Tragedy And Hope Dot Com

This project is inspired (in part) by Carroll Quigley's 1966 book: Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in Our Time.  A .pdf version of this book can be found here.

Visit us at Tragedy and Hope

Get a copy of "Tragedy and Hope" at Amazon or Barnes and Noble

 

Tragedy And Hope Dot Com

PEOPLES IS PEOPLES... AND APES IS APES

from the September 20, 2011 eNews issue
http://www.khouse.org (visit our website for a FREE subscription)

There were once a much wider variety of human beings on this planet than there are now, according to new genetic analyses of Neanderthals in Europe and Denisovans in East Asia. Modern humans once interbred with these other groups, apparently sharing genetic material that includes the ability to fight off certain diseases. Yet, not all creatures designated as "hominids" are related to humans.

In 2008, a piece of bone and a tooth of what is believed to be a young girl were found in Denisova Cave in southern Siberia, along with stone blades and body ornaments. Twenty years ago the small bone and a tooth would not have been much to go on. These days, however, 40 mg of real bone from a fossil can tell researchers a great deal of information - if the bone contains enough genetic material for researchers to sequence the DNA.

Researchers were able to compare DNA all around, and it turns out that the Denisovan girl and Neanderthals are related, but not directly. According to comparisons of genetic code, the Denisovan shared a common ancestor with Neanderthals and modern humans.

"It amazed me that we found this other extinct group of humans," evolutionary geneticist Svante Pääbo at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology at Leipzig, Germany, told LiveScience. "When we got this little finger bone from Siberia, I was totally expecting it to be either Neanderthal or modern human. When it was something else, that was totally surprising and shocking to me."

Ancient humans might bear some superficial physical differences from modern homo sapiens, but they were all still humans and able to breed with one another. In fact, interbreeding between modern-form humans and Neanderthals may have given us modern humans certain genes that helped boost our immune systems.

At the least, Neanderthals share key immunity genes with us, namely the HLA (human leucocyte antigen) class 1 gene. HLA proteins are important in helping the body defend itself against new infections. A variant called HLA-B*73 is found both in modern humans and Denisovans.

There's quite a bit of Neanderthal DNA floating around out there in the population. According to researchers, up to four percent of Neanderthal DNA and up to six percent of Denisovan DNA have survived in modern humans. It's been known for some time now that Neanderthals bred with the people whose descendants are now found in Europe and western Asia. Denisovan genes can also be found in the population of Europe and especially in the people of Asia and the oceanic islands.

No Missing Links
For more than a century, Neanderthals were portrayed as brutish, evolutionary missing links. They brought to mind the knuckle-dragging cave man, little better than apes themselves. Those pictures of Neanderthal are sadly incorrect. Evidence consistently points to Neanderthals as an extinct, but completely human, group of individuals. Neanderthals used tools, buried their dead, and even made musical instruments. The Denisovan bones were found with tools and body ornaments, which are both characteristic of human beings.

In the Bible, Adam's son Seth was born as a replacement for Abel, who was murdered by Cain. However, Cain, Abel, and Seth were not the only children Adam and Eve produced. Genesis 5:4 states that Adam lived another 800 years after Seth was born, and he begat sons and daughters. Seth's importance in the story comes from the fact that it is through his descendants that Noah is born. The only human genetic lines that survived the Flood were those that climbed on board the ark – namely, the genes of Noah's three sons and their wives.

With the Flood, God wiped out nearly all of humanity. He preserved one slender group of genes to continue on through the children of Shem, Ham and Japheth. It should therefore be no shock that we find the remains of other extinct humans that don't look exactly like us. Their gene pools were nearly wiped out.

Apes Are Still Apes:
On the other hand, paleoanthropologists are constantly seeking out new fossils they hope will finally provide science with the missing links between apes and humans. The newest human precursor is Australopithecus sediba. A. sediba was discovered in South Africa in 2008 by a little boy and his dog, and later identified as an australopithecine, a cousin of the famous Australopithecus afarensis, Lucy.

While A. sediba provides an exciting new puzzle piece for evolutionary paleoanthropologists, its similarities to humans - just like Neanderthal's differences - are superficial. A. sediba has been lauded for having hands strong enough to grasp tree branches while at the same time have hands that could use tools. Its pelvis is also more curved than other australopithecines, which the researchers believe would have made it easier for females attempting to give birth to babies with larger heads and brains. The fact that A. sediba itself has a small head, with a brain capacity of only 420 cc, doesn't discourage the scientists. They consider A sediba to be a possible human ancestor, and therefore the researchers see a human head-friendly pelvis in A. sediba.  Whether this is a case of, "If I hadn't believed it, I wouldn't have seen it," requires a second opinion.

