Reality Vs. Modern Imitations of Reality
By Fred Martinez
Icon historian Andrei Navrozov, in the June issue of Chronicles, agrees with Bell that art can either be about "gaining a deeper understanding" of reality by symbols or can "mimic" reality.
Perspective was first invented in 470 B.C. by Agatharchus as a means of "geometric illusionism" to mimic reality in stage sets for theater, according to the icon historian.
Navrozov said the "theater set is conceived as a fiction, whereas [an icon] is born as an attempt at truth of life, an attempt that in no sense compromises the integrity of the original [reality]. ... They are symbols of real life, not lifelike imitations of reality.
"There is no deeper conflict in history than that between these opposing views of art. 'Is art to serve reality and the individual under God or is it to serve [materialistic] realism and the masses under communism?"
Navrozov shows us that the modern battleground against God and reality is imagery and the imagination. Michael O' Brien, in his book A Landscape with Dragons: The Battle for Your Child's Mind, said that the imagination is the way that mankind comprehends "God's territory" and his created "invisible realities."
The modern imagination, according to O'Brien, has lost "God's territory" by returning to its "pre-pagan split in consciousness," which is the Gnostic rejection of the "sacramental" unity of spirit and matter, the addiction to occult tales of will to power like Harry Potter, and the relativistic denial of good and evil with ends-justify-the means storylines.
J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings is for O'Brien a prime example of a return to the Western Christian epic tradition of the moral imagination, which comprehends "God's territory" and his created "invisible realities."
O'Brien wrote: "The discernment of the right paths that must be taken, if good is to triumph, is dramatized in the myriad geographical, emotional, spiritual, and symbolic choices faced by the questers. In each of these, Tolkein's world is faithful to the moral order of the universe, to the absolute necessity of freedom. Middle-earth is a "sacramental" world, an "incarnational" world. ... Spirit [invisible realities] and matter are never portrayed as adversaries."
The Western Christian culture was rooted in this service to reality and God. Reality was the belief in the objectivity of things that are both material and spiritual. During the last two to five centuries, materialistic modernity has been the adversary of this spiritual and matter "incarnational" worldview.
This "incarnational" reality was rooted out and refilled with the lone materialistic science and "realism" in art worldview in which reality was contained only within material objects that could be tested or seen.
Spiritual (invisible) realities like God, love, beauty, responsibility and free will were neither seeable, material nor testable, so they were not within modernity's realism.
Modernity attacked the primacy of realistic philosophies such as Thomism and realistic symbolic literature like Dante's spiritual epics and Shakespeare's dramas contrasting persons who were symbols of the conflicting real worldviews of modernity and the older realistic philosophy.
Hamlet's "To be or not to be?" illustrates what the two cultures were in conflict about. In our time, Bill Clinton ("What is the definition of is?") is the symbol of modernity's denial of "to be" or objective truth or falsehood.
Modernity, in its desire to stamp out the Christian culture, dislodged Thomism realistic philosophy and realistic symbolic literatures with Pavlovian behaviorism as well as the materialistic reductive studies and application of art, which represented only material acts. Such as Freud's deterministic reduction of all symbols of the mind to represent only the physical acts of sex and Picasso's sexual anti-art.
This cramped reality of only the materially seeable or testable led to rootlessness and alienation, which was so unbearable to modern man that there was a reaction. According to philosopher Allan Bloom, Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophy of disbelief in all reality, seeable or unseeable, material or spiritual, became the language of the American reaction.
Friedrich Nietzsche's values philosophy led to the subjectivity of all concepts of objective truth, which included good and evil.
Many will remember when President Reagan called the USSR "the evil empire"; he was roundly criticized for violating the new language of "beyond good and evil." This language of value relativism allows for neither the words nor the symbols of evil and good.
Nietzsche's anti-reality philosophy of "God is dead" led to the anti-heroes of politics and art.
In society this led to the denial of the concepts of absolute truth and the law of identity in reality by modernist artists such as Pablo Picasso and by politicians such as Clinton. This rejection of good and evil in turn led to the degrading of women and sexuality.
In the case of Picasso, E. Michael Jones in Degenerate Moderns says:
"His break with the traditions was an index of his hatred not only toward the spiritual values of the West but toward the human body and spirit that the West prized as good. In the end, the only thing that Picasso portrayed realistically was the woman's crotch. Modern art had returned to its roots, and the gaping crotch was the only thing now that could keep the aging Picasso in touch with the real world."
Pope Benedict Vs. Terrorist Islam and "Modern Reason"
Socrates or Muhammad?
Joseph Ratzinger on the destiny of reason.
by Lee Harris
St. Clement argued that Greek philosophy had been given by God to mankind as a second source of truth, comparable to the Hebrew revelation. For St. Clement, Socrates and Plato were not pagan thinkers; they prefigured Christianity. Contrary to what Tertullian believed, Christianity needed more than just Jerusalem: It needed Athens too. Pope Benedict in his address makes a strikingly similar claim: "The encounter between the Biblical message and Greek thought did not happen by chance." This encounter, for Benedict, was providential, just as it had been for St. Clement. Furthermore, Benedict argues that the "inner rapprochement between Biblical faith and Greek philosophical inquiry was an event of decisive importance not only from the standpoint of the history of religions, but also from that of world history." For Benedict, however, this event is not mere ancient history. It is a legacy that we in the West are all duty-bound to keep alive--yet it is a legacy that is under attack, both from those who do not share it, namely Islam, and from those who are its beneficiaries and do not understand it, namely, Western intellectuals.
Let us begin by taking seriously Benedict's claim that in his address he is attempting to sketch, in a rough outline, "a critique of modern reason from within." He is not using his authority as the Roman pontiff to attack modern reason from the point of view of the Church. His approach is not dogmatic; it is dialectical. He stands before his learned audience not as the
pope, but simply as Joseph Ratzinger, an intelligent and thoughtful man, who makes no claims to any privileged cognitive authority. He has come, like Socrates, not to preach or sermonize, but to challenge with questions.
Ratzinger is troubled that most educated people today appear to think that they know what they are talking about, even when they are talking about very difficult things, like reason and faith. Reason, they think, is modern reason. But, as Ratzinger notes, modern reason is a far more limited and narrow concept than the Greek notion of reason. The Greeks felt that they could reason about anything and everything--about the immortality of the soul, metempsychosis, the nature of God, the role of reason in the universe, and so on. Modern reason, from the time of Kant, has repudiated this kind of wild speculative reason. For modern reason, there is no point in even asking such questions, because there is no way of answering them scientifically. Modern reason, after Kant, became identified with what modern science does. Modern science uses mathematics and the empirical method to discover truths about which we can all be certain: Such truths are called scientific truths. It is the business of modern reason to severely limit its activity to the discovery of such truths, and to refrain from pure speculation.
Ratzinger, it must be stressed, has no trouble with the truths revealed by modern science. He welcomes them. He has no argument with Darwin or Einstein or Heisenberg. What disturbs him is the assumption that scientific reason is the only form of reason, and that whatever is not scientifically provable lies outside the universe of reason. According to Ratzinger, the results of this "modern self-limitation of reason" are twofold. First, "the human sciences, such as history, psychology, sociology, and philosophy, attempt to conform themselves to this canon of scientificity." Second, "by its very nature [the scientific] method excludes the question of God, making it appear an unscientific or pre-scientific question."
In making this last point about God, it may appear that Joseph Ratzinger, the critical thinker, has switched back into being Pope Benedict XVI, the upholder of Christian orthodoxy. Defenders of modern reason and modern science can simply shrug off his objection to their exclusion of God by saying, "Of course, the question of God cannot be answered by science. This was the whole point of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. Science can neither prove, nor disprove God's existence. Furthermore, by bringing in the question of God, you have violated your own ground rules. You claimed to be offering a critique of modern reason from within, but by dragging God into the discussion, you are criticizing modern reason from the standpoint of a committed Christian. You are merely saying that modern reason excludes God; we who subscribe to the concept of modern reason are perfectly aware of this fact. Maybe it troubles you, as a Christian, but it doesn't bother us in the least."
Can Joseph Ratzinger, the critical thinker, answer this objection? Yes, he can, and he does. His answer is provided by his discussion of jihad. Contrary to what the New York Times reported, Ratzinger is not providing merely "a note on jihad" that has no real bearing on the central message of his address. According to his own words, the topic of jihad constitutes "the starting-point" for his reflection on faith and reason. Ratzinger uses the Islamic concept of jihad to elucidate his critique of modern reason from within.
Modern reason argues that questions of ethics, of religion, and of God are outside its compass. Because there is no scientific method by which such questions can be answered, modern reason cannot concern itself with them, nor should it try to. From the point of view of modern reason, all religious faiths are equally irrational, all systems of ethics equally unverifiable, all concepts of God equally beyond rational criticism. But if this is the case, then what can modern reason say when it is confronted by a God who commands that his followers should use violence and even the threat of death in order to convert unbelievers?
If modern reason cannot concern itself with the question of God, then it cannot argue that a God who commands jihad is better or worse than a God who commands us not to use violence to impose our religious views on others. To the modern atheist, both Gods are equally figments of the imagination, in which case it would be ludicrous to discuss their relative merits. The proponent of modern reason, therefore, could not possibly think of participating in a dialogue on whether Christianity or Islam is the more reasonable religion, since, for him, the very notion of a "reasonable religion" is a contradiction in terms.
Ratzinger wishes to challenge this notion, not from the point of view of a committed Christian, but from the point of view of modern reason itself. He does this by calling his educated listeners' attention to a "dialogue--carried on--perhaps in 1391 in the winter barracks near Ankara--by the erudite Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologus and an educated Persian on the subject of Christianity and Islam, and the truth of both." In particular, Ratzinger focuses on a passage in the dialogue where the emperor "addresses his interlocutor with a startling brusqueness" on the "central question about the relationship between religion and violence in general, saying: 'Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.'"
Ratzinger's daring use of this provocative quotation was not designed to inflame Muslims. He was using the emperor's question in order to offer a profound challenge to modern reason from within. Can modern reason really stand on the sidelines of a clash between a religion that commands jihad and a religion that forbids violent conversion? Can a committed atheist avoid taking the side of Manuel II Paleologus when he says: "God is not pleased by blood--and not acting reasonably is contrary to God's nature. . . . Whoever would lead someone to faith needs the ability to speak well and to reason properly, without violence and threats. . . . To convince a reasonable soul, one does not need a strong arm, or weapons of any kind, or any other means of threatening a person with death."
Modern science cannot tell us that the emperor is right in his controversy with the learned Persian over what is or is not contrary to God's nature. Modern reason proclaims such questions unanswerable by science--and it is right to do so. But can modern reason hope to survive as reason at all if it insists on reducing the domain of reasonable inquiry to the sphere of scientific inquiry? If modern reason cannot take the side of the emperor in this debate, if it cannot see that his religion is more reasonable than the religion of those who preach and practice jihad, if it cannot condemn as unreasonable a religion that forces atheists and unbelievers to make a choice between their intellectual integrity and death, then modern reason may be modern, but it has ceased to be reason.
