The Rational Priest of Mercury
This Tom Toles cartoon appeared in today's Los Angeles Times, and it deftly elucidates a critical truth that seems to frequently elude so many. That truth is
Everything anyone does is rational.
It is veritable. There is not a single thing that anyone does that is irrational. In fact popular web pundit Vox Day has a fine new book out shredding the silly blitherings of "new" atheists such as Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris, and Day makes the following point. It is not the irrational atheists we must concern ourselves with, it is the rational ones, they're the most dangerous.
Uh, excuse me, but there are no irrational anyones. There is nothing that is irrational. The reason this is so is because of a simple corollary to this, something which only makes sense with a grounded understanding of God in truth, that is, not in some convoluted World conception of Him. That corollary:
While everything is rational, not everything is righteous.
People do very rational things, things that are done with perfectly good reason, according to how they feel, what they believe, how they live, all perfectly good reasons--perfectly rational.
But those things may also be horrifically deceitful and murderous.
The Toles cartoon simply points out this fact brilliantly. A financial power broker who goes about his job extracting value from people, or more simply engages in wholesale human sacrifice, may be someone who we revile especially when he's found out. But when he professes to doing nothing illegal, or worse, nothing we wouldn't do, then he seems to gain a great deal of admiration.
No wonder Mercury is worshipped by so many.
For a more comprehensive look at this phenomenon, my latest webzine featured article gets into it.
Everything anyone does is rational.
It is veritable. There is not a single thing that anyone does that is irrational. In fact popular web pundit Vox Day has a fine new book out shredding the silly blitherings of "new" atheists such as Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris, and Day makes the following point. It is not the irrational atheists we must concern ourselves with, it is the rational ones, they're the most dangerous.
Uh, excuse me, but there are no irrational anyones. There is nothing that is irrational. The reason this is so is because of a simple corollary to this, something which only makes sense with a grounded understanding of God in truth, that is, not in some convoluted World conception of Him. That corollary:
While everything is rational, not everything is righteous.
People do very rational things, things that are done with perfectly good reason, according to how they feel, what they believe, how they live, all perfectly good reasons--perfectly rational.
But those things may also be horrifically deceitful and murderous.
The Toles cartoon simply points out this fact brilliantly. A financial power broker who goes about his job extracting value from people, or more simply engages in wholesale human sacrifice, may be someone who we revile especially when he's found out. But when he professes to doing nothing illegal, or worse, nothing we wouldn't do, then he seems to gain a great deal of admiration.
No wonder Mercury is worshipped by so many.
For a more comprehensive look at this phenomenon, my latest webzine featured article gets into it.
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