The Left as Christian Heresy

_{Barry Arrington

February 1, 2017

Intelligent Design}

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In this post I argued that liberal (meaning conservative) democracy is based on an attempt to infuse politics with Christian doctrine, especially the inherent dignity and equality of all men. In this article Peter Burfeind suggests a parallel on the other side of the political divide. He argues that progressivism is rooted in an ancient Christian heresy known as Gnosticism:

Gnosticism applied to politics is Leftism. The gnostic mind is cast in black and white absolutes. It says the world is inherently corrupt in every one of its systems and institutions, and the salvation it proposes is pure light and righteousness. Politically, the gnostic mind can only be revolutionary: a new humanity will arise with new thinking and lead history into a new age; the old will be utterly dismantled. Until then, the gnostic is melancholic about the systemically corrupt world he’s imprisoned in.

Comments

TWSYF @ 27 -
So far, the violent extremists on the Trump side seem content to watch from the sidelines,
Except when they're shooting people, of course. At the moment most of the demonstrations are coming from people on the left, so we would expect any violence as a result of those demonstrations to be associated with the left. Do you have any evidence of police "standing down" after violence against Trump supporters? That would be awful - it's their job to prevent and investigate violence, whoever is the victim.Bob O'H_{February 5, 2017
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Thank you, Silver. Very informative. Most saliently, that connection between the ('rugged) individualism' and the 'individual liberty' opposition to state religion, had not occurred to me. It is also helpful to the more worldly Haves, I should imagine, to atomise the society of the Have Nots in that way - the better to exploit them economically. I have even seen in Catholic periodicals, the insane allegation that a social safety-net engenders a 'moral hazard' among the poorer general public. How different from the view of St Ambrose, to cite but one Church Father : 'It is not from your own possessions that you are bestowing aims on the poor, you are but restoring to them what is theirs by right. For what was given to everyone for the use of all, you have taken for your exclusive use. The earth belongs not to the rich, but to everyone. Thus, far from giving lavishly, you are but paying part of your debt. - St AmbroseAxel_{February 5, 2017
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Axel
They would surely have had a fit with their leg up at the notion that satanism should be considered a religion. But so many lies are peddled. I read the other day that it was also quite untrue that the signatories were all deists or theists. Some were indeed Christian. I wouldn’t be surprised it it were the najority. Weren’t they supposed to be Quakers ?
You're right - they would have been appalled by this development where the prince of evil is enshrined with religious rights. But I think we could say that the seeds for this noxious growth were planted by the very same founders. As good as their intentions were, and they saw themselves as honorable, most (not all) of them were freemason/deists. They were products of the enlightenment and they also carried hostility to the English crown and a distaste for the religious conflicts in England at the time. So, it was a brilliant idea to have a secular state which could include all religions, even though some were persecuted right from the start (Catholics especially). The guiding principle was of individual liberty - which became individualism, and opposition to state religion. The Puritans wanted to 'purify' Christianity from what they thought was "Romanism" in the English church, and the given the linkage of church and state in England, liberation from High Church Anglicanism also meant a liberal political policy. A few were Quakers, but there was a mixture of other Christian beliefs. Even though some belonged to denominations of various sorts, they were Deist in their actual belief and they thought (as many do today) that freemasonry and Christianity were compatible. But what has developed over the 200+ year struggle in America, is now a breakdown to the freemasonic society where any branch of paganism or as you said, even satanism is given equality with Christianity, for example. The founders were hesitant to say it, but most assumed the superiority of Christian belief to any other. But the secular state became "the wall of separation", and we may even see outright persecution against Christianity from the American state some day (there are indications already).Silver Asiatic_{February 5, 2017
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This video contains images some viewers may find disturbing: https://www.facebook.com/TheRebelPatriot/videos/1798423293760434/bornagain77_{February 5, 2017
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KF @ 28: So many good points, with the following being the most frustrating to me: "The obvious idea is to try to provoke retaliation, which will be media edited and presented as proof that the provoked are Nazis, KKK etc." The corporate media is complicate in the leftist agit-prop agenda. The good news is that we now have a very large independent media to counter the leftist corporate media. It is an information war, and it is intensifying by the day. Also, the visceral hatred is building on both sides with tens of millions readying for civil war. I never thought this would happen in the United States during my lifetime...but it IS happening.Truth Will Set You Free_{February 5, 2017
