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A Letter from the
Twenty-first Century Dungeon
Over Fifty Days of
Endless Inhumane Tortures in the Hands of the Chinese Government
from http://chinaaid.org/pdf/Human%20Rights%20Lawyer%20Recounts%20Torture.pdf
By Gao Zhisheng
Updated translation 2/18/2009.
(Original translation
released 2/9/2009.)
These words of mine will eventually, no matter how long and
hard a journey that may be, be seen by the world. They will tear to pieces the
seemingly humanness of many things in China
today, bringing to light the unimaginable true colors of the “ruling party” in China.
Of course, these words will inevitably bring slight uneasiness or even slight embarrassment
to those “good friends and partners” of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) the
world over—if these “good friends and partners” still have any trace of reverence
to ethics and the value of human conscience.
Today, the suddenly wealthy CCP has not only gained
increasingly many “good friends and partners,” but has also boasted
increasingly louder such preposterous slogans as “China
is a country ruled by law.” But to the progress of human rights of the Chinese people,
both developments have been disastrous.
Around 8 p.m. on September 21, 2007 the Chinese
authorities summoned me to go for a routine “thought reform” discussion. On the
road, I found something was unusual this time. The secret police, who usually
followed me closely, kept a greater distance than usual. When I was approaching
a street corner, six or seven strangers rushed toward me. I suddenly felt a
strong blow to the back of my neck and the ground smashed my face, but I didn’t
lose consciousness. Before I knew it, someone yanked my hair and a black hood was
pulled over my head. I was then pushed toward a vehicle and was shoved into it.
Although I couldn’t see anything, it seemed to me that it had two seats with a
space in the middle. I was pushed down flat in the space between the seats on
the floor. My right cheek was on the floor. All of a sudden a huge boot stepped
on my face. Many hands started searching all over me, but because they had
kidnapped my family so frequently, they didn’t find anything valuable on me. I
felt something was different about this kidnapping. My belt was pulled off and
then used to tie my hands behind my back. I was laying belly down on the floor
and at least four people had their feet on top of me.
About 40 minutes later I was dragged out of the car. I was
pushed into a room while my pants were dragging around my ankles. No word was
uttered by anyone during all this time. The hood was suddenly yanked off of my
head, and before I could adjust to the sudden bright light, verbal and physical
torture started. “Gao Zhisheng! You mother f******! Your date with death is
today! Brothers! Let’s show the bastard how brutal we can get. Kill the
bastard.” A leader (I assumed) of the group screamed. Then, four men with
electric batons started to beat my head and body with ferocity. Nothing but the
noise of the beating and my stressed moaning could be heard in the room. I was
beaten so severely that my whole body began shaking uncontrollably on the
floor.
“Don’t let the f****** bastard rest!” shouted a guy named
Wang, as I learned later, who appeared to be the group’s leader. Then, a very
strong and tall man (approximately 6’1”) grabbed my hair and pulled me up off
the ground. Wang suddenly jumped over and started to slap my face with terrible
ferocity, like a madman.
“Gao Zhisheng, you mother f*****, you are not f****** worthy
to wear black clothes. Do you think you are a Mafia boss?” Then, Wang ordered
his crew, “Tear off all of the bastard’s clothes!” All my clothes were torn off
and I was totally naked. “Make the bastard kneel!” Wang yelled again, and
someone wacked twice on the back of my legs, and I collapsed to the floor on my
knees. The big guy continued to pull my hair to force me to lift my head to
look at their leader. At this time, I could see that there were five people in
the room. Four of them were holding electric batons while the other one was holding
my belt.
“Listen, you bastard, today, your uncles (the mob) want
nothing but to make you wish you were dead rather than alive. Gao Zhisheng, let
me tell you the truth, this is no longer a matter between you and the (Chinese)
government. Now it’s a f****** personal matter between you and us!”
“Look at the floor now you bastard! There is not a single
drop of water there. After a while the water will cover your ankles. You will
f****** know soon enough where the water comes from.” While Wang was saying
this, he already started to shock me with the electric batons on my face and
upper body.
“Come on guys! Serve the second course for the bastard!”
Wang said. All four electric batons started to shock me all over my body at
once. All my internal organs and muscles began jumping under my skin
uncontrollably, as if they all wanted to escape from these shocks. I was
rolling all over the floor in horrific pain. When Wang started to shock my genitals,
I begged him to stop. My begging only invited obscene laugher and more maddening
torture. Wang shocked my genitals four times while shouting loudly.
