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Liberal defense of Islam

Posted by :admin On : January 30, 2015
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Category: Archives, Christianity, Humanism, Islam, Worldview

[An abbreviated version of this article[1] appeared in the Tulsa World on January 22, 2015.]

Liberals and the governments and institutions they represent are having ever increasing difficulty in convincing their constituents that the atrocities of Islamic terrorists do not represent the supposedly peace-loving Islamic religion followed by moderate Muslims. The frequency, shrillness, and fervor with which liberals defend Islam grow proportionally with each announcement of a new Muslim terrorist attack regardless of its magnitude and vicious brutality.

Howard Dean is the former head of the Democratic National Committee and one-time candidate for the Democratic nomination for president. Following the murder of two policemen and ten employees of Charlie Hebdo, a satirical magazine that routinely criticized Islam’s Muhammad as well as many other non-Muslim religious and political leaders, Mr. Dean refused to label the perpetrators as Muslim terrorists in spite of the three gunmen shouting “Allahu Akbar” during the killing spree. Allahu Akbar translates as “Allah is the Greatest” and is the opening declaration of every Islamic prayer as prescribed by the Prophet Muhammad.

I stopped calling these people Muslim terrorists. They’re about as Muslim as I am. I mean, they have no respect for anybody else’s life, that’s not what the Koran says. Europe has an enormous radical problem. I think ISIS is a cult. Not an Islamic cult. I think it’s a cult.[2]

The Paris murderers shouted the same exaltations of Allah as Army Major and fellow Muslim Nadal Hasan did when he shot and killed fourteen and wounded thirty-two at Fort Hood, Texas in 2009. The American government conveniently ignored Hasan’s motives and obvious connections with Islamic jihad while euphemistically mislabeling the murders as workplace violence.

Following an attack on the Canadian Parliament by a thirty-two year old Muslim convert who shot and killed a guard during the attack, liberal leader Justin Trudeau quickly reassured his friends and fellow citizens in the Muslim community that, “…Canadians know acts such as these committed in the name of Islam are an aberration of your faith. Continued mutual cooperation and respect will help prevent the influence of distorted ideological propaganda posing as religion. We will walk forward together, not apart.[3] [emphasis added]

In response to the Paris attack political columnist Michael Gerson wrote that the murders in Paris were, “…the exploitation of religious passions for political ends…It is important to separate this violent political ideology from the faith of Islam.”[4] Although many Muslims do not agree with and reject the violence occurring in the name of Islam, the separation of Islam from the violence prescribed by the Koran is impossible. These so-called moderate Muslims are Muslim in name only and have no standing in defense of the Muslim faith. They may be Muslims by birth, conversion, products of a predominately Muslim culture, and give lip-service to the Koran, but they are not representative of Muslims faithful to the teachings of the Koran. In fact, the Koran labels them infidels for not fully embracing the teachings of Muhammad and the Koran.

They but wish that ye should reject Faith, as they do, and thus be on the same footing (as they): but take not friends from their ranks until they flee in the way of Allah (from what is forbidden). But if they turn renegades, seize them and slay them wherever ye find them; and (in any case) take no friends or helpers from their ranks. [Surah 4:89. Quran][5]

The same analogy applies to Christians. True Christians accept Christ as their Savior and follow His teachings. Those that claim to be Christian by birth, upbringing, or culture or do not follow Christ’s teachings are Christian in name only and live without the Christian creed. But unlike the followers of Islam, Christians cannot compel conversion nor punish those who do not convert.

With the explosion of Muslim-inspired violence in the West as well as in Muslim-dominated countries, liberals refuse to acknowledge the elephant in the room—the obvious truth as to the nature of Islam. That truth which is being ignored and not addressed is that violent proponents of the Islamic religion are acting in accordance with the words and directives of the Koran to spread Islam through aggressive individual, military, and political threats, intimidation, and actions in order to achieve world domination.

One wonders why the humanists and their political operatives are so adamant in the defense of Islam, a most authoritarian religion, given the fact that humanism denies the existence of a supreme being and denigrates “…traditional dogmatic or authoritarian religions that place revelation, God, ritual, or creed above human needs and experience…”[6] Two reasons are apparent for humanists’ defense of Islam. The first is that Christianity has so dominated the history and worldview of Western civilization that Western liberals demand not only equal time for opposing views but give preference to various anti-Christian religions and none more so than Islam. The second reason for humanism’s defense of Islam is adherence to two of its core beliefs—humanistically defined multiculturalism and tolerance.

