Last night my wife ask me a question: “Why do you suppose there is such hatred in the scientific community for those in the ID (Intelligent Design) camp?” I’m sure she was looking for a simple answer, to which there are plenty of decent ones—she, however, did not get one.

The question is well founded, there is a vitriolic hatred spewed in the direction of scientists who support an ID model. It is a palpable hatred, akin to that seen in the ever-partisan and antagonist world of politics. This, however, should come as no surprise, because the hatred is, at its most fundamental level, a political hatred. More specifically, it is a hatred for any worldview that is anti-Marxist.

There was a point in history, not that long ago, in the second half of the 20th century, where nearly 40% of the world’s population lived under some form of Marxism. Due to its philosophical naivety and devastating legacy of bloodshed and unappalled human suffering, Marxism no longer holds the same position of political power. But regardless of the shares of political power it has lost, Marxism still holds a massive stake in the intellectual framework of the modern world. So pervasive is the Marxist ideology that even most capitalists unknowingly function from within the larger Marxist metanarrative.

To understand Marx properly one must have a grip on both his philosophical progenitor, Hegel, and one of his contemporaries and fellow ‘Young Hegelian’, Feuerbach. As were many in his day, Marx was captivated by the philosophy of Hegel. A young Marx, while in graduate school, even wrote to his father saying that he had “attached himself to the philosophy of the day” (Hegel). Marx saw Hegel’s work The Phenomenology of Mind as the birthplace and point of true genius in Hegel.

In The Phenomenology of Mind, Hegel argues that all of our individual minds are simply a limited manifestation of the ‘universal mind’ or ‘universal consciousness.’ Mankind however, clearly has not reached the point where we recognize this fundamental reality. If we did, if we understood that we are all one, we would never do anything to harm or disadvantage another, because in so doing, we would be harming ourselves.

In this work, so dear to the heart and mind of Marx, Hegel unveils his teleological vision of history, which will later manifest itself in what has come to be known as ‘dialectic materialism.’ Hegel argues that history has a definitive end, culminating moment, or telos towards which it is slowly but assuredly grinding. The end game of history is maximal freedom, which will only be achieved once everyone realizes we are part of the ‘universal spirit/mind/consciousness.’ History inches forward towards its goal every time freedom wins (IE: The Greeks defeating the Persians because a more free people defeated a less free people…the codification of law in ancient Rome…the Protestant Reformation and the blow it dealt to the Catholic hierarchy of power).

A contemporary of Marx and fellow ‘Young Hegelian’ Ludwig Feuerbach piggy-backed off the Hegelian thesis in his work The Essence of Christianity (This too became a favorite book of Marx). Feuerbach argued that religion was the stumbling block that was impeding history from reaching its telos. Religion alienates man from his true essence and keeps him from reaching the state of universal consciousness. Religion restricts. It divides. It, God-forbid, even predestines. Feuerbach believed that once religion was fully eradicated mankind could and would thrive.

Marx shared Feuerbach’s theory of religion, famously calling it the ‘opiate of the masses.’ You see an opiate (religion) dulls the pain but does not fix the problem. If one is in pain because a tumor is growing in their brain, but they simply rely on opiates, they might feel as if everything is fine, but soon enough they will die.

Marx, while seconding Feuerbach’s thesis, expands upon it, claiming that capitalism and class structure is the fundamental thing that stands in the way of history’s march towards utopia. Capitalism and the inequalities it births must be eradicated.

This Marxist metanarrative, that history is progressing inevitably forward, is so pervasive and persistently found in our culture that one doesn’t even recognize how enslaved to its perspective they are. Anytime one reads or writes something along the lines of: “Now that we are in the 21st century...” or “Now in the age of science…” they are swimming in the residual waters of the tidal wave of Marxism that swept across the globe last century.

The scientific community at large has not been incubated from this particular worldview. Even more, many within the community see themselves as the catalysts that will propel history forward by throwing off the training wheels of religion, orthodoxy, God. The secular world sees science as this independent thing that can accelerate mankind towards its ultimate end: the enthronement of man as supreme—the coronation of man which coincides with the obituary of God.

The ID movement is a remnant of an inequitable past that is not compatible with their material vision of history. They are right. Christians do not share in this Marxist ideology. The great Albert Schweitzer used the image of the great wheel of history. This wheel, because of sin was spinning out of control and in the wrong direction. Entropy. Disorder. Decay. Death. That was where history was marching. Christ had hoped that it would begin to turn in the right direction, that his people would turn from wickedness and turn to him. But when it and they refused, Christ threw himself on the wheel of history and it crushed him. But it is that moment that restarted the wheel spinning in the right direction.

