1) The overall perspective from which one sees and interprets the world;
2) A collection of beliefs about life and the universe held by an individual or a group.
James Sire has a more in-depth definition.
A worldview is a commitment, a fundamental orientation of the heart, that can be expressed as a story or in a set of presuppositions (assumptions which may be true, partially true or entirely false) which we hold (consciously or subconsciously, consistently or inconsistently) about the basic constitution of reality, and that provides the foundation on which we live and move and have our well being.
James W. Sire, Naming the Elephant: Worldview as a Concept (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2004), 122.
(Mind you, the Websters and American Heritage dictionaries encapsulate the same idea… just in layman terms… other philosophy dictionaries and books expand on the idea.)
Dr. Norman Geisler notes that a “Worldview is how one views or interprets reality,” he continues:
The German word is Weltanschauung, meaning a ‘world and life view,’ or ‘a paradigm.’ It is a framework through which or by which one makes sense of the data of life. A worldview makes a world of difference in one’s view of God, origins, evil, human nature, values, and destiny”
Weltanschauung is a German word that often is translated as “worldview” or “world outlook” but just as frequently is treated as a calque or left untranslated. A Weltanschauung is a comprehensive conception or theory of the world and the place of humanity within it. It is an intellectual construct that provides both a unified method of analysis for and a set of solutions to the problems of existence. The concept of a Weltanschauung has played an important role in the development of psychoanalysis, critical theory, and nineteenth- and twentieth-century hermeneutics.
(1) Dilthey (v. 5), finding world-views (Weltanschauungen) to be a composite of actual beliefs, value-judgments, and ultimate goals, established a Weltanschauungs-lehre (teaching or doctrine about world-views). Each world-view makes thought, feeling, or will basic to its system and develops the appropriate categories to express its interpretation of life.
(2) Mannheim (q.v.) distinguished between partial and total ideology, equating the latter with the Weltanschauung of an age or of a concrete historico-social group.
William L. Reese (Amherst, NY: Humanity Books [Prometheus Books], 1999), cf. Weltanschauung, 827.
A worldview consists of a series of assumptions/presuppositions that a person holds about reality. A worldview, consciously or subconsciously, affects the way a person evaluates every aspect of reality. Every person adheres to some sort of worldview, although one person may not be as consciously aware of it as another person. These presuppositions affect the thinking of every person in the world. It logically follows that the way a person thinks affects what a person does.
The above definitions of a worldview should suffice this presentation… remember some persons think that a “coherent worldview must be able to satisfactorily answer four questions: that of origin, meaning, morality, and destiny.” Others, include more (pictured to the right, click it to enlarge).
What is a Worldview? Does God Exist? How Did Everything Begin? Who Am I? Why Am I Here? What Happens After I Die? Cabbages and puppies don’t think about this stuff…but people do. Reflecting on the big questions in life is part of what makes us human. Everyone Has A Worldview…What’s Yours?
…that basic set of assumptions that gives meaning to one’s thoughts. A worldview is the set of assumptions that someone has about the way things are, about what things are, about why things are.
Russ Bush, A Handbook for Christian Philosophy (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1991), 70.
If you want a “210 introduction” (i.e., a bit more advanced), see my introductory chapter to my book. The above video can also be found on my MRCTV account.
All Religions/Non-Religions
Fall Into a Worldview
Here are the worldviews that every religion falls into (I will post the harder worldviews to understand in short videos):
Theism(e.g. Christianity; Islam[1]; Judaism):An infinite Personal God Exists Both Beyond and in the Universe. The belief in one God as the creator and ruler of the universe, without rejection of revelation (distinguished from deism).
Polytheism:There are Many God Beyond the World and in It. (It can fit at times under theism or pantheism, and should be considered a sub-set of these two larger worldviews.) It comes from the two Greek words “poly” for many, and from “theism” for god. Obviously, this is the view that says there are many finite limited gods controlling and influencing reality together. Modern day examples of polytheism include Mormonism, Hinduism, the New Age movement, and the surviving remnants of the ancient cults of worshipping the many Roman, Greek, and Norse gods.
Finite-Godism:A Finite God Exists Beyond and in the Universe (Is a sub-set of theism). This is a rare view and we may not be very familiar with the worldview of finite godism. As the name suggests, this view of reality believes that God exists, is beyond the world, but is limited in power and imperfection. a god who is limited in his goodness is a god who is incapable of putting an end to evil in the world. If such a god cannot put an end to evil, such a god either: 1. Doesn’t exist. 2. Is a finite being. This view happens to be very similar in some ways to the worldview of polytheism, however, finite godism believes that there is only one single god in the universe.
Naturalism(e.g. Atheism, Hard-Agnosticism, Existentialism): No God Exists Beyond or in the Universe. Atheism is not a disbelief in gods or a denial of gods; it is a lack of belief in gods. Older dictionaries define atheism as “a belief that there is no God.” Simply, the doctrine or belief that there is no God.
Pantheism (e.g. Hinduism; Taoism; Buddhism; much New Age Consciousness): God is the Universe (the All). Pantheism is the belief that the Universe (or nature as the totality of everything) is identical with divinity, or that everything composes an all-encompassing, immanent god. Pantheists thus do not believe in a distinct personal or anthropomorphic god.
The word “pantheism” comes from two greek words, “pan” and “theos”, meaning “all” and “God”. So, in a nutshell, we see that pantheism is the worldview that believes that “all is God, and God is All.” Pantheism includes the world religions of Hinduism, some forms of Buddhism, and the New Age Movement as well.
Pantheism is also the popular religion of “Star Wars” and “Master Yoda”, it forms the central beliefs of “Neo and Morpheus” in the box-office hit trilogy “Matrix”, and has also been made populer in the animated TV series “Avatar” for teens, where “Aang” is seeking spiritual enlightenment in his quest to save the world.
Panentheism:God is in the Universe (e.g., as a mind is in a body). Panetheism is halfway between theism and pantheism. If we picture Atheism as an empty physical universe without any god, and Pantheism as a universe that is itself God, then Panentheism is a universe in which God would be inside of it all. The actual word “panentheism” is made up of three Greek words that mean “all”, “in”, and “god” respectively.
Panentheism is the view that God is in all, and that God is developing and changing along with the world. It is also called “process theology”, or “bipolar theism”, “organicism” since it views the universe as a gigantic organism, or even “neoclassical theism” since its idea of God is very different than the classical Christian concept. Typically, the average person that believes in the “God” of panentheism would probably call him “mother nature”, possibly “the cosmos”, or maybe even the “world spirit.”
Panentheism: God is in the tree, the rock, and the river.
Pantheism:the tree, the rock, and the river are in God.
Deism:God is Beyond the Universe, But Not in It. The “hands off God.” The term comes from the Latin deus, meaning “god.” This concept compares God to a clockmaker who creates a clock, starts it running, but has nothing to do with it after that. Deists drew this conclusion from watching natural disasters or human tragedies in which God did not intervene.
In 2011 Dr William Lane Craig spoke at the Forum of Christian Leaders (FOCL) in Hungary. While they he spoke on the topic, “Five Arguments for Theism” and took questions from the audience to accompany his lecture. In this clip, Dr Craig answers the question, “Is atheistic moral platonism more plausible than theism?”
[1] I ~ and others ~ would posit that Allah is not all-good (as well as other issues that would make this “god” fall a bit into “finite-godism”). Listen to this extended debate over the issue, here is the description for the linked video:
A controversy at Wheaton College has spurred a national debate on whether Muslims and Christians worship the same God. Certainly Muslims deny the Trinity and deity of Christ. Yet, is there enough overlap between the two religion’s concept of God to sufficiently claim that adherents of both worship the same God?
Justin is joined by two Christian guests to debate the question, Joseph Cumming a scholar of Islamic and Christian thought at Yale and former Ahmadi (Qadiani) Nabeel Qureshi of RZIM.
Joseph Cumming is a scholar of Islamic and Christian thought who serves as Pastor of the International Church at Yale University and works internationally as a consultant on Muslim-Christian and Muslim-Christian-Jewish relations. He was one of the architects of the “Yale Response” to the Common Word initiative of 138 prominent Muslim leaders and scholars. He is also International Director of Doulos Community, a humanitarian organization working in the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, and is past President of the Federation of NGOs in Mauritania. Cumming has published numerous articles on issues affecting relations among the Abrahamic faith communities. He has lectured in Arabic at Al-Azhar University and other Islamic institutions and has taught courses at Yale Divinity School, as well as at Fuller Theological Seminary and other Evangelical institutions. He has been interviewed in Arabic on Al-Jazeera and other Arab television networks, and in English on American and Canadian television and radio, and in French and German by European and African news media.
Dr. Nabeel Qureshi is a former Ahmadi (Qadiani) who was convinced of the truth of the Gospel through historical reasoning and a spiritual search for God. Since his conversion, he has dedicated his life to spreading the Gospel through teaching, preaching, writing, and debating.
Nabeel focuses on the foundations of the Christian faith, ancient Judaism, early Islam, and the interface of science and religion. He holds an MD from Eastern Virginia Medical School, an MA in Christian apologetics from Biola University, and an MA in Religion from Duke University. He is currently pursuing a doctorate in New Testament studies at Oxford University where he lives with his wife, Michelle
MOVING FROM THEISM TO CHRISTIANITY:
Napoleon said this about Jesus:
I know men and I tell you that Jesus Christ is no mere man. Between Him and every other person in the world there is no possible term of comparison. Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne, and I have founded empires. But on what did we rest the creation of our genius? Upon force. Jesus Christ founded His empire upon love; and at this hour millions of men would die for Him.
H.G. Wells, the famous novelist and historian in his own right agreed:
I am an historian, I am not a believer, but I must confess as a historian that this penniless preacher from Nazareth is irrevocably the very center of history. Jesus Christ is easily the most dominant figure in all history.
Albert Einstein adds his intellect:
As a child I received instruction both in the Bible and in the Talmud. I am a Jew, but I am enthralled by the luminous figure of the Nazarene…. No one can read the Gospels without feeling the actual presence of Jesus. His personality pulsates in every word. No myth is filled with such life.
Church historian Philip Schaff concludes:
Jesus of Nazareth, without money and arms, conquered more millions than Alexander the Great, Caesar, Mohammed, and Napoleon; without science and learning, he shed more light on things human and divine than all philosophers and scholars combined; without the eloquence of school, he spoke such words of life as were never spoken before or since, and produced effects which lie beyond the reach of orator or poet; without writing a single line, he set more pens in motion, and furnished themes for more sermons, orations, discussions, learned volumes, works of art, and songs of praise than the whole army of great men of ancient and modern times.
Robert Hume brings us home:
The nine founders among the eleven living religions in the world had characters which attracted many devoted followers during their own lifetime, and still larger numbers during the centuries of subsequent history. They were humble in certain respects, yet they were also confident of a great religious mission. Two of the nine, Mahavira and Buddha, were men so strong-minded and self-reliant that, according to the records, they displayed no need of any divine help, though they both taught the inexorable cosmic law of Karma. They are not reported as having possessed any consciousness of a supreme personal deity. Yet they have been strangely deified by their followers. Indeed, they themselves have been worshipped, even with multitudinous idols.
All of the nine founders of religion, with the exception of Jesus Christ, are reported in their respective sacred scriptures as having passed through a preliminary period of uncertainty, or of searching for religious light. Confucius, late in life, confessed his own sense of shortcomings and his desire for further improvement in knowledge and character. All the founders of the non-Christian religions evinced inconsistencies in their personal character; some of them altered their practical policies under change of circumstances.
Jesus Christ alone is reported as having had a consistent God consciousness, a consistent character himself, and a consistent program for his religion. The most remarkable and valuable aspect of the personality of Jesus Christ is the comprehensiveness and universal availability of his character, as well as its own loftiness, consistency, and sinlessness.
(The World’s Living Religions [New York, NY: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1959], 285-286.)
William Lane Craig discusses God’s attributes:
What properties must such a cause of the universe possess? By the very nature of the case, the cause of space and time must transcend space and time and therefore exist timelessly and nonspatially (at least without the universe). This transcendent cause must therefore be changeless and immaterial, since anything that is timeless must also be unchanging, and anything that is changeless must be nonphysical and immaterial (since material things are constantly changing at the molecular and atomic levels). Such an entity must be beginningless and uncaused, at least in the sense of lacking any prior causal conditions, since there cannot be an infinite regress of causes. Ockham’s razor—the principle which states that we should not multiply causes beyond necessity—will shave away any other causes, since only one cause is required to explain the effect. This entity must be unimaginably powerful, if not omnipotent, since it created the universe without any material cause.
Finally, and most remarkably, such a transcendent first cause is plausibly personal. Two reasons can be given for this conclusion. First, the personhood of the first cause of the universe is implied by its timelessness and immateriality. The only entities which can possess such properties are either minds or abstract objects, like numbers. But abstract objects don’t stand in causal relations. The number 7, for example, can’t cause anything. Therefore, the transcendent cause of the origin of the universe must be an unembodied mind.
Second, this same conclusion is implied by the origin of an effect with a beginning from a beginningless cause. We’ve concluded that the beginning of the universe was the effect of a first cause. By the nature of the case, that cause cannot have either a beginning of its existence or any prior cause. It just exists changelessly without beginning, and a finite time ago it brought the universe into existence. Now this is exceedingly odd. The cause is in some sense eternal and yet the effect which it produced is not eternal but began to exist a finite time ago. How can this be? If the necessary and sufficient conditions for the effect are eternal, then why isn’t the effect also eternal? How can the cause exist without the effect?
There seems to be only one way out of this dilemma, and that is to say that the cause of the universe’s beginning is a personal agent who freely chooses to create a universe in time. Philosophers call this type of causation “agent causation,” and because the agent is free, he can initiate new effects by freely bringing about conditions which were not previously present. Thus, a finite time ago a Creator endowed with free will could have freely brought the world into being at that moment. In this way, the Creator could exist changelessly and eternally but freely create the world in time. By exercising his causal power, he brings it about that a world with a beginning comes to exist? So the cause is eternal, but the effect is not. In this way, then, it is possible for the temporal universe to have come to exist from an eternal cause: through the free will of a personal Creator.
We may therefore conclude that a personal Creator of the universe exists, who is uncaused, beginningless, changeless, immaterial, timeless, spaceless and unimaginably powerful.
William Lane Craig and Chad Meister, God Is Great, God Is Good: Why Believing in God Is Reasonable and Responsible (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2009), 16-17.
MY MICROSOFT WORD DOCUMENT ON THIS TOPIC DATES AUGUST 2011, DOES ANYONE KNOW OF THIS BEFORE THAT DATE?
Have you seen my argument about the “She-Bears” in 2Kings 2:23-25 answered how I do? My first iteration of the argument dates to 08/2011 (Microsoft Word Doc). I am reasonably sure I am the first to argue the idea? But, since I am not Omniscient, I would be happy to be corrected.
I truncated aMUCH LONGER RESPONSEand isolated my original thinking in the area of a common atheist charge of evil towards the Judeo-Christian God.
He [Elijah] went up from there to Bethel, and while he was going up on the way, some small boys came out of the city and jeered at him, saying, “Go up, you baldhead! Go up, you baldhead!” And he turned around, and when he saw them, he cursed them in the name of the LORD. And two she-bears came out of the woods and tore forty-two of the boys. From there he went on to Mount Carmel, and from there he returned to Samaria.
Here the skeptic posits God’s wrath on 42 children, presumably innocent in that their greatest offense was calling someone a “bald-head.” It would be similar to a guy being called “four-eyes” by a bunch of kids and then whipping out an AK-47 and mowing them down… and then expecting you to view him as a moral agent. In accessing the following books,
The New Manners & Customs of Bible Times;
Manners and Customs in the Bible: An Illustrated Guide to Daily Life in Bible Times;
An Introduction to the Old Testament;
The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament;
Old Testament Survey: The Message, Form, and Background of the Old Testament;
A Popular Survey of the Old Testament;
New International Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties;
Hard Sayings of the Bible;
When Critics Ask: A Popular Handbook on Bible Difficulties.
Is God a Vindictive Bully?: Reconciling Portrayals of God in the Old and New Testaments
I noticed something was missing. That is, a bit more of what is not said in the text, but we can assume using and accessing what any historical literary critic would with the principles that predate Christ — mentioned in the above “latte” link. Mind you, many of the responses in my home library that I came across were great, and, in fact they made me dig a bit further. (I do not want the reader to think that I place myself on a higher academic level that these fine theologians and professors.)
[…..]
This crowd of persons was older than what is typically posited by skeptics. Secondly, this group was a very bad lot. But didn’t explain why bald-head was egregious enough for God to call 42 scurvy bastards to judgement. To be fair, I sympathize with the skeptic here. That being said, there is more to the story.
I want us to view some artistic drawings of historical figures from Israel’s history: priests, prophets, spiritual leaders, and even Flavius Josephus.
What did you notice above in the cover to an A&E documentary? Yup, a turban as well as a cloak which covers the heads of the priests and prophets. “Biblical Dress” is mentioned pretty well in these few sentences: “The Bible tells how fine linen was wrapped around the head of the High Priest as a turban or mitre — the saniph or kidaris (Exodus 28:39). Ordinary people wore a kerchief over the head, held tight by a cord reminiscent of the Arab headdress commonly worn today, the ‘aggal.”
Christian Standard Bible [CSB], Exodus 28:1–5
The prophet of Israel also held religious duties and his attire would have to distinguish his service as well, albeit not as ornamental as a priest.
And this:
In public the Jews always wore a turban, for at certain seasons of the year it is dangerous in Palestine to expose the head to the rays of the sun. This turban was of thick material and passed several times around the head. It was somewhat like our handkerchief and was made of linen, or recently of cotton. The patriarch Job and the prophet Isaiah mention the use of the turban as a headdress (Job 29:14, A. R. V. margin; Isa. 3:23, A. R. V.). In place of the turban, the Palestinian Arabs today, for the most part, wear a head veil called “Kaffieh” which hangs down over part of their garment.
— Fred H. Wight, Manners and Customs of Bible Lands (Moody Press, 1953 | PDF)
Head Covering.Something used to cover one’s head either for protection or for religious reasons. Men wore either a cap, turban, or headscarf to protect against the sun. The cap was similar to a modern skullcap and was sometimes worn by the poor. The turban (Isaiah 3:23) was made of thick linen wound around the head with the ends tucked inside the folds. The priest’s turban had a plate strapped to it bearing the inscription “Holy to the Lord” (Ex 28:36). The head-scarf was made from a square yard of cloth, folded in half to form a triangle. The sides fell over the shoulders and the V-point down the back, and it was held in place by a headband made of cord. About the 2nd century BC. male Jews began to wear phylacteries on their foreheads, small leather boxes containing special scripture passages, at morning prayers and at festivals, but not on the Sabbath.
— Walter A. Elwell and Barry J. Beitzel, “Head Covering,” in Baker Encyclopedia of the Bible (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1988), 936.
HEADDRESS
The Jews of Bible times gave much attention to the care of their hair. The young people loved to wear it long and curled (Songs 5:11), and they were proud to have thick and abundant hair (2 Samuel 14:25-26). Middle-aged men and priests would occasionally cut their hair but very little. Baldness was scarce and suspicion of leprosy was often attached to it. Thus when the youth said of Elisha, “Go up, thou bald head” (2 Kings 2:23), it was using an extreme curse, for the prophet being a young man, may not actually have been bald-headed. Men would not cut their beards, but allow them to grow long (2 Samuel 10:4-5). Beards would be anointed with oil often.
In public the Jews always wore a turban, for at certain seasons of the year it is dangerous in Palestine to expose the head to the rays of the sun. This turban was of thick material and passed several times around the head. It was somewhat like our handkerchief and was made of linen, or recently of cotton.
The patriarch Job and the prophet Isaiah mention the use of the turban as a headdress (Job 29:14; Isaiah 3:23). In place of the turban, the Palestinian Arabs today for the most part, wear a head veil called “Kaffieh” which hangs down over part of their garment.
I posted multiple images to drive a point home in our mind. The prophet Elisha would have had a couple cultural accoutrements that changes this story from simple name calling to an assault. He wouldn’t have been alone either, in other words, he would have had some people attached to him that would lay down their lives to protect him. And secondly, he would have had a head covering on, especially since he was returning from a “priestly” intervention. So we know from cultural history the following:
He would have had a head dressing on — some sort of turbin or head-covering (religious AND traveling reasons);
and he would have had an entourage of men to dissuade any attack or mistreatment of a priest of Israel on a journey on roads that were not policed.
One last point before we bullet point the complete idea behind the holy and rightful judgement from the Judge of all mankind. There were 42 persons killed by two bears. Obviously this would require many more than 42 people. Why? What happens when you have a group of ten people and a bear comes crashing out of the bushes in preparation to attack? Every one will immediately scatter! In the debate I pointed out that freezing 42 people and allowing the bears time to go down the line to kill each one would be even more of a miracle than this skeptic would want to allow. So the common sense position would require a large crowd and some sort of terrain to cut off escape. So the crowd would probably have been at least a few hundred.
Also, this holy man of God was coming back from a “mission,” he would have had an entourage with him ~ as already mentioned, as well as having some sort of head-covering on as pictured above ~ as already mentioned.
QUESTION: So, what do these cultural and historical points cause us to rightly assume?
ANSWER: That the crowd could not see that the prophet was bald.
Which means they would have had to of gotten physical — forcefully removing the head covering. Which means also that the men with the prophet Elisha would have also been overpowered. So lets bullet point the points that undermine the skeptics viewpoint.
✔ The crowd was in their late teens to early twenties; ✔ they were antisemitic (this is known from most of the previous passages and books); ✔ they were from a violently cultic city; ✔ the crowd was large; ✔ the crowd had already turned violent.
These points caused God in his foreknowledge to protect the prophet and send in nature to disperse the crowd. Nature is not kind, and the death of these men were done by a just Judge. This explains the actions of a just God better than many of the references I read.
[May I also add here that there are “free-will actions” on the part of the violent crowd that could have contributed to the attack ~ although this is still an example of God intervening with nature [a miracle]. I suppose that these mother bears may have minded their own business while keeping their cubs safe. But the ruckus created by this large crowd caused alarm enough in these mother bears to roust their natural instinct to protect their own. That is all. If this crowd had not done the above, everyone could have gone their own way on their respective journeys and “survived.” So while I think God DID intervene, miraculously; the actions, natural or Divine, were based on the free will violence of these men. In other words, God did not maliciously kill innocent people, they were rightly judged BASEDon their actions. OR, if the atheist insists God does not exist and that this WAS NOTa miraculous intervention, the crowd still brought on death to their members due to their violence [ruckus] that disturbed the bears. The atheist loses on both counts.]
How does [chance] selection arrive at such coordination? What good is one gear without the corresponding gear? The challenge of IC [irreducible complexity] for Darwinism remains. ~Uncommon Descent
Mechanical gears – like those found in clocks – have been around since the Greeks are thought to have invented them around 300 B.C. But scientists have now discovered a small hopping insect equipped with a set of living gears! University of Cambridge biologists discovered that Issus coleoptratus have an intricate gearing system that locks their back legs together. This allows both legs to spring at the exact same instant, propelling the tiny creatures straight forward. If one of the bug’s legs jumped a fraction of a second earlier than the other, this would push the insect off course to the left or right. The gears are located at the top of the insects’ hind legs and include 10 to 12 tapered teeth. The teeth of the gear lock together neatly, and they even have curves at the base, a design incorporated into man-made mechanical gears to reduce wear over time. Researcher Gregory Sutton said, “We usually think of gears as something that we see in human-designed machinery…. These gears are not designed; they are evolved – representing high speed and precision machinery evolved for synchronisation in the animal world.” What we’d like to ask him is how did this insect survive for thousands of years while it couldn’t jump straight? No, there is a much simpler explanation that scientists might see if they weren’t so biased against a Creator. The gears were designed by God, who gave all of His creatures – including you and me – all of the intricate parts we need!
Mind you, we have tiny motors (complete) found in nature that likewise fit Darwin’s own challenge of irreducible complexity — disproving neo-Darwinian positions… however, these gears provide yet another of many irreducible complexities that philosophical naturalism is hard-pressed to answer.
Atheist evangelist ~ Richard Dawkins ~ famous quip almost seems painfully funny:
“Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose.” (See more here)
Here is another evidence of “irreducibilities” found in nanotechnology, the Kinesin Motor:
One of the most amazing examples of cellular nanotechnology is a molecular motor protein known as kinesin. Kinesin is responsible for transporting molecular cargo — including chromosomes (e.g. during cell division), neurotransmitters and other important material — along microtubule tracks from one region of the cell to another. It is driven by ATP hydrolysis, thereby converting chemical energy into mechanical energy which it can use for movement. A kinesin molecule typically possesses two tails on one end, which attach to the cargo, in addition to two globular heads (often called “motor domains”) on the other end. Some readers may recognize this elegant protein from the now-famous Harvard animation, Inner Life of the Cell (time 1:59).
