Evolution Exposed!

Compiled from the writings of David Brandt Berg

Most people today have been so deceived into believing that the theory of Evolution is true, that it never even occurs to them to question or doubt it! Even many so-called Christians automatically believe the “high priests” of the modern “sacred cow” of science and they swallow the lie of Evolution, ignorant of the Bible’s warning to “AVOID the PROFANE and VAIN BABBLINGS and oppositions of science FALSELY so called!” (1Timothy 6:20). This Scripture describes the theory of Evolution EXACTLY, for Evolution is NOT a true science at all!

The World has become so deceived, that Evolution is now referred to in most textbooks as “the Great Principle” of biology. But according to the dictionary, a “PRINCIPLE” means a “foundation TRUTH”, a “FACT”. But there is NO proof for the theory of Evolution! Therefore it must be believed by FAITH. Yet at the Chicago Darwinian Centennial in 1959 when Sir Julian Huxley addressed his speech to the congregation of 2,500 delegates, he said, “Evolution has no room for the supernatural…We all accept the FACT of Evolution… Evolution of life is no longer a theory. It is a FACT…the basis of all our thinking.” A “fact” that can’t be PROVEN, however, is NOT a fact! And in the following pages, we shall point out WHY Evolution is not a fact, but a mere THEORY instead.

At the core of Evolutionary theory is the big assumption that LIFE somehow arose from NON-LIFE by pure blind CHANCE. That “there simply `happened’ to be the right chemicals in the right place, in the right arrangement, it was just the right time and conditions, and then suddenly! Presto! Some unknown electro-chemical process took place and LIFE created ITSELF!” Evolutionists dogmatically assure us. But as Princetown University Professor of Biology, Edwin Conklin, said, “The probability of life originating from accident is comparable to the probability of the unabridged DICTIONARY resulting from an EXPLOSION in a printing shop.”

As for the so-called “simple cell”, from which the Evolutionists say all living creatures have evolved, “Look” magazine stated, “The cell is as COMPLICATED as NEW YORK CITY!” Evolutionist Loren Eisley likewise admitted in his book, “The Immense Journey”: “Intensified effort has revealed that even the supposedly simple amoeba is a complex self-operating chemical factory. The notion that it was merely a simple blob turned out to be, at best, a monstrous caricature of the truth!”

Can you imagine: A dictionary or a chemical factory…or New York City coming into existence by itself Poof! Without any assistance from an intelligent designer, planner or creator? Such is the “logic” of Evolution’s assumption that the infinitely complex “simple” cell accidentally came TOGETHER, then became ALIVE by blind, unguided chance! Commenting on this, the British biologist Woodger said, “It is simply DOGMATISM–asserting that what you WANT to believe, did in fact happen!”

According to the Bible, all of today’s plant and animal forms belong to FIXED SPECIES, of which each was individually created by God and has remained in its present form since Creation! Evolution, however, states that all life forms are constantly CHANGING and “EVOLVING” into different, “more advanced” life forms, and that therefore there really is no such thing as a set “SPECIES”, since all life forms are related, having evolved from the same basic ancestor, and are even now still in a constant state of change! So say the Evolutionary theorists!

This is in direct contradiction to God’s Word which states that God created all living creatures “after their KIND” and able to bring forth seed or fruit “after their kind.” (“Kind” is the King James Bible translation of the Hebrew word “min”, today translated more accurately as “species”.)

We have never heard yet, & they’ve never proved yet that any DOG ever became a CAT or a CAT a DOG! There are all kinds of dogs and all kinds of cats, but there are no dog-cats or cat-dogs! Because God created everything “after its own kind” and they can’t possibly get OUT of that kind!

These facts even disturbed Darwin, who questioned: “Why, if species have descended from the other species by fine gradation, do we NOT everywhere see innumerable TRANSITIONAL forms? Why is not all nature in CONFUSION, instead of the species being as we see them, well defined?” The answer to his question is simple! All he had to do was read Genesis chapter one, and he could have known that species have not descended from OTHER species, but were CREATED by GOD in orderly, set “kinds”, and THAT’S why all nature is not in confusion!

But some people question: “Haven’t the scientists working with genetics produced new species of hybrid plants and animals? Doesn’t this prove that entirely new species could evolve from interbreeding between different parent species?” No. The accepted definition among the scientific community of a “species” is: “A group of organisms that freely interbreed and produce fertile offspring.” The rare hybrids that can be produced are not “fertile offspring”, but are STERILE! As the Collegiate encyclopedia acknowledges: “The infertility of species hybrids is one mechanism by which species can remain distinct.”

God Himself has placed the barrier of sterility against the mixing up of His original appointed “kinds”. A good example of this is the MULE, which is a species hybrid between a male ass and a female horse. Although outwardly appearing to be a new species, or “kind”, it is impossible for a male and female mule to reproduce mule offspring. The only way is to continually cross a male ass with a female horse. That God-ordained biological principle was even verified by the Evolutionary professor of zoology, Richard B. Goldschmidt, who wrote, “Nowhere have the limits of the species been transgressed, and these limits are separated from the limits of the next good species by the unbridged gap, STERILITY.”

You might ask, “But what about the extensive RADIATION EXPERIMENTS that have produced actual MUTATIONS and CHANGES in creatures such as the fruitfly? Isn’t this ample evidence to prove that similar mutations could be the ‘chief building blocks of Evolutionary change’ as Sir Julian Huxley has called them, and as most scientists and educators today claim them to be?”

The answer to this is that though fruit flies have been the subject of countless experiments in which they are bombarded with radiation, resulting in many mutations, the mutations produce DEFORMITIES, only dwarfed bodies, shriveled wings etc.–They never produce a new “kind”! None of the many thousands of scientific experiments with mutations have EVER produced a new species of animal or plant!–NEVER! All of the geneticists and Evolutionists, with all their knowledge, and under “perfect” laboratory conditions…using modern radiation equipment (which multiplies the occurence of mutation a MILLION-fold), have utterly failed to mutate or to change one “kind” into another! They can’t even do it when they DELIBERATELY attempt to under IDEAL conditions! Yet these same Evolutionists SOMEHOW expect us to BELIEVE that blind, unguided CHANCE has produced the millions of beautiful, varying and complex forms of life on Earth today!

To illustrate the effect of gene mutations on an organism, H. Kalmus stated in his book “Genetics”, “A popular comparison would be with a watch; if a part of the mechanism is altered by some change, it is very unlikely that the watch will be improved by the accident.”