Christians then, live in a different time and framework—one that is not compatible with the Marxist vision. History reached its telos on the cross and the God-Man that was crushed by the evil forces that sought self-enthronement now sits on the throne, the king of history. The ID movement and all other Christian movements are hated because they are revolutionary movements. They deny the rule of the false king (man) while singing in the choir of the King of kings.

We have on one side a group of people in the Black Lives Matter camp who obviously feel disenfranchised and think that America at large, and the police force in particular, do not treat Black Americans fairly based on the color of their skin. On the other side of the aisle there is a group of people who are privy to the same data and yet conclude that there is no systemic racism in the police force. 

I believe there to be some pretty damning statistical evidence (although slightly nuanced) that places the blind hand of justice and truth clearly on one side of the divide. But that is not the purpose of this short diatribe. I want rather, to quickly examine a philosophical issue that this dichotomy of opinion has shone a blinding light on, if only we would look. That is the issue of education and the myth of pure objectivity. 

One of the many myths of modernity, although it has been widely proven to be a falsehood, that still holds sway today, is the idea of pure objectivity. Modernity (I am speaking of the time from Descartes to Nietzsche) taught us that one could, through pure reason and careful empirical research, approach, collect and gather the truth as it is. Many are still under the spell of this mythology that truth is this thing that can be had and held if we just threw off all of our biases and with white lab coats just examine objective reality. 

One of the great benefits of studying postmodern philosophy is realizing that the enlightenment project was nothing more than a house of cards. Postmodern philosophers (Derrida, Lyotard, Foucault, Wittgenstein) have taught us that it is impossible to achieve pure objectivity. That is beyond the human condition. That is to say one cannot view the world without viewing it through a worldview. The world is a text that is interpreted through lenses and we all have different lenses. These lenses include things like the community in which you were brought up, the books you have read or haven’t read, the lessons your parents taught you or failed to teach you, and the whole of your individual experience. 

Philosopher James K.A. Smith often uses a scene from the Little Mermaid to explain this lack of pure objectivity, which is fundamental to the human experience. In the movie, Ariel (a mermaid) has never been on dry land. She has a seagull friend (Scuttle) who brings her trinkets from the human world. He brings her this shiny, pronged, metal object (a fork). She has never seen this object before and enquires what it is. He tells her it is a “dinglehoffer” and that humans use it to twirl their hair. Later in the movie, Ariel is transformed into a human and is on land having dinner. She is handed this shiny, metal, pronged object (dinglehoffer/ fork) and begins to twirl her hair with it. The humans are quite taken back by this. Based on Ariel’s experience, she sees the object (or text) and interprets it to be a dinglehoffer. What the humans and the scoffing viewing audience fail to realize is that they ARE ALSO INTERPRETTING the shiny, metal, pronged object.  Our past experience tells us that this object is a fork and it is something used to eat with. The interpretation happens so fast that we don’t realize we are interpreting the text/ object and rather think we are just objectively approaching it. But this is a myth. Pure objectivity is a myth. Your past experience and cultural context form the way that you see and understand EVERYTHING!

We need to be careful here to not slip into pure relativism. Just because everything is a text that needs to be interpreted does not mean all interpretations are equal (they most certainly are not) or even that one cannot have a true interpretation (one certainly can). But the point remains that everyone is always involved in a process of subjective interpretation of data, facts, events, texts. 

Current events, the Black Lives Matter movement in particular, make this painfully clear. We interpret all events with some level of subjectivity. Even in the moment, as history is happening all around us, there is not a consensus of what exactly is going on. There are multiple interpretations (once again some are good and some are bad, but interpretations they are nonetheless). If this is obviously true of the history in which we are living, how much more so must subjectivity play a role in the history that we can only read about? If history is open to and even trapped inside the bounds of interpretation (which it is), isn’t it dangerous to have an entire country, state, or even local community, forcibly taught a singular state or federally mandated INTERPRETATION? That is what forced public education is (and yes it is forced, because even if you opt out of it you have to pay for it, and pay WAY too much, at least in NY). 

History is not content neutral. In fact nothing is content neutral. Literature, philosophy, religious studies, all the humanities, even the so call “hard sciences” are subjective endeavors. This being the case makes the monopolization of education something that is beyond intellectually criminal. It is deceitful, dishonest, anti-capitalistic and un-American. 

