Posted on 04/06/2011 6:46:37 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
God is not doing very well these days.
Here are four reasons why:
The first is that increasingly large numbers of men and women attend university, and Western universities have become essentially secular (and leftist) seminaries. Just as the agenda of traditional Christian and Jewish seminaries is to produce religious Christians and religious Jews, the agenda of Western universities is to produce (left-wing) secularists. The difference is that Christian and Jewish seminaries are honest about their agenda, while the universities still claim they have neither a secularist nor a political agenda.
The more university education a person receives, the more likely he is to hold secular and left-wing views. The secular Left argues that this correlation is due to the fact that a college graduate knows more and thinks more clearly and therefore gravitates leftward and toward secularism. But if you believe that the average college graduate is a clear and knowledgeable thinker as a result of his or her time at university, I have more than one bridge to sell you. A radio talk-show host for 29 years, I long ago began asking callers who made foolish comments what graduate school they had attended. It takes higher education to learn that America and Israel are villains, that men and women have essentially the same natures, that human nature is good, that ever-larger governments create wealth, etc.
A second reason God is not doing well among Westerners these days is that many members of the Jewish and Christian clergy decided that their primary role was not to advocate their religion’s moral and religious standards, but rather (1) to make congregants comfortable (“Don’t call me ‘Pastor’ [or ‘Rabbi,’ or ‘Father’], call me Jerry”) and (2) to promulgate the values they learned at their secular left-wing universities.
A third reason God is not doing well is that most of the men and women who are products of this secular left-wing education (meaning a large majority of Western men and women) are theologically, intellectually, and emotionally ill-prepared to deal with all the unjust suffering in the world. I will never forget a Swedish pastor’s reaction to the 1994 sinking of the Estonia, a ferry that capsized in the Baltic between Estonia and Sweden leaving 852 passengers and crew dead. He said he could not believe in a God who allowed such injustice to take place.
This pastor spoke for vast numbers of modern Western men and women. The existence of so much unjust suffering in the world has strongly contributed to their rejecting belief in God. And undoubtedly the devastation caused by the Japanese earthquake and tsunami has further reinforced many individuals’ rejection of God.
Of course, none of us has a fully coherent solution to the problem of theodicy. But the problem is not exactly new. Every great religion has dealt with it, and most of the brilliant minds in history retained their faith in God despite all the unjust suffering they saw.
The difference today is that life has been so good for most Westerners that suffering is no longer regarded as part of life, but as an aberration that can be done away with. Meanwhile, the liberal wings of Christianity and Judaism are too influenced by secularism to make an effective religious case for God, whom the religious Left has largely rendered a celestial buddy.
The fourth reason is Islamic violence and the tepid response to it by the liberal churches and synagogues. It would seem pretty clear that a major, albeit almost never acknowledged, reason for the huge audiences for recent books advocating atheism has been the massive amount of evil committed in God’s name by radical Muslims. Nothing creates atheism as much as evil done in God’s name.
That is why the pathetically weak responses from within mainstream — i.e., liberal — Christianity and Judaism have only added to the contempt for God and religion sown by beheadings and suicide bombings in Allah’s name. The liberal Christian and Jewish responses have been to attack fellow Christians and Jews who have focused on Islamist terror. Instead of drawing attention to the damage radical Islam does to the name of God, liberal Christians and Jews focus their anger on co-religionists who do speak out on this issue and label them “Islamophobes.”
That God is not doing well in the Western world may trouble God. But it is we humans who should be most troubled. The moral, intellectual, artistic, and demographic decline in Western Europe (people in secular countries don’t even have the will to reproduce themselves) is only gaining momentum. And the consequences of that decline will be far more devastating than all the tsunamis and all the earthquakes that may come our way.
— Dennis Prageris a nationally syndicated radio talk-show host and columnist.
It has always been thus.
The author linked the idea that a education at a University would make one secular and a leftist.
