Option C

I've not been a fan of Trump or Hillary from the beginning. With Hillary, it's been the pending trial - I already have one president with "postponed" investigations (approx 783 of them, to be specific) and I don't want a second. With Trump, it's been his character and demeanour - from the get-go, he's struck me as a populist and demagogue, the likes of which I used to see every election in South Africa or a neighbouring country.

Now, courtesy of my South African upbringing, I am not overly close-minded to minor political parties. After all, at least one new party is formed every election back home. In previous years, I had dismissed third parties as a trivial waste of a vote, especially when there was a candidate I didn't mind voting for.

I watched in horror as Dr Carson, Rubio, and Kasich, the three Republican candidates that I, as a conservative-leaning moderate felt able to vote for, fell before the steamroller that was Trump. I admire Kasich for his conviction and unwillingness to step down - his tenacity spoke volumes about his character and, as more came out about him, I continued to be impressed, but I digress.

Seeing the Trump/Hillary split, I began researching third party options. I was only familiar with the Libertarian and Green parties and so, settled on Johnson as my choice for president. Now, yes, I've heard the arguments from Trump/Hillary supporters that "A vote for a third party is a vote for Hillary/Trump," and I happen to disagree wholeheartedly. Yes, electoral college muddies things up, but a third party vote is not a vote in favour of "The Opposition"; it is a vote in favour of that specific third party. Consider the following opinion:

Comment from discussion I want to vote third party, but....

Like the Redditor I've quoted above, I'm of the mindset that too many people vote Republican or Democrat over their personal convictions because they're afraid that everyone else is going to do the same. If everyone who was considering voting for a third party did so, there would be a massive disruption. Would the GOP or Dems probably still win? Perhaps, but it wouldn't be a clean, near 50-50 division. Instead, I wouldn't expect either party to get above 40%, let alone reach 40%. Can you imagine the effect on the political climate if neither Republicans nor Democrats obtained higher than 35%?

Back to my story.

In the last month or so, I became personally convicted over my view towards presidential candidates. My old view was very pragmatic - I didn't care if they were pro-choice, pro-gay, pro-anything-opposing-Christianity. None of that I deemed necessary to run a country, so I simply voted on policy and capability. I looked down sometimes on Christians who would rather vote for a pro-lifer whom I thought was a poorer choice for the country as opposed to a better-qualified pro-choicer. Gary Johnson, in my opinion, was one such choice. I disagreed with his platform on many areas, but I was willing to vote for him as the best of three options.

Then my perspective was changed.

I don't remember what prompted the change, but I had a priority shift. Part of my realisation, you see, was that it was of greater importance to honour God than to pick my choice of what's best for the country. After all, Ahab was an excellent king by the world's standards. He conquered territory, forged treaties, and maintained Israel as a prosperous nation, but because he would not honour God, he is considered a terrible king. Conversely, David was nobody's pick to be king. He was the youngest son of a small shepherding family, but he sought to honour god to the best of his abilities and God gave him what he needed to rule effectively.

That realisation coincided with a post from The Gospel Coalition. The fact that there is a Christian Democratic party in the US that seeks to honour God through the planks in their platform blew my mind. I thought most Christians, like myself, just tried to make do with unpalatable options, but we don't need to. Someone else, fed up with the lack of God-honouring options, decided to make their own party in the mid-late 2000's. Now, do I agree with all aspects of the ASP's platform? I wouldn't say so - I tend to lean a little more fiscally conservative than they do - but I do agree with their overarching goal, vision, and motivation enough that I am willing to throw my lot with a young, small party. I can vote for a candidate whom I trust will seek to honour God and have faith that God will give what is needed to run this country.

This is my Option C. What's yours?

The Christian Race

With police violence protests, #blacklivesmatter protests, and counter protests flying everywhere throughout the U.S. and much of the world, I thought I'd share something I read today that might, hopefully, spur on those of us who claim to follow Christ:

For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit. For the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot should say, "Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body," that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear should say, "Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body," that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, yet one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, "I have no need of you," nor again the head to the feet, "I have no need of you." On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.
1 Corinthians 12:12‭-‬26 ESV

Tell me please, church, where it tells us to let our brothers and sisters struggle alone?

Paul is pretty clear here. As a white Christian, when Black Christians, Hispanic Christians, Asian Christians, Arabic Christians, Coptic Christians or other Christians suffer, I suffer. Why? We are one body.

