wanting it to happen

My favorite part of Perelandra, the first book in Lewis' space trilogy, is the part in which Weston is making a speech which Ransom is translating into Malacandrian. It brings an amazing amount of clarity to silly humanist reasoning. Here's just the last bit.

"I may fall," said Weston. "But while I live I will not, with such a key in my hand, consent to close the gates of the future on my race. What lies in that future, beyond our present ken, passes imagination to conceive: it is enough for me that there is a Beyond."
"He is saying," Ransom translated, "that he will not stop trying to do all this unless you kill him. And he says that though he doesn't know what will happen to the creatures sprung from us, he wants it to happen very much."

Reading through Winston Churchill's A History of the English Speaking Peoples today, as I am wont to do (mostly because if I didn't, I would be in trouble- I'm reading it for school.), I came at length to the French Revolution (or at least to the beginning of it. A phrase about Rousseau struck my already troubled brain.

"Rousseau in his famous Social Contract and other essays had preached the theme of equality. Every man, however humble, was born with a right to play his part in the government of State. This is doctrine long since acknowledged by all democracies, but Rousseau was the first to formulate it in broad and piercing terms."

This idea of the right of everyone to play a part in government appears to me to be deeply ingrained in our culture and completely unexamined.

It seems to me if an "accident of birth" is not enough to entitle someone to be a king, millions of such accidents can hardly be sufficient to entitle millions of people to vote. I mean, from whence came this right?

Furthermore, when such an idea is accepted without question, it is not surprising that the populace of European countries have been known to complain that they cannot vote in US elections. After all, are they not our equals? I demand justice!

Of course, the use of the words preached and doctrine is apposite. After all, the religion of democracy grew from such ideas. I have read The Social Contract and I must admit, I merely thought it foolish. It is entirely made up, reality plays little part in the formulation of his ideas, including his history of mankind. As Chesteron wrote "[T]hey really were wrong in so far as they suggested that men had ever aimed at order or ethics directly by a conscious exchange of interests. Morality did not begin by one man saying to another, 'I will not hit you if you do not hit me'; there is no trace of such a transaction. There is a trace of both men having said, 'We must not hit each other in the holy place.'" And that is probably a better history of the evolution of government than Rousseau ever made. In any case, I still think it's rather nonsense. There was a lot of stuff about the "general will" or something, which is NOT the same as majority rule, only if someone doesn't agree, we must make him agree, which DOES sound like majority rule, and on it goes.

What I was saying in the last paragraph is this: Whether it makes sense, whether it is poorly reasoned is irrelevant; it is doctrine, and it may not be questioned.

Of course, "We hold these truths to be self-evident..." but self-evident is not the same as obvious, and that argument depends on, "that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights." The thing is that, while men are created equal, they are never born equal. This is why fairness and justice rarely look the same. It would be fair to take Jimmy's eight blocks and give half of them to Stephen, but it would hardly be just, because it's stealing. In any case, I think everything goes crazy when you abandon simple rules (you shall not steal) in favor of "the greater good" 'cause from then on, you're just making stuff up.

I can't believe I hear people say things to the effect of "Yeah, they may have believed that at the time the Bible was written but it is impossible to believe in this day and age." As if time makes any difference in what's true or not!

But seriously shouldn't we be more credulous in this age when what was impossible yesterday may just be possible, and even simple today or tomorrow?

And, when you give it serious thought do you think the people in first-century Judea were really unaware, for instance that it was impossible for a virgin to conceive? It sure seems like Mary was aware of that. Joseph too, for that matter.

The only reason they believe miracles and we don't is that we have long ago written off miracles. We can explain everything. And if we can't explain it; it didn't happen. Because we really understand why physics works. And why we're here. And all the rest.