After a few hours of intense torture, I had no strength left
to beg or dodge. But my mind was unusually clear. I felt my body was jerking
violently when the batons shocked me. I clearly felt some water sprinkled on my
arms and legs. Only then did I realize that this was the puddle of sweat from
my body, because of hours of torture, and it dawned on me what Wang had meant
about the ankle-deep water. It seemed that the night-long torture job was
wearing down the torturers themselves. At almost the dawn, three of them left
the room. “Go ahead serve the bastard the next course. We will come back to
relieve you two later.” Wang signaled to the two left in the room to move a
chair to the middle of the room and dragged me over and seat me in the chair. One
of them had five cigarettes in his mouth, lit them and inhaled deeply several
times. The other man stood behind me and grabbed my hair and pushed my head to
bend down. The man in the front used the cigarettes to fill my nose and eyes
with smoke. This was done over and over. They did this methodically, with
utmost patience. After a while, except for occasional sensation of tears
dropping on my legs, I felt that I could care less about what these two men
were busy doing, because that seemed to have absolutely no relevance to me.
This continued for about two hours. Then two other guys came
in to relieve the duo who had worked hard torturing me with the cigarettes. By
then I couldn’t see anything because my eyes were now swollen shut.
One of the new guys started talking, “Gao Zhisheng, are you
still able to hear with your ears? We can agree that you had some bad luck
today. To tell you the truth, these guys are experts in cracking down on mafia
and gangsters. They are heavy hitters. This time they have been carefully
chosen specifically for you by the higher ups for this purpose.”
“Can you tell who I am?” He continued, “My last name is
Jiang. I followed you to Xiajiang after you were released last year.”
“Are you the one from Penglai (a city in Shandong
province)?” I asked.
“Yes, so your memory is still good. I told you, you would
come back in the jail sooner or later. When I saw you the way you behaved in
Xiajiang, I knew you would be back inside again. I saw the way you showed no
respect for the police, and I thought to myself, we must have you come back in
and teach you a good lesson so that you will never forget.”
He continued, “You wrote that letter to the American
Congress. Right? Look at yourself, you traitor of the Han Chinese. What could
your American master give you? The American Congress is like my c***. This is China.
It is the Communist Party’s territory. You are just a little fart. To kill you
is like stepping on an ant. You don’t even understand this basic fact and tried
to write your dog-fart articles. If you dare to write those dog-fart articles
again, the government has to make it clear where it stands. Do you understand where
the government stands on that tonight?” Jiang said insouciantly.
“You are treating a taxpayer like me using brutal mafia
methods. How can you face over 1 billion Chinese as a public servant?” I asked.
“You’ve asked for the beating,” said Jiang. “Here you go
again, taxpayers, taxpayers. You know this better than anybody. In China,
taxpayers are as good as dog farts.”
While he was saying this, someone else entered the room. I
recognized the voice to be Wang’s. “Don’t f****** waste your breath on him!
Let’s give him some more tangible things,” he said to Jiang. Then, he turned to
me, “Gao Zhisheng, Your uncles have prepared 12 courses for you. We only served
you three courses last night. Your uncle (Wang) doesn’t like to wasting time
talking with you. Soon I will make you bastard eat s**t and drink p**s. I will
also use a toothpick to poke your lamp.” (I later realized that he was
referring to my genitals). Haven’t you bastard accused the Communist Party of using
horrendous torture? Well, today, I want you to experience all of them. Yes, you
are not incorrect in saying that we torture Falun Gong followers. That’s right,
we do. The 12 courses we’re serving you were perfected on the Falun Gong
followers. To tell you the truth, I am no longer afraid of you writing about
this. There is zero possibility that you will leave this place alive. We can
torture you to death and make sure nobody can find your body. Every time I
think about you, it makes me steaming mad. Who do you think you are? Do you
think you are somebody noteworthy in Beijing?
You are nobody but just a stinky outsider (not from Beijing)!
You will get a good beating from your uncles!”
In the following hours of torture, I passed out several
times, probably because of thirst, hunger and sweating. I was lying down on the
cold floor naked, and I was in and out of consciousness violently, like a
roller coaster. I felt several times someone opening my eyes and shining a
flashlight in them to check if I was still alive. Every time I woke up from
unconsciousness, I smelled the stinky odor of urine. My face, nose, and hair
were covered with urine. Obviously, someone had urinated on my face and head
although I didn’t know when it happened.
This torture continued until the afternoon of the third day.