A clear-cut example of the negative effects of gene mutations occurred in HIROSHIMA and NAGASAKI, Japan, at the end of World War II. The members of the populace that escaped immediate death from the hellish atomic bombs used against these cities were subjected to varying degrees of atomic RADIATION resulting in thousands of mutations. NONE of these mutations produced any new superior, advanced forms of human beings as Evolution might lead us to expect. Instead, the poor victims of these gene mutations suffered deformities, damage & death!

Another crucial point is, if this complicated, fabricated framework of fiction called Evolution were TRUE, then there should be more MISSING LINKS dug up than anything else! Right? If billions of years of Evolution had taken place, we’d be up to our ears in missing links! But in over 13O years of archaeological and paleontological excavations, literally HUNDREDS of MILLIONS of fossils have been extracted from all fossil-bearing rock strata and NONE of them are “transitional forms” or missing links–they all obviously belong to a definite species! It is estimated that over 100,000 different, distinct species of fossils have been found and categorised! Yet NO “LINKS”!

A.S. Romer, professor of zoology at Harvard University, recently summed up the present situation when he said, “‘Links’ are missing just where we most FERVENTLY DESIRE them, and it is all too probable that the `links’ will CONTINUE to be missing.”

There are NO man-apes and NO ape-men, and all that baloney you read about and see pictures of in most biology textbooks is just hellish tommy-rot! Darwin claimed that “The Simiadae (monkeys) branched off into 2 great stems, the New World and the Old World monkeys; and from the latter, at a remote period, Man proceeded.” However, scientists soon found it impossible to reconstruct a halfway believable Evolutionary chain showing Man rising directly from the ape family, so they cooked up a new theory!

MODERN Evolutionists now claim that Man came not from the apes, but from a more primitive primate who was the common ancestor of both apes and Man! But as the prominent Evolutionists who wrote the book “The Primates” confessed, “Unfortunately, the early stages of Man’s Evolutionary progress along his individual line remain a TOTAL MYSTERY.” And as “The Scientific American” added, “The nature of the line leading to living Man remains a matter of PURE THEORY.”

Despite all this, most modern Evolutionists INSIST that Man descended from primates. To “prove” their theory, they point to the AUSTRALOPITHECINES (“southern manapes”) whose fossils have been unearthed in Africa in recent years, and they hail them as “the missing link”. A close look at the Australopithecines, however, reveals that they were not “human” at all! For example, their brains were only a THIRD as large as Man’s, yet some Evolutionists THEORISE that they were toolmakers, and therefore Men. But even this is highly disputed within Evolutionary circles! Famed anthropologist J.T. Robinson claims that the toolmaking was NOT done by these so-called “man-apes” at all, but by TRUE men. Evolutionist LeGros Clark warned: “There is NO certain evidence that they possessed ANY of the special attributes which are commonly associated with the human beings of today. Evolutionist R.L. Lehrman wrote: “Australopithecus” was merely an upright intelligent ape, not a man. The small braincase bearing heavy ridges over the eyes was like that of any ape.”

Next on the list is “PITHECANTHROPUS ERECTUS”, affectionately known as “Java Man” for short. He was “discovered” by Professor E. Dubois, follower of Ernest Haeckle (a German Evolutionist who concocted and was caught in several scientific frauds. Haeckle praised and perpetrated Evolutionary theory as a means by which he hoped to destroy Christianity and was the first to dream up the imaginary Evolutionary “Family Tree”.)

Little does the uninformed person realise that Java Man was “reconstructed” from only a small fragment of a skullcap, 3 teeth and one thighbone found over 5O feet apart in an old riverbed in Java! Neither do Evolutionists tell you that after the World had accepted this “link”, Dr. Dubois himself confessed that `Java Man’ was not a “primitive man”, but a giant, tree-walking GIBBON! Yes, after FURTHER STUDYING his fossils, Dubois came to the honest conclusion and announced with CERTAINTY that “Java Man” was merely an EXTINCT ape and NOT half-ape, half-man! He was NOT the “missing link” after all!

Next: The “PILTDOWN MAN” or EOANTHROPUS DAWSONI!: The “Encyclopedia Britannica”, 1946 edition reported: “The discovery which ranks next in importance was made by Mister Charles Dawson at Piltdown, Sussex, between the years 1911 and 1915. He found the greater part of the left half of a deeply-mineralised human skull, also part of the right half; the right half of the lower jaw carrying the first and second molar teeth. Amongst British authorities there is now agreement that the skull and the jaw are parts of the same individual.”

However, it was later found out that the resurrection of the Piltdown Man involved considerable “monkey business”! “Science Newsletter” tells us: “One of the most famous fakes exposed by scientific proof was Piltdown Man, found in Sussex, England…and thought by some to be 500,000 years old. After much controversy it turned out to be not a primitive man at all, but a composite of a skull of a modern man and the jawbone of an ape…The jawbone had been ‘doctored’ with bichromate of potash and iron to make it look mineralised.” The skull was taken from a Medieval graveyard! Even the teeth had been filed down to look older! As “Reader’s Digest” pointed out: “Every important piece proved a forgery. Piltdown Man was a fraud from start to finish!”

Since Evolutionists theorise that we evolved from the before-mentioned Australopithecines, they “logically assume” that these apes must’ve evolved into some brutish form of sub-human “Man” before becoming modern Man. And what would such a non-existent creature look like? Why, more or less HUMAN, but very hairy and with thick brows, walking with a stoop and very moronic-looking!–Just exactly what you’d EXPECT a “missing link” to look like!

So when scientists discovered some very ancient HUMAN SKELETONS in the Neander Valley in Germany, they immediately called it “Neanderthal Man” and “reconstructed” his body and appearance to comform to what they thought a sub-human “Man” SHOULD look like!

But “The Collegiate Encyclopedia” wrote: “Neanderthal Man is traditionally pictured as having a bull neck, knock knees, a stooped gait, and a rather bestial appearance. The TRUTH is that Neanderthal Man had NONE of these traits, he walked erect, and his appearance was as pleasant as that of contemporary Man!” In other words, “Neanderthal Man” looked just like US! And WHY? Because so-called “Neanderthal Man” IS modern Man! The World has been deceived into believing that the ancient human skeletons they’ve excavated were the remains of a more “primitive” Man, when they are ACTUALLY the remains of MODERN Man who lived long ago! But Evolutionists would never admit that!

