For some reason there are millions of viewers taken in by the Glee craze. This television show has been running since May 2009. Like a lot of television shows Glee is a drama with a twist. And that twist is, of course, the characters singing their way through emotional problems. Likely inspired by High School Musical this show has made singing cool again for many of its young viewers.
Despite this joyful exterior there hides a vicious, liberal face. While Glee creators Ryan Murphy, Brad Fulchuk and Ian Brennan don't go out of their way to conceal their agenda it is not challenged as much as it should. Yet, it is time we took a stand against this show, tailored towards teens, because of their newest episode (November 9th) entitled "The First Time". This episode concentrates on two couples losing their virginity for "the first time". Couple no. 1 is the shows leads Finn and Rachel and couple no. 2 is homosexual Glee member Kurt and his boyfriend Blaine. It is extremely unfortunate that so many shows promote this pro-sexual promiscuity like the sexual behaviour by Finn and Rachel. Yet, this is dwarfed by the depiction of sexuality between Kurt and Blaine.
Perhaps, it is no wonder that this has occurred. Series creator Ryan Murphy is openly homosexual, which would surely influence greatly upon Glee's very liberal standing. He is not the only one. Actor Chris Colfer, who portrays Kurt, also professes to be a homosexual in real life. Jane Lynch, an actress on the show, is a lesbian. Darren Criss, Kurt's boyfriend Blaine, is a keen advocate for the LGBT community as demonstrated by his support of the Trevor Project, an initiative to help homosexuals in crisis affirm their lifestyles. With this sort of detrimental influence it's no wonder that the themes that permeate through-out this show.
The most perturbing element of this whole debacle is that this episode will air at 7:30 on Channel 10. There should be family-friendly television entertainment on at this time. While American television watchdog group Parents Television Council do not go far enough I wish to echo their sentiments:
"Teen sex is now more prevalent on TV than adult sex and 'Glee' is only playing into that trend. Research proves that television is a teen sexual super peer that can, and likely will, influence a teen's decision to become sexually active. Fox knows the show inherently attracts kids; celebrating teen sex constitutes gross recklessness."
Yet this is the mainstream media today. Almost wholly corrupted by liberalism. Says Ryan Murphy about this episode:
"We were talking about it [in the writers' room] like, 'Why shouldn't [Kurt and Blaine] lose their virginity at the same time?' Everybody has seen a straight couple losing their virginity, but has anyone dovetailed the gay and straight stories together and given them equal weight? That seemed like an exciting choice and a new thing."
It is disturbing how skewed our media is. There are next to no shows that display a conservative approach yet a significant amount of influential shows are spawned from "progressiveness" in an attempt to give relationships equal weight. Lea Mitchell, the actress who portrays Rachel, said "I wouldn't have done [the sex scene] if I didn't feel like they were doing it in the right way". Unfortunately, this scene was missing the key element that could have made it right, marriage. Not that this needs to be seen on free-to-air television either. No doubt Glee is advocating that dating or homosexuality is no different than marriage. Dr. Nancy Irwin, a hypnotherapist, had this to say about the sex scenes:
"Unfortunately, there is still considerable disapproval of gays in our culture, and this episode will probably spark controversy. Yet, in the end it will be a victory. The envelope is already being pushed...young gays are having sex! I am confident that 'Glee' will handle this issue in an emotionally and psychologically healthy way, so that this young couple is coming of age in a positive, loving manner."
To counter this I will leave the closing remarks to Bill Muehlenberg:
"As both homosexual and non-homosexuals have admitted, and as has been thoroughly documented by scientific studies, the homosexual lifestyle is in many respects a very risky, even dangerous, lifestyle. It is associated with numerous illnesses and diseases and at higher levels than among non-homosexuals. Much of this is associated with the promiscuous and high-risk nature of homosexuality."
Bill Muehlenberg, Strained Relations, pg 9
Of course, the truth would never make the final cut of a Glee episode.
The San Jose Articles were created "to help governments and civil society promote human rights through a proper understanding of how the rights of the unborn child are protected in international law. The articles should be used to counter false assertions, such as the erroneous notion that abortion is a human right". I will quote all of them because of the absolute power they have:
"Article 1. As a matter of scientific fact a new human life begins at conception.
