Freedom of Speech and Religion

 

Bezalel Smotrich started a firestorm after he spoke with a receptive audience, “We all want the State of Israel to follow the law of the Torah,” Let’s be honest, if this had been the entirety of his statement, it still should not have elicited any rebuke nor should it have started what can only be decried as sheer panic while instigating what we can only describe as a vile and venomous hatred. His audience was largely, if not totally, in favor and accepting of what Bezalel Smotrich had stated before he added a little caveat, which, we are willing to bet, was seldom reported with anything near the hyperventilating hysteria as the introductory statement. The remainder of the critical section reads, “we just can’t because there are people who think differently and we need to get along with them.” Now that sounds like adding the honest assessment where the opposition to such a move is currently too strong and opposed to such a state. All Smotrich had consciously stated was his desire and the reason that such a desire need be checked before one enters the halls of power, the Knesset, simply because Israel, as she is currently populated with almost half the Jews not being particularly religious or not at all religious and along with the mainstream media make a loud cry of lament and agony merely at the mention of the Torah becoming the law of the land, are not to this point in their slowly evolving evolution moving inexorably towards a more religious nation. But Bezalel Smotrich did not claim that he was planning on introducing something which not only called for Torah observance but recognized that there exists far too much resistance to such an idea for such legislation to pass becoming law. But Smotrich could have stated something so benign such as, ‘the Torah has lessons from which we could all take benefit.’ There would have been those who would have yelled and screamed to an even higher level with the media making sure to use all their stored and ready hyperbole to drive the hysteria.

 

The insinuation that should Israel decide as an overwhelming majority that the time has arrived to prepare and work to establish the Messianic Age and hopefully make Israel prepared and deserving of the Messiach, that Israel would become a theocracy similar in its visions as Iran and is actually more preposterous than if one would claim that Israel, due to her relatively sizable population who favor socialism are taking Israel towards becoming an Atheist Communist nation similar to the USSR. What is amazing about most of the media in Israel is that were somebody to announce their desire to make Israel a socialist nation where the rich are burdened with exorbitant taxation in order to eliminate poverty, they would treat this news as an inspirational vision for the Israeli future and a step towards their desired goal. The media had a similar outbreak of hyperventilation when retired General Rafi Peretz made a favorable statement favoring religious Zionism when speaking to a Yeshiva. The leftist media is so vehemently against any and everything which has even the slightest taint of religiosity as if it is bringing on the End of Days. Their view of religion is that it no longer has any place in this modern world. What is beyond irony is that their Secular Humanist-Socialist world view is so solidly entrenched in their minds that religion is treated as an ancient set of rituals which have absolutely no place in their views of the modern world. What makes their anti-religious attitude is that even many physicists are approaching the view of whether or not there was (is) a creator is leading them to believe that there had to be an intelligence behind the evolution of the universe. Some physicists have found one means of proving that a creator is unnecessary by claiming that the reality is a Multiverse where every possible combination of properties possible all exist in at least one of the infinite universes which exist. This allows them to claim that we exist in this universe simply because the right formulae exist describing the forces and dimensions necessary to support our kind of life-form. They would need to accept that there exist infinite universes where life itself, as we know it, even including Tardigrades, is completely impossible. That implies a great waste of dimensions as in their models the vast majority of universes collapse in upon themselves or simply fly apart expanding faster than matter can be permitted to form still becoming a wisp of nothingness. Their model claims that our universe is special in that it has permitted not only life, but intelligent life, assuming that Homo Sapien is actually intelligent. All this theory is, is a means of eliminating the need for a creator and some intelligence behind the formation of our place in our universe. By the way, the media love these physicists as they give erudite backing to their idea that there is no Supreme Being or intelligence behind the formation of our universe. They, and the physicists who back them, will take any theory which removes Hashem from the equation. One could always postulate that Hashem created all of the universes of the Multiverse simply as a means to forming one which was special, our universe.

