Taking on Ark Times Bloggers on various issues Part E “Moral absolutes and abortion” Francis Schaeffer Quotes part 5(includes the film SLAUGHTER OF THE INNOCENTS) (editorial cartoon)

I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control  and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline Republican.

On 2-21-13 on the Arkansas Times Blog  I asserted: 

Elwood you suggest if prolife people are not willing to pay for poor people’s unwanted babies’ needs then we are not part of the answer.

Hank Hanegraaff noted:

Attacking people rather than arguing principles, ad hominem arguments are a trick designed to distract attention from the real issue — namely, that abortion is the killing of an innocent human being.

On 2-21-13 on the Arkansas Times Blog  the liberal Amy Benton Bradley-Hole observed:

“Instead, it is an attempt to attack character in order to avoid the case against abortion.”

The hell it is. It’s an attempt to make moral absolutists face reality and comprehend the actual results of their misguided actions. But the problem with moral absolutists is they’re too dense to understand this.

On 2-21-13 on the Arkansas Times Blog  I responded:

Francis Schaeffer rightly noted, “If there is no absolute moral standard, then one cannot say in a final sense that anything is right or wrong. By absolute we mean that which always applies, that which provides a final or ultimate standard. There must be an absolute if there are to be morals, and there must be an absolute if there are to be real values. If there is no absolute beyond man’s ideas, then there is no final appeal to judge between individuals and groups whose moral judgements conflict. We are merely left with conflicting opinions.”

That is why I wonder why Amy Bento Bradley-Holes would be critical of moral absolutes. On what basis do moral nonabsolutists have to say that Hitler was wrong?

________________

I truly believe that many of the problems we have today in the USA are due to the advancement of humanism in the last few decades in our society. Ronald Reagan appointed the evangelical Dr. C. Everett Koop to the position of Surgeon General in his administration. He partnered with Dr. Francis Schaeffer in making the video below. It is very valuable information for Christians to have.  Actually I have included a video below that includes comments from him on this subject.

In the film series “WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE HUMAN RACE?” the arguments are presented  against abortion (Episode 1),  infanticide (Episode 2),   euthenasia (Episode 3), and then there is a discussion of the Christian versus Humanist worldview concerning the issue of “the basis for human dignity” in Episode 4 and then in the last episode a close look at the truth claims of the Bible. 

Francis Schaeffer and his wife Edith pictured below.

Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race?” (Episode 2) SLAUGHTER OF THE INNOCENTS

Published on Oct 6, 2012 by

___________

Francis Schaeffer saw the issues that our society would be facing in the future because of humanism and he was right on just about everything. Take a look at some of his quotes below: (By the way one of my favorite quotes is the first one listed below.)

“People today are trying to hang on to the dignity of man, but they do not know how to, because they have lost the truth that man is made in the image of God. . . . We are watching our culture put into effect the fact that when you tell men long enough that they are machines, it soon begins to show in their actions. You see it in our whole culture — in the theater of cruelty, in the violence in the streets, in the death of man in art and life.”
― Francis A. Schaeffer, Escape from Reason: A Penetrating Analysis of Trends in Modern Thought
“When a man comes under the blood of Christ, his whole capacity as a man is refashioned. His soul is saved, yes, but so are his mind and his body. True spirituality means the lordship of Christ over the total man.”
― Francis A. Schaeffer, Art & the Bible
“I am afraid that as evangelicals, we think that a work of art only has value if we reduce it to a tract.”
― Francis A. Schaeffer, Art & the Bible
“As Christians, we must see that just because an artist -even a great artist- portrays a worldview in writing or on canvas, it does not mean that we should automatically accept that worldview. Good art heightens the impact of that worldview, but it does not make it true.”
― Francis A. Schaeffer, Art & the Bible
“Returning to the Moral Majority, we must realize that regardless of whether we think the Moral Majority has always said the right things or whether we do not, or whether we think they have made some mistakes or whether we do not, they have certainly done one thing right: they have used the freedom we still have in the political arena to stand against the other total entity [secular humanism]. They have carried the fact that law is king, law is above the lawmakers, and God is above the law in to this area of life where it always should have been. And this is a part of true spirituality.The Moral Majority has drawn a line between the one total view of reality and the other total view of reality and the results this brings forth in government and law. And if you personally do not like some of the details of what they have done, do it better. But you must understand that all Christians have got to do the same kind of thing or you are simply not showing the Lordship of Christ in the totality of life.”
― Francis A. Schaeffer, A Christian Manifesto and Pollution and the Death of Man
“Christian art is the expression of the whole life of the whole person as a Christian. What a Christian portrays in his art is the totality of life. Art is not to be solely a vehicle for some sort of self-conscious evangelism.”
― Francis A. Schaeffer, Art & the Bible
“Truth carries with it confrontation. Truth demands confrontation; loving confrontation, but confrontation nevertheless.”
― Francis A. Schaeffer, The Great Evangelical Disaster
“We are not being true to the artist as a man if we consider his work “junk”, simply because we differ with his outlook on life. Instead, if the artist’s technical excellence is high, he is to be praised for this even if we differ with his worldview… Yet where his work shows his worldview, it must be judged by its relationship to the Christian worldview.If we stand as Christians before a man’s canvas and recognize that he is a great artist in technical excellence, we have been fair with him as a man. Then we can say that his worldview is wrong. We can judge his views on the same basis as we judge anybody else- philosopher, common man, laborer, business man, or whatever. God’s Word binds the great man and the small, the scientist and the simple, the king and the artist.We should realize that if something untrue or immoral is stated in great art, it can be far more devastating than if it is expressed in poor art. The greater the artistic expression, the more important it is to consciously bring it and it’s worldview under the judgment of Christ and the Bible. The common reaction among many however, is just the opposite. Ordinarily, many seem to feel that the greater the art, the less we ought to be critical of its worldview. This we must reverse.”
― Francis A. Schaeffer
“We should realize that if something untrue or immoral is stated in great art, it can be far more devastating than if it is expressed in poor art. The greater the artistic expression, the more important it is to consciously bring it and it’s worldview under the judgment of Christ and the Bible. The common reaction among many however, is just the opposite. Ordinarily, many seem to feel that the greater the art, the less we ought to be critical of its worldview. This we must reverse.”
― Francis A. Schaeffer, Art & the Bible
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By Everette Hatcher III, on April 7, 2013 at 6:25 am, under Francis Schaeffer, Prolife. 2 Comments
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Comments

