IS IT A FIREWORK?

Is it a firework? The Idealist would say you could not know for sure it is only a representation in your mind. The skeptic would say the causes and effects of it are only correlations we cannot know them for sure. The Post Modern Existentialist would say it depends on how we feel about it; we are only animals of repressed primal instincts and erotic desires and we interpret our personal world through emotions. Post Structuralism and Deconstruction would say it is what our culture says it is, true power lays in the ability to control society through culture, and that culture, literature, and history shape history just as much as history records it, and even the language that our culture uses is at our societies foundations and determines who we are. The Reductionist would say that the firework is just a product of matter in motion, you really do not even have a choice on what you think about it, you are just a chemical reaction shaped by your environment, with no free will or self-determination and for that matter, your idea of consciousness is just a figment of your imagination.

Modern Sociologists and Psychiatrist believe social norms are just feel good stories that us scared little evolving primates made up to comfort ourselves in this terrifying world, even male and female are just made up labels. Critical Theory believes the culture of the Industrial State, repressive competition and even religion are being used to control what we think, and must be changed at its roots, Education. Most of this thinking finds its conception in Continental Europe, which is why it is generally referred to as Continental Philosophy.

Classic Western Liberalism (Individualism, free markets, property rights, toleration, self determination, and personal responsibility) did not embrace these Ideas at first and you could say they fought two world wars and a cold war against them and trace their origins back to the Bloody French Revolution and Rousseau, which our founders rejected. In many ways the these philosophical arguments go back to even the Pre-Socratics.

European Neo-Marxist Intellectuals fleeing the Nazis planted these philosophies here in the 1930s and 1940s. The French Post-Modern Socialist in the 1950s through 1970s built upon them, it grew into the cultural revolution of the 1960s thru the 1980s. Now those generations have taken it to the next level, K-12 and college, total indoctrination. That is why you are seeing the big changes take place in America as these doctrines at the root of Socialism take over, and to the shock of many, how the Millennials embrace it. So much so, the many historical failures of Socialism in its many forms are ignored, covered up and unknown, a history of tyranny, despotism, starvation, murder and death.

Socialism just seems morally right to them no matter its failures. Many of these Marxist theories developed in reaction to why Classic Western Liberalism had not failed the way Marx predicted. Ironically a lot of the sceptics doubts about reality were developed to defend Christianity and the so called leap of faith it took to be a believer in God.

During the forming of our country Scottish Common Sense Realism dominated and held sway for as much as 200 years and was influential on many modern ideas like Logical Positivism, Pragmatism, Scientific Positivism and Instrumentalism. A Presbyterian minister, the Reverend Thomas Reid founded realism in response to the sceptics of his time like Hume that concluded we could not know reality, only a picture in our mind that our senses presented to us, and that cause and effect could not be proven, that they were only correlations.

Rev. Reid believed philosophical absurdities, armchair conundrums and intellectual paradoxes would ruin science and philosophy. Common Sense Realism argued that if reason and your five senses agree, you are experiencing and perceiving the real world.

You were going to the fireworks because it’s the 4th of July. You see the fireworks, you feel the repercussion of it on your chest, you smell the gunpowder, you hear it, and you smell the smoke and taste the gunpowder on your tongue and feel  the sting of it in your nose because you were close to the finale. You see and hear others reacting to it and they ooo and aaa about it. You and your friends talk about how awesome they were, you seen fireworks, common sense and common five senses prove it. I’m a realist. If you take me to a cliff and tell me to jump off I’m not going to do it. The 99.9% odds that its going to cause a lot of pain or kill me is reason enough not to do it. That is common sense.

Just as you are born with the innate ability to breathe and nurse, otherwise you would die by time you learned how to do them, you are born with the innate ability to deal with time and our three dimensional world. You are also born with a conscience that can be trained to guide you through life, and the ability to come to the knowledge of God. The Bible says it is planted right with-in you.

Common Sense Realism believed that the Bible was common sense and its truths were self-evident. The Reverend Thomas Reid, John Locke the Father of Classic Western Liberalism, Sir Francis Bacon the Father of the Scientific method and Sir Isaac Newton the Father of Modern Physics all esteemed the Bible. They believed the Bible was God’s revelation to humanity and that it was rational and logical therefore Natural. That if God is rational and logical his creation is rational and logical and we can explore it and come to rational and logical conclusions about it. This was the birth of science in the western world and the death of much superstition, religious or otherwise.

These fountain heads also believed there were unalienable rights from above, given by God and untouchable by man and these truths would percolate up from the grass roots and could be seen throughout history. This is what was meant by Natural Law and Self Evident Truths in the Declaration and also mentioned in the Bible. Our founders including Jefferson and Adams discuss Common Sense Realism in their correspondence, and it is even mentioned in an early Supreme Court decision by Justice James Wilson, and was taught to many of our founders at Princeton by the Rev. John Witherspoon, and still held sway even to the late 1920s.

The Intellectuals attack Classic Western Liberalism and the Bible because it disagrees with Marxism and everything they believe. They attack America, its history and rich culture of individualism, autonomy and personal responsibility and especially Christianity because they want to tell everybody what to believe and how to live. They do not believe in “We the People”, they believe in a ruling class “For the people but not of the people”. They think they are Plato’s philosopher kings, also a historical failure.

Even though Classic Western Liberalism and Christianity has progressively brought more human rights and lifted more people out of poverty than any other system they think Socialism is better even though it has been a complete and utter failure everywhere it has been tried, ending in despotism, tyranny, starvation, murder and death. They are puffed up with pride and conceit, and even though every bad statistic has gotten grossly worse since the 60s, when their ideas began taking hold, they will never let it go, even at the expense of the suffering we are experiencing under it.

We have gone from running in the halls and paper wads in the 1950s to suicide, drug abuse, violence and STDs in public education. These condescending arrogant frauds that attack and undermine the faith our civilization was founded on believe they will be part of the ruling class even though throughout history every revolution of this sort has turned on the intellectuals with a vengeance.

Read the bestselling book in history and year after year and endorse through-out history by millions. It is life changing and the inspiration for much of our Classical Western Liberalism and the Spirit of Freedom, the Bible. Find true freedom, freedom from selfish desires and whims that mar our souls and enslave us. Find freedom from guilt that can weigh us down with chains of regrets and freedom from fear and anxiety that can make life a living hell and find freedom from Hell itself. Find love that says “Love thy Neighbor” and even your enemies, a tough order to obey if there ever was one. Does Marxism teach Love, NOT, it teaches envy, hatred and revenge. Find a loving, personal relationship with God in his word and a burning Spirit in your heart that will make this world grow dim. Start by reading the Gospel of John and the Book of Romans these two will help you understand what the whole Bible is about, your redemption and the redemption of humanity. The condensed message of the Bible can be found as simply as reading 1st Corinthians 15:1-4.