Article 2. Each human life is a continuum that begins at conception and advances in stages until death. Science gives different names to these stages, including zygote, blastocyst, embryo, fetus, infant, child, adolescent and adult. This does not change the scientific consensus that at all points of development each individual is a living member of the human species.
Article 3. From conception each unborn child is by nature a human being.
Article 4. All human beings, as members of the human family, are entitled to recognition of their inherent dignity and to protection of their inalienable human rights. This is recognized in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and other international instruments.
Article 5. There exists no right to abortion under international law, either by way of treaty obligation or under customary international law. No United Nations treaty can accurately be cited as establishing or recognizing a right to abortion.
Article 6. The Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW Committee) and other treaty monitoring bodies have directed governments to change their laws on abortion. These bodies have explicitly or implicitly interpreted the treaties to which they are subject as including a right to abortion.
Treaty monitoring bodies have no authority, either under the treaties that created them or under general international law, to interpret these treaties in ways that create new state obligations or that alter the substance of the treaties.
Accordingly, any such body that interprets a treaty to include a right to abortion acts beyond its authority and contrary to its mandate. Such ultra vires acts do not create any legal obligations for states parties to the treaty, nor should states accept them as contributing to the formation of new customary international law.
Article 7. Assertions by international agencies or non-governmental actors that abortion is a human right are false and should be rejected.
There is no international legal obligation to provide access to abortion based on any ground, including but not limited to health, privacy or sexual autonomy, or non-discrimination.
Article 8. Under basic principles of treaty interpretation in international law, consistent with the obligations of good faith and pacta sunt servanda, and in the exercise of their responsibility to defend the lives of their people, states may and should invoke treaty provisions guaranteeing the right to life as encompassing a state responsibility to protect the unborn child from abortion.
Article 9. Governments and members of society should ensure that national laws and policies protect the human right to life from conception. They should also reject and condemn pressure to adopt laws that legalize or depenalize abortion.
Treaty monitoring bodies, United Nations agencies and officers, regional and national courts, and others should desist from implicit or explicit assertions of a right to abortion based upon international law.
When such false assertions are made, or pressures exerted, member states should demand accountability from the United Nations system.
Providers of development aid should not promote or fund abortions. They should not make aid conditional on a recipient’s acceptance of abortion.
International maternal and child health care funding and programs should ensure a healthy outcome of pregnancy for both mother and child and should help mothers welcome new life in all circumstances."
"Something will soon happen on planet earth which has never occurred before. The number of people on the planet as of Monday will become 7 billion, at least according to the UN. In two day's time some person on earth, newly born, will be able to claim that unique honour.
Of course this can be either good news or bad news, depending on where a person is coming from. Indeed, for some, it is terrifying news, and the cause of great panic. They think any new person is only a case of bad news. Consider this very simple chart of human population milestones:
1805: 1 billion people 1927: 2 billion people 1960: 3 billion people 1974: 4 billion people 1987: 5 billion people 1999: 6 billion people 2011: 7 billion people
In what appears to be wildly exponential growth, it seems that the world is surely doomed: we will soon - if not already - have far too many people and disaster will occur. The gloom and doom brigade will look at such a chart in sheer horror.
But a few things need to be said about this chart. As frightening as it may look, it of course only tells us part of the story. We need to look at how the chart is likely to continue. What will these numbers be in the future? Admittedly, such forecasts are always difficult and imprecise.
Indeed, for decades now I have been following the various forecasts made by the UN Population Division and other bodies as they seek to predict where world population levels will be heading to. The interesting thing is how the predictions have had to constantly change over time.
Back in 1968 one noted gloom and doomer, Paul Ehrlich wrote The Population Bomb. In it he assured us that because of our "population explosion" the battle to feed the world's population was over, and we could soon expect catastrophe big time. Of course things did not quite pan out the way he promised, but he still, even today, keeps on with this dark message.
