A famous chilldrens' author stirred things up in Australia not long ago. She said that putting children into day-care from a very early age is a form of child abuse. This society will look back on it, she says, and wonder how the people of the time could do such a thing. Mem Fox is her name. She wrote a childrens' story called "Possum Magic". Predictably, some commentators went for her like attack dogs. She questioned one of the critical claims of feminism, namely, that there must be a way of having children without having to care for them all day yourself.
I know it's not for me to tell everyone else their conscience, but what she says seems right to me. The idea of having someone else effectively bring up your child for you is just like what aristocrats and wealthy people used to do in the past. They had nannies for them, and the parents got on with their elite society lives while a hired woman cared for and nurtured their children. So while people today despise the idle rich or unjustly privileged 'nobles' of the past, some of them are doing just the same thing that those people did: hiring others to raise their children.
Doing that can have unexpected consequences. There is a story about Winston Churchill, Britain's famous Prime Minister during World War 2. Young Winston was cared for by a nanny, like most children of his class. Years later, when his mother died, it hardly affected him, and he was appalled at himself for not feeling more grief. Then shortly afterwards his old nanny died, and then he grieved!
You see the point? Winston's attachment was to his nanny, not his natural mother. The reason was, his nanny had given him the moment-by-moment attention and mother-type love that a child needs. Hence, it was her he was bonded to.
This is an age when parents like to talk about giving their children everything. Yet something they don't always give is themselves, because they are too busy having 'careers'. I'm not just talking about mothers here, it goes for fathers too. Bringing home the pay packet is important, but so is being there for your children.
And here's another irony. Just as socialism is losing ground in the world, fewer nations call themselves communist or socialist and run their economies that way, a socialist idea is becoming widespread. A major socialist aim is to diminish the family as a focus of loyalty and attachment. Get people away from their families, and the influence of parents, because their allegiance should be to the state. The Marxists specifically critisize the family as a unit. If people draw support and comfort from their families, and are influenced by them, they are less attached to the state and less obedient to it. When the communist Khmer Rouge took power in Cambodia, one of the things they tried to do in 're-education' camps was sever children from their families. Since the socialist state wants the complete obedience and commitment of all the citizens, it gets very jealous if people put other people before the demands of their political leaders. Whether it's Mao, Stalin, Big Brother or any one else, the socialist-communist state wants to be Number One to all. And a person's attachment to their relations compromises that. A socialist objective is to get children away from their families as much as possible. It's best if they do most of their living outside the family and home. Hence it is a socialist approach to have early day-care, long day-care, preschool from an early age, and getting the school to do as much as possible for and with kids. That way they are away from home and parents, and (the socialist hopes) under the influence of adult instructors and supervisors who can direct their development. So how ironic that some of the most capitalistic anti-communist societies in the world are doing just the same: getting their children involved in things outside the home as early as possible and as much as possible. I can see exactly why some parents home-school their children. That way the kids know exactly where they belong, and who is there for them. That way parents can stop someone else from taking over their children and undermining the parents' values. I can see why the Christian churches run schools. They support the parents' beliefs, and teach children that there is something much bigger and better than 'the state' to put their trust in. (Thankfully!)
It's not for me to tell people their conscience. I know some people put their children in day care because they are struggling to support them, and need to work. But there could be something wildly and badly wrong with what some people in western society do with the very young. It is assumed, according to humanist/socialist theory, that a secular and materialistic approach to childcare is adequate. The future will show what the results are, but by then it could be too late.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Friday, October 24, 2008
By their words..
A columnist in Australia reports on some of the vitriol directed at Sarah Palin. I'm wondering if some of the hate-mongers who attack her know they are alienating people,
arousing sympathy for the ones they attack.
Since I don't live in the United States, it's not my place to say who the nation's elected leaders should be. That is for Americans to decide. What I'm talking about is the spite involved in a bumber sticker saying 'Abort Sarah Palin', or the comment from one Australian feminist that Sarah Palin was 'very, very dangerous. There's something wrong with her....she's post-feminist'. The point here is, the people who say that would no doubt insist that they support freedom of speech and belief; rights and freedoms for all; and then savagely attack those who exercise their freedom to believe something they disagree with. It's as stupid and obvious as a person calling themselves a vegan and then eating a beef-burger.It makes mockery and hypocrisy of the fine words they speak when they want to win friends and influence people. One feminist hard-liner was quoted as saying 'My head almost exploded from the incandescent anger boiling in my skull,' when hearing what Palin had to say.
The same sort of thing goes on in Australia. A certain Professor Wayne Sawyer apparently said that English teachers in Australia were not teaching critical thinking, because John Howard kept getting re-elected Prime Minister. In other words, he claims that anyone who thinks clearly would not vote for Howard's party. That is straight out argumentum ad hominem: attack the person instead of their argument. It is an intellectually dishonest way of contesting with someone. Rather than present arguments that rebutt their arguments, attack them personally. When being taught about flawed ways of contesting an argument, that was one of the classical examples shown to me. You can't beat their argument fairly, so attack them instead. A professor of English of all people should know that. And here's the irony. The people calling Sarah Palin dangerous are themselves dangerous. That they harbour such vicious spite against her for saying what she thinks, reflects on them. That a senior academic can forget all his own training to lash out at those he disagrees with, shows the frailty of human learning, and the unreliability of education as a way of making people 'good', whatever you consider that to be.
I've seen this before, too. The political left throw terms like "fascist" at people whose views are unlike their own. In so doing they exhibit a fascist attitude themselves: they deny freedom of thought and demand obedience to their own ideology, which is the classic tenet of fascism with its demand for complete obedience.
Some time ago now, I realized that one reason I looked to Christianity for answers was that the humans who most loudly claimed to be good were often the ones with the most hatred inside them. And there goes that irony again! A frequent attack directed at Christians is that they pretend to be better than they are. Nothing beats a 'progressive' political activist, with all their self-righteous claims to social conscience, for harbouring malice while claiming to care so much about humanity.
