Opus 2025-020: Book Review: Another Mixed Bag

I just finished reading a sci-fi novel called The Mercy of the Gods.  The story was interesting and if you like sci-fi that has mysterious aliens and obscure science this could be your thing.

My problem is that the writers handbook just can’t keep out of the way of the story.  Modern writers have so much woke nonsense demanded that it is hard to weave a good tale.  Corey does a decent job of keeping it on the sidelines.  Sure, we have the women who is overcome with sorrow and because the war leader.  You will find most ethnic groups involved.  Genuine Christianity is not mentioned.  Then you get to the nonsense.

On page 342 I came across this impossible grammar.

“He wanted to meet a stranger in the library and spend an hour flirting with them.”

The only way to write this way is to confuse the issue of whether this guy is a homosexual or not. He didn’t flirt with them. “Stranger” is singular.  “Them” is plural.  Either he flirted with her or he flirted with him.  This is why I find it so hard to read fiction today.  I reject the homosexual lifestyle as being normal but I know it exists.  Is it too much to have the author be clear in what he is trying to say?

I guess so.  

I finished the book.  The story hung together in spite of the politically correct demands of the editors.  It makes me wonder, though, if I will bother with the next book in the series.  What generally happens is they keep the wokeness in the background until you get involved with the characters and then they start the overwhelming doses.

This is why I am focusing on older non-fiction.

Corey, James S.A.  The Mercy of the Gods.  New York:  Orbit Books, 2024.

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Opus 2024-201: Book Review: Introspection over Action

A new author and exploring his work.  It was a failure, at least on this book.  Paolinin writes well but this seemed to be more a touchy-feely examination of the thoughts and feelings of a group of social misfits that would never have been sent on the type of mission that was described.  I finished the book to see if it would ever go anywhere.  It didn’t.  I found myself skimming over large sections of memories and dreams of the main character as he searched for meaning in a lost love.

That being said it did have an interesting side.  Being different from most modern fiction there was one character that could have been identified as a somewhat orthodox Christian.  Being locked into the politically correct mind set of our time she was narrow minded and harsh.  What was interesting was the conversations between the religious character and her main antagonist.  What was interesting was not so much the actual discussion but the memories it invoked in me of similar discussions.

There are many questions involving our faith that come up in social contacts.  Some are easy, “Did Jesus really rise from the dead?”  In case you never met a true Christian, the answer is “Yes.”  Others are harder but still important.  “How can one God be in three Persons?”  Or, “What kind of nonsense is this Trinity thing?”   Eventually you get into the speculative and philosophical which are fun if you like to debate but boring if you hate to be contradicted.  This book deals with some of those problems in the dialog between Talia, the believer, and Pushkin, the materialist.  One deals with whether beauty is a fuction of evolution or an “expression of the divine.”  Good question but it was not explored much further than name calling.

The one I found amusing was a question that is often asked, “What happens to those who never hear the gospel?”  In our every day world this involves people living in some deep jungle and can be a question worth discussing.  In the book, not so much.  You see, even though humanity had developed faster than light travel and a lot of other stuff of science fiction novels, in the book they had still found no indication of intelligent life anywhere in known space.  Microbes and bacteria types, yes, but nothing advanced.  That is a presupposition of the context and is important to the question.  What got the discussion going was a huge perfect hole drilled into the surface of this planet.  With no real evidence they began discussing if this was evidence of advanced intelligence and would the builders still be around.  They almost came to blows over discussing whether those creatures were doomed to hell or whether God had a plan for them.

This is what tickled my funny bone.  They had a dramatic argument over something that did not even exist.  Of course because Paolini followed the party line, Talia insisted that they were all doomed to hell.  Pushkin insisted that made God into a monster.  How often do we get into serious discussions about things that don’t exist.  Actually quite often.  I remember going to a museum for Anne of Green Gables.  I wanted to ask my enthralled young daughter, “How can you have a museum for someone who never existed?”  

Before you get to smug, ask yourself how many conversations you have had about the characters from movies and books.  Anyone out there ever say they wanted to marry Princess Lea?  Just as you can have entertaining conversations about whether a Death Star could actually be taken out by one X-wing fighter you can have deep examinations of what is the salvation status of creatures on an undiscovered planet.  Both are speculative and have the potential for mental challenge.  Neither makes any real difference on the real world.  

When you read dialogue in fiction books about religious issues, make sure that you have several grains of salt handy.  You will need them.  If you are ever in the discussion feel free to shake your head and say, “I don’t know.”  You might even add, “Yet.”

Since Paolini is a good writer I may try another of his books.  Maybe he does a better job of bringing closure to the confused protagonist in another context.

Paolini, Christopher.  Fractal Noise.  New York:  Tor Publishing Group, 2023.

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Opus 2024-184: Book Review: A Second Shoe

I finished the first book and went to the second in the series.  My concerns were justified.  As the second volume opened up, the woke attributes began to emerge more and more steadily.  The author is excellent to telling a good story, knowing what was expected by the publisher, knowing what was rejected by the readers, and slowly combining them to produce a book.

