Yuval Harari labels Jesus a “brand” and a myth[1]
Without faith in Jesus, does the free flow of information, A.I. and “Democracy” threaten our Republic?
Dominic Green of the Wall Street Journal reviewed Yuval Harari’s book, Nexus, and reveals the author’s view of a world without the God of the Bible. His is the spirit of this age, a spirit that believes in “science” though Post-Modernism rejects science.
Green wrote, “When the attempt is convincing, the naive ‘call it truth.’ Mr. Harari agrees that ‘truth is an accurate representation of reality’ but argues that only ‘objective facts’ such as scientific data are true. ‘Subjective facts’ based on ‘beliefs and feelings’ cannot be true. The collaborative cacophony of ‘intersubjective reality,’ the darkling plain of social and political contention where all our minds meet, also cannot be fully true.”[1]
Pilate asked the historical Jesus (Harari labeled Him a brand) “What is truth?” Certainly, some thinkers and leaders of mankind diligently and honestly search for Truth – that is, the ultimate unifying truth about life. Who are we? Why are we here? What do we do? Why do we do it? What are the results of what we do, and what will happen if we change what we do? What are our responsibilities toward others? How can we live the “good life?” What is the “good life,” and so forth.
Interesting that on September 13, I taught about this same subject and introduced Post-Modernism to my high school students. As I understand it, modernism is an idea that all that can be known can be known by scientific inquiry, by theory, testing theory, replicating results, until someone else finds an exception and repeats the cycle. Science is always evolving if it is science.
I suppose there are instances of “settled science” i.e. “The shortest distance between two points is a measurable straight line drawn between them.” That, too, is suspect as there are unseen measurements yet to be discovered. My point is that science evolves.
Yet there are truths discovered by science which are replicable and upon which we can rely. Otherwise, airplanes would never fly, skyscrapers would never remain standing, much less be built. We know with nearly perfect certainty that when you are looking for a heart in a human body, it will nearly always be in the same place. Yet sometimes it is not, and there is an exception to truth that needs to be further explored.
For a culture or society – or government – to survive there must be organizational principles. For the American Republic that principle was a Christian world view that permeated the hearts and minds of the common people and their political leaders who, whether they believed it or not, paid attention to it – considered that Christian worldview as factual enough or at least widely accepted enough upon which they could build a new country. They believed in the proposition that all men are created equal and that those foundational rights come from God (not from gods or “science” but that God also gave mankind reason and logic).
Harari dismissed this view of Jesus, the center of the Christian worldview, as a myth. He labels it a brand (if I were woke, I could accuse him of something far worse than slandering Mohammed, whom he did avoid mentioning).
Then comes the answer Jesus gave to Pilate’s question about truth. “I Am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No man comes to the Father but by Me.”
From this assertion, supported by more than 2,000 years of Biblical history, the wisdom books, the prophetic books, and the New Testament, comes this Christian world view – Harari’s myth and yet the foundation of the lives of billions of people.
This faith in Jesus cannot be tested scientifically in its broadest and deepest contexts. It can be tested scientifically, however, in that it relies on a belief that God created science when He created order, and it is order and the balance of creation that scientists test. Yes, a good deal of this belief can be and is tested continuously through sociological methods that are constantly repeated and updated, or Pew Research polls that can show trends, but have a difficult time measuring inner motivations or points of view.
Some Christians look at A.I. as a great tool, taking advantage of the science God created, to dig ever deeper for and into truth and make observations about alternative explanations for life. Others look at A.I. as perhaps the digital personification of the False Prophet, or the Anti-Christ, and it could have either potential (although we would argue that there will be a physical manifestation of each). As with all that mankind has conceived of and produced, it can be used for good or for harm (I could have said evil but avoided it).
As has been endlessly observed by mental health professionals, subjectivity and experience can teach our minds to find our own truth, unhinged from all reality but our own. It is dangerous because it cannot sustain a personal life or is injurious to others and disruptive, even murderously so. False truth can certainly be destructive (see our current media and politics).
Truth, I believe, can be known but it must reside in something far greater than human intelligence, science, inference, or feelings. That is what many of us find in Jesus, and in the God about which we study, learn, and Whom we worship. Upon His objective observations and our understanding of those, individually and corporately, we can and did build a good culture that today, lurching to and beyond Post-Modernism. This current philosophy (a form of religious belief) rejects any truth but self-defines it as that which is true for you today that changes tomorrow, which is totally subjective and experiential, measurable only by its variance with whatever science says is normal at this point in time.
Which brings us to “democracy,” a system that must fail given enough time and enough competing “science” that drives the discourse. Harari seems to believe that the result of democracy is to produce a social order that must be managed, or it will fly apart. I primarily believe that is an observable fact. Unfettered democracy with a hearty and uncontrolled exchange of claims and ideas and “factless” (to the observer) notions would certainly drive us apart. There is no common ground and as Huxley showed us in 1984 it must have a referee to sort it for us. And that referee must be the most intelligent pig (Animal Farm) in the barnyard. No doubt, the sorter pig is the one driven by “pure” science, a sort of “know everything” source of truth – could it be A.I.?
“Call me naive, but Mr. Harari’s technocratic TED-talking is not the way to save democracy. It is the royal road to tyranny,” Green observed. I disagree in part.
Democracy does not need to be saved, because it is driving us to tyranny by those who control the messages, ideas, and the means of distribution. Democracy needs to be banished and replaced by a culture that has a mutual understanding of the value of mankind and the source of human rights, and then elect folks who have the moral courage and understand their fiduciary responsibility to honor God in all we do (to quote the cub scouts).
[1] Ibid.