I've forgotten who it was who said: "If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him", but that says it all. When human beings try to run something relying entirely on their own wisdom and supposed goodness, the results are like disastrous. Feeling that they must get their own way, people resort to the bitterest rage when opposed. God and Jesus Christ be with us. We're doomed otherwise.
Speaking of words, which is the title of this post, here's an example of the misuse of language. A person is a traitor if they pretend to believe or do something, and then do another to attack those they pretended to side with. Sarah Palin has been called a traitor to women, by feminists (claiming to speak for ALL women, which is an arrogant presumption) because they say she is letting them down. Did she in fact ever claim to believe the things the feminists believe? Or was she always right upfront about what she believes? If so, she is NOT a traitor, she is an honest advocate of her own beliefs, which she has a perfect right to. Misuse of a term is the classic example of intellectual dishonesty - and betrayal of the principle that we should all speak the truth. The attackers are condemned out of their own mouths.
It must be a bitter disappointment to put your hopes in politics and politicians. They will always only be human. The more I hear angry people demanding my support or obedience, the more I know I can not trust or aid them.
arousing sympathy for the ones they attack.
Since I don't live in the United States, it's not my place to say who the nation's elected leaders should be. That is for Americans to decide. What I'm talking about is the spite involved in a bumber sticker saying 'Abort Sarah Palin', or the comment from one Australian feminist that Sarah Palin was 'very, very dangerous. There's something wrong with her....she's post-feminist'. The point here is, the people who say that would no doubt insist that they support freedom of speech and belief; rights and freedoms for all; and then savagely attack those who exercise their freedom to believe something they disagree with. It's as stupid and obvious as a person calling themselves a vegan and then eating a beef-burger.It makes mockery and hypocrisy of the fine words they speak when they want to win friends and influence people. One feminist hard-liner was quoted as saying 'My head almost exploded from the incandescent anger boiling in my skull,' when hearing what Palin had to say.
The same sort of thing goes on in Australia. A certain Professor Wayne Sawyer apparently said that English teachers in Australia were not teaching critical thinking, because John Howard kept getting re-elected Prime Minister. In other words, he claims that anyone who thinks clearly would not vote for Howard's party. That is straight out argumentum ad hominem: attack the person instead of their argument. It is an intellectually dishonest way of contesting with someone. Rather than present arguments that rebutt their arguments, attack them personally. When being taught about flawed ways of contesting an argument, that was one of the classical examples shown to me. You can't beat their argument fairly, so attack them instead. A professor of English of all people should know that. And here's the irony. The people calling Sarah Palin dangerous are themselves dangerous. That they harbour such vicious spite against her for saying what she thinks, reflects on them. That a senior academic can forget all his own training to lash out at those he disagrees with, shows the frailty of human learning, and the unreliability of education as a way of making people 'good', whatever you consider that to be.
I've seen this before, too. The political left throw terms like "fascist" at people whose views are unlike their own. In so doing they exhibit a fascist attitude themselves: they deny freedom of thought and demand obedience to their own ideology, which is the classic tenet of fascism with its demand for complete obedience.
Some time ago now, I realized that one reason I looked to Christianity for answers was that the humans who most loudly claimed to be good were often the ones with the most hatred inside them. And there goes that irony again! A frequent attack directed at Christians is that they pretend to be better than they are. Nothing beats a 'progressive' political activist, with all their self-righteous claims to social conscience, for harbouring malice while claiming to care so much about humanity.
I've forgotten who it was who said: "If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him", but that says it all. When human beings try to run something relying entirely on their own wisdom and supposed goodness, the results are like disastrous. Feeling that they must get their own way, people resort to the bitterest rage when opposed. God and Jesus Christ be with us. We're doomed otherwise.
Speaking of words, which is the title of this post, here's an example of the misuse of language. A person is a traitor if they pretend to believe or do something, and then do another to attack those they pretended to side with. Sarah Palin has been called a traitor to women, by feminists (claiming to speak for ALL women, which is an arrogant presumption) because they say she is letting them down. Did she in fact ever claim to believe the things the feminists believe? Or was she always right upfront about what she believes? If so, she is NOT a traitor, she is an honest advocate of her own beliefs, which she has a perfect right to. Misuse of a term is the classic example of intellectual dishonesty - and betrayal of the principle that we should all speak the truth. The attackers are condemned out of their own mouths.
It must be a bitter disappointment to put your hopes in politics and politicians. They will always only be human. The more I hear angry people demanding my support or obedience, the more I know I can not trust or aid them.
Thursday, October 9, 2008
Through a glass, darkly.
What some people call "girls behaving badly" was the theme of a T.V. documentary recently. The girls are called "ladettes" or "yobettes", because they carry on the way some young men do, and aim to beat the men at their own game. So the night out consists of having a lot to drink and carrying on with wild behaviour. Baring their breasts from a bus window, shouting out lewd comments and chanting 'let's get boozed and let's get laid' is all the go. When two of these girls are interviewed by the show's presenter, one of them tells us that she punched a hole in the house wall in rage when her mother refused to give her money to go out raging for the night. Another one, explaining why she does it, ends up in tears and admits "I'm in trouble. I need help". You can ask why is it that girls get critisised for behaving that way when boys are shown more tolerance. Excuses get made like "They're just sowing their wild oats" or "It's just youth" and more of that kind. The point here is that the girls are out to beat the boys at their own game. And they are suffering for it the way some boyss do.
Some of the girls, it emerges, have been badly treated by boys. So they get their own back. They can do it too. They can treat boys like disposable sex objects. Use someone like a chicken drumstick you buy at a fast food shop. Eat what you want and treat the left overs as garbage. They can get drunk and pick fights. They can trash everyone around them, and themselves. And if anyone complains they get ridiculed and attacked for being a puritan moralist who just resents anyone else having a "good time".