The typical solution to the problem of ethics and religion offered by modern reason is quite simple: Let the individual decide such matters himself, by whatever means he wishes. If a person prefers Islam over Christianity, or Jainism over Methodism, that is entirely up to him. All such choices, from the perspective of modern reason, are equally leaps of faith, or simply matters of taste; hence all are equally irrational. Ratzinger recognizes this supposed solution, but he sees the fatal weakness in it. Modern reason asserts that questions of ethics and religion
have no place within the purview of collective reason as defined by "science," . . . and must thus be relegated to the realm of the subjective. The subject then decides, on the basis of his experiences, what he considers tenable in matters of religion, and the subjective "conscience" becomes the sole arbiter of what is ethical. In this way, though, ethics and religion lose their power to create a community and become a completely personal matter. This is a dangerous state of affairs for humanity, as we see from the disturbing pathologies of religion and reason which necessarily erupt when reason is so reduced that questions of religion and ethics no longer concern it.
If the individual is free to choose between violence and reason, it will become impossible to create a community in which all the members restrict themselves to using reason alone to obtain their objectives. If it is left up to the individual to use violence or reason, then those whose subjective choice is for violence will inevitably destroy the community of those whose subjective choice is for reason. Worse still, those whose subjective choice is for violence do not need to constitute more than a small percentage of the community in order to destroy the very possibility of a community of reasonable men: Brute force and terror quickly extinguish rational dialogue and debate.
Modern reason says that all ethical choices are subjective and beyond the scope of reason. But if this is so, then a man who wishes to live in a community made up of reasonable men is simply making a personal subjective choice--a choice that is no more reasonable than the choice of the man who wishes to live in a community governed by brute force. But if the reasonable man is reasonable, he must recognize that modern reason itself can only survive in a community made up of other reasonable men. Since to be a reasonable man entails wishing to live in a community made up of other reasonable men, then the reasonable man cannot afford to allow the choice between reason and violence to be left up to mere personal taste or intellectual caprice. To do so would be a betrayal of reason.
Modern reason, to be sure, cannot prove scientifically that a community of reasonable men is ethically superior to a community governed by violent men. But a critique of modern reason from within must recognize that a community of reasonable men is a necessary precondition of the very existence of modern reason. He who wills to preserve and maintain the achievements of modern reason must also will to live in a community made up of reasonable men who abstain from the use of violence to enforce their own values and ideas. Such a community is the a priori ethical foundation of modern reason. Thus, modern reason, despite its claim that it can give no scientific advice about ethics and religion, must recognize that its own existence and survival demand both an ethical postulate and a religious postulate. The ethical postulate is: Do whatever is possible to create a community of reasonable men who abstain from violence, and who prefer to use reason. The religious postulate is: If you are given a choice between religions, always prefer the religion that is most conducive to creating a community of reasonable men, even if you don't believe in it yourself.
Modern reason cannot hope to prove these postulates to be scientifically true; but it must recognize that a refusal to adopt and act on these postulates will threaten the very survival of modern reason itself. That is the point of Ratzinger's warning that "the West has long been endangered by [its] aversion to the questions which underlie its rationality, and can only suffer great harm thereby." Because it is ultimately a community of reasonable men that underlies the rationality of the West, modern reason is risking suicide by not squarely confronting the question: How did such a community of reasonable men come into being in the first place? By what miracle did men turn from brute force and decide to reason with one another?
It is important to stress that Ratzinger is not repudiating the critical examination of reason that was initiated by Kant. Instead, he is urging us to examine the cultural and historical conditions that made the emergence of modern reason possible. Modern reason required a preexisting community of reasonable men before it could emerge in the West; modern reason, therefore, could not create the cultural and historical condition that made its own existence possible. But in this case, modern reason must ask itself: What created the communities of reasonable men that eventually made modern reason possible?
This was the question taken up by one of Kant's most illustrious and brilliant students, Johann Herder. Herder began by accepting Kant and the Enlightenment, but he went on to ask the Kantian question: What were the necessary conditions of the European Enlightenment? What kind of culture was necessary in order to produce a critical thinker like Immanuel Kant himself? When Kant, in his Critique of Pure Reason, methodically demolished all the traditional proofs for the existence of God, why wasn't he torn limb from limb in the streets of Königsburg by outraged believers, instead of being hailed as one of the greatest philosophers of all time?
Herder's answer was that in Europe, and in Europe alone, human beings had achieved what Herder called "cultures of reason." In his grand and pioneering survey of world history and world cultures, Herder had been struck by the fact that in the vast majority of human societies, reason played little or no role. Men were governed either by a blind adherence to tradition or by brute force. Only among the ancient Greeks did the ideal of reason emerge to which Manuel II Paleologus appeals in his dialogue with the learned Persian.
A culture of reason is one in which the ideal of the dialogue has become the foundation of the entire community. In a culture of reason, everyone has agreed to regard violence as an illegitimate method of changing other people's minds. The only legitimate method of effecting such change is to speak well and to reason properly. Furthermore, a culture of reason is one that privileges the spirit of Greek philosophic inquiry: It encourages men to think for themselves.
For Herder, modern scientific reason was the product of European cultures of reason, but these rare cultures of reason were themselves the outcome of a well-nigh miraculous convergence of traditions to which Ratzinger has called our attention as constituting the foundation of Europe: the world-historical encounter between Biblical faith and Greek philosophical inquiry, "with the subsequent addition of the Roman heritage." Thus, for Herder, modern scientific and critical reason, if it looks scientifically and critically at itself, will be forced to recognize that it could never have come into existence had it not been for the "providential," or perhaps merely serendipitous, convergence of these three great traditions. Modern reason is a cultural phenomenon like any other: It did not drop down one fine day out of the clouds. It involved no special creation. Rather, it evolved uniquely out of the fusion of cultural traditions known as Christendom.
A critique of modern reason from within must recognize its cultural and historical roots in this Christian heritage. In particular, it must recognize its debt to the distinctive concept of God that was the product of the convergence of the Hebrew, Greek, and Roman traditions. To recognize this debt, of course, does not require any of us to believe that this God actually exists.
For example, the 19th-century German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer was an atheist; yet in his own critique of modern reason, he makes a remarkably shrewd point, which Ratzinger might well have made himself. Modern scientific reason says that the universe is governed by rules through and through; indeed, it is the aim of modern reason to disclose and reveal these laws through scientific inquiry. Yet, as Schopenhauer asks, where did this notion of a law-governed universe come from? No scientist can possibly argue that science has proven the universe to be rule-governed throughout all of space and all of time. As Kant argued in his Critique of Judgment, scientists must begin by assuming that nature is rational through and through: It is a necessary hypothesis for doing science at all. But where did this hypothesis, so vital to science, come from?
The answer, according to Schopenhauer, was that modern scientific reason derived its model of the universe from the Christian concept of God as a rational Creator who has intelligently designed every last detail of the universe ex nihilo. It was this Christian idea of God that permitted Europeans to believe that the universe was a rational cosmos. Because Europeans had been brought up to imagine the universe as the creation of a rational intelligence, they naturally came to expect to find evidence of this intelligence wherever they looked--and, strangely enough, they did.
Ratzinger, in his address, draws our attention to the famous opening passage of the Gospel of John, in which the Biblical God, the Creator of the Universe, is identified with the Greek concept of logos, which means both word and reason--"a reason which is creative and capable of self-communication, precisely as reason." Though Ratzinger does not mention it, the Roman tradition also comes into play in this revolutionary new concept of God: For the Christian God, like a good Roman emperor, is a passionate lover of order, law, and hierarchy. He does not merely create a universe through reason, but he subjects it thoroughly to laws, establishes order in every part of it, and organizes hierarchies that allow us to comprehend it all: Our cat is a member of the species cat, the species cat belongs to the order of mammals, all mammals are in turn animals, and all animals are forms of life. What Roman legion was ever better organized than that?
For Schopenhauer, as an atheist, the rational Creator worshiped by Christians was an imaginary construction, like all other gods. For Ratzinger, as a Christian, this imaginary construction is an approximation of the reality of God; but for Ratzinger, as a critical thinker, there is no need to make this affirmation of faith. In offering his "critique of modern reason from within," it is enough for his purposes to point out how radically different this imaginary construction of God is from the competing imaginary constructions of God offered by other religions--and, indeed, from competing imaginary constructions of God offered by many thinkers who fell clearly within the Christian tradition.
For example, Ratzinger notes that within the Catholic scholastic tradition itself, thinkers emerged like Duns Scotus, whose imaginary construction of God sundered the "synthesis between the Greek spirit and the Christian spirit." For Scotus, it was quite possible that God "could have done the opposite of everything he has actually done." If God had willed to create a universe without rhyme or reason, a universe completely unintelligible to human intelligence, that would have been his privilege. If he had decided to issue commandments that enjoined human beings to sacrifice their children, or kill their neighbors, or plunder their property, mankind would have been compelled to obey such commandments. Nor would we have had any "reason" to object to them, or even question them. For Scotus and those who followed him, the ultimate and only reason behind the universe is God's free and unrestrained will. But as Ratzinger asks, How can such a view of God avoid leading "to the image of a capricious God, who is not even bound to truth and goodness?" The answer is, it cannot.
Intimately connected with the concept of God as a rational Creator who wishes for us to be able to understand the reason behind the universe is the concept of a God who will behave reasonably toward us. He will not be delighted when we grovel before him, nor will he demand that we worship him in "fear and trembling." Instead, he will be a God who prefers for us to feel reverence and gratitude towards him.
Ratzinger notes that Socrates' mission was to challenge and critique the myths of the Greek gods that prevailed in his day. These gods were imagined as behaving not only capriciously, but often wickedly and brutally. The famous line from King Lear sums up this view: "As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods--they kill us for their sport." But, asked Socrates, were such gods worthy of being worshiped by reasonable men, or by free men? True, we may feel abject terror before them; but should we have reverence for them simply because they have the power to injure us? In The Euthyphro, Socrates quotes a Greek poet, Stasinus, who, speaking of Zeus, says "where fear is, there also is reverence," but only to disagree with the poet's concept of God. "It does not seem to me true that where fear is, there also is reverence; for many who fear diseases and poverty and other such things seem to me to fear, but not to reverence at all these things which they fear." For Socrates, it was obvious that good was not whatever God capriciously chose to do; the good was what God was compelled by his very nature to do. Socrates would have agreed with the Byzantine emperor when he said, "God is not pleased by blood, and not acting reasonably is contrary to God's nature."
The Emperor Manuel II Paleologus pondered this question in his debate with the learned Persian. How can a god who commands conversion by the sword be the same god as the emperor's god--a god who wished to gain converts only through the use of words and reason? If Allah is happy to accept converts who are trembling in fear for their lives, with a sword hovering over their necks, then he may well be a god worth fearing, but not a god worth revering. He may represent an imaginary construction of god suitable to slaves, but he will not be an image of god worthy of being worshiped by a Socrates--or by any reasonable man.
The New York Times expressed dismay that Pope Benedict XVI, by quoting the words of Manuel II Paleologus, had betrayed the ecumenical tradition of John Paul II, who insisted that all of us, including both Christians and Muslims, worship the same God. Many others have joined in the criticism of the Regensburg address; Ratzinger, in his role as the Roman pontiff, has apologized if his remarks offended Muslim sensibilities. Perhaps, as Pope Benedict, he was wise to do so. But Ratzinger, the man of reason, the critical thinker, owes no one an apology. He spoke his mind, and he challenged his listeners and the world to ponder questions that have haunted thoughtful men from the first age of Greek philosophic inquiry. He has thrown out an immense challenge to modern reason and to the modern world. Is it really a matter of subjective choice whether men follow a religion that respects human reason and that refuses to use violence to convert others? Can even the most committed atheist be completely indifferent to the imaginary gods that the other members of his community continue to worship? If modern reason cannot persuade men to defend their own communities of reason against the eruption of "disturbing pathologies of religion and reason," then what can persuade them to do so?
