The Mustard Seed

Atheism: Autopsy of a Failed Faith

2009-12-19T21:14:00.027-09:00

As part of my “Debate With Atheists About…Well…Just About Everything,” I wrote…

Just for the record, I DO think an atheist can be an advocate for the “good”, but it’s very, very hard, and even when it CAN be done, it’s still unnecessarily vulnerable to folks who want to say “Homey don’t play that.” Exhibit A: Islamic fundamentalists.

Needless to say, this statement – just like everything I wrote – would be vigorously opposed by most atheists. They insist that faith in God is NOT necessary for “the good.” A belief in Darwinism, materialism, atheism, etc. is sufficient for a healthy moral order.

And what IS a “healthy moral order?” That depends. There is some disagreement within the atheist community. However, I’ll tentatively divide those guys into 3 categories: The Nihilists (“all morality is an illusion;” think Nietzsche); the Objectivists (“morality DOES exist and is universal;” think Ayn Rand) and the Sentimentalists (“morality sort of exists, but is always relative;” think Richard Rorty).

I just made up the term “Sentimentalist Atheist.” And I would argue that they make up the vast majority of atheists (probably about 80%). What makes them “sentimental?” Even though they vocally loathe religion, they behave morally (for the most part) and have no interest in shedding their morality (think of Richard Dawkins or E.O. Wilson). In fact, if you studied them on a purely behavioral level – and knew nothing of their personal beliefs – you might find no difference between them and most Christians (except for praying and going to church, obviously). They marry and have children. They hold the door open for the person walking behind them. They say “Sorry” when they bump into strangers accidentally. They pay their taxes. They abstain from crime. And they even donate to charity (except to religious charities, of course).

How do we account for this behavior? Is it “logical” for an atheist to behave this way? And would a society completely composed of atheists behave this way? Let’s find out.

For starters, let's look at a brief dialogue between me and “Grant,” which arose from the comment section of one of my previous essays.

Todd: Personally, when I was an atheist, I was just as “moral” as I am today as a theist, but it was a “folk morality.” I knew – on an intellectual level – that morality was an illusion, but I “liked” being moral, and why? Probably because I had spent 15 years absorbed in a Christian culture, and still had the residue of faith on my soul. Being “bad” morally made me feel “bad” emotionally…

I think the morality of atheists is a consequence of being born and raised in a religious culture for a long, long time before they even begin to question their faith. As religious culture fades away (partly because of the efforts of atheists, btw) morality (among atheists and theists, too) is likely to wither away…

In today’s age, an atheist almost certainly has to be a materialist, and a materialist almost certainly has to be a Reductionist. And how do Reductionists see human beings? According to them, we're just mindless meat puppets manipulated by our selfish genes to survive and reproduce. Does that seem like a positive attitude toward humanity? Is that an ideology that can sustain human dignity? I think not. And once we absorb that attitude toward our fellow man, is there anything beyond fear of the law that can motivate a person to respect the lives of others? No. Once you start peeling the onion a little bit, you see that atheism is intellectually defenseless against the subjection and destruction of humanity. One caveat, though: It is not so much the disbelief in God that is lethal; it is the reductionist materialism that is the foundation of atheism…

Grant: While it's fascinating to hear you explain to me what I almost certainly must be I think I'll fall back on the fact that I have known hundreds of atheists and never met a single one who thinks people are "mindless meat puppets."

Todd: Ah, now we’re coming to the nub of the matter. I’ll try to incorporate your statement into a new observation: While atheists DO think people are “mindless meat puppets” in a scientific sense (sorry, but that is exactly how atheism is articulated by people like Dawkins and Dennett), the atheists DON’T ACT like people are “mindless meat puppets.” They still act like people have inherent dignity. And that’s good! They are resisting the teachings of their leaders. They can’t overcome their desire to live in a teleological, moral order. And again, that’s good! So the question becomes…Why can’t atheists understand that? Why can’t they see the discrepancy between their philosophical atheism and their daily behavior? If they COULD see it, they might question their atheism, and start groping toward a new spirituality.

Grant is a “sentimental atheist.” He is an all-too-common child of modern civilization. He assumes he’s the pinnacle of civilization because he’s smart, tolerant, and liberal. In truth, he’s the red-headed stepchild of civilization. The rest of the family doesn’t accept him. And why should they? They realize what the atheist does not: The atheist is a luxury of civilization, not a creator of it. I’m almost tempted to call atheists “free riders” on the Western moral tradition. A harsher person might call them “parasites” (drawing nutrition from their hosts, while weakening them), but I’ll refrain from using such a pejorative term.

“NO!!” shout the atheists. “You have us all wrong!!!” For Christ’s sake, how many times do we have to tell you: You don’t need God to be ‘good!’”

Larry Anhart is one of those atheists. He is a professor at Northern Illinois University, author of the book, Darwinian Conservatism, and the main contributor of a blog by the same name. I haven’t read Prof. Arnhart’s book, but I did read one of his most recent blog entries: Do Human Rights Require Religious Beliefs?

Prof. Arnhart realizes that most people would automatically answer: “Yes, it does.” He opens…

What difference would it make if we accepted what Bernard Williams has called "Nietzsche's thought"--"there is, not only no God, but no metaphysical order of any kind"?

One consequence, Nietzsche suggested, is that we could no longer believe that human beings were created by God in His Image and thus endowed with equal dignity. In Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Nietzsche wrote: "The masses blink and say: 'We are all equal.--Man is but man, before God--we are all equal.' Before God! But now this God has died." The modern morality of human equality is secularized Christian morality that cannot be continued after the death of God.

Does this mean, then, that we could no longer hold it to be self-evident that all men are created equal, and that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights?...

These are the questions raised by Michael J. Perry in his book Toward a Theory of Human Rights… Perry asks: "For one who believes that the universe is utterly bereft of transcendent meaning, why--in virtue of what--is it the case that every human being has inherent dignity?". If we have no answer to that question, Perry insists, then we have no answer to those human beings who assert that they have the right to exploit and abuse other human beings because what we call right is really just the rule of the stronger…

The failure to provide a cosmic standard of value is also why Perry rejects the positions of Martha Nussbaum and Richard Rorty, who say that human rights rest upon human sympathy and solidarity. Nussbaum and Rorty believe that the lives of human beings have value in so far as we care for them. The idea of human rights is promoted by extending our moral sentiments to embrace ever wider circles of humanity.

Perry objects to this sentimental morality that although normal human beings--those who are not psychopaths--do care for some other human beings, particularly those of their family or tribe, it is not true that normal human beings care for all other human beings equally and impartially…

William Schulz is the former Executive Director of Amnesty International USA. In his book In Our Own Best Interest: How Defending Human Rights Benefits Us All, he dismisses appeals to God or Nature or Reason as insufficient to sustain the morality of human rights. Instead, he agrees with Richard Rorty in relying on David Hume's insight that morality depends on sympathy and the moral emotions that incline us to care for our fellow human beings…

He goes on to say:

"Robert Frost once observed that poems begin with a lump in the throat, and I think human rights do too. . . . far better than by appeals to God or Nature, is to point to the capacity to identify with others, the capacity for human empathy or solidarity"...

But notice the implications of this. This view of morality as rooted in the moral emotions of evolved human nature does not appeal to any metaphysical "beyond" for cosmic support. Those like Plato, Kant, Nietzsche, and Perry would say that without such a metaphysical foundation, morality is impossible. Those analytic philosophers today who look to pure logic to prove the principles of moral obligation as inherent in the logical order of things continue in this Platonic tradition...

There is a foundation for human dignity, but it's not a transcendent or transhuman foundation--God, Nature, or Reason--but the empirical foundation of evolved human nature as the source of sympathy and the moral sense.

I give Prof. Arnhart a lot of credit: This is probably the best defense of how morality can be justified by Darwinian atheism that we will ever see. The question is: Does it work?

As you would probably expect, I have to answer “No.” Why? Well, because there’s a few contradictions. And they’re big ones. In the heart of his essay, Arnhart writes…

[Perry] hasn't made a good case for his claim that religious belief necessarily supports a morality of universal love or egalitarian humanitarianism. He admits that in practice, much of the history of religion is a history of brutality. But he would say that this comes from the failure of believers to live up to the true teaching of their religion.

Assuming Arnhart agrees with Perry’s criticism of religion (and I think that’s an excellent assumption), we have several unresolved questions that need to be addressed.

First, if humanity has experienced a “history of brutality” – whether in the name of religion, racism, class struggle, or whatever – it certainly puts a major cramp on the idea that humanity has an intuitive moral sense.

The idea that morality is “innate” has been pushed by Darwinists who account for morality as a product of evolution, but it is also very popular among certain Christians, who say it’s evidence of God’s existence and His benevolence.

Personally, I strongly disagree with the idea of an intuitive “moral law.” That’s one of the reasons I find C.S. Lewis – arguably the most famous Christian apologist – so useless.

Last year, I wrote…

According to Mr. Lewis, every human being is born with an “intuitive” understanding of “right and wrong.” This is just plain false. Every mother and father will confirm that NO child is born with an “intuitive” sense of “right and wrong.” Rather, those children must be TAUGHT to understand the difference – and the best way to understand THAT difference is through REASON (although, especially in the early years, social conformity and a few spankings might help).

