|
Paradigm of the New Society—and a discussion of the End of the World
James P. writes:
Here, from the Detroit Free Press, is the perfect new America—a gay white man marries a gay Asian man in Canada, and they adopt a black baby!
Ed Cowen, left, married his partner Jonathan Truong in Canada.
The couple from Brooklyn, N.Y., then decided to adopt 2-year-old
Franklin Cowen Truong. “It’s sort of the next natural progression,”
Truong said. [JP adds: You mean the next unnatural progression!]
LA replies:
Is this where it all ends up? Is this, after how many thousands of years of struggle and tragedy, the goal of human and Western history? I don’t think so. I think this is modern liberalism—at what seems like the moment of its greatest triumph—jumping the shark.
- end of initial entry -
BLS writes:
This is the most vile image I have seen posted on VFR. The fact that it was used as propaganda in an article to promote such activity is an indicator of how low we have sunk as a society and people.
I have nothing to add, except disgust.
LA replies:
“This is the most vile image I have seen posted on VFR.”
I don’t think that it was your intention, but the above sentence sounds like a criticism of VFR. Of course I simply posted a photo that was in an article at the Detroit Free Press and sent by a reader.
Surely you’re aware that adoption by homosexual couples has become very common and is frequently and positively covered in the mainstream media. There are entire communities and support networks consisting of such homosexual couples and their adopted children. It is a new “subculture.” This, as weird and disturbing as it is, is a reality. What can be done about it? That’s the question.
BLS replies:
I did not mean that as a criticism of VFR. I merely meant that of all the photos I have seen on VFR, this was more disgusting than any Michelle Obama photo!
I am aware this is a growing phenomenon. The celebratory attitude created by the media is disgusting. And your point was valid—is this what our ancestors fought and risked their lives for? It reminds me of the AltRight series “So this is how it ends?”
Perhaps I have a negative attitude tonight, but there is no way to stop it. We have lost. Everybody knows a homo now, and they are all afraid to reject them as legitimate members of society. We’ve already gone down the slippery slope. I wish I had an answer, but there is no escape.
LA replies: Yes, we’ve lost—big time, catastrophically, world-historically. But that’s only one part of the picture. It’s not simply “over.” We are in the middle of a process that is unprecedented, and no one can tell where it will go next. Will the normalization of homosexuality, including homosexual “marriage” and homosexual adoption, including these multiracial homosexual adoptive “families,” become the new norm? “Is this how it ends?” But how could that be the case? How could such an unnatural and unstable arrangement as modern liberalism, which requires the enforcement of massive lies just in order to function, be stable? So this is not where it ends.
Look at it this way. On one hand, the fact that all this could happen means, in some sense, that it had to happen. The modern West conceived of equality and non-discrimination as the highest goods, and began to pursue them relentlessly in all areas, so that we have ended up with homosexual “marriage” and all the rest of it. Which means that this is not just some weird, disgusting, accidental, unnecessary development. It is the necessary working out of the West’s own deeply held but false beliefs. On the other hand, at least as I see it, the very dominance of these false beliefs over our society is going to awaken the opposite truths, and lead to resistance—not the pathetic, miserable, backpeddling type of resistance that is modern conservatism, but real resistance.
So, as disturbing and repulsive as much of contemporary reality is, do not despair. It is not over. We are in the middle of a vast process the end of which we cannot see.
BLS replies:
I think you are right, but maybe for the wrong reasons. The longer I live, the more I realize nothing is new. This progression is not unprecedented. Many societies over the course of history have accepted, celebrated, and demanded actions we consider morally wrong. Western societies are not immune, but we have recovered at times and degrees. It was the Church (Catholic and Protestant) that demanded we live according to moral statutes. This evolved nicely into the nation-state for Western countries and the according laws and customs.
You are right that we are in the middle of a process, and that this is not the end. I sometimes need to be reminded of that. History shows us that we can rise above conditions that are intolerable. It is, however, earth shattering events that cause the return to sensible moral truths. Liberalization is a gradual process, but conservative returns tend to be abrupt.
We must be approaching one of these abrupt changes … otherwise, I am at a loss. I do appreciate your unwavering optimism.
