Beware the Jabberwock, My Son

“Meaningless! Meaningless!” says the Teacher. “Everything is meaningless!”
—Ecclesiastes 12:8

“We need to face the fact that nihilism is true.”
—Dr. Alex Rosenberg, Department Chair and R. Taylor Cole Professor of Philosophy, Duke University, author of “The Atheist’s Guide To Reality”

Vorpal Sword vs. JabberwockyTwas bryllyg, and ye slythy toves
Did gyre and gymble in ye wabe:
All mimsy were ye borogoves;
And ye mome raths outgrabe. ….
“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite,
the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The fruminous Bandersnatch!” He took the vorpal sword* in hand:
Long time the maxnome foe he sought—
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.
And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!…….

—Lewis Carroll (“Through the Looking Glass”)

“….the meanings we think are carried by our thoughts, our words, and our actions are just sand castles we build in the air.”
—Dr. Alex Rosenberg, Department Chair and R. Taylor Cole Professor of Philosophy, Duke University, author of “The Atheist’s Guide To Reality”

“Science provides all the significant truths about reality..... Being scientistic just means treating science as our exclusive guide to reality, to nature—both our own nature and everything else's."
—Dr. Alex Rosenberg, author of “The Atheist’s Guide to Reality”)

What does faith in the creeds and dogmas of “scientistic” Materialism, Naturalism and Humanism… (ie. the foundations of the religion of Atheism)… look like? What does it sound like? Dr. Rosenberg, one of the cult’s most elite and outspoken adherents helps us to ……..“understand” this proud and twisted bent:

"Thinking with the learned, especially the neuroscientist, we recognize that information the brain acquires, stores and employs, doesn’t come in sentences or anything like them. But speaking with the vulgar, we can accept that brains convey this information in sounds and inscriptions that confer the illusion that there are propositions that give the content of the sentences speech and writing convey. And that goes for all the sentences in this paper."

Translation: Humans are nothing more really than "meat machines", and as such, all “content” of thinking (speaking and writing) is simply an illusion.

So, here we are….western civilization, early 21st century. Welcome to Wonderland where, according to some, in the final analysis, nothing is really real and everything is meaningless. We are witnessing today the incipient and incremental triumph of Jabberwocky-ism where nonsense is hailed as deep thinking and utter foolishness touted as urbane wisdom.

When the very concept of Spirit/Mind is rejected, the default category is nihilistic nonsense… dangerous, destructive, delusional, nihilistic nonsense. When God (who is Spirit) is declared unwelcome and is dismissed by large segments of society, eventually the intelligentsia of materialism and secularism will feel free to seize control of the cultural reins.

And so, not unexpectantly and quite predictably, they are doing just that.

When I read Dr. Rosenberg’s expanded version about how human beings come to understand things….

"Thinking about things can't happen at all….. When consciousness convinces you that you, or your mind, or your brain has thoughts about things, it is wrong."

…..my jaw dropped. I gasped in disbelief at the sheer irrationality of his truth-denouncing proclamation. But then I thought to myself….well,… perhaps, somewhere in a dark corner of Alice’s Wonderland, there is a University of Jabberwocky that offers PhD’s in Advanced Theoretical Nonsense, where the reality of truth and the truth of reality is denied…. a place where deception is honored and the blind learn to lead the blind.

Sadly, I’m afraid, this is the kind of thinking that more and more people in the upper echelons of the intellectual community seem to be enamored with. It seems that the mark of excellence…the “red badge of courage”, if you will… for the post-modern deconstructionists in our midst is the ability to think illogical, self-refuting thoughts and then to proudly write a book about having them. Apparently, irrationality sells quite well in this so-called “enlightened” era, an age in which science has become a most imposing idol and a willing handmaiden to the Golden Calf of “The Autonomous Self”.

Mad Hatter-ism

The twin idolatries of Humanism and Scientism have taken root. They are out of the closet. Their rotting fruit is proudly on display here in the early years of the twenty-first century. Dr. Rosenberg stakes out the idolatrous post-modern position honestly and well when he declares that science has “… become our exclusive guide to reality, to nature—both our own nature and everything else's."

Revelation be damned.

“I am the LORD…..who foils the signs of false prophets and makes fools of diviners, who overthrows the learning of the wise and turns it into nonsense.”
—Isaiah 44: 24-25

Come Jabberwock With Me Awhile

Come Jabberwock with me awhile,
I’ll teach you all you need!
You’ll come away in dark dismay…
But wiser, son,… indeed!

Just come along and listen now,
To my enlightened dream….
Let’s have a talk…Let’s Jabberwock
You’ll know just what I mean..

My intellect’s an open book,
Deep thoughts I’m glad to share!
When thinking now I’ll teach you how
To feel how much I care.

I’ll guide you then into the night ,
Where nothing’s really real…
Please don’t delay…I know The Way.
I think… therefore I feel!

Come whiffle through my tulgey wood,
Where Science rules and reigns.
And there we’ll greet new friends of meat
In nihilistic chains.

Lord, give us Grace to see beyond
This darkness pressing in.
Then set us right, Lord, in your Light…
Please help us see our sin.

Lord, help us test the spirits now
That wish to kill and maim,
When Men of Meat bow at the feet
Of idols so inane.

And when we hide from Truth, dear Lord,
And claim all meaning’s lost,
Please help us see on bended knee,
The meaning of the Cross.

"Crucifixion", Mantegna, (1458)

Dr. Thomas Howard

“There were some ages in Western history that have occasionally been called Dark. They were dark, it is said, because in them learning declined, and progress paused, and men labored under the pall of belief. A cause-effect relationship is frequently felt to exist between the pause and the belief. Men believed in things like the Last Judgment and fiery torment . . . Then the light came . . . Men were freed from the fear of the Last Judgment; it was felt to be more bracing to face Nothing than to face the Tribunal . . . The myth sovereign in the old age was that everything means everything. The myth sovereign in the new is that nothing means anything."
—Thomas Howard

“Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter:
Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.
For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing,
whether it be good or evil.”
—Ecclesiastes 12: 13-14

“Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit…
Their feet are swift to shed blood;.ruin and misery mark their ways,
and the way of peace they do not know.
There is no fear of God before their eyes……”

“…..But now a righteousness from God has been made known. This righteousness comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.”
—Romans 3: 13-24

*the vorpal sword: Carroll said he could not explain this word, though it has been noted that it can be formed by taking letters alternately from "verbal" and "gospel". For more information about the "vorpal sword" please click here.