Multiculturalism is one of the cardinal doctrines of humanism and has its roots in the denial of absolutes which translates into moral relativism. According to humanist dogma, such a values-free approach makes it impossible to judge one period or era in relation to another or to say that one culture’s ethic is superior to another. The end result of this philosophy is that all belief systems are equally valid. But if all belief systems are not equally valid (as demonstrated by the followers of Islam and the Qur’an), then the tenets of humanism including its humanistically defined concepts of equality, diversity, and multiculturalism are false and unsustainable. The liberal defense of Islam occurs not because they care for and respect the tenets of Islam. Rather, to reject Islam based on its history as a scourge to mankind is to admit that their humanistic conceptions of multiculturalism and tolerance are fundamentally flawed with regard to a mankind’s understanding of his nature and transcendent values.

There is a third reason for humanists’ defense of Islam. The words of the Apostle Paul give insight into the mindset of seemingly intelligent people who are so obviously in denial of the Islamic threat to Western civilization.

And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient. [Romans 1:28. KJV] [emphasis added]

Now as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so do these also resist the truth: men of corrupt minds, reprobate concerning the faith. [2 Timothy 3:8. KJV] [emphasis added]

They profess that they know God; but in works they deny him, being abominable, and disobedient, and unto every good work reprobate. [Titus 1:16. KJV] [emphasis added]

In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them. [2 Corinthians 4:4. KJV]

Reprobate is a very old-fashioned, King-James-style word little understood by moderns but well describes the humanist abandonment of rational thought regarding Islam. Although Christ loves the sinner, the Apostle Paul does not mince words as to the spiritual condition of a reprobate by which he means unworthy, corrupt, rejected, and condemned.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

[1] Larry G. Johnson, “Liberals won’t acknowledge nature of Islam,” Tulsa World, January 22, 2015, A-13.
[2] Daniel Greenfield, “Howard Dean: Muslim Terrorists are as Muslim as Me,” Frontpage Mag, January 7, 2015. http://www.frontpagemag.com/2015/dgreenfield/howard-dean-muslim- terrorists-are-as-muslim-as-me/ (accessed January 13, 2015).
[3] Erika Tucker, “Soldier killed in what Harper calls ‘terrorist attack’ in Ottawa,” Global News, October 22, 2014. http://globalnews.ca/news/1628313/shots-fired-at-war-memorial-in-ottawa-says-witness/ (accessed January 13, 2015).
[4] Michael Gerson, “The politics of homicide in France,” Tulsa World, January 10, 2015, A-16.
[5] The Meaning of The Illustrious Qur-an, (Dar AHYA Us-Sunnah), p. 49.
[6] Paul Kurtz, Humanist Manifestos I and II, (Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books, 1973), pp.15-16.

“Workplace violence” comes to Canada

Posted by :admin On : November 21, 2014
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Category: America, Archives, Government, Humanism, Islam, Worldview

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) defines workplace violence as “…violence or the threat of violence against workers. It can occur at or outside the workplace and can range from threats and verbal abuse to physical assaults and homicide, one of the leading causes of job-related deaths. However it manifests itself, workplace violence is a growing concern for employers and employees nationwide.” The OSHA website also tells us that workplace violence can strike anywhere and anyone…people in homes, pizza delivery persons, gas meter readers, psychiatric evaluators…literally anywhere work is or can be done.[1] But OSHA’s definition is so broad that it is meaningless. Almost any violence can be classified as connected to the workplace however tenuous that connection might be. Not only does OSHA mask the real reasons for much of the violence, but it magnifies the level of workplace violence by equating minor non-violent and non-criminal occurrences with violent crimes such as physical assault and murder. Effectively, a large segment of general societal violence is jury-rigged to the workplace and made the responsibility of employers. The assumptive language of OSHA’s workplace violence regulations is that all such violence is workplace related.

OSHA’s workplace violence rules were written long before November 5, 2009, when Army Major Nidal Hasan shot to death thirteen people (fourteen including the unborn child of one of the victims) and wounded thirty-two others at Fort Hood, Texas. Major Hasan committed these crimes after years of open and verbal support of Islamic jihad while serving as an Army officer. Hasan is an American-born Muslim who had exchanged emails with a leading Al-Qaeda personage in which Hasan asked if those attacking fellow soldiers were considered martyrs.[2] Hasan fired over 200 rounds in the killing spree while shouting “Allahu Akbar,” which means “Allah is the Greatest” and is the opening declaration of every Islamic prayer as prescribed by the Prophet Muhammad.

Only four days after the shootings at Fort Hood, General George Casey, Chief of Staff of the Army, appeared on several Sunday news talk shows and expressed concern regarding the speculation as to the cause or motivation behind the shootings. “We have to be careful because we can’t jump to conclusions now based on little snippets of information that have come out. As great a tragedy as this was, it would be a shame if our diversity became a casualty as well.” (emphasis added) Not only was the general more concerned with protecting diversity than exposing the truth regarding the attack, he deliberately switched the focus of what happened when he said that he did not think there was currently discrimination against the estimated 3,000 Muslims who served in the Army at that time. Implicit in the General’s unwarranted statement was that if Hasan had acted because of his religious beliefs, it would have been because of discrimination against Muslims within the Army.[3]

Forty-six people were killed or wounded just three days earlier on an Army base whose supreme commander was General Casey. The perpetrator was a Muslim who shouted “Allahu Akbar” and had a well-known history among his military peers and superiors of being in sympathy with and vocally supporting Islamic jihad. However, the general’s greatest concern was for discrimination against Muslims in the military and not the families of the dead and those wounded by Hasan. It is incredibly naïve for anyone to believe the general did know the complete story of Nidal Hasan within hours of the killings and not just little snippets of information.