Lewis’ further explanation that the Holocaust is proof of this “moral law” that is “commonly known to all human beings?” Oh really? I would beg to differ. The fact that SS guards laughed while shooting innocent women and children in the concentration camps and then mailed photos of their crimes to their families back home certainly negates any theory that “right and wrong” is “intuitive” in human beings. The fact that even today, in most Muslim cultures, teenage girls who are raped are then MURDERED by their own parents (to cleanse the “shame” on their family) shows that there are no universal, intuitive standards of “right and wrong.”

While both Christians and Darwinists are wrong to posit an intuitive “moral law,” it is the Darwinists who suffer most if such a law does not exist. Why? Because – as Arnhart’s essay shows – the idea of a “moral sense” is the only thing stitching together a coherent atheist defense of morality. If the “moral sense” goes, so does the idea of atheist morality.

However, an atheist might argue: Even if you’re right, how do you account for Arnhart’s observation that emotional appeals to compassion work on both atheists and believers (as demonstrated by the founder of Amnesty’s experience)?

Easy. See my discussion with “Grant” above. “Amnesty” is a product of modern Western Civilization. The people who finance “Amnesty” – which include Christians AND Atheists - are also products of that civilization. They were raised on the nourishment of that civilization, whose food is faith, and whose water is reason.

As I wrote on Sep. 22:

For thousands of years of human history, life all across the world life was - to quote Hobbes - "nasty, brutish, and short." Then, in one small region of the world in one brief window of time, a civilization emerged in which people (on average) lived for 75+ years in excellent health, enjoyed an economic quality of life unimaginable to their ancestors, experienced freedom from tyranny and violence, and entertained nearly limitless opportunities for creativity and self-expression.

This civilization (first blossoming in the US, Great Britain, France, and Holland in the 18th century, spreading to most of Western Europe by the late 19th century, and spreading even into remote corners like Latin America by late 20th century) was no accident. And it was not inevitable. It was a coming together of a religion and a philosophy.

As I wrote in January...

I've never felt comfortable when politicians describe America as a "Judeo-Christian country" or reaffirm the need to preserve our "Judeo-Christian values"...It defines our country, our values, and our heritage through religion alone.

About a year ago, I coined the term "Christian-Enlightenment" because it combines the religion of the West (Christianity) with the ground-breaking Enlightenment ideas (freedom, reason, the Scientific Method, etc.) that enabled the West to dominate the world.

Ethiopia is a "Judeo-Christian" country, but it's one of the worst countries on Earth because it doesn't have the Enlightenment heritage of Europe and the United States.

The West is a product of the "Christian-Enlightenment." The "Christian Enlightenment" unlocked the "genius of man" - the genius of the rational man - unencumbered by religious superstition or political oppression. But how many people in the West realize that? Not many. And therein lies our problem. How can we preserve Western civilization when so few of us understand it?

The atheists obviously don’t understand it. If faith and reason are the vital ingredients of our civilization, to claim (as they do) that atheism and emotion can – by themselves – sustain our civilization is a pure fantasy, to put it mildly (For more on this topic, see my essay, “Will Western Civilization End in Your Lifetime? Yes, Probably”).

So Anhart’s theory is dead. There is no intuitive moral sense, and whatever morality we DO possess is TAUGHT to us by a civilization that requires faith, not atheism. The “Sentimental Atheists” – like Arnhart – are free to live their lives and advocate their ideas, but the rest of us have no obligation to take their ideas seriously.

So if the Sentimental Atheists can’t defend morality, and the nihilistic atheists obviously deny morality, can ANY form of atheism work in a moral sense? The only remaining candidate is “Objectivism” – the gospel of reason articulated by Ayn Rand and her followers.

I am sympathetic to Objectivism (without the atheism, of course), because I share the Objectivists’ belief that 2 axioms are the foundation of any moral order: 1) Reality exists, and 2) Reason is the best means to master Reality. From those 2 axioms, Rand developed a cohesive, self-confident moral philosophy, expressed in Atlas Shrugged.

But does it work? Well, it used to. But not now.

As I wrote on Sep. 18...

I think--at one time, decades ago--it was possible for an atheist to be a full partner in the fight to preserve Western civilization. Ayn Rand comes to mind. So does Karl Popper. They loved freedom and America, and just as importantly, they loved mankind. They also lived in a more innocent time (1940s/50s)--a time before Richard Dawkins, E.O. Wilson, Daniel Dennett, and the rest of the Reductionist movement.

Today, atheism equals reductionism. Reductionism is the idea that we're all mindless meat puppets manipulated by our selfish genes to survive and reproduce. Even human reason (which was championed by Rand) is impotent in the reductionist/atheist worldview. As David Brooks says, "Reason is just the press secretary of the emotions."

As we've discussed before, a free republic has to believe that its citizens have the capacity for reason and morality (two things denied by the atheist/reductionist crowd). Otherwise, it is intellectually defenseless against Washington elites who want to lead their brethren around by the nose.

In conclusion, for me, it's not the principle of atheism ("no God") that is incompatible with Western civilization; it is the modern practice of atheism ("reductionism") which denies not only God's existence, but the existence of a truly rational, moral human being.

Ayn Rand belonged to a more innocent time. In her era, one could be a materialist/atheist, and still believe in reason/morality. But if the materialist insists that reason is an illusion, where does that leave rational moralists, like today’s Objectivists? The Objectivists are like dinosaurs who are still groping around the Earth after the asteroid destroyed their habitat. With Reductionism toxifying their intellectual landscape, they have no way to survive. Today, the only “fit” atheist is a Reductionist – whether of the nihilist kind or the sentimental kind.

Of course, as Reductionism gains more intellectual power, even the sentimental atheists will lose ground. After all, the Western Civilization that nurtures their sentimentalism is dying. And thus, in the coming decades, the nihilists will predominate in the atheist community. "Sentimental Atheists" like E.O Wilson, Richard Dawkins, Larry Arnhart, Dennis Mangan, and Luke Muehlhauser are all products of their time, and “the times, they are a changing.”

So to quote Casey Stengel: “Can ANYONE play this game?” Yes, one type of atheist. The atheist who acknowledges that atheism IS toxic – both to the individual and society – but is still an atheist because – with a heavy heart – they've concluded that atheism must be true. And how many atheists advance such a view? Very few. I certainly haven’t met any in my online discussions. And in the culture at large, I cant even think of anyone– although I’m tempted to put John Derbyshire on the list.

Derbyshire is a Darwinist, a Reductionist, and officially a “Myseterian” – which, in practice, is little different from atheism. So let’s call Derbyshire an atheist, shall we? Why does he have value? Because he’s honest enough to admit the problems with atheism, and thus – despite his atheism – he can show the advantages of faith. What kind of atheism is this? Let’s call it “Self-Loathing Atheism.”

At the start of this essay, I wrote…

I DO think an atheist can be an advocate for the “good”, but it’s very, very hard, and even when it CAN be done, it’s still unnecessarily vulnerable to folks who want to say “Homey don’t play that.” Exhibit A: Islamic fundamentalists.

I stand by all that. Atheism can’t advance the "good." Indeed, it directly opposes the "good." The modern synthesis of atheism with reductive materialism is a triumph of nihilism. In that sense, the most "logical" form of atheism is nihilism. That's why the power of nihilism will grow. And that's also why - from society's perspective - the only useful atheist is one who acknowledges the horror of atheism. In short, a “self-loathing atheist.”

And yet, I’m still supposed to believe that atheism is the wave of the future? If it is, it’s a very bleak future indeed.

**UPDATE, DEC. 20, 2009**

Part of this essay - along with some new commentary - has been cross-posted at Larry Auster's website.

Larry wrote...

Did you coin the category, "sentimental atheists"? It is brilliant. That's exactly what they are. Having no solid, rational basis for moral truth, they are sentimental and emotional about moral truth. There are these things such as morality or conservatism that they WANT to believe in, though they have no solid grounds for them. This makes them sentimentalists.

I also wrote:

Not to sound like Hegel or anything, but I believe that--over time--major philosophical contradictions are unsustainable. They will inevitably resolve themselves. We see that, for instance, in modern America: Our decades-long mix of socialism with freedom has brought us to a crossroads: Will we have socialism? Or will we have freedom? Because we are rapidly reaching a point where it will be impossible to have both. In the same vein, "sentimental atheism" is a strange mix of something good (love of morality), and something awful (atheism), but the awful part is becoming so big that a choice will have to be made: Morality or Atheism? And if you can't make a choice, you will become irrelevant.

Dennis Mangan picked up on Auster's entry and responded here.

Dennis wrote (in part)...

We know that many atheists, perhaps the great majority, behave morally, e.g., they care for their children, are not common criminals, and so on. Therefore moral behavior does not require religious belief.

I responded...

I think the relevant question isn’t so much “can an individual be moral without religious belief?” Yes, I think he can. And the evidence you cite above is sufficient. That is the behavior of a “sentimental atheist.” The better question is, “can atheism – by itself – be a motivator for moral behavior?” As I said in my essay (which I encourage you to read), I think the answer is "no."

