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Thursday, December 3, 2015

THE FREETHINKER, 'PROGRESSIST' MINDSET

The Current’s Anna Maria Tremonti went to France to do some pre-suppositional journalism after the massacre took place in November. While there she interviewed some Parisians. I am glad that she interviewed the young hipster Parisians because they were the principal targets on that now infamous night of terror.

When asked about the attacks on their fellows and on Parisian society, these postmodern hippies had little to say. But what they did say revealed a lot. A hippie is a person who rejects the notion of absolute truth, authoritative norms, and social conventions. A hippie also advocates nonviolence. So I mean it when I call these tidy, dainty, soft-spoken French citizens hippies. They do not look like the hippies of the sixties. But their hearts and philosophies are one. 

They call themselves Freethinkers and ‘Progressists.’ What do they mean by these appellations? Freethinkers are those who have discarded Revelation. Traditionally, this has meant the discarding of biblical doctrines, ethics, and certainties. Nowadays it means the discarding of any text that might be put forward by anyone as authoritative. And what does ‘Progressist’ mean? ‘Progressist’ is a French malapropism. What these French youth mean to say when they confess it, is that they see themselves as ‘Progressives.’ What is a ‘Progressive’? The word ‘Progressive’ is virtually synonymous with ‘Freethinker.’ A Progressive is for emancipation from oppressive superstition. To the Progressive, oppressive superstition is whatever purports to be authoritative, in particular the Bible and its patriarchal structure. 

How progressive and freethinking are these well-kept, genteel French youth? Are these postmodern hippies emancipating themselves from oppressive superstition? Do they really regard nothing as authoritative? Au contraire, they believe what they are taught to believe; they say what they are drilled to say; they act as they are trained to act. Their teachers, professors, media, celebrities, and politicians have so thoroughly pacified them into submission by systematic indoctrination that they are nothing but docile and resigned when terror strikes. Are they emancipated from the powers that be? No, not at all; they are so submissive to the establishment that they fall in with it step by step, cowering to Islamic oppression and the encroaching edicts of the Koran. Like the establishment has taught them, they refuse to identify the enemy. What do they call Isis? Islamic terrorists? Bloody barbarians? No, they call Isis ‘Daesh.’ I have read that Daesh is an Arabic acronym for Isis. That seems correct, for I have heard it used by Middle-Easterners in their native tongue to do exactly that. Some pundit said that ‘Daesh’ sounds insulting to members of Isis. If ‘Daesh’ is just an acronym for Isis, there is no reason to believe that the word is insulting, however. It is likely no more insulting than the word ‘Isis.’ The only reason the word ‘Daesh’ is being used by Europeans to identify Isis is because it makes it easier to live in denial of who the enemy is. It makes it easier to deny that the enemy has something to do with Islam. The word ‘Isis’ is too easily fathomed, you see. It has become common knowledge that Isis refers to an Islamic State of some sort. The word even sounds like Islam just a bit. Using the word ‘Daesh,’ on the other hand, allows you to identify the enemy as nothing but a boogeyman. You would not go to war against a boogeyman, would you? You would not change your routine for a boogeyman. Using the word ‘Daesh’ allows you to stay in your cocoon—until Isis strikes a blow so hard that your cocoon is completely blasted and becomes irreparable, that is. ‘Daesh’ is a meaningless, inoffensive sound for postmodern hippies to utter when they are asked probing, uncomfortable questions about what’s going on. 

Here is how these freethinking kids are so easily instructed to submit instead of emancipate. Some propaganda is put out there by the ‘Progressist’ Media that the youth are regularly indoctrinated by; the youth come to the media with open uncritical minds, calmly fall to their knees, close their eyes, open their mouths, and receive the ‘Progressist’ wafer. 

Here is the kind of wafer that these progressive youth consume without freely thinking. On The Current, Piya set up this little propaganda vignette to close her hour with on November 23rd. The vignette was about WW2 slogans. As the story goes, in 1939 some slogans were commissioned by the British government to boost morale and to motivate. The two slogans that were actually issued were about courage and freedom. What is emphasized in the vignette, however, is a third slogan. It was commissioned, but never issued. Over two million copies of the slogan were commissioned; that is, made. But not one of them was issued; that is, used. The slogan was shelved. The slogan went like this: “Keep calm and carry on.” To romanticize the passive slogan, the story is told about a copy of it being found, over fifty years after the commission, in an obscure bookstore. “Tsk, tsk,” we are supposed to think, “how sad that it was never used! and yet how wonderful that it was rediscovered!” 