So the United States government saw to it that Hasan’s crimes were labeled “workplace violence” as opposed to what it really was…an act of terror whose motivation was to advance the beliefs and purposes of a false religion. Workplace violence may describe the location, but it does not reveal the cause or motivation of the violence. Government leadership committed to the philosophy of humanism must at all costs defend its humanistic concepts of diversity and multiculturalism in which moral relativism rules and all belief systems are coexisting and equally valid. Thus, we can all rest well tonight because diversity has been defended and OSHA is churning out even more rules and regulations to combat “workplace violence” such as committed by Major Hasan.

Recently, Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, a thirty-two year old Muslim convert, shot and killed a ceremonial guard on his way to attack the Canadian House of Commons and was subsequently killed by guards. Humanism in Canada is even more advanced than in the United States, but Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper had the courage to call the assault on the House of Commons a terrorist attack. However, true to liberalism’s humanistic roots, liberal leader Justin Trudeau quickly reassured the Muslim community.

And to our friends and fellow citizens in the Muslim community, Canadians know acts such as these committed in the name of Islam are an aberration of your faith. Continued mutual cooperation and respect will help prevent the influence of distorted ideological propaganda posing as religion. We will walk forward together, not apart.[4] (emphasis added)

According to Muslim tradition, the Quran was verbally spoken to Muhammad and is the mother document upon which Islam rests. One wonders how Zehaf-Bibeau’s actions are a deviation from the Islamic faith when the words of the Quran repeatedly justify his actions. Two examples of many similar verses that justify Zehaf-Bibeau’s attack are found in the Quran.

They but wish that ye should reject Faith, as they do, and thus be on the same footing (as they): but take not friends from their ranks until they flee in the way of Allah (from what is forbidden). But if they turn renegades, seize them and slay them wherever ye find them; and (in any case) take no friends or helpers from their ranks.[5] [Surah 4:89. Quran]

Remember thy Lord inspired the angels (with the message): “I am with you, give firmness to the believers: I will instil [sic] terror into the hearts of the unbelievers, smite ye above their necks and smite all their fingertips off them.[6] [Surah 8:12. Quran]

Are these verses, which are consistent with the actions of Zehaf-Bibeau, distorted ideological propaganda as Trudeau would have us believe? The Quran either does or does not define Islam and direct the actions of its followers? If they are reflective of the Quran’s instruction for conduct of the followers of Islam, the verses cannot be distorted ideological propaganda. If the verses are not reflective of proper conduct for the followers of Islam, how does a follower of Islam determine which verses of the Quran are to be followed and which must be considered distorted ideological propaganda?

The philosophy of humanism would have us believe that all belief systems are equally valid. If all belief systems are not equally valid, then the tenets of humanism are fundamentally flawed including humanistically defined concepts of diversity and multiculturalism which are embraced by General Casey and most of the leadership of the institutions of American life. When common sense and thousands of years of human experience expose the falsity of the humanistic worldview, its defenders use the power of office and meaningless language such as “workplace violence” and bogus definitions of diversity and multiculturalism to mask its failings.

Humanism’s diversity is a close kin of multiculturalism and focuses on the differences within society and not society as a whole. With emphasis on the differences, mass culture becomes nothing more than an escalating number of subcultures within an increasingly distressed political framework that attempts to satisfy the myriad of demands of the individual subcultures. There is a loss of unity through fragmentation and ultimately a loss of a society’s central cultural vision which leads to disintegration. Humanism’s impulse for diversity is a derivative of relativism and humanism’s perverted concept of equality.[7]

…the humanist multicultural agenda reveals that multiculturalism is not intended to supplement but rather to supplant Western culture that is so steeped in Christianity. The attack on Western civilization comes through a dismissal of American religious values as they intersected with and made possible the rise of the American political system…The essence of multiculturalism has its roots in the denial of absolutes, one of the cardinal doctrines of humanism, which translates into a moral relativism. Such a values-free approach, according to the humanists, makes it impossible to judge one period or era in relation to another or to say that one culture’s ethic is superior to another.[8]

The American experience since the first Europeans set foot on its eastern shores has been centered on a Christian understanding of the world. America became the greatest nation in the world because it was founded upon principles based upon that understanding.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