LA replies:
I wouldn’t call it optimism (though I don’t know what I would call it). To me, optimism is professional conservatives saying things like, “Modern Reaganite conservatism is based on optimism. Therefore we must believe that we can have mass Third World immigration and it will all work out for the best.”
We are in the midst of something unprecedented and terrible. Great forces of evil are being unleashed. We don’t know where this is going to end. It could end with the destruction of our civilization. I don’t think it will, though at the least there will be much damage and loss. Those are not the words of an optimist.
Laura Wood writes:
BLS wrote:
“Everybody knows a homo now, and they are all afraid to reject them as legitimate members of society.”
But not too many years from now almost everybody will have heard from the children of homosexual “parents.” These people will not remain silent once they reach adulthood and will articulate what was taken from them. Also, many former homosexuals are virtually silenced now. That will change too. There is only so long the truth can be kept from the general public.
Kidist Paulos Asrat writes:
That is a very good reply you gave to BLS’s despair.
The ones I’ve been noticing more and more frequently “out” in the streets in Toronto are exactly the white/Asian couplings. So this couple is not really an aberration, if I can say that about gay couples. White/Asian homosexual couples are getting to be more and more frequently seen in obviously homosexual behaviors, i.e., the most “in your face”—holding hands in public, etc.
But, I’m beginning to say to myself, as I see this: Do they really think they can ultimately get away with it? Do they really think I will let them get away with it?
So, I agree, this boldness is good in some ways, because otherwise passive or ignorant (in the sense of unknowing) people will begin to see what it is really all about. I also think the interracial element will also be something that will attract (negative) attention.
Also the weirder the “family” gets the more unstable it must become. What will this little black boy think as he grows up—as a nine year old, as a teenager, as a young adult? Where will he get his identity from? “Children” of gay couples grow up to be heterosexual. So he has a double whammy to deal with: Is he black, white, Asian? Is he gay or straight? Or more precisely, is he automatically (obligatorily, in “honor” of his “parents”) to accept homosexuality as normal? (Sorry for all the scare quotes.)
That is how cruel and narcissistic homosexuals are.
BLS writes:
Optimism is not the acceptance of new values, it is the acceptance that good will win over evil. In this aspect, I find your work reassuring and emboldening. It is the same reason Rush Limbaugh maintains his status—he is always optimistic. He may not be the perfect conservative, but the man does not get dejected. That is an important trait. I fail at this sometimes. I think many of us do.
The fears of destruction are relevant, but optimism of a return to normal values is not an aberration. It is a necessity. The world may not get better in our lifetime, but we have to hope it will get better. We know it will, because of history. We know it must, because of Scripture. Of course, it will require work.
This exchange has diminished my despair.
Nick V. writes:
Some facts are in order here. As Joe Friday (Dragnet) used to say, “Just the facts ma’am.”
Your reader BLS wrote:
“The world may not get better in our lifetime, but we have to hope it will get better. We know it will, because of history. We know it must, because of Scripture.”
The world must get better because of Scripture? Let’s try actually reading Scripture (2 Timothy):
3:1 This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.
3:2 For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy,
3:3 Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good,
3:4 Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God;
3:13 But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived.
Doesn’t appear that good for the world. Actually the world ends this way (2 Peter):
3:7 But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.
3:10 But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.
3:11 Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness,
3:12 Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat?
Do any of these prophecies mean people will turn around to change history for the better? Let’s see what the last book of the Bible (Revelation) says about the prospect of humanity transforming itself and history:
9:20 And the rest of the men which were not killed by these plagues yet repented not of the works of their hands, that they should not worship devils, and idols of gold, and silver, and brass, and stone, and of wood: which neither can see, nor hear, nor walk:
9:21 Neither repented they of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornication, nor of their thefts.
Actually all men became worthless worshippers of the animal:
13:8 And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him (the beast), whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
And became aa a result a lot more blasphemous, rather than repentant:
16:11 And blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, and repented not of their deeds.
So exactly where does it say in Scripture the world will or must become better? It’s going to get worse and then end on fire folks. It’s rather plain, not symbolic.
