Foreword and acknowledgements to Textbook Folly; Preview

Forward and Acknowledgements

 

I would like to acknowledge all of my secular college professors, men and women, the good, the bad and the ugly. Many of them were quite good at what they did, and more then a few were far more fair minded then their textbooks were and acknowledged the biases or mistakes or omissions as I brought them up. Very few were simply mindless propagators of the status quo; though many had become so used to it they were no longer so aware of the climate they were in.

Even in classes where some heat from friction became obvious, even online, almost every one of them responded like professionals. I think I came to like the honest ones who couldn’t hide their rancor at some of my challenges and challenged me back as well or better than the rest. To them and even to the writers of some of horrendous textbooks or the statements made in them or those that were omitted because of bias, I give my thanks. They challenged me and gave impetus to the learning process. Solo Deo Gloria.

“We must go to them with the propaganda of atheism, for only this propaganda defines the place of man in the universe…” Trotsky

“Ye shall know the Truth, and the Truth shall set you free.” Jesus Christ, John 8:32

Two opposite points of view. One claims to be able to free humanity though the knowledge of the living God, the other through the acceptance of propaganda. One rests entirely on faith in the works and words of God as unfolded in the Sacred Judeo-Christian Scriptures from Moses in the Torah through John in the New Testament. The other, the propaganda of atheism, rest entirely on faith in a Darwinian worldview, the universe created itself from nothing, for no reason. Everything is up for grabs, there is no God.

The Marxists made that clear;

“Darwinism is the forerunner; a preparation for Marxism…Marxism is the application of Darwinism to human society.” Trotsky, The Tasks of Communist Education, 1922

 Our universities were almost all founded on the premises of the Christian faith. Modern science had its foundation and birth in Christian Europe and the founders of almost every major scientific field and discipline pursued science as way to see the finger prints of God.

Things have changed just a little.  In China, Mao put it this way;

“We will substitute materialism for idealism and atheism for theism.”“Examples of Dialectics”, in, Selected works of Mao Zedong. vol. 8

 One faith; that of the biblical God of Moses, claims it can only be received by a heart prepared by God, through the working of the Holy Spirit. The other side is content with a confession of faith at the point of a gun, or the threat of becoming a social and economic outcast. One side talks of truth, the other uses the word propaganda. Our forefathers insisted that it would be impossible to have a free nation without a moral and religious (theistic) people, Marx, Stalin and Mao insisted it would be impossible to have an equal and prosperous society without the abolition of the knowledge of God.

Which faith is being actively promulgated in American, European and Australian public schools today? The answer to that question shouldn’t be too hard to figure out. Evolution has been easily falsified by the fossil record, by existing zoology, by genetics, by the basic laws of science. Yet only one idea is taught in schools, and it’s taught in such a way that it can easily be seen to be an ideology taught by methods of indoctrination. Propaganda. Evolution, the motivating force behind Hitler, Stalin and Marx and Mao, is being taught exclusively in public schools and colleges just as it was and still is taught in the Marxist countries.

The goal of the German Socialists (Nazi’s) and of the Bolsheviks and the Communist Chinese was to eliminate the idea of the existence of God from the schools and all of society, what are we doing that is any different? Stalin and Lenin outlawed prayer in the Soviet Union at the beginning of the 20th century and we did it in America in 1963.

Atheism is the rule. And, why? Why did all the communist dictators want to remove the idea of god from the people? Why is atheism so essential to the new world order and the goal of a one world government?

It’s really very simple; if man can give rights, he can take away rights. If man is the source and definer of human rights, there are no real, defined essential human rights. Man then has no intrinsic value coming from a source outside of himself. Under man’s rule, apart from the acknowledgement of a Creator God, there are no “unalienable rights”. And there are no real moral “rights and wrongs”. The government becomes God, but not the unchangeable source of righteousness found in the Torah, Tanach or New Testament.

Not the source of liberty cited by our forefathers of the faith who established and made this country the greatest nation in the world for a century or two.