Then the other side of the picture involves. Some of them have started to suffer liver damage and brain damage from all the drinking. Some of them have been infected with STDs and they can't even remember where they contracted them. That happens with men too, of course. The issue is, some girls seem to think it's a good idea to copy them.
So that's how they want to prove something. It's how they get a sense of self. Girls set out to out do the boys, and don't stop to ask: who said the wild boys had the right idea about how to live? In both cases, the issue can be a lack of hope for anything better.
If you want to see the harm done by living purely for this world, there it is. To have an identity and a sense of self-worth, you have to show off and get the attention of others in the quickest and easiest way. The only value you place on yourself is the value other people seem to place on you. And some of those others only value what they can get some use of, or amusement from.
If people get their sense of worth from God, they do not need the approval of others. If someone really knows that God cares about them and values them, they do not have the same need to get social approval or prove something by making a reputation. So they are not so prone to damage themselves by trying to be the biggest rager of dare-devil in the world. And they might live longer that way.
That is easy to say. If you want human company and friendship, it's difficult not to try and get the attention and applause of other people. But then, which people do you want to get noticed by? If it's the 'fun crowd' who do all the raging, what happens if they also demand self-destructive or denigrating behaviour from you?
I've been there myself. This is not some wise old man who knows it all, it is a survivor of mistakes made in taking a foolish, misguided approach to life. But I was never so desperate that I would let other people gull me into making a complete wreck of myself. Even before actually becoming a Christian, I had some sense of a God who cared. There was something in the universe apart from blind chance and the approval of other human beings. That saved me from destoying myself.
One of the most miserable cases I heard of was this: a young man wanted in to a gang. Their rite of initiation was that you had to climb out of a train window; crawl across the roof of the train and back in by a window on the other side - while the train was moving. He tried to do it, fell and broke his neck. He is now quadraplegic. That was the price of trying to be part of the crowd he thought were cool. And zillions of people can comment about how foolish it was, and yet people still do it. Another case was a girl who became wildly promiscuous because she thought that was the only way to get boys to like her - or at least notice her. This is not news. People have known about this for centuries. Trouble is, it keeps happening.
So am I right in thinking that this happens when people do not have a sense of God caring? They think that impressing certain people is the only way to get a life? Or they think 'life's a bitch and then you die', so what's to be lost by taking chances?
For years the so-called 'liberated thinkers' have been trying to eliminate the influence of Christianity from the western world. The trouble is, they have nothing better to replace it with.
Some of the girls, it emerges, have been badly treated by boys. So they get their own back. They can do it too. They can treat boys like disposable sex objects. Use someone like a chicken drumstick you buy at a fast food shop. Eat what you want and treat the left overs as garbage. They can get drunk and pick fights. They can trash everyone around them, and themselves. And if anyone complains they get ridiculed and attacked for being a puritan moralist who just resents anyone else having a "good time".
Then the other side of the picture involves. Some of them have started to suffer liver damage and brain damage from all the drinking. Some of them have been infected with STDs and they can't even remember where they contracted them. That happens with men too, of course. The issue is, some girls seem to think it's a good idea to copy them.
So that's how they want to prove something. It's how they get a sense of self. Girls set out to out do the boys, and don't stop to ask: who said the wild boys had the right idea about how to live? In both cases, the issue can be a lack of hope for anything better.
If you want to see the harm done by living purely for this world, there it is. To have an identity and a sense of self-worth, you have to show off and get the attention of others in the quickest and easiest way. The only value you place on yourself is the value other people seem to place on you. And some of those others only value what they can get some use of, or amusement from.
If people get their sense of worth from God, they do not need the approval of others. If someone really knows that God cares about them and values them, they do not have the same need to get social approval or prove something by making a reputation. So they are not so prone to damage themselves by trying to be the biggest rager of dare-devil in the world. And they might live longer that way.
That is easy to say. If you want human company and friendship, it's difficult not to try and get the attention and applause of other people. But then, which people do you want to get noticed by? If it's the 'fun crowd' who do all the raging, what happens if they also demand self-destructive or denigrating behaviour from you?
I've been there myself. This is not some wise old man who knows it all, it is a survivor of mistakes made in taking a foolish, misguided approach to life. But I was never so desperate that I would let other people gull me into making a complete wreck of myself. Even before actually becoming a Christian, I had some sense of a God who cared. There was something in the universe apart from blind chance and the approval of other human beings. That saved me from destoying myself.
One of the most miserable cases I heard of was this: a young man wanted in to a gang. Their rite of initiation was that you had to climb out of a train window; crawl across the roof of the train and back in by a window on the other side - while the train was moving. He tried to do it, fell and broke his neck. He is now quadraplegic. That was the price of trying to be part of the crowd he thought were cool. And zillions of people can comment about how foolish it was, and yet people still do it. Another case was a girl who became wildly promiscuous because she thought that was the only way to get boys to like her - or at least notice her. This is not news. People have known about this for centuries. Trouble is, it keeps happening.
So am I right in thinking that this happens when people do not have a sense of God caring? They think that impressing certain people is the only way to get a life? Or they think 'life's a bitch and then you die', so what's to be lost by taking chances?
For years the so-called 'liberated thinkers' have been trying to eliminate the influence of Christianity from the western world. The trouble is, they have nothing better to replace it with.
Monday, September 29, 2008
Price or value?
