After François Hollande was elected as president of France in May 2012, a number of online commenters on French fora declared his victory ‘the end of history’.
Others from the Left also celebrated the day as moving nearer to a Sixth Republic which would be about communitarianism, Socialism and a new France.
It was with some bemusement that I read similar sentiments recently in The American Conservative in an article written by British columnist Brendan O’Neill, editor of Spiked, an online magazine (H/T: Frank Davis).
It wasn’t so long ago that the Spiked ‘About’ page said the contributors were former Marxists. Imagine my surprise then to read that Karl Marx would like it but that Joseph Stalin would not. Hmm.
There appears to be some cognitive dissonance in a conservative publication asking someone from a left-wing libertarian mag to contribute an article on cultural reform.
O’Neill decries the notion that cultural Marxists have had a hand in the rapid socio-political reform Britain has witnessed over the past five decades. He defends this idea by pointing to the current Prime Minister being a Conservative.
However, that seems to be a bit disingenuous on two counts.
One, David Cameron is a product of an education system which has absorbed left-wing honeyed words such as ‘fairness’, ‘justice’ and ‘tolerance’. Cameron’s Eton, despite its exclusivity, also bought into these ideas and has shaped its curriculum around them. So have other public (exclusive private) schools along with their state counterparts.
Two, Cameron is not a Conservative in the Thatcherian sense of the word. He is what Thatcher would have called a ‘wet’, or a Conservative in name only. Frank Davis is right to point out that Cameron has latched on to fashionable causes: health, environmentalism and the European Union.
However, is that fashion for Cameron or is that what he truly believes, because of conditioning from his schooldays? Many other Britons in his age group and younger share the same perspectives.
Parents place a great deal of faith in their children’s education. Today, the children come home to educate their parents, a number of whom already have university degrees and are articulate people. On many occasions I have heard middle-aged couples say, ‘Jane came home for Christmas and told us all about climate change. Gosh, we really are in a world of trouble’. Or, ‘Britain as a nation must make reparations for its imperialist past. Matt told us about a project he’s been working on. There’s so much our generation didn’t learn at school.’
These are not left-wing parents. Many vote Conservative. Some have served in the Armed Forces. What accounts for this shift in thinking?
In the United States in the 1930s, it was because of Communist infiltration of the education system. In 2011, I ran excerpts of Bella Dodd’s School of Darkness (see my Marxism / Communism page). This is how it worked. Dodd knew; she was a Communist Party member for many years:
Chapter 7 – Communists work with teachers unions and the PTA; truth behind Spanish Civil War
Chapter 8 – Comintern-trained teachers in state schools; how Fiorello La Guardia ran New York City
Chapter 9 – using ‘class’ or ‘race’ discrimination to agitate teachers; negative influences on students
Chapter 10 – infiltrating schools via teachers’ unions; lack of moral code in education
Chapter 11 – Communist schools, using American patriots as cover, ‘progressive’ businessmen
So, I do not buy O’Neill’s reasoning, especially when he goes on to conclude (emphases mine):
Of course, there is much in modern Britain that is stuffy and which could do with being — consciously reformed, I mean, not casually done away with. If I had my way, the monarchy would go, the Lords too, and there is even room for asking whether marriage should be denationalized, turned from a state affair into a private matter for individuals and communities (including gay ones). But you need to have public engagement and debate, a battle of ideas, in order to do reform properly, to replace what might be old and archaic with something you think will be better and more enlightened. The problem with the current elite’s elbowing of tradition into the gutter is that it is grounded in nothing except shallow PR concerns. It is cultural vandalism, and real, still vital institutions that mean a great deal to ordinary people are dying off as a result: tabloid newspapers, the traditional ideal of marriage, the Union, the royals—an entire way of life dimly remembered in the words of Orwell.
O’Neill draws a rather fuzzy conclusion. On the one hand, he declares his republican instincts. On the other, he feigns empathy for British traditionalists.
