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ROBERT HEALY: Now, we really could use
a season of reason
8 months ago | 4298 views | 113 
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Now that the winter’s various religious holidays have past, perhaps we could embrace this “return of the light” by creating a holiday season dedicated to the embracing of reason and critical thought. Moving from a “season of faith” to a “season of reason,” you could say. What a way to ring in the New Year!
There are those who loathe reason, instead abandoning all critical thought and reason for absolute faith. I see no practical point in this. The fact that the creators of this nation were not only people of faith, but also of reason seems lost on many people. They embodied the best of both and we are the heirs of their brilliance for it. Their generation created a nation. The current one is eviscerating it. How could this be?
In referring to the economic decline of several empires in his book, “American Theocracy,” Kevin Phillips notes what he refers to as the “five critical symptoms of decline.” No. 2 is “a growing religious fervor, church-state relationship, or crusading insistence,” and No. 3 is “a rising commitment to faith as opposed to reason and a corollary downplaying of science.”
Recall that George Bush had referred to “The War on Terror” as “this crusade,” and a U.S. general stated “I knew my god was bigger than his,” referencing his Muslim enemy.
Couple that with the creationism/“Intelligent Design” in schools controversy and the building of the Creation Museum, where visitors are taught that dinosaurs and human beings had coexisted a mere 6,000 years ago ... on Noah’s Ark!
This amply demonstrates we need to regain our capacity to think critically. Faith has overtaken reason, and it is doing so at our own peril.
Do you recall during the presidential campaign how much “God talk” there was? Embarrassing displays of how “Christian” candidates were in comparison to each other, or how much “faith” informed their decision making processes. I’d prefer a bit more “reason” when it comes to making decisions that affect the nation.
George Bush had faith. He started two wars. Obama, also a man of faith, is escalating the war in Afghanistan. Where is the public’s outrage over the wars and the astronomical financial and human tolls? Where? Simon Blackburn states in “Being Good,” that religion “can certainly be the means whereby unjust political authority keeps its subjects docile: the opium of the people, as Marx put it.”
Culturally, we have too much faith. It’s become a hindrance to our country’s progress. We need a season of reason!
We should read again Voltaire’s “Candide” and Jonathan Swift’s “Gulliver’s Travels.” Do they have anything to tell us that we can relate to today? I suggest that they do. We need to return to the ideas of Jean Jacques Rousseau and Thomas Paine, and to the wisdom of Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson. We need to remember how reason and critical thought can profoundly change the world.
On a personal level, religion and faith are matters mainly of the heart, just as reason and critical thought are matters of the mind. I would say that were faith tempered by reason, and reason tempered by compassion, religion could not subvert the mind and reason could not subvert the heart. There might even be more peace in the world.
“Liberty of thought is the life of the soul,” wrote Voltaire.
Thank God for reason.
Robert Healy is a veteran of the U.S. Army and graduate of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. He lives in High Point.
The High Point Enterprise, 210 Church Avenue,
High Point, NC 27262 • 336-888-3500
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Your assessment of the Christianization of Rome is an accurate one.“ Christianity” did become the official religion of the state as such.
This historical fact, as you rightly call it, merely attests to the fact that Christianity's influence had a significant influence on the following centuries. Your position on the “Christianization’ of Rome only confirms the historical basis of Christianity.
I’m not sure where you are going with your post, but let me try to sort it out. First, you say, “Christianity then spread throughout Europe, replacing the old pagan gods. The old Norse gods were replaced, the old Saxon gods were replaced, and on and on.” Then you say that, “they were replaced with more verifiable statements,” a statement that actually lends itself to my argument, because “They,” according to your assessment, were replaced by “Christianity,” meaning, of course, that Christianity was more verifiable. To that argument, I agree. More verifiable it is indeed.
I really don’t think, however, that that is what you meant to imply. Instead, you probably meant that, as other mythological gods were replaced by Christianity, Christianity will eventually be replaced as a mythological religion itself.
If that is what you meant to say, then, I must disagree. Your entire argument is mere conjecture and wishful-thinking, a “faith” if you will, that Christianity will one day be dismantled as the “myth” you believe it to be.
Again, you really say noting that discredits the historicity of the historical Jesus or the resurrection.
