Sept 10
To Joe Carter and his blogpost about what we should know about the aftermath of 9/11. This appeared in the Gospel Coalition blog.
The greatest problem we Americans have in talking about the history of the 9/11 attacks is that that history of those attacks begins on 9/11. And that history revolves around what was done to us and what we experienced and how we reacted. And in doing so, we decontextualize what happened on 9/11. Some rationalize that decontextualization by claiming that to add the context of the attacks, that is to add what was done elsewhere that would have spurred such these attacks, is merely an attempt to justify what was done to us. On the other hand, this decontextualization allows our nation to continue to act as a bull in the china shop of the world. Such an approach also says that only American lives matter. That Palestinian lives who suffer and die because of Israel's Occupation and Iraqi lives who were lost to the results of the first Persian Gulf War and the sanctions that followed do not matter even though those two situations were stated as contributing reasons for the attack. And to deny the significance of the lives of other places while calling on God to help us is to make the Lord God into a tribal god.
Certainly the 9/11 attacks are horrible atrocities for which there is no excuse. But neither do the atrocities that serve as a context for the 9/11 attacks have any excuse. For it was those atrocities that at least partially fueled the anger of the terrorists who attacked us. And like all other atrocities, they were unnecessary.
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Sept 11
To Joseph Pearce and his blogpost on relativism and how it leads to the totalitarianism of the self. This appeared in the Imaginative Conservative blog.
The attempt to state that relativism implies narcissism and then link it to Nazism by the manufactured term "Nazissism" and the use of the word "stormtrooper" seem to forget that Nazism claimed that its beliefs were based on science and objective reality and that it was in the best interest of the state and society to impose their objective reality on everybody.
Another point to be made is that there seems to be no middle ground here between relative, subjective truth and objective truth. In other words, beauty and truth are either all subjective or all objective.
The conjunction of these two points paints an ominous pic of the viewpoint that opposes the existence of any relativity and subjectivity used to determine beauty and/or truth. That ominous pic takes us back, to some degree, to the word from which "Nazissism" comes from.
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To R. Scott Clark and his blogpost pic of part of the wreckage of Flight 93 from 9/11. The blogpost was titled Remember 9/11. This appeared in the Heidelblog.
Realize that I knew a person on Flight 93 when asking this: Which 9/11 are we being asked to remember? Is it the 9/11 when we favored the predators or the 9/11 when we were the prey? For if we don't try to remember both when attempting to see how the Scriptures say we should react, regardless of the different names for God and religions we adhere to, we, like the European nations did during WW I, make God into a tribal deity. And thus our respective religions merely become another way to exalt ourselves over others.
And for those who don't know about the first 9/11, it occurred when our nation's leaders supported the predators in the attacks. That occurred on September 11, 1973 when there was a military coup, which was well supported by the US, that overthrew the democratically elected leader Salvador Allende and his government in Chile. The result was a military dictatorship that was ruled over by General Pinochet in which thousands were killed and many more were tortured.
So again, if we only remember the 9/11 in which we were the prey, we make God into a tribal deity. That might feed do much to feed our collective egos, but it attacks the truth.
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Sept 12
To Joe Carter and his blogpost on how statistics show that hunger is on decline in America because of a drop in the humber of those who are food insecure from 2014 to 2015. This appeared in the Acton blog.
So by taking the difference between in statistics from one year to the next, we have enough evidence to conclude that the best way to help the poor is not through gov't help? And there is no breakdown of statistics regarding where food insecurity was minimally relieved after not participating in some gov't programs like SNAP, WIC, or the National School Lunch Program?
The above conclusion reached by Carter shows not a scientific approach to the use of data, but an eager opportunism to prove one's own pet theories and animosities.
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To Daryl Hart and his blogpost that opposes a Christian society because there are common concerns between Christians and nonChristians so that they could work together in build a secular society. This appeared in the Oldlife blog.
D.G.,
Those who want a Christian society want control for themselves by taking freedom from others and such is one of the problems of a Christian society. But what should we say about those who deny that states can commit murder and theft because these people don't believe in corporate sin? Why is it that what we can work with with individuals in a society does not exist between nations so that nations could not come together around those same points?
As for being thankful for the United States? We do have advantages that many from other nations do not have. But our nation has also committed a great number of immoral and sinful acts because of its power that many other nations have not.
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