TBR.cc

Hitchens is not Great: How Atheism ruins Everything

Here in the enlightened Western world, we have turned from our great traditions to an atheist technocratic elite who claim we are somehow "beyond" the dusty relics of history and are in a wondrous new age of Human self-actualization.

This (mostly liberal) priesthood is founded on a false understanding of human nature; an arrogant ignorance of history; and a barbaric disdain for morality. The Seven deadly sins are accepted and even celebrated. The God of secular humanism is Nietzsche's Ubermensch, its church is the shopping mall, its power is global capital (the "almighty dollar" is a common phrase), and its act of worship is sensual indulgence.

The ancient virtues of poverty, chastity, and obedience are universally despised.

It is said that Nature abhors a vacuum. And the false religion of secular humanism is ultimately empty because it lacks transcendent value or the power to change a human heart, and it has no vision beyond making a comfortable life for one's Self. The human soul was created for something more than this. That is why Islam is making such inroads to the spiritual wasteland of atheist Europe. It has a compelling vision for the future -- an oppressive, hegemonic, medieval vision -- but it has something which atheism lacks: Meaning.

Atheism has been tested and found wanting. It has no answer to the dark clouds gathering over Europe. The hope of Western civilization is not in liberal atheist delusions, but in a return to the great Faith that set Europe free from the superstitious fear of pagan deities, that converted Rome and Byzantium, that today brings hope and joy to millions in Asia and Africa and whose vision is no less than Heaven on Earth.

UPDATE: An Anglican bishop has stated the same thesis a lot more eloquently (HT: NZConservative)

'Fitna' released in storm of controversy

Dutch MP Geert Wilders has just released his short film critical of Islam and the Koran. Even before its release, the supine equivocators were apologising for its existence.  From site dutchnews.nl:

The first 10 minutes of the 17-minute film consist of a compilation of video fragments showing the victims of terrorist attacks in New York, Madrid and London. This is interspersed with translations of verses from the Koran and recordings of Islamic leaders calling for violence against non-believers.
In the last five minutes, Wilders focuses on Islam in the Netherlands. There are images of blocks of flats dotted with satellite dishes, policemen removing their shoes before entering a mosque, recordings of preaching and a selection of newspaper headlines. The film ends with the sound of a ripping page referring to Wilders' earlier call on Muslims to tear out pages from the Koran.
Wilders : ‘I want to show that Islam is a test for us. If we want to maintain our freedom... [the film shows a] clear distinction between ideology, Islam and Muslims. ‘I have nothing against Muslims’, he said.

[embedded object hidden due to graphic picture] it's available here

UPDATE: Liveleak.com has acquiesced to Muslim threats and withdrawn the video. NoMinister has further details.

How discussing science sparks a race row

It has been common knowledge for millenia that the offspring of two close relatives are more likely to suffer from birth defects and inherited disease than those conceived from parents more distantly related.

Even though  understanding of why this might be  did not  come until the foundations of the science of genetics by Gregor Mendel in the late 19^th century for centuries there have been laws and customs in place to prevent the parings of people who are closely related. In fact I believe the incest taboo is inbuilt in most of us.

My own church bans first cousin marriages I believe (I really should check but I haven't the time right now).

However first cousin marriages are common amongst Pakistani Muslims in Great Britain apparently. And these are often arranged marriages.

And it would seem that the evidence is there that amongst this group there is a far higher incidence of birth defects and inherited disease than in the general population.

Phil Woolas a Cabinet minister in the British parliament and who represents an electorate with a high population of muslims has raised this issue, igniting the inevitable charges of Islamophobia and racism.

What this illustrates to me is the way political activists, politicians and the like attempt to suppress unpalatable facts or those which stand in the way of their personal agendas by use of what are really hate words.

There are laws, some civil, some religious on who can marry whom and they have evolved for a reason, reasons maybe not fully understood even to this day but at their heart is an understanding of the necessity for humanity to produce a healthy new generation to carry on from where we leave off.

And slowly but surely the social architects are undermining these laws which is probably the greatest threat to the future of humanity we face today.

What the teacher told me

A friend who is a teacher attended a teachers only day the other day.

And was given the latest spiel from the ivory towers of the Wellington beltway on how to raise our kids.

In particular this surprising view of the official languages of New Zealand

Te reo Māori and New Zealand Sign Language (NZSL) are official languages of New Zealand. English, the medium for teaching and learning in most schools, is a de facto official language by virtue of its widespread use. For these reasons, these three languages have special mention in The New Zealand Curriculum.