I still don’t know where I got the strength, but somehow I struggled to get
away from their grasp and plunged my head toward a table, screaming the names
of my children Tianyu and Gege, attempting to kill myself. The way I screamed
my children’s names still causes me to have goose bumps when I think about it
today. The scream was sad and remote and more like from a stranger than from my
own voice. But I didn’t succeed in killing myself. Thank God Almighty who saved
me! I truly felt that the Lord had pulled me back from death. Blood kept
flowing out of my eyes because of the impact of the table on my head. I fell on
the ground. Immediately, three people sat on me. One of them was on my face.
They couldn’t stop laughing. They said to use death to scare them was like
scaring a cat with a dead mouse. They said that they had seen too many people
pulling a trick just like that too many times.
They then continued to torture me until it was dark outside.
Even though by then I could not see anything with my eyes, I could still hear
my torturers taking turns having dinner and gathering together afterward.
One of them came over and dragged me up by pulling on my
hair and said, “Gao Zhisheng, are you hungry? You bastard just tell us the
truth!”
I said, “I am dying of starvation.”
“Do you want to eat? You must tell us the truth!”
I said, “Yes, I do.” Just as I finished the words, I was
slapped on the face more than a dozen times, and I again collapsed to the
floor. A boot stomped on my chest and someone shocked me on the chin with the
electric baton. I screamed with the horrible pain. Then an electric baton was
shoved into my mouth, accompanied by verbal abuses: “You bastard’s hair didn’t
stand much pulling! I see that you bastard’s mouth isn’t that much different
from other people’s, right? Don’t you use it to eat as well? Hungry? Do you think
you bastard deserve any food?” I was just wondering why he didn’t turn on the electric
baton in my mouth to shock me when Wang said, “Gao Zhisheng! Do you know why I
didn’t destroy you bastard’s mouth? That’s because tonight we uncles want you
to talk all night. We want you to talk about nothing but your womanizing
experiences. We don’t take no for an answer. Too few won’t do, either. Also,
you can’t get away with too few details. We want all the details, the more the
better. Your uncles love to hear this type of thing. We have stuffed ourselves
and slept during the day. We are ready to enjoy them. Start talking now.”
“You mother f*****! Why don’t you bastard talk? You bastard
need more beating? Give the bastard what he wants, brothers!” Wang shouted,
heard nothing from me. I think three electric batons began to shock me at the
same time. I was rolling around all over the floor without any dignity. This
went on more than 10 minutes. My whole body kept jerking and shaking with
convulsions, and it couldn’t stop. Finally, I begged, “It’s not that I don’t want
to talk. There is really nothing to talk about.” My own voice sounded
horrifying. “Brothers, what’s going on? We have served the bastard for several
days. You think he is losing his mind?” said Wang. “Let’s poke his lamp
(genitals) to see if that will make the bastard talking.”
Then they held me on my knees and started to pierce my
genitals with toothpicks. To this day, I can’t find any words to describe the
helpless pain and despair I felt when that happened. In that moment, human
language and emotion became absolutely powerless. Finally I made up stories
about affairs that I had with four women. After repeated torture, I made up
details of how I had sex with each of these women. This continued until dawn of
the next day.
At that time, I was forced to sign the transcript of my
confessions about my affairs and put my fingerprints on the document. “Within
six months, your reputation will stink as dogs**. When this is known, people
around you will be as happy as hungry dogs bumped into fresh s***.” Wang said
loudly.
Later on after I was released, I learned that the day after
my “confessions” acquired through torture one officer named Sun informed my
wife of “the truth” they had learned about my “escapades with other women.”
Geng He (my wife) told them two things. “First, I don’t need the government’s
help in defining Gao Zhisheng’s character. Secondly, even if these things
happened in the past, Gao Zhisheng is still the same man who wrote those three
open letters.”
After being tortured for days, I was often in a state of
unconsciousness. I lost the awareness of the passage of time. I didn’t know how
much later this happened, but I was aware that a group of people were about to
start torturing me again when a guy came in and screamed at them and told them
to get out.
His voice sounded familiar and I was able to discern that
this was a deputy director from the Beijing Public Security Bureau (The Police
Department). I had seen him many times before. I had some good feelings about
him. I felt that he was more open and frank than many others and he had
protected me and my family in the past. I could not see him, because I couldn’t
open my eyes. I knew there was not a single inch of my skin that was undamaged,
and I knew my body was unrecognizable. He sounded angry because of my condition.