Recent events highlight the need for education to be open to free market competition and ideas. Our current system is axiomatically anti-intellectual and its structure has fostered a culture whose voice lulls dullards into its profession with its sweet socialistic siren song. Bright, ambitious individuals tend not to go into public education.

Education majors, on average have a lower combined SAT score than those who majors in: physical sciences, mathematics, statistics, English, literature, foreign languages, engineering, biological and biomedical sciences, liberal arts, general studies, humanities, philosophy, religious studies, library science, computer and information science, ethnic and gender studies, history, natural resources and conservation, pre-law, communication, journalism, business, architecture, visual and performing arts and psychology. On the bright side, education majors do score higher on their SATs than those that major in park and recreational studies and I think those that major in underwater basket weaving. Smart, young, driven, and most importantly intellectually curious individuals look at the monolithic, one-sided education system and say, “no thanks.”  

As divided as we all may be, my hope would be that we could realize that free market education matters, because intellectual and academic curiosity matters, having a plurality of voices and choices matters, our children matter, but my guess is that we will sooner see everyone combing their hair with dinglehoffers

    Yet, it is with full foreknowledge of the truism stated above, that without reservation, I make the following claim: We are now in the last days!

This topic, when will the last days come? When will Christ return? these questions are of great intrigue for Christians, and in some ways rightfully so. It is understandable that it would be. How could the coming of Christ to usher in the eschaton, to end the normal space time continuum not be intriguing? It is inherently interesting, and we can’t get enough of it. The History Channel seems to trip over itself, rushing to produce their next tedious special feature on it. Even non-believers like to watch movies about it. It’s a topic that sells books, ups TV ratings and is great internet click-bait.

There is a deep longing to know when Christ will return. However, a look at 2 Peter 3 gives us some bad news in regards to our desire to garner this understanding. 

2 Peter 3:8 reads, “But, beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.”

It is wildly important to understand that God’s Time is not like your time. In fact it’s slightly misleading to speak of God’s time at all. And that is because God is infinite. He has always been and always will be. A better way of saying this might be to state that God is outside of time. You see, time is a human construct, it is not independently real. It is a way for us to view and order the world. It is a way for us to make sense of our reality, but time is not an eternal principle and hence is not part of God. 

Time is part of the created order which means it is not timeless. Let that sink in for a second (I know, weird, right?). And since time is part of the created order, it is in a sense fallen, it is deceitful, it feels real when it is not, and it lulls us into thinking that it is constant, dependable, eternal, but alas it is not. Time only started with the creation of the universe. This concept led one of the great church fathers, Augustine’s students to ask him the following: “Well, if God is outside of time, what was he doing before he created the heavens and the earth?” To which Augustine famously responded, “He was making hell for people who ask stupid questions.” Augustine would latter go on to answer the question with much less snarkiness, asserting that God was in an eternal, complete, and perfect relationship with himself (See Augustine’s De Trinitate if interested). 

For our purposes, what is important to note here is that our time doesn't coordinate, isn't analogous, and can’t sync with the timeless nature of God. Because of this basic ontological and metaphysical principle, it is important to not try and judge, pick or predict the end times based on the events of our time-oriented and time dependent-world. Christians ought not to try and decipher God’s providential plans in their day-to-day lives or worse yet, in the world news.

But yet, this is what many of us do. We live in a sick world, a perverse world, a world gone mad. That is true. And because of this, I often here Christians wanting to claim that these are the last days because of the great evil and suffering we see. I mean look at the world’s geo-political scene: Russia, North Korea, Iran, Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, the Middle East is on fire. Isis is raping children in front of their parents, cutting the heads off of Christians, burning them alive, drowning them in cages, and throwing them off of buildings.

Here, at home, we witness a continued genocide, as mothers under the guise of healthcare, and women’s rights, slaughter their unborn children to the tune of 60 million dead babies. We have blood on our hands and nations should tremble and shake in fear because they stand under the Judgement of a righteous God, a God who demands Justice and purity.

Looking at this monumental suffering, this great evil, our own perverse culture, one can see how some Christians would predict that these are the end times, but take a step back, call on your maturity, try to transcend the moment. Don't you think the martyrs of the early church thought the same thing as they were dipped into wax and made into human candles to serve as lights at the Roman garden parties? How about when they watched their friends torn to shreds and eaten by ravenous lions? Don’t

you think that the Christians of Europe, as they were being wiped out by the black death, had an inclination that they were in the last days? What about the 6 million Jews shoved into Hitler’s ovens? Or the 30 million men in women ripped apart by the bullets of Stalin in the Russian gulags? I’m sure they felt the same way.

