Matt 24 watch, 179k: One day after being praised by US President Obama for helping with getting a ceasefire, Egypt's president Morsi decrees that his rulings are beyond judicial review -- disturbing parallels with the history of the political F-word movements (i.e. with Fascist political messianism)

In politics, "Fascism" seems to now be a new forbidden F-word. 

Extremely loaded and not to be said in polite company, given its grim associations and the perceived tendency to rhetorically over-use this comparison.

Unfortunately, that reaction tends to miss the problem that political messianism is a serious, virulent and recurring political epidemic. 

Where also, the associated would-be political messiahs too often are tempted to act as ruthless, amoral, even nihilistic "might and manipulation make right . . . " dictatorial supermen (in the Nietzschean sense). 

Such ruthless, amoral supermen project themselves as -- in the face of the "unprecedented crisis" -- needing to be above the normal restraints of law and morality; personifying allegedly superhuman wisdom and embodying the all-powerful all-dominating state that is the means of rescue for the core mass-groups that identify with their leader, his vision and movement. And, their mesmerised followers tend to blindly go along with the seizing of dictatorial powers in the cult-like expectation and hope that the state embodied in the superhuman messianistic leader can work miracles of deliverance and empowerment.

But, I have just summarised the heart of fascism. 

(In short,we need to be very aware of how easy it is to slip into not only the idolatry of political messianism that puts the state and its leadership in the place of the only true Saviour, but also onward into its most virulent, destructive form. Fascism. Where, once we recognise the strongly statist focus of Fascism -- recall, Mussolini: "All within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state " -- we can see that the "personality cult" forms of Communism were very much in the same mould as classic fascism. If you doubt me, ask the ghosts of the victims of Lenin, Stalin, Mao et al, even Fidel Castro. And yes, I refuse to accept Stalin's talking point that would shift Fascism to the "right wing." Fascism is a statist system multiplied by the personality cult of the messianistic leader, and with the street smarts to strike for-the-moment deals with existing interests based on balance of power, and it then proceeds to dominate such once absolute power is in hand. It is not for nothing that Mussolini had been a major Socialist voice in Italy before incorporating nationalism and the personality cult to form the movement he termed fascism by way of comparing it to Imperial Rome. Similarly, we should never forget that Nazi is actually an abbreviation for a fuller name: National Socialist German Workers Party. Where also in the 1930's the Comintern -- Communist International -- refused to use the term "Nazi," precisely because of its socialist reference.)

In that context, we must now recall how Hitler seized dictatorial power in Germany, seventy-nine years ago. 

Just one month after Hitler came to power, on 27 February 1933, the German house of parliament, the Reichstag was set on fire [it turns out, by a half-mad Dutchman who was a fringe communist]. This was immediately eagerly seized upon by the Nazi leadership and their propagandists, as a way to wave the Red Menace flag, and to panic the elected representatives of the German people. These, then granted Hitler an Enabling Act, giving him power to rule by decree until April 1st, 1937. And, duly, this act of legitimising dictatorship was then renewed as required by what became little more than a handy rubber stamp for the Fuhrer's will.

Now, what just happened in Egypt seems quite tellingly, chillingly parallel. 

As BBC recounts in a Nov 22, 2012 article:

Egypt's President Mohammed Mursi has issued a declaration banning challenges to his decrees, laws and decisions.

The declaration also says no court can dissolve the constituent assembly, which is drawing up a new constitution.

President Mursi also sacked the chief prosecutor and ordered the retrial of people accused of attacking protesters when ex-President Mubarak held office . . . .

President Mursi said his decree was aimed at "cleansing state institutions" and "destroying the infrastructure of the old regime".

The declaration also gives the 100-member constituent assembly two additional months to draft a new constitution, to replace the one suspended after President Mubarak was overthrown.

The re-write of the constitution, which was meant to be finished by December, has been plagued by dozens of lawsuits questioning the make-up of the constituent assembly. 

Once completed, the document should then be put to a referendum. If it is approved, legislative elections will be held two months later.

Last month, the Supreme Constitutional Court rejected a first draft released by the assembly, saying that it tried to limit the courts' powers and interfere in judicial affairs.

The re-writing process had already been slowed by a court ruling in April suspending the first constituent assembly, amid accusations that it was dominated by Islamists.

In June, political parties agreed on the make-up of a new panel, which included a range of politicians, members of the armed forces, police, judiciary and trade unions, as well as Muslim and Christian leaders.

However, liberals continued to complain about the distribution of seats and have not withdrawn their 43 legal challenges to the assembly's constitutional legitimacy.

The assembly has welcomed Mr Mursi's declaration, saying it would help put an end to the ongoing row over the panel's fate.

Of course, a wave of protests has arisen, and the Nobel Peace Prize co-holding Mr Mohammed El Baradei (former head of the UN Atomic Energy agency and as such holder of the prize given to that body) has protested that "Mursi today usurped all state powers and appointed himself Egypt's new pharaoh. A major blow to the revolution that could have dire consequences."

 But -- also "of course" -- that is exactly what typically happens with radical revolutions: the most ruthless factions seize power and steamroller opposition. So, while protests by objectors have indeed happened, we must note that the Islamists have now been called out to the streets as well.

Where, as we look at the underlying issue, the pushing through of a new IslamiSM dominated constitution over the objections of those most threatened by it, we see how Mr Morsi is clearly setting up  an IslamIST dictatorship with undue influence of the Sharia. 

