But if this map from the Education Freedom Alliance is any indication. I’ll be addressing the issue many more times over the next two years.
By the way, this map changed very recently.
That’s because Alabama became the most recent state to adopt choice. Here are some details from a local news outlet.
HB129, called the CHOOSE Act, would create education savings accounts, or ESAs, for families of students to use toward eligible education expenses. The Senate Education Budget committee approved the House version in a hastily rescheduled meeting Tuesday afternoon. The final vote Wednesday was 23-9 and fell along party lines, with Republicans voting yes and Democrats voting no.…“It was an honor to work with Governor Ivey and her team to swiftly pass a school choice bill that she declared her number one priority this Session,” Sen. Arthur Orr, R-Decatur, said in a statement after the vote. …“Children are our future, and there is no greater responsibility for lawmakers than ensuring our kids have every resource needed for academic success regardless of their zip code,” Senate President Pro Tempore Greg Reed said. …The first ESAs will be available in the 2025-26 school year and will be limited to eligible students. All students will be eligible for ESAs at the start of the 2027-28 school year. …The parent of a student receiving an ESA must agree to pay the remaining amount of tuition or expenses beyond the $7,000 cap.
Congratulations to Alabama families.
I’ll close with the observation that the great school choice news in recent years has only been possible because the American system still has a decent amount of federalism.
Not as much as we used to have, unfortunately, but still enough that sensible states have the liberty to do good things (bad states, by contrast, will continue to neglect children and instead use their education systems as a way of transferring money to teacher unions).
P.S. One takeaway is that the Department of Education in Washington should be abolished.
All of these factors help to explain why school choice is expanding all across the nation (at least in places where lawmakers are not controlled by teacher unions).
Today, though, let’s set aside the national arguments and focus on a local example from the reliably crazy state of California.
Heather McDonald has a sobering column about Los Angeles government schools in City Journal.
Much of her article focuses on ideological indoctrination of students, but here’s the passage that caught my attention.
Any school system that can afford climate advocates (as part of a black uplift plan, no less) is not hurting for taxpayer dollars. Any school system that runs a massive system of subcontracting for “psychiatric social workers” and “counselors” is not hurting for taxpayer dollars.Such a system has more money than it knows what to do with. Indeed, the LAUSD budget for the 2022–23 school year was $20 billion—more than that of some nations. Divide that pot among the district’s 397,623 K-12 students, and taxpayers are paying the equivalent of an Ivy League tuition—over $50,000—for every student, every year. Add “clients” in other functions that the LAUSD has embraced— early education centers, infant centers, and adult education—and the district spends a still-lavish $35,341 per student. The LAUSD is not underfunded. It is overfunded. The reasons for student failure lie elsewhere than in allegedly inadequate resources.
Wow.
I wrote about the failing Los Angeles government schools system back in 2010, but the focus then was about under-performing teachers.
Today, the issue is an over-funded system. The government schools are getting $35.000-$50,000 per student, yet doing a crummy job.
How crummy?
Howard Blume of the L.A. Times wrote about the bad news last October.
In math, …about 7 in 10 students do not meet standards. …for Black students…, only 19% met the learning standards in math. …Latinos make up about 3 in 4 students; about 24% met learning standards. …L.A. Unified math scores still were below levels from the 2017-18 school year, two years before the pandemic resulted in campus closures. The same is true for English scores, which were slightly down overall compared with last year, with 41.2% of students meeting standards. Among all district students, scores dropped by half a percentage point.
The only practical answer to this mess is school choice.
Instead of squandering $35,000-$50,000 per student of government schools that produce bad test scores, divvy up the money and give families some type of voucher or educational savings account that can be used to pay tuition at higher-performing private schools.
Families could opt to stay in government schools, of course, especially if they value indoctrination.
But it’s safe to assume most families will be more interested in better education.
Milton Friedman: It is an interesting thing, if you look at the facts, the one area, the area in which the low-income people of this country, the blacks and the minority, are most disadvantaged is with respect with the kinds of schools they can send their children to. The people who live in Harlem or the slums or the corresponding areas in LA or San Francisco, they can go to the same stores, shop in the same stores everybody else can, they can buy the same automobiles, they can go to supermarket, but they have very limited choice of schools. Everybody agrees that the schools in those areas are the worst. They are poor. Yet, here you have a Democrat who allege their interest is to help the poor and the low-income people. Here you have to take a different point. Every poll has shown that the strongest supporters of vouchers are the low-income blacks, and yet hardly a single black leader has been willing to come out for vouchers. There were some exceptions, Paul Williams in Milwaukee who was responsible for that, and a few others.
EXCLUSIVE – A Democrat in the Georgia General Assembly who angered her party by supporting a recent school choice bill says fellow progressives are hypocritically abandoning some of the state’s most vulnerable people.
“Why is no one fighting for young Black minds? Why isn’t that one of the things that we’re fighting for?” State Rep. Mesha Mainor said, adding, “I actually say you’re a hypocrite. That’s what I tell them directly. You are being a hypocrite. There are state lawmakers right now where their children are in schools that they’re not even zoned for… They’re lying about their address, state lawmakers, but they won’t vote for this bill.”
Mainor’s deep-blue 56th House district stretches from southwest Atlanta up into the Midtown area and includes schools in dire need of improvement. Asked why she supported the school choice bill that ultimately didn’t pass, she responded she prefers the term “parent choice.”
“I support parent choice because some parents have children in schools where their needs are not being met,” she told Fox News Digital. “In my district in particular, we have schools with 3% reading proficiency, 3% have obtained math proficiency by the eighth grade. And so to say that this is just how it is and that the kid needs to just suffer these consequences, I don’t agree with that. And I don’t think that all parents agree with that either.”
Georgia General Assembly member Mesha Mainor, D., discusses why she calls school choice “parent choice” and how she has bucked her party to support vouchers for students at underperforming schools.(Fox News Digital)
School choice has been a subject of intense debate for years, with teachers union-backed Democrats often fiercely opposing such measures as siphoning funding from public schools. Proponents say parents and children deserve opportunities for the best education and shouldn’t be punished for living in poorly performing districts.
School choice advocates also support expansion of charter schools, which have grown greatly in Georgia in recent years and many of which count minority students as a majority of their enrollments. Charter schools are publicly funded schools that are independently run and include students who aren’t in the immediate area; teachers unions often oppose them as well since their teachers generally aren’t unionized.
“We should be voting at times just for our district and at times for the entire state of Georgia,” Mainor said.
The bill that would have expanded opportunities for students who attend Georgia’s lowest-rated schools was surprisingly shot down last month due to opposition from some rural Republicans.
Georgia Senate Bill 233 would have created $6,500-vouchers for students at schools performing in the bottom-25 percent in the state, to help pay for private school tuition and homeschooling expenses if they were inclined. Gov. Brian Kemp, R., pushed for it, and it appeared to have the votes to pass under the Republican-controlled Golden Dome, until 16 House Republicans voted it down.
It’s not dead yet, as it could still be brought for a vote at a later time. Any political battles in Georgia now attract outsized attention, given the state’s battleground status in presidential elections.
Georgia has emerged as one of the country’s top battleground states.(Charlie Creitz/Fox News)
Opponents of the bill said the vouchers would hurt local public school systems needing additional funding, particularly those in poorer communities. The state planned to deduct public schools’ funding for each student that takes their education dollars elsewhere.
Mainor was the only Democrat who voted for it, and her fellow party members let her hear about it. A Democrat in the State Senate, Josh McLaurin, offered $1,000 to anyone who would primary her. State Rep. Michelle Au, D., linked to an AJC article about Mainor facing a primary challenge and wrote, “This is about floridly whipping votes in favor of a harmful bill we took a CAUCUS POSITION AGAINST.”
McLaurin represents Sandy Springs, an affluent city known for its array of corporate headquarters in north Fulton County. Mainor retorted that he doesn’t have children, represents a district with thriving schools and has “no idea of what it means to live in a poverty-stricken community with no resources, with no hope.”
“To me, it’s ludicrous,” she said. “I think my fellow Democrats – and not all of them, I hate to say that because it’s not all of them – some of my colleagues will march in the streets for abortion rights. I’m pro-choice. They were crying on the floor for transgender rights. They were very outspoken about anti-Semitism. My problem is, why is no one fighting for young Black minds?… And so to say that all these other issues are important, but a child living in poverty that’s of color is at the bottom of your totem pole of priorities, that’s a problem with the value system if you ask me.”
“I can only assume it’s because poor Black children are not their priority,” she added. “Let’s put it like that. Until the Democratic Party wants to put poor Black children as a priority, then State Representative Mesha Mainor will continue to vote against them when it comes to these educational needs.”
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp supported a school choice bill in March that surprisingly didn’t pass. (Megan Varner/Getty Images)
Fox News Digital reached out to McLaurin for comment.
She also said it was “absolutely the truth” that Democrats are afraid of running afoul of powerful teachers unions; the Georgia Federation of Teachers has made removing Mainor from office a pet project.
“Teachers don’t necessarily agree with what the teachers union supports, because guess what? Teachers have children in failing schools. Teachers have children that have special needs that benefit from these services. So I think the teachers union is actually out of touch with their own constituency,” Mainor said.
Her constituents, she says, don’t care if she votes on a straight party line, but instead thank her for keeping their needs in mind. Born and raised in Atlanta, Mainor said her mother used someone else’s address, so her daughter could attend one of the better public high schools in the city.
She also disagreed with the notion that more money needs to be put into public schools, but instead there needed to be more responsible fiscal governance from local boards.
“I don’t think throwing money at a system that’s not working is the answer. I think going in and looking at how the money is spent is what needs to be done first,” she said.
Axios reported Mainor has voted with Republicans on other major issues since she took office in 2021, including a ban on localities lowering police budgets and a controversial oversight board for prosecutors.
Firefighters work to extinguish a fire after an Atlanta police vehicle was set on fire during a “Stop cop city” protest in Atlanta, Georgia, United States on January 21, 2023. (Benjamin Hendren/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
A physical therapist who is also pursuing a doctorate in business administration, Mainor said her Christian faith helped guide her to run for office, pointing in part to Priscilla Shirer’s book, “Discerning the Voice of God.” She is a single mother with two children, one of whom is about to head to college.
“I’m not a part of anybody’s system. I’m not part of anybody’s ‘in’ crowd,” she said. “God said to run, and so we’re going to run. And I won… The moment I hear I need to get out, I will get out.”
The Georgia State Department of Education recently identified 175 low-performing schools in need of additional support, with issues like poor graduation rates and falling behind on key skills. All of them are Title 1-schools, meaning at least 40% of the student body comes from low-income families, GPB reported.
Arkansas’ new governor, Sarah Sanders, on Wednesday signed into state law a major education-reform initiative. Pictured: Then still a candidate for governor, Sanders addresses the America First Policy Institute Agenda Summit in Washington last July 26. (Photo: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images)
Jason Bedrick is a research fellow with The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Education Policy.
Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Wednesday signed into law what she called “the largest overhaul of the state’s education system in Arkansas history.”
The “Arkansas LEARNS” initiative is an ambitious reform agenda that expands school choice, modernizes school transportation, restructures teacher compensation to pay more for performance, provides supplemental education for struggling students, and prohibits Arkansas public schools from indoctrinating students.
“We’ve seen how the status quo condemns Arkansans to a lifetime of poverty, and we’re tired of sitting at the bottom of national education rankings,” Sanders said. “We know that if we don’t plant this seed today, then there will be nothing for our kids to reap down the line.”
Perhaps the boldest component of the initiative is the creation of Educational Freedom Accounts, which are similar to education savings account (ESA) policies in 11 other states. With an ESA, families can pay for private school tuition, tutoring, textbooks, homeschool curriculums, online learning, special-needs therapy, and more. ESAs empower families to choose the learning environments that align with their values and best meet their children’s individual learning needs.
Eligibility for the ESAs phases in over three years. In the third year of the ESA program’s operation, all K-12 students will be eligible. In the first year of the ESA program (the 2023-24 academic year), all incoming kindergarten students in Arkansas will be eligible. So will students with disabilities, homeless students, children in foster care, the children of active-duty military personnel, students assigned to low-performing district schools, or children enrolled in one of Arkansas’s other school choice programs.
According to a recent Morning Consult survey, 7 in 10 Arkansans support an ESA policy. Support is even higher among parents of school-aged children, 78% of whom support ESAs.
The Arkansas LEARNS initiative will significantly improve the state’s national standing on education issues. Last year, Arkansas ranked No. 18 in the nation for education choice on The Heritage Foundation’s Education Freedom Report Card. (The Daily Signal is the news outlet of The Heritage Foundation.)
The enactment of a universal ESA would have boosted Arkansas to No. 5 in the nation, assuming other states’ policies remained constant. Of course, competition for the top five will be fierce as states such as Florida, Indiana, Ohio, Oklahoma, and Texas are also considering adopting universal education choice policies.
Arkansas’ initiative also takes important steps to protect school students from being exposed to indoctrination or discrimination.
The law requires the Arkansas Department of Education to review its “rules, policies, materials, and communications” to ensure that they are in compliance with the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and do not “conflict with the principle of equal protection under the law or encourage students to discriminate against someone based on the individual’s color, creed, race, ethnicity, sex, age, marital status, familial status, disability, religion, national origin, or any other characteristic protected by federal or state law.”
The law also prohibits school faculty and staff or guest speakers from compelling students to “adopt, affirm, or profess an idea in violation” of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, such as that people of one race or ethnicity are inherently superior or inferior to anyone else, or that individuals should “be discriminated against or receive adverse treatment solely or partly because of the individual’s color, creed, race, ethnicity, sex” or other characteristics protected by law.
The statute makes clear that it does not prohibit the discussion of ideas and or the teaching of history.
Students in Arkansas will still learn about the ugly aspects of American history, such as slavery, segregation, and Jim Crow. However, the law will appropriately prohibit lessons that divide students into “oppressors” or “oppressed,” based solely on skin color or that associate certain traits with particular skin colors.
As Tony Kinnett recently reported in The Daily Signal, there are recorded instances of such lessons in critical race theory in Arkansas classrooms, despite the best efforts of mainstream media outlets to deny it.
With the enactment of the Arkansas LEARNS initiative, Sanders has raised the bar for conservative education reform. Arkansas will now be among the top states that empower families to choose the learning environments that work best for their kids.
Arkansas has also taken an important step to ensure that traditional public schools are focused on education, not indoctrination.
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As we wrap up our National School Choice Week look at the history of school choice, I’m going to explore some notable milestones in the U.S. over the years. For more in‐depth coverage, be sure to check out our new School Choice Timeline.
When we talk about school choice, we generally mean a program where public funding follows students to nonpublic schools. This becomes particularly important after the mid‐1800s, when state governments began to mandate taxpayers fund and children attend specific schools established and run by local government entities. Prior to that, education was typically a private or local concern—the domain of parents or small communities.
The oldest school choice program in the U.S. is Vermont’s town tuitioning program. Vermont’s founding constitution, adopted in 1777, required the legislature to establish a school in each town. As the state grew and the population became more dispersed, some towns could not support a public school. In 1869, the legislature passed a law allowing students from a town without a public school to attend any public or private school in or outside of Vermont, with the sending town paying the receiving school’s tuition. Originally, parents could choose religious private schools, but that option was removed by the state’s supreme court in 1961. The U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in Carson v. Makin overturned a similar ban on religious schools in Maine’s town tuitioning program. In response, the Vermont Secretary of Education notified superintendents that “School districts may not deny tuition payments to religious” schools that otherwise meet the criteria for the program.
The Milwaukee Parental Choice Program, created in 1990, is the country’s first modern private school choice program. Right in line with Milton Friedman’s 1955 idea for a tuition voucher, the program offers private school vouchers to low‐ and middle‐income families who live in Milwaukee. In its first year, 341 students used vouchers to attend seven private schools in the city. This year, 129 schools in the metro Milwaukee area are participating in the program, enrolling nearly 29,000 students. The value of the voucher increases when state aid to school districts increases. Today there are 26 voucher programs running in 15 states plus Washington, DC and Puerto Rico.
Arizona introduced the Individual Income Tax Credit Scholarship Program, the nation’s first tax credit scholarship, in 1997. It provides tax credits to individuals who donate to school tuition organizations that provide scholarships for private school tuition. While the tax credits are worth 100% of the donation, they’re capped at $611 per donor. There is no cap on scholarship values, students can receive multiple scholarships, and every K–12 student in the state is eligible to participate in the program. There are now 26 tax credit scholarship programs in 21 states.
While I’ve long known that Milton Friedman is considered the father of school vouchers, I only recently learned he later suggested “partial vouchers”—which sound a lot like education savings accounts (ESAs). Here’s how he described them in a 2006 EducationNext interview:
Moreover, there’s no reason to expect that the future market will have the shape or form that our present market has. How do we know how education will develop? Why is it sensible for a child to get all his or her schooling in one brick building? Why not add partial vouchers? Why not let them spend part of a voucher for math in one place and English or science somewhere else? Why should schooling have to be in one building? Why can’t a student take some lessons at home, especially now, with the availability of the Internet? Right now, as a matter of fact, one of the biggest growth areas has been home schooling. There are more children being home schooled than there are in all of the voucher programs combined.
Friedman’s words proved prophetic when Arizona created the nation’s first ESA in 2011: the Empowerment Scholarship Account program. Originally limited to students with special needs, the program allows parents who opt out of public school to receive a portion of state education funding in an account that can be used for a variety of approved educational purchases—like private school tuition, tutoring, or education therapies.
Other states adopted similar ESAs that were restricted to various populations (students with special needs, military families, economically disadvantaged families, children assigned to low‐performing public schools, etc.). In 2021, West Virginia made a huge jump forward with Hope Scholarships, an ESA that’s open to every child in public schools (93% of kids in the state). Last year, Arizona re‐claimed the ESA crown by becoming the first state with universal eligibility. Already this year, Iowahas joined the universal ESA club and Utahis on the verge. Other states are poised to follow suit. After decades of baby steps, universal school choice is on the march.
Assuming courts are doing their job, it doesn’t matterif 90 percent of voters support restrictions on free speech.
Assuming courts are doing their job, it doesn’t matter if 90 percent of voters support gun confiscation.
Assuming courts are doing their job, it doesn’t matter if 90 percent of voters support warrantless searches.
That being said, a constitutional republic is a democratic form of government. And if government is staying within proper boundaries, political decisions should be based on majority rule, as expressed through elections.
In some cases, that will lead to decisions I don’t like. For instance, the (tragic) 16th Amendment gives the federal government the authority to impose an income tax and voters repeatedly have elected politicians who have opted to exercise that authority.
Needless to say, I will continue my efforts to educate voters and lawmakers in hopes that eventually there will be majorities that choose a different approach. That’s how things should work in a properly functioning democracy.
But not everyone agrees.
A report in the New York Times, authored by Elizabeth Harris and Alexandra Alter, discusses the controversy over which books should be in the libraries of government schools.
The Keller Independent School District, just outside of Dallas, passed a new rule in November: It banned books from its libraries that include the concept of gender fluidity. …recently, the issue has been supercharged by a rapidly growing and increasingly influential constellation of conservative groups.The organizations frequently describe themselves as defending parental rights. …“This is not about banning books, it’s about protecting the innocence of our children,” said Keith Flaugh, one of the founders of Florida Citizens Alliance, a conservative group focused on education… The restrictions, said Emerson Sykes, a First Amendment litigator for the American Civil Liberties Union, infringe on students’ “right to access a broad range of material without political censorship.” …In Florida, parents who oppose book banning formed the Freedom to Read Project.
As indicated by the excerpt, some people are very sloppy with language.
If a school decides not to buy a certain book for its library, that is not a “book ban.” Censorship only exists when the government uses coercion to prevent people from buying books with their own money.
As I wrote earlier this year, “The fight is not over which books to ban. It’s about which books to buy.”
And this brings us back to the issue of democracy.
School libraries obviously don’t have the space or funds to stock every book ever published, so somebody has to make choices. And voters have the ultimate power to make those choices since they elect school boards.
I’ll close by noting that democracy does not please everyone. Left-leaning parents in Alabama probably don’t always like the decisions of their school boards,just like right-leaning parents in Vermont presumably don’t always like the decisions of their school boards.
And the same thing happens with other contentious issues, such as teaching critical race theory.
Which is why school choice is the best outcome. Then, regardless of ideology, parents can choose schools that have the curriculum (and books) that they think will be best for their children.
P.S. If you want to peruse a genuine example of censorship, click here.
In a study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, Professors David N. Figlio, Cassandra M.D. Hart & Krzysztof Karbownikfound that school choice led to benefits even for kids who remained stuck in government schools.
They enjoyed better academic outcomes, which is somewhat surprising, but even I was pleasantly shocked to see improved behavioral outcomes as well.
School choice programs have been growing in the United States and worldwide over the past two decades, and thus there is considerable interest in how these policies affect students remaining in public schools. …the evidence on the effects of these programs as they scale up is virtually non-existent. Here, we investigate this question using data from the state of Florida where, over the course of our sample period, the voucher program participation increased nearly seven-fold.We find consistent evidence that as the program grows in size, students in public schools that faced higher competitive pressure levels see greater gains from the program expansion than do those in locations with less competitive pressure. Importantly, we find that these positive externalities extend to behavioral outcomes— absenteeism and suspensions—that have not been well-explored in prior literature on school choice from either voucher or charter programs. Our preferred competition measure, the Competitive Pressure Index, produces estimates implying that a 10 percent increase in the number of students participating in the voucher program increases test scores by 0.3 to 0.7 percent of a standard deviation and reduces behavioral problems by 0.6 to 0.9 percent. …Finally, we find that public school students who are most positively affected come from comparatively lower socioeconomic background, which is the set of students that schools should be most concerned about losing under the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship program.
It’s good news that competition from the private sector produces better results in government schools.
But it’s great news that those from disadvantaged backgrounds disproportionately benefit when there is more school choice.
Wonkier readers will enjoy Figure A2, which shows the benefits to regular kids on the right and disadvantaged kids on the left.
Since the study looked at results in Florida, I’ll close by observing that Florida is ranked #1 for education freedom and ranked #3 for school choice.
P.S. Here’s a video explaining the benefits of school choice.
P.P.S. There’s international evidence from Sweden, Chile, Canada, and the Netherlands, all of which shows superior results when competition replaces government education monopolies.
———-
Milton Friedman chose the emphasis on school choice and school vouchers as his greatest legacy and hopefully the Supreme Court will help that dream see a chance!
Monopoly government school systems cost a lot of moneyand do a bad job.The interests of the education bureaucracy rank higherthan the educational needs of kids. Poor families are especially disadvantaged.
But 2022 may be a good year as well. That’s because the Supreme Court is considering whether to strike down state laws that restrict choice by discriminating against religious schools.
Michael Bindas of the Institute for Justice and Walter Womack of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference make the case for a level playing field in a column for the New York Times.
In 2002, the Supreme Court held that the Constitution allows school choice programs to include schools that provide religious instruction, so long as the voucher program also offers secular options. The question now before the court is whether a state may nevertheless exclude schools that provide religious instruction. The case, Carson v. Makin, …concerns Maine’s tuition assistance program. In that large and sparsely populated state, over half of the school districts have no public high schools. If a student lives in such a district, and it does not contract with another high school to educate its students, then the district must pay tuition for the student to attend the school of her or his parents’ choice. …But one type of school is off limits: a school that provides religious instruction. That may seem unconstitutional, and we argue that it is. Only last year, the Supreme Court, citing the free exercise clause of the Constitution, held that states cannot bar students in a school choice program from selecting religious schools when it allows them to choose other private schools. …The outcome will be enormously consequential for families in public schools that are failing them and will go a long way toward determining whether the most disadvantaged families can exercise the same control over the education of their children as wealthier citizens.
The Wall Street Journaleditorialized on this issue earlier this week.
Maine has one of the country’s oldest educational choice systems, a tuition program for students who live in areas that don’t run schools of their own. Instead these families get to pick a school, and public funds go toward enrollment. Religious schools are excluded, however, and on Wednesday the Supreme Court will hear from parents who have closely read the First Amendment.…Maine argues it isn’t denying funds based on the religious “status” of any school… The state claims, rather, that it is merely refusing to allocate money for a “religious use,” specifically, “an education designed to proselytize and inculcate children with a particular faith.” In practice, this distinction between “status” and “use” falls apart. Think about it: Maine is happy to fund tuition at an evangelical school, as long as nothing evangelical is taught. Hmmm. …A state can’t subsidize tuition only for private schools with government-approved values, and trying to define the product as “secular education” gives away the game. …America’s Founders knew what they were doing when they wrote the First Amendment to protect religious “free exercise.”
What does the other side say?
Rachel Laser, head of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, doesn’t want religious schools to be treated equally under school choice programs.