In your entire blog post today, you never articulate what is the motivation for an atheist to be moral. That’s because there is none. What looks like motivation is merely the product of being born and raised in a Christian-Enlightenment culture, and developing an understandable attachment to such a great culture. It’s not the behavior of atheists that’s at issue; it’s their lack of appreciation for how religion itself – specifically, Christianity – has built the entire artifice that surrounds you. A purely atheist culture (or even a mostly atheist culture) would descend into barbarism very quickly, as I explained in my essay.

An atheist who understood this essential point might have different policy priorities, including ensuring that religion continues to be an active part of U.S. society (in contrast to say, Europe). As you point out, an atheist wouldn’t necessarily become an advocate of open borders (to use your example). But he might, say, be comfortable with allowing criticism of Darwinism to be taught in public schools. That’s just one example.

**UPDATE, JAN. 4, 2010**

To see the best of Mangan's comment thread, Sentimental Theists, click here.

Chaos, Order, and Dogma

2009-12-18T18:27:00.004-09:00

Alan Keyes in today's World Net Daily: The Evolutionist's Comical Dogma...

I am continually impressed with the incongruity of our situation as Americans. We live in a country where the form of government (a constitutional republic framed to secure unalienable rights by implementing the principle that the just powers of government are derived from the consent of the people) logically and historically depends upon an idea of human justice that appeals to the authority of the Creator. But it is also a country where the most widely accepted and enforced paradigm for human knowledge (empirical science) is held to require the exclusion of creation as a rational explanation for the existence of human life. I again experienced this impression recently as I read an article about the controversy in which Stephen Meyer's book "The Signature in the Cell" continues to simmer…

Aristotle was probably right to see this assumption of intelligibility in nature as the key first step toward natural philosophy... It has obviously proven useful to mark out fortuitous moments (stretches of the space-time continuum) in which a certain appearance of rule-governed order is allowed to contradict the reality of prevailing chaos. Indeed, the activities and inventions made possible by doing so are in other contexts the solid basis for praising and promoting scientific endeavors. But the predictability and precision that allowed people to fashion rocket ships and ride them to the moon; build electrical devices to make certain aspects of life vastly more convenient and comfortable; or devise electronic engines that digest and transmit vast quantities of data in a few instants; these are not the sine qua non of scientific validity. Instead, the true scientist must recognize the hallmark of scientific rigor as…the profound observation that, given enough time, an intricate, deeply improbable order of things just happens.

There is something comically irrational about this kind of dogmatism.

Quote of the Day

2009-12-18T17:56:00.006-09:00

"Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark, in the hopeless swamps of the approximate, the not-quite, the not-yet, the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish, in lonely frustration for the life you deserved, but have never been able to reach. Check your road and the nature of your battle. The world you desired can be won. It exists, it is real, it is possible, it is yours." - Ayn Rand

Daily Wrap-Up

2009-12-17T15:35:00.004-09:00

US House Approves $155 Billion Stimulus Bill: It’ll never stop. Not until it ends.

Boom Times for Big Government: Pat Buchanan asks, "Is this the government the Founding Fathers dreamed of — or is this the kind of government they took up arms against?"

Ex-Gov. Emerges as Next Ron Paul: “Former New Mexico Republican Gov. Gary Johnson is a teetotaling triathlete who looks the part of the laid-back Mountain West politician. But don’t let the jeans and black mock turtleneck he's sporting on his new website fool you: Johnson is starting to sound like a mad-as-hell populist with an eye cast on 2012 and the building fury aimed at Washington."

Church at the Crossroads: Luke "The Common Sense Atheist" has started a series on Christian pastor Jack Good and his book, The Dishonest Church. Jack writes: "Most church schools teach concepts of God that are, at best, appropriate for children...A silent pact often exists between the pastor and the congregation… in which certain difficult issues are to be left unmentioned." Luke pleads for church professionals to "tell your members the truth about the Bible, the Historical Jesus, and the mysteries about the nature of God." Part One is here. And Part Two is here.

I've also updated 2 essays...

The Cannibals of the Scientific Revolution

Groping Toward a New Spirituality

The Political Gene

2009-12-17T11:07:00.004-09:00

In today’s New Statesman, philosopher John Gray reviews Dennis Sewell’s new book, The Political Gene: How Darwin's Ideas Changed Politics...

One of the virtues of The Political Gene is to show how often Darwinism has been used to promote ideals of human progress that are illiberal, authoritarian or racist.

Drawing an implicit parallel with The Black Book of Communism, published in France in the late 1990s, which detailed communist atrocities ignored by bien-pensant opinion, Dennis Sewell writes that "the Black Book of Darwinism contains some real horrors".

A large part of The Political Gene focuses on how leading Darwinists have campaigned for eugenics. Francis Galton (1822-1911), one of the founders of modern psychology, used Darwin's theory to promote his field as "an upbeat project offering an optimistic hope of Utopia", even writing an unpublished novel, Kantsaywhere, about a republic ruled by a Eugenic College, whose fellows set and administer "anthropometric tests" measuring the "fitness" of the population. Galton's repulsive utopia may seem remote from any 20th-century political reality but, as Sewell shows, eugenic ideas of the kind Galton propagated were taken seriously, not least in the United States, where 33 states passed sterilisation laws and at least 60,000 people were sterilised as "unfit".

In Germany, the chief propagandist for Darwinism was Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919), who, like Galton, promoted the idea of a racial hierarchy. Holding that "the lower races . . . are psychologically nearer to the mammals - apes and dogs - than civilised Europeans", Haeckel was pivotal in giving scientific respectability to the categorisation of race. The extent to which his ideas were used by the Nazis is disputed, but there can be little doubt that his enormously influential writings helped open the door to racist pseudo-science in Europe…

It is at this point that 21st-century defenders of Darwinism will be up in arms, indignantly protesting that these were abuses in no way entailed by the theory of natural selection. They have a point… While eugenic movements have always been prone to racism, eugenic theories need not - as a matter of logic, at any rate - accept race as a scientific category. More generally, one cannot hold a theory responsible for the uses that are made of it, if only because judgements of value do not flow automatically from explanatory claims.

This last point is confirmed by the diversity of contending movements that have claimed a pedigree in Darwinian thinking…It might seem reasonable to conclude that they were all wrong, and say that no moral or political position can be derived from Darwinism.

Yet matters aren't quite that simple. Contemporary evangelists for Darwinism continue to claim that it supports a particular political programme - in this case, a militant version of secularism - and aim to convert humanity to what they see as a scientific world-view. The logic of their position has never been explained. A phenomenon that is nearly as universal as religion is likely to have some evolutionary role and, even if religions are illusions, the upshot of Darwinian science may be that the human animal cannot do without them. In that case, Darwinism would suggest evangelical atheism is a pointless, indeed absurd, activity.

What actually happened was that evolution was promoted as a faith. Galton hoped that eugenics would one day have the authority of the church. Haeckel set up his "Monist League" explicitly in order to found an "evolutionary religion"…

The appeal of this fantasy is unlikely to wane, because it satisfies the need for faith while offering the alluring prospect of power.

H/T: Darwiniana

The Curious Case of Benjamin Bernanke

2009-12-17T10:09:00.004-09:00

It’s been a great week if your name is “Ben Bernanke.”

On Wednesday, Time Magazine named you “2009: Person of the Year.”

As The Huffington Post reports…

TIME Managing Editor Rick Stengel appeared on the "Today" show Wednesday morning to reveal his magazine's selection for 2009's Person of the Year: Ben Bernanke.

"The winner is Ben Bernanke, Chairman of the Federal Reserve, the most powerful, least understood government force shaping our lives," Stengel said.

Stengel described the cover as a "throwback cover, like a Person of the Year cover from the '40s or '50s."

"He was the great scholar of the Depression, and basically he saw what looked like another Depression coming and he decided he would do whatever it takes to forestall that," Stengel said. "And basically he did."

Then today, The Senate Banking Committee voted to approve Bernanke's reappointment to a second four-year term as Fed chairman.

A Republican, Senator Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, offered a strong endorsement of the nominee. While “mistakes were made” under his purview, Mr. Gregg said, Mr. Bernanke’s swift reaction to the financial crisis had proved crucial. “I tell you, it worked,” he said. “It’s that simple.”

The circle jerk was interrupted, however, by The Wall Street Journal, which continues to cast a wary eye toward the Fed’s policies.

Gerald O’Driscoll writes…

Over the weekend, President Barack Obama went on the offensive against Wall Street for not lending more to Main Street. On CBS's "60 Minutes," the president declared, "I did not run for office to be helping out a bunch of fat cat bankers on Wall Street”….

Wall Street fat cats are always a convenient political target, but bankers are responding to the incentives generated by the economic policies of the Treasury and the Federal Reserve. First and foremost is the Fed's policy of near-zero interest rates.

What this means is that banks can raise short-term money at very low interest rates and buy safe, 10-year Treasury bonds at around 3.5%. The Bernanke Fed has promised to maintain its policy for "an extended period." That translates into an extended opportunity for banks to engage in this interest-rate arbitrage.