The best comparison I could think of was when I would make cream soup out of a can.  I would dump the contents into the pan and start the heat, low, and begin gently stirring what came out as a lump.  Once it’s consistency had been broken up and it was stirring smoothly, I would start introducing the water or milk that I was going to use to dilute it.  If I dumped it in all at one time, the soup became lumpy, and I would never get a smooth result.  In order to get what I wanted. I had to do small amounts, stir until it was smooth, and then add a little bit more.  I had to surprise the target.  

That is what was happening in the book and it reached the critical mass point quickly.  The joy fled.  The PC mantras overwhelmed.  The story disappeared in the woke tide.  Too bad, but I keep hoping there will be other books out there.

Read with discernment.

O’Keefe, Megan E.  The Fractured Dark.  New York:  Orbit, 2023.

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Opus 2024-183: Book Review: One Shoe Writing

I don’t spend as much time reading fiction as I used to.  One reason is there is a shrinking pool of fiction that is worth reading, at least to me.  One of the first things I look for is a good action story.  I like action, not description.  Give me Louis L’Amour, you can have Zane Grey.  I’m not into emotional introspection.  I tend to skip over a lot of stuff like that.

That being said, it has to have good characters that I can identify with and care about.  The story needs to hold together and needs to be well written.  What makes it hard for stories like this is the wole formula all authors are forced to use nowadays.  Some are able to meet the minimum‘s of the politically correct progressives, and still write a good story, but most are not up to it.  I am currently exploring a new author who has promise.  I am assuming the author is a woman because she has one of those names that could be taken either way, and the main characters in the story tend to be evenly divided between men and women.

All the same, it is a woke story, but the wokeness is kept in the background, so far.  I am waiting for the other shoe to drop.

I see a few cases where pronouns come up.  There is a doctor who is continually referred to as “they”, but it is done in such a way that it is not clearly referring to one person.

Homosexuality is introduced in a passing way by a brief reference to the main character, who is a man, having his father tell him when he was 15 that it was not appropriate for him to approach this boy that he liked.  The reason he wasn’t to approach him was because the character is the son of an absolute monarch, and is not allowed to abuse his underlings by forcing them into relationships.  It had nothing to do with sexual impropriety or morals.

Then you run into the problem of women being written with the characters of men.  The female lead in the story is a Wonder Soldier.  She is a super fighter and is the bodyguard of the male lead in the story.  There is a romantic interest developing, which is forbidden by their social mores but I expect it to develop.  He is the son of one of the oligarches, she is a servant.  Their future happiness is not bright.

You also have the missing spiritual awareness.  In this culture people are “printed” and stored in a computer of some kind.  When they die, the old print is resurrected, a body is cloned, and the old person is inserted.  Somehow they have managed to transfer the memories of the person who dies violently or out on the trip back into the print out, and life starts over again.  Star Trek explored this idea.  One of the problems you have and this is the idea of making duplicate copies of the person.  Do you remember Captain Kirk coming back with a double?

There are two questions here.  The first is metaphysical, I guess, “Is it really the same person?”  Does it just think it’s the same person because memories have been copied into its brain?  Or is it just an artificial recreation?  The question is never even looked into, at least in this first book.

The second question would be the place of a machine as a storage for a human being.  If a machine can store a human being and a machine can re-create that human being, then it just follows that machines could make up a human being on its own, and then the question becomes, “Is it a human being?”

Another issue is where the main character gets his Christian cultural values in a society which seems to have rejected all forms of religion.  He is concerned that his father, who he knew was strong and had to do terrible things, might not be a decent person after all.  If not, he might not be doing things because they were necessary, but be committing atrocities because he enjoyed it.  Where would you come up with those kind of values in the world devoid of Christianity.

At this point, I can read the next book with anticipation.  I also will read it with a bit of dread, often these authors suck you in with a good story, keeping the dissonance in the background, and then, as they establish a relationship with you they start pushing their agenda.  There have been series of books, where I would follow to the third or fourth volume, and suddenly all kinds of weird and strange things become the norm.  I remember one where the admiral of a massive space fleet, who was totally the manly man, suddenly started talking about his husband at home.  I don’t know if I got much further than a few paragraphs after that.

I don’t know which way this author will go.  I know there’s a lot of pressure to follow the plan to fall into line, and to conform.  With modern progresses it really doesn’t matter.  If you are a great author tell me a good story.  The real concern for the publisher is, are you following the playbook?  Are you working to tear down the standard values of society?  Are you jumping through the woke hoops?

I will enjoy while I can and then move on.

O’Keefe, Megan E.  The Blighted Stars.  New York:  Orbit, 1923.

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Opus 2024-175: Book Review: Unseen Realm

Several months ago I stumbled across some podcasts by a man named Michael Heiser.  I had never heard of him before but that could just be a reflection of my limitations.  His doctoral studies were in Hebrew.  He had taught at the university level and I eventually found that he was employed by the Logos Bible Study Software people.  He mentioned it but I never saw him shilling the product.  He wrote book called The Unseen Realm which gives a feel for his focus.  I eventually bought that book and read through it.  He seems to have died in the last few years from pancreatic cancer.