…two sets of parents in Maine claim that the Constitution’s promise of religious freedom actually requires the state to fund religious education at private schools with taxpayer dollars — as a substitute for public education. This interpretation flips the meaning of religious freedom on its head and threatens both true religious freedom and public education.…The problem here is even bigger than public funds paying for praying, as wrong as that is. Unlike public schools, private religious schools often do not honor civil rights protections, especially for LGBTQ people, women, students with disabilities, religious minorities and the nonreligious. …If the court were to agree with the parents, it would also be rejecting the will of three-quarters of the states, which long ago enacted clauses in their state constitutions and passed statutes specifically prohibiting public funding of religious education. …It is up to parents and religious communities to educate their children in their faith. Publicly funded schools should never serve that purpose.
These arguments are not persuasive.
The fact that many state constitutions include so-called Blaine amendments actually undermines her argument since those provisions were motivated by a desire to discriminate against parochial schools that provided education to Catholic immigrants.
And it’s definitely not clear why school choice shouldn’t include religious schools that follow religious teachings, unless she also wants to argue that student grants and loans shouldn’t go to students at Notre Dame, Brigham Young, Liberty, and other religiously affiliated colleges.
The good news is that Ms. Laser’s arguments don’t seem to be winning. Based on this report from yesterday’s Washington Post, authored by Robert Barnes, there are reasons to believe the Justices will make the right decision.
Conservatives on the Supreme Court seemed…critical of a Maine tuition program that does not allow public funds to go to schools that promote religious instruction. The case involves an unusual program in a small state that affects only a few thousand students. But it could have greater implications… The oral argument went on for nearly two hours and featured an array of hypotheticals. …But the session ended as most suspected it would, with the three liberal justices expressing support for Maine and the six conservatives skeptical that it protected religious parents from unconstitutional discrimination.
I can’t resist sharing this additional excerpt about President Biden deciding to side with teacher unions instead of students.
The Justice Department switched its position in the case after President Biden was inaugurated and now supports Maine.
Instead, let’s close with some uplifting thoughts about what might happen if we get a good decision from the Supreme Court when decisions are announced next year.
Maybe I’m overly optimistic, but I think we’re getting close to a tipping point. As more and more states and communities shift to choice, we will have more and more evidence that it’s a win-win for both families and taxpayers.
Which will lead to more choice programs, which will produce more helpful data.
Libertarians and others are often torn about school choice. They may wish to see the government schooling monopoly weakened, but they may resist supporting choice mechanisms, like vouchers and education savings accounts, because they don’t go far enough. Indeed, most current choice programs continue to rely on taxpayer funding of education and don’t address the underlying compulsory nature of elementary and secondary schooling.
Skeptics may also have legitimate fears that taxpayer-funded education choice programs will lead to over-regulation of previously independent and parochial schooling options, making all schooling mirror compulsory mass schooling, with no substantive variation.
Friedman Challenged Compulsory Schooling Laws
Milton Friedman had these same concerns. The Nobel prize-winning economist is widely considered to be the one to popularize the idea of vouchers and school choice beginning with his 1955 paper, “The Role of Government in Education.” His vision continues to be realized through the important work of EdChoice, formerly the Friedman Foundation for Education Choice, that Friedman and his economist wife, Rose, founded in 1996.
July 31 is Milton Friedman’s birthday. He died in 2006 at the age of 94, but his ideas continue to have an impact, particularly in education policy.
Friedman saw vouchers and other choice programs as half-measures. He recognized the larger problems of taxpayer funding and compulsion, but saw vouchers as an important starting point in allowing parents to regain control of their children’s education. In their popular book, Free To Choose, first published in 1980, the Friedmans wrote:
We regard the voucher plan as a partial solution because it affects neither the financing of schooling nor the compulsory attendance laws. We favor going much farther. (p.161)
They continued:
The compulsory attendance laws are the justification for government control over the standards of private schools. But it is far from clear that there is any justification for the compulsory attendance laws themselves. (p. 162)
The Friedmans admitted that their “own views on this have changed over time,” as they realized that “compulsory attendance at schools is not necessary to achieve that minimum standard of literacy and knowledge,” and that “schooling was well-nigh universal in the United States before either compulsory attendance or government financing of schooling existed. Like most laws, compulsory attendance laws have costs as well as benefits. We no longer believe the benefits justify the costs.” (pp. 162-3)
Still, they felt that vouchers would be the essential starting point toward chipping away at monopoly mass schooling by putting parents back in charge. School choice, in other words, would be a necessary but not sufficient policy approach toward addressing the underlying issue of government control of education.
Vouchers as a First Step
In their book, the Friedmans presented the potential outcomes of their proposed voucher plan, which would give parents access to some or all of the average per-pupil expenditures of a child enrolled in public school. They believed that vouchers would help create a more competitive education market, encouraging education entrepreneurship. They felt that parents would be more empowered with greater control over their children’s education and have a stronger desire to contribute some of their own money toward education. They asserted that in many places “the public school has fostered residential stratification, by tying the kind and cost of schooling to residential location” and suggested that voucher programs would lead to increased integration and heterogeneity. (pp. 166-7)
To the critics who said, and still say, that school choice programs would destroy the public schools, the Friedmans replied that these critics fail to
explain why, if the public school system is doing such a splendid job, it needs to fear competition from nongovernmental, competitive schools or, if it isn’t, why anyone should object to its “destruction.” (p. 170)
What I appreciate most about the Friedmans discussion of vouchers and the promise of school choice is their unrelenting support of parents. They believed that parents, not government bureaucrats and intellectuals, know what is best for their children’s education and well-being and are fully capable of choosing wisely for their children—when they have the opportunity to do so.
They wrote:
Parents generally have both greater interest in their children’s schooling and more intimate knowledge of their capacities and needs than anyone else. Social reformers, and educational reformers in particular, often self-righteously take for granted that parents, especially those who are poor and have little education themselves, have little interest in their children’s education and no competence to choose for them. That is a gratuitous insult. Such parents have frequently had limited opportunity to choose. However, U.S. history has demonstrated that, given the opportunity, they have often been willing to sacrifice a great deal, and have done so wisely, for their children’s welfare. (p. 160).
Today, school voucher programs exist in 15 states plus the District of Columbia. These programs have consistently shown that when parents are given the choice to opt-out of an assigned district school, many will take advantage of the opportunity. In Washington, D.C., low-income parents who win a voucher lottery send their children to private schools.
The most recent three-year federal evaluationof voucher program participants found that while student academic achievement was comparable to achievement for non-voucher students remaining in public schools, there were statistically significant improvements in other important areas. For instance, voucher participants had lower rates of chronic absenteeism than the control groups, as well as higher student satisfaction scores. There were also tremendous cost-savings.
In Wisconsin, the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program has served over 28,000 low-income students attending 129 participating private schools.
According to Corey DeAngelis, Director of School Choice at the Reason Foundation and a prolific researcher on the topic, the recent analysis of the D.C. voucher program “reveals that private schools produce the same academic outcomes for only a third of the cost of the public schools. In other words, school choice is a great investment.”
In Wisconsin, the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program was created in 1990 and is the nation’s oldest voucher program. It currently serves over 28,000 low-income students attending 129 participating private schools. Like the D.C. voucher program, data on test scores of Milwaukee voucher students show similar results to public school students, but non-academic results are promising.
Increased Access and Decreased Crime
Recent research found voucher recipients had lower crime rates and lower incidences of unplanned pregnancies in young adulthood. On his birthday, let’s celebrate Milton Friedman’s vision of enabling parents, not government, to be in control of a child’s education.
According to Howard Fuller, an education professor at Marquette University, founder of the Black Alliance for Educational Options, and one of the developers of the Milwaukee voucher program, the key is parent empowerment—particularly for low-income minority families.
In an interview with NPR, Fuller said: “What I’m saying to you is that there are thousands of black children whose lives are much better today because of the Milwaukee parental choice program,” he says. “They were able to access better schools than they would have without a voucher.”
Putting parents back in charge of their child’s education through school choice measures was Milton Friedman’s goal. It was not his ultimate goal, as it would not fully address the funding and compulsion components of government schooling; but it was, and remains, an important first step. As the Friedmans wrote in Free To Choose:
The strong American tradition of voluntary action has provided many excellent examples that demonstrate what can be done when parents have greater choice. (p. 159).
On his birthday, let’s celebrate Milton Friedman’s vision of enabling parents, not government, to be in control of a child’s education.
Michael Harrington: If you don’t have the expertise, the knowledge technology today, you’re out of the debate. And I think that we have to democratize information and government as well as the economy and society. FRIEDMAN: I am sorry to say Michael Harrington’s solution is not a solution to it. He wants minority rule, I […]
By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events, Milton Friedman | Edit | Comments (0)
PETERSON: Well, let me ask you how you would cope with this problem, Dr. Friedman. The people decided that they wanted cool air, and there was tremendous need, and so we built a huge industry, the air conditioning industry, hundreds of thousands of jobs, tremendous earnings opportunities and nearly all of us now have air […]
By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events, Milton Friedman | Edit | Comments (0)
Part 5 Milton Friedman: I do not believe it’s proper to put the situation in terms of industrialist versus government. On the contrary, one of the reasons why I am in favor of less government is because when you have more government industrialists take it over, and the two together form a coalition against the ordinary […]
By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events, Milton Friedman | Edit | Comments (0)
The fundamental principal of the free society is voluntary cooperation. The economic market, buying and selling, is one example. But it’s only one example. Voluntary cooperation is far broader than that. To take an example that at first sight seems about as far away as you can get __ the language we speak; the words […]
By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events, Milton Friedman | Edit | Comments (0)
_________________________ Pt3 Nowadays there’s a considerable amount of traffic at this border. People cross a little more freely than they use to. Many people from Hong Kong trade in China and the market has helped bring the two countries closer together, but the barriers between them are still very real. On this side […]
By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events, Milton Friedman | Edit | Comments (0)
Aside from its harbor, the only other important resource of Hong Kong is people __ over 4_ million of them. Like America a century ago, Hong Kong in the past few decades has been a haven for people who sought the freedom to make the most of their own abilities. Many of them are […]
By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events, Milton Friedman | Edit | Comments (0)
“FREE TO CHOOSE” 1: The Power of the Market (Milton Friedman) Free to Choose ^ | 1980 | Milton Friedman Posted on Monday, July 17, 2006 4:20:46 PM by Choose Ye This Day FREE TO CHOOSE: The Power of the Market Friedman: Once all of this was a swamp, covered with forest. The Canarce Indians […]
If you would like to see the first three episodes on inflation in Milton Friedman’s film series “Free to Choose” then go to a previous post I did. Ep. 9 – How to Cure Inflation [4/7]. Milton Friedman’s Free to Choose (1980) Uploaded by investbligurucom on Jun 16, 2010 While many people have a fairly […]
Charlie Rose interview of Milton Friedman My favorite economist: Milton Friedman : A Great Champion of Liberty by V. Sundaram Milton Friedman, the Nobel Prize-winning economist who advocated an unfettered free market and had the ear of three US Presidents – Nixon, Ford and Reagan – died last Thursday (16 November, 2006 ) in San Francisco […]
By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Milton Friedman | Edit | Comments (0)
Stearns Speaks on House Floor in Support of Balanced Budget Amendment Uploaded by RepCliffStearns on Nov 18, 2011 Speaking on House floor in support of Balanced Budget Resolution, 11/18/2011 ___________ Below are some of the main proposals of Milton Friedman. I highly respected his work. David J. Theroux said this about Milton Friedman’s view concerning […]
By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Milton Friedman | Edit | Comments (0)
Milton Friedman: Free To Choose – The Failure Of Socialism With Ronald Reagan (Full) Published on Mar 19, 2012 by NoNationalityNeeded Milton Friedman’s writings affected me greatly when I first discovered them and I wanted to share with you. We must not head down the path of socialism like Greece has done. Abstract: Ronald Reagan […]
By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Milton Friedman, President Obama | Edit | Comments (1)
What a great defense of Milton Friedman!!!! Defaming Milton Friedman by Johan Norberg This article appeared in Reason Online on September 26, 2008 PRINT PAGE CITE THIS Sans Serif Serif Share with your friends: ShareThis In the future, if you tell a student or a journalist that you favor free markets and limited government, there is […]
In 1992 I began to write skeptics letters after reading their books and articles and watching their films and I was introduced to Carl Sagan’s name by a book published in 1968 by Francis Schaeffer entitled HE IS THERE AND HE IS NOT SILENT in chapter 4!
Sagan in 1980
It is my view that Carl Sagan let his evolutionary views affect the way he looked at the issue of abortion. I would like to also assert that Sagan was willing to manipulate science in order to try and reach objectives he had that didn’t fit the evidence. The tactic he uses in his article on abortion in 1990 is especially reprehensible because he is using the language of a discredited scientific notion to try and give the impression that there is a scientific reason that it is okay to abortion unborn babies. Anybody familiar with Carl Sagan’s work knows how powerful he can be with his word pictures.
Recently I have been revisiting my correspondence in 1995 with the famous astronomer Carl Sagan who I was introduced to when reading a book by Francis Schaeffer called HE IS THERE AND HE IS NOT SILENT written in 1968.
Francis Schaeffer
Francis Schaeffer in his book HE IS THERE AND HE IS NOT SILENT (Chapter 4) asserts:
Because men have lost the objective basis for certainty of knowledge in the areas in which they are working, more and more we are going to find them manipulating science according to their own sociological or political desires rather than standing upon concrete objectivity. We are going to find increasingly what I would call sociological science, where men manipulate the scientific facts. Carl Sagan (1934-1996), professor of astronomy and space science at Cornell University, demonstrates that the concept of a manipulated science is not far-fetched. He mixes science and science fiction constantly. He is a true follower of Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875-1950). The media gives him much TV prime time and much space in the press and magazine coverage, and the United State Government spent millions of dollars in the special equipment which was included in the equipment of the Mars probe–at his instigation, to give support to his obsessive certainty that life would be found on Mars, or that even large-sized life would be found there. With Carl Sagan the line concerning objective science is blurred, and the media spreads his mixture of science and science fiction out to the public as exciting fact.
When you read Sagan’s words below on abortion it reminds me of Schaeffer’s accusation of scientists like Sagan “manipulating science according to their own sociological or political desires rather than standing upon concrete objectivity.”
_______________
Carl Sagan
I mailed a letter to Carl Sagan on August 30, 1995 and it included a letter that I had published that very day in the Democrat-Gazette.
My letter to the editor to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette was published on August 30, 1995 and appeared under the title THE HUMANIST WORLD VIEW. Here is a portion of the published letter:
Adrian Rogers (pictured above was my pastor in the 1970’s and 1980’s)
Adrian Rogers, a former president of the Southern Baptist Convention, has rightly said, “Secular Humanism and so-called abortion rights are inseparably linked together.”
The pro-abortion movement in America has benefited from support from such humanists as Lester R. Brown, James Farmer, Sol Gordon, Matthew Ies Spetter, Richard Dawkins, Kendrick Frazier, Gordon Stein and Gerald R. Larue.
Everette Hatcher III, Little Rock, Arkansas
In a letter from Carl Sagan dated December 5, 1995, Sagan disagreed with me concerning the close relationship between atheistic evolutionists and the abortion movement.
Thanks for your recent letter about evolution and abortion. The correlation is hardly one to one; there are evolutionists who are anti-abortion and anti-evolutionists who are pro-abortion.
I am not going to argue this point any further although I have done that elsewhere, but I want to move back to Schaeffer’s original point about Sagan. Sagan went on his December 5, 1995 letter to tell me that he was enclosing his article “The Question of Abortion: A Search for Answers”by Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan. In that article you find these words below:
“By the third week . . . it looks a little like a segmented worm. By the and of the fourth week . . . it’s recognizable as a vertebrate, its tube-shaped heart is beginning to beat, something like the gill arches of a fish or an amphibian have become conspicuous, and there is a pronounced tail. It looks something like a newt or a tadpole…. By the sixth week . . . the eyes are still on the side of the head, as in most animals, and the reptilian face has connected slits where the mouth and nose eventually will be….
By the end of the eighth week the face resembles a primate’s but is still not quite human.”
Here Sagan jumps back into former evolutionary thinking and uses the discredited theory of embryonic recapitulation to lead the reader to believe that the unborn baby is not a real human for the first six months. Ken Ham does a great job of exposing this below.
If you were asked to place a vote for the person whom you considered the smartest man in your country, for whom would you vote? Perhaps the President or Prime Minister? Maybe a leading scientist? What about a Nobel Prize winner?
In an August article in Parade Magazine, readers were asked the question, Who Are the Smartest People in America?” And who did the readers vote for? None other than Carl Sagan! He was the person mentioned by the most readers.
Who is Carl Sagan? He is an astronomer and author. He was appointed Professor of Astronomy and Space Science at Cornell University in 1968. Much of his fame has been gained by popularizing science through books, magazines, and the television series “Cosmos.”
Carl Sagan is also an ardent evolutionist. In fact, he received the Pulitzer Prize for general non-fiction for the book The Dragons of Eden, which deals with the evolution of the human brain. Many people will be familiar with his phrase; “billions and billions of years” heard on the “Cosmos” television series.
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He is also a doctrinaire “pro-choice” advocate in regard to the issue of abortion. In Parade Magazine April 22, 1990, Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan co-authored an article in which they advocated that an embryo developing in its mother’s womb is not a real human until perhaps the sixth month of development. Thus they were insisting that babies could be aborted up until the third trimester.
The astonishing thing about this article is the so-called “scientific” justification used as a major part of the argument. What did the man voted as the “smartest man in America” say in this article?
He and his co-author used the old, discredited idea of embryonic recapitulation to assert that an embryo in its mother’s womb is not a real human for the first six months. What is this recapitulation idea?
A German scientist at the time of Darwin, Professor Ernst Haeckel, said that when an embryo develops, it passes through the various evolutionary stages that reflect its evolutionary history. As the embryo develops, it supposedly goes through a worm-like state, then a fish stage with gill slits, then an amphibian stage, and so on, until it becomes human. This view once was prevalent in biology textbooks in schools and colleges around the world. Many students became convinced of evolution because of this idea—an idea that was even illustrated with diagrams to “prove” that it was true.
However, it is now a well-known fact that Haeckel doctored his illustrations to support this erroneous view. For instance, in the book The Neck of the Giraffe, by Francis Hitching (an author who is critical of Darwinian evolution but nonetheless is an evolutionist and not a creationist), the following statements are made:
“Although Haeckel’s theory fell into disrepute during the peak years of neo-Darwinist supremacy, the revival of interest in embryonic development has led a number of today’s biologists to look upon his ideas more favorably. The trouble is, Haeckel was a rogue. Time and time again, Haeckel doctored his illustrations outrageously to support his biogenetic law.” Hitching goes on to talk about Haeckel’s forgeries and deception. Haeckel even admitted that he falsified the diagrams.
What is so disturbing is that the man voted the “smartest man in America” still promotes ideas like Haeckel’s. Read what the article in Parade Magazine, co-authored by Sagan, stated concerning the developing human embryo:
“By the third week . . . it looks a little like a segmented worm. By the and of the fourth week . . . it’s recognizable as a vertebrate, its tube-shaped heart is beginning to beat, something like the gill arches of a fish or an amphibian have become conspicuous, and there is a pronounced tail. It looks something like a newt or a tadpole…. By the sixth week . . . the eyes are still on the side of the head, as in most animals, and the reptilian face has connected slits where the mouth and nose eventually will be….
By the end of the eighth week the face resembles a primate’s but is still not quite human.”
Although Sagan doesn’t mention Haeckel, this article, which is cleverly written, clearly uses Haeckel’s discredited recapitulation theory to justify abortion! Any person who had been taught recapitulation at school or college would immediately think that Sagan is also promoting Haeckel’s ideas. How sad that many thousands of people (many of them young women), will have read this article thinking that what they read from this “smart” scientist must be trustworthy. Many may even abort a baby on the basis of this misleading information.
Just for interest, I checked a medical textbook called Medical Embryology, 3rd edition, by Jan Langman. The author states: ” . . . it can no longer be said that the human embryo ever has gills. It has pharyngeal pouches. . . .”
One of the textbooks used in high schools in Australia, Biology – The Spectrum of Life, on page 208, states:”lt was once thought that the embryo’s development (ontogeny) repeated the stages of evolutionary change. We now realize that this is not so.” I am very pleased to see this change, because when I was a teacher in the public schools in Australia, the textbooks stated Haeckel’s ideas as fact. The same has been true of textbooks in American schools. (It is distressing to learn, however, that some textbooks in schools today still promote or at least suggest Haeckel’s ideas.) Many women who went through this education system may never have heard that what they were taught was wrong, and thus may have views on abortion based on false ideas. Evolutionary indoctrination (even using known false ideas) through public schooling has certainly been a powerful tool for the humanist agenda.
Why do people listen to Carl Sagan? Parade Magazine states that he is a man who has brought scientific knowledge down to earth for millions of people. Certainly, evolutionists have done a great job of popularizing their material to the public at a level they can understand. Creationists should take note of this. Evolutionists are master propagandists. Creationists have done much exciting scientific research and have tremendous challenges andanswers tothe evolutionists’ dogma; and when people hear this information, it can change their lives. We need your support more than ever before to counteract the massive evolutionary propaganda.
According to one of the readers of Parade Magazine, Sagan “seems to have answers to every question, regardless of the subject.” One of the problems in Christendom is that many Christians have not had answers to the basic questions of life because of the intense indoctrination of evolution and the lack of good teaching in our churches. But there is no excuse now! ICR and similar organizations around the world have a wealth of information available on the creation/evolution issue so that every Christian can have the knowledge and understanding to “be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear” (I Peter 3:15).
And remember at this Christmas time the One who came down to be our Savior did not develop through evolutionary worm, fish, and reptile stages to become a human. Just as the first Adam was made directly by God, so the physical body for the last Adam (Jesus Christ—the eternal Creator) was made by God to develop in Mary’s womb, to be born (as the God-man), to live on Earth as a human, and to become the perfect sacrifice so that all may have the offer of eternal life with Him.
Professor Ernst Haeckel was a well known scientist and his philophical views were criticized by Francis Schaeffer!
Francis Schaeffer rightly noted where the materialistic time plus chance point of view has brought us to:
The German philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach (1804–1872) was an early exponent of a philosophy of materialism, as was German physician Ludwig Büchner (1824–1899), whose book Force and Matter (1855) went into twenty-one editions and was translated into all the major languages. It is of more than passing interest that Richard Wagner (1813–1883), the German composer of opera, was reading Feuerbach as early as 1848. Wagner at this period of his life was deeply influenced by Feuerbach, and it was Wagner who encouraged Ludwig II of Bavaria to read Feuerbach. Thus the work of Feuerbach had its influence not only in abstract thought but also on the arts and on the state. Ernst Haeckel (1834– 1919), a biologist at the University of Jena, wrote The Riddle of the Universe at the Close of the 19th Century (1899), and it became a best-seller, too. In this work Haeckel posited that matter and energy are eternal and also assumed that the human mind or soul is to be explained on the basis of materialism. He saw where this would lead and accepted that people have no freedom of will.
When people began to think in this way, there was no place for God or for man as man. When psychology and social science were made a part of a closed cause-and-effect system, along with physics, astronomy and chemistry, it was not only God who died. Man died. And within this framework love died. There is no place for love in a totally closed cause-and-effect system. There is no place for morals in a totally closed cause-and-effect system. There is no place for the freedom of people in a totally closed cause-and-effect system. Man becomes a zero. People and all they do become only a part of the machinery.
Richard Dawkins on Carl Sagan, Einstein and Religion | A How To Academy …
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Francis Schaeffer the Founder of the L’Abri community
The Cosmos Is All That Is
Francis Schaeffer wrote in 1981 in CHRISTIAN MANIFESTO chapter 3 The Destruction of Faith and Freedom:
Then there was a shift into materialistic science based on a philosophic change to the materialistic concept of final reality. This shift was based on no addition to the facts known. It was a choice, in faith, to see things that way. No clearer expression of this could be given than Carl Sagan’s arrogant statement on public television–made without any scientific proof for the statement–to 140 million viewers: “The cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever was or ever will be.” He opened the series, COSMOS, with this essentially creedal declaration and went on to build every subsequent conclusion upon it.
How Should We Then Live | Season 1 | Episode 6 | The Scientific Age
FEATURED ARTIST IS BACON
FRANCIS BACON (1909-1992)
Maximum exponent, along with Lucian Freud, of Postwar British Art, Bacon’s painting rebelled against all the canons of previous painting, not only in terms of beauty, but also against the abstraction of the dominant Abstract Expressionism of the time.
