I just finished watching the documentary Zeitgeist...OK, I'm lying. I just finished scanning through it. I watched the first 25 minutes then started skipping through.
They definitely got off on the wrong foot with me by making several disprovable assertions and claiming certainty about some things that are based on card-houses of unlikely or unprovable assumptions. For example, they start out by implying that most, if not all, mass violence is the result of religion and patriotism (aka tribalism). The religion claim has been thoroughly debunked repeatedly over the last hundred years or so, most recently and possibly most thoroughly by Vox Day in The Irrational Atheist. On the contrary, religion is a moderating influence that helps to contain the natural agression of mankind. The irony of the movie's claims against religion is that they are perfectly in line with the zeitgeist of today's "intelligentsia" yet are at least as false and manipulative as the move claims are religious institutions. That doesn't mean that religious bureaucracies are necessarily benevolent or honest, of course. They are still made up of people after all, and people are the real problem.
That takes care of the disprovable assertions. On to the house of unprovable cards.
Another irony of the movie is that it begins with a quote decrying the reliance on authority over truth rather than authority out of truth, but then it shows our supposed evolution from bacteria and the supposed evolution of all theology from astronomy through astrology. The theory of evolution, whether correct or not, is an unprovable set of speculations based on other speculations based on assumptions stemming from the a priori disbarring of even the possibility of divine intervention in natural history. In other words, complete acceptance of TENS (the theory of evolution and natural selection) is a complete acceptance of authority over truth rather than authority out of truth.
The same is true regarding the evolution of religion. The movie adopts some historical revisionism as well as a huge load of historical speculation and labels it TRUTH. There is some truth to be had, however. Here's what I think happened: God knew exactly what was going to happen on earth from the moment he created the universe. He designed things into that creation so that certain truths could be gleaned from careful observation. People way back when were smarter than us and managed to combine oral tradition, divine revelation, and astronomical observation to arrive at those certain truths regarding the nature of mankind, God, and the future course of history. They understood something of the nature of blood in our relationship to the divine (certainly more than I do) and the need for divine intervention and in order to bring about a full restoration of that relationship. Satan was able to use their smarts against them in building counterfeit theologies that incorporated a lot of truth into a lot of B.S. (Kind of like politicians, theologians, and movie makers.) Babylonian, Greek, and Egyptian gods were killed and resurrected because the really bright people of those days knew that had to be part of any true theology. They drew certain stories out of the movements of stars and planets because those stories are actually there.
That's when I skipped ahead a bit. The rest of the movie seems to point out several examples of the masses being manipulated by clever politicians and marketeers. There is a lot of good information in there that people need to know. I probably would have watched more intently if I hadn't already learned most of it from other sources. I already know that people are violent, greedy liars, and that we all want to believe otherwise. We're prepared to swallow any amount of b.s. to maintain our belief in the essential goodness of humankind. Blech. At some level we're all murderers. We're all thieves. We're all gullible lemmings.
There is really only one source of completely reliable truth. I don't mean human translations or interpretations of ancient revelations. The Bible would be totally reliable if we still had it in its original forms, but people have gotten in the way. It's still pretty darn good and the closest thing we have to absolute truth in written form, but there might be a corrupt word or even a paragraph here and there. The only reliable source of truth is God. Our big problem is that we are corrupted receivers, hence the hundreds of different religions and the thousands of denominations within them. The problem is us, not God.
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Strength 2: Acting Out
On July 4th a motorcyclist apparently tried to kick the driver of a Mazda Miata while they were still moving. He lost control of his bike and died when he collided with a tree. If the story is true, it serves him right. I wouldn't be surprised to see him win a Darwin Award.
Strength isn't just the physical ability or mental determination to do something, it's self-control and poise. It's the subjugation of impulsiveness and self-gratification to responsibility and good sense, something this guy was obviously lacking.
Too bad it's so hard to find examples of strength, while weakness is everywhere.
Strength isn't just the physical ability or mental determination to do something, it's self-control and poise. It's the subjugation of impulsiveness and self-gratification to responsibility and good sense, something this guy was obviously lacking.
Too bad it's so hard to find examples of strength, while weakness is everywhere.
Strength 1: Bullies and Heroes
RMF is teaching a course on Mussar, and this week's lesson is on strength. The daily exercise involves scanning the news for a story that addresses some aspect of strength and then writing something about it. I expect to post several of those, and here's the first:
The leftist revolutionary group, FARC, have held as many as 100 people hostage for years in an effort to force their will on the government and people of Colombia. Recently the Colombian government rescued fifteen of them by sending in a military mission disguised as a multinational humanitarian group.
The weak:
The strong:
Well done, Colombia. Now go get the rest of them. You too, Northrop.
The leftist revolutionary group, FARC, have held as many as 100 people hostage for years in an effort to force their will on the government and people of Colombia. Recently the Colombian government rescued fifteen of them by sending in a military mission disguised as a multinational humanitarian group.
The weak:
- FARC - They kidnapped more-or-less innocent people in an effort to extort military and financial concessions. They are Marxists, which means they are thieves who believe the ends pretty much always justify the means. They aren't necessarily cowards, but they certainly exhibit all the signs of a pathetically weak character.
- Northrop Grumman Corporation - At least three of the rescued hostages are employees of Northrop who had a moral obligation to secure their release. I don't know what Northrop has done, so I could be misjudging them, but it appears that they did essentially nothing. They had the resources to affect a rescue by almost any means they chose, yet they chose to allow their people to be mistreated and imprisoned for more than five years.
The strong:
- The Rescuers - They placed themselves into an extraordinarily vulnerable position in order to rescue complete strangers. If they had been found out (or ratted out), they could easily have been killed or become hostages themselves.
Well done, Colombia. Now go get the rest of them. You too, Northrop.
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