A phrase that becomes a foundational concept for him is “the divine council”.  He gets the phrase from the ESV,

(Psa 82:1 ESV) A Psalm of Asaph. God has taken his place in the divine council; in the midst of the gods he holds judgment:

As far as I can tell from the translations on my software, the ESV is the only one that puts it that way and I cannot find the phrase anywhere else.  Compare,

(Psa 82:1 KJV)  A Psalm of Asaph. God standeth in the congregation of the mighty; he judgeth among the gods.
(Psa 82:1 NAS77) A Psalm of Asaph. God takes His stand in His own congregation; He judges in the midst of the rulers.

I picked this up from the podcast but it is peppered throughout his book.  I think a more literal rendering would be “congregation of gods,” but I don’t have a Ph.D. in Hebrew.

From that precarious perch he begins an interesting voyage of constructing a view of the spiritual world that at times seems insightful and other times sounds like heresy.  At first I was onboard with what he was teaching.  By the time I finished the book I had some serious doubts.  When I tried to work through it again, it raised too many questions.  I may get around to looking at some of them in the future.   

Heiser, Michael S.  The Unseen Realm.  Bellingham, WA:  Lexham Press, 2015.

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Opus 2023-306: Book Review: Saint Francis

I just finished reading a biography of Saint Francis of Assisi called God’s Fool.  It was very informative but at times a bit of a slog.  The style reminded me of Sunday School materials I had as a kid and the world view was based on that of a devout Roman Catholic author and readers.  The man who comes across was a bit crazy but in a way that would be required to live the life of total poverty he advocated.  Even allowing for the bias of the author the man who was canonized practiced what he preached.  As a devout Protestant I can say I recognized the Jesus he was trying to serve and that Francis was serious in his faith.  Even if I roll my eyes at some of the miracles that were described, I can salute his faithful service to the Lord.

One of the problems with vows of poverty like Francis followed is the same that emerges when you have total pacifists.  Both rely on other people to do the dirty work.  While it is true that in Utopia if everyone was a pacifist society would work, it is not true of the vow of poverty.  In that world it would not take people long to starve to death or die of exposure.  Also, since there would be no children born, it would be a short lived world for humans.  Since Utopia will never happen in this world I guess those are things we won’t need to worry about.

I can recommend the book even if I did not enjoy the style.  There is much to learn for Catholics, Protestants and even the non-believer can pick up interesting details about medieval life.

Green, Julien.  God’s Fool, The Life and Times of Francis of Assisi.  San Francisco:  Harper and Row, Publishers, 1985.

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Opus 2023-163: Book Review: Strangers

I just finished a third book by Malcolm Gladwell, Talking to Strangers.  I find him an entertaining writer who seems to carefully filter the data that helps him tell his stories.  It does not make him unreadable but it does make his conclusions a bit questionable.  This is true even when I agree with what he is saying.  Let me give you an example from my latest read.

The very first paragraph in the first chapter starts off with the story of a young woman that he will keep coming back to as he builds his case.

“In July 2015, a young African American woman named Sandra Bland drove from her hometown of Chicago to a little town an hour west of Houston, Texas.  She was interviewing for a job at Prairie View A&M University, the school she’d graduated from a few years before.  She was tall and striking, with a personality to match.  She belong to the Sigma Gamma Rho sorority in college and played in the marching band.  She volunteered with a seniors group.  She regularly posted short, inspirational videos on YouTube under the handle ‘Sandy Speaks,’  that often began, “Good morning, my beautiful Kings and Queens.’”
        “‘I am up today just praising God, thanking His name....’”, p. 1

He then proceeds to relate a tragic encounter with a policeman which ends up with her in jail and committing suicide three days later.  As far as I can see he gives no false information but I want you to compare this from the end of the book,

“Who is Sandra Bland?  She is also mismatched.  She looks to Encinia’s eye like a criminal.  But she’s not.  She’s just upset.  In the aftermath of her death, it was revealed that she had had ten previous encounters with police over the course of her adult life, including five traffic stops, which had left her with almost $8,000 in outstanding fines.  She had tried to commit suicide the year before, after the loss of a baby.  She had numerous cut marks running up and down on of her arms.” p. 330

The tragedy remains but this paragraph gives you a completely different feel for the person he focuses on.  Which young woman was sitting in that car?  The attractive woman on her way to a new job and a new life or a beaten down failure running away from her past?  Probably both, but the point I make is that you only got half the story at the beginning.

The cop?  He was out of line, unprofessional and lost his control.  He was fired for his efforts yet Gladwell points out that he was simply behaving in the way he had been trained.  Another bit of unanswered dissonance is why she was in jail for three days.  I doubt the cop had that kind of power.  Her past probably caught up with her when they went to the computers and checked out her previous contacts with the law.

This pattern is common in his writing.  You also pick up a lot of boilerplate liberal ideas such as sending social workers to deal with domestic violence.

It was an interesting book but read with your mind in gear.

Gladwell, Malcolm.  Talking to Strangers.  New York:  Back Bay Books, 2019.

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Opus 2023-086: Book Review: We Need a Jargon Alarm

I just finished reading a book by Rod Dreher.  It was called Crunchy Cons and was written in 2006.  I am guessing that he has grown a lot since he wrote it.  Last May I finished a book he wrote called Live not by Lies, published in 2020.  The recent book was excellent.  The earlier book, while it had some moments of worthiness, was mainly a lesson in jargon.  