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 […]
On March 17, 2013 at our worship service at Fellowship Bible Church, Ben Parkinson who is one of our teaching pastors spoke on Genesis 1. He spoke about an issue that I was very interested in. Ben started the sermon by reading the following scripture: Genesis 1-2:3 English Standard Version (ESV) The Creation of the […]
At the end of this post is a message by RC Sproul in which he discusses Sagan. Over the years I have confronted many atheists. Here is one story below: I really believe Hebrews 4:12 when it asserts: For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the […]
In today’s news you will read about Kirk Cameron taking on the atheist Stephen Hawking over some recent assertions he made concerning the existence of heaven. Back in December of 1995 I had the opportunity to correspond with Carl Sagan about a year before his untimely death. Sarah Anne Hughes in her article,”Kirk Cameron criticizes […]
In this post we are going to see that through the years humanist thought has encouraged artists like Michelangelo to think that the future was extremely bright versus the place today where many artist who hold the humanist and secular worldview are very pessimistic. In contrast to Michelangelo’s DAVID when humanist man thought he […]
_________ Antony Flew on God and Atheism Published on Feb 11, 2013 Lee Strobel interviews philosopher and scholar Antony Flew on his conversion from atheism to deism. Much of it has to do with intelligent design. Flew was considered one of the most influential and important thinker for atheism during his time before his death […]
This post is the third in a series and the first and second deal with my response letter of January 10, 1996 to Carl Sagan and this post quotes from the letter and makes some conclusions about both Carl Sagan and Charles Darwin’s common views.
Lynn Alexander married Carl Sagan when she was 19 years old. The happy couple at their wedding. Dorion Sagan, their first son, was born two years later
Thanks for your recent letter about evolution and abortion. The correlation is hardly one to one; there are evolutionists who are anti-abortion and anti-evolutionists who are pro-abortion.You argue that God exists because otherwise we could not understand the world in our consciousness. But if you think God is necessary to understand the world, then why do you not ask the next question of where God came from? And if you say “God was always here,” why not say that the universe was always here? On abortion, my views are contained in the enclosed article (Sagan, Carl and Ann Druyan {1990}, “The Question of Abortion,” Parade Magazine, April 22.)
Charles Darwin and Carl Sagan both could not accept that humans are not special and just a product of chance. They philosophically believed that we are the result of chance but Charles Darwin and Carl Sagan had to live in the world that God made with the conscience that God gave them. This created a tension. As you know the movie CONTACT was written by Carl Sagan and it was about Dr. Arroway’s SEARCH FOR EXTRATERRESTRIAL INTELLIGENCE (SETI) program and her desire to make contact with aliens and ask them questions. It is my view that Sagan should have examined more closely the accuracy of the Bible and it’s fulfilled prophecies from the Old Testament in particular before chasing after aliens from other planets for answers. Sagan himself had written,”Plainly, there’s something within me that’s ready to believe in life after death…If some good evidence for life after death was announced, I’d be eager to examine it; but it would have to be real scientific data, not mere antedote”(pp 203-204, The DemonHaunted World, 1995).
Sagan said he had taken a look at Old Testament prophecy and it did not impress him because it was too vague. He had taken a look at Christ’s life in the gospels, but said it was unrealistic for God to send a man to communicate for God. Instead, Sagan suggested that God could have written a mathematical formula in the Bible or put a cross in the sky. However, what happens at the conclusion of the movie CONTACT? This is Sagan’s last message to the world in the form of the movie that appeared shortly after his death. Dr Arroway (Jodie Foster) who is a young atheistic scientist who meets with an alien and this alien takes the form of Dr. Arroway’s father. The alien tells her that they thought this would make it easier for her. In fact, he meets her on a beach that resembles a beach that she grew up near so she would also be comfortable with the surroundings. Carl Sagan when writing this script chose to put the alien in human form so Dr. Arroway could relate to the alien. Christ chose to take our form and come into our world too and still many make up excuses for not believing.
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Lastly, Carl Sagan could not rid himself of the “mannishness of man.” Those who have read Francis Schaeffer’s many books know exactly what I am talking about. We are made in God’s image and we are living in God’s world. Therefore, we can not totally suppress the objective truths of our unique humanity. In my letter of Jan 10, 1996 to Dr. Sagan, I really camped out on this point a long time because I had read Sagan’s book SHADOWS OF FORGOTTON ANCESTORS and in it Sagan attempts to totally debunk the idea that we are any way special. However, what does Dr. Sagan have Dr. Arroway say at the end of the movie CONTACT when she is testifying before Congress about the alien that communicated with her? See if you can pick out the one illogical word in her statement: “I was given a vision how tiny, insignificant, rare and precious we all are. We belong to something that is greater than ourselves and none of us are alone.”
Dr Sagan deep down knows that we are special so he could not avoid putting the word “precious” in there. Francis Schaeffer said unbelievers are put in a place of tension when they have to live in the world that God has made because deep down they know they are special because God has put that knowledge in their hearts.We are not the result of survival of the fittest and headed back to the dirt forevermore. This is what Schaeffer calls “taking the roof off” of the unbeliever’s worldview and showing the inconsistency that exists.
Now let us look at Charles Darwin, and let me start by quoting Francis Schaeffer from his talk In the spring of 1968 which centered on Charles Darwin’s autobiography:
Darwin in his autobiography Darwin, Francis ed. 1892. Charles Darwin: his life told in an autobiographical chapter, and in a selected series of his published letters[abridged edition]. London: John Murray, and in his letters showed that all through his life he NEVER really came to a QUIETNESS concerning the possibility that chance really explained the situation of the biological world. You will find there is much material on this [from Darwin] extended over many many years that constantly he was wrestling with this problem. Darwin never came to a place of satisfaction. You have philosophically ONLY TWO possible beginnings. The first would be a PERSONAL beginning and the other would be an IMPERSONEL beginning plus time plus CHANCE. There is no other possible alternative except the alternative that everything comes out of nothing and that has to be a total nothing and that has to be a total nothing without mass, energy or motion existing. No one holds this last view because it is unthinkable. Darwin understood this and therefore until his death he was uncomfortable with the idea of CHANCE producing the biological variation.
Darwin, C. R. to Graham, William3 July 1881 (letter written less than a year before Darwin’s death and less than 40 years before your birth, Dr Barlow):
Nevertheless you have EXPRESSED MY INWARD CONVICTION, though far more vividly and clearly than I could have done, that the Universe is NOT THE RESULT OF CHANCE.* But THEN with me the HORRID DOUBT ALWAYS ARISES whether the convictions of man’s mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey’s mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?
Francis Schaeffer comments:
Can you feel this man? He is in real agony. You can feel the whole of modern man in this tension with Darwin. My mind can’t accept that ultimate of chance, that the universe is a result of chance. He has said 3 or 4 times now that he can’t accept that it all happened by chance and then he will write someone else and say something different. How does he say this (about the mind of a monkey) and then put forth this grand theory? Wrong theory I feel but great just the same. Grand in the same way as when I look at many of the paintings today and I differ with their message but you must say the mark of the mannishness of man are one those paintings titanic-ally even though the message is wrong and this is the same with Darwin. But how can he say you can’t think, you come from a monkey’s mind, and you can’t trust a monkey’s mind, and you can’t trust a monkey’s conviction, so how can you trust me? Trust me here, but not there is what Darwin is saying. In other words it is very selective.
Evidently Darwin was telling his friends that he was an agnostic and that he did not think that God had anything to do with it but it was all left to the hands of chance. Is that the way you are reading this?
What two pieces of evidence did Darwin wrestle with?
(Charles Darwin)
If you want evidence then you will only be given the same evidence that Charles Darwin had. I am going to quote 2 passages, and they both have a common message. That message has 3 points: 1) The conscience tells us of God’s existence. 2) Creatioon tells us the same. 3) If we reject both of those then God will eventually remove conviction from our hearts.
Don’t hold this against me, but I got this first passage out of the current issue of CREATION MAGAZINE:
At the present day the most usual argument for the existence of an intelligent God is drawn from the deep [#1] inward conviction and feelings which are experienced by most persons...Formerly I was led by feelings such as those…to the firm conviction of the existence of God, and of the immortality of the soul. In my Journal I wrote that [#2] whilst standing in the midst of the grandeur of a Brazilian forest, ‘it is not possible to give an adequate idea of the higher feelings of wonder, admiration, and devotion which fill and elevate the mind.’ I well remember my conviction that there is more in man than the mere breath of his body. [#3] But now the grandest scenes would not cause any such convictions and feelings to rise in my mind. It may be truly said that I am like a man who has become colour-blind…(Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, D. Appleton and Co., New York, 1911, Vol. a, page 29).
Romans 1:18-21 Amplified Bible:
18 For [God does not overlook sin and] the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who in their wickedness suppress and stifle the truth, 19 because that which is known about God is [#1] evident within them [in their inner consciousness], for God made it evident to them. 20 For ever since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, [#2] being understood through His workmanship [all His creation, the wonderful things that He has made], so that they [who fail to believe and trust in Him] are without excuse and without defense. 21 For even though [a]they knew God [as the Creator], they did not [b]honor Him as God or give thanks [for His wondrous creation]. On the contrary, they became worthless in their thinking [godless, with pointless reasonings, and silly speculations], and their [#3] foolish heart was darkened.
Charles Darwin became an agnostic because he chose to reject the two pieces of evidence God gave him. Take a minute and read the enclosed letter to the editor of THE HUMANIST MAGAZINE. Where did our conscience come from if not from God? In your book SHADOWS OF FORGOTTEN ANCESTORS you quote Darwin’s wife warning him of the dangers of scientism on page 47. Wouldn’t it be wise to heed her advice????
Darwin and Sagan both realized just like modern man that humanism leads to meaningless. Francis Schaeffer in his book WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE HUMAN RACE? makes these points below concerning this:
Section 3 The humanist base leads to meaningless
An overwhelming number of modern thinkers agree that seeing the universe and man from a humanist base leads to meaningless, both for the universe and for man—not just mankind in general but for each of us as individuals. Professor Steven Weinberg wrote these words in his book THE FIRST 3 MINUTES: A MODERN VIEW OF THE ORIGIN OF THE UNIVERSE while he was looking down from an airplane:
It is almost irresistible for humans to believe that we have some special relation to the universe, that human life is not just a more-or-less farcical outcome of a chain of accidents reaching back to the first three minutes, but that we were somehow built in from the beginning. … It is very hard to realize that this is all just a tiny part of an overwhelmingly hostile universe. It is even harder to realise that this present universe has evolved from an unspeakably unfamiliar early condition, and faces a future extinction of endless cold or intolerable heat. The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless.
(1993), Epilogue, p. 154
When Weinberg says that the universe seems more “comprehensible,” he is, of course, referring to our greater understanding of the physical universe through the advance of science. But it is an understanding, notice, within a materialistic framework, which considers the universe solely in terms of physics and chemistry—-simply machinery.
If everything “faces a future extinction of endless cold or intolerable heat,” all things are meaningless.
Section 4 Tension results when you have an inadequate worldview
The greatest dilemma for those who hold an inadequate worldview is that it is impossible to live consistently within it. The playwright Samuel Beckett can “say” that words do not communicate anything—and that everything, including language, is absurd—yet he must use words to write his plays, even plays about meaninglessness. The list of contradictions can be extended endlessly. The truth is that everyone who rejects the Biblical worldview must live in a state of tension between ideas about reality and reality itself. If a person believes that everything is only matter or energy and carries this through consistently, meaning dies, morality dies, love dies, hope dies. Yet! The individual does love, does hope, does act on the basis of right and wrong. This is what we mean when we say that everyone is caught , regardless of his worldview, simply by the way things are.
Section 5 The Bible is God’s revealed truth and it tells us about our origin.
The scriptures tell us that the universe exists and has form and meaning because it was created purposefully by a personal creator. This being the case, we see that, as we are personal, we are not something strange and out of line with an otherwise impersonal universe. Since we are made in the image of God, we are in line with God. There is a continuity, in other words, between ourselves, though finite, and the infinite creator who stands behind the universe as its final source of meaning. Unlike the evolutionary concept of an impersonal beginning plus time plus chance, the Bible shows how man has personality and dignity and value. Our uniqueness is guaranteed, something which is impossible in the materialistic system!!!!!!
(Francis Schaeffer pictured)
Carl Sagan On God and Creation
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The Cosmos Just Is?: Carl Sagan vs William Lane Craig
A Christian Manifesto by Dr. Francis A. Schaeffer The following address was delivered by the late Dr. Schaeffer in 1982 at the Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church, Fort Lauderdale, Florida. It is based on one of his books, which bears the same title.
What we have, and take so poorly for granted, is unique. It was brought forth by a specific world view and that specific world view was the Judeo-Christian world view especially as it was refined in the Reformation, putting the authority indeed at a central point — not in the Church and the state and the Word of God, but rather the Word of God alone. All the benefits which we know — I would repeat — which we have taken so easily and so much for granted, are unique. They have been grounded on the certain world view that there was a Creator there to give inalienable rights. And this other view over here, which has become increasingly dominant, of the material-energy final world view (shaped by pure chance) never would have, could not, has, no basis of values, in order to give such a balance of freedom…It is the same with the television programs. Public television gives us many things that many of us like culturally, but is also completely committed to a propaganda position that the last reality is only material / energy shaped by pure chance. Clark’s Civilization, Brunowski, The Ascent of Man, Carl Sagan’s Cosmos — they all say it. There is only one final view of reality that’s possible and that is that the final reality is material or energy shaped by pure chance.
Best of Carl Sagan on Religion
How Carl Sagan Strengthened My Faith
Below are Francis Schaeffer and his son Franky:
In 1992 I began to write skeptics letters after reading their books and articles and watching their films and I was introduced to Carl Sagan’s name by a book published in 1968 by Francis Schaeffer.
Francis Schaeffer in his book HE IS THERE AND HE IS NOT SILENT (Chapter 4) asserts:
Because men have lost the objective basis for certainty of knowledge in the areas in which they are working, more and more we are going to find them manipulating science according to their own sociological or political desires rather than standing upon concrete objectivity. We are going to find increasingly what I would call sociological science, where men manipulate the scientific facts. Carl Sagan (1934-1996),professor of astronomy and space science at Cornell University, demonstrates that the concept of a manipulated science is not far-fetched. He mixes science and science fiction constantly. He is a true follower of Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875-1950). The media gives him much TV prime time and much space in the press and magazine coverage, and the United State Government spent millions of dollars in the special equipment which was included in the equipment of the Mars probe–at his instigation, to give support to his obsessive certainty that life would be found on Mars, or that even large-sized life would be found there. With Carl Sagan the line concerning objective science is blurred, and the media spreads his mixture of science and science fiction out to the public as exciting fact.
Richard Dawkins on Carl Sagan, Einstein and Religion | A How To Academy …
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Francis Schaeffer the Founder of the L’Abri community
The Cosmos Is All That Is
Francis Schaeffer wrote in 1981 in CHRISTIAN MANIFESTO chapter 3 The Destruction of Faith and Freedom:
Then there was a shift into materialistic science based on a philosophic change to the materialistic concept of final reality. This shift was based on no addition to the facts known. It was a choice, in faith, to see things that way. No clearer expression of this could be given than Carl Sagan’s arrogant statement on public television–made without any scientific proof for the statement–to 140 million viewers: “The cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever was or ever will be.” He opened the series, COSMOS, with this essentially creedal declaration and went on to build every subsequent conclusion upon it.
How Should We Then Live | Season 1 | Episode 6 | The Scientific Age
FEATURED ARTIST IS TITIAN
TIZIANO VECELLIO DI GREGORIO (c.1476-1576)
After the premature death of Giorgione, Titian became the leading figure of Venetian painting of his time. His use of color and his taste for mythological themes defined the main features of 16th century Venetian Art. His influence on later artists -Rubens, Velázquez…- is extremely important.
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 […]
On March 17, 2013 at our worship service at Fellowship Bible Church, Ben Parkinson who is one of our teaching pastors spoke on Genesis 1. He spoke about an issue that I was very interested in. Ben started the sermon by reading the following scripture: Genesis 1-2:3 English Standard Version (ESV) The Creation of the […]
At the end of this post is a message by RC Sproul in which he discusses Sagan. Over the years I have confronted many atheists. Here is one story below: I really believe Hebrews 4:12 when it asserts: For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the […]
In today’s news you will read about Kirk Cameron taking on the atheist Stephen Hawking over some recent assertions he made concerning the existence of heaven. Back in December of 1995 I had the opportunity to correspond with Carl Sagan about a year before his untimely death. Sarah Anne Hughes in her article,”Kirk Cameron criticizes […]
In this post we are going to see that through the years humanist thought has encouraged artists like Michelangelo to think that the future was extremely bright versus the place today where many artist who hold the humanist and secular worldview are very pessimistic. In contrast to Michelangelo’s DAVID when humanist man thought he […]
_________ Antony Flew on God and Atheism Published on Feb 11, 2013 Lee Strobel interviews philosopher and scholar Antony Flew on his conversion from atheism to deism. Much of it has to do with intelligent design. Flew was considered one of the most influential and important thinker for atheism during his time before his death […]
In 1992 I began to write skeptics letters after reading their books and articles and watching their films and I was introduced to Carl Sagan’s name by a book published in 1968 by Francis Schaeffer.
Francis Schaeffer in his book HE IS THERE AND HE IS NOT SILENT (Chapter 4) asserts:
Because men have lost the objective basis for certainty of knowledge in the areas in which they are working, more and more we are going to find them manipulating science according to their own sociological or political desires rather than standing upon concrete objectivity. We are going to find increasingly what I would call sociological science, where men manipulate the scientific facts. Carl Sagan (1934-1996),professor of astronomy and space science at Cornell University, demonstrates that the concept of a manipulated science is not far-fetched. He mixes science and science fiction constantly. He is a true follower of Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875-1950). The media gives him much TV prime time and much space in the press and magazine coverage, and the United State Government spent millions of dollars in the special equipment which was included in the equipment of the Mars probe–at his instigation, to give support to his obsessive certainty that life would be found on Mars, or that even large-sized life would be found there. With Carl Sagan the line concerning objective science is blurred, and the media spreads his mixture of science and science fiction out to the public as exciting fact.
Thanks for your recent letter about evolution and abortion. The correlation is hardly one to one; there are evolutionists who are anti-abortion and anti-evolutionists who are pro-abortion.You argue that God exists because otherwise we could not understand the world in our consciousness. But if you think God is necessary to understand the world, then why do you not ask the next question of where God came from? And if you say “God was always here,” why not say that the universe was always here? On abortion, my views are contained in the enclosed article (Sagan, Carl and Ann Druyan {1990}, “The Question of Abortion,” Parade Magazine, April 22.)
In my January 10, 1996 Response letter to Carl Sagan (which I posted earlier) I also included the following insert based on the words of Francis Schaeffer in 1978:
Is man special or not?
Douglas Futuyma has said “Whether people are explicitly religious or not they tend to imagine that humans are in some sense the center of the universe. We are just one product of a very long historical process that has given to an enormous amount of organisms, and we are just one of them. So in some sense there is nothing special about us.”
The following comments were taken from the chapter called “”The Basis for Human Dignity which is in the book and film series co-aurthored by Francis Schaeffer and C. Everett Koop called “Whatever Happened to the Human Race?”
Section 1 Materialistic Humanism: The Worldview of our Age
The West has adopted a worldview which says that all reality is made up only of matter. In this view the universe did not get here because it was created by a “supernatural “ God.
Rather, the universe has existed forever in some form, and it’s present form just happened as a result of chance events way back in time.
Section 2 The search for an adequate worldview
Any worldview must answer 2 basic questions satisfactorily if it is to provide a real base for life and morals. The first is what we will call “the universe and it’s form,” and the second is the “mannishness of man.” The first draws attention to the fact that the universe around us is like an amazing jigsaw puzzle. We see many details, and we want to know how they fit together. That is what science is all about. Scientists look at the details and try to find out how they all cohere. So the first question that has to be answered is: Hiw did the universe get this way? How did it get this form, this pattern, this jigsawlike quality it now has?
Second, “The mannishness of man” draws attention to the fact that human beings are different from all other things in the world. Think, for example, of creativity. People in all cultures of all ages have created many kinds of all things, from “high art” to flower arrangements, from silver ornaments to high-technology supersonic aircraft. This is in contrast to the animals about us. People also fear death, and they remember the past and make projections into the future. One could name other factors, but these are enough to differentiate people from the other things in the world.
What worldview adequately explains the remarkable phenomenon of the distinctiveness of human beings? There is one worldview which explains the existence of the universe, it’s form, and the uniqueness of people— the worldview given to us in the Bible.
Section 3 The humanist base leads to meaningless
An overwhelming number of modern thinkers agree that seeing the universe and man from a humanist base leads to meaningless, both for the universe and for man—not just mankind in general but for each of us as individuals. Professor Steven Weinberg wrote these words in his book THE FIRST 3 MINUTES: A MODERN VIEW OF THE ORIGIN OF THE UNIVERSE while he was looking down from an airplane:
It is almost irresistible for humans to believe that we have some special relation to the universe, that human life is not just a more-or-less farcical outcome of a chain of accidents reaching back to the first three minutes, but that we were somehow built in from the beginning. … It is very hard to realize that this is all just a tiny part of an overwhelmingly hostile universe. It is even harder to realise that this present universe has evolved from an unspeakably unfamiliar early condition, and faces a future extinction of endless cold or intolerable heat. The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless.
(1993), Epilogue, p. 154
When Weinberg says that the universe seems more “comprehensible,” he is, of course, referring to our greater understanding of the physical universe through the advance of science. But it is an understanding, notice, within a materialistic framework, which considers the universe solely in terms of physics and chemistry—-simply machinery.
If everything “faces a future extinction of endless cold or intolerable heat,” all things are meaningless.
Section 4 Tension results when you have an inadequate worldview
The greatest dilemma for those who hold an inadequate worldview is that it is impossible to live consistently within it. The playwright Samuel Beckett can “say” that words do not communicate anything—and that everything, including language, is absurd—yet he must use words to write his plays, even plays about meaninglessness. The list of contradictions can be extended endlessly. The truth is that everyone who rejects the Biblical worldview must live in a state of tension between ideas about reality and reality itself. If a person believes that everything is only matter or energy and carries this through consistently, meaning dies, morality dies, love dies, hope dies. Yet! The individual does love, does hope, does act on the basis of right and wrong. This is what we mean when we say that everyone is caught , regardless of his worldview, simply by the way things are.
Section 5 The Bible is God’s revealed truth and it tells us about our origin.
The scriptures tell us that the universe exists and has form and meaning because it was created purposefully by a personal creator. This being the case, we see that, as we are personal, we are not something strange and out of line with an otherwise impersonal universe. Since we are made in the image of God, we are in line with God. There is a continuity, in other words, between ourselves, though finite, and the infinite creator who stands behind the universe as its final source of meaning. Unlike the evolutionary concept of an impersonal beginning plus time plus chance, the Bible shows how man has personality and dignity and value. Our uniqueness is guaranteed, something which is impossible in the materialistic system!!!!!!
LETTER TO HUMANIST MAGAZINE IN 1994:
Francis Schaeffer once said, “If a man takes a certain non-christian set of presuppositions he will be forced eventually to be in a place of tension. The more consistent he is to his non-christian presuppositions the further he is away from the real world.” In “Ape and Essence,” (July/ August 1994) Edd Doerr is consistent with his humanistic presuppositions when he says “The bottom line is that the great apes are so much like us that there is no logical reason not to treat them as ‘persons’.”
Because Mr. Doerr has embraced evolution, he has been forced to ask himself this logical question: “When in the course of evolution did our ancestors qualify as persons?” But does this type of logic square with what we know to be true in the real world?
Genesis chapter one tells us that man is to rule over all animals because man is made in the image of God. Can animals make moral choices, enjoy poetry, appreciate music, worship God or recognize the beauty of the world around them? Humanism reduces man to a machine, but man’s conscience causes him to fell a tension.
As a young man Charles Darwin believed that the world was created by God, and at that time he was an enthusiastic admirer of fine paintings, classic music and Shakespeare. Furthermore, during a trip to Brazil he was do captivated by the beauty of nature that he later recalled how sure he was at the time that God had to be the designer of this grand and wondrous universe. However, later his presuppositions changed and he said, “My mind seems to have become a kind of machine for grinding general laws out of large collections of facts, but why this should have caused the atrophy of that part of the brain alone, on which the higher tastes depend, I cannot conceive… The loss of these tastes is a loss of happiness, and may possibly be injurious to the intellect, and more probably to the moral character, by enfeebling the emotional part of our nature.”
We are not cousins of apes, and anyone who embraces evolution will be forced eventually to be in a place of tension with the real world if they are consistent.
The Cosmos Is All That Is
Francis Schaeffer wrote in 1981 in CHRISTIAN MANIFESTO chapter 3 The Destruction of Faith and Freedom:
Then there was a shift into materialistic science based on a philosophic change to the materialistic concept of final reality. This shift was based on no addition to the facts known. It was a choice, in faith, to see things that way. No clearer expression of this could be given than Carl Sagan’s arrogant statement on public television–made without any scientific proof for the statement–to 140 million viewers: “The cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever was or ever will be.” He opened the series, COSMOS, with this essentially creedal declaration and went on to build every subsequent conclusion upon it.
How Should We Then Live | Season 1 | Episode 6 | The Scientific Age
FEATURED ARTIST IS Edvard Munch
“When seen as a whole, art derives from a person’s desire to communicate himself to another. I do not believe in an art which is not forced into existence by a human being’s desire to open his heart. All art, literature, and music must be born in your heart’s blood. Art is your heart’s blood.”