The Encyclopedia continues: “A remarkable fact about Neanderthal Man is that in males, brain volume varied between 1,425 cc and 1,641 cc with an AVERAGE of 1553 CC. The average brain volume of MODERN Man is about 1350 CC. Thus, the average size of the brain in Neanderthal Man was SUBSTANTIALLY GREATER than it is in contemporary Man.” So to theorise that Neanderthal Man “was a more primitive, less intelligent subhuman species” is absolutely ABSURD!

Another disturbing problem for Evolutionists is that the remains of modern-type Man have been found in the SAME rock strata as the so-called “prehistoric” Men! Proving that Man existed at the SAME TIME as these upright apes as well as Neanderthal Man. Other remains of modern-type men found in a LOWER, OLDER layer than their supposedly more primitive “prehistoric ancestors” were unearthed in 1947 at Fonte Chevade, France. “The Collegiate Encyclopedia” states: “In `Fonte Chevade Man’ we have the evidence that Homo Sapiens (modern Man) actually PRECEDED Neanderthal Man in order of appearance.”

So here the Evolutionists have to admit that “Homo Sapiens”, normal modern-type human beings, were running around at the same time as the so-called Pithecanthropines, and before the Neanderthals–both of whom we are “supposed” to have evolved from! HA! In other words, Man DIDN’T descend from apes, but they CO-EXISTED at the SAME time as DIFFERENT, DISTINCT SPECIES! Man is the same NOW as he was THEN and these apes would be too, except that they have become extinct!

It takes more faith to believe Evolution–this incredible, fictitious, confused, self-contradicting fairy tale of Man’s origins–than it does to accept God’s simple, inspired explanation in His Word! What about YOU? What do YOU believe?–The TRUTH of GOD?–Or Evolution’s foolish fables?

Most people today don’t know WHAT to believe! They don’t know WHERE they’re going. They don’t have any focal point of reality and don’t know what life is all about or who they are, or if their being alive has any purpose or value! Since the devilish theory of Evolution has eroded the only sure foundation of Truth in their minds and hearts, they’re left with nothing to base their lives on.

If you want God’s plain simple TRUTH, all you have to do is humble yourself as a little child and ask Jesus to open your eyes and come into your life. This is why Jesus said, “Except ye be converted, and become as little CHILDREN, ye shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!” (Matthew 18:3).

GOD is the only One Who can give MEANING to the Universe and PURPOSE to the planets and LOVE to our hearts and PEACE to our minds and REST to our spirits and HAPPINESS to our lives and JOY to our souls and the WISDOM to know that “the fear of GOD is the beginning of wisdom” (Proverbs 9:10), and “the wisdom of this World is FOOLISHNESS with God”! (1Corinthians 3:19). Jesus said, “If ye continue in MY Words, ye shall know the TRUTH, and the Truth shall make you FREE!” (John 8:32). Free from sin, self, hypocrisy and the damnable lies which deceive and delude so many! Like Evolution!

 
WHY EVOLUTION IS AN UNBELIEVABLE LIE!

1. The word “science” literally means “to KNOW”. Therefore, Evolution is NOT a TRUE science, because it canNOT be proven or “known”! Margaret Mead, the famed Evolutionist, said in the introduction to her book, “We as honest scientists must confess that there is NOT ONE IOTA of concrete evidence to support the theory of Evolution.”
2. Evolution is merely a philosophical set of BELIEFS that must be accepted by FAITH. In seeking to explain the origin of the Universe, the World, and the origin and nature of Man, it is literally a RELIGION!
3. Evolution is anti-God! HITLER used it as his excuse for NAZISM, and KARL MARX stated that “Evolution is “the CORNERSTONE of COMMUNISM!” “By their FRUITS you shall KNOW them” (Matthew 7:20), and Evolution’s “fruit” is godless regimes, war and death!
4. GOD created the many forms of animal and plant life within definite, well-defined “species”, and as science has REPEATEDLY PROVEN–CONTRARY to Evolutionary belief–they cannot get OUT of their set species!
5. Evolution claims that CHANCE MUTATIONS are “the basic building block of Evolutionary change”. Despite MILLIONS of tests, however, Evolutionists have failed to beneficially alter even a single fruitfly!
6. Not ONE single “missing link” between Man and ape has EVER been found!
7. Evolution claims that all of Creation is constantly evolving into more complex forms. This assumption, however, is directly CONTRARY to a universally accepted, PROVEN LAW of Physics known as THE SECOND LAW OF THERMODYNAMICS which states: “ALL processes (left to themselves) go toward a greater state of DISORDER, DISORGANISATION, DISARRANGEMENT and LESS complexity.”
8. If you don’t believe that the Genesis account of Creation is historically accurate and divinely authoratative, neither can you trust the writers of the Old and New Testament who frequently QUOTED it nor even JESUS Himself, Who quoted it in Matthew 19:4-5! (See also Luke 16:31.) But the Bible IS true! GOD’S unfailing WORD! Therefore we canNOT believe the Devil’s lie of Evolution!–Amen?

 
 
 
Source: http://freebiblestudiesonline.org/evolution-exposed/
 
 
 

Treasures. Copyright (c) The Family International

Whose Fool Are You?

David Brandt Berg

Man can’t help but believe in God if he just looks at creation. If you have a reasoning mind, all you have to do is look at the creation to know that somebody had to design it, pattern it, and put it together and make it work as it does. It’s obvious when you look around you that all that didn’t just happen by accident. Somebody had to plan it and figure it out, because God’s beautiful creation works so beautifully, so systematically, so perfectly. God designed it; it’s created.

If you look at the sea, the sky, the clouds, the mountains, the valleys, the trees, the flowers, they’re all virtually shouting, “There is a God. Look what He made. Look what a beautiful world He made for you to live in!”

The Bible says, “The fool hath said in his heart, ‘There is no God’” (Psalm 14:1). Many people who claim they don’t believe in God actually do believe, but they’re in rebellion against God. They don’t want to know Him and they don’t want to confess that He exists, because if they do, then they have to recognize Him. And if they recognize Him, then they have to admit that they owe Him some kind of acknowledgment and obeisance and obedience.

The greatest proof of the existence of God is His creation. That’s why the theory of evolution is so damnable and ridiculous, because it tries to explain away creation by saying that it just happened by accident and it threw itself together.

“For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse” (Romans 1:20). His invisible existence is manifested or proven by the things you can see—His creation. The existence of our invisible God is proven by His visible creation.

That is why many people reject creationism and opt to believe in chaotic evolution. If the world and its inhabitants are God’s creation, then they’re His property—and if they’re His property, then He’s got the right to be boss—and they don’t want God to be boss. Therefore “they did not like to retain God in their knowledge” (Romans 1:28).