Take a look at your body. When your toe jams into the doorway, it's not just your toe that is affected. When your tiny, seemingly purposeless appendix gets infected, your entire abdomen feels the pain.

We are all equal under Christ. There is no division by race, status, money, or language, but that doesn't mean we are all the same. Just as the body is composed of many parts, the church is a conglomeration of thousands of backgrounds, races, languages, social strata, and perspectives. If we are ever to achieve unity within the church, let alone the country, we need to begin by appreciating and supporting our brethren from different backgrounds. We need to apologise where necessary, lend a hand where needed, break bread together when able, and see each other's humanity and worth at all times.

The Ethics Dialogue

So, many times we tend to take the Christian ethical perspective for granted. After all, we live in a nominal Christianity-soaked atmosphere, where many individuals are peddling Christian-flavoured perspectives, thoughts, and other mice, moral "Christianities".

One of the cool things about being a medical student is seeing where scientific naturalism/humanism and Christianity stand at odds and there are few places where this is near as evident as in ethics, especially medical ethics.

Today, let us consider inherited congenital chronic disorders (think ALD, Cystic Fibrosis, Down's Syndrome, etc).

Many such disorders once had an average life expectancy barely into childhood. Here lies the first conflict. A naturalistic and/or humanistic philosophy might say that we should let natural selection run its course. After all, they would probably not contribute much to the human population. From a Christian perspective, we see a couple strong, influencing factors, revolving around the posits that life is a special creation of God, that man is created in the image of God, and that human life is valuable to God. From this position, then, it makes ethical sense to seek preservation and prolonging of life, regardless of genetic anomaly.

Modern medicine, now, has enabled patients with an inherited congenital disorder to live longer lives, many with an average lifespan well into an adulthood. That, of course, prompts another, newer ethical question: Many such patients reaching adulthood may be wondering about and wanting to have children - is it morally or ethically right for an individual with an inherited congenital disease to conceive children? Similarly, is it moral or ethical to disallow such an individual to conceive? Lastly, what are the moral and ethical costs associated with adoption? Given the shorter lifespan and constant, present treatment and expenses, should adoption agencies consider such a patient as a potential parent for adoption?

So, those are a ton of questions to ponder. I can give the cold, hard, far absolute scientific naturalist/humanistic response to the first couple questions. The answer would be a flat "No". The answer would even be no for two carriers to marry and conceive children, because they run the risk of perpetuating undesirable genetic traits in the gene pool. As for the adoption questions, those are a grey area not immediately affected by natural selection and would probably be answered with a "Yes".

Note that most scientists will not lie in this far camp, more likely falling in a more compassionate position. Many may be familiar with the term "eugenics". Eugenics was an application of genetics in population medicine in an effort to purify the human gene pool. That is a historical application of this stance on ethics.

From a Christian perspective, should we allow these individuals to conceive children? I would say that question is not our jurisdiction. We humans do not have the right to determine whether an individual should exist, given that God is the one who decides whether an individual will exist in the first place.

To cease deferring the question, though, I would say the Christian has an ethical and moral obligation to inform a patient of the risks inherent to his or her children, but has no right to tell him or her not to have children. Instead, the patient has full autonomy and the physician is providing more background for a fully-informed decision. Adoption is definitely a viable option, I think, with the only question being the ability of the prospective parents to emotionally, physically, and financially support and care for a child.

These type of ethical dilemmas are entertaining to ponder, particularly the far absolutes. It is of great value that we take time to consider what is right and wrong and the rationales therefore, as they provide us great insight into our own values as well as the values of others.

If you, as the reader have any other perspective, have a question, or feel that I have missed an important point, please let me know.

Nothing to Fear

So, I was doing some thinking and a particularly juicy question popped into mind: "What can Hollywood show us about our fears as a society?" After some thinking, I narrowed it down (for those more versed in older movies, please help me out if I miss some).

In many older movies, the Great Enemy was either aliens or the Nazis/Russians (pick your era). Today, the antagonist varies between science (ranging from climate change to robots, to genetic modification), terrorists, a captor, and society gone mad/anarchic.

