Don't over do it.

I had a conversation some time ago about home schooling. One person remarked that the kids she had known who were home-schooled were not as socially aware of street wise as school educated ones. Now this person is a friend whose opinions I think worth hearing, but there is a value judgement in what she says there. She is saying that home schooled kids are worse off because they do not have the same apparent worldly savvy as school attenders, and I'm wondering: is that necessarily a bad thing? Are we assuming that what is NORMAL is BEST? It may not be so. Kids of this age, early 21st century, are more informed superficially about the world, more confident in general, but are they also prematurely cynical? To use an analogy here: the age of puberty is decreasing. In 1850, one study found that the average age of puberty in girls was 17. (Seems almost unbelievable, late teenage kids still presexual!) By 1950 the average age had decreased to 14, by 1970 to about twelve. So kids grow up more quickly, and that CAN have problems. Too early maturation can coincide with health problems later in life. So accelerating the maturing process is not necessarily a good thing. Emotionally, some high school kids seem like world weary middle aged people who have been through a divorce and a bankruptcy, and it's all a bit of a drag, and this before they've finished school. Could it be that, as they say, school puts old heads on young shoulders in a superficial way, before those young shoulders can carry the weight of age properly. Does the experience of high school sometimes leave people jaded and worn out before they have had a chance to appreciate life and get the best out of it? This has to be treated carefully. I'm not suggesting that we keep young people ignorant, stop them finding out things that they will have to know sooner or later. It is possible to insult the intelligence of a young person by thinking they're not old enough to know something, when the fact is they can't help knowing it. I recall getting really annoyed by adults who thought I should still believe in Santa Claus because they were scared that they could not scare me into behaving the way they wanted me to. It is pointless, and sometimes really insulting, to treat a young person as an idiot. That being said, sometimes people can't help seeing what they see and you can't sell them convenient bulldust. So where is the healthy balance? Adults are sometimes frightened of kids finding out things in case they can't keep their minds under control they way the want. But then some people pretend to know something, or think they know something, when they've only heard things from others and have not got a proper understanding at all. Then they can fail to see the good in things, or at least understand why they are like they are, and become too disillusioned for their own good. They lose hope of getting or seeing any good in life, at least without being ruthlessly self seeking. That can cripple a person, turning them coldly self centred because they don't believe anything else works. If kids take a bit longer to get their heads round adult understanding, that might give them a chance to adjust less abruptly. It can hurt sometimes to see how shocking the world really is, so let a person be ready for it without forcing it on them before they can cope. Does school really help people learn quickly or does it force them to develop superficially adult ways when they are not adult and don't really know what they are doing? Some people whose lives are very privileged by the standards of this world are the angriest, most bitter people on earth. Did they see too much too quickly, or get too much too easily, and become jaded rather than wise and informed? Too much hardship can stunt people, spoiling their development, that's why we forbid child labour. Can too much intellectual exposure, sustained too quickly, spoil a person's mind, so that they lose faith in life having had to deal with too much before they can cope? It can be dangerous to keep things from children or youth, when they are going to have to know certain things eventually. But it might also be dangerous to overload them, so that they are old in the head before they have had a chance to enjoy being young. School is a human invention, not a naturally occurring thing like the family or clan. Schools should not, I believe, supplant the family as the main source of child nurture. And sometimes it seems to be doing that, especially if apathetic parents find it convenient to let the school raise their offspring for them. Families should raise children. I can see why people are opting out of school for their children. It can be a bad place for some people, and it can start taking over what is not really its role. I would not propose to ban it, our own kids all went to school. But I can see where the home schooling movement comes from. I do not condemn it at all. For some people I believe it is better.

A delusion exposed.

The news recently reported that one of the pioneering 'gay marriage' couples have just broken up. I don't want to be unkind about people going through a relationship breakdown, because it hurts, but I'm thinking: after all the fanfare, all the fuss made about how legalising or legitimising homosexual marriage, the celebrity couple who got the limelight have come apart. Of course that happens to straight couples, too. We couldn't help hearing all about Kim Kardashian's marriage because it was everywhere in the media. And it lasted under a year. The thing that strikes me is the futility of it all. Advocates of same-sex partnerships being called marriage act as if this was a breakthrough into a golden age. All it does is expose the pointless claims made by people that they've found a great new way of running society, and it turns out to be no big deal at all. Another news item that struck me came from a column in The Sydney Morning Herald, in which the writer said: (paraphrased): Western society has had little success in recreating, or replacing, the institutions which have declined in the past few decades, the family and the churches, and people are left without a sense of solidarity or belonging to something which connects them and gives them a sense of self. People feel adrift and lost without these things, and the supposedly clever social pioneers who ridiculed them have not come up with anything better, so they've left a hole where there used to be solidity and security. It's more of the same. People claim they know a better way to run the world, and find they've made things worse by junking some of the things that people needed - such as stable family relationships, and the acknowledgement of God in people's lives and conduct. It's a lie, a hatful of humbug. The supposedly progressive ideas are a delusion, and we need to get back what we failed to appreciate when we had it: a society in which, to many people at least, God and His teachings were properly honoured and followed.

"If God did not exist..." (Heaven forbid!)

