Dr. Frank Turek is one of those guys who always answers a question with a question, needing to frame the discussion to prove his point.
Methinks that is not necessary, because his position is the truth.
Or, more accurately, the Truth.
He wrote a book I can’t recommend because I haven’t read it but I’m sure is worth a read since I generally agree with him.
Generally … in that methinks he sometimes lacks confidence in his arguments. He could be more plainly spoken, but methinks he worries too much about the opinions of learned men.
He interrupted Christopher Hitchens far too often/much, trying to argue the point … let the man have what he thought he always wanted.
Pompous, high-throated derision masks deep-seated delusion.
I wonder if Mr. Hitchens’ changed his perspective in in the afterlife.
Again, sometimes a majority just means all the fools are on one side.
Anyboots, one of the recurring themes at the Q&A following Dr. Turek’s lectures is the notion of objective morality, and whether it can exist without GOD.
Of course not.
… but, for the sake of discussion, let’s discuss.
Consider this: Man is the arbiter of his own morality. Man gets to decide what is good, and what is not, based on man’s own value system of good and evil.
So, by that logic, the golden rule applies … ergo, to wit: he who has the gold makes the rules.
Or/also … he who has the guns makes the rules, better known as might makes right.
In ancient China, there was a particularly nasty method of execution called “waist chopping” or the “waist chop.” Pretty self-explanatory … offenders would be cut in half at the waist while they lived … and then they died.
However, one especially unfortunate individual lived long enough after being sliced in half to write the character for “cruel/awful” seven times in his own blood before he succumbed to his injury.
Zhǎn cǎn, indeed.
The practice stopped early in the 18th century but not soon enough for those subjected to it, obviously.
Uh, yeh.
A condemned man in Louisiana was sentenced to die by electrocution but survived the first round, said he felt every excruciating thing, and that being electrocuted made his mouth taste like cold peanut butter.
My peanut butter has always been at room temp … might want to give that a try.
Of course he was executed properly a year later, because killing people who kill people to teach killing is wrong makes total sense, if man dictates morality.
Pablo Escobar was a very busy guy … he and his friends ended around 100,000 people, all so he could stay rich and help Americans get high. Now that is some true capitalism, supply & demand, and the rest is just collateral damage.
It is estimated that WWII caused the deaths of 60M (yes, that’s million, as in 60,000,000, about 30 percent of the current US population), instigated by the actions of one man … Adolph, who I’m sure thought he acted in the moral best interests of his nation.
My point? People suck, and so many have evil infesting their hearts it is a discouraging thing.
I believe that man is made in GOD’s image {Gen. 1:27} so that makes methinks/mewonders … what’s the deal?
GOD is good, the definition/standard/measuring rod/weighted scale for all that is good, is true, is righteous.
So what is man’s problem?
Methinks it’s power.
Man feels so small, so inconsequential, so meaningless, that any exercise of power over others is designed to make others feel the pain of irrelevance. {Jeremiah 17:9}
Not a coincidence (there is no coincidence / all part of the plan, or Plan) that many of the despotic, genocidal rulers have been atheist … see Pol Pot, Mao, Lenin, Stalin, Putin (what’s the deal with Russia, anyway?) and everybody’s favorite man to hate (unless you’re a Horseman of the inbred ignorant type) Adolph, that ol’ wanker.
Either that, or they sought to rule like gods, using religion as a cudgel, wielding the power of death over life to force others to their whims. See: the Crusades, Leopold II, early Horsemen American settlers, Islamic caliphates, etc., ad nauseum.
King Edward of Portugal [r.1433-1438] (shouldn’t that be Eduardo? Inbreeding is a must) commissioned a guy to invent race as a construct (welcome to the Matrix, indeed) to justify the theft of labor, lands, and lives from one group of people for the sole benefit of another group of people.
And Pope Nicholas V (papal bull 1452) supported and even encouraged the trafficking of humans and theft of their land/labor … greed.
Methinks not a coincidence (there is no coincidence / all part of the Plan) that the same body Darling Nicky represented had a massive scandal that would have ended any other institution.
One need not kill a child to make a sacrifice to evil. How many young people turned away from GOD after being subjected to … that? By individuals their parents told them were safe, trustworthy, and GOD’s reps on earth?
It’s that whole freedom of will … if we don’t embrace Christ and hold HIM close to and within our hearts, we are lost, and seek evil as a source of meaning, embodied in exerting cruel power over others.
Morality is the debt we owe to humanity, the collective family that constitutes mankind.
So if GOD is not the measure of morality, methinks it’s safe to assume we are damned.
Philosophically, as well as biblically.
The next genocidal despot ready to exercise his brand of morality over us all is likely to be the worst of the lot.
And he, too, is coming.
Methinks beheading is so much better than a waist chop, but either way … I’m good.
I know Who is in charge, and HE always gets it right.