Kreitsauce's Musings

Prejudice is inescapable, and moreover it is necessary. Oh, I know the word has a very negative connotation these days, and rest assured that I’m not trying to cast a positive light on discrimination or injustice. What I mean here is that there will always be- indeed must be- preconceived notions out there. In fact, the truth is that eradicating one preconceived idea (prejudice) will only result in another preconceived idea gripping a society. Once, it was the prejudice of a society that it was wrong for an unmarried woman to get pregnant. While one might point to various religions and cultures as the basis for such a belief, it could hardly be said that any one institution was responsible. Society has now moved onward to the prejudice that there is nothing wrong with an unmarried woman getting pregnant. Once again, no one institution or belief system can claim responsibility here, because the majority of people in America did not reach this conclusion after a thorough study of the issue. Most people simply assumed that because it wasn’t illegal, it wasn’t their business. Tada! Prejudice! Humans are wired for it! The prejudice some Americans held against minorities is giving way to a prejudice in favor of minorities. Prejudice is universal, so it becomes not a question of whether or not to be prejudiced, but rather which prejudices are appropriate and right.

I’m going to make an assertion that will seem a little harsh to some. I believe- very strongly- that it is absolutely cruel not to instill prejudices in young people. Young people need to be instilled with useful prejudices that will help them throughout life. It is good, right, kind, decent, and sensible to impart wisdom to the next generation. Young people need to know what is right and wrong, what is wise and unwise. They need to be taught principles (literally “first things” ….prejudices) for living life. They need to be taught how to make decisions about friends, love, jobs, colleges, budgeting, and morals. Christianity (and, in fact, most religions, since those with common sense are often the deeply religious) has been an advocate of instilling children with Truth since its very inception.

Yet we live in a world that desires to escape the conventional prejudices that made up a decent society. Yet, escaping the conventional becomes a convention in itself. New prejudices are formed, and everyone is encouraged to accept these “radical” new ideas. Of course, these ideas turn out to be neither new nor radical, but actually detrimental to society. Marriage, love, and family are constantly being redefined, to the detriment of our society. In the end, it turns out that mankind is inclined to the same tired temptations that we have been subject to for millennia. There truly is nothing new under the sun…

Personally, I prefer Wesley’s original lyrics to the version currently in our hymnals:

Hark, how all the welkin rings,
“Glory to the King of kings;
Peace on earth, and mercy mild,
God and sinners reconciled!”

Joyful, all ye nations, rise,
Join the triumph of the skies;
Universal nature say,
“Christ the Lord is born to-day!”

Christ, by highest Heaven ador’d,
Christ, the everlasting Lord:
Late in time behold him come,
Offspring of a Virgin’s womb!

Veiled in flesh, the Godhead see,
Hail the incarnate deity!
Pleased as man with men to dwell,
Jesus! Our Immanuel!

Hail, the heavenly Prince of Peace!
Hail, the Sun of Righteousness!
Light and life to all he brings,
Risen with healing in his wings.

Mild He lays his glory by,
Born that man no more may die;
Born to raise the sons of earth;
Born to give them second birth.

Come, Desire of nations, come,
Fix in us thy humble home;
Rise, the woman’s conquering seed,
Bruise in us the serpent’s head.

Now display thy saving power,
Ruined nature now restore;
Now in mystic union join
Thine to ours, and ours to thine.

Adam’s likeness, Lord, efface;
Stamp Thy image in its place.
Second Adam from above,
Reinstate us in thy love.

Let us Thee, though lost, regain,
Thee, the life, the inner Man:
O! to all thyself impart,
Form’d in each believing heart.

Here’s an interesting video interviewing Matt Redman about the feminization of modern worship. The discussion is interesting to me in light of posts that I and others have written on the subject. Have a listen at this, and then check out my devotional blog, Genesis6, for more on the subject of the “wussification” of Christianity…

So what? They may have advanced degrees in every “ology” on the planet. They may use words that baffle the everyday American citizen. They may even have won a nobel prize or published numerous books and peer-reviewed articles on some obscure area of scientific knowledge. In no way, however, does that make them authoritative when it comes to Christianity. A scientist’s thoughts on Christianity carry about as much weight as my predictions on the next big golf tournament. (Which, since I hate golf passionately and am admittedly ignorant of the sport, doesn’t count for much.) I’m not saying you have to be an expert on theology to make a call as to whether or not God exists, but I am saying that if the Scientific American decides to talk about why God doesn’t exist, I’m not going to question my faith. Skill in one area doesn’t mean a person is skilled or intelligent in another field of study. Scientists are humans, and humans are biased. Even scientists.

