Another way of duping Christians

James Cameron sees the pot of gold in Christian moviegoers' hands and wants to cash in:

In The Exodus Decoded, a 90-minute documentary that will be shown in America this month, Cameron and Simcha Jacobovici, the Canadian film producer, claim a volcanic eruption on the Greek archipelago of Santorini triggered a chain of natural catastrophes recorded in the Bible as the 10 plagues that God visited upon Egypt as punishment for enslaving the Jews.

This sounds pleasant enough - encouraging people to believe there is archaeological evidence to support the Biblical account - but in fact, this is precisely the opposite sort of Da Vinci Code propaganda that undermines Christianity altogether.

Naturally, James Cameron (nor others involved in the project) isn't going to assert that the Biblical account is true as it is recorded in the Bible. No, he will assert that things like the events recorded in the Bible could be theoretically explained through a convoluted series of assumptions based on circumstantial evidence. (You'll need to read the entire article to see how they assert that the Biblical account is false and a more convoluted and irreconcilably different account is their explanation.)

Their claim sounds like the way Greek and Roman myths came to be: physical events that were difficult to explain in a logical fashion were given deified explanations.

So the Biblical account isn't literally true - it's just an approximate explanation for some things. In fact, the Bible is really the same sort of hyperbolic explanation for odd events that all other mythology is; therefore, just as we don't have to accept some sort of iron-clad spiritual set of laws and truth from mythology, the Bible doesn't have to constrain our behavior and understanding of truth, if we don't want it to.

We can look at the Bible as an interesting perspective on human understanding at the time and find it quaint how uneducated people conveniently made religion the explanation for what they didn't understand. But, funny enough, those crazy Christians are still taking those explanations literally today, even though the rest of the world has realized that science explains it all - no God needed..

Bleeding-heart or Good Samaritan?

From RedBlueChristian, a reference to the 'nonpartisan' A Covenant
for a New America, which purports to be interested only in being the good samaritans of our community, without regard to political affiliation.

How convenient it is that every problem and solution points to our Benevolent Government..

This is a trap laid for good-natured but ignorant Christians, and this philosophy is gaining a foothold in today's culture of guilt mixed with a lack of personal responsibility.

First, let's go over the group's primary goals:

Overcoming poverty requires vision and commitment.We believe our society should
make three fundamental commitments as a promise to those in poverty:

- Work must work and provide family economic success and security.
- Children should not be poor.
- Extreme global poverty must end.

There are no two ways about it: these goals are utterly ludicrous to anyone with a BASIC comprehension of economics and REALITY.

First, "children should not be poor" is not a 'commitment'. It is a statement of belief. That belief in itself changes nothing, no matter how strongly you believe it. The assertion that 'children should not be poor' is just a convenient way of getting you to accept the government control that they will later suggest in place of the 'children should not be poor' that every warm-blooded creature will reflexively agree with.

(And, 'work must work' - oh boy these people are CLEVER.. another convenient euphemism that will make everyone go, "that's what I was thinking!" without actually meaning ANYTHING.)

Look at the continuation of this claim (what Thomas Sowell kindly calls a 'stage-one' thinker's opinion) :

Those who work responsibly should have a living family income in which a combination of a family’s earnings, and supports for transportation, health care, nutrition, child care, education, housing, and other basic needs together provide a decent standard of living.

So, the ONE qualifier for getting a 'living' family income, transportation, health care, nutrition, child care, education, housing and 'basic needs' is what?? oh - - working responsibly. Riight... If you work 'responsibly' at Circle K as a register clerk, you should get ALL these things.

What is 'working responsibly'? If you show up late a couple times in a month because you overslept should you be shut out of all the gifts the generous Christians want to give you? No? How about if you haven't learned any job skills with the time you've had before you got to age 25 with four kids and a girlfriend?? Are you working 'responsibly' when your work still consists of the knowledge you had ten years ago? Should you be shut out of the Good Samaritan's (read: Government's) Horn O' Plenty because you haven't improved your job skills? No no of course not..

Every person who can't pay for this cornucopia of life's comforts is going to tell you he 'works responsibly' (and believe himself, to boot). What good samaritan is going to then turn around and tell him he does not?

But let's assume we all agree that every working individual DOES deserve all these things just because he 'works responsibly' according to some definition we all somehow manage to agree upon. WHO IS GOING TO GUARANTEE ALL THESE THINGS?? We know as a matter of basic BASIC economic reality that no private group can actually guarantee that all these things happen for anyone, since any private group is subject to fluctuations and MARKET FORCES just like the poor (but responsible) worker.

So, I guess we must be left, shockingly, with GOVERNMENT guaranteeing all these things. You see, Good Christian Samaritans, we don't need your money - we just need your VOTE to FORCE your neighbors to be good samaritans just like you are in your heart, and everything will be solved :)

Oh, except there's one problem.. promising a vast group of people (i.e. the poor) innumerable social and economic benefits without requiring that they produce the labor and goods that can actually pay for all of those things runs into a bit of a problem: there is no way to guarantee those things for long. Eventually, the money produced by a free society will RUN OUT as it is confiscated and distributed to those who do not generate a net increase in productivity.

