ACORN and its offshoot Project Vote, both creations of the Alinsky network.” (In recent years, Poe notes, both of those organizations have run nationwide voter-mobilization drives marred by allegations of fraudulent voter registration, vote-rigging, voter intimidation, and vote-for-pay scams.) The Nation reports, “Today Obama continues his organizing work largely through classes for future leaders identified by ACORN and the Centers for New Horizons on the south side.”

In short, we have a right to be concerned, even as the US moves into an election day with Mr Obama in an apparently commanding lead.

But, the Gramsci-Alinski methodology issue is not at all confined to the person or personality of Mr Obama. Indeed, his main Democratic Party rival, Mrs Clinton was also trained in the same methodology, as Perazzo and Phillips documented.

The issue is far wider than that, though: the same approach has now become a mainstream approach in all sorts of pressure groups and political or even educational movements. [Indeed, it is not a surprise to see that the openly unrepentant terrorist, William Ayers, is now a Chicago based Education professor.]

So, neo-Marxist political messianism -- not the only variety of this ever so seductive form of idolatry by any means, but an important one -- is plainly one of the challenges the gospel faces in our time.

A challenge we must equip ourselves to meet.

Putting that in different terms: Marxism, in mutated neo-forms, is back; and must again be decisively answered if the gospel is to move ahead. END

Matt 24 Watch, 73: A reading assignment on Judges ch 9 and trends in the West's political culture

Hitherto, I have refrained myself from commenting directly on the current US Election cycle, as my primary focus is on issues that are beyond the cut and thrust of politics, and my interest is primarily in the Caribbean. Also, given the observed intensity of feelings involved even in surprising quarters in our region, I have felt it wise to restrain myself from public comment until matters were pretty clear.

However, matters have now become clear enough for me to hazard a few observations and statements of concern, through giving some balancing reading assignments. I do so under the general principle that we need to promote sound thinking, as a core component of the spiritual struggle we face as 2 Cor 10:4 - 5 outlines, multiplied by my contention -- cf training article that is reproduced below -- that political messianism is a species of idolatry to which we are extraordinarily vulnerable in our region.

So, that makes me look serious askance at how we too often respond to polarising charismatic political figures in times of crisis: local, regional and global.

For, I think we in our region have shown an extraordinary naiveté in how we have responded to the major media houses and their radical secular humanist agendas and propagandistic spin tactics, and to the messianistic rhetoric and charismatic personalities who have been a key part of this US election cycle. For instance, few of us understand the significance of the number 48 millions.

What is that about?

It is the number of abortions to date under the infamous 1973 Roe vs Wade US Supreme Court Decision, that legalised abortion on demand; which unfortunately then became a central, deeply entrenched plank of the US Democratic party. It exposes a tide of blood-guilt that rises at the rate of more than a self-inflicted 9/11 a day, and so has become a spiritual cancer eating away at the consciences, hearts and minds of a generation of Americans.

So, even as I cannot find it in myself to support the parties in my native land that have been implicated in violence and bloodshed, I cannot support political organisations in neighbouring countries that have sustained such a policy as abortion on demand. I might support indivduals seeking to reform from within, but in this case, nurse and pro-life activist Ms Stanek has made shockingly plain just where the Democratic contender for president stands. (Cf here, here and here, for starters.)

{UPDATE: A Washington Times editorial sums up the encounter between Ms Stanek and Mr Obama in the Illinois State legislature as follows:

Mrs. Stanek worked at Christ Hospital in Oak Lawn, Illinois from 1993 to 2001. When she worked in the hospital's Labor and Delivery Department she saw that babies who survived abortion attempts were left to die alone in supply rooms. They could linger for as long as eight hours, without medical care, without even the dignity of a warm blanket or a soft touch. Their tiny bodies were then dumped in the trash. Mr. Obama's spiritual mentor served on the board of the hospital. Mrs. Stanek went on a public crusade to protect these children.

At a 2001 Illinois legislature hearing, Mr. Obama questioned Mrs. Stanek. She insisted that children needed medical care if they were born alive. Mr. Obama said: "Ms. Stanek, your initial testimony last year showed your dismay at the lack of regard for human life. I agreed with you last year and we suggested that there be a Comfort Room or something of that nature be done. The hospital acknowledged that and changes were made and you are still unimpressed. It sounds to me like you are really not interested in how these fetus [es] are treated, but rather not providing absolutely any medical care or life to them."

Mrs. Stanek replied: "What the hospital did was try to make things look better. What it really is, is that the baby is still dead". . . .

Mr. Obama even voted against banning partial-birth abortion - a radical procedure - in the Senate, in October, 2007. Since 2005, he has a 100 percent rating on pro-choice votes by NARAL, a leading, national pro-choice organization. Read the whole editorial, never mind its even strident tone; there is much more.}

And, horror of horrors, just the issue of legalised, easily accessible abortion is evidently now before Parliament in my native land, Jamaica. Oh, God, grant us wisdom to refrain from more blood-guilt!

On the other side of the US election, I am just as deeply concerned to see how many seem to want a charismatic, messianic figure, as came out when the Vice Presidential nominee for the Republicans was announced.

Nor, am I impressed with any of the major candidates or the general leadership of that nation. Indeed, I am currently inclined to believe that the US, having plainly begun to live out of Romans 1, is facing the stage in which bramble bush leadership emerges; as Jotham (sole survivor of a massacre of the sons of Gideon led by Abimelek, their half-brother) warned the men of Shechem in Judges 9:

v. 6 . . . all the citizens of Shechem and Beth Millo gathered beside the great tree at the pillar in Shechem to crown Abimelech king.

JDG 9:7 When Jotham was told about this, he climbed up on the top of Mount Gerizim and shouted to them, "Listen to me, citizens of Shechem, so that God may listen to you. 8 One day the trees went out to anoint a king for themselves. They said to the olive tree, `Be our king.'

JDG 9:9 "But the olive tree answered, `Should I give up my oil, by which both gods and men are honored, to hold sway over the trees?'

JDG 9:10 "Next, the trees said to the fig tree, `Come and be our king.'

JDG 9:11 "But the fig tree replied, `Should I give up my fruit, so good and sweet, to hold sway over the trees?'

JDG 9:12 "Then the trees said to the vine, `Come and be our king.'