Edvard Munch
Edvard Munch – Self-Portrait with a Bottle of Wine – 1906
The expression “ahead of his time” applies to few artists with as much justice as it does to Edvard Munch (1863-1944) . Although for much of the public it seems that Munch painted only one work of interest (the extremely famous “The Scream“, one of the icons of art history), the whole of his work is fascinating and complex, and shows us an innovative artist, an expressionist before expressionism, essential to understand modern painting.
Edvard Munch: “Self-Portrait with a Bottle of Wine”, 1906. 110 × 120 cm. Munch Museum, Oslo.
It is striking that the two great painters currently considered -and rightfully so- as the forerunners of expressionism –Munch and Van Gogh– share the common characteristic of a long history of mental illness. An article by neuropsychologists M. Miranda, E. Miranda and E. Molina noted that “there are reasonable grounds to postulate that Munch possessed a borderline personality structure” (M. Miranda et al, “Edvard Munch: illness and genius”, 2012). But while Van Gogh reached a point where he could no longer bear the cries of his inner demons, Munch lived a long life, coming to accept his condition with a resigned attitude. “I inherited two of the worst enemies of mankind: tuberculosis and mental illness (…) From birth, the angels of fear, pain and death were at my side.”
Edvard Munch was born in a village in the interior of Norway in 1863, although his family moved to Oslo a few months later. His childhood was by no means easy, as his mother died when Munch was just three years old. The young Edvard was raised by his father, an extremely religious man. At the age of fifteen, Munch began his training as an engineer, but he quit just a year later to study painting at the Academy of Art and Design in Oslo.
The young Munch was attracted to impressionism, studying the works of Manet, but soon felt that this style did not allow him to express the emotion he wanted to include in his paintings. In 1889 he exhibited at the Exposition Universelle in Paris, coming into contact with the works of artists such as Van Gogh and Gauguin. In 1891 he painted “Melancholy“, his first important work, which seems to anticipate both Fauvism and Expressionism.After painting this work, he lived in Berlin for four years, completing his training as an artist.
Edvard Munch: “Melancholy”, 1891. 73x 101 cm. Munch Museum, Oslo. ·· Edvard Munch: “The Scream”, 1893. 91 x 73.5 cm. National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design, Oslo.
In Berlin, Munch created what is his most famous work, the aforementioned “The Scream“. Few works in the history of art have been so studied, commented, and even parodied as this painting, a prodigy of expressiveness. In 2006, theartwolf.com selected this painting (of which four versions are preserved, as well as an engraving) as one of the 50 masterpieces in the history of painting. Before the end of the century, he painted several of his best known works, such as “Anxiety” (clearly inspired by “The Scream“), “The Vampire”, of which several versions are preserved, and his famous “Madonna“.
Although “The Scream” is his most famous painting, his most ambitious work was “The Frieze of Life“, a pictorial cycle that includes works such as “The Storm” or “Moonlight“. The works that make up “The Frieze of Life”, as Frederick B. Deknatel pointed out, have, as a whole, no formal similarity, being completely different in scale or style, but “have in common the fact that their themes are related and that each is conveyed with the maximum visual impact possible, regardless of overal visual harmony” (Frederick B. Deknatel, “Edvard Munch”, 1950).
As noted above, his last years were marked by health problems, suffering from anxiety attacks aggravated by his alcohol consumption. In fact, although he did not die until 1944, at the age of 80, his artistic production after World War I is very limited, and in no case of the importance of his works made in the 1890s. However, his “early” works are in themselves enough to consider Munch as one of the pillars of modern art.
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 […]
On March 17, 2013 at our worship service at Fellowship Bible Church, Ben Parkinson who is one of our teaching pastors spoke on Genesis 1. He spoke about an issue that I was very interested in. Ben started the sermon by reading the following scripture: Genesis 1-2:3 English Standard Version (ESV) The Creation of the […]
At the end of this post is a message by RC Sproul in which he discusses Sagan. Over the years I have confronted many atheists. Here is one story below: I really believe Hebrews 4:12 when it asserts: For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the […]
In today’s news you will read about Kirk Cameron taking on the atheist Stephen Hawking over some recent assertions he made concerning the existence of heaven. Back in December of 1995 I had the opportunity to correspond with Carl Sagan about a year before his untimely death. Sarah Anne Hughes in her article,”Kirk Cameron criticizes […]
In this post we are going to see that through the years humanist thought has encouraged artists like Michelangelo to think that the future was extremely bright versus the place today where many artist who hold the humanist and secular worldview are very pessimistic. In contrast to Michelangelo’s DAVID when humanist man thought he […]
_________ Antony Flew on God and Atheism Published on Feb 11, 2013 Lee Strobel interviews philosopher and scholar Antony Flew on his conversion from atheism to deism. Much of it has to do with intelligent design. Flew was considered one of the most influential and important thinker for atheism during his time before his death […]
Thanks for your recent letter about evolution and abortion. The correlation is hardly one to one; there are evolutionists who are anti-abortion and anti-evolutionists who are pro-abortion.You argue that God exists because otherwise we could not understand the world in our consciousness. But if you think God is necessary to understand the world, then why do you not ask the next question of where God came from? And if you say “God was always here,” why not say that the universe was always here? On abortion, my views are contained in the enclosed article (Sagan, Carl and Ann Druyan {1990}, “The Question of Abortion,” Parade Magazine, April 22.)
Here is the letter I wrote to Dr. Sagan in response to the letter he wrote to me:
Dr. Carl Sagan, Cornell University, Center for Radiophysics and Space Research, Space Sciences Building, Ithaca, New York, 14853-6801
January 10, 1996
Dear Mr. Sagan,
Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to write me back on 12-5-95. My response comes in five parts. I imagine you will find part four the most intriguing.
Are we so different from Animals? Or are we?
In my 8-30-95 letter I used Douglas Futuyma’s quote: “Whether people are explicitly religious or not they tend to imagine that humans are in some sense the center of the universe. And what evolution does is to remove humans from the center of the universe. We are just one product of a very long historical process that has given rise to an enormous amount of organisms, and we are just one of them. So in some sense there is nothing special about us.” This seems to dovetail nicely with your quote from SHADOWS OF FORGOTTEN ANCESTORS : “Why are we so different from animals? Or are we? Most of the philosophers conventionally judged great thought that humans are fundamentally different from other animals because of an immaterial ‘something’ for which no scientific evidence has been produced, that resides somewhere in the body of humans and in no one else on earth. Only a few argue, as Charles Darwin did, that the differences between our species and others are only differences of degree.”
(Charles Darwin)
Earlier in Darwin’s life he did not argue against the existence of an immortal soul. In fact, he held the Biblical view, but later he became an agnostic because he rejected 2 pieces of evidence I will talk about later. What is the Biblical view? Moreover, if science never comes up with evidence to back up the existence of the soul we can not rule out the possibility it exists.
(Carl Sagan and Anne Druyan pictured)
Are you proclaiming too much prematurely?
On April 18, 1981 in your speech to the AHA you made it clear that you rejected the atheistic position. You thought it was unwise to proclaim too much before enough data are in. You mentioned as cases in point “those committed atheists who believe there is compelling evidence that no god exists” (July/August 1981 issue of The Humanist, page 6).
That same point could be made concerning the existence of the soul. Do you have compelling evidence that the soul does not exist?
Will Scientism work with metaphysical questions?
I reject the view that only that which can be proved by science is true. God can not be proven by science. Is that why you are an agnostic? In your 12-5-95 letter you commented, “if you say ‘God was always here,’ why not say that the universe was always here?”
I am under the impression that the second Law of Thermodynamics pushes us to the conclusion that our universe had a beginning. But I did not want to spend time on that point. Instead, it should be emphasized that “God is a Spirit (a spiritual Being) and those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth (reality)” (John 4:24, Amplified Bible). In other words, scientism will not work when it comes to metaphysical questions.
What two pieces of evidence did Darwin wrestle with?
(Charles Darwin)
If you want evidence then you will only be given the same evidence that Charles Darwin had. I am going to quote 2 passages, and they both have a common message. That message has 3 points: 1) The conscience tells us of God’s existence. 2) Creatioon tells us the same. 3) If we reject both of those then God will eventually remove conviction from our hearts.
Don’t hold this against me, but I got this first passage out of the current issue of CREATION MAGAZINE:
At the present day the most usual argument for the existence of an intelligent God is drawn from the deep [#1] inward conviction and feelings which are experienced by most persons...Formerly I was led by feelings such as those…to the firm conviction of the existence of God, and of the immortality of the soul. In my Journal I wrote that [#2] whilst standing in the midst of the grandeur of a Brazilian forest, ‘it is not possible to give an adequate idea of the higher feelings of wonder, admiration, and devotion which fill and elevate the mind.’ I well remember my conviction that there is more in man than the mere breath of his body. [#3] But now the grandest scenes would not cause any such convictions and feelings to rise in my mind. It may be truly said that I am like a man who has become colour-blind…(Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, D. Appleton and Co., New York, 1911, Vol. a, page 29).
Romans 1:18-21 Amplified Bible:
18 For [God does not overlook sin and] the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who in their wickedness suppress and stifle the truth, 19 because that which is known about God is [#1] evident within them [in their inner consciousness], for God made it evident to them. 20 For ever since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, [#2] being understood through His workmanship [all His creation, the wonderful things that He has made], so that they [who fail to believe and trust in Him] are without excuse and without defense. 21 For even though [a]they knew God [as the Creator], they did not [b]honor Him as God or give thanks [for His wondrous creation]. On the contrary, they became worthless in their thinking [godless, with pointless reasonings, and silly speculations], and their [#3] foolish heart was darkened.
Charles Darwin became an agnostic because he chose to reject the two pieces of evidence God gave him. Take a minute and read the enclosed letter to the editor of THE HUMANIST MAGAZINE. Where did our conscience come from if not from God? In your book SHADOWS OF FORGOTTEN ANCESTORS you quote Darwin’s wife warning him of the dangers of scientism on page 47. Wouldn’t it be wise to heed her advice????
Since Scientism will not work with metaphysics then what alternative does the skeptic have?
You have chosen to be known as a skeptic. Did you know that the word “skepticism” is derived from the Latin “scepticus (inquiring, reflective, doubting). A skeptic has an inquiring mind. It intrigues me that Christ spoke of those who were honest inquirers. Some can’t find God for the same reason a thief can’t find a policeman. They are unwilling to surrender their will to God. In fact, I read some amazing comments by some unbelievers to the effect that they would not be willing to serve God because they would not want to give up their independence. They would rather reign in hell. In John 7:16-17 Christ spoke to the doubters of His day: “My teaching is not My own, but His Who sent Me. If any man desires to do His will (God’s pleasure), he will know–have the needed illumination to recognize, can tell for himself–whether the teaching is from God, or whether I am speaking from Myself and of My own accord and on My own authority,” ((Amplified Bible). Adrian Rogers comments on this verse: “In plain English, this says that if a mansurrenders his will completely, God will reveal Himself to that man.” This is a recipe to get a revelation: #1 ingredient — an open Bible (best to read a chapter a day in the Gospel of John). #2 ingredient — an open heart (take 2 minutes before reading every day and pray “God, I don’t know whether You exist or not, but I want to know. And because I want to know, I will make an honest investigation, I will follow the results of that investigation wherever they lead me, regardless of the cost.”
Professor Peter Kreeft of the philosophy Department at Boston College wrote on page 291 in the book DOES GOD EXIST? published by Prometheus Books the following comments concerning the “prayer of the skeptic”: “Who could quarrel with that experiment? It’s like fairly testing the hypothesis that someone is in the closet, tied up, by knocking on the door. If the hypothesis is true, you may hear a reply. Why hesitate to knock?
The analogy is not perfect because I’m the case of the closet you can open the door and look with your eyes, while in the case of the invisible God you cannot. But you can still speak and listen with your mind and heart, and this constitutes a fair test, because the hypothesis maintains not only that God wants to reveal Himself to you, to set up a relationship of love and faith for a lifetime and beyond.
The hypothesis claims that ‘all who seek, find.’ So test it. Seek. I can only think of two reasons for hesitating: the fear that you will find nothing, and the fear that you will find something. Honestly, like love, casts out fear.”
Maybe you are at the point in your life where you are willing to try this. What do you have to lose? In 100 years everything we have now will be gone anyway.
It has been an honor to correspond with you. I know somewhat about the physical and spiritual challenges you face, and I will continue to pray for you. Best wishes.
Richard Dawkins on Carl Sagan, Einstein and Religion | A How To Academy …
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Francis Schaeffer the Founder of the L’Abri community
The Cosmos Is All That Is
Francis Schaeffer wrote in 1981 in CHRISTIAN MANIFESTO chapter 3 The Destruction of Faith and Freedom:
Then there was a shift into materialistic science based on a philosophic change to the materialistic concept of final reality. This shift was based on no addition to the facts known. It was a choice, in faith, to see things that way. No clearer expression of this could be given than Carl Sagan’s arrogant statement on public television–made without any scientific proof for the statement–to 140 million viewers: “The cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever was or ever will be.” He opened the series, COSMOS, with this essentially creedal declaration and went on to build every subsequent conclusion upon it.
How Should We Then Live | Season 1 | Episode 6 | The Scientific Age
FEATURED ARTIST IS Jean-Michel Basquiat
I don’t listen to what art critics say. I don’t know anybody who needs a critic to find out what art is.
Jean-Michel Basquiat
For some obscure reason, the world of art and culture seems to have always had a macabre fascination with artists who died at a very young age, following the sinister maxim “die young and leave a pretty corpse“. This dark attraction finds a high point in the so-called “27 Club“, the name given to an unusually large group of artists, musicians and actors who died at the age of 27. Within the world of music the cases of Jim Morrison, Jimmy Hendrix, Janis Joplin or Kurt Cobain are well known, but the world of visual arts has also contributed to this tragic group, the most notable case being that of Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-1988).
The figure of Basquiat, that of a poor artist from the black community who, at barely twenty years of age, managed to triumph in the normally perceived as elitist and snobbish contemporary art world, proved fascinating during his short life, and the attraction to it has grown dramatically in the midst of the 21st century, driven by social movements and the increasing appreciation of the work of African-American artists. As early as 1982, gallerist Jeffrey Deitch wrote of the artist, “Basquiat is likened to the wild boy raised by wolves (…) A child of the streets gawked at by the intelligentsia (…) But Basquiat is hardly a primitive. He’s more like a rock star”. Basquiat himself never hid his ambition. In explaining his reasons for leaving Annina Nosei’s gallery, he was brief, blunt and decisive: “I did not want to be a gallery mascot. I wanted to be a star”.
In 1981, the Galleria d’Arte Emilio Mazzoli in Modena presented the first solo exhibition of the artist, who was then only twenty years old. The following year, Bruno Bischofberger organized an ambitious Basquiat exhibition in Zurich. The success was resounding, and all the exhibited works are sold. 1982 was Basquiat’s “magic year”, in which, according to the artist himself, he created his best (and today best known) works, such as “Profit I” or “Boy and dog in a johnnypump“.
Basquiat suddenly found himself, at just over twenty years of age, at the top of the art world. He moved to Los Angeles, where he worked in a large studio provided by the gallery owner Larry Gagosian, and where he was often visited by his girlfriend, the singer Madonna. But this success also had its negative side: Basquiat began to abuse drugs, which often led him to a terrible state of paranoia. He returned to New York, where his addiction worsened. In a moment of despair, Basquiat “confided in Warhol that he was depressed and wanted to kill himself. But Warhol just laughed and told him to get some sleep” (Eric Fretz, “Jean-Michel Basquiat: A Biography”, 2010). On August 12, 1988, Basquiat was found dead of an overdose in his apartment. He was only 27 years old.
As discussed above, the fame and appreciation of Basquiat’s work has only grown. As expected, this has carried over to the art market, and in 2017, his work “Untitled (skull)” (1982) was sold at Sotheby’s for $110 million, one of the highest prices ever paid for a work of contemporary art.
Basquiat is undoubtedly the most important and best known of the graffiti movement that swept the New York scene in the early 1980s, but at least two other artists deserve recognition here: Kenny Scharf (born 1958) worked in Soho, where he exhibited at the Fun galleries (a name given by Scharf himself) Keith Haring (1958-1990) also worked in Soho and the East Village, but his style was even more fierce and self-destructive than Scharf’s. Haring, possibly the most important graffiti artist after Basquiat, was also a well-known personality outside the art world, participating in numerous campaigns against the AIDS epidemic. Other important figures of this movement were Mike Bildo, Tom Otterness or Rhonda Zwillinger.
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 […]
On March 17, 2013 at our worship service at Fellowship Bible Church, Ben Parkinson who is one of our teaching pastors spoke on Genesis 1. He spoke about an issue that I was very interested in. Ben started the sermon by reading the following scripture: Genesis 1-2:3 English Standard Version (ESV) The Creation of the […]
At the end of this post is a message by RC Sproul in which he discusses Sagan. Over the years I have confronted many atheists. Here is one story below: I really believe Hebrews 4:12 when it asserts: For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the […]
In today’s news you will read about Kirk Cameron taking on the atheist Stephen Hawking over some recent assertions he made concerning the existence of heaven. Back in December of 1995 I had the opportunity to correspond with Carl Sagan about a year before his untimely death. Sarah Anne Hughes in her article,”Kirk Cameron criticizes […]
In this post we are going to see that through the years humanist thought has encouraged artists like Michelangelo to think that the future was extremely bright versus the place today where many artist who hold the humanist and secular worldview are very pessimistic. In contrast to Michelangelo’s DAVID when humanist man thought he […]
_________ Antony Flew on God and Atheism Published on Feb 11, 2013 Lee Strobel interviews philosopher and scholar Antony Flew on his conversion from atheism to deism. Much of it has to do with intelligent design. Flew was considered one of the most influential and important thinker for atheism during his time before his death […]
Thanks for your recent letter about evolution and abortion. The correlation is hardly one to one; there are evolutionists who are anti-abortion and anti-evolutionists who are pro-abortion.You argue that God exists because otherwise we could not understand the world in our consciousness. But if you think God is necessary to understand the world, then why do you not ask the next question of where God came from? And if you say “God was always here,” why not say that the universe was always here? On abortion, my views are contained in the enclosed article (Sagan, Carl and Ann Druyan {1990}, “The Question of Abortion,” Parade Magazine, April 22.)
I was blessed with the opportunity to correspond with Dr. Sagan, and in his December 5, 1995 letter Dr. Sagan went on to tell me that he was enclosing his article “The Question of Abortion: A Search for Answers”by Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan. I am going to respond to several points made in that article. Here is a portion of Sagan’s article (here is a link to the whole article):
(both Adrian Rogers and Francis Schaeffer mentioned Carl Sagan in their books and that prompted me to write Sagan and expose him to their views.
For the complete text, including illustrations, introductory quote, footnotes, and commentary on the reaction to the originally published article see Billions and Billions.
The issue had been decided years ago. The court had chosen the middle ground. You’d think the fight was over. Instead, there are mass rallies, bombings and intimidation, murders of workers at abortion clinics, arrests, intense lobbying, legislative drama, Congressional hearings, Supreme Court decisions, major political parties almost defining themselves on the issue, and clerics threatening politicians with perdition. Partisans fling accusations of hypocrisy and murder. The intent of the Constitution and the will of God are equally invoked. Doubtful arguments are trotted out as certitudes. The contending factions call on science to bolster their positions. Families are divided, husbands and wives agree not to discuss it, old friends are no longer speaking. Politicians check the latest polls to discover the dictates of their consciences. Amid all the shouting, it is hard for the adversaries to hear one another. Opinions are polarized. Minds are closed.
Is it wrong to abort a pregnancy? Always? Sometimes? Never? How do we decide? We wrote this article to understand better what the contending views are and to see if we ourselves could find a position that would satisfy us both. Is there no middle ground? We had to weigh the arguments of both sides for consistency and to pose test cases, some of which are purely hypothetical. If in some of these tests we seem to go too far, we ask the reader to be patient with us–we’re trying to stress the various positions to the breaking point to see their weaknesses and where they fail.
In contemplative moments, nearly everyone recognizes that the issue is not wholly one-sided. Many partisans of differing views, we find, feel some disquiet, some unease when confronting what’s behind the opposing arguments. (This is partly why such confrontations are avoided.) And the issue surely touches on deep questions: What are our responses to one another? Should we permit the state to intrude into the most intimate and personal aspects of our lives? Where are the boundaries of freedom? What does it mean to be human?
Of the many actual points of view, it is widely held–especially in the media, which rarely have the time or the inclination to make fine distinctions–that there are only two: “pro-choice” and “pro-life.” This is what the two principal warring camps like to call themselves, and that’s what we’ll call them here. In the simplest characterization, a pro-choicer would hold that the decision to abort a pregnancy is to be made only by the woman; the state has no right to interfere. And a pro-lifer would hold that, from the moment of conception, the embryo or fetus is alive; that this life imposes on us a moral obligation to preserve it; and that abortion is tantamount to murder. Both names–pro-choice and pro-life–were picked with an eye toward influencing those whose minds are not yet made up: Few people wish to be counted either as being against freedom of choice or as opposed to life. Indeed, freedom and life are two of our most cherished values, and here they seem to be in fundamental conflict.
Let’s consider these two absolutist positions in turn. A newborn baby is surely the same being it was just before birth. There ‘s good evidence that a late-term fetus responds to sound–including music, but especially its mother’s voice. It can suck its thumb or do a somersault. Occasionally, it generates adult brain-wave patterns. Some people claim to remember being born, or even the uterine environment. Perhaps there is thought in the womb. It’s hard to maintain that a transformation to full personhood happens abruptly at the moment of birth. Why, then, should it be murder to kill an infant the day after it was born but not the day before?
As a practical matter, this isn’t very important: Less than 1 percent of all tabulated abortions in the United States are listed in the last three months of pregnancy (and, on closer investigation, most such reports turn out to be due to miscarriage or miscalculation). But third-trimester abortions provide a test of the limits of the pro-choice point of view. Does a woman’s “innate right to control her own body” encompass the right to kill a near-term fetus who is, for all intents and purposes, identical to a newborn child?
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End of Sagan Excerpt
When I was in high school the book and film series named WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE HUMAN RACE? came out and it featured Doctor C. Everett Koop and Francis Schaeffer and they looked at the issues of abortion, infanticide, and youth euthanasia and they looked at comments from such scholars as Peter Singer and James D. Watson.
C. Everett Koop pictured above and Peter Singer below
Peter Singer, an endowed chair at Princeton’s Center for Human Values, said, “Killing a disabled infant is not morally equivalent to killing a person. Very often it is not wrong at all.”
James D.Watson
In May 1973, James D. Watson, the Nobel Prize laureate who discovered the double helix of DNA, granted an interview to Prism magazine, then a publication of the American Medical Association. Time later reported the interview to the general public, quoting Watson as having said, “If a child were not declared alive until three days after birth, then all parents could be allowed the choice only a few are given under the present system. The doctor could allow the child to die if the parents so choose and save a lot of misery and suffering. I believe this view is the only rational, compassionate attitude to have.”
Carl Sagan
On August 30, 1995 I mailed a letter to Carl Sagan that probably prompted this discussion on abortion and it enclosed a lengthy story from Adrian Rogers about an abortion case in Pine Bluff, Arkansas that almost became an infanticide case:
An excerpt from the Sunday morning message (11-6-83) by Adrian Rogers in Memphis, TN.
I want to tell you that secular humanism and so-called abortion rights are inseparably linked together. We have been taught that our bodies and our children are the products of the evolutionary process, and so therefore human life may not be all that valuable to begin with. We have come today to where it is legal and even considered to be a good thing to put little babies to death…15 million little babies put to death since 1973 because of this philosophy of Secular Humanism.
How did the court make that type of decision? You would think it would be so obvious. You can’t do that! You can’t kill little babies! Why? Because the Bible says! Friend, they don’t give a hoot what the Bible says! There used to be a time when they talked about what the Bible says because there was a time that we as a nation had a constitution that was based in the Judeo-Christian ethic, but today if we say “The Bible says” or “God says “Separation of Church and State. Don’t tell us what the Bible says or what God says. We will tell you what we think!” Therefore, they look at the situation and they decide if it is right or wrong purely on the humanistic philosophy that right and wrong are relative and the situation says what is right or what is wrong.
This little girl just 19 years old went into the doctor’s office and he examined her. He said, “We can take take of you.” He gave her an injection in her arm that was to cause her to go into labor and to get rid of that protoplasm, that feud, that little mass that was in her, but she wasn’t prepared for the sound she was about to hear. It was a little baby crying. That little baby weighed 13 ounces. His hand the size of my thumbnail. You know what the doctor did. The doctor put that little baby in a grocery sack and gave it to Maria’s two friends who were with her in that doctor office and Said, “It will stop making those noises after a while.”