However, more importantly, there are no ‘shallow PR concerns’ on the part of our government ministers. They sincerely believe in what they are doing. They have been educated to do so. They might not be the deepest thinkers, however, that doesn’t mean they don’t believe it.
The death of history is another step closer to becoming reality — and not just for French Socialists.
In closing, I found the comment by Jim Bovard somewhat ironic:
We’re lucky that our politicians would never undermine American moral values.
Really? Explain then what’s been going on there since 2008.
23 comments
August 1, 2012 at 11:08 pm
Linda
The ‘’end of history’ so longed for byGod-haters and anti-Christians of every stripe, whether materialist Communist or New Age pantheist spiritual Communist refers specifically to the West’s traditional linear conception of history. The linear view reflects the conviction that history is what comes between creation ex nihilo and final judgement. History in this sense is a theistic conclusion.
Opposed to the linear view are pre-Christian cyclical evolutionary concepts based in transmigration, reincarnation and the ‘eternal return” favored by Nietzsche. Another is what Mary Midgely dubbed the “Escalator Myth” to refer to the idea that humanity is riding an evolutionary escalator smoothly, progressively ever upward to some imagined state of perfection. Moreover, this evolutionary escalator will eventually take near-perfect humanity off our planet and out into space.
As long as Western civilization kept faith with its’ Christian foundations it highly valued the linear conception. But having departed from the faith the linear view has been transformed into a historicist evolutionary process containing within it the entire meaning of life, allowing nothing intrinsic to it, or as John Lennon put it: Imagine no heaven above us, no hell below..
In his book, “Idols of Destruction,” Herbert Schlossberg writes that in keeping with the immanentist god-force, “the meaning of history is wholly immanent, and that is a term we shall find occurring repeatedly in our consideration of idolatry.” (p.13)
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August 1, 2012 at 11:33 pm
Linda
In their more candid moments, evolutionists generally admit that the spontaneous generation of life from non-living matter is a highly improbable event. If however, the amount of time available is without end then the problem of life from non-life is overcome. The following quote from evolutionist George Wald writing on The Origin of Life in Scientific American (August,1954, p. 48) reveals the neccessity of escape from the linear view into a wholly immanent evolutionary process:
“Time is in fact the hero of the plot. The time with which we have to deal is of the order of two billion years. What we regard as impossible on the basis of human experience is meaningless there. Given so much time, the ‘impossible’ becomes possible, the possible probable, and the probable virtually certain. One has only to wait; time itself performs the miracles.”
Of course escape from the linear view into a cyclical view also means escape from Judgement——or so it is hoped.
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August 2, 2012 at 9:18 am
churchmouse
Linda, thank you very much for these comments.
I’ve spent the last 90 minutes rereading them and doing some searches on the concepts.
They are so alien to me as to be beyond my ken. I cannot understand why someone would think that way. What would make someone even come up with such a ‘philosophy’? Maybe I’m just too Western in my thinking. 😉
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August 2, 2012 at 10:40 am
Rose
Judgement
I don’t hate anyone so much that I would want to console myself by the thought of them in an eternity of torment.
I was given a conscience and it has held me back all my life.
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August 2, 2012 at 10:46 am
churchmouse
But whatever humans wish for in that respect will have no bearing on what He decides at the Final Judgment.
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August 2, 2012 at 1:10 pm
lleweton
Maybe I’m being a ‘wet’ but, like you, Rose, I can’t imagine how contemplating the suffering of another person would alleviate mine. I would, though, want the wrongs and their effect to be righted. I have the issue of false witness in mind. As to judgment – I suppose that’s a separate matter.
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August 2, 2012 at 1:18 pm
churchmouse
To me, the subject seemed to be divine judgment at the end of the world, but maybe I misunderstood something.
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August 2, 2012 at 2:31 pm
Rose
“I would, though, want the wrongs and their effect to be righted.”