I would urge you to read the later book and advise you to avoid Crunchy Cons.  

In Crunchy Cons, Dreher knew in his heart that conservative values were based on truth but he seemed to want to make sure that he was still accepted by the liberal set.  He would pay lip service to an idea, say the free market, and then proceed to bad mouth it as based on nothing but greed.

One example,

“The first idol crunchy cons have to smash is efficiency, the guiding principle of free markets, but an unreliable guide to building institutions that serve human nature and human community.  We have to start living by our ideals, judging things not by what works most efficiently, but by what’s good, what’s true, what’s beautiful - in other words, what’s right.” p. 229

Actually the guiding principle of free markets is, ...drum roll..., free markets.  That means a lack of government control which he seems to think we need more of to get rid of the efficiency.  The opposite of efficiency is inefficiency, not what’s beautiful.  I understand that efficiency can go so far that it dehumanizes us but a lack of efficiency can starve us to death or have us run out of energy to heat the house in the middle of winter.

He uses a lot of jargon.  By that I mean words that have an accepted meaning but can be used in a nonsense way to confuse and distract.  

He seems to know words.  He writes well.  But he doesn’t seem to get the big picture.  One thing he said had me rolling in the aisles,

 “In 2005, the Economist, not a magazine known for its liberal sympathies, opined that ‘the greening of conservatism is a revolution waiting to happen.’” p. 168.

Actually, the Economist is known for its liberal sympathies.  I had a six month subscription about the time he is writing and it was very clear they were on the left.  The thing I appreciated was they did not hide it and actually made an attempt to be even handed and accurate.  Maybe that is what confused him.

I hope that the latest book is an indication of where he is today.  You might want to read it.

Dreher, Rod.  Crunchy Cons.  New York, Crown Forum, 2006.

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Opus 2022-321: Book Review: The End of the World...

I first came across Peter Zeihen on suggestions generated by You Tube.  I listened to at least one of his long presentations and tried some of his shorts which were just the big ones cut up to generate exposure.  I began checking out the libraries for books he had written and found his new one, The End of the World Is Just the Beginning on the New Books shelf.

I found him very readable and entertaining.  He presented broad sweeping vistas that seem totally believable.  Every once in awhile his feet of clay are exposed.  He also threw in footnotes that allowed his sense of humor to come through.  

He has a theme that permeates everything he says in what I have processed.  First, we have lived in a time of unparalleled peace and prosperity from the end of World War II to around 2015.  This was guaranteed by the United States Navy insuring the safety of the oceans for trade and travel and the opening of the American economy to the rest of the world.  Second, He believes that America is no longer willing to carry that load and is withdrawing from its overseas involvements.  Third, he thinks that there are big changes coming.  He repeatedly focuses on China and its demographic decline as well as its implosion as a world power.  He fears that the next stage will bring world wide famine and in many areas the end of civilization.  Fourth, at the same time he paints us as being in a good situation and American power will at least keep the Western hemisphere doing well.

I had a few areas of conflict.  A big one is his opinion that America is just a glorious accident of geography.  He has a point about all the benefits of North America but he totally ignores that the wealth and benefit to the whole world was not just the product of soil, rivers and coastland but was possible because you had a people driven by providence and the concepts found in the Declaration of Independence.  He totally ignores the American Creed and how it has molded the way in which we have used the natural resources.  

I was interested in the way he presented wheat as the wonder food.  He has it growing everywhere and being available to anyone who could farm.  I think he puts it in the class of a weed.  That goes against everything I have ever heard about the development of agriculture.  In fact I was just watching a presentation on how the peasants of medieval times ate.  There main food was bread but not wheat bread.  It was made of barley.  Poor people actually ate the ones he sweeps under the rug such as barley and rye.

He also made no mention of potatoes.  Adam Smith knew about potatoes.  He did an analysis and had potatoes presenting the highest food value per acre of all the crops.  It may not have been the first grown in Egypt but it eventually took a big place.  He does not even mention the humble potato.

He gives a rundown of coffee which is accurate generally accurate but I think he is sharing what he heard at Starbucks that morning.  

At the end he tells us where he is coming from.  No surprises there.  He is a greenie, an internationalist and a libertarian.  He works to overcome his prejudices.

All in all I would say it is a good read.  Just keep you thinking cap on and realize that most people who predict what is coming are 150% wrong.

Zeihan, Peter.  The End of the World Is Just the Beginning.  New York:  Harper Business, 1922.

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Opus 2022-193: Here We Go Again

I just finished Omega by Jack McDevitt.  Once again I see someone writing a science fiction story that is really a theological treatise.

The theology comes in when the rescuers from Earth are driven to masquerade as deities of the natives they are trying to save in order to warn them about a coming catastrophe.  They are laboring under a policy of non-intervention, The Protocol, but find that they only way they can save the alien civilization is to intervene.  So they appear in the guise of a goddess and pass on the information the natives need.  It was a simple message, “Flee to the high ground for a few days.”  