In other words English is no longer an official language of New Zealand, according to the pointy heads of the Ministry but has to be used (unfortunately?) only because it is the one the majority of people speak and understand.

How long until Arabic joins the official list I wonder?

Update

The comment thread on this post thus far suggest that this is a storm in a teacup.

Perhaps the excerpt in the post just illustrates that our educational establishment is illiterate and the use of de facto is  a  malapropism  when they actually meant default.

Here is wikipedia's take on de facto languages versus de jure languages and interestingly enough they use New Zealand as an example suggesting that English is indeed a de jure language along with Te reo Maori and New Zealand sign.

According to this Government website

Official languages

New Zealand has three official languages,  English, Māori and sign language. Māori became an official language in 1987. New  Zealand sign language became a third official language in April 2006.

And Ruth Dyson also agrees that English is an official (de jure) Language as in this press release.

Perhaps English is not enshrined in Law unlike the other two and we have all just assumed it is (i.e. it is a de facto language as written above). What opportunities does that present to those who would remake New Zealand in their own image?

Language is an important part of culture - that is surely recognized so when our educators downplay the one we universally use it is worth pointing out.

Where to from here?

Have you heard this? - from the Archbishop of Canterbury no less.

Dr Williams said it "seems inevitable" that elements of Islamic law, such as divorce proceedings, would be incorporated into British law.

Dr Williams said the UK had to "face up to the fact" that some citizens do not relate to the British legal system, and argued that officially sanctioning Sharia law would improve community relations.

"Nobody in their right mind would want to see in this country the kind of inhumanity that has sometimes been associated with the practice of the law in some Islamic states," he told the BBC's World at One programme.

"But there are ways of looking at marital disputes, for example, which provide an alternative to the divorce courts as we understand them¹."

But his intervention put him at odds with Gordon Brown, who has repeatedly encouraged ethnic communities to integrate.

The Prime Minister's spokesman said that while certain allowances had been made for Muslims, British law would be based on British values and Sharia law was no justification for acting against national law.

Improve community relations indeed!    Has the good Archbishop never heard the saying "when in Rome do as the Romans do". In other words muslims who live in England have to live according to British law.

You can guarantee that any Englishman dwelling in an Islamic land would not be granted concessions for violation of Sharia law. In fact there have many several cases of floggings meeted out to westerners, Englishmen included for the possession of small quantities of Alcohol, including as I recall some airline cabin crew who were in transit.

Talking of when in Rome it seems that in terms of Christianity England is moving that way, Catholicism in England is on the rise and while Catholics are a small minority in England and Anglicans the majority it seems  there are about as many Catholics attending mass each Sunday in England as there are filling the pews of Anglican churches.

Lucyna has a post about how England may eventually return to Rome - hard to see given the laws of England especially those of the succession. But with the Archbishop of Canterbury making statements like this who knows?

Rowan Williams needs to speak less on politics and more on the Risen Christ if the Anglican communion is to have any future, which is seeming more unlikely by the day.

Rather the already fragmented Church established by Our Lord Jesus Christ will become even more fragmented.

And I weep for that for that is surely displeasing to Our Lord.

________________________________________________________________________________

(1) I wonder if the Archbishop of Canterbury is familiar with the Divorce Laws as given to us by Our Lord Jesus

Mark Chapter 10

2 Some Pharisees came and tested him by asking, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?"
3 "What did Moses command you?" he replied.
4 They said, "Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce and send her away."
5 "It was because your hearts were hard that Moses wrote you this law," Jesus replied.
6 "But at the beginning of creation God `made them male and female.'
7 `For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife,
8 and the two will become one flesh.'  So they are no longer two, but one.
9 Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate."

2008 carrying on from 2007

Here are some stories from the world of art reported in the Sunday Times.

Firstly an Iranian photographer exiled in Holland now in hiding because her photographs have offended you know who.

And another exhibition in London that has "offended Christians and visitors alike" with a statue depicting Christ with an erection.

Gay themed art exhibitions offending religious sensibilities are so passé. 

Still hope still lives, a Cornish artist, Nicholas St John Rosse, has just completed a  version of the Last supper for   St Paul's Roman Catholic Church, Tintagel, using parishioners and priests as models for the disciples dressed as themselves.

And that is an idea brilliant in both symbolism and simplicity.

The last day Anno Domini 2007

Today  is a special  day - it is the 18^th of December 2007 as reckoned by the Julian calendar and   there is one week to go until Christmas.