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Truth, What I think has been happening is, there has been a lot of rioting from the progressivist side, which has been tolerated as legitimate protest. Police and the relevant local authorities have been reluctant to intervene. We have had cases where careers, reputations and lives of those who have shot defensively have been assaulted, wrecked, ruined. Many people have been saying, better a physical beating or battering than a media and lawfare lynching, in which evidence will be willfully distorted and lies will be made up and spread far and wide. This apparently includes police. (Wonder why there have been heavy police resignations recently?) It is obvious that several often false accusations are being used to create the impression -- aided and abetted by the press -- that some people can be attacked physically: sucker punched, spat upon, hit with sticks/ rods/ placard poles/ flag poles with impunity and even cheering on. This is part of agit prop street theatre as is being played out on the ground now. The obvious idea is to try to provoke retaliation, which will be media edited and presented as proof that the provoked are Nazis, KKK etc. As I discussed in the other thread, swarm-skirmisher tactics are being used by the blackshirts, and individuals or small groups are being pulled out, surrounded, pepper sprayed or strobe-flashed, chased down, knocked unconscious and kicked/stomped while on the ground. The last is the technical crime of mayhem, and just being knocked to the ground where there is concrete or possible sharp edges and projections can be fatal or crippling. Given that too often police are standing down or allowing known likely to be physically abusive or riotous "protesters" within close reach of queues to go into venues, or exits and parking areas is already gross dereliction on the part of authorities. There is a natural right of self defence -- why do you think deer have antlers and sharp hooves -- and human beings don't have impressive natural weapons. People in fear of their lives through being swarmed down are going to start carrying dual use items, or concealable weapons. And, they will use them if threatened, regardless of consequences. Cars are going to be used to break out of swarms by people who realise the implications of limousines being set afire, etc. The real solution is that police need to get their act together and deal with riots seriously, promptly. And, the underlying sedition. If they don't some very ugly things are going to happen, and once the monster of a heavily armed population seeing itself under willful assault with authorities routinely reneging on their duty is let loose, God help us. This needs to stop now, and the progressive leadership had better stop further agit prop talking point games -- e.g. "Oh, UC Berkeley was a false flag Trump/Breitbart operation" (no it was not, one of the people who assaulted a man who was seriously injured has been positively identified through his online boasting) -- and call off their curs. There are real wolf packs out there. The correlation of forces is not as you think, and if the near future dystopian fiction is indicative, lying journalists etc on the street may face Breaker Morant's rule 303. You are right to talk about tipping points, the UC Berkeley incident is either there or close, especially as mayhem threatening life has occurred and as two women have been assaulted -- one the wife of a man who was knocked down and beaten [to the point of hospitalisation], leaving his wife open to attack. I can only hope common sense and decency prevail now. I am openly, frankly afraid they won't. And, remember, I have an eye on the global situation, not just the local one. KFkairosfocus_{February 5, 2017
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Bob O'H: Thanks for sharing that report. I will wait to pass judgment until all the facts are in (sounds like a possible defensive shooting). I would agree that violent extremists should be condemned on both sides, but it is a mistake to imply that there is equal violence being committed by both side. That simply does not square with the evidence. So far, the violent extremists on the Trump side seem content to watch from the sidelines, but that won't last long if police departments continue to stand down while Trump supporters get attacked in the street. There is always a tipping point to these things. No one can predict where it is.Truth Will Set You Free_{February 4, 2017
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PPS: Note, report said gunshot victim is critical, I hope he makes it and recovers. Absolutely key to understanding the nature of the incident is this:
a man in the crowd outside the University of Washington venue was shot in the abdomen. Two people who turned themselves in to UW police following the shooting were released Saturday. "Following investigation of the details surrounding the incident, and in consultation with the prosecuting attorney’s office, the suspects were released pending further investigation," a UW Police Department spokesperson said in a statement. "No suspects remain outstanding."