In fact, he said as late as 2009 that "perhaps the most serious flaw in The Bomb was that it was much too optimistic about the future"! So he is a true believer, and no amount of evidence will persuade him to abandon his Chicken Little worldview.
But as I said, the experts have been revising downwards their estimate of peak global population for decades now. I clearly recall being told some years ago by the experts that the world would reach a peak of 25 billion people in the near future. Then they said 22 billion. Then 20.
On and on went the downward revisions: 18; 16; 15; 13; 12; 11; 10; and now the 9 billion people peak, predicted to arrive around mid-century. Then things level off and even head back downwards. And some are now arguing that we will not even reach the 9 billion figure. So population forecasting is a tricky game, and many wrong predictions have been made over the years.
And as also already mentioned, the numbers are open to widely differing interpretations. Are the figures good news, bad news, or should we simply be indifferent about them? Should we be panicking or celebrating this newest arrival on Monday?
One expert who thinks we should be popping the champagne cork is demographic expert Steven Mosher, President of the Population Research Institute. He believes this is good news, and not something we should be wringing our hands about. As one news item recently put it:
"The United Nations Population Division has projected October 31st 2011 as the day on which the world will be home to seven billion people. 'This is a happy occasion,' says Mosher, a leading population expert and best-selling author. 'The world's population has more than doubled since 1960, and humanity has never been so prosperous.'
"Family-planning groups, Mosher contends, supported by many feminists and environmental groups, and no-growth types, are abusing this milestone to promote the myth of overpopulation and to raise more money for anti-people projects. 'The attitude of the anti-people types is arrogant and elitist,' says Mosher. 'They say, in effect, to Africans, Asians and Latin Americans: "there are just enough of us, but there are way too many of you".'
"According to Mosher, 'contrary to what you might hear, the most pressing problem in country after country today is not overpopulation, but underpopulation. In a time of fiscal austerity, the last thing that we need to be doing is spending more tax dollars to drive down the birth rate, reducing the amount of human capital available, and making us all poorer in the long run.'
"'We are grateful that Baby Seven Billion will come into this world,' Mosher says. 'Baby Seven Billion, boy or girl, red or yellow, black or white, is not a liability, but an asset; not a curse, but a blessing for us all. Humanity's long-term problem is not going to be too many children, but too few children.'
"Mosher's analysis of world population trends stands in contradiction to the United Nations Population Fund's (UNFPA) report on The State of World Population 2010, which Mosher contends is misleading. Further U.S. funding of the UNFPA is presently in jeopardy because of UN population control agency's continued involvement in China's coercive one-child policy. PRI investigations have repeatedly shown that the UNFPA is complicit in a policy that is carried out by means of forced abortions and forced sterilizations, and which has eliminated some 400 million Chinese."
The truth is, human population growth rates are slowing big time. Fertility rates all over the world are in steep decline, and our big problem now is a birth dearth. A population implosion, not a population explosion, is our main problem. We will soon reach our peak population, and a steady decline afterwards will take place.
People are a blessing and a boon, not a curse. But I argue elsewhere about the dangers of our declining population rates. See the 31 other articles in my population section of this website for more details. So I for one will look forward to this newest arrival on planet earth. I hope you will as well.
"We know too little to prescribe to strict atheism, but we know way too much to commit to any particular religious story".
David Eagleman
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Neuroscientist and best-selling author David Eagleman has invented, and is promoting, a philosophy known as possibilianism. Eagleman claims that his worldview is new and distinct from other worldviews such as atheism and agnosticism. The philosophy is defined as a philosophy which utilises science to explore new unconsidered ideas about the world around us, after we have eliminated the alternatives. Essentially he views debates between atheists and Christians as presenting a false dichotomy. He also believes this is true for all the other worldviews.
Even though it is claimed to be a fresh philosophy on the surface it shares many characteristics with other worldviews. In relation to atheism, possibilianism share in the rejection of all known religious thought and also embraces the view that knowledge can be acquired through science as axiomatic. Possibilianism shares a similar stance as agnosticism and post-modern views regarding the limits and uncertainty of knowledge. However, possibilianism rejects both these views. It rejects atheism because it is too certain about things that we can't know definitively and it rejects agnosticism because it falls upon the scale of what is perceived as a false dichotomy between atheism and theism. Furthermore, David views agnosticism as a stagnant position that does not search for answers. Despite the claims to the contrary, possibilianism should be approached as a variation of agnostic/atheistic thought.