Of course as reckoned according to the Gregorian Calendar it is the 31^st of December and therefore the last day of 2007. And since this is the calendar recognized by our civil authorities and the only one known to the majority of us, we  will all celebrate the new year tonight and recover tomorrow.

It is long forgotten but the English speaking world used to begin the new year on the 25^th of March. The change came in 1751 when Great Britain adopted the Gregorian Calendar, a matter of no import except to historians who if they don't watch themselves can get caught out as to the year in which a particular event occurred if it happened in January, February or March in the years  before 1751.

The  AD/BC designation for years (or more formally  "Anno Domini Nostri Iesu Christi" and "Before Christ") was first devised in the 5^th century  has been  in  common  use  throughout Europe since the 8^th.   This system has now  become a relic from our unsophisticated past. Amongst the enlightened it has been replaced be CE/BCE. CE stands for Common Era or occasionally it is said to stand for Christian Era. It is easy to translate between the two systems, the actual number remains the same, all that is required is to drop the AD from the front   and replace it with a CE to the rear. A process the labels on most museum exhibits have already undergone.

The CE/BCE system  for  designating years  may not last long.  The ancient  city of Oxford, a town that owes its very existence to Christian  scholarship, is engulfed in controversy over the ringing of church bells  and  the imams call to prayer being broadcast  through loud speakers from a local mosque.

Who knows how that one will play out but pity the poor museum curators - sometime in the future they are   likely    to be required to translate all the dates on their exhibits   yet again. And translating dates from the Gregorian calender to those of the Islamic lunar calender is a lot more tricky than dropping AD from the front of the number and replacing it with CE to  the rear.

To assist  Microsoft has produced the Kuwaiti algorithm which can translate Gregorian dates to those of the Hijri (Islamic) calendar, well sort of.

But I wouldn't be at all surprised that even with the software the process  produces more headaches than tonights New Years eve  over indulgence. 

Sociologists signing death warrents

As secular values become entrenched in Europe, Patriarch  Alexy II of Moscow and all Russia,  has issued a warning.

"Modern Europe will not create a new post-Christian culture and civilization but will simply vanish from history," Alexy said at the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow Wednesday evening, according to the Interfax news agency.

"Losing their Christian roots, the people of Europe will sign their own death warrant"

Pope Benedict XVI has made very similar statements in the past.

The secular world either totally ignores such words or gives them the big raspberry.

What  is beyond dispute though, is that as Europe has become more secularised the fertility rate of Europeans has declined. How the two phenomena are correlated might be a matter for discussion.

For a nation to maintain its population at its present levels it needs a fertility rate of 2.1 children per woman.

Today  the country with the highest fertility  in Europe is  France which to date is the only Nation to have fully acknowledged the issue and put policies in place in an  attempt to  address it. Even so they have not yet achieved  population replacement fertility levels  and currently fertility there is estimated to be 1.86 children per woman⁽¹⁾.

Of course Europe wont become depopulated, overall the fertility rate of all the world's women is estimated at 2.59 and as the original inhabitants of Europe die out people from other more fecund places will move in to take their place. A phenomena that is self evident in Europe today.

And to suggest that the new Europeans concept of the  shape of  future European civilization may not match that of modern western secularists  is not hyperbole.

And what is happening in Europe applies to New Zealand and Australia as well.

Here is an example of hedonistic secularism from this mornings New Zealand Herald: Women 'want no-strings sex'.

Two young women researchers are calling for a new form of sexual ethics that would allow women to have casual sex without feeling that they're "sluts".

They say the popular view of women as either promiscuous or passive victims has failed to reduce incidents of rape and sexual assault.

Instead, they want both women and men to think about what each of them really wants out of a sexual encounter, and negotiate how to get it.

Which all seems very modern and liberated. 

But "no strings" sex means sex without any commitment least of all the biggest commitment sex might bring - a child.  And that in turn means no commitment to the future.

In the past the negotiation over sex was called courtship, and what both parties ideally wanted from it was  a mutually supportive relationship and children.

Of course it didn't always work out this way, Children were conceived out of wedlock and there were other casualties beside. But western civilization  persisted, developed  and flowered  under Christianity and by holding to  Christian values, albeit badly at times.

Europe has become depopulated in the past. And every time it has, the population crash  has been   followed by   baby boom and the population has recovered. After the thirty years war, for example, the population, particularly the adult male population was so decimated that polygamy was temporarily permitted in some places to ensure recovery.

But today while Europeans  negotiate "no strings" sex and forgo courtship the children they are not having are being born by women from other cultures. And it is these cultures which will ultimately inherit  the future. Cultures which don't place a high premium on the blatherings  of sociologists about negotiating  "no strings" sex.

