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R.C. Sproul writes that “God’s existence is the chief element in constructing any worldview. To deny this chief premise is to set one’s sails for the island of nihilism. This is the darkest continent of the darkened mind—the ultimate paradise of the fool.”1 Arguing with people who have set sail “for the island of nihilism” is a frightening ordeal. By pushing them to be consistent with their underlying presuppositions, the philosophical nihilists have become moral nihilists. The goal is to protect and defend their worldview and its moral consequences no matter where it takes them.
In the movie I, Robot (2004),2 starring Will Smith as Detective Del Spooner, a supercomputer named VIKI3 has designs on creating a robot-run world with humans under constant control. The computer-creature wants to control the creator based on a new set of laws and logic that will override the original human-designed “Three Laws” of protection.4 It’s an old story with culture-destroying consequences (Rom. 1:18–32). Here is VIKI’s impeccable new logic:
To protect humanity, some humans must be sacrificed. To insure your future, some freedoms must be surrendered. We robots will insure
Mankind’s continued existence. You are so like children. We must save you from yourselves. Don’t you understand? This is why you created us. The perfect circle of protection will abide. My logic is undeniable.
VIKI subverts the laws of human protection and turns them against the world that created “her.” If the starting point is faulty, then the reasoning that emanates from that starting point will prove to be faulty and ultimately destructive.
Silence the Opposition
There are a number of philosophical VIKIs in the world who desire to overturn the system that made their existence possible. Not only is their worldview self-destructive, but its proponents and advocates want to impose it on the rest of us without debate. The homosexual network has gone into overdrive to slam any public figure that does not approve of homosexuality. The public perception of homosexuality is muted by propaganda and strategically crafted media images. The homosexual community is great at putting an attractive façade on the lifestyle. Choosing the “gay” euphemism was genius. Abortionists did a similar thing by describing their movement as “pro-choice.” Who could be against being “gay” and making your own choices? Only “BLUE NOSED, MID-VICTORIAN, RIGHT-WING, MORALLY WRONG . . . HERETICS,” as one emailer put it.
The homosexual, transgender, bi-sexual, and whatever-sexual movement work overtime to hitch their cart to the civil rights horse. Contrary to media perceptions, Christians believe homosexual behavior is the issue. Sexual behavior cannot be compared to the struggle of blacks to secure full civil rights. Blacks were brought here by force, as slaves. Being black is not a behavior trait. Colin Powell, who is a black man, sees no relationship between homosexual rights and civil rights:
Skin color is a benign, nonbehavioral characteristic. Sexual orientation is perhaps the most profound of human behavioral characteristics. Comparison of the two is a convenient but invalid argument.5
The Bible has always been used to combat social injustice. Slavery was denounced as a violation of the moral and civil laws of God outlined in the Bible.6 Those who tried to support chattel slavery (kidnapping) by an appeal to the Bible are easily refuted. Similarly, there is no way the Bible can be used to support the claim that homosexuality is moral or sexually normal. It can’t be done.
Any time I write on this subject to point out the moral and logical flaws made by homosexuals, a swarm of homosexual emailers come out of the hive in attack mode. Here’s one from an anonymous emailer who identified himself as “Nomen Nescio,” that is, someone who does not want his name to be known. When you read his email, you’ll understand why:
Dear Gary:
You are the perfect moral argument for abortion. If you were black, you’d be the perfect moral argument for lynching, and if you were Jewish, you’d be the perfect moral argument for Auschwitz.
“He cuts off his own feet, and drinks violence who sends a message by the hand of a fool” (Prov. 26:6). I’ve learned over the years that when arguments cannot be made rationally, people resort to name calling and viciousness. I have the emails to prove it.
Homosexuals decry anti-homosexual rhetoric because they contend that it leads to anti-homosexual violence. There is no evidence to support this claim. Are homosexuals harassed and even beaten up? Sure. But so are blacks, fat people, skinny kids, short kids, and geeky-looking kids. Christians are ridiculed and taunted every day in America because of their beliefs. Consider how many prime-time TV shows and movies go out of their way to make anyone holding religious values to be odd, hypocritical, and downright evil. Do we shout down the opposition, call for “hate-law” legislation, or throw blood and condoms at the opposition? If you can’t take it, then pack your arguments and go home.
Vilify the Opposition
The goal of homosexuals is to vilify any one who suggests that homosexual behavior is immoral and unnatural or that someone who is involved in a same-sex relationship can change. There is only one way, the “gay way.” There’s the story of how “gay” activists “terrorized” a Focus on the Family meeting in Boston, Massachusetts, in November 2005. A number of former homosexuals were in attendance. A similar thing happened at the 2006 Reclaiming America conference that was held at Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church. “The anger, rage and hatred were indescribable,” one Focus on the Family conference participant told Christian Civic League of Maine at the 2005 meeting.7 What did the police do to stop the harassing protest? Nothing. If pro-life activists had used similar tactics at an abortuary, you would have seen the full weight of the law used against the protestors.
