Posts Tagged ‘Values’
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Thursday, September 25th, 2008
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/6505691.stm (This is kind of following on from my post about feminism & gender-targeted abortion. It’s making a similar point but one no less important.)
Having recently celebrated 200 years since the abolition of slavery I think that there probably aren’t many people left in the world who support the idea of slavery – of having another human being as ‘property’ and being in control of their life and actions.
So, reader, if I were to ask you today if you supported slavery, I can’t imagine you saying yes and I wouldn’t insult you by implying that this answer was anywhere near your thoughts. However, if you said ‘yes’ AND happened to ascribe to philosophical naturalism (ie. you’re an atheist/agnostic who bases this belief largely in evolutionary biology), then I would have to respond with, “Really…??”
It’s quite a simple and obvious point but philosophical naturalism does not allow for any fundamental distinction between human beings and the rest of the animal kingdom (at least not in terms it would be proud of – it’s not the most pleasant thought to tell something you have more rights than it because you “got there first”, which would be the only justification we have for any such distinction between us and animals, by virtue of us being higher up the evolutionary ladder). In terms of rights, privileges and responsibilities to the world and other creatures this system does not and cannot prescribe such things to one kind of animal and not to another (and when it does, we have eugenics and ‘Brave New World’ scenarios); its best bet is to remain neutral and plead ignorance. What this means is that while it is all very well to speak out against slavery… in order to be consistent with this belief (that slavery is wrong) then the principles of human dignity and human rights must be extended to other animals too. So, no killing animals, keeping animals, farming animals for their fur or milk or eggs – nothing.
In saying this, I don’t think I am being offensive or preposterous. There are more and more people who do feel that they need to be consistent on this point. So, vegans (although not all people are vegans for this reason necessarily) and those advocating equal rights for all primates are just a couple of examples.
What’s my point. I’m not trying to make anyone look silly for their beliefs or even ridicule any beliefs in particular. What I am trying to highlight once again is rather the inadequacy and poverty of the secular, naturalistic wordview when faced with these rather important issues. Science might be great at describing how things work and evolution certainly provides a reasonable explanation of certain processes… but they cannot touch these areas that are so important to our society, our sensibilities and our very well-being and future.
There is no mechanism in science – or any other secular framework for that matter – to make the kind of distinctions we need between humans and other animals that lead to declarations of independence and human rights. How would you define ‘dignity’ if you do not believe in a personal, higher authority who vests it on others. And, crucially, how do you decide who deserves dignity? We may ask for bigger pens for the animals we plan to kill and eat but it is still undignified to exist in order to be eaten with no hope of reprieve. We must understand that the only way the founding fathers of the USA could say “we hold these truths [ie. pertaining to human liberty and dignity] to be self-evident” is because of a theistic framework. Apart from this framework, who am I to say that non-human animals should or shouldn’t have their liberty reduced or removed? It comes down to a matter of power and ‘dog-eat-dog’. And neither should I interfere with other people’s choices. What about when it comes to humans? What reason do I have to object to paedophilia and bestiality when science cannot provide any kind of distinction between animals and humans or grown-ups and children that would tell me that such things are wrong? Consensus is one option but that just leaves me open to the tyranny of the masses. A million lemmings can’t be wrong…
Do you believe in slavery? Ultimately, before we look at the animals, we must look at ourselves. We may have abandoned the enslavement of Africans but I guess this was inevitable largely because it was too obvious. Under the radar in the 21st century, slavery is well and truly alive, through pornography and trafficking of women and children and the economic slavery of the third world - which we are all complicit in, either through looking at porn (blokes, just try and deny it), thereby perpetuating it in all its forms, legal and illegal, or by showing our indifference in how thoughtlessly we spend our money, choosing to buy another pair of jeans rather than giving a tenner towards wells in Africa or sponsoring a little kid’s education.
It is a credit to the secular liberals that they stand up on these issues more than most but as well as standing up with them, I would like to challenge them on what I hope to persuade you is the most significant form of slavery that needs to be addressed (since it is the root of all others), which is our slavery to ourselves. I would challenge the secularists on this because what I am talking about is the very klaxon call of secularism itself – that we should be ‘free’ to follow our hearts, unencumbered by any God and his dictates. But look where our hearts lead us! Surely all forms of ‘blatant’ slavery can be traced back to the original slavery – the one we all individually have sold ourselves to as we put ourselves daily before other people and ultimately, before God. Kierkegaard’s definition of this kind of slavery (the Bible calls it sin) is that it is ‘building my identity on anything but God’ (Sickness Unto Death) – this is what leads us to put ourselves before others, because anything that gets in the way of this and ‘denies’ us must be pushed aside, or else we lose our identity. But when your identity is in God, nothing can rock it; it is secure. And can I just say, if you believe that you are not enslaved in this way to yourself and your identity building (whatever that might look like), then you are the first person since Jesus of Nazareth even to make such a claim. The fact is, we all demonstrate our slavery to ourselves when we perpetuate slavery in the world.