On the other hand, if you do NOT promise someone that all of his needs will be met whether or not he contributes enough to the economy to pay for it, TWO things will happen:

First, that person will immediately reconsider what is called a 'basic right' and ask himself if he really needs, say, 'transportation' in the form of a Ford Taurus instead of transportation in the form of a Landis bicycle or if he really needs expensive third party child care instead of asking his mom to watch the kids some afternoons.

Second, he will ask himself what it is that society demands of him in order to be able to pay for the various blessings of life that he so desires - and he will contemplate 1. Learning the skills required for higher-paying jobs or 2. Taking a less pleasant job so that he can earn more than he might at an admittedly more comfortable, but less financially-rewarding position.

These things are BASIC ECONOMICS - "trade-offs" - stuff that good Christians should learn in High School, for goodness sake.

But, let's look at a couple of other points they make:

Our role is not simply to make governmentmore efficient but to make America more just. We are not committed to any particular ideological method or partisan agenda to achieve these policy goals; we are committed to achieving them.

Let's say I told you that I wanted to make your work atmosphere more 'just'. And for starters, because Cathy, the secretary is much nicer than you are, even though you keep the books for your company and Cathy does nothing but brew coffee and answer the front door, we're going to bump Cathy much higher in pay. However, we have to reduce your own pay quite a bit in order to do so. Cathy is a very nice person, but you can be pretty short with people at times, (especially when you are finishing the quarterly earnings reports, you have to admit). So this arrangement really is quite a bit more 'just' than the current situation.

Well, I'm guessing you might argue with me (and if you wouldn't, quite a few others that aren't Cathy certainly would).

But who was deciding what was 'just' before the Sojourners came along and informed you what it is? Was it a few very noble people deciding for everyone? Was there a rulebook on the breakroom coffee table that Cathy dusts periodically? No, 'justice' was decided in the marketplace, by countless millions of people every day, because we live in a nation of equal OPPORTUNITY not equal OUTCOMES. That is why the next statement: "We are not committed to any particular ideological method or partisan agenda to achieve these policy goals; we are committed to achieving them." is so terribly wrong-headed. We have to live within the boundaries of our nation's laws, yes. But we cannot concern ourselves with the outcome of comfort for EVERY human being in the nation (and, in fact the WORLD, as expressed by this group) - we cannot POSSIBLY provide for every person anything we might desire for them. Instead, we must focus on the simplest-possible, basic laws that keep people honest and civil, so that in the aggregate, every day, millions upon millions of individuals will decide WITH EACH OTHER what is 'just' BY INTERACTING WITH TOGETHER.

If we leave American 'justice' up to a bunch of lawmakers to debate and decide, then whatever those rather few lawmakers (literally thousands out of hundreds of millions) feel at any given time about what is good and just is forced on everyone (can anyone say 'abortion of tens of millions of children subsidized by your government'?) .

Ok, last quote (not that there aren't practically countless examples of the thoughtlessness of this policy document):

Students in America deserve a high-quality, publicly financed education, beginning in a child’s earliest years—even beforekindergarten—and continuing
through high school.

Ok, this goes back to the whole "we swear we're just a bunch of Christians who want to be good samaritans" thing. Just stick with me here and think for a minute logically: what have students done to 'deserve' ANY education, particularly a 'high-quality' and 'publicly financed' one? Why does being born suddenly mean you 'deserve' those things?? It doesn't... for goodness sake... We provide them because a good education benefits society at large, not because they 'deserve' it.

If we're going to guarantee everyone all of those wonderful 'rights' listed at the top of the document, why do they even need all that education anyway? Can't they enjoy life and worship the Lord without having to be 'high-quality publicly educated'? For countless years of Christian history, many good, happy Christians lived lives without being educated in any scholarly manner and CERTAINLY without any education that was publicly funded.

Simple economics teaches that a family will want to pay for its childrens' education if it values the results of that education; and it will invest in the work required to PAY for such education if it values that education.

Additionally, no historical evidence shows that a publicly provided education equates to a high-quality education. Government money tends to correlate AGAINST quality education, whereas a market approach involving individual families' decisions about where to spend their hard-earned education dollars will, like everywhere else it's tried, bring about the best education possible through supply and demand.

It is blatantly obvious that this group is simply manipulating Christians to a pre-determined liberal philosophy by tugging at heartstrings instead of involving logical thought. They take for granted things like "Health care is a human right, not a commodity available only to those who can afford it." even though such a comment is irrational on its face (i.e. health care is by definition a commodity that costs a great deal of resources and is, by definition, available only to those who can afford it).

Don't buy into these absurd manipulations.