[1] OSHA Fact Sheet, U.S. Department of Labor, Occupational Safety and Health Administration, 2002.
https://www.osha.gov/OshDoc/data_General_Facts/factsheet-workplace-violence .pdf (accessed November 5, 2014).
[2] Billy Kenber, “Nidal Hasan sentenced to death for Fort Hood shooting rampage,” Washington Post, August 28, 2013.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nidal-hasan-sentenced-to-death-for-fort-hood-shooting-rampage/2013/08/28/aad28de2-0ffa-11e3-bdf6-e4fc677d94a1_story.html (accessed November 5, 2014).
[3] Lindy Kyzer, “Gen. Casey on the strength of our diversity,” Army Live, U.S. Army, November 8, 2009.
http://armylive.dodlive.mil/index.php/2009/11/gen-casey-on-the-strength-of-our-diversity/ (accessed November 5, 2014).
[4] Erika Tucker, “Soldier killed in what Harper calls ‘terrorist attack’ in Ottawa,” Global News, October 22, 2014. http://globalnews.ca/news/1628313/shots-fired-at-war-memorial-in-ottawa-says-witness/ (accessed November 5, 2014).
[5] The Meaning of The Illustrious Qur-an, (Dar AHYA Us-Sunnah), p.49.
[6] Ibid., p. 98.
[7] Larry G. Johnson, Ye shall be as gods – Humanism and Christianity – The Battle for Supremacy in the American Cultural Vision, (Owasso, Oklahoma: Anvil House Publishers, 2011), p 398.
[8] Ibid., pp. 189-190.

America’s malaise

Posted by :admin On : November 14, 2014
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Category: America, Archives, Christianity, Government, Humanism, Worldview

Malaise seems an inadequate word to describe what’s happening in and to America. Synonyms for “malaise” are sickness, illness, disease, disorder, anxiety, depression, and discontent. It appears all are needed to describe America’s mood and condition. One magazine cover reads, “Is the world falling apart?” [1] Syndicated columnist Pat Buchanan laments the nation’s decline in a recent column titled “Things fall apart for many public institutions.” [2] He lists numerous examples of this brokenness in recent years including the Center for Disease Control’s fumbled response in protecting Americans from an Ebola epidemic; basic security breaches in protecting the president at and away from the White House; the invasion of the southern United States by 60,000 children and young people from Central America; the Obamacare rollout debacle; the federal and state response to Hurricane Katrina in which 30,000 New Orleans residents were stranded for days; the strategic blunders by the president and civilian policy makers in handling the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; failing schools; skyrocketing national debt; deteriorating infrastructure; and political, racial, and cultural clashes. [3] And the list grows weekly.

Buchanan says that things were not always that way, and he raises the question: “What happened to us?” “Whatever happened to that can-do nation” that survived the Great Depression, armed itself and fought World War II over five years, and placed a man on the moon in ten years because we said we could do it? [4] Mr. Buchanan ends his column in dismay but offers no solutions. To Buchanan’s list we must also add the extreme societal devastation caused by the fracturing of the family structure which the late Senator Daniel Moynihan described as the he biggest change in the North Atlantic world that he observed in his forty years of government service and which happened in “an historical instant. Something that was not imaginable forty years ago had happened.” [5]

Something is profoundly wrong in America. The symptoms of the sickness are known and well-defined as shown above. The solutions put forth by politicians, bureaucrats, education professionals, scientists, sociologists and psychologists, economists and business professionals, and a host of others in the knowledge class generally treat only the symptoms with remedies that often seem to make matters worse while at the same time fail to diagnose the disease itself.

How do we determine what went wrong with America and why? To find the answer it makes sense to go back in history to a time when things were working, a time when America was unified and had confidence in the rightness of its central cultural vision? Once we find that point in time, we must ask ourselves what changed. A cursory examination of modern history in America quickly identifies that point in time as the 1960s and the emergence of the Boomer generation. What changed was a dramatic rejection by many in the Boomer generation of the values and central cultural vision of all preceding generations of Americans since their arrival as colonists in the early 1600s. A comparison of the Boomers and the Greatest Generation confirms the beginnings of America’s cultural divide.