Why would a banker take on traditional loans, which even in good times come with some risk of loss? In today's troubled times, only the best credits will be bankable. Meanwhile, financial institutions are happy to service their new, best customer: the U.S. Treasury. That play on the yield curve is open to banks of all sizes.

The Fed's policy makes sense if the goal is restoring bank profitability by generating cash flow. It is a terrible policy if the goal is fueling small business, the engine of economic growth and job creation. Large, nonfinancial corporations have access to banks. They can also tap the public credit markets and have access to internally generated funds. Not so for small business, which depends heavily on banks for credit...

Has recent experience taught the leaders of large financial institutions the need to curb their risk appetite? Not really. The lesson they have learned is that presidents of both parties, the Fed and Congress will come to their rescue when they get in trouble…

Mr. Obama may not have run for president in order to reward them, but that is the effect of his policies.

Daily Wrap-Up

2009-12-16T14:08:00.003-09:00

Top 10 Astronomy Pictures of 2009: "Colorful stars, wispy, ethereal nebulae, galactic vistas sprawling out across our telescopes… it’s art no matter how you look at it."

Journey Inside The Cell: A cool animation.

Burial Cloth Found in Jerusalem Cave Casts Doubt on Authenticity of Turin Shroud: “Ancient shrouds from the period have been found before in the Holy Land, but never in Jerusalem. Researchers say the weave and design of the shroud discovered in a burial cave near Jerusalem's Old City are completely different to the Turin Shroud."

When Same-Sex Marriage Was a Christian Rite: "A Kiev art museum contains a curious icon from St. Catherine's Monastery on Mt. Sinai in Israel. It shows two robed Christian saints. Between them is a traditional Roman ‘pronubus’ (a best man), overseeing a wedding. The pronubus is Christ. The married couple are both men. Is the icon suggesting that a gay "wedding" is being sanctified by Christ himself?...Contrary to myth, Christianity's concept of marriage has not been set in stone…Records of Christian same sex unions have been discovered in such diverse archives as those in the Vatican, in St. Petersburg, in Paris, in Istanbul and in the Sinai, covering a thousand-years from the 8th to the 18th century.”

Universal Uchitel: “Here’s one big obvious lesson to be learned from Tiger Woods: Sex makes people stupid…This is why we need a little thing called ‘civilization’ to intervene between people and sexual passion, so we don’t leave the young-uns to rely on their own genius to figure out certain enduring truths.”

I've also updated my essay, What is the Function of Science?

"Jersey Shore" and Us

2009-12-16T12:42:00.003-09:00

Jonah Goldberg in today’s National Review Online

America Through the Reality Lens

Culturally, this has been the decade of the reality show. And what do we have to show for it? Not much more than the contestants themselves.

Survey the wreckage. Richard Hatch, the first Survivor champion, was just released from prison (he didn’t pay taxes on his winnings). The marriage of the Octoparents, Jon and Kate, is a shambles. Richard and Mayumi Heene were so desperate to land a reality series, they concocted an enormous hoax, convincing the country their child had been carried away in a balloon. Michaele and Tareq Salahi tried to claw their way onto the sure-to-be-hideous series Real Housewives of D.C. by brazening their way into a state dinner. And alleged wife-killer Ryan Jenkins, a contestant on two VH1 shows, is a stark reminder that fame is not a reflection of good character.

Which brings us to Jersey Shore… In a teaser for this week’s episode, one of the girls is punched in the face at a bar. But, after “consulting with experts on the issue of violence,” MTV announced it wouldn’t show the actual assault. While I can’t fault the decision, it is kind of funny. The producers see nothing wrong with glorifying drunken idiocy and moral buffoonery in every episode, but they “responsibly” draw the line at physical violence because MTV is loath to promote reckless behavior…

British historian Arnold Toynbee argued that civilizations thrive when the lower classes aspire to be like the upper classes, and they decay when the upper classes try to be like the lower classes. Looked at through this prism, it’s hard not to see America in a prolonged period of decay…

Self-discipline was once a virtue; now self-expression is king.

Reality-show culture has thrived in that moral vacuum, accelerating the decay and helping to create a society in which celebrity is the new nobility…

Whatever you think of what Toynbee and Murray would call the “proletarianization of the elites,” one point is beyond dispute: The rich can afford moral lassitude more than the poor can. Hilton, heir to a hotel fortune, has life as simple as she wants it to be. Tiger Woods is surely a cad, but as a pure matter of economics, he can afford to be one.

The question is: Can the rest of us afford to live in a society constantly auditioning to make an ass of itself on TV?

Are You F’in Kidding Me?

2009-12-16T11:38:00.005-09:00

I love the opening of this new article in The Economic Times:

In his latest book, The Greatest Show on Earth, Richard Dawkins refers to an incident in the life of British evolutionary biologist J.B.S. Haldane when he was approached by a lady who didn’t believe in evolution.

Apparently, she said something like “Even with billions of years of evolution available how is it possible to go from a single cell to a complicated human body with trillions of cells organised into bones, muscles and nerves, a ceaselessly pumping heart, miles of blood vessels and a brain capable of talking, thinking and feeling?”

To this Haldane is supposed to have replied: “But madam, you did it yourself. And it only took you nine months.”

Yep, the fetus does EVERYTHING and ALL by ITSELF!

"Nothin' to see here folks." "Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain."

If Dawkins honestly believes the miracle of life is evidence FOR evolution, then I'm willing to pitch in a few bucks so he can get remedial education.

H/T: Darwiniana

Dollar Crisis Enters New Stage

2009-12-16T10:21:00.002-09:00

Gulf Petro-Powers to Launch Currency in Latest Threat to Dollar Hegemony (12/15/09)

“The Gulf monetary union pact has come into effect,” said Kuwait’s finance minister, Mustafa al-Shamali, speaking at a Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) summit in Kuwait.

The move will give the hyper-rich club of oil exporters a petro-currency of their own, greatly increasing their influence in the global exchange and capital markets and potentially displacing the US dollar as the pricing currency for oil contracts. Between them they amount to regional superpower with a GDP of $1.2 trillion (£739bn), some 40pc of the world’s proven oil reserves, and financial clout equal to that of China.

Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Qatar are to launch the first phase next year, creating a Gulf Monetary Council that will evolve quickly into a full-fledged central bank.

The Emirates are staying out for now – irked that the bank will be located in Riyadh at the insistence of Saudi King Abdullah rather than in Abu Dhabi. They are expected join later, along with Oman…

The Gulf currency – dubbed “Gulfo” – is likely to track a global exchange basket and may ultimately float as a regional reserve currency in its own right. “The US dollar has failed. We need to delink,” said Nahed Taher, chief executive of Bahrain’s Gulf One Investment Bank.

Click here for all articles about the “Dollar Crisis.”

“Oh My God, You Got Me ‘The Mustard Seed?’ I Love You Forever!”

2009-12-16T08:08:00.005-09:00

With Christmas only 9 days away, don't forget that The Mustard Seed makes a perfect holiday gift - especially for friends and family members who are in their teens and twenties.

The plot of The Mustard Seed focuses on 3 friends (Brian, Mark, and Troy) who just graduated from college, and the challenges they overcome as they adjust to the "Real World." As the plot unfolds, each character goes through a spiritual and intellectual journey (although only one of them will complete that journey).

The Mustard Seed is a coming-of-age story, a love story, and a story about ideas – the big, overarching ideas about love and faith, truth and morality – and how those ideas shape our lives and control our destiny.

I am confident that you will enjoy this gripping, emotionally riveting novel that is finding a wide audience among young people, spiritual seekers, and intellectuals.

On Amazon.com, Liz Harpence gave TMS 5 out of 5 stars. She wrote...

In a word: "Wow!" Todd White - whoever he is - has really put together an amazing book that should be The Catcher of the Rye for my generation (I'm 24). My friend recommended it to me...Anyway, the book was really well-written. By the third chapter, I had already laughed and cried. Seriously. The plot and characters are great. I especially enjoyed the character of Heather Manning. I could really relate to her. She's a strong, independent woman. Sort of like Dagny Taggart in Atlas Shrugged. But unlike Dagny, Heather also has emotional and spiritual depth, which I like. The Mustard Seed is definitely a wonderful read. I can only hope there's a sequel!

You can read the first 5 pages of TMS here. And you can buy it here, here, here, or anywhere, really.

A Debate with Atheists About...Well...Just About Everything

2009-12-16T05:58:00.006-09:00

On December 5, Luke “the Common Sense Atheist” published a blog post predicting that “immortality/consciousness uploading” would be achieved by the year 2150.

This sparked a comment thread in which I debated atheists on several topics, including the nature of consciousness, artificial intelligence, memes, the HBD movement, the Holocaust, and other issues.

At first, I merely wanted to disagree with Luke's prediction. I wrote...

Consciousness is not a material thing, so it can never be “uploaded.”

This led to an exchange between me and “Justfinethanks…”

JFT: A “song” isn’t a material thing, so that must be why it’s impossible to create an MP3.