Perhaps the most universally recognized of the twelve noted by Gary Habermas are as follows:
1. Jesus died due to the rigors or crucifixion
2. The subsequent experiences that the disciples were convinced were literal appearance s of the risen Jesus
3. The corresponding transformation for the disciples
4. Paul’s conversion appearance, the he also believed was an appearance of the risen Jesus.
Habermas calls these the “core facts.”
“It is admitted by virtually all that the disciples had real experiences that caused them to believe that Jesus had raised from the dead.” (The Historical Jesus 162)
The acceptance is based on the attestation of early creedal material found within the pages of the Bible itself. In other words, with the dating of the New Testament books, certain “creedal” material is found within. This creedal material attests to the early Christian belief concerning the nature and work of Jesus, including not only his death, but also his resurrection.
The creedal material in 1 Corinthians 15:1-8 is one example. This early church creed is significant because it reveals the accepted claims of the church in its extreme infancy. It was like an early doctrinal statement. In fact Paul’s letter to the Corinthians was written in the early 50’s AD which means that the creedal material is even earlier. This puts Paul’s letter and his affirmation of the resurrection very early. In fact, it evidently predates his own conversion from persecutor to preacher which, I might add, logically predates his conversion.
It also, as noted earlier, that the previously cowardly disciples somehow and for some reason became bold proclaimers of what they believed to be the resurrected Lord. They claimed to eyewitnesses, in fact.
You are right in your mistaken implications. The myths of the Roman gods was replaced by a more verifiable “statement” about reality, the resurrected Jesus.
Tony
Falsehoods can only exist through force, lies or by the withholding of knowledge. Christianity will cease when people can no longer find a provable reason for it to be true.
Fallacy is a vacuum, it is not knowing the truth. A fallacy can not be proven to be a fallacy, because you can not prove a nothing. Substance will fill a vacuum and truth is the most solid of substance.
A lesson we can learn from Greek, roman, Norse mythology, is that nobody had to prove them wrong. They were simply replaced with more verifiable statements. they did not die out from a massive attack to disprove them, they starved to death as there was no proof to feed them.
It is true that many still do not know the True Religion, but each generation gets closer as the truth simply fills in the vacuum of ignorance. It is a big world and there is a big vacuum that needs to be filled. But, given time that vacuum will be filled.
A thousand years from now, people will be studying Christian Mythology, not Christian religion.
Sagan’s claim sounds good on the surface, but only with an atheistic presupposition.
For those who believe in God, particularly the God of the Bible, i.e. the one who miraculously created the universe, raising Jesus from the dead is a piece of proverbial cake and not an extraordinary claim.
For the atheistic version of origins, it may be "extraordinary."
With that being said, I really don't believe Sagan, however, Darwin rest his "soul," understood his own words.
Even today, for example, the claim that life arose spontaneously from purely natural processes is quite extraordinary as a claim, even to modern evolutionists, and no intellectually satisfying explanation exists to explain it.
Spontaneous generation is on "intellectual" life support. In fact, Antony Flew, the avid atheist turn theist, says that life and it complexity, particularly the more advanced biology gets, convinced him of an intelligent first cause - God.
The trend to posit panspermia or Dawkin's infinite regression of aliens reveals the dying confidence in the notion that such an "extraordinary" claim, i.e. life spontaneously appeared, possesses no sufficient explanatory mechanism.
Human consciousness, the human mind, and human morality are all inexplicable in atheistic terms and the more naturalistic the realities, the more "extraordinary," i.e. creatively concocted, the explanations must be. With that being said, the idea of “spontaneous” generation sounds much more like blind faith than it does science.
The Resurrection sounds "extraordinary" to those whose worldview will not allow God as part of their perceived reality. The evidences for the resurrection can be found on my site. www.link2eternity.com
In fact, the evidence is of such a nature that its verification awaits all who wish to consider the event historically as opposed to those claims imagined by a handful of atheists without sufficient evidence.
I like what G. K. Chesterton said on one occasion, “Man seems much more ‘supernatural’ as a natural product than a supernatural one.”
More people saw the Statue of Liberty disappear than are claimed to have seen miracles. More people have seen aliens at one time than are claimed to have been present and seen Jesus perform supernatural deeds. More people have seen WEREWOLVES.
I just wanted to note that nothing C Rich discounted the foundational claims concerning Jesus Christ. The resurrection is historically verifiable and this fact is the keystone of christianity.