Of course, lleweton, but I’m not big into revenge,unlike those nasty antismokers who wish a horrible death onto anyone who disagrees with them or refuses to do what they say.
So living a life of submission and fear in case I might be judged for not doing exactly as I’m told by other people claiming authority from God, sounds more like the word of generations of Man, rather than Someone who is everywhere and in everything.
But I am not a conventionally religious person and my views are probably best ignored. 🙂
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August 2, 2012 at 2:35 pm
churchmouse
‘So living a life of submission and fear in case I might be judged for not doing exactly as I’m told by other people claiming authority from God, sounds more like the word of generations of Man, rather than Someone who is everywhere and in everything.’
It is from the Book of Man ;). So are Christians with a laundry list of legalistic don’ts.
I think your RE teacher has a lot of explaining to do. S/He gave you a pretty warped view of the freedom we have in Jesus Christ.
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August 2, 2012 at 4:25 pm
lleweton
Rose, re your reply -2.31pm – to my comment at 1.10 pm about the righting of wrongs, I agree. I am not into revenge either. Whether there is a philosophical, moral or religious point to retribution (if that is the same thing), I don’t know. What does help me is to see truth triumph. The propaganda, social engineering and bullying which drives the anti-smoking cult is an abuse of truth, in many ways.
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August 2, 2012 at 10:15 am
Linda
What would make someone even come up with such a ‘philosophy’?
The answer revolves around the issue of life. Where does it come from? Is it a property of matter—chemicals, electricity, blood, or something else which man can discover and utilize? Or is it a gift from He Who exists outside time?
In pursuit of the answer Karl Marx logically deduced that life is indeed from He Who exists outside of time. But his vastly inflated egotism refused to accept that he—the one and only, vastly superior Karl Marx—-was dependent upon the living God.
This statement, “In their more candid moments, evolutionists generally admit that the spontaneous generation of life from non-living matter ” pertains to the issue under discussion. Like Karl Marx, evolutionists do not want to be dependent upon the living God, hence their futile search for life. Always seeking, never finding.
The West’s traditional linear view of history bespeaks one life, then death of body, resurrection and Judgement unto either life eternal in heaven or in hell.
For all who reject the living God, who refuse to acknowledge that life is with Him, there is only one possible escape—into nature itself. Recall the words of Paul in Romans who said there are only two foundations for all religious and philosophical systems in the world, throughout history. Either men will worship and serve He Who created creation (and is the bestower of life) or worship and serve creation itself.
In contemporary terms, “nature worship” is deceptively packaged as, for example, Illumined Free Masonry, scientific materialism, scientific socialism, Hegelian pantheism, the Liberal Church, occult spiritual New Age and today’s spiritualized science. For adherents of these systems, John Lennon’s song “Imagine” applies in that all that exists is nature.
Evolutionary conceptions speaking either of the progress of life over time incarnated within countless different kinds of bodies (Darwinism) or conversely, of soul over time incarnated within countless different bodies (i.e., Eastern pantheist and Telhards conception), are necessary doctrines.
With Darwinian materialism, man escapes Divine Judgement because upon death the matter of which he is composed is reabsorbed into the matter of which nature is comprised. So there is nothing after death. With pantheist systems there are cyclical views of time and perhaps millions of reincarnations. Either way, Western God-haters and anti-Christians escape Judgement—-so they hope.
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August 2, 2012 at 10:53 am
churchmouse
Thanks, I’m ‘getting’ it now.
But don’t you think that this would have happened anyway without Darwin? Darwin, as NT Wright pointed out, was a product of Enlightenment thought already in this direction and the influence of ancient epicureanism (for readers — this is a philosophy, not love of food and drink http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epicureanism ).
