Category Archives: Desert

Why the New Atheist Movement “Collapsed”

Video with Stephen Meyer.

Dr. Stephen Meyer joins Michael Knowles to analyze the cultural and intellectual collapse of the “New Atheism” movement that peaked in the mid-2000s.

Meyer argues that prominent atheist apologists overplayed their philosophical hand by chaining their worldview to strict Darwinian materialism while actively avoiding major modern scientific breakthroughs. He breaks down how 100 years of discoveries in cosmology, cosmic fine-tuning, and cellular biology have continuously challenged materialistic assumptions by pointing toward a definitive beginning and intelligent design. The conversation also explores the philosophical flaws in popular secular arguments, including the common misapplication of Occam’s Razor to the concept of God. Ultimately, they track the modern cultural shift that has led unexpected secular intellectuals, and even Richard Dawkins himself, to publicly re-evaluate the foundational necessity of the Christian worldview.

Passive Ponzi—How Your Retirement Became the Collateral

Another good article by Wendy Williamson.

Excerpts:

The 1694 inversion and the Ponzi geometry of the American retirement system

In 1694, a king with bad credit accidentally built the modern financial world.

The Bank of England took a king’s debt and turned it into a permanent, tradable financial asset. The debt did not have to be repaid in the ordinary sense. It could be held, traded, and used as collateral. The king’s obligation became a public asset.

That was the inversion on which the entire financial system was built. Debt was no longer merely a burden to be repaid and extinguished. It became a foundation for wealth. It could be held indefinitely, generate income indefinitely, and support further lending. A liability that once had to be settled could now serve as the basis for expanding financial claims.

The chain of belief that held it together ran from the banknote to the government’s promise, from Parliament’s taxing power to the English economy, and ultimately to the willingness of the English people to work, pay, and trust the government with the power it claimed.

Every link was real. But the chain as a whole depended on something that could not be audited in advance. It could only be trusted.

The Successful Revolutionary “Long-March” Through Our Institutions

Article by Boyd Cathey.

Excerpt:

Yet, Soros fits Disraeli’s description of 180 years ago; if there ever was confirmation, he exemplifies it and exemplifies dozens of other like-minded figures in the world today.  He epitomizes that occult face of the “blood dimmed tide” of Revolution against God and man that poet William Butler Yeats warned of in 1919—at the very same moment in time when Antonio Gramsci was authoring his theories that would prove so fatal to the West.

He who would know the truth, must then act upon it. Over the past century or so the actual character, the real face of the Revolution, has been revealed as perhaps never before. Although lacking many of the resources and weaponry of our Enemies, those of us resolved not only to defend what is left of our culture and our Western Christian civilization, and, if possible, to begin a restoration, must be as bold and as cunning as Nathan Bedford Forrest, as wise and as prudential as Marse Robert Lee, and as patient and as calculating as our Enemies who understood that to conquer the seemingly unconquerable, it would take time, and above all, persistence, intelligence and constancy. And, for us, at the foundation of it all, Faith.

1694: The Year the World Changed

Longish, but hugely instructive article. 

Here are two quotes: 

“This is where the neuropsychiatrist Iain McGilchrist enters. He argues that Western civilization has suffered a catastrophic imbalance—a dominance of the left hemisphere’s mode of attention. The left brain fragments, abstracts, and re-presents the world as a static, manipulable system. It mistakes its own symbols for reality. The right brain perceives the whole—the living, the embodied, the sacred. But when the left brain dominates, it builds a machine that cannot see what it is destroying.”

“The irony was almost biblical. William III had taken the throne to preserve Protestant Christendom. But the financial architecture he signed into existence would eventually hollow out that Christendom from within. The king who fought to keep the old faith in power had inadvertently signed its death warrant. The system he built did not care whether its debtors were Catholic or Protestant—it cared only about yield, security, and return. In doing so, it replaced the cross with the balance sheet.”

In other words: When (not if) our current banking system collapses, the path will be open for a world-wide revival. 

Afterthought: 

William III’s relying on merchants who pressured him into doing something deeply dishonest – instead of relying on God, reminds me of the prophets’ warnings towards Israel (or Judah) against relying on support from Egypt against Assyria, instead of relying on God. Similar outcome, too, in the long term. 

Thomas Carlyle’s ‘Past & Present:’ How The Decline of the West Started Centuries Ago

The War on Beauty posted this 23-minute video. And writes in the description:

“Thomas Carlyle’s ‘Past and Present’ is one of the most unique books I have ever read. It is a prophetic look at the root causes of what was beginning to tear down the core of specifically English, but ultimately European, society. With growing atheism, idleness and Dilettantism, and mammon-worship, Europe went from Heroic and True to Un-Heroic and living in a “sham,” in just a few short centuries–a reality which is only just coming into full fruition now.”

See also: Thomas Carlyle for Beginners: Where to Start (35 minutes).

The Year 2100 and All That

Article by Gary North.

Excerpt:

We look around us and see trends. Some of these trends seem irreversible. But are they? They seem comprehensive. But are they? How much reliance should we place in them? Will they really shape our lives and the world we live in?

Almost 50 years ago, my professor Robert Nisbet wrote a classic article: “The Year 2000 and All That.” It was published in the Jewish intellectual magazine, Commentary, although it was in no way Jewish. 

Continue reading here.