PJTV: Happy Father's Day: Why Dads Matter
In the spirit of Father's Day, I have Dr. Richard Driscoll, author of You Still Don't Understand
back on to talk about why fathers matter. His theory? That fatherhood is an extraordinarily versatile benefit that fueled progress and the prosperity that now gives us the options to condemn men and marginalize fathers. "So long as we fail to recruit men into families, we face a lower quality of life for ourselves and we bequeath the same to our posterity." But fatherhood and marriage is not such a good deal these days for men. Driscoll discusses what to do about it.
You can watch the show here.
back on to talk about why fathers matter. His theory? That fatherhood is an extraordinarily versatile benefit that fueled progress and the prosperity that now gives us the options to condemn men and marginalize fathers. "So long as we fail to recruit men into families, we face a lower quality of life for ourselves and we bequeath the same to our posterity." But fatherhood and marriage is not such a good deal these days for men. Driscoll discusses what to do about it.You can watch the show here.
posted by Helen at 11:46 AM
21 Comments:
I agree with most everything said in this video – except, of course, where Dr. Driscoll recommends state intervention to enforce a “non-feminist marriage.” I think he’s on the right path, but I think the path should be to push the government out of marriage, and return it back to what it once was, and then enforce it as such. For those that find real marriage to be too burdensome, let them live under the laws of the state’s phony marriage and accept the consequences thereafter… but for those that want a real marriage and family, they should do the following:
5 Reasons Why Christians Should NOT Obtain a Marriage License.
Btw, if a woman would object to marrying you under these circumstances, a man would be well within in his rights to turn the tables on her and ask her “why” she needs the State to be involved, and exactly what extras she is bringing to the table to offset this raw deal she is insisting upon. (Got a Porsche 911 for me to drive somewhere in your back pocket?)
It’s not perfect because of the State being able to enforce child-custody/support at the whims of women, but those serious about saving marriage ought to pick up their Bibles, which is the foundation for marriage, and beat the government over the head with this higher authority than the state, until they succumb – the same as was done in creating the Magna Carta.
You still swear on the Bible in court… the Bible supercedes the state. I trust the Bible way more than the state.
Good info in the video, thanks for doing it.
Rob, that is a very interesting perspective on marriage. Thanks for sharing it. I will need to do some thinking about it.
Trey
Yeah, it's kinda neat, eh Trey?
What does the President of the United States put his hand on when swearing his oath of office?
Why?
Because according to the Founding Fathers, God's law supercededes Man's laws (according to the view of John Locke).
1 - God's Laws
2 - Natural Laws
3 - Civil Laws
The lower down laws MUST coincide with the higher ups.
All of English Common-law is based this way... I know Dr. Helen's blog is about studying culture... but, it is impossible to study a culture without also studying its religion - ask any anthropologist.
The US Constitution tells us that our rights are granted to us by OUR CREATOR! And where does the "right" to marry come from? From God - as explained in the article.
God's laws supercede man's laws... and there is a pretty strong case for this. It should stand up in court.
Christians have to start STANDING UP for the MECHANICS of the Bible, rather than simply wallowing in the spiritual.
The Bible is the answer!
Our civilization has been built on this book for nearly 3.5 Millenia... it is just ABSURD that we ignore its signficance... no serious antrhopologist would study a culture while ignoring it's most focal point... the religion.
The answer is THE BIBLE... it always was, and always will be - it is the ship that brought us here, and it is the proper vessel into the future!
We didn't get here by accident.
Well, I think it is a mistake to worship a book.
The Bible is a good book, but it's not the only book. In fact, there is a large body of writings, mostly from the early Church fathers (see Augustine's On Christian Doctrine, for example), that surround the Bible and that without which the Bible cannot be fully understood.
Jesus gave the world Holy Tradition. Holy Tradition gave the world the Church. And the Church gave the world the Bible.
Thus elevating the Bible is misplaced worship. The proper worship is placed on the Holy Tradition, which is the Sacraments, of which marriage is the highest.