(Adrian Rogers pictured above)
Pine Bluff, Arkansas
They took that grocery sack and Maria home and one hour passed and two hours passed and that baby was still crying and panting for his life in that grocery sack. They took that little baby down to the hospital there in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, and they called an obstetrician and he called a pediatrician and they called nurses and they began to work on that little baby. Today that baby is alive and well and healthy, that little mass of protoplasm. That little thing that wasn’t a human being is alive and well. I want to tell you they spent $150,000 to save the life of that baby. NOW CAN YOU EXPLAIN TO ME HOW THEY CAN SPEND $150,000 TO SAVE THE LIFE OF SOMETHING THAT SOMEBODY WAS PAYING ANOTHER DOCTOR TO TAKE THE LIFE OF? The same life!!! Are you going to tell me that is not a baby? Are you going to tell me that if that baby had been put to death it would not have been murder? You will never convince me of that. What has happened to us in America? We have been sold a bill of goods by the Secular Humanists!
Carl Sagan was elected the HUMANIST OF THE YEAR in 1982 by the AMERICAN HUMANIST ASSOCIATION
Carl Sagan asked, “Does a woman’s “innate right to control her own body” encompass the right to kill a near-term fetus who is, for all intents and purposes, identical to a newborn child?”
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Pt 1 of 2 Listen to this Important Message by Francis Schaeffer
Published on Sep 30, 2013
This message “A Christian Manifesto” was given in 1982 by the late Christian Philosopher Francis Schaeffer when he was age 70 at D. James Kennedy’s Corral Ridge Presbyterian Church. Listen to this important message where Dr. Schaeffer says it is the duty of Christians to disobey the government when it comes in conflict with God’s laws. So many have misinterpreted Romans 13 to mean unconditional obedience to the state. When the state promotes an evil agenda and anti-Christian statues we must obey God rather than men. Acts I use to watch James Kennedy preach from his TV pulpit with great delight in the 1980’s. Both of these men are gone to be with the Lord now. We need new Christian leaders to rise up in their stead. To view Part 2 See Francis Schaeffer Lecture- Christian Manifesto Pt 2 of 2 video The religious and political freedom’s we enjoy as Americans was based on the Bible and the legacy of the Reformation according to Francis Schaeffer. These freedoms will continue to diminish as we cast off the authority of Holy Scripture. In public schools there is no other view of reality but that final reality is shaped by chance. Likewise, public television gives us many things that we like culturally but so much of it is mere propaganda shaped by a humanistic world and life view.
_____________________________
I was able to watch Francis Schaeffer deliver a speech on a book he wrote called “A Christian Manifesto” and I heard him in several interviews on it in 1981 and 1982. I listened with great interest since I also read that book over and over again. Below is a portion of one of Schaeffer’s talks on a crucial subject that is very important today too.
A great talk by Francis Schaeffer:A Christian Manifesto by Dr. Francis A. SchaefferThis address was delivered by the late Dr. Schaeffer in 1982 at the Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church, Fort Lauderdale, Florida. It is based on one of his books, which bears the same title._________
Infanticide and youth enthansia ———So what we find then, is that the medical profession has largely changed — not all doctors. I’m sure there are doctors here in the audience who feel very, very differently, who feel indeed that human life is important and you wouldn’t take it, easily, wantonly. But, in general, we must say (and all you have to do is look at the TV programs), all you have to do is hear about the increased talk about allowing the Mongoloid child — the child with Down’s Syndrome — to starve to death if it’s born this way. Increasingly, we find on every side the medical profession has changed its views.
The view now is, “Is this life worth saving?”I look at you… You’re an older congregation than I am usually used to speaking to. You’d better think, because — this — means — you! It does not stop with abortion and infanticide. It stops at the question, “What about the old person? Is he worth hanging on to?” Should we, as they are doing in England in this awful organization, EXIT, teach older people to commit suicide? Should we help them get rid of them because they are an economic burden, a nuisance? I want to tell you, once you begin chipping away the medical profession…
The intrinsic value of the human life is founded upon the Judeo-Christian concept that man is unique because he is made in the image of God, and not because he is well, strong, a consumer, a sex object or any other thing. That is where whatever compassion this country has is, and certainly it is far from perfect and has never been perfect. Nor out of the Reformation has there been a Golden Age, but whatever compassion there has ever been, it is rooted in the fact that our culture knows that man is unique, is made in the image of God. Take it away, and I just say gently, the stopper is out of the bathtub for all human life.
FEATURED ARTIST IS Paul Gauguin
“Copying nature — what is that supposed to mean? Follow the masters! But why should one follow them? The only reason they are masters is that they didn’t follow anybody!”
Paul Gauguin
Paul Gauguin – Portrait de lartiste au Christ jaune – 1891
Paul Gauguin (1848-1903) is one of the most fascinating figures to emerge from the impressionist movement, a style that he soon abandoned in order to develop a personal style, sometimes related to symbolism, and essential to understand the avant-garde movements of the 20th century, such as fauvism and expressionism.
Imagen: Paul Gauguin: “Portrait de l’artiste au Christ jaune”, 1891. Oil on canvas, 38 x 46 cm. Paris, Musée d’Orsay
As Raymond Cogniat rightly pointed out, Gauguin, younger than the leading figures of Impressionism, was unable to take part in its formation, arriving “too late to give it the stamp of a new personal contribution“, experiencing it “as an initiation, not a discovery” (Raymond Cogniat, “Gauguin”, 1947). Moreover, Gauguin, born in Paris in 1848, spent several years of his childhood in Peru, where his mother gathered a small collection of pre-Columbian ceramics. All this formed the ideal breeding ground for Gauguin’s maturing attraction to adventure, to the “exotic” landscapes that would mark his adult life, his mature art, and thus the evolution of Western painting.
However, unlike other artists of his time, he did not begin painting at a very young age, but in 1873,just one year before the First Impressionist Exhibition. The paintings made by Gauguin in the 1870s show a clear influence of Pissarro, whom he admired. As a “conclusion” of this first impressionist stage, Gauguin took part in the impressionist exhibitions of 1881 and 1884. After this, Gauguin went through a period of economic difficulties. He travelled with his wife, the Danish Mette-Sophie Gad, to Copenhagen, but returned with one of his sons to Paris in 1885, while his wife remained in Denmark with the rest of the family. This is the period in which Gauguin made some of his most important paintings depicting the life in Brittany, although the key event for his future career were the trips he made to Panama and Martinique.
Although Gauguin only stayed a few months in Martinique, where he painted 11 works, the letters written during this period show the artist’s emotion towards nature and the “exotic” way of life. “Gauguin’s love for tropical countries, that passion, was an escape from civilisation. But it was also a search for that happiness experienced in his childhood years in South America” (Ingo F. Walther, “Gauguin”, 1989). He returned to France and in 1888 he moved to Arles to live with the painter Vincent van Gogh. The nine months that the two painters spent living together rank among the most intense, debated and strange chapters in the history of modern painting, which ended with the famous episode of Van Gogh cutting off part of his own ear (although recent studies indicate that it may have been Gauguin who cut it off) and Gauguin fleeing Arles, never to return again.
Paul Gauguin: “Bretonnes causant” (“La Danse des quatre Bretonnes”), 1891. Oil on canvas, 71,8 x 91,4 cm. Neue Pinakothek, Munich. Paul Gauguin: “D’où venons-nous? Que sommes-nous? Où allons-nous?”, 1897. Oil on canvas, 139.1 x 374.6 cm. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
In 1891, after having sold most of his works at the Hôtel Drouot in Paris, Gauguin travelled to Tahiti, in search of an artistic redemption, a comeback to the primitive and the exotic that could help him to find a way in which his Art could be “purified”. About Gauguin’s time in the Pacific, undoubtedly the most famous and fascinating period of his career, a complete essay -“Gauguin in the Tropics“- has been written here in theartwolf.com, so we will not go into details in this brief biography.
Today, Paul Gauguin’s works, especially those created during his time in Tahiti and the Marquesas Islands, continue to fascinate. The artist’s personal life, his relationship with his family and friends, and his now reprehensible relations with the young women of Tahiti, only add fuel to this fascination. Gauguin is also one of the most sought-after artists in the art market, and in 2015, his “Nafea Faa Ipoipo” was sold to Qatar for a price between $200 million and $300 million, one of the highest sums ever paid for a painting.
Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 1) ABORTION OF THE HUMAN RACE Published on Oct 6, 2012 by AdamMetropolis The 45 minute video above is from the film series created from Francis Schaeffer’s book “Whatever Happened to the Human Race?” with Dr. C. Everett Koop. This book really helped develop my political views […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Founding Fathers, Francis Schaeffer, Prolife | Edit | Comments (1)
Francis Schaeffer’s “How should we then live?” Video and outline of episode 3 “The Renaissance” Francis Schaeffer: “How Should We Then Live?” (Episode 3) THE RENAISSANCE I was impacted by this film series by Francis Schaeffer back in the 1970′s and I wanted to share it with you. Schaeffer really shows why we have so […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Francis Schaeffer | Edit | Comments (0)
Francis Schaeffer: “How Should We Then Live?” (Episode 1) THE ROMAN AGE Today I am starting a series that really had a big impact on my life back in the 1970′s when I first saw it. There are ten parts and today is the first. Francis Schaeffer takes a look at Rome and why […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Francis Schaeffer | Edit | Comments (0)
Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 5) TRUTH AND HISTORY Published on Oct 7, 2012 by AdamMetropolis This crucial series is narrated by the late Dr. Francis Schaeffer and former Surgeon General Dr. C. Everett Koop. Today, choices are being made that undermine human rights at their most basic level. Practices once […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Francis Schaeffer | Edit | Comments (0)
The opening song at the beginning of this episode is very insightful. Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 4) THE BASIS FOR HUMAN DIGNITY Published on Oct 7, 2012 by AdamMetropolis This crucial series is narrated by the late Dr. Francis Schaeffer and former Surgeon General Dr. C. Everett Koop. Today, choices […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Francis Schaeffer | Edit | Comments (0)
Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 3) DEATH BY SOMEONE’S CHOICE Published on Oct 6, 2012 by AdamMetropolis This crucial series is narrated by the late Dr. Francis Schaeffer and former Surgeon General Dr. C. Everett Koop. Today, choices are being made that undermine human rights at their most basic level. Practices […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Francis Schaeffer | Edit | Comments (0)
Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race?” (Episode 2) SLAUGHTER OF THE INNOCENTS Published on Oct 6, 2012 by AdamMetropolis This crucial series is narrated by the late Dr. Francis Schaeffer and former Surgeon General Dr. C. Everett Koop. Today, choices are being made that undermine human rights at their most basic level. Practices […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Francis Schaeffer | Edit | Comments (0)
It is not possible to know where the pro-life evangelicals are coming from unless you look at the work of the person who inspired them the most. That person was Francis Schaeffer. I do care about economic issues but the pro-life issue is the most important to me. Several years ago Adrian Rogers (past president of […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Francis Schaeffer | Edit | Comments (0)
This essay below is worth the read. Schaeffer, Francis – “Francis Schaeffer and the Pro-Life Movement” [How Should We Then Live?, Whatever Happened to the Human Race?, A Christian Manifesto] Editor note: <p> </p> [The following essay explores the role that Francis Schaeffer played in the rise of the pro-life movement. It examines the place of […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Francis Schaeffer | Edit | Comments (0)
Great article on Schaeffer. Who was Dr. Francis A. Schaeffer? By Francis Schaeffer The unique contribution of Dr. Francis Schaeffer on a whole generation was the ability to communicate the truth of historic Biblical Christianity in a way that combined intellectual integrity with practical, loving care. This grew out of his extensive understanding of the Bible […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Francis Schaeffer | Edit | Comments (0)
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 […]
By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Francis Schaeffer, Prolife | Edit | Comments (0)
On March 17, 2013 at our worship service at Fellowship Bible Church,
Ben Parkinson who is one of our teaching pastors spoke on Genesis 1. He
spoke about an issue that I was very interested in. Ben started the
sermon by reading the following scripture: Genesis 1-2:3 English
Standard Version (ESV) The Creation of the […]
By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Adrian Rogers, Atheists Confronted, Current Events | TaggedBen Parkinson, Carl Sagan | Edit | Comments (0)
In today’s news you will read about Kirk Cameron taking on the
atheist Stephen Hawking over some recent assertions he made concerning
the existence of heaven. Back in December of 1995 I had the opportunity
to correspond with Carl Sagan about a year before his untimely death.
Sarah Anne Hughes in her article,”Kirk Cameron criticizes […]
By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Atheists Confronted | Edit | Comments (2)
In this post we are going to see that through the years humanist
thought has encouraged artists like Michelangelo to think that the
future was extremely bright versus the place today where many artist who
hold the humanist and secular worldview are very pessimistic. In
contrast to Michelangelo’s DAVID when humanist man thought he […]
In 1992 I began to write skeptics letters after reading their books and articles and watching their films and I was introduced to Carl Sagan’s name by a book published in 1968 by Francis Schaeffer.
Francis Schaeffer in his book HE IS THERE AND HE IS NOT SILENT (Chapter 4) asserts:
Because men have lost the objective basis for certainty of knowledge in the areas in which they are working, more and more we are going to find them manipulating science according to their own sociological or political desires rather than standing upon concrete objectivity. We are going to find increasingly what I would call sociological science, where men manipulate the scientific facts. Carl Sagan (1934-1996),professor of astronomy and space science at Cornell University, demonstrates that the concept of a manipulated science is not far-fetched. He mixes science and science fiction constantly. He is a true follower of Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875-1950). The media gives him much TV prime time and much space in the press and magazine coverage, and the United State Government spent millions of dollars in the special equipment which was included in the equipment of the Mars probe–at his instigation, to give support to his obsessive certainty that life would be found on Mars, or that even large-sized life would be found there. With Carl Sagan the line concerning objective science is blurred, and the media spreads his mixture of science and science fiction out to the public as exciting fact.
In another essay (Are We Alone in the Universe?) I summarized the calculations of Christian astronomer Hugh Ross. Ross estimated the probabilities of all the necessary conditions for life occurring by natural processes. Ross concluded that if all we have to depend on are physical and chemical processes, then we are alone in the universe. Life could have evolved nowhere else. Even the biochemical complexities of living cells are revealing that life requires intelligence (See my review of Darwin’s Black Box.). Sagan’s confidence that life is super-abundant in the universe is grossly out of proportion.
The second reason for Sagan’s hope of other civilizations was expressed well by Ellie Arroway. An international panel, assigned the task of choosing the one individual who would enter the machine and perhaps visit this alien civilization, queried each candidate what one question they would ask. Ellie said she would want to know how they survived their technological adolescence without destroying themselves. Sagan has been a tireless supporter of nuclear disarmament. He truly feared that we would destroy ourselves before we reached our full potential. In the opening scene of his Cosmos television series, he remarked that our species was “young and curious and brave; it showed much promise.”(4) Couple this fear with the conviction that there is no God, and the only source of hope for a salvation from ourselves is another civilization more advanced than us, giving us some pointers for survival.
This confidence that an alien culture that could contact us would be more advanced than us is not unreasonable. If they have the technology to purposefully contact us, and this is something we cannot do, then their technology must be beyond ours. What is never explained, however, even though it is raised in the movie, is why we would expect this alien culture to be benevolent. It is just as likely, if not more so, that an alien civilization would be more of the variety depicted in the movie Independence Day. This hope reflects more on Carl Sagan’s optimistic cosmic humanism that any scientific reality.
Who Will Save Us, God or Aliens?
The movie Contact tells us of a more realistic scenario for a first encounter with an alien civilization, than, say, Men in Black. A radio signal is received from space that is broadcast at a frequency that is equal to the value of hydrogen times pi and gets our attention by counting the prime numbers from 1 to 101 in sequence. The message is authenticated as coming from the star Vega, 26 light years away. The message is eventually decoded and found to contain the plans for constructing a machine for one person to apparently travel out into the galaxy. Ellie Arroway, a young astronomer who discovers the message, eventually boards the machine and travels out into space for a close encounter of a supposedly more realistic kind.
A very tantalizing line is repeated three times in the course of the film. When Ellie Arroway, as a child, asks her father if there are any life forms out in the universe, he says that if there isn’t, it would be an awful waste of space. Palmer Joss repeats the line to an adult Ellie as they engage in a conversation under a starry sky in Puerto Rico. It is a poignant scene as Ellie clearly is stunned as she recalls her father saying the same thing. Ellie, herself, repeats the phrase at the end of the film as she is addressing a group of school children and is asked if there is life out there in space.
Sagan has drawn a bead on the argument for the existence of God from design, or the teleological argument. Waste implies misdirected design. If the universe was created for us and we are alone, why does it have to be so big? Surely we could have survived quite well in a much smaller and economical universe. But if you think about it, Scripture proclaims that the heavens declare the glory of God, not man (Ps. 19:1). Indeed, if the universe was created only for man’s benefit, then it is a waste of space. We don’t deserve it. But if the main purpose of the universe is to glorify the splendid, eternal, all-powerful God, it could never be big enough.
Another interesting theme is the form that the alien takes. After Ellie travels through the galaxy, she arrives at a large docking space station. She is somehow transported to a beach, resembling a picture of Pensacola, Florida she drew as a child. Eventually, a figure approaches. It is her father. The alien appears to her in the form of her father. He tells her that they thought this would make it easier for her.
It’s fascinating that Sagan often complains that if God exists, why doesn’t he make himself plain? Why not a cross in the sky or a mathematical formula in the Bible? Why is everything so obscure? One answer from Philip Yancey’s book, Disappointment with God, is that God did reveal himself plainly to Israel during the Exodus and they still rebelled, and Jesus performed incredible miracles and still most rejected him. The Father does not want to coerce our love. So isn’t it interesting that in Sagan’s own story, when a superior intelligence wants to make contact with us, they put us in familiar surroundings, take on our form, and speak our language?! If they appeared to us in their true form, we would be repulsed. Isn’t that precisely what the Father did for us in sending Jesus to live among us? It appears that Carl Sagan has unwittingly answered his own objection.
The Worldview of Carl Sagan
Carl Sagan began his highly acclaimed public television series Cosmos with a grand overview of the universe and our place within it. With a crashing surf in the background, Sagan declares,
“The cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be.”(5)
Sagan eloquently expresses his conviction that matter and energy are all that exist. He goes on to describe his awe and wonder of the universe. He describes a tingling in the spine, a catch in the voice, as the greatest of mysteries is approached. With excitement, Sagan tells us our tiny planetary home the Earth is lost somewhere between immensity and eternity, thus poignantly emphasizing our simultaneous value and insignificance.
In the movie Contact, Dr. Ellie Arroway expresses this awe and wonder at several points in the film. The most dramatic episode occurs during her galactic space flight when she is confronted with the wonders to be seen near the center of the galaxy. She is at a loss for words in the face of such beauty and humbly suggests that a poet may have been a better choice to send on the trip.
While this is all very moving, the great emotion seems strangely misplaced and inappropriate. If the cosmos is indeed all there is or ever was or ever will be, why get excited? If we are lost between immensity and eternity, shouldn’t our reaction be one of existential terror, not awe? Sagan borrows his excitement from a Christian worldview where the heavens declare the glory of God, which should produce a tingle in the spine and a catch in the voice.
In the next to final scene in Contact, Ellie attempts to defend herself by finally admitting that she has no evidence of her trip through the galaxy. But she has been given something wonderful, a vision of the universe that tells us how tiny, insignificant, rare and precious we are. In Cosmos, Sagan reflects that while we are a species that is young and curious and brave, our place in the universe is to be compared to “a mote of dust that floats in the morning sky.”(6)
How can we be tiny and insignificant and rare and precious at the same time? Clearly Sagan cannot live consistently within his own worldview. His view of the universe dictates that all is meaningless chance and we are nothing special, yet he irrationally rejects the despair that logically follows in favor of being curious, brave, rare, and precious.
As Sagan neared death, many around the world were praying for him. Though clearly an enemy of the faith, the closing sentences of the novel Contact indicated a belief, a hope, in an intelligence that antedates the universe. Might he see the whole truth before he passes into eternity? In his final book Billions and Billions, his wife Ann Druyan writes, “Contrary to the fantasies of fundamentalists, there was no deathbed conversion…. Even at this moment when anyone would be forgiven for turning away from the reality of our situation, Carl was unflinching.”(7) In reflecting on the many cards and letters she received upon his death from people telling of the impact Sagan had on their lives, she writes, “These thoughts comfort me and lift me out of my heartache. They allow me to feel, without resorting to the supernatural, that Carl lives.”(8) Sadly, Carl does live, but not as she believes. Remember that enemies of the faith are lost and in need of a Savior. But even though they may be prayed for and witnessed to by colleagues up to the end, many, including Carl Sagan, will still, defiantly, die in their sins. It is a bitter, needless grief.
Notes
1. Carl Sagan, Contact (NY: Pocket Books [Simon and Schuster], 1986).
2. Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World (New York: Ballantine Books, 1996), p. 459.
3. Sagan, Contact, p. 20.
4. Carl Sagan, Cosmos Video, “Episode 1: The Shores of the Cosmic Ocean” (Turner Home Entertainment, 1989).
5. Ibid.
6. Carl Sagan, Cosmos (New York: Random House, 1980), p. 4.
7. Carl Sagan, Billions and Billions (New York: Random House, 1997), p. 225.
Charles Darwin also tried to put a positive spin on his evolutionary views. Darwin wrote, “Believing as I do that man in the distant future will be a far more perfect creature than he now is…”
Francis Schaeffer commented:
Now you have now the birth of Julian Huxley’s evolutionary optimistic humanism already stated by Darwin. Darwin now has a theory that man is going to be better. If you had lived at 1860 or 1890 and you said to Darwin, “By 1970 will man be better?” He certainly would have the hope that man would be better as Julian Huxley does today. Of course, I wonder what he would say if he lived in our day and saw what has been made of his own views in the direction of (the mass murder) Richard Speck (and deterministic thinking of today’s philosophers). I wonder what he would say. So you have the factor, already the dilemma in Darwin that I pointed out in Julian Huxley and that is evolutionary optimistic humanism rests always on tomorrow. You never have an argument from the present or the past for evolutionary optimistic humanism.
You can have evolutionary nihilism on the basis of the present and the past. Every time you have someone bringing in evolutionary optimistic humanism it is always based on what is going to be produced tomorrow. When is it coming? The years pass and is it coming? Arthur Koestler doesn’t think it is coming. He sees lots of problems here and puts forth for another solution.
Darwin wrote, “…it is an intolerable thought that he and all other sentient beings are doomed to complete annihilation after such long-continued slow progress. To those who fully admit the immortality of the human soul, the destruction of our world will not appear so dreadful…”
Francis Schaeffer commented:
Here you feel Marcel Proust and the dust of death is on everything today because the dust of death is on everything tomorrow. Here you have the dilemma of Nevil Shute’s ON THE BEACH. If it is true that all we have left is biological continuity and biological complexity, which is all we have left in Darwinism here, or in many of the modern philosophies, then you can’t stand Shute’s ON THE BEACH. Maybe tomorrow at noon human life may be wiped out. Darwin already feels the tension, because if human life is going to be wiped out tomorrow, what is it worth today? Darwin can’t stand the thought of death of all men. Charlie Chaplin when he heard there was no life on Mars said, “I’m lonely.”
You think of the Swedish Opera (ANIARA) that is pictured inside a spaceship. There was a group of men and women going into outer space and they had come to another planet and the singing inside the spaceship was normal opera music. Suddenly there was a big explosion and the world had blown up and these were the last people left, the only conscious people left, and the last scene is the spaceship is off course and it will never land, but will just sail out into outer space. They say when it was shown in Stockholm the first time, the tough Swedes with all their modern mannishness, came out (after the opera was over) with hardly a word said, just complete silence.
Darwin already with his own position says he CAN’T STAND IT!! You can say, “Why can’t you stand it?” We would say to Darwin, “You were not made for this kind of thing. Man was made in the image of God. Your CAN’T- STAND- IT- NESS is screaming at you that your position is wrong. Why can’t you listen to yourself?”
You find all he is left here is biological continuity, and thus his feeling as well as his reason now is against his own theory, yet he holds it against the conclusions of his reason. Reason doesn’t make it hard to be a Christian. Darwin shows us the other way. He is holding his position against his reason.
Aniara is an opera in two acts by Karl-Birger Blomdahl, with a libretto by Erik Lindegren based on the poem Aniara by Harry Martinson, that was premiered in 1959.[1] Subtitle of poem and opera is the ambiguous phrase En revy om människan i tid och rum: “A revue/review about Man in Time and Space”.[2]
The score of Aniara is varied and makes full use of a range of musical idioms, including jazz, serial writing and an electronic tape. The narrative is sung primarily by Mimaroben, a bass-baritone, who operates the electronic tape, Mima, the computer, and by the chorus.[1] In essence the opera (and poem) deal with the relationship between the individual and the group through time.
Many representatives of the international press were in Stockholm for the premiere in 1959 at a time when the space age was beginning.[2] Blomdahl said in interview that the opera (in common with his next opera Herr von Hancken) was founded on “modern man’s complexity and his basically impossible situation”; Aniara dealt with “the downfall of the group”.[3] A production was mounted in Gothenburg in 1994.[4]
Controlled by the computer Mima, the space shipAniara leaves the poisoned Earth, heading for Mars. Through Mimaroben, who is the operator of Mima, the emigrants learn of the evil of mankind.
