What is right? What is "a right?"



Walter Williams asserts that society is trying to change the definition of "a right." Of course he is right!  But how do you know the difference between right and wrong?   The US Government was founded by those who accepted the Judeo-Christian ethic as a standard of right and wrong.  Many people in government today have abandoned those precepts and a pushing a Social Darwinian ideal instead.   Take from the earners, give to the non-earners, turn everyone into serfs thereby to be ruled by elitists.  Socialism.  It doesn't work.  It starts with the wrong suppositions.  It ignores right and wrong. 

Some ignorant people have recently asserted that Nazi Germany under Hitler was a Christian nation!  I've already published the testimony of a woman who has been there and done that and had the t-shirt.  Nazi Germany was a Socialist Fascist state that tried to eradicate Christianity and kill off all the Jews.  Hitler believed much of what he read of three important sources:  Darwin, Marx and Nietzsche.   By combining parts of what those three authors asserted,  Adolf Hitler believed he needed to have a socialist state ruled by a dictatorship that would, by killing off the weak and lame and otherwise handicapped and all who were not Aryans by blood he would be making the German Nation into the land of Ubermensch, capable and deserving of the rule over all the world.  He believed it because his worldview dictated his decisions.  Some doofs have claimed that Hitler supported Christianity and banned Darwin's books.   But in fact he derided Darwin's timeline and wanted to force rapid speciation among humanity by killing off those he considered weak or politically incorrect.  He lulled Christians into thinking he supported them, then put the kibosh on the church and took all the young people to be trained as Hitler Youth.   He only let the old people go to church and if any of them spoke out against him, off to an Auschwitz with them!

Worldview is something you all have.   But some of you allow it to cloud your reasoning,  Particularly vexing is the intrusion into science.  Naturalistic materialism is a point of view, a religion if you will.  Consider this recent comment:

"Hm, I had a look. The front pages of talkorigins and truorigins are quite telling - note the derision on trueorigins right off the bat:

"Advocates of evolutionary theory practice evolutionism when they routinely invoke (and dogmatically defend) naturalistic and humanistic philosophical presuppositions, and arbitrarily apply those presuppositions to their interpretation of the available empirical data. This fact (which many of them zealously deny) severely erodes evolutionists’ credibility, and effectively disqualifies them from any claim to objectivity in matters concerning origins and science"

Now what was that complaint about "the strange mindset of Darwinists, who posit that anyone who believes in creation cannot be "a scientist"?

Here we have creationists positing that anyone who subscribes to methodological naturalism in their scientific work is eroding his or her credibility and effectively disqualifies themselves...

A strange mindset indeed, huh? "


Not at all.  Unless you are talking about the Darwinists who artificially insert their religion into the scientific method and then pretend nothing happened!   Men like Bacon and Newton and Brahe and Maxwell would never have put up with the idea of limiting scientific inquiries to suit the religious preferences of atheists!  They all just looked at the evidence and allowed it to lead them to whatever conclusions that evidence suggested.  Then they would posit a hypothesis.  If they discovered a process that could be tested and retested by others and get the same results, it would be a theory and if said theory held up over time and testing it would be called a law.  By such methods we got laws of motion and gravity and biogenesis and magnetism and electricity, by such men physics and calculus were founded.   Such men used observation and testing and history and common sense and logic to drive them.  Never would they have said that only supernatural outcomes could be considered and never would they have said that only naturalistic outcomes could be considered.

If you limit yourself to naturalistic materialism, that is your right, for it only impacts you.    When you impose your religion on others, you over-reach your rights and you are intruding on the rights of others.   Thus the NCSE is an organization that violates the rights of students to get a balanced education.  They are censors trying to defend their religion, nothing more.  Secular Humanism has become our state religion despite the Founding Father's hope that such a thing would happen.   Many of them fled Europe to avoid such a thing.

It is a sad situation when here in the USA we have found ourselves saddled with a state religion all over again, Secular Humanism, a religion that demands adherence to Naturalistic Materialism.   But so many are blinded to this, like that commenter, who cannot see his own worldview showing.   How do we make the blind see?
If you think the scientific method includes naturalistic and materialistic boundaries then you are ignorant of both science and history. 