“Because that, when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools” (Romans 1:21–22). They decided that they could do without God and the Bible, and so they became absolute fools, who “changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man … Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator” (Romans 1:23, 25).

Evolution—the theory that it all just happened by accident, that it all just kind of fell together—is the hardest thing in the world to believe. Just as there had to be a watchmaker behind the synchronized perfection and order of every watch, so there had to be a Creator behind the synchronized perfection of the universe.

Evolutionary theory has become the general theme of modern so-called science. And yet, evolution has never been proven to be either a truth or a fact. There is no proof for evolution. It has to be believed. Even Charles Darwin himself, who developed this theory, confessed that “the belief in natural selection (evolution) must at present be grounded entirely on general considerations… When we descend to details, we can prove that no one species has changed … nor can we prove that the supposed changes are beneficial, which is the groundwork of the theory.”

Some of those fossils that were supposed to be the missing links have now been debunked. Some were even confessed fakes, like Piltdown Man and Java Man.

“In the beginning, God,” not chaos, not some nebulous cloud of gases, but “in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” The first verse of the first chapter of the first book of the right book, the Bible.

“And God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them” (Genesis 1:27). Mankind didn’t look like some ape man or monkey, or some fish or bird. “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul” (Genesis 2:7). Creation is the premise and preface and basic foundation of the entire Bible.

Evolution has no foundation in fact; there’s no evidence for it; no discovery has been made to prove it. The Bible prophesies that in the last days, “the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; and they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables” (2 Timothy 4:3–4). This time has come and these days are here, and their ears have turned from the truth and are turned unto fables—like evolution.

Do you believe in God? Look at the world, look at the beautiful trees, look at the flowers, look at the sea, look at the sky! Does God love you? You can see it and you can feel it in the beautiful world He’s given you to live in.

God is the only one who can give meaning to the universe and purpose to the planets and love to our hearts and peace to our minds and health to our bodies and rest to our spirits and happiness to our lives and joy to our souls and the wisdom to know that “the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom” and “the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God” (Proverbs 9:10; 1 Corinthians 3:19). Take Jesus and His truth today. God bless you.

 
 

Copyright © The Family International

Activated

Signs of the Times: The Coming Economic Crash

By Joseph Candel

Many analysts and respected economists warn that a devastating worldwide economic crash is coming. Although not specifically predicted in the Bible, such an event is in line with key prophecies regarding the Endtime and would almost certainly hasten their fulfillment—particularly the rise of the world dictator known as the Antichrist and the implementation of his universal credit system, the mark of the Beast (“666“).

Modern economies are built largely on faith. People have faith in their currencies, but it is misplaced faith. They don’t realize that their currencies are not backed by any substantial amount of physical assets, such as gold or silver, and are issued by governments that are often deep in debt. When people do lose faith in their currency, its value plummets, stocks slump, and their country’s entire economy crashes.

In this era of Internet trading and globally linked economies and stock markets, a sudden and drastic downturn in one major financial market could create a worldwide panic that would send the global economy tumbling down like a house of cards.

In one possible scenario, if the American economy were to fail because of some international crisis like a major war in the Middle East or a severe oil shortage, the rest of the world could rapidly lose faith in the U.S. dollar. The dollar and other dollar-based currencies and international stocks would lose much of their value and, as a result, banks and financial markets worldwide would likely fail. Such an economic crash would also most likely lead to widespread political and civil chaos.

Another major factor is the international debt crisis. Nearly every nation in the world has been enticed by powerful international financiers, working through the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), to take out huge loans at interest rates that make it impossible for them to ever pay off their debts.

Why do you suppose the World Bank, the IMF, or anyone else would give out billions in loans that they know can never be repaid?—Because when nations fall into bankruptcy and default on their loans, the lenders gain control of their economies. As the Bible says, “The borrower is servant to the lender” (Proverbs 22:7). That’s the real reason the international financiers loaned those countries the money in the first place, to gain control!

The World Bank and IMF are now dictating the economic and other internal policies of these nations—their governments, their industries, their banks, virtually everything. They are running these governments by proxy through financial pressure. Just look at the economic problems that have plagued Argentina and other countries in recent years and you can see where all of this is leading.

The world’s present economic woes are not accidental or merely the result of “basic market forces at work,” as we so often hear in the news. Through manipulation of the world’s money—cleverly choreographed crashes followed by temporary rebounds and more severe crashes—more and more of the world’s money is making its way into the hands of a few, while more nations are being pushed toward bankruptcy and forced to surrender control of their economies in return for foreign loans.

As time goes on and the situation worsens, there will be even more economic in­stability in the money markets of the world and unprecedented ups and downs in the major economies. When that happens, people are going to look for a savior. Paul Henri Spaak, first president of the General Assembly of the United Nations, once said, “What we want is a man of sufficient stature to hold the allegiance of all people and to lift us out of the economic morass into which we are sinking. Send us such a man and whether he be God or devil, we will receive him.” And that’s exactly what the world is going to do!

The people of the world will look for a financial superman to bring stability and prosperity, and when the Antichrist comes on the world scene and appears to do just that, they will hail him as a hero and welcome his rule and new economic system. He will “rescue” them from the economic ruin he led them into, and his plan will have succeeded—for a time.

* * *

The time to get ready for these soon-coming events is now, and the best place to start is by receiving Jesus as your Savior, if you haven’t already. Then learn to stay connected to Jesus in prayer so He can guide you and provide for you in the troublous times to come. Study what the Bible has to say about the coming Antichrist world dictatorship and other Endtime events so you won’t be caught by surprise when they happen, or duped into following the Antichrist. To be forewarned is to be forearmed. Jesus has promised, “Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. … I have told you before it comes, that when it does come to pass, you may believe” (John 14:27,29).

 
 

Copyright © Activated Magazine. All rights reserved.

Reflections

Free Bible Studies Online

Anger Is Hazardous To Your Health

News Reprints

How Anger Wrecks Your Body
(ABCNews.com) Dr. Redford Williams of Duke University and author of the book, Anger Kills, says mounting research shows that the stress hormone cortisol that fuels your anger can literally tear your blood vessels.
“It’s actually causing little nicks and tears in the inner lining of the arteries that feed our heart,” Williams said. “If the anger continues day in and day out, the repair doesn’t take place.”
And once the arteries are damaged, a bout of rage could trigger a heart attack.
“And these frequent chronic anger-induced arousals can over time reduce your resistance to infections, can make you more prone to develop cancer,” Williams said.
In a recent study at Hope College in Holland, Mich., researchers asked 71 college students to recall a hurtful situation that involved another person. In the study, which appears in

View original post 418 more words

Life Quotes And Sayings

The Future Foretold

The Signs Of The End

By Michael Roy and Scott MacGregor

As events unfold in the third millennium, many of us can’t help but wonder what the future holds for us and our planet. Are we on the threshold of a brave New World Order, with “peace and plenty for all”? Or are we tottering on the brink of unprecedented chaos and disaster?