That said, I found this interview interesting. But the good professor misses the salient point. In today's world, with no fault divorce, marriage is an anomaly.
What feminism did was change the fundamental relationship between male and female from cooperation to competition. Since the modern woman now has nothing to offer a man other than sex, certainly not a life partner, a helpmate and a mother for his children, feminism reduces all women to prostitutes, exchanging sexual favors for personal profit.
This is animal existence. There is a reason why Jesus sanctified marriage as the highest sacrament, because the union formed by male and female in a co-equal relationship, fully realized in the physical body of their child, is Man in the image of God.
Imagine a triangle.
Child Holy Spirit
Male Female Father Son
This is the source of all creation.
Future
Past Present
And it is this that elevated Man from animal to human existence, and laid the foundation for civilization.
The destruction of this relationship, through feminism (the elevation of the female above the male), no fault divorce and abortion on demand, is the end of civilization.
So it's no wonder that we see women today behaving like chimpanzees. Or men behaving like apes. The sad part of it is that the children suffer most for it, lost as they are in animal existence, with no parents to lift them up to be humans.
I don't mean to drag this further off-topic, but since the cat's been let out of the bag I figure I'll just jump on it.
I think he’s on the right path, but I think the path should be to push the government out of marriage, and return it back to what it once was, and then enforce it as such.
Marriage has always been a civil affair. Before the state became involved in marriage, crafting policies aimed at achieving various special interest groups' ends, religious officials were involved in marriage, crafting polices aimed at achieving various special interest groups' ends. Removing the state from the institution of marriage (doesn't that just make you think of institutionalized?) and handing the reigns back to the religious officials won't make it any more of a "sacred" institution. It will simply be managed differently.
You still swear on the Bible in court… the Bible supercedes the state.
I've been to court before and wasn't asked to swear on the Bible. Perhaps you live somewhere where new-fangled things like the interweb are still novelties?
The US Constitution tells us that our rights are granted to us by OUR CREATOR!
Where in the US Constitution is anything about "OUR CREATOR" mentioned?
Our civilization has been built on this book for nearly 3.5 Millenia...
Prior to the New Testament, there was no Bible, just Jewish scriptures. The NT didn't come into existence in the form that it is now known to most Christians until the early part of the first millennium. The year is 2009...
The destruction of this relationship, through...no fault divorce
I wonder if the legality of no-fault divorce has ever been challenged as unconstitutional (Article 1, Section 10, Clause 1). It is, after all, simply a contract.
I pray to god and believe in Christianity, but the Bible is probably the most incomprehensible mass of contradictions and confusion ever written. No one really understands it except for the ten commandments- anyone who says they understand the Bible is selling you snake oil.
Society will not improve, and things will only get worse and most of the fault falls on women. Anyone notice since women are taking over in the worplace that our economy is also collapsing? This isn't a coincidence.
The whole situation is completely impossible and none of it will be resolved by talking- because talking with women accomplishes nothing.
Once the economy completely collapses and so does this Satanic government that imposes all these evil forces that destroy families, women will no longer be able have any advantage- because all the 'advantages' they have now are all completely artificial and completely dependant on the state and goverment.
When I was a kid growing up, my mother had a saying; you go to your church, and I'll go to mine.
The Bible is the Word of God. There are those who spend their lives studying it. All individual churches have Bible study classes and groups. If one has the desire, one can study the Bible deeply and come to understand it much better than any of us do at this time. There are variations with syntax, semantics, grammar, even spelling. The Bible has been translated to various languages from Greek, Hebrew, Latin, and various other languages.
To borrow from one of Orwell's statements, I believe we live in a time of universal deceit.
I believe we are, to one degree or another,in one direction or another, all being deceived. Almost everything we know is being photo shopped.
Anyway, happy father's day.
