Dueling Philosophies

Senator Obama's main website says that it is "Powered by Hope." As
the self-professed change-agent in this election cycle, Obama's campaign has
effectively used the meaningless platitudes of "hope" and "change" without
much in the way of any real substantive challenge on the issues. Although
'hope' has many meanings, it's essentially wishing that you will get a
favorable outcome; it's calling on Lady Luck to take your side. But hope
implies much more than luck. Hope implies that you are to be acted upon,
rather than act upon something. There's something disturbingly humanist and
secular about a campaign built on hope. It's almost as if they are saying
that we are in some cosmic accident, while contending that we are capable of
building a utopian society.

The 19th Century Humanist, Robert Ingersoll, said that "the hope of science
is the perfection of the human race. The hope of theology is salvation of a
few and the damnation of almost everybody." Ingersoll's false assertions
about theology and science are central to the arguments over the issues not
just in the current campaigns, but in our national and world philosophy.
Today's liberal ideology, nothing like the classical Lockean theories that
were once called liberal, call for some great hope in science while
simultaneously mocking a belief in God or religious virtue. Among Senator
Obama's followers, at least according to his own campaign website, are
"Humanists for Obama" and "Atheists for Obama." Both groups advocate for
some anti-religious utopian society, or even anarchy. Their tendency is to blame religion for the crimes and wars of the world, while willfully failing to acknowledge that God gave us a civilized world out of chaos. Central to their beliefs are the
fact that 1) there is no God, and 2) without God there are no consequences.

London was recently bombarded by an Atheist Propaganda stunt that
put posters on that city's famous red double-decker buses saying, "There's
probably no God, so stop worrying and enjoy your life." This secular
progressive ideal of no consequences embodies the entire left-wing agenda.
It's just easier to "enjoy your life" when you know there are no punishments
for your sins, crimes, or transgressions. If something bad happens, simply
blame someone else or blame society. Democrats tend to claim that those who
do the things that make them successful in life have somehow won "life's
lottery," while people who make poor decisions are "less fortunate." This
propensity towards attributing Lady Luck to everything in life is what brings
us these meaningless slogans like "hope" and "change."

Let the Liberals have 'hope.' We have FAITH. Central to our beliefs are
that God created the universe, while giving us the freedom to act and choose
how we experience the gift of life. We know that as long as people are free
to choose, some will choose poorly. We cannot eradicate hate through
legislation, or poverty through socialist governments. There have been many
philosophies in the history of the world, some more popular than others.
However, in all of the ancient writings and more contemporary discussions,
most issues come down to science and religion. How you view these two is
integral to how you view the universe.

Science is a useful tool to explain the world around us. To the secular
progressives, it is the ultimate search for truth. Liberals within this
group feel that religion is merely a man-made construct to fill in the gaps
that science has yet to explain. They point to ancient Greek or Roman
mythology as an example. People could not understand astrophysics, so they
assumed the moon and Sun were Gods. Science came along and gave us insight!
There's an egotistical element to those who view science as the absolute
truth, because there is an assumption that the human mind can basically
figure everything out. Morality begins to decay society from the
inside out.

Religion, however, relies on faith and humility. God does not present
Himself to us on CNN to prove, scientifically, His existence. Rather, we are
given an entire universe, and our very own existence and the freedom to
decide whether or not we believe. We were designed, I believe, to learn and
grow. Science is a useful tool to discover God's universe, but it is only a
man-made construct that can at best approximate absolute truths. Pure
mathematics, for example, is a wonderful abstract concept that has served us
well, as a human race. It is not, however, absolute. There are infinitely smaller and smaller decimals that can only offer approximations to absolute reality.
Our concept of space-time has changed through the ages, and Einstein himself
struggled with these concepts. His attempt to construct a unified field
theory failed, and no one else, including brilliant minds like Stephen
Hawking, can really achieve such a lofty goal. Our understanding of
genetics, medicine, biology, physics, chemistry, or any other field may
evolve, but there has (to date) been zero evidence that we physically evolve.
Every new iteration of our body of knowledge may bring us closer or further
away from absolute truth, but it's not something we can ever know in our
lives. We're often told that we genetically resemble our primate cousins the
ape at an astonishing 98%. We're often told that this is "proof" that we are
so similarly related to them, that Darwinism has to be true, and therefore,
religion is false. What else could this possibly tell us? Perhaps our own
greatest attempts at genetics can't even tell the difference between a human
and a monkey, genetically speaking.

St. Thomas Aquinas said that "nothing is in the intellect that was not first
in the senses." He opined that God allows us to have independent knowledge
but that our very capacity to consider Him suggests that we are at least in
some way inspired. Is this so impossible to believe? God exists
independently of our own abstract creations, such as time. In every
infinitesimal fraction of a second, He has an eternity.

On election day, consider the consequences of your vote. While God may have an eternity, you and I do not. Sphere: Related Content