The theological statement has two elements.  First, it looks at the past in our history where there have been strange occurrences that need an explanation.  Since science fiction authors as a whole reject the idea of God, it is necessary to bring in the advanced aliens from outer space to save our cookies.  It is the same approach that evolutionists take in trying to figure out where advanced life came from on earth.  They know it could not have happened by chance.  They can figure the odds.  They know how probability works.  They know there was not enough time for evolution to take place even if they overlook the Original Cause or Prime Mover problem.  By having advanced humans save beings on another planet that says it could have happened here.  It is a popular theme in science fiction.  It also overlooks the problem of where the aliens came from.

The second theological position is that religious traditions come from people faking the activity of the gods.  Miracles are slight of hand.  Prophecy is theater.  There is no God so it must have been some legend that developed among credulous humans.

I have started the next volume in the series.  I am not sure I will finish it.  In the first few chapters there has been repeated reference to how the oceans are rising and all of that nonsense that is being pushed by the global warming lobby.  It is always introduced as if it is a done deal.  If he drops it and moves on I may keep reading.  If he keeps playing the most recent Song of Indoctrination, I will find something else to read.

McDevitt, Jack.  Omega.  New York:  Ace Books, 2003.

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Opus 2022-141: Book Review: Why Bother

I tried a new author.  His name is Andrzej Sapkowski and the book was The Tower of Fools.  I got as far as page 116 out of 549 and decided I was too old to waste any more time.

The author wrote well and threw in a bit of humor.  I still did not finish the book.

The book is one of those synergisms of historical fiction mixed with fantasy.  Or it was fantasy set in a historical setting.  You choose.  As far as I could tell the author was well versed in the time leading up to the Protestant Reformation.  He threw out exotic names which I would assume were fairly accurate.  He understood the theology and church politics of the era.  

My problem is what I find in a lot of modern fiction.  None of the characters were worth caring about.  The supposed hero had a few things going for him:  Youth, looks and medical training.  Unfortunately it was molded in the first 116 pages of nothing but adultery, murder, lies and theft.  Even his medical training was mainly a disguise for being a wizard.  His charms and hexes had already bailed him of out several situation.  Deus ex machina.  

I kept waiting for him to share some behavior that was better than a five year old in a candy store, but it was not to be.  

I will keep looking and meanwhile go back to The Brothers Karamazov.

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Opus 2022-115: Book Review: Is Atheism Dead?

I just finished reading Is Atheism Dead? by Eric Metaxas.  I would recommend it for most readers.

The general hypothesis that he is presenting is that honest inquiry has all been pointing toward the existence of God and away from materialistic atheism.  He addresses this in three areas.  First, he looks at the scientific research of the last 50 years.  Second, he looks at archeology.  Third, he gets into the logic and philosophy of science.

The science section is powerful.  If you are not familiar with the Fine Tuning of the Universe, this is a very important read for you.  What he says is not really new.  I have been coming across bits and pieces of this for years.  I read The Fingerprint of God written by Hugh Ross in 1989.  He comes at it from the point of view of an astronomer and astrophysicist.  

I think the next point I hit was Expelled:  No Intelligence Allowed, a documentary by Ben Stein in 2008. The high point in that was when he had a live interview with Richard Dawkins and all he could come up with for the cause of intelligent life was “crystals”.  

Then about ten years ago I was listening to the podcasts of William Lane Craig as I walked.  He talked about the fine tuning of the universe.  In one lecture he said science was showing that the entire universe seemed to be put together to make advanced life possible on earth.  He said there might be some kind of very low life somewhere but nothing intelligent.  At Reasonable Faith it says there are 290 results for a search on the topic.  I am not going to wade through them to find what I listened to.

After science Metaxas reviews the discoveries of archeology.  Some I had heard before but the discovery of the actual location of Sodom was the most interesting.  By using what the Bible said a modern archeologist changed the entire search parameters and found an actual, undisturbed site that had all the characteristics of a cataclysmic destruction.  This has happened frequently as archeologists get serious.

The most surprising bit of information for me was the statement that “scholars” questioned the existence of King David.  It started with a discovery.

“Three years later it happened again.  Another Times article, this one on the front page, said Israeli archaeologists had discovered a stele bearing the first reference outside the Bible to King David and the dynasty he founded, ‘the House of David.’”

Then the statement that I was not expecting.

“But the discovery of archaeological evidence for the Bible’s King David was genuinely earth-shaking news, since many scholars thought King David was a mythical figure like King Arthur.” p. 121

I had not been aware that there were people so full of hate for the Bible that they rejected the existence of David.  Keep in mind that such a view also would negate Solomon and all the the Bible verses talking about the line of David.  It would be important to make David a myth if you wanted to make Jesus a myth.  Score one for the Bible

The last section dealt with the logic and use of reason in science and how it also reinforces the rejection of atheistic materialism.  One of the big arguments of anti-God scientists is that religion is not based on reasoning and facts but on faith.  By some twisted rational they assert that the two cannot go together.  He then proceeds to look at things like atomic theory that largely developed on nothing but guess work and imagination.  Towards the end he deals with some of the distortions of history about Galileo and Copernicus being at war with the church.  A must read is the chapter entitled “Christianity Begat Science.”  It is an point that has been around for a good while but you may not have come across it.