"They are important fossils and remarkably detailed," said paleontologist Bernard Wood of George Washington University in D.C..  Wood stood among those paleontologists  who were not yet willing to support A. sediba as a human ancestor. "I have some resemblances to Warren Buffett, but I'm not a billionaire," Wood says. "A few resemblances does not an ancestor make."

At the end of the day, A sediba is still an ape. She is an ape with long fingers and a wide pelvis. No tools or jewelry were found with A sediba. The apes did not bury their dead nor play handmade flutes. A. sediba simply represents the longing of paleoanthropologists to fill in the gaps between humans and apes on an evolutionary tree.

The difficulty is that the gaps are fairly large. Each new fossil discovery adds just one more individual to either the human family branches or the ape family branches. As much as paleoanthropologists want the two sets of branches to eventually run into each other, as time progresses, they look more and more like two, many-branched bushes and not one single tree at all.

Related Links:

• Neanderthal Sex Boosted Immunity In Modern Humans
  - BBC News
• Neanderthal Mating Gave Modern Day Humans a Boost
  - Bio News
• Human Ancestors Had Sex with Now-extinct Relatives
  - International Business Times
• Neanderthal Flute
  - NYU.edu
• Neanderthal 99.5 Percent Human
  - Live Science
• Neanderthal Man And The King Of Creation
  - Koinonia House eNews
• 2-Million-Year-Old Fossils Raise Human Ancestor Hopes
  - USA Today
• Fossil Trove Sheds Light On a Stage of Evolution
  - The Wall Street Journal

PEOPLES IS PEOPLES... AND APES IS APES

Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution by Michael J. Behe

The groundbreaking, "seminal work" (Time) on intelligent design that dares to ask, was Darwin wrong?

In 1996, Darwin's Black Box helped to launch the intelligent design movement: the argument that nature exhibits evidence of design, beyond Darwinian randomness. It sparked a national debate on evolution, which continues to intensify across the country. From one end of the spectrum to the other, Darwin's Black Box has established itself as the key intelligent design text — the one argument that must be addressed in order to determine whether Darwinian evolution is sufficient to explain life as we know it.
In a major new Afterword for this edition, Behe explains that the complexity discovered by microbiologists has dramatically increased since the book was first published. That complexity is a continuing challenge to Darwinism, and evolutionists have had no success at explaining it. Darwin's Black Box is more important today than ever.

Book Link: Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution by Michael J. Behe

Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution by Michael J. Behe

The Deep Politics of God (Part Eleven): The CNP, Dominionism, and the Ted Haggard Scandal

RaidersNewsNetwork.com
By Phillip Collins and Paul Collins

Neocons and Evangelicals: Seduced by the Technocrats

Elements of the technocratic Enlightenment within the Evangelical establishment are made evident by the movement’s advocacy of neoconservativism. The cult of neoconservativism has always paraded around under a patriotic, pro-American, anticommunist facade. What lies behind this veneer? Frank Fischer answers this question in his book Technocracy and the Politics of Expertise: ". . .neoconservativism is at base an elitist ideology aimed at promoting a new group of conservative technocrats." (172)

To promote their own variety of Technocracy, neoconservatives present themselves as the antithesis to left-wing "policy professionals." However, the conflict between these two is superficial at best. As is the case with all good Hegelian dialectics, the neoconservative antithesis is not dichotomously related to its alleged technocratic opposition. Fischer elaborates:

Neoconservatives regularly argue that knowledge elites are a threat to democracy. But if this is their primary concern, their solution is scarcely designed to remedy the problem. Indeed, by challenging the Democratic party’s use of policy expertise with a counterintelligentsia, they implicitly accept—and approve of—the evolving technocratic terrain. Developing a conservative cadre of policy analysts cannot be interpreted as a measure designed to return power to the people. (171)

Fischer correctly argues that Neoconservativism’s advocacy of a so-called "conservative cadre of policy analysts" precludes citizen participation:

Neoconservatives doubtless maintain that their policy advisers speak for different political values: Rather than the welfare state and bureaucratic paternalism, conservative experts advocate democracy and free market individualism. Such an argument, however, fails to address the critical issue. As a system of decision making geared toward expert knowledge, technocracy—liberal or conservative—necessarily blocks meaningful participation for the average citizen. Ultimately only those who can interpret the complex technical languages that increasingly frame economic and social issues have access to the play of power Democratic rhetoric aside, those who nurture a conservative intelligentsia in reality only help to extend an elite system of policy-making. (171-72)

Whether under the superfluous appellations of conservative or liberal, "policy professionals" still constitute what Wells referred to as a "democracy of experts." Neoconservativism’s promotion of its own "policy professionals" betrays the ideology’s technocratic propensities. Rhetoric concerning "democracy" and "free market individualism" amounts to little more than pageantry. Neoconservativism is but the latest incarnation of the technocratic movement and represents another stage in the sociopolitical Darwinism’s metastasis.

Neoconservativism’s technocratic pedigree is also graphically illustrated by its adherents’ strong support for FDR’s New Deal. Irving Kristol, the "godfather of neoconservatism," states in his book Neoconservatism: The Autobiography of an Idea that neocons: ". . .accepted the New Deal in principle. . ." (x). Later in his book, Kristol writes:

In a way, the symbol of the influence of neoconservative thinking on the Republican party was the fact that Ronald Reagan could praise Franklin D. Roosevelt as a great American president-praise echoed by Newt Gingrich a dozen years later, when it is no longer so surprising. (379)

Why were neoconservatives so amicable towards the socialism of the New Deal? The answer is because Roosevelt's Marxist proclivities harmonized with the neoconservative variety of Technocracy. It is interesting to note that "godfather" Kristol was a Trotskyist in his youth. Kristol makes it clear that he is unrepentant: "I regard myself lucky to have been a young Trotskyist and I have not a single bitter memory" (Neoconservativism: The Autobiography of an Idea, 13). The statist tradition found in Marxism is also carried on by the neocons. This is another point made clear by Kristol: "Neocons do not feel that kind of alarm or anxiety about the growth of the state in the past century, seeing it as natural, indeed inevitable" ("The Neoconservative Persuasion," no pagination).

Several neoconservative ideologues have espoused socialist ideas. Former neoconservative Michael Lind admits:

The fact that most of the younger neocons were never on the left is irrelevant; they are the intellectual (and, in the case of William Kristol and John Podhoretz, the literal) heirs of older ex-leftists. The idea that the United States and similar societies are dominated by a decadent, postbourgeois "new class" was developed by thinkers in the Trotskyist tradition like James Burnham and Max Schachtman, who influenced an older generation of neocons. The concept of the "global democratic revolution" has its origins in the Trotskyist Fourth International's vision of permanent revolution. The economic determinist idea that liberal democracy is an epiphenomenon of capitalism, promoted by neocons like Michael Novak, is simply Marxism with entrepreneurs substituted for proletarians as the heroic subjects of history. (No pagination)

Neoconservativism, which has been embraced by the controlled Evangelical movement, is actually a creature of the political left. It is truly ironic that secular progressives would condemn their pseudo-Christian opponents for these dubious associations. If secular progressives are genuinely disturbed by the political system that the CNP, the Dominionists, and the Evangelical establishment are creating, then they must seriously question their own vision for society. Both sides are merely variants of the same neo-Gnostic vision and strive to immanentize the Eschaton. Both sides are merely variants of sociopolitical Darwinism and view global government as the unavoidable outcome of man’s alleged developmental ascent. This is a vintage Hegelian dialectic. The only difference is the name of the patron deity exalted by both sides. The god of secular progressives is man himself, enthroned to rule over a technocratic Utopia. The god of the Dominionists is a deistic Christ who proffers the neo-Gnostic mandate for a worldly kingdom sustained through worldly power.