The same Quran- and hadith- driven Sharia that reduces non-Muslims and women to subject status, and sets up a theocratic dictatorship. One, with the main task to spread Islam by force. A framework of law, that especially targets Jews as the enemies of Islam, and where we see the infamous Gharqad tree hadith as embedded in Clause 7 of the Hamas covenant, Hamas being the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Let us not forget what it says:

 The Day of Judgment will not come until Muslims fight the Jews, when the Jew will hide behind the stones and trees. The stones and trees will say, ‘O Muslims, O Abdullah [= slave of Allah], there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.

 So, we must understand what is possible, even crouching at the door for the 80-million population of Egypt, especially the millions of Christian Copts.

Plainly, the widely hailed "Arab Spring" is rapidly turning into a destructive IslamIST winter. END

Matt 24 watch, 181: Understanding the global and regional threat of radical IslamISM

Over the past little while, we have been looking at the challenges facing the Caribbean in light of the tidal wave of De-Christianisation from the North driven by the rise of evolutionary materialist secular humanism, and in light of the tidal wave from the east, driven by radical IslamISM:

One of my concerns since the mid 1990's, when I first realised that we face this double-tidal wave threat, is that it is hard for us to understand what is going on, especially for the second wave. We simply have had little or no experience of radical IslamISM in our region -- apart from the Coup attempt by Abu Bakr in Trinidad in 1990 -- and we are far more inclined to imagine that the "real" threat may well be "those dangerous right-wing Bible-thumping fundamentalists."

Indeed, when confronted with events like the 9-11 attacks, that was the default explanation, that what we were seeing was a fringe phenomenon in Islam akin to the far more real and present threat in our region, "Fundamentalist" Christian faith. For instance, here is the Rev'd Rod Hewitt in Jamaica's Gleaner newspaper, only a few weeks after the 9-11 attacks:

The human tragedy in USA has also served to bring into sharp focus the use of terror by religious fanatics/fundamentalists. Fundamentalism or fundamentalists are terms that are applicable to every extreme conservative in every religious system . . . . During the twentieth century in particular we have seen the rise of militant expression of these faiths by extreme conservatives who have sought to respond to what they identify as 'liberal' revisions that have weakened the fundamentals of their faith . . . They opt for a belligerent, militant and separatist posture in their public discourse that can easily employ violence to achieve their goals.  [Gleaner, Sept. 26, 2001, italics added.]

By Jan 1st 2003, in the same newspaper, the Rev Hewitt went on to accuse:

The USA and its local allies . . . sought to empower the younger churches that have been planted by missionaries from the USA conservative 'Bible Belt' region. [sic] The high number of new denominations that were incorporated in Jamaica during the 1980s speaks volume to this perspective. 

Some of these younger churches . . .  were empowered . . . to counter the influence of liberation theology [NB: link to 1984 Vatical Encyclical added] with a traditional fundamentalist theology . . . .  many of the younger churches saw their fight/struggle with the older churches as saving the true church from 'a serious heresy/error' in which leaders were making too many concessions to the secular world and its godless ideology of socialism and the rationalising influences . . .  They unleashed the religious version of capitalism with its emphasis on rampant individualism, innovative worship and being prosperous at all cost. 

The phenomenal rise in charismatic and newer forms of evangelical churches saw some church leaders functioning like TV stars . . . Salvation became totally privatised. Christ came to change individuals without similar emphasis being invested in salvation of the community.

Frankly, that is an unjustified and even slanderous smear against Bible believing Christians. 

The difference between members of "The Church of the Firstborn in Christ, Bible-believing and Spirit Anointed" or the like and murderous terrorists bent on hijacking and crashing aircraft full of ordinary people going about the ordinary business of life into skyscrapers full of similar people, is undeniable to the point that to make the sort of immoral equivalency equation we just saw, is blatantly inexcusable.  

Similarly, while indeed there have been cases of excessive concern with material wealth and there have been heretical prosperity preachers -- who are duly rebuked by quite eminent Evangelical leaders for their folly and error -- to imply or hint that to doubt that socialist solutions are the best for Jamaica is a betrayal of Jamaica verging on treason is outrageous. To cavalierly dismiss serious concerns over where modernist theology and its fellow-traveller movements have been taking us, is worse than outrageous. And, we should realise that societies are soul-less abstractions, it is people who are en-souled and can be saved, sanctified and empowered to lead in reformation of communities, as abundant history will at once confirm.

Sadly, to my knowledge, this has never been apologised for or retracted, and unfortunately, the misperceptions and subtext of contempt are still all too common. That is sad.

Having cleared away some misconceptions, let us now examine a snippet from Obsession, a video that documents the threat of radical IslamISM which can help us to understand the scope of the second tidal wave:



(The full form video is available here from Amazon. YouTube hosts full length versions here and elsewhere.)

Another video documentary worth watching -- it gives background on the roots of radical IslamISM -- is Islam: What the West Needs to Know. This video, for instance, explains the impact of the principle of Abrogation, which implies that the later Median teachings of an expansionist polygamous warlord with a large and growing harem take precedence over the earlier peaceful pleas of the powerless preacher of Mecca who in 622 AD then fled to Yathrib (renamed Medina) to become that warlord:



To find out more, you may wish to work your way through the resources linked from this blog in the right hand column:

• Understanding & addressing Islam (and IslamISM):
• Apol Primer, on Islam, the Gospel and the Caribbean
• Coptic Fr Zachariah Boutros of Egypt responds to Islam
• Vickie Jahnson responds to islamisation by politically correct curricula (also relevant to the PC portrayals in the media)
• Barbados Declaration, 2003, on Islam, the Gospel & the Caribbean
• On The Islamist end-times black flag armies
• The IslamIST religiously motivated, anti-semitic (yes, not merely "anti-Zionist") incitement to genocide problem
• Nehls & Eric on Islam as it is
• N & E on Responding to debate points
• The McDowell & Gilchrist vs Deedat Debate on Islam
• faithfreedom.org --ex Muslims respond to radical Islam

We need to inform ourselves, clear our minds of many gaps, confusions and misleading claims, to understand and act in response to the threat of IslamISM. END

Romans 1 reply, 18: A case study on the unfortunate implications of radical subjectivism and relativism, which have been occasioned by the rise of modern and post modern skepticism and speculation (being contrasted with the concept of undeniable ethical facts and the universality of the Golden Rule as an ethical touchstone)

Sometimes, a case study teaches better than anything else. So, without further ado other than noting how this is highly relevant to what is going on on the world stage at this time, let me clip a case in point from UD -- adding colour to highlight my replies to BD -- from a wider discussion of Dawkins' dismissal of Jesus (which has also already come up in this series at KF, here):

____________

>> First of all, those of us who are clever, glib and educated have a different level of duty of care to the truth, the right and more, than those who are not. And, in particular, we have a duty to avoid the error of the rhetor, whereby we use clever tactics to manipulate the unwary into thinking the worse the better case, as Jefferson famously observed on. 

As an example, Rousseau — a famous predecessor of some of your focus on the emotive as a pivot of operation and substitute for sound moral and social etc analysis rooted in first facts and first principles of right reason — bears some intellectual responsibility for the ease with which his remarks could be used to undermine legitimate authority and restraint, and lend support to the sort of radical, nihilist factions that eventually led a reign of terror in France. As Solomon pointed out 3,000 years ago, words are powerful for life and death and we who wield such weapons must do so with due prudence and restraint. 

Let us pause to consider Burke’s strictures on the man, duly balancing for the aristocratic tendencies in that writer, and an observation in his letter to a member of the French National Assembly in 1791:

I had good opportunities of knowing [Rousseau's] proceedings [during his brief exile in the British Isles c 1766] almost from day to day and he left no doubt in my mind that he entertained no principle either to influence his heart or to guide his understanding, but vanity . . . .

A moral taste . . . infinitely abates the evils of vice. Rousseau, a writer of great force and vivacity, is totally destitute of taste in any sense of the word. Your masters [i.e., the leaders of the Revolution], who are his scholars, conceive that all refinement has an aristocratic character. The last age had exhausted all its powers in giving a grace and nobleness to our mutual appetites, and in raising them into a higher class and order than seemed justly to belong to them. Through Rousseau, your masters are resolved to destroy these aristocratic prejudices.

Please, do not forget, men like Robespierre saw themselves as inspired by Rousseau, and as carrying forth that general will of the people that in the end even forces men to be free. Do not ever forget the motto of the Revolution, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity — themes that come from that same philosopher and do not ever forget how it ended in terror and tyranny as the ruthless rose to power amidst bloody chaos and then plunged all of Europe and far beyond into war.

Please, please, please, pause long enough to listen to the ghosts of history, lest you commit again the blunders that promote that which led to their unjust slaughter. (And, as a side comment, that is exactly what I see going on in the current Arab Spring uprisings and the irresponsible fostering of such. All of this, as the vultures gather, again.)

That leads me to now turn to what with all due respect I must highlight as your superficially appealing, emotively manipulative, ill-judged and irresponsible, even self-refuting (but tellingly triumphalistic and self-congratulatory), remarks just above:

I have taken myself out of the poisonous and lethal paradigm of judgment, censure, and condemnation, and its offspring of violence and destruction. I have shifted from being part of the problem to being part of the solution.

How ironic, and fatally self-refuting, is the fact that these very words positively drip with the censure, condemnation, self-congratulation and judgementalism that they purport to expose and dismiss.

They also lack the basic responsibility that recognises that whether we are in a small community in a rural area, or a great city or a nation or the world, we have to deal with the hard fact of the bully grown up, not to mention the predatory wolf-pack grown up. In the school yard or the neighbourhood, the bully does no respect appeals to reason or respect, only sufficient force to bring him up short. Hopefully, he will then amend his ways. And, in the community, the city or nation or the world, we have to deal with aggressive criminals and ideologies or simply pirates of one sort or another. 

That is why we have police forces who need to be at least as well armed and to be better trained and disciplined than those they have to deal with, it is why we need courts and laws, and it is a major part of why we need governments. It is why we need armed forces, and it is why we need peaceful elections and systems for no-confidence motions, impeachment and trial that can remove failed government within the period of elections. Yes, all of these can be abused (hence checks and balances in a world of the finite, fallible, fallen and morally struggling who are too often ill-willed), but without them, and without the check they provide, we would live in a bloody chaos.

So, there you sit at your keyboard, deriding and dismissing that which you depend on for your own enjoyment of the civil peace of justice. Think about what you are doing, please.

In short, I point out that your view as just cited, fails the Categorical Imperative test. While being oh so cleverly self-congratulatory on its MORAL superiority — yes, that is there too — it is patently unsustainable as a general principle for the community. Please, think again.

Next, you have pointed me to several places where you respond to my key case, regarding how it is undeniably wrong that someone were to abduct, torture, rape and kill an innocent child, that is, it OUGHT not to be done, as an example of the facts of morality and the linked point that we are morally governed creatures who cannot escape the issue of OUGHT.