That sounds like a DEFENSIVE shooting incident with low/no flight risk. KFkairosfocus_{February 4, 2017
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PS: What we are dealing with: http://www.breitbart.com/california/2017/02/02/exclusive-mma-fighter-jake-shields-saved-man-berkeley-violent-rioters/kairosfocus_{February 4, 2017
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I said in my previous post that modern secular-progressive world views draw on “borrowed capital from Judaism and Christianity.” As Nancy Pearcy notes, a few atheists will even concede this admitting…
outright that they have to borrow the ideal of human rights from Christianity. Philosopher Richard Rorty was a committed Darwinist, and in the Darwinian struggle for existence, the strong prevail while the weak are left behind. So evolution cannot be the source of universal human rights. Instead, Rorty says, the concept came from "religious claims that human beings are made in the image of God." He cheerfully admits that he reaches over and borrows the concept of universal rights from Christianity. He even called himself a "freeloading" atheist: "This Jewish and Christian element in our tradition is gratefully invoked by freeloading atheists like myself."
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2015/05/for_its_moral_i095901.html Another atheist philosopher who admits this, as I noted @ 6, is Jürgen Habermas, who says, “Universalistic egalitarianism, from which sprang the ideals of freedom and a collective life in solidarity, the autonomous conduct of life and emancipation, the individual morality of conscience, human rights and democracy, is the direct legacy of the Judaic ethic of justice and the Christian ethic of love…”john_a_designer_{February 4, 2017
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BO'H: it is apparently likely the man shot was lead of a blackshirt mayhem swarm similar to the one that seriously injured a couple at UC Berkeley, and pepper sprayed another woman -- blackshirt women seem to have the spray detail as there is a cultural ban on men hitting women. Strobe lighting or laser flashing seem to be also possible -- swarms of 6 - 8 rioters are lurking in the crowds and using tricks like snatching a hat to pull out and isolate targets. Then they surge forth, surround, knock to the ground, stomp, stick and kick, etc. -- likely, soon, knife. Takes only a few seconds, then they melt back into the enabling "peaceful" protesters. Been going on for some years now it seems. Sooner or later someone is going to be killed or crippled for life. Wake up to what is going on and call on police, institution and community leaders to control and disperse riotous assemblies promptly. Higher officials need to deal with what are emerging seditionists at their leadership level. KFkairosfocus_{February 4, 2017
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TWSYF @ 13 - here's a local report about the shooting. I've no doubt that some people on the left are as bad, but I think the problem is that there are extremists on both side (for the right, think KKK in the US, and national Front in the UK, for example. Or, come to that, the history of intimidation and bombings of abortion clinics by some pro-lifers), and the correct response is surely to condemn extremists on both sides.Bob O'H_{February 4, 2017
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Leodp @ 12:
“Years ago Francis Schaeffer was making the point that communism is properly understood as a Christian heresy. Marx assumes a Christian-like universal moral law (such as the moral good of helping the poor or weak or powerless) while denying the foundation of that law”
Marx, who became an atheist, was born of Jewish parents. Both sides of his family tree were of a “rabbinical ancestry,” however, “Karl’s father converted to Christianity [Lutheranism] in 1816 at the age of 35,” two years before Karl was born. Marx’s upbringing and education, therefore, was also culturally Christian. http://www.biography.com/people/karl-marx-9401219#synopsis Marx thinking was heavily influenced by Hegel, also an observant Lutheran, who accepted Christianity’s linear view of history (see my comment above @ 6). However, Hegel rejected the orthodox Christian view, which sees God as a transcendent being. For Hegel “God” was an immanent pantheistic world spirit who guided history towards better and better outcomes. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy describes it this way:
History, according to Hegel's metaphysical account, is driven by ideological development. Ideological—and therefore historical—change occurs when a new idea is nurtured in the environment of the old one, and eventually overtakes it. Thus development necessarily involves periods of conflict when the old and new ideas clash.
