The Public Square/The Case Against Google

Zachary Gappa has a good article on Townhall posted here.

He confronts the sinister and pervasive religious discrimination against Christians in the public square, all done in the name of "secularism."

A lawsuit against Google in the UK makes his point explicitly. Basically, Google refuses to run ads pertaining to religious views on abortion while it freely accepts pro choice, abortion clinic ads, etc. Rather than making the editorial decision not to run any ads dealing with abortion, it has only restricted the opportunity for pro-life ads to pop up, when "abortion" shows up in the search window.

Unfortunately, the media is hopelessly shallow and/or agenda driven, to acknowledge and dissect, what is going on here in the cultural debate; additionally, our public education system is hopelessly incapable, and for the most part unwilling, to teach the necessity of integrity in public discourse. Therefore, the entire colloquy continues, incessantly, devoid of the very foundational prerequisites of honest debate, ie., logic, veracity and authenticity. The entire exercise is based on a lie.

What is going on is blatent religious discrimination against one sector, Christians.

Many, in the religious community, fail to stand up against this discrimination because, in a sense, they have accepted the premise. Part of the blame must be attributed to the Church itself, in that, its own attempts at catechesis have been inexplicably narrow in terms of how it defines "faith." Faith, is not believing some set of ideas, for which there is no empirical evidence! Faith, is the actuating, underlying reality, which allows us to operate intellectually, psychologically, volitionally, even physically.

Perhaps every Christian should read the Christian existentialist, Paul Tillich's book, "The Dynamics of Faith." In a few pages it completely changes one's paradigm in regard to what "faith" is.

Tillich's explantion comes much closer to the true nature of "faith" than what is taught in most churches.

As Gappa describes it in his article, "faith" is simply the framework through which one views reality. An atheist makes certain presumptions upon which he bases all the rest of his opinions, including those made in the public arena. Notwithstanding the fact that individuals may never acknowledge or investigate their own existential presumptions, never the less, their lives are lived in obedience to them.

If one had no "framework" through which to view reality, he would be a completely disintegrated personality. We call degrees of that, mental illness; we call a complete lack of such a structure, insanity.

So, whether one believes there is no God, or whether he is operating on Pascal's wager, or, whether he is existentially committed to the, "Thou," his framework of "faith" will inevitably shape his opinions as he participates in the "public square."

The acknowledgement of this embarrassingly simple fact is almost entirely absent from our consciousness. In practice, what this amounts to, is barring the Christian point of view from the discussion. It is a lie and it is sinister. For public schools, the media, the judiciary and any other public institution to inculcate this view is unconscionable.

Christians must first take upon themselves the self-reflective task to examine the nature of "faith" itself, then, we must courageously engage the battle to restore our rightful place in the "public square."

It appears The Christian Institute in the UK has engaged the battle, against Google!