This should teach us something. Stop trying to predict when Christ will come! Christ is bigger and grander than all the world events, and he is certainly bigger and grander than America and American events.

Admittedly, it is hard for Americans to think of these things, the end times, while neglecting their American bias. We bring American baggage into the way we see everything. This is a part of the fall, part of the curse. It is a “Babelic" deficiency. That is to say it is a deficiency relating to the tower of Babel, the scrambling of languages, the cluttering of cultures, and the rampant individualism that flows from it.

American individualism is a wonderful thing, but it is quite dangerous when it gets mixed up in our theology. And this mixture of the two, Americanism and Christianity is a toxic combination that needs to be torn out of our lives. It is a cultural cocktail, the consumption of which keeps us from having big eyes, clear focus, and proper vision. This political theology is something that has deep roots in our culture and is so prevalent that we have become largely immune to it.

This strange conglomeration of Americanism and political theology finds its foundation all the way back in the early colonists. It was quite a common thought amongst early American settlers to believe that they were the chosen people of God, that they were the new Israel. You see, their story seemed to mirror the story of God’s chosen people enslaved in Egypt.

The early settlers had escaped a mighty empire, England, just as the Israelites had escaped one in Egypt. To escape they had to cross a large body of water, the Atlantic, just as the Israelites had to cross the Red Sea. Once crossing the Atlantic, they reached the Promised Land, America, just as Israel reached the Promise Land, Canaan. Many settlers even referred to the Native American tribes as “the modern day Canaanites.” 

This strange conglomeration of nationalism and theology wasn't quarantined to the American experience. It is quite prevalent in Machiavelli’s great political treatise The Prince. Machiavelli dedicates an entire chapter to Lorenzo De Medici, claiming that Lorenzo would unite Italy because: “A sea had parted for him.” “A pillar of fire had guided him.” And “Manna had fallen from the sky for him.” I.E. Lorenzo was God’s chosen leader and in turn, Italy was God’s chosen nation.  

This should bring us to a pertinent question. How can we have advent eyes, how can we have kingdom vision, if we are theologically American, or theologically Italian? My father often says whilst preaching, we must remember Jesus can’t be Scandinavian. Well that is true, and he certainly can’t be from Jersey!

We need to cease asserting that the end is here because this terrible thing or that terrible thing has happened or is happening. 2 Peter 3 tells us that the Lord comes like a thief in the night! But, and this is a big preposition, but, with all that being said, we ARE in the last days. That is because since God took human form, since the incarnation, by the baptism of Christ, by the kingdom building of Christ, by his death and resurrection, Christ has brought about the beginning of the end!

The end of history began, when the author of history became man. We have seen the dawn’s early light. The bright morning rays of the sun are already piercing through the cold bleak winter’s night. The sun just hasn't fully risen yet. When it does, when the eternity of the kingdom of God meets us, many ages vanish away like a moment of time (Calvin).

Because remember, time isn't real. So, if we ascend to heaven in our thoughts and mind, if we have advent eyes time is neither long nor short and we can say with certainty that we are in the last days.

If we do not hold that man is a supreme being, made imago Dei, then man only becomes a human being based on the arbitrary standards that other human beings have decided upon. Once again, this is an a priori fact.

Given the pro-abortion stance of this country, the “rights of humanity” are not conferred to a first trimester fetus, or for that matter a second or third trimester fetus (in all cases). In some cases, the rights of humanity are not even conferred to a fetus/child/baby/infant/half-person/ bundle of matter, whatever we wish to call “it,” when it has partially emerged from its mother. Even further, some, like Princeton’s celebrity ethicist Peter Singer, have argued that we should, in certain cases, delay declaring these balls of atoms “humans” until they have lived for a full month outside of their mothers.

Whatever standard is chosen, being that it is man-made, it will be, in essence, arbitrary and susceptible, not to the slippery slope fallacy, but certainly to the runaway train fallacy. A first trimester fetus does not have the cognitive ability of a one month old. On the same token a one month old does not have the cognitive faculties of a five year old, and a five year old lacks the development of a graduate student…etc., etc.  

Mankind is now in the business of deciding when a thing becomes a human. When we grant this molecular mass the “rights of humanity,” we are endowing them with both positive and negative rights. They have the right not be killed or raped, but they also lose the right to kill or rape others. They are, without their consent, entered into a pre-determined social contract. They have rules they must follow that they did not have a part in designing or implementing. This is all wildly arbitrary, but these are the rules to the game we are playing.