Marx accepted Hegel’s idea that “history… is driven by ideological development” but jettisoned the idea that it was guided by “God.” Thus, Marxism is called dialectical materialism because it retains Hegel’s dialectic without his providential world spirit. All modern secular world views have been influenced in some manner by either Hegel, Marx or both. But it is all borrowed capital from Judaism and Christianity. The problem is, as I said above @ 6, without a transcendent basis for meaning and values any type of secular progressivism is an illusion. In a universe without God humankind has no intrinsic meaning or purpose or value, because the universe does not have him in mind.john_a_designer_{February 4, 2017
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Axel, nope (that is a very familiar old dirty trick: turnspeech), here is the UC case: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-02-03/berkeley-antifa-attacker-unmasked-uc-employee-cnn-and-young-turks-lookin%E2%80%99-so-dumb , and here is a compilation of what has been going on for years: https://twitter.com/TweetBrettMac/status/827418352645709824 KFkairosfocus_{February 4, 2017
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Silver Fox, unfortunately the Christian church has been on the back foot for so long, and increasingly so, that the Old Adam, qua secularism, makes the pyramid of Christian patronage by the sovereign down seem increasingly vague and muted, though the Queen and Dooky can't be faulted. It would be comically lese-majestique, I suppose, to comment that they do yeoman's work... But what infuriates me about the situation in the US is that the Founding Fathers' anxiety to keep church and state separate would, it strikes me, not have envisaged satanism in its various forms, not least the literal, formal worship of Satan, at all. Very far from it. They would surely have had a fit with their leg up at the notion that satanism should be considered a religion. But so many lies are peddled. I read the other day that it was also quite untrue that the signatories were all deists or theists. Some were indeed Christian. I wouldn't be surprised it it were the najority. Weren't they supposed to be Quakers ?Axel_{February 4, 2017
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This probably throws some light on the Berkley violence, folks - government agents provocateurs : http://www.veteranstoday.com/2017/02/03/scripted-by-bannon/Axel_{February 4, 2017
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Axel - I think one thing Americans (like myself) forget at times is that in England, the state is aligned with the church. So, in theory, the state in England should be a Christian organization that does the good work as a branch of the Christian church should. With the Queen as the head of the Church of England, when people pay state tax, they are in a sense supporting the Christian mission. This would be the same for all functions of the English government - they're the social outreach of the church. In America, however, the state is almost totally secularized. So, yes, taxes are not letting the right hand know what the left is doing -- but both hands may often be supporting anti-Christian policies and operations. In America, the Church has to fill the gaps left by government programs, and often conflict with those programs (as with funding of abortion or birth control is opposed by Catholics and others). The left in the U.S. wants state control because it is a means of secularization and thus removing the influence of the Church. I'd guess in England the left wants secularism also but that means secularizing the church itself.Silver Asiatic_{February 4, 2017
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I disagree with your concluding paragraph in your post 1. devolving assistance to the needy to a central government, far from excluding virtue from the tax-paying voters, gives them the opportunity to 'not let their left hadn see what their right hand is doing in this matter of charity, rendering it truly virtuous - we have such a natural rendency to pat ourselves on the back. So even private donations are better effected by a standing order, assuming confidence one's bank account is always 'in the black'. Voting once a year for a party that will contribute to a welfare-state (as rare as hens' teeth in the US, I believe, since WWII, and pretty much shadowed by the UK, as ever) minimises the opportunities for self-congratulation. Since Lady Cardboard's reign as 'the leaderene', reintroducing mass homelessness, and Mr Anthony Blair's transmutation of the Labour Party into NuLab(c), things gave gone decidedly downhill in the UK. But the left-wing alternative means having your infants taught about sodomy and the like in their school. The old Adam was bound to reassert eventually, both right and left being unstable. As for the left, since it plagiarised Judaeo-Christian teachings, and deliberately failed to acknowledge their divine author, has failed massively. If the electorate are faced with a choice between at least partly-honest governments of the right, with vestigial memories of Christian values, and transparently-cynical 'trimmers' of the left, who try to make up their own morality on the hoof, while promulgating such grotesquely farcical PC edicts, they will always choose the former. Perhaps the biggest blunders sustained by the anti-Christian Communist regimes of Europe is that which ensues from their failure to understand that Grace builds upon Nature - and that, moreover, like most things, takes time. This European-superstate nonsense, much favoured by Oswald Mosely in his time, is an analogue of the collectivisation of Stalins' USSR. The kulaks knew better than to willingly entrust their farms, grounded in personal, family and national realities - most of their sense of identity - to politicians : all parts of the Nature that Grace needs to build upon.Axel_{February 4, 2017
