Immediately, as a country, we go into self-examination. Whose fault is it? What circumstances have allowed this? Are we just terrible as a peoplefor such irrational hate to take root in our cultural soil? How do we stop it? How do we keep it from ever happening again? What is the root cause?
As in our past outrage, we take sides on one single cause of effect or another. There are too many guns on the street; eliminate them. Mental illness is on the rise; more counseling is needed. President Trump uses incendiary language which excites the mentally unstable. We feed poisonous, venomous video games to our children which dehumanizes people and teaches death has no consequences. Such electronic influences should be censored. All these statements bear merit for discussion, but they are not the root problem.
The root problem is society’s abandonment of any transcendent moral code that provides the foundational template for the purpose of life.
In trying to make some sense of these tragic mass shootings, some leaders have opined that people are inherently good and only a few are inherently evil. There is no basis for this statement. Most people may be inherently able to restrain and control their evil motives, but they are not inherently good.
Christians believe by faith in a concept defined as “the doctrine of original sin.” God created the world and the first humans, Adam and Eve. They failed to obey God, and sin entered the world. They were then isolated and separated from God’s presence. The entire human race born of Adam and Eve then inherited sins of the flesh. Without a commitment to God’s laws and commandments to love one another, and love your neighbor as yourself, individuals become morally isolated. Evil finds nourishment in the hearts of those isolated from God.
Atheists, on the contrary, believe that life is an accident, emerging from the primordial ooze of earthas the unintended consequence of a cold, inorganic, not yet understood universe. Mankind evolved through 4.5 billion years of trial and error as a circumstance of an environment simultaneously changing in the earth’s geological transformation. Survival of the fittest is the main code that drives this evolutionary process. Eat or be eaten, unconsciously, is the energy of diversity of life. Is it any wonder that the code of morality of this system of things produced a societal history of wars, insurrections, slavery, oppression, aggression, and conquest? By evolution, are we surprised at mankind’s selfishness?
Intellectuals who cringe at the thought of a superior higher being profess that religion is a superstition of the people, an opium, if you will, to calm their anxiety. Their thesis is that, in this inorganic, cold, dark, mysterious universe, there existed in that original primordial ooze the basic elements of a transcendent code of morality. These principles are yet to be discovered, refined or implemented by the intellect of man in this system of things. The basic assumption that rules of morality existed in the universe without a god is so ridiculous, so paradoxical, so stupendous in its arrogance, that it is not worthy of consideration as an axiom. Yet it is assumed as fact by those who believe that this system of things inherently holds all the answers for truth. In this pursuit of theoretical truth, the intellects declare themselves to be masters of this system of things.
The consideration for gun control and universal background checks would appear to be an obvious answer. The question always becomes, once you start down that road, where does it stop? For the good of the public’s peace of mind, at a minimum, we could require different licensing for different weapons. In many states, a 16-year-old can acquire a driver’s license. But one must be 18 to get a commercial license to drive an 18-wheeler. The commercial license requires more training, is expensive, and details of registrationare more thorough. The same could be applied to an AK-47. One must be at least 22 years of age to buy one with a thorough background check, training, and registration. The background check is problematic in that the government has a history of requiring more information than it needs to do its job. Very few in America today would tolerate the surveillance that a Chinese citizen endures by their government. Yet, segmenting AK-47s or other so-called assault rifles would, at a minimum, allow for a reasonable registry.
Those who commit heinous crimes are evil manifested through the uncontrolled nature of mankind. This is not God’s retribution. It is the consequences of man not acting according to God’s laws. Whether or not you agree with the fact that man is not inherently good and yet controlling in his temperament, it is a small percent of humanity that commits tragic acts. Should 99% have to change their way of life to protect themselves from the 1% uncontrolled in their psyche?
The answer is not to let evil dictate. The answer is to stand on transcendentprinciple and enforce our cultural identity to reflect basic right and wrong. What is right and wrong? There is one well-known source of rules for living, the Bible. It provides guidance on government, finances, business, marriage, children, entertainment, and other activities of life. In fact, the Bible is comprehensive on rules of order.
There is no source of rules for living emanating from the cold dark universe. Regardless of your faith, or lack thereof, all elements of cause and effect should be measured against the Word of God. If one does not recognize the Bible as credible, then all arguments of moralityof this system of things must be confirmed in juxtaposition to the content of its text. In other words, the principles of the Bible should be part of the debate. To ignore its authority is to yield to the universal supposition that it doesn’t matter anyway, for nothing can be derived from nothing.
Our code of responsibility is to balance the Judeo-Christian moral mandate with government policy in reference to inherent sin and the evolutionary code of survival of the fittest.
Throughout history, the great civilizations of the world prospered when they kept this balance in equilibrium. They failed when they abandoned all that has been recorded that God asked. In so doing, they relied simply on their own intellect and abandoned the moral structure of society to the forces of this system of things. In that abandonment, society is isolated from moral vision and evil is left unchecked. Individuals in moral isolation will commit horrific acts in reaction to the evolutionary code of self-interest.
What’s missing in our analysis of how to cure this disease of mass murder is the relationship of culture in its respect for God’s direction to love one another.
For a society that ignores God’s laws, even as a contemplationfor the order in this system of things, abandons people to isolation. Isolation in abandonment unleashes the inherent evil in mankind’s heart.
My name is Marc Nuttle and this is what I believe.
What do you believe?