You don’t think so? Take a look at the human rights in China, The USSR, and Cuba or in any Marxist communist nation. Good luck with that.

This book is going to take a look at the way in which secular colleges in America treat theism in general and Historical Christianity in particular. Not only do we want to see if theism is attacked; we want to ask is it attacked fairly with good arguments.  And we want to find out if atheism and secular beliefs are attacked with the same vigor. We want to see if our secular colleges are institutions of education or indoctrination.

What better way then to examine many of the common textbooks that the average student will buy with his or her own money today. Some of these books were those I was actually assigned when I was attending a secular college. And they will be approached fairly, I discovered, like in anything else, not all books were equally bad or good.

But even though I had no allusions about what I would find in a “secular” college, I was often shocked at the level of bias. I shouldn’t have been. Hopefully this series will help others prepare for and understand the level of hypocrisy in our modern education establishments.

They are not neutral for the most part. They are seminaries for a left wing atheistic world view, though there are many good professors, even atheists, who do labor to keep their biases in check, when they are aware of them. To those professors and to the Christian professors who labor in such a “secular” environment, this book is dedicated.

Available in amazon kindle at amazon com, see link also on books available page

 

Guest Blog: Tony Bowe’s outline for his Communications Class presentation

Thesis: Richard Wurmbrand should win “The Intercessor Award” because of the awareness he has brought to oppressed peoples throughout the world, particularly of the Christian Faith, and his impactful ministry in advocating and helping its victims.

 

Introduction: What would you do if you knew there were people living in terrifyingly hostile circumstances, enduring horrific tortures and imprisonments, and children being brutalized – all because somebody refused to recant their Faith? What would you do if that was you living in those circumstances? An intercessor is one who intercedes – literally, to intercede for somebody; to stand in the gap for someone else and defend those who cannot defend themselves. I know a great intercessor that has stood in the gap for people victimized for their faith – he was even a victim himself. His name is Richard Wurmbrand, and I humbly ask that you consider him this year’s winner of the annual “Intercessor Award”.

 

1. Who is Richard Wurmbrand?

1. Born in 1909, died in 2001
2. Romanian Christian Pastor
3. Imprisoned during the Stalinist regime for refusal to compromise his faith
4. Endured many tortures and brainwashings through two prison terms in 14 years
5. His family suffered as well
6. Eventually escaped with his wife Sabina to America after 1964 amnesty and bail.
7. Ministry was founded by Wurmbrand in 1967
8. From website: “[VOM] is a non-profit, inter-denominational Christian organization dedicated to assisting the persecuted church worldwide.”[1]
9. The Wurmbrands traveled the world to share their story and raise awareness of the Christians that suffer for their faith.
   1. Wurmbrand himself testified to Congress to tell them of his – and others’ – treatment in the Communist prisons
10. VOM provides medical help, food, clothing, and other necessities to victims and their families
11. VOM helps protect and defend those in danger of imprisonment or death for sharing the Gospel of Christ
12. VOM supplies bibles and other evangelistic material and outreaches to regions all over the world
13. Runs a huge prison ministry which allows believers throughout the world to write letters of encouragement (in their native tongues) to those in prison suffering for their bold stand in the Faith.
14. Richard Wurmbrand, through Voice of the Martyrs, has universally raised the awareness of the suffering and trials people face every day throughout the world for their Faith.
15. To fellow Christians, this is a plea to intercede, like Pastor Wurmbrand, for our brethren overseas in any way possible
    1. Hebrews 13:3 – “Remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them; and them which suffer adversity, as being yourselves also in the body.”
    2. Please pray for those who suffer – not just for their safety, but that their oppressors will have a change of heart and accept Christ as their personal savior.
    3. Please pray for the families of the victims.
    4. Consider getting involved with the prison ministry, donating to Voice of the Martyrs, or getting active in the missionary field overseas for yourself.
16. Violence and hatred of this kind should not be tolerated or accepted by any of us, and it is important to be aware of how prevalent it still is today.