A British churchman stated the opinion that pregnancy termination cheapens human life. I think he's completely right. If a child can be cut off from the living because the natural parents (or one of them) don't want that child to be born, the idea is that people are only allowed to live if someone else has a use for them. That idea can actually be a threat to everyone. If you believe that life is sacrosanct, then you would not assume the right to terminate the life of the unborn, or anyone else either. To accept the idea that it's okay to kill the unborn is to say that a life can only continue with the approval of others. From that point on it is value judgement who lives and who does not. Think about it. If you claim the right to end a life at all, then rather than seeing life as sacred in principle, you're imposing a valuation on it. Some can live, some cannot, depending on the approval of others. And that view of life can carry over into a loss of respect for human life generally.
Some years ago it made the national news when a crowd of street gang hoods bashed up a female jogger and nearly killed her. One of the gang, under arrest, said: "So what? She weren't nothing." He saw no value in that woman, so he had no remorse for attacking her. That is the bad attitude, whoever the woman was. In fact,she was a professional with skills and eductation, but she didn't matter to him. And the point is NOT that she mattered more for being a skilled professional, but that she is human and should not be treated that way. You could safely bet your life that gangster would care if someone he cared about was attacked. Whoever he values or cares about should be protected. And that is the problem. That is a classic example. He could risk killing someone he saw as "nothin'", while caring about his own. Life only mattered in some cases, not all. That attitude is reflected in saying that a child can be snuffed out because others do not accept their right to life.
I do know that pregnancy can cause shocking distress to the mother. The woman I love most in the world suffered through pregnancy, physically from sickness and emotionally from depression. And that is even in an intact marriage when the children were loved and wanted. It must be far worse when the pregnancy is not wanted. Right. So there are reasons why a woman could wish that it would end. I respect peoples' right to their feelings. But it is still true to say, sometimes a principle has to be suffered for. I could claim that I've done that myself. And the truth is not just what suits us anyway. So there we have it. If life is not inviolable, then there will be times when it will be taken by those who do not see the wrong in doing so. Killing the unborn because it suits others to do so is saying that life can be ended for the sake of others. If you go down that road, and it becomes the general attitude of a society, then the day could come when someone decides to kill you because they do not accept your absolute right to live. Talking of gang culture, one gang had as its condition of membership: 'Take a life, make a life.' To be in the gang the member had to kill someone and get a girl pregnant. The attitude is that you can put someone else out of the world and replace them with someone of your own 'making', in a sense. A world where too much of that happened would be a nightmare of murder and carnage. That extreme example is the same in principle as saying that some children may be born and others not.
There is the case of self-defence. But killing in self-defence is a desperate last resort, not a calculated decision to attack and slay someone else. Also in that situation the person who needs to be defended against is the cause of the problem for attacking in the first place. It is not the same as ending the life of someone helpless.
There is the case of euthenasia. I could understand why a person may wish to die if they are terminally ill and in pain and distress. If that is their decision I can't argue. The point there is, they are not imposing on anyone else. What they want to do applies to them only.
Who presumes the right to take away the life of anyone else? And if you claim that right, might someone claim it against you?
A human being has an identity right from conception. From that point on their gender is decided, as is their physical appearance and the inborn parts of their character. It is too self-serving to say they are not human because they have not been born. Life has started, and a lack of concern for its right to continue can carry over into a lack of respect for life of anyone at any time or place.
I respect the rights of others to their views. But that is how it seems, inescapeably, to me.
Some years ago it made the national news when a crowd of street gang hoods bashed up a female jogger and nearly killed her. One of the gang, under arrest, said: "So what? She weren't nothing." He saw no value in that woman, so he had no remorse for attacking her. That is the bad attitude, whoever the woman was. In fact,she was a professional with skills and eductation, but she didn't matter to him. And the point is NOT that she mattered more for being a skilled professional, but that she is human and should not be treated that way. You could safely bet your life that gangster would care if someone he cared about was attacked. Whoever he values or cares about should be protected. And that is the problem. That is a classic example. He could risk killing someone he saw as "nothin'", while caring about his own. Life only mattered in some cases, not all. That attitude is reflected in saying that a child can be snuffed out because others do not accept their right to life.
I do know that pregnancy can cause shocking distress to the mother. The woman I love most in the world suffered through pregnancy, physically from sickness and emotionally from depression. And that is even in an intact marriage when the children were loved and wanted. It must be far worse when the pregnancy is not wanted. Right. So there are reasons why a woman could wish that it would end. I respect peoples' right to their feelings. But it is still true to say, sometimes a principle has to be suffered for. I could claim that I've done that myself. And the truth is not just what suits us anyway. So there we have it. If life is not inviolable, then there will be times when it will be taken by those who do not see the wrong in doing so. Killing the unborn because it suits others to do so is saying that life can be ended for the sake of others. If you go down that road, and it becomes the general attitude of a society, then the day could come when someone decides to kill you because they do not accept your absolute right to live. Talking of gang culture, one gang had as its condition of membership: 'Take a life, make a life.' To be in the gang the member had to kill someone and get a girl pregnant. The attitude is that you can put someone else out of the world and replace them with someone of your own 'making', in a sense. A world where too much of that happened would be a nightmare of murder and carnage. That extreme example is the same in principle as saying that some children may be born and others not.
There is the case of self-defence. But killing in self-defence is a desperate last resort, not a calculated decision to attack and slay someone else. Also in that situation the person who needs to be defended against is the cause of the problem for attacking in the first place. It is not the same as ending the life of someone helpless.
There is the case of euthenasia. I could understand why a person may wish to die if they are terminally ill and in pain and distress. If that is their decision I can't argue. The point there is, they are not imposing on anyone else. What they want to do applies to them only.
Who presumes the right to take away the life of anyone else? And if you claim that right, might someone claim it against you?
A human being has an identity right from conception. From that point on their gender is decided, as is their physical appearance and the inborn parts of their character. It is too self-serving to say they are not human because they have not been born. Life has started, and a lack of concern for its right to continue can carry over into a lack of respect for life of anyone at any time or place.
I respect the rights of others to their views. But that is how it seems, inescapeably, to me.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Renewal.
