Secularism and the meaningless life

I thought I'd share a Dennis Prager article from townhall.com. Great food for thought as usual.

As I have noted on occasion, there are three values systems competing for world dominance: Islam, European style secularism/socialism and Judeo-Christian values. As the competition in America is between the second two (in Europe, Judeo-Christian values are dying while Islam is increasing its influence), my columns on Judeo-Christian values have concentrated on differences between Judeo-Christian and secular values.

Perhaps the most significant difference between them, though one rarely acknowledged by secularists, is the presence or absence of ultimate meaning in life. Most irreligious individuals, quite understandably, do not like to acknowledge the inevitable and logical consequence of their irreligiosity -- that life is ultimately purposeless.

Secular and irreligious individuals raise two immediate objections:

1. Irreligious people, including atheists, are just as likely to have meaningful lives as any religious person. They need neither God nor Judaism nor Christianity nor any other religion to have meaning.

2. Secular and irreligious are not the same as atheistic; many secular individuals believe in God and therefore whatever meaning accrues from having a belief in God, they, too, have. They do not need religion or Judeo-Christian values to give their lives meaning.

The first objection denies a fact, not a subjective judgment: If there is no God who designed the universe and who cares about His creations, life is ultimately purposeless. This does not mean that people who do not believe in such a God cannot feel, or make up, a purpose and a meaning for their own lives. They do and they have to -- because the need for meaning is the greatest of all human needs. It is even stronger than the need for sex. There are people who lead chaste lives who achieve happiness, while no one who lacks a sense of purpose or meaning can achieve happiness.

Nevertheless, the fact that people feel that their lives are meaningful -- as a parent, a caregiver, an artist, or any of the myriad ways in which we feel we are doing something meaningful -- has no bearing on the question of whether life itself is ultimately meaningful. The two issues are entirely separate. A physician understandably views his healing of people as meaningful, but if he does not believe in God, he will have to honestly confront the fact that as meaningful as healing the day's patients has been, ultimately everything is meaningless because life itself is. In this sense, it is far better for an individual's peace of mind to be a poor peasant who believes in God than a successful neurosurgeon who does not.

If there is no God as Judeo-Christian religions understand Him, life is a meaningless random event. You and I are no more significant, our existence has no more meaning, than that of a rock on Mars. The only difference between us and Martian rocks is that we need to believe our existence has significance.

Now to the second objection, that you don't need religion or Judeo-Christian values, just a belief in God or, as is more popular today, in "spirituality" to imbue existence with meaning. Theoretically, one can posit the existence of the God of Judeo-Christian religions without actually believing in any of those religions or in any of their holy works. There is, however, some absurdity in believing in the God made known through texts whose authenticity one rejects. "I believe in the God made known to the world solely through the Old Testament but not in the Old Testament" is not logically compelling.

Whatever the logical inconsistencies or theoretical arguments in either direction, the fact remains that while secular individuals can believe that their own lives have meaning, secularism by definition denies that life has meaning. The consequences have been devastating to mental health and to social order.

Among these have been increased unhappiness and depression, increased reliance on drugs and numbing entertainment to get people through life, moral confusion, belief in nonsense (such as Marxism, fascism, communism, male-female sameness, pacifism, moral equivalence of good and bad societies, and much more), and perhaps most ubiquitous, political meaning as a substitute for religious meaning.

Given that the need for meaning transcends all other human needs, its absence must create havoc individually and societally. In government, secularism is a blessing; but most everywhere else it is not.

American Idol Final Tonight

I am endlessly fascinated by this cultural phenomenon. Millions of people will tune in to see which one of the two people who were complety unkown a few months ago will win. Proving once again that if you can get on TV the masses will adore you.

South Africa Tries to Curb Domestic Violence

CAPE TOWN, South Africa - Shamed by daily headlines about murder, rape and assault and a study showing four women are killed every day by their partners, South African authorities are trying to launch community-based campaigns to curb the rate of domestic violence.
Click here for complete AP story

Recent South African Census

For those of you who don't know I was born in South Africa. We moved to the United States in 1994.
My family and I started attending a predominantley black church when I was 7 years old. Imagine my shock as a young boy when I discovered that not only were non-white people not the evil white hating people that they were reported to be, but they were some of the nicest people I had ever met. They wanted to share what little they had with us who had so much more.
I have never identified with the white, mostly Afrikaner, nationalism even though I am half Afrikaner myself. When the Afrikaners took control of South Africa from the British in 1962 they changed the names of monuments, towns, etc. When the black majority took control in 1994 they changed the names of monuments, towns, etc. to a huge outrage from the Afrikaners. How quickly we forget.
When the Afrikaners took control of South Africa from the British in 1962 they only gave government jobs to Afrikaners. When the black majority took control in 1994 they only gave government jobs to blacks which greatly upsets the Afrikaners. How quickly we forget.
I have many family members in South Africa who constantly complain about how there are only jobs for black people. They constantly complain how bad things are in South Africa. I was in Johannesburg one year ago today and saw a country that was much better than the one I left.
I read the most recent South African census figures today. Very interesting stuff. According to the census the unemployment rate for blacks is 28 percent. It's only 4.1 percent for whites. Yet white South Africans still complain how only blacks get jobs???
Click here for complete AP story

Lawyers, lawyers everywhere

I am becoming increasingly frustrated with the fact that you need a lawyer to accomplish almost anything lately. Case in point. Have you ever tried to apply for 501 (c) 3 status (non-profit) with the IRS? The application is 28 pages long, the instuctions are 30 pages long and the IRS estimates that it will take you 100 hours to complete the application. Or, you could pay a lawyer $1,000.

Zimbabwe May Allow Food Aid From U.N.