JDG 9:13 "But the vine answered, `Should I give up my wine, which cheers both gods and men, to hold sway over the trees?'

JDG 9:14 "Finally all the trees said to the thornbush, `Come and be our king.'

JDG 9:15 "The thornbush said to the trees, `If you really want to anoint me king over you, come and take refuge in my shade; but if not, then let fire come out of the thornbush and consume the cedars of Lebanon!'

JDG 9:16 "Now if you have acted honorably and in good faith when you made Abimelech king, and if you have been fair to Jerub-Baal and his family, and if you have treated him as he deserves . . . 19 if then you have acted honorably and in good faith toward Jerub-Baal and his family today, may Abimelech be your joy, and may you be his, too! 20 But if you have not, let fire come out from Abimelech and consume you, citizens of Shechem and Beth Millo, and let fire come out from you, citizens of Shechem and Beth Millo, and consume Abimelech!"

Thankfully, assassination and massacre are not the driving forces in political life in contemporary Western civilisation. (NB: In the 1920's - 50's such were driving forces in the Soviet Union, Germany and Japan. And, I am troubled by not only the bloody violence of Jamaica's politics of the 1970's to 1980, but also by the track record of suspicious deaths in that general time in Guyana, and by the Grenada events of 1979 - 1983.)

But, back on the USA: I fear, the blatant and accelerating loss of civility in the USA, occasioned by the sort of rebellion, endarkenment and out of control passions occasioned by rebellion against God as outlined in Romans 1, has led to a politics of rhetorical fratricide and personal destruction that hinders sound leadership from emerging. And since "when America sneezes, we get pneumonia," that has serious implications for our region indeed.

Onward, the USA clearly faces the implications of the Deuteronomy 8 judgements on nations that turn their backs on, disobey and willfully forget God:

17 You may say to yourself, "My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me." 18 But remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms his covenant, which he swore to your forefathers, as it is today.

19 If you ever forget the LORD your God and follow other gods and worship and bow down to them, I testify against you today that you will surely be destroyed. 20 Like the nations the LORD destroyed before you, so you will be destroyed for not obeying the LORD your God.

Moreover, I remain seriously concerned that our civilisation as a whole -- including here in the Caribbean -- is increasingly blind to the mortal peril it faces from two closely linked threats:

[a] internal disintegration due to the rise of evolutionary materialism-driven secular humanism and linked apostasy, paganisation and de-christianisation, together with their implications (as we have been discussing in this blog for some time),

[b] the rise of radical islamist fascism as a religiously motivated, global conquest eschatological ideology and agenda.

Accordingly, I think it appropriate to give out a bit of a reading assignment, much of it from a very interesting UK based commentator on major issues and trends, Ms Melanie Phillips.

You (and the author of this blog post, for that matter) may not agree with everything linked below, but we desperately need to take a balancing look at our current situation:

1] In "America’s first far-left radical President?" Ms Phillips raises a vital cluster of troubling issues on media bias and agendas, the propagandistic politics of demonisation, ridicule and personal destruction and linked messianistic adherence to charismatic political figures. This, backed up by serious questions on the radical socialist, subversive nature of key formative associates and experiences behind the likely next president of the USA.

2] In her earlier "Revolution you can believe in" she lays out what a "community organiser" is, and what that potentially implies for not only the USA but our civilisation, in the face of Marxist ideologue Gramsci's long, de-Christianising march through the culture and its institutions. In a shocker disclosure, she cites from a telling 75 pp undergraduate senior thesis submitted at Wellesley College by native Chicagoan and future Mrs Hillary Rodham Clinton, in 1969:

If the ideals Alinsky espouses were actualized, the result would be social revolution. Ironically, this is not a disjunctive projection if considered in the tradition of Western democratic theory. In the first chapter it was pointed out that Alinsky is regarded by many as the proponent of a dangerous socio/political philosophy. As such, he has been feared -- just as Eugene Debs or Walt Whitman or Martin Luther King has been feared, because each embraced the most radical of political faiths -- democracy. [Ms Phillips observes, tartly but aptly: "That’s not democracy as we know it, more a Marxist conception of people power."]

3] Two backgrounders allow us to peer deeper into the underlying radical socialist-developed dynamics and strategy of subversion, i.e. Alinski's Rules for Radicals, and Ayers' Prarie Fire. Thanks to a certain reader, I can sum up the Alinsky "community organizer" methodology in a tight quote from a certain blogger [without endorsing the wider context of the excerpt]:

. . . lie, cheat, steal, etc., while making those with American principles live up to impossibly high standards of institutional altruism, so that we and our liberal government fail in ridicule. Preach "change" and gradually build an activist army of the proletariat, motivated by (short sighted) self interest, for a crescendoing revolt. All, to pave the way for the "egalitarian state." And funny thing, Alinsky's book tosses an acknowledgment to Lucifer, "the very first radical," a refreshing lapse into candor.

4] Phillips' "Planet Equality and the eclipse of nation," opens up the underlying radical relativist multicultural can of worms to critical analysis, with as background her crucial book on Islamist subversion, Londonistan. [Cf Amazon page.]

Beyond that, I think that the below is still all too relevant:

_____________

Political Messianism

Often, politicians in our region project themselves as messiahs, anointed to lead us into new promised lands. However, as Christians, we know that it is only God who can save us from all the bitter fruit of our sin and selfishness, and it is only God who knows what is in men's hearts and can thus know the exact motives or attitudes of those who question or oppose him. (See 1 Sam. 16:7.)

Therefore, when mere men project themselves as messiahs able to deliver our people into a new age, free of want, misery and suffering, and thus demand unquestioning support, or claim that politics is a sphere in which questions of right or wrong are irrelevant, they demand loyalties which properly belong only to God.

The first commandment still stands: "You shall have no other gods before me." (Deut. 5:7.)

Marxian ideology — now lying in a shallow and noisily stirring grave — added to this potent idolatrous brew a philosophical framework, based upon materialism. For, starting from the basic stance of rejecting any notion of a personal, Sovereign God, it asserted that matter and the purposeless laws that govern matter are all that exists. It then claimed that social injustice is due to how some men have invented the notion of property and have used it to steal the fruit of other people’s work to fatten themselves, inventing complex social structures, notably religious and political/economic ones, to legitimise their action. The proposed solution was revolution: the oppressed must throw off their chains and violently seize what "rightfully" is theirs.