Well, perhaps it is in the Declaration of Independence that it declares your rights come from your Creator - whatever, I am not an American... all free countries have the direct statement that your rights come from your CREATOR/from God - not from the State. They do that so that the state can't take your rights away. In my country it is in our Charter of Rights that our rights come from God.
That's why I don't understand why so many Christianity-haters spit on things like having the word "God" anywhere. If you don't believe in God, one should want to keep it doubly so that your rights come from God - so only he can take them away. If we ever get so anti-Christian as to remove God from our Constitutions/Rights, I would highly recommend stating that our rights come to us from Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain UNALIENABLE Rights; that among these are Life, Liberty and Pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among men..." -- United States Declaration of Independence
"The States Parties to the present Covenant recognize that, in the enjoyment of those rights PROVIDED BY THE STATE ... the State may subject such rights only to such limitations as are determined by law." -- Article Four of the UN Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
Our culture is based upon Christianity.
It pains me to see how many people can’t stand Christianity – it is an integral part of everything around us, and it is what got us here. Also, no culture has ever existed without a religion… if we get rid of Christianity, another one will simply pop up to replace – looks like it going to be Secular Humanism (Man is god) or Gaia Worship – return to paganism.
But the Bible is an integral part of our culture. Common law is based upon it, in fact everything is based upon it. Two seconds before “God” leaves our governments completely, I hope to be living in some remote part of South America
By the way – I don’t go to church.
I also understand where “God” comes from – for all the paganists. El, or Elohim (plural) comes from the Sumerian culture – the first civilization, who used to adopt virtually all gods and integrate them into their culture. El was the God of Shem, son of Noah, and preserved by Abraham as he left Ur. Some notable things about El is that he was not liked as much as the other gods because he had no wife (gasp!) – and therefore was a god which was kinda contradictory to paganism, because there was no sex worship involved with El.
When Moses left Egypt in 1300 BC and wrote the Pentateuch (supposedly Moses wrote it – but there are questions to that), he also integrated many parts of Egyptian culture into it (which also descended from Sumeria) – things like the structure of the temple, and the societal structure of the commoners in the outer court, the priest class in the inner court, and only the highest of priests allowed in the inner sanctum are a direct knock off of Ancient Egypt.
I understand that there are many contradictions in the Bible – but, to get rid of the Bible is going to prove to be a Biiiiiiiig Mistake, I’m afraid. The Bible has helped us be successful because it led us forth under “one truth” – something which creates a strong culture - rather than the multiple truths created by multiple gods, which creates conflict and destroys a culture.
Rob, the reason we object to it is too many christianists propose "freedom" and "liberty" based on Biblical principles, but predicate that on kowtowing to your book. It's just Dhimmitude under the cross.
And witness your link - Your preacher Matt T has a superficially fine proposal under Libertarian principles, but if you read closely, no marriage in a church - means no marriage.
Whether or not this secular government in America was formed by Christians, being informed by their beliefs, and under those principles - a Christian Nation if you will - is not the point. These Christian mn formed a secular government, seperate from their churches. Thus, the solution to this should be a secular one, seperate from churches.
At any rate, I simply linked to the article further up as a ready-made way to circumvent the government, and get the government out of marriage.
There are those also who have tried to institute "covenant marriages," but they have not been too successful.
To get married on a family Bible rather than on a marriage license is not really so radical, as this was done only about a century ago.
I don't think it would be a stretch to go further and say that since a couple is married on the Bible, the type of marriage and family described in the Bible should also stand within that marriage. This type of marriage would solve the vast majority of problems we are facing with marriage, fathers and children almost instantly.
The government is never the answer.
Pete,
Yeah, I understand the problems you are talking about… I guess the way I view it is that the problem is not so much with Christianity but with human nature.
It doesn’t matter whether it is Christianity, Islam, Paganism, Secular Humanism or whatever other kind of religion, human nature is what causes people to try to impose their morality upon others. Christians are just humans like the rest of them – it is not a problem specific to Christians, but rather it is a problem specific to humans.