Allow me to clip no 18 as one of the cases from above, and again mark up on points, to again — there was adequate answer above, but there seems to be a problem on your part in attending to corrective reply, hence (with all due respect) the tendency to repeat the same inaccurate or failed points over and over — illustrate the problem:

The whole idea of morality for religious people, Christian or otherwise,

a –> Starts by trying to poison the well, dismissing morality as a notion of “religious people,” who in all too commonly encountered attitudes, are seen as essentially irrational. In effect, you have dragged a red herring of despised religiosity across to a strawman religious figure, soaked in ad hominems which you intend to set alight, creating a poisonous choking and polarising cloud that confuses the issue and frustrates serious discussion. [I won't even bother to highlight that religion is a vast topic and that there are many, many religions that come from such diverse worldviews that one cannot seriously and honestly make such a broad-brush lumping together. I will only hint for now on the point that the undeniable reality of error reflective of how we are finite, fallible, morally struggling and too often ill-willed, brings to bear a duty of care to the truth and the right that can be ducked or can be failed; but this does not imply that all is chaos and confusion and truth does not stand out clearly enough if we are willing to seek it seriously. That undeniable reality of error is in fact the first undeniable and self evident truth that can help us clear up many confusions, as the next linked discussion on grounding worldviews will show.]

is that

[Citing KF, original post:] the only valid worldview in a world in which OUGHT is real, is one that has a foundational IS that adequately grounds ought.

b –> You have simply rhetorically ducked and brushed away the matter of the quite serious discussion on the grounding of worldviews [and note how with KN the issue came back to an implicit foundation, as the raft and spaceship metaphors inadvertently showed], and the question of the reality of ought as is captured in the key example or the like.

c –> The crucial issue you are studiously brushing aside is that we find ourselves morally governed, and that we cannot escape this — your own case as just discussed gives abundant illustration as to how you yourself cannot escape.

For religious people, that “Is”, obviously, is God. God’s existence grounds morality because God tells us what is good behavior and what is sin.

d –> Strawman. The starting issue is, that we find ourselves morally obligated, as can be ascertained as abundantly obvious fact, e.g. consider how we quarrel, i.e. habitually by trying to show one another in the wrong, and/or excusing oneself. We just don’t find ourselves — apart form a few monsters — saying shut up you sheep and slide down my throat nicely.

e –> This presents us with the reality of being morally governed, which your own rhetoric above shows, quite plainly. So OUGHT is real. That means that when we go about worldview shopping, we need to kick some tires and see that in particular, we must have an IS in the foundation of whatever view we take up [and remember how the worldview raft under continual partial repair sits on the foundation of not only the water but the principle and forces of floatation], that can properly ground OUGHT. And, that is a matter of philosophical discussion [--> cf a 101 that addresses morality, here], prior to any particular species of religious commitment per particular doctrines, traditions and texts.

f –> What you are doing in short, is to try to duck addressing a philosophical issue that is inconvenient — the Hume Guillotine issue on the IS-OUGHT gap that leads to Anscombe’s point that unless an IS that grounds OUGHT is in the foundation or root of our worldview, forever after it will be an ungrounded injection. {Let me add a clip from Arthur Holmes on this:

However we may define the good, however well we may calculate consequences, to whatever extent we may or may not desire certain consequences, none of this of itself implies any obligation of command. That something is or will be does not imply that we ought to seek it. We can never derive an “ought” from a premised “is” unless the ought is somehow already contained in the premise . . . .
R. M. Hare . . . raises the same point. Most theories, he argues, simply fail to account for the ought that commands us: subjectivism reduces imperatives to statements about subjective states, egoism and utilitarianism reduce them to statements about consequences, emotivism simply rejects them because they are not empirically verifiable, and determinism reduces them to causes rather than commands . . . .

Elizabeth Anscombe’s point is well made. We have a problem introducing the ought into ethics unless, as she argues, we are morally obligated by law – not a socially imposed law, ultimately, but divine law . . . . This is precisely the problem with modern ethical theory in the West . . . it has lost the binding force of divine commandments. [Ethics: Approaching Moral Decisions (Downers Grove, IL: 1984), pp. 70 – 72.]}

g –> And, when I have suggested that a serious candidate to be that IS (the only one in the end that has had any reasonable prospect of success — which you seem to wish to brush aside) is the inherently good, loving and wise architect of our world, the creator God, I am here only at the God of the Philosophers [on the table since at least "that Bible-thumping fundy": NOT -- Plato]. But, an ad hominem soaked strawman ignited through clever suggestions is so much more convenient to dismiss . . .

But does He? The problem with this ethical position is that God clearly has not communicated to us this distinction at all.

 h –> Thus speaks the ever-wise BD, ex cathedra even. Sorry, if we want a more credible and thoughtful source on the subject, let’s first turn to Locke in the intro to the essay on human understanding, Section 5:

Men have reason to be well satisfied with what God hath thought fit for them, since he hath given them (as St. Peter says [NB: i.e. 2 Pet 1:2 - 4]) pana pros zoen kaieusebeian, whatsoever is necessary for the conveniences of life and information of virtue; and has put within the reach of their discovery, the comfortable provision for this life, and the way that leads to a better. How short soever their knowledge may come of an universal or perfect comprehension of whatsoever is, it yet secures their great concernments [Prov 1: 1 - 7], that they have light enough to lead them to the knowledge of their Maker, and the sight of their own duties [cf Rom 1 - 2 & 13, Ac 17, Jn 3:19 - 21, Eph 4:17 - 24, Isaiah 5:18 & 20 - 21, Jer. 2:13,  Titus 2:11 - 14 etc, etc]. Men may find matter sufficient to busy their heads, and employ their hands with variety, delight, and satisfaction, if they will not boldly quarrel with their own constitution, and throw away the blessings their hands are filled with, because they are not big enough to grasp everything . . . It will be no excuse to an idle and untoward servant [Matt 24:42 - 51], who would not attend his business by candle light, to plead that he had not broad sunshine. The Candle that is set up in us [Prov 20:27] shines bright enough for all our purposes . . . If we will disbelieve everything, because we cannot certainly know all things, we shall do muchwhat as wisely as he who would not use his legs, but sit still and perish, because he had no wings to fly. [Text references added to document the sources of Locke's allusions and citations.]