So what about a solution….? Some people look at the third world debt and think to themselves – “why should we help them when they have mostly brought it on themselves…?” The fact is that the west is taking steps to clear the debt of the third world – at great cost to itself. The only difference is that they are doing it largely out of expediency – when God considered our debt and sent his son to free us from our slavery, he didn’t do it out of expediency, he did it out of love.
Tags: Current Affairs, Human Interest, Provocative Thoughts, Values
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Tuesday, April 29th, 2008
The combination of watching the fairytale movie “Stardust” and being introduced to this song have led me to put finger to keyboard this evening…
Just in case you are not clued up with the plot of Stardust, it concerns a young man – a nobody – who ends up not only defeating the witch, getting the girl and becoming king but he also lives forever in a perfect relationship with her because she happens to be a star and has given her heart to him in love, so when he grows old they ascend to the sky to shine together forever.
The ultimate ‘feel-good’ movie…
I have one question though.
Why are films like this viewed so cynically by most people today? You can just imagine in Blockbuster (or whatever your preferred dvd rental establishment may be), your eye passing it by as an appealing choice (“for the wife/girlfriend/kids maybe”) but certainly not to be preferred above Die Hard, Michael Clayton or The Libertine. Why? Because they are a little bit more ‘rooted in the real world’, more for grown-ups. Soppy girls and children can go with these droll, fairy-tales but sensible men and women are just not convinced.
Yet if this is the sentiment associated with it (and this is certainly the feeling I automatically had when looking at the selection on offer at one of Kozani’s local dvd rental shops this evening), then why do we call it a feel-good movie in the first place?
Isn’t it because we view the situation it describes not so much as fantastical but as ideal?
It is how both our mind and our heart would prefer for things to be but we see that life is not like this so the whole scenario is rejected – often scornfully (but perhaps more often than we’d like to admit, wistfully) – as unrealistic. If you just think about it, we don’t think of X-Men or even Shrek as feel good movies. They are certainly fantastical but they are not an ‘ideal’ that deep down we actually want. Obviously Shrek does an excellent job of getting to the heart of both the genuine struggles of life and some of the deepest common values like unconditional love, but – almost cruelly – it is still remarkably earthbound. However much we agree with the ‘greater’ ideal of true love’s form being found not in external appearance but in the personal love between two souls, no one’s aim is to end up as an ugly, smelly ogre living on a swamp with all of life’s problems still present; this is what the heaven of humanism looks like. ‘Happily Ever After’ is a cruel joke in Shrek.
With a film like Stardust, however, you don’t have to be sentimental to see that it has everything that deep down we all long for. The story of someone being raised up from less than nothing in the eyes of others to an inheritance that is imperishable and glorious forever and this happening not for the purpose of personal glory and pride but for the purpose of a relationship of deep, interpersonal love and eternal intimacy… well, I don’t think I need to say any more. It is incomparably more desirable than any earthbound fantasy scenario. And yet this was a story written by a human and it is one that echoes throughout human history. It is a dream within all of us. Where does it come from? Michael Vaughn, the director of the film, comments that it is not a film that will affect anyone’s life or change the world but I beg to differ. The scorn expressed by someone for such a story always hides behind it a bitter, half-forgotten longing for this story to be true, for someone else, if not them. It’s almost as if they have been trying to forget a parallel dream of their own and you have reminded them and made them hope once more.
Well, somewhere, there is a cruel joke going on. Either the universe is playing a cruel joke on us by vesting us with these desires that neither have any rational origin nor hope of fulfilment (if materialism is the ultimate reality)… or the cruel joke is on those of us who choose to listen to the barking of Polly Toynbee and Richard Dawkins over and above the whole of human history which bears witness to these dreams of men as a consistent (and persistent) feature of the human condition.
It must be said that the dreams do not prove anything on their own, but their very presence obliges us to do something about them and simply barking at them is not going to make them go away. Neil Gaimon, the writer of the story behind Stardust, found an outlet in pen and ink. But this is hardly a satisfactory outlet or conclusion.