As for history, really one would think the 20th century put an end once and for all the stupid dream of a better world. Really, come on now …
LA replies:
You say that according to the Bible the world will end in fire. That’s not the way my King James Bible has it. I remember something—in the culminating scene in the Book of Revelation—about a New Jerusalem, a new heaven, and a new earth. As I wrote at FrontPage Magazine in part two of my article, “How Liberal Christianity Promotes Open Borders and One Worldism”:
In Chapter 21, after the final judgment on sinful humanity has occurred, after the first heaven and the first earth have passed away and a new heaven and a new earth have appeared, after the holy city, New Jerusalem, has come down out of heaven, a dwelling for God himself on earth, and after the total transformation of the world, when even the sun and moon are no longer needed to light the city because the glory of God is the light of it, and the Lamb is the lamp of it, even then
… the nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it: and the kings of the earth do bring their glory and honour into it….
And they shall bring the glory and honour of the nations into it.
In the New Jerusalem, the heavenly city, there are still distinct nations, and kings of nations, and these are the glories of humanity which are brought before the throne of God, and there transfigured in the light of Christ. Mankind, following the end of the world, is still providentially constituted of separate nations, which give it its character and distinctiveness, even as, for example, our earth is constituted of separate continents, islands, mountain ranges, and valleys, which give it its shape and its meaning. The physical earth is not a homogenous mass consisting of nothing but “equal” individual particles, and neither, in the biblical view, is mankind.
Now, my subject in that article was the distinctiveness of distinct nations which are part of God’s plan even after the heaven and earth have passed away and a new heaven and a new earth have appeared. But a more fundamental point made in the same passage of Revelations and brought out by my commentary is that nations themselves—organized human societies—are part of God’s plan. So after the destruction and the transformations recounted in the Book of Revelation, there is still a humanity living on earth in organized societies called nations. The destruction of earthly human life is not as total as you claim.
Kristor writes:
Both you and Nick V. are right about the eschaton. History is a Fall, that must culminate in utter disaster; and, on that Day at the end of history, all its beauties and glories will be made new again, and everlastingly fresh. So the task for us right now, as for men in any age or clime, is to generate new beauties and glories, that can eventually take up their places in the world without end, there to redound to our endless delight.
We must always remember that, just as Everlasting Day must follow the uttermost Night of the world’s end, so in the meantime must mornings of the most ordinary sort follow ordinary nights. And this is as true of ages as of days. One of the most pervasive aspects of Nature is her tendency always and everywhere to revert from extremes toward the mean. We find ourselves now far out at the leftward end of the pendulum’s swing. It will swing back. Error is self-limiting, and grotesque error is lethal, literally pathological. Vice is weak, virtue strong. So, liberalism will devour more and more liberals, and seeing this, liberals themselves, or their children, will begin to spew it forth. Indeed, this is already happening: I myself, like many other VFR readers, am a former liberal.
All this world will end, eventually; and there is no way we can “fix” things so that they won’t eventually fall apart (thinking we can is the error of Babel). But true, good things are more durable than false, wicked things. The true and the good will indeed pass away, but they will tend to outlast the false and wicked. So, the current liberal regime will certainly fall, one way or another. The fall will be messy, and good people will die. But that will happen in any case; better to die for the good than for anything less. While we wait and prepare for that, we must be patient, and true. There is always need of courage; and when the night is darkest, that need is greatest.
James R. writes:
You wrote:
On the other hand, at least as I see it, the very dominance of these false beliefs over our society is going to awaken the opposite truths, and lead to resistance—not the pathetic, miserable, backpedaling type of resistance that is modern conservatism, but real resistance.
What if Islam is it? I don’t think it is, but what if this real resistance takes the form of advancing Islam? Which is a reaction/revolt against all of these things in many ways, and which manages to attract recruits/converts among progressives even, who go from mouthing leftist platitudes one day to being adherents of fanatical Islam the next. The spiritual vacuum created in Europe by the advance of progressivism and the corresponding collapse of Christianity and tradition has led not to a revival of interest in Christian truths, regardless of the stalwart efforts of the Pope (I’m not a Catholic, but I respect Pope Benedict), but to an advance of Islam, not just through migration but through an increasing tide of conversion.