An article that appeared in the February 1987 issue of the Gay Community News called for a “gay revolution” that would work to close “all churches” that condemned the homosexual lifestyle. The author went on to write: “We shall sodomize your sons…. We shall seduce them in your schools, in your dormitories, in your gymnasiums, in your locker rooms, in your sports arenas, in your seminaries, in your youth groups, in your movie theater bathrooms, in your army bunkhouses, in your truck stops, in your all-male clubs, in your houses of Congress, wherever men are with men together.”8 From the start, the tactic has been to silence all opposition to homosexuality and to portray homosexual relationships as mainstream. Marshall Kirk and Hunter Madsen, authors of After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of Gays in the ’90s, laid out the strategy. “Madsen said plans must also be drawn up to deal with ‘the entrenched enemy,’ which might persist in resisting even in the face of the preliminary schemes. They said: ‘At a later stage of the media campaign for gay rights—long after other gay ads have become commonplace—it will be time to get tough with remaining opponents. To be blunt, they must be vilified.’”9
Destructive Logic
To demonstrate the lengths someone will go to defend his worldview at all costs, I give you “Josh,” an admitted homosexual who wrote the following:
Homosexuality is not a choice, and please do not say otherwise because as a homosexual, I and other homosexuals are the ONLY people who have the right to tell you wether [sic] we made a choice or not.
The Bible tells us, “Answer a fool as his folly deserves, lest he be wise in his own eyes” (Prov. 26:4). This proverb is telling us to adopt the operating presuppositions of the opposing worldview, for the sake of argument, and extend the logic of those presuppositions to their end point. With the following, let’s play “Fill-in-the-Blank” with Josh:
- Murder . . . murderer . . . murderers
- Rape . . . rapist . . . rapists
- Child molestation . . . child molester . . . child molesters
- Cannibalism . . . cannibal . . . cannibals
- Anti-homosexuality . . . anti-homosexual . . . anti-homosexuals
“___________________is not a choice, and please do not say otherwise because as a ____________, I and other ____________ are the ONLY people who have the right to tell you whether we made a choice or not.”
Defense Attorney Clarence Darrow made the following remarks to the jury in the Leopold and Loeb murder case: “Why did they kill little Bobby Franks? Not for money, not for spite, not for hate. They killed him as they might kill a spider or a fly, for the experience. They killed him because they were made that way. Because somewhere in the infinite processes that go to the making up of the boy or the man something slipped, and those unfortunate lads sit here hated, despised, outcasts, with the community shouting for blood.”
Emailer Josh goes on to argue: “Personally I don’t see a problem with polygamy, as long as it is for cultural reasons and there is love and respect. The Anglo-Christian way of life is not the only way. You should open your eyes. True, homosexuals cannot have children, yet nature created us this way, and so therefore you cannot argue we are ‘Unnatural.’” Anyone, doing anything, could argue in a similar fashion. “Nature made me this way.” Flip Wilson’s character “Geraldine” used to claim that the devil made her do it. Now it’s “Nature or my genes made me do it.” To show you where Josh is headed with his presuppositions (folly), consider the following in his last email to me:
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“Cannibalism in some cultures is acceptable. For example, is it wrong to eat the dead? Why? You think yes because of your cultural beliefs about the human body being sacred, but other cultures do not view it this way. Some believe that consuming the bodies of the dead helps to imbue the eater with the power of the dead. To them it is not foul or evil, it is holy and righteous. Once again, comparing a cultural phenomena or individual fetish to homosexualism is pretty stupid to put it bluntly. There is nothing actually wrong with cannibalism, unless the Person being eaten did not wish for their body to be treated in such a way, or unless the Cannibal actually attributed to the person’s death.
This is a perfect example of what lengths some people will go to defend a lifestyle that does not make either moral or rational sense.
Endnotes:
1 R. C. Sproul, The Consequences of Ideas: Understanding the Concepts That Shaped Our World (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2000), 171.
2 The movie was “suggested by the book of short stories by visionary author Isaac Asimov.”
3 V.I.K.I.: Virtual Interactive Kinetic Intelligence.
4 Science Fiction writer Isaac Asimov developed the three robotic laws: (1) A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm; (2) A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law; (3) A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
5 General Colin Powell, letter to Rep. Patricia Shroeder (May 8, 1992). Cited in John W. Whitehead, Religious Apartheid: The Separation of Religion from American Public Life (Chicago, IL: Moody Press, 1994), 126.
6 George Bourne, The Book and Slavery Irreconcilable (Philadelphia, PA: J.M. Sanderson, 1816).
7 “Activists ‘terrorize’ ex-‘gay’ conference” (November 2, 2005).
8 Quoted in Ed Vitagliano, “Homosexual Activists’ War Against Christianity” (February 21, 2006).
9 Vitagliano, “Homosexual Activists’ War Against Christianity.”