2. Voice of the Martyrs

3. Why It Matters

 

Conclusion: Despite all that he went through, Richard Wurmbrand still loved those who persecuted him. In his book, Tortured for Christ, Pastor Wurmbrand describes in gruesome detail some of the horrific events him and fellow prisoners endured at the hands of the Communists; but he also records how he did not see an evil man, but a man doing evil things. He longed to see them won for Christ – and his love had a significant impact on many of his tormentors. Many who tortured Wurmbrand and other Christians even became Christians themselves, and ended up joining them in the same cells they were once torturing from. Wurmbrand is not alone. Countless testimonies of those who have been imprisoned but now released, recount their love for their captors and oppressors, despite the terrible things they were doing to them. They do not despise their experiences in prison – instead, rejoicing for the opportunity it gave them to try their faith and learn to love more like Christ Jesus even there. Powerful is the love of this Christ – truly these men and women have found something much greater than anything their tormenters or circumstances could thwart.

 Considering the great awareness that Pastor Wurmbrand has brought to us, of those who suffer and are killed for their unwavering Faith in Jesus Christ, and the ministry that he has started which provides invaluable aid and resources to victims and their families, I believe Richard Wurmbrand is the most deserving candidate to win “The Intercessor Award” of 2012.

---

[1]    http://www.persecution.com/public/aboutVOM.aspx?clickfrom=bWFpbl9tZW51

Preview of Vol.3 Myths of Modern Academia; The Crusades

 

Chapter Four

 Myth: The Religion of Christianity spread in the same fashion as Islam; mass invasions, forced conversion of the resident peoples, followed by Dhimmi-like subjugation

  “ Although we discuss Islam and Islamism later in this chapter, it is important to point out here that Islam, like Christianity, was for centuries routinely spread by forced conversion, to save souls but also often for the purposes of political control” (1)

The above citation is from a popular textbook used in a nearby state college and clearly states that both Christianity and Islam spread in the same manner, the text clearly implies that the patterns of propagation of both religions were parallel. To their credit, at least the book admits that forced conversion was routinely part of the Muslim conquering process, an admission often avoided in the secular world.

According to the text, then, the apostles Peter and Paul and the rest of the disciples of Jesus gathered armies and proceeded to invade the surrounding Roman occupied neighboring lands, full of Jewish and pagans of every sort, conquered them and then forced them to convert or become like Dhimmi, just like the Caliphs of Islam and Mohammad himself had done.

It does make for an interesting story, but one which is so decidedly false that it is a wonder that anyone, even in today’s historically bereft society, would actually believe it.

The first question we have to ask is; where is the history of this period of invasion and conquest by the apostles of Christ? It certainly is not in the Bible. And for the first three to four hundred years of Christianity, prior to the adoption of Christianity by Constantine, there is no record of Christian warriors invading Roman provinces or India or China or anywhere else. In fact, as every reader I’m sure knows, the history is really quite the opposite; Christians were routinely thrown to the lions or burned at the stake by Roman soldiers on orders from their superiors. In fact all of Rome was lit up at night by the burning bodies of the followers of Christ during the reign of Nero. And this kind of persecution continued under later emperors like Diocletian.

Christ allowed himself to be nailed to a cross; though he said he could have called down an army of angels at any time he chose. And the apostle Paul made clear that the life of an Apostle of Christ was not divide and conquer but rejection and persecution. He said;

“To this very hour we go hungry and thirsty, we are in rags, we are brutally treated, we are homeless…when we are cursed we bless, when we are persecuted we endure it, when we are slandered, we answer kindly. To this day we are the scum of the earth, the refuse of the world.” 1 Corinthians 4: 10-13

Nor did Christ ever lead an army or give orders to any of his disciples to do so. I defy anybody to come up with a history of rampant Christian conquests and forced conversions anywhere for at least the first three hundred years of the faith. Both the bible and secular history (Roman documents) are clear about the first 300 years of Christian history; the spread of the faith through the preaching of the word and salvation by faith in that word is a history well attested and unassailable. We will talk about some forced conversions by Christian political and military leaders in this chapter that occurred much later in history; but what about the first three hundred years and the sacrifice and slaughter of all those Christians and the apostles? Do those years and the history of the spread of the gospel in the New Testament count for anything? I should hope so. It was during that period that the vast majority of Christendom, both Latin and Greek, was evangelized and came under Christian teaching.