Much has been written and said about the Greatest Generation, a term that has gained almost universal acceptance following Tom Brokaw’s book, The Greatest Generation. For it was this generation that grew up during the deprivations of the Great Depression, fought a world war, persisted in blocking Soviet threats and aggression in a prostrate post-war world, and built the world’s greatest peacetime economy. Following the Allied victory in 1945, the United States stood at the pinnacle of world power. But unlike any other time in history, that generation acted not as victors but as a good and honorable people who poured their resources and energies into helping devastated nations and their starving peoples around the world. And, they didn’t retreat in the face of new dictators and despots as they fought the hot war in Korea and the cold war in other parts of the world, primarily against the USSR and its satellites. Following World War II, they married; went to schools, colleges, and universities in record numbers; and birthed approximately eighty million children who became known as the Baby Boomers. [6]

And through all of these deprivations, challenges, and monumental efforts, “They stayed true to their values of personal responsibility, duty, honor, and faith.” [7] But, how do these values play out in twenty-first century America? Personal responsibility has been replaced by government responsibility for our health, wealth, happiness, and well-being. Duty is out of date and doesn’t resonate with the goal of self-actualization. It’s all about me, baby! Honor is no longer based on timeless standards and awarded on merit but is now a matter of personal opinion and popularity. And as to faith, the beliefs of the naïve and ignorant masses that still believe in the Christian God are tolerated as long as they do not share their faith in public nor practice that faith if it conflicts with the dictates of the state.

The challenge to the Judeo-Christian worldview by the Boomer elite is not a new occurrence. For hundreds of years a conflict has existed within Western civilization between those that believe in a transcendent God and those that do not. But, it was in the mid-twentieth century as each sphere of influence in American society began abandoning the Judeo-Christian central cultural vision under the onslaught of the purveyors of the humanistic worldview. The abandonment of the biblical foundations upon which the nation was built became evident as the leaders of the Boomer generation took the reins of leadership in the institutions of American life and imposed their humanistic values upon the policies, practices, and standards of those institutions. What are those humanistic values and beliefs held by many Boomers in leadership? There is no God and no life after death. Nature is all there is, and man is merely the evolutionary product of nature. Man can solve his own problems through science and reason. Freedom of expression and civil liberties are paramount in all areas of life. Happiness, freedom, and progress are the goals of mankind. The focus of life is on self and self-development. Society requires extensive social programs to achieve the goals of humanism. [8] It is obvious that these humanistic values have little in common with the Greatest Generation’s values of personal responsibility, duty, honor, and faith.

Arguing from the Judeo-Christian worldview held by Americans from the Founders through the Greatest Generation, Christopher Badeaux describes the provision of order supplied by that worldview and the consequences of its abandonment in favor of the humanistic worldview.

The Lord made the Universe according to a set of hidden but largely discernable rules, and those rules produce specific, predictable outcomes once the rules and variables are known. Furthermore, all things are made ordered—oriented if you prefer—to not only the Lord, but also to decent and right outcomes…Our consciences and our natural inclinations are manifestations of this intrinsic order; disregarding them gives rise to disorder. Indeed, even doing things that are right and good can be taken to extremes that place one outside of that natural order. When we step outside of that order, as anyone who has lived with someone suffering through, say, anorexia or alcohol addiction can tell you, the disorder radiates outward in a spiderweb-crack pattern of pain. [9]

The problem with the humanistic worldview is that its prescriptions fail the test of what is required for a culture to survive. First, cultural unity and cohesiveness necessary for any society to survive can never be achieved through a dictatorial center of authority required by humanism. Second, humanism is inherently a false worldview because it steps outside the order of the universe. Therefore, it cannot answer the basic questions of life by which all people seek to understand the meaning and purpose of life.

With the ascendance of the humanistic worldview in society, the spiderweb-crack pattern of disorder and dysfunction radiates through every institution of American life. This is the reason our public institutions and the institution of family is falling apart, and polls consistently show that Americans believe that society is truly disordered and falling apart. Mr. Buchanan asked what changed America. Without doubt, what changed America was the humanistic leadership of the institutions of American life that abandoned the central cultural vision of the Founding Americans and every generation up to and including the Greatest Generation. It is only when Americans return to that central cultural vision whose foundation is Christianity that disorder will become order and America will began working again.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

[1] “Is the World Falling Apart?” World, October 4, 2014, Cover.
[2] Patrick Buchanan, “Things fall apart for many public institutions,” Tulsa World, October 28, 2014, A-11; Pat Buchanan, “Things fall apart,”
Creators.com, October 14, 2014. http://www.creators.com/conservative/pat-buchanan/things-fall-apart.html (accessed October 29, 2014).
[3] Ibid.
[4] Ibid.
[5] William J. Bennett, The Broken Hearth, (New York: Doubleday, 2001), pp. 2, 85.
[6] Larry G. Johnson, Ye shall be as gods – Humanism and Christianity – The Battle for Supremacy in the American Cultural Vision, (Owasso, Oklahoma: Anvil House Publishers, 2011), p. 9.
[7] Tom Brokaw, The Greatest Generation, (New York: Random House, 1998), p. xx.
[8] Corliss Lamont, The Philosophy of Humanism, Eighth Edition, (Amherst, New York: Humanist Press, 1997), pp. 13-15.
[9] Christopher Badeaux, “Faith, Fear and Cormac McCarthy,” The City, Vol. 1, Issue 3, (Winter 2008), 84-85.