He ordered a doctor to check my condition. He said he was shocked. He said that
this was absolutely not what the Party and the government meant for me.
I asked him who is behind these illegal acts of torture, but
he didn’t answer me. I asked him to send me back to the prison or send me home.
But he didn’t answer me on that, either. He brought my torturers back into the
room and rebuked them. He ordered them to buy clothes for me and give me a
blanket and food. He told me he would try his best to either get me back to
prison or back home.
As soon as the deputy director left, Wang began cursing me
loudly. “Gao Zhisheng, are you still f****** dreaming of going back to prison?
Stop day dreaming! You will never go back to prison as long as the Communist
Party is in power! Never even think about it again.”
That night, I was put on a black hood again and moved to yet
another unknown location. During the transporting process, I was in and out of
consciousness. I was continuously tortured in the new location again for more
than 10 days.
One day, they put the black hood on my head again and forced
me to bend 90 degrees and rushed to a vehicle. While in the vehicle, my head
was shoved in between my legs, and I had to remain in that position for more
than an hour. The suffering was more than I could bare, and I wished that I
were dead, rather than alive.
After arriving at the new location, the black hood was
removed until about an hour later. I realized that four of the five torturers
were no longer with me. They were replaced by the same group of secret police
who used to be constantly following me since I was out of the prison.
From then on, the physical torture stopped, but the
psychological torture continued. I was told that the 17th Communist Party
Congress was about to be in session and that I had to wait for the higher
authorities’ opinions on how to handle my case after the Congress. During that
time, some officials came to visit me, and their tone was slightly softened. I was
also allowed to wash my face and brush my teeth. Some officials proposed to me
to use my writing skills to attack Falun Gong instead. They said that they
trusted I could be very effective with my writing skills, and that I could ask
any price for doing that. I said it was not a pure matter of skills, but a
difficult matter of ethics.
Seeing that I had not produced anything against Falun Gong
followers after waiting for a while, they came back and said, “If it is too
difficult to attack Falun Gong, how about writing some articles praising the government;
we can pay you any amount of money you want.” Finally, they proposed, “How
about writing something saying that you and your family were treated really
well after you left prison, and that the reason that you wrote the open letters
to the American Congress was that you momentarily lost your clear thinking because
you were bewitched by Falun Gong and Hu Jia? Otherwise, we don’t see a way out
of this situation. Can’t you just have some pity for your wife and children?”
So as an exchange for stopping the torture, later on I did write a statement
saying that the government treated my family really well, and that I wrote the
open letter to the American Congress because I had been bewitched by Falun Gong
and Hu Jia.
Before I was allowed to go home, I was brought to Xian city
to give Geng He (my wife) a call. Because she held a protest and told the
authorities that she would commit suicide, I was allowed to call her, probably
in the evening of the Mid-Autumn Festival (aka “the Moon Festival”), to comfort
her. The content of what to say during the call was all designed by the
authorities. (Later on I learned that what my wife told me during the call was
also choreographed by the authorities.) The authorities videotaped the
telephone conversation. I still could not open one eye at the time, so I was
told to explain during the video that it was from a self-inflicted wound. I got
home in the middle of November 2007. I learned that my house had been
thoroughly searched again, and not a single shred of paper with words on it was
left behind.
The physical and psychological tortures I encountered during
those 50 plus days were truly beyond human imagination. I had many bizarre
sensations. For example, sometimes I was absolutely sure that I heard “death”
and sometimes I was absolutely sure that I heard “life.”
On the twelfth or thirteenth day of my kidnapping, when I
could again open my eyes, I saw my body was in a horrifying condition. Not a
single square centimeter of my skin was normal. The skin all over my body had
turned black.
Every day while I was being held, the experience of “eating”
would make those professionals who write about heroism on paper drop their eye
glasses. Whenever stars started to fly in front of my eyes because of
starvation, they would bring out the steamed buns. Every time I finished
singing “The Chinese Communist Part is good”, “Socialism is good”, “There would
be no New China without the Communist Party” they would give me a steamed bun.
My psychological bottom line was that unless it was absolutely impossible, I
would try to stay alive. My death would be too cruel to my wife and kids. But
at the same time I didn’t want to defile my soul. In that barbarous
environment, humanity and human dignity were rendered powerless. If you didn’t
sing these songs, you would continue to be starved, and they would continue the
endless tortures. So I did give in regarding the songs to stay alive. I also
gave in by signing the statements saying that the government didn’t kidnap and
torture me and that they treated my family extremely well. However, they didn’t
succeed when they used the same tactics to pressure me to write statements
attacking Falun Gong.