Under the current pretenses of this game, what is the problem with claiming that black lives don’t matter? We created the guidelines, why can’t we make an amendment to the made up rules to the game? If we are the arbiters that can confer the rights of humanity on things, why can’t we take those rights back? What if the majority voted to remove a certain group from the game? Those in that group would be deemed outside of humanity and their lives would in turn not matter. There would be no moral impetus to even pretend that they do.

It seems to me, that one who is pro-abortion has no basis to claim that black lives matter, or any life intrinsically matters. 

A few days ago, the starting quarterback for the New York Jets, Geno Smith, had his jaw broken when, now, ex-teammate IK Enemkpali landed a post-practice haymaker. Great sadness instantly reverberated throughout the defensive-back meetings of all of the Jets’ AFC opponents. All kidding aside, this is an important story because of the fact that it has not been a big story. Sure, during a slow period in the sports calendar, it has fueled many vacuous segments of sports talk radio and television, but it has not been a national news story.

Now juxtapose the way this story has been covered to the media assault and national shaming that accompanied former Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice’s situation last year. Rice became a national villain and a poster-boy for all that is evil in the world when a video surfaced of him punching a woman (now his wife) forcefully in the jaw.

America’s self-righteous indignation raged against Rice. He lost his job and endorsements. His friends and former teammates felt the tug of political correctness dragging them to disavow their allegiance to him. He was forced into rehab and public apologies. To many of his potential employers he is a pariah, an untouchable. To this day he is still unemployed. On the other hand, IK Enemkpali was signed by another NFL team within 24hrs of his assault on Geno Smith.

This has not been a story on the scale that the Ray Rice’s incident was for one reason and one reason only, because IK punched a MAN and Rice punched a WOMAN.

But here lies the rub.

We live in a culture that has been screaming from atop academia, shouting through the hills of Hollywood, and ferociously barking on the daily news, that we must accept the fact that gender is a social construct. It is bigoted to believe that gender is firmly tethered to biology. It is as fluid as an IK Enemkpali right hook.

Given this cultural climate, if I were Ray Rice’s publicist (thank God, for his sake, that I am not), I would have crafted the following statement for Ray to read to the media, post to Facebook, tweet to his followers:

“I’d like to take a moment to express my utter disappointment in the NFL, the Baltimore Ravens, my teammates, the media, and society at large. I cannot begin to believe the bigotry and hetero-normative lack of compassion with which this incident has been talked about and handled. The fact that in the 21st century all of you can still be so full of hate and so blinded by medieval ignorance as to say that I hit a “woman” almost leaves me at a loss for words. Unlike all of you, I have progressed to the point that I no longer see gender. What happened in that elevator was one, slightly larger human-thing, hitting another, slightly smaller human-thing, and for that and for that only, I apologize.”

No publicist would ever pen such a statement, because that statement is too true. It sounds absurd because it is consistent with our cultural assumptions. Its sounds ridiculous because it is logically tied to a position which is ridiculous. Our cultural logic should yield an equally proportional response in both of these cases. They are both the case of “bigger thing hits smaller thing” (Keep in mind IK is a linebacker who bench pressed 225 Lbs for 28 consecutive repetitions).

This illogical culture has gotten intellectually fat and lethargic at the buffet of inconsistency. They gorge themselves daily. Geno Smith will just have to get his fill through a straw for now. 

Most of us are familiar with the following colloquialism: “Don’t talk about religion or politics at the dinner table.” One would be lacking in social niceties if they were to violate this cultural norm. The implicit assumption in the preceding statement is that we don’t discuss these areas at the dinner table because there is no RIGHT answer, there is no definitive TRUTH, and so the argument is incapable of coming to an end, and more likely than not, it will be the cause of hurt feeling and alienation.

Moral debates seem unable to find a terminus. There seems to be no end to these ethical questions. Most of us accept this as a truism. Yet we continue to argue and make our case, while psychologically burying the necessary conclusion: that if there is no “right answer,” then all we are doing is trying to manipulate those who hold opinions other than our own to accept our position. Ethics becomes nothing over and above manipulation, a practice, ironically, that almost all would call unethical. The “enlightened” among us, after arguing for the authenticity of their position, often attempt to soften the blow of their manipulation with sophomoric nods to open-mindedness such as: “That’s the great thing about America; we are all entitled to our opinions.”  