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August 2, 2012 at 11:16 am
churchmouse
There is some link between this type of thought and those who believe in climate change. Earlier, you cited Mary Midgely and the Escalator Myth. This is one of her articles in The Guardian, dated December 19, 2008. Excerpts follow:
‘Humanist sages, from Comte through Julian Huxley to recent exponents of the strong anthropic principle, have steadily encouraged us to build up our appreciation of the human race into a full-scale edifice of self-worship. Science itself has seemed to be a central shrine within this temple, certainly not an iconoclastic force that might disturb it. Thus progress (smoothly dove-tailed with evolution) has increasingly appeared as an escalator, powered by our own remarkable abilities and bearing us – perhaps with cybernetic additions and perhaps becoming immortal – reliably on towards a distant and mysterious Omega Point.
‘So vast is the scale of this dream that no actual downturn in human affairs has yet really managed to dent it. Wars, famines and political disasters have been treated as mere surface blips. Today, however, things are surely changing. Any detached observer can see that our earthly prospects are becoming ever bleaker and that – whatever other causes for this are involved – human contributions to those prospects have been, and still are, fearfully destructive. The escalator myth has nothing to do with reality.
‘If we ask, then, what religious change is most urgently needed today, the best answer surely is that we should debunk and explode this anthropolatrous superstition. We do not need it. Its bad practical effects are clear, not only in the mass of silly climate change denial which infests the internet but, more subtly, in the extreme slowness with which peoples and governments still respond to obvious dangers. But it is also bad in itself, psychologically and spiritually. It is bad religion. Self-worship is an appalling habit, which vitiates the deep understanding of human life that serious humanism calls for …
‘Thus the Greeks, cocky though they were on many subjects, acknowledged and revered the earth, Gaia, as the all-giving mother of gods and men. Nor was this unusual …
‘Christian thought, by contrast, does, of course, allow of reverence for the physical world because God created that world and still pervades it. But various historical chances have placed much less emphasis on this than on the central role of man. It is no disrespect to man to suggest that today we must quickly reverse that emphasis.’
Comments following the article were interesting. A couple of them speculated on her personal beliefs. Someone said that she was probably more of an agnostic than an atheist. I have no opinion on her religious beliefs other than that this explains why I do not read The Guardian. 😉
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August 2, 2012 at 11:32 am
Linda Kimball
But don’t you think that this would have happened anyway without Darwin
We cannot know what might have happened differently. That said, profound thinkers such as Henri De Lubac, author of The Drama of Atheist Humanism, saw materialist Darwinism (Atomism/Epicureanism with its’ roots in ancient Egypt) as a necessary prelude to our own time. What this means is that Darwinian materialism, with its’ total negation of the living God in heaven (outside time), spirits, souls, hell, angels and demons served to despiritualize the West (cast it into a spiritual desert) thereby hollowing out a void into which now flows the occult spirituality that opens the door to the return of unclean spirits—Nephilim.
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August 2, 2012 at 11:35 am
churchmouse
It’s interesting that both sides of the spectrum see Darwin as the axis on which all this spins.
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August 2, 2012 at 11:50 am
Frank Davis
David Cameron is a product of an education system which has absorbed left-wing honeyed words such as ‘fairness’, ‘justice’ and ‘tolerance’. Cameron’s Eton, despite its exclusivity, also bought into these ideas and has shaped its curriculum around them. So have other public (exclusive private) schools along with their state counterparts.
I have no privileged knowledge of what is or isn’t taught at Eton. I didn’t go to that particular school. What is it that leads you to say this? Did you go to school there?
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August 2, 2012 at 12:37 pm
churchmouse
No, but there is plenty in the press — print and online — which discusses public school curriculum. Over the past several years, Tatler put out a school guide which accompanied the September issue of the magazine. All the top headmasters used terms such as ‘forward-looking’, ‘well-rounded’, ‘diversity’ and so on. I gave my last two copies away to prospective public school parents as a point of reference, so am unable to quote directly for you.
However, here is part of the Headmaster’s message from the College’s website:
‘Our primary aim is to encourage each Etonian to be a self-confident, inquiring, tolerant, positive young man, a well-rounded character with an independent mind, an individual who respects the differences of others.’