During these 50 plus days, many horrendous evils were
committed that were too shameful to be written down in the chronicles of the
governments of the world. These evil acts made it clear to me how far the
leaders of the CCP are willing to go in their evil crimes against humanity in
order to protect its illegal monopoly on power! However those evil acts were so
dirty and disgusting that I am not willing to mention them here. And they may
remain unspoken forever.
Every time when I was tortured, I was always repeatedly
threatened that, if I spelled out later what had happened to me, I would be
tortured right in front of my wife and children. The tall, strong man would
pull me by my hair and repeat the threat over and over during the days I was
tortured. “I will make sure you bastard is dead if you tell the outside world what
happened inside here.” Those brutes knew in their hearts that these violent
acts are not “great, glorious, and righteous” (as the CCP often boast about
themselves).
Finally, I want to say one thing that won’t be pleasing to
some folks. I would like to remind those so-called “good friends and partners”
of the CCP around the world that the increasing level of confidence of the CCP
in treating the Chinese people with increasingly cold-blooded brutality and
cruelty is the direct result of appeasement by both you and us (the Chinese
people).
Written on November
28, 2007, at my besieged home in Beijing.
Authorized to be released to international community on February 9, 2009
Gao Zhisheng’s open letters to the Chinese communist regime:
Stop Persecuting Believers of Freedom and Mend Your Ties with
the Chinese People
I know every girl says this, but my guy is the best.
*Smile*
Just thinking about him to write this post makes me happy.
I've known him ever since I was a kid. I always liked him, but it has only been in the last few months that I've come to love him in *that* way.
At first I didn't know what to make of my feelings. I actually wondered if it was a fluke...just a random set of emotions that would pass away.
But no.
In the last few months, it has only gotten better. Deeper. Richer. I told him I loved him. He told me he loved me.
In honor of Valentine's Day, I'd like to post this little list I keep with me. __________________________________
Description of the One I Love
♥ ~ He's fairer than the children of men. ♥ ~ Grace is poured into his lips. ♥ ~ His eyes are like a flame of fire. ♥ ~ His voice is as the sound of many waters. ♥ ~ His countenance is as the sun shineth in his strength. ♥ ~ He is clothed with a garment down to the feet, girt with a golden girdle. ♥ ~ His garments smell of myrrh, aloes, and cassia. ♥ ~ His feet are like fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace. ♥ ~ Under his feet is a paved work of a sapphire stone. ♥ ~ His hair is white like wool, as white as snow. ♥ ~ His right hand is glorious in power. ♥ ~ In his right hand are seven stars. ♥ ~ On his vesture and on his thigh a name is written: KING of KINGS and LORD of LORDS.
♥ ~ How great is his goodness! and how great is his beauty!
♥ ~ He is as the light of the morning, when the sun riseth, even a morning without clouds; as the tender grass springing out of the earth by clear shining after rain. ♥ ~ He is the high and lofty one that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is holy. ♥ ~ He is the Sun of righteousness who will arise with healing in his wings. ♥ ~ He is glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders. ♥ ~ He is a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts. ♥ ~ He is a God of truth and without iniquity; just and right is he. ♥ ~ Who is like unto him among the gods?
♥ ~ He is my shield, and my exceeding great reward. ♥ ~ He is my strength and song. ♥ ~ He is my life, and the length of my days. ♥ ~ He is my glory, and the lifter up of my head. ♥ ~ He is my refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms. ♥ ~ He rides upon the heaven in my help, and in his excellency on the sky. ♥ ~ He is my redeemer. ♥ ~ He is my salvation. ♥ ~ He is my God. ♥ ~ He is my rock. ♥ ~ He is the one who teaches me to profit. ♥ ~ He has graven me on the palms of his hands.
♥ ~ He is holy. ♥ ~ He is true. ♥ ~ He is love. ♥ ~ He is faithful. ♥ ~ He is gracious. ♥ ~ He is merciful. ♥ ~ He is longsuffering. ♥ ~ He is abundant in goodness. ♥ ~ He is jealous. ♥ ~ He is almighty. ♥ ~ He is everlasting. ♥ ~ He is just. ♥ ~ He is wonderful. ♥ ~ His work is perfect.
