Category: religion
The Melting Cult
Written by C.C. Thomas
Thursday, 22 March 2007 03:28
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Cults have been around for a long time, and will be around for a long time?as long as there are people who choose not to think for themselves and desperately want someone else to do it for them.

Until recently, my favorite cult of all time was the Zetatalk cult, led by self-proclaimed prophet, and UFO-contactee Nancy Lieder. Zetatalk insisted that a missing twelfth planet from our solar system, Nibiru, was inhabited by aliens who were bringing the planet back in May 2003. Even after Nibiru failed to appear, failed to smash into the earth as predicted, failed to bring about a change in humanity, and failed to reverse the poles, Zetatalk persevered. First they explained they had miscalculated. Then they admitted lying about the arrival date to fool evil governments bent on interfering. Then they just moved the arrival date to 2012.

I used to really enjoy reading all the funny stuff from Zetatalk, and all the raging debates and conspiracy theories on the internet. It's funny stuff. And it clearly illustrates that some people will refuse to admit any possibility they are wrong, no matter what. For some, this refusal might be money related- like, say, selling a book about Nibiru's arrival. Or some might crave the attention?like, say, having thousands of folks worldwide buying into their ideas.

That's when these preachers of doom become cults, when they have followers. Cults don't need facts; they just need followers.

Presently, my new favorite cult is the Church of Gore: Al Chicken Little Gore. The guy who proclaims the sky is melting. Personally, I'm surprised he picked this particular crusade. Since he invented the internet, I would have thought he would be prognosticating its impending, cataclysmic demise, crushed under the virtual weight of too many users and plunging the world into a techno darkness. Instead, he's let that one pass and others have taken up the internet's-end-is-near cry.

The Global Warming proponents, or ?Melters? as I like to call them, have grown in numbers over the years, absorbing all the other eco-alarmists that were once popular, but have since become ?passé®” Perhaps you remember them: acid rain, deforestation and ozone depletion, to name a few. Today, scientists, movie stars and politicians are included in their ranks. And they are able to continually recruit more to their ?hot? cause, because they are able to produce ?proof? to back up their outlandish claims.

You see, the Earth really is getting warmer.

Not so long ago, scientists began studying ice from deep below the surface of Antarctica.

The theory being, that snow falling at the South Pole froze, after which it was buried under the next layer of new fallen snow. This cycle repeats itself year after year, preserving traces of the atmosphere from earth?s distant past. By examining this ancient ice, scientists were able to discover what the climate was like, long ago.

 

And yes, the Earth was once cooler than it is now.

The Melters rubbed this in everyone's faces, declaring this was proof that mankind's pollution had made the Earth as warm as it is now. But recently, their evidence has turned on them.

More recent studies of ice cores have shown something else. That there have been numerous cycles of cooling and heating throughout Earth's history. A pattern, like the changing of the seasons, but over a much longer period of time.

The Melters don't care. In most cases they won't even listen. After all, ocean levels are rising, now, all over the world?in places like Yonaguni Island, near Japan, where ancient ruins were discovered (underwater) that could be 3000 or more years old. Wait a minute. That means that ocean levels were much lower when those structures were built. Did ancient mankind drive SUVs, and have millions of greenhouse-gas-passing cows, thereby melting the ice caps and flooding himself? Are we repeating this ancient calamity?

The Melting Cult doesn't listen to logic like that. They conviently ignore the Little Ice Age of 300 years ago. To acknowledge such things would be to admit they might be wrong. And if they're wrong, who will buy their books? Who will watch their movies?

No, better to just argue louder and keep insisting the sky is melting. That kind of strategy worked really well at keeping dissenters like Galileo quiet.

 

 
The Secular Media versus Religion: Taking the Gloves OFF!
Written by Cal August
Thursday, 22 February 2007 20:35
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The mainstream media seems to be overwhelmingly comprised of secularists. Why does the mainstream media so often explicitly and implicitly mock faith, especially Christian faith?
The only way to understand the secular media mentality is to understand the secular mentality.

There is a great divide between the primarily secular humanistic viewpoint and that of any religious view. Secularism and religion will almost always be at odds with one another (unless they intersect in a religion like Unitarianism) because the presuppositions are fundamentally different.

The picture is also a lot more complicated than the American attention deficit culture is willing to examine or even put up with. Those of the mainstream media with a secular mindset tend to gravely oversimplify religion, whatever that religion may be.

