Donald Hank
Opposing the tyrant while drinking his Kool-Aid
By Donald Hank
Pat Condell has a unique way with language, as a recent video shows.
Look at this delightful phrase: " [the EU]...will collapse under the weight of its own illegitimacy."
It occurs to me that, due to their opposition to tyranny, atheists like Pat are actually in the same boat as biblical Christians, though seemingly at opposite poles, and our plight — as well as our tragic inability to grasp it — is as described by Martin Niemöller in that famous quote
National unity means joining in common cause with everyone who opposes the common enemy, at least in the opposition to that enemy and until he is vanquished. There are no superiors or inferiors in that struggle, just people yearning for their share of the rights and voice that are rightfully theirs. Their God-given rights as we say. The term "God-given" may offend some people with claims to "higher enlightenment," but consider that it was precisely the notion that man can create rights out of thin air that gave birth to the despotic EU — just as the corollary notion that central banks — part of that same entity — can create money out of thin air contributed mightily to our current financial malaise. Those perverse ideas are twins.
I doubt it has ever occurred to Pat that his militant atheism is part of the cultural Marxism that has been foisted on Europe for generations by the very elites he rails against. After all, the Fabian Society was founded (in London) for a twofold purpose:
Pat is part of our landscape, his words are too powerful to ignore, and he is absolutely right that the EU has stolen from Europeans. But he needs to understand that opposing only the political agenda of the Imperial Powers he rails against is an incomplete task — even a futile one — unless we oppose their social agenda as well. Opposition to the enemy's destructiveness is a vital first step. Railing against constructive faith that ultimately can replace what that agenda has torn asunder negates that opposition.
This is because a vital second step is restoring what the enemy has destroyed, and the will to restore it comes in no small measure from our inner spiritual resources invested in a common vision of national health and prosperity.
The myth that atheism was a vital component of the Enlightenment is false. There were in fact two Enlightenments, one that sought to reconcile the thought of Aristotle, for example, with Christianity, as Lawrence de Medici had done in Florence, and the other Enlightenment — embodied, for example, by Voltaire, which taught that religion itself had held back progress and needed to be abolished. Devotees of the latter branch cite, by way of support, the difficulties that some scientists like Copernicus and Galileo, have encountered with the Vatican. Yet they seem unaware that Roger Bacon's pioneering work on the scientific method was in fact sponsored by Pope Clement IV.
Those spiritual resources we will need to rebuild our civilization once the enemy is overcome are, to paraphrase Pat, like the air we breathe and the water we drink.
We can't afford to throw this baby out with the bath water.
http://kleinverzet.blogspot.com/2011/11/dose-of-cold-hard-truth.html
© Donald Hank
December 3, 2011
Pat Condell has a unique way with language, as a recent video shows.
Look at this delightful phrase: " [the EU]...will collapse under the weight of its own illegitimacy."
It occurs to me that, due to their opposition to tyranny, atheists like Pat are actually in the same boat as biblical Christians, though seemingly at opposite poles, and our plight — as well as our tragic inability to grasp it — is as described by Martin Niemöller in that famous quote
-
"In Germany, they came first for the Communists, And I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist...[etc]"
National unity means joining in common cause with everyone who opposes the common enemy, at least in the opposition to that enemy and until he is vanquished. There are no superiors or inferiors in that struggle, just people yearning for their share of the rights and voice that are rightfully theirs. Their God-given rights as we say. The term "God-given" may offend some people with claims to "higher enlightenment," but consider that it was precisely the notion that man can create rights out of thin air that gave birth to the despotic EU — just as the corollary notion that central banks — part of that same entity — can create money out of thin air contributed mightily to our current financial malaise. Those perverse ideas are twins.
I doubt it has ever occurred to Pat that his militant atheism is part of the cultural Marxism that has been foisted on Europe for generations by the very elites he rails against. After all, the Fabian Society was founded (in London) for a twofold purpose:
-
1. to spread socialism, and
2. to eliminate Judeo-Christian culture.
Pat is part of our landscape, his words are too powerful to ignore, and he is absolutely right that the EU has stolen from Europeans. But he needs to understand that opposing only the political agenda of the Imperial Powers he rails against is an incomplete task — even a futile one — unless we oppose their social agenda as well. Opposition to the enemy's destructiveness is a vital first step. Railing against constructive faith that ultimately can replace what that agenda has torn asunder negates that opposition.
This is because a vital second step is restoring what the enemy has destroyed, and the will to restore it comes in no small measure from our inner spiritual resources invested in a common vision of national health and prosperity.
The myth that atheism was a vital component of the Enlightenment is false. There were in fact two Enlightenments, one that sought to reconcile the thought of Aristotle, for example, with Christianity, as Lawrence de Medici had done in Florence, and the other Enlightenment — embodied, for example, by Voltaire, which taught that religion itself had held back progress and needed to be abolished. Devotees of the latter branch cite, by way of support, the difficulties that some scientists like Copernicus and Galileo, have encountered with the Vatican. Yet they seem unaware that Roger Bacon's pioneering work on the scientific method was in fact sponsored by Pope Clement IV.
Those spiritual resources we will need to rebuild our civilization once the enemy is overcome are, to paraphrase Pat, like the air we breathe and the water we drink.
We can't afford to throw this baby out with the bath water.
http://kleinverzet.blogspot.com/2011/11/dose-of-cold-hard-truth.html
© Donald Hank
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