Monday, November 9, 2009

Self-contradiction

I've finally seen "Expelled," after it came to the cinema here. So that's why it caused a stir! Scary stuff! People who dare even mention the idea of Intelligent Design find the thought police falling on them, and their jobs lost. A new version of the Spanish Inquisition, in which people were victimised for uttering ideas that those in power did not approve of. And here's the classic irony. The people behind the persecution claim to believe in freedom of thought and speech. Humbug!
How many cases were there? I'll have to see it again sometime and take notes. Academics, researchers and journalists found themselves in trouble because they even referred to the idea in passing. It's fear, partly. Some people who consider themselves the judges of what is right are scared rigid of the idea that there may be a God or any such being who could have made the universe and life in it take the forms that they did. There is no reason to be so ferocious about stifling an idea unless they are frightened of it.
The excuse used is that it leads to a belief in some 'religious' teaching, whether it be Christian, Jewish or any other. For that reason, they have to stifle any suggestion that life is not a gigantic accident and series of ongoing accidents called mutations. The opposition to religion is justified by saying that it creates division and starts wars. The claim there is that an atheistic, secular, 'logic and science based society is safer. Oh really? Did anyone here about the horrific human rights violations that occurred in the Soviet Union and the euphemistically misnamed "Peoples Republic" of China under Mao Zedong? The gulags? Mao's purges? The secret police state that existed in East Germany? So that is what the atheists do when they set up a society, do they? And that is safe?
I feel like telling some 'rational thinkers' who claim they offer a better way that people like them are the least likely to inspire my confidence. A world ruled by the hard-line leftists I've known would be a cold and ruthless place, lacking in the better, warmer side of humanity. That is to say, it would reflect them!
The problem is partly that to make a lie seem true you have to make sure everyone believes it. You can't have some bright spark speaking up and saying that the emperor has no clothes. So dissent has to be squashed if some dictator wants to set up their great new world based on science, rationality and atheism. Hence the blood on the hands of people like Lenin, Stalin and others. They spout about freedom of thought and proceed to deny freedom of thought.
It would alarm me if I didn't remember the words of the Psalm: "Do not fret because of evil men, or be envious of those who do wrong, for like the grass they will soon pass away." (Psalm 37, verses 1 and 2.) Again, "Do not fret when men succeed in their ways, when they carry out their evil schemes." (verse 7) "For evil men will be cut off, but those who hope in the Lord will inherit the land." (verse 9).
One of the reasons I became a Christian was a complete loss of hope that mere human beings could be relied on or make the world a good place - and that includes myself. I could see the weakness and sin in me.
Those who deny God His place will not only not succeed, but will earn His retribution.
As for our household, we will serve God. And may He shield and protect us.

3 comments:

Tiffany Norris said...

Great post! I really enjoyed Expelled as well.

Jenny B. said...

Amen! Haven't watched Expelled yet, but I know what you're saying. Again- thanks for posting this!

Andrew Clarke said...

Thanks for the comments, Tiffany and Jenny. I think I'll try and get a CD of "Expelled" if it's available.