The first three hundred years of the spread of Islam tell a completely different story. When Mohammad began to lead his first raids against Jewish towns and Arab villages indifferent or hostile to his message, most of the surrounding world was part of Christendom, from North Africa through the Mid-East and into most of Europe. As Mohammad grew more affluent and powerful he was able to build a large army and soon conquered all of Arabia and forced all of the Bedouin tribes into a unified submission.

Having been so successful in Arabia, Mohammad himself led his armies into Syria and Persia before he died. Within the first hundred years the Muslim armies had conquered all of North Africa, the Middle East (including Syria, and Persia and Palestine) Cyprus and most of Spain. In the next century they conquered Sicily, Corsica, Crete and the southern part of Italy. Historians may quibble as to why the Muslims decided to invade all the surrounding lands with armies; but no one argues about the way they spread Islam and the Muslim culture to these lands; they used the sword.

The word of Allah was not spread by small groups of itinerate preachers, Christianity was. Christianity in its inception spread like wildfire despite persecution. Islam spread like wildfire by means of coercion and the sword. In Cyprus they slaughtered tens of thousands of Christians. In North Africa the inhabitants put up a desperate and brave defense led by a bold Jewish woman, but eventually Islam dominated and brought Dhimmi to the Atlas Mountains.

All though it could be argued that parts of the Koran don’t support forced conversion of the “People of book”, Islam has usually followed the example set by Mohammad rather than the more pacific statements of the Koran. Besides, as sociologist and scholar Rodney Stark has pointed out, the Muslim didn’t view offering captured infidels the “free choice” of conversion to Islam as a forced conversion. And this was the routine process approved of by practical Muslim theology. (Stark)

Charles Martel forced conquered Germans to be baptized in the name of the trinity and to denounce the worship of Satan during his wars with the Saxon tribes. And during the crusades forced baptism was sometimes demanded as terms of surrender to cities under siege. After the Muslim held city of Acre surrendered, King Richard and King Phillip demanded the defenders be baptized, but when the so called “converts” were released they immediately rejoined the army of Saladin. On seeing this, Richard realized the demand was futile and stopped the provision from being enforced. (McLynn)

The account of the Viking evangelist Thorvald gives us a view of the reasons why some went on pilgrimage and how forced conversion might have been viewed in general during the years preceding the first crusade. Thorvald was an Icelandic Viking, a convert to the Christian faith in the late tenth century. Being filled with zeal for the gospel of Christ, he became an evangelist, but one with a few rough edges left over from his Viking career. He became enraged when two men he had shared the Gospel with mocked his faith and he promptly slew them. He slew another man for criticizing his preaching. Deeply grieved by his lack of grace and self-control he made a pilgrimage to the distant holy land to atone for his sins.

Compare this to the Muslim history given us in the Hadith of Ikrima;

“Some unbelievers were brought to Ali {the fourth Caliph} and he burnt them. The news of this event reached Ibn ‘Abbas who said… “I would have killed them according to the statement of Allah’s Apostle, “Whoever changes his Islamic religion, then kill him.”  Volume 9, Book 84, Number 57

Note that even the ex-Viking raider from far off Iceland in 990 AD knew that slaying those who rejected the faith was falling short of the grace of Christ and required atonement while the followers of Islam saw the killing of those who resisted the will of Allah as routine and acceptable behavior.

Forced conversion was not the norm in medieval Europe that it was in Islam. Unbelief has never been tolerated in Muslim countries and this attitude shapes the way modern Muslim nations view the tiny nation of Israel. They cannot and will not tolerate or accept the presence of a non-Muslim nation existing in the midst of the Muslim Middle East, unless forced to.