Biblical prophets foretold many specifics about today’s world. Their predictions, now two to three thousand years old, accurately depict conditions and events that have either already taken place or will soon—quite possibly during our lifetime.

Among those prophecies are descriptions of modern rapid transportation systems, today’s unprecedented increase in world travel, the present explosion in knowledge of all kinds, technological advances such as electronic banking, a soon-to-be-implemented global financial and identification system, the effects of global warming, and outbreaks of lethal epidemics.

Awareness of these predictions will give you a new perspective…

View original post 4,366 more words

Signs Of The Times

Signs Of The Times

Outlook

The Art of Praise

By Alan Loy McGinnis

Excerpts from the book, “Bringing Out the Best in People,” Augsburg Publishing House, Minneapolis, 1985

Giving praise–what is known as “positive reinforcement” in the current psychological jargon–is an essential art for an executive or a teacher to master. As a rule, it’s important to expect the best from people overall, but there is another important rule. Although it’s very good to have a positive attitude about a person’s general possibilities, here I’m advocating reinforcing specific behavior. It’s the difference between saying “I’m expecting great things from you” and saying “You’ve done a terrific job straightening out this department.”

If there is a complaint employees most often express, it is this: “I never get any feedback from the boss–except when something goes wrong.” And the teenagers who sit in my office tell me again and again, “My dad gets all over my case when I mess up at school, but when I bring home a good grade he acts as if it’s nothing–that I’m finally doing what I should have been doing all along.”
In The One Minute Manager, Blanchard and Johnson suggest taking frequent breaks for what they describe as “One Minute Praisings.” Catch your subordinate “doing something right,” they advise, then give an immediate compliment.

Such straightforward acts seem easy enough, and we all know they are an effective way of reinforcing good work in our children and employees. Yet stop and think. How long has it been since you took a full 60 seconds to talk to your son or daughter about some fine thing they’ve just done? Or your secretary, or the managers who work under you?

What we’re discussing here is a very basic courtesy that should apply in all human relations–taking the time to thank people who help us. My friend Mike Somdal is a specialist at this. One reason he is so successful in business is that he has mastered the fine art of making people feel good by thanking them regularly. Often he will call customers simply to thank them again for the order they placed last week or for the recommendation they made to another customer or for the lunch. Anything. And before the conversation is over, Mike has often secured another order. Of course, if he called simply with ulterior motives, his clients would recognise the manipulation and resist. But Mike has made gratitude a lifelong habit, and those of us who do business with him appreciate that quality. And we respond.

Teachers are in the habit of calling parents when a student is not performing well, but they might be wise to spend a portion of that time calling parents of kids who are excelling or who have improved markedly. Such obvious respect for students gets around the school and can do a great deal to influence the climate of the classroom.

Nearly every one of us is starving to be appreciated, and when someone comes along who genuinely thanks us, we will follow that person a very long way. “The applause of a single human being,” said Samuel Johnson, “is of great consequence.”

 
The Art of the Compliment

There are right ways and wrong ways of expressing appreciation and reinforcing positive behavior. Here are some suggestions for praising the people under you.

a. Hand out commendations in public. One-to-one praisings are not nearly as effective as public appreciation. I shall never forget a Monday afternoon during my sophomore year in high school. I knew I had played better than usual in the previous Friday’s football game, and when we assembled for practice I wondered if the coach had noticed my good blocks. Not only had he noticed! He proceeded to tell the whole squad. It was not brilliant praise, for I was not a brilliant player, yet I remember 35 years later my deep pride as he chewed out certain members of the team for poor performances and said, “Now McGinnis is another story. He’s not the most coordinated player we’ve got, but he was really putting out on Friday.” I recall the words verbatim because I desperately needed to be accepted in that group, and when the coach praised me before the team, I finally felt that I was somebody in their eyes.

Parental praisings at dinner will go further than individual commendations, for you have made your child feel good before an audience. And when you have meetings with your employees, use that as an opportunity to dispense your thanks. We all feign modesty and are reluctant to boast about ourselves, but I’ve never known people who did not like having others boast about them. To be present when your boss is telling about your success to someone on the telephone, for instance, or to be at a party when your wife is describing the intelligent way you handled a problem with the children yesterday–those are sweet pleasures.

 b. Use every success as an excuse for celebration. My wife is an expert at praise, and when anything out of the ordinary has happened–a book goes into another printing, or I complete a piece of furniture in the garage–she makes a very big thing of it. She greets me at the door with a special hug, and perhaps with tears in her eyes, she stands with me and talks about how happy she is. Then she fixes us all a special dinner. The best families frequently celebrate each others achievements. Life is sometimes dreary for the people around us, and we can make their existence more pleasurable as well as increase their production if we seize every opportunity for celebration.

c. Employ some gesture to give weight to your commendation. One of the best investments an employer can make is to buy gifts for his staff. When gift-giving becomes ritualized, as at Christmas, it never means as much as when some project is completed and you take the group to lunch and hand out tokens of your appreciation or have secretly had plaques made for their office walls. Thomas Watson Sr. at IBM is said to have made a practice of writing out a cheque on the spot for achievements he observed in his own itinerant management role. When Peters and Waterman were doing the research for their book on excellence in business, they found many such examples of on-the-spot bonuses.

At Foxboro Corporation, a technical advance was desperately needed for survival in the company’s early days. Late one evening, a scientist rushed into the president’s office with a working prototype. Dumbfounded at the elegance of the solution and bemused about how to reward it, the president bent forward in his chair, rummaged through most of the drawers in his desk, found something, leaned over the desk to the scientist, and said, “Here!” In his hand was a banana, the only reward he could immediately put his hands on. From that point on, the small “gold banana” pin has been the highest accolade for scientific achievement at Foxboro!

 d. Put your compliment in writing. There is almost magical power in a note, especially the handwritten letter. When you are important to a person and you take the time to send a letter of commendation, that gesture can have rich rewards. Sometimes you can double the effect of the gesture by writing, not to the person, but to someone else. I have a friend who travels a great deal, and when an airline employee does him a favour he not only thanks the person face to face, but also asks for the name of the employee’s supervisor, and drops a note to that supervisor when he returns home. You can be sure that carries more weight than any expression of thanks to the employee.

e. Be very specific in your praise. Vague slaps on the back, like telling people that they’re “doing a good job”, do not have nearly the impact of a detailed commendation. “I liked the way you used the colors for the tree in your picture” registers with a five-year-old more than your saying, “That’s a pretty picture.” It shows that you have looked at it with care. Moreover, you are reinforcing specific behaviour. Let’s say that your staff has successfully pulled in a large contract. They may not be aware of the exact reasons they succeeded this time and failed at another time. So it is important for you to point out exactly what you liked about their presentation, and to show that you noticed how they worked overtime on a crucial weekend to sharpen the proposal, for example.