 

Is the Multiverse Real

 

This brings us to the crux of the situation in which we reside. Academia and the mainstream media along with most of the entertainment media and much of the society have decided that religion is something which was possibly necessary thousands of years ago, but in this modern and so sophisticated society, the most primary intelligence and the control of what is to come in our future comes from the efforts of man himself. They believe that humans are the supreme intelligence and are the means of all which is to come. They are adamantly entrenched in Secular Humanism and insist that socialist governance is the greatest means by which everybody receives that which they might need. When anybody suggests that capitalism or religion have a place in our future, the media and academia unite in denouncing the person who made the offending comments. The media will castigate anyone who deviates one iota from their ideas of a perfect world where mankind is the driving force and there is no higher entity and religion is simply a set of rituals from an era from which humanity has progressed beyond. These beliefs actually have a place out of history. The Hellenistic Greeks also believed that mankind was at the absolute pinnacle of evolution and there could be nothing more advanced or perfect than the human being. They worshiped the human form and believed that upon birth a person was deemed to be the coming of perfection. In ancient Greek society, were a child born with any defect physically, such a child was permitted the graces of death as they were not the perfect human form, the ultimate form in all of creation. This idea that humans are the ultimate form of creation and there is nothing beyond the human being is far from a new idea as the Greeks expounded such a belief and the Romans were close behind. Yes, sure they had their gods, as we are merely human and despite the almost unlimited abilities any human might have where they were considered almost equal to the gods, they still knew that a human was not omnipotent. The Jews at that time also believed that the human being was at the pinnacle of creation. The difference is that in Judaism there is a creator, Hashem, and we are but his chosen creation and everything around us is credited to Hashem. The Greeks and Romans had their gods for everything from fire to lightning to the sustenance they consumed but their gods were more human than noble. Judaism is different in that people, unless chosen as were the prophets, are nowhere near the level of Hashem, the creator of all that is. The Greeks, in particular, believed that many of the best amongst them were on such a level as to argue with their gods where in Judaism, with the possible exception of Moses during the Exodus, nobody was of sufficient power or ability to argue with Hashem. In Judaism, we look to Hashem to provide when we are unable and pray that we are worthy of his favor. Hashem reacted to the Jewish people in a manner directly connected to the ability and actual enactment of following Hashem’s commandments as expounded in Torah.

 

The Torah has been the foundation stone for the Jewish People for over three thousand years. But that is far from the end of the story of the Torah and that which it teaches. All of Judeo-Christianity is based entirely upon the commandments written in the Torah and upon many of the teachings of the prophets. Modern Western society had been based on the Judeo-Christian ethos for much of the last few thousand years. It remains the cornerstone of all that is the developed modern world. The problem which much of the developed world is currently facing is the lack of planning for the future. Those who have developed the concepts and defining ethos of the latest human belief system, Secular Humanism, is that the one, themselves, are the center and most important set of desires which need to be fulfilled. This egocentric set of values has had some serious consequences. The concept of the individual being the most important individual and that they should serve their own needs, desires and wants before they worry about other items. This view has the consequence in that there are no concerns, regards or obligations for the forming of the next generation. As a matter of fact, they see children as something unwanted and an undesirable imposition which would deny them of using all of their efforts and resources for their own pleasures and betterment. This has led to the situation where the people residing in these developed societies and whom are very often well-off not having any children. This is evidenced by the evidence of the swelling numbers of women having abortions. Between 1970 and 2015, the Center for Disease Control reports nearly 45.7 million legal induced abortions decreasing the numbers of births per woman to fall well below the required amount for replacement levels. This has led to the depopulating of Europe to such an extent that they are willing to import any and every potential immigrant as they require far more workers than they have produced through reproduction in order to support the otherwise aging population. This will be the epithet for Secular Humanity as a healthy option for a society proceeding into the future.

 

Offspring and a dedication to the following generations being a central pillar of Judeo-Christian society made for a far healthier society where the future was guaranteed. Some people have equated abortion with the idolatrous sacrifice of their children, often newborns, to Baal. That may be slightly overt but the reference is well understood. Certainly, late term abortions could easily be equated as such. One of the misconceptions when it comes to Judaism is that all abortions are forbidden. This is not true as Judaism does permit abortive procedures when the life of the mother is endangered. This makes sense when one remembers that half of the children birthed did not survive to age five, thus an adult woman was far more viable than any unborn fetus and thus the life of main concern. This is definitive threat to the life of the mother, not her mental health believing that a child would be an imposition to their life of seeking pleasure for themselves as is often the health condition used in the developed world. That is the main difference between modern atheist Secular Humanism and the traditional religions of Judeo-Christian religions where in Judeo-Christian beliefs are the desires, needs and requirements that children and future generations have the utmost importance while in Secular Humanism children are seen as an imposition interfering with the social lives of those who would otherwise be responsible for the establishing of the next generations. Secular Humanism is based on the now while Judeo-Christian belief is more focused on the future generations as well as a high standard of expectation on the individual to work to assist in the establishing of future generations.

