Thomas Jefferson on the fruit of science…
I was listening to Bennett’s “Our Sacred Honor” this morning. He quotes from a letter from Thomas Jefferson to John Adams that contains Jefferson’s musings on the value of science:
As for France, and England, with all their preeminence in science, the one is a den of robbers, and the other of pirates, as if science produces no better fruits than tyranny, murder, rapine and destitution of national morality. I would rather wish our country to be ignorant, honest and estimable as our neighboring savages.
I feel the same way, and I do not doubt that those evils listed by Jefferson are indeed the fruits of science.
A Student Philosopher, a Miracle
There are teenagers who care about more than video games and iPods. There are young people who think. There are young men who analyze the worldview they have been handed.
Today I was monitoring the detention hall after school. It is typically a place where one can observe the teen culture problem closely, but today was different. Today there was a young man in the hall who caught my eye first because he was reading a book with the word Nietzsche on the cover. Then, about half way through the period, he handed me a paper on which he had been writing and asked if I would read it. On it, he had written two paragraphs in which he stated that it was up to each individual to decide what was right or wrong. He wrote that each person should decide what he or she would believe, and then stick to it. Therefore, it is wrong, he explained, for one person to push his or her beliefs on another. I read it, and awkwardly handed it back to him, hesitant to comment in the enforced silence of the study hall.
I continued to grade papers. He continued to read and work on his handwritten essay. At the end of the detention, he handed the paper back to me. He had added some details about a hypthetical conversation between a Catholic and an atheist in which the two essentially cannot confront each other’s positions because the believe completely different things. I read it and then asked what he wanted me to do. He asked if I had any input. I was amazed. I took the paper back to my desk and sat down, eager to respond to his thoughts.
I wrote down some thoughts and questions related to the issue he had raised. He gratefully received it from me and asked if I would like to look at more of his writing. I was thrilled to say yes, I would love to. He explained that he had become interested in philosophy when his grandfather made him read a book by Soren Kierkegaard as a punishment. At first he recoiled at the thought of reading anything. It had been so long since he had read anything not required in by his classes. But by the end of his punishment, he was captured by philosophy. He began to read Nietzsche and other philosophers.
I told him I enjoy these things as well and he was welcome to come by my room anytime.
Here is living proof that my generalizations in my Extended Childhoodpost are just that, generalizations. Here is living proof that that teens have greater potential than we give them credit for. Here is proof that some teens, at least, struggle with the world we have made for them. And of course, here is evidence of what kind of world we have made for them.
“How the World’s Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind”
I have been looking forward to former atheist Anthony Flew’s new book about his switch to theism. It just came out (Amazon dates it Oct. 23). It is called “There Is a God: How the World’s Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind.” I just ordered it from or here.
Of course, you can also get the book from Amazon
From Publishers Weekly:
British philosopher Flew has long been something of an evangelist for atheism, debating theologians and pastors in front of enormous crowds. In 2004, breathless news reports announced that the nonagenarian had changed his mind. This book tells why.
I read his interview with Gary Habermas afew years ago, and I have been waitng for the book ever since.
Moral Midnight
In 1947, the Board of Directors of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists at the University of Chicago started the so-called “Doomsday Clock“. The idea is that they move it closer to midnight when world developments seem to be moving closer to the destruction of the world by nuclear war or other destructive technologies or environmental degradation.
I think we need a moral/spiritual version of the Doomsday Clock, one that indicates how close we are to the destruction of civilization that results from moral and spiritual decay. I guess first we must define midnight. I thought one good definition could be found in Genesis 6:5, just before God destroyed the earth in Noak’s day: “Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually(Gen 6:5 NASB).” Another good definition would be in Romans 1:28-32:
And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper, being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice; they are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful; and although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them (NASB).
Based on these definitions of midnight, I think I’ll put the clock at 11:55.
Chaucer and Changing Priorities
A character in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales tells a story of an ancient knight who had a beautiful daughter whose beauty was exceeded only by her own chastity, gentleness and virtue. On day, as she walked through the market, she caught the eye of a lecherous and corrupt judge, who immediately set his heart on having her for his physical pleasure. He arranged for another criminal to bring a false charge to the court against the noble knight.
On the appointed day, this false witness came to the court. He claimed that the noble knight had stolen his slave girl at birth and that the girl was not his daughter at all. Though the knight brought many reputable witnesses on his behalf, and each in his turn testified and gave evidence that the girl was the knight’s offspring, yet the evil judge ruled against the poor knight. This judge ordered that the girl be brought to the court and placed under his care.
The sad knight returned home and called his daughter. He told her of the evil man’s scheme and the court order. With a heavy heart, he told her that she must die rather than be dishonored by the lecherous judge. Though she fainted from despair, yet the noble girl agreed, and asked only that her father use his expertise to make her death quick. She then fainted again, and as she lay there on the floor, the poor knight drew his sword and beheaded his beautiful daughter.
He brought her head to the judge, and when the people saw it, they rose up against the judge, tortured him, and finally hanged him and his accomplices.
This is a tragic story, and I do not agree with the knight’s actions, but I post it because of what it says about our modern culture. How far we have come! We have come so far from the values of the ancients! We do not value virtue at all.