What scares me the most is that when you look at how Christians often ignore the Bible and try to impose their morality upon others – one should note that the Bible is unchangeable and yet humans still try to manipulate it.
Imagine if the Bible is replaced with something that is designed to be forever-changeable, like secular humanism – leftism. Then when human nature takes over and people try to impose their brand of morality upon others, they are not bound by an unchangeable law, but can go willy nilly and do whatever the hell they wish – see political correctness.
This is the reason why Marxist/Communist countries don’t want the Bible in their country. Communism is about mind-screwing mass populations with moral relativism and evolving them into a perfect state of mankind. (Humanism). The Bible directly contradicts relativism, and that is why Communists despise the Bible – it is a hindrance to them, because it is hard to manipulate. The Bible is an Absolute – the anti-thesis of relativism.
I agree with many of the observations of what people say about Christians trying to impose their morality upon others – I guess I am just freaked out by thinking, “Wow! If humans can do that with something that is unchangeable, what will happen if humans start to adhere to something that is forever changeable?
Separation of Church and State is definitely a good thing… but, there is supposed to be a tandem of moral law and state law. The more we removed our moral values, the more we need the state to interfere to “stop the madness.”
What we have now is not a separation of Church and State – we now have State-imposed morality – the morality of Humanism. Feminism & Political Correctness is part of a religion already… and the State is imposing this morality upon us already. Those things should exist outside of government, in the same way that Christianity is supposed to – except that they aren’t outside of government – they are imposing it upon us.
I have been speculating other non-religious ways to curb the moral relativism imposed upon by us by government… because I understand how objectionable so many people find Christianity to be – please note, I am not trying to bang spirituality down people’s throats, but more trying to examine the underlying structures of how our culture is/was created over time.
What has to happen is that relativism has to be stopped. The way to stop relativism is with absolutism.
The best non-religious form of absolutism I can think of is mathematics. It is pretty hard to manipulate math with relativism – it is either right or wrong, and it is mostly provable.
So… if one took the Law of Averages, could one create absolute moral values with it? I think it is possible.
For example:
We know that fathers are an integral part of successful children, successful families, and a successful society.
If we know that “X” number of fatherless children fail at certain areas of life… and if we know that when society has “Y” number of failing citizens, the society begins to fail…
Well, then it should be possible to create a mathematical formula to illustrate the moral value that society cannot surpass “X” number of fatherless children in society. We can afford to have some, and we might accept having some as a necessary “tax” upon society – but, a moral absolute could be created saying that past “this point”, society begins to fail, and so on.
The same could be done between men and women. Think about a casino – by the law of averages, if I can be right 51% of the time, I will become a millionaire.
If we know, by the law of averages, that 90% of women will vote in favour of women while ignoring men, and also, say 60% of men will vote in favour of women, while ignoring men… well, by the law of averages, we can predict certain things will happen, and create a moral value based upon the math.
Lol! I don’t know how well that would work though.
Jesus is the Word of God, the Word made flesh.
"In principio erat Verbum, and Verbum erat apud Deium, and Verbum erat Deium."
The Bible is a book inspired by the Word of God, but it is not the Word of God itself.
Well, GawainsGhost, as I have been trying to say...
I am discussing the impact that the Bible had upon our culture and our civilization... and what are the impacts of removing it from our society? Even though there is separation of Church and State, the West was not designed to be a Godless state – Godless states are Marxist ones that worship Humanism. The West that we know was designed to separate Church from State so that there are two spheres that counter eachother – a check and balance, as it were. They didn’t want the Pope being the President, but, as George Washington discussed in his farewell address… the best way to keep the government size down, is to impose morality upon ourselves so the government has no excuse to do it for us. If we abandon morality, then the government will have to impose it for us… in other words, there is no such thing as a free lunch.
Every culture since the beginning of time has had a religion. If you get rid of a culture's religion, soon after, another will pop up to replace it, and the culture will alter itself accordingly.
Religion manifests itself from within humans, likely to explain things they cannot explain - or are simply too difficult to explain.