And:
‘Nurturing individuality and yet understanding and appreciating the differences of others is a central tenet of Eton’s philosophy.’
Driving past Harrow School over the past few years (as my better half and I have on many occasions) shows a similar big change in the top public schools (pupils, curricula, programmes, etc.), which, given Cameron’s age (45), would have already started by the time he attended Eton.
The goal, as it is in the state sector, is to produce citizens with a global outlook. Men such as Cameron have a higher career path. For the state pupil, whilst the career path will not be there, the perspective will be, however, on accepting the precarious nature of employment, an irrelevance of his country’s history and saying ‘That’s just how things are’.
Have a look around at the school websites for the headmasters’ message. Check the curriculum. We would do well to revise our opinions of elite schools. They provide the entry to Oxbridge and the best jobs in the world, but they are far from being snobbish as they were in the past. In fact, they encourage social programmes (and programming 😉 ).
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August 2, 2012 at 2:11 pm
churchmouse
Apparently, the next issue of Tatler‘s schools guide is coming out with the October issue on sale next month.
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August 2, 2012 at 1:58 pm
Linda Kimball
The Death of Western History: Who Is Killing It and Why?
http://patriotsandliberty.com/?p=18105
(my thanks to CM for the Midgely article on the guardian)
In his two books, “The Occult Underground: The Dawn of the New Age” and “The Occult Establishment,” historian James Webb chronicles the rise of an occult intelligentsia as it emerged out of the Renaissance. Webb sees the Renaissance as a spiritually traumatic time in which the spiritual roots of many people were shaken free of Christianity and like a dog returning to its’ own vomit, those shaken loose eagerly embraced the ancient traditions discarded by Christian theism that were sweeping into Christendom at that time.
His book, “The Occult Underground” was originally called “The Flight from Reason” because whereas Christian theism is emminently rational, large numbers of influential Westerners at the top of society had turned back to the irrationality of occultism — the science of magic.
Webb’s main point is that since the Renaissance, a powerfully influential occult community existing at the highest levels of society has been both the intelligentsia and the real powers behind what has been variously called the Progressive Underground, the Anti-Establishment, Anti-Tradition, and the Counter Culture, the aim of which is twofold: first, the total destruction of the Old Order based on Christianity, and second, the creation of a man-made New World Order which is to rise out of the smoldering ashes of the Old Order.
C.S. Lewis is in agreement with Webb’s findings. In “The Abolition of Man” (1974) Lewis points out that the Renaissance reawakened a magical view of the world closely connected with pagan Gnostic sectarianism, Hermetic magic, spiritism (contact with spirits), astrology, Eastern pantheism and alchemical scientism. Accompanying all of this was evolution, occultism, reincarnation and karma.
Evolution is both the antithesis of creation ex nihilo and the primary doctrine of both Eastern pantheism and Western scientific materialism (Darwinism), and so early on Lewis understood that both movements were merely two sides of the same pagan revival. Thus he argued that pantheism and materialism are not enemies in principle but rather cooperating philosophies united against the living God Who resides outside of time, His Revelation, creation ex nihilo, His eternally unchanging Truth and Moral Law, the linear view of history and Christian-based civilization.
The linear view is the West’s traditional view. It reflects the conviction that history is what comes between creation ex nihilo and final judgement. In this view, man lives but one life followed by death, resurrection and Judgement unto life eternal in either paradise or hell. History in this sense is a theistic conclusion.
The antithesis, or opposing views, are pre-Christian cyclical evolutionary concepts based in transmigration, reincarnation and the ‘eternal return” favored by Nietzsche, the German “death of God” philosopher. In these views man lives many lives, perhaps millions. Another view is what Mary Midgely dubbed the “Escalator Myth” to refer to the idea that humanity is riding an evolutionary escalator smoothly, progressively ever upward to some imagined state of perfection. Moreover, this evolutionary escalator will eventually take men, powered by their own idolatrous minds and remarkable abilities and perhaps with cybernetic additions and perhaps becoming immortal – reliably on towards a distant and mysterious Telhardian Omega Point.