If I have a problem with this book it is the absence of an index.  Metaxas does footnote, which is helpful but if I am going to use this as a resource I want to be able to find specific topics.  I read a library copy but I think there is enough detail in it that I will buy a copy for reference.  It brings a lot together in an easy to read style.

Metaxas, Eric.  Is Atheism Dead?.  Washington, D.C.:  Salem Books, 2021.

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Opus 2021-303: Book Review: The Communist Manifesto, part 9 of 9: You Are on the Radar

Most beneficiaries of Western culture are in the Live-and-Let-Live camp.  Western Europe seems to grasp the idea of some form of the things that come under the pursuit of happiness.  Up until recently the United States was peopled by groups that expected to live their lives the way they wanted and were willing to allow others to be strange.  It was a two way street.  That is changing.

The group that I call the Proregressives* are taking over and they have no intention of leaving you alone.  They have come for your children.  They are working on your property.  They want to close down your churches.  They want you to line up and follow orders.  It is for you own good.  They are committed to this and are not worried about the label as long as they win.

“The immediate aim of the Communist is the same as that of all the other proletarian parties: formation of the proletariat into a class, overthrow of the bourgeois supremacy, conquest of political power by the proletariat.”  Kindle Location 230-231

For the past 200 years people from all over the world have flocked to the United States to get away from these groups that wanted to run their lives.  They embraced the American dream and became Americans.  That is why we see a concerted effort to do away with national boundaries.  You may have heard of the New Word Order under the United Nations.  If you are a Christian you are aware of the prophecies that predict such a thing.  The Communists should consider themselves an instrument of fulfilled prophecy.

“The Communists are further reproached with desiring to abolish countries and nationality.”  Kindle Location 319-320

The wording should be interpreted as guilty as charged.  One reason that Stalin and Hitler had issues was because Germany had a vision of National Socialism (Nazi) and the Soviet Union was looking at International Socialism.  Countries have to go.  The United States must join the New World Order.  The Constitution must become just an meaningless piece of paper.

Marx was not shy about declaring his goal.  This kind of thing mystifies me.  We have a long line of tyrants who want to subject the world to their will.  They broadcast their goals.  Americans keep saying, “But they don’t really mean it.”

“The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains.”  Kindle Location 558-560

Believe me, they mean it.  That is why American Cities like Portland have been decimated while the ruling class sits in their gated communities with private security.  They mean it.  If we don’t wake up and stop it they will be coming for you.  I urge people to read certain books.  One of the is the Communist Manifesto.  It is short and well written.  If you don’t believe me then maybe you will believe Karl Marx.

Marx, Karl.  The Communist Manifesto, 1848, Project Gutenberg download

*(Liberals, educators, the media, socialists, communists, crony capitalists, elites, Rinos, Democrats, leftists, Never Trumpers, Antifa, BLM, MSM, Deep State, etc.  Synonym for swamp dwellers)

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Opus 2021-300: Book Review: The Communist Manifesto, part 8 of 9: A Summary in Karl’s Words

Starting at Kindle Location 359 Marx provides a summary of the major points of Communism.  I am listing a few of them.  Take a moment to scan through them and ask yourself, “How many of them are already in place?”

“1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.
“2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
“3. Abolition of all right of inheritance.

“5. Centralisation (sic) of credit in the hands of the State, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.
“6. Centralisation (sic) of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State.

“9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of the distinction between town and country, by a more equable distribution of the population over the country.
“10. Free education for all children in public schools.”

It would seem that we are well down the road.  Are you happy about that?

Marx, Karl.  The Communist Manifesto, 1848, Project Gutenberg download

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Opus 2021-296: Book Review: The Communist Manifesto, part 7 of 9: Public Schools

You should have read about the call by the Communists to abolish the family.  One of the tools that they want to use for this is the public school.  Yes, your friendly neighborhood school.  Remember what I quoted you before,

“Do you charge us with wanting to stop the exploitation of children by their parents? To this crime we plead guilty.”  Kindle Location 300-301

The big problem with families is that they used to teach their children moral values in addition to any academics.  Most educating was done either in the home or by private tutors.  Since tutors cost money the poorer families taught them at home.  The Communists thought this kind of thing was a problem.  They knew the kinds of things being passed on.

"There are, besides, eternal truths, such as Freedom, Justice, etc. that are common to all states of society.”

They acknowledge this.  They call them “eternal” and note that they are common.

“But Communism abolishes eternal truths, it abolishes all religion, and all morality, instead of constituting them on a new basis; it therefore acts in contradiction to all past historical experience."  Kindle Location, 341-343

You cannot do that if parents are passing on what they believe.  They have a plan and someone called them out on it.

“But, you will say, we destroy the most hallowed of relations, when we replace home education by social.” Kindle Location 301-302

Social, or public, education is to replace the home.  When it first started parents were involved with their children.  That condition continued until recently.  I remember the old Leave It to Beaver series where there was a constant grilling about what happened at school and you have the parents and teachers in constant communication.  One of the interesting results of the China Virus hysteria is that parents were forced to be involved with what was going on at school.  To their credit, many were horrified.

