Bravery pays only the principle, but cowardice always pays the interest as well. It's cheaper to be brave. Not to mention more honorable.
For example, the British were cowards until 1940 when they were forced to be brave. Churchill slapped them into clarity. But until then, Britain and Europe paid a lot of compound interest. So did we, on their behalf.
In your mind, what is courage and why is there so little of it today?
Well, courage is not the absence of fear. It is the subjugation of fear. For example, a 300 pound, maniacal knife-wielding man with murder in his eyes is certainly something to be afraid of. If you can run away and live, do so. There is no dishonor in that, and any good martial arts sensei will agree.
If, on the other hand, you cannot run away and live — if you are all that stands between him and your family —then you must be brave. You must fight him. The Brits finally faced up to Hitler and fought him. Only after the Battle of Britain did the American people decide that the English might be worth saving after all.
There are many types of courage other than physical, such as moral courage, social courage, and financial courage. The parent courage of them all is courage to self, which is the courage to act by that which you know or believe to be right.
Can you give some examples of these?
Sure. Moral courage would be sending an anonymous letter to the editor against closed-shop unionism. Social courage would be signing your name to it. Financial courage would be jeopardizing your own business by not selling to unionized companies. Physical courage would be defending your life and property against marauding union thugs.
There is a progression involved, but, as you can see, all stem from courage to self.
It is very rare for a person to truly and consistently exhibit courage in all four facets, that is, moral, social, financial, and physical. Generally, the courageous are so in just one or two facets. For example, Ayn Rand showed great moral and social courage by writing and speaking as she did, but very little financial courage regarding the income taxes with which she disagreed philosophically, yet continued to not only pay, but overpay for fear of an audit. There are people who would risk their fortune to defend what they believe is right, yet run from a fistfight. There also are people who would fight to the death in defense of themselves and their family, yet are too timid to speak up in public.
My point is that the courageous are also very often somehow cowards outside their own sphere, and those viewed as cowards can be courageous inside their own sphere.
Who has provided inspiration to you for courage?
Wow, there have been so many. I'll have to limit myself to those who exhibited four-faceted courage. Sir Thomas More certainly did. The stageplay and movie A Man For All Seasons is one of my favorites.
In my view, the most courageous man was Jesus Christ. At Golgotha, He had lost His property, family, and even His disciples. He even thought He had lost God the Father. Yet He never stumbled in His courage to self.
Why do you say that?
Well, after the disciple Peter sliced off the high priest's servant's right ear in the Garden of Gethsemane in Matthew 26, He chastised Peter,
Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and He shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then shall the scriptures be fulfilled, that it must be?
What He was saying was, "I don't have to go through with this if I choose not to." You see, even when he apparently could have avoided the Redeemer's sacrifice without recrimination from the Father, Jesus remained courageous to self, and then demonstrated incomparable physical courage on the cross.
This is hardly a proper example, as the story of the crucifixion and resurrection has not been satisfactorily corroborated according to many historians.
Many other historians and scholars disagree, and quite a few of them were originally atheist. For example, applying biographical testing is very enlightening. Such looks at the number of manuscript copies of the original, and the time period between the original and the copies when none of the originals still exists. Take the manuscript copies of the writings of Caesar, Plato, Aristotle, and Tacitus, for example. We have only one to ten copies of them each, all written no sooner than 1,000 years after the originals. Nevertheless, the copies are held by scholars to be accurate.
Regarding the books of the New Testament which were written between 40-90 A.D., the earliest manuscript copies date only 40-50 years after the originals and more than 13,000 copies exist. If, by virtue of biographical testing, we may rely upon the genuineness of the purported works of Caesar, Plato, Aristotle, and Tacitus, then the veracity of the New Testament is even more assured. It was written by living witnesses and players, and would have been repudiated by other living witnesses if false.
So, you believe that Jesus Christ was the Son of God, who died on the cross and was resurrected after three days?
I certainly do. But that's just me. What's compelling is that people of early 1st century Israel believed it. They were there. Their faith and actions are the most compelling proof of the deity of Jesus.
Nearly all religions agree that Jesus was a moral man and a good teacher, so why is any further attribution necessary? Why can't we simply accept Jesus as that, and dispense with the troublesome and dubious claim of Godhood?
C.S. Lewis, who lived many of his earlier years as an atheist, addressed that precise issue best. Jesus declared himself not "a" Son of God, but the Son of God. Not "a" Christ, but the Christ. In John 14:6 He said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me." That's an extraordinary claim.
As a claim, it was either true or false. If false, then Jesus either knew or did not know that it was false. If he knew, then he was a liar. If he did not know, then he was a lunatic. If Jesus was a liar or a lunatic, then he cannot be regarded as a "good man" or a "moral teacher." He is either Lord, or he was full of lies or insanity — meaning, a bad man. Logically there is no in between.
Nothing substantiates that Jesus was either legend, liar, or lunatic. That leaves only one alternative: His claim was true, and He is the Lord. What we do about it is up to us. That is the most concise case I can make for the deity of Jesus.