And if we want  to be part of the future neither should we.

__________________________________________________

(1)What should be noted about France's fertility rate is many of the most fecund in France are not people of French origin but recent immigrants, primarily from North Africa.

 

Did the Archbishop of Canterbury really say that?

The Archbishop of Canterbury has given an interview to the British magazine "Emel" which casts itself as "the muslim lifestyle magazine".

I guess he gave them what their readership wants - anti-Americanism. In particular this section is troubling⁽¹⁾.

I ask him if America has lost the moral high ground since September 11th, and his answer is simple: “Yes.” There is no mitigation. He has obviously thought through what he feels the US should do now to recover, “A generous and intelligent programme of aid directed to the societies that have been ravaged; a check on the economic exploitation of defeated territories; a demilitarisation of their presence. All these things would help.”

He describes violence as “a quick discharge of frustration. It serves you. It does not serve the situation. Whenever people turn to violence what they do is temporarily release themselves from some sort of problem but they help no one else.” A long term critic of the war on Iraq, he feels that this perspective on violence also applies to Britain’s presence there. “A lot of the pressure around the invasion of Iraq was ‘We’ve got to do something! Then we’ll feel better.’ That’s very dangerous

Well which societies "that have been ravaged" is the Archbishop referring to exactly?  And if he means Afghanistan and Iraq, just who was it that ravaged them?  Neither of those places have been  oases of tranquility, peace, harmony or justice at any time during my lifetime nor at any time in long before that.

The interview moves onto Israel and Palestine but rapidly returns to the United States

Christian Zionists support the return of Jews to Israel because they believe the second coming of Jesus will not occur until all Jews are in Israel. The Archbishop is scathing, accusing them of being connected to “the chosen nation myth of America, meaning that what happens in America is very much at the heart of God’s purpose for humanity.” 

  In today’s world it is easy to see why people would believe such an idea; America seems so intrinsically involved in everything. The Archbishop recognises that: “We have only one global hegemonic power at the moment.” But, he propounds, “It is not accumulating territory; it is trying to accumulate influence and control. That’s not working.” Far from seeing this positively, he describes it as “the worst of all worlds,” saying, “it is one thing to take over a territory and then pour energy and resources into administering it and normalising it. Rightly or wrongly that’s what the British Empire did – in India for example. It is another thing to go in on the assumption that a quick burst of violent action will somehow clear the decks and that you can move on and other people will put things back together –Iraq for example.”

just what does the Good Archbishop think that America is doing in Iraq if not  pouring energy and resources into "normalising it" as the British  "rightly or wrongly" did in India?

   What the United States is doing is bending over backwards to get the Iraqi people to take charge of their own country  and run it in a civilized fashion - you know  no longer feeding people   feet first into  huge chippers  or raping infants in front of their parents - that sort of thing.   

   In reality the United States is by far the most generous nation on the planet.  What percentage of the budget of the World Health Organization, for example, comes from the United States. Perhaps some reader will care to look it up and post it as a comment but I am willing to bet it is a large percentage of the total budget and the same would go for each and any of the UN alphabet organizations.   

   Wherever and whenever there is a natural disaster who is there with money, resources and people to alleviate the suffering of those suffering the consequences. When Bam in Iran was flattened by an earthquake did the United States turn a blind eye - it did not. Putting people on the ground was an impossibility of course (and that would be more to do with Iranian sensibilities rather than American intransigence) immediately the United States responded with aid, money and relief supplies. The evil Bushitler was quoted at the time as saying  "Human suffering knows no political boundaries"    

   Just think back to the Boxing day tsunami and  Banda Aceh, a hard core Islamic region of Indonesia.  Within hours who was there - the Saudis? Of course not. The US military, working hand in hand with the Australian military to bring relief and assistance  to the people of that region.   

   And what happens - as life returns to normal   the people there far from showing  gratitude go back to chanting "death to America" even as the aid money and relief continues to flow in.   

   If the United States is the  major "imperialist power"  of the 21^st century I say thank God for that because the United States, imperfect as it is both domestically and abroad is at heart a humane society where individual freedoms and rights are respected.   

   If there is any American imperialism that is real and damaging it is the imperialism of Hollywood which exports amongst other things the anti-Americanism the Archbishop is feeding off to pander to a predominantly Muslim audience in this interview. 

____________________________

(1) As far as I know this article is not available on line. I have a scanned copy (sent to be by an English associate of mine)  from which I have taken the quotes. The quotes from it  have therefore been manually entered and may contain typos. They are as written as far as I can tell.