At this point in our history the Communists have taken control of higher education and as older teachers retire at the lower levels you are seeing things like Critical Race Theory and the selfish nature of capitalism being pushed more and more openly.

As a final note on this I give you point number 10 of the 10 goals of the Manifesto:

“10. Free education for all children in public schools.”  Kindle Location, 367-369

Marx, Karl.  The Communist Manifesto, 1848, Project Gutenberg download

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Opus 2021-293: Book Review: The Communist Manifesto, part 6 of 9: The Family Must Go

Certain concepts are declared and developed by Marx in the Communist Manifesto.  At this point I have looked at the class struggle and end of private property.  As I look through my notes I also see that the family is under attack.

The first mention I noted was more an attack on the bourgeoisie than the family.

“The bourgeoisie has torn away from the family its sentimental veil, and has reduced the family relation to a mere money relation.”  Kindle Location 58-59.

If you want to give Marx the benefit of the doubt it is possible that he was concerned about children laboring in the mines and factories.  He might have been totally unaware that on farms children were also part of the team that gathered eggs, slopped the hogs and weeded the garden.  However you want to look at it he had strong feelings.

“Do you charge us with wanting to stop the exploitation of children by their parents? To this crime we plead guilty.”  Kindle Location 300-301

What is strange to me is that the introductions to parts of Das Kapital, which I have started, refers several times to how his daughter was involved in proof-reading and editing his work.  He seems to be guilty of his own accusations.  I would also say that he must have had some positive contributions as a father.  No one ever said that socialists had to be consistent.

If those statements are not clear enough for you all you need to do is look back a few paragraphs where Marx declares:

“Abolition of the family! Even the most radical flare up at this infamous proposal of the Communists.”  Kindle Location 295-296

That seems pretty clear and simple.  The family builds a loyalty that the state cannot compete with so the family must be done away with.  

Marx, Karl.  The Communist Manifesto, 1848, Project Gutenberg download

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Opus 2021-291: Book Review: The Communist Manifesto, part 5 of 9: The Two Classes

The America I was raised in had classes.  Every culture does.  The America I was raised in allowed people to move up or down the class structure depending on hard work and chance.  It is true that some people work hard all there life and never seem to get ahead and others do little and experience success, but for the most part effort is the key ingredient.  There were many classes.  When I tried to figure out where I fit in I would say I was raised either upper lower class or lower middle class.  In reality it didn’t make any difference to me because I was also raised, in my America, that everyone put their pants on the same way.  When I got older and less agile I learned that wasn’t totally true but you get the idea.

Marx divided society into two camps.

“Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes, directly facing each other: Bourgeoisie and Proletariat.” Kindle Location 27-28

We are all familiar with the terms but I can never keep them straight.  Notice the idea of progress in Marx’ statement.  That would imply that the division was not finalized but Marx would have said it was foreordained.  

So who are these two groups?

The Bourgeoisie in Marx’ mind were the wealthy property owners.  They owned the factories and the tenements that the workers lived in.  Their only concern was profit.  

The Proletariat were the working people who could never get ahead.  They worked for wages and lived at subsistence level.  They were simply the cattle that provide the labor for the profits of the owners.

It will be a simple world if it ever appears.  The problem was that Marx had never worked a real job in his life and had no real understanding of the capitalism he was so critical of.  He did not foresee that many business owners would do the best they could for their workers.  Some would do it out of a moral commitment.  These would donate large sums to take care of those who could not work.  Others understood that a happy worker is a productive worker.  One of the great capitalists, Henry Ford, realized that if the workers could not make enough to buy his cars he would not sell many cars.  That is a principle of successful business.  It is real capitalism.  

Marx, and modern day socialists, live in a world of zero sum economy.  They believe that the only way to get rich is to steal from those weaker.  There is only so much to go around in their world.  He did not understand what a free economy can do to make people go out and find shortcuts to production.  The yoke is a good example.  This simple invention allowed a farmer to produce much more food with the same amount of work.  If he didn’t have the knights riding through his wheat he could increase his wealth at the expense of no one.  In fact you could sell his wheat at a lower price and still make more money.

The key factor for us to understand the modern day progressives is the word “hostile” in the quote from the Communist Manifesto.  In order for their dream world to come true it is necessary for all of us to hate those in the other class.  That is what is at the core of things like Critical Race Theory and the divisiveness of Black Lives Matter.  That is why they force violence in the streets.  That is why the Biden administration is arresting people on trumped up charges and throwing them in jail.  They want division and revolution.

Let’s do our best not to give it to them.  Remember the pledge of allegiance, “One nation, under God.”  

Marx, Karl.  The Communist Manifesto, 1848, Project Gutenberg download

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Opus 2021-288: Book Review: The Communist Manifesto, part 4 of 9: Trickle Down Theory

Property is more than your home.  It is also your business and ultimately the things small enough to carry away.  The idea that property does not belong to you is trickling down through all of society.  Look at your headlines.  Is a case of beer property?  How about four cases of beer?  You may have missed the situation in Texas where two men proceeded to load four cases of beer in their car without paying.  The clerk shot and killed one of them.  He was protecting property from theft.  The clerk is now on trial for murder.  If your house is not property then why would the beer on the back porch be yours.