Human beings will have their gods--and modern reason cannot alter this. Indeed, modern reason has produced its own ersatz god--a blind and capricious universe into which accidental man has found himself inexplicably thrown. It is a universe in which all human freedom is an illusion, because everything we do or think was determined from the moment of the Big Bang. It is a universe in which there is no mind at all, but only matter. Yet without mind, how can there be reason? Without free will, how can there be reasonable choices? Without reasonable choices, how can there be reasonable men? Without reasonable men, how can there be communities in which human dignity is defended from the indignity of violence and brute force?
On his last day on earth, Socrates spent the hours before he drank the fatal hemlock talking to his friends about the immortality of the human soul. Next to Socrates was a Greek boy, whose name was Phaedo--Ratzinger mentions him in his address. Socrates had come across Phaedo one day in the marketplace of Athens, where he was up for sale as a slave. Distraught at knowing what lay ahead for the handsome and intelligent boy, Socrates ran to all his wealthy friends and collected enough money to buy the boy, then immediately gave him his freedom. Socrates' liberation of Phaedo was a symbol of Socrates' earthly mission.
Socrates hated the very thought of slavery--slavery to other men, slavery to mere opinions, slavery to fear, slavery to our own low desires, slavery to our own high ambitions. He believed that reason could liberate human beings from these various forms of slavery. Socrates would have protested against the very thought of a God who was delighted by forced conversions, or who was pleased when his worshipers proudly boasted that they were his slaves. He would have fought against those who teach that the universe is an uncaring thing, or who tell us that freedom is an illusion and our mind a phantom. Ultimately, perhaps, Socrates would have seen little to distinguish between those who bow down trembling before an irrational god and those who resign themselves before an utterly indifferent universe.
In his moving and heroic speech, Joseph Ratzinger has chosen to play the part of Socrates, not giving us dogmatic answers, but stinging us with provocative questions. Shall we abandon the lofty and noble conception of reason for which Socrates gave his life? Shall we delude ourselves into thinking that the life of reason can survive without courage and character? Shall we be content with lives we refuse to examine, because such examination requires us to ask questions for which science can give no definite answer? The destiny of reason will be determined by how we in the modern West answer these questions.
Lee Harris is the author of Civilization and Its Enemies (Free Press). His new book The Suicide of Reason (Basic) is scheduled to be published next year.
[http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/012/736fyrpi.asp?pg=2]
Gay Fascism Issues Death Threat to Lawmaker
Gay fascism is now issuing death threats to lawmakers.
The new Aryan is the homosexual and the new Jews are Christians or Jews who uphold their traditional moral teachings.
Fred
Lawmaker's Comments on Homosexuality Spark Hate Campaign, Death Threats
By Pete Winn
CNSNews.com Senior Staff Writer
March 28, 2008
(CNSNews.com) - An audio clip posted on YouTube earlier this month is responsible for a hate-filled campaign of threats and harassment being directed at an Oklahoma state lawmaker, her family and her Christian faith.
Rep. Sally Kern (R-Oklahoma City) said the clip of a talk she gave on the homosexual political agenda has been accessed "probably a million times" since homosexual activists posted it on the popular online video gallery. It has prompted an outpouring of hatred against her, she told Cybercast News Service.
"We have received close to 30,000 e-mails," Kern said. "When this first hit YouTube, the vast majority of the e-mails were hate mail - vile, vulgar, profane."
A former educator who chairs the Social Services Committee in the Oklahoma House, Kern said the hateful and threatening e-mail and phone calls have given her an education about the vitriolic nature of those who support the homosexual agenda.
"People have called me the most horrible names, saying that they hoped I would die, and worse," she said. "They've used words I've never heard before."
There have also been death threats, which Kern said have been turned over to the Oklahoma Bureau of Investigation.
"They haven't just attacked me - they've attacked my family, they attacked the Bible, they've attacked Christianity as being the reason for all the evils in the world," said Kern, who is the wife of a Baptist preacher. "They said the Bible was an archaic book that was no longer relevant."
In the audio clip on YouTube, which was posted March 7 by the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund, Kern can be heard comparing homosexual activism's effect on the United States to cancer's effect on the human body, saying: "I honestly think it's the biggest threat that our nation has, even more so than terrorism or Islam, which I think is a big threat."
The Oklahoma City Republican said her talk, which was delivered at a Republican luncheon, was secretly taped by someone and edited to make her sound - in her words - "wild-eyed."
"They made it sound like I was spewing hate and talking in one long rant against homosexuals," Kern told Cybercast News Service. "I would never do that. I have never done that."
Kern said she was not talking about homosexuals as individuals, as the clip makes it appear.
"I was dealing with their radical agenda," she said. "I was talking about the political homosexual agenda that is funding homosexual and pro-homosexual candidates to run against conservatives."
Kern said she was especially trying to publicize the fact that, in 2006, homosexual activists such as billionaire Tim Gill targeted 70 conservatives running for office and defeated 50 of them.
Homosexual activists are making hay over the clip.
The Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund (GLVF), a Washington, D.C.-based political action committee, is using the clip as the centerpiece of a fundraising campaign.
In a letter that accompanies the group's solicitation, GLVF Chairman Chuck Wolfe links Kern's comments to the murder of Matthew Shepard, the openly homosexual University of Wyoming student killed in 1998.
"Comparing gays and lesbians to cancer and terrorism and saying they are the 'biggest threat to America' gives license to others to treat us that way, especially given the leadership position you hold in your community," Wolfe wrote.
Wolfe's group, which backs homosexual and pro-homosexual candidates, has targeted Kern for defeat. Calls to the GLVF were not returned by press time.
Homosexual hate campaign?
The backlash against Kern has become widespread. In the media, Kern's name is being used as an epithet. Bloggers are calling her "bigot" and "hate-monger."
For instance, under the headline, "Sally Kern is Satan's Spawn," writer Emily Michels wrote of Kern in the Michigan Daily newspaper's blog, The Podium, on March 12: "For lack of better words, the woman is a close-minded, discriminatory, hateful b*tch."
"The people of Oklahoma should be planning a militaristic coups (sic)," the University of Michigan journalist wrote. "Instead of realizing that she is a complete idiot who thrives off of destroying any moral fabric left in society, this woman (I am actually so upset I can barely grasp the fact that she is human) defended herself, refusing to apologize."
Michels added: "Our nation would be stronger and more accepting if people like Sally Kern were out of office and forced to live underground. May all of Sally Kern's babies be gay."
Talk show host Ellen DeGeneres, an open lesbian, has used her television program to take Kern to task and tried to phone Kern during the broadcast. Comedienne Margaret Cho has called the lawmaker's comments "appalling."
Even Oklahoma Gov. Brad Henry denounced Kern, saying that Oklahomans should be "tolerant."
Conservative groups, meanwhile, say the backlash against Kern's so-called hatred is itself a "hate-filled intimidation campaign" that has been ginned up to try to silence any opposition to the "gay agenda."
Peter LaBarbera of Americans for Truth About Homosexuality accused Kern's attackers of being "terrorists."
"They are trying to demonize her - and it is all about destroying her and making her an example to intimidate other politicians," LaBarbera told Cybercast News Service.
LaBarbera defends Kern's assertion that homosexual activism has even tried to reach into kindergarten and nurseries.
Attorney Richard Thompson of the Thomas More Law Center, meanwhile, has volunteered to represent Kern in the legal arena, if need be, against what he calls homosexual "smear" tactics.
"Their actions are right out of a play-book developed by radical homosexual activists in the 1980s to manipulate and intimidate the majority of Americans into accepting the normalcy of the homosexual lifestyle," Thompson said.
Kern, meanwhile, said she stands by her comments that the homosexual agenda is "dangerous" to society in the same way cancer is dangerous to the human body.
"By dangerous, I mean (it's) an unhealthy lifestyle," she said. "It's dangerous to those people who are in it. Statistics prove that they do have shorter life-spans and have more health problems."
But the homosexual agenda itself is dangerous, she said, because activists are targeting their messages to America's children.
"The homosexual agenda is dangerous because they want to destroy the basic moral fiber of this nation, which is traditional marriage and the traditional family," she said.
LaBarbera couldn't agree more.
"Gay activists are trying to reach younger and younger children with their message," LaBarbera said. "It's to the point where they are propagandizing toddlers in the gay agenda. We've known this for years.
"Remember 'Daddy's Roommate?' The book that said that homosexuality is just one more type of love? How can that be an appropriate message for toddlers, who don't even know what sex is yet?"
Kern said gay activists and sympathizers are writing and calling people in her district who have contributed to her in the past and have targeted businesses in her district that have supported her.
Abortionist Obama: "I will not Yield and Planned Parenthood will not Yield"
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=57643
Can a Catholic vote for Obama?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted: February 29, 2008
1:00 am Eastern
© 2008
Those who accuse presidential aspirant Sen. Barack Obama of empty rhetoric must have missed his speech last July, recently made public, to the benefactors of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund. At that festive event, he was as sharp and specific as a scalpel.
"The first thing I'd do as president," he told a cheering audience, "is sign the Freedom of Choice Act. That's the first thing that I'd do."
The audience cheered enthusiastically. And well they might. As NARAL enthuses on its website, this act would "codify Roe v. Wade's protections and guarantee the right to choose for future generations of women."
In short, if we are to take Obama at his word, his first priority as president would be to serve an early death sentence on millions of unborn Americans.
Obama's record as state senator in Illinois and as United State senator show that these particular sentiments are not, as he might say, "just words."
In 2002, as an Illinois state senator, Obama voted against the Induced Infant Liability Act and twice helped kill it in committee. This bill would have protected those miracle babies that somehow survived late-term abortions.
When Jill Stanek, a delivery-ward RN and now WND columnist, appealed to Obama's committee that certain abortion doctors might be ideologically inclined to let such babies die, Obama replied, "What we are doing here is to create one more burden on a woman, and I can't support that."
Obama's Planned Parenthood speech five years later showed no softening of the heart. He attacked the Supreme Court for upholding a congressional ban on late term abortions, calling the decision "disturbing," and he worried out loud that the appointment of one more judge like Sam Alito or John Roberts could mean the end of Roe v. Wade.
(Column continues below)
To be sure, Obama voted against both Roberts and Alito and proudly reminded the audience of the same.
Although a self-described bridge-builder, on the issue of abortion Obama may be building his own ideological "bridge to nowhere."
"I will not yield and Planned Parenthood will not yield," he told his supporters, before adding disingenuously, "but that doesn't mean that we can't find common ground."
Just what "common ground" a man who holds even the life of certain newborns cheap can find with people who believe all human life is sacred eludes those of us less visionary than Mr. Obama.
Ostensibly compassionate, Obama pities his fellow citizens who fail to see his "big picture." Instead, he lamented, such people "seek out the narrowest and most divisive ground."
This seems to be a failing largely of fashion. As he joked to his audience, "Culture wars are so '90s."