Midgely adds,
“So vast is the scale of this dream that no actual downturn in human affairs has yet really managed to dent it. Wars, famines and political disasters have been treated as mere surface blips. Today, however, things are surely changing. Any detached observer can see that our earthly prospects are becoming ever bleaker and that – whatever other causes for this are involved – human contributions to those prospects have been, and still are, fearfully destructive. The escalator myth has nothing to do with reality.” (All too human, Midgely, Friday 19 December 2008, guardian.co.uk)
For all who reject the living God, who refuse to acknowledge that life is a gift from Him, there is only one possible escape—–into nature itself. Recall the words of Paul in Romans who said there are only two foundations for all religious and philosophical systems around the world and throughout history. Either men will worship and serve He Who created creation (and is the only source and bestower of life) or they will worship and serve creation itself and futilely seek for the origin of life within nature—always seeking, never finding.
All God-hating and anti-Christian theoreticians are consumed by the quest for the origin of life. Where does it come from? Is it a property of matter—chemicals, electricity, blood, or something else which man can discover and finally endow himself with immortality? Or is it a gift from He Who exists outside time?
In pursuit of the answer Karl Marx logically deduced that life is indeed from He Who exists outside of time. But his vastly inflated egotism refused to accept that he——the one and only, vastly superior Karl Marx—-was dependent upon the living God, so in full knowledge of this, he rebelled and brought destruction upon himself.
The following statement from the evolutionist George Wald writing on The Origin of Life in Scientific American (August, 1954, p. 48) pertains to the futile quest for the origin of life:
“Time is in fact the hero of the plot. The time with which we have to deal is of the order of two billion years. What we regard as impossible on the basis of human experience is meaningless there. Given so much time, the ‘impossible’ becomes possible, the possible probable, and the probable virtually certain. One has only to wait; time itself performs the miracles.”
Note that ‘time’ is a mystical movement empowered with the creative powers of the living God. With limitless amounts of “time” the ‘impossible becomes possible,’ meaning that life will spontaneously emerge from dead-matter. In “scientific” terms this magic work is called abiogenesis by the self-deluded.
This is not empirical science but rather the science of magic. And until such time as rebellious egotistical God-haters and anti-Christians finally discover the property of life they’ll continue rallying around the rejection of creation ex nihilo—in the name of science and evolution of course:
“…one belief that all true original Darwinians held in common, and that was their rejection of creationism, their rejection of special creation. This was the flag around which they assembled and under which they marched…. The conviction that the diversity of the natural world was the result of natural processes and not the work of God was the idea that brought all the so-called Darwinians together in spite of their disagreements on other of Darwin’s theories. (One Long Argument,1991, p. 99, Ernst Mayr (1904–2005), Professor of Zoology at Harvard University)
The “conviction that the diversity of the natural world was the result of natural processes and not the work of God” is what Paul defined as worship of nature. In contemporary terms, “nature worship” is deceptively packaged under a variety of philosophies, ideological systems and of course—modern evolutionary science.
Examples of modern idolatry and nature worship include: rationalism, Illumined Free Masonry, scientific materialism, scientific socialism, positivism, the pantheist Hegelian-dialectic, Karl Marx’s materialist-dialectic, Theosophy, the immanentist Liberal Church, occult spiritual New Age and today’s spiritualized science. For adherents of these systems, John Lennon’s song “Imagine” applies in that all that exists is nature, meaning there is no living God and heaven “above” nor hell “below.”
Evolutionary conceptions speaking either of the progress of life over time incarnated within countless different kinds of bodies (Darwinism) or conversely, of soul over time incarnated within countless different kinds of bodies (i.e., Eastern pantheist and Telhards conception), are necessary doctrines. Both forms speak of reincarnation, the first in “secular” terms of incarnated life the second in terms of incarnated soul.