Evidently, the culture war has provided fertile soil for the power elite’s Hegelian activism. The combatants in this dialectical struggle are merely fellow travelers on convergent paths toward a Hegelian synthesis. That synthesis is already underway, as is evidenced by the political ties being forged between leftist evangelicals and Dominionists. One example of this alliance is the recent "meeting of the minds" between Presidential hopeful Barack Obama and Dominionist, Mega-Church pastor Rick Warren. The pretext for their partnership seems to be AIDS awareness and prevention. After all, Warren invited Obama to a two-day AIDS summit held at his church (Donovan, no pagination). As cynical as it may sound, AIDS may be the last thing on Obama’s mind when it comes to his coalition with Warren. Democrats have come to appreciate how important it is to have a few Dominionists in their pockets if they want to seize this country’s sizeable Christian vote. Warren’s teachings are pure Dominionism. Sarah Leslie provides an examination into the Dominionist elements of Warren’s global P.E.A.C.E. plan:

Warren has audaciously called for a "Second Reformation" based upon his global P.E.A.C.E. Plan, which is a study in dominionism. Leftists who fret over Warren’s foray into AIDS may miss the more serious dominionist ramifications of his overall global plan. Warren intends to amass the world’s largest volunteer "army" of "one billion foot soldiers" to implement his global P.E.A.C.E. Plan. (No pagination)

It is very interesting that Warren refers to his Dominionists scheme as a "Second Reformation." The father of the first Reformation, Martin Luther, was actually an unconscious agent of secularization. Under Catholicism, the truth had become the province of priests and other self-proclaimed "mediators of God." However, Luther made the mistake of adopting nominalism as one of the chief philosophical foundations for his doctrines. In The Western Experience, the authors write:

[S]ome of Luther’s positions had roots in nominalism, the most influential philosophical and theological movement of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, which had flourished at his old monastery. (450)

By the time Luther’s ideas were codified in the Augsburg Confession, nominalism was already beginning to co-opt Christianity. Nominalism’s rejection of a knowable God harmonized with the superstitious notions of the time. Misunderstanding the troubles that beset them, many peasants made the anthropic attribution of the Black Death to God’s will. Following this baseless assumption to its logical conclusion, many surmised that God was neither merciful nor knowable. Such inferences clearly overlooked the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, which represented the ultimate act of grace on God’s part. Nevertheless, the superstitious populace were beginning to accept the new portrayal of God as an indifferent deistic spirit. Nominalism merely edified such beliefs. Invariably, nominalism would seduce those who would eventually convert to Protestantism.

Christians should have had more than a few philosophical misgivings with nominalism, especially in light of its commonalities with humanism:

Although nominalists and humanists were frequently at odds, they did share a dissatisfaction with aspects of the medieval intellectual tradition, especially the speculative abstractions of medieval thought; and both advocated approaches to reality that concentrated on the concrete and the present and demanded a strict awareness of method. (424)

Suddenly, Christianity was infused with materialism and radical empiricism. There was an occult character to both of these philosophical positions. Radical empiricism rejects causality, thereby abolishing any epistemological certainty and reducing reality to a holograph that can be potentially manipulated through the "sorcery" of science. Materialism emphasizes the primacy of matter, inferring that the physical universe is a veritable golem that created itself. Despite their clearly anti-theistic nature, these ideas began to insinuate themselves within Christianity.

With nominalist epistemology enshrined, man was ontologically isolated from his Creator. Knowledge was purely the province of the senses and the physical universe constituted the totality of reality itself. Increasingly, theologians invoked naturalistic interpretations of the Scriptures, thereby negating the miraculous and supernatural nature of God. The spiritual elements that remained embedded in Christianity assumed more of a Gnostic character, depicting the physical body as an impediment to man’s knowledge of God and venerating death as a welcome release from a corporeal prison. Gradually, a Hegelian synthesis between spiritualism and materialism was occurring. The result was a paganized Christianity, which hardly promised the abundant life offered by its Savior.

Luther’s unwitting role in the popularization of such thinking suggests an occult manipulation. There is already a body of evidence supporting the contention that occult elements had penetrated Christendom and were working towards its demise. Malachi Martin states:

As we know, some of the chief architects of the Reformation-—Martin Luther, Philip Melanchthon, Johannes Reuchlin, Jan Amos Komensky—-belonged to occult societies. (521)

Author William Bramley presents evidence that backs Martin’s contention:

Luther’s seal consisted of his initials on either side of two Brotherhood symbols: the rose and the cross. The rose and cross are the chief symbols of the Rosicrucian Order. The word "Rosicrucian" itself comes from the Latin words "rose"("rose") and "cruces" ("cross"). (205)

Luther’s involvement in the Rosicrucian Order made him an ideal instrument of secret societies. Michael Howard explains the motive for this manipulation:

The Order had good political reasons for initially supporting the Protestant cause. On the surface, as heirs to the pre-Christian Ancient Wisdom, the secret societies would have gained little from religious reform. However, by supporting the Protestant dissidents they helped to weaken the political power of the Roman Catholic Church, the traditional enemy of the Cathars, the Templars and the Freemasons. (54).