TW: A song IS a material thing; it’s words set to music.

JFT: A “song” is the product of material things, like a guitar, vocal chords, drums, but the “song” itself is merely an emergent property of these combined things. Much like “consciousness” is merely an emergent property of neurons, chemicals, and electrical discharges.

TW: See, that’s your mistake. You assume consciousness is an “emergent property” of matter when there’s no evidence of that, and a lot of evidence against it.

Consciousness interacts with matter, but is not equal to matter; it is a non-material agent. And as such, it cannot be uploaded into a machine.

Then Urbster and I crossed paths…

Urb: There’s tons of evidence for consciousness being produced by the brain (by contrast, no one has ever produced evidence for the existence of any kind of “soul” or extraphysical, dualist property) or successfully explained such an interaction with physical matter.

TW: To take one example most people can relate to, let’s look at the placebo effect: Who is the “I” that thinks he’s getting healthier, and MAKES his body healthier, even if the pill he took is just a sugar bill? To the Reductionist, the “I” just an illusion. But the facts of science (plus common sense) suggest there really is an “I” (distinct from the body) which can influence the body.

Then Jeff interjected:

“Occam’s Razor would seem to shave off the idea of a soul, but were we to map out the brain in more detail and find that the consciousness function eludes us, it might still be plausible to come up with some notion of a “mind” or “soul”.

I replied…

I’m not a big fan of Occam’s Razor (especially in science, ironically). The universe is a pretty big, complicated place, and while every generation of scientists answers some questions, they usually get dwarfed by the number of new questions that spring from the tremendous complexity that is the world and life itself.

I’m just glad there wasn’t an Occam’s Razor’s in Galileo’s time. I’m sure the Church would’ve used it against him: “The Earth goes AROUND the sun? Surely, you jest Galileo! That goes against Occam’s Razor.”

Then Fortuna arrived…

FTA: The placebo effect, and related instances of biofeedback, do not strictly require us to postulate anything spooky or ethereal.

TW: I don’t think there’s a “strict requirement.” However, if you take the placebo effect (and similar evidence), and then contrast it with the materialist paradigm, I would argue that “an inference to the best explanation” leads one to conclude that the best explanation is that the mind has a non-material element.

FTA: Also, Occams’ razor slices complex things all things being equal. Galileo had evidence that unbalanced that equation.

TW: True, but too often, Occam’s razor is used for scientific enterprises in which so much of our data is fuzzy (like consciousness studies). Unfortunately, the mere fuzziness leads people to use Occam’s Razor in favor of materialism, and I think that’s lazy – especially when, as I said before, we know from experience that the universe is a pretty big, complicated place.

FTA: How do you propose to “contrast” biofeedback with the materialist paradigm? We know that the brain has a great deal of chemical interplay with the rest of body, up to and including dramatically altering various aspects of your physiology.

TW: I’m not sure if I understand the question. The way I see it, biofeedback exists in a pro-mind paradigm too. Mind can influence the body, and vice versa. But the mind does not equal the body.

In the case of the placebo effect, the act of thinking itself is what drives the biochemical changes. What I am suggesting is that the origin of thinking (the irreducible “I”) is an immaterial process. There is no inherent reason to believe that matter can create mind; it’s a theory of materialist science. I won’t be arrogant enough to say it’s an illogical theory or a theory that could never be proven, but I don’t think it fits the evidence discovered by science over the past century.

Then Jeff came back…

Jeff: Because we know that the brain controls the body, it seems reasonable to assume that the brain would be responsible for the placebo effect (an effect on the body).”

TW: If thinking was on the same level of complexity as digestion, that might express my opinion too. But thinking/consciousness is on an order of complexity so startling that science today struggles to even define it, never mind explain it. Thus, I don’t feel inhibited in suggesting that we are grappling with something which can not be understood in strictly materialist terms, and has has a non-material dimension.

I don’t know to what extent you’re familiar with the writer John Derbyshire, but he’s a proud Darwinist and a critic of Christianity who – despite all that – feels the “hard problem of consciousness” is so vexing, he rejects atheism.

Then came my discussion with Urbster about the existence of “I” which "I" (no pun intended) already described in my essay, The Cannibals of the Scientific Revolution.

After that bout, it was Fortuna's turn…

FTA: The evidence with which I’m familiar has only ever suggested that biochemical changes drive the act of thinking. Neurons fire, and then one wills their arm to move, or tastes ice cream, or gets angry, or what have you. As far I know, whenever we have been in a position to observe the matter, we have never observed the chain of causality flowing from thought to brain chemistry, only the reverse.

TW: I’ve seen some research which suggests that, and other research which contradicts it. However, I have to cast a skeptical eye toward research which suggests that “I” am just a random firing of neurons, and that this cohesive “I” which imposes order on my thoughts and actions doesn’t exist. I don’t think it’s unfair of me to say that that totally contradicts my daily experience, and the experience of most civilized people, for that matter. The research is legit, I’m sure, but I’m confident it will be superseded by better research in the future.

FTA: I’d like you to cite the contradictory research please.

TW: I think this example should qualify, but if it doesn’t, let me know:

In 1991, investigators told a group of 48 men who were about to watch porn to suppress their sexual arousal – and surprisingly enough (according to penile plethysmography), while watching the porn, they were able to do so.

This, in my mind (pun intended), is evidence that “I” exist; “I” is capable of using reason to suppress instincts; and the very act of using reason can initiate biochemical reactions.

This example comes from The Spiritual Brain.

Then I faced Urbster again:

Urb: How could it possibly be that the brain can produce emergent consciousness? Well, how could it be that complex computers can produce emergent (”artificial”) intelligence?

TW: What is often billed as “artificial intelligence” is not even close to “biological intelligence.” It’s not even intelligence; it’s just algorithms.

Urb: Computers work. Does this take faith to believe? Computing is an EMERGENT phenomenon.

TW: I think your statement indicates a common misperception of what consciousness is and how it compares to strictly material objects like computers. As I hinted at above, there is no comparison between a human being and a computer. A computer can perform many seemingly intelligent functions (like Spellchecker or organizing newspaper articles alphabetically) but that intelligence does not require – and shows no evidence of – consciousness. Is the Internet conscious? Does it think and act and emote on its own volition? Of course not. And it’s reasonable to suggest it never will. As I said above, the idea that “consciousness emerges from matter” is a theory but not a fact, and given the evidence accumulated so far, it’s actually better described as a hope; a wish; a matter of faith. See for instance, Why the Mind is Not Like a Computer.

Urb: The more highly complex the brain is, the more intelligence an animal has. Surely it’s not just “conscious” or “not conscious” but there is a range of conscious behavior; some animals are more self-aware than others. Some animals can predict things farther ahead into the future and recognize objects and words. Therefore it is possible for evolution to produce conscious beings.”

TW: I’m OK with everyone you said until the final line, “Therefore it is possible for evolution to produce conscious beings.” That conclusion does not necessarily follow from the evidence you provide. In fact, there is no reason to believe that consciousness is a product of evolution. See for instance, Rob Rosenbaum’s recent article, The Dangerous Mysteries of Consciousness. Rosenbaum is a Darwinist but he’s upfront on how Darwinism cannot explain consciousness, and probably never will.

Urb: Even if we choose to separate talking about ‘the mind’ from ‘the brain,’ the mind is still just a function of my brain like the Windows operating system is the function of the computing processes of the electronic hardware.

TW: Again, that is a faulty analogy based on a misconception of what consciousness is.

Urb: There are as many examples of religion acting as a “parasitic meme”…It makes me wonder if you even understand what a “meme” is.

TW: I understand “memes” very well, which is precisely why I object to Dennett’s statement. The only legitimate description of “meme” is a “good idea which aids survival.” From that description, 3 problems arise: 1) Dennett apparently believes that “memes” are something of a biological nature; something that is mentally equivalent of genes. That is – at a minimum, unproven; at a maximum, absurd. And in either case, it puts Dennett’s credibility into doubt. But further, there are more problems. A “parasitic meme” is a contradiction in terms; either it’s a “meme” or it’s not. A parasitic meme would not aid survival and is thus NOT a meme. So again, Dennett is using sloppy language to advance his agenda. And finally, I genuinely object to the causal statement that “religion is a parasitic meme.” It is atheism – not faith – that is a destroyer of happiness and culture.

See, for example, The Despair of the Selfish Gene.

Then Fortuna came back…

FTA: There is no necessary connection between atheism and unhappiness; the vast majority of atheists are doing just fine, thanks, just like the general population.

TW: As The Economist notes, “sociologists agree that the practice of a faith and broad happiness with life do seem to be related, though nobody has much idea why.” In fairness, that same article also suggests that atheism *might* be more conducive to happiness than agnosticism, and for a predictable reason: Atheism – like Christianity – is a “life philosophy” which can provide people with some sort of ethical guidelines on how to live life; agnosticism – almost by definition – can not do that.

FTA: Ditto the destruction of culture; last I checked, Scandinavia was doing just fine.

