Can't Govern By Biblical Principles?

My response to Sharon Martin's "Open Letter To Sen.-Elect Lankford" published in The Oklahoma Observer on Nov. 11, 2014:

Everyone governs by a set of principles whether Biblical or not. Ms. Martin's principle is that one has "every right to live your life according to those principals, so long as you don’t hurt anyone."  By what objective standard does Martin's principle get to govern but Lankford's does not? 

Further, Martin claims that Lankford's various positions violate his Biblical principles (e.g opposition to the Affordable Care Act and minimum wage) arguing that her position is actually more Biblical. Martin advocates governing by her more Biblical principles but criticizes others trying to "govern according to [their] Biblical principals".  Her argument commits suicide.

Religion vs. Disease - A Comparison

Due to space limitations, the my Letter to the Editor "Many levels can define morality" appeared in the August 26, 2014 Columbian newspaper without citations.  Below is the letter along with the citations.  For the full analysis with citations, see the unabridged version.


Larry Little asserts, “Religion has caused more suffering and harm than all the world's diseases combined” (July 25, “Religion has caused suffering, harm” [1]). He provides four examples of purported religious-instituted harm but no diseases for comparison.

Historian Harold Lamb, author of “The Crusades: The Flame of Islam”, estimates “in the Crusades a waste of hundreds of thousands of lives”. [2] Fox’s Book of Martyrs estimates the Inquisition cost around 32,000 lives. [3] [4]

Little sets the “deaths in the thousands” in an Iraq conflict that NBC News reported originated with the battle for Mohammed’s rightful successor: “the fighting now boils down to a struggle for power, not theological doctrines”. [5]

Opposition to Israel isn’t strictly theological but is rooted in anti-Semitic calls for its annihilation, causing 65,000 deaths since 1948. [6] [7]

In contrast, PBS reports influenza (1918) killed 21 million.[8] BBC estimates the 14th century saw bubonic plague kill 200 million. [9] In fact, a Discovery Channel program states: “infectious diseases have … claimed higher casualties than wars”. [10]

And Little ignores whether those who committed evils in religion’s name were actually following that religion’s teaching.

Human beings define morality in Little’s worldview. Yet he hypocritically reaches across time and cultures imposing his man-made morality upon others, condemning the moral standard they had defined for themselves.


ENDNOTES:
[1] Little, Larry, “Religion has caused suffering, harm”, The Columbian, July 25, 2014, http://www.columbian.com/news/2014/jul/25/letter-religion-has-caused-suffering-harm/. Last accessed 7/28/2014.
[2] Lamb, Harold, “The Crusades: The Flame of Islam”, Garden City Publishing Co., Inc., Garden City, NY, 1931, p. 465.
[3] Foxe, John, “Fox’s Book of Martyrs, The Project Gutenberg EBook, 2007, p.88-109.
[4] Lemieux, Simon. “The Spanish Inquisition”. History Review [serial online] December 2002;(44):44. Available from: History Reference Center, Ipswich, MA. Last Accessed: 8/18/2014.
[5] Elizabeth Chuck, “Conflict in Iraq Follows Centuries of Shiite-Sunni Mistrust, NBC News, http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/iraq-turmoil/conflict-iraq-follows-centuries-shiite-sunni-mistrust-n130461. Last accessed 7/28/2014.
[6] Mr. Little lists the opposition as: “Israel vs. Palestinian/Hamas/Iran/Syria/Boko Haram”.
Author’s Note: While these opponents of Israel all hold to various interpretations of Islam, Article 28 of the Hamas charter explicitly states: “Israel, by virtue of its being Jewish and of having a Jewish population, defies Islam and the Muslims”. http://www.thejerusalemfund.org/www.thejerusalemfund.org/carryover/documents/charter.html?chocaid=397. Last accessed 8/17/2014.
[7] Twentieth Century Atlas – Death Tolls." RCN D.C. Metro. December 2005. http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat4.htm. Last accessed: 8/19/2014.
[8] “Worldwide flu pandemic strikes 1918 - 1919”. A Science Odyssey: People and Discoveries. “The influenza commonly called ‘Spanish flu’ killed more people than the guns of World War I. Estimates put the worldwide death toll at 21,642,274. Some one billion people were affected by the disease -- half of the total human population. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/databank/entries/dm18fl.html . Last accessed: 8/17/2018.
[9] “Decoding the Black Death”. BBC News. Oct 3, 2001. Reporting from research published in the journal Nature. “The plague, otherwise known as the Black Death, ravaged Europe and Asia between the 14th and 17th Centuries. In the 14th Century alone it is estimated to have killed 200 million people.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/1576875.stm. Last Accessed: 8/17/2014.
[10] Lamb, Robert. “10 Worst Epidemics”. Discovery. Culture and History. “infectious diseases have inflicted a great deal of damage throughout the centuries. They've decimated whole populations, ended blood lines, claimed higher casualties than wars and played pivotal roles in charting the course of history.”
http://www.discovery.com/tv-shows/curiosity/topics/10-worst-epidemics.htm. Last accessed: 8/17/2014.