Take a look at the following three arguments for and against abortion, as presented by Alasdair MacIntyre in his monumental achievement of an ethical treatise After Virtue (Keep in mind, we are not talking about abortion).

Argument 1:

Everybody has certain rights over his or her own person, including his or her own body. It follows from the nature of these rights that, at the stage when the embryo is essentially part of the mother’s body, the mother has a right to make her own, un-coerced decision on whether she will have an abortion or not. Therefore abortion is morally permissible and ought to be allowed by law. 

Argument 2:

I cannot will that my mother should have had an abortion when she was pregnant with me, except perhaps if it had been certain that the embryo was dead or gravely damaged. But if I cannot will this in my own case, how can I consistently deny to others the right to life that I claim for myself? I would break the so-called golden rule unless I denied that a mother has, in general, a right to an abortion.

Argument 3:

Murder is wrong. Murder is taking of innocent life. An embryo is an identifiable individual, differing from a newborn infant only in being at an earlier stage on the long road to adult capacities, and if any life is innocent, that of an embryo is. If infanticide is murder, as it is, abortion is murder. So abortion is not only morally wrong, but ought to be legally prohibited.

Herein lies the problem with the proceeding arguments: they are all right! Lower case "r" right, that is. That is to say, they are all logically valid arguments. Their conclusions follow from their given premises. This is a strange set of circumstances indeed, and even stranger waters in which to navigate an ethical debate. The battleground is staged in such a way as to allow for only a few outcomes:

1.)   Justice becomes the advantage of the stronger. That is to say, those more skilled in the art of rhetoric will “win” the debate on the basis that the verbosity of their elocution renders their interlocutor vulnerable and unable to counter with the same oratory arsenal. I.E.: The smart guy wins.

2.)   The argument ends with each side utterly confused as to how their opponent can’t manage to see the lucidity and accuracy of their position.

3.)   The argument ends with the previously stated colloquial naivety: “Well, we can all have our own opinions.”

So mustn’t we conclude that the practice of ethical argumentation is a fool’s errand? Is it not polishing brass on the proverbial sinking ship? Shouldn’t we enlightened moderns recognize this interminability and cast aside ethics as a genuine pursuit, and rather, on utilitarian grounds, leave our moral decisions to be decided by the general will?

Rather than relegating ethics to the court of public opinion, a motley crew if there ever was one, ethics needs only to trace its genealogy to its philosophical patriarch: epistemology. If you go back and re-examine the three arguments on abortion, you will see, on the surface, a consistency internal to its own logic. BUT there seems to be, beneath the waters, a quiet and dangerous arbitrariness to the presuppositions of the arguer. This lack of epistemological awareness is an aggressive cancer that undermines ethics on all levels. It is a silent cancer; one we are unaware of. And it has killed most arguments before they have even taken flight.

The first argument just presupposes, or casually takes for granted the assumption that: “Everybody has certain rights over his or her own person, including his or her own body.” This seems self-evident, does it not? It seems like common sense. But alas, common sense is not common to all. If it were, we wouldn’t be having these debates. So we must ask why and where. Why do you have these certain rights over your own person and where did these rights come from?

The second argument assumes that there is some universal moral imperative commanding me to not: “break the so-called golden rule.” Here we must go to journalism 101. Why should I not break this rule? Where did this rule come from? What makes it binding? Why should I care?!

The third argument assumes: murder is wrong. Why is murder wrong? Aren’t I nothing over and above a conglomeration of cosmic debris?

Why ought you to continue reading?

Because you want to understand that we can’t practice ethics in any meaningful way without questioning epistemology. So we must ask ourselves, what epistemological assumptions are needed to render ethics meaningful? What assumptions end the trap of interminability? What assumption carries a weighty forcefulness? We need to talk about abortion, badly, desperately. But this is not about abortion, because before we can talk about abortion we need to recover the lost underpinnings of all discourse. We need consistent epistemology. 

The American populous appears to be polarized between “Right and Left”, “Republican and Democrat”, “Black and White”, “Gay and Straight” and a myriad of other pseudo-fabricated dichotomies. However, on closer analysis, these bifurcations are rooted in the same groundless dumpster of enlightenment platitudes. Rather than two opposing forces, we have two cultural hamsters, forever running nowhere, on their epistemologically-shaky, historically-illiterate wheels. One of these opposing rodents may be generating more rpms, causing their wheel to shake and squeak, but regardless of the cultural noise created, they are forever trapped in their wheel of circular reasoning and myopic self-referentiality.