PROVERBS 6:16-19

16 There are six things the LORD hates,
   seven that are detestable to him:
    17 haughty eyes,
      a lying tongue,
      hands that shed innocent blood,
    18 a heart that devises wicked schemes,
      feet that are quick to rush into evil,
    19 a false witness who pours out lies
      and a person who stirs up conflict in the community. 

A group of us guys who are currently reading (along with whatever else they are reading) one proverbs for every day of the month are hopefully getting some read good from it.   Proverbs is an interesting book that seems quite meaningful to Christians and other believers in God whereas it will often seem incomprehensible to God-despisers.  The above is pretty clear to anyone, though, I would think.   If you are a person who supports evil or is comfortable lying or thinks he/she is superior to others, God has a problem with you.   It isn't my job to judge people.  I can be mistaken because I cannot see into your thoughts and intentions whereas God can.   I hope you don't see yourself listed above...

Here in the USA we supposedly believe the following:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Any of you who feels stifled by being mere commenters here could start their own blog.   It isn't a hard thing to set up.  You could ramble on for ten thousand words on abiogenesis if you liked there.  Please feel free to start your own blog.   Then you will be able to determine what direction your blog takes.   Maybe no one there will even mention God?

PROVERBS 7: 1-5

1 My son, keep my words
   and store up my commands within you.
2 Keep my commands and you will live;
   guard my teachings as the apple of your eye.
3 Bind them on your fingers;
   write them on the tablet of your heart.
4 Say to wisdom, “You are my sister,”
   and to insight, “You are my relative.”
5 They will keep you from the adulterous woman,
   from the wayward woman with her seductive words. 

One of my most important areas of concern involves making the point that the Bible is a unique book.   It is God's message to mankind.   It is only a science book in those areas it addresses specifically and it is a history book from the perspective of God, primarily focused on the land promised to His People and what His People did and did not do.  It certainly addresses philosophy/morality/ethics and is in fact the foundational resource for American laws as expressed in the Constitution.

There is just no room in the Bible for evolution.   There is no need for it.   There is no purpose for it.  It is diametrically opposed to God and Who He is.   Macroevolution is a random and undirected process never actually observed that involves no intentionality.   Creation is intentional and directed but it is also not observed.   You have to have faith to  believe in either side of the story.   The Darwinist side has enough bluster to fuel an entire season's worth of hurricanes but precious little actual evidence.   The Creationist side has more evidence but fewer religious adherents.   Intelligent Design scientists put aside the metaphysical aspects and study based on evidence and publish findings based on evidence.  This is why I often publish material from them, even those who are unclear on the source of all the intelligence and design.  

Bottom line on that thought is that it takes great faith to believe that all this stuff (Universe) and information and design and life just all happened by pure dumb luck.   Every process and system in organisms, all features, like wings and eyes and digestive tracts and gecko feet and bumblebee dances and symbiotic relationships and the explosive bombadier beetles and so on and so forth were happily lucky breaks.   And all these lucky breaks kind of all happened at once in the Cambrian era, when all life form styles are represented.   I mean, if you are a Darwinist you believe that statistically impossible occurrences have been so commonplace as to be totally pedestrian.  I am surprised they haven't banned statistical analysis yet since it tells us that macroevolution  is impossible but since you are a Darwinist then statistical analysis would have to be impossible.   So I applaud your faith even as I deplore your science.

Luke 17:2
It would be better for them to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around their neck than to cause one of these little ones to stumble.

I take my responsibility to my students seriously.  Much study goes into what I teach them and where I suggest they obtain information.  You may as well give up on any attempt to divulge personal information on any kids I teach now or have ever taught, any I have worked with in youth groups in churches or Boy Scouts or Indian Scouts or Royal Rangers, period.   Not happening, never happening.   They get enough anti-God propaganda forced upon them in colleges without outside help.   High school curriculum includes enough dumbed-down science and history as it is.   If I can teach students to think critically and "beware the sound of one hand clapping" then I will have done something worthwhile.   I expect my students to believe in a Creator God and I expect them to become Christians.   I encourage this, but not by brow-beating or emotionalism or anything else but good old evidence and logic.   

It is a wonderful thing to know that many of my students have become missionaries or teachers or preachers or military men or women,  have been married and starting their own families, started businesses and so on.   Teaching them about God and moral absolutes and real science seems to pay off in the real world.   Teaching them to think critically about everything including their faith and why they hold to it works!