Take another step back.  Imagine yourself in the People’s Republik of Kalifornia.  How important is property?  Keep in mind that San Francisco has removed the criminal penalty for shoplifting up to $950 dollars.  If you walk out with 900 dollars worth of merchandise from your local pharmacy then it is a misdemeanor and the cops will not respond.  If you are lazy you can bring your bicycle right into the store and ride out with a bag full.  Check out NBC news for more.

The Communist Manifesto is being applied on a daily basis in a town near you.  Wake up and watch it coming.

Marx, Karl.  The Communist Manifesto, 1848, Project Gutenberg download

*(Liberals, educators, the media, socialists, communists, crony capitalists, elites, Rinos, Democrats, leftists, Never Trumpers, Antifa, BLM, MSM, Deep State, etc.  Synonym for swamp dwellers)

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Opus 2021-283: Book Review: The Communist Manifesto, part 3 of 9: You Didn’t Build That

I am not an economist but that is not necessarily a bad thing when you talk about economics.  Consider Paul Krugman, a Nobel Prize winner in economics.  He seems to get it wrong all the time.  His economics are always offered in light of his Proregressive* values and not on the facts.  With that disclaimer I am going to tell you today that the coming inflation is not our big worry.  It is just a smoke screen for the real attack on America.

Inflation we have had before.  I remember the Jimmy Carter days when people were buying homes at 18% interest.  We lived through it.  We have more of the same coming.  It will be bad.  You can’t just keep printing money, giving it away to the unproductive and try to tax it out of the working people without having massive inflation.  Admit it.  Deal with it.  All of the things they say about transfer of wealth and manipulation are true, but again, just a smoke screen.

What this smokescreen is covering up is something we might not survive.  It is the attacks by Biden and his Proregressive* buddies on the concept of personal property.  The most obvious is the current extension of the moratorium on rent and mortgage payments.  

This is bigger than the class struggle that Marx envisioned.  Even according to Marx, we have always had that.  It is very clever.  The goal is to weaken the United States by making the American dollar worthless.  They want to reject it as the world currency.  Right now most international trade is conducted with dollars.  People trust it and stockpile it for hard times.  Sure we have inflation, but so does the rest of the world.  They keep buying dollars anyway.  Why?

One reason the American economy is so resilient is that people in other countries feel they can invest here.  We have a history of a government that does not confiscate property on a whim.  Even if we have inflation they know that their investment would still be there.  They trust us to be stable and reasonably honest.  Or rather they used to.  With the government saying that tenants can stay rent free what they are doing is making foreigners think twice before investing in America.  Would you invest in low cost housing if you felt the government was going to declare that your tenants didn’t have to pay rent?  Would you loan money to a home buyer if he could get out of repaying the money?

Again we go to the Communist Manifesto.  They were very clear in what their goal was.

“In this sense, the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property.”  Kindle Location 239-240

Marx, Karl.  The Communist Manifesto, 1848, Project Gutenberg download

*(Liberals, educators, the media, socialists, communists, crony capitalists, elites, Rinos, Democrats, leftists, Never Trumpers, Antifa, BLM, MSM, Deep State, etc.  Synonym for swamp dwellers)

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Opus 2021-281: Book Review: The Communist Manifesto, part 2 of 9: Class Struggle

One of the phrases continually emphasized by the Communists is the “class struggle”.  Early in the Manifesto I came across this simple statement.

“The history of all hitherto existing societies is the history of class struggles.” Kindle Download location, 18-19

My initial emotional reaction was to dismiss it because of my hatred for Communism.  After a brief pause I changed my mind.  If you think about it, much of what has gone on in history involves people of different social classes in conflict.  Even more common is people of the same class with a group wanting to establish themselves as dominate, thus creating a new class.  I have a series of posts where I break it down as Plow and Crown.  For me it is a timeless conflict between the plow, people who actually produce the food, and the crown, the ones who try to just eat the food.  In our modern culture we have the Proregressives* trying to civilize us unwashed masses with their superior view of culture.  

This is why Communists are big in trade unions.  They see it as the bosses (capitalists, bourgeoisie) and the workers (proletariat).  This is why they are big in crony capitalism.  You have the common folks in small business verses the government and big business.  In education you have the experts, teachers, verses the ignorant parents.  I guess one place that Marx got it wrong was in only seeing two classes.  We have multiple classes in our country.  What has also messed Marx up is that we have always had a lot of mobility but up and down.  Current government which is heavily infiltrated with Communists is doing everything it can to keep the little guy from being successful because that endangers their buddies.

Keep in mind that one of the techniques of deviant groups is to start out with the truth and gradually slip in the twists and turns that become the lie.  The lie is not in the existence of classes.  The lie is not in conflict.  The lie is that we cannot work together and all must become one shade of vanilla.

Read it for yourself.

Marx, Karl.  The Communist Manifesto, 1848, Project Gutenberg download

*(Liberals, educators, the media, socialists, communists, crony capitalists, elites, Rinos, Democrats, leftists, Never Trumpers, Antifa, BLM, MSM, Deep State, etc.  Synonym for swamp dwellers)

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