Roman in Wonderland #2 : British visitors

Another foray in Wonderland. For this visit I was drawn in by the footsteps of a couple of very distinguished Brits: A journalist and writer of books named Melanie Phillips, and also Tony Blair himself. It was in an article Ms. Phllips wrote for the Daily Mail.

You can pop through this particular mirror here:

http://tinyurl.com/yv3ten

Here are some choice bits:

Oh God! Tony Blair has confessed to religious faith being "hugely important" to him during his tenure as Prime Minister.The full force of the secular inquisition will not hesitate in pronouncing its anathema upon him for committing this heresy of religious belief.For as Mr Blair also admitted, he was previously unable to be open about this key element of his character because "Frankly, people do think you're a nutter".

And:

It is almost as if Christianity is fine - with its high-minded concerns about poverty, the environment, war and so forth - as long as no one believes in it.

And!

Moreover, as the influence of religion has declined in Britain, far from becoming more rational, people have become more credulous, superstitious and irrational than ever before.

Tony Blair had to conceal his faith to avoid political damage and possibly interfere with his ability to accomplish vital tasks. This has been challenged, reasonably enough; but the fact that expressing orthodox Christian faith brings terrible hostility is pretty clear.

What makes this particularly Wonderful (see my 27 July 2007 entry for a discussion of how I’m using that word here) is that this is the same place where National Health now pays unblinkingly for shamans and crystal therapy. (Just imagine the uproar if someone suggested they pay for Roman Catholic exorcisms, or Eastern Orthodox blessed healing oil!) This is the same place where, when an Imam preached using murder to force Islam on Britain—in sermons in the street so that the streets were illegally blocked, every day for months—the police took action against these gravely criminal acts. Blocking the streets was of course illegal, and openly advocating murder is a very severe felony in Britain. So the police stood around and protected the Imam and his mob of thugs from curious onlookers and people with cameras!!! I’m not making this up!

Ms. Phillips’ article also mentions very distinguished scientists who question the scientific basis of random evolution. Okay; so they are attacked by the “secular inquisition” for their “heresy”. But what makes it really Wonderful is that the Secular Torquemadas and Cotton Mathers publicly characterize them as “fundamentalists” who believe the world was created in six days—and get away with it, instead of immediately being laughed off stage once and for all. In fact these egregious liars succeed in forcing some of these innocent scientific dissenters out of their posts, rather than losing theirs for their flagrant lies and terrorism.

In my first report on my visit to Wonderland, I spoke of what my friend DarwinCatholic called the “promiscuity prudes.” Here I find their friends, the Un-Witch Hunters; the Secular Fundamentalists; the Materialist Inquisitors, who might as well be trundling racks around and waving hot pincers as they attack the enemies of the Holy God of Materialist Progress, and the Creed that Human Reason is the Infallible Guide to Truth and Morality.

Christopher Dawkins, apparently with a straight face, recently said in a debate that science can ultimately answer any question we want to ask. He didn’t say, “I believe” this. Religious fanatics do not say “I believe this.” They say, “This is the truth.” They take no responsibility for their beliefs.

Of course, the idea that science can answer every question does not now nor has it ever had any basis at all in real science. In fact, as Jacob Bronowski pointed out in an episode of his marvelous series “The Ascent of Man” (which I recommend strongly, despite the fact that I regard Bronowski himself as having been a confused secularist at bottom, in his ultimate faith in unaided human reason and his atheism, or certainly at least agnosticism); the one titled “Quest for Certainty”, one of the clearest conclusions to emerge from science in the 20th Century is that certainty is not available through science. (The Church Fathers knew that a long time ago. Events have proved them correct. Again.)

But Christopher Dawkin’s faith in science is just that: Faith, not science.

The militant atheists claim to be on the side of reason as against religion. But their ludicrous arguments against religion prove that they do not really have a case against it, and their conspicuous lack of any proof against the Supernatural in general and God in particular, disclose what they do their best to avoid admitting, to themselves in particular, I believe: Their position is in fact of one conflicting faith against another. The faith they hate and want to eradicate is traditional, orthodox religion. The worst is Christianity, of course, and the greatest enemy of theirs in Christianity is its largest, strongest, and most uncompromising element on earth: The Roman Catholic Church. Against this, they pretend to be on the side of reason, when in fact they promulgate a competing faith: The idolatry of unaided human reason, and its most adored and worshipped creed and brotherhood: Science and scientists.

“Idolatry” was forbidden first in Scripture as the worship of “graven images.” But the principal behind this was not merely not to worship individual objects in the material world, but not to worship the work of your own hands. By extension, a friend of mine pointed out to me, that means any creation of man, including abstract ones like “science”. An idolater takes his or her own creation, or the creation of another human being, and sets it up as divine; attributes to it a greater source of power, above all, but often wisdom and superhuman guidance, than can be attributed to the merely human creator.

Perhaps you can see where I’m going with this. For all the dazzling and often useful accomplishments of science, not only is science always ultimately uncertain and subject to future experience but it cannot by its nature be any better than the human beings practicing and applying it. And yet Dawkins is sure that it can answer all questions. Bronowski is not quite so optimistic. He knows that the belief in certainty is in fact contrary to what science has taught us and therefore contrary to reason. (Are you listening, Dawkins? Hitchens?)

So the Idolaters of Science take their place beside the Prudes of Promiscuity, declaring their absolute faith in the infallibility of their idol Science and their certainty that it can fix anything, answer any question; that when it falls short it can only mean it was not worshipped with enough zeal; and anybody who even states that they believe in anything else is a terrible enemy; obviously depraved and irrational, and a terrible threat to the divine order and rule of Science. All these dangerous heretics must be suppressed. For the good of Science, of course.