The left gets the vast majority of its votes from the uneducated - there are more of them. They get more votes from those who have advanced degrees, a small group, and those with no high school diploma, a large group.
Whites with college degrees, on the whole, favor Republicans.
Those who make more money, as a group, favor Republicans.
Those who have college degrees, as a group, tend to make a lot more money.
You are mistaken. I experienced exactly the same recipe you mentioned plus a left wing family. The difference is that I have never been a lover of the world. Even as a young child I was interested in fantasy and the spiritual world.
As a result, I totally broke free from the leftist worldview at age 22. Belief in God has not yet come but we’ll see.
The leftists I’m talking about are the ones who were never so inclined. They were innocent as children but they were born without any innate resistance to liberalism and the hedonist lifestyle. They totally succumbed to its evil allure while a few others survived it...even for a time.
Possible solution:
Charles Murray is right! We should move to qualifying exams to test the mastery of individual subjects. The process could start as early a kindergarten.
Nearly all content could be placed on the Internet and be available to the student for free. Financially, the makers of the course content could do very well if they included some advertising on their sites.
When the child mastered a level they would immediately move to the next level.
Testing would be done by private businesses or organizations and the identity of the child could be assured in the same way identities are checked with MCAT or LSAT exams are done now, or by means of retinal or fingerprint scans.
Yes, there are some professions that require attendance on a college or university campus, but even in fields such as medicine, dentistry, engineering, and nursing a great deal of content could be done through the Internet with testing done by qualifying exam.
Benefits:
** Bright children could move through the system faster.
My own homeschooled children entered college at the ages of 13, 12, and 13. All finished all general courses and Calculus III by the age of 15. Two earned B.S. degrees in math by the age of 18. One earned a masters in math by 20. The oldest was equally successful by attending college at night, and working on his full-time interest during the day.
** Slower or normal intelligence children would not be able to move on to the next level until they had mastered the lower level basics.
** A small cottage industry would spring up to provide tutoring services.
** Our nation's parents and children would regain the confidence that our early citizens took for granted. It **is** possible to teach your own children. It is possible to be an autodidact.
** The cost of educating a child could be greatly greatly reduced!
** My own children entered the workforce years earlier than is typical. This amounts to more than a quarter of a million dollars to a million dollars in earnings over what their contemporaries will earn in a lifetime.
** Our young people will be in the workforce sooner and will have less debt. This will increase the likelihood that they will marry and start families earlier. This will decrease the amount of out of wedlock sex, “sleeping around”, “living-together”, and “hanging-out”.
** The extra wealth that these young people generate by entering the workforce earlier will increase our GDP.
** Employers will not feel as much need to use college degrees as a means to screen applicants for aptitude and persistence.
** The heavy burden of property taxes would be greatly reduced. This would benefit citizens of all ages, but it would especially make homeownership much more likely for young adults.
** If young adults can move into the workforce , make progress in their careers, own a home, and build wealth sooner, and have a reduced tax and school debt burden, they will be less likely to prolong their adolescence into their late twenties and early thirties. They will be more likely to marry, own homes, and raise families.
Yes, there are some areas that do not work well with testing. English composition is one area that comes to mind. There are also some laboratory experiences and mentoring that likely are best done in a “school-like” setting, but much of a child's education could and should be done outside of our prison-like K-12 schools, and Marxist infected colleges and universities.
Studies show that 85% of children from homes that seriously practice and live their Christian religion will leave their faith 2 years after graduating from high school.
95% of homeschoolers from families that are active in their faith will remain faithful.
Studies also show that children in government schools who claim to be Christian hold beliefs that are utterly un-Christian and at best are nothing more than feel-good humanism.
Yes, I can provide links.