From the Christian perspective it is important to understand that despite the differences to other worldviews, possibilianism is still a rejection of biblical truth. Biblically it can be identified as just another variant of the suppression of the truth (Romans 1:18) and it remains, as Christians, our responsibility to demolish arguments against the knowledge of God (2 Corinthians 10:5). Although, intellectual humility and the rejection of atheism, and other religions, is welcome, the movement still consciously rejects Christianity. This is our primary concern.
In advocating the search for new possibilities David Eagleman rejects Christian claims to truth in the same manner as atheists and agnostics who have come before him. The reasons he gives for rejecting Christianity are drawn from the relationship between culture and belief and how it relates to modern scientific understandings. Like many atheists David rejects the Bible based on the limited knowledge of the cultures in which it was written. David also makes the claim that what we believe is just a product of the culture we live in. To illustrate this he compares the Genesis account of creation to a tribal account of creation claiming that each of them sound ridiculous to the other side. Hence, he rejects both. These rehashed arguments are a common threat between modern rejections of the Bible and we should be prepared to give a defence of the hope we have when we encounter these arguments, no matter what source.
This new worldview provides Christians with another opportunity to deepen our understanding of what we believe and how to defend it. This worldview brings into perspective that it is not always sufficient to merely prove opposing ideologies incorrect. Even if an opposing worldview is incorrect this does not mean that the Christian worldview is necessarily correct. With this in mind we should be keen to give positive reasons for believing what we believe as opposed to being reactionary to opposing views. In one sense David is correct in his assumption that we are going to have limited knowledge. However, this is part of the human condition and, in no way, contradicts the Christian understanding of the world. From a Christian perspective the importance of the knowledge is more crucial than how complete our knowledge is. As knowing the answer to big questions is greater than knowing all the answers to the smaller ones.
Because of the inability to answer these questions, in practice followers of this worldview will, in many ways, still revert to lives that are indistinguishable from atheists and agnostics. Although you can avoid saddling up with a particular idea it is impossible to operate independent of a perspective on things relating to ultimate purpose. Like all others the individual is still in the same predicament when presented before our creator. Therefore, despite the humility of the position this should not blind us that this is still a standing that misses the mark.
"Two recent news items offer a marked contrast in how we treat other people in general, and children in particular. Most people would have seen the first tragic story. It involved a toddler in China left to die while onlookers walked by and did nothing.
Here is one news account of this horrific incident: "A video showing a toddler being struck twice by vans and then ignored by passers-by is sparking outrage in China and prompting soul-searching over why people didn't help the child.
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"The 2-year-old girl, identified as Wang Yue, is in a coma in critical condition in the Guangzhou Military District General Hospital following Thursday's accident, state media reported Tuesday. The Guangzhou Daily quoted the hospital's head of neurosurgery as saying the girl is likely to remain in a vegetative state if she survives.
"A closed-circuit television video obtained by state media shows the toddler wandering along a narrow market street in the city of Foshan when she is struck by a van. As several people walk or cycle by, the child lies in a pool of blood and is then hit by another van. All told local media count 18 people passing by before a trash collector finally picks up the child and gives her to a woman identified as her mother.
"The case is the latest heavily publicized example of Chinese in distress being ignored by fellow citizens in a phenomenon seen as illustrating the corrosive effect China's headlong pursuit of economic growth has had on public ethics."
This is a shocking story, although the last line is a bit questionable. It is not economic growth that causes people to become uncaring and indifferent. The problem is far deeper, and needs to be addressed at that level. At bottom we have here a perfect illustration of the biblical worldview.
We are all sinners, focused on self, with little or no concern for others. That is what life is like in a fallen world. We look after Number One, and feel no sense of obligation for others. Life is all about self, not others, and when people actually do show concern for others, particularly strangers, it tends to be the exception to the rule - and that because of God's common grace and being made in His image.