  • David Lloyd-Jones  On April 8, 2013 at 7:36 am
    Permalink | Reply

    Everette,

    You write

    “Francis Schaeffer rightly noted, “If there is no absolute moral standard, then one cannot say in a final sense that anything is right or wrong. By absolute we mean that which always applies, that which provides a final or ultimate standard. There must be an absolute if there are to be morals, and there must be an absolute if there are to be real values. If there is no absolute beyond man’s ideas, then there is no final appeal to judge between individuals and groups whose moral judgements conflict. We are merely left with conflicting opinions.””

    This may very well be correct — but there is a funny coincidence out there. Religious absolutists tend to sound very much like Chicago economists: the absolute truth happens by accident to coincide with whatever they think on any particular day.

    -dlj.

    • Everette Hatcher III  On April 9, 2013 at 6:26 am
      Permalink | Reply

      Let me ask you a simple question and see if you can answer it with justification from your own view. If you saw the movie “Crimes and Misdemeanors” then on what basis would you condemn Judah for killing his mistress in order to avoid jail if there is no afterlife there to judge him? If you are not familiar with the film then read this short review that I wrote about the film. Here is a link to my earlier post that has some film clips. https://thedailyhatch.org/2012/07/11/discussion-of-woody-allens-1989-movie-crimes-and-misdemeanors-part-1/

      DISCUSSING FILMS AND SPIRITUAL MATTERS
      By Everette Hatcher III

      “Existential subjects to me are still the only subjects worth dealing with. I don’t think that one can aim more deeply than at the so-called existential themes, the spiritual themes.” WOODY ALLEN

      Evangelical Chuck Colson has observed that it used to be true that most Americans knew the Bible. Evangelists could simply call on them to repent and return. But today, most people lack understanding of biblical terms or concepts. Colson recommends that we first attempt to find common ground to engage people’s attention. That then may open a door to discuss spiritual matters.

      Woody Allen’s 1989 movie, CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS , is an excellent icebreaker concerning the need of God while making decisions in the area of personal morality. In this film, Allen attacks his own atheistic view of morality. Martin Landau plays a Jewish eye doctor named Judah Rosenthal raised by a religious father who always told him, “The eyes of God are always upon you.” However, Judah later concludes that God doesn’t exist. He has his mistress (played in the film by Anjelica Huston) murdered because she continually threatened to blow the whistle on his past questionable, probably illegal, business activities. She also attempted to break up Judah ‘s respectable marriage by going public with their two-year affair. Judah struggles with his conscience throughout the remainder of the movie. He continues to be haunted by his father’s words: “The eyes of God are always upon you.” This is a very scary phrase to a young boy, Judah observes. He often wondered how penetrating God’s eyes are.

      Later in the film, Judah reflects on the conversation his religious father had with Judah ‘s unbelieving Aunt May at the dinner table many years ago:

      “Come on Sol, open your eyes. Six million Jews burned to death by the Nazis, and they got away with it because might makes right,” says aunt May

      Sol replies, “May, how did they get away with it?”

      Judah asks, “If a man kills, then what?”

      Sol responds to his son, “Then in one way or another he will be punished.”

      Aunt May comments, “I say if he can do it and get away with it and he chooses not to be bothered by the ethics, then he is home free.”

      Judah ‘s final conclusion was that might did make right. He observed that one day, because of this conclusion, he woke up and the cloud of guilt was gone. He was, as his aunt said, “home free.”

      Woody Allen has exposed a weakness in his own humanistic view that God is not necessary as a basis for good ethics. There must be an enforcement factor in order to convince Judah not to resort to murder. Otherwise, it is fully to Judah ‘s advantage to remove this troublesome woman from his life.

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