The statement in the textbook suggesting that “Islam, like Christianity, was for centuries routinely spread by forced conversion”, implying the two religions started and spread in the same manner betrays the anti-Christian bent of our halls of learning and is clearly a myth.

(1)   “Human Geography: Places and Regions in Global Context.” 6th ed. Paul L. Knox & Sallie A. Marston, editors. Pearson, 2012.

Geronimo and Sitting Bull’s appeal to Divine Rights for their Land and Acts 17:26

 “From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and determined the times set for them and the boundaries where they should live.”

Acts 17:26

 “For each tribe of men Usen created, He also made a home. In the land created for any particular tribe, he placed whatever would be best for the welfare of that people. When Usen created the Apache, He also created their homes in the west…”

Geronimo, in his Autobiography

“As a babe I rolled on the dirt floor of my father’s tepee, hung in my tsoch (cradle) at my mother’s back or suspended from a bough of a tree. I was warmed by the sun, rocked by the winds, and sheltered by the trees as other Indian babies.

When a child my mother taught me the legends of our people; taught me of the sun and sky, the moon and stars, the clouds and storms. She also taught me to kneel and pray to Usen (God, the Great Spirit) for strength, health, wisdom and protection.

We never prayed against any person; but if we had aught against an individual we took revenge ourselves. We were taught that Usen does not care about the petty quarrels of men.”

Words of Geronimo as translated by Apache sub-chief Asa Deklugie to S.M. Barret who helped him write his autobiography. (All preceding quotes are from the same book except where noted.)

The Apaches of Geronimo’s day had warred on the Mexican people for decades and occasionally traded with them but had never seen a white man until Geronimo was a grown man. (They did not consider the Mexicans white men.) They never spoke with the Mexicans on matters of religion and in fact Geronimo himself spoke no Spanish until much later in life and even then needed interpreters to do business in Spanish; nor did he speak English, nor did his mother. So the traditions of religion and history and folklore he relates are untainted by intercourse with other peoples’ except that they did have relations with the Kiowa and Comanche people to some degree.

What his mother taught him about the religious nature of the universe was pure Apache, and yet in many points the stories agree with the Hebrew creation story. In others they don’t. In the Hebrew creation story for example, darkness covered the face of the earth until God created light. In the Apache story, darkness covered the earth, but the animals fought and one side headed by the eagles won and brought light upon the earth. He also said that all the beasts had the power of speech and reason and dragons that co-existed with man. One Dragon was man’s enemy in particular and was very sly and evil. This dragon was killed by the man who became the first “Apache”.

Geronimo said. “…We had no churches, no religious organizations, no Sabbath day, and no holy days, and yet we worshipped. Sometimes the whole tribe would assemble to sing and to pray; sometimes a smaller number, perhaps only two or three…Sometimes we prayed in silence; sometimes each one prayed aloud; sometimes an aged person would pray for all of us. At other times one would rise and speak to us of our duties to each other and to Usen.”

One thing was certain, the Apache needed no one to tell him there was a Creator God and while the religious lore of the Apache, at least Geronimo’s knowledge of it, seems smaller than other tribes, he was adamant about the heavenly father giving the Apache their appointed place on earth, in the headwaters of the Gila River.

This is exactly what the bible teaches and it says that after the flood and tower of Babel incident men were spread out over the face of the earth. This idea of the various peoples being appointed certain lands and times is echoed by many different people and was a strong argument by the various tribes of Native Americans to maintain at least some portion of their original lands. Sitting Bull made the same argument many times. He said;

“The cities arose and always the White man’s lands were extended and the Indians pushed farther and farther away from the country The Great Father had given them and that had always been theirs.” (Buffalo Bill Cody’s autobiography, Ch. 11)

Of course it could be argued that the Great Father gave you the land and then you were required to hold it, and the different tribes didn’t always agree who belonged where. The Iroquois pushed the Cherokee far to the south and the Arapaho and Cheyenne and Sioux and Pawnee fought constantly, much like the European Nations. None the less, the arguments of Geronimo and Sitting Bull were not without precedent and their plea of divine right to the lands could not be forever ignored.