Wel, well, well, Mr. Mugabe may allow food aid from U.N. How gracious of the man. There are an estimated 5 million Zimbabweans who are on the brink of starvation and this guy wants no conditions? There should only be one condition with this food. Leave Office! This guy is rediculous. He along with Castro and others are a major blemish for the West. Nothing confirms the notion that the West only intervenes in human rights issues when their is a strategic need more than Zimbabwe. No communism, no need to intervene.
Farmers are forced from their land, murdered while the authorities turn a blind eye. Millions face starvation while other wait in line for two days to buy gasoline and the best the West can come up with is the Zimbabwe Democracy Act and suspending Zimbabwe's membership in the Commonwealth of Nations. When have these measures ever hurt anyone except those that they were designed to help? Let us not forget the very useless travel ban imposed by the European Union. What is this supposed to do?
This guy needs to go. His list of enemies include the US, EU, Commonwealth, Pius Ncube, Desmond Tutu, Amnesty International and decent people everywhere. Even former supporter Kenneth Kaunda has now joined the list of those who oppose him. This is where South Africa needs to step up and remove this guy from office. As the economic leader in the region I believe that they have a moral obligation to help the people of Zimbabwe.
Click here for AP story

Thoughts on VE Day

Great post from my brother Charles North's blog.

Before I voice my grievances and challenge conventional thinking on this, let me make the disclaimer that I believe Hitler was evil, and he deserved to be crushed. Also, my family fought WW2. I had a grandfather in the Royal Navy and a grandfather in the RAF. I have even alienated friends by arguing that we were right to drop “the bomb” on Japan, and should have used it on Germany.

However, as the world has celebrated VE Day this week, some things have really bothered me. (If you’re wondering “what’s VE Day”, you won’t get this blog.) Firstly, the image of George Bush standing shoulder to shoulder with Putin in Red Square reviewing troops carrying Soviet flags, and giving defacto praise to unrepentant Stalinists is disheartening. I swear, if I ever hear Mr. Bush say, “freedom is on the march” again, I’ll scream! I wonder, when he looked into “Vladimir’s eyes, and saw the man’s soul,” were Putin’s eyes saying, “you’re no Reagan”? You can’t fight a war to liberate Iraqis from a Stalinist (Saddam), while claiming Putin as your “buddy.” Defending Russia's record in the "Great Patriotic War," Putin declared, “Our people not only defended their homeland, they liberated 11 European countries.” Those countries were Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia and Finland.

The true story of WW2, east of the Elbe, was not freedom; it was Stalin, the most odious tyrant of the century. Where Hitler killed his millions, Stalin murdered his tens of millions. The summit at Yalta was a betrayal of small nations as immoral as the Munich Pact. So why do we venerate Churchill and FDR? At Yalta, this pair secretly ceded those small nations to Stalin, co-signing a “Declaration on Liberated Europe” that was a monstrous lie. As FDR and Churchill consigned these peoples to a Stalinist hell run by a monster whom FDR affectionately called “Uncle Joe” why are they not in the history books alongside Neville Chamberlain, who sold out the Czechs at Munich by handing their country over to Germany?

Aside from the Holocaust, there are other questions, relating to the actual reasons the war was fought. If Britain endured six years of war and hundreds of thousands of dead in a war she declared to defend Polish freedom, and Polish freedom was lost to communism, how can we say Britain won the war? If the West went to war to stop Hitler from dominating Eastern and Central Europe, and Eastern and Central Europe ended up under a tyranny many times worse, did the West really win the war? It is true that Allied troops liberated France, Holland and Belgium from Nazi occupation. But before Britain declared war on Germany, those countries did not need to be liberated. They were free. They were only invaded and occupied after Britain and France declared war on Germany – on behalf of Poland, whose freedom was lost at the end of the war! Again, why go to war to defend Polish freedom, just to give Poland to Stalin?

The war Britain and France declared to defend Polish freedom ended up making Poland and all of Eastern and Central Europe safe for Stalinism. And at the festivities in Moscow, Americans and Russians were front and center, smiling – not the British and French. The legacy of WW2 is that the British and the French lost their empires, while the U.S. and the Russians emerged as Superpowers. Maybe that’s why we’re so nostalgic about the war. And, are there lessons we can learn relating to our current war of “liberation” ???

Judge Approves End of United Pension Plans

From the Associated Press. "CHICAGO - A federal bankruptcy judge approved United Airlines' plan to terminate its employees' pension plans on Tuesday, clearing the way for the largest corporate-pension default in American history." So the judges do it again. Just as they have always supported the airlines in the past. The only thing you have to do in this country to screw thousands of people is file for bankruptcy. Because you know that some judge somewhere will side with you. Ditch the pension plan. Don't pay the creditors. What is the incentive for keeping your word? Where are the ethics? It doesn't matter if you mismanage your company because some judge somewhere will tell the creditors and employees to get lost. I almost want to admire American for working their way out of there problems. Almost, although I can't really admire a corporation that is managed to a $350 million 1st quarter loss. Or maybe that is the genius of it all. Keep the company teetering on the verge of bankruptcy. That way you can continue to screw the employees. No new hires, no pay increases. Why would you do right by people if you know that some judge somewhere will do whatever you want them to?

Living in Big D

I am sitting here and watching the local news in Dallas. The CBS affiliate just ran a story showing footage from a police chase yesterday. The perp (I loved NYPD Blue) stops his car, gets out and lays face down on the ground. Eight cops run up with guns drawn (while the guy lays face down remember). The first cop to arrives and stands on the dude's head several times. After being flooded with phone calls over the excessive use of force the Dallas police department issued a statement today saying that the suspect was still a threat. How on earth is some unarmed guy lying face down in the road a threat? I wonder why Dallas has the highest crime rate in the USA?