In order to begin the healing process and break free of this opiated circle, I propose that we should study Locke and Hobbes, in order that we may begin to dismiss and forget Locke, Hobbes and their enlightenment contemporaries.

One cannot turn on the dumb box and watch the nightly news without being audibly and visually assaulted with “Rights” stories. Stories of Gay rights, Black rights, White rights, gun rights, property rights, Women’s rights, animal rights. Everyday seemingly, some 500 underrepresented minority or majority group’s rights are being: violated, impeded upon, superseded by another group, ad nausem! The whole dog and pony show (or should we say hamster show?) is so oppressively tedious, predictable, monotonous.

The drudgery of this forever perpetuating conga-line of rights-talk is only accentuated and magnified by an ocean of journalists incapable of positing a single question capable of penetrating the surface issues of the day. Never are foundational principals questioned. They are assumed. When is the last time you heard a journalist ask, “These rights you are talking about, where did they come from? They aren’t physical, tangible, are they? You weren’t walking through Central Park one day when you stumbled over a pile of rights were you? Were rights preexistent to the big bang some 13.7 billion years ago? No, of course not, Mr./Mrs. Materialist. Rights have evolved over time, haven’t they? They have progressed, matured. But that would imply that rights can and must change. To steal from Nietzsche, they must undergo a trans-valuation, mustn’t they? And if these rights are in a continual state of flux, what gravitas can they carry if they are only the rights that govern this transitory moment? What force do they hold if they just happen to be true for the millisecond that is the cosmically insignificant blip of your fleeting joy-ride on this spinning top?” That hypothetical journalist would cause my heart to leap with joy.

But we don’t think like this. Rights are not only assumed, we assume the primary function of our civil arrangement is the protection and proliferation of these groundless rights. This way of thinking is ingrained in the minds of modern men. We have so long worn these cultural lenses that we are now blurry-eyed without them. Their removal leaves us disoriented, confused, angry. Too long have we born the cultural baggage of the enlightenment’s failed mythology.

But what was that mythology? Well, from 3,000 feet, it is the mythology of Hobbes and Locke.

Hobbes’ monumental political treatise Leviathan gave the modern world the quintessential materialist vision of political life. Hobbes begins with the idea that man is nothing over and above matter in motion. As such, he exists in a pre-moral state, and is entitled/has the rights to whatever he wants (that includes other people’s bodies). This overabundance of rights puts mankind in an uneasy state.  A state which Hobbes famously refers to as a “war of all against all.” And in this condition, man’s life is “nasty, brutish and short.”

According to Hobbes, in order to evacuate ourselves from, or to use the modern parlance, to progress past this unwanted situation, we must form covenants. We must abdicate some of our rights to an authority/leviathan in order to secure the bulk of these precious rights. Government’s fundamental role, then, is not only built upon, but forever will be the securing of rights.

John Locke piggy-backed off this Hobbesian idea, although he did so with a more cheery disposition, making his treatise more palatable to American sensibilities. He ornaments and embellishes Hobbesian political theory with lip service to “God” and “Natural Rights”, which made it possible for Hobbes to be smuggled into the American psyche.

The gravitational pull of Locke’s political theory, just as with Hobbes, is rights-centered. All men have the right to life, liberty and property. Government’s sole purpose becomes the preservation of these rights. Government becomes a glorified bodyguard. Protect my stuff! Make sure that the market is secure for me to pursue my right to an unlimited amount of stuff. Government is the stuff protector. It is this unenlightened, enlightenment mindset that precipitated the now famous quip from Slick Willy that the main job of the president is “the economy, stupid.”

This rights-based view of government has provided a diseased framework unsuitable for sustaining healthy cultural growth and development. It is a framework that would have struck Plato and Aristotle as a gross distortion of the fundamental purpose of government. Aristotle stressed that the primary purpose of government was to produce virtue! Government existed to protect your metaphysical not your physical stuff.  Government’s focus should be on what is right, not what are our rights! Plato and Aristotle both were quite willing, one might even say eager, to sacrifice individual rights if that is what was needed to produce a virtuous citizenry.

On closer examination, enlightenment “rights” provide for a “thin” culture at best, and evil one at worst. Rights without ethics is nothing short of lunacy. We, as autonomous human beings, have a right to be racist. We have a right to be selfish. We have a right to not help those in need. We have a right to ignore the orphan and the widow. We have a right to harbor hate. Yet, we OUGHT not do these things. A society of rights devoid of metaphysics is a preposterous state of affairs. Doing what is right must always take precedence over your trivial individual rights.

