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CHAPTER THREE   

THE MORBID FASCINATION WITH MYTHS

We are told in an article or excerpt appearing in p. 11 of The Week, December 9,  2011, that "Children don't need to have religion rammed down their throats in school," this taken from words found in The Sydney Morning Herald. No, we find rather that "They should not be taught the Bible," or various other ideas of a character strangely unlike the biblical depiction. They are all  lumped together.

It is great to learn, to adopt the general principle here in view, that evolutionism, that this ebullient religion however is being forced down the young throats under protection from exposure even by children, in SA, with an exclusion of reasoned argument to a decision in all classes, and one from participation in science at  all. It is precisely there however that its opposite, what is in fact apposite, creation,   is most clearly indicated (cf. Scientific Method ...).

What is religion ? It is a view of what is ultimate, most fundamental, in terms of the plan, purpose, nature or direction, values and meaning of life and the universe and all things. Evolutionism, without confirmation, and contrary repeatedly to verification (cf. SMR pp. 140ff., The gods of naturalism have no go!), is giving an idea about what is ultimate, most fundamental in terms of nature, and hence qualifies as a religion and most certainly nothing less (cf.  Ch. 2, *2 in The Lord of Longsuffering ). Professor Lewontin of Harvard shows this religious aspect succinctly:

Our willingness to accept scientific claims against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to naturalism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door. The eminent Kant scholar Lewis Beck used to say that anyone who could believe in God could believe in anything. To appeal to an omnipotent deity is to allow that at any moment the regularities of nature may be ruptured, that miracles may happen.

 

IT IS GOOD TO KNOW equally, that the religion of relativism is not to be rammed any more down young throats. Thus when all is DEEMED to be relative, and nothing absolute (cf. Deliver Us from Educational Temptation Ch. 2), then that is absolute which says so, and truth, logically unknown and unavailable to the godless rellgionists,  because of a relativistic base, as to the impersonal principle religionists, because of non-speech power, is thus slickly declared with that same unyielding irrationality which we have just witnessed. What is the chant back of this inconsistency and arbitrary arrogance. It is  in essence, this. WE KNOW what is the fact, and therefore it is not REALLY a religion when we tell you, even if our particular model, as in naturalism of which evolutionism is a variously inclined participant, has no scope for the reaching of the meaning and ultimacy of things, being wed to what now happens.

HOW is it a fact when truth is not even on this model there to be had, merely a knowledge of what happens next ? and that limited. What is the warrant for such an opinion ? Just so stories ? Effects without causes, despite extensive tests, making the métier of myth!  This is the reason. It is certainly none other (cf. The Secular Myth and the Sacred Truth). Myths are given the place of fact, because they are not seen, or their power is not vindicated or verified, their formation is not subject to testable and consistent grounds. Not a good introduction!

Thus what has no truth systematically, by which things may be evaluated beyond processive event, into the realm of the start or end or purpose or nature of the case, what cannot reach to what in this case is not there, tells us the truth about the nature of the processes, their origination and the dynamics which guide them, the principles which they exhibit. It is a self-contradictory religion, and not for that reason not a religion, but simply an irrational one.

It is good to know, applying the principle of the article in view,  that this sort of naturalism should not be rammed down the throats of school children, and that they should be taught about the models of Christianity (this being one of the sources for eclectic approach, and historically one of the chief inputs into humanity's religions, as well s testable), amongst others, and that instruction in its nature should not cease, as advocated in a self-contradictory fashion in the article. EVERYTHING is to up for grabs, that is worth considering. That appears to be the view. NO ONE is going to put this in or that out, either in religion or science or social studies or history. An eclectic  approach will of course be rather comprehensive, and certainly cover in all subjects where point of view is relevant, the whole gamut of what is available.

What a blessed change that would be, even though the actual slant of the article is against biblical teaching, as if it now possessed the schools, when its basic tenets are most vigorously denied in biology, sociology, increasingly in history, in psychology and economics. No more should this be.  Now different approaches in all these subjects, not just those on a naturalistic, communistic or materialistic basis, will be viewed. What a transformation that would be! A real educational revolution would room; a vast metamorphosis, not an acceleration of what is now moving further into naturalism and materialism, laced with evolutionism, will be wrought. A basic change in direction is to be found.

What a radical change to reasonableness that would be!

What however of any religious instruction which may still linger in some schools somewhere ? Surely as an option this should be. Enforced illiteracy should not be part of the eclectic approach. The effect of the Bible on civilisation has objectively been enormous from the Roman Empire on and before, and not to have a reasonable knowledge of that same Bible is irresponsible in education.  This should be for those who want to have that aspect of our culture in mind, and to be informed. If others want something else, then depending on the scope, this could be supplied.