The quest for equality and the loss of respect – Part II

Posted by :admin On : October 3, 2014
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Category: Archives, Christianity, Equality, Humanism, Worldview

As noted in Part I, another name for equality is egalitarianism which is a fundamental tenet of humanism whose worldview has captured almost all of the institutions of American life and its leadership. The purpose of Part II is to reveal the undeniable linkage between humanism’s quest for equality and the consequent loss of respect in every facet of America life.

The defining characteristic of humanism is the exaltation of self, and this emphasis on self leads to inward focus and results in egotism. Humanist Manifesto II preaches that “The preciousness and dignity of the individual person is a central humanist value.”[1] The practical outworking of humanism’s view of self invariably leads to a quest for equality, the roots of which reach back to the leveling theories of the French Revolution. For biblical Christianity, the central theme is about relationships as demonstrated by the sacrifice of God’s only son at Calvary to make possible fallen man’s redemption and restoration to right relationship with Him.

Worldview

Universals are called by various names including norms, permanent things, eternal truths, and first principles. These universals apply to all of mankind, in all cultures, and all of human history. Human nature reflects a number of universals. Man’s craving for order is a human universal. Above all man must have order, and as man attempts to achieve order he constructs his worldview—his perception of reality, an understanding of the way the world works, his basic beliefs. The affliction of modern man is his propensity to cast off the universals as he constructs his worldview. The order upon which one builds a worldview cannot be based on whim, choice, or man-made theories but must reflect unchangeable truth. One of those truths is that man was created in the image of God, and the order sought by any worldview must reflect these image-of-God qualities and what it means to be human. When a worldview fails to account for the true nature of man, it is false and destined for failure because it cannot provide a sustained order.

Therefore, the superiority of a worldview must be measured by its ability to bring order, and this is the measure we must use in evaluating humanism and Christianity. Which of these worldviews provides the respect sought by human nature or becomes the catalyst for loss of respect: humanism’s exaltation of self through its quest for equality or the value Christianity places on relationships? The prescriptions offered by these competing worldviews for achieving respect between men in the conduct of human affairs are mutually exclusive. One must be true and the other false.

Christian worldview

Wilfred McClay wrote, “…we shape our relationships, but we are more fundamentally shaped by the need for them, and we cannot understand ourselves without reference to them…we are made by, through, and for relationship with one another.”[2] One of the fundamental needs (universals) of mankind is to dwell together, in other words, a need for relationships. For the Christian, the importance of human relationships is a reflection of the Trinitarian relationship, a picture of His fundamental being. God’s being is shown by the Father-Son relationship and the relationship of Christ with the Church of which He is the head and we are the body.

For mankind, these relational patterns are present in various entities—marriage, family, community, nations, and the Kingdom of God. In his first letter to the Corinthians, the Apostle Paul gives an insight into the operation of these relational patterns which speak of brotherhood and not equality, “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For by one Spirit, we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit…If the whole body were an eye, where would be the hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? But as it is, God arranged the organs in the body, each one of them as he chose.” [1 Corinthians 12:12-13, 17-18. RSV] Put another way, we are one human family, but not every member of the family can have the same place and position. Distinctions in the family are required. Status in family is determined by God. To sum up, man’s relational patterns are hierarchical.

Humanist worldview

Abraham Maslow (1908-1970) was one of the principal founders of the humanistic psychology movement. In his 1943 A Theory of Human Motivation, Maslow developed the concept of a “hierarchy of human needs” which proposed to rank the needs of humans.

Self-Actualization – Morality, creativity, spontaneity, problem solving, lack of prejudice, and acceptance of facts. Self-actualizers are people who strive for and reach a maximum degree of their inborn potential.

Esteem – Self-esteem, confidence, achievement, respect of others, and respect by others.

Love-Belonging – Friendship, family, sexual intimacy.

Safety – Security of body, employment, resources, morality, the family, health, property.

Physiological – Breathing, food, water, sex, sleep, homeostasis, excretion.[3]

Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs conflicts with the human universal of the primacy of relationships in motivating human beings. In Maslow’s hierarchy, the sex act is labeled as non-relational physiological need and banished to the lowest level of needs. Family at the second level is merely for safety’s sake and non-relational. It is only at level three that we see relational needs: family, friendship, and sexual intimacy.[4] The other four levels deal substantially with self, whether basic physiological/safety or esteem/self-actualization.

Maslow’s theories of human motivation are based on the humanistic worldview. They fail as human motivators because they dramatically diminish the importance of relationship in favor of self. Apart from physiological and safety needs which are creational givens, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is upside down as it reflects human nature and leads to a false worldview. The societal disorder that permeates the entire planet is a result of the widely held humanistic worldview which has elevated self above relationships. And the engine driving this topsy-turvy worldview is the quest for equality which demands a leveling of society which in turn can be achieved only through socialism. Therefore, humanism’s imposition of equality as a means of establishing a foundation for respect in individuals and society in general is fatally flawed.