This is not what I want to arise as the alternative to progressive liberalism and the hypertrophy of egalitarianism. But what if this is what we get? Yes yes—Islam being false, it too shall pass away perhaps. But that may take centuries. It certainly shows no sign of collapsing in the lands it conquered and holds sway over.
If there is to be an alternative, we’ll need to do a better job than we have of creating and promoting it. I myself have only the foggiest idea of what.
July 13
Alissa writes:
We’re in a cycle as all civilizations are (rise, stability, crisis, decline, fall, renewal, and back to step one). The question is not renewal but how bad things are going to get before depravity has reached its course. We don’t know whether liberalism will get more totalitarian and intolerant of non-liberal opinions and hunt them down or whether there will be some sort of exile or cocoon where traditional conservatives and far-right wingers can congregate and still express their non-liberal views in the midst of a liberal apocalypse. Like survivors in a post-apocalyptic setting?
Texanne V. writes:
Why adopt, when you can order up your very own “daddy’s girl”?
Please note that homosexual couples are increasingly exercising their right to purchase eggs and sperm and to rent wombs in order to produce children. Some readers may not be aware of how commonplace this has become, and what a booming business it is for IVF “clinics.” There are, of course the high-profile cases of celebrities such as Elton John, but it is not uncommon NOW to see this happening in ordinary, middle class neighborhoods. The Guardian recently posted an interview with pop celebrity Ricky Martin who, having finally overcome the trauma of determining his sexual orientation, realized that his next task was to start acquiring children.
An excerpt:
… his thoughts were turning to family. He wanted children. And so he said: “OK, what are my options? Am I going to adopt? I just sat in front of the computer, doing research, until I found surrogacy, and I was like: “Woah! This looks really interesting.” I interviewed so many people that were part of this beautiful world, and I decided this was going to be my way.” When he told his mother, “she was like “surr-o-ga-what? This is like a movie of the future, Rick.” And I replied, “Well, Mom, we’re part of the future.”“
He found an egg donor, and another woman to carry the baby, but it was a closed surrogacy—neither woman knew then, or now, that Martin was the father. In August 2008 his twin boys, Matteo and Valentino, were born. He was determined to look after them without help, until his mother said: “”You’re like a zombie.” And I’m like, “No, I’m noooooooot”“—he pretends to fall asleep, mid-speech—“because I wanted to do it all.” He makes a loud snoring noise, and drops his head again. “And that’s when I said, “OK.”“
I ask whether he wants more kids, and he says he’d like “a daddy’s girl.” He’s going to be living in New York next year, playing Che Guevara in Evita on Broadway, and he plans to start the whole process again. “I’ll be steady in New York, and then, after I do the play, the baby [will be] born, and I’m going to be able to spend time with her.”
Grenville N. writes:
People are despairing that current developments can only end in a historical and social catastrophe. It appears to me that there can be three possible outcomes:
1. The slope of history progresses upwards.
2. The slope of history will progress downwards.
3. History continues as is on an even slope. [LA replies: Are you saying that current history “as is” is on an even slope?]
No one frankly believes #1 (a 19th century optimism) any longer, be it the liberal or the conservative. As far as #2 is concerned, apocalypses of all sorts have come and gone; the world continues.
Which leads to #3. Not quite a level, straight line. More like a pendulum—a swing downward (whatever downward is) followed by a swing upward (wherever up is) and so on.
I expect to wake up one morning fifty years hence, look out the window, and see that some things have changed, some fashions have passed out of style, the current cast of characters aged but still on stage. Republicans have been voted in, Democrats voted out and vice versa. Christians became mute, gays vociferous and vice versa. Women loved men, then they loved each other and vice versa. Christ was elevated, then betrayed, Allah took his turn on stage, Lord Vishnu made a move then bowed out and so it went.
It’s not a satisfactory life for everyone as compromises are made to keep the polity intact. However it is a necessary life for anyone to survive without undue melodramatics. I expect the majority of people to keep going “down” this path, level as it is, dodging apocalypses as if making their way through a mine field. Every so often the laws of thermodynamics suggest a winding down of the universe’s energy but the dissipation of life and energy is never completely exhausted. The earth keeps spinning on its axis, cycling and recycling quite boringly because the apocalypse never comes with any finality. Oh sure there are complaints, wailing and gnashing of teeth that the end just has to be around the corner, things being what they are.