Is this not precisely what the article is seeking ? In name, perhaps, but not in fact. It is seeking a smattering to replace whatever of the Bible is still being told at all, while retaining the monopolistic approach of the pseudo-non-religious secularism in most subjects in an exclusivist, non-eclectic manner. In this, it is not only for no known reason, severing even further from the cultural, religious and traditional foundations of this land, but pre-occupying education the more with these materialist gibes sometimes posing as subjects, but lying on foundations not only unproven but impossible (cf. Repent or Perish Ch. 7, Christ Incomparable, Lord Indomitable Ch. 2, It Bubbles ... Ch. 9, *1A). In this way, to be sure, it is one method of proving the prophecy right which declared (II TImothy 4:1-3), that men would be turned away to myths, despite their increase in knowledge (as foretold by Daniel Ch. 12). However, worthy as this result is, showing the truth of prophecy, the method of gaining it is not thereby shriven! If killing people reduces food required, this does at all justify it. If killing truth by muting relevant teaching and seducing with irrational models reduces thought, this is no excuse for it.

The reduction of thought, the insistence that we know nothing and must study everything, for example in the field of religion, except that some religions are said to have some points in common, may achieve a certain streamlined appearance; but it is hot air which it allows to sweep over the victims. Thus if  it were true that this approach to truth is the one to have: then this is the truth is presented, that since there is no truth, this may serve for it. Why ? And if there is none, why bother to speak at all, or pretend to have something in which to educate in this field ? And why serve up the catastrophic mess of having no absolutes except that of your own irrationally-based version, which excludes the possibility of truth in order to tell us the truth about what is to be taught, as if Alice were once again, at the door mouse tea-party.

On such an approach, you have no REASON for things, but use reason. You deny the outcome of reason, but insist on being reasonable (cf. SMR). You ignore the need of macro-causation in the interests of micro-causation for no known reason. You beg the question of beginnings in utter irrationality, just HAVING IT for no reason in amazing ways which defy imagination and ground alike, like having Mary Poppins pop in - nice but fanciful - and then ask us to follow this multiple-valve intake which does not account for the valves, and to follow the multiple-movement procedure, which is never at all in any way to be seen in operation, while its cessation, this creative impact, is everywhere, in principle to be seen.

Indeed, as Professor Stephen Jay Gould put it (cf. Wake Up World ... Ch. 6), most of the major design types are now lost, but were present at an early stage. That is the sort of conundrum to be faced by those who insist on having information come in large doses into the DNA, for example, though it is never actually FOUND coming at all  in originating force, without intelligence (Jesus Christ, Defaced ... Ch. 4, Not  Only is God Great, but Glorious Ch. 5). We are to be inundated then, by religion without reason or even acknowledgement in one of the most devious and dubious fudges this world has ever seen, for long gaining strength through mis-education, advocated because it is desired, and desired because people increasingly want not morals and God and truth, but self-contradictory escape hatches, which while not leading at all from the sinking submarine of subterfuge, whether the source be temporal or spiritual, give time for doing one's own thing a little longer while the world immerses itself in the turmoiled waters of expansible wars.

What is in view ? What appears advocated, at least in outcome ? It is life by conundrums, irrational in system, anti-evidential in type, to be visited with less and less exposure of the causal alternative, rational and coherent and strongly and notably apparent in the eminently testable Bible. This is to come with a movement into a surging pulse of unsorted sorts of things. It is like taking a medical student and insisting on a course in myths, every year, as a basis for learning, one constantly expounded each year in other subjects.

Moreover, the article, content to make just this change, speaks of basics in common in religions, to which one should take heed (oh, omit the cross, the total responsibility of man given a free gospel, the ransom of Christ, the redemption of the soul by sacrifice, the predictions testable in prophecy, the coming of the Messiah, the incarnation, the bodily resurrection, the power of God in the salvation of the soul, the equal place of women, the mode of bringing up children, the place of longsuffering and forbearance while being true to reality, the need NOT to make second class citizens of those who do not agree, insisting on subservience, the prohibition on using force for religious purposes, the life of victory over sin's sovereignty, and action of God uniquely in human history to resolve its problems and show the method of this and a few more hundred things besides).

These basic similarities are like those between walking on aching, ulcerated feet and jet fligt. They are all movement, and speak on topics with various similarities on this or that occasion (like maps for the feet or the flight, similar!). Little differences such as just noted apparently do not matter. There is no apparent reason for this. 

There is however reason most apparent for continuing to educate, not indoctrinate in triumphalist myth, and to preserve a balance in ALL subjects, and availability of and teaching of biblical facts not least, since it is our heritage of so fortunate a land, and explaining all, without self-contradiction, but with vast coverage, needs no mere magic for its acceptance, wrought by education departments, substituting in this the psychology of keeping ignorant for the technology of imparting knowledge, so that students can think for themselves on adequate testimony.