The sheer number of processes needed to be undertaken by such a motor protein makes the appearance of intelligent design seem almost beyond rational denial. Of course, many people resist this conclusion despite the evidence. As one Science Daily article in October 2010 put it,
“Our results show that a molecular motor must take on a large number of functions over and above simple transport, if it wants to operate successfully in a cell,” says Professor Matthias Rief from the Physics Department of the TU Muenchen. It must be possible to switch the motor on and off, and it must be able to accept a load needed at a specific location and hand it over at the destination. “It is impressive how nature manages to combine all of these functions in one molecule,” Rief says. “In this respect it is still far superior to all the efforts of modern nanotechnology and serves as a great example to us all.” [emphasis added]….
The General Theory of Evolution contends that every lifeform on Earth came about by non-purposeful, unintelligent accidents. Yet many evolutionists repeatedly refer to seeing amazing design in nature. But can design exist without a designer? Join Eric Lyons as he looks at the remarkable design we see, even down to the smallest creatures on Earth, all of which point to a Grand Designer.
Information drives the development of life. But what is the source of that information? Could it have been produced by an unguided Darwinian evolutionary process? Or did it require intelligent design? The Information Enigma is a fascinating 21-minute documentary that probes the mystery of biological information, the challenge it poses to orthodox Darwinian theory, and the reason it points to intelligent design. The video features Dr. Stephen Meyer, and molecular biologist Douglas Axe, founder of the Biologic Institute. For more about intelligent design theory be sure to visit “Intelligent Design: The Definitive Source on Intelligent Design“
If you watch the short videos below, keep in mind that all this complexity at the cellular/protein level needs to be up and running optimally for life to have happened… at all.
And what one should keep in mind is the time-factor in all this “evolution” involved in event the simplest working protein… even long time (billions of years) is not enough time to get “the show on the road” ~ see Not Enough Evolutionary Time.
The idea that Behe’s flagellum motor has been answered is wishful thinking at best, and corrupt science at it’s worst (scientism: which is an insertion of a metaphysical principle stating things like “the only quantifiable reality known is the one made up of atoms, and, science [thus defined] is the best means to understanding said reality”). Really, then, it is an “evolution-of-the-gaps” type thinking.
✿ Ken Miller’s challenge can be read here; ✿ Responses to it and derivatives to it can be found here.
But as one can see… these giants of I.D. did truly wipe the floor with their critics [full exchange].
The editor of the prestigious weekly science periodical, Nature, John Maddox, wrote an editorial entitled, “Down with the Big Bang,” where he hoped for the downfall of the Big Bang model, because in it, he found it to be “philosophically unacceptable,” quote: “Apart from being philosophically unacceptable, the Big-Bang is an over-simple view of how the Universe began, and it is unlikely to survive the decade ahead.” ~ Maddox, J. 1989. Down with the Big Bang. Nature 340: 425.
Physicist Hubert Reeves remarked that the Big Bang “involves a certain metaphysical aspect which may be either appealing or revolting” ~ Reeves, H., Andouze, J., Fowler, W. A., and Schramm, D. N. 1973. On the Origin of the Light Elements. Astrophysical Journal 179: 912.
Cosmologist Christopher Isham: “Perhaps the best argument in favor of the thesis that the Big Bang supports theism is the obvious unease with which it is greeted by some atheist physicists. At times this has led to scientific ideas, such as continuous creation [steady state] or an oscillating universe, being advanced with a tenacity which so exceeds their intrinsic worth that one can only suspect the operation of psychological forces lying very much deeper than the usual academic desire of a theorist to support his/her theory.” ~ Isham, C. 1988. “Creation of the Universe as a Quantum Process,” in Physics, Philosophy, and Theology, A Common Quest for Understanding, eds. R. J. Russell, W. R. Stoeger, and G. V. Coyne, Vatican City State: Vatican Observatory, p. 378.
“The biggest problem with the Big Bang theory of the origin of the universe is philosophical–perhaps even theological–what was there before the bang? This problem alone was sufficient to give a great initial impetus to the Steady State theory; but with that theory now sadly in conflict with the observations, the best way round this initial difficulty is provided by a model in which the universe expands from a singularity, collapses back again, and repeats the cycle indefinitely” (John Gribbin, “Oscillating Universe Bounces Back,” Nature 259 [1976]: 15).
Lee Strobel does a great job in relaying the evidence that we live in a finite cosmos and not an infinite one in his discussion with Dr. William Lane Craig [I added J. Warner Wallace as well to this presentation]:
When Albert Einstein developed his general theory of relativity in 1915 and started applying it to the universe as a whole, he was shocked to discover it didn’t allow for a static universe. According to his equations, the universe should either be exploding or imploding. In order to make the universe static, he had to FUDGE his equations by putting in a factor that would hold the universe steady.
In the 1920’s, the Russian mathematician Alexander Friedman and the Belgium astronomer George Lemaitre were able to develop models based on Einstein’s theory. They predicted the universe was expanding. Of course, this meant that if you went backward in time, the universe would go back to a single origin before which it didn’t exist. Astronomer Fred Hoyle derisively called this the Big Bang — and the name stuck! [Later in his career, Fred Hoyle confirmed the expansion through work on the second most plentiful element in the universe, helium.]
Starting in the 1920’s, scientists began to find empirical evidence that supported these purely mathematical models.
LET US TAKE A QUICK BREAK from this excerpt to fill in some information from another excerpt, and then we will continue:
As mathematicians explored the theoretical evidence, astronomers began to make observations confirming the expansion of the universe. Vesto Slipher, an American astronomer working at the Lowell Observatory. in Flagstaff, Arizona, spent nearly ten years perfecting his understanding of spectrograph readings. His observations revealed something remarkable. If a distant object was moving toward Earth, its observable spectrograph colors shifted toward the blue end of the spectrum. If a distant object was moving away from Earth, its colors shifted toward the red end of the spectrum.
Slipher identified several nebulae and observed a redshift in their spectrographic colors. If these nebulae were moving away from our galaxy (and one another), as Slipher observed, they must have once been tightly clustered together. In 1914, he offered these findings at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society, proposing them as evidence the universe was expanding.
A graduate student named Edwin Hubble seas in attendance and realized the implications of Slipher’s work. Hubble later began working at the Mount Wilson Observatory in Los Angeles. Using the Hooker telescope, he eventually proved Slipher’s nebulae were actually galaxies beyond the Milky Way composed of billions of stars. By 1929, Hubble published findings of his own, verifying Slipher’s observations and demonstrating the speed at which a star or galaxy moves away from us increases with its distance from Earth. This once again confirmed the expansion of the universe.
…CONTINUING…
For instance, in 1929, the American astronomer Edwin Hubble discovered that the light coming to us from distant galaxies appears redder than it should be, and this is a universal feature of galaxies in all parts of the sky. Hubble explained this red shift as being due to the fact that the galaxies are moving away from us. He concluded that the universe is literally flying apart at enormous velocities. Hubble’s astronomical observations were the first empirical confirmation of the predictions by Friedman and Lemaitre.
Then in the 1940’s, George Gamow predicted that if the Big Bang really happened, then the background temperature of the universe should be just a few degrees above absolute zero. He said this would be a relic from a very early stage of the universe. Sure enough, in 1965, two scientists accidentally discovered the universe’s background radiation — and it was only about 3.7 degrees above absolute zero. There’s no explanation for this apart from the fact that it is a vestige of a very early and a very dense state of the universe, which was predicted by the Big Bang model.
The third main piece of the evidence for the Big Bang is the origin of light elements. Heavy elements, like carbon and iron, are synthesized in the interior of stars and then exploded through supernova into space. But the very, very light elements, like deuterium and helium, cannot have been synthesized in the interior of the stars, because you would need an even more powerful furnace to create them. These elements must have been forged in the furnace of the Big Bang itself at temperatures that were billions of degrees. There’s no other explanation.
So predictions about the Big Bang have been consistently verified by the scientific data. Moreover, they have been corroborated by the failure of every attempt to falsify them by alternative models. Unquestionably, the Big Bang model has impressive scientific credentials… Up to this time, it was taken for granted that the universe as a whole was a static, eternally existing object…. At the time an agnostic, American astronomer Robert Jastrow was forced to concede that although details may differ, “the essential element in the astronomical and Biblical accounts of Genesis is the same; the chain of events leading to man commenced suddenly and sharply, at a definite moment in time, in a flash of light and energy”…. Einstein admitted the idea of the expanding universe “irritates me” (presumably, said one prominent scientist, “because of its theological implications”)
Lee Strobel, The Case for a Creator: A Journalist Investigates Scientific Evidence that Points Towards God (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2004), 105-106, 112;
J. Warner Wallace, God’s Crime Scene: A Cold-Case Detective Examines the Evidence for a Divinely Created Universe (Colorado Springs, CO: David C. Cook, 2015), 32-33.
This should be put in bullet points for easy memorization:
Albert Einstein developed his general theory of relativity in 1915;
Around the same time evidence of an expanding universe was being presented to the American Astronomical Society by Vesto Slipher;
In the 1920s using Einstein’s theory, a Russian mathematician (Alexander Friedman) and the Belgium astronomer (George Lemaitre) predicted the universe was expanding;
In 1929, Hubble discovered evidence confirming earlier work on the Red-Light shift showing that galaxies are moving away from us;
In the 1940’s, George Gamow predicted a particular temperature to the universe if the Big Bang happened;
In 1965, two scientists (Arno Penzias and Robert Woodrow Wilson) discovered the universe’s background radiation — and it was only about 3.7 degrees above absolute zero.
“In speaking of the fear of religion, I don’t mean to refer to the entirely reasonable hostility toward certain established religions and religious institutions, in virtue of their objectionable moral doctrines, social policies, and political influence. Nor am I referring to the association of many religious beliefs with superstition and the acceptance of evident empirical falsehoods. I am talking about something much deeper–namely, the fear of religion itself. I speak from experience, being strongly subject to this fear myself: I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers.
I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers. It isn’t just that I don’t believe in God and, naturally, hope that I’m right in my belief. It’s that I hope there is no God! I don’t want there to be a God; I don’t want the universe to be like that.”
In this extended conversation released as part of the Science Uprising series, best-selling author Stephen Meyer discusses the big bang, whether you can have an expanding universe without a beginning, and the most common ways scientists have tried to avoid a beginning to the universe. Along the way, Meyer addresses the ideas of Albert Einstein, Stephen Hawking, Edwin Hubble, Lawrence Krauss, Sean Carroll, and more.
Here I will post a portion of a response to a local author on the issue that part of the above was likewise used:
(You can click top enlarge)
Here are just two (of the many examples I can provide) of an atheist and an agnostic commenting on the above evidence:
➤ “The essential element in the astronomical and biblical accounts of Genesis is the same; the chain of events leading to man commenced suddenly and sharply, at a definite moment in time, in a flash of light and energy…. The Hubble Law is one of the great discoveries in science; it is one of the main supports of the scientific story of Genesis.”
>>Robert Jastrow: American astronomer and physicist. Founding director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, he is the director of the Mount Wilson Institute and Hale Solar Laboratory. He is also the author of Red Giants and White Dwarfs (1967) and God and the Astronomers (2nd ed., 2000).
➤ “Certainly there was something that set it all off. Certainly, if you are religious, I can’t think of a better theory of the origin of the universe to match with Genesis.”
>> Robert Wilson: is an American astronomer, 1978 Nobel laureate in physics, who with Arno Allan Penzias discovered in 1964 the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB)…. While working on a new type of antenna at Bell Labs in Holmdel Township, New Jersey, they found a source of noise in the atmosphere that they could not explain. After removing all potential sources of noise, including pigeon droppings on the antenna, the noise was finally identified as CMB, which served as important corroboration of the Big Bang theory.
The previous well accepted model was the Steady State theory… and this was accepted without a single piece of experimental verification; its appeal was purely metaphysical [footnote #21]:
As Jaki points out, Hoyle and his colleagues were inspired by “openly anti-theological, or rather anti-Christian motivations” (Stanley L. Jaki, Science and Creation [Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press, 1974), p. 347. Martin Rees recalls his mentor Dennis Sciama’s dogged commitment to the Steady State Model: “For him, as for its inventors, it had a deep philosophical appeal–the universe existed, from everlasting to everlasting, in a uniquely self-consistent state. When conflicting evidence emerged, Sciama therefore sought a loophole (even an unlikely seeming one) rather as a defense lawyer clutches at any argument to rebut the prosecution case” (Martin Rees, Before the Beginning, with a Foreword by Stephen Hawking [Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1997], p. 41). The phrase “from everlasting to everlasting” is the Psalmist’s description of God (Ps. 90.2). Rees gives a good account of the discoveries leading to the demise of the Steady State Model.
Some more evidence to support the theistic position in the Big-Bang:
Stephen Joseph Willams, What Your Atheist Professor Doesn’t Know (But Should) — CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform (May 23, 2013)
Dr. George Smoot, Particle Physicist, Nobel Prize winner, and team leader from the Lawrence-Berkeley Laboratory, regarding the 1992 observations from COBE (the NASA satellite Cosmic Background Explorer): “It’s like looking at God.”(8)
A somewhat more “sober” assessment of the findings was given by Frederick Burnham, a science-historian. He said, “These findings, now available, make the idea that God created the universe a more respectable hypothesis today than at any time in the last 100 years.”(9)
Dr. Stephen Hawking (Theoretical Physicist) described the big bang ripples observations as “the scientific discovery of the century, if not all time.”(10)
Dr. George Greenstein (Professor of Astronomy at Amherst.): “As we survey all the evidence, the thought insistently arises that some supernatural agency – or, rather, Agency – must be involved. Is it possible that suddenly, without intending to, we have stumbled upon scientific proof of the existence of a Supreme Being? Was it God who stepped in and so providentially crafted the cosmos for our benefit?”(11)
Sir Arthur Eddington (British Astrophysicist): “The idea of a universal mind or Logos would be, I think, a fairly plausible inference from the present state of scientific theory.”(12)
Dr. Arno Penzias (Nobel Prize winner in physics, co-discoverer of the microwave background radiation from the Big Bang): “Astronomy leads us to a unique event, a universe which was created out of nothing, one with the very delicate balance needed to provide exactly the conditions required to permit life, and one which has an underlying (one might say ‘supernatural’) plan.”(13)
Sir Roger Penrose (Physicist, Emeritus Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics at the Mathematical Institute, University of Oxford, and joint developer of the Hawking-Penrose Theorems): “I would say the universe has a purpose. It’s not there just somehow by chance.”(14)
Dr. Robert Jastrow (Founding director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies): “For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.”(15)
Dr. Frank Tipler (Professor of Math and Physics at Tulane University): “When I began my career as a cosmologist some twenty years ago, I was a convinced atheist. I never in my wildest dreams imagined that one day I would be writing a book purporting to show that the central claims of Judeo-Christian theology are in fact true, that these claims are straightforward deductions of the laws of physics as we now understand them. I have been forced into these conclusions by the inexorable logic of my own special branch of physics.”(16) Tipler since has actually converted to Christianity, resulting in his latest book, The Physics Of Christianity.
Dr. Alexander Polyakov (String Theorist, Princeton): “We know that nature is described by the best of all possible mathematics because God created it.”(17)
Dr. Edward Milne (British Astrophysicist, former Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics, Oxford): “As to the cause of the Universe, in context of expansion, that is left for the reader to insert, but our picture is incomplete without Him [God].”(18)
Dr. Arthur L. Schawlow (Professor of Physics at Stanford University, 1981 Nobel Prize in physics): “It seems to me that when confronted with the marvels of life and the universe, one must ask why and not just how. The only possible answers are religious…. I find a need for God in the universe and in my own life.”(19)
Dr. Wernher von Braun (German-American Pioneer Rocket Scientist) “I find it as difficult to understand a scientist who does not acknowledge the presence of a superior rationality behind the existence of the universe as it is to comprehend a theologian who would deny the advances of science.”(20)
Dr. Frank Tipler (Professor of Math and Physics at Tulane University): “From the perspective of the latest physical theories, Christianity is not a mere religion, but an experimentally testable science.”(21)
Footnotes for these quotes
8) Thomas H. Maugh, II (April 24, 1992). “Relics of Big Bang, Seen for First Time”. Los Angeles Times: pp. Al, A30.
9)The Los Angeles Times, Saturday 2nd May 1992.
10) Smoot, George, Wrinkles in Time, 2007 edition , cover.
11)Greenstein, G. 1988. The Symbiotic Universe. New York: William Morrow, p.27.
12)Heeren, F. 1995. Show Me God. Wheeling, IL, Searchlight Publications, p. 233.
13)Margenau, H and R.A. Varghese, ed. 1992. Cosmos, Bios, and Theos. La Salle, IL, Open Court, p. 83.
14) Penrose, R. 1992. A Brief History of Time (movie). Burbank, CA, Paramount Pictures, Inc.
15)Jastrow, R. 1978. God and the Astronomers. New York, W.W. Norton, p. 116.
16)Tipler, F.J. 1994. The Physics Of Immortality. New York, Doubleday, Preface.
17)Gannes, S. October 13, 1986. Fortune. p. 57
18) Heeren, F. 1995. Show Me God. Wheeling, IL, Searchlight Publications, p. 166-167.
19) Margenau, H. and R. A. Varghese, eds. Cosmos, Bios, Theos: Scientists Reflect on Science, God, and the Origins of the Universe, Life, and Homo Sapiens (Open Court Pub. Co., La Salle, IL, 1992).
20)McIver, T. 1986. Ancient Tales and Space-Age Myths of Creationist Evangelism. The Skeptical Inquirer 10:258-276.
21)McIver, T. 1986. Ancient Tales and Space-Age Myths of Creationist Evangelism. The Skeptical Inquirer 10:258-276.
So, far from atheism being supported by science, the theistic worldview has been exemplified above all other models of interpretation (perceptions) of reality. Mind you this isn’t “proof” how the naturalist wrongly interprets the empirical method (scientific positivism), but it is a probability that exceeds others. (I suggest taking time, about an hour, and listen to this presentation by William Lane Craig on the evidences for theism over other worldviews.) Here John makes one of his signature jumps from one topic to a completely different one. I sometimes feel — shot in the dark again — he does this with the idea that he is saying something “scientific” and that everyone should credit his knowledge in on this particular topic (which is not the case), and then he brings that “trust” into a completely different topic.
I hope this helps a little bit to those searching for answers. Also, note that many people attack Genesis for light being created BEFORE the sun and stars. Here is a great look at what was most likely (according to physicists) in this event. LIGHT is ENERGY:
YEC View of the beginning (Big-Bang) Click the pics too open PDF
Two Recent Discoveries Confirm Einstein
Two recent discoveries support for the beginning of the universe (the Big-Bang) and General Relativity. This adds an almost unassailable position of creation ex nihilo as well as more evidence against multiverses… which have no evidence.
The most rigorous and compelling proof that the universe was created by an Agent that transcends space and time comes from the theory of general relativity. The best confirmation that general relativity is a true theory comes from measurements on the binary pulsar B1913+16. Thanks to a new study, that best confirmation has now become even better.
Astronomers have been studying the binary pulsar PSR B1913+16 for nearly four decades. In a recent issue of the Astrophysical Journal, astronomers Joel Weisberg and Yuping Huang published their analysis of 9,257 pulse times-of-arrival measurements taken over 35 years on PSR B1913+16.1
PSR B1913+16 is a pair of neutron stars where one of the neutron stars is a pulsar. The two neutron stars orbit one other with a period of 7.75 hours and an orbital separation of just 3 light seconds (a little more than twice the separation of the moon from Earth or about 2/3 the diameter of the sun). The pulsar rotates on its axis about 17 times per second. Thus, it sends out a strong pulse of radiation every 59 milliseconds.
The theory of general relativity predicts that neutron stars orbiting close to one another will radiate gravitational waves. This radiation will cause the neutron stars to experience a decay in their orbit—that is, the neutron stars will orbit closer and closer to one another as gravitational energy is radiated away by the gravitational waves.
The easiest and most accurate way to measure the orbital decay is to determine changes in the timing of periastron of the orbit. Periastron refers to the position in the orbit at which two stars orbiting one another are closest to one another. The orientation of periastron in PSR B1913+16’s orbit has been observed to change by 4.2° per year. Figure 1 shows the observed change in the timing of periastron with date from 1975–2003 compared to what the theory of general relativity would predict.2
[….]
[….]
The most potent of the space-time theorems, the one proven by Arvind Borde, Alexander Vilenkin, and Alan Guth, states that all cosmological models are subject to an initial space-time singularity, regardless of assumptions about homogeneity, isotropy (or lack thereof), or energy conditions, including cosmological models that invoke an early hyper-inflation event.9 This beginning of space and time implies that an Agent operating from beyond space and time must have caused the universe to exist.
About a year after the publication of the theorem, Alexander Vilenkin wrote in a book, “With the proof now in place, cosmologists can no longer hide behind the possibility of a past eternal universe. There is no escape, they have to face the problem of a cosmic beginning.”10 That problem is a causal Agent who transcends space and time. Such a causal Agent matches the description of the God of the Bible.
[1]Joel Weisberg and Yuping Huang, “Relativistic Measurements from Timing the Binary Pulsar PSR B1913+16,” Astrophysical Journal 829 (September 2016): id. 55, doi:10.3847/0004-637X/829/1/55.
[2]Joel Weisberg, David Nice, and Joseph Taylor, “Timing Measurements of the Relativistic Binary Pulsar PSR B1913+16,” Astrophysical Journal 722 (September 2010): 1030–34,doi:10.1088/0004-637X/722/2/1030.
(And this post spawned a “SISTER POST” of sorts. Enjoy.)
UPDATED MEDIA
TIMELINE CHAPTERS
0:35‘They’re 99% the same’
1:56 70% aligned and verified
3:55 Time needed for evolution
5:29Chromosomes don’t add up
6:57 What else is similar?
9:07 More than merely DNA
10:27 Useful in witnessing
11:52 These facts convince scientists
Here I want to offer a somewhat short refutation [NOT] of the perpetual myth about human and chimpanzee DNA being 99% similar. One friend included it in a comment to me:
A cat shares 85 percent of our DNA along with dogs. Plants 15-20 percent . We share 90% of the genome with a banana. Chimpanzees 99% nearly…
Here is my short response:
Not only that, but your idea of 99% is not a real stat as well. Many things have changed since that 1975 claim.* One example is that junk DNA is roundly refuted, and 2001 and 2005 Nature and Science Journal articles make clear that we share from 81% to 87% of DNA with chimps. That shouldn’t be a surprise since we both have eyes to see, stomachs to digest food, etc. So again, when I see you make claims above, rarely are they rooted in anything either current or true.
*(CREATION.COM)The original 1% claim goes back to 1975.2This was a long time before a direct comparison of the individual ‘letters’ (base pairs) of human and chimp DNA was possible—the first draft of the human DNA was not published until 2001 and for the chimp it was 2005. The 1975 figure came from crude comparisons of very limited stretches of human and chimp DNA that had been pre-selected for similarity. The chimp and human DNA strands were then checked for how much they stuck to each other—a method called DNA hybridization. (2.Cohen, J., Relative differences: the myth of 1%, Science 316(5833):1836, 2007; doi: 10.1126/science.316.5833.1836)
Even a recent 2006 TIME article continues the mantra when they say, “Scientists figured out decades ago that chimps are our nearest evolutionary cousins, roughly 98% to 99% identical to humans at the genetic level.” So while science moves on and corrects itself, our culture is stuck in what was said to be a proof, and reject what ACTUALLY an evidence against the evolutionary proposition. Similar refutations of evolutionary positions that Richard Dawkins and “Junk DNA.”
What do I mean by that? I mean that if something is said to be evidence and is used to promote [FOR] the evolutionary paradigm… and then it is shown not to be the case… wouldn’t it then logically be an evidence AGAINST this said paradigm? I think so.
MOVING ON… SORTA
Before zeroing in on the Chimp issue, one other quick note regarding a recent discovery that undermines this “similarity” idea. That is this study:
A study published in the journal Human Evolution is causing quite the stir. In the words of Phys.org, “The study’s most startling result, perhaps, is that nine out of 10 species on Earth today, including humans, came into being 100,000 to 200,000 years ago.”
So startling, in fact, that according to David Thaler, one of the lead authors of the study, “This conclusion is very surprising, and I fought against it as hard as I could.”