A philosopher once said, "If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him."
I think it was Voltaire. He knew what he was getting at!
The Global Atheists Convention has just been held in Melbourne, Australia. One columnist who attended it said that it had worked a miracle on him. He describes himself as agnostice, but as he put it, "I've never felt more like believing in God. Especially the Christian one." He feels that way because of the way the atheists behave. As he put it, without God "...there's not much to stop people in our society from behaving like barbarians."
It was the most perfect illustration of what the philosopher mentioned above, was getting at.
Certain things were said at the convention that were utterly discreditable to those who said them. One speaker described Joseph Ratzinger as ' "the Pope Nazi' ', when in fact that man was conscripted into the Hitler Youth, it did not require allegiance to Nazism to be a member.
We have a Senator in Australia named Steve Fielding, also a Christian, who was described by an atheist speaker as stupider than an "earthworm".Yet another speaker asked if there were any believers in the audience, and when some put up their hands he rejoined by saying that he would speak slowly (so that they could keep up with him!). In other words, there were brutish and slanderous insults aimed at Christians for being believers. The journalist reporting went into more detail, which any one reading this could check by going to the site www.dailytelegraph.com.au and reading the full text.
My point here is that in challenging the Christians, the atheists do not set an example of better behaviout than the Christians. The atheists resort to the sort of spite and malice that they have accused Christians of. Instead of disagreeing while respecting the rights of others to their views, it seems they wish to intimidate believers out of stating their beliefs. This while claiming to respect freedom of belief. Figure that out!
And the underlying concern is, that a universe without God would be such a vicious barbaric jungle that it would probably render itself extinct. Human beings do not behave better when they reject the idea of Divine Justice or punishment. They feel free to do just as they please! It's been said many times, when people think they can get away with anything they sometimes resort to utterly evil behaviour if it suits them. They would not dare to if they knew they would be named, shamed and punished.
William Golding wrote "Lord Of The Flies" about a group of highly civilized schoolboys from an advanced western culture, marooned without adult supervision or social restraint. They became barbarians, with a dictator, acts of murder and cruelty, and they set up a grotesque pagan god - the pig's head.
Joseph Conrad wrote "Heart Of Darkness" to show what happens when sophisticated people from an advanced culture are in the jungle without the restraint of their culture and its beliefs, including the influence of the Christian church. They become just as savage as the people they say need to be civilized.
I once heard human beings described as 'theotropic'. That means they have an inbuilt instinct to seek God. The only question is, which god will they choose. Centuries ago, when the Israelites were wandering in the wilderness, Moses left them for a few days and they pressured Aaron to make them a god - the golden calf. They wanted a god who was convenient, who they could make look like they wanted and which would be there when they demanded.
History reports that one society trying to get rid of the idea of god set up a statue of 'the goddess of reason.' They had to have a focus of worship that was outside themselves. So atheists don't live without a god, they make one of their own intellect, or the writings of people who say what they want to hear. Or as Paul put it, a god of their own stomach - broadly speaking, their own apetites and desires.
So it seems if you want to see why we need God, a good place to start looking for proof is among people who openly reject God. For examples from history, look at Stalin's regime in the then U.S.S.R. where practicing a faith was forbidden and Christians persecuted. Mao's regime in China likewise tried to drive out belief in God, and set up the party and its leader in place of Him. Hitler's Nazi regime was hostile to Christianity. That is why people like Martin Niemoller and Diederich Bonhoffer were persecuted. They stood up for Christianity in a state that did not want to tolerate it.
If God did not exist this universe wouldn't either, but the 'rationalists' insist that several chance accidents, each of odds at several million to one, made it happen. That is the most wild folly I've heard. But people relying on their own 'reason and intellect' stand there and say it.
I'm terribly thankful that God does exist, that He reaches out to us and we aren't left madly trying to make sense of life and find something to believe in. As Jesus said, 'the truth will set you free.' We're free from being duped and bullied by those who try telling us they know everything and we should do what they say.

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.

Professing themselves wise...

Cynicism can be a cheap imitation of wisdom. It means, by definition, to doubt the good of things. The cynic does not think critically and carefully like the sceptic, the cynic dismisses and derides things as worthless. The cynic may consider themselves too wise to be taken in and fooled into believing in anything. And the cynic may think themselves wise and yet become a fool.
To the cynic, anything uplifting or good cannot be true. For sure, sometimes it is necessary to look at things carefully so that we're not deceived. Satan is the arch deceiver. It ( I can't use a personal pronoun like 'he' for something so vile) had its first ever contact with God's children in the Garden of Eden by causing them to doubt God's Word. And the modern approach is to say 'How can a loving God let bad things happen?' etc. The answer is that God does not control us all like little puppets and a lot of the bad things that happen are the fault of humans who make or let them happen. They are not God's doing at all. And if God does not stop disasters like cyclones or earthquakes, that might be because humans choose to ignore Him. Also God does not promise a rose garden, He promises comfort and salvation. But the cynical approach of the 'enlightened intellectual' scorns the idea. They say it is too good to be true. They compare the idea of a loving God to the tooth fairy and Santa Claus. The cynic therefore will not afford themselves the joy that they could receive, and worse, they try to deny it to others.
To themselves, the cynics of this world are too clever to believe in such things. But if they were really so clever, they could see the awesomeness of God in the good things that do happen, even in the midst of the bad. Trouble is, that would be embarrassing to them. It seems clever to just rubbish it all.
So the cynic will let their own 'wisdom' stand between them and coming to know the living God. It is easier to be destructive and contemptuous because it excuses their own mean ungiving behaviour. One author I admire put it this way: "We cannot endure the goodness of God". (Glendon Swarthout in "Bless the Beast and Children."
So the cynic turns their face away from the wonder of God's love and grace, and thinks they are being clever to do that. As the Bible itself says, "Professing themselves wise they became fools."