In the end, even the US Supreme court had to acknowledge their claim;

“[I]n decisions of this court, the Indian right of occupancy of tribal lands, whether declared in a treaty or otherwise created, has been stated to be sacred. . . It is to be presumed that in this matter the United States would be governed by such considerations of justice as would control a Christian people . . .”

Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock, 187 U.S. 553, 565 (1903). See also the same language in Yankton Sioux Tribe of Indians v. U. S., 272 US 351 (1926); U. S. v. Choctaw Nation, 179 U.S. 494 (1900)

Geronimo who was being kept in Oklahoma consistently appealed to the government for his people’s rights to return to their homeland, and eventually he won out. In one heartfelt and elegant plea the old warrior said this;

“When Usen created the Apache he also created their homes in the west. He gave to them such grain, fruits and game as they needed to eat. To restore their health when disease attacked he made many different herbs to grow. He taught them where to find these herbs and how to prepare them for medicine. He gave them a pleasant climate and all they needed for clothing and shelter was at hand. Thus it was in the beginning: the Apaches and their homes were created for each other by Usen Himself. When they are taking from these homes they sicken and die. How long will it be before it is said, ‘There are no Apaches?’”

The Apache were dying like flies on the Oklahoma and Florida places of internment where they were being held.

He also said, “We are vanishing from the earth, yet I cannot think we are useless or Usen would not have created us. He created all tribes of men and certainly had a righteous purpose in creating each.”

After much time and consideration, the old warrior began a serious inquiry into the “white man’s” religion, becoming fascinated about what it said about the afterlife and other aspects of religious life that in the Apache knowledge were never discussed. He eventually became a Christian and was baptized Dutch Reformed.

But he said, “Since my life as a prisoner has begun I have heard the teachings of the white man’s religion and in many respects believe it to be better than the religion of my fathers. However, I have always prayed, and I believe the Almighty has always protected me.”

He never forgot or failed to practice what his mother had taught him as a young child somewhere in the mountains north of the headwaters of the Gila.

One thing is sure, the Apache were not Atheists, and while faithfulness in the worship of this creator god varied from tribe to tribe and person to person, the majority of the Indian peoples had been faithful in handing down the verbal traditions of his existence to their progeny.

The Ancient Pawnee Flood Story as told to Buffalo Bill Cody by the Pawnee Chief of Scouts

The Ancient Pawnee Flood Story as told to Buffalo Bill Cody by the Pawnee Chief of Scouts

I was reading an old auto-biography of Buffalo Bill written by the plainsman himself and in it he relates their story of the great flood and a fabled race of giants, as given to him by the Pawnees he scouted with during the Indian Wars on the plains. The autobiography itself is mind-boggling as Cody tells of watching his father, a free-soiler and abolitionist, taken by a mob of pro-slavers and stabbed in the back in frontier Kansas. He describes how he and his mother, who he depicted as having a strong Christian character, fought to try and keep his father alive, alone out on the prairie, penniless and surrounded by bloodthirsty and ruthless gangs of anti-abolitionists.

Cody took up his career out on the plains at a young age (12) and engaged in hundreds of sharp gun fights and perilous rides, both with the Indians making their last desperate stand to save their way of life and against various and numerous desperados of the white variety. The Western plains were not a safe place in the late 19^th century.

But to the flood story, taught to Cody by the chief Pawnee scout who was fluent in English and Pawnee;

Quoted directly from the source as the book is now public Domain

“While we were in the hills scouting the Niobrara country, the Pawnees brought in some very large bones, one of which the surgeon of the expedition (it was a college funded expedition for fossils) said was the thigh bone of a human being. The Indians said the bones were those of a race of people who long ago had lived in that country…These giants, they said, denied the existence of the Great Spirit. When they heard thunder or lightening they laughed and declared themselves to be greater than either.