The study’s very own author was so disturbed by how the conclusions challenged current scientific dogma that he “fought against it as hard as [he] could.” His “fight” gives credence to the study’s conclusions. His eventual acceptance, not to mention publication, of the conclusions speaks well of Thaler’s commitment to being a scientist first and an ideologue second.
According to traditional evolutionary thinking, all living things on Earth share common ancestry, with species evolving through a slow process of random mutation, natural selection, and adaptation over roughly 3.8 billion years. The idea that humans and most animals suddenly appeared at the same time a mere 200,000 years ago or less does not fit with that model.
(See more from my post, “Major DNA Study Undermines Evolution ‘In A Big Way’“) Obviously we differ on time-scales… but it sure seems like they are getting closer to mine over said time. But if one wishes to keep it ecumenical, here is a quote I love:
“While thoughtful investigators may disagree about the precise age of the universe, we can be confident about its finite nature”
>>J Warner Wallace, God’s Crime Scene: A Cold-case Detective Examines the Evidence for a Divinely Created Universe (Colorado Springs, CO: David C. Cook, 2015), 37.
Okay, back to the refutation of the 99% similarity. Here, Dr. Thomas Seiler, Ph.D., Physics, Technical University of Munich refutes compellingly this outdated TIME magazine article… and my friend:
…Most of you may have heard the statement that chimpanzees and humans are having 99% of their genes in common. However, what you are usually not told is that this result was not based on comparing the entire DNA of man and ape but only on comparing a very small fraction of it (ca. 3 %). The function of the other 97% of the genetic code was not understood. Therefore, it was concluded that this DNA had no function at all and it was considered “leftover junk from evolution” and not taken into consideration for the comparison between man and ape. Meanwhile, modern genetics has demonstrated for almost the entire DNA that there is functionality in every genetic letter. And this has led to the collapse of the claim that man and chimpanzee have 99% of their DNA in common.
In 2007, the leading scientific journal Science therefore called the suggested 1% difference “a myth.” And from a publication in Nature in 2010 comparing the genes of our so-called Y-chromosome with those of the chimpanzee Y-chromosome we know now that 60% of human Y-chromosome is not contained in that of the chimpanzee. This represents a difference of one billion genetic letters, known as nucleotides.
And modern genetics has recently made another important discovery which was very unexpected. Researchers found that all of the different groups of humans on earth, wherever they live and whatever they look like, have 99.9% of their genes in common. This leads to a problem for the hypothesis of evolution because if humans really were descended from the apes, then how could it be that we only have 40% of our Y-chromosome in common with the apes but at the same time there is almost a complete genetic identity among all humans? If there had been an evolution from ape to man then it should still go on among men and reveal significant genetic differences. These recent discoveries therefore drastically widen the gap between man and the animals. And they confirm that there are in reality no such things as human “races”. Asians, Europeans, Africans and Indigenous people from America and Australia only have superficial differences like color of skin or shape of the nose but they are all extremely similar on the genetic level.
And these recent breakthrough discoveries even go further. Today, because of the extreme similarity of the human genome, it is considered a well-established fact among geneticists, that all humans living on earth now are descended from one single man and from one single woman. In order to convince yourself of this you only have to search in the internet for the terms “mitochondrial Eve” or “Y-chromosome Adam”. These names were given by evolutionists in an ironic sense but now many regret that choice of name because this discovery perfectly confirms the Catholic Doctrine of Creation which has taught for 2000 years that all humans are brothers and sisters descended from one single human couple, the real historical persons Adam and Eve, not from a multitude of subhuman primates….
Here is a visual of the varying studies (click to enlarge in another window):
This video evaluates the claim that humans and chimps have 98% to 99% DNA similarity.
DR. JONATHAN SARFATI passed this on to me in conversation (click to enlarge as PDF):
Wow. Enough said? Or will this myth still infect the brains of people wishing something to be true that continue to lose evidences for? One other noteworthy exchange from that conversation I wish to note here.
The failure to recognize the full implications of [non-protein–coding DNA] may well go down as one of the biggest mistakes in the history of molecular biology.
(cited in: Gibbs, W.W., The unseen genome: gems among the junk, Scientific American 289[5]:26–33, November 2003.)
…even the staunchest critics of creation theory recognize that “[i]t is impossible to prove absence of function for any region of DNA.”
Talk Origins in its 29+ Evidences for Macroevolution (written between 199 and 2004) quotes a 1999 study that purportedly proves their stance:
Furthermore, all of these genes have accumulated mutations at the exact rate predicted (the background rate of mutation for neutral DNA regions like pseudogenes) (Ohta and Nishikimi 1999).
Well, the tables have turned on neo-Darminian claims yet once again and science (not “scientism”) advances:
It is worth mentioning that this supposed truth for evolutionary theory is further along the wrong prediction mark than the proof of “Junk DNA” was along this path when I was debating in 97′ with people over at the Discover site. (In fact, this “proof” is connected to the “junk DNA” position.) In 1997 people — in debate situation — said that evolution predicts junk DNA and that they have known of junk DNA for quite some time, thus proving evolutionary explanatory power. IN 2003, one of the first articles to hit the mainstream scientific press that this long held assumption was in jeopardy hit Discover and Scientific American magazines, two subscriptions I receive out of the many mags I get. Pictured is the first Discover magazine (yes, I have kept them) ruminations that this “proof” was disintegrating, like the vestigial organs “proof” did, cytochrome C differences, bacterial evolution, etc.
So debating a topic like this supposed proof is funny because it is much further along the scientific path than it was when I first debated the issue. Not to mention all the “evolutionary tree” models that are supposed to be factual when in fact their order is a topic of much debate. For instance, I posted a bit earlier a layman’s article on the argument within the evolutionary camp about mankind coming from orangutans rather than a chimpanzee split in the family tree… (this earlier post mentions the belief within the evolutionary camp that man came from some aquatic ancestor rather than orangutans). A few people likewise believe that apes (Gorillas) are descended from mankind in some way. For instance, Dr. Aaron G. Filler:
Dr. Aaron G. Filler, M.D., Ph.D. studied evolutionary theory under some of the leading biologists and anthropologists of our time: Ernst Mayr, Stephen J. Gould, David Pilbeam, and Irven DeVore. A neurosurgeon at the Institute for Spinal Disorders at Cedars Sinai Medical Center and past associate director of the Comprehensive Spine Center at UCLA, Dr. Filler has been a leading innovator in medical imaging and neuroscience. He is the author of Do You Really Need Back Surgery? (Oxford University Press), as well as numerous scientific articles and patents.
He was Director of Yerkes Regional Primate Research Center at Emory University, England. Dr. Bourne is Oxford educated, and is an American cell biologist/anatomist who was considered by most to be the worlds leading primatologist.
He said that apes are descended from man. Why would men of science believe such a thing? Because science has never seen any information being added to the evolutionary upward “slant” that is required by its theory (Darwinism, e.g., “scientism”). So since apes are less than us, Dr. Bourne says that science [not “scientism”] proves his theory due to observable facts. (SEE APPENDIX) All this though, junk DNA being disproved and a differing order of our family tree are other impediments to the Vitamin C Pseudogene argument. In order for this argument to work (and the subsequent predictions made to be coherent), he [the evolutionist] has to have all his ducks in order, this is something he does not have the luxury of (see image at top). One of the papers linked above (GULO pseudogenes have been intensively investigated) and its in-depth research led it two authors to say the following:
When examined in detail, the full pseudogene dataset we collected does not lend itself to a reasonable neo-Darwinian interpretation. Using standard bioinformatics tools and principles, we present alternative designs for at least the exon X portion of the GULO gene. These may be plausible due to nucleotide patterns being relevant as regulatory signals or the favouring of some codons for various possible reasons. We do accept that some mutations have occurred in this exon. But these novel proposals imply that the ancestors of the organisms studied may well never have had the exact same GULO sequence.
That last sentence really shows the assumptions made in this “proof” that steps away from true science and into the realm of historical science. And the historical sciences are fraught with bickering, changing branches of human lineage, and naturalistic philosophies that make the vitamin C pseudogene argument pretty vacuous.
The following is a good round-up of the problems seen in this line of argument, by Sean D. Pitman MD:
…in 2003, the same Japanese group published the complete sequence of the guinea pig GLO pseudogene, which is thought to have evolved independently, and compared it to that of humans [Inai et al, 2003]. 21 Surprisingly, they reported many shared mutations (deletions and substitutions) present in both humans and guinea pigs. Remember now that humans and guinea pigs are thought to have diverged at the time of the common ancestor with rodents. Therefore, a mutational difference between a guinea pig and a rat should not be shared by humans with better than random odds. But, this was not what was observed. Many mutational differences were shared by humans, including the one at position 97. According to Inai et al, this indicated some form of non-random bias that was independent of common descent or evolutionary ancestry. The probability of the same substitutions in both humans and guinea pigs occurring at the observed number of positions was calculated, by Inai et al, to be 1.84×10-12 – consistent with mutational hotspots.
What is interesting here is that the mutational hot spots found in guinea pigs and humans exactly match the mutations that set humans and primates apart from the rat (see figure below). 21,22 This particular feature has given rise to the obvious argument that Inai et al got it wrong. Reed Cartwright, a population geneticist, has noted a methodological flaw in the Inai paper:
“However, the sections quoted from Inai et al. (2003) suffer from a major methodological error; they failed to consider that substitutions could have occurred in the rat lineage after the splits from the other two. The researchers actually clustered substitutions that are specific to the rat lineage with separate substitutions shared by guinea pigs and humans. . .
If I performed the same analysis as Inai et al. (2003), I would conclude that there are ten positions where humans and guinea pigs experienced separate substitutions of the same nucleotide, otherwise known as shared, derived traits. These positions are 1, 22, 31, 58, 79, 81, 97, 100, 109, 157. However, most of these are shown to be substitutions in the rat lineage when we look at larger samples of species.
When we look at this larger data table, only one position of the ten, 81, stands out as a possible case of a shared derived trait, one position, 97, is inconclusive, and the other eight positions are more than likely shared ancestral sites. With this additional phylogenetic information, I have shown that the “hot spots” Inai et al. (2003) found are not well supported.” (see Link)
It does indeed seems like a number of the sequence differences noted by Cartwright are fairly unique to the rat – especially when one includes several other species in the comparison. However, I do have a question regarding this point. It seems to me that there simply are too many loci where the rat is the only odd sequence out in Exon X (i.e., there are seven and arguably eight of these loci). Given the published estimate on mutation rates (Drake) of about 2 x 10-10 per loci per generation, one should expect to see only 1 or 2 mutations in the 164 nucleotide exon in question (Exon X) over the course of the assumed time of some 30 Ma (million years). Therefore, the argument of the mutational differences being due to mutations in the rat lineage pre-supposes a much greater mutation rate in the rat than in the guinea pig. The same thing is true if one compares the rat with the mouse (i.e., the rat’s evident mutation rate is much higher than that of the mouse).
This is especially interesting since many of the DNA mutations are synonymous. Why should essentially neutral mutations become fixed to a much greater extent in the rat gene pool as compared to the other gene pools? Wouldn’t this significant mutation rate difference, by itself, seem to suggest a mutationally “hot” region – at least in the rat?
Beyond this, several loci differences are not exclusive to the rat/mouse gene pools and therefore suggest mutational hotspots beyond the general overall “hotness” or propensity for mutations in this particular genetic sequence.
Some have noted that although the shared mutations may be the result of hotspots, there are many more mutational differences between humans and rats/guinea pigs as compared to apes. Therefore, regardless of hotspots, humans and apes are clearly more closely related than are humans and rats/guinea pigs.
The problem with this argument is that the rate at which mutations occur is related to the average generation time. Those creatures that have a shorter generation time have a correspondingly higher mutation rate over the same absolute period of time – like 100 years. Therefore, it is only to be expected that those creatures with relatively long generation times, like humans and apes, would have fewer mutational differences relative to each other over the same period of time relative to those creatures with much shorter generation times, like rats and guinea pigs.
What is interesting about many of these mutational losses is that they often share the same mutational changes. It is at least reasonably plausible then that the GULO mutation could also be the result of a similar genetic instability that is shared by similar creatures (such as humans and the great apes).
This same sort of thing is seen to a fairly significant degree in the GULO region. Many of the same regional mutations are shared between humans and guinea pigs. Consider the following illustration yet again:
Why would both humans and guinea pigs share major deletions of exons I, V and VI as well as four stop codons if these mutations were truly random? In addition to this, a mutant group of Danish pigs have also been found to show a loss of GULO functionality. And, guess what, the key mutation in these pigs was a loss of a sizable portion of exon VIII. This loss also matches the loss of primate exon VIII. In addition, there is a frame shift in intron 8 which results in a loss of correct coding for exons 9-12. This also reflects a very similar loss in this region in primates (see Link). That’s quite a few key similarities that were clearly not the result of common ancestry for the GULO region. This seems to be very good evidence that many if not all of the mutations of the GULO region are indeed the result of similar genetic instabilities and that are prone to similar mutations – especially in similar animals.
As an aside, many other genetic mutations that result in functional losses are known to commonly affect the same genetic loci in the same or similar manner outside of common descent. For example, achondroplasia is a spontaneous mutation in humans in about 85% of the cases. In humans achondroplasia is due to mutations in the FGFR2 gene. A remarkable observation on the FGFR2 gene is that the major part of the mutations are introduced at the same two spots (755 C->G and 755-757 CGC->TCT) independent of common descent. The short legs of the Dachshund are also due to the same mutation(s). The same allelic mutation has occurred in sheep as well.
By definition, pseudogenes lack a function. However, the classification of pseudogenes generally relies on computational analysis of genomic sequences using complex algorithms. This has led to the incorrect identification of pseudogenes. For example the functional, chimeric gene jingwei in Drosophila was once thought to be a processed pseudogene.
It has been established that quite a few pseudogenes can go through the process of transcription, either if their own promoter is still intact or in some cases using the promoter of a nearby gene; this expression of pseudogenes also appears to be tissue-specific. In 2003, Hirotsune et al. identified a retrotransposed pseudogene whose transcript purportedly plays a trans-regulatory role in the expression of its homologous gene, Makorin1 (MKRN1) (see also RING finger domainubiquitin ligases), and suggested this as a general model under which pseudogenes may play an important biological role. Other researchers have since hypothesized similar roles for other pseudogenes. A bioinformatics analysis has shown that processed pseudogenes can be inserted into introns of annotated genes and be incorporated into alternatively spliced transcripts. Hirotsune’s report prompted two molecular biologists to carefully review scientific literature on the subject of pseudogenes. To the surprise of many, they found a number of examples in which pseudogenes play a role in gene regulation and expression, forcing Hirotsune’s group to rescind their claim that they were the first to identify pseudogene function.Furthermore, the original findings of Hirotsune et al. concerning Makorin1 have recently been strongly contested; thus, the possibility that some pseudogenes could have important biological functions was disputed. Additionally, University of Chicago and University of Cincinnati scientists reported in 2002 that a processed pseudogene called phosphoglycerate mutase 3 (PGAM3P) actually produces a functional protein and two 2008 publications in Nature discusses that some endogenous siRNAs are derived from pseudogenes, and thus some pseudogenes play a role in regulating protein-coding transcripts.
….Many of those mammals found unable to synthesize ascorbic acid have regions of their genome that are believed to correspond to parts of the functional GULO gene that is found in those mammals found capable to synthesizing GULO, and thus vitamin C. Evolutionists have cited these apparently vestigial remnants of GULO to make dysteleological arguments against an Intelligent Designer. In addition, they have argued that lesions found in common between the orthologous GULO pseudogenes of simian primates (‘shared mistakes’) argue strongly for their origins from a common ancestor, and all but rule out an independent inactivation of the GULO gene among different simian primates (including humans).
Previous studies of the orthologous primate GULO gene and pseudogene have focused on those parts of a few exons that appear to correspond between humans and rats. A more recent study1 is much more comprehensive. It is now believed that, relative to the 12 exons that comprise the functional rat GULO gene, the human GULO pseudogene is limited to counterparts of exons 4, 7, 9, 10, and 12. Owing to the fact that the guinea pig and the simian primates are obviously not sister groups [see figure near top], it is impossible for the guinea pig GULO pseudogene and the human GULO pseudogene to have both originated from the same ancestral pseudogene. Furthermore, not only are the inactivations of GULO in the guinea pig and primates clearly independent events based on phylogenetic analysis [see figure near top], but also on inferred evolutionistically believed times of inactivation….
Inai, Y., Ohta, Y. and Nishikimi, M., The whole structure of the human non-functional L-gulono-γ-lactone oxidase gene—the gene responsible for scurvy—and the evolution of repetitive sequences thereon, J. Nutritional Science and Vitaminology (Tokyo)49(5):315–319, 2003.
UPDATE:
The “pseudogene” argument (of which Vitamin C Pseudogene is part of) is being shown to not be a “vestige” as claimed and “predicted” by Darwinian theory. Much like the Haeckel’s list of over 100 vestigial organs, science shows that predictions made like this fail. If the predictions of design were assumed, more lives would have been saved and true science would have flourished. JBS Haldane however, said (predicted) that “natural selection cannot possibly select for millions of new mutations over the course of human evolution, Kimura developed the idea of “Neutral Evolution.” If “Haldane’s Dilemma” was correct, the majority of DNA must be non-functional. Hence, the pseudogene argument. This is an argument that has failed due to recent science, no predictive power left in it. Which is no small issue, since, it is this “predictive value” that makes this argument valid.
Faulkner (in 2009) worked with mice and humans and showed clearly that this RNA/Retrotranposons relationship were not random, and thus transcription is shown to be influenced wholly or partly by this “junk DNA.” — “Therefore, more than one third of the mouse and human genomes, previously thought to be non-functional, may play some role in the regulation of gene expression” (scientists from Jackson Maine, USA laboratories). Creationists have long figured this “junk DNA” to be functional… making design predictions more accurate.
Thankfully, not everyone bought this idea. In the late 1980s, New Zealand–born Australian immunologist Malcolm Simons recognized patterns, or order, in the non-coding DNA that indicated to him that the code must have a function, but others ridiculed the idea. In the mid-1990s, he patented the non-coding DNA (95%) of all organisms on Earth. The company he founded, Genetic Technologies, now reaps license fees from all technologies being developed to cure disease that involve the non-coding DNA. It’s quite controversial, of course, paying such license fees. And since factors involved in all sorts of diseases, such as breast cancer, Crohn’s disease, Alzheimer’s, heart disease, ovarian and skin cancer, are being found in the ‘junk’, Genetic Technologies is doing quite well.
The “vitamin C gene” in question here (L-gulano-g-lactone oxidase gene) is only a valid argument if:
a) a non-functional version of the gene was shown to be functional at some point in our human lineage, it says nothing about ancestors (kinds, or species) who could have been created with an active gene.
b) If the lineage of man can truly be traced through evolutionary ancestors, which it cannot.
c) The same gene could have been inactivated by the same mutation occurring independently is said to be too improbable by strict neo-Darwinists. (Ironic) However, if there is, or was, a mechanism of mutation that favors certain locations in the gene (a hot spot), the odds against an independent occurrence of the mutation drop according to the strength of that bias. This, by-the-way, is more probable considering the fall of the pseudogene argument. In other words, this prediction would now be of a higher order and is an example of loss of function and a disordering of optimum ability. Something the creation model predicts, it is the opposite of what Darwinism requires.
d) Likewise, in order for this line of reasoning to work, a human genome must be compared to an organism with a functioning gene for synthesizing vitamin C. Of course we know they found it in rats (Nishikimi, 1994). Four of the 12 exons (Science Dictionary: A segment of a gene that contains information used in coding for protein synthesis; exons are the modular coding regions of the gene). Here is the downfall, two-thirds of the homologous rat gene is completely missing. Which is to say: “This DNA sequence, labeled as a pseudogene, might have an entirely different function than the rat gene.” This would be — with recent peer reviewed articles in Discover, Scientific American, Nature, Science Weekly, and other pubvlications — be of a higher order than merely saying it is a pseudogene. In other words, the previous predictions are mute and shows that the argument is from silence, or non-science.
Stating that only the last enzyme is missing for the pathway to convert glucose to vitamin C might imply to the untrained individual that there is a biochemical pathway that leads to a dead end. Actually, the biochemical pathway that leads to the synthesis of vitamin C in rats also leads to the formation of five-carbon sugars in the pentose phosphate pathway present in virtually all animals (Linster and Van Schaftingen 2007). There are several metabolic intermediates in this pathway illustrating that these substances can be used as precursors for many compounds in the cell. In the pentose phosphate pathway, five-carbon sugars are made from glucose (a six-carbon sugar) to be used in the synthesis of DNA, RNA, and many energy producing substances such as ATP and NADPH (Garrett 1999). Animals that synthesize vitamin C can use both pathways illustrated in the simplified diagram below. Humans and the other animals “less fortunate” than rats only use the pentose phosphate pathway.
There is no dead end or wasted metabolic intermediates, and there is no need to have the enzyme to make vitamin C since humans are able to get all of the vitamin C they need from food substances. Thousands of human pseudogenes have been catalogued, but in spite of the similarities to functional genes, the exact role of pseudogene sequences in the genome are not known by any scientist. It is not necessary to assume that pseudogenes are remnants of once functioning genes that have been lost and now clutter the genome like junk in a rubbish heap.
Criswell, D. 2007. Adam and Eve, Vitamin C, and Pseudogenes. Acts & Facts. 36 (5).
Conclusion Then
As was said before the known factors of the pentose phosphate pathways:
The failure to recognize the full implications of [non-protein–coding DNA] may well go down as one of the biggest mistakes in the history of molecular biology. (cited in: Gibbs, W.W., The unseen genome: gems among the junk, Scientific American 289[5]:26–33, November 2003.)
…even the staunchest critics of creation theory recognize that “[i]t is impossible to prove absence of function for any region of DNA.” (Edward E. Max, “Plagiarized Errors and Molecular Genetics,” Sec. 5.4 . From: A Critique of “29 Evidences for Macroevolution”)
So, to sum up, at best this could be viewed as a theological argument: “what should have God done if he did create ‘A’.” At worst it is an argument that has not evolved with science correcting itself and is stuck in the 90’s science and not the mid-to-late part of the first decade of the beginning of the 21st century — science. Science has evolved, have the evolutionists?
This is an excerpt from the much hated book, Of Pandas and People, pp 34-40 (click to enlarge):
Here is the continuation of the devolving of primates:
APPENDIX
1. It takes 6 million years for one mutation to arise in a DNA binding site. 2. 6 million years is how long, historically, one has to get from primates to humans. 3. Humans differ from primates in hundreds of ways, requiring probably thousands of different gene mutations. 4. What’s more, many of the differences between primates and humans would require coordinated mutations. For example, the correct legs, feet, pelvis, spine, and neck to walk upright are differences which individually are useless by themselves. 5. Experiments with bacteria (i.e. with population sizes and mutation rates much higher than primates and humans) suggest that a single protein cannot mutate six or more times in a coordinated fashion in a timespan less than the known age of the universe. 6. Given these numbers, it is impossible for humans to have evolved from primates.
CNN is Hamas’s air force. MSNBC is Hamas’s Air force. ABC is Hamas’s Air force. That may seem like hyperbole and exaggeration but look at the facts! In this episode of “Verdict with Ted Cruz,” we show you example after example of how the mainstream media repeats Hamas’s lies.
It’s only going to make the difference in math scores more prominent because people who can afford private schools or can homeschool will make the public school kids more behind.
Besides, who would want to hire a contractor who doesn’t get the right math answers.
However, the best article I read so far on the topic is over at MISES INSTITUTE:
[….]
“From 3000 BC the Mesopotamian states of Sumer, Akkad and Assyria, together with Ancient Egypt and Ebla[,] began using arithmetic, algebra and geometry.”
“Chinese mathematics made early contributions, including a place value system and the first use of negative numbers.”
“The Hindu-Arabic numeral system and the rules for the use of its operations, in use throughout the world today, evolved over the course of the first millennium AD in India and were transmitted to the Western world via Islamic mathematics…. Islamic mathematics, in turn, developed and expanded the mathematics known to these civilizations. Contemporaneous with but independent of these traditions were the mathematics developed by the Maya civilization of Mexico and Central America, where the concept of zero was given a standard symbol in Maya numerals.”
“[O]ur knowledge of Babylonian mathematics is derived from more than 400 clay tablets…. Written in Cuneiform script, tablets were inscribed whilst the clay was moist, and baked hard in an oven or by the heat of the sun. Some of these appear to be graded homework.”
“Sumerians wrote multiplication tables on clay tablets and dealt with geometrical exercises and division problems.”
“The most extensive Egyptian mathematical text is the Rhind papyrus, dated to c. 1650 BC but likely a copy of an older document…. It is an instruction manual for students in arithmetic and geometry. In addition to giving area formulas and methods for multiplication, division and working with unit fractions, it also contains evidence of other mathematical knowledge.”