TW: I don’t have the data in front of me, but I’m pretty sure it would be inaccurate to call Scandinavia “atheist.” I’m pretty sure most people in Scandinavia believe in God (and probably even the Christian God) but they lack the emotional investment in Christianity that we see in other parts of the world (like the U.S.). Also, on a related note, I would call Scandinavia a culture in decline and inferior in most ways to the Anglosphere (where Christianity is more vibrant).

FTA: You claim that teaching people about natural selection (which is an empirical fact, by the by) will somehow poison peoples’ outlook on life.

TW: I resist the assertion that natural selection (in the context of macroevolution) is an “empirical fact.” I would never call it a “fact” in the same way other scientific laws are facts, such as gravity.

FTA: That’s artifical selection. If your own chosen example [the Columbine massacre] had actually understood natural selection, he wouldn’t have done a damn thing, because actual “failures of natural selection” don’t survive and/or don’t reproduce, without any conscious interference on anyones’ part.

TW: I don’t disagree that [the Columbine killers] were morons, but if they were alive, they would probably say: We can see where natural selection is going. It weeds out the “unfit.” I am a mortal being and I will not live long enough to see the climax of natural selection millions of years from now. I want to live in a society without the unfit NOW. And that’s precisely what they did. Eugenics is an idea with a long scientific pedigree; Darwin’s cousin, Francis Galston, boldly used Darwinism as the foundation of eugenics. Eugenics is unpopular today because the Holocaust tainted it, but I would wager that – if current secular trends continue – it’ll make a nice comeback in the next 15-30 years.

FTA on memes: “My understanding of the term merely implies that memes are ideas that can replicate themselves through transmission from person to person.”

TW: To define “memes” as “ideas that can replicate themselves” – as you and Dennett do – is, IMHO, a real stretch of the imagination, to put it mildly.

On a theoretical level, the problem with memes is the same as the one with “selfish genes.” It assumes intent for something that – by definition – cannot have intent. Ideas are not conscious. They have no purpose…They have no desire to “replicate”…They are just, um, ideas!

At Neuroanthropology.net, Greg Downey (who favors Darwinism) states…

I think ‘memetics’ is one of the bigger crocks hatched in recent decades, hiding in the shadow of respectable evolutionary theory’…

It’s one thing to reify a concept, it’s another thing to start attributing it a whole complex personality, drives, desires, and levels of different reification. If defining gene as ’self-replicating’ is playing a little free with the details, defining meme, as ’self-replicating’ beggars the imagination it’s so stupid….

Arguing this reveals so little understanding of how brains work, especially how hard it is for ANY pattern to repeat completely. That is, even repetitive action typically involves constant changes in patterns of neural activation; maintaining consistency requires constantly shifting neural resources, even slightly, to take account to changes even in the organism itself…

Has anyone, ever, anywhere, seen an idea ‘replicate’ itSELF? Although this may seem like a semantic point, I think it’s a bigger logical problem with reifying culture as ‘memes’ and then attributing agentive power to the memes.

FTA: It is simply not the case that there is no reason whatsoever to think that consciousness is a product of evolution. We know that all life on the planet evolved, and that it exhibits a range of ability with respect to sustaining consciousness that correlates to evolved brain structure. That in itself is a powerful reason to infer that consciousness evolved.

TW: I think in some way you are validating my criticism of Dennett (and other materialists). They basically argue: “If life is a product of evolution – and nothing else – then consciousness must – someWAY, someHOW – be a product of evolution too.

As I said, that’s a theory worthy of consideration, but there is no evidence to support that theory (yet); it is merely a deduction based on a materialist philosophy.

Then DRJ arrived…

DRJ: It is now a widely held belief that broad genetic diversity of populations is one of the most important, if not the most important, measure of a populations fitness. Old forms of eugenics are actually counter-productive to that measure of fitness.

TW: I can think of at least one group of Darwinists who disagree: Those involved in the “Human Biodiversity Movement.” They are pro-Darwin atheists who are entranced by the link between race and evolution. For example, they encourage high-IQ racial groups (specifically, whites and Asians) to avoid reproducing with low-IQ racial groups (basically everyone else). They believe that the blending of the races in America is weakening the collective IQ of our country and thus, weakening our economy, national security, etc. That’s why they want to ban immigration, rescind racial discrimination laws, etc.

Steve Sailer is one of their most vocal advocates.

She his article, Darwin’s Enemies on the Left.

Needless to say, I don’t endorse Sailer’s views; I’m merely showing that “ideas have consequences” and even decent people (like yourself, presumably) can’t always control those consequences.

This did not sit well with Fortuna.

FTA: “There is no way to control for misinformed racists eager to seize on data that they hope will vindicate them.”

TW: Unfortunately, that doesn’t jive with my analysis of the HBD movement. They are not “misinformed racists.” No, they are highly-educated young men who found materialist science as a gateway drug to racism and sexism. See, for instance, the words of HBD blogger, “Thursday…”

“Two of the biggest shocks in my life came when, first, I discovered the truth about race and intelligence through people like Steve Sailer, Arthur Jensen, Charles Murray, Vince Sarich and then later discovered the truth about women and sex through Roissy and the seduction community generally. Suddenly, things that you have seen all around you start to make sense. You realize that, ‘Oh my God, I’ve been lied to all my life.’”

FTA: “If atheism is nothing less than a destroyer of culture, that ought to have a measurable effect, and yet those countries are doing fine.”

TW: They’re doing relatively OK for now. Let’s check back in 10-25 years, though, as the growth of their Muslim population hits a critical mass. I’m not optimistic. Atheists, almost by definition, are not people who are going to risk their lives for abstract ideas like “freedom” and “democracy.” They would rather be slaves than corpses.

FTA: You can’t even assent to the proposition that organisms that are less able to survive and/or reproduce than their peers will have their genes progressively less well-represented in subsequent generations?

TW: That’s microevolution. So yes, I accept that.

FTA: It makes no sense whatsoever to gun down a bunch of kids at random, or because you don’t like them personally, and call yourself a ‘natural selector.’

TW: It’s not rational, I agree; but rationality is an all too rare trait among our species. Indeed, I’m tempted to say atheism itself is irrational.

FTA: What “climax”?

TW: In retrospect, “climax” isn’t the best word. I’ll suggest “progression” as a substitute. The “progression” of the human species. The arrival of Nietzsche’s “Superman,” or something to that effect.

FTA: There is no assumption of intent implied in the selfish gene concept. I have to wonder how much of the primary literature on the subject you’re actually familiar with, because I can’t really even discuss this with you until you understand just how bad of a misconception that is.

TW: With all due respect, I’m tempted to repeat that line back to you. How else would you interpret this line by Richard Dawkins, the author of the “selfish gene” concept: “Let us understand what our own selfish genes are up to, because we may then at least have a chance to upset their designs, something that no other species has ever aspired to do.” That implies the genes have “intent,” does it not?

FTA: Similarly, I can’t begin to respond to any criticisms of the meme concept that you may have until said criticisms are no longer spurious. There is no attribution of agency going on.”

TW: A quote from Dennett: “There is considerable competition among memes for entry in as many minds as possible. This competition is the major selective force in the memosphere, and, just as in the biosphere, the challenge has been met with great ingenuity. For instance, whatever virtues (from our perspective) the following memes have, they have in common the property of having phenotypic expressions that tend to make their own replication more likely by disabling or preempting the environmental forces that would tend to extinguish them.” And it goes on from there. And it’s all B.S.

FTA: The act of using reason is itself initiated by biochemical reactions.

TW: That is an assumption based on a materialist paradigm, but there is no solid proof of that. Indeed, based on the seeming impossibility of matter to account for the mind, I have no qualms about positing a non-material source for consciousness.

A quote from the Dalai Lama:

“I said to one of the scientists: ‘It seems very evident that due to changes in the chemical processes of the brain, many of our subjective experiences like perception and sensation occur. Can one envision to reversal of this causal process? Can one postulate that pure thought itself could effect a change in the chemical processes of the brain?’ I was asking whether, conceptually at least, we could allow the possibility of both upward and downward causation.

The scientist’s response was quite surprising. He said that since all mental states arise from physical states, it is not possible for downward causation to occur. Although out of politeness, I did not respond at the time, I thought then and still think that here is as yet no scientific basis for such a categorical claim.

The view that all mental processes are necessarily physical processes is a metaphysical assumption, not a scientific fact. I feel that, in the spirit of scientific inquiry, it is critical that we allow the question to remain open, and not conflate our assumptions with empirical fact.”

DRJ again...

DRJ: It seems as if your trying to vaguely dancing around the old argument that such racist beliefs (school shootings and the like too) are the inevitable result materialist science, but without actually saying it so matter of factly.

TW: No, let me clarify: Fortuna said that the Columbine killers were “irrational” according to Darwinian principles. I challenged that view. I said it really wasn’t clear whether “weeding out the unfit through violence” is “rational” or “irrational.” Using Darwinism alone, that can’t be determined. The Darwinist fetish for eugenics, for example, seems to indicate that the question is an open one.

DRJ: If you are, in fact, trying to make a case that materialist science leads people towards anti-social beliefs, like racism, then you’ll need to back it up with more than anecdotes of people in the fringe.