This so displeased the Great Spirit that he caused a deluge. The water rose higher and higher till it drove these proud giants from the low lands to the hills and thence to the mountains. At last even the mountain tops were submerged and the mammoth men were drowned…This story has been handed down among the Pawnees for generations.”

All the American tribes had a flood story and they often varied greatly in the details, but never in the main point. Some matched the Bible story very closely others less so, but this if the first time I had ever read the Pawnee account. And right from the mouth of Buffalo Bill Cody.  Cody had the highest respect for the Pawnee and said they were the best scouts he ever served with.

Cody ends the book with a plea to the government and the people of America to be just and faithful in their dealing with the Native American people. Once again, like with Davey Crockett and Dan’l Boone, we find an old Indian fighter that had a love and deep respect for the people he had fought for the better part of fifty years.

Anthony Ashley Cooper Lord Shaftesbury Evangelical Champion of the Downtrodden; Zionist

Anthony Ashley Cooper

 Lord Shaftesbury

 Evangelical Champion of the Downtrodden; Zionist

“Well I can recollect in the earlier periods…waiting at the factory gates to see the children come out, and a set of dejected cadaverous creatures they were…The proofs of long and cruel toil were most remarkable. The cripples and the distorted forms might be numbered by the hundreds, perhaps by the thousands…the sight was most piteous, the deformities incredible.”

Said about Shaftesbury;

 “Of himself he would submit to injustice and be still: for his fellow countrymen and for his religion he would renew the battle to the last day of his life.”

This, his child labor fight, was not a case of overregulation by a power hungry government or politician pandering for votes to assure his own and his party’s re-election. Indeed, after a few years even Lord Shaftesbury’s worst enemies in the House of Commons realized he did nothing out of self-promotion or political gain and in time he gained the grudging respect of all.

These were children under ten years old that were working over 18 hours a day in the factories, the mines and the mills. The dangers in these early places of industry were many and a vast number of children were killed, and many more maimed. The rest were malnourished, stunted and weak, never able to grow to their potential size or aptitudes.

Shaftesbury fought for over fifty years for the improvement of the conditions of the young, the poor, the blind, the tenement people, the conditions of the insane asylum and he was an early champion of the Jewish Zionist, giving money and leverage to help the Jewish people fulfill their longing to return to their ancient homeland; Eretz Israel.

He, along with the famous abolitionist, Wilberforce , who he house churched with, started the first society for the protection of animals, and the first YMCA’s to provide a place for all the young men and women from the countryside who had come to work in the urban factories a place to meet and engage in decent social discourse.

He took up the cause of the chimney sweep boys and started the “ragged schools”, schools for the very poorest of the children in the slums of London and Edinburgh. He started the society for visiting and caring for the blind.

All of these fights were basically firsts; all of them fueled by his desire to serve his Savior by service to the most downtrodden in society. And all of these could be attributed along with many others as fruits of the much maligned and out of vogue, Christian faith.

Who has the Whole World in Their Hands? Is it atheism or, “the Bible” in the classroom or is there another alternative?

Who has the Whole World in Their Hands?

Is it atheism or, “the Bible” in the classroom or is there another alternative?

Just to be clear; I am not saying “the Bible” has to be taught in American public schools. The minute you suggest that the concept of God should not be banished from the classroom, that is what you get; “You can’t teach the bible in the class room”. Or Senator Obama’s, “What ya gonna teach?” You know, Baptist or Pentecostal doctrine or, lol, who knows?

How about teaching history accurately and teaching kids the difference between origins science and operational science? How about allowing kids to form teams and debate the evidences for and against the Darwinian creation story?  Heaven forbid. Hahahha.

Atheist doctrine is not directly taught in school and no one reads Mein Kampf or Marx’s Das Kapital every morning before class. However the secular atheist worldview dominates to the exclusion of all other world views.