"It is time to turn the page. We want a new day here in America," Obama continued, adding in his newfound colloquial voice, "We're tired about arguing about the same ol' stuff."
What makes Obama's appeal even more troubling is this very colloquialism, his unsubtle attempt to use language and skin color to link his dubious crusade to that of the civil rights leaders of the past.
In speaking of the debate between abstinence education and contraception-oriented sex education, for instance, Obama pulled an ace from up his sleeve that no other candidate could have.
Said Obama shamelessly, "As Martin Luther King used to say, 'It's not either/or, it's both/and.'" To be clear, King was not talking about sex education.
"We're the country that's fought generation after generation to extend that equality to the many, not restrict it to the few," Obama carried on, now fusing a woman's right to an abortion to that of a black child's right to an equal education. "We've been there before, and we're not going back."
Martin Luther King's niece, Alveda King, has an altogether different take on her uncle's legacy. As she says simply and logically, "How can the 'Dream' survive if we murder the children?" Unlike Obama, Alveda King is sensitive to the fact that black babies are nearly three times more likely to be killed in the womb than white.
President Bush captured the spirit of that legacy when he signed into law The Born Alive Infants Protection Act. This act, passed by unanimous voice vote in the Senate in 2002, is comparable to the one Obama killed in Illinois.
"It is a step toward the day when the promises of the Declaration of Independence will apply to everyone, not just those with the voice and power to defend their rights," said Bush in signing the bill.
"This law is a step toward the day when America fully becomes, in the words of Pope John Paul II, 'a hospitable, a welcoming culture.'" Indeed, the pope himself had earlier admonished America to honor its civil rights history by outlawing abortion.
From the perspective of the Catholic Church, abortion is like no other social issue. The Catholic Church allows for the possibility of a just war and even capital punishment under certain circumstances, but there is no such thing as a "just" abortion.
Anyone who has doubts about the Church's official position need only read the Pope John Paul II's 1999 revisiting of Pope Paul VI's historic encyclical, "Humanae Vitae." The pope does not mince words.
Depriving an innocent human being of life, and life undeniably begins at conception, is "always morally evil." He adds, "This tradition is unchanged and unchangeable."
There can be no yielding, he continues, to "convenient compromises" or the "temptation of self-deception." How can there be? "We are dealing," says the pope bluntly, "with murder."
In some Catholic circles, self-deception rules. There are those who had hoped to use the illegal immigration issue to offset abortion issues much as they used the death penalty issue in 2000 against George Bush.
But, as John McCain will certainly attest, God works in strange and mysterious ways. That issue no longer works even as a diversion.
A Catholic can vote for Obama. If he is willing to pay the price, he can do any fool thing he wants. After all, who among us hasn't done something foolish or sinful?
But most of us have better sense than to brag about it on our bumper stickers.
Is Obama's Planned Parenthood Encouraging Donations "Aimed at Aborting Black Babies?”
Is Obama's Planned Parenthood Encouraging Donations "Aimed at Aborting Black Babies?”
Yes, read below.
Fred
http://imby.wordpress.com/2008/03/02/planned-black-parenthood/
Planned Parenthood of Idaho officials apologized Wednesday for what they called an employee’s ‘serious mistake‘ in encouraging a donation aimed at aborting Black babies,” The Statesmen said.
According to a press release by Vice President of External Affairs Julia Piercey, “a known anti-choice extremist set out to smear Planned Parenthood.” Rose, who calls herself a whistleblower, believes the tapes speak for themselves.
[http://imby.wordpress.com/2008/03/02/planned-black-parenthood/]
Abortionist Obama: "The First Thing I’d do as President is, is Sign the Freedom of [Abortion] Choice Act"
Coming soon Planned Parenthood’s Barack Obama as the Abortionist President.
Fred
Barack Obama before Planned Parenthood Action Fund, July 17, 2007
Dessa Cosma: [W]hat would you do at the federal level not only to ensure access to abortion but to make sure that the judicial nominees that you will inevitably be able to pick are true to the core tenets of Roe v. Wade?
Barack Obama: Well, the first thing I’d do as president is, is sign the Freedom of Choice Act.
[http://lauraetch.googlepages.com/barackobamabeforeplannedparenthoodaction]
Planned Black Parenthood
Posted on March 2, 2008 by A.M.
The Abortion Debate
*Editor’s Note: This entry is cross-posted at BlogHer.
“When the history of our civilization is written, it will be a biological history, and Margaret Sanger will be its heroine,” Gloria Steinem wrote in Time.
What Steinem omitted in her tribute to the founder of Planned Parenthood was her outspoken view of eugenics as the “most adequate and thorough avenue to the solution of racial, political and social problems.”[1]
According to a pro-life student magazine at UCLA, Planned Parenthood may not have abandoned their founder’s beliefs.
A sting operation by The Advocate uncovered Planned Parenthood donations earmarked by race in Idaho and Ohio.
“We obtained the information by having an actor call clinics across the country and pose as a donor. The actor who called, The Advocate’s advisor, communicated to them a very racist agenda — the one that Margaret Sanger, Planned Parenthood’s founder, had envisioned. He then asked to donate money specifically to ‘reduce the numbers of Blacks,’” said Lila Rose, editor-in-chief of The Advocate.
“In fact some went so far as agreeing with the anti-Black agenda” — like Autumn Kersey, vice president of development and marketing for Planned Parenthood of Idaho. “On Tuesday, The Advocate released transcripts and audio recordings of this phone call and another to fund-raising representatives in Ohio,” according to TheIdahoStatesmen.com.
“Planned Parenthood’s 800 clinics receive more than 200 million dollars of taxpaper money annually. It’s unacceptable for a nonprofit to accept donations that target specific races,” Rose said. “With more than 79% of clinics in minority neighborhoods, and more than 1400 Black abortions daily, these programs are doing precisely what their actor asked them to do. Planned Parenthood is (intentionally or not) exterminating the Black community,” she wrote.
“What the Ku Klux Klan could only dream about, the abortion industry is accomplishing,” says Klan Parenthood. “Lynching by the Ku Klux Klan isn’t as efficient at killing Blacks as Planned Parenthood abortions. Thanks to them, in America today, almost as many Black babies are killed by abortion as are born.”
Blacks receive 35% of all abortions in the United States, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. “The abortion ratio for black women (503 per 1,000 live births) was 3.0 times the ratio for white women (167 per 1,000 live births). The abortion rate for black women (30 per 1,000 women) was 3.1 times the rate for white women (10 per 1,000 women).”
Planned Parenthood of Idaho officials apologized Wednesday for what they called an employee’s ‘serious mistake‘ in encouraging a donation aimed at aborting Black babies,” The Statesmen said.
According to a press release by Vice President of External Affairs Julia Piercey, “a known anti-choice extremist set out to smear Planned Parenthood.” Rose, who calls herself a whistleblower, believes the tapes speak for themselves.
What was said
Autumn Kersey of Planned Parenthood in Boise: Good afternoon, this is Autumn.
Donor: Hello, Autumn, I’m interested in making a donation today.
Kersey: Fantastic!
Donor: What about abortions for the underprivileged minority groups?
Kersey: Oh, absolutely. We have, um, in fact, uh wonderful, fantastic news. We just received a very generous donation to our women in need fund.
Donor: Wonderful. I want to specify that abortion to help a minority group - would that be possible?
Kersey: Absolutely.
Donor: Like the black community for example?
Kersey: Certainly.
Donor: OK, so the abortion I can give money specifically for a black baby, that would be the purpose.
Kersey: Absolutely. If you wanted to designate that you wanted your gift to be used to help (an) African-American woman in need, then we would certainly make sure that that gift was earmarked specifically for that purpose.
Donor: Great. Because I really face trouble with affirmative action, and I don’t want my kids being disadvantaged, you know, against black kids. I just had a baby; I want to put it in his name, you know.
Kersey: Mmhmm, absolutely.
Donor: So that’s definitely possible.
Kersey: Oh, always, always.
Donor: So I just wanna - can I put this in the name of my son?
Kersey: Absolutely.
Donor: Yeah, he’s trying to get into colleges, and he’s going to be applying, you know, he’s just … we’re just really big … he’s really faced troubles with affirmative action.
Kersey: Mmhmm.
Donor: And we don’t, you know, we just think, you know, the less black kids out there the better.
Kersey: (Laughs) Understandable, understandable. … Um David, let me, if I may, just get some sort of specific general information so we can set this up the right way. You said you wanted to put it in your son’s name, and you would like this designated specifically to assist (an) African-American woman who’s looking to terminate a pregnancy.
Donor: Exactly, and yeah, I wanna protect my son, so he can get into college.
Kersey: All right. Excuse my hesitation, um, um, this is the first time I’ve had a donor call and make this kind of request, so I’m excited, and I wanna make sure I don’t leave anything out.
[http://imby.wordpress.com/2008/03/02/planned-black-parenthood/]
Might McCain Pick Gay Agenda Romney for VP?
By doing so he may give the presidency to to Hillary-Obama. I know a pro-lifer who said if Romney is the VP he will not vote for McCain.
Many pro-family activists will consider this a sign McCain as president will be for homosexual "Special Rights" and wishy-washy on pro-life.
Fred
Mitt Romney's Liberal Paradigm Shift: a Republican FOR Homosexual 'Special Rights'
MEDIA ADVISORY, Feb. 4 /Christian Newswire/ -- Peter LaBarbera, founder of Republicans For Family Values, today criticized GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney for his "novel pro- homosexual positioning in the GOP." On Dec. 16, Romney (the alleged "conservative" in the race) told NBC's "Meet the Press" that "it makes sense at the state level" to enact pro-homosexual "sexual orientation" laws. (Last week, CNN's Roland Martin reported that Romney told him that he opposes "gay marriage," but supports "gay rights.")
LaBarbera issued the following statement:
Mitt Romney just doesn't get it on the homosexual agenda, and if he doesn't get at after serving as governor of liberal Massachusetts -- where "gay marriage," homosexual adoption and pro- homosexuality indoctrination in schools ALL were advanced by the sort of pro-gay "sexual orientation" laws he's now espousing -- then he's not going to get it at the federal level.
Romney is already using his bully pulpit as a candidate to affirm "gay rights"-- even AFTER he's earned the backing of pro-family leaders who seemingly would have much to teach him about the danger and misuse of pro-homosexual laws. (Note that Romney uses gay-affirming "discrimination" rhetoric even with regard to the Boy Scouts' ban on homosexuals.)
I don't know any serious pro-lifers who are pro- homosexuality. We all have compassion for homosexual strugglers, but we draw the line at laws that would distort "civil rights" to include sinful and changeable homosexual behavior -- because these laws will be used to compel individuals, business and even ministries to violate their beliefs and support homosexual relationships (see the Weekly Standard article, "Banned in Boston," about Boston Catholic Charities electing to close down its historic adoption agency rather than place kids in homosexual households).
Romney is trying to shift the GOP's pro-family paradigm on homosexuality, and it's an unwise shift -- much like retreating from a principled position on pro- life (e.g., "I'm pro-choice but not pro-partial-birth abortion"). Due to Romney's potential for being the "Nixon-goes-to-China" president who advances pro-homosexuality agendas in the GOP -- I cannot support him.
Why do the same conservative pundits who have assailed Mick Huckabee and John McCain as too liberal, promote the fiction that Mitt Romney - who strongly defended abortion-on-demand and who remains in favor of anti-Christian homosexual special rights laws as a Mormon -- is a "conservative"?