The democrat party is now and always has been the party of slavery, sedition, secession, civil war, KKK terrorism, Jim Crow laws, eugenics laws, anti-Semitic immigration restrictions (in response to Nazi Nuremberg laws), creators of anti-Christian mythology, the welfare plantation system, voter fraud, voter intimidation, and the eugenics driven mass murder of minority infants. The democrat party has to be so thoroughly destroyed as a national political party that it is no longer a factor in national politics. Refusing to support less than pure Republican alternatives over a pet peeve, sitting out elections, or anything else you do that keeps you from helping or influences others to not help us rid ourselves of these parasites while we are forced to continue drinking democrat arsenic, is either fifth column democrat propaganda or agreement that we should commit national suicide. Obama and the entire democrat infrastructure need to be fought until, to paraphrase Bull Halsey, “… democrat is only spoken in hell”.
It’s long past time we face the fact that there will never be a working two party system in this country as long as the democrat party continues to exist.
The Democrat party is the party of:
Democrat led secession to avoid the ending slavery
Democrat led Civil War against in the Union
Democrat Andrew Johnson vetoes the Civil Rights Act of 1866
Democrat “black codes” ignore Civil Rights Acts of 1866 & 1871
Democrat Justices strike down the criminal provisions of the 1871 KKK Act
Democrat disenfranchisement of Black and Indian voters in former Confederate states
Democrat state blood laws define unconstitutional multiple classes of citizenship
Democrat sponsored and led creation of state eugenics laws 20s
Democrat FDR deepening economic depression with illegal programs
Democrat FDR attempts to expand the Supreme Court rather than obey Court rulings
Democrat FDR illegally imprisons Japanese, German, and Italian, citizens without due process
Democrat ignoring of the 1871 Act leads to Republican passage of 1964 Civil Rights Act
Democrat LBJ breaking into the SS trust fund for Great Society funding
Jimmy Carter unilaterally supporting the Ayatollah Khomeini and ignoring our treaties with Iran
Democrat led government unions ignore and even fight in court the effects of elections
Democrat creation of agencies and institutions to destroy private property rights
Democrat Fwank ridiculing the Bush attempts to increase regulation on Mortgage lending
Democrat Dodd ignoring regulations and blatantly manipulating markets on behalf of his donors
Democrat Hussein Obama and Congress nationalize financial and automobile industries
Democrat Hussein Obama violates law by refusing to accept loan repayments
Democrat Hussein Obama bypasses Congressional oversight by appointing “czars”
Democrat Hussein Obama establishes compensation limits on private businesses
Democrat congress conspires under color of law to deprive citizens of their right to life
Democrat congress conspires under color of law to create multiple classes of citizenship
Democrat HB3200 ignores Eskra v. Morton and creates titles of ignobility
Democrat “Hate Crime” legislation which creates unconstitutional new classes of citizens
Americans can no longer ignore the criminal anti-Constitutional nature of and purpose of the democrat party. As can be clearly seen by the repeated democrat establishment and attempts to establish multiple classes of citizenship throughout its history, the democrat party is now and always has been dedicated to a single goal. That single goal is to undermine, destroy, and replace the Republic created by the Constitution of the United States with a totalitarian Nobility that demotes the majority of citizens to the status of slaves. Any who may doubt that fact in spite of the democrat party history need only look at how effectively democrat created welfare plantations accomplish exactly the same thing that reconstruction era black codes did.
This continuing criminal enterprise must be disbanded, those guilty of RICO Act violations, those guilty of sedition, and those guilty of treason, must be tried. All who are convicted must be incarcerated among the general population in federal prisons.
Regards
Ok. You say you don’t by free will, then go to explain free will.
You are correct behavior is not random IE free will.
Great chart!
Great statistics. Especially about the government schools.
I said no such thing. By “inclined” I mean tendencies that are part of a person’s nature.
For example, it is impossible for a leftist to comprehend spiritual things, beauty, selfless love, or compassion. Look at those leftist males in colleges who rape drunk women and think nothing of it. Look at the millions of young women who kill a child at 34 weeks gestation and go on with their horrible lives without a shred of guilt! Life itself is worthless to them, a disposable commodity. Do you honestly believe that these...things...have ever had a spiritual experience? It is totally outside of their nature!