And since this nation was established by Christians and was thought of as a Christian nation up until the late sixties sexual revolution, it is just possible that the biblically based Judeo/Christian world view should not be abolished from the classroom and even the history of it frantically swept under the rug less some enterprising student discovers it and becomes confused by reality.

The atheist world view lives or dies on the success of Darwin’s reworking of the old Greek view of a self-creating universe, and Darwinism has failed to qualify even as a proper hypothesis. I have no problem with evolution being taught, as long as it is done so honestly and accurately, and in an up to date manner, which it is not.

Whether it scares us to death or not, the history of how modern science sprang up in Europe, among Christian scientists who built off centuries of scholarly work done in the Catholic scholastic colleges, should be learned. Most students now think that science is the property and product of atheism and that the secularists fought a war against religion in order to bring science to the world. But modern operational science started in Christian Europe and there alone. I think only two among the 152 founders of the various fields of science were skeptics; the majority of the rest were devout and said it was their faith that drove them to do science.

How medieval Europe outlawed slavery before it started up again in the new world and the fact that only the Judeo/Christian nations abolished slavery, until very recently, should be taught. That the first orphanages, hospitals, and medical sanitation started in Christendom, should be taught along with the over blown stories of witch hunts and the like. The incredible technological advances of Medieval Europe should also be taught in the classroom.

The fact that the first modern democracies began in the Christian nations should be taught, and the revolution under Oliver Cromwell could be compared with the French revolution; a Christian based movement with very little civilian death against the firs atheistic based French one where the streets ran with blood and which would be followed by many other exceedingly bloody Marxist/atheist based revolutions.

The very fact that we were a Christian nation should be explained and the actual writings of the founders should be read in the classroom, as well as the part Jewish and even Muslim early settler’s played in the war for independence. There weren’t a lot of atheists involved, just as there were no atheist abolitionist groups and are today, as far as I know, no atheist led pro-life groups; you won’t find too many atheists among the founders of early science either; not Kepler or Kelvin; not Boyle or Newton. Atheism does not produce much but abortion mills and mass purges of its enemies.

It is not a question of secular atheism or “the bible”. It is one exclusive world view being allowed to dominate to the absolute exclusion of all others that is the problem. By allowing that we have allowed the government establish a religion, in a very sneaky sort of way.

I remember in one public school classroom of kindergarten students I was working with who danced to the music of the old fifties spiritual called “He has the whole world in His hands”. Only the words were sung; “We have the whole world in our hands” and “We have the wind and the rain, in our hands” et cetera. Hahhahah. And I am not making that up. But it’s all good, right?

Even if we hate our heritage, should we let the schools teach the children that the fossil record supports Darwin’s theory?  And have text books that still show pictures of Haeckel’s faked drawings of embryos? Or shows pictures of a dolphin flipper, a bird’s wing and a human arm and suggest that they look the same because they all evolved from a common ancestor?

Shouldn’t the kids be told that the gene’s that control the arms in each of those creatures are different and that in each different family; the bird, the reptiles, the mammals; the embryo’s form by completely different patterns exclusive to that animal type and so that the similarity of their various features is definitely Not due to inheritance from a common ancestor?

Or should our young scholars be adamantly taught the in-vogue story that the dinosaurs didn’t really die off, they just turned into birds and flew up into the trees? And then omit all of the problems associated with that idea, so many that the head ornithologist of the Smithsonian wrote the National Geographic a scathing letter that was a stinging rebuke for their presentation of that popular “just so” theory, accusing them of dishonesty and of fraud?

And most of this has been known for decades. Haeckel was tried for fraud over a hundred years ago.

Does Atheism really have all the answers and stand head and shoulders above the Judeo/Christian world view? Only when they control the playing field and the referees. And only if we  keep smiling in order to avoid conflict and fit in. We’ve grown so accustomed to the brain washing that I think we kind of like it. And we may have become too dysfunctional to fight; or maybe we’re just too comfortable.

If that is the case, God just may have to make us a little more uncomfortable.