Christian Newswire
McCain, Romney campaign together
By LIZ SIDOTI, Associated Press Writer Thu Mar 27, 6:51 PM ET
SALT LAKE CITY - In a show of Republican unity, one-time bitter foes John McCain and Mitt Romney raised money and campaigned together Thursday for a single goal — getting McCain elected president.
ADVERTISEMENT
"We are united. Now our job is to energize our party," the Arizona senator said in an airport hangar, flanked by Romney and Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr., an early McCain supporter. Both have been mentioned as potential vice presidential picks, and McCain praised each.
Romney lauded McCain and promised to do all he can to help, saying: "He is a man who is proven and tested" and without question the right man to be president.
In February, Romney won 90 percent of the vote in Utah to McCain's 5 percent. Romney's ties to the state run deep, from his Mormon faith to his work overseeing the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City.
"Look, that wasn't the only state I lost to Governor Romney in — it was just the largest loss,' McCain said chuckling. He joked that it was abject humiliation but understandable given Romney's Utah links. "I was at least hoping to break into double digits though!"
"I think he did just fine in New Hampshire, South Carolina, Florida, California ...," Romney said, laughing about states McCain won.
The two then headed to Denver for another fundraiser accompanied by Meg Whitman, the outgoing chief executive of eBay Inc. and a former Romney backer who now supports McCain.
On the flight, there seemed to be little residual acrimony between the former rivals.
They sat next to each other and ate turkey sandwiches. They laughed and talked during the hourlong flight, and were complimentary of each other when talking to reporters traveling with McCain.
A tanned and rested Romney said it was fun to be campaigning again and nice not to feel any pressure. "I don't have to worry about goofing up," he said. He brushed aside questions about a No. 2 spot on the GOP ticket.
At one point, McCain answered a question by lamenting an accelerated GOP primary process that he said doesn't allow voters to scrutinize the candidates as much.
"Mitt just went through the process," McCain said and turned to the former governor.
"The process was very good to you ...," Romney responded. McCain laughed, and Romney added that the process was good to him, too.
McCain, who has struggled to raise money compared to Democratic rivals Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton, is on a weeklong Western fundraising swing. Romney is popular in Utah and Colorado, states with large numbers of Mormons.
Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, dropped out of the race last month after it became apparent it would be near impossible to topple McCain in the convention delegate race. He endorsed the Arizona senator a week later and pledged to help him win the nomination.
Since then, McCain has praised Romney repeatedly as someone who is certain to continue playing a large role in the GOP. Romney, for his part, has suggested that he'd accept a vice presidential slot, though some Republicans privately speculate that he's looking ahead to a possible repeat run in 2012.
Neither man appeared especially fond of the other during the campaign. Romney cast McCain as outside of the GOP's conservative mainstream and a Washington insider who contributed to the problems there. McCain, in turn, argued that Romney's equivocations and reversals on issues indicated a willingness to change his positions to fit his political goals.
(This version CORRECTS SUBS 13th graf to correct attribution to Romney, sted McCain.)
"McCain Cannot Win in November Without the Catholic Vote"
"McCain cannot win in November without the Catholic vote." Romney will not do it. Mitt might lose McCain some more pro-life and pro-family voters.
Fred
McCain and the Pope:
McCain cannot win in November without the Catholic vote
How is he going to get it?
by Robert R. Reilly
(re-published with permission from insidecatholic.com)
March 25, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Sen. John McCain cannot win in November without the Catholic vote, which is around 25 percent of the electorate. How is he going to get it? The worst thing he could assume is that it is going to fall into his lap because Catholics will have nowhere else to go. Some people with nowhere to go simply stay home. Or they may go elsewhere, as it appears they have already been doing.
The Wall Street Journal reports that in "a recent survey of 19 states that have held presidential primaries this year, 63% of Catholics identified themselves as Democrats." That's up from 42 percent in 2005. Not a good augury for McCain.
Senator McCain not only needs Catholics who will vote for him, but who will each find ten other Catholics who will do the same. That is not going to happen unless he galvanizes the Catholic electorate. He has an opportunity to do this when Pope Benedict XVI visits the United States during April 15 to 20.
I was President Ronald Reagan's liaison to the Catholic community from 1983 to 1985. In the 1984 election, President Reagan won the Catholic vote and was the first Republican to do so. Senator McCain might want to take a look at how that happened.
I recall a definitive moment when the Democrats vociferously complained about the ads run by the Reagan campaign in Catholic newspapers. The ads featured a photo of Reagan and John Paul II smiling together. Was this not politicizing the Catholic Church? How dare the Republicans do such a thing?
At that time, Archbishop John Foley was the pope's minister of communications and principal spokesman at the Vatican. When asked, he responded to the complaints by saying that, since these two men shared so many fundamental moral principles in common, it was the most natural thing in the world that they should appear together in a photograph. Not wishing to hear that statement made again, the complaints from the Democrats immediately ceased.
The key here is that Archbishop Foley, who came from a Democratic family in Pennsylvania, did not have to make this up -- it was true. President Reagan had embraced moral positions on the family, on the sanctity of human life, on school prayer, and against pornography that were completely congruent with those of the Catholic Church. And, like John Paul II, he was fighting for them.
Can Senator McCain say the same? If not, a photograph with Benedict XVI is not going to solve his problem. He needs to campaign on these issues just as Reagan did. He cannot simply claim that point of view; he needs to promote it. He needs to articulate it.
In 1983, President Reagan wrote an article titled "Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation," which appeared in the Human Life Review. That was an extraordinary thing for a sitting president to have done. The fact that he did it convinced many Catholic pro-lifers that Reagan was sincere in his beliefs and was not simply acting for political advantage. They rallied around him.
Later, Reagan showed Bernard Nathanson's film The Silent Scream in the White House. What can Senator McCain do? He can invite his opponents on this issue -- whether it is Clinton or Obama -- to watch The Silent Scream, or its equivalent, with him. Ask them to join him in protecting innocent human life, including the partially born babies, whom both Obama and Clinton think have no right to life.
Senator McCain should draft his version of "Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation" and publish it in First Things or a comparable journal. Make it an issue. Proselytize. If Senator McCain does not think that is the role of a presidential candidate, then he does not think like Ronald Reagan.
Of course, this is a risky strategy, but risk conveys conviction, as Senator McCain demonstrated when he courageously risked his political future to promote the surge in Iraq. He needs to build upon that impression of courage by extending it to the social issues Catholics care about most. If he throws as much conviction and energy into these issues as he did into his backing of the surge, Catholics and others will flock to his banner -- and he can win. If he tries to coast on the moral issues, he will not.
So what should Senator McCain do when Benedict XVI visits in April? This is his opportunity to demonstrate that he understands the significance of the pope's thought as it relates to the institution of the family, the sanctity of human life, and the threat of radical Islam.
He needs to appear on EWTN with Raymond Arroyo and speak to that significance. He needs to do interviews in the National Catholic Register and other Catholic journals, and on Sirius radio's Catholic channel, which will cover the pope's visit by the hour. He needs to say that what the pope is expressing goes beyond a sectarian Catholic audience, as it addresses the core issues of Western civilization. He needs to say that Benedict was right at Regensburg in assessing moral relativism as the greatest threat to the West and to the integrity of reason, and that he was right also about the nature of the threat from an unreasoning version of Islam.
If this is the side you are on, Senator McCain -- as I believe it is -- you have this opportunity of letting others know, so they can rally to you.
Robert R. Reilly was a special assistant to President Reagan and served as his liaison to the Catholic Church. He is a frequent contributor to InsideCatholic.com and Crisis magazine.
The Hillary-Obama ACLU-Pervert Complex vs. The McCain Military-Industrial Complex
Michael Savage said our choice is the Hillary-Obama ACLU-Pervert Complex vs. the McCain Military-Industrial Complex. I agree.
With McCain there is hope he may not be as bad as we fear, but with Hillary-Obama there is no hope.
Fred
PRO-LIFERS DECRY SUPREME COURT ABORTION DECISION
MEDIA RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
25 March 2008
CONTACT: Michael Hichborn
540-226-9178/mhichborn@ALL.org
AMERICAN LIFE LEAGUE DECRIES SUPREME
COURT ‘ABORTION ON WHEELS’ DECISION
Judie Brown: “The acquisition of an abortion as a ‘constitutional right’ is a terrible setback for Arizona’s babies.”
WASHINGTON, D.C. (25 March 2008) — American Life League president Judie Brown sharply criticized the U.S. Supreme Court for refusing to overturn lower court rulings that require Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio to provide transportation when pregnant jail inmates want abortions.
“The court ruling suggesting that the acquisition of an abortion is a ‘constitutional right’ is a terrible setback for Arizona’s babies,” said Brown. “Not only does this decision solidify the false notion that there is a ‘constitutional right’ to abortion, but the Supreme Court is now saying that inmates get a free ride as well.”
The U.S. Supreme Court offered no comment as it rebuffed Arpaio’s contention that providing inmates transportation to an abortion clinic forces taxpayers to pay for it.
“As abominable as this sounds, it is literally impossible to correct this situation without restoring personhood to the preborn child,” said Brown. “Those supporting abortion are in control of who is and is not in possession of the human rights we once thought were equally accessible to everyone. It’s time to correct this miscarriage of justice!”
American Life League was co-founded in 1979 by Judie Brown. It is the largest grassroots pro-life organization in the United States and it is committed to the protection of all innocent human beings from the moment of creation to natural death. For more information or press inquiries, please contact Michael Hichborn at 540.659.7900 or at 540.226.9178.
For More Information:
Breibart.com:Court Allows Inmates to Get Abortions (25 March 2008)
http://www.breitbart.com/print.php?id=D8VJVFU01&show_article=1
PR Newswire: American Life League Supports Groundbreaking Pro-Life Legislation (Jan 8, 2007)
http://www.mywire.com/pubs/PRNewswire/2007/01/08/2473403?extID=10051
East Valley Tribune: Sheriff Loses Bid to Halt Abortions for Inmates (January 23, 2007)
http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/story/82830
US Newswire: Michigan Initiative to Define Personhood at Conception a Bold Step Toward Ending Abortion; ALL Supports Pro-life Initiative (March 14, 2006)
http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-143236754.html
US Newswire: American Life League Welcomes South Dakota Abortion Law (March 6, 2006)
http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-142905817.html
The Arizona Republic: Inmate Abortion Access Parsed (Nov. 29, 2006)
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/1129abortion1129.html
LifeSiteNews: Judge Rules Phoenix Sheriff Cannot Refule to Transport Inmates for Elective Abortion (August 29, 2005)
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2005/aug/05082903.html
PR Newswire: American Life League: Paramount Human Life Amendment Needed, Not ‘Infant’s Protection Act’ (July 2000)
http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-28080125_ITM
###
____________________________
Michael Hichborn
Director of Media Relations
American Life League
1179 Courthouse Road
Stafford, Virginia 22554
540.659.7900 (w)
540.226.9178 (c)
mhichborn@all.org
http://www.all.org/
Click here to unsubscribe
LIBERAL FASCISTS ARE COMING FOR YOUR KIDS
LIBERAL FASCISTS ARE COMING FOR YOUR KIDS
By Don Feder
March 20, 2008
One of the most encouraging signs in an otherwise bleak election year is Jonah Goldberg’s insightful book “Liberal Fascism – The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning,” currently number 3 on The New York Times Best Sellers List.
