Over the centuries, many people have noted that there are no new ideas. Even our sins, which we vainly imagine are ours or are somehow new and creative, are only endless repeats. Truth is endless in variety, but heresy continues to repeat.
A Protestant friend was struggling with the Trinity, which some more-sola-scriptura-than-thou type had pointed out was a word not used in the Bible, and the idea was a little vaguely explained. He argued that the Trinity should be understood more as aspects of God, since God is One. My friend was getting very confused. Oh, look, modalism again.
A Latin-only Catholic friend argued that Mary didn’t really give birth to Jesus, that she only saw him in a vision and reached out and picked him up. She only appeared to give birth. Giving birth was just too… icky, unfit for God, or something (like poopy diapers were better?). Been there, argued that before: docetism.
By far the most popular heresy, even today, however, seems to be a variety of Manicheanism called Albigensianism. It argued that there were, in fact, two Gods: the good one created spirit and the bad one created matter. Hence, the goal of the good Albigensian was to “free” the soul from the body: suicide was encouraged. Since the body was bad, having children was an evil. Marriage was wrong, since it encouraged a permanent relationship that might lead not only to sex, but children; concubinage, being temporary, was preferable. (Somehow, Fox’s Book of Martyrs (popped up online) sees them as proto-Protestants, and just another example of the attempts of “popery” to stamp out “true Christians.” With true Christians like this, who needs heretics?)
So, why am I saying American is succumbing to Albigensianism?
Well, the tipping point was the new Science Czar, John Holdren, and the recent comments of outgoing Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (hat tip to Lindy for the Malkin article). Apparently, Holdren co-authored a book with population control adovocate Paul Ehrlich, who wrote The Population Bomb, which direly warned of mass starvation by the 1980′s unless drastic measures were taken to reduce the human population. (I was pretty young in the 80′s, and my parents were far from rich, but I don’t seem to remember starving.) (If you’re wondering, Ehrlich learned how to make these great predictions about human population growth from studying butterflies. Sort of like how Dr. Alfred Kinsey became the great human sex “expert” of the 60′s by studying wasps.)
Anyways, Holdren co-authored the book Eco-Science with Paul Ehrlich and his wife, Anne Ehrlich. In it, the three advocated forced sterilization, “insemination” only by permission, research into the possibility of adding contraceptives to the water supply (congratulations on one correct prediction: the leftover synthetic estrogens from millions of women drugged on the Pill have started affecting our fertility already), and strict limits to the number of children a woman would be allowed to have. Granted, that was 1977, but Holder still touts the book on his list of accomplishments. (The New York Times, predictably, is more upset by the nomination to director of the NIH of someone who wrote a book on his conversion to Christianity. At the Times, Christians are scary, but eugenists are nothing surprising.)
Continuing the hysteria, now that the population bomb seems to have been largely defused, Holdren turned to predicting massive ecological disasters that would wipe out billions before 2020 or a thirteen foot sea-level rise by 2010 (considering that he said that last one in 2006, I suppose I should expect to suddenly have a house on an island by Christmas this year…).
So much for “taking religion out of science policy;” Holdren looks to be of the same category as the guy on the street corner with the Bible open to the Apocalypse and a sign warning, “THE END IS NEAR!”
Meanwhile, Justice Ginsburg commented on Roe vs. Wade, saying that
Frankly I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don’t want to have too many of…
Ok, so, as a Jew, Justice Ginsburg is ok with the thought that she had relatives (maybe even grandparents?) in Europe during WWII who were a “population we don’t want too many of” and marked for extermination? Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised; Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood, once said that the best thing a family can do for their fourth child is kill it… in spite of the fact that she was the sixth of her parents’ eleven children.
I understand that the Culture of Death is inherently suicidal, on a philosophical level, in the long term, but it is amazing how little digging you have to do to find it.
Which brings us back to the Albigensians.
Today, we don’t do it for the worship of the “Good God”. We do it for the worship of Gaia/nature/greenness.
Marriage is discouraged, sleeping around is preferred: fewer kids and entanglements to distract from worship of the latest green initiatives or yourself.
Having kids is evil (especially if it’s your second or, like OMG!, your third).
Suicide is encouraged. Euthenasia is becoming legal in more and more states; it is already well-entrenched in Europe, which is becoming particularly expert at suicide, given their abysmally low birth rates. If the “death with dignity” people don’t get them, demographics will. If nationalized health care passes in the U.S., “dignity” will be dropped and the word of the day will be “rationing,” as in, “You’re too old to spend this much money on. Please contact your local suicide center or at least have the decency to die quickly and stop consuming resources.” It’s already started in several states.
While fighting the Albigensian heresy, the Church was not only fighting against doctrinal error, but against the end of the human race. Only, today, we don’t call them “heretics”. Most people, immersed in eco-propaganda in the public school system and from the media for decades say, “Yeah, well, maybe they’ve got a point…” and carelessly sign the death warrants on their children by looking the other way.
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