timeimmortal

I have no talent for thinking up slogans, but this is important even to mention:

The Covenant Zone bloggers will be demonstrating in support of Mark Steyn and Maclean’s magazine, and against the ludicrous operation of “human rights” law in this country, when Mark’s hearing in front of the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal kicks off, next Monday, June 2. We will meet at 8 AM in front of the Provincial Court House at 800 Hornby where, according to the BCHRT website, the hearing will take place.

We welcome all bloggers, readers, and informed and outraged citizens to join us. (Also: we will be discussing this tomorrow at our regular Thursday evening meeting in the atrium of the Vancouver Public Library, central branch, 7-9 pm, in front of Blenz Coffee — look for the blue scarves.)

Now since many people interested in this “trial” are not in the Vancouver area, we thought we would offer people a way of participating in our demonstration. We intend to carry signs and hand out leaflets. The problem we have is how to communicate the current “human rights” travesty in some catchy phrases or slogans. This is an invitation to send us ideas. We want slogans and/or aphorisms or short statements that can appeal to ordinary citizens, to communicate something of the evil that will be unfolding in the court house to those who may not know what is going on. We want phrases that will be memorable, perhaps even one day historical.

All I can think to say is to re-word Chesterton: free speech means speaking the unspeakable, or it means nothing at all.

Anyhow, all the details are here. If you’re in Vancouver (and my tracking software suggests that more than a few my Readers are from there) on June 2, show up for this!

Update: Welcome, Steynians!

Another wave of atheists seems to be upon me; while I can’t quite set my watch by them, at least I can be assured that there will be periodic sources of content not related to doings on any other blog save this one, which I appreciate.

In this case, the amusingly-handled Aspentroll writes in with a few thoughts on this article.

“Atheism will endure, as it has for many ages now. But it will never dominate a free people, and in due course gives way to the spiritual. Falsehood must necessarily give way to truth in the end, or at least to a less severe falsehood.”

The word “atheism” above could be replaced by the word “Religion” or “Christianity” and the rest of the quote would be just as true.

Atheists believe that the Bible is a huge falsehood and to pattern your life on such a nebulous writing is in most cases dangerous. You cannot govern a country using the laws of the bible which seems to be what some “fundies” want. We would all be up in arms if Sharia Law was allowed in the US, because it is archaic and discriminatory against women and free thought.

Atheism, agnosticism and free thought is the only check and balance we have to keep overly zealous delusional people from taking over and spoiling what is a normal modern way of life.

Did the reader note the tacit suggestion that religious people are necessarily delusional? The footnote to this more recent article seems relevant to mention here.

A good first question I might ask is: what checks and balances exist to keep overly zealous atheists from taking over and spoiling what is a normal, modern way of life that, in the West at least (though it perhaps does not always realize it), benefits greatly from reserves of Christian moral capital built up over the centuries? History has demonstrated that those states which have made atheism an explicit policy of the state have inexorably become brutal and bloody-minded, and several examples of the trend persist to this day.

The Mark Shea article I cited previously addresses this point rather directly: it is within human nature to desire to believe, and when force of will fails to ensure that the populace does not stray back toward the spiritual, force of arms is a necessary recourse of the atheistic state. It might be easy to laugh this off as fallacy, but one observes that in the explicitly atheistic regimes in places such as the Soviet Union, Burma, China, and North Korea (an incomplete list of examples, but sufficient for our purposes) did have something of a penchant for murderously cracking down on spiritual movements and religions within their borders. Certain exceptions to the trend exist, of course, but only in those cases where the religion(s) in question — the Orthodox Church in Russia, the “Catholic” Church in China — has allowed itself to be co-opted by the state.

One possible objection is that the generally secular regimes in many Western nations do not actively persecute the religious faithful in their midst. While the statement about persecution is up for debate, it is generally true that secular Western states do not, at least, murderously persecute their religious citizens. But then, even in various Scandinavian nations, the secularism itself is not explicit state policy, and most of those states still acknowledge that there is a Christian aspect to their origins.

As to the quote of mine that Apentroll cites in opening his message, it should be observed that his attempt to gainsay it, in the first sentence of his response to me, really amounts to little more than saying “I know you are, but what am I?” Although it sounds more reasonable than that on the surface — heck, it even sounds somewhat rational — the statement itself can be revealed to be something of a patent falsehood, on several levels, upon closer examination.