As Goldberg notes, fascism has always been a movement of the left.
In this context, fascism does not mean genocide, Gestapo tactics or the ruthless suppression of dissent (other than on the college campus), but the belief that virtue resides in the collective, that the state should become increasingly powerful, that individualism is outmoded and an impediment to progress, and that all aspects of life should be directed by government on steroids.
This is the essence of American leftism, which has misappropriated the name liberalism. Modern liberalism can joyfully proclaim, along with its forefather, Benito Mussolini, “All within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.”
The latest example of the left’s drive to dominate is the recent ruling of the California 2nd. Appellate Court in Los Angeles. If allowed to stand, it would effectively ban home-schooling in the state.
The Court said that if parents want to home-school their children, they first have to graduate from a teacher’s college and then be certified by the state.
The edict is so obscene that California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, not to be confused with Dr. Dobson, fumed: “This outrageous ruling must be overturned by the courts, and if the courts don’t protect parents’ rights, then, as elected officials, we will. Parents should not be penalized for acting in the best interests of their children.”
Many parents have decided home-schooling is just that – in their children’s best interests, which is why there are now an estimated 1.7 million to 2.1 million home-school families in the United States. Over the past two decades, their numbers have swelled by 7% to 15% annually.
Children who learn at home outperform their public-school counterparts on standardized tests. They’re admitted to the best colleges and universities. They turn out happier, more productive and better-adjusted than the products of public education. There are no recorded instances of home-schooled kids going on murderous rampages with semi-automatic weapons.
The assault on home-schooling has nothing to do with academic standards. As Justice H. Walt Croskey, writing for the three-judge panel explained in his opinion, in the matter at issue, “keeping the children at home deprived them of situations where … they could develop emotionally in a broader world than the parents ‘cloistered setting.’”
That’s the heart of the decision – which, not unexpectedly, was cheered by the California Teachers Association. Children must be forced into state schools to be “socialized.” Total immersion in liberal ideology is the order of the day. It’s about indoctrination, not education.
The Appellate Court decision should be considered in conjunction with two other anti-parent rulings, that of the U.S. 9th. Circuit Court of Appeals (also based in California) and the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts.
In 2005, another three-judge panel, this of the 9th Circuit (also known as the 9th. Circus for its increasingly bizarre rulings) rendered a toxic decision, which said, in effect, that parental rights stop at the schoolhouse door.
Plaintiffs were the families of children in the first, third and fifth grades who were subjected to a questionnaire that could have been designed by former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer, asking them a series of intimate questions, including whether they thought about touching their private parts, touching other people’s private parts, having sex, etc. (Who would want children deprived of such an emotionally enriching experience, the sort they’d never get in the “cloistered setting” of the home?)
Not Judge Stephen Reinhardt, celebrated by the left for his decision that “one Nation under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance constitutes an establishment of religion when recited by school children.
Writing for his colleagues, Reinhardt declared “… We hold that there is no free-standing fundamental right of parents ‘to control the upbringing of their children by introducing them to matters of and relating to sex in accordance with their personal values and beliefs.’ … . We conclude that parents are possessed of no constitutional right to prevent the public schools from providing information on that subject (sex) to their students in any forum or manner they select.”
In other words, if public schools in the 9th. Circuit want to have children practice “safe-sex” by putting condoms on bananas, or introduce them to the joys of sado-masochism, or ask 6-year-olds if they think about touching their genitals -- they have every right to do so, and parents have no “free-standing fundamental right” to stop them.
To give you an idea of just how far the educational establishment is taking this carte blanche, at a seminar last year at the Boulder, Colorado High School, a UCLA psychologist, advised students: “I am going to encourage you to have sex and encourage you to use drugs appropriately (safe shooting-up?).” Pervs in trench coats used to lurk around schoolyards. Now they run the schools.
When outraged parents besieged the school, administrators feigned shock and dismay at the shrink’s advice. Yeah, sure.
State-sponsored enrichment has consequences. .Last week, the Centers for Disease Control reported that “at least one in four teenaged American girls has a sexually transmitted disease.” This after decades of sex education, condom distribution, “values clarification,” etc. Hooray for helping children to develop emotionally.
On the other side of the continent, there’s U.S. District Court Judge Mark L. Wolf. Sitting in Massachusetts (different state, same judicial goose-stepping), Wolf held a parent had no right to object to a school’s efforts to sexualize his six-year-old.
David Parker was dismayed over the decision of the Lexington, Mass elementary school to allow a kindergarten teacher to read the book “King and King” to his son. It’s the delightful story of a king who falls in love with and marries another king – adding a new meaning to fairy tale.
Parker sued. Tragically, the case came before Wolf, who unreasoned, “Under the Constitution, public schools are entitled to teach anything that is reasonably related to the goals of preparing students to become engaged and productive citizens in our democracy.” Moreover, “it is increasingly evident that our diversity includes differences in sexual orientation” – which is why over 40 states have rejected gay marriage.
There you have it: An appreciation for sodomy (part of our glorious diversity), strengthens our democracy by making us better citizens.
The instruction which Wolf claims is essential to good citizenship does not take the form of an objective analysis of unnatural relations, including STD rates, whether the condition is innate or environmentally induced, promiscuity, pedophilia, etc.
In this regard, the molding of future citizens is entrusted to groups like the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), the al-Qaeda of homosexual activism and sponsor of the April 25 national “Day of Silence,” when students are forced to affirm the lifestyle.
Public-school brainwashing doesn’t end with homosexuality or sex education. Science classes show Al Gore’s fanciful “The Earth In Balance” as if it was, well science. Environmentalism pervades the curriculum.
Evolution is taught as if it was incontrovertible fact, rather than theory. Courts have held that intelligent design can’t be offered as an alternative thereto, since it too constitutes an establishment of religion. In reality, it rejects an important tenet of the prevailing state religion (secularism) which permeates public education.
History and social studies are infected by multiculturalism, revisionism and anti-Americanism. Schools observe Black History Month, which invariably turns into a litany of white sins, and an indictment of ongoing and ubiquitous white racism.
The latest form of indoctrination to hit public education is instruction in Islam.
Since 1997, more than 4,000 teachers across America have used a lesson plan called “Muslim Holidays,” prepared for school children by the U.S.-based Council on Islamic Education. This is a highly sanitized, politically correct presentation of Islam, where jihad (holy war) becomes a struggle for self-improvement, and there’s no mention of honor killings, the status of women or the fate of infidels in Muslim states.
As part of its World History and Geography class, in 2003, one California school district had students role-playing at being Muslims, including memorizing verses from the Koran and praying toward Mecca. (“And this is the way we buckle on the dynamite belt, to kill the infidels, children.”)
Liberal fascism is at work throughout the public education system. In this regard, an activist judiciary has become a fascist auxiliary.
A fascist state demands regimentation. It can’t tolerate competition for the allegiance of the young.
Goldberg quotes Woodrow Wilson (who he views as the prototypical American fascist). When he was still president of Princeton, Wilson told an academic audience. “Our problem is not merely to help students to adjust themselves to world life … (but) to make them as unlike their fathers as we can.”
Judeo-Christian morality must be replaced by moral relativism, patriotism by internationalism, a belief in personal rights and individual achievement with conditional rights and collectivism.
Liberal fascists want Hillary’s proverbial village to raise your children – a community composed of the National Education Association, GLSEN, the Sierra Club, NOW, the Sex Education and Information Council of the U.S., Al Gore and Barack Obama’s Church of the Good Racist.
When most Americans think of fascism, they think of Germany in the 1930s and ‘40s. (Actually, fascism isn’t synonymous with Nazism.)
Germany bans home-schooling and persecutes home-schoolers, an ideological holdover from the Third Reich. In 2006, the ironically named European Court of Human Rights ruled it had every right to do so.
The tribunal agreed with German courts that: “Not only the acquisition of knowledge, but also the integration into and first experience with society (a euphemism for inculcating the values of the ruling elite) are important goals in primary school education.”
Hitler was more candid. In 1937, Der Fuehrer explained: “The youth of today is ever the people of tomorrow. For this reason we have set before ourselves the task of inoculating our youth with the spirit of this community of the people at a very early age, at an age when human beings are still unperverted and therefore unspoiled (malleable). … And this Reich will give its youth to no one, but will itself take youth and give to youth its own education and its own upbringing.”
In other words: Your children – who are the future – belong to us.
Spoken like H. Walt Croskey, Stephen Reinhardt and Mark L. Wolf.
One day, will we have to say: “When they came for the home-schoolers, I did nothing”?
An earlier version of this commentary appeared at GrassTopsUSA.org
_______________________________________________
To respond to this email, subscribe, or unsubscribe, please contact Dr. Frank:
drfrank@abortiontruths.net
Thank you.
Story Behind the Story: The Clinton Myth
Story Behind the Story: The Clinton Myth
By Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen
The Politico
Friday 21 March 2008
One big fact has largely been lost in the recent coverage of the Democratic presidential race: Hillary Rodham Clinton has virtually no chance of winning.
Her own campaign acknowledges there is no way that she will finish ahead in pledged delegates. That means the only way she wins is if Democratic superdelegates are ready to risk a backlash of historic proportions from the party's most reliable constituency.
Unless Clinton is able to at least win the primary popular vote - which also would take nothing less than an electoral miracle - and use that achievement to pressure superdelegates, she has only one scenario for victory. An African-American opponent and his backers would be told that, even though he won the contest with voters, the prize is going to someone else.
People who think that scenario is even remotely likely are living on another planet.
As it happens, many people inside Clinton's campaign live right here on Earth. One important Clinton adviser estimated to Politico privately that she has no more than a 10 percent chance of winning her race against Barack Obama, an appraisal that was echoed by other operatives.
In other words: The notion of the Democratic contest being a dramatic cliffhanger is a game of make-believe.
The real question is why so many people are playing. The answer has more to do with media psychology than with practical politics.
Journalists have become partners with the Clinton campaign in pretending that the contest is closer than it really is. Most coverage breathlessly portrays the race as a down-to-the-wire sprint between two well-matched candidates, one only slightly better situated than the other to win in August at the national convention in Denver.
One reason is fear of embarrassment. In its zeal to avoid predictive reporting of the sort that embarrassed journalists in New Hampshire, the media - including Politico - have tended to avoid zeroing in on the tough math Clinton faces.
Avoiding predictions based on polls even before voters cast their ballots is wise policy. But that's not the same as drawing sober and well-grounded conclusions about the current state of a race after millions of voters have registered their preferences.
The antidote to last winter's flawed predictions is not to promote a misleading narrative based on the desired but unlikely story line of one candidate.
There are other forces also working to preserve the notion of a contest that is still up for grabs.
One important, if subliminal, reason is self-interest. Reporters and editors love a close race - it's more fun and it's good for business.
The media are also enamored of the almost mystical ability of the Clintons to work their way out of tight jams, as they have done for 16 years at the national level. That explains why some reporters are inclined to believe the Clinton campaign when it talks about how she's going to win on the third ballot at the Democratic National Convention in August.
That's certainly possible - and, to be clear, we'd love to see the race last that long - but it's folly to write about this as if it is likely.