During the celebration of midsummer, the vessel is thrown off course, causing panic, and forcing a journey to the constellationLyra which commander Chefone says will last for the rest of the lives of the crew and passengers. When the Earth is destroyed, Mima cannot continue, and Sandon makes jokes about the safety on board, but when the mute describes in signs the end of the world he becomes silent. Chefone blames Mimaroben, who, with the pilot Isagel, is taken away.
The commander deals as best he can with the increased despair and moral deterioration among those aboard, depicted in a scene in a hall of mirrors, where Daisy Dodd, her lesbian partner, and the passengers dance, and the blind poetess speaks of her cult of Light, which has replaced Mima. The body of the dead chief technician is shot into outer space in the direction of the star Rigel. The 20th anniversary of the voyage is celebrated, and the blind poetess ecstatically sees the city of heaven, but is taken away.
The final scene shows the last night onboard where Isagel dances and the blind poetess sings of the joy of death. A light beam sweeps over the dead passengers and Mimaroben prepares for the end. Finally darkness descends over the occupants of the space ship, and the audience in the theatre.
The first performance was broadcast by Swedish Radio; a subsequent recording was conducted by Stig Westerberg, and included Viveka Anderberg, Björn Haugan, Stefan Parkman, Mikael Samuelson, Thomas Sunnegårdh and Jerker Arvidssonin among the cast.
Carl Sagan, in full Carl Edward Sagan, (born November 9, 1934, Brooklyn, New York, U.S.—died December 20, 1996, Seattle, Washington), American astronomer and science writer. A popular and influential figure in the United States, he was controversial in scientific, political, and religious circles for his views on extraterrestrial intelligence, nuclear weapons, and religion. Sagan wrote the article “life” for the 1970 printing of the 14th edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica (1929–73).
Sagan attended the University of Chicago, where he earned a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in physics in 1955 and 1956, respectively, and a doctorate in astronomy and astrophysics in 1960. From 1960 to 1962 he was a fellow in astronomy at the University of California, Berkeley, and from 1962 to 1968 he worked at Harvard University and the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. His early work focused on the physical conditions of the planets, especially the atmospheres of Venus and Jupiter. During that time he became interested in the possibility of lifebeyond Earth and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI), a controversial research field he did much to advance. For example, building on earlier work by American chemists Stanley Miller and Harold Urey, he demonstrated that amino acids and nucleic acids—the building blocks of life—could be produced by exposing a mixture of simple chemicals to ultraviolet radiation. Some scientists criticized Sagan’s work, arguing that it was unreasonable to use resources for SETI, a fantasy project that was almost certainly doomed to failure.
and you will hear what far smarter people than I have to say on this matter. I agree with them.
Harry Kroto
I have attempted to respond to all of Dr. Kroto’s friends arguments and I have posted my responses one per week for over a year now. Here are some of my earlier posts:
In the 1st video below in the 45th clip in this series are his words and my response is below them.
50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God (Part 1)
Another 50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God (Part 2
A Further 50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God (Part 3)
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CARL SAGAN interview with Charlie Rose:
“…faith is belief in the absence of evidence. To believe in the absence of evidence, in my opinion, is a mistake. The idea is to hold belief until there is compelling evidence. If the Universe does not comply with our previous propositions, then we have to change…Religion deals with history poetry, great literature, ethics, morals, compassion…where religion gets into trouble is when it pretends to know something about science,”
______________ George Harrison Swears & Insults Paul and Yoko Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds- The Beatles The Beatles: I have dedicated several posts to this series on the Beatles and I don’t know when this series will end because Francis Schaeffer spent a lot of time listening to the Beatles and talking […]
The Beatles in a press conference after their Return from the USA Uploaded on Nov 29, 2010 The Beatles in a press conference after their Return from the USA. The Beatles: I have dedicated several posts to this series on the Beatles and I don’t know when this series will end because Francis […]
__________________ Beatles 1966 Last interview I have dedicated several posts to this series on the Beatles and I don’t know when this series will end because Francis Schaeffer spent a lot of time listening to the Beatles and talking and writing about them and their impact on the culture of the 1960’s. In this […]
_______________ The Beatles documentary || A Long and Winding Road || Episode 5 (This video discusses Stg. Pepper’s creation I have dedicated several posts to this series on the Beatles and I don’t know when this series will end because Francis Schaeffer spent a lot of time listening to the Beatles and talking and writing about […]
_______________ Francis Schaeffer pictured below: _____________________ I have included the 27 minute episode THE AGE OF NONREASON by Francis Schaeffer. In that video Schaeffer noted, ” Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band…for a time it became the rallying cry for young people throughout the world. It expressed the essence of their lives, thoughts and their feelings.” How Should […]
Crimes and Misdemeanors: A Discussion: Part 1 ___________________________________ Today I will answer the simple question: IS IT POSSIBLE TO BE AN OPTIMISTIC SECULAR HUMANIST THAT DOES NOT BELIEVE IN GOD OR AN AFTERLIFE? This question has been around for a long time and you can go back to the 19th century and read this same […]
____________________________________ Francis Schaeffer pictured below: __________ Francis Schaeffer has written extensively on art and culture spanning the last 2000years and here are some posts I have done on this subject before : Francis Schaeffer’s “How should we then live?” Video and outline of episode 10 “Final Choices” , episode 9 “The Age of Personal Peace and Affluence”, episode 8 […]
Love and Death [Woody Allen] – What if there is no God? [PL] ___________ _______________ How Should We then Live Episode 7 small (Age of Nonreason) #02 How Should We Then Live? (Promo Clip) Dr. Francis Schaeffer 10 Worldview and Truth Two Minute Warning: How Then Should We Live?: Francis Schaeffer at 100 Francis Schaeffer […]
___________________________________ Francis Schaeffer pictured below: ____________________________ Francis Schaeffer “BASIS FOR HUMAN DIGNITY” Whatever…HTTHR Dr. Francis schaeffer – The flow of Materialism(from Part 4 of Whatever happened to human race?) Dr. Francis Schaeffer – The Biblical flow of Truth & History (intro) Francis Schaeffer – The Biblical Flow of History & Truth (1) Dr. Francis Schaeffer […]
I was influenced by Francis Schaeffer’s books and films and Adrian Rogers’ sermons when I grew up. I want to make the point that no one influenced the pro-life movement more than Francis Schaeffer!!! Schaeffer energized the movement and that is why it is appropriate that on May 15, 1994, ten years the anniversary of Francis Schaeffer’s passing I would mail a letter to Carl Sagan that get him to ultimately respond to Schaeffer’s views on abortion which I included 3 letters that followed.
Francis Schaeffer and Adrian Rogers
On August 30, 1995, in my letter to Carl Sagan I included my published letter to the editor in that very day’s Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and it appeared under the title THE HUMANIST WORLD VIEW. This got Sagan’s notice and in his letter of December 5, 1995, Sagan disagreed with me concerning the close relationship between atheistic evolutionists and the abortion movement. Actually I wrote: Adrian Rogers, a former president of the Southern Baptist Convention, has rightly said, “Secular Humanism and so-called abortion rights are inseparably linked together.”
In another letter I noted that Nelson Price in THE EMMANUEL FACTOR (1987) tells the story about Brown Trucking Company in Georgia who used to give polygraph tests to their job applicants. However, in part of the test the operator asked, “Do you believe in God?” In every instance when a professing atheist answered “No,” the test showed the person to be lying. My pastor Adrian Rogers used to tell this same story to illustrate Romans 1:19 and it was his conclusion that “there is no such thing anywhere on earth as a true atheist. If a man says he doesn’t believe in God, then he is lying. God has put his moral consciousness into every man’s heart, and a man has to try to kick his conscience to death to say he doesn’t believe in God.” Sagan’s December 5, 1995 letter to me included the sentence “You argue that God exists because otherwise we could not understand the world in our consciousness,” and this may have been his short to this story above possibly.
I disagree with his assertion that there is a widespread ”Problem of Radicals Killing Abortion Doctors.” I know that Sagan included a radical evangelical killer in his book CONTACT, but in reality those are hard to find and I have provided a more detailed response in a past post. Let me briefly respond today with a picture:
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Sagan rightly noted, “New knowledge of embryology, the physicians said, had shown the fetus to be human even before quickening.” This brings me to Bernard Nathanson’s powerful testimony on why he gave up his abortion activities and spent the rest of his life in the pro-life promoting his film THE SILENT SCREAM because of the technology of ultrasound and how, for the first time ever, we could actually see inside the womb.
On January 10, 1996, I wrote my response letter to Carl Sagan and I included an additional insert from Francis Schaeffer that showed The humanist base leads to meaningless and The Bible is God’s revealed truth and it tells us about our origin.
A Christian Manifesto by Dr. Francis A. Schaeffer The following address was delivered by the late Dr. Schaeffer in 1982 at the Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church, Fort Lauderdale, Florida. It is based on one of his books, which bears the same title.
What we have, and take so poorly for granted, is unique. It was brought forth by a specific world view and that specific world view was the Judeo-Christian world view especially as it was refined in the Reformation, putting the authority indeed at a central point — not in the Church and the state and the Word of God, but rather the Word of God alone. All the benefits which we know — I would repeat — which we have taken so easily and so much for granted, are unique. They have been grounded on the certain world view that there was a Creator there to give inalienable rights. And this other view over here, which has become increasingly dominant, of the material-energy final world view (shaped by pure chance) never would have, could not, has, no basis of values, in order to give such a balance of freedom…It is the same with the television programs. Public television gives us many things that many of us like culturally, but is also completely committed to a propaganda position that the last reality is only material / energy shaped by pure chance. Clark’s Civilization, Brunowski, The Ascent of Man, Carl Sagan’s Cosmos — they all say it. There is only one final view of reality that’s possible and that is that the final reality is material or energy shaped by pure chance.
Best of Carl Sagan on Religion
How Carl Sagan Strengthened My Faith
Below are Francis Schaeffer and his son Franky:
In 1992 I began to write skeptics letters after reading their books and articles and watching their films and I was introduced to Carl Sagan’s name by a book published in 1968 by Francis Schaeffer.
Francis Schaeffer in his book HE IS THERE AND HE IS NOT SILENT (Chapter 4) asserts:
Because men have lost the objective basis for certainty of knowledge in the areas in which they are working, more and more we are going to find them manipulating science according to their own sociological or political desires rather than standing upon concrete objectivity. We are going to find increasingly what I would call sociological science, where men manipulate the scientific facts. Carl Sagan (1934-1996),professor of astronomy and space science at Cornell University, demonstrates that the concept of a manipulated science is not far-fetched. He mixes science and science fiction constantly. He is a true follower of Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875-1950). The media gives him much TV prime time and much space in the press and magazine coverage, and the United State Government spent millions of dollars in the special equipment which was included in the equipment of the Mars probe–at his instigation, to give support to his obsessive certainty that life would be found on Mars, or that even large-sized life would be found there. With Carl Sagan the line concerning objective science is blurred, and the media spreads his mixture of science and science fiction out to the public as exciting fact.
Richard Dawkins on Carl Sagan, Einstein and Religion | A How To Academy …
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Francis Schaeffer the Founder of the L’Abri community
This is the fourth part of the letter to Carl Sagan, but the third part was posted last week on my blog.
The 5 Conclusions of Humanism according to King Solomon of Israel in the Book of Ecclesiastes!!!!!
The Humanistic world view tells us there is no afterlife and all we have is this life “under the sun.”
SECTION 3 A Study in the Book of Ecclesiastes done by Francis Schaeffer (Christian Philosopher). Solomon limits himself to “under the sun” – In other words the meaning of life on the basis of human life standing alone between birth and death. It is indeed the book of modern man. Solomon is the universal man with unlimited resources who says let us see where I go. Ravi Zacharias –
“The key to understanding the Book of Ecclesiastes is the term ‘under the sun.’ What that literally means is you lock God out of a closed system and you are left with only this world of time plus chance plus us (Matter)”
1st Conclusion: Nothing in life truly satisfies and that includes wisdom, great works and pleasure. A) Will wisdom satisfy someone under the sun? We know it is good in its proper place. Take a look at this quote by Mike Malone: “Knowing God is the deepest longing of the human heart. It is knowledge so high and lofty that it transcends language, which can never exhaust the glorious reality of God. The wise man would take you by the hand and lead you to the fountain, where you may drink to your heart’s content, never tasting enough, yet never failing to be satisfied.” But what did Solomon find out about wisdom “under the sun”? Ecclesiastes 1:16-18 (Living Bible): I said to myself, ‘Look, I am better educated than any of the kings before me in Jerusalem. I have greater wisdom and knowledge.’So I worked hard to be wise instead of foolish[c]—but now I realize that even this was like chasing the wind. For the more my wisdom, the more my grief; to increase knowledge only increases distress.”
B) Do great works of men bring satisfaction?Ecclesiastes 2:4-6, 18-20: Then I tried to find fulfillment by inaugurating a great public works program: homes, vineyards, gardens, parks, and orchards for myself, and reservoirs to hold the water to irrigate my plantations.And I am disgusted about this—that I must leave the fruits of all my hard work to others. 19 And who can tell whether my son will be a wise man or a fool? And yet all I have will be given to him—how discouraging!So I turned in despair from hard work as the answer to my search for satisfaction.C) Does pleasure give lasting satisfaction?
KJV and Living Bible Ecclesiastes 2:1-3, 8, 10, 11: I said in mine heart, Go to now, I will prove thee with mirth, therefore enjoy pleasure: and, behold, this also is vanity.2 I said of laughter, It is mad: and of mirth, What doeth it? 3 I sought in mine heart to give myself unto wine, yet acquainting mine heart with wisdom; and to lay hold on folly,And then there were my many beautiful concubines.10 Anything I wanted I took and did not restrain myself from any joy…11 But as I looked at everything I had tried, it was all so useless, a chasing of the wind, and there was nothing really worthwhile anywhere… 2nd Conclusion: Power reigns in this life and the scales are not balanced!!!!!Ecclesiastes 4:1 (King James Version): So I returned, and considered all the oppressions that are done under the sun: and behold the tears of such as were oppressed, and they had no comforter; and on the side of their oppressors there was power; but they had no comforter. Ecclesiastes 7:15 (King James Version) All things have I seen in the days of my vanity: there is a just man that perisheth in his righteousness, and there is a wicked man that prolongeth his life in his wickedness.If you are a humanist you must admit that men like Hitler will not be punished in the afterlife because you deny there is an afterlife? Right?
3rd Conclusion – Death is the great equalizer. Just as the beasts will not be remembered so ultimately brilliant men will not be remembered. Ecclesiastes 3:20 “All go unto one place; All are of the dust, and all turn to dust again.” Here Solomon comes to the same point that Kerry Livgren came to in January of 1978 when he wrote the hit song DUST IN THE WIND. Can you refute the nihilistic claims of this song within the humanistic world view? Solomon couldn’t but maybe you can.
4th Conclusion – Chance and time plus matter (us) has determined the past and it will determine the future.By the way, what are the ingredients that make evolution work? George Wald – “Time is the Hero.”
Jacques Monod – “Pure chance, absolutely free but blind, is at the root of the stupendous edifice of evolution.”
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I can not think of a better illustration of this in action than the movie ON THE BEACH by Nevil Shute. On May 4, 1994 I watched the movie for the first time and again I thought of the humanist who believes that history is not heading somewhere with a purpose but is guided by pure chance, absolutely free but blind. I thought of the passage Ecclesiastes 9:10-12 Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest.11 I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.12 For man also knoweth not his time: as the fishes that are taken in an evil net, and as the birds that are caught in the snare; so are the sons of men snared in an evil time, when it falleth suddenly upon them.
5th Conclusion – Life is just a series ofcontinual and unending cycles and man is stuck in the middle of the cycle. Youth, old age, Death. Does Solomon at this point embrace nihilism? Yes!!! He exclaims that the hates life (Ecclesiastes 2:17), he longs for death (4:2-3) Yet he stills has a fear of death (2:14-16). How do you want your life to go the next million years? The humanist world view has no answer (see H. J. Blackham earlier quote). Ecclesiastes2:15-16: 15 Then said I in my heart, As it happeneth to the fool, so it happeneth even to me; and why was I then more wise? Then I said in my heart, that this also is vanity.16 For there is no remembrance of the wise more than of the fool for ever; seeing that which now is in the days to come shall all be forgotten. And how dieth the wise man? as the fool.(Also refer to the lyrics of the song DUST IN THE WIND by the group KANSAS).Can you refute any of the conclusions of Solomon? Will you ridicule this material. In 1988 in the September-October of the HUMANIST MAGAZINE a 3 page article was devoted to cutting Schaeffer down to size, but even in that article which was called FRANCIS SCHAEFFER: A LOOK AT ONE OF THE FOREMOST FIGURES IN THE CRUSADE AGAINST HUMANISM the writer gave Schaeffer his due by saying “Schaeffer’s books are not the typical hodge-podge of newspaper headlines and obscure Biblical prophecies, as in Hal Lindsey’s books. Schaeffer demonstrates a familiarity with the major theologians and some understanding of philosophy, art and literature. His books are clearly in a different league from the typical evangelical Christian reading matter…:” Why did I write about the meaning of life in this letter addressed to you?????? The answer is very simple: You have a spiritual need that must be met, and only Christ can meet it!!!! In the introduction of the book A SHATTERED VISAGE, Ravi Zacharias said this “The most telling aspect of the afternoon I spoke to a group of scientists at the Bell Lab in Holmdel, NJ was the nature of the questions that were raised following the address. None had to do with the technical or scientific expertise that the audience represented. They all had to do with the heart searching questions of men and women in pursuit of meaning of life. I have found these same questions asked time and time again in a variety of settings. After the intellectual that comes to the fore.” Ecclesiastes 3:11b “God has planted eternity in the hearts of men.”
Charles Spurgeon “The soul is insatiable till it finds the savoir.”I want to finish with a prediction: There is coming a time in your life that the most important thing to you will be to get your prayer answered by God. When I was ridden in a hospital many years ago I was told that I may not live. My thoughts turned to spiritual things. Does it take a tragic situation for you to wake up? I will pray that you see the humanistic worldview for what it is, and that you would honestly pursue the Bible. Thank you for your time
Finally I have enclosed a copy of my letter published in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette Newspaper on April 22, 1994:
A BANKRUPT WORLDVIEW
Brian Bolton, the ordained humanist minister, asserted that humanism deserves out respect in his March 27 article. Does it really?
Humanism is the belief that we are limited to human life standing alone between birth and death. There is no belief in God and the afterlife. Three thousand years ago, Solomon took a look at this humanistic world view in the Book of Ecclesiastes when he limited himself to examining life “under the sun.”
Humanists will tell you that the world evolved, and just as time and chance have determined the human race’s past, it will also determine the human race’s future. Ecclesiastes says, “I returned and saw under the sun that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favor to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.”
Solomon saw that the humanistic world view was bankrupt because without God in the picture man’s future was left up to time and chance.
When I play with my two children, they constantly are saying, “Daddy, watch me!” Their hearts long for my personal attention just as my heart longs for a daily personal relationship with a God who cares about me.
Why respect a religion like humanism that hands your future over to time and chance instead of a God who created you for a purpose? Humanism tells you that you are just a face in the crowd, and 1 million years from now it will be as though you never existed. Is Bolton a naive humanist who has avoided this conclusion?
Everette Hatcher III
The Cosmos Is All That Is
Francis Schaeffer wrote in 1981 in CHRISTIAN MANIFESTO chapter 3 The Destruction of Faith and Freedom:
Then there was a shift into materialistic science based on a philosophic change to the materialistic concept of final reality. This shift was based on no addition to the facts known. It was a choice, in faith, to see things that way. No clearer expression of this could be given than Carl Sagan’s arrogant statement on public television–made without any scientific proof for the statement–to 140 million viewers: “The cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever was or ever will be.” He opened the series, COSMOS, with this essentially creedal declaration and went on to build every subsequent conclusion upon it.
How Should We Then Live | Season 1 | Episode 6 | The Scientific Age
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FEATURED ARTIST IS RAPHAEL
RAFFAELLO SANZIO (1483-1520)
Equally loved and hated in different eras, no one can doubt that Raphael is one of the greatest geniuses of the Renaissance, with an excellent technique in terms of drawing and color.
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 […]
On March 17, 2013 at our worship service at Fellowship Bible Church, Ben Parkinson who is one of our teaching pastors spoke on Genesis 1. He spoke about an issue that I was very interested in. Ben started the sermon by reading the following scripture: Genesis 1-2:3 English Standard Version (ESV) The Creation of the […]
At the end of this post is a message by RC Sproul in which he discusses Sagan. Over the years I have confronted many atheists. Here is one story below: I really believe Hebrews 4:12 when it asserts: For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the […]
In today’s news you will read about Kirk Cameron taking on the atheist Stephen Hawking over some recent assertions he made concerning the existence of heaven. Back in December of 1995 I had the opportunity to correspond with Carl Sagan about a year before his untimely death. Sarah Anne Hughes in her article,”Kirk Cameron criticizes […]
In this post we are going to see that through the years humanist thought has encouraged artists like Michelangelo to think that the future was extremely bright versus the place today where many artist who hold the humanist and secular worldview are very pessimistic. In contrast to Michelangelo’s DAVID when humanist man thought he […]
_________ Antony Flew on God and Atheism Published on Feb 11, 2013 Lee Strobel interviews philosopher and scholar Antony Flew on his conversion from atheism to deism. Much of it has to do with intelligent design. Flew was considered one of the most influential and important thinker for atheism during his time before his death […]
Adrian Rogers is pictured below and Francis Schaeffer above.
Watching the film HOW SHOULD WE THEN LIVE? in 1979 impacted my life greatly
Francis Schaeffer in the film WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE HUMAN RACE?
Francis and Edith Schaeffer
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On May 15, 1994 on the 10th anniversary of the passing of Francis Schaeffer I sent a letter to Carl Sagan and here is a portion of that letter below:
I have enclosed a cassette tape by Adrian Rogers and it includes a story about Charles Darwin‘s journey from the position of theistic evolution to agnosticism. Here are the four bridges that Adrian Rogers says evolutionists can’t cross in the CD “Four Bridges that the Evolutionist Cannot Cross.” 1. The Origin of Life and the law of biogenesis. 2. The Fixity of the Species. 3.The Second Law of Thermodynamics. 4. The Non-Physical Properties Found in Creation.
In the first 3 minutes of the cassette tape is the hit song “Dust in the Wind.” Below I have given you some key points Francis Schaeffer makes about the experiment that Solomon undertakes in the book of Ecclesiastes to find satisfaction by looking into learning (1:16-18), laughter, ladies, luxuries, and liquor (2:1-3, 8, 10, 11), and labor (2:4-6, 18-20).
Schaeffer noted that Solomon took a look at the meaning of life on the basis of human life standing alone between birth and death “under the sun.” This phrase UNDER THE SUN appears over and over in Ecclesiastes. The Christian Scholar Ravi Zacharias noted, “The key to understanding the Book of Ecclesiastes is the term UNDER THE SUN — What that literally means is you lock God out of a closed system and you are left with only this world of Time plus Chance plus matter.”
Here the first 7 verses of Ecclesiastes followed by Schaeffer’s commentary on it:
The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem. Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity. What does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun? A generation goes, and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever. The sun rises, and the sun goes down, and hastens to the place where it rises. The wind blows to the south and goes around to the north; around and around goes the wind, and on its circuits the wind returns. All streams run to the sea, but the sea is not full; to the place where the streams flow, there they flow again.
Solomon is showing a high degree of comprehension of evaporation and the results of it. Seeing also in reality nothing changes. There is change but always in a set framework and that is cycle. You can relate this to the concepts of modern man. Ecclesiastes is the only pessimistic book in the Bible and that is because of the place where Solomon limits himself. He limits himself to the question of human life, life under the sun between birth and death and the answers this would give.
Solomon doesn’t place man outside of the cycle. Man doesn’t escape the cycle. Man is in the cycle. Birth and death and youth and old age.
There is no doubt in my mind that Solomon had the same experience in his life that I had as a younger man (at the age of 18 in 1930). I remember standing by the sea and the moon arose and it was copper and beauty. Then the moon did not look like a flat dish but a globe or a sphere since it was close to the horizon. One could feel the global shape of the earth too. Then it occurred to me that I could contemplate the interplay of the spheres and I was exalted because I thought I can look upon them with all their power, might, and size, but they could contempt nothing. Then came upon me a horror of great darkness because it suddenly occurred to me that although I could contemplate them and they could contemplate nothing yet they would continue to turn in ongoing cycles when I saw no more forever and I was crushed.
Let me show you some inescapable conclusions if you choose to live without God in the picture. Schaeffer noted that Solomon came to these same conclusions when he looked at life “under the sun.”
Death is the great equalizer (Eccl 3:20, “All go to the same place; all come from dust, and to dust all return.”)