♥ ~ He's called, "Desire of all nations." ♥ ~ He's called, "Prince of peace." ♥ ~ He is God's servant the Branch. ♥ ~ He is the Son of the Highest. ♥ ~ He is the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God. ♥ ~ He is the Judge of all the earth. ♥ ~ He is the confidence of all the ends of the earth. ♥ ~ He is like a refiner's fire, and like fuller's soap. ♥ ~ He opens, and no one shuts; he shuts, and no one opens. ♥ ~ He rides prosperously because of truth and meekness and righteousness. ♥ ~ Before him went pestilence, and burning coals went forth at his feet. ♥ ~ The government is upon his shoulder. ♥ ~ He has the keys of hell and death. ♥ ~ His throne is forever and ever. ♥ ~ The scepter of his kingdom is a right scepter. ♥ ~ God has blessed him forever. ♥ ~ He is anointed with the oil of gladness. ♥ ~ His brightness is as the light. ♥ ~ His glory covers the heavens. ♥ ~ The earth is full of his praise. _________________________________
My heart swells with happiness and gratitude that someone so supreme, so excellent, so infinitely desirable would love me. How can I respond except to love him back? And so I love him, I embrace his ways, I give myself unreservedly to him. What better thing could I ever ask?
"Great and marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almight; just and true are thy ways, thou King of Saints. Who shall not fear thee, O Lord, and glorify thy name? for thou only art holy: for all nations shall come and worship before thee; for thy judgments are made manifest." (Rev. 15:3-4)
"Mommy, tell me the truth," Sandy demanded. Her bold blue eyes confronted her mother's. "Some of the kids at school are saying Santa Claus isn't real. Is he?"
"Oh, honey," her mother said. "Why wouldn't Santa Claus be real? Didn't you sit on his lap at the mall?"
"But where do the presents come from? Is it true that you buy them?" Sandy wanted to know. "Bethany found out. She saw her mom coming into the house with bags of stuff last year, and then that same stuff was what was under the tree. And Jack found out too. His parents told him."
Her mother laughed. "That's funny, sweetie. Don't worry about it. Everyone knows that gifts come from Santa."
"I don't believe you, mommy," Sandy said. She lowered her eyes and quickly left the room.
"Honey, wait..." her mother said. "Come here."
Sandy retraced her steps to find her mother facing her frankly. "Come and sit by me," her mother said. "You know what? Bethany and Jack are right. Your dad and I do buy the gifts and put them under the tree on Christmas Eve. But isn't it kind of fun, anyway, to think that it's Santa who brings them?"
"I guess so," Sandy said. "Thanks mom! I'm going to go tell my little sister!"
Her mother sighed. She wouldn't have minded if 5-year-old Amanda could enjoy the magical wonder of Santa for a few more years. But she had always known her children would find out eventually.
------------------
It is innate in human nature to want to know the truth. Children, who are less sophisticated and less worldly-wise than adults, aren’t as confused about the nature of truth. There either is a Santa Claus or there isn’t, and if there isn’t, they feel stupid believing in one.
Children, however, also have the advantage of a higher authority to whom they can appeal. Mommy and Daddy know everything, and surely what they say must be right. A child could take a poll among his fellow students to find out whether or not Santa Claus is real, and 90% could say yes, but he is not really sure until he gets the truth from his parents. What they say overrides the opinions of the other children, for they are equally in the dark about the matter.
Once a person hits the age of adulthood, however, God is the only available higher authority to whom we can appeal for ultimate truth. And if we put him out of the picture, ultimate truth and higher authority disappear. We are back in the realm of taking opinion polls, for we are all but men. One may believe this and one may believe that, and it may be as real and sincere to us as a child’s belief in Santa Claus, but it can still be utterly false. Perchance a minority stumbles upon something true. If there is no higher authority to say they are right, then they are ridiculed by the majority as cracked and off-base.
This is the situation in which Christians find themselves. They have the truth, they live by it, and they know that it is true for everyone, not just them. However, they are ridiculed by the world for their belief, because the world does not accept God as their authority. The Christian finds comfort in the fact that God is not only his authority, he is also the world’s authority, whether the world recognizes it or not, and this gives him strength and endurance to bear the ridicule.
Imagine a group of children crowded around one who maintains that there is no Santa Claus. The one child has found out the truth, and naturally wants the others to know the truth, too. But imagine that these children had sophisticated, adult brains. “And what makes you so sure of that?” they ask. “WE all know that Santa Claus is real. Nobody believes what parents say anymore. That’s too old-fashioned for these days.” It would be absurd for children not to believe in the higher authority. But it is just as dangerous and absurd for adults not to.