Here are some presuppositions of that secular mindset as they seem. I will lay them out here, but I wish to clarify that this is not at all what I personally believe (and for the highly impressionable, I don’t recommend putting any of the secularist’s ideas into personal practice).
1. Evolution and a materialistic mindset tend to be the underlying framework for secularism.*
2. The overwhelming principle here is that since we all come from a single-celled or other simple organism way back, and this totally by chance, so that any kind of religion—unless it involves worshipping the achievements of mankind, or glorifying nature—is patently false.
3. Hence, there is not any reason to study or understand any kind of religion, because it is all a waste of time.
4. From there, it should follow that it doesn’t matter what you do, because anything goes. There is nothing that a person could do that would really be seen as wrong in this mindset. That is why “tolerance” should abound above all characteristics, according to this mindset. (If you want to cheat on your spouse this mindset says go ahead. In fact, this mindset continues, why get married anyway, because it’s meaningless. And if you want to have a relationship with an animal—can you say, revolting?—then it shouldn’t matter.) Here there will be a tendency not at all to care what people do. It’s their business (but watch out for rule #6!).
5. It is somewhat of an offense to this mindset to be religious, because what most religion generally holds valuable shouldn’t exist. (Secularism allows an exception: if your religion accepts these rules, then your religion can be tolerated.)
6. However, it is an even greater offense that one should belong to a religion with a moral code that interferes with rule #4.

[*Evolution is passed off as “science” but it is really a kind of philosophical or pseudo-theological framework. In reality, there are many scientists who reject Evolution (in the present and in past history). But that’s another topic which I have discussed in various other columns.]

The intention here is not to belittle secularists who believe these things, but to explain their thinking. This also explains why the mainstream media always tends to get up in arms when anyone objects to homosexual “marriage”, when someone makes a derogatory remark about homosexuals, or when anyone objects to the practice of abortion.

For most of American culture though, not just any religion, but truly Christianity has had a profound influence on the history of the United States (whether or not secularists like this). There are thousands of religions, and thousands of “denominations” within various religions, but it is Christianity that secularism really has a beef with, because Christianity—except when Christians compromise—breaks all of secularism’s cardinal rules.

Christian theology is much more complex than the secular dogmas I have described above. It won’t be possible to lay out every nuance and detail, so I’ll try and describe the most basic principles.
Christianity holds that:
1. God is the Creator of all things, including the things of the universe, and of course, humans.
2. Sin came into the world when the first man and woman sinned.
3. God has laid out a code by which all humans are to live by. To go against that code—a code epitomized by the Ten Commandments—is to sin.
4. Because man could not fully live up to that code, it was required that all people needed a Redeemer.
5. That Redeemer came into human flesh to pay the price for all sin by dying on a cross.
6. While the Redeemer was laid in a tomb, He did not stay there, but was resurrected.
7. The Redeemer, who Christians understand to be Jesus Christ, has died for all—yes, even the secularists—however, He desires that all should come to knowledge of Him and be saved.
8. There will come a day when Christ will return to judge the living and the dead, so that those who have believed will enter into heaven and those who have not will face eternal punishment.

“Sin”, “right and wrong”, “good and evil” are important concepts to understanding Christianity. To the secularist, these things don’t necessarily exist. This is probably the most fundamental reason the two are always at odds.

This understanding of the life as we know it is completely offensive to the secularist. However, there will be some secularists who may completely disagree with the Christian viewpoint, but at least have a respect for those who hold it. These will be secularists who have constructed some sort of morality for themselves. They might even agree that in practice many of the Ten Commandments hold universal principles which men should follow whether or not they believe. To this kind of secularist, following such a code might even be seen as following a code of chivalry or a code of honor. They carry it out by principle.

Unfortunately though, such a secular moral construct is a pseudo-morality, for if one doesn’t believe in God, there would be no foundation even for the principles of the Ten-Commandments. This is where American society completely goes astray, for it becomes increasingly easy, even acceptable to break the “traditional” rules, because secularism says it doesn’t really matter in the first place.

On the other side there are Christians who fudge on things and compromise by saying, “Well, we were created, but God did it through Evolution.” Those who hold to this understanding don’t understand the nature of either Evolution or Christianity. The secularists who hold to an evolutionary mindset might outwardly call such Christians “progressive” but inwardly will probably secretly (or not so secretly) tend to think this person is an idiot by being religious in the first place.

The Christian can be reasonably secure not compromising on the Evolution issue at all, because there is much evidence to suggest that Evolution is patently false itself.

In the end, to the secular mindset, Christianity is often the greatest threat to “American” culture. Unfortunately, this is perhaps also to be expected, because there are in many respects two facets to American culture, based on the idea of a separation of the church and the state. This is not to say that the two are mutually exclusive in that you can’t pray in a public school, but over the past two-hundred years, there has been a tradition of secularists tolerating Christianity going about its business, even if those who were secularists did not believe (in fact, many of them believed in some sort of creator, but did not believe as Christians do). Two hundred years ago the idea of Evolution had not been invented, though most if not all the grains of thought were there. Evolution carried to its further extent threw any toleration for religion, especially Christianity out the window. Carried to its furthest extent the ideas of Evolution have brought forth the most despicable social doctrines and menaces (though according to this mindset “wrong” is a non-existent term when Evolution is applied and followed as a framework for one’s actions). –Cal Samuel August

Mary Grabar in her “Letter to a Stupid Atheist” has a pretty biting critique for the secular viewpoint. I am a Christian, and while I generally do not think it persuasive to call an atheist names—she is doing it to make a rhetorical point—her article’s critique of the secular viewpoint is well worth reading. Check it out:

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MaryGrabar/2007/02/18/letter_to_a_stupid_atheist

 
When Tim Hardaway Came Out
Written by Cal August
Wednesday, 21 February 2007 15:56
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When Tim Hardaway came out—against homosexuality in the NBA that is—I was expecting that the outcry would be swift and merciless. There could have been a bigger outcry, but Hardaway apologized almost as swiftly as he made the comments. In all honesty, there are a lot of males who without a second thought would say the exact same thing, whether or not that is the way to persuade anyone.