Dawkins is free to write a book about religion, but he’s out of his league. His book doesn’t carry weight simply because he’s a scientists. If Dawkins chooses atheism, that is not his scientific conclusion about the world. That is his opinion. We need to search for truth beyond opinion. Either God exists or He doesn’t, but we cannot discover Him through scientific means. As I said before in an earlier posting (which is also admittedly a rant), science is the wrong tool for the job of discovering spiritual truth. Scientific truth may dovetail with spiritual truth, but scientific searching alone does not lead us to Him, nor can it rule out his existence.

I was reading through Scientific American’s website and came across this gem: http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=darwins-missing-evidence .

Apparently someone is either dishonest or ignorant. What the author describes is microevolution (also know as adaptation) not macroevolution. The moth didn’t change species or give rise to a new species. It’s still a moth. You wouldn’t know it from the way the article drones on and on, though.

It’s sad, really….

I felt I needed to point out Hitchens’ perspective on theistic evolution, for in this one area his thoughts and mine actually somehow dovetail. Here’s what he has to say on page 85 of his book:

The very magnificence and variety of the process [of evolution], they now wish to say, argues for a directing and originating mind. In this way they choose to make a fumbling fool of their pretended god, and make him out to be a tinkerer, an approximator, and a blunderer, who took eons of time to fashion a few serviceable figures and heaped up a junkyard of scrap and failure meanwhile. Have they no more respect for the deity than that?

Amazing! Hitchens gets what liberal Christians and those who are overeager to blend Darwinism and Christianity apparently fail to get! Now, if someone could just convert the man…

While my previous posts have emphasized the gross distortion of facts concerning the Galileo “incident”, the Inquisition, the Salem Witch Trials, etc., I want to now turn to atheism and its effects. Atheism is considered a belief system because it posits, without evidence, that God does not exist. It must be taken on faith in philosophy alone. The last century saw the rise of powerful atheist regimes in Russia, China, Germany, among others. Stalin’s Communist regime was responsible for the deaths of around 20 million people. Mao Zedong’s regime was responsible for around 70 million. Strangely enough, Hitler “lags behind” his fellow atheist’s regimes by “only” murdering 10 million people, 60% of whom were Jews. Pol Pot of Cambodia was responsible for the deaths of 20% of his country’s population in only four years. All told, atheist regimes are responsible for the deaths of well over 100 million people. Think about it: an estimated 200,000 people were killed in the Crusades, Inquisition, and witch burnings combined. Even if you adjust for the increase in population between the Middle Ages, colonial American history, and the 20th century, the deaths caused in the name of Christ only amount to 1% of those caused by atheist regimes of just the “Big Three”: Stalin, Mao, and Hitler.

Stalin and Mao’s Communist regimes were strongly anti-religious. We have little reason to doubt that atheism is a major component of their ideology. Their brand of Communism calls for the elimination of wealthier classes, emphasizes violent change, and calls for the creation of an atheist “utopia.” Both Communism and Nazism saw Christianity as an obstacle, if not an outright enemy.

A book titled Hitler’s Table Talk gives a collection of Hitler’s private writings and opinions which was compiled by one of his aides. He called Christianity a “scourge” and desired that Germany be “immunized against this disease.” Through the lower classes he wanted to “destroy Christianity”, and he blamed the Jews for “inventing” Christianity. He saw Christianity as weak because it emphasized equality and compassion. Hitler’s advisers such as Bormann, Goebbels, Heydrich, and Himmler were rabid atheists who despised religion.

The Nazis stopped celebrating Christmas, imprisoned and murdered the clergy, closed churches and religious schools, confiscated church property, and censored religious writings. This was Nietzsche’s “lust to dominate” come full circle. That mentality combined with a modern idealogy that saw man as the originator of morality (a natural result of atheism) resulted in a bloodbath that the world still mourns over. Atheism, not Christianity or even Islam, is responsible for the greatest massacres found in history.