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Truth, horrible. That is rioting and assault not protest. In some cases, detaining people going about their lawful business. The long line behind the road block speaks for itself, what if there was an ambulance in that lot? The thing is, this has clearly been building up for years and has not been properly addressed. KFkairosfocus_{February 4, 2017
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Here's a 9 minute montage of some leftist intimidation and violence against peaceful Trump supporters. I am amazed by the restraint of Trump supporters. https://twitter.com/TweetBrettMac/status/827418352645709824Truth Will Set You Free_{February 3, 2017
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Bob O'H @ 11: All the violence that I have seen leading up to the election and continuing through the Berkeley riots appears to come from unhinged leftist extremists in opposition to Trump. I am aware of the old Trump supporter who sucker-punched a protestor several months back, but I am not aware of a Trump supporter shooting a peaceful demonstrator. Send me the link when you can. And even if we count both of those incidents, they are a mere drop in the bucket compared to all of the intimidation and violence being committed these days by leftists extremists. My guess is that most, if not all, of these leftist extremists are atheists.Truth Will Set You Free_{February 3, 2017
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Years ago Francis Schaeffer was making the point that communism is properly understood as a Christian heresy. Marx assumes a Christian-like universal moral law (such as the moral good of helping the poor or weak or powerless) while denying the foundation of that law: rooted in the nature, power, authority and moral nature of our Creator. In a purely material mechanistic universe we are the product of an immeasurable series of incredible accidents without plan, purpose or intent. There can be no transcendent moral law. At least not one with authority. But communism denies the existence of purposeful powerful and moral God, and instead places humankind on the throne... and so, here we are. In the end might makes right... or at least it gets its way.leodp_{February 3, 2017
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TWSYF @ 9 - I'm sceptical that "all of the violent provocateurs at Berkley [sic] (and other places during the past year)" were "atheist leftists". I doubt they all had the same theological views, and also the Trump supporter who shot a peaceful demonstrator in Seattle last week was probably not a leftist.Bob O'H_{February 3, 2017
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timothya, the 'blanket' accusation of bigotry against anyone who will not pay homage to sodomy, or to be a party to its promototion, irrespective of any considerations of conscience/ religious faith. In the past, a shopkeeper had the right to refuse service to any customer he chose not serve, without need for any explanation. I wonder what happened to that law re wedding-cake bakers and little boarding-house owners ? They even have the brass neck to posture as champions of diversity, evoking, of all things, rainbows as their emblem ; when perhaps, a plain grey flag, would more characteristically emblemise their extraordinarily UNdiverse, monochromatic choice of a partner of the same sex ! The prefix, 'homo', is Greek denoting sameness, not the Latin for 'man'. What is gay, colourful and a cause for riotous and offensive celebration about a sexual relationship with someone of your own sex - and then pretending, indeed, insisting, as best they can with the full weight of the law, that it is a 'marriage' !Axel_{February 3, 2017
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Timothya @ 7: I'm pretty sure that all of the violent provocateurs at Berkley (and other places during the past year) are atheist leftists. Do you disagree?Truth Will Set You Free_{February 3, 2017
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timothya, and why would my deplorable opinion matter to you?bornagain77_{February 3, 2017
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BA77: "The atheistic left, although they often pretend they are morally superior to Christians, has lost all credibility as far as morality is concerned." Leaving aside the tendentious language, who were these atheistic leftists and when did these people claim this moral superiority, when did their claims lose all credibility, and who caused this loss of credibility?timothya_{February 3, 2017