What message are Piya and her team sending by this vignette? “Never mind courage and freedom; just calmly carry on as usual; there is no Isis; there is no trouble; there is no reason whatsoever to be concerned about the present Islamic Crusade that is being waged; there is no reason to worry about this ghastly terrorism that is threatening the civilized world; it’s all just a boogeyman. Even though 130 of your fellow citizens were more coarsely killed than common pigs are slaughtered by a farmer, just calmly carry on and everything will work itself out. Some crazy thing called ‘Daesh’ is responsible; you don’t have to understand it; you don’t have to oppose it; you don’t have to do anything but go about your normal routine. Don’t let the boogeyman scare you.” 

That is the message and that is exactly what these French youth are doing. They are just calmly carrying on. No doubt on the inside they are in turmoil and confusion, questioning everything; at least we hope so. I’m not saying that these French youth even heard this piece of propaganda. My point is that this charming, deceptive, palliative vignette is the kind of thing that is being pitched to gullible youngsters and it is the kind of thing that they readily and uncritically accept, in spite of their profession of faith in progressive, freethinking philosophy. They may not be submitting to the Revelation that they have been brainwashed to think is oppressive. But they are submitting to their Leftist Masters, and thereby presenting their soft necks to their Muslim Overlords. They have avoided the peaceful Revelation of Jesus Christ; but they are being chained, link by link and step by step, to the most violent false religion of our time—maybe the most vicious, hideous form of religion that the world has ever seen. They are being chained into compliance with Islam and Sharia Law, not by force like the slaves were chained, but merely by propaganda vignettes that any ten year old child, properly brought up, would be able to deconstruct. That is what makes this postmodern form of progressive freethought so pitiful. 

Western progressives are more powerful than their Middle-Eastern oppressors, but yet they are willingly oppressed, not by a religion that merely tells you not to sleep around, but by a religion that will kill you for doing so. Formerly, the church just asked women to cover their heads during a church service. How oppressive! The progressives will not put up with that! But as progressive as they are, they willingly come under the yoke of a religion that demands women to be covered head to toe no matter where they go. Exchanging the bad old Christian patriarchy for Islamic oppression is like exchanging a father who cautiously gives you freedom to go out with your friends for a tyrant who will kill you for having a drink with your friends after work. Freethinking, progressive thought, because it has scorned God and has refused his kind, reasonable word, ends up in bondage to fanatical religion of the most unreasonable, cruel kind. 

It is a judgment, is it not? Do you want to keep on sinning, sleeping around, and drinking to excess? You do not want to receive the message of repentance, faith, and decent living that the Christian religion is about? What if God decides not to draw you to his message on account of your stubborn determination to keep on sinning? What if God is so sick of you slandering his name by the term ‘patriarchy,’ that instead of drawing you to himself for mercy, he draws murderous Muslims to you in order to punish you for your continued obstinacy and disobedience? Commenting on Psalm 103.8, where the mercy, patience, and kindness of God are extolled, George Webbe has this to say: “And thou [God] dost sustain many wrongs of the sons of men, being crushed with their sins as a cart is laden with sheaves: but if still they continue to load thee, thou wilt ease thyself of that burden, and cast it on the ground of confusion.” This is the spiritual side of what happened in Paris. Many souls were cast on the ground of confusion by God so that the rest will pay attention. People want to continue sinning and continue to have fun doing it, but how long will God put up with that? How long will he put up with sinners who will not appropriate the Saviour sent down from heaven to save them from their sins? Did Jesus carry sin on the cross for nothing? Is repentance not commanded after that? It is commanded, not much by pastors these days, and not by the Unholy Church of Rome; but by the word of God it is commanded. It is one thing to throw off the oppressive Catholic religion. It is another thing to reject the truths that that church has perverted and to become a freethinker who will not think for himself any more than a person could under the yoke of Medieval Rome.     

That is what happens when you discard the Bible as your Revelation. You inevitably come under other forms of authority. You become the willing victims of Satan, sin, false teachers, and terrorism. Follow the Bible, however, and God grants you authority, through faith in Jesus, over Satan by prayer, over sin by sanctification, over false teachers by the word, and over terrorists by the mandate of self-defense contained in that word.  

It may be that some freethinking folks will turn to God’s biblical revelation on account of Islam’s many assaults. Listen to this from Enoch Mellor: “When society has become drugged with the Circean [dangerously bewitching] cup of worldliness, and the voices that come from eternity are unheeded, if not unheard, even terror has its merciful mission.”  

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