Friday, March 20, 2009

Dare to Know!

I'm currently in a History Class for my graduate program about the Church and the Modern World. This class is completely changing my perception of things and getting me to think and connect the dots of what is going on in our society in amazing ways. How many of us think? How many of us really and truly think? How many of us combine the use of our Faith and Reason to make decisions and evaluate the world around us. This is something I've been making a much stronger effort to do over the last few years. Let's take a quick stroll down memory lane and think about why we are where we are in our world today.

In ancient and early Christian times God was at the center of everything. Man believed truth was something outside themselves. There was belief that some form of higher power existed that was the source of that truth. Atheism was almost non existent because people actually believed in some form of higher power. The world then mainly became Christian and people lived in a world heavily influenced by Christ and his teachings. It was by no means perfect and people were not perfectly moral but people viewed the world in a Christian way.

Then came the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment was not a relativistic movement. It did believe in truth. However it throughout faith and taught that truth could be arrived at through reason alone. The great cry of the Enlightenment was "Dare to Know!" The great thinkers of the enlightenment, like Kant, believed if you got a bunch of people together in a room and argued for something on reason alone you would come up with some sort of universal truth. We can all guess why that didn't work. Because when you take God out of the equation and leave it only to human beings to decide truth you're in big trouble. A sub movement that was part of the enlightenment was Romanticism. Romanticism was also not relativistic. Romanticism believed you could come to truth based on your sentiments and feelings. Sound familiar?

The failure of these movements have brought us to where we are today. A Post-Modern world that is in chaos. We began with God at the center. Then Man was at the center. Now, nothing is at the center. We have completely rejected Faith and Reason. People do not think and allow themselves to be manipulated by the media and Propaganda! Why do you think Obama won this election? I honestly believe that if people would have allowed Faith plus REASON to evaluate the situation no human being would have put their trust in this man. First of all CHANGE? Why the heck would Americans want Change? We have the most comfortable lives and have had the most stable government in the world for the last 200 years. Seriously, Change? And HOPE? What exactly does he mean by Hope? Cause I've had Hope for years. My Hope is in Jesus Christ. He has completely altered the meaning of these two words to tug at the heart strings of America and get them to blindly follow based on nothing but their passions and emotions. Hitler and the French Revolution did the same thing. The Pro-Abortion Movement does the same thing as well. I'm not saying Obama is the same as Hitler but I am saying be weary of people who throw out reason and manipulate the meaning of words for the purpose of getting people to follow them. My Professor said something last week in class that hit the nail on the head: "Every Revolution in History began with a revolution of words. He who manipulates and owns the definitions of the words owns the people." Folks It's not pro-choice, it's pro-abortion! If you think otherwise you are kidding yourselves. The pro-abortionists coined the term and manipulated the meaning of the word choice to make their stance sound good. The French Revolution used "Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity" to rile up the people. All these terms are good things when defined with their true meaning but the French Revolution manipulated their meaning. And if you think Obama did not do that with the words Hope and Change then you're kidding yourselves. Obama's cabinet is made up of some of the most avid pro-abortionists in this country. Embryonic stem cell research and cloning for research purposes is now legal. Our tax dollars are now funding Abortions in foreign countries. All this in less than two months in office. You wanted Hope and Change America, well you're getting it!

6 comments:

On The Fly . . . said...

viva la viande

Aaron said...

If you want to read more about faith, reason, philosophy and where the Enlightenment went wrong, I suggest The Last Superstition.

Anonymous said...

Just a FYI. Embyonic stem cell research has never been banned. Only limited. The ban that obama lifted was a ban on federal funding for embryonic stem cells on new lines of cells. GW allowed some funding with the limitation to specific lines of embryonic stem stells that already existed at the time of the original ban. I am waitng for the truth to come out against fertillity clincics where these lines originated and will originate from.

Anonymous said...

I appreciate your opinion. It is clear you are very passionate about it, and that is good. Do you think, however, it is really fair to characterize the American people who chose Obama as idiots who are sucked in by a charismatic leader and the words he takes as his "catchphrase"? I think sometimes people look for hope and positivity elsewhere because they feel their churches or maybe even God has let them down. It may not be the right way to feel, but for some, it is reality. For those people, a Christian man calling them idiots who need to turn off their TVs may not do much to sway them back to the side of faith.

Jose said...

Anonymous,

Do not put words in my mouth. I never called anyone an idiot. I just think that the majority of people have stopped thinking for themselves and allowe the media to do it for them. This does not make them idiots. It does make them ignorant to what is really going on though. There needs to be more thinking involved by everyone. Sometimes the truth hursts. I'm not judging or condeming anyone but I'm not going to avoid saying things just because they offend people. I have nothing but love and respect for everyone. I'm simply stating things the way I see them. If you want to diagree with me by all means please do but do it with facts not with emotion.

A Daisy Girl said...

ooh, wanna come talk to my sophomores about this this week? No, seriously - it's just what we've been talking about - all the way from Aristotle to the Reformation to the Enlightenment that has left things so dark!!