Well, many of the conspiracy theorists have been right, I hate to say. Except in this instance, these aren’t conspiracies at all. They are just openly talking about their ideas.
Follow me here on the logic train concerning CO2 output and climate change: if global warming due to human interference is a frightening reality, then logically, what is the biggest step that needs to be taken by governments and people around the world to reduce carbon output, if we really want to make an impact at lightening speed? Well, you reduce the number of people. Makes sense right?
That is exactly what is being proposed at the Copenhagen climate change conference in Denmark. China has made a strong case for it, citing their policies as an example. In addition, the Canadian national newspaper is calling for a worldwide one child policy. On a practical level, these are the very things I’ve feared coming as a result of the global warming fear mongering: policies that go way beyond the environment.
So now, I suppose the implicit argument from NASA goes,”Let’s spend next to a trillion $’s of tax-payer money that we don’t have (maybe more) trying to find out if there MIGHT be any alien microbes on the red planet.”
“Whenever we come upon these matters in secular writers, let that admirable light of truth shining in them teach us that the mind of man, though fallen and perverted from its wholeness, is nevertheless clothed and ornamented with God’s excellent gifts. If we regard the Spirit of God as the sole fountain of truth, we shall neither reject the truth itself, nor despise it wherever it shall appear, unless we wish to dishonor the Spirit of God. For by holding the gifts of the Spirit in slight esteem, we contemn and reproach the Spirit himself. What then? Shall we deny that the truth shone upon the ancient jurists who established civic order and discipline with such great equity? Shall we say that the philosophers were blind in their fine observation and artful description of nature? Shall we say that those men were devoid of understanding who conceived the art of disputation and taught us to speak reasonably? Shall we say that they are insane who developed medicine, devoting their labor to our benefit? What shall we say of all the mathematical sciences? Shall we consider them the ravings of madmen? No, we cannot read the writings of the ancients on these subjects without great admiration. We marvel at them because we are compelled to recognize how preeminent they are. But shall we count anything praiseworthy or noble without recognizing at the same time that it comes from God? Let us be ashamed of such ingratitude, into which not even the pagan poets fell, for they confessed that the gods had invented philosophy, laws, and all useful arts. Those men whom Scripture, calls ‘natural men’ were, indeed, sharp and penetrating in their investigation of inferior things. Let us, accordingly, learn by their example how many gifts the Lord left to human nature even after it was despoiled if its true [spiritual] good.”
Written in 1923, Machen addresses a system encroaching upon the church that would bring about the sure eclipse of the very Gospel itself within the 20th century. It is important to note from the outset that this liberalism is not at all the same as modern political liberalism, but is rather theological liberalism. In his day, J. Gresham Machen, at great cost to himself, fought against the theological and doctrinal accommodation of the scientific culture within the church, who were denying miracles and the supernatural based upon empirical scientific evidence. Despite many of his “brethren” in the day, he held out that we must adhere to the divine, supernatural nature of all that Christianity entails or else forfeit the Gospel itself: the divine inerrancy of the Scriptures, the nature and qualities of both God and man, that salvation is a supernatural work of God, that real people with real sins were atoned for by the blood of Christ, the human and divine natures of Christ, amongst many things that set Historic Christianity apart from all other religions devised by man out in the world.