 

In this little fact is the solution which is inevitable. Leftist Secular Humanism, and likely all forms of Secular Humanism regardless of their underpinnings, has one serious problem, they are dependent upon individuals who are disgruntled with religious life to repopulate their ranks as their reproductive rates across the Secular Humanist societies of less than one and a half children per woman, well below the necessary two to two and a quarter children per woman. On the other hand, the religious populations have reproductive rates well above necessary rates and thus they have growing populations. In time, the Secular Humanist population will dwindle while the religious population continues to increase. This sets the framing for the future in that religious populations and societies are at an advantage over those choosing the latest fads, namely Secular Humanism. In the interim, there will be a secular media and academia, but with time these too will be corrected and slowly become more religious and open to the religious dogma. For Europe this means that they will slowly fall under the influence of Islamic doctrine as the religious Muslims will reproduce while the indigenous European population which has largely adopted the Secular Humanist attitude and are not reproducing will be overrun by Islam as the Muslims reproduce at a far higher rate. The United States will fall to the Hispanic populations coming across the southern borders who are religious and have healthy reproductive rates while the former population which had fallen prey to Secular Humanism and lost their religious underpinnings and left the idea that having children is a healthy and necessary requirement of any society behind when they decided to follow the new age Secular Humanist philosophy and stopped having children. The religious, be they Christian, Jewish, Muslim or virtually any similar religion will become the fore of future societies while the new ideas which place the individual as the foremost individual whom one is to serve slowly become extinct. As Torah taught, the main responsibility for one to live a complete and proper life takes more than their obedience to Torah but also their responsibility to the society and its health is reproduction and the care of those youths born as they are your future and the continuation of the principles of the faith. Once again, this is a problem which will be self-repairing with religious thought continuing into the future as it has since years gone by while Secular Humanist self-centered viewpoint will lead to the end of their numbers over time. In the end, Bezalel Smotrich will be able to witness that Torah observant Israel providing he lives long enough for the future to unfold before him, as will the rest of us who are part of the religious Zionist movements.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Racism in Opposition to Deporting Illegal Immigrants

 

It does not matter if it is in the United States, Europe or Israel; the people who are claiming it is inhuman to deport illegal immigrants are steeped in racism. I know their main argument is the deportation is racist at its heart. The truth is it is not racist to deport illegal immigrants if the sole delineating reason in choosing those to be deported is to deport those who came into the country illegally back to the country from which they originated providing they will not be automatically imprisoned or worse. If their originating nation may be problematic and there is a third nation willing to give them refuge from their originating area of the world, then this is also permitted. Thusfar, the main nations in the Developed World who are currently in the process to deport illegal immigrants, not refugees as they are claimed to be by those opposing the action often for political reasons, such as if these people were to become citizens with the right to vote they would support their party; the UNHRC has approved these deportations. But there is one argument which is very vicious and in bad taste, that sending them back to the nation, or even continent, will lead to their being oppressed and suffering because these nations are cruel or the governance is unfit and thus makes their return impossible. These arguments have little if any evidence and are made boldly swiping entire areas as being unfit in which to live simply because of their supposed indecency to one another.

 

Taking such a swipe at the developing world is basically racist as it takes entire regions and claims that because of their populations and the governments they choose and their ways of life are so substandard that they are unfit for life. Swiping Africa, South America or the Islamic world as being unfit place to live and defining life there as torturous for their citizens, does not mean that every nation in the developed world must automatically grant economic asylum to anybody who originated from these areas and have managed to enter the nation in question by any means. Such an argument, if carried to the ultimate, would mean that if somebody from Greece or Italy took a trip to Canada, Britain or Germany they should be permitted to live and work there and become citizens because they came from a nation which was economically less well off. Such an argument carried to the logical conclusion, the entire world would be on their way to Germany, the United States, Britain and Israel and even some locations in China and the remainder of the world would become depopulated. Why not take people and move them to places where their lives would be easier? Well, because it would not take long before the migration was complete, the nations which had been economically well off would become third world nations as they would not be capable of employing or handling the invasion of immigrants. There are reasons that nations need and must be permitted to control the immigrants who enter across their borders. The days of uncontrolled immigration ended with the onset of the industrial revolution as this produces a more skilled workforce with specialized skills and required a more structured and intensive education.