However, occultism was not the only belief system benefiting from the Reformation. Elitism and oligarchy would also receive a boost from Luther’s activities. It should be recalled that many of the secret societies supporting Luther acted as elite conduits. While Luther was already ideologically aligned with the elites in many ways, he officially became their property in 1521. In this year, the papacy’s secular representative, Emperor Charles V, summoned Luther to a Diet at the city known as Worms (Chambers, Hanawalt, et al. 449). Luther was to defend himself against a papal decree that excommunicated him from the Church (449).

At the Diet, Luther refused to recant any of his beliefs (450). This led to the Emperor issuing an imperial edict for the monk’s arrest (450). However, Luther was rescued by the Elector Frederick III of Saxony (450). Frederick staged a kidnapping of the monk and hid him away in Wartburg Castle (450). The regional warlord of Saxony had much to gain by protecting Luther. Frederick represented a group of German princes that opposed the influence of the Church and its secular representative, the Emperor (450). These elites would use Luther’s teachings to justify breaking with the ecclesiastical authorities and establishing their own secular systems. In the end, the Reformation reformed nothing at all. It caused a division in Christendom and led Europe down the path of secularization. Howard states:

Indirectly the Reformation gave the impetus for the Scientific Revolution of the seventeenth century, which centred on Newton, and led to the founding of the Royal Society after the English Civil War. (148)

The "Scientific Revolution" facilitated by the Reformation led to the popularization of Baconian concepts, which were radically scientistic and occult in character. Commensurate with this paradigm shift was the rise of the elite’s first secular epistemological cartel and the acculturation of the masses to technocratic ideas. Warren might be repeating this process, even though it was damaging to Christian civilization and unleashed an era of some of the worst pagan brutality. Leftists everywhere have joined Warren and other Dominionists in trying to achieve these plans. Sarah Leslie writes:

Evangelical Leftists (Tom Sine, Ron Sider, Jim Wallis and others) have always hobnobbed with the dominionists. Many of the key Leftist dominionists have been coalescing around an agenda to eradicate world poverty, laboring with [Dominionist] Rick Warren to implement the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals. Micah Challenge is one of the key organizations operating in this realm. A number of international mission networking agencies have formed alliances around these mutual kingdom aspirations. Working to end poverty may seem laudable on the surface. But scratch the surface and dominionism appears. Charity is not what it seems. Charity is a vehicle to maneuver dominionism into the best possible international publicity spotlight. And altruistic appeals for charitable sacrifice are a mechanism to sign up recruits in the billion man army. (No pagination)

The United Nations can hardly be characterized as a right-wing Christian organization. Historically, the UN has promoted Marxist economic policies of wealth redistribution, which would upset the stomach of any patriotic American Christian. Moreover, the UN has advocated Malthusian programs of population control that have outraged many traditional Christians. Secular progressives like Michelle Goldberg claim that the Dominionists and the CNP are opposed to the United Nations. There may, in fact, be some conflicts between these factions. To be sure, neoconservatives, which are closely aligned with the Dominionists and the CNP, have been overtly critical of the United Nations. However, the conflict is superficial at best. These factions are only at variance over the globalist blueprint that each is attempting to actuate. Looming on the horizon is the Hegelian synthesis of these warring factions.

In short, the culture war has become a dialectical manipulation. It is a catalyst for Hegelian activism, which is a specialty of the power elite. Christians must dislodge themselves from partisan affiliations, which are susceptible to Hegelian activism. Like the Apostles of Jesus Christ in the early Church, the modern Christian shall have to operate on a grass roots level. Otherwise, the Church shall become the prostitute for the State. The culture war can be won, but not through strict adherence to partisan affiliations and political parties. When the Church relies upon such machinations, it becomes embroiled in the dialectical feuds of elite factions. The only true victor in these dialectical feuds shall be the global oligarchs. Truth will be the final and most tragic casualty of the conflict. Such are the consequences of Hegelian thinking. The real war is not between left and right, but right and wrong.

In the twelfth and final installment of this investigation, we shall examine the great exodus of Christians away from the Hegelian manipulation of partisan politics.