Children have an easier time. They know the higher authority exists (i.e. parents/adults), and there are plenty of them around, visibly present, walking around, functioning as flesh and blood. Adults have it a little bit harder. (But shouldn’t we be mature enough to handle that additional element of complexity?) Our higher authority exists, but He is only One, and though He is omnipresent, He is invisible, only coming in the form of flesh and blood once, 2000 years ago. However, He has not left us without physical, material evidence. We have this in His Word, the Bible, and therefore we can treat Scripture as an authority just as trustworthy as God Himself.
If there is no ultimate truth, then we are reduced to opinions, and if we are reduced to opinions, then we are at the mercy of the opinions of whoever has the most power. This can range from the majority opinion in a democracy to the opinion of one man in a dictatorship. I may hold the opinion that killing innocent people is bad, but if the opinion in power thinks otherwise, my opinion doesn’t count. Only when all of society (those in power as well as those who are not) is willing to submit to God’s ultimate truth will there be peace and harmony among differing factions.
The American government is probably the closest the world has ever come to this ideal. America was founded on Christian principles, by Godly men, and she followed these principles for the most part. In the last hundred years, however, and especially since the 1960s, she has deliberately turned away from God in multiple situations. The result is that she is beginning to stink in the eyes of the world, numerous problems are cropping up, divisions threaten to shatter the increasing fragility of her strength, and there is no remedy other than turning back to God and his ways.
Ultimate truth only exists in the presence of an ultimate authority. Therefore, the Christian enjoys the privilege of access to ultimate truth, for God (the only ultimate authority) is who the Christian follows. However, there is a false “ultimate truth” that exists in the presence of a high, but not ultimate, authority. It is a fact that though we are all mortals, some people have attained more knowledge than others, and therefore are looked upon as authorities on the subject in their realm of study. For instance, I know nothing about the way a computer chip is manufactured. If I was in a conversation with a genius computer chip developer, I would not argue with him about the best way to do it. I wouldn’t say, “No, why would you do it like that? You should use this method.” Why? Because I consider him an authority on the subject. He knows more about it than me, and I submit to his judgment. If I was in a conversation with Pinchas Zucherman or Itzach Perlman (famous violinists), I wouldn’t criticize their bow hold or their interpretation of the music. If I was in the cockpit with an airplane pilot, I wouldn’t question his use of the instruments and controls.
It’s natural (and usually good) for people to look up to others who have more experience or knowledge in a subject. If I assumed the responsibility of computer chip manufacture, we would have no more computers. If I criticized a famous violinist, I would get rejected as knowing nothing about it, and end up making a fool of myself. If I found myself alone in the cockpit of a plane, I would crash.
Occasionally, though, a high authority may come into conflict with the ultimate authority. A knowledgeable person may form conclusions that come into conflict with God's word. Perhaps the most prominent example of this is origins science. The natural admiration people have for authorities on any subject explains why people put science in a place of such authority. This is why people say, “I’m not a scientist. They’ve studied it and I haven’t. They must know. I’ll submit to their judgment of the situation.” Most of the time this is not a problem. There is plenty of science (in the realm of medicine, technology, chemistry, physics, etc.) that studies real phenomena and reports valid findings. But evolutionary science directly contradicts what the Word of God says, resulting in a dilemma and conflict of interest for those who would wish to believe in God as an ultimate authority and his truth as ultimate truth.
On one hand, we have a high authority, intelligent scientists, and on the other hand we have an ultimate authority, God. On one hand, we have the naturalistic explanation of our origin, and on the other hand, we have the Genesis report of creation. On one hand, we have the natural tendency to say “He’s a scientist, he has studied it, he must know,” and on the other hand, we have the nagging doubt that pesters us with the fact that if God is not right on even one point, he is no longer an ultimate authority, and can no longer be trusted ultimately.
Most people, when met with this conflict of interest, sway to the side of the scientist. “Psh…Genesis was written a long time ago by simple people with supersititious beliefs,” they say. In so doing, they discard the ultimate authority and adopt the high authority as their standard of reference.