Karen Pryor tells about her friend Annette, who is good at comforting and offers sympathy and advice when you’re in trouble. “But it is in the area of good news that Annette offers unusual reinforcement,” says Pryor. “Tell her the bank approved your loan, and she does more than say, That's great!' She points out exactly what you did to earn and deserve the good news.You see?’ Annette might respond. `Remember all the trouble you went to with the phone company and getting an air-travel card? Now it pays off for you; you’re recognized as a good businesswoman. But you had to make the right moves first, and you did. I’m really proud of you.’ That,” says Pryor, “is more than approval, that is reinforcement.”

 
Observing Improvement

The alert leader will always be on the lookout for signs of positive change. There is nothing more demoralizing than to change at great expense, then have our superiors allow the change to go unnoticed. Too frequently they assume that we have the same bad habits or attitudes that we had last month, when in fact we may be quite different.

A. W. Beaven tells of a heartbreaking incident. A little girl had been misbehaving and her mother had to rebuke her often. But one day the little girl had tried especially hard and hadn’t done a single thing that called for reprimand. That night, after the mother had tucked her in bed and started down the stairs, she heard her daughter sobbing. Turning back, she found her head buried in the pillow. Between sobs her daughter asked, “Haven’t I been a pretty good girl today?” “That question,” said the mother, “went through me like a knife. I had been quick enough to correct her when she did wrong, but when she had tried to behave, I had not noticed it. I had put her to bed without one word of appreciation.”

 
 

Outlook © The Family International. All Rights Reserved.

Outlook

The Emperor’s New Clothes

–The Naked Truth about the New Psychology

Excerpts from the book by William Kirk Kilpatrick
(Westchester, Ill: Crossway Books, 1985)
(William Kirk Kilpatrick is associate professor of educational psychology at Boston College. A graduate of Holy Cross College, he holds degrees from Harvard University and Purdue University. He is a popular lecturer on psychology and religion at colleges and universities around the U.S. Other books he has written are Identity and Intimacy and Psychological Seduction.)

The Emperor’s New Clothes

Psychology Masterclass (Photo credit: Birmingham City University)

As a short commentary on our capacity for self-delusion it’s hard to improve on Hans Christian Andersen’s story of the Emperor, the tailors, the little boy, and the suit that wasn’t there.
Like any good piece of mythology, the story has almost infinite application. But it seems to me it has a special application to our current veneration of psychology and psychologists.
Why? Well, because the story is essentially about bowing to expert opinion. It has to do with vanity, and conformity, and foolishness in high places as well; but mainly it’s about the folly of letting common sense take a back seat to expert knowledge. If you recall, the ploy used by the swindlers was to claim that the beautiful clothes could only be seen by those who were fit for the offices they held or who were very clever. They could not be seen by anyone who was unfit for the office he held or who was very stupid.
Who can blame the Emperor and his court for being duped? Most of us would much rather be thought very bad than very stupid. The Emperor, despite his vanity, is really a bit unsure of his judgment; so he sends his faithful Minister to check on the progress of the weavers. The Minister, despite his position, is likewise unsure of himself. And so on down the line. Each one thinks, I can’t see anything in this, but who am I to say?” Moreover, by the time the contagion reaches the public, the new enlightened view of clothes-making has the added authority of state endorsement.
Now I wouldn’t go so far as to say that psychology is completely naked–that is, completely devoid of truth. There is a solid and growing body of useful facts as well as useful theories and useful therapies coming out of the psychological community. We mustn’t forget that. But the greater danger, I think, is not that we won’t take psychology seriously, but that we take it too seriously. Because along with the respectable work just mentioned, there is also adrift in the psychological community an abundance of speculation, wishful thinking, contradictory ideas, prejudice, doubletalk, and ideology disguised as science.
In short, the psychological garment, while not completely imaginary, nevertheless has large holes in it. If we fail to notice these holes, it’s partly because psychology has achieved emperor-like status in our culture, and partly because all the clever people swear that it’s cloaked in handsomely woven ideas. If we are tempted to think, “I can’t see anything in this,” we are quick to remind ourselves, “but who am I to say?” Our confidence has been over matched by the force of expert psychological opinion.
The situation we are in concerning our mental health is similar to the situation we are in regarding our physical health. Given the years of training, sophisticated technology, and specialized vocabulary available to doctors, not many of us are inclined to question a physician’s diagnosis. The same sort of ultimate expertise now attaches to the psychological profession. And in some ways the psychologist’s position is even more secure. After all, if the physician makes a mistake–a faulty diagnosis or the wrong treatment–it soon becomes apparent. But mistakes on the part of the therapist are not as evident. If the client gets worse rather than better, it can be blamed on his own resistance or lack of motivation or some such thing. And if a theorist makes a mistake, it can go undetected for decades.
Despite the overlap between the two professions, however, there is still a basic difference between the physician’s expertise and the psychologist’s. The physician deals with bones and blood, muscles, organs, and nerves; the psychologist with moods and motivations, memory, thoughts and relationships. Or, to put it more directly, the physician’s subject matter can be touched and seen, even if sometimes only with the help of surgical instruments or microscopes. It’s another matter with the psychologist’s subject field. Who has ever seen an ego structure or an inner dynamic? Much of the psychological garment truly is invisible. Which is not to say there is nothing there–Christians, too, believe in many unseen forces–but rather to suggest that psychology, like Christianity, is partly a matter of faith.
Of course, most people don’t regard psychology as a form of religion but as a form of science. They are under the impression that all the theories and therapies are based on research and hard facts. In addition, most of us are somewhat awed by psychology’s alliance with the medical profession, and by its alliance with government. Most states have both a department of mental health and a department of social services. And the professionals who staff these bureaucracies have very similar training and views. Both bureaucracies have considerable powers of their own, and in conjunction with the courts their power is nearly absolute. When, in addition to all this power, we consider the prestige accorded psychology by the media, which seek out and amplify every psychological pronouncement or opinion, it is little wonder the average citizen falls into line. If the Emperor and his court insist that he is fully clothed, who are we to dissent?
Except that the subject matters at issue are those things closest to our hearts: our sense of right and wrong, our families, our happiness, our dreams, our purpose for living. Somehow we have been made to believe that psychologists know more about these personal things than we do. The long and short of the psychological revolution is that ordinary people are treated as amateurs in the matter of living their own lives. And the amazing thing is that ordinary people have accepted this professional judgment upon them.
Psychology purports to be neutral about values. It simply wants to help you make better choices. Exactly what those choices will be is up to you. Or so it seems. This cloak of neutrality makes it difficult to criticize the flaws in psychology or even to see them.
Is psychology neutral? Well, yes, in some respects. In some respects it is what it claims to be, a science and a profession. But if you care to look closely, you will find that in many other respects it looks suspiciously like a “liberal and progressive” movement. And that usually means anti-traditional and anti-religious.
It is suspicious, for example, that the supposedly neutral values espoused by clarification curriculums in our schools turn out to be a kind of basic training in relativism. In these classes, choice is elevated to the status of a virtue. In fact, there appear to be no other virtues. There are really no right choices or wrong choices in values clarification, just choices that make you feel comfortable or uncomfortable.
A study by Everett Ladd and S.M. Lippsets of the political beliefs of American academics disclosed that among their colleagues in the various disciplines, academics in sociology and psychology hold the most radical political views.
Once you get to know people in these professions, a pattern quickly emerges. It is the same pattern that distinguishes media professionals–that is, a strong preference for what is liberal and progressive, and a strong bias against what is traditional or religious. It shouldn’t be surprising, then, that the American Psychological Association requires its members to subscribe to a code of ethics that favors abortion rights, gay rights, and women’s rights (of the more radical variety). If this is neutrality, then, to paraphrase Shakespeare, neutrality should be made of sterner stuff.
I would suggest that there is something about the psychological mentality and approach which perpetuates and even aggravates the conditions it means to cure. Many ideas which had their start in the psychological community (or received a big boost from it) have now worked their way into the heart of society. I think it fair to say that many of them have wreaked havoc. The subjectivism and relativism of psychological thinking, the confusion about free will, the overemphasis on autonomy and self-acceptance, the denial of guilt, the neglect of and even hostility toward traditional and religious values, the lack of any meaningful system to replace these, the transmutation of virtues into hang-ups and perversions into preferences, the undermining of all forms of authority except psychiatric and bureaucratic–all have helped to bring our society to a crisis of catastrophic proportion.