Unfortunately, as the aftermath of the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe in 1989 – 1991 revealed, Marxist revolutions have simply substituted one oppressive, unjust and often incompetent ruling class for another. So, the collapse of the East Bloc has for the moment settled the debate over whether centrally planned economies outperform market-based economies: across time, they have not.

However, as Bob Goudzwaard points out in Capitalism and Progress, the underlying greed and oppression issues first raised by Marx and other Socialists remain unresolved. For, those who own or manage the capital assets of a firm often think only in terms of maximising profits. They thus tend to neglect the legitimate rights, needs and interests of other stakeholders: workers and their families, suppliers (especially when their bargaining power is weak), customers, the wider community, even the environment.

Therefore, in recent years, the ideological and moral controversies that have dogged capitalism from its inception have simply moved on to other grounds. These include: market failures and environmental damage; [un-]sustainability of development and North/South globalisation agendas; capitalist/patriarchal oppression of workers, women, black people, and other racial/cultural minorities. (Nor have the usual noises about profit maximisation as an efficiency measure put the critics to flight, for the key theorems relate to idealised, not real world markets.) That is, the underlying theme of oppression/liberation remains unresolved, and the underlying materialistic thinking and hankering after political messiahs still set the agenda for public debate.

This is fundamentally problematic, for secularist political messianism/liberationism rejects God, as its first step in thinking. So, however good the analysis may be at particular points — and it can be uncomfortably close to the truth, even though such thinkers have more than their fair share of misleading arguments — such thinking has no clear and firm basis for respecting truth, rights, and values; even though it often reflects a splendid sensitivity to the cry of the oppressed.

Now, it is an easily observed fact that we naturally become angry and complain or quarrel when we are treated unfairly, though we often fail to live up to the standards we thus set for others. That is, as C. S. Lewis was fond of pointing out, how and why we quarrel reveals that we expect other people to respect our rights — binding moral claims on others. In short, in practice, we all accept that at least some moral principles are objectively binding. Unfortunately, at the same time, we often wish to escape the force of such claims against our own selves!

As a result, it is an all-too- common human failing to be busy about sawdust in the next person’s eye, when we have planks sticking out of our own eyes. [Matt. 7:1 – 5; cf. 18:15 – 18.]

It is therefore quite easy for political messianists to highlight the failings and hypocrisies of others. But, more importantly, it is quite another thing for would-be saviours of society to give an adequate basis for the binding nature of our rights. For, what “rights” can “an accidental by-product thrown off by the random chaos of a chance world” ultimately claim against those who hold the levers of power in the community?

This is crucial, as secularist thinking naturally tends to reduce morality to subjective feelings driven by accidents of genetics or of culture, religion and history. Would-be political messiahs therefore typically resort to manipulative media and political power games as they attempts to deliver their promised utopias. But, since secularists reduce truth to subjective perceptions, and cut rights down to being mere entitlements granted through control of the levers of political, legal and regulatory power, they are usually blind to the planks in their own eyes — their own fallen, sinful, deceitful and desperately wicked hearts. [Cf. Jeremiah 17:5 – 11, esp. 9 – 10, and Deut. 8:17 - 20.]

Consequently, secularist utopian reformers all too easily fall prey to the corrupting temptations of power. For example, they often ruthlessly exploit media access and academic/ideological power to push through their policy agendas — often based on questionable or even deceptive scientific, factual, moral or legal claims. In some instances, they have even abused the power of police agencies and the courts — and not just Nazis and Communists, either.

As a result, public policy dominated or controlled by such ideologues soon drifts away from sound foundations, in pursuit of ever-receding mirages, often ending up in shipwreck. This has already become all too clear in the case of the Marxists, who have now left behind the daunting challenge of repairing the political, social, cultural, economic, educational and environmental havoc created by forty to seventy years of ruinous rule by tyrannical Communist Dictators.

Similarly, should they gain or hold power for long enough, bitter fruit will also come from the current crop of would-be political messiahs, precisely because they have lost sight of their own inner corruption and need for redemption, inner renewal and transformation through the only true Messiah. For, as the great Russian writer and dissident, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, observed — consciously echoing the ancient prophets — the line between good and evil passes, not between classes and nations, but right through the individual human heart.

The main question, in short, is NOT over particular issues, theories, rights and policies, but rather over who is Lord: man, or Jesus? (For, as Rom. 13:1-7 points out, governing authorities are servants and stewards of God, responsible for upholding justice, rewarding good, and punishing evil. When those who hold power drift from this mooring, they inevitably follow a road to ruin.)

In short, the state is, and must always be, accountable to God. For, it is only he who can truly establish justice in the community.

_____________

So, let us ponder our times, and let us seek a word from our Lord that will show us the right way forward in these troubled, turbulent times. END

Mt 24 Watch, 72: Addressing the Corruption of Scientific and educational Institutions through materialistic ideologisation

Last time (pardon the delay -- it's been a busy period elsewhere . . . ), we noted on a 2005 joint intervention by the US National Academy of Sciences [NAS] and the National Science Teachers Association [NSTA], in Kansas.

Similarly, we looked at a 1997 statement by geneticist Richard Lewontin, in which he revealingly observed:

. . . to put a correct view of the universe into people's heads we must first get an incorrect view out . . . the problem is to get them to reject irrational and supernatural explanations of the world, the demons that exist only in their imaginations, and to accept a social and intellectual apparatus, Science, as the only begetter of truth . . . .

Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door. [Emphases added.]

Unfortunately, such a declaration of outright materialistic indoctrination in the name of science and science education is not an anomaly. Nor, is it any longer true that the institutions of science are not seeking to enforce a materialistic orthodoxy.

For, in a recent update to their booklet on Science, Evolution and Creationism, the NAS has issued a stated definition of science as follows:

The use of evidence to construct testable explanations and predictions of natural phenomena, as well as the knowledge generated through this process. [US NAS, 2008, p. 10.]

The definition, by itself would have been acceptable in light of history and current praxis.

But, it does NOT stand on its own.

Instead, we may read the controlling ideas in the paragraph leading up to the statement itself:

In science, explanations must be based on naturally occurring phenomena. Natural causes are, in principle, reproducible and therefore can be checked independently by others. If explanations are based on purported forces that are outside of nature, scientists have no way of either confirming or disproving those explanations. Any scientific explanation has to be testable — there must be possible observational consequences that could support the idea but also ones that could refute it. Unless a proposed explanation is framed in a way that some observational evidence could potentially count against it, that explanation cannot be subjected to scientific testing. [Emphases added.]