“Greek mathematics was much more sophisticated than the mathematics that had been developed by earlier cultures…. Greek mathematicians, by contrast, used deductive reasoning. The Greeks used logic to derive conclusions from definitions and axioms, and used mathematical rigor to prove them.”
“In the 9th century, the Persian mathematician Muḥammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī wrote an important book on the Hindu–Arabic numerals and one on methods for solving equations … instrumental in spreading Indian mathematics and Indian numerals to the West. The word algorithm is derived from the Latinization of his name, Algoritmi, and the word algebra from the title of one of his works.”
Rather than representing “white supremacy,” the evolution of mathematics has been a globe-, race-, and culture-spanning collaboration of advancements, an ongoing development of more effective tools for anyone to use. And that history shows that all of those involved wanted to get the answers right, where having to show your work has been a millennia-old strategy for mathematics education……
MORE CRITICAL RACE THEORY, RACISM
HOT AIRhas some more hits via the racism of critical theory:
The San Francisco School Board has been in the news a lot recently. First it was controversy over the decision to rename 44 schools in the district. Then it was the decision to get rid of selective admissions at their best performing high school on the grounds that meritocracy is racist.
Over the weekend, the board took another hit in the pages of the San Francisco Chronicle when columnist Heather Knight relayed the story of a volunteer who wanted to become part of the board’s Parent Advisory Committee. Seth Brenzel would have been the only gay member of the group and the only man, but after discussing it for two solid hours the school board rejected him because he’s white:
All of the 10 current members are straight moms. Three are white. Three are Latina. Two are Black. One is Tongan. They all want the dad to join them.
The seven school board members talk for two hours about whether the dad brings enough diversity. Yes, he’d be the only man. And the only LGBTQ representative. But he’d be the fourth white person in a district where 15% of students are white…
The Alice B. Toklas LGBTQ Democratic Club on Friday slammed the board for its “misguided fumbling towards a goal of diversity.”
The person who was perhaps the most stunned was Seth Brenzel, the gay dad whose daughter is a fourth-grader at Glen Park Elementary. “At any moment, I expected a commissioner to address me,” he said, “because there I was.”
The board never asked Brenzel a single question. Instead he sat there, his face being broadcast on the zoom meeting, while the board decided he didn’t belong in the voluntary position because a white male ticked the wrong social justice boxes. This important conversation dragged on while about 500 parents were waiting to hear about school reopening plans.
The board’s focus on woke messaging over student well-being continues…
[….]
The board’s focus on woke decision making over addressing actual problems has become so absurd that even some Democrats see it as self-parody:
“We’ve become parodies of ourselves,’’ said Democratic strategist Brian Brokaw, who recounted Republican friends good-naturedly jabbing him as the developments became a running joke on the political scene. “It’s counterproductive in so many ways.”
San Francisco parents and their kids are paying a steep price for electing these woke ideologues to the school board.
Dateline Wednesday March 19, 2014 – Portland Oregon: Portland Public Schools teachers participated in a training session where a controversial new curriculum including “Critical Race Theory,” is explained. The curriculum is currently implemented in three charter schools at the K-5, middle school and high school level. The curriculum is expected to be rolled out to all schools in the Portland Public School System: thus the training.
BONUS OREGON FLASHBACK
Oregon to Ban Employers From Asking About Felonies: A statewide “Ban the Box” effort is underway which will prohibit employers from asking dangerous felons about their criminal records on job applications.
This (the above and below) comes from EAG.org, here is part of the post by them, which can be linked to below:
…EAGnews has previously reported about the social justice math activists’ tricks in a book called “Rethinking Mathematics: Teaching Social Justice by the Numbers,” edited by Peterson.
The book includes “lessons and essays about racial profiling, environmental racism, unfair mortgage lending practices of Big Banks, the ‘overabundance of liquor stores’ in minority communities, and slave-owning U.S. presidents,” EAGnews’ Ben Velderman wrote.
“The book’s other major theme is that capitalism’s unequal distribution of wealth is the root cause of the world’s suffering. Students learn to despise free market economics in lessons about third-world sweatshops, ‘living wage’ laws, the earnings of fast food workers and restaurant CEOs, and the ‘hidden’ costs of meat production,” Velderman reported.
In the book, Peterson explains his rationale for attacking the American narrative:
“I figure that if kids start questioning the ‘official story’ early on, they will be more open to alternative viewpoints later on. While discovering which presidents were slave owners is not an in-depth analysis, it pokes an important hole in the godlike mystique that surrounds the ‘founding fathers.’”
Unionists now can’t even leave math alone and have hijacked it to push their own political agenda.
Thank goodness a growing number of parents have access to charter schools, cyberschools, voucher schools and homeschools – all of which provide an alternative to government schools, many of which have been infiltrated by left-wing activists like Lewis and Peterson.
Okay… two main themes came to my mind at the most recent Bible study at church… the first is the theme, “COURAGE.” The second is the idea of the “HOUNDS OF HEAVEN“
BTW, there is a sermon rolling around in here somewhere for you pastors/speakers
Robert D. Bergen, 1, 2 Samuel, vol. 7, The New American Commentary (Jump)
Herbert Livingston, “2191 רָעַע,” in Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (Jump)
Ronald F. Youngblood, 1, 2 Samuel, The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 & 2 Samuel (Jump)
Walter Brueggemann, First and Second Samuel, Interpretation, a Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (Jump)
PDFs
The Significance of The Verb Love In The David-Jonathan Narratives In 1 Samuel (PDF)
Hamôr Lehem (1 Samuel 16:20): “So Jesse took a donkey loaded with bread, a skin of wine, and one young goat and sent them by his son David to Saul.” — Ass-Load (getting into the weeds of the Masoretic Text | PDF)
Old Testament Cross-Culturalism: Paradigmatic or Enigmatic? (PDF)
Paradigmatic: 1. Of or relating to a paradigm. 2. Linguistics Of or relating to the set of substitutional or oppositional relationships a linguistic unit has with other units, such as the relationship between (n) in not and other sounds that could be substituted for it in the same context, like (t) and (p). Together with the set of syntagmatic relations, paradigmatic relations describe the identity of a linguistic unit in a given language. (American Heritage Dictionary) Enigmatic: Of or resembling an enigma; puzzling: a professor’s enigmatic grading system. See Synonyms at mysterious. (American Heritage Dictionary)
COURAGE
In Christian circles you often hear the term “confirmation” used. Not as in being confirmed in your salvation, or baptized…. but as in I had something I was thinking or praying for, and it was confirmed by the Lord. I would say my “tri-fecta,” or “hat-trick” to put it in hockey terms, was just that. It may have been merely coincidence, but even if not “divinely planned,” it was “divinely” applied to my walk by the Holy Spirit stirring in me Biblical truths.
On October 12th I went to a Shelby Steele event, he spoke often of “courage” and “moral courage” (I uploaded my take on it on the 19th)
This past Sunday (the 22nd) my Pastor ended his sermon speaking about courage.
and on Monday (the 23rd), the men’s Bible study was going through 1st Samuel 17 and noted was David’s courage alongside Israel’s loss of it.
(1) SHELBY STEELE
On October 12th, I went to go see Dr. Shelby Steele at our local college… I wrote about my thoughts HERE. I have a section in that post on COURAGE.
Courage was a theme of Dr. Steele’s because he spoke of(A)the black culture not acting on their freedom, which takes courage; rather than the easy way out of the grievance culture where they receive handouts (emotional and/or monetary).
To communicate the following, publicly, but more importantly to act on it — takes courage:
“Racism is over with,” said Steele.
In modern America, Steele feels free now.
Smyth asked Steele what conservatism meant to him and he answered by saying that conservatism is a devotion to that freedom.
“I say this to Blacks, you can be free, if you are not afraid to be free,” said Steele.
A woman in the below video says she is on the fence when it comes to society allowing black folks freedom like the kind Shelby Steele was talking about. Her question relates to being held back… Shelby says whatever you feel like you are being held back in, do it (roughly adapted). He was saying, I think, test your theory.
To put yourself out like that and stand up to the narrative takes — courage.
(B) When one confronts the current laissez-faire use of pronouns and distortion of language, whites are labeled as racist, blacks as uncle Toms. One of the tactics of the Left is to silence the opposition by labeling them as: sexist, intolerant, xenophobic, homophobic, Islamophobic, racist, bigoted (S.I.X.H.I.R.B.). Overcoming the fear of being accused of these things, and confronting the lies of this “WOKE” culture takes what? COURAGE.
(2) MY PASTOR
I wrote a bit on Courage; Even though I saw Doc Steele on the 12th, I uploaded my post on it on the 19th. Sunday church service was on the 22nd, so “courage” was fresh in my mind. At the beginning of the service Pastor Todd spoke about a historical trip he went on during his sabbatical. He opened with touring the “behind the scenes war rooms, planning bunkers” Winston Churchill and others used to make battle plans…. Then at the end of the service he picked up the story again and tied is into the sermon.
The Apostle Paul was traveling on essentially unpoliced and dangerous roads for thousands of miles, having Jewish and Roman authorities looking for him ta’ boot — all to spread the Good News of Jesus — took courage.
So, in the below video I cobbled together a bit of a montage:
However, these are two of the three connecting themes….
I had a “hat-trick”…..
Enter…
(3) MEN’S BIBLE STUDY
At the recent men’s Bible study this past Monday, we went over 1st Samuel 16 and 17… Courage was part of the theme:
…When Saul and all Israel heard these words from the Philistine, they lost their courage and were terrified (17:11)….David said to Saul, “Don’t let anyone be discouragedby him; your servant will go and fight this Philistine!” (17:32).
David’s courage in battle against Goliath spread to his fellow Israelites who were infected with it.
35 So don’t throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. 36 For you need endurance, so that after you have done God’s will, you may receive what was promised.
37 For yet in a very little while,
the Coming One will come and not delay.
38 But My righteous one will live by faith;
and if he draws back,
I have no pleasure in him.
39 But we are not those who draw back and are destroyed, but those who have faith and obtain life.
….“If any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him.” Draw back means “to take in sail.”
But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition; but of them that believe to the saving of the soul [Heb. 10:39].
The writer to the Hebrews did not consider that they had drawn back, but he is speaking of the danger of doing so, and he is giving them this warning. Since draw back means “to take in sail,” the believer is like a sailor who should let out all the sail. That is what the writer has been telling these folk—“Let us go on!” His thought is that a believer could reef his sails—become stranded because of discouragement, because of persecution, because of hardship, because of depression. But since we have a living Savior, let’s go on. Let’s open up all the sails. Let’s move out for God.
You remember the story of the French Huguenots. They were persecuted, and they were betrayed. When France destroyed them, it destroyed the best of French manhood and womanhood. The French Huguenots went into battle, knowing they were facing certain death, and their motto was: “If God be for us, who can be against us?” The nation of France has never since been the nation it was before it destroyed these people.
We believers today need a motto like the Huguenots. There is a lot of boo–hooing today among Christians. There is a lot of complaining and criticizing. There are a bunch of crybabies and babies that need to be burped.
Oh, my Christian friend, the whole tenor of this marvelous epistle is “Let us go on.” So let us go on for God!
Vernon McGee, Thru the Bible Commentary: The Epistles (Hebrews 8-13), electronic ed., vol. 52 (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1991), 65–66.
So the speaker at the Men’s group had our tables discuss topics from the passages… using health or other trials as maybe needing some courage to survive, address, and the like. I shared with the men my “tri-fecta” culminating with this battle, and related it to the battle we currently face as Christians in this increasingly pagan and secular America.
We need courage to enter battle with it. To be able to withstand accusations, or the [as already noted] laissez-faire use of pronouns and distortion of language. (To get a taste of this “extent of language distortion” explained well,I excerpted a few pages from Mark Goldblatt’s book (PDF), “I Feel, Therefore I Am” — it is a must read I think.)
To stand up to all this takes courage.
Okay, pivot to my next topic….
HOUNDS OF HEAVEN
During Monday’s Bible study, as we got to this portion of 1st Samuel 16:14-23,
14 Now the Spirit of the Lord had left Saul, and an evil spirit sent from the Lord began to torment him, 15 so Saul’s servants said to him, “You see that an evil spirit from God is tormenting you. 16 Let our lord command your servants here in your presence to look for someone who knows how to play the lyre. Whenever the evil spirit from God troubles you, that person can play the lyre, and you will feel better.”
17 Then Saul commanded his servants, “Find me someone who plays well and bring him to me.”
18 One of the young men answered, “I have seen a son of Jesse of Bethlehem who knows how to play the lyre. He is also a valiant man, a warrior, eloquent, handsome, and the Lord is with him.”
19 Then Saul dispatched messengers to Jesse and said, “Send me your son David, who is with the sheep.” 20 So Jesse took a donkey loaded with bread, a skin of wine, and one young goat and sent them by his son David to Saul. 21 When David came to Saul and entered his service, Saul admired him greatly, and David became his armor-bearer. 22 Then Saul sent word to Jesse: “Let David remain in my service, for I am pleased with him.” 23 Whenever the spirit from God troubled Saul, David would pick up his lyre and play, and Saul would then be relieved, feel better, and the evil spirit would leave him.
I camped out a bit in the text using some commentaries I had open in my LOGOS APP. I include the extended section of the commentary below. (JUMP TO IT IF YOU WISH.) The part that I camped on was this: “Now the Spirit of the Lord had left Saul, and an evil spirit sent from the Lord began to torment him.”
However, the commentary reminded me of “The Hounds of Heaven” and how often they can feel lie the “hounds of hell.” God sent an Angel of Judgement (as I see it) to Saul… this is what troubled him to the point of agony. In those who are God’s elect, this Angel “The Hound of Heaven” chases us to Calvary. Was God — who wishes all to come to saving knowledge of Him — wanting the same for Saul? Giving him the opportunity to repent, but knowing [in His foreknowledge] he wouldn’t, opening the door to a man after His own heart.
I previously posted a well-known poem about the Hounds of Heaven by Francis Thompson in 1893, after comedian Jeff Allen’s testimony that I isolated. C.S. Lewis was surely familiar with this 1893 poem as he intimated God chasing him into the Kingdom of Heaven.
However, if you are unfamiliar with this poem, here is a more in-depth dealing with the grace that exudes from it, followed by a slight dive into the mention of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe:
….Francis Thompson died on this day, November 13, 1907. He famously wrote the 182-line poem “The Hound of Heaven” about the hound who single-mindedly pursues his catch across the countryside for as long as it takes. This was Thompson’s story. God never gave up on him even when he was living on the streets of London in the pits of opium addiction. God never stopped his pursuit. And even though Thompson’s grave today is overgrown, neglected and almost impossible to find in a cemetery on the outskirts of Manchester England, the rejoicing continues in heaven over one sinner who made his way home. Maybe Francis Thompson will be there, quietly sitting on the edge in quiet thanksgiving.
“I fled Him, down the nights and down the days;
I fled Him, down the arches of the years;
I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways
Of my own mind; and in the midst of tears…
Naked I waited Thy loves’s uplifted stroke!”
This one-way-love that never stops is what Christians call grace. “Grace is love that seeks you out when you have nothing to give in return. Grace is love coming at you that has nothing to do with you. Grace is being loved when you are unloveable” (Paul Zahl). Grace is what distinguishes Christianity from every other religion. All the other religions instruct us to do something: to climb an achievement ladder, to make certain pilgrimages, to quiet dissonant voices in order to show God our faithfulness and attention. Christianity emphatically says, “It’s not your faithfulness that counts, but God’s!” While other religions say, “you get what you deserve,” Christianity says we get what we don’t deserve because God is a gracious Heavenly Father who is kind to the ungrateful and wicked (Luke 6:35). He loved them to the end (John 13:1).
Only God knows how many people have come to see Jesus as loving Father by reading C. S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity or The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Maybe there will be an afternoon tea in heaven where Lewis and Joy Davidman can meet with those who know and love God because God used them in this way. And perhaps Francis Thompson will be there too, quietly on the edges with a smile of thanksgiving.
J. VERNON MCGEE
GOD’S “WOODSHED”
This excellent short treatise by J.D. GREEAR, of the idea of God having His claws in us via C.S. Lewis and his The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader:
C. S. Lewis has one of the more intriguing stories of conversion. In his autobiography, Surprised by Joy, he called himself “the most dejected, reluctant convert in all of England . . . drug into the kingdom kicking, struggling, resentful, and darting his eyes in every direction for a chance of escape.” Somehow that doesn’t usually make the list of people’s favorite C.S. Lewis quotes.
It’s important to see what Lewis isn’t saying: he’s not saying that he regrets becoming a Christian. (Remember, it’s Surprised by Joy.) And he’s not trying to weigh in on the Calvinism/Arminian debate (though he does elsewhere). C.S. Lewis is saying that God often pursues us long before we have any inkling of what he’s up to. More often than not, we don’t like the pursuit.
A scene that beautifully captures Lewis’ experience is in his Voyage of the Dawn Treader. One of the main characters—a boy named Eustace—has developed an evil heart and becomes a dragon. He wants to be a boy again, so Aslan leads him to a pristine fountain of water. Listen to Eustace (and behind him, C.S. Lewis), describe his experience:
The water was as clear as anything and I thought if I could get in there and bathe it would ease the pain. But the lion [Aslan] told me I must undress first.
So I started scratching myself and my scales began coming off all over the place. And then I scratched a little deeper and, instead of just scales coming off here and there, my whole skin started peeling off beautifully. In a minute or two I just stepped out of it. I could see it lying there beside me, looking rather nasty. It was a most lovely feeling. So I started to go down into the well for my bathe.
But just as I was going to put my feet into the water I looked down and saw that [the skin on my feet was] all hard and rough and wrinkled and scaly just as it had been before.
[Eustace then repeats the process a second and third time, growing increasingly despairing.]
Then the lion said, ‘You will have to let me undress you.’ I was afraid of his claws, I can tell you, but I was pretty nearly desperate now. So I just lay flat down on my back to let him do it.
The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I’ve ever felt. The only thing that made me able to bear it was just the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off.
Well, he peeled the beastly stuff right off – just as I thought I’d done it myself the other three times, only they hadn’t hurt – and there it was lying on the grass: only ever so much thicker, and darker, and more knobbly-looking than the others had been. Then he caught hold of me – I didn’t like that much for I was very tender underneath now that I’d no skin on – and threw me into the water. It smarted like anything, but only for a moment. After that it became perfectly delicious and as soon as I started swimming and splashing I found that all the pain had gone. And then I saw why. I’d turned into a boy again.
If you’re feeling God’s pursuit like the “claws” of a lion, know that while it may be painful, it’s not punishment. God never desires to pay you back, but to bring you back. Will you let him?
All this resonates with me as I was chased into an L.A. County super-max jail facility by my Savior. God’s Holy Spirit chased and judged righteously my actions and rejection of God. I responded only by the grace of God. I love because He first [and miraculously — through the Miracle of Calvary] loved me, 1st John 4:13-19,
13 This is how we know that we remain in Him and He in us: He has given assurance to us from His Spirit. 14 And we have seen and we testify that the Father has sent His Son as the world’s Savior. 15 Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God—God remains in him and he in God. 16 And we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and the one who remains in love remains in God, and God remains in him.
17 In this, love is perfected with us so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment, for we are as He is in this world. 18 There is no fear in love; instead, perfect love drives out fear, because fear involves punishment. So the one who fears has not reached perfection in love. 19 We love because He first loved us.
Which continues the above in thankfulness that God saw in me something to be desired. Sought after. Brought to “the wood shed” over.
The beauty, wonder, and distinction of God is His amazing grace. There is no ambiguity with God. The Lord is not fickle but loves and holds tight even when we are unlovely and practice avoidance. When God pursues, God finds; when God holds on, there is no letting go.
This trustworthy saying of Scripture is a good, short, solid expression of theological truth to memorize, meditate upon, and say to ourselves repeatedly. We belong to Jesus Christ. God is with us. The Hound of Heaven will always sniff us out and bring us to himself.
In some sense, we all have been brought into the Kingdom of God kicking and screaming.
WHAT TO NOTE: I add as many of the references found in the footnotes of The New American Commentary on Samuel as I can. So while the main commentary excerpt is just one, I provide the reader with access he or she may not have that I do, including a few PDFs. Enjoy:
COMMENTARY
16:14–20 David’s new status before the Lord stood in sharp contrast to Saul’s. When the Lord rejected Saul as king (15:23, 26; 16:1), “the Spirit of the Lord had departed from” (v. 14) him as well.[33]Saul had lost the empowering reality behind the anointing that had marked his selection for divine service earlier (cf. 10:1, 10). But Saul’s condition now was far worse than being without the Lord’s Spirit, for “an evil spirit from the Lord tormented him.” The Hebrew word translated “evil” (Hb. rāʿâ) has a wide range of meanings from “misery” to “moral perverseness.”[34] Thus, it is possible—and perhaps preferable—to interpret the text not to mean that the Lord sent a morally corrupt demon[35] but rather another sort of supernatural being—an angel of judgment (cf. 2 Kgs 19:35)—against Saul that caused him to experience constant misery.[36]
Saul’s tortured state was not an accident of nature, nor was it essentially a medical condition. It was a supernatural assault by a being sent at the Lord’s command, and it was brought on by Saul’s disobedience.[37]
The astounding declaration by the writer in vv. 14–15 reflects a worldview that bears further examination. God, the Creator of the universe, had issued a series of behavioral decrees applicable to all humanity, but especially to Israel, and these were revealed supremely in the Torah. The Torah was a path of life, and obedience to the Torah resulted in life and blessing. To disobey Torah requirements was to leave the path of life and enter into the realm of judgment and death. Through his repeated disobedience to the Torah requirements Saul had entered into a living, personal judgment that God brought against him. This punishment was carried out by a divinely created agent of judgment, “an evil [or “troubling”] spirit from the Lord.”[38]
This is the only time in the Old Testament that an individual is noted as being tormented by a troubling/evil spirit. Evidence that the writer considered Saul’s condition to be unusual is provided by the fact that the verb that describes Saul’s condition (Hb. bāʿat) is used nowhere else in a narrative framework clause in the Torah or Former Prophets; furthermore, the combination of grammatical and lexical features in this clause is rated as the most abnormal in the narrative framework of 1, 2 Samuel.[39]
Though Saul was the one being troubled by the spirit, the writer portrays him as being inert in dealing with it. It was “Saul’s attendants” (v. 15), not Saul himself, who correctly diagnosed his condition; it also was they who suggested an effective treatment for helping him “feel better” (v. 16). Their remedy was one known in Israelite circles to have power in the spiritual world (cf. 2 Kgs 3:15), the playing of harp music. By listening to harp music “when the [troubling]/evil spirit comes” (v. 16), Saul “will feel better.”
The suggestion seemed reasonable to Saul, and he immediately ordered a search for “someone who plays well” (v. 17). But even before a search party could be organized, an unnamed royal servant suggested that they seek “a son of Jesse of Bethlehem who knows how to play the harp” (v. 18). This individual—David—had numerous other qualifications that befit a person who would serve as a royal aide. Militarily, “he is a brave man and a warrior”; socially, “he speaks well”; physically, he “is a fine-looking man”; and spiritually, “the Lord is with him.” The mention of this last trait puts David in company with Isaac, Joseph, Joshua, and Samuel (cf. Gen 26:28; 39:2–3, 21, 23; Josh 6:27; 1 Sam 3:19).
On that recommendation Saul sent a message to Jesse ordering him to deliver his son over to the royal court. Dutifully, Jesse complied. The food that he sent—“a donkey loaded with bread,[40] a skin of wine and a young goat” (v. 20)—probably was meant to serve as David’s provisions since there was as yet no formal taxation system to support people serving in the nation’s political and military establishment.
16:21–23 David came to Saul at Gibeah and “entered his service” (lit., “stood before his face”), and it was not long before the king “loved [ʾāhab] him greatly” (“liked him very much”). So impressed was Saul with this well-recommended shepherd that he decided to make David a permanent member of his court. Saul assigned him a coveted role as “one of his armorbearers.” In this position David was kept close to the king and was thus able to respond immediately “whenever the spirit from God came upon Saul” (v. 23). Gordon cites Qumranic evidence to suggest that David’s songs were accompanied by singing as well.[41] Though David’s musical efforts were effective in providing relief for Saul, the writer understood that David’s success was due to the fact that the Spirit of the Lord was with him in power (vv. 13, 18).
David’s soothing remedy for Saul’s malady was simple yet effective. The Hebrew verb forms in v. 23 suggest that Saul was attacked numerous times by the tormenting spirit; Scripture records two such additional instances (18:10; 19:9), and likely there were others.
