GEORGE TEMPLETON
COMMENTARY
By George Templeton
Gazette Columnist
Terrorism
Fear
Jerry
Falwell, Jr., president of the Christian Liberty University, instructed
students to carry concealed weapons on campus. Sheriffs say that those
who can carry guns should. That way, terrorists will be afraid.
Gun
sales have skyrocketed, but will they lead to more violence? The ad in
the paper showed a loving heart emblazoned by the words, “guns save
lives”. It explained how guns are the linchpin of freedom and liberty
in America. It said that it is important to train students in
firearms. Many do not know that killing is not tidy. They do not know
about the penetrating capability of a 30 caliber full-metal jacketed
bullet or the explosive impact of a high-velocity hollow-point. They
could become afraid of themselves.
Terrorist
massacres intend to harm by provoking fear. They succeed when emotion
leads us to underestimate the consequences of our response. Fear
leads us to ignore our moral compass and deny sanctuary to refugees of
war. They give up their lives and livelihood to flee to an unfamiliar
and uncertain future. The have to pass UN and US interviews and
screening to prove that they are the best of their broken societies.
How likely is it that they will be terrorists?
Mosque
bombings confirm that what we fear is what we become. The Chinese have
a remedy. It is called Tai Chi. The yin-yang symbol, representing the
dynamic juxtaposition of courage and fear, describes it.
Courage
Is
a Christian’s life more valuable than a Muslim’s? Do you suppose that
terrorist sympathizers weep in admiration for suicide bombers as we do
for soldiers who die for our country? Courage
is bravely performing a selfless act for others. Does Donald Trump’s
embrace of torture seem moral? Is his proposal to execute the families
of terrorists courageous? Who will kill the baby? Does closing Muslim
immigration demonstrate courage?
Ted
Cruz said that he opposes legalization and an eventual path to
citizenship because immigrants might become Democrats. That takes
priority over breaking up families. Would Ted Cruz’s carpet bombing
blow Allah away? He emphasizes that the Islamic State is Islamic
religion forgetting about geography, history, culture, and politics.
Bombs won’t change the hearts of men.
Governor
Christy’s bold move to impose a no-fly zone over Syria and shoot down
Russian airplanes would lead to lots of boots on the ground. Pat
Robertson claimed that Islam is a political system masquerading as a
religion, but his God is Republican. Dallas mega-church Pastor Robert
Jeffress explains that Muhammad saw no angel. It was the devil leading
Muslims to hell. They are “evil”, and we are “good”. The only way we
can feel safe is to destroy them. It is not hate speech because it
comes from TV and radio religious dogma. It is disingenuous pride about
loving the sinner but hating the sin. Did the recent Planned
Parenthood assassin, the babies’ warrior, feel that it was O.K. to kill
as long as he did not have hate in his heart? Is God on our side, or
are we on God’s side?
Lies
demonizing American Muslims, claiming without evidence that they
engaged in demonstrations celebrating the 9-11 attack, should not be
tolerated. We should show empathy for those who are unjustly persecuted
because of a few extremists.
What do God and Allah Want?
According
to jihad, the will of Allah is not on our side. They fight to make his
word superior and his cause victorious. Children are taught to hate
and kill. Fundamentalists see the solution as a retreat to the old ways
that led to the fall of the Ottoman Empire.
In
America we can believe anything we want to, but that does not mean that
political religion, in the public square, should be given immunity from
debate. Will we start a war because the fallen other is intrinsically
evil and born in original sin? Does man have a built-in altruism that
responds to emergent reality, recognizing that situations differ? War
is worse than terrorism. It hurts the ones we love.
Would
divine instruction be enough to save an inexperienced future president,
who recognizes that conscience is not profit and power, but proudly
inflates his redemption? Instinct and intuition deny a direct line to
God, giving a simple solution. Obedience frees believers from
responsibility, but there is more to be considered. Politicians use
religion as a tool. In its breadth it becomes tenuous enough to argue
any view. There is a fine line between fundamentalism, extremism,
interpretation, and things that are “made up”.
Marco
Rubio would have creationism taught in public schools. Ted Cruz, chair
of the Senate Subcommittee on Space, Science, and Competitiveness,
lacks the mathematical sophistication necessary to deny global warming.
Ben Carson’s trust that God is in control is not enough. Astronomy
does not include the sun and moon stopping at the battle of Jericho.
Noah’s Ark can’t explain biological diversity. The flood doesn’t
explain geology. A president, who believes without evidence is less
likely to be receptive to nuances.