It does not matter whether the Bible is "real" or how it was "written" from a point of view of studying our culture or our civilization... what matters is that it exists, and has always existed in our culture.
We keep wondering what is going on within our culture... well, something significant has happened over the past few decades as well... we pitched the Bible out the window.
A significant feature of the Bible is that it follows "one truth" - if you study cultures, you will see that religions which had multiple gods also had multiple truths, and thus multiple conflicts, and often a weaker culture than those that followed "one truth."
I am talking about cultural hegemony, not the validity of the Bible, or spiritualism or whatnot. Except, of course, that Western Civilization has become the strongest, most powerful culture to ever exist on earth - how come?
This always happens... non-Christians want to spit on the Bible, and Christians only want to talk about spirituality...but it is of the utmost importance to examine the features of the Bible itself – it’s a pretty smart book.
Why do you think Marxists chose to undermine Christianity and the Bible in their "subversive cold war on the West?" - It is because of FEATURES of the Bible, and how it affected our culture - that is one of the main reasons why they speculated the West did overthrow their governments after "The Great War" as Marx and Engels predicted would happen.
They speculated Marx did not go far enough in only identifying economics as affecting the culture - but that there were other factors which needed to be undermined for the West to fall and accept Socialism - Patriotism, Language, Christianity, Family, Ethnicity etc. etc. - these too, they speculated must be undermined in order for the West to fall and embrace Socialism... many of our family values etc. come directly from the Bible as well.
You can't study "The West's Culture" without studying the Bible - who, or how it was written is not really relevant when studying the culture itself.
Look, I know it sounds kind of weird, but all of this stuff stems from Marxism. That is what we are fighting here. I am not talking about the Illuminati or Zionism or Aliens living in a hole in Antarctica.
I am simply talking about Marxism, and how it works, and how it is enabled by the dialectic.
This is where the rabbit hole leads, and everyone who I have seen who has kept following the rabbit hole has wound up here – the problem stems from Marxism. But, once you get there, you start to see how we are being mass-manipulated into giving up our freedom.
The difference between our kind of Marxism and Russia’s kind of Marxism is that they “sped it up.” They used violence and the threat of violence to speed up the brainwashing of the masses. What took Lenin 4 years to accomplish, takes us 40 years to accomplish. Instead of using violence, we have been using “time” as our brainwasher. For example – it is getting to the point now that hardly anyone remembers a time when divorce was not part of our culture. In another 20 years, nobody will even question it anymore. Fatherhood is becoming the same way – there is a method behind this madness.
Political Correctness itself stems from Marxism. It comes from the early works of Lenin and Stalin used it to destroy his rival, Trotsky.
By the way, Hitler also used Marxist mass-brainwashing techniques to remove freedom. And people were also trying to warn others of what was going on there, but hardly anyone wanted to listen and take it seriously – until it was too late.
And this is not an off-topic subject. A related “solution” was discussed in the video – more government.
There are lots of people trying to speak up for fathers etc., and 99% of the time, their solution is run to the government and beg for them to impose more totalitarianism on us. The government is the problem, not the answer… this is why guys like me hardly consider myself to be an MRA – I’m not in favour of the vast majority of solutions proposed… all of them involving more government.
Quite frankly, I am scared shitless – which is why I talk about this so much on the internet. We only have perhaps a decade or so left before our dwindling birthrates and bloated debt will begin to completely destroy Capitalism and force us to accept Socialism. We have to turn this ship around, and fast! And there is no solution available that is going to give us a free lunch! Either we impose morality upon ourselves and reject relativism, or the government will come in and do it for us. If we can’t do it in time, I might very well be leaving before it is too late – although, that is not the ultimate solution either, as what is happening is Global Socialism – the ultimate goal of Communism.
Feminism is the lynch-pin in the whole mess… it is the destruction of the family which has set all the other balls into motion – and it was no accident. The resurrection of the family and fatherhood is also the ultimate answer in cutting down the size of government. The Bible’s form of marriage is the proper one.