 

It does not do the immigrant any favors to place them in a nation which has a considerably better economic environment if they are not skilled or sufficiently educated to take advantage of the presumed opportunities. If the immigrant is only capable of taking is menial jobs which pay minimal level salary their life may end up less rewarding and with less advantages than they would have had in their native country. There exists a similar example with the dark side of affirmative action in higher education. Too often a minority student who is quite capable of excelling at their State University are admitted to an Ivy League University filling their affirmative action quota, and it really is a quota system, will not succeed and end up failing and once they have failed, finding a university which will accept them becomes more difficult and thus even the State University where they would have excelled will now no longer admit them, or at least not for three or more years. This is described in the book “Please Stop Helping Us” which is summarized in this article by Thomas Sowell. The book also covers such actions with other areas including foreign aid being counterproductive especially when the aid is agricultural products being sent to a nation which had an agrarian economy.

 

The describing the originating nations and continents where these immigrants originate as being so inferior and backwards that even existence in these places should be considered torture is unbelievably racist. Many of these nations are making great strides towards modernity and their standard of living is approaching European standards and exceeding the standard of living in a number of European countries. One can only wonder why it is that these supposed pro-immigrant individuals who are really only pro-illegal-immigrant as they would be against illegal immigrants say from France or Italy being permitted to live despite being illegal in Sweden or the United States. They even are against European immigration to the United States and demand that all immigrants be from Third World as European immigrants are unworthy and do not need the advantage of moving to the United States. They only scream when illegal immigrants are to be returned to their nation of origin or neighboring country willing to take them. A perfect example is in Israel where thirty-thousand illegal immigrants are to be returned either to their nation of origin or a third country willing to accept them as immigrants. The nation which is willing to accept them has a higher-level economy than their nation of origin. Israel is not deporting those who are married, women, children, their parents and those from Darfur. Those being deported are being awarded approximately the equivalent of three-thousand dollars to facilitate their relocation. Still, there are people from the left politically who are demanding these illegal immigrants be permitted to remain in Israel. Some have also made the claim that Israel should be open to any such refugees from Africa or Asia in any numbers which would prefer living in Israel. What these people are actually proposing is the death of Israel and the Jewish Homeland.

 

Those desiring making Israel simply a democracy where anybody in any number be permitted to enter the nation to take advantage of the better economy simply want to end the idea of a Jewish State. We would bet that they would not make the same demand if the nation in question were Japan. The requirements to become a citizen of Japan are:

1) Continuous residence in Japan for five years or more
2) At least 20 years old and otherwise legally competent
3) History of good behavior generally, and no past history of seditious behavior
4) Sufficient capital or skills, either personally or within family, to support oneself
5) Stateless or willing to renounce foreign citizenship

Requirement number three precludes citizenship for illegal immigrant. So, should Japan be required to make an exception and permit citizenship for illegal immigrants from economically challenged nations as is being demanded of European countries, Israel and the United States? Imagine thirteen million Chinese peasant farmers, one tenth the population of Japan’s one-hundred-twenty-seven-million, made their way to Japan, should they offer them citizenship? It should be mentioned that Japan discourages those not of Japanese heritage, even if married to a Japanese spouse, to try to become a citizen. Japan desires to remain the homeland of the Japanese people. Israel has merely eight and a half million citizens, seven percent the population of Japan. Japan has a total area of three-hundred-seventy-eight thousand square kilometers and Israel has a mere twenty-one thousand square kilometers which is five and a half percent. Israel has just over four-hundred citizens per square kilometer and Japan has just over three-hundred-thirty-five citizens per square kilometer.