Mixing Psychology with Christianity
C.S. Lewis once said that he preferred to take his Christianity in the same way he took his whiskey–straight. Since Christianity is strong stuff, there is always a temptation to water it down. But, as Lewis realized, the result of such dilutions is a weakened faith.
The current recipe for a Christianity that will travel more smoothly down the gullet calls for blending it with psychology. This mix has become extremely popular with Christian educators, since it seems to add a dash of relevance to the ancient faith. They think of it, of course, not in terms of a dilution, but in terms of the improved product that results when one metal is alloyed with another.
In any event, the practice of blending Christianity with psychology constitutes one of the major trends to have surfaced in American churches over the last thirty years. And it cuts across denominational lines. Catholics do it, Episcopalians do it, even (to paraphrase the old song) evangelicals do it. For example, not long ago a Boston-area priest ended his sermon by concluding that the purpose of Christ’s coming was to say, “I’m OK and you’re OK.” Similar messages abound in the new catechisms. Book Four of the Benziger series for Catholic schoolchildren states that Jesus … “was trying to show people how they could be themselves.” Book Eight seems to attribute most of Saint Paul’s success to his high self-esteem. A study guide for evangelical students goes to great lengths to assure the reader that Moses had a “good self-image.” In a recent book a leading Protestant evangelical redefines sin as “negative self-image.” And religious educators in both Catholic and Protestant circles seem exceedingly anxious to rework Christian ideas on moral growth in order to make them compatible with the schemes proposed by psychologists.
Although there is room for some accommodation between Christianity and psychology, there are some areas where it is clearly a matter of either/or. Either the psychologist is right or the Christian is right. Both can’t be.
In such cases, attempts to reconcile Christianity to psychology will actually have the effect of undermining the Christian point of view. The most obvious example of this undercutting is provided by the psychological emphasis on self-acceptance. Although there are many kinds and types of psychological theories and therapies, this remains a prevalent theme. It is very nearly the First Commandment of the psychological society that we should accept ourselves as we are. We are urged to greater self-awareness on the happy assumption that we will like what we find. We are, as the saying goes, OK. We just have to learn to be ourselves.
In contrast, Christianity starts off by saying that we’re not OK the way we are. There is something wrong with us–a twist in our natures. And the twist is not removed by liking yourself, but by starting to live in Christ. There are plenty of reasons why Christians ought to be happy about themselves, but those reasons are linked to the fact that we’ve been rescued from the fate of just being ourselves, and they have very little connection with psychological rationales for self-love. Christians are not supposed to facilitate the growth of the old self. They’re supposed to give it up and put on a new self.
The main practical effect of this psychological infiltration has been a lowering of the consciousness of sin among Christians. In the Catholic Church, for example, there has been an enormous falling off of the practice of confession over the last twenty-five years. Like everyone else in the psychological society, Catholics have learned to accept themselves. Although this may be good for the ego in the short run, it might be unfortunate for the soul over the long run, since Christ came to save sinners, not self-actualizers. Just as a rich man has a difficult time entering Heaven, so does the fellow who knows nothing but psychological adjustment and self-esteem. Both types are insulated from the saving knowledge of how desperate the human condition is and how utterly dependent they are on God. C. S. Lewis said that “Christian religion is in the long run a thing of unspeakable comfort. But it does not begin in comfort; it begins in dismay, and it’s no use at all trying to go on to that comfort without first going through that dismay.” This kind of necessary dismay, however, is precisely the thing that the psychological society, with its encouragement to self-esteem and self-sufficiency, is designed to preserve us from.
Most psychology is relentlessly reductionistic. It is in the business of reducing things to a size where they can be examined with psychological calipers or fit into psychological categories. For example, a psychoanalytically trained psychologist will tend to look at a great painting not as a reflection of man’s search for the Good and the Beautiful, but as a sublimation of the sex drive. In a similar way, when a behavioral psychologist looks at a man offering worship to God, the only explanation he can supply is that the man has been conditioned to act that way. The reductionist world view does not leave much room for the Christian view that some things are sacred and therefore on an entirely different level of being. The psychological mind is more comfortable with reducing everything to the same level.