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Today is Groundhog’s Day. Jonah Goldberg of National Review has a good article about Bill Murray’s 1993 movie* which is a whimsical parable about a cynical weatherman, Phil Connors, (Murray) who is fated to live Groundhog Day over and over and over… again and again and again… (If you are not familiar with the movie’s storyline, the film’s trailer is pretty self-explanatory-- as well as very funny.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSVeDx9fk60 As Goldberg points out in his article the “original script was apparently much more complex and philosophical… Murray wanted the film to be more philosophical… but [Harold] Ramis [his co-producer/writer] constantly insisted that the film be funny first and philosophical second.” They compromised. It is a very funny movie but it’s also very thought provoking. Indeed, as Goldberg found out his assessment was neither original nor uncommon. “When I set out to write this article,” he says by way of introdution, “I thought it’d be fun to do a quirky homage to an offbeat flick, one I think is brilliant as both comedy and moral philosophy. But while doing what I intended to be cursory research… I discovered that I wasn’t alone in my interest. In the years since its release the film has been taken up by Jews, Catholics, Evangelicals, Hindus, Buddhists, Wiccans, and followers of the oppressed Chinese Falun Gong movement. Meanwhile, the Internet brims with weighty philosophical treatises on the deep Platonist, Aristotelian, and existentialist themes providing the skin and bones beneath the film’s clown makeup.” Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/node/413127 We could use this modern day parable as a jumping off point to explore a number of different themes and ideas. However, to stay on topic let me discuss something that is consistent with the subject of the OP. Notice that Phil Connors gets a chance to experience what every person, who has ever experienced life (even skeptics and atheists) have thought about, dreamed about or hoped for-- immortality. But he is immortal because he is caught in an endless cycle… something he seeks to escape, even if it means becoming mortal again. He doesn’t want to live life the way he is experiencing it, but why? Nietzsche along with many eastern philosophies teach the idea that cosmos and even history are cyclical and eternally recurring. Judaism and Christianity, on other hand, embrace a linear (progressive) view of history, which sees history having, not only a goal, but a purpose and meaning. Secular-progressives have co-opted or “appropriated” this idea and have used it as a basis for their world view. For example, ideas like “social justice,” scientific/technical and economic advancement do not make any sense unless we live in a world where real progress is possible. There is no doubt we have seen enormous scientific and technical progress which has resulted in economic progress but from where did the idea of progress originate? I would argue that is fundamentally a Christian idea. Historically there is also no doubt that the scientific and technological (industrial) revolutions occurred within a Christian milieu. However, I think there is a stronger argument that the idea of moral progress and social justice, especially when it comes to concepts like universal human rights, is also, philosophically and historically, a distinctly Christian idea. Even some atheist thinkers agree with me here. For example, philosopher Jürgen Habermas writes:
“Universalistic egalitarianism, from which sprang the ideals of freedom and a collective life in solidarity, the autonomous conduct of life and emancipation, the individual morality of conscience, human rights and democracy, is the direct legacy of the Judaic ethic of justice and the Christian ethic of love. This legacy, substantially unchanged, has been the object of continual critical appropriation and reinterpretation. To this day, there is no alternative to it. And in light of the current challenges of a postnational constellation, we continue to draw on the substance of this heritage. Everything else is just idle postmodern talk.” (Jürgen Habermas – “Time of Transitions”, Polity Press, 2006, pp. 150-151, translation of an interview from 1999).
http://habermas-rawls.blogspot.com/2009/06/misquote-about-habermas-and.html The idea of universal human rights requires some kind of transcendent standard. But how do we explain how rights and morals can be grounded by a purposeless natural process. By definition any kind of Darwinian or naturalistic evolution is-- indeed must be-- purposeless. But universal human rights and objective moral values cannot be explained without purpose. In other words, how could a purposeless process give rise to purpose? *footnote: Read the editor’s note. Hint: this isn’t the first time that this article has been published:-)john_a_designer_{February 2, 2017
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The atheistic left, although they often pretend they are morally superior to Christians, has lost all credibility as far as morality is concerned. If we evolved, as the 'educated' left insist that we did, objective morality is dead and there is no such thing as a morally superior position of the left because there are no longer any objective morals for the left to point to. Period.