 

Map of Japan with Israel Imposed to Scale

 

So, if you thought that Japan should not be required as, like most people, you believed Japan to be overcrowded already, well, Israel has a slightly higher population density than Japan. What this comes back to is one of our least favorite but consistent threat, those who desire to erase the Jewish State by any means possible. Forcing Israel to accept any and all illegal immigrants who cross their border would be a guaranteed method which is probably why a five judge panel of the usually leftist Israel Supreme Court ruled against the complaint filed demanding that these illegal immigrants be granted refugee status due to economic reasons. This infuriated many leftist NGO’s, mostly those who despite registering as Israeli are funded and have their main operations and financing from outside Israel along with American and European NGOs whose main area is targeting Israel for complaints and court actions have now decided to raise as much noise and negative publicity as they possibly are capable. This racket is manufactured and actually has little actual support with Israelis. Many of the people protesting are in Israel on a protest vacation, and why not as Israel is a nice place to vacation and they are actually here for the Tel Aviv nightlife, so daytime protests can be accommodated providing they are not too early in the day. There are some who are protesting online or from their home location. It is all simply noise which is much ado about nothing as the decisions have been made, the arrangements completed, and everybody is being tight lipped about everything. Why allow for additional aggravation or allow the busybodies more targets. Israel has wisely decided to be the only target while not letting on where these illegal immigrants are destined until it is too late to pressure that nation. But at least Israel, and likely the United States as well, are used to receiving grief for anything and everything the government does with demonstrations and court actions. At least this time the Supreme Court of Israel actually made a good decision for the preservation of the state.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Of Science, Christianity, Jews, War, Demography and Islam

 

We can cover the initial item, the war against the Jewish People, with a simple recognition of historical fact which has become so well known and uncontestable, as stated in the Passover Haggadah, “In every generation one rises up against us.” That simple sentence states the minimal condition where there is one person who will rise up and call for our murders. The unstated and unfortunate reality is that one is often a political leader, a leader of a nation, or the dictator of an empire who is the one rising to destroy us. The list is filled with illustrious names of their eras with names such as Pharos Ramses I and Pharos Ramses II, Haman, Nebuchadnezzar, King Ahasuerus, Tsar Nicholas II, Ottoman rulers Sultan Mehmed I, Mehmed II, Suleiman I, Mustafa I, Murad IV, Suleiman II, Mahmud I, Abdülhamid I, Mehmed V, Musa Çelebi and the remainder of the Ottoman leadership throughout the ranks all used the Jews to fund their positions. This continued from invader to invader and foreign rulers and dispersion sent Jews throughout the Roman and later the Ottoman Empires and beyond to every corner of the globe driven most often through the necessity to flee pogroms, rioting or genocidal efforts to destroy the small minority of Jews within almost every border.

 

Probably the least obvious but greatest surprise was the reaction by the Japanese High Command when visiting Nazi SS officers demanded that the Japanese release their Jews and send them to the German death camps. The Japanese flatly refused the German demands threatening to turn against Germany should these demands persist. The Nazi officers left empty handed and with much challenged authority after having their wings clipped. The Palestinians and their Arab and Iranian backers are the most evident threat to Jews with many others in the background ready to launch into the picture. Anti-Semitism has returned across much of the globe including Europe, Russia, the Arab World and even to include the United States and the rest of the Developed World. The new anti-Semitism includes two new forms, anti-Israelism and anti-Zionism. The sad part is that many far left Jews are what are referred to as Post-Zionists who no longer believe in a Jewish nation and instead call for a joint nation allowing all the Arabs claiming to have been dispossessed to return with full rights. The small problem is that under their solutions, hundreds of thousands of Arabs claiming refugee status would take advantage of the opportunity to move to the area and live in an area where the economy functions. These Arabs would far outnumber the Jews who would soon find Arab rule destroying their efforts and stealing all that has been built leading to their eventual destruction. Israel would be dissolved and the Jews fleeing or dead should such a plan ever be enacted. The problem is the leftist parties already within the Israeli governance who are willing to do whatever it takes to get into power and enact just such a dream under the idea of solving the problems. There are two ways of solving problems, allow the problem to win or to continue the limited immigration rather than opening the floodgates and surrendering to the coming destruction of all which has been built.