For the most part, it's fairly easy to break down what we fear: we fear weakness, and helplessness. We fear being subject to another individual or group with more or better power than we have. We also fearthe unknown - different ideologies, abilities, worldviews. As far as science goes, the trend seen is the destruction caused by our own foolishness or as the tool of a mad person.

What I find most interesting, however, isn't the similarities arcing through the decades, but rather one significant difference. You see, the locus of the fear, the identityof the antagonist has shifted. In the past, the enemy was an alien or foreign power. Today, that role is filled by single individuals. Those individuals could be the everyday man, an intellectual, a leader, it a small group or cell.

The fears, now, haven't changed. So, what about society has changed to provoke such a locus shift?

Well, some of it is political. We no longer fear the Nazis or Soviets and instead fear terrorists, because they are the dominant political threat. What I would argue, though, is that a great deal of this shift is due to a change in society's ideology.

In the last century, America has shifted from an axiomatic, society-first ideology to a more anarchic, self-first society. In D&D terms, we've gone from lawful good/lawful neutral to chaotic neutral. What this means is that, subconsciously, we have realised that we cannot trust our peers. After all, if everyone determines what is right by their own opinion, there is nothing preventing them from doing whatever is necessary to further their goals. In light of this, we have no time to bother with fearing an alien power; we're too busy fearing that the familiar might not actually be so.

What does this mean, then?

Well, I think society craves order. Now, I'm not calling for top-down, governmental order. Citizens will chafe at that and ultimately seek its downfall. Instead, what needs to change is the ideology of the masses. Until there is a sense of order coming from the ground up, society will never feel completely at peace.

Science - A State of Affairs

What with my degree being in biology, I do a fair bit of reading and thinking about science in general, science in relation to the Bible, and the nature of science itself. Recently, it is thoughts on the last which have been occupying my mind.

• What is the purpose of science?
• How does one approach science?
• What does science show?

And so forth.

Well, I decided to do a small bit of research and reading on an interesting field known as the philosophy of science, which asks and seeks answers to these questions about science in general as well as to those in specific areas of science.

While reading through a number of the philosophical theories, I saw manners in which almost all of them work, to a degree, within their different aspects and I also was able to enlighten myself on some of the key positions of modern science today.

In a nutshell, science today consists of two camps operating from a coherentist ideology (Statements are justified by virtue of being part of a coherent system). One, creationism and intelligent design, is fairly frank about its basis in coherentism. The other, modern, secular science claims axiomatic assumptions (key, foundational statements about science), but these assumptions are merely outpourings of the larger coherent system or paradigm.

So, if the framework of science consists truly of a set of coherent systems, what then is its purpose and how is science even conducted?

As for the purpose of science, many would claim at first light that it's role is to discover truth, an epistemological position, to be sure, and a noble one at that, but I see science playing a more utilitarian role. Science serves as a tool to further refine and establish one's paradigm. By means of example, we see many creationists and intelligent designers using science in a logical manner to uphold the presence of a divine creator or possibly divine designer. Conversely, evolutionists and other secular scientists use science to establish and uphold the absence of the divine. In both cases science has become merely a tool in the hands of the scientists.

How science is conducted, then, is a rather complex entity. Deduction (following a series of true statements to a conclusion that is necessarily true) and induction (following a series of observations to a conclusion that is probably true) come into play fairly often. These are used often in laboratory sciences and in matters not affecting the overarching paradigm. When discussing paradigm-defining discoveries, abductive reasoning (following a series of statements and observations to a conclusion that best fits) is the modus operandi. By the use of abductive reasoning, we can see that each paradigm operates as a true paradigm, with the entities ascribing to each system modifying minor details as new discoveries arise, interpreting new discoveries as best fits the paradigm, and seeking to work out current or new glitches in order to have a fully coherent, established system of science.

That being said, when an individual finds that the discoveries at hand cannot be effectively worked into his or her current paradigm, then the individual must ignore the new information (and in doing so, commit academic dishonesty), create a theory in absence of further evidence (e.g. punctuated equilibrium), or abandon the paradigm for another, which is often the case where too many inconsistencies occur.

In the face of all of this, what is the take-away for the church?

1. We need to filter through much of the published scientific literature for the truth beneath the biases.
2. We need to use the discoveries present to highlight Biblical truth and show evidence for a creator.
3. We need to uncover our theories in absence and address them, while simultaneously highlighting those of our opponents and our solutions thereto.