In short, the subtly imposed dichotomy is between material/ "natural" causes tracing to chance and necessity, and "supernatural" ones. but, isn't it a matter of common-sense day to day experience and work in science, the seminar room, the directors' board room or the courtroom, that we often distinguish natural and art-ificial -- i.e., intelligent -- causes?

And, that we may reliably enough do so based on observing empirtical signs of intelligence such as specified, evidently purposeful complexity?

Indeed, the very NAS scientists themselves provide instances of an alternative to forces tracing to chance and/or mechanical necessity: they are intelligent, creative agents who act into the empirical world in ways that leave empirically detectable and testable traces.

For instance, suppose one of them sets up an experiment, then tests for the results of his/her interventions. When a scientist does such, s/he is not only studying natural causes and phenomena, but also what intelligent investigators have artificially induced; confident that there are underlying natural regularities that will come out, even in artificially selected and set up circumstances.

Moreover, the open assertion or implicit assumption that all such intelligences "must" trace ultimately to chance and/or necessity acting within a materialistic cosmos, is a highly debatable philosophical position on the remote and unobserved past history of our cosmos; not at all an established scientific "fact" on the level of direct and repeatable observations that have led to the generally accepted conclusion that the planets orbit the sun. (No, I am not exaggerating: cf a current instance of this gross error here.)

That brings us to the key distinction between operational and origins science, a distinction that is crucial to making a proper response:

operational science: investigations that explore are the evident patterns and underlying ordering principles of the currently operating, observable natural world?

origins science: a fundamentally historical investigation of the origins of ourselves and the world in which we live based on principles of inference to best explanation.

The findings and explanations on the reconstructed, extrapolated and projected natural history of life, planets, planetary sytems, stars, and the cosmos as a whole are thus inherently, inescapably less well tested than those of theories that deal with present accessible and directly observable reality.

Indeed, we may make the further observation that there is no set of distinctive approaches to acquiring knowledge and understanding or inferring to best explanation that are universal across the conventionally accepted list of sciences, and/or that are so necessary to, sufficient for and unique to scientific investigation and argument that we may use them to mark a defining line between science and non-science. (For that matter, the real epistemological challenge is not over attaching the prestigious label "science," but over [1] whether we are using sound, effective, reliable and fair methods of inquiry, and [2] the actual degree of warrant that attaches to what we accept as knowledge, however labelled.)

Plainly, what is going on is a far cry from being an unfettered, open-minded, correctable search for the truth about the world, based on empirical observation and/or experiment, resulting collected evidence and inferred provisional best explanations of those credible empirical facts.

But to a major extent, that just reviews what we have already seen. The issue is, what can and should we do about it?

Several things:

1 --> We must insist that since science is a vital part of our common heritage as a civilisation, and what it is, and how it works are matters of historically grounded fact and philosophical discussion on comparative difficulties relative to those facts, not rulings by any officially established or de facto "Magisterium."

2 --> So, we should stoutly reject and resist arbitrary re-definition of what science is/should be, that are ideologically loaded, such as we see above.

3 --> Instead, we insist that science and its methods should be understood objectively, e.g.:

science: a branch of knowledge conducted on objective principles involving the systematized observation of and experiment with phenomena, esp. concerned with the material and functions of the physical universe. [Concise Oxford, 1990]

scientific method: principles and procedures for the systematic pursuit of knowledge [”the body of truth, information and principles acquired by mankind”] involving the recognition and formulation of a problem, the collection of data through observation and experiment, and the formulation and testing of hypotheses. [Webster's 7th Collegiate, 1965]

4 --> Recent history has abundantly shown, however, that not only science education, mass media reporting, and individual scientists but also science institutions themselves have been taken over by materialists, who have abused their power to distort the historic understanding of what science is, and what it tries to achieve.

5 --> Worse, as the Kansas case exemplifies, corrective efforts have consistently met with not only specious objections trumpeted far and wide, but with willful and deceptive distortions, slanders, outright lies and unjustified career-busting, multiplied by fear-mongering to the public intended to lock in the monopolisation of science, science education and related institutions by evolutionary materialism.

6 --> So much so, that in many cases, reform is probably not feasible in the current generation.

7 --> That leaves only one feasible alternative: breaking the monopoly.

8 --> That means the time has now come for independent origins science education, independent institutions and a patient, persistent corrective witness to the truth in the face of a media onslaught, backed up by a repeated exposure of major cases of abuse. (In cases of outright injustice or actionable tort, making an example or two of those who have stepped over the lines from mere disagreement to outright incivility and then onward to unlawful abuse would not be amiss. For, such injustices are disruptive to civilisation itself.)

A first step towards that, would be to draw up and consistently communicate a short, corrective message, such as:

The scientific study of origins helps us probe the roots of our existence. Unfortunately, some have recently undercut this search by trying to re-define science as a search for “natural causes,” which imposes materialistic conclusions before the facts can speak. However, through objectively studying signs of intelligence, we can allow the evidence to speak for itself. For, reliably, functionally specified complex information comes from intelligence. Thus, we may restore balance to science and to many other aspects of our culture that are shaped by our views on our origins. [HT: StephenB, a long-standing commenter at UD.]

Building on that, we may then create balancing, independent origins science education initiatives, e.g. web based courses that explore the full context for origins science, with a survey of related philosophical issues, key concepts, evidence, facts, models and alternative perspectives. Such courses would equip high school students, college students, practising educators, science journalists, concerned citizens, and the interested public at large to put origins science in a more balanced context, and would help undo the damage that has already been done by those who have turned science into a front operation for pushing radical materialism in our culture.

Beyond that, if the key institutions remain excessicvely ideologised, we may have little alternative but to replace them with independent ones, starting with education and support centres for research in a fresh paradigm that is open to follow where the evidence leads, instead of imposing materialism or another ideological agenda.

Thus, across time, our civilisation and its institutions would be reformed, or if necessary replaced.

Nor is this a matter we can shrug off and say, "later."

For, as we have seen in recent weeks in this blog, over a hundred million ghosts from the failed but massively murderous impositions of evolutionary materialistic and associated agendas over the past century, cry out their grim warning.