i –> Here we see a noted philosopher, whose legacy is grounding modern democracy and liberty in the self-governing community and nation state showing how to properly use the resources of a religious tradition in a philosophical discussion.

j –> And, when we turn to his pivotal argument that anchors the civil peace of justice and grounds the legitimate and lawful state in the community as the guardian of justice, here we find him citing “the judicious [Anglican Canon Richard] Hooker” in his famous 2nd essay on civil government, Ch 2 sect 5 — and I will continue the cite, as it shows Hooker using a famous pagan philosopher, Aristotle in Nicomachean Ethics, to underscore his point about how we do in fact have a very widespread consensus on core morality:

. . . if I cannot but wish to receive good, even as much at every man’s hands, as any man can wish unto his own soul, how should I look to have any part of my desire herein satisfied, unless myself be careful to satisfy the like desire which is undoubtedly in other men . . . my desire, therefore, to be loved of my equals in Nature, as much as possible may be, imposeth upon me a natural duty of bearing to themward fully the like affection. From which relation of equality between ourselves and them that are as ourselves, what several rules and canons natural reason hath drawn for direction of life no man is ignorant . . . [[Hooker then continues, citing Aristotle in The Nicomachean Ethics, Bk 8:] as namely, That because we would take no harm, we must therefore do none; That since we would not be in any thing extremely dealt with, we must ourselves avoid all extremity in our dealings; That from all violence and wrong we are utterly to abstain, with such-like . . . ] [[Eccl. Polity,preface, Bk I, "ch." 8, p.80]

j' –> Unless and until you can overturn such principles as widely understood, and as particularly evident in our quarrels, then your dismissal of the case collapses. The widespread existence of statements of the Golden and/or Silver Rule [that pivot on recognising the equal moral value of the other so the principle of mutual respect appears {Cf here and cases here, also a course unit here}], is a first strong evidence that you have widely missed the mark here.

k –> That we may often err or stumble does not imply that we do not have adequate means to hand to persistently seek, know and do the right. And since you evidently have a particular distaste for Christian expressions of morality, let me cite an often overlooked bit of that “obscure epistle”: NOT, by Paul, that is so foundational to Christian theology and moral thought (which are inseparable, whatever the judges in the recent Owen and Eunice Johns case in the UK may wish to imagine or cleverly assert, the better to rob those they object to of their freedom of conscience . . . ):

Rom 2:6 God “will give to each person according to what he has done.” 7 To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life. 8 But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger . . . . 14 (Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law, 15 since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them.) . . . .

13:8 Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for he who loves his fellowman has fulfilled the law. 9 The commandments, “Do not commit adultery,” “Do not murder,” “Do not steal,” “Do not covet,” and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this one rule: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” 10 Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.

11 And do this, understanding the present time. The hour has come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. 12 The night is nearly over; the day is almost here. So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light. 13 Let us behave decently, as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy. 14 Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature. [NIV '84]

The evidence for this assertion is that every sect of every religion has its own version of what sin is.

k' [oops . . . ] –> Strawman being set up . . .

In Catholicism, use of contraception is a sin, whereas in most protestant sects it is not. In some Christian belief, homosexual acts constitute sinning, while in others they do not. (This is true even within certain sects, witness the controversy in the Episcopal church surrounding the sexual orientation of Bishop Gene Robinson.)

l –> The Catholics have a case in moral philosophy, not scripture as such on that. They may be wrong, but that does not mean that this means anything more than that we may err. To put this next to a case of blatant apostasy that would push aside strictures in the text that directly address a specific perversion of the Creation order for family and sexuality, shows a failure of seriousness.

To many Christians, abortion is murder, to others it is not a sin at all.

m –> Again, a confusion between opinion and what is right [mere disagreement does not disprove the existence of that which is objectively right, an error of subjectivism and radical relativism], but here on a subject where the implications are beginning to be evident all around us: abortion having fallen in many powerful but increasingly perverted and corrupted institutions, the erosion of the value of human life is proceeding apace as there has been injected the destructive notion that there is life unworthy or life, “Lebensunwertes Leben.” So, we see infanticide, euthanasia and looming through the mists, the whole-scale elimination of those deemed not fit to live by the powerful.

The unborn child at six weeks, six days
showing head, eyes, hand (and with
the beating heart visible, cf. here.)

n –> The unborn child is indisputably human, indeed half the time such a child is not even of the same sex as his mother. So, we have no moral right to deem the unborn child “Lebensunwertes Leben.” Nor the infant, nor the diseased or disabled, nor the elderly, nor Jews nor those of my own race, etc etc. (I hope you have enough sense to be ashamed.)