Has Religion Caused More Harm Than Disease?

NOTE: This is Part Two in a series dealing with a July 25 letter to The Columbian, “Religion has caused suffering, harm”.  See Part One for the first half analysis of the letter. 

In his letter, Larry Little asserts, “Religion has caused more suffering and harm than all the world's diseases combined”[i]. While he provides four examples of purported religious-instituted harm, only one has any statistics and he provides no disease examples for comparison. 

In doing so, he leaves his claim orphaned from any supporting evidence.  So let me supply the facts to see how well the Larry Little Hypothesis holds merit. 

Religious-instituted Harm

Mr. Little lists the “Crusades “, “Iraq”, “Israel vs. Palestinian/Hamas/Iran/Syria/Boko Haram” and the “Catholic Inquisition” as his four religious-instituted harms. 

Historian Harold Lamb, author of “The Crusades: The Flame”, estimates “in the Crusades a waste of hundreds of thousands of lives.[ii]   

Fox’s Book of Martyrs estimates the “Catholic Inquisition” cost around 32,000 lives.[iii] In the book, “The Spanish inquisition”, Simon Lemieux writes, “It is false to make a distinction between the political and religious roles of the Inquisition; for Spanish monarchs, as indeed for most other rulers, political and religious unity went in tandem.”[iv]  While this unity does not absolve the fact that evil occurred in religion’s name, it also means that was not the only factor as Mr. Little implies. 

Mr. Little, himself, sets the number of “violent deaths in the thousands” in an Iraq conflict that NBC News says originated with Mohammed’s death and the struggle for his rightful successor.[v] NBC states the “fighting now boils down to a struggle for power, not theological doctrines”.[vi]  

Gareth Stansfield, former United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq senior political adviser concurred.  Stanfield stated: “The struggle was over the successor to the prophet Muhammad, whether succession would go through the line of the family of the prophet, through the sons of Ali—he was Muhammad's son-in-law who was married to Fatima, his daughter—or whether it would rest with the political successors to Muhammad, the caliphs.”[vii] 

Opposition to Israel is, not strictly theological but is, rooted in anti-Semitic calls for its annihilation.  While these opponents of Israel all hold to various interpretations of Islam, Article 28 of the Hamas charter explicitly states, “Israel, by virtue of its being Jewish and of having a Jewish population, defies Islam and the Muslims”.[viii]  The estimated death toll from conflicts with Israel is 65,000 since 1948.[ix]

Disease-instituted Harm

In contrast, PBS reports Influenza (1918) killed 21 million.[x]  BBC estimates the 14^th century saw Bubonic Plague kill 200 million.[xi] ABC Science reports the death toll of “75 million” in just four years.[xii]  

Mr. Little’s examples amount to hundreds of thousands of deaths compared to221 million from just two diseases.  Clearly, even if his examples were purely religious-instituted evil, the claim that religion causes more harm than disease is clearly false!  In fact, Discovery states: “infectious diseases have … claimed higher casualties than wars”.[xiii]

 

In the Name of

Moreover, Mr. Little ignores whether those who committed evils in religion’s name were following the religion’s teaching.  Greg Koukl provides this analogy: 

‘Imagine yourself a builder who sent out crews with detailed, written instructions for their work.  Instead of building, though they destroyed.  Would you be responsible?  That would depend on one thing: the written instructions.”[xiv]

 

Religious Good

Nor does Mr. Little acknowledge the good done in the name of religion. For example, Christianity originated modern education as a way to place the Bible into the hands of the common man.  All the Ivy League schools had Christian origins.  Missionaries in China, Africa, and throughout the world taught people how to read and created written language where none before existed.   