Indeed, the Toynbees and Dawkins of this world would remind us of the fact that they are simply being realistic – no one has ever ‘imagined themselves’ into a different state, place or condition; nature simply does not work this way. There is no point in losing oneself in unrealistic visions as if we could ‘make’ them reality just by believing in them and living as if they were true. They would claim that this is actually dangerous…
Yet just watch their ‘friendly bark’ turn into snarls, gnashing of teeth and shaking of fists (literally) when they are confronted with the historically-attested event of the death and resurrection of Jesus. They know that this is something from which they cannot escape because it is part of their own recent, human history. We do not know what the first humans looked like but we have numerous eyewitnesses to Jesus’ death and resurrection with their accounts transcribed and cross-referenced; in a court of law there is only one winner here – the eyewitness evidence – and yet we are supposed to accept ape-man theories and reject the events of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection? They know this and so they do not waste their breath attacking the historicity of Jesus and the events surrounding his death and resurrection so they resort to emotional arguments in an attempt to undermine the interpretation of these events. Yet this is an even more foolish endeavour as the interpretation of these events is laid out over 1500 years of the Bible writers all writing about things they did not fully understand at the time but which are now crystal clear to us in the light of the person of Jesus. The story was already told and complete – it just needed the hero to appear.
“Saccharine” (sweet) and – ironically – “earthbound” are the words used respectively by Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins when confronted with these events.
We are back in the dvd rental shop here! I’m not trying to undermine the latent hostility in their retorts but, essentially, they are looking at this scenario and not struggling so much with the events but with the interpretation of them – the interpretation which would allude to reality having any kind of relationship with ‘fairytale endings’, with true and everlasting love and with brilliance and glory shining forever with pride completely banished. Hitchens attempts to demolish the resurrection simply by calling it ‘sweet’ and Dawkins tries to reinterpret it, calling it ‘earthbound’ when any idiot can see that it is the complete opposite of this; if someone has truly been raised from the dead then it is the one true hope that answers the call of our hearts – to be free of the chains of the curse of death. And not only does it sound the klaxon call of freedom but it also speaks of the deepest love that no Shrek could ever even contemplate – an eternal, interpersonal relationship where you shine as do the stars in the brilliance of true glory (ie. not ‘vain-glory’) forever…. saccharine I think not.
At one point of the film, Yvaine – the star – asks the young hero if he is not tempted to kill her and eat her heart so he can live forever. He responds by asking her why would he want to live forever without this existence being in the context of a loving relationship. Conversely, the witch, Lamia, at the end, embodies the secular response to this sentiment by attempting to do exactly that – live forever without any loving relationships after her sisters have been killed. This is not even Shrek’s skewed version of heaven, it is the fundamentalist atheist’s version and it is a horrific thought; even if they could ‘live’ forever, they would still want to cut themselves off from the source of life, love and laughter; this is actually a pretty good description of hell, defined for us over and over by every article they write and every retort to God they snort out (I must add here that they are not all ‘snorters’ – at the best of times, Christopher Hitchens is a paragon of propriety and congeniality and in a kind of paradoxical way I am a great admirer of him).
Their constant refrain is that even if a perfect God was there, they would still reject him.
Which leaves us with the longings of our own heart. Obviously I am not lumping everyone who is not a Christian believer in together with Richard and Polly but sometimes seeing the extremes helps us find where we fit in. I hope you have noted, whether through your own observations or what I have been saying here that, at the end of the day, the ‘logical’ reasons to trust in Jesus’ death and resurrection are almost by-the-by. They can be checked out by anyone. What stops many – and here please take note – is their attitude to the scenario being presented to them (think of the dvd rental shop). They are indignant that anyone, even God himself, would ‘seriously’ seek to spoil the ‘grown-up’ (just another word for bitter) world they have built. They know it is not ideal; it is not even pleasant; in fact it is rather ugly and lonely, but it is theirs and no ‘sweet longings’ and fairytale endings placed in front of them should disrupt this. Their cry for freedom has long been stifled by patterns of thought and behaviour designed for survival and carving out a little corner for themselves in this cruel, unforgiving world and any tender thoughts (yes, I do believe even Polly has tenderness of this kind in her heart somewhere) harboured for any kind of ‘shining forever’ style ending has been covered over by a hardened and, ultimately, a proud heart.
My question for you is how much of this kind of person are you today or are you in the process of turning into….?
Please read the words of this song – it is the perfect companion to the fantastical scenario of Stardust because it speaks of a parallel scenario, but a true one.
Tags: Films, Movies, Provocative Thoughts, Values
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Friday, June 9th, 2006
Tolerance. It’s one of the bywords of our modern society. But what does it really mean… and why is it used so frequently nowadays?