These are just three of many, many examples of Christian ethical beliefs that contradict one another.

o –> A confusion of the existence of error and disagreement for the non-existence of that which is correct. The very undeniable reality of error itself is the grounds on which such collapses. For, it is undeniable on pain of necessarily providing a counter-example and refuting itself, that error exists. So, truth, and indeed truth knowable even to undeniable certainty exists. hence, radical relativism that reduces truth to mere opinion collapses.

p –> And, by focussing on points of disagreement on moral truth, you have sought to divert attention from cases that there is no reasonable dispute on. For instance, the very focal case that you have been challenged with ever so often in this thread and have repeatedly ducked: we ought not to abduct, torture, rape and murder an innocent child.

q –> As has repeatedly been seen, the most you can say is, “that’s unloving,” emotively exploiting the MORAL content of neighbour love, while refusing to acknowledge that moral content and how it governs even you.

I have not even addressed the differences in ethical imperatives between Christian faiths and the other religious traditions.

r –> The same error of refusing to examine consensus and highlighting cases of disagreement on the rhetorical pretence that different opinion disestablishes truth.

If God really did have a set of ethical guidelines that He wants us all to follow, wouldn’t He have made it clear to all human beings what those guidelines are?

s –> You have had abundant opportunity to see that there is indeed a consensus on key cases, and that there is a wider pattern of core morality that is in common and shows that we are morally governed by the force of ought, but you wish to rhetorically brush it aside. Please, consider the consequences of such folly as highlighted by Plato in the Laws, Bk X, 2350 years ago — and notice, this is obviously a pagan speaking and testifying to the moral government of humanity and what happens when it was ignored:

Ath. . . . [[The avant garde philosophers and poets, c. 360 BC] say that fire and water, and earth and air [[i.e the classical "material" elements of the cosmos], all exist by nature and chance, and none of them by art, and that as to the bodies which come next in order-earth, and sun, and moon, and stars-they have been created by means of these absolutely inanimate existences. The elements are severally moved by chance and some inherent force according to certain affinities among them-of hot with cold, or of dry with moist, or of soft with hard, and according to all the other accidental admixtures of opposites which have been formed by necessity. After this fashion and in this manner the whole heaven has been created, and all that is in the heaven, as well as animals and all plants, and all the seasons come from these elements, not by the action of mind, as they say, or of any God, or from art, but as I was saying, by nature and chance only. [[In short, evolutionary materialism premised on chance plus necessity acting without intelligent guidance on primordial matter is hardly a new or a primarily "scientific" view! Notice also, the trichotomy of causal factors:  (a) chance/accident, (b) mechanical necessity of nature, (c) art or intelligent design and direction.] . . . .

[[Thus, they hold that t]he Gods exist not by nature, but by art, and by the laws of states, which are different in different places, according to the agreement of those who make them; and that the honourable is one thing by nature and another thing by law, and that the principles of justice have no existence at all in nature, but that mankind are always disputing about them and altering them; and that the alterations which are made by art and by law have no basis in nature, but are of authority for the moment and at the time at which they are made.- [[Relativism, too, is not new; complete with its radical amorality rooted in a worldview that has no foundational IS that can ground OUGHT. (Cf. here for Locke's views and sources on a very different base for grounding liberty as opposed to license and resulting anarchistic "every man does what is right in his own eyes" chaos leading to tyranny. )] These, my friends, are the sayings of wise men, poets and prose writers, which find a way into the minds of youth. They are told by them that the highest right is might [[ Evolutionary materialism leads to the promotion of amorality], and in this way the young fall into impieties, under the idea that the Gods are not such as the law bids them imagine; and hence arise factions [[Evolutionary materialism-motivated amorality "naturally" leads to continual contentions and power struggles; cf. dramatisation here],  these philosophers inviting them to lead a true life according to nature, that is, to live in real dominion over others [[such amoral factions, if they gain power, "naturally" tend towards ruthless tyranny], and not in legal subjection to them. 

Can you imagine anything more cruel than setting up rules of behavior along with punishment of an eternity in Hell for violating them, and then not making it crystal clear and unambiguous to all human beings exactly what those rules are?

t –> Strawman, soaked in ad hominems and ignited through snide dismissals. God is just, and there is quirte evident warrant for the core principles of morality as already was outlined and as can be accessed in materials that are not hard to find. That those who willfully choose to disregard the evident truth and the right and willfully do that which is oppressive, exploitative and destructive should face eternal accountability for same, is just.

u –> As for the doctrine of a place of eternal separation from God, kindly observe the primary example and illustration that our Lord gave: Gehenna, the ill-managed city dump south of Jerusalem which was doubtless almost always afire from spontaneous combustion and/or fires set to get rid of particularly offensive rubbish. It is quite evident that God is just to provide a place where those who reject him can set up their own world. That it deteriorates into the chaos of an ill-managed dump — as so easily tends to happen here on earth when men forget God and his justice — is their fault, not his.

Do you doubt that an omnipotent and omniscient God could not have done so if He had wished to?

v –> With all due respect, I must correct. For, having shut your eyes firmly to lock out the blatantly obvious, you now complain against him who gave you eyelids to use for a better purpose. If you will not heed Paul above, then at least heed Locke in his warning on the candle that is set up in us that shines brightly enough for all our purposes:

Men have reason to be well satisfied with what God hath thought fit for them, since he hath given them (as St. Peter says [NB: i.e. 2 Pet 1:2 - 4]) pana pros zoen kaieusebeian, whatsoever is necessary for the conveniences of life and information of virtue; and has put within the reach of their discovery, the comfortable provision for this life, and the way that leads to a better. How short soever their knowledge may come of an universal or perfect comprehension of whatsoever is, it yet secures their great concernments [Prov 1: 1 - 7], that they have light enough to lead them to the knowledge of their Maker, and the sight of their own duties [cf Rom 1 - 2 & 13, Ac 17, Jn 3:19 - 21, Eph 4:17 - 24, Isaiah 5:18 & 20 - 21, Jer. 2:13,  Titus 2:11 - 14 etc, etc]. Men may find matter sufficient to busy their heads, and employ their hands with variety, delight, and satisfaction, if they will not boldly quarrel with their own constitution, and throw away the blessings their hands are filled with, because they are not big enough to grasp everything . . . It will be no excuse to an idle and untoward servant [Matt 24:42 - 51], who would not attend his business by candle light, to plead that he had not broad sunshine. The Candle that is set up in us [Prov 20:27] shines bright enough for all our purposes . . . If we will disbelieve everything, because we cannot certainly know all things, we shall do muchwhat as wisely as he who would not use his legs, but sit still and perish, because he had no wings to fly. [Text references added to document the sources of Locke's allusions and citations.]

Here’s an alternative possibility: God is not interested in morality—morality is a human invention and a human preoccupation. Rather, God is interested in the expansion of love in the Universe. If we want to act in concert with God’s will, we will not be asking “What is the right thing to do?” Instead, we will be asking “What is the loving thing to do?”

w –> Having gone around the circle of your rhetoric a couple of times, triumphantly you announce your pre-determined conclusion that does not even see how it undermines itself. Please, please, please, think again and do better.

We are each of us made in the “image and likeness” of God. If one wishes to access our God-like nature, one of the ways to do so is to live in the question, “What would Love do now?” and act accordingly.

x –> Which immediately leads tot he moral content of the principle of neighbour love, as you know or should know. But refuse to acknowledge.

I trust that this example is sufficient to call you to rethink. You are making yourself into a poster-child of what goes wrong when we let radical subjectivism and relativism in the door.

Please, please, please, think again.>>
____________

Ideas -- especially morally tinged ideas -- have consequences, and we have a duty of care to see that our ideas are as sound as possible as a result. Radical relativism and linked emotive subjectivism patently do not meet that test. But unfortunately, rhetoric exists as that destructive art that can make the worse seem the better case, and the better seem the worse. So, let us beware. END

PS: I have notified of poster-child status, here.

Matt 24 watch, 179i: "There is no substitute for victory" -- why the latest ceasefire/truce is doomed to fail, and why defending one's civilian population on the installment plan against genocidal opponents cannot work

Hamas et al plainly view the achievement of a ceasefire as a victory, i.e. they see the pressure from the Obama administration used to get the premature ceasefire as stopping Israel from defeating them, so that they can get back to business as usual:  

terrorism that targets Israeli civilians, behind the shield of the people of Gaza held hostage. 

And in particular -- given that the pivotal point used to enforce the halt obviously was that a ground invasion by Israel would cause civilian deaths in Gaza -- they have been reinforced in their view that targetting civilians while using one's own civilians as human shields is an effective strategy. 

This is of course a double war-crime.

Not that you would learn this from the major international news and views coverage.

Geller has captured Hamas Tweets that show the underlying attitude of the terrorists:

Alqassam Brigades ‏@AlqassamBrigade
Oh, Zionists, #Netanyahu's government dragging you for hell, you have the choice whether to stay in hell or escape, go back home in Germany. 
 

Alqassam Brigades ‏@AlqassamBrigade

We told you #IDF that our blessed hands will reach your leaders and soldiers wherever they are, "You opened the Gates of Hell on Yourselves"

"Go back home to Germany" is of course a lie -- most Israeli Jews are or are directly descended from the 820,000 Jews of the Middle East driven out by Arab states in the aftermath of the UN partition vote in 1947, the genocidal attack by five Arab armies under the Arab League in May 1948, and Israel's victory. So, Israel is first and foremost legitimate as a land of settlement of refugees who cannot go "home" to genocidal Arab countries. The pretence that Israel is a racist colonial settlement from Germany etc is a lie.

The tweets also make it plain that Hamas views the ceasefire as having saved them so that they can renew the conflict later on their own terms -- as Mohammed did with a truce with Mecca (i.e. he broke it at a time of his choosing, on some flimsy excuse or other, to renew his attacks). Hamas' aims, of course, are terroristic and genocidal. 

This, in a context where within several months Iran is liable to cross the red line to nukes. 

So, we must ask, if the Obama regime is so unwilling to allow terrorists to be decisively defeated and rooted out now, what would their attitude be in the face of an Iran that is or "could" be nuke armed? 

(Which is likely to be so within months.)

Where also, it is quite clear that Hamas sees itself as being shielded from the consequences of its terroristic rocketing of Israel, so it is not being deterred or contained. 

Indeed, the weapons being used in its terror bombardment are plainly getting worse and worse.

The Obama regime cannot be ignorant of these factors, and so its fundamental hostility to and undermining of Israel and Jews in general -- the targets of the genocidal ambitions of both Hamas and Iran -- lies exposed.

Sorry if that sounds harsh, but there comes a time to face hard facts that have become evident. The Obama White House is conniving at shielding genocidal, war-crimes committing terrorists, is treating them as though they were legitimate partners, and is running out the clock on Iran. With highly predictable, all but certainly horrific consequences.