That is what the biblical story tells us. As a race we are locked onto self, and other-love is something that does not come naturally to us. Jesus came to set us free from this fixation with self, and show us what real love is all about. When we come to Christ in repentance and faith, he begins a major makeover of us, starting on the inside.
With his Spirit resident in us, we can finally start to love as we were intended to. Jesus of course powerfully demonstrated this radical new way of living, as we read about in the gospels. He went to those who were unloved and rejected, and lavished the Father's love on them.
Indeed, stranger love is at the heart of the New Testament message, and we find it so explicitly spelled out in the parable of the Good Samaritan. This story makes it clear that most would rather walk on the other side of the road than deal with a stranger in need. But the truly loving person will go and minister to that poor fellow, even if it is a costly thing to do.
When Jesus died for our sins on the cross, even when we were all still shaking our fists at God, this was the most complete and fundamental demonstration of this other-love. While we were yet sinners who rejected God, Christ died for us, showing us what sacrificial love is all about.
The second story very nicely illustrates just how this sacrificial love can take place in today's self-centred world. It concerns a mother who made the ultimate sacrifice to save her own unborn daughter. The story goes like this: "An Oklahoma woman died of cancer last month after refusing chemotherapy that would have threatened the life of her unborn child.
"Stacie Crimm was 41, single, and unexpectedly pregnant, when she was diagnosed with head and neck cancer this past July. Faced with the agonizing decision of whether to expose her unborn child to a potentially fatal course of chemotherapy, Crimm decided to put her own life on the line instead.
"Her daughter, Dottie Mae, was born August 16th by emergency C-section after Crimm collapsed in her home. Doctors managed to save the 2-pound baby and resuscitate the mother, placing both in intensive care units in separate buildings. While Crimm seemed to be improving at first, her condition soon deteriorated until three weeks later she stopped breathing and had to be resuscitated again. Her family was told that she was dying."
This is an amazing story of courage, self-sacrifice and supreme other-love. She represents what we find in the work of Christ, but on a much smaller scale of course. And her love was for her own daughter, not a stranger, or for those in fact hostile to her. But it is nonetheless a moving and powerful image of what Christian sacrificial love is all about.
Her love contrasts so strongly with the apparent indifference and lack of love shown by the Chinese. But of course such sad stories are in fact common, and can be found all over the world. I recall many decades ago a story coming from New York about a woman being attacked while dozens, maybe even hundreds, of people stood by and did nothing.
People don't want to get involved - they just want to make sure their own little world is OK. In a world filled with self-centred people, such cases of gross apathy and heartlessness are not surprising. What is surprising is when people love others, even strangers, and are willing to do so even at very great cost.
That is the story of Jesus, and that is the story told millions of times over by those whose lives have been transformed by Christ. Atheists may say Christianity is evil and harmful, but the very opposite is true. Such selfless sacrificial love is only available because of what Christ has done for us.
It certainly is not the product of selfish genes or the survival of the fittest. The two children mentioned above were treated in two quite different ways. These treatments ultimately reflect two contrasting worldviews. One is the gospel of self and me-first, and the other is the gospel of Christ and selfless sacrificial love, even for strangers.
All of us fit in one or the other worldviews. I used to belong to the former, but because of God's pursuing and relentless love, I now belong to the latter. It is my hope that everyone reading this will make that leap from sin and selfishness to genuine Christian love and compassion.
Despite this joyful exterior there hides a vicious, liberal face. While Glee creators Ryan Murphy, Brad Fulchuk and Ian Brennan don't go out of their way to conceal their agenda it is not challenged as much as it should. Yet, it is time we took a stand against this show, tailored towards teens, because of their newest episode (November 9th) entitled "The First Time". This episode concentrates on two couples losing their virginity for "the first time". Couple no. 1 is the shows leads Finn and Rachel and couple no. 2 is homosexual Glee member Kurt and his boyfriend Blaine. It is extremely unfortunate that so many shows promote this pro-sexual promiscuity like the sexual behaviour by Finn and Rachel. Yet, this is dwarfed by the depiction of sexuality between Kurt and Blaine.