The dictionary defines it as: willingness to accept or endure (someone or something unpleasant or disliked) with forbearance.
Well I ask you… is the world really so full of disagreeable people that “this” should be seen as the great value in today’s society?
How did people live together ‘before’ this word became “the most desirable value”? An in-depth historical analysis could be conducted but I think that the more pressing questiong for us should be: “just why exactly is this word taking over today?”
The attitude today is that the only thing that will not be tolerated is an intolerant person.
All other things and people must be endured. This has created a somewhat schizophrenic attitude in most people. They know that they are supposed to be tolerant, but this means that, more and more, they are putting up with people and practices that their conscience and values would normally find wrong or even repulsive. This situation cannot continue indefinitely – eventually either your tolerance will run out and you will be forced to comment on the repulsiveness of the behaviour, or your views on the behaviour itself will simply change to conform to your public facade. So, for instance, if I am a person who believes, for whatever reason, that ‘cohabitation’ (as it is now called) is wrong, yet I continually find myself defending such people – for the sake of tolerance – against others who find it morally unacceptable, then eventually I will find myself first sympathising with them, then agreeing with them and, eventually, perhaps even identifying with them. I will begin not only to argue that they be left alone but also that what they are doing is ‘right’. Perhaps I may even try it out myself.
This kind of toleration more often than not brings conformity, in opinion if not practice.
Of course, there are certain practices that are still regarded by the majority of people as ‘morally reprehensible’ – and therefore not to be tolerated under any circumstance. The only problem with this is that the boundaries regarding which practices fall into this category are continually being moved. This is particularly obvious when it comes to both sexual and medical ethics. Not so long ago sodomy was illegal in most countries around the world – now it is both legalised and encouraged (if you ‘feel’ it is right for you).
At what point did it stop being ‘tolerated’ (as deviant) and start being accepted (as normal) and then promoted (as good)??
Not so long ago, euthanasia of any form would have been treated as something out of a movie script; a horror scenario that hopefully would never come true. Now it is debated and being put forward as a potential standard practice. Even last month, there were strong calls to progress straight on to ‘involuntary euthanasia’… At what point did these views stop being ‘tolerated’ and start becoming mainstream?
At present, there is generally a huge furore over paedophiles – these are the people who are regarded as having committed the worst and most depraved acts… but how long will it be before this too is seen as ok, as long as the child is consenting or something like that? It would be very easy to scoff at this prediction but whoever would have thought just a few years ago that sodomy would be regarded as normal and natural. The ancient Greeks certainly didn’t seem to have a problem with engaging in sexual practices with young boys…
…when the boundaries are constantly being moved then, in the end, anything can be ‘tolerated.
Which brings us onto the greatest paradox about today’s society. Apparently, the only thing that is actually morally reprehensible is to comment on someone else’s behaviour and voice an absolute opinion. The action of the person should not be called into question at all – they are to be tolerated at all costs. Only bigots and fundamentalists have the audacity to be so ‘intolerant’. But is this fair?
By saying that a person must be tolerated ‘along with’ their actions rather than ‘in spite of them’, one is effectively separating this person from their actions, but this is impossible. You cannot separate a person from their deeds; we do not act within a moral vacuum. Our actions affect ourselves and others and we are therefore accountable to one another for those actions. If someone does something that I regard as immoral then that means that I must also call the person immoral (recognising, of course, that I am also immoral, lest I be accused of hypocrisy). You cannot separate a person from their actions.
So actually then, society today, by asking us to endure all these unpleasant things and unpleasant people is creating exactly the right circumstances for these undesirable practices to be perpetuated. If my misdeeds are no longer being sanctioned I will only be encouraged to carry on doing them. We see this most plainly with little children. There is no such thing as ‘telling off a deed’; you always tell off a person. If you do not tell of the person then they understand that they are getting away with it. By encouraging us to tolerate people ‘together with’ their unpleasant behaviour rather than ‘in spite of’ it, we are effectively being told to condone what they are doing. We affirm them in their ‘evil’ practices. But surely true toleration must be about accepting the person ‘despite’ their deviant behaviour? And this brings us to the heart of tolerance.