Sources Cited

All sources will be presented in the twelfth and final installment of this series.

VISIT MY WEBSITE:

Syndicate your Blog or Podcast with FeedBurner

Check me out!

FAIR USE NOTICE: This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to:www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

The Deep Politics of God (Part Eleven): The CNP, Dominionism, and the Ted Haggard Scandal

Environmentalism: The Religion for an Eco-theocratic Superstate?

by Phillip D. Collins

RaidersNewsNetwork.com -- In a recent address to the CATO Institute in Washington, D.C., Czech President Vaclav Klaus declared, "Environmentalism is a religion. It does not belong in the natural sciences and is more connected with social science." According to Klaus, this religion is purely a statist one designed to enthrone policy professionals that hope to "rule from above." Klaus asserted that this religion worked in tandem with "multi-culturalism," "internationalism," "social democratism," and other fashionable ideologies to accelerate the global tectonic shift towards "supranationalism." These contentions seem to be reinforced by the admonitions of one of the environmentalist movement’s leading ideologues: Albert Gore.

A cursory perusal of Gore’s Earth in the Balance: Ecology and the Human Spirit reveals the religious character of environmentalism. Replete with inherently religious terms like "heretical," "moral," and "spirit," Gore’s book virtually qualifies as a sacred text. However, the religion that Gore espouses is hardly amicable to Christianity. Gore assails Christianity for the purported suppression of the "goddess religion," which he contends provided humanity with a "spiritual sense of our place in nature" (260). According to Gore, those who think otherwise hold "heretical" beliefs (258).

Gore claims to be a Baptist (244). However, almost every assertion that he presents represents a departure from traditional Christian theological precepts. For instance, Gore re-conceptualizes the Godhead as God, nature, and man (255). Rejecting man’s universal position as imago viva Dei, Gore declares: "We cannot segregate the human heart from the environment ... Man is organic with the world" (21). Gore also expresses the belief that the totality of human intellect is "detached" from man and constitutes a "new disembodied mind" (251-52). This "new disembodied mind," Gore contends, possesses absolute omniscence and can "observe the movement of matter everywhere" (251-52). Such ideas are nothing new. Gore’s monistic Weltanschauung is merely the latest incarnation of the belief in an emergent deity within the immanent cosmos. W. Warren Wagar explains:

Nineteenth-and early twentieth-century thought teems with time-bound emergent deities. Scores of thinkers preached some sort of faith in what is potential in time, in place of the traditional Christian and mystical faith in a power outside of time. Hegel's Weltgeist, Comte's Humanite, Spencer's organismic humanity inevitably improving itself by the laws of evolution, Nietzsche's doctrine of superhumanity, the conception of a finite God given currency by J.S. Mill, Hastings Rashdall, and William James, the vitalism of Bergson and Shaw, the emergent evolutionism of Samuel Alexander and Lloyd Morgan, the theories of divine immanence in the liberal movement in Protestant theology, and du Nouy's telefinalism--all are exhibits in evidence of the influence chiefly of evolutionary thinking, both before and after Darwin, in Western intellectual history. The faith of progress itself--especially the idea of progress as built into the evolutionary scheme of things-is in every way the psychological equivalent of religion. (106-07)

The "faith of progress itself" was also one of the defining pillars of the anti-Christian Enlightenment. This anthropocentric religion, which reached its nadir with the bloody French Revolution, venerated progress as the product of man’s apotheosized Reason. Goeringer elaborates upon the Enlightenment view of progress:

Reason, working upon nature, would enhance the quality of life for each and every one of the Enlightened. The Atheist philosopher Condorcet preached the doctrine of a coming Utopia, where indefinite progress would bring forth a "natural salvation" of plenty and immortality. Progress held that since the universe was knowable, enlightened man could become the subject of history rather than its object. Mankind could fashion nature to its wishes; the efficacy in shaping the natural order was limited only by time and the sheer limits, if any, of reason. (Goeringer, no pagination)

Not surprisingly, the Enlightenment also venerated nature. Goeringer states:

Nature was just that — the natural, real world. It was not the realm of the supernatural, the demonic, or the godly, but the empirical or rational "stuff" of which the universe was, and is, made. Nature could be understood through reason; through logic, scientific inquiry, and open mind of free inquiry, nature would yield her secrets. (No pagination)

Of course, there are some crucial distinctions to be made. The Enlightenment’s view of nature was not as overtly spiritual as Gore’s, although many Enlightenment thinkers did view the decoding of nature’s secrets as analogous to divine revelation. Moreover, while Gore promotes a doctrine of emergent deity, his religion seems to eschew progress in favor of an anti-industrial, agrarian feudalism. Thus, modern day Enlightenment proponents like the Randian Objectivists clash violently with Gore’s environmentalism. These distinctions aside, there are some ideational commonalities that share an overall aversion for Christianity.

