TF: Chapter 4 part 1

"Truth" - with a capital tee

Colson starts this chapter by saying because he has proved that God exists and that the Bible is the word of God, then we can know that there is some ultimate Truth (with a capital tee). He also says that a Christian can know truth, which he defines as "the way things really are", through the Bible and three other ways: Truth in the book of nature, Truth through reason, and Truth through conscience.

Truth in the book of nature is described as look at the beauty in nature, see since it is beautiful there is a God. This of course ignores the ugly side of nature, which I pointed out in chapter 2 when he put forth the same exact argument.

Truth through reason is about reasoning the why's of creation, to Colson. He even makes this beautifully cognitive dissonant statement:

Christianity does not consist of a hidden body of teachings disconnected from everyday realities, nor does it insulate itself in a realm of subjective notions that cannot be disproved.

Colson does not live in reality. That is what that sentence says to me. He lives inside his own head and does not know what reality even looks like. The only reason I will continue on with this book is because my mother asked me to read it. If I was reading this on my own, I would have stopped after reading this sentence. Because it is that divorced from reality.

Gos is the ultimate unfalsifiable entity. No matter what the facts show God could have done it that way. You can't prove that God didn't do it the way science discovered, especially when you posit that God exists outside of our space-time. God has always been and will always be an unreasonable answer, because it is unfalsifiable.

Truth through consciousness. God exists because people know good from evil. Ignoring the fact that the idea of evil has evolved over the last few years and even more so over the last few thousand years (look at slavery, human sacrifice, and equal rights movements), Colson states that there are moral absolutes "written on our heart". Then they must also be written on the hearts of every social animal in the world, because dogs, chimps and monkeys all show signs of knowing good from evil. So how do they fit with the idea of morality coming from God for humans? Colson never mentions them, instead he attacks a straw man of moral relativism. Colson claims that because people think it is wrong to kill Jews or to push an old lady into oncoming traffic, then that means that postmodern relativism is wrong. In fact this proves that morals are relative. In Nazi Germany many people determined that it was okay to kill Jews. Before that many Christians, including Martin Luther (Luther advocated the killing of Jews also), thought that Jews were lesser people. These ideas have changed and evolved, morals have changed over time. Just because a majority of people are against the murder of Jews, does not mean that that has been the case throughout history. Morals are relative to the time, place, and situation.

Colson himself holds a moral view that is slowly going the way of the dodo. He was one of the authors of the Manhattan Declaration. He thinks that allowing same-sex couples to marry is immoral. Currently he is in the majority, but support for same-sex marriage is showing an increase in support over the last 2 decades. It is becoming less immoral overall in America. There could come a time (personally I hope it will be very soon) where it will be immoral to deny this right. Much like when it was finally legal to marry someone of a different race. It seems crazy to us now, but at the time it was hotly debated. Again it was a change in morality.

If I was being more optimistic, I would say that Colson just doesn't know what he is arguing against. I think Colson is knowingly lying for Jesus. It is an ends justify the means tactic. His lies also grow from his self-righteousness too. Fred Clark covered this (here, here, here, and here) so much better than I ever could on his blog, Slacktivist (which I cannot recommend reading enough).

Before I go on, I want to talk about the Code of Hammurabi which Colson mentions here. Hammurabi was a Babylonian King who ruled from 1796 to 1750 BCE. Hammurabi claimed that he talked to the Gods and that they dictated these laws to him on top of a mountain. This is one of the first recorded set of laws in human history (there are a few others from the same area that predate it but not by much). This code predates Mosaic Law. The two sets of laws are very similar and even the story have how they were received are similar. It is almost as if the ancient Hebrews borrowed the story and the laws from the Babylonians.

Music

The slacktivist does a thing about once a week where he lists some songs, I believe on his iPod (correct me if I am wrong PF). I really like this idea and thought I would steal it from him. :P

So here is my first list (song name, band, album):

"Acid Jazz Singer", The Fratellis, Here We Stand
"Adam's Song", Blink 182, Enema Of The State
"Add It Up", Violent Femmes, Add It Up (1981-1993)
"Adina", Rancid, Rancid
"Aliens Exist", Blink 182, Enema Of The State
"Alive", Beastie Boys, The Sounds Of Science
"All I Want Is More", Reel Big Fish, Turn The Radio Off
"All My Loving", Me First & The Gimme Gimmes, Blow In The Wind
"All Outta Angst", NoFX, So Long And Thanks For All The Shoes
"All The Small Things", Blink 182, Enema Of The State

What the Fuck?

Well I plan on getting to the pictures of the Museum at some point. I took almost 200 pictures, but I still need to weed through the ones I deem worthy. On the way back home though, I had a big "What the fuck?" moment.

Driving through these little towns in the middle of nowhere Oklahoma can be an interesting adventure. While traversing through the town of Holdenville, I noticed a billboard, right as your enter the town. The billboard exclaimed "If you want to marry a lady, then you should stop living with your girlfriend." Near the bottom it claimed to be sponsored by the such and such community, I didn't stop to check further.

There is just so much wrong with this little sentence. First, it is trying to call back to almost Victorian era language with this "marry a lady." It reminded me of something written on the Slacktivist recently (a great blog and I highly recommend its reading, Fred Clark is a liberal Christian who is not afraid to call out the loonies of the far right Christian movement), "The male supremacist dogma that so many evangelicals euphemistically refer to as 'traditional gender roles' usually expresses itself through an emphasis on almost Victorian manners. Tim LaHaye's wife, Beverly LaHaye, is a leading proponent of this chivalrous, gentlemanly approach to male supremacy." (The post this comes from can be found here) This could be me just reading too much into the phrasing but I get the feeling that the wording on this billboard is meant to be a reference to "traditional gender roles" as described in the Bible. These of course are where the woman is to remain quiet in public and obey her husband.

Second, the sentence does not follow, it is a non sequitur. Marrying a lady has nothing to do with the living conditions of the relationship before marriage. Unless you are trying to say that the action of living with a person, whom you love, care, and trust, somehow disperage this person into not living up to some ideal, which few if any can actually live up too. Which is the purpose of this billboard to shame the females living in this kind of relationship.

This brings me to my third point. This billboard is clearly misogynistic. Who is being shamed? The female. Whose the one you should get rid of? The girlfriend aka the female. Who should be living up to the ideal of "lady", whatever that means? The female. The male only needs to beware of these loose moraled women who wish to live with them, it is clearly not the man's fault.

This is what is being taught to youths in these little towns, deep in the Bible belt. When pointed out you can see how disgusting this philosphy truly is. When you grow up around it, the misogyny is very subtle and that makes it very dangerous. This billboard did not claim any religion behind it, but my best guess says that it was religious in nature. I would also say that it is a Christian message. I just found it to be extremely disgusting and patronizing. What is wrong with living with someone that you love, respect, cherish, and trust? Is this not a way to cut down on divorce, finding out how well you get along seeing each other every day? Why are you still reading a book that at best is almost 2000 years old and think it has anything to do with modern society?