The followig authors have dealt extensively with the historicity of the resurrection:
Gary Habermas
William Lane Craig
Mike Licona
Norman Geisler
They all handily reveal the historical evidence conderning the physical resurrectonion of Christ.
You can find information on them on-line.
Finally, Rich did raise some hermeneutical issues that are easily answered but my primary concern was with issues that were foundational to his erroneous view and interpretation of scripture on such matters.
If you have particular questions, i will be glad to help you if you want to email me at Tony@link2eternity.com.
Tony
Let me just say the following. The Gospel is indeed good news because it does two disntict things. It declares us all, myself included, as helpless sinners as well as the love infused intervention of God in his Son jesus Christ.
The cross upon which Jesus died is the revelation of God's holiness and judgement of sin coupled with his love as it provides a satisfactory substitutional sacrifice. Hoiness and Love converge upon one person, Jesus Christ.
Then as I noted in a pervious post, this same Jesus rose bodily from the grave and confirmed all that the said and did. That means that his interpretations of reality, the existence of God, the purpose of the sexes, the sin of man, ad infinitum, were right. In fact, the Gospel of John Declares him our creator. That babe in the manger, the birth that christians celebrate every year, held the universe in his hands.
The deity of Christ, the very truth you detest, is our only hope. We must place our trust in him as Savior before we can fellowship with God in any form or fashion.
I wish you the best and I pray that you find not just truth, but truth personified - Jesus Christ.
Feel free to "berate" me via email anytime.
Tony
I'm very sure if someone's mortal soul was in jeopardy over homosexuality Jesus would have mentioned that. He certainly didn't forget, now did he?
Healy is right. Your ilk cherry picks what you want out of the bible. You find some reference in the old testament with man laying down with man and the word "abomination" and you cherry pick it. Why not dedicate a place on your website to rail against a woman who should remove herself from the community while menstruating? Or people with pimples should leave town until the skin is clear? No you focus like a laser beam on the gay passages and justify your dogma that hurts others. This is what "YOU" put on "YOUR" site, sir. This is how you define God's love! Of all the sections you could have added to "YOUR" site, you chose this subject! So this is who you are, sir! We didn't put that hateful position on your site. You could have cherry picked any of "many positive messages" in the bible, but you went after gays! Then you have the freaking nerve to put this hate in the mouth and message of Jesus by trying to find a position of his on procreation and bend it to homosexuality ! Shame on you, sir!
OK, C Rich. I will give you what you want. I am against homosexuality. Why? Because I believe it is wrong. I bet you already ascertained that fact anyway.
While you seem intent on labeling me a "gay basher," even a cursory reading of my "book" or my columns on the topic will show the opposite. I prefer to deal with the foundational issues, the worldviews if you will, of ideas. In every column in the material to which you refer, deals with some foundational argument, pro or con, on the issue.
I am sorry about the fact that the ideas I present are contrary to the God you “feel” is the true God, or contradicts the morality you “feel” is right.
Touché, however, on the idea that Jesus never addressed homosexuality as you noted, but he did give his stamp of approval on the original creation of a man and woman as divinely intended and complimentary partners to be united as “one flesh.” I understand that many people just don't think in antithetical terms these days, but logically the affirmation of one position, the original design and plan for the sexes, ipso facto excludes the other.
That is why I posted some of the historical evidences of the resurrection. If Jesus actually rose from the dead, his words are indisputable. Even if he didn’t, you can't lay the approval of homosexuality at his feet, because his personal affirmation of what he perceived as the divine plan, male and female as complimentary partners, was what he set forth as his personal take on the matter. That, too, excludes an opposite view on sexuality.
You have also failed to explain how disagreement automatically translates into “hate” and/or “bashing.” I am against drunkenness, stealing, and adultery, but I don’t bash those who drink, steal, and/or commit adultery. I believe what they do is wrong and that is my right as a thinker.
I also want to get one thing strait. You didn’t like it because I quoted Jesus, and now you quote him as part of your justification of the homosexual lifestyle. Then you chide me because I quote other men. Seems like you have the freedom to quote whomever whenever you want and legitimately so, but I have the right to quote no one with any legitimacy. The only thing I have left is the tell you exactly how I “feel” and I am just as sure that you won’t like that either because, frankly, it contradicts your primary authoritative source, i.e. how you “feel” about the matter.