The three concluding verses of chap. 16 depict David’s first encounter with the one who would soon devote his life to trying to kill him. The verses play an important role in the larger scheme of 1, 2 Samuel, for they serve as the first evidence that David was a loyal, trustworthy servant of Saul who used his abilities to benefit the king. In spite of Saul’s repeated efforts to kill David, Israel’s next king made absolutely no efforts to bring down Saul’s dynasty. In fact, David performed feats in Saul’s behalf that no one else could, and the king initially appreciated David’s efforts. Any deterioration in the relationship between Saul and David would not be David’s fault.
NOTES
[33] D. Howard, Jr., understands the simultaneous transfer of the Spirit from Saul to David as not only a symbol of the transfer of political power but also a reflection of God’s disapproval of Israel’s manner of establishing the monarchy (“The Transfer of Power from Saul to David in 1 Sam 16:13–14,” JETS 32 [1989]: 473–83). [I uploaded it to be viewed – click to view the PDF]
[36] The verb בּעת, translated “tormented,” has recently been examined more closely in J. Hoftijzer, “Some Remarks on the Semantics of the Root bʿt in Classical Hebrew,” in Pomegranates and Golden Bells, ed. D. P. Wright et al. (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1995), 777–83. He concludes that the word refers to an experience of extreme fear and incapacitation.
[38]This line of reasoning could also be used to explain the enigmatic word spoken to King Ahab by the prophet Micaiah (cf. 1 Kgs 22:19–23).
[39] The fact that the clause is so different from other biblical Hebrew narrative clauses meant that this clause would have been more difficult to process mentally and therefore would have required more attention by a Hebrew speaker reading or listening to the text. As a result the material would have seemed to be “highlighted.” This technique of encoding important and unusual information in grammatically exceptional structures is practiced in human communication of all languages. Cf. R. Bergen, “Evil Spirits and Eccentric Grammar: A Study of the Relationship between Text and Meaning in Hebrew Narrative,” in Biblical Hebrew and Discourse Linguistics (Dallas: SIL, 1994), 320–35.
[40] For a discussion of the phrase חֲמוֹר לֶחֶם cf. D. Tsumura, “ḥămôr leḥem (1 Samuel xvi 20),” VT 42 (1992): 412–14. [I uploaded it to be viewed – click to view the PDF]
[41] Gordon (I and II Samuel, 153), commenting on the apocryphal psalm 11QPsa27. [This is a link to a book, 11Q5 Psalms a (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2010), showing the Hebrew from the Dead Sea Scrolls of portions of Psalm: Col. XXVII, 2 Sam 23:7; David’s Compositions.]
Robert D. Bergen, 1, 2 Samuel, vol. 7, The New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1996), 182–184.
רָעָה (rāʿâ). Evil, misery, distress, injury, wickedness. The feminine noun rāʿâ functions much like the masculine adjective, though somewhat more frequently. Often rāʿâ is an adjective too, and qualifies its nouns in terms of the negative function, or condition, and the injurious activity of the noun. God’s own character and attitude measures the value of things and people (II Kgs 8:12; Jer 29:11; cf. Jon 4:2, 6). The phrase “in the sight of the Lord” appears twice (I Sam 12:17; II Kgs 21:20). God’s view deals mostly with moral qualities, but man has his own standards and tends to evaluate his environment as rāʿâ in terms of the pain he experiences.
In a non-moral sense, things are counted as of inferior quality on the basis of their condition. The cows of Pharaoh’s dream were inferior (Gen 41:3–4, 19–20), also land (Num 13:19), and the figs of Jer 24:2–3, 8 were useless for food because of their condition. Beasts were evaluated in terms of their danger to human life (seven references), so also the sword (Ps 144:10). Verbal reports, the times/days, events of life may be bearers of distress and so are rāʿâ (some thirty-five times). The term may designate injury done to the body (over twenty times), or the sorrow one may experience (a dozen times). The feminine noun has the capacity to collectively denote the sum of distressing happenings of life (over twenty times).
This word rāʿâ can label men (Num 14:27, 35; Jer 8:3) or thoughts (Ezk 38:10), but a number of times it is an abstract for the total of ungodly deeds people do, or a person’s inner condition which produces such deeds. The term may label a variety of negative attitudes common to wicked people, and be extended to include the consequences of that kind of lifestyle.
In Jud 9:23; I Sam 16:14–16, 23; 18:10; 19:9 the word qualifies the noun, angels, not to indicate that they were demonic, but that they brought distress, or an abnormal condition to the person affected.
In harmony with the contrast between rāʿâ and ṭôb “good,” God acts with painful punishment against the rāʿâ kind of people (over seventy times; particularly prominent in Jeremiah). He also acts with mercy toward those who will respond to his exhortations (Eccl 11:10; Jer ten times; Jon 3:8), but man must confess (I Sam 12:19; Jer 17:17). On his part, God acts to save man from rāʿâ (Ex 32:14; I Sam 10:19; 25:39) as he promised (I Kgs 21:29; Prov 1:33; Isa 57:1; Jer 23:17; 36:3; Ezk 34:25). And there was advice to the believers on how to keep themselves free from rāʿâ (Ex 23:2; I Sam 12:20; Prov 3:29; 22:3; 24:1; 27:12).
Herbert Livingston, “2191 רָעַע,” in Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament, ed. R. Laird Harris, Gleason L. Archer Jr., and Bruce K. Waltke (Chicago: Moody Press, 1999), 856.
The arrival of David in the court of Saul (16:14–23)
As noted above, the two halves (vv.1–13, 14–23) of chapter 16 are linked together in various ways and therefore constitute a literary unit. One link is the position of David’s name. “In each of its first appearances it is the object of a verb: in v.13 the spirit of YHWH ‘seizes’ (ṣālaḥ) David, and in v.19 Saul asks Jesse to ‘send’ (šālaḥ) David to him.… The two verbs are very similar in sound, being distinguished only as the two sibilants s and š are distinguished” (Walters, “The Light and the Dark,” pp. 572–73).
In addition, however, the hinge of the chapter underscores, as described in the title of an excellent article by David M. Howard, Jr., “The Transfer of Power From Saul to David in 1 Sam 16:13–14” (JETS 32, 4 [1989]: 473–83[PDF VIEWABLE HERE]). “The movements of the figures here—YHWH’s Spirit, Samuel, the evil spirit—in relationship to each other effectively tell the story of the transfer of political power and spiritual power from Saul to David” (ibid., p. 477).
14–18 The relationships of four movements in vv.13–14 are clarified in the following chart, which exhibits an ABB’A’ pattern:
Howard summarizes: “When YHWH’s Spirit came upon David his anointer left, leaving him in good hands. When YHWH’s Spirit left Saul an evil spirit came upon him, leaving him in dire straits” (ibid., p. 481).
The Spirit’s coming on David and the Spirit’s leaving Saul were two climactic events that occurred in close sequence to each other (cf. esp. 18:12: “The Lord was with David but had left Saul”). Just as the accession of the Spirit by David was an expected accompaniment of his anointing as Israel’s next ruler (v.13), so the departure of the Spirit from Saul (v.14) should be understood as the negation of effective rule on his part from that time on. No longer having access to Samuel’s counsel, Saul eventually was forced to resort to the desperate expedient of consulting a medium because God had “turned away” from him (28:15; the Heb. verb is the same as the one rendered “departed” in v.14).
The “evil spirit” (v.14), the divinely sent scourge that “tormented” (lit., “terrified,” “terrorized”) Saul, returned again and again (18:10; 19:9). Just as God had sent an evil spirit to perform his will during the days of Abimelech (Judg 9:23), so also he sent an evil spirit on Saul—“both of whom proved to be unworthy candidates for the office” of king in Israel (Howard, “The Transfer of Power,” p. 482). In both instances it was sent in response to their sin, which in Saul’s case was particularly flagrant (13:13–14; 15:22–24). Although the “evil” spirit may have been a demon that embodied both moral and spiritual wickedness, it may rather have been an “injurious” (so NIV mg.) spirit that “boded ill for Saul, one that produced harmful results for him” (Howard, “The Transfer of Power,” p. 482 n. 36). It was thus doubtless responsible for the mental and psychological problems that plagued Saul for the rest of his life.
That God used alien spirits to serve him is taken for granted in the OT (cf. esp. 2 Sam 24:1 with 1 Chronicles 21:1). On occasion God’s people “were not very concerned with determining secondary causes and properly attributing them to the exact cause. Under the divine providence everything ultimately was attributed to him; why not say he did it in the first place?” (Walter C. Kaiser, Jr., Hard Sayings of the Old Testament [Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1988], p. 131; cf. also Gleason L. Archer, Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1982], p. 180: “Saul’s evil bent was by the permission and plan of God. We must realize that in the last analysis all penal consequences come from God, as the Author of the moral law and the one who always does what is right [Gen. 18:25]”; cf. Fredrik Lindstrom, God and the Origin of Evil [Lund: Gleerup, 1983]).
As French marechal (“blacksmith”) developed into marshal, and as chambellan (“bedchamber attendant”) developed into chamberlain, so also ʿeḇeḏ (“servant”) came to mean “attendant,” “official” in royal circles in Israel, beginning during the days of Saul. The title was conferred on high officials and is found inscribed on their seals. It was also employed side by side with the use of the term as a conventional way of referring to oneself while addressing a superior (cf. conveniently Talmon, p. 64 and nn. 34–36). Thus Saul’s “attendants,” aware that their king was being tormented by an evil spirit (v.15), referred to themselves as his “servants” (same Heb. word) who were ready and eager to help (v.16; cf. v.17; 17:32, 34, 36; 18:5 [“officers”], 22, 24; 19:1; 28:7).
Perhaps sensing that “music hath charms to soothe the savage breast,” Saul’s attendants offered to look for someone to play the “harp” (kinnôr; cf. comment on 10:5) to make their master “feel better” (v.16). Pictorial representations of the asymmetrical harp or lyre ranging from the twelfth to seventh centuries b.c. can help us visualize what David’s harp looked like (cf. Biblical Archaeology Review 8, 1 [1982]: 22, 30, and esp. 34). Walters (“The Light and the Dark,” p. 582) points out that of the fifteen OT occurrences of niggēn (“play [an instrument]”), seven appear in this section of 1 Samuel (vv.16 [bis], 17, 18, 23; 18:10; 19:9) and thus serve at the outset to highlight the reputation of David as “Israel’s singer of songs” (2 Sam 23:1).
Saul agreed with his attendants’ counsel (v.17), and one of his “servants” (lit., “young men,” a different Heb. word than that rendered “attendants” in v.15 and “servants” in v.16) suggested that a certain son of Jesse would meet Saul’s needs admirably (v.18). In the course of doing so, the servant gave—in a series of two-worded Hebrew phrases—as fine a portrayal of David as one could wish. Understandably he began with a characterization of him as a musician and then continued by describing him as a “brave man” (the same Heb. phrase is used of Saul’s father, Kish, and is translated “man of standing” in 9:1), a “warrior” (translated “fighting man” of Goliath in 17:33 and “experienced fighter” of David in 2 Sam 17:8), a discerning and articulate speaker, and a handsome man as well. The servant’s final descriptive phrase—set off from what precedes by a major disjunctive accent in the MT (Masoretic text)—reminds us that just as the Lord was with Samuel (3:19), so also he was with David. This latter attribute becomes yet another Leitmotif for David (17:37; 18:12, 14, 28; 2 Sam 5:10; so Walters, “The Light and the Dark,” pp. 570–71; McCarter, “The Apology of David,” pp. 499, 503–4). Although unwittingly, Saul’s servant has just introduced us to Israel’s next king.
A modern assessment of David’s character and career sees him as “giant-slayer, shepherd, musician, manipulator of men, outlaw, disguised madman, loyal friend and subject, lover, warrior, dancer and merrymaker, father, brother, son, master, servant, religious enthusiast, and king” and then asks, “What are we to make of this enormous portrait? Where do we begin?” (Kenneth R.R. Gros Louis, “King David of Israel,” in Literary Interpretations of Biblical Narratives edd. Kenneth R.R. Gros Louis and James S. Ackerman [Nashville: Abingdon, 1982], 2:205). The rest of our commentary can only tentatively analyze these and other aspects of the personality and deeds of this most complex of all Israelite kings. For now, a gentle irony: Although Saul’s servant agreed with the positive contemporary consensus that kings and courtiers should be “fine-looking” (v.18), the same Hebrew word is preceded by a negative particle in its description of great David’s greater Son as one who had “no beauty” (Isa 53:2).
19–23 Again Saul, influenced by a servant’s suggestion, sent for the man described: Jesse’s son—here, for only the second time so far, identified by the name David (v.19). Saul’s reference to David as being “with the sheep” thus identifies him as a shepherd and uses “language which refers allusively to him as a kingly figure” (Walters, “The Light and the Dark,” p. 575). Like Jesse earlier (cf. v.11 and comment), Saul unwittingly characterizes David as Israel’s next king.
It is often stated that numerous inconsistencies, especially in matters of detail, exist in the early stories of David and Saul (for a typical list, see Emmanuel Tov, “The Composition of 1 Samuel 16–18 in the Light of the Septuagint Version,” in Empirical Models for Biblical Criticism ed. Jeffrey H. Tigay [Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 1985], pp. 121–22). The appropriate response to such alleged discrepancies is not, however, to seek refuge in the fact that in chapters 16–18 “the Masoretic Text has 80 percent more verses than does the LXX” (ibid., p. 99) and thus to attribute the differences to an attempt by the standardizers of the present Hebrew text to include variant readings whether or not they could be harmonized. Nor should one assume the prior existence of two or more different narratives of how David rose to power, along the lines of the now discredited documentary hypothesis (for a lively survey of this approach, cf. North, “David’s Rise,” pp. 524–44). Much to be preferred is the method of examining each so-called discrepancy on its own merits in an attempt to determine whether it is more apparent than real.
A case in point: If Saul recognizes David as Jesse’s son in v.19, why does he later ask him whose son he is (17:58)? In the light of the differing contexts in the two chapters, a possible solution comes to mind. In chapter 16 Saul’s initial interest in David was as a harpist, while in chapter 17 he is interested in him primarily as a warrior (according to his customary policy, 14:52). Saul’s question in 17:58, in any event, is only a leadoff question; his conversation with David continued far beyond the mere request for his father’s name (18:1). He probably wanted to know, among other things, “whether there were any more at home like him” (Archer, Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties, p. 175). It is of course not beyond the realm of possibility that Saul simply forgot the name of David’s father during the indeterminate period between chapters 16 and 17.
A firm believer in the truth later expressed in Proverbs 18:16—“a gift opens the way for the giver/and ushers him into the presence of the great”—Jesse sent David to take bread, wine, and a young goat (staple items; cf. 10:3) to Saul (v.20). Obviously impressing Saul (v.21), David “entered his service” (wayyaʿamōḏ lep̱ānāyw lit., “stood before him,” a common idiom in the ancient Near East [cf. v.22, “remain in my service”]; the Akkadian semantic equivalent is uzuzzu pani) as an armor-bearer. Although skilled men can expect to be pressed into service by kings (Prov 22:29), Saul also “liked” David personally (the same Heb. verb describes Jonathan’s relationship to David and is translated “loved”; cf. 18:1, 3; 20:17). At the same time the narrator may well be playing on the ambiguity of the verb ʾāhēḇ (“love”) in these accounts, since it can also have political overtones in covenant/treaty relationships (so J.A. Thompson, “The Significance of the Verb Love in the David-Jonathan Narratives in 1 Samuel,” VetTest 24, 3 [1974]: 335[PDF VIEWABLE HERE]).
Obviously delighted with David, Saul engages him as one of his servants (v.22). Sandwiched between the two occurrences of the noun rûaḥ (“spirit”) in v.23 is the verb rāwaḥ (“relief would come”). The noun and the verb both come from the same root (rwḥ) and thus constitute an elegant wordplay, stressing that David’s skill as a harpist brings soothing “relief” that drives the evil “spirit” from the disturbed king (cf. similarly Walters, “The Light and the Dark,” p. 578).
The chapter ends with a gifted young man, Israel’s future king, coming to serve a rejected and dejected ruler who is totally unaware of the implications of his welcoming David into his court. Not just “a handsome yokel with a rustic lyre,” Jesse’s son is the anointed king (ibid., p. 581).
Ronald F. Youngblood, “1, 2 Samuel,” in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 & 2 Samuel, ed. Frank E. Gaebelein, vol. 3 (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1992), 687–691.
The initial anointing of David was a private, even secret, matter (vv. 1–3). Now it is time for David to become publicly visible. At the outset of his “reign,” David has only three constituents: Yahweh and Samuel, who are his relentless patrons, and Saul, who is to become a more ambiguous patron. He has been dealt with already by Yahweh (and Samuel); now it is Saul’s turn to deal with David.
There is a deep and intentional tension in the story of 16:14–23, requiring us to trace two story lines. Ostensibly this story is about Saul, Saul’s sickness and Saul’s source of health. But underneath that interest is the story of David’s road to power. Of this second story, Saul knows nothing. Conversely, David’s relentless road to power renders Saul (and the story line of Saul’s illness) fundamentally irrelevant and finally of no interest to the life and faith of Israel. How ironic that a story apparently featuring Saul is in fact interested in Saul only as a foil for David’s advance.
There are twin dangers in approaching the pathology of Saul. On the one hand, we can read his situation as though it were the result of a supernatural theological verdict without reference to the experiential reality of life. On the other hand, we can seek to banish such supernaturalism by reducing his ailment to psychology. We shall misunderstand, however, if we appropriate the sickness as mere theology or only psychology. Israel’s faith is much more embedded in living reality than to deal only with a theological conclusion. Conversely, the narrative itself guards against an absolute psychological assessment in verse 23. (The rsv does the interpreter a disservice through its translation of this section. In the rsv, “Spirit” is capitalized in v. 14 and is in lower case in v. 23, suggesting a theological and then a psychological reading. But that is only a translator’s inclination. In fact “the spirit” is the same at the beginning and at the end of the narrative, capitalized or not.)
Saul is indeed a disturbed man, and the disturbance has to do with alienation rooted in a theological disorder. The disorder must be seen, however, as both theological and psychological in order to understand the powerful ministration of David, who is Yahweh’s antidote for every ailment in Israel.
16:14–18. Saul’s problem is the visitation of an evil spirit (v. 15); the solution is healing music (v. 16). The problem is with Saul; the solution will be carried by David. It may trouble our positivistic minds that the disorder of Saul is attributed to an evil spirit, and it may trouble us more that the evil spirit is credited to God. We must remember that the world of biblical perspective is a world without secondary cause. All causes are finally traced back to the God who causes all, who “kills and brings to life” (2:6). This narrative simply assumes that the world is ordered by the direct sovereign rule of God. All the spirits that beset human persons are dispatched from this single source (cf. 1 Kings 22:19–23).
Saul is eager to be healed (v. 17). He orders immediately that help be secured. He is an influential person entitled to the best health care available. Through verse 17 there are no surprises in this episode. We have an ordinary sequence of illness, diagnosis, prescription, and instruction to get available help. Yet, lingering not too far below the story line of Saul’s illness, the David story line already begins to assert itself. Saul’s imperative “provide” (see, ra’ah, v. 17) is the same word Yahweh used in referring to the choice of David (v. 1). David is “provided” by Yahweh and now is “provided” to Saul.
It is verse 18 that claims our attention. The speaker who answers Saul is too eager and knows too much. It is as though this character in the narrative has memorized his long line and is waiting for a chance to speak it. He “overnominates” David, who is overqualified for the job of musician. The royal appointment of a “therapist” must be well qualified. He must be skilled as a player, of “good presence,” and it is fortunate if God is with him (v. 18). David overpowers the job—and the narrative. In addition to those qualifications, David is brave, a man of war, a man of good speech. The narrator is obviously presenting David’s credentials for more than court musician.
The narrative invites us to wonder how it is that a member of Saul’s company should have ready a nominee from an obscure Judean village. Verses 1–13 provide the answer to our wonderment, however. The present availability of David is because of the secret anointing. The anointing will govern David’s story in the way the blessing governs Jacob’s story (Gen. 25:23) and as the dream governs the story of Joseph (Gen. 37:7–9).
16:19–23. The story turns decisively with the appearance of David. After the nominating speech of verse 18, Saul responds in verse 19. He calls David by name. Notice the servant had alluded to David but had not named him. Saul knows and speaks David’s name. David had been named by the narrator in verse 13, but no character in the narrative has yet uttered his name. It is appropriate and compelling that Saul knows it and is the first to name him.
Moreover, Saul invites David into his court. Saul unwittingly summons the very one who now possesses the spirit and will in the end displace him. David is not an intruder. He does not force his way in but comes by royal invitation. Saul knows more than he should about David. He knows David is “with the sheep” (v. 19), a fact not announced in verse 18. We had known it in verse 11, but again Saul is privy to information not previously given him.
The relation between Saul and David is a positive one. “Saul loved him greatly” (v. 21). David is irresistible. Saul might have feared or resented David if he had known the end of the story. He knows only what he sees in David, however.
David’s ministry to Saul does all that Saul might have hoped. (The rsv translation of v. 23 is inadequate, because the text contains a double use of the word “spirit.” When David plays, not only does the evil spirit depart but the spirit comes to Saul. In the rsv this is rendered, “Saul was refreshed.”) Saul’s desperate concern was how to have the spirit of life available, rather than the evil spirit. The narrative makes clear that David makes the spirit of life available to Saul. Saul has life only because David mediates it to him. David is a life-giver, even to Saul!
Walter Brueggemann, First and Second Samuel, Interpretation, a Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (Louisville, KY: John Knox Press, 1990), 124–127.
How do we make life better for those who live in Gaza? According to Palestinian political analyst Bassem Eid, we start by recognizing who is really responsible for the suffering that happens there.
Why don’t the Palestinians have their own country? Is it the fault of Israel? Of the Palestinians? Of both parties? David Brog, Executive Director of the Maccabee Task Force, shares the surprising answers.
It’s been seven decades since the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, and yet there are still an estimated 4 million Palestinian refugees…and zero Jewish refugees. With so many nearby Arab allies of the Palestinians, how did this happen? What does it say about Israel? What does it say about its Arab neighbors? Dumisani Washington, Diversity Outreach Coordinator for Christians United for Israel, explains.
For the person that could care less about what this retired felon has to say, most of the points made at College of the Canyons (COC) by Dr. Shelby Steele were made in this video (HERE) speaking at the Old Parkland Conference.
Below were the thoughts running through my head and me taking light notes during the time Dr. Shelby Steele’s time being interviewed. In fact, I have proof of my note taking: head down, tapping away. The following section will allow the reader to jump to topics or thoughts.
Any of the links in this next part will allow you to jump down the page to a section below. To get back to the menu, hit the back arrow in your browser.
JUMP TO THOUGHT/TOPIC
Dr. Shelby Steele spoke about some of the following – which inspired much thought and now this post:
INTRODUCTION– I have some Walter Williams going on as well as a link to my post on Angela Davis, whom C.O.C. had as a speaker in April.
UPDATE:C.O.C. has excluded Shelby Steele from their Facebook, whereas the person he was coming in to add some balance to, Angela Davis, has announcements up before her event as well as the day of.
RACE HUSTLERS – “Follow the Money” | The D.E.I. grift (PART ONE) and how it backfires by John Stossel. I include a short “how many billions fat is DEI programs”? And keep in mind there is no winning with these folks.
INTERRACIAL MARRIAGE – This was a connection of sorts for me. Not quite as intimate as Doc Steele’s, but it helped me through a time in my young life where bigotry surely could have stained my heart. A short bio by me many years ago helps explain my outlook.
POWER, NOT WEALTH – Today we hear quite often that slavery made our country wealthy. Slavery, in fact, kept a good portion of our country poor. I include a quote from Thomas Sowell audio from Larry Elder as well as a quote from Frederick Douglas. The end of this section are some helpful article links for more information.
POWER & WEALTH– This is a quick reminder of theDEI grift (PART TWO) | Glenn Loury, John McWhorter & Dan Subotnik discuss the grift of Ibram X. Kendi with new revelations about missing monies. | And Douglas Murray discusses his noting the Kendi grifting a while back.
COERCION I – Historic religious Democrat segregationists changed the Bible to fit slavery | Alternatively, when the Bible was unleashed, the British and American abolitionist movement fought and ended slavery for the first time in world history… giving birth to the RepublicanParty. – save Muslim countries.
COERCION II – The fear of being accused of being a racist, or against the equality of others is a way the Left has weaponized modern censorship. This section features some Machosauce (Rachel Zo) commentary. And a graphic I made defining what a “Victicrat” is; followed by a video [one of my favorites] explaining how the Democrats get votes out of such coercions. Then another example of this maligning by Hillary Clinton,
COERCION III– Doc Steele mentions racism is over with. True. BUT, the media and politicians would lose power if this were understood to be the case, so I share a short montage of the media inflaming the SIXHIRB rhetoric: sexist, intolerant, xenophobic, homophobic, Islamophobic, racist, bigoted. (I link to a longer, 22-minute upload of mine).