The world will admit that He was good, because He was and they have to give him at least that. However, the world refuses to proclaim Him the Lord, because doing so would conversely acknowledge that they are not the Lord. They just can't "go there," regardless of compelling evidence.
What if it was just a fairy tale supported by mass delusion?
The lives of the disciples and early Christian leaders is most telling. After the crucifixion, the disciples were scared men, running for their lives. Their leader had been publicly executed. They did not expect Jesus to rise from the dead, even though He had said that He would. Yet days later, this same group of men became bold and evangelical. Thomas no longer doubted and Peter shed his cowardice for courage.
What had happened? The resurrection. They, as well as hundreds of others, had seen and spoken with a living Jesus.
Couldn't they have made up the resurrection story?
No. It would have been at once disproven by the Romans or by the Jewish leaders by producing a body. It would have been in their interest to do so, for it would've ended the radical movement they'd tried to suppress.
What if the disciples had taken the body and hidden it?
To what end? To continue preaching a message they knew was a lie? All but one of them died martyrs' deaths. Andrew, Jude, Peter, Philip, and Simon were all crucified. Barnabas, James (the brother of Jesus), and Matthias were stoned. Bartholomew and James (the Less) were beaten. Luke was hung on an olive tree. Mark was dragged through the streets by his feet and then burned. Matthew and James (son of Zebedee) were killed by the sword. Paul was beheaded. Thomas was thrust through by a spear, and Thaddaeus was killed by arrows. Only John died of natural causes.
People simply do not allow themselves to be killed, much less i
n such violence, for preaching something they know to be a lie. Therefore, they could not have stolen Jesus's body —which was under Roman guard, mind you — in order to prop up some gigantic farce. It simply isn't logical.
As fantastic as the resurrection may seem, it is the only scenario which fits all the facts and accounts for the post-crucifixion evangelical zeal of the disciples and early Christians.
But even still, what if you're wrong?
If the Christian is proven wrong, then what has he lost? An otherwise bawdy, hollow, and pointless life? Hedonism for the pure sake of hedonism? He's lost nothing. A Christian needs no cosmic back up plan.
But, if the atheist is proven wrong, then he has lost everything. He had no back up plan. He was a trapeze artist without a net. Perhaps there is no life after death and perhaps there are no supernatural consequences for earthly actions, but that's not the way to bet.
Ah, Pascal's wager.
Perhaps, but I did not accept Jesus because of that. The Gospel rang true to me, and still does even through times of doubt and confusion.
If you could make Christianity the official religion of Wyoming, would you do so?
Absolutely not! My gosh, what a question!
Well, why not, if Christianity is best for mankind?
Not if it is forcibly imposed on people! God wants our free will and He hawks His wares, so to speak, in the free market of religions. Our will is the only thing we have that's truly ours. He wants us to choose Him for Himself. The real question is not whether God exists, but if so — would you want to know Him?
But why does there have to even be a Creator? Evolution is sufficient to explain the universe.
(laughs) That takes more faith than believing in a Creator! Look, why do we still have the ape, but not the "ape-man" — a supposedly higher form of ape? According to evolutionary theory of natural selection, the mere ape would have been weeded out long ago. Inferior transitional specimens are not supposed to survive within the same environment as their superiors. The ape wasn't weeded out because the "ape-man" never existed. Ramapithecus, Australopithecus, Java Man, Neanderthal Man, Cro Magnon Man, Peking Man, Nebraska Man, and Piltdown Man—all of them have been proven either man or ape or even pig, but never a transitional "apeman."
That's why we see systemic gaps in the fossil records. They mirror the same gaps in the modern world.
Just because an "ape-man" hasn't been found doesn't mean that it never existed.
That's correct as far as it goes, but evolutionists argue that it did exist even though they cannot find a single example of one.
Look, even the simplest organisms are too complex to have arrived by sheer evolution. Take the so-called "simple cell." It contains DNA, required for cellular reproduction. So, the DNA had to be there first. And where did this sophisticated informational storage and retrieval system come from? Sir Francis Crick, who discovered the DNA molecule in 1956, stated that not even in 3 billion years of evolution could it have come by accident. Since he was an atheist, he could only postulate that advanced beings from outer space put it here. I'm curious if he ever wondered about their origin. If ETs themselves were a product of natural selection, and if they created our DNA (or gave us some of theirs), doesn't their own advanced nature magnify the incredulity of Darwin's theory? It forces evolutionists to climb an even steeper hill of proof to explain an even more sophisticated life form than us. Crick's ET hypothesis of human DNA, concocted to slice the Gordian Knot of irreducible complexity, actually destroys Darwinism.
Try as they might, evolutionists have never been able to offer any theory less outlandish, less fantastic than creationism. They are the real men of faith, not the deists.
Take the human eye, for example. Why would it have evolved? Remember, every transitional stage of evolution must have an immediate advantage to the species which engenders its retention by natural selection. So, why the pupil without a lens? Or, if the lens came first, then why the lens without a pupil? Evolutionists can't entertain such dilemmas. Oh, and don't forget the cornea, which is a pre-lens. Or the aqueous humour, the liquid-filled body behind the cornea. Or the iris muscle which controls pupil size like a camera shutter. Or the eyelids and eyelashes and eyebrows to protect the eye camera. All of these components came into sequential parallel being? It's absurd.