With Darwinian materialism, man escapes Divine Judgement because upon death the matter of which he is composed is recycled into the matter of which nature is comprised. Annihilation is another word for this. Either way, there is nothing after death since death is annihilation. With pantheist systems there are cyclical views of time and perhaps millions of reincarnations. Either way, self-deceived Western God-haters and anti-Christians escape the linear view of history, therefore Judgement—-or so they hope.
@Linda Kimball
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August 2, 2012 at 2:50 pm
churchmouse
Thank you for the full essay!
It just pains me to see Darwin get so much credit from everyone for materialistic thought — detractors and supporters.
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August 2, 2012 at 3:13 pm
churchmouse
I’ve put together a post for Sunday night on Schlossberg’s book, which Linda quoted from above.
Here is a study guide for it from Liberty University. I do not endorse the University nor all of the people quoted in the document, however, it brings up some good points from both sides of the spectrum (emphases mine below, bracketed information mine):
http://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1296&context=gov_fac_pubs
From p. 2:
‘As Cornelius Van Til [Reformed theologian] points out, Christianity is a
religion of ethics rather than metaphysics.
‘Whatever man places at the apex of his pyramid of values is the god that he serves (cf. Tillich [Paul Tillich, liberal theologian]). Secularization is only the negative aspect because the turning away from God means that something else is being put in His place.
‘Plight of the Liberal Intellectual: “He who marries the spirit of an age soon finds himself a widower ([William Ralph] Inge [late Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral]).”‘
From p. 3:
‘”As the facts of history change, values, and consequently
laws, will have to change with them.”
‘Relativization of the Past (progressive) or All Periods But One Golden Age (conservative).’
From p. 4:
‘Myth of the Seamless Web:
‘After a major scientific revolution, the textbooks are “all
rewritten in such a way as to obscure the tortuous path of
change. History becomes smoothed out; it ‘evolves’
naturally, and progress is enshrined.” Normal science is
regarded as largely cumulative.
‘The Christian View of History:
‘Factuality (cf [Journalist Walter] Lippmann on [Presbyterian theologian John Gresham] Machen)
‘1. Five benefits of knowing that history’s creator is outside
history (29):
‘a. Man is distinguished from nature. Behaviorism simply
reduces history to a category of nature.
‘b. It restores meaning to events that would otherwise be
valueless and insignificant. (Frankl gives only an
existentialist basis for meaning)
‘c. It places ends and means in proper perspective. (Note
Aldous Huxley)
‘d. It provides a basis for understanding change by
reference to the changeless. (Rushdoony’s Standard)
‘e. It provides a principle of value against which all
values are judged.’
From p. 5:
‘Something that has outlived its usefulness is dumped into
the dustbin of history (Marx).
‘Need to Remember History
‘1. C. S. Lewis points out that “it is not the remembered but
the forgotten past that enslaves us … The unhistorical
are usually, without knowing it, enslaved to a fairly recent past.”‘
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August 2, 2012 at 6:49 pm
Linda
It just pains me to see Darwin get so much credit from everyone for materialistic thought — detractors and supporters.
Original Darwinism is dead and neo-Darwinism is holding on by a thread, read, “Can Neo-Darwinism Survive?”
http://www.ukapologetics.net/1neodarwinism.htm
We need to see Darwin in the context of a conveniant figurehead who just happened to come along at the right time. To make sense of this refresh your memory with Webb’s main point— that since the Renaissance, a powerfully influential occult community existing at the highest levels of society has been both the intelligentsia and the real powers behind what has been variously called the Progressive Underground, the Anti-Establishment, Anti-Tradition, and the Counter Culture, the aim of which is twofold: first, the total destruction of the Old Order based on Christianity, and second, the creation of a man-made New World Order which is to rise out of the smoldering ashes of the Old Order.
