What do Gnosticism and being against the War in Iraq have in common?
In my opinion, most adherents of both of those views are dangerously naive, ill-informed, and suffer a need to feel superior (have access to secret information, be part of the “in-crowd”). There are of course exceptions to this, especially considering opposition to the war in Iraq. Philophronos blogger Henry Neufeld is against it, and while I think he is wrong, I don’t think he is naive or ill-informed. He has looked at many of the same facts as I have and drawn different conclusions. But so many of the people I have seen that are against the war simply have no idea what they are talking about. They read a few posts on Daily Kos, Huffpo and Firedoglake. They think questions “being raised” is somehow magically transmogrified into evidence if you repeat the questions often and loudly, and they refuse to hear answers. They think they, and they alone, are in possession of “The Truth.” They believe that Cindy Sheehan has absolute moral authority (but the mothers of soldiers who support the war do not, somehow, enjoy the same status – go figure) and they believe the media and Democrats who have staked their reputations and futures on the idea that we cannot possibly win this war. They think the media is conservative, and is deliberately withholding bad information about the Bush administration and the war. This Larry Elder column is a good example of the kind of person I’m talking about, with the main difference being that when I’ve tried to engage such people in a real debate – and it starts every. single. time! with their making a blanket statement that they are sure everyone MUST agree with. When I politely dissent it quickly devolves into their shouting at me so my replies can’t be heard, and me wishing I could smack them upside the head. I’m quite sympathetic to Elizabeth Hasselbeck of The View for this very reason. People like this can’t be reasoned with – it’s an utter waste of time to continue. You might as well let them think they won the “argument.” As the computer said in the 80s movie Wargames, “The only winning move is not to play.”
Gnostics are a similar crowd. I’ve been getting traffic on searches lately – because of Easter, I guess – on “dead dog white teeth” or “Jesus white teeth” and variations of those, because I posted about Marvin Meyer last year. Meyer brought us the “gospel” of Judas, and “The Unknown Sayings of Jesus” which, as Ben Witherington points out in the NY Times and his blog, are wholly inconsistent with what “the historical, thoroughly Jewish, resurrection believing Jesus” would have said. Gnosticism relies on much of the same things that typical opposition to the war in Iraq does. Conspiracy theories, secret insider information, selective use of sources, and former questions that are now being floated as absolute truth.
The “dead dog” story people are searching for is this:
“The Dead Dog’s Teeth Are White”:
“Malik, son of Dinar, said this: one day Jesus was walking with his followers, and they passed by the carcass of a dog.
“The followers said, ‘How this dog stinks!’
“But Jesus said, ‘How white are its teeth!’”
As I wrote in my original post (click through for CNN video of the Meyer interview):
I can’t think of a better analogy for the false doctrine Professor Meyer promotes. The dog’s teeth may have been white, but the dog will never use them again. These feel-good false gospels put a pretty smile on death.
Just because the dog’s teeth are white doesn’t mean it’s not a smelly, decaying carcass. And “ending” the Iraq war is not at all the same as winning it. The consequences are very different, both for us and for the Iraqis. But in addition to the outcomes of both those situations – people who don’t accept salvation go to hell, a bailout from Iraq would be similar to the one in Vietnam which caused the deaths of millions – I also worry about how gullible and ill-informed we are becoming as a nation. We don’t read, we don’t study history, we can’t tell the difference between fact and fiction. Critical thought and discernment have largely been abandoned, and few seem to miss it. We’re chock full of “knowledge” and very low on wisdom. And debate is practically impossible, especially on college campuses which used to be the bastion of thoughtful discussion. I hate to think of where we’ll be as a society in another ten years.
It’s always going to be difficult to debate this one, because there is a great deal of ignorance going along. I was able to personally discuss it a couple of weeks ago with a friend of mine who is very strongly in favor of the war. We couldn’t be more opposed on what to do in Iraq itself, but it was a calm discussion (though rather involved) because we both view it as a matter of strategy–in the context of the war on terror, what is the best expenditure of our resources?
In that context, while we each regard the other as incredibly wrong neither of us regards the other as either immoral or stupid. We also agree that some force is required, i.e. you will not persuade everyone to be nice through diplomacy, and we agree that some diplomacy is needed, i.e. it is not the best strategy to solve everything by force. Iraq itself then simply becomes a problem of what you apply when and where.
To those who believe that somehow withdrawal from Iraq is going to result in peace I would have to say “Dream on.” We’re far from finished with terrorism, and one of the things that concerns me is that we will likely be needing more force sooner rather than later, and I think we are, as a nation, too mixed up to make the decision clearly and quickly.
And then there’s Pelosi visiting Syria . . . but I suspect you like that even less than I do, which requires some doing.
That’s when a debate can be worthwhile and edifying. These are big issues, and people get frustrated because they feel so strongly about them, but people on both sides seem to substitute emotion for facts and logic. (I seldom go to Free Republic, but when I do I can’t help but notice that many commenters are mirror-images of Kos commenters.) I think of people like us as “the grownups” and the rest as rather dangerous children. That comes off a great deal more arrogant than I really mean, but I don’t know how else to phrase it. People just seem more out of control these days, as if anger = “authenticity” = truth. No idea how to stop that…
You seem to say that the truth can be found in history, but Marvin Meyer simply lays the history of the early church plain. He is an academic, not an apologist or polemicist.
Is the idea that one is the sole possessor of truth exclusive to the left or right? I know that some Christians feel that their interpretation of scripture gives them an absolute highground like yourself, but thankfully most allow room for varying opinions.
By the way, if you feel the urge to smack people “upside the head”, you may not have completely absorbed Christ’s teachings.
No one has completely absorbed Christ’s teachings. Especially Gnostics, who are relying on texts which do not present an accurate picture of the thoroughly Jewish, resurrection believing Christ who was both God and Man, the sinless atonement for our sins, and the resurrected Redeemer. What Meyers is relying on is not accepted church history, and has been repeatedly debunked since the first century by wiser and better people than me. And gnosticism’s incorrectness has absolutely nothing at all to do with left or right; I was pointing out similar characteristics that I’ve noticed in Gnostics, some anti-war folks, and for that matter, 9/11 truthers.
Ben Witherington has a great deal on Gnosticism – check it out.