Featured in a television interview was a woman named Bettina Goering. If you recognize the name, you're quite right. Bettina Goering the grand niece of Hermann Goering, one of Hitler's henchmen and a leader of the Nazi government that did so much evil during World War 2. She talked herself about being of 'the bloodline of murderers.' In some ways the tone of the documentary is optimistic, because she is engaging in conciliatory dealings with a Jewish woman, helping to undo the cruel things done by her great uncle among other. But the point that struck me was what she said about herself, being related to someone who did such evil. It was as if that reflected on her. I don't believe that is fair, when those things happened before she was even born.
It can be right to learn from the misdeeds of the past. But it can be horribly wrong to condemn whole families for them.
Where this leads for me is, blaming a person for where they come from, or any other circumstances of their conception. Years ago I heard a debate about 'termination' of pregnancies. One speaker suggested that they could understand a woman choosing it if she was pregnant as a result of rape. Now I know that I can't dictate conscience to a woman who has suffered a horror like that. I'm not going to claim that I can understand another person's situation when I've never been in it, and never can be. What I do have to say is this: you cannot blame a child for the circumstances of their conception, just as you can't blame them for their relatives.
Someone once said a thing that struck me as quite shocking at the time - but it is actually quite true.
They said that any one or all of us could be living today because of an act of rape. Any or all of us could be descended from some utter monster. In either case, we cannot be blamed, and condemned, for the ancestry we come from or any other circumstance of our conception.
Does that sound shocking? Is it an insult to our parents to suggest it? No, not necessarily. Consider this.
Any human being draws their existence and identity from EVERY ancestor we have. It works thus: Obviously if our parents had never met, or something was different in the past from what is was, we would not have been conceived. And the same applies to our grandparents, and so on back as far as the human race goes. If someone travelled in time and intervened in the life of our great-great-great grandparents, so that they did not have the child they did have, then the whole line of descent would change from there down. If you could change history back as far as Emperor Claudius of Rome, and disrupt the relationship between two people such that one of their children was not born after all, then the entire line of descent from that point down through the centuries would alter. Thousands of people who do exist would not. Others might exist in their place. And that could eliminate the existence of any one of us.
Now calculate the number of your ancestors. We have two parents, four grandparents, eight great grandparents... and even allowing for marriage or child bearing between relatives like cousins, which can reduce the number, our ancestors number millions. To check that, simply keep multiplying two by two. Ten generations back we each have 1024 direct ancestors - and our identity comes inseparably from every one of them. Ten generations, at three or four each century, only goes back to the times of Queen Elizabeth 1 of England, William Shakespeare, the early European settlements in what was then called 'the Americas'. Now keep going back to the times of Queen Cleopatra of Egypt, Julius Caesar. The number reaches millions.
What could there be among all those ancestors who yielded our existence? If one person in every million is conceived in an act of rape, the probability is that we have several such ancestors. And what sort of people could be included among them?
This is the risk you run if you research your family tree. It's a natural thing to do; but it can turn up some things that are less than flattering. Back in the 'Dark Ages', a vile barbarian raiding a village might have committed some abomination on a female villager, and from thence came the line of descent which led to ...me? How do I know where I came from? And if it came to light that a great humanitarian, or someone you love, was descended only three generations back, from an act of rape, incest, prostitution, are you going to condemn them for that?
Now look at something that might change the whole view of it. When the Israelites were taking the city of Jericho, they had help from a woman named Rahab. Rabab was a 'harlot', a prostitute. In a city alread squalid and corrupt, she was one of the least respected. And yet it is recorded that she became an ancestress of the Messiah, in that one of His human parents descended from her.
We can't know who all our ancestors are. We can't know what unloveable acts might have led to the bloodline that we're descended from. We CAN know that we each have a human identity that comes from God.
The saying goes that "God has no grandchildren". That means we each can call ourselves His children, with no generational separation - and we have our lives from Him. We need not feel blighted by what is in our human ancestry. If it turns out to be something we can't be proud of, that shows no-one need be proud and count themselves better born that others. Our worth lies in our being beloved of God, not what we do ourselves, not the forebears we might claim. And no-one need be condemned for which humans they are descended from. God can renew any and everyone, and make them what He knows they can be.
It can be right to learn from the misdeeds of the past. But it can be horribly wrong to condemn whole families for them.
Where this leads for me is, blaming a person for where they come from, or any other circumstances of their conception. Years ago I heard a debate about 'termination' of pregnancies. One speaker suggested that they could understand a woman choosing it if she was pregnant as a result of rape. Now I know that I can't dictate conscience to a woman who has suffered a horror like that. I'm not going to claim that I can understand another person's situation when I've never been in it, and never can be. What I do have to say is this: you cannot blame a child for the circumstances of their conception, just as you can't blame them for their relatives.
Someone once said a thing that struck me as quite shocking at the time - but it is actually quite true.
They said that any one or all of us could be living today because of an act of rape. Any or all of us could be descended from some utter monster. In either case, we cannot be blamed, and condemned, for the ancestry we come from or any other circumstance of our conception.
Does that sound shocking? Is it an insult to our parents to suggest it? No, not necessarily. Consider this.
Any human being draws their existence and identity from EVERY ancestor we have. It works thus: Obviously if our parents had never met, or something was different in the past from what is was, we would not have been conceived. And the same applies to our grandparents, and so on back as far as the human race goes. If someone travelled in time and intervened in the life of our great-great-great grandparents, so that they did not have the child they did have, then the whole line of descent would change from there down. If you could change history back as far as Emperor Claudius of Rome, and disrupt the relationship between two people such that one of their children was not born after all, then the entire line of descent from that point down through the centuries would alter. Thousands of people who do exist would not. Others might exist in their place. And that could eliminate the existence of any one of us.