First off, Christianity’s aim — and the aim of true religion (as opposed to the various false teachings one can stumble across from time to time*) — is freedom. And by freedom, I don’t mean being free “from rules of conduct or social constraints” (as the all-too talented authors of the character of Durandal in the Marathon series of games so eloquently word it). I do, however, mean being free “to understand, to imagine, to make metaphor.”

Freethinking, a misnomer if ever there was one, actually ruins freedom. “Freethinkers supposedly want “the pursuit of ideas for their own sake,” but no one pursues ideas simply for their own sake, but in order to understand, to act or to believe, or to have some combination of these. Men pursue ideas so that they may understand the world, and they seek to understand the world to have wisdom. Men desire wisdom in order to live well, and part of living well is to pursue and know the Good, and the Good is that which fulfills human nature and causes it to flourish. The desire to know is a natural desire, one implanted in us as part of our created being; we yearn to know and to enter into the unknown because we yearn for unity with the One Who desires that all things be united in Him. If no religion had ever caused men to live virtuously and flourish, religion would have disappeared ages ago. If no religion had produced saints and cultivated the finest aspects of human nature, very few would adhere themselves to it and even then it would only be the mad and obsessive. There is nothing interesting in rehearsing the catalogue of crimes that religious adherents have committed against each other, since men have always been slaughtering and oppressing one another and they have tended to do more of it when they are less in thrall to their religious tradition than when they are strictly obedient to it. What is remarkable is how much at least some religions have contributed to the civilisation and edification of men, which would hardly seem probable if they were not much more than elaborate exercises in self-deception and nonsense.”

One point, in particular, that can be taken out of the above quotation is that “we yearn to know and to enter into the unknown because we yearn for unity with the One Who desires that all things be united in Him.” It is the result of no accident that science and discovery flourished in the Christian West after ending up misfiring almost everywhere else in the world (historically speaking). As David Warren notes, “[to] those who know some history, the modern sciences emerged in an unambiguously Christian milieu. They flourished, over centuries in the West, as the direct result of the Judaeo-Christian teaching that “God does not contradict Himself.” The whole notion of unalterable physical laws, and thus a universal order that will repay inquiry, is the product of a theological position unique to the West. It is a view that has been glimpsed in other civilizations, but could only be doggedly pursued in this one. Science was stillborn in all other civilizations.”

And the same is true of the wider concept of freedom. Nowhere else in the world, save in a West born out of Christendom, did the concept of human freedom, individual liberty, and human rights genuinely flourish. It did not, certainly, flourish in the Islamic world, nor in the castes of Hinduism in India, nor in any of the places where Buddhism took hold, nor in…any other place, really, save for the West that Christendom birthed. Indeed, the ideas that man should be free and that all men are “equal” is, ultimately, only defensible from within a teleological framework, and then a Christian teleology.

And in the numerous examples one could draw out of the 19th and 20th centuries, one can observe that in those regimes where atheism has, so to speak, become the law of the land, not only has human freedom been impaired and/or outright trampled on, but so too has science, to say nothing of human rights.

Now, I will grant that I stand in agreement with Aspentroll’s objetion to governance by “fundies” — fundamentalism leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Equally, though, I don’t think that society has any right to demand that a politician leave his Christianity at the door when he takes office.

Atheists are welcome to consider the Bible a book of falsehoods; I consider it God’s inerrant, infallible revelation to the world**. Who is to say which of us is right? I will grant that many, many people have a poor understanding of exactly what the Bible teaches, and fundamentalists seem especially prone to this unfortunate reality. But is it genuinely dangerous to pattern one’s life on the core teachings of Scripture? Exactly how terrible a place would the world be to live in if we all actually followed what Christ taught? Exactly how terrible a place would the world be to live in if everyone followed, as a bare minimum, the Ten Commandments and the Beatitudes, and patterned their lives on the concepts articulated therein?

I very much doubt it would be a perfect place to live in…but I’ve no doubt that it would be a much better world. But then, Chesterton had it exactly right when he noted that “the Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult, and left untried.”

I also agree with Aspentroll that it would be horrible if Islamic sharia law became the law of the land, in Canada or anywhere else. I suspect that Aspentroll, however, has temporarily taken leave of reason and erroneously assumes that because some types of religious law are brutal and evil, all forms of religious law must necessarily also be brutal and evil. It’s a rather common logical fallacy among atheists to assert this — Christopher Hitchens is particularly vulnerable to it.