And your humble LogEyed Roman is very proud to share adventures in Wonderland with such distinguished fellow travelers as Tony Blair and Melanie Phillips.

Sincerely,

LogEyed Roman

New persecution of Christians: They’re coming for us.

There is the very credible threat of a massive, organized, systematic persecution against Christians some time in the next generation; perhaps within a few years. I mean for all Christians; us in the rich, relatively peacful (since World War II!) West. A great persecution has been going on against Christians since the Armenian Genocide in World War I.

Hitchens and Dawson are bad enough, along with books like “The Da Vinci Code.” The widespread abandonment of real Christian faith and morals is bad enough. It is looking to get worse before it gets better. The strong movements of renewal in Christianity are wonderful and very encouraging, but as yet they encompass only a small minority of the entire population, and they do not include more than a tiny minority of the most influential classes: Politicians, educators, and especially the larger, “informal” education system—the news and entertainment media.

But it’s not just the amount but the kind of movement away from Christianity recently which is really alarming. The difference is the extent and virulence of direct attacks.

By “direct attack” I mean more than simply promoting values and beliefs at odds with Christianity. That has been going on at a steadily increasing rate since the Black Death. I am specifically referring to hostility to Christianity, especially taking the ominous new form of demonizing it; building an false image of it as a source and even the main source of history’s ills and of everything wrong today.

How many modern atheists does it take to change a lightbulb?

Fifty-one. One to put in the new light bulb and fifty to write books and make movies blaming Christianity for the fact that light bulbs burn out.

Ahem. Getting serious again: It’s easy to dismiss, say, Hitchens’ wild claims blaming Christianity for so many things, he is so transparantly irrational and prejudiced. He’s so far gone that when someone brought up Communism, especially the Soviet Union, he countered that they had in fact never eliminated Christianity—the never got rid of all Christians nor dissuaded them away from the faith. And that, apparantly, is the source of all the evils perpetrated by Communism!

This is as irrational, as silly, as some of the wild claims by anti-Semitism in the nineteenth and early Twentieth centuries.

Which is why we should worry. Setting aside our natural amusement at the utter silliness of so much of what is being said, we must remember that its very silliness is an alarming development. That people otherwise not obviously demented believe these things so easily is a sign that too many people are so frightened at certain things going on in the world that they then yield to fear so great that it overpowers their reason, and they are ripe for any fantasy of an easily isolated and attacked scapegoat.

And we’re “it”.

Don’t kid yourselves. It could happen here. Serious social and/or economic and/or military reverses could easily open the way for extremists to get in power.

Some of them already are.

Just the other day, Leftist activists in Mexico City stormed a service in the great cathedral, causing so much damage and fear the Catholic authorities have suspended all services there until the civil authorities can guarantee safety. Disagreeing with Christian social and political activities is nothing new. Systematically targeting any available Catholics to pressure the whole Church is an ominous development. As is the conspicuous silence of the mainstream media, who make so much of Americans disrespecting Muslims in Iraq.

Recently a Christian student at a university set up a card table outside a hall where a musical was being performed on his campus that portrayed the Last Supper as a homosexual orgy between Jesus and the Apostles. He was being totally peacful; simply protesting and offering an alternative view. As a result, he was forcibly committed for several days of “psychiatric evaluation”, on the basis that his position was so flagrantly homophobic that he had to be considered mentally ill.

There are many other examples I could give. One friend of mine, a very well educated and completely orthodox Jesuit, has remarked that he believes there is little chance of his dying of old age. He believes he is more likely to be martyred for his faith.

The threat is of persecution of the most bloody and totalitarian kind, replete with terror, coerced apostasy, Christians systematically pressured to betray one another, torture, “reeducation”.

Our top priority?

Not that we defend ourselves and the Faith, which of course we must.

Our top priority is not to become like the persecutors.

We must oppose this persecution if it comes. We must be prepared to die, if necessary, for our faith. (This must be done with discerning judgment, of course; pretending compliance to continue the work underground, or, especially, to protect the innocent, especially children, can be acceptable.) We must try to fight as best we can; setting the best example we possibly can of Christian faith and morality.

But this is the Forest and Mote blog, and I, the LogEyed Roman, am committed to make self correction always the highest priority.

Yielding to this persecution would be bad. Joining it willingly would be worse. But the worst thing we could do is to fight back with the same evil means; yielding to the temptation to suppress our enemies with ruthless force; silencing our enemies with terror. This would be all to easy, and it is all to common in history, including religious history; most particularly including Christian history.

Christ was never a doormat. He conspicuously does not let sinners, especially hypocrites, get away with it. But he always did it with the ultimate goal of their redemption, not their “suppression” or “defeat”.

I fear that a really bloody and terrible persecution is coming. The terror and violence has begun already. I hope all Catholics, and other Christians; any men of good will, who read this, also share a healthy fear of this danger. But what I need to really fear, and probably don’t fear enough, is for us to become like our enemies. During one terrible episode of public terror and destruction a few years ago, a friend was raging inside at the perpetrators. But his pastor said, “If you can’t see Christ in them, you are worse than they are."

Let us be careful. The persecution will continue and will get worse before it gets better. It could be very extreme. But our greatest danger is not even being martyred. That is death of the body. Our worst danger is returning hate for hate, persecution for persecution; becoming worse than our persecutors. That way lies death for eternity.

May God preserve us.

Very truly yours,

LogEyed Roman