HISTORY (A) – Knowing history is a good vaccination against the statements we often run into on campuses and social media. Even simple things like “…not every Democrat was a KKK’er, but every KKK’er was a Democrat.” Or the reasoning behind the 3/5ths clause in the Constitution. In fact, at one point Frederick Douglas thought the Constitution was a pro slavery document, partly due to the 3/5ths Clause. But later, he came to realize that in fact it was an anti-slavery document, because of the 3/5ths clause. I explain how people like to use earlier beliefs in a person’s life and use them as support when later these beliefs were rejected by said person themselves. This is done with Augustine as well. After the Prager U and David Barton videos, there is a “Lincoln Bonus”.
HISTORY (B) – “Stepping outside your lived experiences” | This just came to me today and sets up well the three [out of the many] videos of black YouTubers doing just that. These are channels that have previously commented on all sorts of things (sports clips, songs, interviews with icons, etc.). For whatever reasons, these Channels started to watch videos by the likes of Thomas Sowell, Carol Swain, and others. I love them because they catch real time revelations through well-reasoned evidence and histories they have never heard before.
HISTORY (C) – In this history section I deal a bit more with whom the KKK were terrorizing. Members of the KKK caried “playing cards” on their person with pictures of their targets to intimidate or kill. And bringing this to today I use an example of Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich being chased out of the company he co-founded for the simple act of donating to Proposition 8 in California. I end this section with Bill Maher explaining how #WOKE is indistinguishable from the KKK.
COURAGE– When Doc Steele mentioned “courage” throughout his speech I remembered Dennis Prager saying the same thing, often. I happened to find one upload of mine with the admonition in it.
MAKING AN IMPACT– The left notes all the racists, sexists, and the like, out in the world. I also often hear Democrats and media personalities talk about the racist right or the racist Republicans. They never name them though, save Trump. (And if anyone thinks he is a racist and has evidence, please send it to me.) A question always on my mind is this regarding my first point, “okay, say it’s true that there are all these racists ‘out there,’ how do you fix that?” Do they have a plan to change hearts and minds? Or do they have no plan like they cannot name racists in the GOP? Which leads me to a small portion of my testimony. I was blessed to go to jail a third time and make an impact on these people the Left complains about.
MENTORING or TEARING DOWN?– This leads me to other questions. Do these accusers build? Do they mentor? I know they know how to tear things down. The Boy Scouts being one example, among others. I use an article and Prager U video to drive this point home.
AFFIRMATIVE ACTION – Doc Steele also discussed racial profiling and how affirmative action uses racial markers to prematurely force black men and women into institutions they may not be ready for. I got a video of Doc Steele talking about this that is quite old. Following that are short videos and audio from Thomas Sowell, Larry Elder, Mark Levin, using common sense and evidence of the complete failure of this program.
CONVERSATION– A point I thought was the most important was when Shelby Steele noted that grouping yourself with communities is a way to avoid individual relationships. These one-on-one encounters are powerful to show how a narrative can be wrong. I have been able to have tuff conversations with racists, cultists, leftists, atheists over the course of many years. I share one example of two of my son’s Facebook friends who were giving him some grief over Mitt Romney at the time. I discussed some current events with the two younger people, well. One gal unfriended my son, the other says he has changed his thinking on the matter. I link to another post of mine where a friend’s mother unfriended me over Judge Judy. I end this section with Dennis Prager interviewing Ken Sterns, former CEO of National Public Radio (NPR) and his traveling to “fly over country” and changing his view on conservatives… through conversation.
APPENDIX– Just two excellent quotes from David Mamet’s book, “The Secret Knowledge.” I also throw in a small excerpt from “The Flipside of Feminism: What Conservative Women Know — and Men Can’t Say’
UPDATE–Candace Owens, in her first public comment on George Floyd on June 5th, 2020 invoked Shelby Steele.
Enjoy my opining.
For the record, Lena Smyth does the interviewing — which was easy because Doc Steele likes to talk.
INTRODUCTION
Our local college here, College of the Canyons (COC), had a wonderful event that was centered around Shelby Steele sitting down for an interview. I found out late about the event, but there were still free tickets available. And sadly, the sitting area was not packed at the time of the event. I also was unaware of the controversy. I assumed there would be some, as Doc Steele is a controversial figure IN THAT he speaks with the freedom conservatives have [“conservatarians,” I prefer “Paleo-Liberal”] – which is controversial now-a-days.
The late, great, Walter Williams noted that the “true test of one’s commitment to liberty … comes when we permit people to be free to do those voluntary things with which we disagree.”
This idea of allowing freedom of thought outside of an imposed “total thought” – that is: you must express yourself thus – is at the heart of the topic Shelby Steele was invited to speak on. And it is this type of totalitarianism [total thought] that California will soon learn it cannot impose openly and will surely revert again to “behind the scenes” violence to our liberty.
ANGELA DAVIS
UPDATED ISSUE |over at College of the Canyon’s Facebook, there is no post on their wall that they hosted Shelby Steele. I found Angela Davis’ visit noted prior to the event and on the day. Even events after Shelby Steele’s visit are posted. But not an inkling of Shelby Steele’s visit.
College of the Canyons choice of selecting Shelby Steele to speak, after the community outcry in the colleges selection of controversial political activist, Angela Davis, to speak at the college this past April. The school paid Davis $25,000.00, plus expenses for her appearance.
Pressure was placed on the college to balance Ms. Davis’s appearance with a representative holding a different set of beliefs. Shelby Steele certainly fits that criterion.
Steele is being hosted by COC’s Intercultural Center, not the same group that paid to have Angela Davis appear. But that is inconsequential. The bottom line is the college heard the protests from our community and took action to achieve a balance.
KHTS hopes the school learned its lesson and will continue to create a balance with future guests.
The event was put together by COC’s Intercultural Center, and introductions were by [I believe] Diane Fiero, Deputy Chancellor/Chief Diversity, Equity, Inclusion (DEI) Officer. And a woman letting people know COC was built on stolen land. What Carl Goldman said in the title, “College Of The Canyons Make Good On Its Promise” is a good commentary in and of itself. Why? Because people like Diane, and the almost insurmountable edifice of administrators that crop up overnight to get paid, what Doc Steele called a hustle, would be out of jobs. And even THE ATLANTIC knows it is an affront to freedom in their piece: “The Worst DEI Policy in Higher Education: At stake: the First Amendment rights and academic freedom of 61,000 professors who teach 1.9 million students”
… Under the changes to California’s education code, all community-college employees will be evaluated in a way that places “significant emphasis” on “antiracist” and “DEIA competencies.” […] For professors, that means all will be judged, whether in hiring, promotion, or tenure decisions, on their embrace of controversial social-justice concepts as those concepts are understood and defined by state education bureaucrats
[….]
… “Under the previous faculty contract, faculty were evaluated for their ‘demonstrated ability to successfully teach students from cultures other than one’s own,’” the FIRE lawsuit notes. “Under the DEIA Rules, however, they are now evaluated on their ‘demonstration of, or progress toward, diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) related competencies and teaching and learning practices that reflect DEIA and anti-racist principles.’” Before, professors were judged on whether they “successfully teach students.” Now they’ll be judged on whether they show progress toward abstract competencies that are theorized to help them successfully teach students.
That is a degradation, and Chancellor Christian should reverse course. Many First Amendment experts believe that the new guidelines will be found to violate the civil rights of faculty members. And even if they are upheld, their language and implementation suggestions are so incompetently drafted that even a leading proponent of equity-mindedness can’t quite endorse them as written. Whatever one thinks of social-justice ideology, there are far stronger versions of it.
So while I am sure Miss Fiero is a wonderful woman, intelligent, amiable, a friend to many, beloved to family, and the like…. she and others receive their sustenance for a particular viewpoint that must be protected at all costs.
“That DEI is a $9 billion industry only makes the whole movement all the uglier.” (NEW YORK POST)
So, inviting someone that counters that “in situ” worldview in the “collective” campus, is not a recommended course of action. At least by “total thought ‘officer’” standards.
All big companies now require “DEI” training for employees, but studies say that often BACKFIRES.
It’s impossible to appease these people by the way, as Ibram X. Kendi says on page 10 of his book “How To Be An Anti-Racist“
I use to be racist most of the time. I am changing. I am no longer identifying with racists by claiming to be “not racist.”
Ahh — the “Ol’ Switcheroo.” If you say you are not racist, you are.
INTERRACIAL MARRIAGES
A Shared Experience
Mr. Steele discussed his parents’ marriage at a time when interracial marriage was not looked upon, well, kindly — to say the least. In fact, this marrying those outside one’s “ethnic background” was one of a few examples Larry Elder used to show that the America today is not the bastion of racism that the Professional Left would have us believe — in his Prager U video, “Is America Racist?“.
My grandpa married a black woman (his second marriage) and she had a large impact on me. For one, she relayed the history to me that this marriage was during a time not friendly to their choice. Both from the white and black community. And her love towards me surely kept a possible racial bias from finding a home in my heart. You see, I lived for some time in the Jefferson/Chalmers area of Detroit. In an area, let’s say, not on the higher income level. I was one of very few white kids at the local school, and the only one in my area.
While all my friends were black, all the kids crossing the street to fight me, chase me, kick me while I was on the ground in the fetal position, were black as well. So, to say that my grandmother was a healing influence with her love towards me was one of many positive influences in my life. Later in life other factors played a role as well, as this “auto-biography” notes:
This is the opener to a longer video I did in 2008, a month before the election of President Obama: “ObamaCon – Twenty Years In A Racially Cultic Church“.. A few months after I studied this topic well I was confronted with an opportunity to discuss it with an older (cantankerous) Democrat in a hot tub with another co-passenger (an L.A. Sheriff I had met) on a cruise ship/vacation my wife and I were on. That discussion outline can be found here: “Hot-Tub Conversations | Discussing Politics on Vacation“.
So hearing how his early life experiences shaped him was in some way similar to my own.
POWER, NOT WEALTH
Holding On To Power Is Their End-Game, At Any Cost
Shelby talked about the motive behind slavery. Many think it is wealth. It was not, as the below shows well:
Not only in societies where slaves were more often consumers than producers of wealth, but even in societies where commercial slavery was predominant, this did not automatically translate into enduring wealth. Unlike a frugal capitalist class, such as created the industrial revolution, even commercial slaveowners in the American antebellum South tended to spend lavishly, often ending up in debt or even losing their plantations to foreclosures by creditors. However, even if British slaveowners had saved and invested all of their profits from slavery, it would have amounted to less than two percent of British domestic investment.(RPT: Thomas Sowell, Black Rednecks and White Liberals [San Francisco, CA: Encounter Books, 2005], see pages 157-159.
…The reader will be amused at my ignorance, when I tell the notions I had of the state of northern wealth, enterprise, and civilization. Of wealth and refinement, I supposed the north had none. My Columbian Orator, which was almost my only book, had not done much to enlighten me concerning northern society. The impressions I had received were all wide of the truth. New Bedford, especially, took me by surprise, in the solid wealth and grandeur there exhibited. I had formed my notions respecting the social condition of the free states, by what I had seen and known of free, white, non-slaveholding people in the slave states. Regarding slavery as the basis of wealth, I fancied that no people could become very wealthy without slavery. A free white man, holding no slaves, in the country, I had known to be the most ignorant and poverty-stricken of men, and the laughing stock even of slaves themselves—called generally by them, in derision, “poor white trash.” Like the non-slaveholders at the south, in holding no slaves, I suppose the northern people like them, also, in poverty and degradation. Judge, then, of my amazement and joy, when I found—as I did find—the very laboring population of New Bedford living in better houses, more elegantly furnished—surrounded by more comfort and refinement—than a majority of the slaveholders on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. There was my friend, Mr. Johnson, himself a colored man (who at the south would have been regarded as a proper marketable commodity), who lived in a better house—dined at a richer board—was the owner of more books—the reader of more newspapers—was more conversant with the political and social condition of this nation and the world—than nine-tenths of all the slaveholders of Talbot county, Maryland. Yet Mr. Johnson was a working man, and his hands were hardened by honest toil. Here, then, was something for observation and study. Whence the difference? The explanation was soon furnished, in the superiority of mind over simple brute force. Many pages might be given to the contrast, and in explanation of its causes. But an incident or two will suffice to show the reader as to how the mystery gradually vanished before me.
My first afternoon, on reaching New Bedford, was spent in visiting the wharves and viewing the shipping. The sight of the broad brim and the plain, Quaker dress, which met me at every turn, greatly increased my sense of freedom and security. “I am among the Quakers,” thought I, “and am safe.” Lying at the wharves and riding in the stream, were full-rigged ships of finest model, ready to start on whaling voyages. Upon the right and the left, I was walled in by large granite-fronted warehouses, crowded with the good things of this world. On the wharves, I saw industry without bustle, labor without noise, and heavy toil without the whip. There was no loud singing, as in southern ports, where ships are loading or unloading—no loud cursing or swearing—but everything went on as smoothly as the works of a well adjusted machine. How different was all this from the nosily fierce and clumsily absurd manner of labor-life in Baltimore and St. Michael’s! One of the first incidents which illustrated the superior mental character of northern labor over that of the south, was the manner of unloading a ship’s cargo of oil. In a southern port, twenty or thirty hands would have been employed to do what five or six did here, with the aid of a single ox attached to the end of a fall. Main strength, unassisted by skill, is slavery’s method of labor. An old ox, worth eighty dollars, was doing, in New Bedford, what would have required fifteen thousand dollars worth of human bones and muscles to have performed in a southern port. I found that everything was done here with a scrupulous regard to economy, both in regard to men and things, time and strength. The maid servant, instead of spending at least a tenth part of her time in bringing and carrying water, as in Baltimore, had the pump at her elbow. The wood was dry, and snugly piled away for winter. Woodhouses, in-door pumps, sinks, drains, self-shutting gates, washing machines, pounding barrels, were all new things, and told me that I was among a thoughtful and sensible people. To the ship-repairing dock I went, and saw the same wise prudence. The carpenters struck where they aimed, and the calkers wasted no blows in idle flourishes of the mallet. I learned that men went from New Bedford to Baltimore, and bought old ships, and brought them here to repair, and made them better and more valuable than they ever were before. Men talked here of going whaling on a four years’ voyage with more coolness than sailors where I came from talked of going a four months’ voyage…
See also:
Slavery Did Not Make America Rich: Ingenuity, not capital accumulation or exploitation, made cotton a little king (REASON)
No, Slavery Did Not Make America Rich: The historical record of the post-war economy demonstrates slavery was neither a central driving force of, or economically necessary for, American economic dominance (FOUNDATION FOR ECONOMIC EDUCATION)
NEW: IMPERIAL MEASUREMENT: A Cost–Benefit Analysis of Western Colonialism (PDF) | Hat-tip: BREITBART
POWER & WEALTH
But it was about power
The End of Ibram X. Kendi? | Glenn Loury, John McWhorter & Dan Subotnik | The Glenn Show ~ Starts at the 40-minute mark:
39:58 The schadenfreude of the Ibram X. Kendi scandal
51:00 John: “I’m embarrassed for Boston University”
56:40 Glenn: Kendi is just a cog in the fraudulent antiracist machine
1:04:31 The shame of the Kendi scandal
Douglas Murray – Ibram X Kendi Is A Race Hustler | Douglas Murray gives his opinion on Ibram X. Kendi. Is How To Be An Antiracist a good book? What does Douglas Murray think about fixing past prejudice with present prejudice? How does Douglas Murray see Ibram X. Kendi’s contribution to modern racism?
COERCION
Coerced by Distortion
A POWER that Democrats have utilized since almost their founding is distortion. Especially “religious” Democrats who have historically distorted the Bible to make it a “pro-slavery” document to gain power. Take for instance what was known as the, “The Slave Bible,” which illustrates this distortion perfectly:
Published in London in 1807, its full title is Select Parts of the Holy Bible, for the use of the Negro Slaves in the British West-India Islands. In presenting the Books of Moses, the Slave Bible leaps from the end of Genesis 45, where Jacob learns that Joseph, the son he had thought to be dead was actually alive in Egypt and the right-hand man of Pharaoh, to Exodus 19, where, under the leadership of Moses, Israel receives the Ten Commandments. Totally missing from the Slave Bible is story of the enslavement of the Hebrews after Joseph’s death, and the rise of Moses as God’s spokesman sent overturn this slavery and to order Pharaoh “to let my people go.” The letters of Paul fare no better. For defenders of slavery, Galatians 3:28 contains an inconvenient message: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.” The Slave Bible handles this passage by ignoring it, skipping from chapter one Galatians to chapter five. (LIBERTY FUND NETWORK)
Using race and religion then to control a working population is seen in a mirror as using race and still distorting God’s Word to control voting patterns of minorities.
What Does The Bible Intimate?
And when slavers during the Atlantic Slave Trade included the full Bible and set out to rekindle their faith, did that embolden their slaver ways? Or change their outlook?
(Please note where John Newton’s faith was sparked at the 3:05 mark)
The historic Christian faith and the Bible had to be suppressed for the actions in America to be acceptable. When it is unleashed, it changes hearts, minds, and the direction of the world. More in the HISTORY section.
COERCION II
Coerced by Fear of Being Accused
I’m black. You know that and I know that, but there are many who insist I’m not. According to the Afrocentrics and those who patronize them, I’m whitewashed. It’s funny when I’ve got liberal, white people trying to tell me they’re blacker than I am. Wow! How is it that white people trying to be black can accuse me of trying to be white? That’s some hypocrisy that’s just too funny! They’re taking blind shots, hoping to get a nod from the black community to sedate their white guilt.
Don’t you love it when white liberals insult anybody white, male, and heterosexual, feeling like they get a pass because, after all, they claim to fight for minorities? These white liberals do not intend to legitimately help these minorities, they just don’t want those minorities to turn against them.
So, the only thing these white, liberal democrats (the true white devils, mind you) do for the so-called minorities is pander. Liberals manipulate many non-whites and women with one simple tool—the tool that can turn even loved ones against you. The very tool that changed Adam and Eve’s perception of God—a deadly tool—accusation.
The very name Satan does not translate to mean Evil One, Deceiver, Prince of Darkness, or even Tempter. His name literally means Accuser.
When Satan spoke with Eve, he accused God of not wanting them to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil because God didn’t want them to be like God. That was the statement that broke Eve. That was what damaged the relationship between God and humanity.
Satan’s accusation made it sound like God was trying to keep Adam and Eve down, doesn’t it? This caused Eve to be envious of God and to distrust Him. Satan made it look like God was holding out and hoarding power—it made it look like He had arrested humanity’s development.
What if we apply that truth to our political situation? The Republicans are just trying to arrest the development of the black community. They don’t care about blacks, or women, blah, blah, yap, yap, etc. It’s fitting that women would be easily manipulated by liberalism because Satan, the biggest liberal of them all, went to Eve first, and manipulated her by causing her to not trust another male figure. Just like Adam and Eve trusted the accuser who wanted them destroyed, the majority of minorities—the black community, Hispanics, women, and secular Jews—trust the party that would see them destroyed.
So check this out. Before Lucifer became the Accuser, he was God’s most anointed cherub. Now, just as there was a Civil War because Democrats didn’t see blacks as worthy to be considered human, God’s most anointed cherub did not see humans as worthy of the position for which God created us.
As Lucifer became Satan, he formed a confederacy. He used accusations and discourse such as, God wants only to control us! We should be allowed to live out our own destiny, outside of His design! God has this idea of humans having authority in our society. What about our authority? What about our great society that God wants to stain with these humans by bringing them into existence with us? We’re superior. They have no place among us! They’re not fit to even look on us!
Man, what a hater!
These accusations rallied a third of the angels behind the rebellious cherub, and he led an attempted coup against the Throne. He fell, and (as is typical of Satan) he used another accusation to bring a curse upon humankind in Eden. That curse still affects us, and the Democrats have learned to manipulate this weakness. “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor” is a command the Democrats depend on breaking in order to gain power. They do just as the Accuser does.
Now, Satan didn’t (and still doesn’t) know how good he had it, crying about oppression in heaven. Liberals are the same way today—crying about oppression in America. Hey, wanna have some fun? Ask some liberals why they’re Democrats. Chances are real good that the first thing they’ll give you is an accusation. I’m a Democrat because the corporations are corrupt, and because republicans are destroying the earth. They are against equal rights! They are bigoted, sexist homophobes, rabble, rabble, rabble.
Hey! Liberal! I didn’t ask you why you’re not a Republican. I asked why you are a Democrat. Accusations made by Democrats encourage prejudice and animosity against Republicans—the people that fought for the freedom of blacks and the equality of women. What have Republicans gotten in return? Hatred.
Alfonzo Rachel, Weapon of A.S.S. Destruction (Powder Springs, GA: White Hall Press, 2012), 37-39.
The Zo Loft : Four Blacks in Chicago Kidnap White Male: In my disgust at the actions by these four, I explore the effects of the the democrat and how their ideals are making racial tensions get worse, and how they have always been at the root of it. (MORE)
At one point Doc Steele noted:
“Here’s the big mistake we made. We were victims, but what we did is we took that victimization and turned it into an identity.”
This brought to mind my graphic I made a few years back:
And it is this “victim mentality” that keeps a large group of people hooked. What Bill Whittle calls THE VOTE PUMP.
This power is acquired by deception, false accusations, hand-outs, and the like. It is almost a formula.
“You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right? The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic—you name it. And unfortunately there are people like that. And he has lifted them up.”
Fear is in the mix as well.
COERCION III
Coerced by Fear of Racism
Smyth: “I want you to kind of define this idea of white guilt, just kind of break it down so that our audience can understand what you mean by that.”
Steele: “White Guilt is not actual guilt. You don’t feel it, unless you are alive during slavery … It is simply a knowledge, not a piece of information, in and of itself, that America participated in slavery … America (has) participated in the subjugation of an absolutely innocent people.”
During the discussion around this topic, THE SIGNAL (our local paper) noted the true liberation of the Conservatarian by Dr. Steele, the rejection of fear
“Racism is over with,” said Steele.
In modern America, Steele feels free now.
Smyth asked Steele what conservatism meant to him and he answered by saying that conservatism is a devotion to that freedom.
“I say this to Blacks, you can be free, if you are not afraid to be free,” said Steele.
Dr. Steele went on to say he is a Patrick Henry type person, “Give me liberty or give me death.”
But the MSM won’t let the fear of racism go, as this short montage of mine notes. Setting up this video I wish to call attention to the very first clip in it:
As an aside, the first clip is my favorite because the host states:
“The three front runners in most polls are all white men… is sexism playing a role, still?”
Okay, my rewriting of the embedded bias:
The three front runners are al white men, so obviously racism has a role to play here which we have discussed a lot here… but let’s zero in on the other charge against these ‘front runners,’ and that is they are male.”
He assumes everyone is picking up what he is laying down. Everyone just “agrees” with him. It is a truism that racism and patriarchy are at work.
Or others on Facebook called the message racist and Shelby Steele an Uncle Tom… but not in so many words… as a way to solidify their view, ward off blacks curious about true empowerment, and malign whites and Republican’s and Republican voters (20% of black male voters voted for Trump in 2020… darn those racists!):
A recommended post of mine on this issue is this one, no need to watch the Vivek video, my thoughts on racist Democrats are under that:
So, they enjoy accusing, as MACHOSAUCE noted. They are in that sense like Lucifer in front of God keeping fear and lies front and center in our lives…
HISTORY (A)
Histories Vaccination
“…virtually every significant racist in American political history was a Democrat.” — Bruce Bartlett, Wrong on Race: The Democratic Party’s Buried Past (New York, NY: Palgrave MacMillan, 2008), ix;
“…not every Democrat was a KKK’er, but every KKK’er was a Democrat.” — Ann Coulter, Mugged: Racial Demagoguery from the Seventies to Obama (New York, NY: Sentinel [Penguin], 2012), 19.
While this topic wasn’t mentioned, I wanted to include it as I am sure the C.O.C. student has been brainwashed with this untruth.
What “untruth” am I speaking of?
THE 3/5ths CLAUSE
What follows is an older post of mine
(Originally posted in November of 2010)
Description under video:
I spoke with the owners of the video that I grabbed this clip from. They were kind enough to allow this to stay up — ??????? — if you enjoyed this clip, please visit and consider subscribing to EncourageTV (website).The channel is built with positive, wholesome, and religious viewership in mind. (Which is better than the drivel we get elsewhere.)