TW: This is a complicated subject, and there’s no way I can summarize my views (at least not persuasively) in one comment. However, I’ll make a few assertions and you can critique them as you wish…

1) If you a materialist, the most logical religion is atheism.

2) If you an atheist, ethics either don’t exist or should be founded on materialist/Darwinist principles.

3)Darwinian principles are ambiguous (as I just explained). Using Darwinism, you could justify the Holocaust (as Hitler did) or you can justify liberal democracy (as contemporary scholars like Larry Arnhart do). I will say this, though: I do think the Darwinist denigration of humanity (“we’re just apes who wear pants") makes it easy for people to initiate violence and/or tyranny. A tolerant form of theism (such as 21st Century Christianity) is superior in that regard.

FTA comes back...

FTA: Did you not read what I said? Racial differences in IQ evaporate when you control for education and socio-economic background.

TW: Personally, I don’t want to touch that issue with a 10-foot pole. I’ll just humbly say that if you talked to those guys, they would happily whip out different studies which show the opposite conclusion.

FTA: Nietzche’s “superman” is not a scientific concept. Evolution isn’t teleological, natural selection is not interested in progress.

TW: I never claimed that the “Superman” was a scientific concept. No, it’s an ideological goal – a goal that Nietzsche, Hitler, and many others shared, while using Darwinism to justify it.

FTA: Have…you…read….his…work?

TW: Yes, I read The Selfish Gene.

FTA: You are categorically wrong to think that A.) Memes have to aid survival to be considered memes at all and B.) Memes have to be treated as having intent, by definition

TW: I’ll take this one at a time.

I originally wrote, “A ‘parasitic meme’ is a contradiction in terms; either it’s a ‘meme’ or it’s not. A parasitic meme would not aid survival and is thus NOT a meme.”

It’s not clear to me why you consider my statement inaccurate. To quote Wikipedia, “Richard Dawkins introduced the word ‘meme’ in The Selfish Gene as a basis for discussion of evolutionary principles in explaining the spread of ideas and cultural phenomena”…As we all know, the main evolutionary principle is “survival of the fittest” …If religion is a “meme” and a meme is a fitness strategy, it’s not clear to me why – in Dennett’s words – religion is a “parasitic meme.” I’m almost tempted to say it’s illogical; “a contradiction in terms.”

Onto the next point…

Personally, I don’t believe in “memes” so debating whether or not they have intent is the equivalent of debating “does the flying spaghetti monster have intent?” If Dennett believes that memes don’t intent, fine…but then he should STOP talking about them as if they DO have intent…See the Dennett quote I used above…Another Dennett quote: “Thousands of memes, mostly borne by language, but also by wordless ‘images’ and other data structures, take up residence in an individual brain, shaping its tendencies and thereby turning it into a mind.” Again, this sounds like intent; memes compete for minds, become part of the mind, and then that mind tries to spread its memes to other minds…If there’s any confusion on this issue, Fortuna, blame Dennett; not me.

FTA: The problem you haven’t addressed is that the Columbine killers did not act to weed out the unfit. As far as I know, the majority (if not the entirety) of their victims were not otherwise likely to die young or be unable to reproduce. They were fit.

TW: The Columbine killers would probably define “fitness” the way Darwinists do: Anyway they like! :)

FTA: Every time we are in a position to observe the matter, brain chemistry happens first and then thought follows, including higher reasoning. There is research to back this up, and I’ll happily reference it for you if you like.

TW: I’ll take a look at the research – assuming it’s not like a 40-page research paper; a 5-7 pages news article or Wikipedia page will suffice.

FTA: Evolution is purely descriptive, so indeed it should not be surprising that it doesn’t tell you what you should do. That would be like looking to the theory of gravitation to determine the desirability of falling off a tall building.

TW: I respect your opinion, but that doesn’t change the fact that many scientists such as Dawkins, E.O. Wilson, and others ARE using evolution as the basis of moral theory. And needless to say, it’s an endeavor I don’t support.

FTA: While it’s certainly the case that Hitler was anti-Christian in some respects and/or at particular times, you can’t just say he was anti-Christian and leave it at that.

TW: A few counter-points. First, Hitler was a politician, especially from 1920-1933, when Germany was a democracy, and thus, Hitler needed to coax the masses to accept his program. Therefore, it would make sense for Hitler to say some nice things about Christianity in public venues. Even when Hitler was dictator after 1933, his position wasn’t totally secure, and it made sense for him to be on decent terms with the church. Thus, when the church protested his first sterilization program in 1937/38, he withdrew it, and waited til the chaos of WWII to commit genocide.

Second, Hitler’s private comments should carry more weight than his public comments, and here we have Hitler’s ruminations that Christianity is a slave morality that prevented Aryans from forcefully achieving their natural superiority over other races. Since this accords better with his behavior as a genocidal dictator, I think it’s a truer reflection of his inner faith.

Last but not least, Hitler’s behavior was “unChristian” to put it mildly. And this is actually an important point. If Hitler committed the Holocaust in the name of Christ (in the way, say, Osama bin Laden commits crimes in the name of Allah), that would be one thing; but Hitler committed the Holocaust in a quest for racial domination. That is totally against the spirit of Christianity.

___________________________________________________________

DRJ: It seems implied that Dawkins et al are somehow building their moral theories in a Hitler-ish fashion, to which I strenuously object.

TW: Oh goodness, no. I don’t think Dawkins et al have malignant intentions, just like I don’t think Darwin himself had malignant intentions. Dawkins is an academic, with all that implies. As Plato might say, he doesn’t have a “tyrannical soul.”

DRJ: There are a wide variety of ethical theories developed in godless worldviews.

TW: Yes, but some ethical theories are more logical than others given a materialist/atheist foundation, and dare I say, over time, the more logical ones will have more influence over the less logical ones.

DRJ: Dawkins, from what I know appears to be somewhere in the secular humanist territory.

TW: Yes, and dare I say, that is one of the “less logical” foundations.

To quote the Darwinist writer John Derbyshire…

“A Darwinian view of human nature really is quite sensationally revolutionary. In particular, it makes a hash of intrinsic human equality. We may of course — and we should, and I hope we ever shall! — hold equal treatment under the law to be an organizing principle of our civilization; but that is a social agreement, like driving on the right, not a pre-existing fact in the world.”

Daily Wrap-Up

2009-12-15T15:33:00.005-09:00

"Common Sense Atheist" Smacks Christian Apologist William Lane Craig: “Basically, Craig defends his faith against the evidence the same way my mom does – 'I know because I know that I know that I know.' And that’s it. 'I know in my heart that Christianity is true, and I know my heart is right because my heart tells me it is right.' That’s, like, the dumbest thing ever. It’s intellectual suicide. It is extreme gullibility and credulity. It is also reveals profoundly arrogant double standard to assert that my heart provides irrefutable proof of metaphysical truths, while the hearts of everyone who disagrees with me deceives them."

Should Evolutionary Psychology Be Required for Med School Training? "Nesse’s paper cites examples of where evolutionary knowledge can benefit those working in medicine. An awareness of why humans have evolved the fever response, for example, could help doctors understand when it is safe to use drugs to block fever. Rubbish. Pharmaceutical studies on living patients in real time do that."

Anti-Climate Change, Anti-Human: "There is no nihilism like the nihilism of a 9-year-old. 'Why should I bother,' one of them recently demanded of me, when he was presented with the usual arguments in favor of doing homework: 'By the time I'm grown up, the polar ice caps will have melted and everyone will have drowned.' Watching the news from Copenhagen last weekend, it wasn't hard to understand where he got that idea."

I've also updated my essay, Ross Douthat Jumps the Shark (Again).

Groping Toward a New Spirituality

2009-12-14T17:03:00.008-09:00

In Saturday's New York Times, columnist Charles Blow drew attention to a remarkable new survey about spirituality in America. In his piece, Paranormal Flexibility, Mr. Blow wrote...

The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life released a report on Wednesday that is bound to stir conversation about the increasingly complicated cacophony of spirituality in America — a mash-up of traditional faiths, fantasy and mythology.

Entitled “Many Americans Mix Multiple Faiths,” the report points out that many Americans are now choosing to “blend Christianity with Eastern or New Age beliefs..."

The report is further evidence that Americans continue to cobble together Mr. Potato Head-like spiritual identities from a hodgepodge of beliefs — bending dogmas to suit them instead of bending themselves to fit a dogma. And this appears to be leading to more spirituality, not less.

As the author of The Mustard Seed - a novel that expresses a vision of "Spiritual Rationalism" - this is wonderful news, indeed. The need to harmonize faith and reason is the most urgent task for human beings today on a personal level, and for society at large. Our goal should be to modernize and deepen Christianity to take account of objective logic and Eastern spirituality. Thankfully, the Pew survey reveals that up to 25% of Americans are incorporating this goal into their religious practice. They are - dare I say - groping toward a new spirituality.

The Pew report includes the following statistics...