And I haven't even gotten into the retina, optic nerve, and the entire visual nervous system of the brain. Why would an eye develop without a visual cortex to make use of the information? And without the eye's information, why would a visual nervous system have developed at all?
If you take any combination of interrelated systems, or even system components, you will see that none of them would have had any evolutionary reason for existing before the other, much less on its own. Even Darwin admitted that trying to reconcile the eye with natural selection made him ill. Finally, if you consider the parallel evolution of the eye in the squid (a mollusc), the vertebrates, and the arthropods, the notion of the eye being produced multiple times amongst different phyla by modern synthetic theory literally makes scientists' heads swim.
Assuming that all of the above isn't too incredible, then the Darwinist must also accept the notion that an early visual system evolved into one so sophisticated that we still cannot reproduce it today. The best photographic film we have is 1,000 times less sensitive. Our eye's resolution is so good that it can see a lighted candle a mile away in the dark — about one second of angle. Its acuity can distinguish between over 10 million colors.
In short, life, any or all of it, is just too complex, and too obviously designed to be the product of modern synthetic theory. According to Romans 1:18-20, we can deduce the invisible through the visible, the metaphysical through the physical, and we are "without excuse" if we refuse to do so. Do you think it any accident that mankind since Egypt's First Dynasty has tried to understand his existence within theistic paradigms? We cannot help but do so, any more than water cannot help but run downhill.
We may understandably differ in our deisms, but we cannot be excused for our atheism. We can think a thousand things about God, except that He does not exist. The universe is far, far too wondrous to deny its engineer. All of creation screams "Creator!" and none of us can claim deafness.
Well, assuming a Creator, why can't life exist without any spiritual finale? You die, and that's it.
A one-act play, huh? (laughs) Well, if that third choice were available, you would still have the yoke of this world, which includes gravity, misfortune, general ignorance, stupidity, sickness, famine, and death. Furthermore, it would necessarily preclude any afterlife, which means that there is no reward or punishment for deeds done on Earth.
Immoral men of considerable strength could argue that a moral code would not be in their self-interest. Such would constrain them from rape, pillage, and plunder — which serves only weaker men, who deserve to be plundered under the Darwinesque rules of "might makes right." Absent some sort of justice in the afterlife, immorality has a point. (laughs)
Such a world would be nothing more than an endless series of war-lords and clans. Mankind lived that way for centuries, and finally clawed its way out of it via the Enlightenment of the Renaissance. In other words, by the rule of equitable law in the protection of life and property.
Morality — assuming it could have ever come into being on its own — would instantly be reduced, first, to a mere construct, and then after a very brief interval of time morality would vanish. C.S. Lewis, again, proved that in The Abolition of Man. Hence, this third alternative could not exist for any significant period of time — certainly not for thousands of years.
Ayn Rand made a valiant secular attempt to justify a moral code outside of metaphysical implications, but failed. Although her argument that morality is in one's best self-interest was compelling, it had to remain woefully inadequate.
Why?
Because when the Apostle Paul wrote in Romans chapter two about the law being written in our hearts, he wasn't kiddin
g. If it hadn't been in our hearts in the first place, we'd have never come up with it on our own. This was something that Miss Rand sadly never could grasp.
Humans attempt to be moral because deep down they believe that they should. We are inherently cognizant of our dark nature. While we'd all prefer to wallow around in the muck, we know, or at least sense, consequences to that. There is a gnawing fear — never fully extinguished — that evil will be punished, if not in this life, then afterwards.
PLAYBOY interviewed Ayn Rand about 50 years ago.
Yes, I've read it. It was excellent. She was a seminal thinker and a mighty champion for individual rights. However, she died a bitter and lonely woman, which suggests that Objectivism was lacking. Her work is a fine place to begin, but not to end.
Miss Rand was a devout atheist who viewed all religion as hostile to individual liberty. How do you reconcile Christianity with your libertarian beliefs?
There is really nothing to reconcile, Tom. For example, the Ten Commandments address offenses of three different natures: religious, moral, and criminal. Several commandments are of a religious nature regarding polytheism, idolatry, blasphemy, and the Sabbath day. The atheist libertarian would consider these irrelevant to his life, and is not affected by practicing Christians, especially since all "blue laws" have been repealed.
Other commandments deal with moral behavior, such as honoring one's parents, and forbidding adultery and envy. These make good sense, and promote decency. Again, no tort could be claimed by the atheist.
The rest prohibit crimes of violence or property, such as theft, murder, and perjury. Not even the atheist libertarian would argue with those.
There is no initiation of force to become a Christian. I do not see any paradox in being a Christian libertarian, who chooses to also abide by other laws which are moral and religious. Being a Christian in no way interferes with being a libertarian. In the secular realm, the Ten Commandments tell us to obey our marriage vows, honor our parents, earn our own stuff instead of coveting our neighbors', be truthful witnesses, and not commit crimes of violence or property. All that is in accord with libertarian principles.
Molon Labe! Page 40