(REALLY this is young vs. old Douglass, Kaepernick merely takes him out of a lifetime of thought) Kaepernick quoted Frederick Douglas in “bashing” July 4th. FIRST, Ted Cruz does a bang up job in responding to this here (DAILY WIRE). But the mistake I see here is that people evolve.
Let me explain.
I have heard many people over the years quote St. Augustine to support their understanding of a Church Father supporting old-earth creationism (OEC). But in fact, as Augustine matured in his faith and thought about the competing worldviews (remember, he was a Pagan before being Born Again) he became a solid young earth creationist (YEC). So the quote people choose pre-dates his ending up as a YEC’er. In other words, as he moved further away from his Pagan roots he came closer to God’s clear work. (See my post entitled “Taking Physicist Stephen Barr to Task Over St. Augustine“)
The same applies here, Douglas was newly freed, he fell into being tutored by someone who viewed the Constitution as a “slave document,” but after spreading his wings further, reading the Constitution (and the Civil War) — he matured to believe the Constitution was an anti-slavery document. The book pictured and I highly recommend is this: “Setting the Record Straight: American History in Black & White“.
See as well my page on my site with many resource recommendations on various topics: “U.S. RACIAL HISTORY“
Is racism enshrined in the United States Constitution? How could the same Founding Fathers who endorsed the idea that all men are created equal also endorse the idea that some men are not? The answer provided in this video by, Carol Swain, former professor of political science and law at Vanderbilt University, may surprise you.
More of David Barton talking about the Constitution and Frederick Douglass:
LINCOLN BONUS
Because Abraham Lincoln kept meticulous notes, we have these notes that were never used, but ready to be referenced if he needed them during one of his many debates with Douglas (TIME):
“If A can prove, however conclusively, that he may, of right, enslave B — why not B snatch the same argument, and prove equally, that he may enslave A?
You say A is a white, and B is black. It is –color–, then; the lighter, having the right to enslave the darker? Take care. By this rule, you are to be the slave to the first man you meet, with a fairer skin than your own.
You do not mean color exactly? — You mean the whites are –intellectually– the superiors of the blacks, and therefore, have the right to enslave them? Take care again. By this rule, you are to be slave to the first man you meet, with an intellect superior to your own.
But, say you, it is a question of –interest; and, if you can make it your –interest–, you have the right to enslave another. Very well. And if he can make it his interest, he has the right to enslave you.”
…Even earlier than this, on July 1, 1854, Abraham Lincoln wrote this small fragment that seems to address some of the popular arguments put forward by slavery-choice advocates of his day. Should whites have the right to enslave blacks based on color, intellect, or interest? Lincoln responds:
You say A. is white, and B. is black. It is color, then; the lighter, having the right to enslave the darker? Take care. By this rule, you are to be slave to the first man you meet, with a fairer skin than your own.
You do not mean color exactly? You mean the whites are intellectually the superiors of the blacks, and, therefore have the right to enslave them? Take care again. By this rule, you are to be slave to the first man you meet, with an intellect superior to your own.
But, say you, it is a question of interest; and, if you can make it your interest, you have the right to enslave another. Very well. And if he can make it his interest, he has the right to enslave you.
The importance of Lincoln’s logic should not be overlooked. Lincoln understood that if you attempt to establish human rights or personhood by appealing to a set of arbitrary, degreed properties such as color and intellect, properties which carry no moral weight or significance and which none of us share equally, then you end up undermining human rights for everyone….
Really, This Is Also an Extension of the “conversation” section as well. I have recently become aware of quite a few black owned YouTube Channels starting to watch and comment on some Thomas Sowell and Carol Swain videos, as well as others. In fact, I dedicate a post to this:
You see, reading or watching viewpoints that counter yours is a form of conversation in that your mind is engaging in something offering new, dynamic experiences and evidence you may not have been privy to previously. One of my favorite Channels are these young men in college not only soaking up new information but discussing it with each other.
Oh, how I would love to be a fly on the wall when they go out and eat at the cafeteria and discuss these things around those who disagree.
WOW! THOMAS SOWELL – FACTS ABOUT SLAVERY THEY DIDN’T TEACH IN SCHOOL!
And I like these following two videos because the conservative leaning people had a left leaning friend over. So, you can see in real time the struggle some have in hearing new information.
OUR CONSERVATIVE AND LIBERAL FRIEND REACTS TO THE INCONVENIENT TRUTH ABOUT THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY
*WTF! THE INCONVENIENT TRUTH ABOUT THE REPUBLICAN PARTY! (A MUST SEE)
HISTROY (C)
KKK TERRORISTS
Whom were they terrorizing? Blacks? Or Republicans who were allowing freedom of voting and thought to be a reality. Either by black Republicans declaring the freedom to vote, or white Republicans pushing for this.
In the early days of the Democrat power structure, the terrorist arm of the Democrat Party, the KKK lynched those who had free thought and courage enough to vote against Southern Democrats:
One study found that there were “4,467 total victims of lynching from 1883 to 1941. Of these victims, 4,027 were men, 99 were women, and 341 were of unidentified gender (although likely male); 3,265 were Black, 1,082 were white, 71 were Mexican or of Mexican descent, 38 were American Indian, 10 were Chinese, and 1 was Japanese.” (They were most probably ALL Republicans.)
Here is a more recent example of the “terrorist type arm” of the same political party in intimidating those who would have the temerity to think other thoughts than those of Democrats:
Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich resigned under pressure after gay rights activists demanded that he step down or recant his support of traditional marriage laws. Eich donated $1,000 to support Proposition 8, the California ballot initiative that amended the state’s constitution to define marriage as between one man and one woman. “I don’t want to talk about my personal beliefs because I kept them out of Mozilla all these 15 years we’ve been going,” Eich told The Guardian. “I don’t believe they’re relevant.” That wasn’t an option. “CEO Brendan Eich should make an unequivocal statement of support for marriage equality,” a Credoaction petition signed by almost 75,000 people said, per The Inquirer. “If he cannot, he should resign. And if he will not, the board should fire him immediately.” When asked if his beliefs about marriage should constitute a firing offense the way racism or sexism does, Eich argued that these religious beliefs — and beliefs popular as of 2008 — should not be used as a basis for dismissal. “I don’t believe that’s true, on the basis of what’s permissible to support or vote on in 2008,” he told CNET. “It’s still permissible. Beliefs that are protected, that include political and religious speech, are generally not something that can be held against even a CEO…“
How wrong he was. Eich is out on his ear for the unpardonable sin of subscribing to a moral and political belief so mean-spirited and close-minded that it was shared by President Obama back when the fateful contribution was made. (Obama was never actually against gay marriage, but it was his public stance for awhile). Indeed, a majority of California voters endorsed Proposition 8 that year, including substantial majorities of Hispanics and African-Americans. When Eich’s private beliefs recently came to light, online petitioners demanded that he either renounce them or be fired. Think about that. “Renounce your beliefs and agree with us, or else” is not a sentence that should be uttered lightly, if ever, in a free society. Scalp collected, and message received. They didn’t even seriously allege — let alone try to prove — that Eich’s tenure as CEO would be marked by discrimination in any way. It was his mere presence that was intolerable…..
Robert George (via First Things) hits the nail on the head by showing the outcome of such policies — whether in the private or governmental arena (hat-tip to Denny Burk):
Mozilla has now made its employment policy clear.
No Catholics need apply.
Or Evangelical Christians.
Or Eastern Orthodox.
Or Orthodox Jews.
Or Mormons.
Or Muslims.
Unless, that is, you are the “right kind” of Catholic, Evangelical, Eastern Orthodox Christian, observant Jew, Mormon, or Muslim, namely, the kind who believes your religious or philosophical tradition is wrong about the nature of marriage as the conjugal union of husband and wife, and the view now dominant among secular elites is correct. In that case, Mozilla will consider you morally worthy to work for them. Or maybe you can work for them even if you do happen to believe (or should I say “believe”) your faith’s teaching—so long as you keep your mouth shut about it: “Don’t ask, don’t tell.”
You are disqualified from employment, however, if you reveal your alleged “bigotry” and “cause pain” by stating your convictions. And you are certainly disqualified if you do anything to advance the historic understanding of marriage as a conjugal union in the public square.
[….]
You can bet it’s not just Mozilla. Now that the bullies have Eich’s head as a trophy on their wall, they will put the heat on every other corporation and major employer. They will pressure them to refuse employment to those who decline to conform their views to the new orthodoxy. And you can also bet that it won’t end with same-sex marriage. Next, it will be support for the pro-life cause that will be treated as moral turpitude in the same way that support for marriage is treated. Do you believe in protecting unborn babies from being slain in the womb? Why, then: “You are a misogynist. You are a hater of women. You are a bigot. We can’t have a person like you working for our company.” And there will be other political and moral issues, too, that will be treated as litmus tests for eligibility for employment. The defenestration of Eich by people at Mozilla for dissenting from the new orthodoxy on marriage is just the beginning.
Catholics, Evangelicals, Orthodox Christians, Mormons, observant Jewsand others had better stand together and face down the bullies, and they had better do it now, or else they will be resigning themselves and their families to a very unhappy status in this society. A very unhappy status indeed. When tactics of intimidation succeed, their success ensures that they will be used more and more often in more and more contexts to serve more and more causes. And standing up to intimidation will become more and more difficult. And more and more costly. And more and more dangerous.
If you are a Republican, you need not speak at a university commencement or convocation. If you are a conservative Republican, you need not apply for a job, as a waiter or an CEO
All in the name of what?
Tolerance!
So in the historical example you see Republicans being terrorized by Democrats to the point of death for thinking that a person has the freedom to vote and have freedom of thought. In the example of Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich we find Democrats still terrorizing people for the freedom to vote to the point of not being able to work and make a living.
Rogan & Maher Discuss Today’s Woke Progressives — Bill Maher Just Leveled Woke Progressives With the Most Damning Comparison Ever: “They believe race is first and foremost the thing you should always see everywhere, which I find interesting because that used to be the position of the Ku Klux Klan.”
(From the above)
“I’m always trying to make the case that liberal is a different animal than ‘woke,’ because it is,” according to Maher. “You can be ‘woke,’ with all the nonsense that that now implies, but don’t say that somehow it’s an extension of liberalism because it’s most often actually an undoing of liberalism.”
The traditional liberal view of a “color-blind” society, which was held by figures such as President John F. Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., is a prime example, Maher said.
“That’s not what the ‘woke’ believe,” according to the comedian. “They believe race is, first-and-foremost, the thing you should always see everywhere, which I find interesting because that used to be the position of the Ku Klux Klan, that we see race first-and-foremost everywhere.”
“You can have that position, but don’t say that’s a liberal position,” he added. “You’re doing something very different.”
YEP, STILL THE SAME HIT CARD
COURAGE
….But It Takes Courage To Change Our Course or to confront today’s culture.
In fact, Shelby Steele said it multiple times: “we have to have moral courage” […] “moral courage is needed.” Here is Dennis Prager talking about “courage” in a clip I came across of an old YouTube upload of mine:
MY RUMBLE DESCRIPTION: At a recent event with Shelby Steele, he repeated many times throughout the interview that people have to have “moral courage”, he also said “courage.” This is something that Dennis Prager has said for many years. Here is one clip/excerpt from a longer/old YOUTUBE upload of mine titled: “Sen. Rob Portman (Ohio) Reveals His Reason Behind His Change of Heart on Same-Sex Marriage #SSM” (from March of 2013)
MAKING AN IMPACT
If this racism truly exists, is dividing more the answer?
Do they know how to confront the evil of racism in a way to change hearts and minds?
Or will they fire and impoverish financially and societally their opponents. Doesn’t this make them more likely to become isolated and desperate? And in their lies maligning people as racists who are not, do they open roads to unity? Or tear down opportunities to heal. By heal I mean to realize that many of the Left’s “labels” are in fact straw-men arguments.
The reason I asked that emboldened question above is because in putting together “how I have changed over the years” since my three felonies as part of a package of paperwork to have my felonies expunged (see my bio), I wrote down some examples of my evolution from “felon” to a “retired felon” in the shadow of the Cross. Here is a small excerpt from my rough draft.
CLARITY: In 2004 I was 13-years past my last felony conviction, accumulated around 3,500 books in my library, and was well studied in apologetic topics (I had yet to go to seminary). But in 1994 I had an “interference with a peace” officer that I never went to court for… so in 2004 at a routine traffic violation stop, the warrant popped up and I spent about 23-days in jail. While I was yet to get a master’s in theological studies (2009), this short time in jail was really my “full circle,” so-to-speak.
SMALL PART OF MY TESTIMONY ~ Coming Full Circle
1994 Trouble Settled in 2004. In 1994 I was out with friends from my high school days, and we were collectively drunk and disorderly. This was my last real run-in with the law. However, this turned into a blessing of sorts… not for me but for others. Let me explain, please.
In 2004 I was pulled over by a CHP officer for driving too long in a center area of a 4-lane thoroughfare. When the officer ran my record she found I was driving on a suspended license as well as having a 10-year old warrant. Mind you, by this time I was knee deep in church, working, raising kids, and I had a large library and knowledge of various topics by then. This officer was kind enough to allow my wife to come and grab our car before taking me in. I spent close to 20-days in detention. (This was the catalyst to deal with my old issues – license and a warrant I had forgotten all about.)
It was my short time in jail that I will never forget.
“El Oso Negro”. My 1st stay was in a small dorm at the end of a cell block, floor 4 if I recall, in Central Jail. It was days before Easter, I had already talked to the Chaplain and had a Bible. There were maybe 18 people in this dorm. I was sitting on the top bunk, reading my Bible, and my bunk mate – a giant of a man from Hawaiian Gardens gang who was called “el oso negro,” black bear, on the account that he was huge [many prison yeas of working out], extremely hairy, and turned very dark when in the sun on the yard in Tehachapi prison.
He asked me why I was reading the Bible… I explained how I got there and a bit of the above info (past stints). We started talking and before you know it, we were sitting on his bunk and he said he was saved many years ago at Calvary Chapel, I asked if we could pray. While I prayed for him, he started crying like a baby – tears rolling down his cheeks, snot and all. All the other young Hispanic gang bangers were watching this “OG” open up to the active power of the Holy Spirit. When Sunday came everyone* held hands in a circle – the center two bunk beds and pillar in the middle of the circle – I prayed a blessing over these men and their loved ones, and we said the Lord’s prayer to finish. Not everyone was saved obviously just by holding hands… but maybe it sparked either a renewal of faith in some, or at least an optimism about it not garnered before. Wow.
*One young kid expressed his atheism and commitment to his gang. When I talked to him and answered his skeptical challenges, he just became angry; so, I stopped engaging to keep the dorm’s cohesiveness going. He did not join the circle.
That was not the end of this short stint however… hold on to your seat, there is more.
North @ Wayside (Pitchess). I was moved to the North Facility at Pitchess Detention Center on the account that I have a shaved head (balding) and I look like a white supremacist. (North was where they largely segregated guys that looked like me.) I talked to the Chaplain, the husband of the owner of a local Christian bookstore owner I knew and got another Bible as I had given the previous one to “The Black Bear.” (I wish I remembered his real name.)
While discussing topics with a few people inquiring about why I was reading the Bible, a young kid, skinhead looking fellow, started to engage me in some Biblical topics. During further discussion I found out he was a member of the racist cult, Christian Identity.
Your Honor, I had recently done a large study on four racist cults/movements – this being one. So I was familiar with its founders and relationship to the aberrant theology of British Israelism. Steering the conversation thus (a rough draft I keep) with the afore mentioned knowledge and the basis that he showed an interest in what the Bible had to say about our topic:
The Bible does not even use the word race in reference to people, but it does describe all human beings as being of “one blood” (Acts 17:26). This of course emphasizes that we are all related, as all humans are descendants of the first man, Adam (1 Corinthians 15:45), who was created in the image of God (Genesis 1:26–27). The Last Adam, Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 15:45) also became a descendant of Adam in His incarnation. Therefore, any descendant of Adam can be saved because our mutual relative by blood (Jesus) died and rose again. Therefore, the Gospel can (and should) be preached to all tribes and nations.
Genesis’ word for Adam means “red clay,” and out of the 200[+] flood stories from around the world from different cultures separated by seas and time and culture, almost half have the first man being created red. Also, when Moses was going to marry an Ethiopian woman, Miriam spoke out against this interracial marriage. God struck her with a disease that turned her skin ashen until she repented of this BECAUSE God blesses marriage between all ethnicities.
The young man upon me asking, said that all the authors of the New Testament had to be “Aryan,” which according to British Israelism were the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh. I brought him to Philippians 3:3-8 where the Apostle Paul clearly says he is from the tribe of Benjamin. A “no-no” in these aberrant theologies.
At the end of my time in North this kid had thrown his literature (booklets) away he had gotten by mail from Richard Butler’s “organization.” I left that Bible with him as well.
Do Leftists attack real problems when given an opportunity through discussion? Or do they merely malign and label anyone who disagrees with them to keep power by their self-imposed grip of ignorance?
Watching the left attempting to undo the greatness of American medicine and dismantle the unprecedentedly powerful American economic engine built almost entirely on non-governmental entrepreneurial effort, I realize once again that the left is far better at destroying than building.
I first realized this as I watched the left — and here I sadly include the whole organized left from liberal to far left — do whatever it could to destroy one of the most wonderful organizations in American life, the Boy Scouts of America. From Democratic city governments to the New York Times and other liberal editorial pages to the most destructive organization on the left, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), there has been the most concerted effort to break the Boy Scouts.
When challenged about this, fellow Americans on the left respond that this is a false accusation, that they have no desire to destroy the Boy Scouts, only to coerce the organization into accepting as scouts and scout leaders boys and men who have announced they are gay.
This is not an honest response, however, because the left is in fact doing whatever it can to destroy the Boy Scouts until the Boy Scouts change their policy on gays. The left-wing position is that if the Boy Scouts do not change a policy that has been in place since the inception of the organization, they do not deserve to exist.
Therefore it is entirely accurate to state that the left wishes to destroy the Boy Scouts as that organization now exists. No matter how much good the Boy Scouts have done and continue to do for millions of boys, for the left, all this good amounts to nothing.
For the left in this instance, as in most instances, the attitude is: Destroy the imperfect in order to build the perfect.
There is no left-wing Boy Scouts. The left knows best how to crush the non-left Boy Scouts, but it has never made a boys organization of its own….
Again, do they change the hearts and minds of those they encounter and disagree with that they believe to be racists? Or are they merely dividing along race-class-gender to hold on to POWER?
affirmative action
Does It “Affirm?”
Or Set Up People To Fail?
Doc Steele goes on to discuss the deleterious FX of race-based preferences in college and university “ivory tower” educational institutions. Doc Steele notes that a new battle awaits the black student walking the campus of Harvard or Yale, which is: everyone there knows you made it not by your merit but by other forces. And so, Dr. Steele notes that the black student must relitigate racial battles and prejudices created by school administrators and government interference.
Below are some audio from past posts here on my site where people make a similar point of a new category of “suspicion” of “did they really make it because they are good?” I heard Larry elder tell a story about a law firm wanting the best and brightest and going to Yale or Harvard to find new lawyers for their top-rated firm. Do you think they have a suspicion of the quality of the minority candidate?
Even if not publicly stated, I bet even black law firms hire the best from Columbia or University of Virginia rather than an affirmative action graduate from the Ivory Tower Schools.
…TO WIT…
In a short clip Dan Bongino reads from the WALL STREET JOURNAL in which he notes the following paragraph:
The complaint, filed by a coalition of 64 organizations, says the university has set quotas to keep the numbers of Asian-American students significantly lower than the quality of their applications merits. It cites third-party academic research on the SAT exam showing that Asian-Americans have to score on average about 140 points higher than white students, 270 points higher than Hispanic students and 450 points higher than African-American students to equal their chances of gaining admission to Harvard. The exam is scored on a 2400-point scale. The complaint was filed with the U.S. Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights.
(Keep that WALL STREET JOURNAL article book marked in your head. I will come back to it in a bit.)
Larry Elder plays audio from now VP Joe Biden being shut down by an educated black man with facts and knowledge about the deleterious affects of race preference in education, e.g., affirmative action.
Lee’s next slide shows three columns of numbers from a Princeton University study that tried to measure how race and ethnicity affect admissions by using SAT scores as a benchmark. It uses the term “bonus” to describe how many extra SAT points an applicant’s race is worth. She points to the first column.
African Americans received a “bonus” of 230 points, Lee says.
She points to the second column.
“Hispanics received a bonus of 185 points.”
The last column draws gasps.
Asian Americans, Lee says, are penalized by 50 points — in other words, they had to do that much better to win admission.
Well, what do you think it took to fight the “narrative” by these Asian students? Here are the last two paragraphs of that WSJarticle:
Thomas Espenshade, a Princeton University sociologist who has done work on race in college admissions, said the complaint was the result of long-simmering anger in the Asian-American community.
“Up until five or 10 years ago the response has been, ‘Well we just have to work harder,’ ” Mr. Espenshade said. “But over the last decade, more groups are starting to mobilize, saying we don’t have to just accept his, we can push back against it.”
Shelby Steele noted this Frederick Douglas story early in his interview (adapted, not a direct quote):
When Frederick Douglas was asked as a free man by the media “WHAT SHALL WE DO WITH THE NEGRO?” Frederick responded: “Do nothing with us,” Douglass suggested. Leave African Americans alone. Give them a chance to be men. “If you see him on his way to school, leave him alone; don’t disturb him,” Douglass entreated. Similarly, if you saw a Black man having dinner at a hotel, or casting a ballot, or practicing his craft, just let him be. Allow him to pursue his inalienable rights in peace. If the Black man failed, surely it would be the fault of his Maker and perhaps give lie to the universal principle of the American founding.
Shelby Steele later noted this similar thinking:
Smyth: “Let’s talk about the Supreme Court decisions to disallow race as a consideration for university admission. What are your thoughts about that? And what is your advice for diverse students seeking admission?”
Steele: “Leave me alone. Really, really, really stop it. STOP CALIBRATING AND TAKING STATISTICS AND LOOKING FOR SOME GAP AND WHETHER I FIT. Treat me exactly like law, the Constitution, requires that you treat every other citizen. I’m a citizen.”
Which brings me to another thought… how do you defeat, defeatism — AKA — fear?
How do you counter the dogma of group think?
How do you thwart attachments to a narrative by bands of people trying to separate themselves by communal group think?
CONVERSATION
Conversations is how.
A point Doc Steele made was that “individual relationships” should be a goal. I love this because it is the only way to separate yourself from group thinking. In other words, the viewpoint of a group narrative is often curated. tailored to fit an outcome. I already gave one example of conversating leading to break throughs in my Testimony above, here is another example. This second example of conversation shows what a difference a conversation can make… even in social media.
During the run-up to the 2012 election, my son was in a conversation about Romney being called a bigot due to his stance on homosexuality and abortion. I jumped in as a post of mine linked in conversation was determined to be “racist” by these young minds. In discussing the issues with two separate “yutes”, one unfriended my son, the other wanted to meet up for coffee after thoughtful discussion that included ideas found in these linked posts:
And a couple points like these from a post where my son’s friend asked a question of me; “Is Marriage Hetero“:
“…take gold as an example, it has inherent in its nature intrinsic qualities that make it expensive: good conductor of electricity, rare, never tarnishes, ease of use (moldability), and the like. The male and female have the potential to become a single biological organism, or single organic unit, or principle. Two essentially becoming one. The male and female, then, have inherent to their nature intrinsic qualities that two mated males or two mated females never actualize in their courtship… nor can they ever. The potential stays just that, potential, never being realized…..
“….Think of a being or animal or even an insect that reproduces, not by mating, but by some act performed by individuals. Imagine that for these same beings, movement and digestion is performed not by individuals, but only by the complementary pairs that unite for this purpose. Would anyone acquainted with such beings have difficulty understanding that in respect to movement and digestion, the organism is a united pair, or an organic unity? They thus become an entirely new organism when joined together — fulfilling what was only ‘potential’ when apart.”
We also discussed my time spent with Conservatarian gay men and women:
For some time, a few years back, I and about 10-20 gay men and women… and at times their extended family would meet monthly. All were lovers of the Constitution — what brought us together was the website GAY PATRIOT (gaypatriot . net – now defunct, sadly) and admiration of what Bruce Carroll and other gay writers boldly forged in countering current cultural trends.
Some of these people I met with and have communicated with over the years [friends] held the position that same-sex marriage should not be placed on the same level in society as heterosexual marriage, as, the family pre-dates and is the foundation for society. All, however, held that what is not clearly enumerated in the Constitution for the federal government to do should be left for the states. And thus, they would say each state has the right to define marriage themselves. Speaking out against high-court interference – as they all did about Roe v. Wade. (All were pro-life.)