If you doubt me, observe this (and do read the wider context) from Israel Matzav: 

In an earlier post, I reported that President Obama refused to back an Israeli ground invasion of Gaza unless Prime Minister Netanyahu agreed that ousting Hamas would lead to Abu Mazen taking over Gaza, and being given  a 'state' in much of Judea and Samaria as well. Assuming that post is correct, I concluded that Prime Minister Netanyahu refused to take the bait, and chose to let Hamas live another day rather than letting Abu Mazen have his 'state' without negotiations. I wrote that was probably the right decision for Israel. And if that's true, I still believe that [--> in the face of such alternatives] Prime Minister Netanyahu made the right choice.

In short, if this summary -- and the diplomatic exchange discussed looks convincing -- the alternatives offered to Israel by Obama and Clinton were (i) another round of installment plan conflict, or (ii) establishing, right away, without proper negotiations that could give any reasonable assurance of genuine peace, a larger terrorism-driven and genocidal Palestinian Arab state that would predictably serve as a platform for onward war against Israel. (Let us not forget, EVERY "land for peace" deal or retreat with the Palestinian Arabs or their close allies since 1993 has simply provided a further platform for attacking Israel, with Gaza itself as exhibit no 1.) 

Such willful obtuseness in the teeth of obvious but unwelcome facts is astonishing. And, revealing.

 The bottomline is plain, as Douglas MacArthur long ago put it: there is no substitute for victory.

But that ill-judged attempt is exactly what is going on, in a world that willfully looks on and refuses to face the unpleasant truth about Hamas, its ideology, and its behaviour as well as its backers in Iran.

We are saying "peace, peace," where there is no peace.

Again.

As usual, in the face of the obvious build up of an aggressive power.

Paraphrasing George Santayana, those who refuse to learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat its worst chapters, but by and large that is exactly what we insist on doing. That is why we make the same mistakes over and over and over, and it is why we keep getting into the same sort of messes again and again.

The alternative?

First, draw the red line with Iran, then make it plain to the Palestinian Arabs that any further resort to terrorism would be a fatal mistake. Then, from a position of strength, negotiate with credible, moderate partners, to find a reasonable solution.  

Where, since Jordan is already a Palestinian Arab State carved out of the lands of the League of Nations mandate -- it is about 3/4's of the original post WWI "Palestine" -- and has a proved track record of moderation, the best solution probably would be to bring the West Bank Palestinians under the government of Jordan. Indeed, that was where Israel and Jordan were headed in 1986, which is why the first "Intifada" happened at that time. The terrorists do not want a settlement with Israel, they want a radical "solution" based on the genocidal destruction of Israel per the infamous "prophetic" Gharqad Tree hadith in the Hamas Covenant, Article 7:

”The Day of Judgment will not come until Muslims fight the Jews, when the Jew will hide behind the stones and trees. The stones and trees will say, ‘O Muslims, O Abdullah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.”

So, it is likely that Obama and Clinton offered Israel a cruel dilemma, and more ominously, it is clear that the situation with Iran is out of control. This last means that either Israel will have to attack it alone in a high-risk strike, or the world will have to face a genocidal, apocalyptic global conquest regime that backs terrorists and sits on the world's oil jugular vein, the Straights of Hormuz.

Boiling down: we are about to put ourselves in the situation the feckless leaders of the major powers put themselves into in the 1930's, when they allowed Hitler to arm himself and step by step secure a devastatingly dangerous strategic position. 

As in, we refuse to learn from history and insist on making the same blunders over and over again.

Churchill's speech on the occasion of Neville Chamberlain's infamous declaration of -- having signed away Czechoslovakia to Germany at Munich -- "peace in our time," is all too grimly apt:

"that this house approves the policy of His Majesty's Government by which was averted in the recent crisis and supports their efforts to secure a lasting peace," [means that in reality] the Government had "sustained a total and unmitigated defeat," and that "a disaster of the first magnitude has befallen Great Britain and France."
 
"And do not suppose this is the end," he warned. "This is only the beginning of the reckoning. This is only the first sip, the first foretaste of a bitter cup which will be proffered to us year by year unless by a supreme recovery of moral health and martial vigour, we arise again and take our stand for freedom as in olden time."

Having thus fortified myself by the example of others, I will proceed to emulate them. I will, therefore, begin by saying the most unpopular and most unwelcome thing. I will begin by saying what everybody would like to ignore or forget but which I must nevertheless be stated, namely, that we have sustained a total and unmitigated defeat, and that France has suffered even more than we have . . . .

We are in the presence of a disaster of the first magnitude which has  befallen Great Britain and France. Do not let us blind ourselves to that. It must now be accepted that all the countries of Central and Eastern Europe will make the best terms they can with the triumphant Nazi Power. The system of alliances in Central Europe upon which France has relied for her safety has been swept away, and I can see no means by which it can be reconstituted.

The road down the Danube Valley to the black Sea, the resources of corn and oil, the road which leads as far as Turkey, has been opened. In fact, if not in form, it seems to me that all those countries of Middle Europe, all those Danubian countries, will, one after another, be drawn into this vast system of power politics - not only power military politics but power economic politics -- radiating from Berlin, and I believe this can be achieved quite smoothly and swiftly and will not necessarily entail the firing of a single shot . . .

That is what we face in our time, as Iranian dissident, Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi has warned us all:



So now, we face a case where already, given the aggressive and apocalyptic genocidal intent of Iran, war cannot be averted; it can only be postponed to the advantage of a prospective nuclear-armed, terrorism backing genocidal power sitting on the world's oil jugular vein, the Straights of Hormuz.

(As in, thank you, Mr Jimmy Carter, for the "gift" that keeps on giving; for over 30 years now: an Iran that went through a radical revolution and ended up in the predictable control of the radical, ruthless Mullahs.)

We live in a willfully blind, suicidally feckless civilisation. END