In the previous section, I pointed out that the historical account of “Galileo vs. the Roman Catholic Church” doesn’t quite jive with the version most often cited by the New Atheists and some Protestants, there are some other instances in which history has not been presented accurately. I demonstrated that the primary conflict was between the Church and Galileo the man, not the Church and Galileo the scientist. I’ll say this a thousand time throughout this post, but I’m not interested in sweeping these things under the carpet and pretended they didn’t happen. I am, however, interested in getting the truth out.

The “Crusades”

We’ve all heard the stories about the atrocities that were committed and the millions killed by people claiming the name of Christ in the Crusades. I’m not going to deny that there were injustices committed during this time by the Church, just as I did not deny that some wrongdoing occurred on both sides during the conflict between Galileo and the Church. However, some things do need to be cleared up.

First of all, the name “Crusade” was later applied to this conflict. Neither Catholics nor Muslims ever called their battles a Crusade. Second of all, the real issue when the Crusades began was the Muslim invasion of Europe. Let us not forget that the Muslim armies were poised to completely overrun Europe at this time. They had conquered the entire Middle East and parts of Northern Africa, Asia, and Europe. They had conquered parts of Italy, most of Spain, pushed through the Balkans, and were preparing for a full-scale invasion of Europe. Edward Gibbon wrote that if the West hadn’t mounted a defense when they did “the Koran would now be taught in the schools of Oxford, and her pulpits might demonstrate to a circumcised people the sanctity and truth of the Revelation of Mahomet.” As it stood, it took European Christians 200 years to finally defend themselves on a large scale.

As for the “Crusaders” themselves, they thought of themselves mainly as pilgrims. They made any number of mistakes, none of which I am seeking to defend. I am only attempting to give a context to what may seem brutal to our 21st-century minds. Under the Catholic mindset of “works salvation“, they gave up everything to try to free Europe and Israel from Muslim rule. The Crusade efforts left the vast majority poorer than when they started. This lack of support by the nations of Europe and the Catholic Church left them to loot and forage for themselves. Raping, plundering, and the horrific “Children’s Crusade” can’t be justified by any terms. However it should be remembered that good did come from the madness. As D’nesh D’souza observes: “The Christians fought to defend themselves from foreign conquest, while the Muslims fought to continue conquering Christians lands.”

The Inquisition

Once again, I’m making no attempt to justify many of the actions of the Inquisition. Many atrocities were, in fact, committed by the Inquisition. However, there were far fewer than you might think. Historian Henry Kamen estimates that around 2,000 people were put to death over the course of 350 years. That’s just over five people per year. I’m not minimizing the deaths of people who were largely innocent, however I think we would all agree that this is not nearly so dramatic as we have been led to believe. In fact, the vast majority of those who were tried by the Inquisition, most were punished through what we would call community service. This is much less harsh than the national courts at the time.

The Salem Witch Trials

Arthur Miller’s The Crucible has captivated the imaginations of generations, and many other sources have enhanced this dramatic effect. Carl Sagan writes guesses that there may have been hundreds or thousands killed in these massacres. The actual number of deaths by execution is recorded for us by historians. Nineteen women were sentenced to death, and about six more died while in prison. Once again, I’m not minimizing the deaths of these women, but Sagan and others have grossly exaggerated the number of persecuted.

Conclusion

Should these accounts, of death, torture, thievery, and rape be ignored or minimized? Of course not. Does this more realistic picture justify the actions and beliefs of the historical Catholics and Puritans? Never. However, I do have a few points to make in all of this.

1. Atheists and others have done a marvelous job of spreading these Urban Legends to the point that most people believe them.
2. Just because someone commits an action in the name of Christ does not mean that Christ would have approved.
3. A faith should not be judged based on what its followers do when they do not act in accordance with that faith’s teachings.
4. What the Catholic Church or the Puritans do should not reflect poorly on Protestants (many of whom do not believe that the Church should be a political entity) and other orthodox Christians.
5. Even if the atrocities mentioned are laid to the account of Christianity as a whole, there is another faith that does far worse than Christianity. Let those who are without blame cast the first stone.

Galileo

It’s come to my attention, after reading D’nesh D’Souza’s apologetic What’s So Great About Christianity, that there are some urban legends being spread by our friends the New Atheists (and a good number of old atheists, too) that need to be cleared up. It’s a tall tale that’s been repeated often and frequently, so much so that some Christians, especially those bent on villifying Catholicism, have bought into the story.