The main problem with the assertion is that a thing may be true even if certain individuals don’t accept it as being true. This is easily understood in the case of the fundamentalist objection to e.g. the theory of evolution and the geological research that has revealed the approximate age of the Earth. Young Earth Creationism insists, passionately, that Earth is a mere 6,000 years old, and most creationists of this bent do not accept as truthful or valid the various discoveries made in the fields of geology, astronomy, and evolutionary biology (among others). That doesn’t mean that the theories and discoveries aren’t true, however.

The same is true in regard to atheistic assertions regarding religions. Aspentroll would hardly be the first atheist to look at, say, the evils perpetrated in the name of Islam and declare that all religions are murderous death cults obsessed with paedophilia and suicide belts. That might come as news to Buddhists, and indeed to most Christians, but not everyone can be counted on to let facts get in the way of good rhetoric, especially if it sells books with provocative titles. And yet, a more reasonable, rational person would notice that there are many critical differences between, say, Islam and Catholicism, visible both by a close analysis of doctrine and by taking an honest, objective look at the actions of the followers of each respective faith on a global scale.

As previously noted, the creature we call a human being is wired to be a believer, and the only real question is what said human being will believe in. We’ve seen this played out through history, and we see its logical consequences played out in that movement which denies this very aspect of human nature: atheism. In individual atheists like Sam Harris or Andre Comte-Sponville, we see the beginnings of post-atheistic spiritualism beginning to creep in. The same trend can be observed in Russia, in the wake of the collapse of an explicitly atheistic regime. It’s regrettable that the spirituality that such people are gravitating towards is, quite often, some new form of paganism (or “new” in that Roger Daltry “same as the old boss” sense of the word), although it is good that people are also finding, or rediscovering, the Church.

There seems to be a rather pernicious lie going around that religion and freedom are antithetical to one another; this is not completely true. It is true in regard to specific religions (e.g. Islam), but not in regard to the Christian truth. Indeed, it was a particularly Christian sense of telos that informed the very constraints, concepts, and ideals which enabled the West to value freedom. By contrast, the application of atheistic ideals as the formative values of a state has tended to be the true antithesis of freedom, of science, and of human rights.

And in perhaps the most amusingly ironic twist, I just realized that if I re-worded Aspentroll’s message to me and flipped the references to religion and atheism in every instance (and substituted the title of any New Atheist tract for “the bible”), the message itself would not only be a lot more truthful, but also a lot more historically defensible.

* this statement said with tongue firmly implanted in cheek

Samuel Skinner evidently objects to this article. Mr. Skinner has written in before, but I’ve never known him to go off half-cocked like he does below.

Wow… I always thought believers carried about what they believed and what they said- the whole “truth” thing.

Still, I have to hand it to you- you manage to attack truth AND to declare Chrsitianity to be true. Make up your mind! If “people are a religious species” than you don’t care about truth. If you focus on “Christianity will prevail” than you DO care about truth.

Well? Truth or Christianity?

Hmm.. do I count as a fan of Dawkins? Cause I am more of an Ignersol guy myself…

Just for reference, O Reader, Colonel Ingersol would be one of the men that Chesterton credited with his becoming inspired to convert to Christianity. I trust that Richard Dawkins needs no introduction.

As to the dichotomy that Mr. Skinner is attempting to establish between Christianity and truth, by assuming that there is a dichotomy in existence between two of the statements made in my previous article. I think the source of his erroneous assumption is that he looks at my statement that “humanity is a religious species” and thinks it false, which of course gives him the basis with which to declare that I “don’t care about truth.”

This would be a straw-man argument, O Reader.

That’s not to say that I don’t regard humanity as being a religious species — indeed, we are. At every turn, and in every age, humanity has sought after a deeper understanding of the supernatural, from our primitive understanding of the divine through powerful acts of the natural world, to the present revelation of God as Trinity that is the utmost truth of that realm which is beyond our own. The question, for humanity, has never been whether we shall believe, but what we shall believe, and that remains true even today, even in regard to those who profess atheism.

Because even atheists have their beliefs. The aforementioned Richard Dawkins would have us believe in science. Daniel Dennett would have us believe that the randomly-evolved chunk of meat situated a few inches behind our eyes is capable of rational thought as an outcome of random chemical and hormonal interactions. Sam Harris would have us believe in Buddhism, more or less. It’s not necessarily a case, in such instances, of seeking after the supernatural…but it’s still acting out the human impulse to believe.