A warning we must never ever forget.

So: Why not now, why not here, why not us? END

Mt 24 Watch, 71: the evolutionary materialism agenda in the name of "Science"

In my reference web site, I have for some years maintained a web page on the debates over evolutionary materialism, with an emphasis on the central importance of the scientific value of the much debated inference to design. (In the past weeks, as I have worked on the current sub-series, I have occasionally taken time to update the relevant page.)

What follows is one of these updates; which I believe is highly relevant to the challenges we are facing as our civilisation more and more begins to live out of Romans 1 and 2 Peter 3.

Accordingly, I now excerpt, drawing particular attention to Professor Richard Lewontin's stunning admission:
____________

[. . . ]

"God of the Gaps!"

At the mere mention of the term -- one dripping with memories of now-filled-in "gaps" in scientific explanations that were once used as ill-advised "proofs" of God's existence, many thinkers (especially some theistic ones) wish to look no further. Thus, under this banner, the issue of inference to design as discussed so far is then brushed aside as "obviously not proper science." That is, in large part through the rhetorical power of the phrase, God of the gaps, the attempted redefinition of science as methodological naturalism -- in effect "the best evolutionary materialist account of the cosmos, from hydrogen to humans" -- has far too often been allowed to prevail without facing squarely (much less, having to satisfactorily work out in detail) the many thorny challenges that lurk in the underlying demarcation problem.

But, in fact, not only across the past 350 years but currently, it is simply not accurate nor justifiable to reduce science to such terms. For, it is abundantly warranted by the history of the rise of modern science, and by contemporary praxis, to accept the more traditional -- and less philosophically loaded -- definition of science, such as we may easily read in high-quality dictionaries:

science: a branch of knowledge conducted on objective principles involving the systematized observation of and experiment with phenomena, esp. concerned with the material and functions of the physical universe. [Concise Oxford, 1990 -- and yes, they used the "z" Virginia!]

scientific method: principles and procedures for the systematic pursuit of knowledge [”the body of truth, information and principles acquired by mankind”] involving the recognition and formulation of a problem, the collection of data through observation and experiment, and the formulation and testing of hypotheses. [Webster's 7th Collegiate, 1965]

Further to this, not only in science but also in wider worldview analysis, we are not dealing with that mythical holy grail: proof beyond rational dispute. Instead, we must grapple with the messy world of creative abductive inferences to explanations and provisional warrant in light of the challenge of comparative difficulties. That is, serious explanations must face the three-headed issue of explanatory adequacy directly and as compared with live option alternatives:

(1) adequacy relative to the material facts -- those that make a difference to the conclusion;

(2) coherence: logical consistency without undue circularity; and,

(3) power: elegant simplicity as opposed to being either simplistic or an ad hoc patchwork.

Also, in the end we think as humans, beings who inevitably wonder about how we came to be here; beings who have to use and rely on our minds to think about such problems; beings who find ourselves sensing a duty to be honest and fair-minded in how we think about these things.

That this is not just an academic exercise is aptly illustrated by the sad course of events surrounding the evolution of Kansas Board of Education state science standards (and in particular the definition of science), from about 1999 to the present. For instance, we may contrast two alternative definitions of science, the first a radical evolutionary materialist agenda-driven redefinition attempt from 2001, the second, a now unfortunately defeated attempted corrective from 2005; which was based on a more traditional, historically and philosophically well-warranted understanding similar to those cited just above:

2001 Definition: “Science is the human activity of seeking natural explanations of the world around us.”

2005 Definition: “Science is a systematic method of continuing investigation, that uses observation, hypothesis testing, measurement, experimentation, logical argument and theory building, to lead to more adequate explanations of natural phenomena.” [Emphases added.]

Sadly, the 2001 radical redefinition (NB: more or less reimposed, circa 2007: "Science is a human activity of systematically seeking natural explanations for what we observe in the world around us" [cf p. xii here]) is an implicit and improper imposition of materialism in the name of science. For, it was immemorial in the days of Plato's The Laws Book X, that what in our day Monod termed "chance and necessity" do not exhaust the list of credible fundamental causal factors. As, what Plato termed "art" -- i.e. intelligent action -- is just as much an empirically observed and possible causal factor; including specifically on origins. So, we must not a priori rule out possible causal factors simply because certain possible candidates for the actual cause of what we see may not fit comfortably with our worldview and associated ideological agendas. At least, if science is to retain the fundamental mission and vision that it is an empirically anchored, unfettered, open-ended and open-minded search for the truth about our universe based on observation, hypothesis, predictions, experimental/observational testing and objective reasoned argument.

But, sadly, in the 2001 redefinition "natural" is held to contrast with "supernatural," with the highly relevant, longstanding alternative contrast: nature/art being passed over in a rhetorically convenient, strawman-shaped silence. So, by making a tendentious contrast (often under the guise that science "must" apply the rule of so-called "methodological naturalism"), the idea is smuggled in that inference to design is inescapably or at least invariably about bringing in an improper, empirically unsupported inference to the supernatural. [Cf. typical rationales for the methodological naturalism rule here and here, a corrective rebuttal to such views here and here, a related discussion of its metaphysical connexions here, and also Plantinga's somewhat tangential but enriching discussion here and here. This discussion on a proposed successor, methodological neutralism, is also well worth a read.]

In fact, the design inference is an induction made based on a well supported empirical observation: intelligent agents act into our world, and when they do so they often leave characteristic signs of art-ificial -- or, intelligent -- action; such as functionally specified, complex information. On the strength of this very well-supported observation, and the common-sense principle that "like causes like," it is plainly an empirically well justified and properly scientific induction to infer from such observed signs to the action of such agents; regardless of possible onward worldview level implications and debates -- which it is no business of science to censor itself over.