 

All right, so the Jews have been persecuted in both the Muslim and Christian worlds nearly constantly and before by the major idolatrous powers for close to four thousand years should one include the exile in Egypt which was where distrust of the Jews, known then as the Hebrews, first began and has continued unabated ever since. But the Christians have controlled almost half of the world for the past eighteen centuries, how are they now included as persecuted? That is an easy one to answer, there was the remainder of the world which they did not control and sometimes they suffered from Christian upon Christian violence such as the War of the Roses. the Hundred Years’ War, Second Hundred Years’ War (the first lasted 116 years and the second lasted 126 years), the Eighty Years’ War and the entirety of the Catholic-Protestant wars including the Thirty Years’ War and more all of which were ended by the treaties named the Peace of Münster and the Peace of Westphalia. Another war which has taken many forms and been fought on many fronts have been the wars between the ever expanding Islamic forces against Christendom which started as early as 622 AD or 625 AD (see map below) depending on the source, but all sources would agree that Christianity was being conquered by Islam and was well underway by 650 AD (see map below). This war is still being fought today, at least by Islam even if not by Christendom.

 

Christian World 500AD

 

 

Islamic Conquests Under the Caliphs

 

Christianity has been facing an even more insidious encroachment which has been eating at it from within. This has been the modernization and the growing Secular Humanism belief where there is no longer any reason to believe in a Supreme Being as technology and science have described most of what was originally attributed to the gods or to a Supreme Being. The rest of the reasoning for Secular Humanism claims that humans can act honestly and ethically without any expectations of rewards or punishments from any higher source. The only need is to rely on ourselves, our better inclinations, the laws we write, and the communal expectations and limits which are mutually agreed upon to prevent actions which would be deemed undesirable. Should we have any problems, those can be resolved through government actions and laws which will become the new guides as to how we live our lives. The new guardians of our humanity will be the new anointed ones in long robes, the judiciary, which will act by the cold application of the laws. This revolution has all but stripped the heart out of Christian Europe leaving it without the steadying guidance of a traditional set of moral truths which have been replaced by what one would expect of any faith where mankind is the highest moral judge, hedonism. This hedonistic value system which places the personal freedom and pleasures above any other expectation has led to a precipitous drop in the reproductive rate leaving Europe, including Russia, with a steadily declining population which has an ever increasing average age as in many instances the reproductive rate has fallen to 1.5 births per woman or even lower. Some examples include Moldova and Portugal with 1.2 births per woman; Bosnia-Herzegovina, Greece, Poland and Spain at 1.3 births per woman; Cyprus, Hungary, Italy, Malta and Slovakia at 1.4 births per woman; Austria, Bulgaria, Channel Islands, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Germany, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Romania, Serbia, Switzerland and the Ukraine at 1.5 births per woman. The replacement rate in the developed world is 2.1 births per woman with it reaching as high as 3.4 births per woman in some developing countries with higher infant mortality rates and with the global average being 2.33 births per woman. Modernity and the related influences have also had an effect upon the Islamic world or, as some have theorized, the conditions have grown unbearable to the point that people no longer desire to bring children into this world in these countries which does not explain why their birth rates were so much higher ten, twenty, thirty and fifty years ago. The evidence is the introduction of electricity, television, modern comforts and conveniences have brought the same problems to the Islamic world as it develops as it has the Christian world though in the Islamic world none dare claim they are Secular Humanists for fear of being executed. The other variable is education and literacy. These are related issues and for the majority of MENA nations, they have just started to witness changes in these areas. Below we have a graph of the literacy rates for women aged fifteen to twenty-four years of age in Oman, Iran, Algeria, Egypt and Morocco as these are the prime start of childbearing ages and increased literacy usually leads to higher grade education and even increased college admissions which raise the age of initial childbearing thus lowering the average number of births per woman in a nation.