On Serving Two Masters
Much of the content of humanistic psychology derives from the central assumption that man is good and has no inclination toward evil. Selfishness, aggression, and other undesirable behaviors are blamed on man’s environment, not on man himself. The biblical notion that man is weakened by sin is either implicitly or explicitly rejected by most psychologists of this persuasion. Erich Fromm, for example, states that his psychology would be untenable if the doctrine of original sin were true.
Unlike the Christian view, the psychological one fails to distinguish between physical or existential goodness and moral goodness. Man is simply good as he is. As a consequence, much stress is laid on simply being oneself and accepting oneself. This self-acceptance is encouraged without regard to any prior transformation of the self, meaning, of course, that the need for repentance, for forgiveness, for baptism, or for God’s grace are all nullified at the outset. Tied in with this concept is the standard humanist notion that man is perfectible and can achieve this perfectibility through his own powers. In the language of human potential psychology, people are either “self-actualized,” or “self-determined,” or “self-fulfilled.” (Abraham Maslow, The Farther Reaches of Human Nature [New York: Viking Press, 1971], p.7)

The Cross Is Rendered Unintelligible
This very broad broom sweeps away a few more Catholic/ Christian dogmas. Since man can perfect himself without God’s help, and since there is very little wrong with him in the first place, Christ’s sacrifice on the cross becomes both unnecessary and unintelligible. Sacraments, likewise, are rendered unnecessary as means of grace, and come instead to be looked upon merely as celebrations of human virtue. Prayer also becomes an activity of dubious merit within this framework. And the Christian practices of self-denial and sacrifice can only appear as obstacles to growth. In humanistic psychology, man achieves fulfillment by satisfying his wants, not by denying them. Other Christian virtues such as obedience and conformity to God’s will are difficult to reconcile with the humanistic emphasis on self-will and autonomy. Where the psychological model prevails, these virtues will tend to be slighted or ignored even by Christian educators.

Objectivity of Truth Denied
Another stock ingredient in humanistic psychology is subjectivism. The idea of a common truth to which all are bound is seen as an encroachment on freedom. Hence, the only truths are personal truths. This attitude explains why humanistic therapies are invariably nonjudgmental, and why humanistic education is geared in the direction of having students create their own values. Moreover, since the humanist has no objective criteria for choosing values, he has to rely on instincts. When an activity feels as though it is valuable or worthwhile,” writes Carl Rogers, it is worth doing.” (Carl Rogers, On Becoming a Person [Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1961], pp. 90, 91)
All of this is, of course, very much in keeping with modern sentiments, but it is difficult to square with Catholic and Protestant belief which maintains that truth is both objective and unchanging, and that the most important truths (the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Redemption) come to us through divine revelation rather than self-revelation.

The Sense of Sacredness Must Be Restored
Now in many respects, teaching Catholic/Christian faith is more like teaching a physics class than a social studies class. It has to do with immutable laws. One does not decide upon the validity of divine truths by the group discussion method any more than one uses that method to decide upon the point at which water boils.
In other respects, teaching Christianity is like teaching poetry or folklore or myth. Memorization–the storing up of wisdom–is called for. In still other respects, it is like a class in gym or dance: the muscles need to be trained as well as the mind; the proper movements and steps have to be practiced over and over.
But finally, of course, faith is literally like nothing else on earth. The church is at once our supernatural mother and the Bride of Christ, and God our Father dwells in unapproachable light. These mysteries can only be approached in an atmosphere of reverence and humility. The atmosphere of free inquiry and self-concern simply won’t work.

Why the Secular Needs the Sacred
At the time of the U.S. Supreme Court’s deliberations over the legality of Christmas creche displays, ABC’s Nightline” interviewed, among others, Father Robert Drinan and the mayor of Pawtucket, Rhode Island, the city where the issue first boiled over onto the national scene.
Father Drinan worried about the trauma and mental anguish such displays cause to little boys and girls who are not Christian. It was a case, said he, of the arrogant majority imposing its values on a minority, and it shouldn’t be allowed to happen in a pluralistic society. The mayor of Pawtucket, on the other hand, was in favor of a Christmas display, but took pains to downplay its religious nature. The manger scene, he said, had become a tradition in Pawtucket, and people should be allowed to keep their traditions. If you look at it in the right way, suggested the mayor, it’s not really a church/state problem at all.
It’s understandable that he would take such a tack. This is a pluralistic society, after all. And indeed his argument is quite typical. Many attempts at defending the church” side of church/state issues are framed in similar terms. It’s either a defense (we’re not really trying to influence anyone else”) or a demand (Christians have a right to educate their children in their own way”). Unfortunately, neither approach gets at the main source of resistance to the religious side of such questions, because the main problem is not hostility toward religious practices (though there is plenty of that) but indifference. A great many people have come to the conclusion that as far as the everyday functioning of society is concerned, religion doesn’t matter one way or the other. So why rock the boat? In other words, there exists a widespread assumption that the secular can get along without the sacred. From this point of view, religious beliefs may be seen as nice and commendable, and even helpful, but they are not seen as necessary to leading a good life or having a good society. Many Americans seem to believe that a secular culture can maintain morality without a sacred core. And so, if a Christmas scene offends, it’s better to pluck it out and replace it with a nonoffensive Santa. If the creche is nothing more than a nice tradition, it’s not worth the fuss.
The mayor might have had more effect on this indifferent mass if he had said what he probably really thinks: cut out the creche and you cut out the heart of Western civilization. And he would be right. The sacred view of life is not simply an alternative within society; it is indispensable to society. To step away from it is to step into the void.
What does the sacred do for the state? The brief answer is simply that it makes sense out of life–a service the state cannot perform for itself, and yet without which it cannot exist.
This is hardly a new argument, but it is one that is not often used. Although it can be sensed or intuited by the simplest folk, it cannot be easily put into words. Nevertheless, it’s worth trying. Dostoyevsky puts the matter in its most direct formulation when he has Ivan Karamazov say: If there is no God, everything is permissible.” Dostoyevsky meant this not as a figure of speech, but as something akin to a mathematical axiom, something along the lines of if a triangle has one right or obtuse angle, its other two angles must be acute.”

 
 

Outlook © The Family International. All Rights Reserved.