Arguably, the impact of such "methodological naturalism" as we have just seen is to subtly establish evolutionary materialistic Secular Humanism as a de facto, functional equivalent to a religion backed by state power on law, education and many other aspects of the public square. ("Subtly?" Yes: in Western cultures, we do not usually think of non-theistic worldviews and associated ideologies and institutions they influence in the terms of being potentially the functional equivalent of established and potentially domineering institutionalised religions. Especially, if such non-theistic ideologies come to us wearing the highly respected lab coat of the scientist . . . )

On this last, Richard Lewontin's notorious hidden agenda admission, in its actual context (a review of Sagan's The Demon-Haunted World), should give us serious pause:

. . . to put a correct view of the universe into people's heads we must first get an incorrect view out . . . the problem is to get them to reject irrational and supernatural explanations of the world, the demons that exist only in their imaginations, and to accept a social and intellectual apparatus, Science, as the only begetter of truth . . . . Sagan's argument is straightforward. We exist as material beings in a material world, all of whose phenomena are the consequences of physical relations among material entities. The vast majority of us do not have control of the intellectual apparatus needed to explain manifest reality in material terms, so in place of scientific (i.e., correct material) explanations, we substitute demons . . . . Most of the chapters of The Demon-Haunted World are taken up with exhortations to the reader to cease whoring after false gods and to accept the scientific method as the unique pathway to a correct understanding of the natural world. To Sagan, as to all but a few other scientists, it is self-evident that the practices of science provide the surest method of putting us in contact with physical reality, and that, in contrast, the demon-haunted world rests on a set of beliefs and behaviors that fail every reasonable test . . . .

Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door. The eminent Kant scholar Lewis Beck used to say that anyone who could believe in God could believe in anything. To appeal to an omnipotent deity is to allow that at any moment the regularities of nature may be ruptured, that miracles may happen.

This, sirs, is worldview warfare, raw and naked and reeking of the outright subversion of science in service to a wider agenda.

All, driven by the view that "Science" -- by that term, Lewontin plainly means evolutionary materialism (which, ironically, is inherently self-refuting and so inescapably irrational) -- is "the only begetter of truth," which gives us "correct material" that constitutes "the surest method of putting us in contact with physical reality." A "reality" that, with disgust, dismisses the possibility of God from the outset, thus tilting the playing field so that the committed "take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because [they] have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism." [Emphases added.]

Science, in the end -- whatever its many contributions to progress -- in such hands and minds primarily becomes a stalking horse for evolutionary materialism and for the imposition of associated socio-cultural, policy and political agendas that would otherwise be unacceptable.

Minds that are blinded to what the founding era scientists of three hundred years ago instinctively understood from the basic principles and teachings of their Judaeo-Christian worldview: a world created by the God who is the author of order not confusion would be set up, sustained and run according to intelligible ordering principles manifesting themselves in reliable cause-effect chains -- i.e. "laws" -- that would therefore obtain in general; but would at the same time be open to the intervention of minds and Mind. Thus, the classic motto of the early modern scientists: thinking God's thoughts after him.

But, consistent with the classic "divide and rule" political and propaganda stratagem, the evolutionary materialist ideologues have now set up a strawman opponent, which they have turned into a demonic bogeyman. Even, as they push a ruthlessly pursued agenda that looks more and more convincingly like the creation of an ideological establishment with themselves as de facto Magisterium.

What that sort of agenda means on the ground can be clearly seen from the intervention made in 2005 by the US National Academy of Sciences [NAS] and the National Science Teachers Association [NSTA], through their joint statement on the 2005 science education standards for Kansas.

The crucial paragraph of that statement reads, in its key part:

. . . the members of the Kansas State Board of Education who produced Draft 2-d of the KSES have deleted text defining science as a search for natural explanations of observable phenomena, blurring the line between scientific and other ways of understanding. Emphasizing controversy in the theory of evolution -- when in fact all modern theories of science are continually tested and verified -- and distorting the definition of science are inconsistent with our Standards and a disservice to the students of Kansas. Regretfully, many of the statements made in the KSES related to the nature of science and evolution also violate the document’s mission and vision. Kansas students will not be well-prepared for the rigors of higher education or the demands of an increasingly complex and technologically-driven world if their science education is based on these standards. Instead, they will put the students of Kansas at a competitive disadvantage as they take their place in the world.

This statement is deeply flawed and inadvertently highly revealing:

1 --> Immediately, there is no one "the definition of science" that may be owned or authoritatively imposed by any institution or group of institutions. Nor can such bodies, however august, properly demand that we must take their presented definitions at face value; without critical assessment or drawing our own conclusions for ourselves in light of our own investigation and analysis. For, science is a vital part of our common heritage as a civilisation, and what it is, and how it works are matters of historically grounded fact and philosophical discussion on comparative difficulties relative to those facts, not rulings by any officially established or de facto "Magisterium." [Moreover, scientists and teachers are as a rule not at all expert on the detailed ins and outs and resulting balances on the merits of developments and arguments in the various schools of thought on philosophy of science over recent decades.]

2 --> As a matter of fairly easily checked fact, the Kansas definition of 2005, as cited above, reflects longstanding praxis, and the resulting historic general consensus on what science is and should do; without imposing question-begging agendas. This can easily be seen from a look at the sorts of summaries we may read in high quality dictionaries from before the recent attempted imposition of methodological naturalism as an alleged criterion of science vs. non-science or pseudo-science.

3 --> Further to this, I happen to be a reasonably philosophically literate, scientifically trained person who has worked in science and technology education at secondary and tertiary level. Pardon my ignorance if that is what is reflected in my own thoughts on the subject of defining and teaching science, but I must confess that I fail to see which part of good and historically well-warranted scientific praxis over the past three or so centuries is not properly reflected in the 2005 statement: “Science is a systematic method of continuing investigation, that uses observation, hypothesis testing, measurement, experimentation, logical argument and theory building, to lead to more adequate explanations of natural phenomena.”

4 --> The phrase on "blurring the line between scientific and other ways of understanding . . ." reflects, at best, a deep and disqualifying ignorance by the representatives of the NAS and NSTA of the overall result after decades of intense philosophical debate over the demarcation lines between science and non-science. For, there is no set of distinctive approaches to acquiring knowledge and understanding or inferring to best explanation that are universal across the conventionally accepted list of sciences, and/or that are so necessary to, sufficient for and unique to scientific investigation and argument that we may use them to mark a defining line between science and non-science. (For that matter, the real epistemological challenge is not over attaching the prestigious label "science," but over [1] whether we are using sound, effective, reliable and fair methods of inquiry, and [2] the actual degree of warrant that attaches to what we accept as knowledge, however labelled.)