Humans are designed to believe. That’s one truth.

We’re designed to believe because there is a supernatural divinity “out there” that desires us to believe in it, and which has fashioned us with the capacity to believe*. That’s another truth.

Christianity is the final revelation of the nature of that divinity. That’s another truth.

Christianity, being the final revelation of that divinity, will prevail. That’s one last truth.

And there’s no conflict between any of those statements, those truths…especially not between the first and the last.

Update: Welcome, Steynians!

* a number of atheists tend to adopt the stance that religious belief is a form of mental illness. Given that most human beings have been and are religious, and given that humanity has been designed to believe (as evidenced by the fact that in every age, humanity has pursued belief), it seems more reasonable to suggest that those who are passionately atheist are either suffering from some form of mental illness, or else struggling under a genetic/evolutionary defect of some kind.

Shaukat Khawja is blogging, I think, about how he proud to be an Islamic radical. Oh, he doesn’t really mention himself, per sé, but he does attempt to deflect the typical stigma that is attached to the term “radical” when it is used in reference to the false religion of Muhammad.

One famous biblical “radical” was Jesus (as), who challenged and opposed the evil power of Rabbinical class, and condemned them for distorting the Laws of Moses. For that Jesus was projected as “radical” and a grave threat to Roman colonial empire. Another famous “radical” was Lord Buddha, who challenged the repressive hegemony of Brahmin upper-caste minority. Nelson Mandela was another “radical”, because he upset the status quo - and challenged the racist Afrikan regime. When Senator Cheney called him “radical”, the western world and Zionist entity rejoiced - including his supporters, though, for him being “honoured” as a freedom-fighter.

Same goes for Malcolm X and Rev. Martin Luther King. Both were dubbed “radicals” because they sought to subvert and overturn the racist political culture that had been institutionalized in the US for the benefit of a small minority of elites - most of whom take orders from Israel Lobbying groups (AIPAC, ADL, AJC, etc.).

The best and living example of progressive, emancipatory radicalism can be found in the Seerah of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) - who, like Moses and Jesus - challenged the existing religious and political doctrine of his time. Islamic message too, can be called “radical” because it conclusively rejects all forms of caste, Racism, class oppression, usury, exploitation, abuse of the law and dehumanization of human beings.

Shaukat is something of a fan of the Iranian Ayatollahs, and so we can presume from his having said the above that Islam’s rejection of the dehumanization of human beings is, in part, predicated on the assumption that women are not human beings, since women in Iran do suffer no small degree of dehumanization, exploitation, and abuse. The same can be said for women in many Islamic nations, and perhaps we ought to be thankful that the blogger at RehmatPedia is being honest in what he has omitted from his article.

As to his sense of history, I observe that with typical flair, Shaukat has infused his lesson with no small measure of anti-Jewish sentiments, as is his custom. As to whether Jesus opposed the evil power of the Rabbinical class, I can’t say (having not been there personally) — most accounts of Jesus’ life suggest, however, that the Pharisees weren’t evil so much as they were hypocritical and wrong-thinking. Nobody could honestly deny the ardent faith of the rabbis — Jesus’ issue with them was that the way they lorded their faith over others was also the antithesis of the faith that they held.
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Guy links to, and distills, a list of notable Muslim inventions throughout history. What is telling, I think, is that most of the entries on the list all date back several hundred years:

Astrolabes: 9 inventions. The last one in the 12th century. Not 21, but 12!!!

Analog computers: 8 inventions, last one in the 15 century.

Globes: 3 inventions, last one in the 16 century.

Mural Instruments: 7 inventions, the last one is in the 11 or 12 century.

Other instruments: 6 inventions, the last one in the 11 century.

Aviation: 4 inventions, the last one in the 17 century. Two research projects were in the 20th century. Think about that one: of the tens of thousands of aviation research projects during the 20th century, they participated in only two and neither one is particularly notable.

Camera technology: 2 inventions, both many centuries ago.

Chemistry: 10 inventions, all during the 8 and 9 centuries.

Laboratory apparatus: 9 inventions, the last one in the 12th century.

Chemical industries: 21 inventions, the last one in the 9th century.

Industry: 27 inventions, the last one in the 12th century, except for shampoo in the 18th century.