But the world is never entirely up or entirely down. The universe isn’t all that dramatic. Things continue on an even keel (whatever that is) and we wake up morning after morning having dodged another apocalypse (up or down). Fifty years from now, remember when you wake up, that you’re still around and things are bumping and grinding along … Not exciting stuff.
Kathlene M. writes:
I’ve been thinking these same thoughts lately, when you state, “We are in the midst of something unprecedented and terrible. Great forces of evil are being unleashed.” One cannot help but look around and be stunned by the events we’re seeing unfold around us.
So now is the time to bring out Thomas Paine’s famous intro from The Crisis, December 23, 1776:
THESE are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.
Lately scripture and prayer have given me inner calm. Paine’s words also give me solace and hope.
James P. writes:
Nick V. only bolded certain sections of 2 Timothy 3 in order to make his point.
For a fact, he should have cited and bolded the entire passage, for it exactly describes the 21st century liberal—every single word is apt, and I can easily think of a liberal exemplar of each descriptive phrase.
The Character of Men in the Last Days
1 This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.
2 For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy,
3 without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good,
4 traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God;
5 having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.
6 For of this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts,
7 ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.
8 Now as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so do these also resist the truth: men of corrupt minds, reprobate concerning the faith.
9 But they shall proceed no further: for their folly shall be manifest unto all men, as theirs also was.
Robert W. writes:
Regarding the final dissolution of this earth, what you fail to see in 2 Peter is that ALL the works of this world will be burnt up. It doesn’t say the works of bad men such as Hitler or Stalin but ALL the works which would include George Washington’s and Abraham Lincoln’s. So there is no implication that the nations living on the new earth are American, French, German, Israeli, Syrian, etc. preserved in the founding fathers of a nation
Revelation depicts ALL men worhipping the beast in the end, unrepentant and blasphemous—that includes America. There is NO exception made for ANY group of people.
So you are using the case of the new earth in the wrong context to suggest a carrying on as is biologically and culturally. There will be no Muslim nations, there will be no Jewish nations, there will be no Hindu nations because Paul says in the end all knees shall bow to Jesus Christ (Philippians 2:10).
“That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
That effectively ends all other ideologies and religions as well as cultural identities identifying nations. As Paul states, there is an earthly body and a heavenly one. So the inhabitants of the new earth have new bodies and identities.
Contrary to what Kristor says about working towards the new millenium, Peter says that given the complete destruction of this world, the believer should live in the “hastening” of the coming of this day. He does not say work constructively building up beautiful things as you wait for this day.
LA replies:
You are living in the first century. You don’t seem to be aware that the Christians of that time who shared your belief in an imminent end of the world, when the expected end didn’t come, had to adjust their beliefs. The result, developed over time and reaching a culmination in the writings of Augustine, was a Christian understanding that incorporated the ongoing reality of human life and society on this earth.
Reading only the Bible is not enough.
BLS writes:
I did not expect this much discussion. Nick V. considers my thoughts on Scripture as invalid. That is true if one suspects we are living in the end days. I do not subscribe to that notion. I have no theory or rationale to dissuade him, but I see our modern society as a mirror of past societies. We are not all that different right now (from the past). Israel is a state. They may lose that, and they would have to win it again. That is not unachievable.
James R. responds to arguments that islam may take over. Perhaps temporarily, but there is nothing to suggest we will live in an islamic tyranny—as long as we fight against it. And we see the confrontations now in Europe. There is a growing tide against the importation of muslim refugees and immigrants. This will grow stronger.
The belief that this will grow stronger is evidence that these are not the end days. We still have fight within our people.
Kathlene M. refers to Thomas Paine to underscore that we are living in unprecedented times. I argue that these are not unprecedented times, and Paine writing about the struggle many decades ago is proof of that notion.
Finally, Mr. Auster emphasizes that dark times have befallen man many times in history. I made this point in an earlier response. But, this is a reminder that dark times do not necessarily mean the end days, they are simply dark times. And many of us (including myself) forget that basic point.