5 --> Further to this, when coupled with the non-disclosure by the two bodies of the effect of imposing the rule that science may only seek "natural causes," such agenda-serving questionable demarcation criteria mislead and can even manipulate the general public on the true status of the relevant theories and factual claims being made on origins science. For, the public at large still believes that science is an unfettered search for the truth about the world in light of evidence, instead of being what the rule enforces: the best evolutionary materialist -- note the censoring constraint -- explanation of the cosmos from hydrogen to humans. Non-disclosure of the effects of such an imposition on the part of responsible parties who know or should know better ["ignorance of the law is no excuse"], on even the most charitable interpretation, must raise questions of deception by gross and culpable negligence. (Such should therefore pause and reflect soberly on "the definition" of this F-word.)

6 --> Next, it is simply and manifestly false that the [Neo-] Darwinian Theory of Evolution is in the same well-tested, abundantly empirically supported category as, say, Newtonian gravitation and mechanics circa 1680 - 1880. (And, let us observe: after about 200 years of being the best supported and most successful scientific theory, the Newtonian synthesis collapsed into being a limiting case at best, in light of unexpected findings in the world of the very small and the very fast; provoking a scientific revolution from about 1900 to 1930 that resulted in Modern Physics. Science is open-ended, provisional and hopefully progressive. A pattern of progres in which theory replacement is art least as prominent as theory refinement.)

7 --> Now, too, Newtonian dynamics was and is about currently and directly observable phenomena, i.e. so-called operational science: what are the evident patterns and underlying ordering principles of the currently operating, observable natural world?

8 --> By contrast, the material part of the Theory of Evolution -- we are not talking about what has been termed microevolution -- is about trying to make a plausible reconstruction of an unobservable, remote past of life based on traces in the present and extrapolation of currently observed or plausible processes and principles. That is, it is an origins science, a fundamentally historical investigation based on principles of inference to best explanation. Its findings and explanations on the reconstructed, extrapolated and projected natural history of life are thus inherently less well tested than those of theories that deal with present accessible and directly observable reality.

9 --> So also, the too often seen tendency to over-claim the degree of warrant for evolutionary reconstructions of the remote past naturally provokes controversies, especially where rhetorical resort is made (often, in the name of "education") to misleading icons. Therefore, broad-brush dismissive claims such as "all modern theories of science are continually tested and verified" -- i.e. in effect confirmed as credibly true for practical purposes -- constitute a highly misleading over-reach. Especially, when these claims are coupled with the imposition of methodological naturalism and non-disclosure of its censoring, worldview-level question-begging effects as pointed out at 5 just above.

10 --> Worse yet, given the primary reference in context of "these standards," all of this is backed up by a subtle -- and on the evidence of events since 2005, successful -- unjustifiable intimidatory threat. For, it is simply not true that students exposed to the traditional, historically well-warranted understanding of what good science is and should strive to be "will not be well-prepared for the rigors of higher education or the demands of an increasingly complex and technologically-driven world."

11 --> Instead, we can note that NAS and NSTA hold significant prestige, and are viewed by a great many people and institutions as responsible, reasonable and authoritative. So, if they refuse their imprimatur to the Kansas Board's work, then it could materially damage the prospects for Kansan students to get into so-called "good" Colleges, jobs, etc. In short, the children of the state were being held hostage by ideologised institutions and associated individuals holding positions of great trust and responsibility, but abjectly failing in their duties of care to truth, disclosure and justice.

12 --> Moreover, all of this was in a situation where a public relations person for an oppositional "grassroots" group, Kansas Citizens For Science [KCFS] in 2005, outlined the following public relations strategy on a KCFS online forum. That forum was moderated by a NCSE member- cum- KCFS leader- cum- state education administrator and Statistics teacher who sat on the experts committee consulted by the Board in 2004 - 5. In October 2004 this committee evidently suppressed the input of the minority. It is that suppressive action that evidently provoked the whistleblowing minority report that is a highly relevant context for the "breakers of rules" accusation in the just below:

My strategy at this point is the same as it was in 1999: notify the national and local media about what's going on and portray them in the harshest light possible, as political opportunists, evangelical activists, ignoramuses, breakers of rules, unprincipled bullies, etc. There may no way to head off another science standards debacle, but we can sure make them look like asses as they do what they do. Our target is the moderates who are not that well educated about the issues, most of whom probably are theistic evolutionists. There is no way to convert the creationists. The solution is really political. [Emphases added. Note the significance of "[o]ur"; this is not just a personal observation, but a longstanding strategy of an ideological movement in dealing with its perceived opponents and the general public.]

In short, in our post-/ultra- modern time -- one in which a certain politician, trying to justify himself in the public mind, notoriously said "It depends on what the definition if 'is,' is . . ." -- the apparently simple question of what science is, is quite prone to ideological manipulation in service to radical evolutionary materialistic agendas.

So, we should be forewarned and forearmed.

[ . . . ]

_____________

Food for sobering thought, methinks. END

Matt 24 watch, 70: the spiritual factor behind evolutionary materialism and the de-christianisation of Western Civilisation

It is now time to reflect on some underlying spiritual factors in the rise of evolutionary materialism, for the ongoing agenda to de-christianise our civilisation is not happening in a spiritual vacuum.

Nor, on the evidence over the past several weeks, is it without serious and damaging consequences.

Indeed, it can be seriously argued and supported with all too abundant factual details, that evolutionary materialism-rooted secular humanism is in effect a quasi-religious establishment that is increasingly tyrannically and damagingly imposed on science, science education, law, public policy, and our civilisation at large by state power. So, when such advocates of a de facto establishment speak -- sometimes (as we saw last week), even from the pulpit -- in terms of defending our civilisation from the "threat" of Bible-quoting, "fundamentalist," potentially violent "theocrats," I find that their case unfortunately too often rings distinctly hollow.

So much so, that I often want to shout from down in the saw-pit below the log being wsawed into planks, as sawdust cascades uncontrollably into my eyes:

"Hey mon, stop! Stop!

That plank in your eyes is blinding you to what you are doing!

Please, please, take it out; then, you can see to help me . . ."

(Again, apologies in advance for those who will find this post painful or even possibly offensive. Please, consider carefully whether whatever may be clumsily put is sufficiently important that it must be considered carefully despite poor wording; even if it is painful to address what one sharply disagrees with. For, not all that is at least potentially right or helpful is agreeably pleasant or easy to deal with. And, if we are finite, fallible, fallen and sometimes ill-disposed to "endure sound doctrine," that may improperly bias how we respond to what is put before us.)

