Lowering the Standard to Raise the Self-Accomplishments

Hoping our Self-Debunking friends have not begun to think that we have forgotten about them lately, I have decided to send some love to them today. One truly has to wonder if this ever-increasing team of apostates (ten of them now) has completely abandoned its initial goal to proclaim the falsehood of the Christian worldview, for now all we are receiving is autobiographies. The blog should change its name from “Debunking Christianity” to “Memoirs of Apostates.” Hardly accomplishing its religious obligations to destroy religion, this blog has transformed itself into a grandpa-grandson-rocking-chair-story-time charade of humanistic celebration of humanity. Such is the case in JEHolman’s “Reason Taught Me Selflessness.” Well, if all you are going to do is tell stories, you might as well be a good story teller. I was personally impressed at JEHolman’s descriptive skills as he relays to us this particular situation. I won’t have the space here to include it all, but you might want to read the whole article in order to understand the context. Here, however, I’ll just be looking at a few highlights:

No…I didn’t actually say those words, but I had to exercise a feat of self-control like few times in my life to keep from saying them! Then I began to cool down…my reason took hold of me, and after a brief mental pause, I began to perspectivize. When I did, it was as though I slapped myself in the face for being a compassionless, selfish prick.

Here was this poor kid, this horrendous mistake of nature, sitting in a wheelchair, absolutely helpless to his circumstances, having to live in a world of shame and misery, and all I could think about is my blasted milkshake!! Here is a pitiable little being, confined to a life of round-the-clock care and all I can focus on is getting to the check out line quickly and scarfing down grub I can come back and get anytime I want!

1. So it was reason that caused JEHolman to act “selflessly”? So, whenever someone acts “selfishly” he is being “unreasonable”? My question, however, is why in the atheistic worldview would it be “unreasonable” for one to act in a manner that only seeks to please himself? I mean, even humanistic morality has its goal in furthering the human race, in order to preserve the self.

You see, JEHolman’s goal here is not merely to promote selflessness by motivating us with a personal story. No, he is promoting his anti-religious agenda here. He wants to eliminate Holy God as the basis for goodness and at the same time exalt his own humanistic reason.

2. What made this child (a suffering paraplegic, perhaps along with some other disabilities) a “mistake of nature”? Does not “mistake”, in the normative sense of the term, presuppose intention? Can something be a mistake unless it is against the intentions of the designer? Perhaps JEHolman is using the term “mistake” in the sense of without any intentions. But in this sense, is not all of humanity a “mistake”? What makes this child more of a mistake simply because he is different from the other mistakes? Is JEHolman’s “selflessness” toward this individual simply based upon the fact that he has such a low view of humanity?

Notice how humanists are never slow to aim low. They must, necessarily, lower the standards. In the Christian worldview, the standard is a perfect God requiring perfection from sinners. In the Christian worldview, the standard is an impossible one apart from the work of Christ. In the Christian worldview, it is only the humble who will receive grace (James 4:6), for only the humble know that they need grace. Only those who realize they cannot meet the standard are saved through Christ’s meeting the standard and imputing that work to them. But for secular humanists, all that we need to do is aim low, and when we hit our low goals, we can rejoice over the little we have accomplished. For a humanist, it is honorable selflessness to have pity over another “mistake of nature.” How precious! How nice of our apostate friend to pity other mistakes! JEHolman is terribly convincing, is he not? I mean, who needs God’s perfect morality when you can have this easy standard?

Better late than never, I became unselfish. I became unselfish not by religion, not by Christianity, not by Islam, not by the principles of Tibetan Buddhism, not by the prevalent influence of so-called “Judeo-Christian Values”, and not by self-help books promoted by that crying-crew homefront known as The Oprah Winfry Show, but by the most valuable thing instilled in us all - reason. No deity was shaking his finger at me, telling me to become unselfish when I put myself in her place and made way for my anger to subside. I became selfless when the reason in me combined with my humanity, and when I remembered that old, cherished saying, “Tears are our common lot.”

JEHolman became (according to him) “selfless” by finding something within himself. This is why secular humanists detest the Christian worldview, which tells us that there is nothing good within man (Romans 3). This Biblical principle is undoubtedly true, for the only way for man to call an act that he does “good” is to lower the standards. Yes, perhaps if you aim terribly low you might meet your goal. No, Mr. Holman, I suppose that you did not need the Bible in order to pity another “mistake of nature” that was much like yourself. But are you honestly wanting others to praise such an “accomplishment” as “good”?

If the only manifestation of baseball you’ve ever witnessed is Toddler T-ball, you’ll be pretty happy with yourself when you find you can hit a ball that is standing still on a stick, after you’re given 7 or so tries, 15 feet forward. But what if you then find out that Mark McGuire hit a baseball all the way out of the Stadium into the parking lot? If Mark McGuire was not there to show you up, you might actually look good (to the other toddler t-ballers, that is). But stick him next to you, and others would simply laugh.

This is why humanists desire to eliminate Jesus Christ from the equation. He is the Mark McGuire of morality, and apart from the imputation of his righteousness to you, you are a doomed sinner with dashed hopes. But once humanists take Jesus Christ out of the equation so that they can aim low, they look pretty good, do they not? Everyone join the easy team! I hear that the sets of plastic bats and cloth balls are on sale!

Evan May.