Civil Engineering: 7 inventions, including one in the 16th century and, holy cow, one actually in the 20th century. We got one! Yes! There really IS an Islamic invention in the 20th century. Where’s the champaign?!

Clock technology: 16 inventions, including one in the 16th century and all the rest before the 12 century ended.

Industrial Milling: 14 inventions, all before the end of the 10th century.

Mechanical Technology: 18 inventions, and only one after the 12 century (it was in the 16 century).

Other Mechanical Devices: about 40, all invented centuries ago.

Medicine: 26 inventions, all centuries ago.

Military: 13 inventions, the last in the 16 century.

Navigation: 10 inventions (including such greats like “Mecca-centered map), the last one in the 17th century.

There are about a dozen other inventions listed, all of which are centuries ago.

Islam may be, as Shaukat Khawja (the blogger at RehmatPedia) assures us, “nothing but nature,”, but evidently that nothingness also applies to genuine intellectual and academic achievement. What technological sophistication seems to exist in predominantly Muslim nations is not the product of years or decades of intense, successful research as much as it is a demonstration of people rather parasitically living off of the academic capital of Western nations.
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1. I like voliscience as outlined.

But, even if one works with omniscience, one must remember that God (”the Judeo-Christian one”) is eternal, not everlasting. God is outside of our time standards. It is not that God knows what we do ‘before’ we do it. He knows it ‘as’ we do it, since all moments in time are present to Him in one mental act. To claim that He knows ‘before’ we do something is to extract His knowledge of all time to an arbitrary point in time.
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Nicholas writes in again with a follow-up comment to something I said to him in this article. In a rare break from tradition, this response is addressed directly to Nicholas, instead of the the good Reader in general.

You’re mistaken, Ken. Individual patients’ conviction that homeopathic remedies helped them are not evidence. Ben Goldacre explains all that more clearly than I could. See http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2007/nov/16/sciencenews.g2

Isn’t it rather presumptuous, Nicholas, to assert, to my face, that the fact that I watched Grace — then my girlfriend, now my wife — survive her illness only because she abandoned what could be termed “Western” (or, if you prefer, pharmaceutical) medicine in favour of “naturalistic” remedies is not sufficient reason to accept that there is validity to homeopathic medicine? As I said before, it’s not even a question of belief for me: I watched all manner of pharmaceutical treatments make Grace steadily worse as she struggled to get her illness under control. And after finally exhausting herself trying to get well by what could be called “Western” methods, she took a friend’s advice and went to see a homeopathic doctor instead.

And she got well based on the treatments he suggested.

This wasn’t a “placebo effect” thing on her part — both of us were highly, highly skeptical about naturalistic medicine; she still occasionally likes to joke about her “witch doctor.” But as Chesterton noted, “There are two kinds of charlatan: the man who is called a charlatan, and the man who really is one. The first is the quack who cures you; the second is the highly qualified person who doesn’t.” I still have my reservations about some kinds of homeopathy (the sort that’s bizarre enough to get portrayed on CSI, for example), but there are other kinds I have seen work. And not just in my wife. Additionally, Grace is no longer taking the treatments, nor has she been for quite a while now — her good health cannot even be attributed to ongoing consumption of the remedies. The only reason she is healthy again today is because the homeopathic remedies she was told to try worked for her, and then to such an extent that she only needed to use them for a time (not unlike how pharmaceutical remedies are supposed to work).

I’m not dismissing any of Mr. Goldacre’s criticisms out of hand, but equally I am not dismissing what I have seen for myself. I watched a young woman get to such a point that even she will tell you that she was knocking on death’s door — she is now vibrant, healthy, very much alive, and carrying our first child to term with no detrimental effects to herself. Neither Grace nor I need to “believe” that homeopathy works when it is prescribed with due consideration by a competent medical professional, because we have seen it work. For us, it is out of the realm of belief, and into the realm of what is known.

Nicholas, maybe you have never been so ill that you will try, out of desperation, anything you can in order to get better. Maybe none of your loved ones have ever had to endure what Grace had to endure. And maybe nobody you know has ever tried homeopathic remedies before. To be honest, I do not know; I do not know you, nor the history of your life. But if in fact you have never tried homeopathy, how can you presume to preach to me (someone who has seen it work in the life of his wife) about a lack of evidence?

I realize that your atheism hampers your thinking, but I do hope that you are not so wedded to empiricism as your reply suggests.