Is reconciling with the irreconcilable even a possibility?

A little over two weeks ago Pope Benedict had an "historic" meeting with  King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia.

What was really said between these two men, through interpreters of course, has not been fully disclosed although stories reporting the event are full of the usual phraseology such as "it occurred in a cordial atmosphere".

You can read a report of this meeting carried in the Boston Globe here.

If you follow the link right from the get go you get the impression the Pope is atoning for the  "faux pas" he made at his old alma mater,University of Regensburg, back in September 2006.

In the highly unlikely event you have forgotten about this, let me remind you.  in a speech on the development of Western thought    the Pope quoted a 14^th century Byzantine Emperor, Michael Palelogus,  who wrote

Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached

The usual outrage followed, fanned by the media who naturally took the quote completely out of context and ensured it was propagated as quickly as possible to places where it could do the most damage. Places like Kabul and Islamabad where anti-western sentiment runs high at the best of times and close to the source of many of the Islamic terrorist attacks in recent times.

The story concludes with a reminder of the "peace overture" made by  138 Islamic religious leaders from 43 nations, appealing for more dialogue between Christians and Muslims. You might also come to believe from a reading this story that the Vatican has been dragging the chain in responding to this initiative.

But in truth Pope Benedict XVI is, amongst many other things, a great scholar, a man who values our Western heritage including the role Christianity has played in our development towards a humane and just society - something which many of of modern intellectual elite bend over backwards to deny and this attitude reflected  fully in the linked  report  of the meeting between Pope Benedict and  King Abdullah.

Unmentioned  in the report that I have linked to but covered in other reports is the dialogue between the Pope and the King over the plight of the million or so Catholics and other Christians residing in the Kingdom. These people are not allowed to worship publicly, cannot wear their baptismal crosses, in fact even bibles are illegal.  Who are they?  Mostly they are people from other countries working in menial and some not so menial tasks that Saudis are too proud to do.  Some of their stories can be read here.

Why I am bringing this up now is because of a story from Egypt, a country far more liberal than the kingdom but nevertheless far from a paradigm of religious tolerance, unlike  Europe or the United States, where the concept of religious freedom and tolerance was one of the fundamental founding principles.

This story involves a 47 year old woman, Shadia Nagui Ibrahim, who has run afoul of the law by "fraudulently" stating on her papers she is a Coptic Christian.

According to Egyptian law she is a Muslim even though both her parents were Copts.  How did this happen?  Apparently 45 years ago   Shadia Nagui Ibrahim's father left her mother and coverted to Islam. A few years later he reconciled with his wife and returned, illegally, to Coptic Christianity and using forged identity documents to record his religion a Christianity.

Since her father is by law a Muslim, under Egyptian law so is she. Even though by faith she is a Christian and was totally unaware of her fathers brief flirtation with Islam over forty years ago.

To compound her problems she married another Copt, a crime since it is not legal for a Muslim woman to marry a Christian man, although the reverse  is fully acceptable and the offspring of such a union will be by definition Muslims.

All of this came to light in 1996 when a man who forges identity documents recording the  FAITH of the owner rather than their religion under law  was caught and gave up some names of people for whom he had forged documents, including  Shadia Nagui Ibrahim's father.  The authorities extended their inquiries  to his daughter and found her 1982 marriage certificate stating her religion as Christian and then charged her with fraud.

The punishment  three years imprisonment.

And for those who deny that there is a clash of civilizations this story encapsulates many of the reasons why they are wrong.

Christianity itself is a Faith of choice - anyone fully familiar with Christian Doctrine will be fully aware that human beings were granted free will as a gift from God and that extends to the freedom to reject Christ and the Christian Faith.  And although in Christian lands  from time to time and from place to place this may have been temporarily lost from sight, generally speaking freedom of conscience has been acknowledged from the earliest days of Christianity until now.  And I suggest to you that it was the Christian concept of free will that gave birth to the ideas of personal freedom and liberty that most of us cherish.

And when it comes down to it my four children who have all been baptised as Christians will each    in their own time  choose for  themselves what their own faith or lack thereof should be according to their   individual conscience.

One just might  adopt Islam but if so I still want them to live in a world were they are free to change their mind  and one in which they haven't submitted their descendants (and mine)  to that  religion in perpetuity.

So if dialogue is to be the way forward in averting a clash of civilizations then the subject of apostasy from Islam and freedom of religion must be the very first item on our agenda.

Because if Islamic nations cannot compromise on this then all the  freedoms we have won, sometimes at great cost, may well soon be lost.