Correct me if I am wrong, but as a Christian I should not be anticipating the end of the world. The more time we have on earth is more time to save lives and change things for the better. Hoping for the end of the earth, and Christ’s return, is a selfish desire to escape the requirements demanded on us as the diplomats of God’s plan. I think this is why Christ told us that no man knows the day or hour of his return. We should live with no expectation of salvation through time running out. We should live with the expectation that our lives and actions are meaningful with no regard to an end.
Kristor writes:
Robert W. wrote:
Contrary to what Kristor says about working towards the new millennium …
Where did I say anything about working towards the new millennium? The eschaton is not our job—is not on our to-do list—in just the same way that creation ex nihilo is not our job. Neither job is of the sort that creatures can do. All I said was, generate new beauties and glories, that are at least in part worthy of resurrection in the life to come. To do the good that is proper to us, in any department of life, is precisely to “store up for [our]selves treasures in heaven.” Would Robert have us avoid doing beautiful and glorious things? Can he really think that in the final analysis the basic moral injunction of the Gospels is, “Do nothing good”?
Revelation depicts all men worshipping the Beast, true; but all men have been doing that since we left Eden, with but two exceptions (our Lord and his Mother); for, to sin is to pay obeisance to another than Him to whom all obedience is owed.
That there will be no errant nations in the new creation does not entail that there will be no nations at all, any more than the fact that there will be no sinners in the new creation entails that there will be no distinct persons. Rather, in the new creation, there will be distinct persons, nations, tribes, and so forth; but each will be perfectly what it was at first intended to be. If anything, this will mean that there will be greater differences among nations in the new creation than we find here in the old.
Robert writes that, “there is an earthly body and a heavenly one. So the inhabitants of the new earth have new bodies and identities.” But this can’t be right, or it would be misspeaking to talk of the resurrection. A wholly new body and identity could have nothing to do with the old body and identity; it would be, not a resurrection, but a straightforward birth, pure and simple, of a completely different person. On the contrary, the Christian hope is that the sinner himself will find salvation and resurrection to new life in the world to come; that “in my flesh shall I see God”—not that “some other guy in his flesh will see God.”
Note well in connection with the resurrection of the body that human bodies are not islands. They are products and procedures of the universe as a whole. They are of earth, and wholly integrated thereto, both in respect to their causal inputs and in respect to their creative activities; they are of certain ages and climes, particular nations and families. If the universe had turned out differently in the years leading up to the 20th century, so would each of us: we’d be different sorts of beings than in fact we are. So, the resurrection of any of our bodies entails the resurrection of a whole created order, down to the last detail. It’s not just that humans will walk around the same old sort of earth with brand new resurrection bodies, but that the whole earth will be redeemed, and have a resurrection body of its own. Yet all of it will be recognizably itself; indeed, more itself, more truly itself than it ever had been before.
LA to Kristor:
Pretty cool.
Kristor replies:
I love that thought of the integrity of all things entailing that the resurrection of my body means, in some sense not quite within my grasp, the resurrection of all the goods that influenced me and my body, in their own bodies. You have been good to me, have contributed to my peculiar goodness, whatever that may be; so that, if I am fortunate enough to arrive at resurrection, you will somehow be there with me. In heaven, the French will be even more French than they ever were here below: more martial, more rational, more passionate, more je ne sais quois. In heaven, the Grand Canyon will be even Grander. Awesome.
Maybe this is why we call exquisite experiences “heavenly.” They express their own essences, which in heaven will find complete expression.
Ed writes:
Looking at the photo of the Asian/white homosexual couple and adopted child, we are filled with a sense of foreboding. Why?
No society since Sodom has embraced these kinds of unnatural relationships as the norm. Moreover we sense that this is a new and very dark path for America. A country that defined itself in moral terms from its beginning. America was suppose to be a new start free from decadence. Now look at us. And, yes, while we may very well end as Sodom did under a hail of heaven sent fire and brimstone, the final destruction will more likely take a more familiar form. We have seen this all before, and that is what scares us.