They were innocent as children but, like I said before, they had no resistance whatsoever to corruption. As a result, they instantly succumbed to corruption upon the very moment of exposure. In many ways they were not true leftists upon conception. They were merely weak hosts. A weak “immune system” so to speak. Then they were exposed and became un-living (”zombified”) leftist vermin.
Wow, another awesome article from Prager! I find him rather dull on the radio; but he consistently writes brilliant and succinct columns.
Maybe Romans 1 will help.
It’s not because they are “free” but rather because theya re slaves.
And if you have never felt the weight of original sin, do not call yourselves Christians. I am verily persuaded original sin is the greatest burden of a true convert; this ever grieves the regenerate soul, the sanctified soul. The indwelling of sin in the heart is the burden of a converted person; it is the burden of a true Christian. He continually cries out, “O! who will deliver me from this body of death,’ this indwelling corruption in my heart? This is that which disturbs a poor soul most. And, therefore, if you never felt this inward corruption, if you never saw that God might justly curse you for it, indeed, my dear friends, you may speak peace to your hearts, but I fear, nay, I know, there is no true peace.
George Whitefield
The result of behavior is choice IE free will.
We are all slaves to sin, if we were not there would have been no need for the Cross.
Christ took my sin burden, my heart is free, my soul is freed by the Blood of the Lamb.
One will never understand Grace until they understand they do not deserve it.
We know what Christ does with the lukewarm. He spits them out of His mouth. And...Given the fundamental nature of all socialist programs it was INEVITABLE that government schooling would be utterly taken over by those who are socialist ( communist really) and collectivist and that they would inexorably become completely godless in their worldview. .
I point this out because inevitably there are people who think that if we could return to some magical period in government schooling that somehow they would be "fixed". This is not so. Government schools are socialist and that we have today's monstrosity was inevitable!
One final point....If we move to socialist medicine, it won't be that bad for a generation or so. The reason is the values and culture of the doctors, nurses, and administration with their privately acquired training will remain intact. It is only after these people retire and die off and their influence fades will we see the true ugly face of socialized medicine. Inevitably, some will continue to offer the same argument seen with government schooling.:
If only we could return to health basics. ( Education basics, phonics, traditional math.)
If only we could have medical care like we did 20, 30, or 40 years ago. (If only we could have schools like we did when I, my father, or my grandmother went to school. )
We need to get rid of doctors, nurses, and administrator's unions. ( Teachers unions)
Better people need to run for the health board ( school board).
We need to get doctors with higher MCATs. ( Teachers with higher SATs)
We need to get rid of the Marxist indoctrination of doctors, nurses, and administrators. ( Teacher colleges and teachers.)
Do you see. The problem that can NOT be fixed is that government schools are the very definition of a compulsory and collectivist managed ( school board) socialist welfare entitlement.
Government schools must be abolished because they can't be fixed. Socialism can't be fixed.
No disrespect for the truly religious Lutherans out there, but the Swedish National Church is more a social organization now and not Lutheran, and is barely Christian, so a Swedish “pastor” saying this, well, that’s what one can expect.
sorry — I meant to reply to you in the post above
A very good point and quite true.
Marx and other's failure was that they extrapolated these "ideal" societies to the larger society as a whole and it cannot work. The academic world is one where a lot of time seniority does make sense, money is immaterial, yet this does not make sense in the real world
When Universities are busy making up fields of studies like “Ethnic studies” “Womyns studies”, etc, etc - it is no wonder that they skew the average towards fuzzy thinking jargon laden liberalism.
My own university education in science I encountered mostly conservatives, including a very staunch anti-Communist escapee from Russia who would say “Every day I thank Ronald Reagan in my prayers” and “in this country you have wonderful saying - ‘no such thing as free lunch’.”.
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