I’ll grant that homeopathy doesn’t work for everyone. Equally, you must grant that pharmaceutical medicine does not work for everyone. Both things are especially true if the people prescribing the medicine (if anyone is prescribing it) are not fully competent in both the use of the medicine and its effects, and its applicability to the condition being treated. Conversely, in the hands of someone who “knows their stuff,” both homeopathic remedies and pharmaceutical treatments can be highly effective. This I know, having seen it.

Nicholas — the same one as before? If so: my goodness, an atheistic trifecta! What a month! — writes in with some additional commentary on this article (and possibly this one as well).

It wasn’t Chesterton. See http://www.chesterton.org/qmeister2/any-everything.htm

[Well, not Chesterton directly, although he doubtless would have agreed with the statement! -- Ken]

And it’s not true. I know many Christians who also believe in homeopathy (for instance) [So do I -- my wife is one of them. They believe in it, in my experience, because it has demonstrably worked in their lives (which is not "belief" at all -- one need not believe in something that has been demonstrably proven). Certainly that has been the case with Grace; homeopathic remedies saved her life. — Ken]. And many atheists who are also skeptical about Astrology (for instance). On the other hand, the Father Brown stories are delightful.

As to the main point, I completely agree with you about the dangers of SatNav. Drivers who rely on it are most unwise to abandon any attempt to master map-reading, and do seem to lose their common sense as well. Bit like negotiating the moral maze, really. We have to work it out for ourselves, using what I would call the consensus of people of good will, and I guess you might call the natural law? There isn’t a MoralPS, either in the Bible (as I guess you would agree?) or even in the traditions of the RC Church, as I know you would not agree.

Utterly trivial point, but I guess you would rather get it right: a theodicy is an (attempted) excuse for a (postulated) benign God, in the face of the continual suffering of many life forms on this planet. Look it up in a dictionary, or the Catholic Encyclopedia, if you don’t believe me.

I realize, O Reader, that I tend to take the shortcut of using the term “theodicy” when describing the rather trivial atheist objection to faith that is more properly called the “problem” of evil (or, alternatively, the “problem” of suffering). That it’s a non-issue for Christians doesn’t yet seemed to have registered with proponents of atheism, especially in the online realm, but that’s neither here nor there — they are, after all, welcome to their ignorance. I see no need to make “excuses” for my faith; it is quite defensible without having to resort to any sort of desperate denials and dodges.

Still, I trust that my meaning is clear enough — certainly, Nicholas seems to have caught it.

As to Nicholas‘ remark about MoralPS and the lack thereof, I of course would disagree. Certainly there is a very concrete moral system articulated in the Bible, beginning with Mosaic Law and later re-shaped in Christ by the later authors of the New Testament. Of course, this is simply a formal articulation of a fundamental intrinsic morality — natural law — that has been woven into the fabric of creation. And the doctrine of the Church takes both sources together in its articulation of what it means to be “moral.”

In other words, there is certainly a form of MoralPS, as Nicholas would term it. Not unlike a GPS unit on the dashboard of a car, however, people are free to obey or ignore it at their whim (and, possibly, at their peril). Equally, people should double-check each “source” against the others, much as how a GPS unit should be checked against a map and against real-world observation of the facts on the ground. And finally, it serves to note that not everyone has a GPS unit in their car, in the same way that teaching pertaining to true Morality (that is: Catholic Christian morality) has not yet been brought to every person on Earth, nor has every person to whom it has been brought elected to adopt its use. This is a concept I cover elsewhere.

Which is not to say that the morality itself is incorrect. No, it is simply to observe that some people are wrong. Not that the revelation of human incorrectness should come as any shock — we all screw up, and then quite often. And certainly, our willingness to trust technology more than it deserves to be trusted is but one example thereof.

Count Roland invokes Neil Postman’s classic work in his response to this article.

Neil Postman, in various books but especially Technopoly, makes a similar argument about technology and how it and ‘scientism‘ have become our civil Religion. One of my favourite anecdotes is the student who could not declare a room to be hot before consulting the thermostat.

Socrates said it 2500 years ago that writing would impoverish humanity, as it would lead to a weakening of memory. Maybe it has, but likely not since writing can help us discover and adapt beyond one man’s lifetime work. But the kernel of truth is that every technology we develop changes us, and not necessarily for the better. Our trust in technology and in ‘they’ is as irrational as the faith we hold, if secularist claims about religious faith are to be beleived (they are not), and more irrational than the actual faith claims and their rational justifications especially in light of the ends to which they are going. GPS may save time on a temporal shipment; our faith has the telos of our immortal souls and the eternal situation in which they end.