Tony
Healy’s first “argument” is nothing more than a hypothetical world to incite fear. Here, he plays prognosticator and the work requires no answer. I could just as easily play the role of psychic and incite the same fears by building an imaginary world in which anti-supernaturalists rule. Sort of like the former Soviet Union, China , North Korea and/or Cambodia – those nations who built their “religious-less” states where the “opium” of religion was disallowed, catapulting them to leadership of the modern human rights movement. Of course, we all know better. In essence, I don’t have to imagine a futuristic world in which a worst case scenario hopefully appears. I can, rather, look to the past at those countries who prided themselves in the eradication of religion from the public and political sectors of society. Needles to say, their human rights record is nonexistent and the basic and driving worldview is “Nonbelief” – atheism.
Then Healy makes a quick reference to the “atrocities” of religious folk, Christianity in particular. While many are quick to blame Christianity for many of the atrocities perpetrated against humanity, be they Native Americans, blacks or Jews, Healy isn't the first to spend so much energy on this idea. The only problem with such allegations is the fact that Christianity provides the only logical basis for the equality of men in the first place. Concerning slavery, they neither understand nor note that it was the Judeo-Christian worldview the actually paved the way for the emancipation of slaves. In fact, Dinesh D’souza notes that while the allegation is laid at the feet of Christianity slavery actually, “predated Christianity by centuries and even millennia. It was widely practiced in the ancient world, form china and India to Greece and Rome, and most cultures regarded it as an indispensable institution, like the family” (What’s So Great About Christianity, 70) D’souza continues by reminding us that (slavery needed no defenders because it had no critics.” (70) Then he reminds us that “Christians were the first group in history to start an anti slavery movement. It started in the late eighteenth century Britain, spread to other parts of Europe, and then gathered force in the United States…” (70)
Then, let’s not forget the foundational impetus of the modern Civil Rights Movement under the leadership of Martin Luther King Jr. To make a long story short, his appeal was to the very Judeo-Christian worldview that many modern day civil rights “leaders” reject. King’s efforts, in fact, emerged from a distinctly Biblical perspective that, if attempted today, would meet with the same fierce and concentrated resistance that I find here in this blog against a Biblical worldview. King revealed his distinct Biblical posture when he contrasted his view of Civil Rights with the increasing popularity of the Muslim effort. “The other force,” he noted, “is one of bitterness and hatred, and it comes perilously close to advocating violence. It is expressed in the various black nationalist groups that are springing up across the nation, the largest and best-known being Elijah Muhammad’s Muslim movement.” These people, continued King, “Have lost faith in America, who have absolutely repudiated Christianity, and who have concluded that the white man is an incorrigible ‘devil.’” King, Jr. Martin Luther. Letter to My Dear Fellow Clergymen. 16 April 1963.)
Obviously, King repudiated the demonization of both the nation and the white man as other emerging movements, Islam included, did. “If this philosophy had not emerged,” he said in reference to the distinctly Judeo-Christian based movement, “by now many streets of the South would, I am convinced, be flowing with blood.” Here, King drew another link to the Biblical undertones of his effort and again distinguished it from the Islamic tradition of violence. The freedom for which he fought, then, was driven by a worldview that was distinctly Christian. In essence, he attributed the success and peace to the Christian approach.
According to King, in fact, all of his efforts found their impetus in a Judeo-Christian interpretation of reality that included a transcendent, absolute and personal God. A Judeo-Christian worldview was so much a part of his thinking, that his classification of “just” and “unjust” laws were determined by a knowledge of both the transcendent and absolute law of the Judeo-Christian God. If there were any chances of true freedom, it must materialize under a true interpretation of the objective world and a true objective world invariably included, according to King, a transcendent and absolute God- the Christian God.
Christianity has been the friend of equality and freedom. While atrocities exist on both ends of the religious and non-religious spectrums, a case can be made for the fact that those atrocities, per Healy’s favorable quoting of Jesus, are not the consistent outworking of the teachings of Jesus. Conversely, while people on the opposite end of the theological spectrum, atheists, are capable of doing good, the atrocities perpetrated by those regimes are also the consistent outworking of their worldviews.
By the way. I should mention that the only common denominator is the sinfullness of humanity. While sin nature stands as one of the most rejected of Christian doctrines, it is also one of the easiest of christian truth claims to prove.
That may be the real culprit.