It's also hard to overstate the role the talented Clinton camp plays in shaping the campaign narrative, first by subtly lowering the bar for the performance necessary to remain in the race, and then by keeping the focus on Obama's relationships with a political fixer and a controversial pastor in Illinois.
But even some of Clinton's own advisers now concede that she cannot win unless Obama is hit by a political meteor. Something that merely undermines him won't be enough. It would have to be some development that essentially disqualifies him.
Simple number-crunching has shown the long odds against Clinton for some time.
In the latest Associated Press delegate count, Obama leads with 1,406 pledged delegates to Clinton's 1,249. Obama's lead is likely to grow, as it did with county conventions last weekend in Iowa, as later rounds of delegates are apportioned from caucuses he has already won.
The Democratic Party has 794 superdelegates, the party insiders who get to vote on the nomination in addition to the delegates chosen by voters. According to Politico's latest tally, Clinton has 250 and Obama has 212. That means 261 are uncommitted, and 71 have yet to be named.
An analysis by Politico's Avi Zenilman shows that Clinton's lead in superdelegates has shrunk by about 60 in the past month. And it found Clinton is roughly tied among House members, senators and governors - the party's most powerful elite.
Clinton had not announced a new superdelegate commitment since the March 4 primaries, until the drought was broken recently by Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.) and West Virginia committeeman Pat Maroney.
Clintonistas continue to talk tough. Phil Singer, the Clinton campaign's deputy communications director, told reporters on a conference call Friday that the Obama campaign "is in hot water" and is "seeing the ground shift away from them."
Mark Penn, the campaign's chief strategist, maintained that it's still "a hard-fought race between two potential nominees" and that other factors could come into play at the convention besides the latest delegate tally - "the popular vote, who will have won more delegates from primaries [as opposed to caucuses], who will be the stronger candidate against McCain."
But let's assume a best-case scenario for Clinton, one where she wins every remaining contest with 60 percent of the vote (an unlikely outcome since she has hit that level in only three states so far - her home state of New York, Rhode Island and Arkansas).
Even then, she would still be behind Obama in delegates.
There are 566 pledged delegates up for grabs in upcoming contests. Those delegates come from Pennsylvania (158), Guam (4) North Carolina (115), Indiana (72), West Virginia (28), Kentucky (51), Oregon (52), Puerto Rico (55), Montana (16) and South Dakota (15).
If Clinton won 60 percent of those delegates, she would get 340 delegates to Obama's 226. Under that scenario - and without revotes in Michigan and Florida - Obama would still lead in delegates by 1,632 to 1,589.
The only remote possibility of a win in delegates would come if revotes were held in Florida and Michigan - which, again, would take a political miracle. If Clinton won 60 percent of the delegates in both states, she would win 188 delegates and Obama would win 125. Clinton would then lead among pledged delegates, 1,777 to 1,757.
The other elephant in the room for Clinton is that Obama is almost certain to win North Carolina, with its high percentage of African-American voters, and also is seen as extremely strong in Oregon.
Harold Ickes, an icon of the Democratic Party who is Clinton's chief delegate strategist, points out that every previous forecast about this race has been faulty.
Asked about the Obama campaign's contention that it's mathematically impossible for Clinton to win, Ickes replied: "They can't count. At the end of it, even by the Obama campaign's prediction, neither candidate will have enough delegates to be nominated."
This is true, as a matter of math. But even the Clinton campaign's own best-case scenario has her finishing behind Obama when all the nominating contests are over.
"She will be close to him but certainly not equal to him in pledged delegates," a Clinton adviser said. "When you add the superdelegates on top of it, I'll think she'll still be behind him somewhat in total delegates - but very, very close."
The total gap is likely to be 75 to 110, the adviser said.
That means Clinton would need either some of those pledged delegates to switch their support - which technically they can do, though it would be unlikely - or for the white-dominated group of superdelegates to join forces with her to topple Obama.
To foster doubt about Obama, Clinton supporters are using a whisper and pressure campaign to make an 11th-hour argument to party insiders that he would be a weak candidate in November despite his superior standing at the moment.
"All she has left is the electability argument," a Democratic official said. "It's all wrapped around: Is there something that makes him ultimately unelectable?"
But the audience for that argument, the superdelegates, will not easily overturn the will of the party's voters. And in fact, a number of heavyweight Democrats are looking at the landscape and laying the groundwork to dissuade Clinton from trying to overturn the will of the party rank and file.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who has not endorsed either candidate, appears to be among them. She told Bloomberg Television that superdelegates should "respect for what has been said by the people." And she told ABC's "This Week" that it would be "harmful to the Democratic Party" if superdelegates overturn the outcome of elections.
A Democratic strategist said that given the unlikelihood of prevailing any other way, Clinton now must "scare" superdelegates "who basically just want to win."
The strategist said Clinton aides are now relying heavily on the controversy over Obama's retiring minister, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, to sow new seeds of doubt.
"This issue is the first thing that's come along that I think is potentially fatal to his electability argument," the strategist said.
"They're looking ahead and saying: Is it possible this thing is just going to drip, drip, drip, drip - more video? Where does that leave us if he's our presumptive nominee and he's limping into the convention and the Republicans are just read to go on him, double-barreled?"
The strategist also said Clinton's agents are making more subtle pitches.
"I've heard people start to say: Have you looked at the vote in Ohio really carefully? See how that breaks down for him. What does that portend?" said the strategist. "Then they point to Pennsylvania: In electorally important battleground states, if he is essentially only carrying heavy African-American turnout in high-performing African-American districts and the Starbucks-sipping, Volvo-driving liberal elite, how does he carry a state like Pennsylvania?"
Her advisers say privately that the nominee will be clear by the end of June. At the same time, they recognize that the nominee probably is clear already.
What has to irk Clintons' aides is that they felt she might finally have him on the ropes, bruised badly by the Wright fight and wobbly in polls. But the bell rang long ago in the minds of too many voters.
----------
Avi Zenilman contributed to this report.
[http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0308/9149.html]
Is Easter a Historical Fact?
Did Jesus Christ Rise from the Dead?
Briefly, therefore, the fact of Christ's Resurrection is attested by more than 500 eyewitnesses, whose experience, simplicity, and uprightness of life rendered them incapable of inventing such a fable, who lived at a time when any attempt to deceive could have been easily discovered, who had nothing in this life to gain, but everything to lose by their testimony, whose moral courage exhibited in their apostolic life can be explained only by their intimate conviction of the objective truth of their message.
Again the fact of Christ's Resurrection is attested by the eloquent silence of the Synagogue which had done everything to prevent deception, which could have easily discovered deception, if there had been any, which opposed only sleeping witnesses to the testimony of the Apostles, which did not punish the alleged carelessness of the official guard, and which could not answer the testimony of the Apostles except by threatening them "that they speak no more in this name to any man" (Acts 4:17).
Finally the thousands and millions, both Jews and Gentiles, who believed the testimony of the Apostles in spite of all the disadvantages following from such a belief, in short the origin of the Church, requires for its explanation the reality of Christ's Resurrection, fot the rise of the Church without the Resurrection would have been a greater miracle than the Resurrection itself.
[http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:Rn9XpTPv0u0J:www.newadvent.org/cathen/12789a.htm+resurrection+historical+fact+catholic&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us&ie=UTF-8]
Resurrection of Jesus Christ
Resurrection is the rising again from the dead, the resumption of life. In this article, we shall treat only of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. (The General Resurrection of the Body will be covered in another article.) The fact of Christ's Resurrection, the theories opposed to this fact, its characteristics, and the reasons for its importance must be considered in distinct paragraphs.
I. THE FACT OF CHRIST'S RESURRECTION
The main sources which directly attest the fact of Christ's Resurrection are the Four Gospels and the Epistles of St. Paul. Easter morning is so rich in incident, and so crowded with interested persons, that its complete history presents a rather complicated tableau. It is not surprising, therefore, that the partial accounts contained in each of the Four Gospels appear at first sight hard to harmonize. But whatever exegetic view as to the visit to the sepulchre by the pious women and the appearance of the angels we may defend, we cannot deny the Evangelists' agreement as to the fact that the risen Christ appeared to one or more persons. According to St. Matthew, He appeared to the holy women, and again on a mountain in Galilee; according to St. Mark, He was seen by Mary Magdalen, by the two disciples at Emmaus, and the Eleven before his Ascension into heaven; according to St. Luke, He walked with the disciples to Emmaus, appeared to Peter and to the assembled disciples in Jerusalem; according to St. John, Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalen, to the ten Apostles on Easter Sunday, to the Eleven a week later, and to the seven disciples at the Sea of Tiberias. St. Paul (1 Corinthians 15:3-8) enumerates another series of apparitions of Jesus after His Resurrection; he was seen by Cephas, by the Eleven, by more than 500 brethren, many of whom were still alive at the time of the Apostle's writing, by James, by all the Apostles, and lastly by Paul himself.
Here is an outline of a possible harmony of the Evangelists' account concerning the principal events of Easter Sunday:
The holy women carrying the spices previously prepared start out for the sepulchre before dawn, and reach it after sunrise; they are anxious about the heavy stone, but know nothing of the official guard of the sepulchre (Matthew 28:1-3; Mark 16:1-3; Luke 24:1; John 20:1).
The angel frightened the guards by his brightness, put them to flight, rolled away the stone, and seated himself not upon (ep autou), but above (epano autou) the stone (Matthew 28:2-4).
Mary Magdalen, Mary the Mother of James, and Salome approach the sepulchre, and see the stone rolled back, whereupon Mary Magdalen immediately returns to inform the Apostles (Mark 16:4; Luke 24:2; John 20:1-2).
The other two holy women enter the sepulchre, find an angel seated in the vestibule, who shows them the empty sepulchre, announces the Resurrection, and commissions them to tell the disciples and Peter that they shall see Jesus in Galilee (Matthew 28:5-7; Mark 16:5-7).
A second group of holy women, consisting of Joanna and her companions, arrive at the sepulchre, where they have probably agreed to meet the first group, enter the empty interior, and are admonished by two angels that Jesus has risen according to His prediction (Luke 24:10).
Not long after, Peter and John, who were notified by Mary Magdalen, arrive at the sepulchre and find the linen cloth in such a position as to exclude the supposition that the body was stolen; for they lay simply flat on the ground, showing that the sacred body had vanished out of them without touching them. When John notices this he believes (John 20:3-10).
Mary Magdalen returns to the sepulchre, sees first two angels within, and then Jesus Himself (John 20:11-l6; Mark 16:9).
The two groups of pious women, who probably met on their return to the city, are favored with the sight of Christ arisen, who commissions them to tell His brethren that they will see him in Galilee (Matthew 28:8-10; Mark 16:8).
The holy women relate their experiences to the Apostles, but find no belief (Mark 16:10-11; Luke 24:9-11).
Jesus appears to the disciples, at Emmaus, and they return to Jerusalem; the Apostles appear to waver between doubt and belief (Mark 16:12-13; Luke 24:13-35).
Christ appears to Peter, and therefore Peter and John firmly believe in the Resurrection (Luke 24:34; John 20:8).
After the return of the disciples from Emmaus, Jesus appears to all the Apostles excepting Thomas (Mark 16:14; Luke 24:36-43; John 20:19-25).
The harmony of the other apparitions of Christ after His Resurrection presents no special difficulties.