Gore's vision is purely global in scope, as is evidenced by his proposed "Global Marshall Plan." This hypothetical policy would stipulate the formation of a "trust fund" to generate revenue for environmentally sound products (349-50). The money for this fund would be confiscated from offenders of "mother earth," namely those segments of industry that are guilty of increasing carbon dioxide emissions (34-50). Further delineating his framework for an eco-theocratic state, Gore proposes a form of universal education that will "monitor the entire earth" (357). Gore’s hypothetical state would also mandate "an annual tree census" (357).

Given the supranational character of Gore's proposed social and political machinations, the claims of Vaclav Klaus certainly gain more credibility. In his address to the CATO Institute, Klaus specifically identified the world’s gradual migration towards global governance as a threat to liberty everywhere (Mooney, no pagination). Klaus contended that environmentalism was providing the ersatz religion for a gradually developing superstate (no pagination). If he is correct, then Gore qualifies as the high priest of the emergent world theocracy. Gore’s film, An Inconvenient Truth, enjoyed an international audience and won an academy award at the Oscars. Evidently, the evangel of the new ecclesiastical authority is spreading. Heretics, beware.

Sources Cited

Goeringer, Conrad. "The Enlightenment, Freemasonry, and the Illuminati." American Atheists 2006

Gore, Albert. Earth in the Balance: Ecology and the Human Spirit. Houghton Mifflin, NY: 1992.

Mooney, Kevin. "Environmentalism Religion Rather Than Science, Says Czech Leader." CNSNews.com 12 March 2007

Wagar, W. Warren. H.G. Wells and the World State. New Haven, CT.: Yale UP, 1961.

VISIT MY WEBSITE:

Syndicate your Blog or Podcast with FeedBurner

Check me out!

FAIR USE NOTICE: This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to:www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Environmentalism: The Religion for an Eco-theocratic Superstate?

Rick Warren on ABC Nightline

Rick Warren on ABC Nightline
By JDShelton

Once again, the secular media has missed the mark in their reporting about Rick Warren. ABC News Nightline interviewed Warren on March 7 and kept only to the surface when addressing the reasons some Christians are concerned about Warren’s teachings.

While the report said that “Warren’s ‘outside in’ approach to church growth is now causing rumblings,” it only touched on some of the symptoms of Warren’s theology, such as “Madison Avenue” marketing approaches and loud music that catered more to young people and disregarded older members.

The article did not mention things like Rick Warren’s goal to bring about a new reformation that includes all religions, his continued promotion and embracing of contemplative spirituality and the emerging church, his dominionist views as well as his disregard for biblical prophecy, the cruel treatment by Purpose Driven pastors towards those who do not go along with the program, and his connections to and influence by New Age sympathizers like Ken Blanchard and Robert Schuller.

The article stated: “When asked if he [Warren] thinks that some of these [church]splits are actually because Christians themselves are indulgent and refusing to change, Warren said, “Oh, without a doubt.” And when asked if he blames them, he replied, “I do blame them. Every church has to make the decision. … Is it going to live for itself, or is it going to live for the world that Jesus died for?”

(Watch this video where Rick Warren says this.)

Once again, Rick Warren has publicly denounced those who resist him. So that the rest of the story can be told, posted below are some other stories that have covered Rick Warren and the Purpose Driven program:

Wall Street Journal on Purpose Driven Resisters Tells Just Part of the Story

Is Rick Warren Promoting Contemplative Prayer?

Why Has Fox News Interviewed Rick Warren So Much Lately?

Rick Warren Distorts the Instructions of Jesus to Fit His Global Peace Plan

Purpose Driven Resisters - Must Leave or Die

Source: Lighthouse Trails

VISIT MY WEBSITE:

Syndicate your Blog or Podcast with FeedBurner

Check me out!

FAIR USE NOTICE: This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to:www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Rick Warren on ABC Nightline