As an aside, we met once-a-month at either the Sizzler in Hollywood or the Outback in Burbank, exclusively on Mondays. (All coordinated by “GayPatriotWest” – Daniel Blatt). Why? Those two CEOs gave to Mitt Romney’s campaign. And on Mondays because the L.A. City Council asked people not to eat meat on Mondays to help the planet.
A joint “hetero [me]/gay [them] ” thumb in LA City Councils eye. Lol.
I shared ideas like this that struck a nerve with him:
“If homosexuality is really genetic, we may soon be able to tell if a fetus is predisposed to homosexuality, in which case many parents might choose to abort it. Will gay rights activists continue to support abortion rights if this occurs?”
Dale A. Berryhill, The Liberal Contradiction: How Contemporary Liberalism Violates Its Own Principles and Endangers Its Own Goals (Lafayette, LA: Vital Issues Press, 1994), 172.
So why did this young man change his mind? He stuck around for tough dialogue. In other words, he showed courage. He was introduced to some reasonable, historical arguments that showed what is being considered the norm today is something brand new in human history. And he never thought of the fact that, yes, there are gays who do not support same-sex marriage. So, when he was maligning people as homophobic… he then had to draw the conclusion that he was calling gays “homophobic.” And he rightly deduced that for that to happen his argument must be skewed wrongly. This is what he eventually said:
Although I do not agree [on all your points], I retract my statement that Romney is a bigot. I feel very differently on these moral issues, but I will avoid sixhirb-ing in the future, thank you for pointing it out. Good video, but this issue hits too close to home for me to continue this discussion.
Id like to have more conversations with you in the future, it’s not often someone makes me rethink my entire approach to a topic. Caught me a bit off guard, because I usually talk circles around people. I’ve been hearing so much idiocy from people with opposing view points, that I’ve lost a bit of my receptiveness. Paul still has my vote, but thanks for opening my mind a bit more.
That is how a healthy, well-balanced exchange is supposed to happen. Information never heard before is presented, one’s ideology either blocks it at the door of the heart, or, it allows it in to be weighed and considered. Another conversation I was involved in shows how the Left distorts things and are the divisive ones who use myths to unfriend people:
What do conversations Do? They route the false edifice of communal narratives because the person is told by the group that these people are like “this,” but after you discuss weighty topics with “those people,” you come to realize just how wrong what you were told about them — was.
A woman that I sat near at the event told a story of her daughter, whose father is law enforcement as well as her uncle. She said that her daughter’s school acquaintances would talk the typical narrative about law enforcement. Which I can imagine falls somewhere in the race card arena. She is around a narrative that a communal whole ~ tries to pawn off as truth. But the daughter knows and converses with these people maligned by the narrative. So, she knows the claims she is presented with at school are false.
Likewise, if people insert themselves into conversation with “the other,” often the narrative falls apart.
Dennis Prager interviews Ken Sterns, former CEO of National Public Radio, regarding his new book, “Republican Like Me: How I Left the Liberal Bubble and Learned to Love the Right”. In all his interviews he makes the point that he hasn’t changed his mind about all his previous positions, but he has on some.
If this were a Q&A, I would have stated this followed by a question:
QUESTION TO DOC STEELE
All the above thoughts and ruminations led me to formulate some questions that if I were in Professor Smyth’s shoes I would ask. Here is one if this were a Q&A;
“A quick statement and then a question Doc Steel. Your defining of ‘white guilt’ and the genuflecting of some before a, so called, oppressed class of people reminded me of David Mamet’s book, The Secret Knowledge, where he notes that there is an idea that the victim is pure, and cannot have sinned; and that the current ‘worship-of-the-victim’ is a way of transferring their ‘sainthood’ to themselves.APPENDIXIf you wish to comment on that, that will be a bonus, however, my question is this:
“Justice Clarence Thomas has said that his generation, even though separated and kept apart by laws, had an Unum… something to bind everyone together. He noted that today’s generation have Pluribus, but what is our Unum. I know you said you do not have a solution to our ills; however, can you recommend some “Unum ideas” that a young person can equip themselves with?”
That is it. If you took the time to brave the above. God Bless You for your “moral courage.”
If you have never read David Mamet’s book, these quotes come from, it is worth the time.
APPENDIX
Two Mamet quotes speaking to “sainthood”
One might say that the politician, the doctor, and the dramatist make their living from human misery; the doctor in attempting to alleviate it, the politician to capitalize on it, and the dramatist, to describe it.
But perhaps that is too epigrammatic.
When I was young, there was a period in American drama in which the writers strove to free themselves of the question of character.
Protagonists of their worthy plays had made no choices, but were afflicted by a condition not of their making; and this condition, homosexuality, illness, being a woman, etc., was the center of the play. As these protagonists had made no choices, they were in a state of innocence. They had not acted, so they could not have sinned.
A play is basically an exercise in the raising, lowering, and altering of expectations (such known, collectively, as the Plot); but these plays dealt not with expectations (how could they, for the state of the protagonist was not going to change?) but with sympathy.
What these audiences were witnessing was not a drama, but a troublesome human condition displayed as an attraction. This was, formerly, known as a freak show.
The subjects of these dramas were bearing burdens not of their choosing, as do we all. But misfortune, in life, we know, deserves forbearance on the part of the unafflicted. For though the display of courage in the face of adversity is worthy of all respect, the display of that respect by the unaffected is presumptuous and patronizing.
One does not gain merit from congratulating an afflicted person for his courage. One only gains entertainment.
Further, endorsement of the courage of the affliction play’s hero was not merely impertinent, but, more basically, spurious, as applause was vouchsafed not to a worthy stoic, but to an actor portraying him.
These plays were an (unfortunate) by-product of the contemporary love-of-the-victim. For a victim, as above, is pure, and cannot have sinned; and one, by endorsing him, may perhaps gain, by magic, part of his incontrovertible status.
David Mamet, The Secret Knowledge: On the Dismantling of American Culture (New York, NY: Sentinel Publishing, 2011), 134-135.
There is a Liberal sentiment that it should also punish those who take more than their “fair share.” But what is their fair share? (Shakespeare suggests that each should be treated not according to his deserts, but according to God’s mercy, or none of us would escape whipping.)
The concept of Fairness, for all its attractiveness to sentiment, is a dangerous one (cf. quota hiring and enrollment, and talk of “reparations”). Deviations from the Law, which is to say the Constitution, to accommodate specifically alleged identity-group injustices will all inevitably be expanded, universalized, and exploited until there remains no law, but only constant petition of Government.
We cannot live in peace without Law. And though law cannot be perfect, it may be just if it is written in ignorance of the identity of the claimants and applied equally to all. Then it is a possession not only of the claimants but of the society, which may now base its actions upon a reasonable assumption of the law’s treatment.
But “fairness” is not only a nonlegal but an antilegal process, for it deals not with universally applicable principles and strictures, but with specific cases, responding to the perceived or proclaimed needs of individual claimants, and their desire for extralegal preference. And it could be said to substitute fairness (a determination which must always be subjective) for justice (the application of the legislated will of the electorate), is to enshrine greed—the greed, in this case, not for wealth, but for preference. The socialistic spirit of the Left indicts ambition and the pursuit of wealth as Greed, and appeals, supposedly on behalf of “the people,” to the State for “fairness.”….
….But such fairness can only be the non-Constitutional intervention of the State in the legal, Constitutional process—awarding, as it sees fit, money (reparations), preferment (affirmative action), or entertainment (confiscation)….
….“Don’t you care?” is the admonition implicit in the very visage of the Liberals of my acquaintance on their understanding that I have embraced Conservatism. But the Talmud understood of old that good intentions can lead to evil—vide Busing, Urban Renewal, Affirmative Action, Welfare, et cetera, to name the more immediately apparent, and not to mention the, literally, tens of thousands of Federal and State statutes limiting freedom of trade, which is to say, of the right of the individual to make a living, and, so earn that wealth which would, in its necessary expenditure, allow him to provide a living to others….
…. I recognized that though, as a lifelong Liberal, I endorsed and paid lip service to “social justice,” which is to say, to equality of result, I actually based the important decisions of my life—those in which I was personally going to be affected by the outcome—upon the principle of equality of opportunity; and, further, that so did everyone I knew. Many, I saw, were prepared to pay more taxes, as a form of Charity, which is to say, to hand off to the Government the choice of programs and recipients of their hard-earned money, but no one was prepared to be on the short end of the failed Government pro-grams, however well-intentioned. (For example—one might endorse a program giving to minorities preference in award of government contracts; but, as a business owner, one would fight to get the best possible job under the best possible terms regardless of such a program, and would, in fact, work by all legal and, perhaps by semi- or illegal means to subvert any program that enforced upon the pro-prietor a bad business decision.)*
Further, one, in paying the government to relieve him of a feeling of social responsibility, might not be bothered to question what in fact constituted a minority, and whether, in fact, such minority contracts were actually benefiting the minority so enshrined, or were being subverted to shell corporations and straw men. †
*No one would say of a firefighter, hired under rules reducing the height requirement, and thus unable to carry one’s child to safety, “Nonetheless, I am glad I voted for that ‘more fair’ law.”
† As, indeed, they are, or, in the best case, to those among the applicants claiming eligibility most capable of framing, supporting, or bribing their claims to the front of the line. All claims cannot be met. The politicians and bureaucrats discriminating between claims will necessarily favor those redounding to their individual or party benefit—so the eternal problem of “Fairness,” supposedly solved by Government distribution of funds, becomes, yet again and inevitably, a question of graft.
David Mamet, The Secret Knowledge: On the Dismantling of American Culture (New York, NY: Sentinel Publishing, 2011), 116-117, 122, 151, 154.
If there is indeed a social revolution under way, it shouldn’t stop with women’s choice to honor their [own] nature. It must also include a newfound respect for men. It was New York City’s firemen who dared to charge up the stairs of the burning Twin Towers on September 11, 2001. The death tally of New York City’s firefighters was: men 343, women 0. Can anyone honestly say you would have wanted a woman coming to your rescue on that fateful day?
Suzanne Venker & Phyllis Schlafly, The Flipside of Feminism: What Conservative Women Know — and Men Can’t Say (Washington, D.C.: WND Books, 2011), 181-182.
A while back Candace Owens invoked Shelby Steele in her 1st comment on George Floyd (June 5, 2020):
I was challenged after I noted that every major religious and moral leader of note never endorsed or supported same-sex marriage. Here is the response to this challenge.
A point Dennis Prager makes is that this is the first time in human history where a “liberal elite” thinks it knows better than all previous religious, political, and moral thinkers before them. I have been challenged on this point and so I enter here a response to some of it. But first the audio portion in which discussion took place over:
Here is the small portion of one of the conversations that emboldened me to post this information:
Initial “Religious” Challenge:
Also, this is not just a matter of discrimination based on sex. It is also a matter of religious persecution. There are religious institutions where gay marriage is condoned and officiated just as heterosexual marriage is. To list a few, Buddhism, Satanism, Wicca, Paganism, the Metropolitan Community Church, the Old Catholic Church, the United Church of Canada, the United Church of Christ, the United Church of Australia and there are even more!!! Just as they would not dare to tell you what to do with your religion, so should you not dare to tell them what to do with theirs. If you believe in freedom of religion, you cannot be against gay marriage. You cannot control what others do with their religion. That is one of the founding principles of this nation. And that is what this really boils down to in the end. It is a matter of control. You seek to control others. You seek to tell others how they are supposed to live their lives. That is the antithesis of freedom. For someone as obviously intelligent as you are it is extremely disheartening that you cannot see something this simple.
After I refuted the world religious challenge of Buddhism (see beneath this conversational example that took place HERE), I got this response:
…I listed a lot of churches that condone gay marriage. One of them was mistaken and you spend how long arguing against it while ignoring every other one? I made a mistake on Buddhism. What of the rest I listed and the many more that I didn’t?
To which I responded:
I wish to clarify something I said. In the historical past, same-sex marriage has never been accepted. While polygamy, concubines, and the like have been accepted in cultural practice. Homosexuality being on equal footing with other forms of marriage has never, never been a practice accepted by any religion or culture. Wiccan, Satanism, and liberal forms of the world religions (Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, and the like) have only recently endorsed such a view. Since the “sexual revolution” of the 60’s when radical Marxist ideals were injected into Western thinking, writ large. So even your list is a new phenomenon.
I did mention paganism in the past. What I was saying is that men in historic pagan thinking/actions controlled women so that they were prostitutes at the local temple and a place for men to stop and “give sacrifice” to the gods. Other aspects that paganism and other cultures practiced that were harmful to women that Christianity helped cure were (below — partial list) only made possible by a faith that lifted women up. Something modern day feminism and radical gender equality movements do not do, or cannot do… since Wiccan practices do laud – for instance – the older pagan prostitution practices that subjugated a whole swath of women to serve men in horrible ways:
Paul, who often gets a bad rap for his perceived low view of women, considered at least twelve women coworkers in his ministry.* Paul clearly had a high view of women: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” The earliest Christians recited these remarkable, countercultural words as a baptismal confession. Widows, far from being abandoned, were cared for, and older women were given a place of honor. In light of all of this, is it any wonder “the ancient sources and modern historians agree that primary conversion to Christianity was far more prevalent among females than males”?
In recent history, Christians were responsible for the banning of three despicable practices inflicted upon women around the world. Christian missionaries pressured the Chinese government to abolish foot binding in 1912. This practice was done for the sole reason of pleasing men—”it made a woman with her feet bound in an arch walk tiptoe and sway seductively.” In 1829 the English outlawed the Indian practice of suttee, in which widows were burned alive on the funeral pyres of their husbands, because of Christianity’s teaching regarding widows and women. Finally, Western countries influenced by a Christian view of women and sexuality have condemned clitoridectomy (female genital mutilation), a gruesome practice that is still common in Muslim countries in Africa and the Middle East.
Sean McDowell and Jonathan Morrow, Is God Just a Human Invention? And Seventeen Other Questions Raised by the New Atheists (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 2010), 230-231.
Historian Alvin Schmidt points out how the spread of Christianity and Christian influence on government was primarily responsible for outlawing infanticide, child abandonment, and abortion in the Roman Empire (in AD 374); outlawing the brutal battles-to-the-death in which thousands of gladiators had died (in 404); outlawing the cruel punishment of branding the faces of criminals (in 315); instituting prison reforms such as the segregating of male and female prisoners (by 361); stopping the practice of human sacrifice among the Irish, the Prussians, and the Lithuanians as well as among other nations; outlawing pedophilia; granting of property rights and other protections to women; banning polygamy (which is still practiced in some Muslim nations today); prohibiting the burning alive of widows in India (in 1829); outlawing the painful and crippling practice of binding young women’s feet in China (in 1912); persuading government officials to begin a system of public schools in Germany (in the sixteenth century); and advancing the idea of compulsory education of all children in a number of European countries.
Wayne Grudem, Politics According to the Bible [Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2010], 49-50.
My goal is not to refute every example [you give]. Yes, extreme leftism in Christianity is nothing new. In fact, the term “fundementalist” was coined in the 1920’s. In fact, a free book about this movement by one of its founders is here, “Christianity & Liberalism“
And of course Paganism is [against treating people with humanity]. At least historical paganism, [modern paganism in the West adopts the Judeo-Christian ethic]. Of course I deal with this in my book as well.
With that example of a conversation, I wish to officially give my readers an insight in how to refute such thinking (that major world religions supported same-sex relationships). A proper understanding of Buddhism regards all marriages as mundane. In fact, even love in Buddhistic understanding is mundane and is rejected as anything based in reality — which is also key to this discussion. Here are some actual historical cases that the Buddha interacted with as well as more recently the Dalai Lama dealing with the issue.
….there was a case of a gay monk who was overcome by sexual desire and could no longer restrain himself. He was seducing his friends and novices to have sex with him. They rejected him so he left the monastery and had sex with men who were elephant keepers and horse keepers. When news spread around the entire Buddhist community that he was homosexual, the Buddha was alerted to the problem and he issued a rule for the community not to give any ordination to a homosexual, and those ordained gays are to be expelled. (Vin.I, 86).
The Buddha was more tolerant of lesbianism than male homosexuality. Nuns who were caught in lesbian practices were not expelled from the order. They must confess to the fellows about their practice, and then the offense will be redeemed. (Vin. IV, 261)
The monastic rules do not guarantee Buddhist monasticism is entirely free from homosexuals. Indeed, they only say that monks and nuns are required to live a celibate life. Often in history, the monastic community has been plagued by homosexual scandals.
In Thailand, the worst such scandal took place in 1819, during the reign of King Rama II, when a high-ranking monk, a Somdet who was also the abbot of Wat Saket who had just been promoted to take the position of the Supreme Patriarch, one day was found guilty of enjoying homosexual activities with some of his good-looking male disciples.
It was a shock to all Buddhists of the time, and the case was considered the scandal of the century of Buddhism in Siam.
Interestingly, the graveness of the mistake was not severe enough to defrock him, although the King had him removed him from his position of honour and ordered him to leave the royal monasteries.
As for the lay homosexual people, the Buddha gave no rule or advice as to whether they should be allowed to marry or not. The Buddha posted himself simply as the one who shows the way. He did not insist that he had any right to enforce on others what they should do. With this principle, the original teachings of the Buddha do not cover social ceremonies or rituals. Weddings and marriages of all kinds are regarded as mundane and have no place in Buddhism.
[….]
Unlike Christianity, where gender is a part of God’s creation, Buddhists see genderisation as a sign of decay. In the Buddhist version of the Genesis, Agga-asutta (also known as the Aphorism on the Knowledge of the Beginning), male and female genders were a part of the fall. Originally, the primordial ancestors of humans were self-luminous, mind-born and sexless. So the mind is supreme and sexless, which is consistent with the higher form of existence. The most important principle to derive from that is there is no superiority of one gender over the other. The first sin among them which perpetuated the fall was the prejudice of appearance, when those of brighter skin looked down on those with darker skin.
Based on this principle, homosexual people should not be discriminated against; they are humans who deserve all the rights and dignity endowed upon them as members of human race.
This does not mean that Thai Buddhists are supportive of gay rights and homosexual marriage, or that liberal activists will be successful in their social campaign. Human rights issues have always received poor attention in Theravada countries, as the culture is rooted in the belief in the Law of Karma, which is more popular among Thai Buddhists than philosophical and advanced scriptural studies in Buddhism.
Many monasteries and monks advocate their lay followers to see the world through the lens of karma, i.e., every person is born to pay back their sins. According to their explanations, all homosexuals and sexual deviants were once offenders of the Third Precept (prohibiting sexual misconduct) _ at least in their past lives, and they must pay off their past sins in their present life. Therefore, they deserve all that society gives to them. This belief system creates strong conservative values in Theravada Buddhist culture. For these reasons, it is unlikely that Buddhists will easily approve a law to allow gay marriage. Gay and lesbian activists in Thailand will not be as successful as their fellows in European countries or Canada.
Another authoritative source mentions that “in practice, Theravada Buddhist countries are not terribly open to homosexual practice. This has much to do with … the notion of karma, which remains strong in countries such as Thailand. From this viewpoint, a person’s characteristics and situations are a result of past sins or good deeds. Homosexuality and other alternative forms of sexuality are often seen as karmic punishments for heterosexual misconduct in a past life. Thus far, the gay rights movement has not had great success in Theravada Buddhist countries.” So one would have to reject the core of this religion in order to supplant it with a personal view and new model of sexuality. Obviously, ripping the core of an ancient religious belief out in the name of tolerance is what the Left is all about! The article continues:
In a 1997 interview, the Dalai Lama (the leader of Tibetan Buddhism and a widely-respected spiritual figure) was asked about homosexuality. He did not offer any strong answer either way, but noted that all monks are expected to refrain from sex. For laypeople, he commented that the purpose of sex in general is for procreation, so homosexual acts do seem a bit unnatural. He said that sexual desires in themselves are natural, perhaps including homosexual desires, but that one should not try to increase those desires or indulge them without self-control.
In a 1993 talk given in Seattle, the Dalai Lama said:
…nature arranged male and female organs in such a manner that is very suitable… Same-sex organs cannot manage well. …
The Dalai Lama was more specific in a meeting with Buddhist leaders and human rights activists in San Francisco in 1997, where he commented that all forms of sex other than penile-vaginal sex are prohibited for Buddhists, whether between heterosexuals or homosexuals. At a press conference the day before the meeting, he said, “From a Buddhist point of view, [gay sex] is generally considered sexual misconduct.”
As he prepares to meet today with gay Buddhist leaders, the Dalai Lama has clarified his position on the morality of homosexuality for Buddhists and non-Buddhists.
“We have to make a distinction between believers and unbelievers,” the exiled Tibetan leader said at a press conference yesterday in San Francisco. “From a Buddhist point of view, men-to-men and women-to-women is generally considered sexual misconduct.
“From society’s viewpoint, mutually agreeable homosexual relations can be of mutual benefit, enjoyable and harmless.”
His comments were an effort to clarify statements in a book — “Beyond Dogma,” published last year by North Atlantic Books in Berkeley — that upset some gay Buddhists.
The Dalai Lama said the same Buddhist scripture that advises against gay and lesbian sex also urges heterosexuals to refrain from oral sex, anal sex and masturbation. “Even with your own wife, using one’s mouth or the other hole is sexual misconduct,” he said. “Using one’s hand, that is sexual misconduct.”
Despite his worldwide appeal and popularity, the Dalai Lama is not a “Buddhist pope” and does not have the authority to unilaterally change Buddhist teaching.
“When it comes to interpreting scripture, I can’t undertake that on my own,” he said. “We would need to have consultation with other Buddhist traditions.”
The Dalai Lama was also asked to explain recent statements urging his followers to refrain from using a “protector deity,” Dorje Shugden, in their meditation and devotional practices……
So we see in Buddhistic history and theology a firm denial of homosexuality being approved of (or endorsed, like the Left wants done with same-sex marriage). Even at its best there is no universal Buddhist position on same-sex marriage. In other words, it was never endorsed (if forgetting the above) by the Buddhistic religion or state — like the Left wants in this case.
In all religious understanding, if the practice wasn’t frowned upon, it was never endorsed. Bottom line. Nor was it even thinkable until about a generation ago.
This is an excerpt from a larger response to a local author, to which the fuller response and more context, see here.
Very bluntly and plainly, Socrates was not “gay,” per se. He was a pedophile, most pedophiles in Grecian days slept with young boys, a homosexual act. Pedophilia became common practice for the well-ta-do, and it took the Judeo-Christian worldview to shake this “habit” from the world in outlawing such actions. “Many men in Ancient Greece had relations with young teens,” however, “being outright gay and having an equal relationship with a same-sex partner was not something that was socially approved of at all.” Plato speaks to the “mean state” that creates the best “by far the safest and most moderate” a society should promote to enhance its quality of life. One should take note that even Plato’s detractor in the end agrees:
Now, what lives are they, and how many in which, having searched out and beheld the objects of will and desire and their opposites, and making of them a law, choosing, I say, the dear and the pleasant and the best and noblest, a man may live in the happiest way possible…
[….]
Speaking generally, our glory is to follow the better and improve the inferior, which is susceptible of improvement, as far as this is possible. And of all human possessions, the soul is by nature most inclined to avoid the evil, and track out and find the chief good; which when a man has found, he should take up his abode with it during the remainder of his life…. every one will perceive, comes the honour of the body in natural order. Having determined this, we have next to consider that there is a natural honour of the body, and that of honours some are true and some are counterfeit…. but the mean states of all these habits are by far the safest and most moderate;
[….]
…but they will not wholly extirpate [root out]the unnatural loves which have been the destruction of states; and against this evil what remedy can be devised?…
[….]
Either men may learn to abstain wholly from any loves, natural or unnatural, except of their wedded wives; or, at least, they may give up unnatural loves; or, if detected, they shall be punished with loss of citizenship, as aliens from the state in their morals. ‘I entirely agree with you,’ said Megillus,…
Another piece to the puzzle comes from an excellent apologetic about this very subject. In it we find this:
Aeschines (390-314? BC), in his work Against Timarchus, acknowledged that there were laws on the books that prohibited sexual harassment or assault of young boys.5
1. He further records that Greek law prohibited male prostitutes from holding office in civic affairs, or participating in religious observances.
2. He recognized that laws that regulate moral conduct are the best means of establishing and maintaining an orderly society.
3. This work indicates that there were laws prohibiting these things, and that the punishment was fine or death, depending on the severity of the offense.
So, even in Greece, you had a behavior that was rejected as unnatural, and never accepted in a moral category as “the norm.”
So nothing John cites or references would support Prop 8 or the peoples will in California to keep marriage what it has been, a relation between a man and woman (specifically, one man and one woman).
