Posted on 03/15/2004 9:57:21 PM PST by kattracks
I recently interviewed a 26-year-old Swedish student about her views on life. I asked her if she believed in God or in any religion."No, that's silly," she replied.
"Then how do you know what is right and wrong?" I asked.
"My heart tells me," she responded.
In a nutshell, that's the major reason for the great divide within America and between America and much of Europe. The majority of people use their heart -- stirred by their eyes -- to determine what is right and wrong. A minority uses their mind and/or the Bible to make that determination.
Pick almost any issue and these opposing ways of determining right and wrong become apparent.
Here are three examples.
Same-sex marriage: The heart favors it. You have to have a hard heart not to be moved when you see many of the loving same-sex couples who want to commit their lives to one another in marriage. The eye sees the couples; the heart is moved to redefine marriage.
Animal rights: The heart favors them. It is the rare person, for example, whose heart is not moved by the sight of an animal used for medical research. The eye sees the cuddly animal; the heart then equates animal and human life.
Abortion: How can you look at a sad 18-year-old who had unprotected sex and not be moved? What kind of heartless person is going to tell her she shouldn't have an abortion and should give birth?
The eyes and the heart form an extraordinarily powerful force. They can only be overcome when formulating policies by a mind and a value system that are stronger than the heart-eye duo.
With the decline of Judeo-Christian religions, the heart, shaped by what the eye sees (hence the power of television), has become the source of people's moral decisions.
This is a potentially fatal problem for our civilization. As beautiful as the heart might be, it is neither intellectually nor morally profound.
It is therefore frightening that hundreds of millions of people find no problem in acknowledging that their heart is the source of their values. Their heart knows better than thousands of years of accumulated wisdom; better than religions shaped by most of the finest thinkers of our civilization (and, to the believer, by God); and better than the book that has guided our society -- from the Founders of our uniquely successful society to the foes of slavery to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and most of the leaders of the struggle for racial equality.
This elevation of one's heart is well beyond self-confidence -- it is self-deification.
One of the first things you learn in Judaism and Christianity is that the eyes and heart are usually terrible guides to the good and the holy. " . . . (D)o not follow after your own heart and your own eyes, which you are inclined to whore after" (Numbers 15:39); "the heart is deceitful above all things . . . " (Jeremiah 17:9).
Supporters of same-sex marriage see the loving gay couple, and therefore do not interest themselves in the effects of changing marriage and family on the children they do not see. And since they venerate their hearts, the biblical ideal of male-female love, marriage and family is of no significance to them.
Animal rights supporters' hearts are deeply moved by the animals they see experimented on, not by the millions of people they do not see who will suffer and die if we stop such experiments.
Likewise, the hearts of the people who support PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) are so moved by the plight of slaughtered chickens that the organization has a campaign titled "Holocaust on your plate," which equates our slaughtering of chickens with the Nazi slaughtering of Jews.For 25 years I have been asking high school seniors across America if they would save their dog or a stranger first if both were drowning. The majority has nearly always voted against the person. Why? Because, they say with no self-doubt, they love their dog, not the stranger. An entire generation has been raised with no reference to any moral code above their heart's feelings. They do not know, and would not care if they did know, that the Bible teaches that human beings, not animals, are created in God's image.
So, too, those who cannot call any abortion immoral are moved by what they see -- the forlorn woman who wants an abortion, not by the human fetus they do not see. That is why abortion rights groups are so opposed to showing photos of fetuses that have been aborted -- such pictures might move the eye and the heart of viewers to judge the morality of many abortions differently.
It is undeniable that many people have used their minds and many have used the Bible in ways that have led to evil. And some of these people have been truly heartless. But not one of the great cruelties of the 20th century -- the Gulag, Auschwitz, Cambodia, North Korea, Mao's Cultural Revolution -- came from those who took their values from the Bible. And the great evil of the 21st century, though religion-based, doesn't come from the Bible either.
Meanwhile, the combination of mind, Judeo-Christian values and heart has produced over centuries the unique success known as America. Reliance on the heart will destroy this painstaking achievement in a generation.
©2004 Creators Syndicate, Inc.
LOL! That will come as news to CS Lewis, Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Sir Isaac Newton, John Piper, William Buckley and many other brilliant thinkers.
Explain, please.
One of the more humerous verses in the Bible(to me anyway), was when God says " I place before you cursing and blessing, death and Life." And then He has to tell us "Choose Life", because He knows we prefer death. Why would you have to tell a rational being to choose life.
Typical conversation between a Christian and Pagan:
Christian: "I know the way to eternal Life, do you want to hear?"
Pagan: "Screw you! get out a my face scumbag!"
Pagan to Pagan: "I know of a diet pill that really works!"
Other Pagan: "Will it make me live longer?"
They believe a diet pill is more effective than God.
I don't want to stone anybody, but God stoned the Sodomites. What will we think when our grandchildren are raped by sodomites and get HIV? Are the sodomites going to be so forgiving to Christians when they make the laws? Will we still be so keen to put down God's recomendation? Just ask some of the alter boys what they think a just punishment would be for some of the priests.
Flesh will never agree with God and see the wisdom of God, because Flesh has died to God. All Flesh is His enemy, until they are made alive by His Spirit.
Explain, please.
Christianity ended the slave trade by stressing its view of the sanctity of human life. While the bible did condone slavery, the bible also did not say that slavery was a requirement.
Also, popes as early as the 15th century had begun to speak out against slavery.
It was the Christian values that so shaped the U.S. and Britain that allowed the push for the end of slavery.
Virtually all of the abolitionist societies that sprung up in the mid-18th century were evangelical Christians who saw the abolition of slavery as a mandate from God. The earliest organized abolitionists (on both sides of the Atlantic) were the Society of Friends (Quakers)--devout Christians who weathered public scorn to fight for the freedom of slaves.
The pre-Civil War abolitionists were, almost exclusively, Christian churches who had established groups to agitate for the end of slavery.
The most influential English abolitionist, by far, was a deeply committed Christian and House of Commons MP named William Wilberforce. Wilberforce was the author of a widely read book, "A Practical View of Christianity" which espoused his Christian viewpoints.
Wilberforce almost singlehandedly took on the slave trade in England during the late 18th century. He authored a bill that eventually, after two decades of struggle, ended the legal slave traffic on the high seas in 1807, to be enforced by the Royal Navy.
But Wilberforce didn't stop there. He continued to fight not only slave trafficking, but the institution of slavery itself. Finally, due much to his efforts, Parliament abolished all slavery in the British empire in 1833, as Wilberforce lay on his deathbed.
So, Christians not only fought to end the slave trade (the bill was authored by a devout Christian), but also ended slavery in the most powerful and far-reaching (and influential) empire of the time.
One has assumed a responsibility for one's dog. Whether or not one has a responsibility for a stranger depends on the circumstances (e.g. one owes a certain allegiance to the police and soldiers who guard your peace).
But not one of the great cruelties of the 20th century -- the Gulag, Auschwitz, Cambodia, North Korea, Mao's Cultural Revolution -- came from those who took their values from the Bible.
This is not because people who follow the Bible have become more moral, but because the rising tide of secularism has denied such people the political power to act on their darker impulses.
That is one of the most breathtaking examples of spin I have ever seen.
It borders on brilliant.
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