What is increasingly troubling is that the gap between those who know (in a full sense) the technology and those who use it is widening. For example, thirty years ago most men could fix their own cars — they were simple nough to understand — or at least know if the mechanic was being less than honest, but today most drivers can not fix many problems because cars have become more technical. Yet, we seem to be putting more trust in said technologies. Trusting more what one understands less of, as a society, is irrational insofar as it makes us more vulnerable to personal and corporate catastrophe — a broken car on a lonely highway in winter, a terrorist attack using a Tandy 3000 on our power network. That is the opposite thrust to what Christians strive to do — trust more as we understand more. Now, we can never fully understand God and a childlike (NOT childISH) faith is important, but a child’s most important question is ‘why?’ and we seek to find the answer to that question about God and about creation. Blind faith in what ‘they’ tell us is right is not mainstream Christianity. Mainstream Christianity is fides quearum intellectum — faith seeking understanding — and while we,in sin, can follow the wrong path, a sincere journey will eventually take us towards the Truth. Modern society’s faith in ‘they’ — usually scientists or media-political elites — is indicative of cult (in the contemporary sense) behaviour.

Chesterton was so right, but then again, aren’t we Christians just ignorant fools? Everyone is, but sometimes God graces us with wisdom — I suspect Chesterton would have told the two mothers to cut the child in half, too.

Roland hints at a rather curious thing — the underlying paganism in atheism (or, more broadly, secularism).

Even a cursory look at history should inform the reader that, for as long as humanity has had any semblance of society (even down to the tribal level), humanity has had Religion. The act of worshipping is an intrinsic aspect of human nature, and the philosophers of atheism have it exactly wrong. The question is not, as some might suppose, whether we shall worship; the question is what we shall worship.

For example, Daniel Dennett would ultimately suggest that we worship the meaty organ located an inch or two behind our eyes, and its capacity for reason and rational thought. Other secular categories of worship include the environment (through movements such as radical global warming/climate change alarmism) and animals (through movements such as PETA and other rabid animal rights organizations), the sexual organs and the sexual act, money, power, technology (which we are discussing here), and Barrack Hussein Obama. Most adherents of these movements and philosophies might not regard their participation in them as being an act of worship, but fundamentally that is what it distills down to, personal opinions nonwithstanding.

In other words: formal, ardently disbelieving atheism is but a temporary interlude between (in the West at least) Christianity and whatever religion will supplant Christianity, or between old Christianity and a new, resurgent Christianity.

Humanity’s reliance on — and increasing credulousness in the face of — technology, however, seems poised to continue and to worsen. Roland is exactly right in noting the widening gap between the typical user’s understanding of the complexity of a particular piece of technology and the actual complexity of that technology. Think for just a moment, O Reader, about the last time someone — if not yourself, mind — pointed at a computer tower and called the whole assembly a “hard drive.” That’s a tiny (if somewhat irksome, in my opinion) example, but illustrative all the same.

We trust too much in technology, while at the same time knowing less and less about the ins and outs of pieces thereof. That’s not a good — nor very Christian — position for us to be in.

Bus driver chooses instructions from GPS unit over bridge height-limit warning signs — ends up shaving the top two feet off of most of his bus.

Chesterton once noted, I believe, that if people stop believing in God, they’ll believe in anything. I haven’t the first clue about the bus driver’s religious beliefs (or lack thereof), but I do happen to think that our society has gotten…a lot more credulous, especially where technology is concerned. Heck, it’s gotten to the point where people are willing to trust the little Garmin box sitting on their dashboard over the road signs that have been in place for twenty, thirty, or forty years.

I remember when Google Maps first launched — it took them over a year to finally sort out which streets in Edmonton’s downtown area were one-way streets, and another few months to sort out which directions those one-ways went. Even now, when I use Google to find directions, I tend to take the results as only a rough guideline; the reality on the ground may be a very different thing than what the picture on the screen suggests, and on a long-distance trip I need to be able to adjust for that when and if it happens.

Anyone want to bet that a decade ago, before GPS units became commonplace, that this bridge that the bus hit saw hardly any overhead impacts in a typical year?