Briefly, therefore, the fact of Christ's Resurrection is attested by more than 500 eyewitnesses, whose experience, simplicity, and uprightness of life rendered them incapable of inventing such a fable, who lived at a time when any attempt to deceive could have been easily discovered, who had nothing in this life to gain, but everything to lose by their testimony, whose moral courage exhibited in their apostolic life can be explained only by their intimate conviction of the objective truth of their message. Again the fact of Christ's Resurrection is attested by the eloquent silence of the Synagogue which had done everything to prevent deception, which could have easily discovered deception, if there had been any, which opposed only sleeping witnesses to the testimony of the Apostles, which did not punish the alleged carelessness of the official guard, and which could not answer the testimony of the Apostles except by threatening them "that they speak no more in this name to any man" (Acts 4:17). Finally the thousands and millions, both Jews and Gentiles, who believed the testimony of the Apostles in spite of all the disadvantages following from such a belief, in short the origin of the Church, requires for its explanation the reality of Christ's Resurrection, fot the rise of the Church without the Resurrection would have been a greater miracle than the Resurrection itself.
II. OPPOSING THEORIES
By what means can the evidence for Christ's Resurrection by overthrown? Three theories of explanation have been advanced, though the first two have hardly any adherents in our day.
(1)The Swoon Theory
There is the theory of those who assert that Christ did not really die upon the cross, that His supposed death was only a temporary swoon, and that His Resurrection was simply a return to consciousness. This was advocated by Paulus ("Exegetisches Handbuch", 1842, II, p. 929) and in a modified form by Hase ("Gesch. Jesu", n. 112), but it does not agree with the data furnished by the Gospels. The scourging and the crown of thorns, the carrying of the cross and the crucifixion, the three hours on the cross and the piercing of the Sufferer's side cannot have brought on a mere swoon. His real death is attested by the centurion and the soldiers, by the friends of Jesus and by his most bitter enemies. His stay in a sealed sepulchre for thirty-six hours, in an atmosphere poisoned by the exhalations of a hundred pounds of spices, which would have of itself sufficed to cause death. Moreover, if Jesus had merely returned from a swoon, the feelings of Easter morning would have been those of sympathy rather than those of joy and triumph, the Apostles would have been roused to the duties of a sick chamber rather than to apostolic work, the life of the powerful wonderworker would have ended in ignoble solitude and inglorious obscurity, and His vaunted sinlessness would have changed into His silent approval of a lie as the foundation stone of His Church. No wonder that later critics of the Resurrection, like Strauss, have heaped contempt on the old theory of a swoon.
(2) The Imposition Theory
The disciples, it is said, stole the body of Jesus from the grave, and then proclaimed to men that their Lord had risen. This theory was anticipated by the Jews who "gave a great sum of money to the soldiers, saying: Say you, His disciples came by night, and stole him away when we were asleep" (Matthew 28:12 sq.). The same was urged by Celsus (Orig., "Contra Cels.", II, 56) with some difference of detail. But to assume that the Apostles with a burden of this kind upon their consciences could have preached a kingdom of truth and righteousness as the one great effort of their lives, and that for the sake of that kingdom they could have suffered even unto death, is to assume one of those moral impossibilities which may pass for a moment in the heat of controversy, but must be dismissed without delay in the hour of good reflection.
(3) The Vision Theory
This theory as generally understood by its advocates does not allow visions caused by a Divine intervention, but only such as are the product of human agencies. For if a Divine intervention be admitted, we may as well believe, as far as principles are concerned, that God raised Jesus from the dead. But where in the present instance are the human agencies which might cause these visions? The idea of a resurrection from the grave was familiar to the disciples from their Jewish faith; they had also vague intimations in the prophecies of the Old Testament; finally, Jesus Himself had always associated His Resurrection with the predictions of his death. On the other hand, the disciples' state of mind was one of great excitement; they treasured the memory of Christ with a fondness which made it almost impossible for them to believe that He was gone. In short, their whole mental condition was such as needed only the application of a spark to kindle the flame. The spark was applied by Mary Magdalen, and the flame at once spread with the rapidity and force of a conflagration. What she believed that she had seen, others immediately believed that they must see. Their expectations were fulfilled, and the conviction seized the members of the early Church that the Lord had really risen from the dead.
Such is the vision theory commonly defended by recent critics of the Resurrection. But however ingeniously it may be devised, it is quite impossible from an historical point of view.
It is incompatible with the state of mind of the Apostles; the theory presupposes faith and expectancy on the part of the Apostles, while in point of fact the disciples' faith and expectancy followed their vision of the risen Christ.
It is inconsistent with the nature of Christ's manifestations; they ought to have been connected with heavenly glory, or they should have continued the former intimate relations of Jesus with His disciples, while actually and consistently they presented quite a new phase that could not have been expected.
It does not agree with the conditions of the early Christian community; after the first excitement of Easter Sunday, the disciples as a body are noted for their cool deliberation rather than the exalted enthusiasm of a community of visionaries.
It is incompatible with the length of time during which the apparitions lasted; visions such as the critics suppose have never been known to last long, while some of Christ's manifestations lasted a considerable period.
It is not consistent with the fact that the manifestations were made to numbers at the same instant.
It does not agree with the place where most of the manifestations were made: visionary appearances would have been expected in Galilee, while most apparitions of Jesus occurred in Judea.
It is inconsistent with the fact that the visions came to a sudden end on the day of Ascension.
Keim admits that enthusiasm, nervousness, and mental excitement on the part of the disciples do not supply a rational explanation of the facts as related in the Gospels. According to him, the visions were directly granted by God and the glorified Christ; they may even include a "corporeal appearance" for those who fear that without this they would lose all. But Keim's theory satisfies neither the Church, since it abandons all the proofs of a bodily Resurrection of Jesus, nor the enemies of the Church, since it admits many of the Church's dogmas; nor again is it consistent with itself, since it grants God's special intervention in proof of the Church's faith, though it starts with the denial of the bodily Resurrection of Jesus, which is one of the principal objects of that faith.
(4) Modernist View
The Holy Office describes and condemns in the thirty-sixth and thirty-seventh propositions of the Decree "Lamentabili", the views advocated by a fourth class of opponents of the Resurrection. The former of these propositions reads: "The Resurrection of our Saviour is not properly a fact of the historical order, but a fact of the purely supernatural order neither proved nor provable, which Christian consciousness has little by little inferred from other facts." This statement agrees with, and is further explained by the words of Loisy ("Autour d'un petit livre", p. viii, 120-121, 169; "L'Evangile et l'Eglise", pp. 74-78; 120-121; 171). According to Loisy, firstly, the entrance into life immortal of one risen from the dead is not subject to observation; it is a supernatural, hyper-historical fact, not capable of historical proof. The proofs alleged for the Resurrection of Jesus Christ are inadequate; the empty sepulchre is only an indirect argument, while the apparitions of the risen Christ are open to suspicion on a priori grounds, being sensible impressions of a supernatural reality; and they are doubtful evidence from a critical point of view, on account of the discrepancies in the various Scriptural narratives and the mixed character of the detail connected with the apparitions. Secondly, if one prescinds from the faith of the Apostles, the testimony of the New Testament does not furnish a certain argument for the fact of the Resurrection. This faith of the Apostles is concerned not so much with the Resurrection of Jesus Christ as with His immortal life; being based on the apparitions, which are unsatisfactory evidence from an historical point of view, its force is appreciated only by faith itself; being a development of the idea of an immortal Messias, it is an evolution of Christian consciousness, though it is at the same time a corrective of the scandal of the Cross. The Holy Office rejects this view of the Resurrection when it condemns the thirty-seventh proposition in the Decree "Lamentabili": "The faith in the Resurrection of Christ pointed at the beginning no so much to the fact of the Resurrection, as to the immortal life of Christ with God."
Besides the authoritative rejection of the foregoing view, we may submit the following three considerations which render it untenable: First, the contention that the Resurrection of Christ cannot be proved historically is not in accord with science. Science does not know enough about the limitations and the properties of a body raised from the dead to immortal life to warrant the assertion that such a body cannot be perceived by the senses; again in the case of Christ, the empty sepulchre with all its concrete circumstances cannot be explained except by a miraculous Divine intervention as supernatural in its character as the Resurrection of Jesus. Secondly, history does not allow us to regard the belief in the Resurrection as the result of a gradual evolution in Christian consciousness. The apparitions were not a mere projection of the disciples' Messianic hope and expectation; their Messianic hope and expectations had to be revived by the apparitions. Again, the Apostles did not begin with preaching the immortal life of Christ with God, but they preached Christ's Resurrection from the very beginning, they insisted on it as a fundamental fact and they described even some of the details connected with this fact: Acts, ii, 24, 31; iii, 15,26; iv, 10; v, 30; x, 39-40; xiii, 30, 37; xvii, 31-2; Rom., i,4; iv, 25; vi, 4,9; viii, 11, 34; x, 7; xiv, 9; I Cor., xv, 4, 13 sqq.; etc. Thirdly, the denial of the historical certainty of Christ's Resurrection involves several historical blunders: it questions the objective reality of the apparitions without any historical grounds for such a doubt; it denies the fact of the empty sepulchre in spite of solid historical evidence to the contrary; it questions even the fact of Christ's burial in Joseph's sepulchre, though this fact is based on the clear and simply unimpeachable testimony of history.
III. CHARACTER OF CHRIST'S RESURRECTION
The Resurrection of Christ has much in common with the general resurrection; even the transformation of His body and of His bodily life is of the same kind as that which awaits the blessed in their resurrection. But the following peculiarities must be noted:
Christ's Resurrection is necessarily a glorious one; it implies not merely the reunion of body and soul, but also the glorification of the body.
Christ's body was to know no corruption, but rose again soon after death, when sufficient time had elapsed to leave no doubt as to the reality of His death.
Christ was the first to rise unto life immortal; those raised before Him died again (Colossians 1:18; 1 Corinthians 15:20).
As the Divine power which raised Christ from the grave was His own power, He rose from the dead by His own power (John 2:19; 10:17-18).
Since the Resurrection had been promised as the main proof of Christ's Divine mission, it has a greater dogmatic importance than any other fact. "If Christ be not risen again, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain" (1 Corinthians 15:14).
IV. IMPORTANCE OF THE RESURRECTION
Besides being the fundamental argument for our Christian belief, the Resurrection is important for the following reasons:
It shows the justice of God who exalted Christ to a life of glory, as Christ had humbled Himself unto death (Phil., ii, 8-9).
The Resurrection completed the mystery of our salvation and redemption; by His death Christ freed us from sin, and by His Resurrection He restored to us the most important privileges lost by sin (Romans 4:25).
By His Resurrection we acknowledge Christ as the immortal God, the efficient and exemplary cause of our own resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:21; Philippians 3:20-21), and as the model and the support of our new life of grace (Romans 6:4-6; 9-11).
Publication information
Written by A.J. Maas. Transcribed by Donald J. Boon. Dedicated to Bishop Andre Cimichella of Montreal, and to Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume XII. Published 1911. New York: Robert Appleton Company. Nihil Obstat, June 1, 1911. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor. Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York
Copyright © 2007 by Kevin Knight (EMAIL). Dedicated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
[http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:Rn9XpTPv0u0J:www.newadvent.org/cathen/12789a.htm+resurrection+historical+fact+catholic&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us&ie=UTF-8]