There are many people who speak about the creeping Marxism in our society… but hardly any of them dare to speak too loudly about how feminism has been the lynch pin… because of several of the things which Dr. Driscoll mentions about the way things are between the sexes. Men abhor speaking out against women, and there is no shortage of women who just love to screech at men for the most senseless of reasons – so everyone keeps quiet about it, and the march to Socialism progresses.
The Bible is the easiest solution. I’d rather live under the Bible than under Communism.
Sigh, we are screwed. Hello South America.
Rob, you're being rather naive.
Marriage has long been intertwined with government by necessity. Issues of inheritance and paternity are important to almost all cultures. Even when religion WAS the government, that a marriage took place was usually still recorded (in cultures with oral tradition, it was memorized.)
I do say the government create civil unions for all [including same-sex and plural unions] with a minimum of hard rules (that can't be circumvented with pre-nuptual agreements.) This won't stop same-sex couples from calling their unions, marriages.
As for living "under the Bible"; you apparently have never read it or, like many, have selectively chosen those parts you like and discarded the rest. The Bible's form of marriage includes polygamy and subjugating women to the tyranny of their husband's. You really want that?
Joe wrote: "subjugating women to the tyranny of their husband's."
What is your source please?
Trey
"This won't stop same-sex couples from calling their unions, marriages.
As far as that goes, I really could not care less. Just don't force ME to call it "marriage". And don't naively claim that is not what the goal is, please. If it weren't, there would not be such a hue and cry raised about it, with all the lawsuits in the various States, and Gays who want to get "married" would just go find someone to do the ceremony, and file the appropriate legal documents that specify all the things that currently are assumed under the mantle of marriage.
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Lol, Joe. I won’t flame you… I’ll just drop my naiveté and trust that Obama & Hillary will fix it.
On other related topics in this thread… This article does quite a good and detailed job explaining how our entire system of Capitalism, morality, private property, liberty etc. etc. was based upon the Judeo-Christian religion… there are specific features of the Bible that created Western Civilization – remove the bearing wall of this house we built, and… well…
As for Separation of Church and State – this feature of government stems from things like what happened in England, where the King was also the head of the Church of England. What would happen is that each time a new King/Queen would take the throne; they would change between adhering to the Pope/Catholicism, or reverting back to the King/Queen as the head of the Church of England. Each time they would switch, the new King/Queen (Edward… Bloody Mary… Elizabeth…) would persecute the other side, forcing them to convert their religion back and forth.
This of course, led to the Puritans fleeing England, boarding the Mayflower, and heading on over to America to seek religious freedom.
That’s why we have a separation of Church and State. It is intended that the President can not also be the head of the church – to prevent the BS that had happened in Europe.
But we do not live in a godless society. (Well, we do now – but it is not intended this way).
It was assumed, however, that we all generally followed Christianity – or at least agreed upon its basic moral values. We live in a civilization based upon Christianity, as the article I linked further up shows – John Locke’s ideas were inspired by the Bible, and the Founding Father’s ideas were influenced by John Locke.
We were not intended to have a fractured cultural hegemony – ie. Multi-culturalism (following many truths). What do you think the problem in the Middle East is? Former Yugoslavia? The Paris Riots? Tribal genocides in Africa… And on and on and – multiculturalism/multiple truths & values eventually leads to conflict – often deadly conflict (I’ve read speculation that violence erupts at the minority reaching 30% of the population) – and it certainly destroys cultural hegemony, and the higher forms of civilization that a strong cultural hegemony creates.
At the height of Christianity’s power, Karl Marx was stating that “his goal in life was to destroy Capitalism and dethrone God,” and Nietzsche was stating that “God is dead.” As far as I recall, neither of them were burned at the stake.
Marxism, however, claimed over 100 million lives at the hands of government in the past 90 years.
Yup… I’ll still take the Bible. Hands down.
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