Humanism’s equality attempts to re-structure society by eliminating distinctions and thereby increasing respect, but it does the opposite. This is evident from the writings of Richard M. Weaver, “The most portentous general event of our time is the steady obliteration of those distinctions which create society…If society is something which can be understood, it must have structure; if it has structure, it must have hierarchy…” Weaver called the elimination of hierarchy through the egalitarian notion that in a just society there are no distinctions a perversion. “…the most insidious idea employed to break down society is an undefined equalitarianism…Such equalitarianism is harmful because it always presents itself as a redress of injustice, whereas in truth it is the very opposite.”[5]

Here Weaver reveals the fatal flaw at the heart of equality and its failure to instill respect among people. Justice breeds respect…respect for authority, property rights, institutions, customs, and traditions, and to regard with esteem people who share that understanding of justice. But, equality that pretends to insure justice is inherently unjust in doing so. Forced equality’s injustice is inevitably corrosive to human relationships and leads to loss of respect in all facets of society.

Undeniable linkage

How does this Christian view of the supremacy of relationship promote respect in a dog-eat-dog world focused on its rights rather than responsibilities? Just as a focus on self inevitably fades into a demand for equality, fraternity (brotherhood) is the product of relationship. Brotherhood taps into human emotions that are rooted in mankind’s divine connection – those image-of-God qualities indelibly imprinted on man’s being. Man was made for brotherhood, and the emotional bonds of brotherhood link him with family, community, and nation. Those connections give us status in family which extracts duties and obligations from its members, entangling alliances that call for and fosters fidelity and respect.

Equality is rooted in self and demands its rights which often are nothing more than gossamer imaginings of a humanistic worldview. The undeniable linkage between the humanism’s quest for equality and the consequent loss of respect at all levels of human activity and relationship are obvious. Humanism’s forced equality leads to suspicion, resentment, disunity, and ultimately to disrespect of people, laws, authority, institutions, and the nation’s central cultural vision. It fails to provide an order based on truth which is requisite for respect. Only through the Christian worldview’s focus on relationships and consequent brotherhood can man give and receive the respect that flows from his image-of-God qualities found in his human nature.

Larry G. Johnson

[1] Paul Kurtz, ed., Humanist Manifesto I and II, (Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books, 1973), p. 18.
[2] Wilfred McCray, “The Soul & the City,” The City, Vol. II, No. 2, (Summer 2009), 8-9.
[3] Neel Burton, M.D., “Our Hierarchy of Needs,” Psychology Today, May 23, 2012.
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/hide-and-seek/201205/our-hierarchy-needs (accessed September 18, 2014).
[4] Ibid.
[5] Richard M. Weaver, Ideas Have Consequences, (Chicago, Illinois: The University of Chicago Press, 1948), pp. 35, 40.

Acts of God or Acts of Man?

Posted by :admin On : August 8, 2014
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Category: Archives, Christianity, Humanism, Worldview

The phrase “an act of God” is typically associated with destruction, loss, pain, and suffering beyond the control of man. Many property and casualty insurance policies contain exclusions of coverage on losses attributed to “acts of God” because certain massive acts of nature can’t be controlled such as earthquakes, floods, and hurricanes. However, other less pervasive natural and therefore insurable occurrences such as tornadoes, hail, storms, high winds, and ice may be covered. War, although man-made, is often included in these exclusions. Then there are other uninsurable catastrophes such as famine, pandemic disease, and pestilence that kill millions each year. For many, the biblical God of love has a lot to answer for if these actions are truly His responsibility.

It seems that God gets blamed for most if not all of the evil in the world. If He is not blamed for causing it, then He is blamed for not preventing it. For several well-known individuals, a good God cannot exist if He allows such pain and suffering. The last vestiges of Charles Darwin’s Christian faith evaporated upon his daughter’s painful death. Likewise, billionaire Ted Turner became an outspoken unbeliever upon his sister’s death from a painful disease. “I was taught that God was love and God was powerful, and I couldn’t understand how someone so innocent should be made or allowed to suffer so.” Former well-known evangelist Charles Templeton wrote Farewell to God in 1996. The reason for his rejection of belief in God is revealed by his question, “How could a loving and omnipotent God create such horrors as we have been contemplating?”[1]

So how could a good God allow a world full of pain and suffering to exist? It is a legitimate question, especially for those who deny the existence of God or who reject the biblical answer for mankind’s pain and suffering.