Tolerance was never supposed to be the solution…
It is merely a stepping stone to the real aim: reconciliation. What does genuine tolerance look like? Well, surely it involves accepting and enduring someone despite the fact that many things about them and many things they do are intrinsically wrong. And this is the major problem for the atheist; he is unable to label anything as ‘intrinsically’ wrong. Due to his or her worldview that excludes God from the moral plane, morality itself must be dealt with in terms of expediency and utility. Tolerance then becomes not a matter of sanctioning evil or deviant practices but simply about maintaining some semblance of order amidst a plurality of conflicting and contrasting values. Tolerance itself is seen as the ultimate solution but this begs the question… solution to what? The real problem that toleration addresses is not some vague idea of it being inconvenient that people have different views and practices, it is the concrete and horrific problem of evil; the fact that people lie, cheat and kill. But if there is no God then there is no truth, just different perspectives; if there is no God then there is no cheating or killing, just practices that favour my survival over another person’s (survival of the fittest). Suddenly the modern approach to tolerance becomes understandable; it is simply the logical outworking of the atheist’s worldview. Circular and hopeless though it may be (toleration is both the means and the end), it is consistent with the rest of the atheistic worldview.
This cannot be right, though. The real problem is one of broken relationships. Human beings are out of fellowship with each other; even our romantic relationships are full of cheating, lies and murder – this is a fact that is painfully obvious through just a cursory glance at our world; even the atheist can see this. We don’t need just a peaceful life.
What we need is reconciliation!
Toleration is simply the stepping stone to reconciliation. It not about ‘putting up with each other’, it is about restoring relationships that have been broken. When someone who knows that I regard their behaviour and views as being evil and wrong, according to God’s perfect standard sees that I nevertheless accept them completely (tolerate) and in doing so also offer them love (reconciliation) when what they deserve is condemnation and judgement for what they are doing… then they have been introduced to true toleration.
And of course the greatest argument for doing it this way is that, even if I know the correct standard, I have no right to condemn and judge anyway because I am no better. Jesus shows us very clearly that we have ALL broken ALL of the ten commandments so that none of us have a leg to stand on. This puts things in a very different light… when the only person who has the right to condemn and judge us finds us all guilty then the question stops being one of whether we will tolerate each other or not and turns into one of wonderment at just…
..how on earth has God tolerated us lawbreakers for so long?
The answer is again found in the true nature of toleration; it was never supposed to be an end in itself – it points to reconciliation. The Bible tells us clearly that God was tolerating our sin because it was always his plan to reconcile people to himself. When the apostle Paul was preaching to the multicultural people of Athens, he said these words: “The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.” Jesus’ resurrection means two things – it shows us that God’s tolerance was being exercised for a reason (so that all people everywhere could have the chance to turn and repent and be reconciled to God) and it also shows us that his toleration of us will not continue indefinitely. Jesus demonstrated through his resurrection who he was: the living God who has the right and the power to judge our wrongdoing and rebellion against him and one day he will judge all people.
This means that if I haven’t yet repented (turned away from sin in my heart and turned to Jesus) then God is being tolerant towards me at the moment. But his offer doesn’t last forever. God’s tolerance is being exercised for the purpose of me having the opportunity to accept his offer of reconciliation. When that offer ends then so will God’s tolerance and I will receive the fair wages for my rebellion: judgement. Notice, however, the repetition of the word, “all”. God is an ‘all’ kind of God. All are facing judgement but God is showing tolerance to all. All have rejected God but God is offering reconciliation to all. All who repent will receive this offer and all who don’t will be judged eventually.
What are the implications of this to our idea of tolerance? Well, surely it means that our toleration must also be exercised in exactly the same all-encompassing manner? This means that I don’t just tolerate vegetarians and villains, but also gays and gangsters, not just blacks and bolsheviks but also perps and paederasts. There is no ‘choosing’ of what I tolerate or not. All evil deeds are ‘morally reprehensible’ to God; there are no different categories. The argument is simple: God has shown tolerance to even the worst offender amongst us so we have no right not to show tolerance to all people, whoever they may be, whatever they may have done. But that tolerance must be of the kind that points towards an offer of reconciliation. We must offer reconciliation ourselves and, above all, point to the source of all reconciliation; to Jesus Christ in whom we can be reconciled to God, the key to God’s toleration of us. There can be no lasting reconciliation outside of a relationship with Jesus Christ.
Once again, you are left with a choice
Do you choose the toleration of this world; one in which the boundaries are constantly changing, where you could one day find yourself on the wrong side of the lines of toleration, where toleration is seen as an end in itself leading to a cycle of hopeless stalemate, where resentment festers and where the evil practices are accepted along with the person? Or do you choose the genuine toleration of God, who exercised complete toleration over all people in order that his Son, Jesus Christ, might appear to reveal the true purpose of his toleration: reconciliation.
Tags: Apologetics, Provocative Thoughts, Values
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