Now calculate the number of your ancestors. We have two parents, four grandparents, eight great grandparents... and even allowing for marriage or child bearing between relatives like cousins, which can reduce the number, our ancestors number millions. To check that, simply keep multiplying two by two. Ten generations back we each have 1024 direct ancestors - and our identity comes inseparably from every one of them. Ten generations, at three or four each century, only goes back to the times of Queen Elizabeth 1 of England, William Shakespeare, the early European settlements in what was then called 'the Americas'. Now keep going back to the times of Queen Cleopatra of Egypt, Julius Caesar. The number reaches millions.
What could there be among all those ancestors who yielded our existence? If one person in every million is conceived in an act of rape, the probability is that we have several such ancestors. And what sort of people could be included among them?
This is the risk you run if you research your family tree. It's a natural thing to do; but it can turn up some things that are less than flattering. Back in the 'Dark Ages', a vile barbarian raiding a village might have committed some abomination on a female villager, and from thence came the line of descent which led to ...me? How do I know where I came from? And if it came to light that a great humanitarian, or someone you love, was descended only three generations back, from an act of rape, incest, prostitution, are you going to condemn them for that?
Now look at something that might change the whole view of it. When the Israelites were taking the city of Jericho, they had help from a woman named Rahab. Rabab was a 'harlot', a prostitute. In a city alread squalid and corrupt, she was one of the least respected. And yet it is recorded that she became an ancestress of the Messiah, in that one of His human parents descended from her.
We can't know who all our ancestors are. We can't know what unloveable acts might have led to the bloodline that we're descended from. We CAN know that we each have a human identity that comes from God.
The saying goes that "God has no grandchildren". That means we each can call ourselves His children, with no generational separation - and we have our lives from Him. We need not feel blighted by what is in our human ancestry. If it turns out to be something we can't be proud of, that shows no-one need be proud and count themselves better born that others. Our worth lies in our being beloved of God, not what we do ourselves, not the forebears we might claim. And no-one need be condemned for which humans they are descended from. God can renew any and everyone, and make them what He knows they can be.
Monday, September 15, 2008
The grim stealer-further.
I don't know if people would want to talk about this. Sometimes it helps - each to their own. When I got caught in the grip of depression, it lead to some quite bizarre forms of empathy.
I can imagine myself in situations quite unlike the real life I lead. For example: I used to dwell on what it would be like for a slave: someone abducted, sold into bondage, and forced to do whatever the person who 'owned' me chose, no matter how exhausting, demeaning or hateful. It could break the spirit. And the bitter reality is that human creatures have had to live that way. That thought used to impose on my mind and become a morbid obsession which I could not shake off. Other times the situation on my mind was that of a person whose marriage breaks up, and who loses their home, their contact with children, and who suffers a blow to the heart that can leave them psychologically winded and flattened. It is how some people find themselves derelict, living on the street. Another scenario was being left seriously disabled. If you've seen that film "Born On The Fourth Of July", in which the soldier is left paralysed, you might remember the line: "Who's going to love me?" in the sense of making a marriage with him. It could be derided as self pity if you were callous enough to deny the sheer pain expressed in that comment. The point being, what a shocking and heart-breaking thing to happen to someone. And I would go on and on beating myself up imagining things like this, and descend in a black pit of despair at the thought of it. I can think of just one positive: it was a way of sharing to some extent in the hurt and suffering of others, which is what a human should sometimes do if they are going to call themselves a caring member of the race.
The danger lies in the feeling so overwhelming you that you go down yourself. I do not believe I was ever dangerous to anyone except myself. It would not have been my reaction to go mad and kill my family or some pure horror like that. What did happen, which was scary, was that I became careless of danger. On a really bad morning, driving to work so bleak that I hardly knew what I was doing, I nearly caused a serious accident. I pulled out of an intersection in the path of a truck, which only narrowly missed a collision. The driver yelled wildly at me, I heard it because the two vehicles passed so close; and it was a reminder that I was putting stress on others. That truck driver did not deserve the trauma of being involved in a major, possibly fatal, accident. So I needed to get a grip and think of others. The condition is much improved now because I'm out of the job that was driving me over the edge; and because the doctor found an anti-depressant medication that works for me. But the entire experience was shocking. It was impossible not to feel bitter and bleak about everything. What I might have done without the help of God is desert my family, run off somewhere trying to escape the misery, thinking that somehow I would find a new and better life somewhere else. It would not have worked. There would have been too much hurt to the ones I abandoned. Knowing that would have spoilt any attempt to be happy somewhere else. Now that the foulest moments are past,
I'm seriously thankful I didn't lose it to that extent, or let myself give in to selfishness. And yet the thing can blind you to reason sometimes. The 'grim stealer' can lacerate your mind and distort your perceptions, horribly. Another odd reaction was that I used to want to eat things I normally never touch, like licorice. Then there were the night sweats, as if I had a high fever; and the nightmares, the worst of them literally sickening. The thing I need to be glad of is that I was got past it. Last night's T.V. viewing narrated the suicide of a teenage girl who could not get past it. That's another bitter theft: a bright young life stolen. I wish that I could do something like the ghosts of Christmas past, Christmas present and Christmas yet to come in "A Christmas Carol". It would involve taking people on a journey, showing them what can happen if....and showing them that there will be better times ahead, if they wait it out. The wretched thing is, the victim can lose hope. It can be a huge rescue operation if instead they can be sustained until they get past it. Effective medication is a God-given life saver. It can also make the critical difference if the sufferer knows that other people understand and care. Happily for me I had a family and friends, and congregation members, who did understand. But some people, including some I worked with, could only make futile cliched comments about 'trying to get your mind on better things' or ( I got to hate this one!) 'implementing strategies to counteract it'. (Useless!)