Mother Teresa and others dedicate their lives to helping the poorest.  David Livingston exposed the Arab slave trade.  William Wilberforce worked tireless to end the British slave trade.  Abolitionists worked to end slavery in America.  The Red Cross and The Salvation Army are a few organizations started upon a Christian foundation.  The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., leader of the 1960s civil rights movement, said: 

“"There must be a recognition of the sacredness of human personality.  Deeply rooted in our political and religious heritage is the conviction that every man is an heir to a legacy of dignity and worth.  Our Hebraic-Christian tradition refers to this inherent dignity of man in the Biblical term the image of God.” 

“"This idea of the dignity and worth of human personality is expressed eloquently and unequivocally in the Declaration of Independence.  “All men,” it says, “are created equal.”  They are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”  Never has a sociopolitical document proclaimed more profoundly and eloquently the sacredness of human personality.”[xv]

 
Arbitrary vs. Non-Arbitrary Moral Standards

Beyond the factual errors and omission of evidence that compromises his narrative, Mr. Little makes a fundamental error in clear thinking. Human beings, not a supreme being, define morality in Mr. Little’s worldview. As such, no standards can exist that apply to ALL men, at ALL times, in ALL places regardless of whether they choose to follow the standard or even acknowledge it.  That would require a non-arbitrary standard outside of man. That requires a Moral Lawgiver that is outside man. 

If that Moral Lawgiver does not exist then Mr. Little correctly recognizes that men or cultures (aka groups of men) decide.  However, if men or cultures decide, then on what basis does one man or culture say their standard is more morally righteous than the standard of another man or culture? 

Yet, Mr. Little does exactly that.  He hypocritically reaches across time and cultures to impose his man-made standard upon others, condemning the moral standard those cultures had defined for themselves. 

In the end, Mr. Little betrays his own view.  He knows that men have done egregious evils but he denies the very Supreme Being that must exist for his condemnation to make sense. 

All he has left is his dislike of another’s actions.

 

That is not morality.  That is personal preference.

---

[i] Little, Larry, “Religion has caused suffering, harm”, The Columbian, July 25, 2014, http://www.columbian.com/news/2014/jul/25/letter-religion-has-caused-suffering-harm/. Last accessed 7/28/2014. Mr. Little writes, “Religion has caused more suffering and harm than all the world's diseases combined. Think Crusades — that is still going on today. Think Iraq and several differing views leading to violent deaths in the thousands. Think Israel vs. Palestinian/Hamas/Iran/Syria/Boko Haram and their victims. The Catholic Inquisition led to burning witches at the stake, led to the birth of Protestantism, led to the United States, which led to "In God We Trust" on our money, which led to Hobby Lobby, which now uses less of it.”

[ii] Lamb, Harold, “The Crusades: The Flame of Islam”, Garden City Publishing Co., Inc., Garden City, NY, 1931, p. 465.

[iii] Foxe, John, “Fox’s Book of Martyrs, The Project Gutenberg EBook, 2007, p.88-109.

[iv] Lemieux, Simon. “The Spanish Inquisition”. History Review [serial online] December 2002;(44):44. Available from: History Reference Center, Ipswich, MA. Last Accessed: 8/18/2014.

[v] Elizabeth Chuck, “Conflict in Iraq Follows Centuries of Shiite-Sunni Mistrust, NBC News,   http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/iraq-turmoil/conflict-iraq-follows-centuries-shiite-sunni-mistrust-n130461. Last accessed 7/28/2014.
According to Robin Wright, a joint fellow at the U.S. Institute of Peace and the Woodrow Wilson Center, “The original schism between Islam's two largest sect was not over religious doctrine. It was over political leadership.”