Chance and time have determined the past, and they will determine the future. (Ecclesiastes 9:11-13 “I have seen something else under the sun: The race is not to the swift
or the battle to the strong, nor does food come to the wise or wealth to the brilliant or favor to the learned; but time and chance happen to them all. Moreover, no one knows when their hour will come: As fish are caught in a cruel net, or birds are taken in a snare, so people are trapped by evil times that fall unexpectedly upon them.”)
Power reigns in this life, and the scales are not balanced(Eccl 4:1; “Again I looked and saw all the oppression that was taking place under the sun: I saw the tears of the oppressed—
and they have no comforter; power was on the side of their oppressors— and they have no comforter.” 7:15 “In this meaningless life of mine I have seen both of these: the righteous perishing in their righteousness, and the wicked living long in their wickedness. ).
Nothing in life gives true satisfaction without God including knowledge (1:16-18), ladies and liquor (2:1-3, 8, 10, 11), and great building projects (2:4-6, 18-20).
There is no ultimate lasting meaning in life. (1:2)
By the way, the final chapter of Ecclesiastes finishes with Solomon emphasizing that serving God is the only proper response of man. Solomon looks above the sun and brings God back into the picture in the final chapter of the book in Ecclesiastes 12:13-14, “ Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil.”
The answer to find meaning in life is found in putting your faith and trust in Jesus Christ. The Bible is true from cover to cover and can be trusted. In 1978 I heard the song “Dust in the Wind” by Kansas when it rose to #6 on the charts. That song told me that Kerry Livgren the writer of that song and a member of Kansas had come to the same conclusion that Solomon had and that “all was meaningless UNDER THE SUN,” and looking ABOVE THE SUN was the only option. I remember mentioning to my friends at church that we may soon see some members of Kansas become Christians because their search for the meaning of life had obviously come up empty even though they had risen from being an unknown band to the top of the music business and had all the wealth and fame that came with that.
Livgren wrote, “All we do, crumbles to the ground though we refuse to see, Dust in the Wind, All we are is dust in the wind, Don’t hang on, Nothing lasts forever but the Earth and Sky, It slips away, And all your money won’t another minute buy.”
Both Kerry Livgren and Dave Hope of Kansas became Christians eventually. Kerry Livgren first tried Eastern Religions and Dave Hope had to come out of a heavy drug addiction. I was shocked and elated to see their personal testimony on The 700 Club in 1981. Livgren lives in Topeka, Kansas today where he teaches “Diggers,” a Sunday school class at Topeka Bible Church. Hope is the head of Worship, Evangelism and Outreach at Immanuel Anglican Church in Destin, Florida.
J.I.PACKER WROTE OF SCHAEFFER, “His communicativestyle was not that of acautious academic who labors for exhaustive coverage and dispassionate objectivity. It was rather that of an impassioned thinker who paints his vision of eternal truth in bold strokes and stark contrasts.Yet it is a fact thatMANY YOUNG THINKERS AND ARTISTS…HAVE FOUND SCHAEFFER’S ANALYSES A LIFELINE TO SANITY WITHOUT WHICH THEY COULD NOT HAVE GONE ON LIVING.”
Francis Schaeffer in Art and the Bible noted, “Many modern artists, it seems to me, have forgotten the value that art has in itself. Much modern art is far too intellectual to be great art. Many modern artists seem not to see the distinction between man and non-man, and it is a part of the lostness of modern man that they no longer see value in the work of art as a work of art.”
Many modern artists are left in this point of desperation that Schaeffer points out and it reminds me of the despair that Solomon speaks of in Ecclesiastes. Christian scholar Ravi Zacharias has noted, “The key to understanding the Book of Ecclesiastes is the term ‘under the sun.’ What that literally means is you lock God out of a closed system, and you are left with only this world of time plus chance plus matter.” THIS IS EXACT POINT SCHAEFFER SAYS SECULAR ARTISTSARE PAINTING FROM TODAY BECAUSE THEY BELIEVED ARE A RESULTOF MINDLESS CHANCE.
and you will hear what far smarter people than I have to say on this matter. I agree with them.
Harry Kroto
I have attempted to respond to all of Dr. Kroto’s friends arguments and I have posted my responses one per week for over a year now. Here are some of my earlier posts:
In the 1st video below in the 45th clip in this series are his words and my response is below them.
50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God (Part 1)
Another 50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God (Part 2
A Further 50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God (Part 3)
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CARL SAGAN interview with Charlie Rose:
“…faith is belief in the absence of evidence. To believe in the absence of evidence, in my opinion, is a mistake. The idea is to hold belief until there is compelling evidence. If the Universe does not comply with our previous propositions, then we have to change…Religion deals with history poetry, great literature, ethics, morals, compassion…where religion gets into trouble is when it pretends to know something about science,”
______________ George Harrison Swears & Insults Paul and Yoko Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds- The Beatles The Beatles: I have dedicated several posts to this series on the Beatles and I don’t know when this series will end because Francis Schaeffer spent a lot of time listening to the Beatles and talking […]
The Beatles in a press conference after their Return from the USA Uploaded on Nov 29, 2010 The Beatles in a press conference after their Return from the USA. The Beatles: I have dedicated several posts to this series on the Beatles and I don’t know when this series will end because Francis […]
__________________ Beatles 1966 Last interview I have dedicated several posts to this series on the Beatles and I don’t know when this series will end because Francis Schaeffer spent a lot of time listening to the Beatles and talking and writing about them and their impact on the culture of the 1960’s. In this […]
_______________ The Beatles documentary || A Long and Winding Road || Episode 5 (This video discusses Stg. Pepper’s creation I have dedicated several posts to this series on the Beatles and I don’t know when this series will end because Francis Schaeffer spent a lot of time listening to the Beatles and talking and writing about […]
_______________ Francis Schaeffer pictured below: _____________________ I have included the 27 minute episode THE AGE OF NONREASON by Francis Schaeffer. In that video Schaeffer noted, ” Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band…for a time it became the rallying cry for young people throughout the world. It expressed the essence of their lives, thoughts and their feelings.” How Should […]
Crimes and Misdemeanors: A Discussion: Part 1 ___________________________________ Today I will answer the simple question: IS IT POSSIBLE TO BE AN OPTIMISTIC SECULAR HUMANIST THAT DOES NOT BELIEVE IN GOD OR AN AFTERLIFE? This question has been around for a long time and you can go back to the 19th century and read this same […]
____________________________________ Francis Schaeffer pictured below: __________ Francis Schaeffer has written extensively on art and culture spanning the last 2000years and here are some posts I have done on this subject before : Francis Schaeffer’s “How should we then live?” Video and outline of episode 10 “Final Choices” , episode 9 “The Age of Personal Peace and Affluence”, episode 8 […]
Love and Death [Woody Allen] – What if there is no God? [PL] ___________ _______________ How Should We then Live Episode 7 small (Age of Nonreason) #02 How Should We Then Live? (Promo Clip) Dr. Francis Schaeffer 10 Worldview and Truth Two Minute Warning: How Then Should We Live?: Francis Schaeffer at 100 Francis Schaeffer […]
___________________________________ Francis Schaeffer pictured below: ____________________________ Francis Schaeffer “BASIS FOR HUMAN DIGNITY” Whatever…HTTHR Dr. Francis schaeffer – The flow of Materialism(from Part 4 of Whatever happened to human race?) Dr. Francis Schaeffer – The Biblical flow of Truth & History (intro) Francis Schaeffer – The Biblical Flow of History & Truth (1) Dr. Francis Schaeffer […]
“If we do not oppose abortion at some stage of pregnancy, is there not a danger of dismissing an entire category of human beings as unworthy of our protection and respect?”
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Does Carl Sagan and other atheists do believe unborn children worthy enough to be protected?
“In the flood of the loss of humanness in our age ― including the flow from abortion-on-demand to infanticide and on to euthanasia ― the only thing that can stem the tide is the certainty of the absolute uniqueness and value of people. And the only thing which gives us this is the knowledge that people are made in the image of God. We have no other final protection. And the only way we know that people are made in the image of God is through the Bible and the Incarnation of Christ, which we know from the Bible.
“If people are not made in the image of God, the pessimistic, realistic humanist is right: the human race is indeed an abnormal wart on the smooth face of a silent and meaningless universe. In this setting, abortion, infanticide, and euthanasia (including the killing of mentally deranged criminals, the severely handicapped, or the elderly who are an economic burden) are completely logical. Any person can be obliterated for what society at one moment thinks of as its own social or economic good. Without the Bible and without the revelation in Christ (which is only told to us in the Bible) there it nothing to stand between us and our children and the eventual acceptance of the monstrous inhumanities of the age.” [The Complete Works of Francis A. Schaeffer V, (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1982), p. 405-406]
In the flood of the loss of humanness in our age – including the flow from abortion-on-demand to infanticide and on to euthanasia – the only thing that can stem this tide is the certainty of the absolute uniqueness and value of people. And the only thing which gives us that is the knowledge that people are made in the image of God. We have no other final protection. And the only way we know that people are made in the image of God is through the Bible and in the incarnation of Christ, which we know from the Bible.
If people are not made in the image of God, the pessimistic, realistic humanist is right: the human race is an abnormal wart on the smooth face of a silent and meaningless universe. In this setting, abortion, infanticide, and euthanasia (including the killing of mentally deranged criminals, the severely handicapped, or the elderly who are an economic burden) are completely logical… Without the Bible and without the revelation in Christ (which is only told to us in the Bible) there is nothing to stand between us and our children and the eventual acceptance of the monstrous inhumanities of the age.
Francis Schaeffer (with C Everett Koop), “Whatever Happened to the Human Race?”
Note: I just got back from overseas. This is a guest post that somehow got stuck on our WordPress. It is by Nate Sonner who is co-founder of Christian Worldview Discipleship. He and his wife live in Dumaguete City, Philippines.
His website can be found here and his Twitter account here.
Abortion is arguably the religious and social issue of our day. Since it became legal in the United States, around 56 millionchildren have been killed. To ignore such an issue, as a Christian, would be unfaithful to God who made man in His image. We as believers must be equipped to discuss and offer a defense. Also, the devaluation of human beings in the womb is not a view held in isolation. Many fail to realize that the fundamental beliefs behind modern bioethics don’t merely affect the unborn, but human beings at all stages of life. If these basic assumptions continue on, unchallenged by Christians who stand unapologetically upon God’s Word, we will continue to see the devaluation of all people.
An Inadequate Approach
The Christian pro-life position recognizes that the unborn are human persons, and therefore have all the rights and protection that comes with being a person. A common argument against pro-abortion advocates is that if it is a human baby, then it shouldn’t be killed. However, if the fetus is just a mass of tissue, like a tumor, then we can do what we want with it. The assertion is that the pro-abortion community must defend that the fetus is not a human baby. Therefore, it’s our task to show that, scientifically, it is a human child, regardless of size and location and dependency, and that should settle the issue. The proposed dilemma is: either the fetus is matter, or a child; it’s either a mass of tissue, or a person. No third option available. That’s the choice, therefore the only defense against the Christian pro-life view is to assert that the fetus is just a blob of matter.1
The underlying assumption is that people in favor of abortion simply need information, an education. Ignorance is the problem! That’s all. That’s the reason why they abort, because they simply don’t know that it is a baby. These helpless women have been misled, and are blithely skipping along to the abortion mill, unaware of their child within them. Once scientific proof is given that the fetus is a human being, then abortion will be immediately recognized as murder, and abortion will be illegal.2 If they already knew the fetus is a baby, they wouldn’t kill it, because that would obviously be murder. Right? Only criminals would say it’s acceptable, even virtuous, to kill their child. Right?
How can we take this sentiment seriously? “If everyone just knew the facts, that the fetus is a human being, then abortion would be illegal immediately.” Really? Who exactly doesn’t know the facts?
Who exactly doesn’t know that there’s a human baby in the womb? If you take these kinds of common Christian objections to abortion seriously, you might start believing that nobody has ultrasound technology anymore. Or are extremely forgetful (we’ve been popping out human babies for thousands of years). Everyone who’s opinion matters knows that it’s a baby. The doctors know it’s a baby. Anyone who’s around the ultrasound machine knows it’s a baby. The baby has eyes and ears and fingerprints. The geneticists know it’s a baby (like you need to be one to know that). Everyone knows. You really think that the pregnant woman herself has any doubt about what’s growing inside her?
Like she wakes up one morning and seriously believes she has a tumor or something. Really? Like for the first time in thousands of years we are suddenly not sure about what goes on inside a pregnant woman. How many of you aren’t sure that you’re human? Because you came from the womb, and apparently a whole lot of people don’t know what goes on in there.
Nobody is confused about what pregnant women give birth to. Human beings reproduce human beings! Do we really think that’s the issue? Nobody is confused about that. The only confused people are the Christian pro-life advocates using these arguments! We’re the ones who are confused in this debate. Many of us actually believe that human beings don’t already know they reproduce human beings. How odd does that sound? Walk up to the person on the street and ask, “Did you know that when a man and a woman love each other very much, they make human babies?” You just might get slapped for asking such an obvious question. Do we really think anybody doesn’t know?
Yet, lo and behold, the baby killing business is as profitable as ever. There is a huge disjunction between these claims by Christians and the actual state of affairs. Why then, since the facts are known, is abortion still legal? Obviously, the common Christian approach to abortion are based on bad thinking. Evidently, the evidence and facts are not enough!
Wrong. Contrary to much opinion, there is a consensus in the medical community about when life begins. There is consensus that the fetus is biologically a human. No informed advocate of abortion is denying this. Nancy Pearcey affirms:
In the past, abortion supporters simply denied that the fetus is human: “It’s just a blob of tissue.” Today, however, due to advances in genetics and DNA, virtually no ethicist denies that the fetus is human — biologically, genetically, physiologically human. Even the arch-radical Peter Singer acknowledges that “the life of a human organism begins at conception.”3
Confused? It gets better (or worse). R.C. Sproul Jr. clarifies:
Now, I used to think, that people who secured abortions were misled, that they were lied to, that they didn’t know. And it’s certainly conceivable, though unlikely, but it’s conceivable that 40 years ago at the dawn of Roe v. Wade, that there were people who really did buy into this “mass of tissue” argument. But that argument friends has been dead, for 20 years. Everyone knows it’s a baby. It’s now being admitted that it’s a baby. Even by those who are pro-choice, publicly in print, admitted, “We know it’s a baby, but we still ought to be able to kill it.” That’s ironically some welcome honesty. But if you go to the mill and you talk to these women who are on their way in that door you didn’t have to wait for these articles where people are coming out, they knew, when you speak to them, they know what they’re doing, their response, even among those who profess to be Christians, is not “it’s just tissue,” it’s not “it’s no big deal,” it’s “I can be forgiven, I have the right, I know I’m killing my baby.” We all know. They know. Which means that this misguided, poor, innocent, pregnant girl is a myth. This is a heartless woman, who may indeed find herself in a difficult bind, and who’s solution is to murder her baby.4
Case closed! That was supposed to do it. Abortion should be illegal now, since it’s finally admitted that the fetus is in fact a human life. Right? The only defense for abortion was supposed to be that it’s not a child. The case was that the pro-abortion advocate must not know it’s a baby. But, they actually do, since 20 years ago. And abortion is still on demand, during those last 20 years. There was only supposed to be two choices: baby, or matter. We all know it’s a baby. What is the difficulty, then? Evidently, the issue is a bit more complex than the “baby or matter” dilemma. What is the deeper issue?
The situation so far is that the pro-abortion powers-that-be admit it is a baby, and those acquiring abortions admit it, too. Both sides of the debate agree: the fetus is a living human child. Yet, they still insist on killing those babies. Abortion-on-demand is still policy. The implication is that simply being human does not automatically grant worth. Being a human life is not enough to warrant protection. As it turns out, there is a third option to add to the proposed dilemma. Here’s a crucial distinction made in modern bioethics: a human is not automatically a person. In his book Culture of Death, Wesley J. Smith reveals,
Cutting-edge bioethics now holds that there is nothing special per se in being human, and thus bioethicists have generally abandoned the sanctity-of-life ethic that proclaims the inherent moral worth of all people. The favored term for humans used by movement advocates is not “people” or even “individuals,” but “beings”—a term that includes nonhumans. According to the movement’s leading lights, a “being” may or may not be entitled to membership in the “moral community,” which is what truly matters. . . one earns this status by possessing certain “relevant characteristics”—usually a minimum level of cognitive functioning—that bioethicists consider essential for significant moral standing. Those with sufficient cognitive qualifications to achieve membership in the moral community are often called “persons,” who have moral rights. Those who fail this test, on the other hand, are denigrated as nonpersons, who have little or no moral worth.5
This fine distinction has become a refuge to many who are firmly pro-abortion, yet know full well that a living, human child lives in the womb. What else could be appealed to? To be a modernist with respect to abortion won’t work out: scientifically, it’s a human being. Oops. Time to “leap” to another level. Let’s be postmodern about this, and appeal to some nebulous area ruled by completely arbitrary criteria. Where science fails, it is conveniently abandoned in favor of an arbitrary distinction. Perhaps faithfulness to “science” wasn’t really the issue to begin with, then?
In the end, I have to agree that life begins at conception. So yes, abortion is ending that life. But perhaps the fact of life isn’t what is important. It’s whether that life has grown enough to take on human characteristics, to start becoming a person.
In its early stages, the foetus [sic] clearly hasn’t, so I have no problems with early abortions. . . But once an embryo has developed enough to feel pain, or begin a personality, then it has moved from cell life into the first stages of being a human. Then, for me, ending that life is wrong. . . Killing a person, a recognisable [sic] human being, is murder. That’s why late abortion will always be tricky. Who are we to say whether the life inside is a person, or not? 6
Take note of the blatant contradiction in the quotation above. Human characteristics, feeling pain, and personality are associated with the baby becoming a human person. To kill a human being is murder. Then she says, “Who are we to say whether the life inside is a person, or not?” Sounds to me like she just did! Human characteristics, feeling pain, personality. My questions is, why do those determine personhood? In principle, couldn’t the criteria be changed? Obviously, the basis is not being genetically human.
To put it bluntly, if a Christian objects to a pro-abortionist with the fact that the fetus is a baby, the pro-abortionist may very well say, “So what?” Today, that is not the issue.
The question is, how did such a fine distinction come about? In common vernacular, human and person are used interchangeably. Christian pro-lifers will say “it’s a person living in the womb!” (meaning “human child”). Then the pro-abortion advocate responds, “Not yet.” Huh?
An Inadequate Worldview
Francis Schaeffer recognized the real issue, back in 1979. I’ll quote him at length, several times:
Our society has put to death its own offspring, millions of them. Our society has justified taking their lives, even claiming it a virtue to do so. It has been said this is a new step in our progress toward a liberated humanity.
Such a situation has not come out of a vacuum. Each of us has an overall way of looking at the world, which influences what we do day by day. This is what we call a “world-view.” And all of us have a world-view, whether we realize it or not. We act in accordance with our world-view, and our world-view rests on what to us is the ultimate truth.
What has produced the inhumanity . . . is that society in the West has adopted a world-view which says that all reality is made up only of matter. This view is sometimes referred to as philosophic materialism, because it holds that only matter exists; sometimes it is called naturalism, because it says that no supernatural exists. Humanism which begins from man alone and makes man the measure of all things usually is materialistic in its philosophy. Whatever the label, this is the underlying world-view of our society today. In this view the universe did not get here because it was created by a “supernatural” God. . . its present form just happened as a result of chance events way back in time.7
Within this world-view there is no room for believing that a human being has any final distinct value above that of an animal or of nonliving matter. People are merely a different arrangement of molecules. . . this humanist world-view has also brought us to the present devaluation of human life.8
Materialistic humanism. That’s why. And this worldview is taken for granted and taught throughout every level of Western education, today. This is how people can recognize that the unborn is a child and still be pro-abortion. What is real? Matter. How did we get here? Chance, with lots of time. Based on those premises, those fundamental beliefs, what is a human? Just more matter. No doubt a smarter, more complex, more productive arrangement of molecules; but purely matter, none the less. As the late Christopher Hitchens once said, we are “higher primates.” Humans are at the top of the ladder, but equally void of inherent value or worth.
What, then, of the worth of human life? Obviously there are many non-christians that value life. I’ve known several non-christians who were intensely pro-life! To infer that those who are assuming materialistic humanism do not make value claims would be incorrect. They do, for various reasons. The issue is whether they have a sufficient foundation for their value claims. They hold them and in practice they affirm values. But, if materialistic humanists hold that only matter exists, what is the consensus on something immaterial? Science (which is limited to the material) has verified that the unborn are humans. Yet, we see this distinction: it’s not necessarily a “person.” What decides that state of being a “person,” if not science? The criteria for gaining knowledge was supposed to be science! If the material is all that is real, yet people still hold to moral standards, then it follows that there has been a separation between what is material and immaterial, since those standards are not material. Since science can only confirm that a fetus is a human child, what decides that immaterial thing about being a “person”?
“With the rise of empiricism, however, religion was reduced to private feelings. Emotional comfort. The concept of truth as a unified, coherent worldview was shattered.
The division of truth is often referred to as the fact/value split . . . It is the assumption that objective knowledge is possible only in the realm of empirical facts, while morality and religion are merely values. The term literally means whatever I value. Whatever is important to me. My likes and preferences.” 9
It makes sense that if only the material is real, then empiricism (knowledge limited by sense experience) is the only way we can learn what is true. Therefore, truth cannot account for anything beyond the physical! Morals and values cannot be weighed, measured, or examined empirically. So, it follows that religion and morality are not verifiable truths, just personal preferences and emotional expressions. Religion and morality have no connection to empirical facts.
In her excellent and highly recommended book, which I will quote often, Saving Leonardo: A Call to Resist the Secular Assault on Mind, Morals, and Meaning, Nancy Pearcey illustrates this dichotomy, crediting Francis Schaeffer:
Francis Schaeffer was among the first in the evangelical world to identify the problem. Although he did not use the terms facts versus values, clearly he was getting at the same idea. Using the metaphor of a building, he warned that truth had been split into two stories. The lower story consists of scientific facts, which are held to be empirically testable and universally valid. The upper story includes things like morality, theology, and aesthetics, which are now regarded as subjective and culturally relative. Essentially the upper story became a convenient dumping ground for anything that an empiricist worldview did not recognize as real. Schaeffer used a simple graphic, which we can adapt like this:
The two-story concept of truth
VALUES
Private, subjective, relative
_________________________________________
FACTS
Public, objective, universal10
This accounts for the current mentality of pro-abortion advocates. Body, biology (fact) is disconnected from personhood (value). Facts are what can be known empirically, and facts are “value-free” or neutral. They carry no meaning or ethical obligations with them. The lower story of facts is objective and universal, while the upper story of values is personal and subjective. Objectivism is the lower story, relativism is the upper story. Ever heard anyone say, “don’t force your scientific facts on me!” No. That defense is only brought up when it comes to morals and religion. Values, ethics, and religion are your thing. Don’t force your personal beliefs on me. In a sense, reality is still dominated by modernism while values are surrendered to postmodernism.
The fact/value split is the underlying presupposition (fundamental commitment) that results in “person” not following from “human”, anymore. What can be known through science is that the fetus is genetically human, and it’s alive since conception. But, is “personhood” material? Can that, or when it happens, be tested scientifically? Nope. Exactly. Here is the current tactic of the pro-abortion advocate illustrated by the fact/value split:
Personhood theory
PERSON
“Persons” have freedom and moral dignity
__________________________________________
BODY
“Humans” are disposable machines
A flaw in this theory is that once personhood is separated from biology, no one can agree how to define it. 11
Personhood is arbitrary, and therefore there’s no consensus. Since we can’t observe through our senses what or when “personhood” is, it’s left up to experts’ personal criteria (as a result of their anti-Christian presuppositions, which weren’t tested by science either!). Personhood has been completely detached from scientific fact, which means pro-abortionists (who claim to be “scientific”) are enforcing their personal criteria on the issue! Personhood is separated from reality as they see it (empirical fact), leaving it to be tossed to and fro by their personal and unscientific beliefs. How ironic.
According to British bioethicist John Harris, “Nine months of development leaves the human embryo far short of the emergence of anything that can be called a person.”
James Watson of DNA fame recommended giving a newborn baby three days of genetic testing before deciding whether the child should be allowed to live. Singer considers personhood a “gray” area even at three years of age. (After all, how much cognitive functioning does a toddler have?) 12
As we have seen, the real problem is not about mere scientific evidence. It is not about asking the pro-abortionist, “What is the unborn?” according to genetics and biology. That question has been answered (for the last 20 years). It’s a baby. The pro-abortion ethicists admit it’s a baby. The women making appointments at abortion mills know it’s their child. Presenting the evidence, then, is not what needs doing.
After all, aren’t both sides looking at the same evidence? If we all know it’s a baby, then why do many still argue that we are able to kill it? Why do children continue to be killed, knowingly?
We are all looking at the same evidence. Could it be that people do not “see” evidence the same way? What stands in between facts and people is interpretation. The objective is known subjectively. What is actually there is seen by an interpreter. There are no “brute facts” that exist independent of interpretation (including God’s interpretation). We all interpret the world, the facts around us, according to rock-bottom assumptions. It is naïve to merely present the evidence as if it can be interpreted in a neutral fashion, independent of biases. We all see the evidence, but we also interpret it.The evidence does not mean the same thing to everyone. The key is how evidence is interpreted. Even the fact that a baby is in the womb is not a “brute fact,” but is subject to interpretation according to fundamental criteria.