I was surprised that more conservatives didn’t quickly bring up this particular incident. Of course, I know there is more important news. However, Michael Medved talks about this issue in his Townhall column. It’s linked here.

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MichaelMedved/2007/02/21/where_tim_hardaway_was_right

There is an even greater clash going on culturally regarding homosexuality though.
Churches are having to deal with a difficult aspect of modern American culture. Every time we turn around in the entertainment world there is some sort of “gay” expert, usually in stereotypical areas such as fashion or hairstyling. With the prevailing culture, it’s no wonder that in the church (and in the media), there has been much controversy over homosexuals being members of the clergy.

The huge mistake that the media seems to make is that the church is a monolith. By absolutely no means is that the case. When people hear about the promotion of “gay” clergy it is really a very small percentage of the American church (and I use that term loosely) that would allow such a thing.

This is not because church people are bigots. That is generally the claim that is quickly made. Intolerance is a big taboo when it comes to the modern media, entertainment, and of course, politics. What is really occurring is a clash between two worlds: the culture and the church.

In order to understand what is happening, one must understand sections of the church.
There is also a clash within the church that is a just as serious issue, and it goes to a church’s views on Scripture. Let’s reason through it. I am going to make a little bit of a dichotomy here; this is not really a study of denominational branches of churches.

The traditional church says:
1. Scripture is inerrant (without error).
2. Scripture is inspired by God.
(For those who quickly balk at this saying, “Not true!” understand that those who hold these views recognize that there are some minor variations in various copies of the ancient documents, and would insist that this only holds entirely true for the original autographs, that is the actual documents written by those who wrote the books of the Bible. However, by no means are most of the faithful copies we have unreliable.)
3. What follows from these understandings is that the truths of the Scriptures are unchangeable.

The “progressive” church says:
1. the Scriptures were written by men and therefore do have errors.
2. the Scriptures are not necessarily inspired by God.
3. What follows from the first two (or a combination thereof) is that the Scriptures are “plastic.” This kind of church says what we do in the church is not necessarily dependent upon what the Scriptures say, but changes with the times.

This version of the church also has no problems going along with movements in the culture. The prevailing modern cultural view is that the Scriptures, along with most other ancient documents are backward thinking mythology. However, members of the traditionally-minded church not only find this offensive, but when homosexuality is promoted in church life it is seen as morally wrong. That is why the two “versions” of the church will always be at odds with one another.

Sometimes members of churches who think “progressively” and “traditionally-minded” members end up in the same church body, and that can be a problem too. Oil and water do not mix.

“Progressive” is seen as a good word in today’s culture, but when it comes to the church, many do not necessarily believe that that is the case. The churches that accept gay clergy may be seen as “progressive” by the media, but here’s where the problem lies. Traditional churches that see the Scriptures as Holy documents, without error, and carrying unchanging truths also recognize that homosexuality is morally wrong according to the Scriptures. This is not something that the traditionally-minded will ever be able to compromise on.

In today’s society intolerance is the greatest sin. If it can be said in modern eyes that such a thing as “sin” exists. More and more, though, there is a bigotry and intolerance against the traditional view, those with a real moral objection to homosexuality. The traditional church is not against people; it has a moral objection to the sin of homosexuality. The two views will always be at odds because they are irreconcilable. Is this hot-button controversial? Absolutely. People hate being told that there is such a thing as sin.

Modern morality says everything is OK as long as you’re happy. Real morals don’t exist unless there is unchanging truth. Dare I say? The Bible is unchanging truth.

There was one man who lived counter to his own culture. Nearly 2,000 years ago, the Apostle Paul visited the city of Athens. He visited a group of people who worshiped the Greek god Ares. He said to them, “Men of Athens, I notice that ye are very religious people.” This of course, was very troubling to Paul, because Athens was full of idols.
He told them, however, he noticed one inscription that said, “To the UNKNOWN GOD.” That day, Paul was prepared to tell those people about Him.

Paul’s understanding, and that of the traditional church is that there is one God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—if you do not know Him, may you discover the Lord of the Heavens and the Earth. Pick up the Scriptures and read them, learn them, and understand them. The truth is He does love you and care about you, whoever you are, whatever, and wherever you have been. –Cal Samuel August