Christians should be the first people, the people most readily willing to shift the culture dialogue from one of rights to one of what is right. It is intrinsically un-Christian to view the world through the enlightenment lens. That is not our story. Our story is a story of reconciliation, not rights! Go read Paul’s letter to Philemon. Seriously, stop reading this now and go read the letter! It is only one chapter. Then come back and finish this diatribe.

Paul, whilst in chains, writes to Philemon, pleading that he receive Onesimus, a run-away slave. Philemon, in his day, had the RIGHT to have a run-away slave crucified. But Paul, saturated with the vision of humanity made different, made new, through the reconciliation of Christ, begs that Onesimus’ grievance be put on Paul’s account! Paul doesn’t care about his rights or Philemon’s rights; he is willing to bear the burden of a brother. Paul wants what is right, and what is right is the reconciliation of mankind. “For God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself.”

We, the new creation, have been entrusted with this message of reconciliation. We are to be ministers of reconciliation. And that, in many cases, will mean that we forgo our beloved rights. Rights must be sacrificed at the altar of reconciliation. Our enlightenment eyes must be switched with Pauline eyes. For your rights are not your own. They were bought with a price! 

Mankind is going to serve somebody. At this point in the human drama, such a statement should carry with it the hammer of dogmatic certainty. The overwhelming empirical evidence of the centuries piles up, as high as the eye can see, in support of Dylan’s statement. In a post-enlightenment age, in an age that exists post mortem Dei, at least culturally speaking, understanding this idea couldn’t be more of a pressing issue.

When Nietzsche’s Mad Man read the obituary of God to the startled onlookers in The Gay Science, he realized that the death of God had left in its wake a large void. A void that once was filled by the metaphysical, but now was open to be filled by the physical. Power was up for grabs. People, having abandoned their faith in a deity, were not simply going to become autonomous heterogeneous agents. They would be ruled over again. They would serve again. Can’t you almost hear Nietzsche moaning in Bob Dylan’s raspy voice, “You gotta serve somebody!”

Nietzsche was right, well, partially right. The power vacuum left by the death of God would not remain void. But, if history has taught us anything, it does not appear that the void is readily filled by rogue Übermensch, as Nietzsche had hoped, and fancied himself the finest. Rather, the void left by God and religion being displaced as the primary shaper of cultural milieu, is filled in a Hobbesian rather than Nietzschean fashion. That is to say that the state is the first one to the party; ever eager to drink up the spoils of abandoned authority. Where religion and God abdicate power, the state comes barreling in, and this train ain’t coming slow.

The state, acting as a functional deity, not only plays on religious themes and motifs (read how Marx writes of the proletariat!) but actually starts to demand the respect, honor and subservience that God does. Power is an insatiable beast, and the state’s hunger increases in direct proportion to its size.

In light of such a structural framework, the state’s ever-increasing power will not be stymied or even slowed by things as trivial as the constitution. In its pseudo-messianic, bestial role, the government won’t stop until the first commandment is practiced by all: You shall have no other gods before me.

This principal, when applied properly to the Triune God, is one of the foundations of Christian life, practice and worship. All things in life, including familial ties, must take their proper, subordinate role to one’s relationship with the Creator and Sustainer.

Christ drives this point home in emphatic fashion in Luke 14: “If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.” It is quite clear that lukewarm loyalty is not acceptable. Christ must come first, and the state, as the stand-in Christ demands the same.

Having assumed its illegitimate role as the neo-Christ, the state continues to mount an assault on any impediment to its lordship, any false idols. The family, as Christ noted in Luke’s Gospel, in many cases, stands as a natural impediment to proper prioritization. By the very constructs of its biological ties and spatial proximity, the family can easily stand as a barrier between an individual and outside authority. This is not acceptable to Christ, nor to our replacement Christ.

The state’s desire to demolish all impediments to its authority is the root issue driving the freight train that is the gay agenda. To steal from Hobbes, the state’s desire for “power after power” is the real wolf, masquerading behind flowery talk of “equality”, “justice”, and “rights.” Gay marriage is a major step towards the complete dissolution of marriage in and of itself. The destruction of the family eliminates a major buffer between the state and further authority. Civil marriage becomes replaced by government regulated contractual relationships. In the end, it may be the state, or it may be the Lord, but you’re gonna serve somebody.

For a greater study click here: http://thefederalist.com/2014/04/09/bait-and-switch-how-same-sex-marriage-ends-marriage-and-family-autonomy/

                                                                                     G. K. Chesterton