A good place to begin is with a striking Bible passage David C Cooke [sp?] drew my attention to when I read his The Great Brain Robbery back in the 1970's. For, in making his closing remarks in his farewell epistle, the aged and about to be martyred Apostle Peter observed:

2PE 3:3 First of all, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires. 4 They will say, "Where is this `coming' he promised? Ever since our fathers died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation." 5 But they deliberately forget that long ago by God's word the heavens existed and the earth was formed out of water and by water. 6 By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed. 7 By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.

2PE 3:8 But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. 9 The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.

2PE 3:10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare.

2PE 3:11 Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives 12 as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming. That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat. 13 But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness.

Here, Peter predicts that in the last days, scoffers will come, who will mock those who expect a Second Coming of the Messiah and associated eternal judgement before our Creator and Lord, based on their rejection of the concept that God intervenes into the order of the world in powerful, supernatural ways -- in creation, in redemption, in liberation and at length in judgement.

Peter's response (in the face of his upcoming, long since predicted judicial murder) is to note that God's patience should not ever be confused with his absence or lack of interest in us or indifference to injustice.

In that context, it is very interesting indeed to see that at the time of the foundation of modern science, founding scientists sought to read God's book of nature, and to think his thoughts after him; offering their findings in service to man and in worship to God. A glance at Newton's now too often overlooked words in the General Scholium to that greatest of all scientific books, Principia, amply suffices to illustrate this:

. . . This most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being. And if the fixed stars are the centres of other like systems, these, being formed by the like wise counsel, must be all subject to the dominion of One; especially since the light of the fixed stars is of the same nature with the light of the sun, and from every system light passes into all the other systems: and lest the systems of the fixed stars should, by their gravity, fall on each other mutually, he hath placed those systems at immense distances one from another.

This Being governs all things, not as the soul of the world, but as Lord over all; and on account of his dominion he is wont to be called Lord God pantokrator , or Universal Ruler . . . And from his true dominion it follows that the true God is a living, intelligent, and powerful Being; and, from his other perfections, that he is supreme, or most perfect. He is eternal and infinite, omnipotent and omniscient; that is, his duration reaches from eternity to eternity; his presence from infinity to infinity; he governs all things, and knows all things that are or can be done . . .

Science as the very vestibule of worship!

However, Newton's very triumph of identifying apparent universal laws of nature that accurately summed up and predicted the mechanical behaviour of bodies on earth and in the heavens, soon enoutgh led other men of a different temperament to infer that this uniformity extends, lockstep, from origins to the remotest future.

In effect, the view that once there was an initial condition and associated motions, all the future in principle was contained in the inexorable, inescapable laws of nature was soon enough used to try to explain the world without reference to its Creator. In that context, Darwinian evolution appeared to provide a way to account for life and its forms up to and including man, without reference to an intelligent designer: natural selective filtering or culling processes acting on matter ordered by chance and changing under the necessity of mechanical laws seemed "good enough" to many.

Thus, we can now also see the cutting relevance of the Apostle Paul's observations in Romans 1:

20 . . . since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature--have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.

RO 1:21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.

RO 1:24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25 They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator . . . .

RO 1:28 Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. 29 They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31 they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32 Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.

Here, we see:

1 --> From the world without and our own mannishness within, it is sufficiently evident that we form a creation, complete with a moral order.

2 --> So, we have no excuse to reject these inner and outer testimonies and substitute images made to look like various creatures for the Author of Creation. (In Paul's day, such images were commonly found in temples, and were associated with various pagan legends. In ours, we can find very similar images in museums, in the media and in textbooks, associated with the name Science.)

3 --> Furthermore, once we exclude God from the order of what we call knowledge, we find our minds endarkened and that ourt passion spin out of control in slavery to ever increasing evil and perversions.

4 --> At its grim apex, this evil loudly demands that we approve of evil as though it were good.

This all sounds ever so sadly familiar as we look around us, astounded at the claims, arguments and demands being made al around us by all sorts of radical movements and their public advocates.

Part of the response is obvious: we have to expose the now commonly met with imposition on the definition of science that is must seek out and explain only in terms of "natural causes" of what we observe about our world in the present an its origins. Causes that boil down to chance and mechanical necessity acting on matter and energy, so that intelligence can only be accepted as an explanatory factor if it is the product of such forces through a cascade of purposeless, undirected evolutions.

"Imposition"?

Yes.

For, unfortunately, so-called methodological naturalism takes science away from being an unfettered search for the truth about our world based on observation, experiment, hypothesis and empirical testing.

Indeed, it subtly forces scientists -- on pain of damage tot heir careers and reputations -- to try to explain what we see from hydrogen to in terms of evolutionary materialism, instead of their being open to the full range of possible causal factors that have -- or even simply could have -- been at work in our world across the ages and up to today: chance, lawlike mechanical necessity, agency. (In particular, it arbitrarily shuts the mouth of the many signs of intelligent design in the world, from the finely tuned life facilitating order of our universe's underlying physics, to the intricate functionally specified complexity in cell based life, to the huge increments in information required to generate body plan level diverity in life, to even how we may best account for the credibility of the minds we have to use to even practice science.)

Another part, is that we need to see that we are inescapably moral. Indeed, we quarrel when we believe our rights have been violated. As C S Lewis and others aptly note, in so quarrelling, we appeal to our dignity and the binding nature of moral obligation: my right to life, liberty, reputation etc means you have a duty to respect my life, liberty, reputation etc.

But, where does such a dignified status come from, that the humblest and weakest of us may rightfully expect even the most powerful to treat us properly, i.e. justly and even kindly?

The only enduring answer to that is that we are all made in God's image, and so are endowed by our common Creator with inalienable rights.

Indeed, as we have looked at over the past several weeks, the sad record of the century just past is that once our civilisation walked away from that insight, ruthless chaos was loosed and resulted in mass murders on an utterly unprecedented scale; often motivated by a contempt for perceived evolutionary inferiors. [Just as was foreseen by Darwin himself or even by H G Wells.]

So, we must now turn to the question of reforming our view of science, setting it back on a sounder foundation, and grounding the credibility of our minds and the civilising force of binding moral obligation.

So, so long until next time . . . END