The occult intelligentsia (i.e., Illumined Free Masons,Theosophists, spiritists) preferred a spiritual evolutionary conception but knew that the West was not ready to accept reincarnation. So Darwin’s conception was taken up and packaged as empirical science.
Darwin’s grandfather, Dr. Erasmus Darwin was an important member of the occult intelligentsia. As master of the famous Masonic Canongate lodge in Edinburgh he had close ties with both the Jacobin Masons, the organizers of the bloody revolution in France, and with the infamous Illuminati, whose diabolical cause was overthrow of the Church and destruction of Christendom. Thus Erasmus Darwin, a neo-pagan known to attend seances, was an important name in European Masonic anti-Christian organizations engaged in revolutionary activism.
Charles Darwin received the idea of evolution from his grandfather. Erasmus Darwin mentored his grandson Charles:
“Dr. Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802) was the first man in England to suggest those ideas which were later to be embodied in the Darwinian theory by his grandson, Charles Darwin (1809-1882) who wrote in 1859 Origin of Species.” (Scarlet and the Beast, Vol. II, John Daniel, p. 34)
Twenty-five years after Darwin published “Origin of Species,” Pope Leo XIII issued a famous bull in 1884 entitled Humanum Genus in which he discussed the diabolical program of the Free Masons and the Illuminati:
“…the partisans of evil seems to be combining together, and to be struggling with united vehemence, led on or assisted by that strongly organized and widespread association called the Freemasons. No longer making any secret of their purposes, they are now boldly rising up against God Himself.” They intend nothing less than “the utter overthrow of that whole religious and political order of the world which the Christian teaching has produced, and the substitution of a new state of things in accordance with their ideas (that) shall be drawn from mere naturalism.” (Humanum Genus, Encyclical on Freemasonry)
Having rejected the living God, the occult intelligentsia also rejected the Fall, which means that Lucifer did not fall and is not the devil. Amazing as it may seem, the occult intelligentsia embraced—and still embraces— Lucifer. This is made clear in the writings of Helena Blavatsky, the Illuminati, and New Age insider David Spangler, for example. In this light we can understand why their diabolical anti-human agenda called for the uncreation of of man. From man created in the spiritual image of the living God, man would be conceptually reinvented as an ape:
“Instead of Adam, our ancestry is traced to the most grotesque of creatures; thought is phosphorous; the soul complex nerves, and our moral sense a secretion of sugar.” (Disraeli, quoted by John Passmore “A Hundred Years of Philosophy,” p. 36)
With the triumph of scientific naturalism and Darwinism in the nineteenth century, the murder of God and the obliteration of His order of being was cast in the cement of “enlightened” pseudo-science. Westerners would be cut off from God the Father and their own spirit/soul, thereby disrupting:
“the bio-psycho-spiritual unity of human consciousness….” (Authenticating the Activities of Jesus, Bruce Chilton and Craig A. Evans, 1999)
The spirit of the modern secular “scientistic” West has almost succeeded in obliterating the souls of Western citizens and now seeks obliteration of the two sexes:
“Little Johnny went to school; There to learn a brand new rule; No longer could the boys be boys/ Or have their special trucks and toys/; Only six, so young and tender,/ It’s time for him to unlearn gender.” (Here At School the Slant is Gay, cited in Our Gay Pride President, David A. Noebel,)
Today Darwin’s real significance lies not in his all but dead conception but in the fact that his name gives evolution its’ “scientific” credentials.
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August 2, 2012 at 9:09 pm
churchmouse
NT Wright explained a lot of Darwin’s background (e.g. Erasmus’s influence), but, although I’m a bit ambivalent about Wright, it seems he might be onto something when he says that Darwin and Evolution are an American creationist’s battleground.
There was a whole cast of characters from the Enlightenment (so, from his grandfather’s time — explanation for readers) on through to the end of the 19th century who all had their roles to play. As far as I see it, too much weight is given to Darwin, when there are even more odious and destructive personalities of the time.
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