“The modern age, more or less repudiating the idea of a divine lawgiver, has nevertheless tried to retain the ideas of moral right and wrong, not noticing that, in casting God aside, they have also abolished the conditions of meaningfulness for moral right and wrong as well. Thus, even educated persons sometimes declare that such things as war, or abortion, or the violation of certain human rights, are morally wrong, and they imagine that they have said something true and significant. Educated people do not need to be told, however, that questions such as these have never been answered outside of religion. He concludes, Contemporary writers in ethics, who blithely discourse upon moral right and wrong and moral obligation without any reference to religion, are really just weaving intellectual webs from thin air; which amounts to saying that they discourse without meaning.” Richard Taylor For Its Moral Ideals, Evolutionary Materialism "Freeloads" on Christianity - Nancy Pearcey - May 8, 2015 Excerpt: Westerners pride themselves on holding noble ideals such as equality and universal human rights. Yet the dominant worldview of our day -- evolutionary materialism -- denies the reality of human freedom and gives no basis for moral ideals such as human rights. So where did the idea of equal rights come from? The 19th-century political thinker Alexis de Tocqueville said it came from Christianity. "The most profound geniuses of Rome and Greece" never came up with the idea of equal rights, he wrote. "Jesus Christ had to come to earth to make it understood that all members of the human species are naturally alike and equal." The 19th-century atheist Friedrich Nietzsche agreed: "Another Christian concept ... has passed even more deeply into the tissue of modernity: the concept of the 'equality of souls before God.' This concept furnishes the prototype of all theories of equal rights." Contemporary atheist Luc Ferry says the same thing. We tend to take the concept of equality for granted; yet it was Christianity that overthrew ancient social hierarchies between rich and poor, masters and slaves. "According to Christianity, we were all 'brothers,' on the same level as creatures of God," Ferry writes. "Christianity is the first universalist ethos.",,, At the birth of our nation, the American founders deemed it self-evident that human rights must be grounded in God. The Declaration of Independence leads off with those bright, blazing words: "We hold these truths to be self-evident -- that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights." In the summer of 2013, a beer company sparked controversy when it released an advertisement for Independence Day that deleted the crucial words "by their Creator." The ad said, "They are endowed with certain unalienable rights." (Endowed by whom?) The advertisement is emblematic of what many secularists do: They borrow ideals like equality and rights from a biblical worldview but cut them off from their source in the Creator. They are freeloaders. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2015/05/for_its_moral_i095901.html Sociological Survey Confirms the Dangers of a "Biological" View of Humanity - Richard Weikart - September 28, 2016 Excerpt: He identified three main views of humanity that dominate the academic debate: the theological view, the biological view, and the philosophical view. The theological view is the Judeo-Christian position that considers humans created in the image of God. The biological view is a materialistic vision of humanity that considers humans nothing more than their biological makeup. This view tends to see human behavior as biologically determined. The philosophical view is the position that humans are defined by specific traits, such as rationality or self-awareness.,,, What he found was that people upholding the biological point of view (and the philosophical view) were less likely to support human rights than those embracing the theological perspective. He admits point blank that the critics (including me) are correct: "From the normative perspective of the critics, this all seems quite damning, and the conclusion is clear -- the critics are correct to be concerned about the spread of these anthropologies" http://www.evolutionnews.org/2016/09/sociological_su103175.html
Of supplemental note: You may appreciate this article Mr. Arrington,,
A Disabled Lawmaker Speaks Out About Abortion: ‘People Like Me’ Are Facing Extinction January 30, 2017 http://thefederalist.com/2017/01/30/disabled-lawmaker-speak-out-about-abortion-says-people-like-me-face-extinction/
bornagain77_{February 2, 2017
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My "liberal" friends know that the state is no substitute for individuals acting positively in the world, but they often talk as if it is, because they think it's a plausible lie that some will go along with...those some being their other "liberal" friends. Andrewasauber_{February 1, 2017
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