I’m going to go through them very briefly, but I’ll leave the deep digging up to you. Please be forewarned, the average Internet site is just going to go on spreading the myth. Unfortunately, you’ll have to read actual books to get to the bottom of this….

Galileo vs. “The Church”

Everyone knows that scientists and Roman Catholic Church have been at odds for years. Even Catholics have strived to show approval with modern scientific theories, lest their reputation continue. Actually, the concept of Science vs. Religion was born in the 1800s, not the Middle Ages. John William Draper’s History of the Conflict between Religion and Science and Andrew Dickson White’s History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom are the source books for many of these myths. Draper’s book, in particular, is now read mostly as a case study in fin de siecle anti-religious prejudice. While both books are used by atheists as source material for their propaganda, both have been discredited time and time again.

To the point, though. The Church of Galileo’s day accepted the idea of a geocentric solar system because of the sophisticated writings of Ptolemy. Up until Galileo’s day, the data and common sense (or at least the common sense of the day) supported Ptolemy’s theory that the earth was the center of the solar system. Copernicus’ heliocentric model (by his own admission) lacked proof, but it was interesting enough to gain a following. Though Galileo had advanced the theory, Tyco Brahe and the Jesuits (who were among the leading astronomers of the day) told Galileo that he still lacked enough evidence to prove the heliocentric model.

Surprisingly (at least to those of us who have been essentially lied to all these years), the Pope and the head of the Inquisition (Bellarmine) were both very interested in Galileo’s discoveries, since astronomical research was typically conducted at church-sponsored observatories and universities. Instead of holding a trial for Galileo, Bellarmine met with him privately in 1616 after Galileo had met with the pope several times and attended various receptions. Bellarmine and Galileo agreed that since Galileo’s evidence was inconclusive, Galileo should not teach or promote the heliocentric theory. This was recorded as an injunction and filed in the church files.

Several years later, when Pope Urban VIII came into power, Galileo believed that the winds had changed and went against the injunction and published Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems. Galileo made a number of errors at this point.

1. His proof for the heliocentric model contained an error: he said that the earth’s motion caused the Earth’s tides.
2. Galileo also said that all planets travel in circular patterns, an idea that was disproven by Kepler.
3. Galileo’s Dialogue centers on two characters: himself and a man named “Simplicio” who bore a striking resemblance to the Pope. Not only did he mock the Pope (unintentionally) in doing so, but Simplicio’s arguments were caricatures of the real geocentric arguments in Galileo’s day.
4. Finally, and most importantly, Galileo also advanced the idea that Scripture was merely an allegory that had to be constantly reinterpreted to be meaningful. Here he left science and went into theology.  This was the age of the Reformation, and the Pope wanted to make it clear that Catholicism was faithful to Scripture, so this accusation could not be tolerated.

In 1633 Galileo was tried for advocating the heliocentric model when he had agreed to the injunction, supporting a non-literal interpretation of Scripture, and deceiving the Inquisition by not revealing his previous agreement with Bellarmine earlier and attempting to side-step that agreement through his “fictional” characters. Arthur Koestler’s writes that Galileo’s defense “was so patently dishonest that his case would have been lost in any court.”

Galileo’s punishment was that he had to recant his heliocentric position and placed under house arrest. He was never charged with heresy for a heliocentric view, placed in a dungeon, or tortured. His “house arrest” lasted five months in which he had to stay in the palace of the archbishop of Siena. After he went home, and still under house arrest, Galileo was allowed to visit family throughout Italy and continue scientific research and writing. He died of natural causes in 1642.

I’m not trying to justify the Catholic Church’s actions. I’m not a Roman Catholic myself, so frankly I don’t feel any need to do so. I do, however, believe that we need to stop propagating the myth that Galileo was branded as heretical for scientific discoveries and subsequently tortures. It villifies a Church that was an avid supporter of scientific research and knowledge in general.

It also ignores the political power that the Church of the Middle Ages had. Right, wrong, or indifferent, nations had given up their national sovereignty to a religious entity. As it stands, the Church actually dealt very compassionately toward the aging Galileo, and Galileo’s own pride and deceit must not be left out of this picture if we are to get an accurate view of history. Should the Church have the right to “try” anyone in this manner? Of course not. Did the Church behave in such an awful manner towards a man of science and of faith? Not even close.