There
is a tension between critical thinking and religion. Doubt could lead
to eternal damnation. Would a loving creator doom billions simply
because they don’t “just believe”? When religion merges with politics,
“works” seem to matter. Should one’s world-view come from church
authority or by observing?
The
anti-authoritarian Protestant reformer, Martin Luther, revealed God’s
bewildering instruction: “If a woman who is fit for marriage has a
husband who is not … she should say to her husband … You are unable to
fulfill your conjugal duty toward me; in the sight of God there is no
real marriage between us. Grant me the privilege of contracting a
secret marriage with your brother or closest relative, and you retain
the title of husband”.
All
of God’s messages are personal, not to a government constrained to
punishment, revenge, and publicizing individual acts of altruism. Does
the Golden Rule apply only in the individual case? If you accept help
aren’t you lazy, and addicted?
The
ancient Greeks laid the foundation for how thinking can discriminate
between what is true or false. Logic proceeds from correct premises.
History shows that it becomes difficult when the unconstrained
supernatural is involved.
Predestined
The
emperor Constantine called the Council of Nica in 325 C. E. to resolve
theological controversy that had grown to the point of threatening the
stability of the State. It was agreed that Jesus was divine, but
exactly in what sense? The answer was beyond human understanding. It
said that the son of God always was, and forever would be identical with
God almighty and the Holy Spirit. They were different, but absolutely
the same and not nuances of anything else. Without that, monotheism
would have been violated and the “ultimate” necessary for the spread of
Christianity would have been lost. The Renaissance, the Enlightenment,
and Western Culture would not have come.
Rome
would not take responsibility. The Jews were held accountable by
religion merged with the power of the State. They were charged with
killing God. It is a serious offense. It immediately separated “us”
from “them”. Jews were estranged from God and eternally doomed to Hell,
so they were not allowed to build synagogues or even repair them.
Traditional
Catholic interpretations, until recently, justified anti-Semitism.
Fast forward 1600 years and the Jews would become Hitler’s scapegoat.
His concentration camps would kill millions of them. It was not until
2011 that Pope Benedict exonerated the Jews.
Was
history predetermined or predisposed? Some claim they are in God’s
book of the saved elect, written before the beginning of time. Grace
alone predetermines their fate, but predestination conflicts with free
will. There is a tension between omniscience, omnipotence, and man’s
choice. That everything is predetermined except sin seems unlikely. It
needs some give. But faith entails acts when religion is mixed with
politics. It cannot be private or irresponsible. It requires wisdom.
Wisdom
Plato
felt that wisdom comes from rejecting imperfect representations.
Wisdom embraces immaterial, perfect, unchanging ideas like the
geometrical circle.
A
preacher explained that wisdom is given only by God. Worldly wisdom is
Satanic. The concept is parallel to the second century Gnostic myth
that Wisdom was a divine being who gave birth to imperfect, malformed,
ignorant, and sometimes evil worldly gods. Others held that divine
attributes, called hypostases by scholars, were characteristics of God
that could exist apart from him.
The
dictionary defines wisdom as knowledge and learning including practical
judgment, insight, and common sense. But meaning is more than
definition. Blaise Pascal reminded us that “the heart has its reasons
which reason does not know.”
Absolutely Right
In
1952 Richard Wetherill, a business management specialist, formulated
creation’s law of absolute right, stating that right action gets right
results. Wrong results show that the natural law of behavior was
violated. All we have to do is obey creation’s plan of life with
rational and honest responses to whatever happens. If right action then
right results.
Right
results can be argued to prove right action. At its root, it is
ambiguous and self-referential. Is right true, just, expedient, or
optimum? We could think that the right results were because of the
right action though there could be other explanations. Business leaders
often point out that their success came after many failures. They kept
trying. Were the failures wrong or partly correct steps in a
successive approximation that finally hit the target? We have the
opportunity to learn, but when we don’t, it just comes back worse than
before.
Geometrical Truth
We
are all caught up in it in one way or another. We can imagine the
disorder of history as a jagged circle enclosing progress. Because
history is not always right, the perimeter meanders above and below its
arc. Over time, it develops like a saw blade with ever finer teeth. It
converges on the truth that it surrounds. Because of its noisy fine
structure, the perimeter can grow forever without limit, even though it
will always enclose a finite reality. Our lives are like that
trajectory. Though our understanding grows, our perception of the truth
is never complete.
No comments:
Post a Comment