Before we require God to explain the reasons for the existence of pain and suffering in the world, we ought to be in agreement as to the definition and meaning of two words necessary to understand God’s answer: love and freedom. When we speak of love, we refer here to interpersonal relationships (as opposed to the impersonal “I love pizza!”). Our friend Webster describes love as “affection,” “devotion,” “warm attachment,” and “adoration.”[2] But love can one directional and rejected by the intended recipient. Love cannot be commanded, only accepted and returned or rejected. Here we see that love is a matter of choice. One is free to accept or reject love. The popular mantra that “love is all that is necessary” is wrong. We may love the terrorist, but that won’t stop him from maiming and killing innocent people. Even if the terrorist is won over by our love and renounces his terrorist activities, the pain and suffering caused by mindless natural forces can’t be stopped. So, we must agree that love requires freedom for both the giver and recipient.

With this understanding of love and freedom, we are able to comprehend God’s answer for the existence of pain and suffering in the world. To do so we must step back and take in the entire breadth and height of the biblical meta-story of creation including man who was God’s special creation.

God existed before the universe was created, and then God created the universe and all that is within it including the laws that govern that creation. Unlike all of the other elements of his creation, man was created with a free will. This part of the Christian worldview is called Creation. Mankind’s free will allowed man to think and act in ways that were contrary to God’s plan and will for His creation. When man acted in ways contrary to God’s laws (truths), such disobedience to God’s laws was called sin, and as a result decay and death entered into God’s creation. This is called the Fall, and it affected not only man but all of God’s creation. But as God is a loving God, he created a way through His son, Jesus Christ, which allows man to bring order to the chaos he created. This is called the Restoration. There you have the basic elements of the Christian worldview: the Creation, the Fall, and the Restoration. No other worldview recognizes the true nature of the human condition and provides a means whereby man can return to a proper orientation to God’s laws and plan. It answers the questions of where we came from and who we are, what went wrong, and how we get out of the chaos and restore order to our souls.[3]

God’s creation of man with a free will meant the possibility of rejection of God and His love. In other words free will and the potential for rejection of God was the penalty for the possibility of love. So it is on the earthly plane, to risk love is to risk rejection.[4] Pain and suffering entered the world through man’s rejection of God. But man was not the only victim of his rebellion.

Even natural evil—involving earthquakes, tornadoes, floods, and the like—is rooted in our wrong use of free choice. We must not forget that we are living in a fallen world, and because of this, we are subject to disasters in the world of nature that would not have occurred had man not rebelled against God in the beginning. (see Romans 8:20-22)[5]

Humanism is the great competing meta-story and stands in stark contrast on every major point to that of Christianity with regard to man’s creation, purpose, and destiny. The humanistic philosophy denies the existence of all forms of the supernatural, proposes that nature is the totality of being and exists independently of any mind or consciousness. Man is the evolutionary product of Nature, and man has no conscious survival after death due to the unity of body and personality. Humans are masters of their own destiny, and human values are grounded in this-earthly experiences and relationships.[6]

Humanism presents the problem of suffering as the greatest objection to the existence of God. But humanism stands convicted by its own arguments in its denial of the existence of a supernatural God. If there is no supernatural God, and if humans are masters of their own destinies, what is the source of evil that has led to universal pain and suffering in the world? Its worldview has no logical, realistic, or compelling answers. Christian apologist William Craig Lane expresses the humanist’s dilemma.

Paradoxically, then, even though the problem of suffering is the greatest objection to the existence of God, at the end of the day God is the only solution to the problem of suffering. If God does not exist, then we are locked without hope in a world filled with pointless and unredeemed suffering. God is the final answer to the problem of suffering, for He redeems us from evil and takes us into the everlasting joy of an incommensurable good: fellowship with Himself.[7]

As the world is increasingly awash in unfathomable sorrow, pain, and suffering, those who are redeemed by God through the sacrifice of His Son Jesus Christ can take comfort in the words of Christ to His disciples just before His betrayal and death on the cross. “These things I have said to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” [John 16:33. RSV]

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

[1] Ken Ham and Dr. Jonathan Sarfati, “Why is there death and suffering?” Creation Ministries International,
http://creation.com/why-is-there-death-and-suffering#_ret4 (accessed August 8, 2014).
[2] “love,” Webster’s Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary, (Springfield, Massachusetts: G. & C. Merriam Company,
Publishers, 1963), p. 501.
[3] Larry G. Johnson, Ye shall be as Gods – Humanism and Christianity – The Battle for Supremacy in the American
Cultural Vision, (Owasso, Oklahoma: Anvil House Publishers, 2011), p. 86
[4] Ibid., p. 158.
[5] Ronald Rhodes, “Tough Questions About Evil,” Who Made God? Eds. Ravi Zacharias and Norman Geisler,
(Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2003), p. 37.
[6] Corliss Lamont, The Philosophy of Humanism, Eighth Edition, Revised, (Amherst, New York: Humanist Press,
1997), pp. 13-14.
[7] William Lane Craig, On Guard, (Colorado Springs, Colorado: David C. Cook, 2010), p. 173.