There are a couple of problems with this. First, this is often the very aim of the origins scientists. They didn’t set out to tell you the truth about how you came into being, they set out to get you to reject God, and now they have succeded in their aim. (This is not the case with every single evolutionist, but it is certainly the case with the founders of evolution and some of today’s leaders in the evolution movement, like Richard Dawkins, Eugenie Evans, etc.) Second, evolution was not ‘discovered’ by scientists genuinely seeking to know the truth about our origins, it was ‘invented’ by scientists who had an a priori assumption that there is no God, and so set about finding a plausible explanation to make the evidence fit with their belief. They are still doing this today, in the face of mounting evidence to the contrary. Third, true science deals with experiments that are testable and repeatable. Origins science studies what happened in the past, which can neither be tested or repeated, and therefore must be interpreted on the basis of assumptions. Come at the evidence with a whole different set of assumptions, and you come out with a whole different conclusion. I am not the best at explaining this, but if the interested reader would like to conduct further study, visit http://www.answersingenesis.org for a wealth of articles written by Ph.D. scientists who can explain all the myriad difficulties much better than I can.
Belief in absolute truth has suffered a blow from the widespread belief in evolution, but the blow has not proved fatal. Truth, by its very nature, still rises to the surface to prevail against falsehood. It’s just less popular to believe the truth. Today’s society is more disposed to be like children who make fun of the one who maintains that Santa Claus is not real. But you can’t turn truth into falsehood by making fun of it.
And imagine if there were no absolute authority or absolute truth in the world. Let us look through the window at what it would be like. Pardon me while my eyes get adjusted to the gloom. No absolute truth would mean that what is right for me doesn’t have to be right for you, and every man can do what is right in his own eyes. Take this to its extremity. If a man wants to murder someone, who is to forbid him? Obviously, the victim doesn’t want to get murdered. So we have a conflict of interest here. What’s true for the victim (“You can’t murder me”) is not true for the muderer (“Oh, yes, I can murder you”). It is impossible to have a society without conflicts of interest. If there are rules, there will be people unhappy with the rules. If the rules are taken away, then innocent people will be unhappy with the lawlessness that results. When people are unhappy with something, they have two choices: fight for what they want, or lie down and suffer. And when people are fighting, every one wanting his individual rights, utter chaos results and society regresses to the barbarism of the dark ages. “I want what you have, so I’m going to take it away from you, and there will be no one to deny it to me.” “Oh, yes there will, because I’m going to get my friends together to defend myself.” “Oh yeah? well then I’ll just get a bigger group together to be stronger than you.” And so we are back to tribal warfare. The strong have what they want and the weak are oppressed.
We thought we were too enlightened to go back to those days. We thought we had arrived at democracy and freedom in the world, and that we would never go back to anything else, having once tasted of the benefits of this way of life. Yet already, our university professors are eroding away people’s idea of ultimate truth. Already, our culture is so postmodern that everyone believes it’s okay to do what is right in his own eyes. At this moment, people are saying with their lips, their actions, their choices, “What’s right for me is not necessarily right for you.” Right now, society is sauntering merrily along the path that ends in the utter destruction of personal liberty and the reinstallation of heavy-handed political authority of the strong over the weak.
We are going to have an authority one way or the other. When people were willing to accept God as the ultimate authority, society was free, the people were happy, and there was peace among those who agreed that God’s laws were the standard by which to live. But if people reject all that, they are in for a human authority, a political dictator, a world ruler, who will ruthlessly oppress anyone who rejects his will. People don’t like the idea of letting God be their authority, because it assumes that then He will have the right to tell them what to do. But at least when God tells you to do something, it’s for your success, for your good, for your future happiness, for your best. Human authorities only have their selfish goals in mind when they give out commands. God, as the one who created us, knows exactly what is best for us and knows how to give it to us. Sure, we have to look unpopular for believing in God, for believing in the truth, for flying in the face of all that the world believes. But the alternative is flying in the face of what God believes, and who would you rather fight against? Man? or God?
Truth will prevail. And after death, each person will reap the consequences of either his acceptance or rejection of the truth. You get to choose your actions here on earth, but after you die, you don’t get to pick where you go. That is determined by what you did here on earth with the truth. Heaven is a real place. Hell is a real place. These truths are part of the absolute truth revealed to us in God’s word. You can choose to reject the truth. You can choose to believe that my entire viewpoint is worthless. But when you die, you will face this question: What if you were wrong?
This was the best birthday morning ever! Monica, Katherine and I got up at 5:00 in the morning to go up to Roan Mountain and enjoy a sunrise. The sky was pitch black with some of the clearest stars I've seen all year when we started out, but it was brightening up nicely as we arrived at the balds.
And then the sun peeked up over the horizon!
After we enjoyed the sunrise, we hiked, saw two deer with nice sets of antlers, a bunch of mountain goats, lots of birds and wildflowers, and tons of blueberries! We picked about 3 pints.