Every age seems to have a particular scourge that afflicts it. The list would be too long to compile here, but some examples are the plagues that hit the world in the Fourteenth Century - bubonic plague, which killed a third of the people between India and Iceland. The rest of the world was then unknown to European chroniclers. We can't know what happened there. There were appalling wars which ravaged entire populations, as well. Historians and commentators have said much about them. One particular blight of the late Twentieth and early Twenty First Centuries is clinical depression - the grim stealer which can leach the will to live out of the human heart. I owe a debt of gratitude to friends and loved ones who helped me through it, and to Christian faith. Without that, I could have lost any sense of hope and the will to fight on through it. It is easy to see why that old fable has Satan gloating that depression is one of the deadliest weapons.
I should finish by saying: anyone who has been there for a depression sufferer, and aided them in getting through it, has done a fine thing that could have saved a life. May God commend you for caring.
I can imagine myself in situations quite unlike the real life I lead. For example: I used to dwell on what it would be like for a slave: someone abducted, sold into bondage, and forced to do whatever the person who 'owned' me chose, no matter how exhausting, demeaning or hateful. It could break the spirit. And the bitter reality is that human creatures have had to live that way. That thought used to impose on my mind and become a morbid obsession which I could not shake off. Other times the situation on my mind was that of a person whose marriage breaks up, and who loses their home, their contact with children, and who suffers a blow to the heart that can leave them psychologically winded and flattened. It is how some people find themselves derelict, living on the street. Another scenario was being left seriously disabled. If you've seen that film "Born On The Fourth Of July", in which the soldier is left paralysed, you might remember the line: "Who's going to love me?" in the sense of making a marriage with him. It could be derided as self pity if you were callous enough to deny the sheer pain expressed in that comment. The point being, what a shocking and heart-breaking thing to happen to someone. And I would go on and on beating myself up imagining things like this, and descend in a black pit of despair at the thought of it. I can think of just one positive: it was a way of sharing to some extent in the hurt and suffering of others, which is what a human should sometimes do if they are going to call themselves a caring member of the race.
The danger lies in the feeling so overwhelming you that you go down yourself. I do not believe I was ever dangerous to anyone except myself. It would not have been my reaction to go mad and kill my family or some pure horror like that. What did happen, which was scary, was that I became careless of danger. On a really bad morning, driving to work so bleak that I hardly knew what I was doing, I nearly caused a serious accident. I pulled out of an intersection in the path of a truck, which only narrowly missed a collision. The driver yelled wildly at me, I heard it because the two vehicles passed so close; and it was a reminder that I was putting stress on others. That truck driver did not deserve the trauma of being involved in a major, possibly fatal, accident. So I needed to get a grip and think of others. The condition is much improved now because I'm out of the job that was driving me over the edge; and because the doctor found an anti-depressant medication that works for me. But the entire experience was shocking. It was impossible not to feel bitter and bleak about everything. What I might have done without the help of God is desert my family, run off somewhere trying to escape the misery, thinking that somehow I would find a new and better life somewhere else. It would not have worked. There would have been too much hurt to the ones I abandoned. Knowing that would have spoilt any attempt to be happy somewhere else. Now that the foulest moments are past,
I'm seriously thankful I didn't lose it to that extent, or let myself give in to selfishness. And yet the thing can blind you to reason sometimes. The 'grim stealer' can lacerate your mind and distort your perceptions, horribly. Another odd reaction was that I used to want to eat things I normally never touch, like licorice. Then there were the night sweats, as if I had a high fever; and the nightmares, the worst of them literally sickening. The thing I need to be glad of is that I was got past it. Last night's T.V. viewing narrated the suicide of a teenage girl who could not get past it. That's another bitter theft: a bright young life stolen. I wish that I could do something like the ghosts of Christmas past, Christmas present and Christmas yet to come in "A Christmas Carol". It would involve taking people on a journey, showing them what can happen if....and showing them that there will be better times ahead, if they wait it out. The wretched thing is, the victim can lose hope. It can be a huge rescue operation if instead they can be sustained until they get past it. Effective medication is a God-given life saver. It can also make the critical difference if the sufferer knows that other people understand and care. Happily for me I had a family and friends, and congregation members, who did understand. But some people, including some I worked with, could only make futile cliched comments about 'trying to get your mind on better things' or ( I got to hate this one!) 'implementing strategies to counteract it'. (Useless!)
Every age seems to have a particular scourge that afflicts it. The list would be too long to compile here, but some examples are the plagues that hit the world in the Fourteenth Century - bubonic plague, which killed a third of the people between India and Iceland. The rest of the world was then unknown to European chroniclers. We can't know what happened there. There were appalling wars which ravaged entire populations, as well. Historians and commentators have said much about them. One particular blight of the late Twentieth and early Twenty First Centuries is clinical depression - the grim stealer which can leach the will to live out of the human heart. I owe a debt of gratitude to friends and loved ones who helped me through it, and to Christian faith. Without that, I could have lost any sense of hope and the will to fight on through it. It is easy to see why that old fable has Satan gloating that depression is one of the deadliest weapons.
I should finish by saying: anyone who has been there for a depression sufferer, and aided them in getting through it, has done a fine thing that could have saved a life. May God commend you for caring.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Where the power is.
Soldiering has been described as the world's oldest profession. That may not be true. Farming might predate it. But then it depends on what you describe as a profession. True it is though that conflict between humans has existed since the beginning of the human race. The first murder in Biblical history happened in the first generation to be born, when Cain killed Abel. As soon as human beings grew in numbers enough, the individual quarrel grew into a group quarrel. Soldiering itself, the bearing of arms, may serve the noble purpose of protecting those who need it. It is not in itself a bad thing. The issue lies in what is done by soldiers, and why. Watching the events of the world, one of the most enduring things in human history is warfare. In some cases, the background to a conflict can seem to be perfectly ridiculous. That is why Jonathon Swift wrote "Gulliver's Travels" about the peoples of Lilliput going to war over which end you should open an egg. It is just about that stupid sometimes! As we sit here now, there is centuries old bitterness between the Protestant and Catholic communities in Ireland; and every so often someone stirs the pot by celebrating the victory in the Battle Of The Boyne, which was fought in - wait for it - 1690! Over three hundred years, and the feelings are still kept alive. That's not even the worst I've heard. Conflict between the Albanians and Serbs in the province of Kosovar links to a battle which was fought in the 1400s (or was that the 1300s?)