The question is, by what criteria? All of us have criteria. We have basic, fundamental beliefs about reality, knowledge, and conduct. These most basic beliefs, or presuppositions, form the network by which everything is interpreted: a worldview. They determine how we “see” the world. That human child in the womb is interpreted according to an individual’s worldview, along with what should or should not be done with that child.
Why doesn’t the unbelieving world “see” correctly, then? Why is their worldview not true to reality as it really is? The bottom line: sin. More specifically, the effects of sin on the mind, also called the “noetic effects of sin” (see Gen. 6:5; Rom. 1:18, 25; 8:6, 20; 12:2; 1 Cor. 1:21; Eph. 4:23, for example). When our first parents rebelled against God, not only were the will and emotions affected, but the mind as well. The whole person, intellect and affections, was turned against God. All of mankind fell in Adam, and now by default suppresses the knowledge of God in unrighteousness: “Their thinking became nonsense, and their senseless minds were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools” (Romans 1:21b-22). Those who remain in Adam live according to “the futility of their thoughts. They are darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them and because of the hardness of their hearts” (Ephesians 4:17-18). Unbelievers reject God, the source of truth, and therefore cannot interpret anything truly! As Greg Bahnsen says, “By refusing to submit to the authority of Christ’s Word at the very beginning of his thinking the sinner’s mind is at enmity against God and he is epistemologically incapacitated altogether. . . Fallen man is incapacitated from seeing things as they really are.”13 Because they deny Him, they cannot use their minds correctly, nor know anything truly.
This is where the real issue lies. Merely asserting what the unborn is is superficial. That is attempting to kill a weed by cutting the branches and leaves. The only correct, effective way is to attack the roots. The roots of the pro-abortionist is their worldview, their presuppositions. That’s where the problem lies, and it is the worldview that must be dealt with. The “debate” is at that level. The debate is not at the level of “either just matter or a person.” That’s merely the symptom. If Christians on the pro-life side are still engaging in debate with the “matter or person” false dilemma, it may betray their lack of understanding concerning worldviews in general, and particularly the fact/value split currently being assumed throughout Western culture. That is what needs to be addressed.
The Adequate Approach
We must accept the reality that we are not merely coming up against an isolated belief, but an entire network of interdependent convictions. It is not our mere pro-life commitment against their pro-abortion commitment. It is our entire Christian worldview against theirs. Since that is the case, our method must follow in kind. This demands a “Worldview Approach.”
We must expose the materialistic humanist worldview and fact/value split. Spoiler alert: the pro-abortionist may not be conscious of their worldview! It follows then that they will neither be conscious of their inevitable inconsistency. We must bring the pro-abortionist to an awareness, a consciousness, of their underlying fundamental commitment. Then, we must reveal how their anti-Christian worldview cannot sustain itself. This is known as “taking the roof off,” or driving their view to the logical conclusion.
The unbeliever cannot live out their worldview consistently because it doesn’t match reality. They have to, in a sense, irrationally “leap” in order to compensate for their inadequate presuppositions. They can deny reality, but they can’t stop being human or escape God’s world. They claim materialism in principle, but in practice they live as if there’s more. Indeed, many leap to the “value” level because they cannot live with only the physical. Empirical facts are claimed to be “value-free” and morally neutral. To claim that only the material is real, is to say that inherent value is not real. Therefore, their life has no inherent value. But, they cannot live that out, because they are in fact human and living in God’s world, which is not limited to the material. We must make this evident to them by internally critiquing their anti-Christian worldview. For the sake of argument, we assume their assumptions, and show how they lead to absurdity if applied consistently. One example of this (there are many possibilities) would be asking them why theyqualify as a “person,” what criteria decides that, where did it come from, and then show how it’s ultimately subjective and therefore not constant, but could in principle disqualify them. If they are consistent, they will have to admit their personhood and value is not guaranteed, based on their presuppositions. We must help them become self-conscious of their basic assumptions, and show their inadequacy in accounting for reality as God has made it. In this way, we begin to “demolish arguments” (2 Corinthians 10:4b)
Anyone who assumes the fact/value split has no right to make value claims, let alone truth claims. They have no right to make value claims, because they only grant materialism. They have no right to claim any truth whatsoever, because they deny God who is the source of truth.
The Adequate Worldview
After exposing the worldview of the pro-abortionist, and finding it lacking by way of internal critique, we then offer them to come and see reality from the Christian worldview, the point of view of Scripture. We show that the Christian Worldview provides the answer, not merely the best answer, but the only answer. Christianity is the only valid worldview. There is no possibility for it to be otherwise.
“So it is naïve and irresponsible to imagine that this world-view will reverse the direction in the future. A well-meaning commitment to “do what is right” will not be sufficient. Without a firm set of principles that flows out of a world-view that gives an adequate reason for a unique value to all human life, there cannot be and will not be any substantial resistance to the present evil brought on by the low view of human life we have been considering in previous chapters. It was the materialistic world-view that brought in the inhumanity; it must be a different world-view that drives it out.” 14
It is nonsensical to think that retaining their materialistic worldview will lead to change. It was the corrupt foundations that led to this situation, and it does not have the stability to fix it. Also, it disagrees with reality as God created it. Any anti-Christian worldview, by definition, denies Him altogether. Naturally then, it is neither right nor effective to share non-christian ground with the unbeliever in handling this issue. It is their worldview, their foundation, that results in their position. It would be foolish to think they will change while continuing to stand on it. Any change in conviction necessitates a change in their basic commitments. We cannot stand on their ground, we must remain firmly planted on the only correct worldview.
The Christian worldview accounts for all reality. There is no split. The Bible (and therefore, God) presents truth as a whole, there’s no splitting between facts and values; Biblical truth accounts for both. The Bible shows reality to not only be material, but also immaterial. God created all of reality. God gave us His Word, which correctly interprets reality. God is the source of both, and therefore the two correspond to each other. Scripture says reality is not only material, but also immaterial. Scripture presents a worldview that is unified and coherent.
If we set aside our Christian bias (which is the right bias), and basis, what exactly would we have by which to justify the inherent value of the unborn? God gave that value, which only makes sense within the entirety of His revelation in Scripture. God-given value of the human being does not make sense in a God-free worldview. What Scripture declares about people does not fit in a worldview that denies Scripture. If we set aside our Christian ground, we have nothing. We’ll be building on sand, with the unbeliever. Such would not be faithful, for all of life (including our way of thinking and methods) must submit to the Lordship of Christ. Even the tools God has given us, such as reason and logic, have no foundation apart from God’s revelation. To attempt to use these gifts, while setting aside the Giver, is wrong. Do we not share them in common with the unbeliever? Yes, because they know God (Romans 1:21), are made in God’s image, and live in His world, despite their denial of Him. But, they use them without basis, nor for God’s glory. They attempt to use these gifts, while setting aside the Giver. They suppress their knowledge of God, and deny their being made in His image, and use His gives in rebellion. That is the mindset of unbelief, independent of God’s authority, which is autonomy. The tools we have are not a foundation unto themselves, but are upheld by God and dependent upon the total drama of Scripture. They only make sense from within the Christian worldview. They are not isolated, but interdependent within the larger framework.
“The infinite God has spoken. None of the many finite attempts to define truth, doomed to failure as we have seen, is necessary. God has communicated to man, the infinite to the finite. God has communicated, in addition, in words that are understandable to us. The One who made man capable of language in the first place has communicated truth about both spiritual reality and physical reality, about both the nature of God and the nature of man, about both events in past history and events in the future. Where all humanistic systems of thought are unable to give an adequate explanation of things, the Bible as God’s statement is adequate.” 15
Applied to abortion, we show that, according to the Christian worldview, man is made in the image of the personal God (Genesis 1:26-30, 2:7, 5:1-3, 9:5-6, James 3:9). This is the reason God gives for valuing man’s life. In fact, the whole medical enterprise is meaningless (!) apart from the Christian worldview. Any justification for medical practice will inevitably boil down to subjectivism. The whole man (person) is valuable. Notice: the whole man, body and soul (material and immaterial). Value is necessarily linked to being human. One automatically follows from the other. Man is qualitatively different than the rest of creation. No other created thing has God’s image. Mankind is unique. Only the Christian worldview can support a substantial “uniqueness” for man. Contrarily, materialism recognizes man as merely more complex, but not different from any other group of molecules around “it.”
“Unlike the evolutionary concept of an impersonal beginning plus time plus chance, the Bible gives an account of man’s origin as a finite person made in God’s image, that is, like God. We see then how man can have personality and dignity and value. Our uniqueness is guaranteed, something which is impossible in the materialistic system. If there is no qualitative distinction between man and other organic life (animals or plants), why should we feel greater concern over the death of a human being than over the death of a laboratory rat? Is man in the end any higher?
Though this is the logical end of the materialistic system, men and women still usually in practice assume that people have some real value.”16
Again, only the Christian worldview can provide the adequate basis for protecting the life of the unborn. Only from the Christian worldview as a whole can we approach this issue. The inherent worth of the human child is not an isolated belief. It is interdependent on fundamental criteria found in Scripture alone. The pro-abortionist’s denial of the child’s worth is not an isolated belief, but arises from their anti-Christian presuppositions. Because this is the case, we must oppose their entire worldview with the worldview provided by Scripture. We cannot argue for a Scriptural result from un-Scriptural grounds. We must remain committed to God’s revelation. In essence, we are combating their unbelief with the teaching of Scripture, itself. We are confronting their suppression of their knowledge of God and their own “createdness” in His image with the powerful, infallible, and effective Word of God. Their convictions will not align with Scripture if they remain standing on their unbelieving foundation. They must leave their anti-Christian commitments and unconditionally surrender to God’s authority.
“In the flood of the loss of humanness in our age—including the flow from abortion-on-demand to infanticide and on to euthanasia—the only thing that can stem this tide is the certainty of the absolute uniqueness and value of people. And the only thing which gives us this is the knowledge that people are made in the image of God. We have no other final protection. And the only way we know that people are made in the image of God is through the Bible and the Incarnation of Christ, which we know from the Bible.
If people are not made in the image of God, the pessimistic, realistic humanist is right: the human race is indeed an abnormal wart on the smooth face of a silent and meaningless universe. In this setting, abortion, infanticide, and euthanasia (including the killing of mentally deranged criminals, the severely handicapped, or the elderly who are an economic burden) are completely logical. Any person can be obliterated for what society at one moment thinks of as its own social or economic good. Without the Bible and without the revelation in Christ (which is only told to us in the Bible) there is nothing to stand between us and our children and the eventual acceptance of the monstrous inhumanities of the age.”17
To say “it’s a person, human, or alive” is meaningless to the materialistic humanist. The issue of value, human life value, what makes it different, is a worldview question. “It’s alive!” “Ok, so is the cockroach.” It is merely a different arrangement of matter. Any value given is ungrounded and detached from the “fact” level, and therefore variable without consensus. That’s where the “personhood” debate is. Because of the Fact/Value Split, personhood can’t be agreed upon, because it has no connection to fact—publicly verifiable truth (according to scientific method).
To say it’s alive and human is meaningless. Why should it be treated any differently? Why should there be something higher than my preference when deciding it’s value and what to do with it? Only the Christian worldview can answer. God’s Word says that reality, this universe, is not the result of impersonal matter in motion. The universe is created by the personal God, and is not just matter. God’s Word says that Mankind is not the same as the rest of Creation, but that Man is made in the image of God. Humans have value because God made humans in His image (Genesis 1:26-30, 2:7, 5:1-3, 9:5-6, James 3:9.), it is derived value. That is where “personhood” actually comes from (but not as a separate issue from biology). Biblically, to be human necessarily means to be a person. The personal God made Man (persons) in His Image. Hence, in the covenant with Noah, “Whoever sheds man’s blood, his blood will be shed by man, forGod made man in His image.” Genesis 9:6 [emphasis mine]. That is the firm foundation for valuing and protecting human life, including the unborn. No other criteria exists. Therefore, it is inadequate, and I think naïve, to simply prove that the unborn are alive and human. We must go deeper. It’s not the stems and leaves of weeds that we attack, but their roots. An attack at the worldview level is mandated. Hence, a Worldview Apologetic, or Presuppositional Apologetic. We stand firmly on the presupposition of God’s Word, as the only answer and basis, and we expose the opposing worldview, reducing it to absurdity by internal critique.
Only the Bible provides the answer: Are human beings always valuable persons, regardless of life-stage? Yes, because the personal God made Man in His image. Only based on that can there be protection for the unborn. And if the opposition denies it, we “take the roof off” of their assertions. We let reality cave in on them and, for the sake of argument, drive them to the logical, hopeless conclusion of their unbelieving worldview.
“But when we accept Christ as Savior, we must also acknowledge and then act upon the fact that if He is our Savior, He is also our Lord in all of life. He is Lord not just in religious things and not just in cultural things such as art and music, but in our intellectual lives and in business and our attitude toward the devaluation of people’s humanness in our culture. Acknowledging Christ’s Lordship and placing ourselves under what is taught in the whole Bible includes thinking and acting as citizens in relation to our government and its laws. We must know what those laws are and act responsibly to help to change them if they do not square with the Bible’s concepts of justice and humanness. The biblical answers have to be lived and not just thought.
We must live under the Lordship of Christ in all the areas of life—at great cost, if need be. . . Who is on the cutting edge here? The doctor who pays the price of having certain hospitals closed to him because he will not perform abortions. The businessman who knows he is forfeiting advancement in his company because he will not go along with some inhuman practice of his company. The professor of sociology who is willing to lose his post because he will not teach sociology on the basis of determinism. The pastor who loses his church rather than follow the dictates of a liberal theology or a “trashy Christianity.” Or the pastor who preaches the Bible, stressing that today’s people are called to sacrificial action, rather than keeping his congregation comfortable while death, spiritual and physical, is built up year after year for their children and grandchildren. Examples could be endlessly multiplied.”17
“Without the uniqueness and inherent dignity of each human being, no matter how old or young, sick or well, resting on the fact that each person is made in the image of God, there is no sufficient foundation to build on as we resist the loss of humanness in our generation. So we would say again to those of you who are Christians, do not allow your only base, your only hope to be able to stand—namely, the Bible—to be weakened by however subtle means.”18
‘The abortion argument, unless I am mistaken, is about one thing: whether or not the fetus is a person or just matter. This really is the only question worth debating in abortion, and it is the only one that is relevant. For no one, except vile criminals, would argue that a woman has the right to choose to kill a child. . . Abortion advocates must defend that a fetus is not a person. However, most of them cannot. This is partly because there is no consensus in the medical field or scientific community on when “life” begins, when “the matter” becomes a person.’
Sproul, R.C., Abortion: A Rational Look at An Emotional Issue (p. 7). Kindle Edition.
“I am convinced that if somehow it could be proven conclusively that the destruction of unborn babies is in fact the willful destruction of living human beings, the debate on abortion would be all but over, and the law of the land would as clearly prohibit abortion as it does all forms of homicide.”
Schaeffer, Francis A., Whatever Happened to the Human Race? p. 353-354 (1979), in The Complete Works of Francis A. Schaeffer: A Christian Worldview, Volume Five, A Christian View of the West, copyright 1982.
, p. 356
Pearcey, Nancy (2010-09-01). Saving Leonardo: A Call to Resist the Secular Assault on Mind, Morals, and Meaning (p. 24). B&H Publishing. Kindle Edition.
Greg Bahnsen. Presuppositional Apologetics (Kindle Locations 1370-1372, 1373-1374). American Vision.
Schaeffer, Francis A., Whatever Happened to the Human Race? p. 356 (1979), in The Complete Works of Francis A. Schaeffer: A Christian Worldview, Volume Five, A Christian View of the West, copyright 1982.
, p. 382
, p. 383
, p. 407
, p. 408
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Thanks for your recent letter about evolution and abortion. The correlation is hardly one to one; there are evolutionists who are anti-abortion and anti-evolutionists who are pro-abortion.You argue that God exists because otherwise we could not understand the world in our consciousness. But if you think God is necessary to understand the world, then why do you not ask the next question of where God came from? And if you say “God was always here,” why not say that the universe was always here? On abortion, my views are contained in the enclosed article (Sagan, Carl and Ann Druyan {1990}, “The Question of Abortion,” Parade Magazine, April 22.)
I mentioned earlier that I was blessed with the opportunity to correspond with Dr. Sagan. In his December 5, 1995 letter Dr. Sagan went on to tell me that he was enclosing his article “The Question of Abortion: A Search for Answers”by Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan. I am going to respond to several points made in that article. Here is a portion of Sagan’s article (here is a link to the whole article):
For the complete text, including illustrations, introductory quote, footnotes, and commentary on the reaction to the originally published article see Billions and Billions.
The issue had been decided years ago. The court had chosen the middle ground. You’d think the fight was over. Instead, there are mass rallies, bombings and intimidation, murders of workers at abortion clinics, arrests, intense lobbying, legislative drama, Congressional hearings, Supreme Court decisions, major political parties almost defining themselves on the issue, and clerics threatening politicians with perdition. Partisans fling accusations of hypocrisy and murder. The intent of the Constitution and the will of God are equally invoked. Doubtful arguments are trotted out as certitudes. The contending factions call on science to bolster their positions. Families are divided, husbands and wives agree not to discuss it, old friends are no longer speaking. Politicians check the latest polls to discover the dictates of their consciences. Amid all the shouting, it is hard for the adversaries to hear one another. Opinions are polarized. Minds are closed.
Is it wrong to abort a pregnancy? Always? Sometimes? Never? How do we decide? We wrote this article to understand better what the contending views are and to see if we ourselves could find a position that would satisfy us both. Is there no middle ground? We had to weigh the arguments of both sides for consistency and to pose test cases, some of which are purely hypothetical. If in some of these tests we seem to go too far, we ask the reader to be patient with us–we’re trying to stress the various positions to the breaking point to see their weaknesses and where they fail.
In contemplative moments, nearly everyone recognizes that the issue is not wholly one-sided. Many partisans of differing views, we find, feel some disquiet, some unease when confronting what’s behind the opposing arguments. (This is partly why such confrontations are avoided.) And the issue surely touches on deep questions: What are our responses to one another? Should we permit the state to intrude into the most intimate and personal aspects of our lives? Where are the boundaries of freedom? What does it mean to be human?
Of the many actual points of view, it is widely held–especially in the media, which rarely have the time or the inclination to make fine distinctions–that there are only two: “pro-choice” and “pro-life.” This is what the two principal warring camps like to call themselves, and that’s what we’ll call them here. In the simplest characterization, a pro-choicer would hold that the decision to abort a pregnancy is to be made only by the woman; the state has no right to interfere. And a pro-lifer would hold that, from the moment of conception, the embryo or fetus is alive; that this life imposes on us a moral obligation to preserve it; and that abortion is tantamount to murder. Both names–pro-choice and pro-life–were picked with an eye toward influencing those whose minds are not yet made up: Few people wish to be counted either as being against freedom of choice or as opposed to life. Indeed, freedom and life are two of our most cherished values, and here they seem to be in fundamental conflict.
Let’s consider these two absolutist positions in turn. A newborn baby is surely the same being it was just before birth. There ‘s good evidence that a late-term fetus responds to sound–including music, but especially its mother’s voice. It can suck its thumb or do a somersault. Occasionally, it generates adult brain-wave patterns. Some people claim to remember being born, or even the uterine environment. Perhaps there is thought in the womb. It’s hard to maintain that a transformation to full personhood happens abruptly at the moment of birth. Why, then, should it be murder to kill an infant the day after it was born but not the day before?
As a practical matter, this isn’t very important: Less than 1 percent of all tabulated abortions in the United States are listed in the last three months of pregnancy (and, on closer investigation, most such reports turn out to be due to miscarriage or miscalculation). But third-trimester abortions provide a test of the limits of the pro-choice point of view. Does a woman’s “innate right to control her own body” encompass the right to kill a near-term fetus who is, for all intents and purposes, identical to a newborn child?
We believe that many supporters of reproductive freedom are troubled at least occasionally by this question. But they are reluctant to raise it because it is the beginning of a slippery slope. If it is impermissible to abort a pregnancy in the ninth month, what about the eighth, seventh, sixth … ? Once we acknowledge that the state can interfere at any time in the pregnancy, doesn’t it follow that the state can interfere at all times?
Abortion and the slippery slope argument above
This conjures up the specter of predominantly male, predominantly affluent legislators telling poor women they must bear and raise alone children they cannot afford to bring up; forcing teenagers to bear children they are not emotionally prepared to deal with; saying to women who wish for a career that they must give up their dreams, stay home, and bring up babies; and, worst of all, condemning victims of rape and incest to carry and nurture the offspring of their assailants. Legislative prohibitions on abortion arouse the suspicion that their real intent is to control the independence and sexuality of women…
And yet, by consensus, all of us think it proper that there be prohibitions against, and penalties exacted for, murder. It would be a flimsy defense if the murderer pleads that this is just between him and his victim and none of the government’s business. If killing a fetus is truly killing a human being, is it not the duty of the state to prevent it? Indeed, one of the chief functions of government is to protect the weak from the strong.
If we do not oppose abortion at some stage of pregnancy, is there not a danger of dismissing an entire category of human beings as unworthy of our protection and respect? And isn’t that dismissal the hallmark of sexism, racism, nationalism, and religious fanaticism? Shouldn’t those dedicated to fighting such injustices be scrupulously careful not to embrace another?
and you will hear what far smarter people than I have to say on this matter. I agree with them.
Harry Kroto
I have attempted to respond to all of Dr. Kroto’s friends arguments and I have posted my responses one per week for over a year now. Here are some of my earlier posts:
Another 50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God (Part 2
A Further 50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God (Part 3)
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CARL SAGAN interview with Charlie Rose:
“…faith is belief in the absence of evidence. To believe in the absence of evidence, in my opinion, is a mistake. The idea is to hold belief until there is compelling evidence. If the Universe does not comply with our previous propositions, then we have to change…Religion deals with history poetry, great literature, ethics, morals, compassion…where religion gets into trouble is when it pretends to know something about science,”
______________ George Harrison Swears & Insults Paul and Yoko Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds- The Beatles The Beatles: I have dedicated several posts to this series on the Beatles and I don’t know when this series will end because Francis Schaeffer spent a lot of time listening to the Beatles and talking […]
The Beatles in a press conference after their Return from the USA Uploaded on Nov 29, 2010 The Beatles in a press conference after their Return from the USA. The Beatles: I have dedicated several posts to this series on the Beatles and I don’t know when this series will end because Francis […]
__________________ Beatles 1966 Last interview I have dedicated several posts to this series on the Beatles and I don’t know when this series will end because Francis Schaeffer spent a lot of time listening to the Beatles and talking and writing about them and their impact on the culture of the 1960’s. In this […]
_______________ The Beatles documentary || A Long and Winding Road || Episode 5 (This video discusses Stg. Pepper’s creation I have dedicated several posts to this series on the Beatles and I don’t know when this series will end because Francis Schaeffer spent a lot of time listening to the Beatles and talking and writing about […]
_______________ Francis Schaeffer pictured below: _____________________ I have included the 27 minute episode THE AGE OF NONREASON by Francis Schaeffer. In that video Schaeffer noted, ” Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band…for a time it became the rallying cry for young people throughout the world. It expressed the essence of their lives, thoughts and their feelings.” How Should […]
Crimes and Misdemeanors: A Discussion: Part 1 ___________________________________ Today I will answer the simple question: IS IT POSSIBLE TO BE AN OPTIMISTIC SECULAR HUMANIST THAT DOES NOT BELIEVE IN GOD OR AN AFTERLIFE? This question has been around for a long time and you can go back to the 19th century and read this same […]
____________________________________ Francis Schaeffer pictured below: __________ Francis Schaeffer has written extensively on art and culture spanning the last 2000years and here are some posts I have done on this subject before : Francis Schaeffer’s “How should we then live?” Video and outline of episode 10 “Final Choices” , episode 9 “The Age of Personal Peace and Affluence”, episode 8 […]
Love and Death [Woody Allen] – What if there is no God? [PL] ___________ _______________ How Should We then Live Episode 7 small (Age of Nonreason) #02 How Should We Then Live? (Promo Clip) Dr. Francis Schaeffer 10 Worldview and Truth Two Minute Warning: How Then Should We Live?: Francis Schaeffer at 100 Francis Schaeffer […]
___________________________________ Francis Schaeffer pictured below: ____________________________ Francis Schaeffer “BASIS FOR HUMAN DIGNITY” Whatever…HTTHR Dr. Francis schaeffer – The flow of Materialism(from Part 4 of Whatever happened to human race?) Dr. Francis Schaeffer – The Biblical flow of Truth & History (intro) Francis Schaeffer – The Biblical Flow of History & Truth (1) Dr. Francis Schaeffer […]
Carl Sagan. Credit: NASA
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