 

Literacy in Oman, Iran, Algeria, Egypt and Morocco

 

Where this will make a difference in the future is with lower births, Islam will soon approach or possibly equal Christians in reproductive rates and thus an equilibrium will have been met. The main factor which has spurred the recent upsurge in Islamic expansion was a combination of retaining high reproductive rates while experiencing lower infant mortality rates thus leading to a rapid increase in populations which strained the economic growth, or lack thereof, across the MENA states. This was brought on with the introduction of modern medical facilities in many if not most of the major cities thus providing better prenatal and post-birth care resulting in lower infant mortality and better reproductive health for the women as well. But modernity has started to catch up in the form of education and literacy which has provided women with more information and a greater opportunity to work and find economic improvement. These are items which most often have produced dropping reproductive rates in nations worldwide. The MENA nations of the Muslim world are no different. With a more steady population returning, these nations are not going to be likely to feel any need for expansionist policies nor will they be demanding greater ability for their excess population to migrate into Europe and the rest of the developed world. Further, as their world develops they will find the need to retain their populations, especially their now educated population, and this will lessen their pressures on the rest of the world. This will lessen the pressures Islam has been pressing on the Christian world and the lines will remain drawn as they currently are with hopefully a lessening in the levels of violence experienced in these regions, particularly the African Transition Zone (see map below) where some of the greatest Islamic-Christian conflicts have occurred.

 

African Transition Zone

 

This will still leave the threats posed by the increasing Secular Humanism but there may even be a light in the darkness here as well. The last centuries have seen science remove much of the mysteries in our lives and explain away things we thought mystical removing their magic and cementing explanations. Now the scientists are really getting into the very fabric which our universe consists of and they are finding some things which are changing opinions and the argument. The first item was the realization that had any of numerous constants been different by even less than one single percentage point in relationship with all of the others, then our universe would have been very different or not have existed at all. Even had it simply been different, that would still have made lifeforms, such as ourselves, impossible, and that does put a different look to things. We are now realizing how extremely special and precious our universe actually is and that it appears in many ways to have been designed especially for life to exist. Still, even with such a design we are realizing that intelligent life, if that is what we qualify as being, may not be anywhere near as abundant and actually so special that there may only be a small number of other intelligent species in our galaxy if even one other and even so, they may not exist in our time frame. We are starting to see that we may be the only intelligent life in the Milky Way at this time and as such, we may not find other intelligent life with whom we would have anything in common. It may be that if there is another intelligent lifeform, they have colonized other star systems and are so far advanced from us that we would have nothing in common, and we would be fortunate if they even considered us intelligent. On the other hand, we may be the first and foremost intelligent lifeform and should we reach the point of colonizing other star systems, then when the next intelligent lifeform evolves, we might be so far in advance of them that we would not realize their being intelligent, though we would probably think so much of ourselves that we would posit we would be capable of realizing their intelligence. Our lack of ability to see the abilities of animals on our own planet does place this in danger.

 

What does any of this have to do with the threats to Christianity and Judaism or belief in a Supreme Being at all? What would be the result of science proving that there was an actual intelligent design to the universe? What happens when science postulates the existence of a Supreme Being which came before and may very well exist currently and will continue existing even after our universe dies? Does that definition sound familiar to anybody? Should science, or a fair number of scientists which has already begun, start to make an argument, then religion, Judaism and Christianity would find their beliefs becoming more aligned with science, actually, it would be science becoming aligned with them, and this could benefit both sides of that equation. There will always be those areas of doubt where science has yet to assign numbers and equations and is still somewhat fuzzy on what is occurring, but we are not referring to using lack of knowledge as the reasoning for Supreme Being. What we are referencing is that science will have found formulations and such proofs and items which point to there being a necessity for an ordering intelligence to the universe and that this creates the need in science for a Supreme Being. Professor Einstein believed in the existence of an ordering logic behind the universe and was a believer in Hashem. His belief may not have fit with your average Rabbi, Priest, Minister or Cleric, but at least he saw a necessary place for such belief. We know that Physicist Stephen Hawking is a doubter who does not believe or find any need for a Supreme Being. But what can you expect for a person who also lends his name to the BDS Israel campaign, which is an attempt to economically cripple the Jewish State. Guess one could say that Stephen Hawking and the Supreme Being are not in agreement, and we know on which side with which we prefer to reside. But, science is growing closer to religion and religion has learned from their mistakes and has left room for science, being assured in their belief that the proof is out there. Christianity can take faith from the fact that the Jews remain a force in the world that there is hope for them to have similar lasting power providing they remain open to ideas and willing to meet facts with reasonable skepticism and sufficient confidence to admit when perhaps they had made an error in their previous position. We can only hope that the world of science can be equally acceptive and honest.

 

Beyond the Cusp