. It is not necessary to have much knowledge of astro-physics, nor of atomic-physics and the quantum-mechanics, nor of molecular biology and the cumulative-selection of genes; it is sufficient that we have a smattering, and know such subjects exist. The important thing is to view life as a whole, however much we have to specialize in a tiny part of it ourselves. And life as a whole, includes death and the world beyond death. If you disregard that part of life, you are just parochial nowadays. Long ago, when infant mortality was so common, death was familiar to most people. Now people tend to disregard it, only to be appalled when it comes along uninvited. But if terrorists are not firmly dealt with as enemies of the State, death may become a familiar feature of life for many people; because terrorism is a call to civil-war, and once civil-war starts, death is round the corner for everyone. So it is time people woke up, and started to think in terms of the community as a whole; because if there is one attitude of mind that is guaranteed to alight on the wrong solution to every problem, it is the mind that will not, or cannot see the problem as a whole. For example, it is absurd and hypocritical for the State to allow the Police to “shoot to kill” suspected suicide bombers, while the State lacks the guts to make terrorism a capital offence. Either the State should re-introduce capital punishment, or the Police should be refused permission to shoot to kill. It is hypocrisy for the State to pretend to be humane and refuse to kill, while it orders its junior servants to do its dirty work for it; and then like a pack of cowards blames them if things go wrong. But then “integrity” is a word which politicians have long since ceased to understand.
However terrorism apart, it is time Christians realized that it is their duty is to behave like responsible citizens; and the time ended long ago when they could be an obnoxious sect within the State, preening their consciences but actually undermining the viability of the State and doing their best to bring about its collapse. Bertrand Russell laments that the last men of intellectual eminence before the dark ages, in particular Augustine, were concerned, not with saving civilization or expelling the barbarians, but with preaching the virtues of virginity and the unfortunate damnation of unbaptized infants. Since these were their preoccupations, it is not surprising that the following age was one of gross cruelty and superstition. So we have seen it all before; and the Christian Church seems to have learned little about seeing problems as a whole in the last 16 hundred years. It is time it learned to do so – fast.
Who guards the Guardians? How do you control the elected tyranny of the majority? The checks and balances of our present Constitution are not going to survive long against the ambitions of men bent on undisputed power. There was a time when the Church’s excommunication meant political death. Whereas today, if the Church excommunicated a politician, everyone would just laugh, so far has the Church sunk into degradation through its ineptitude.