There is a traditional emnity between the Greeks and Turks, dating from a time when Turkey held Greece as part of its empire. And this list could go on.
Stopping a fight is almost like finding the foot of a rainbow. No matter how near you seem to get it's always further off. So blood keeps getting shed, between people who've never personally quarrelled at all, because of what started between the distant ancestors. You can see the problem in microcosm when there is a quarrel or fight between two individual people. Each one feels that they have to get back at the other for something the other did; and each time they get their own back, the other person then has to get square for that; and so it can go on forever.
The only way to stop it is for both parties to agree to stop right there; and that means one side has to let the other get away with the last hit. All this is obvious. I'm not saying anything amazingly deep pointing that out.
The key to it is: someone has to agree not to retaliate, but to forgive. That can be terribly hard when you see cause to be bitter and angry about the hurt done, especially if it involves lives lost and vile cruelties carried out. I know that even from my own relatively safe life. But the inescapeable truth here is that you can only have peace either when both sides have been bled dry, or when they decide to forgive and end it that way.
To some people this is weak talk. They would say that it is cowardly to run away from a fight. And I know myself sometimes the only way to survive, and protect others, IS to fight - defensively. I've done some military service. There may well be a need to take up arms. But sometimes the braver thing may be to find a peaceful way, because the very thing we want to save may be lost otherwise. Now consider this:
if there had been more conciliation, and forgiveness, after the First World War, it is possible the Second World War might have been avoided. Look at the histories written on the subject. At the end of WW 1, those nations on the defeated side were treated very harshly. Some of what was done might have been well and good, but Germany in particular suffered by the Treaty Of Versailles which ended that war; and the seeds were sown in that for World War 2: Germany, among others, regaining national pride.
That is a macro example. Micro examples can be seen in disputes and feuds between individuals. Conflict goes on because one or both, or all sides, will not forgive. People may underestimate the depth of Christian teachings and precepts. They are not just nice things to make life happier and safer for wimps. Lives by the hundreds may depend on them. Forgiving those who offend you does not have to be a forfeiture of your rights. It can be a way to stop a wretched bloodbath that will blight the lives of dozens, or thousands, even those you most care about. The Nazi leaders who led Germany into W.W. 2 managed to bring destruction on the things they loved most: their nation and its people.
Forgiveness does not preclude legitimate justice. If the hunt for Nazi war criminals, or other war criminals such as those from the Yugoslavian war continue, fair thing. People should not feel they can get away with abominations. But the exercise of justice is not the same as revenge, which begets revenge in turn, and becomes vendetta.
The Bible's teachings are more profound than some people ever realize. They are not the easy way out for wimps. They are the way to save everything worth saving.
There is a traditional emnity between the Greeks and Turks, dating from a time when Turkey held Greece as part of its empire. And this list could go on.
Stopping a fight is almost like finding the foot of a rainbow. No matter how near you seem to get it's always further off. So blood keeps getting shed, between people who've never personally quarrelled at all, because of what started between the distant ancestors. You can see the problem in microcosm when there is a quarrel or fight between two individual people. Each one feels that they have to get back at the other for something the other did; and each time they get their own back, the other person then has to get square for that; and so it can go on forever.
The only way to stop it is for both parties to agree to stop right there; and that means one side has to let the other get away with the last hit. All this is obvious. I'm not saying anything amazingly deep pointing that out.
The key to it is: someone has to agree not to retaliate, but to forgive. That can be terribly hard when you see cause to be bitter and angry about the hurt done, especially if it involves lives lost and vile cruelties carried out. I know that even from my own relatively safe life. But the inescapeable truth here is that you can only have peace either when both sides have been bled dry, or when they decide to forgive and end it that way.
To some people this is weak talk. They would say that it is cowardly to run away from a fight. And I know myself sometimes the only way to survive, and protect others, IS to fight - defensively. I've done some military service. There may well be a need to take up arms. But sometimes the braver thing may be to find a peaceful way, because the very thing we want to save may be lost otherwise. Now consider this:
if there had been more conciliation, and forgiveness, after the First World War, it is possible the Second World War might have been avoided. Look at the histories written on the subject. At the end of WW 1, those nations on the defeated side were treated very harshly. Some of what was done might have been well and good, but Germany in particular suffered by the Treaty Of Versailles which ended that war; and the seeds were sown in that for World War 2: Germany, among others, regaining national pride.
That is a macro example. Micro examples can be seen in disputes and feuds between individuals. Conflict goes on because one or both, or all sides, will not forgive. People may underestimate the depth of Christian teachings and precepts. They are not just nice things to make life happier and safer for wimps. Lives by the hundreds may depend on them. Forgiving those who offend you does not have to be a forfeiture of your rights. It can be a way to stop a wretched bloodbath that will blight the lives of dozens, or thousands, even those you most care about. The Nazi leaders who led Germany into W.W. 2 managed to bring destruction on the things they loved most: their nation and its people.
Forgiveness does not preclude legitimate justice. If the hunt for Nazi war criminals, or other war criminals such as those from the Yugoslavian war continue, fair thing. People should not feel they can get away with abominations. But the exercise of justice is not the same as revenge, which begets revenge in turn, and becomes vendetta.
The Bible's teachings are more profound than some people ever realize. They are not the easy way out for wimps. They are the way to save everything worth saving.
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