In the photo of the “new American couple,” what clues do we find? First we know that in two years this homosexual “marriage” will be over. [LA replies: Not necessarily true. Many homosexual couples stay together a long time.] These marriages have value to the homosexual community precisely because of their destructive quality. By forcing normal society to give up more and more of its reference points, the gays deprive the rest of the world of any means to define itself, and thereby to define homosexuality as an aberration. That’s what “gay marriage” is all about. We know that should gay marriage become universal tomorrow gays would simply shrug their shoulders and say that, after all, “marriage really wasn’t the issue, not really,” and so begin searching to destroy what little else was left in normal society. In the meantime homosexual self destruction will also proceeds apace, mental illness, anxiety, drugs, alcohol, violence, disease. What is the average life expectancy of this “alternative lifestyle”? 45? How many gays make it to age 65? Nine percent? That what will become of the mommy and daddy in this “new American paradigm” in two years time?
But look deeper. Look at the child. The next generation. What truly terrifying pathologies are being incubated in this person? What sense will this child make of his world? How will he explain to himself that he has no father, and no mother, or that his father acts like a woman, or that last week’s Mommy isn’t here any more? Think of all the subtle structures of the human psyche built around sons’ memories of their mothers and fathers, or daughters’ memories of their mothers and fathers, all of them stripped from this child’s experience. How can he ever express even the unfathomable confusion and pain he feels, when he has no experience of what is missing, just a black hole of absence? Is there not something Mengele-like in these inhuman social experiments? Josef Mengele, who would attach severed feet and legs on backwards and force the wretched creature to walk until it collapsed. That’s where “progressive” social engineering brings us to, the cruelest forms of torture carried out on the natural and innocent world.
So what will become of this black child? What incredible forms of rage will come out against the white liberal world that did this to him? It will be impossible for him ever to untangle his personal history, he will turn instead against “society.” He will disguise his rage in the form of the same progressive social thought that produced his own anguish. That is where our sense of foreboding comes from when looking at this photo. We are watching the progressive cycle regenerate itself on a new and even more hellish level.
MJB writes: There has been a law suit filed in Texas this or last week by a polygamist with multiple wives on the grounds that outlawing polygamy is unconstitutional based on the wording of the ruling in Lawrence v. Texas (2003) that ruled Texas’ law against sodomy unconstitutional. This is the polygamist that was in the reality
show “Sister Wives.” I don’t have cable tv so I don’t know what channel had the show.
Micah R. writes:
This is regarding your comment that “Reading only the Bible is not enough”
I have to disagree. As a Christian, I accept the Bible as absolute truth and as God’s own form of communication with man. Yes, I believe that beneficial literature exists outside the Bible, but that is far from saying it is not enough. Think of the billions of people who lived between the mass publication of the Bible and the times when this supplemental literature was published, is their faith less complete because they were not exposed to more modern takes on Christianity? The Bible in its truest format is all that is necessary for a complete and thriving faith.
LA replies:
I did not mean to say that reading only the Bible is not enough for salvation; I meant that reading only the Bible is not enough for understanding Christian doctrine and history. Take the issue that was discussed: whether Christianity says that the world and humanity will be destroyed. The generation of Christians after Christ believed that Christ would come again and the world would be destroyed in their lifetimes. When those events did not transpire, the Second Coming and the End of the World had to be re-interpreted as events in an unknown future, or even as events outside of time. That re-interpretation became central to Christianity. But that re-interpretation is not in the Bible. A person who confines all his knowledge of Christianity to the Bible knows nothing of that re-interpretation, and is still as the Christians in the First century, expecting the end of the world to come in his lifetime. But notice the difference. The Christians of the first century had every excuse for expecting the end of the world in their lifetimes, based on a literal understanding of Jesus’ prophecies in Matthew 24 and elsewhere. But for Christians in the 21st century to be taking Jesus’ words in Matthew 24 literally, i.e., as a statement that the end of the world is going to take place in the lifetimes of the disciples, makes such Christians appear ignorant and ridiculous, because, obviously, the end of the world that they expect NOW did not occur in the first century or in any century since.
So, again, reading books other than the Bible may not be essential for salvation; but it is certainly essential if one is not to be an ignoramus.
Posted by Lawrence Auster at July 12, 2011 09:23 AM | Send
|