[vi] Ibid.

[vii] Conant, Eve, “Iraq Crisis: "Ancient Hatreds Turning Into Modern Realities”, National Geographic, June 18, 2014. In addition to being and a former senior political adviser for the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI), Gareth Stansfield is also professor of Middle East politics at the U.K.'s University of Exeter.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/06/140618-iraq-shiite-sunni-isis-militants-maliki-borders/

Last Accessed: 8/17/2014.

[viii]  Israel vs. Palestinian/Hamas/Iran/Syria/Boko Haram.

http://www.thejerusalemfund.org/www.thejerusalemfund.org/carryover/documents/charter.html?chocaid=397.  Last accessed 8/17/2014.

[ix] Twentieth Century Atlas – Death Tolls." RCN D.C. Metro. December 2005. http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat4.htm. Last accessed: 8/19/2014.

[x] “Worldwide flu pandemic strikes 1918 - 1919”. A Science Odyssey: People and Discoveries. “The influenza commonly called ‘Spanish flu’ killed more people than the guns of World War I. Estimates put the worldwide death toll at 21,642,274. Some one billion people were affected by the disease -- half of the total human population. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/databank/entries/dm18fl.html . Last accessed: 8/17/2018.

[xi] “Decoding the Black Death”. BBC News. Oct 3, 2001. Reporting from research published in the journal Nature. “The plague, otherwise known as the Black Death, ravaged Europe and Asia between the 14th and 17th Centuries. In the 14th Century alone it is estimated to have killed 200 million people.”

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/1576875.stm. Last Accessed: 8/17/2014.

[xii] Dunham, Will. “Black death 'discriminated' between victims”. ABC/Reuters. Jan 29, 2008. “The plague of 1347 to 1351 was one of the deadliest epidemics in human history, killing about 75 million people, according to some estimates, including up to 50% of the European populations affected.”

http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2008/01/29/2149185.htm

Last Accessed: 8/17/2014.

[xiii] Lamb, Robert. “10 Worst Epidemics”. Discovery. Culture and History. “infectious diseases have inflicted a great deal of damage throughout the centuries. They've decimated whole populations, ended blood lines, claimed higher casualties than wars and played pivotal roles in charting the course of history.”

http://www.discovery.com/tv-shows/curiosity/topics/10-worst-epidemics.htm . Last accessed: 8/17/2014.

[xiv] Koukl, Greg. “Christianity’s Real Record”. Clear Thinking Journal. Vol. 4 No.3. Winter 1999. p. 9

[xv] King, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The Ethical Demands of Integration. Dec 27, 1962.

When you are dead, you are dead?

The Columbian published a letter on July 25, 2014 that I will analyze by splitting the author’s letter into their two distinct sections.  The intact letter is available here.

Mr. Larry Little writes in his first three paragraphs: 

"Faith. The extraordinary ability to accept something as a fact when your common sense tells you it can't possibly be true.

Prayer. A verbal or mental offering to a never-seen supreme being in which there is absolutely no evidence of actual response or existence. Evidence of a prayer response is an audio recording, not that it finally rained.

Life after death? When you are dead, you are dead. You have stopped. You are not going to meet mommy and daddy again, either."

Mr. Little criticizes the religious for the “extraordinary ability to accept something as a fact when your common sense tells you it cannot possibly be true” then exempts himself by definitively claiming, “When you are dead, you are dead. You have stopped”. 

Mr. Little claim follows logically from his presupposition of realism, that only that which is perceived is real.  Since we cannot perceive what occurs beyond the grave, he concludes nothing exists.  Mr. Little cannot know this definitively.  All he can say is that no one knows.  This he does not do. 

Nor does Mr. Little ask the question of why do human beings even have a concept of “after-life”?  The concept awareness question is vastly different from the question “why would one desire an after-life?” which he dismisses as an emotional drive “to meet mommy and daddy again”. 

Yet, billions of human beings throughout history have and do have this very concept in some form. 

Mr. Little’s denial is an appeal to his own “extraordinary ability”.