*24% of the public overall and 22% of Christians say they believe in reincarnation…

*23% believe in yoga not just as exercise but as a spiritual practice. Similar numbers profess belief in elements of New Age spirituality, with 26% saying they believe in spiritual energy located in physical things such as mountains, trees or crystals…

*Among Protestants, high levels of religious commitment are associated with lower levels of acceptance of Eastern or New Age beliefs…Among Catholics, by contrast, frequency of church attendance is linked much less closely with these kinds of beliefs…

*Older people (those over age 65) consistently express lower levels of acceptance of these kinds of beliefs compared with younger people…

*29% of Americans say they have felt in touch with someone who has died. Nearly one-in-five say they have been in the presence of a ghost (18%), while 15% say they have consulted a fortuneteller or a psychic.

*The proportion of Americans who say they have interacted with a ghost has doubled over the past 13 years (9% in 1996 compared with 18% today). The number saying they have felt in touch with someone who has died has also grown considerably, from 18% in 1996 to 29% today…

*In total, 65% of adults express belief in or report having experience with at least one of these diverse supernatural phenomena (belief in reincarnation, belief in spiritual energy located in physical things, belief in yoga as spiritual practice, belief in the "evil eye," belief in astrology, having been in touch with the dead, consulting a psychic, or experiencing a ghostly encounter)...

*In response to a separate question, 49% of Americans say they have had "a religious or mystical experience - that is, a moment of religious or spiritual awakening." This is roughly the same as the number that said this in 2006 (47%), but it represents a sharp increase over the past four decades. In 1962, only 22% of Americans reported having had such an experience, which grew to 31% in 1976 and 33% in 1994...

*Among the unaffiliated, 3-in-10 have had a religious or mystical experience.

**UPDATE, DEC. 17, 2009**

Justin has written about the Pew survey too. I posted the following comments…

I’m genuinely surprised that 1 out of 4 Americans believe in reincarnation. Considering that reincarnation is persona non grata in our churches, media, and popular culture, that seems like a high number to me. Where are people learning about reincarnation? And how does it affect their opinion of other religious issues?

Second, the racial breakdown was also surprising to me. I would have thought whites would be most likely to believe in reincarnation. They seem to be predominant in the New Age movement. And yet whites are the bottom and blacks are at the top. How do you account for that? Perhaps the low support among white Evangelicals suppresses the total for whites as a whole.

Then…

I just did some research. The first poll on reincarnation was done in 1968 by Gallup. 20% said they believed in reincarnation, 64% said they didn't, and 16% had no opinion.

Those numbers have barely moved in the last 40 years. Nearly every poll conducted over the last 4 decades has the number of believers at between 20-25%.

The Mystery of Memory

2009-12-11T10:11:00.003-09:00

The Epoch Times has a great new article: Does Memory Reside Outside the Brain?

After decades of investigation, scientists are still unable to explain why no part of the brain seems responsible for storing memories.

Most people assume that our memories must exist somewhere inside our heads. But try as they might, medical investigators have been unable to determine which cerebral region actually stores what we remember. Could it be that our memories actually dwell in a space outside our physical structure?

Biologist, author, and investigator Dr. Rupert Sheldrake notes that the search for the mind has gone in two opposite directions. While a majority of scientists have been searching inside the skull, he looks outside.

According to Sheldrake, author of numerous scientific books and articles, memory does not reside in any geographic region of the cerebrum, but instead in a kind of field surrounding and permeating the brain.

The rest of the article is very intriguing. Click here to read it

And for related pieces, see The World of Rupert Sheldrake, Parts One and Two.

A World Without Evil?

2009-12-11T08:31:00.005-09:00

David Klinghoffer tackles the "Bad Design" argument frequently used by atheists in his new essay, With Chanukah Approaching, My Knee Hurts.

Because of my sore knee, it follows that there this is no God.

You think I'm kidding but this line of reasoning is commonly heard from devotees of evangelizing atheism like Richard Dawkins.

It's the argument from seemingly poor, botched, or suboptimal design...

That is a theological argument, not a scientific one, based on the premise that Dawkins & Co. know what a God would or wouldn't do if that God existed which he does not.

If a trivial example like a sore knee is "bad design" and a point scored for atheism, then any trivial lack of perfection in created reality is enough to trigger the atheist response. Any evil in nature, any suffering. Over Shabbat, a dentist friend of our family was at our home for lunch and he told about how one of his patients was up hiking on a mountain trail near Seattle and got eaten by cougar…

The world can be rough and it's obviously not all a matter of people freely choosing evil. The verse in Isaiah (45:7) says it directly:

I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.

My apologies if this upsets any delicate sensibilities, but consider the alternative. A world without evil. What would that be like? It would be the perfect hamster cage or turtle terrarium, where all our needs are provided, there are no predators, no contagious disease, no confusion, no loneliness, no sin, no particular purpose, no growth, just spinning aimlessly on our exercise wheel or swimming idly in our calm, algaed paddling pool.

For Dawkins & Co., it's either the turtle terrarium or a Godless universe. What an absurd false dilemma…

Creatures that could never grow or change spiritually because they were unchallenged and therefore totally uninteresting? What's the point? Once we admit that some lack, or anyway so we perceive it, in creation was inevitable if there was to be a creation, what extent of deficiency was going to be enough? Maybe a little, maybe a lot. You will have to ask God when you meet him.

In fairness, Jerry Coyne (an atheist biologist) offers a decent rebuttal…

I may be wrong, but couldn’t God have arranged the world so that people could “grow and change spiritually” without horrible things happening to innocents? Do little kids have to get leukemia so the rest of us can experience spiritual growth? What kind of growth is enabled by the deaths of thousands of people in Indonesian tsunamis?...

I took a stab at addressing these concerns in my essay, God, Evil, and Forgiveness.

H/T: Darwiniana

Can Evolution Explain Religion?

2009-12-11T06:37:00.003-09:00

Denyse O’Leary has an excellent article in today’s Mercator: Can Evolution Explain Religion?

In a recent issue of the leading journal Science, Elizabeth Culotta offers a variety of speculations in an article titled On the Origin of Religion.…Some argue that religion exists because it increases evolutionary fitness (survival of the fittest). Others argue that it makes no difference to fitness. It is merely a glitch in our thinking that doesn't kill us off.

They can't both be right, but they could both be wrong. Let's see.

Ara Norenzayan and Azim F. Shariff of the University of British Columbia claimed last year in Science that religion evolved because it made people more cooperative, hence more fit, thus increasing survival rates…

"This type of religiously-motivated 'virtuous' behaviour has likely played a vital social role throughout history," says Shariff, a Psychology PhD student. Then Norenzayan qualifies:

"Some of the most cooperative modern societies are also the most secular," says Norenzayan. "People have found other ways to be cooperative – without God."

Actually, his John Lennon retro Imagine There's No Heaven thesis was pretty much refuted by the atheist totalitarian monstrosities of the 20th century, where trust was minimal and co-operation was an alternative to getting shot or imprisoned.

Then – in what appears to be a direct shot at Ross Douthat’s Kumbaya attitude toward the rise of Islam in Europe – Ms. O’Leary states…

Even today, co-operative secular societies in Europe do a poor job of dealing with, for example, rising Islamism. They do not co-operate to protect civil liberties; they capitulate. People who believe in nothing beyond their own preferences and security cannot win against people who believe in specific ideas and accept risk as the price of establishing them.

Pure secularism only stands a chance against a fanatical politicised religion if it morphs into a totalitarian state which dispenses with civil liberties. And not a good chance either.

By contrast, in Canada, Christians, Jews, and Muslims -- as well as others -- have fought back hard recently and are winning against Islamists. The Canadians who (so far) have derailed Islamic political censorship posing as religion are passionately committed to a Canada -- founded "on the principles of the supremacy of God and the rule of law." But these principles, on which our civil liberties are based, were not applied in recent "human rights" cases brought by Islamists -- until serious monotheists insisted they be applied.

So doesn't that show that religion creates fitness via co-operation?

Well, no, not really. It is true that in Canada traditional, mostly religious, citizens -- completely fed up -- have co-operated to help bring down Leviathan. But fitness is not a relevant criterion unless we first establish a key question: For what ought we to be fit? All of the disparate "free speechers" would be far more personally fit behind a tax-funded desk, launching persecutions on behalf of favoured pressure groups or grievance mongers.

But we seek a better country. Evolutionary psychology should not go there, or even visit.

Now for the other side: Some researchers claim that religion does not confer fitness; it just fails to kill you before you have kids who grow up. Arguing that religion is an accidental byproduct of evolution, Yale psychologist Paul Bloom, a self-declared atheist, explains that we tend to see inanimate objects as having "beliefs, desires, emotions, and consciousness," and that this tendency is central to religious beliefs:

"Taking his cues from Darwin, Bloom posits that our spiritual tendencies emerged somewhere in the evolutionary process, most likely as "accidental by-products" of other traits because "as a species, humans have an unprecedented knack for finding patterns and reading intentions." Unfortunately, to Bloom's mind, this tendency to read intelligence into everything sometimes gets out of hand ..."

His primary evidence seems to be little children's views of whether something is a conscious agent or not. The trouble is, small children don't know very much about the world, so they cannot decide until they gain more experience. The same child who talks earnestly to his teddy will toss it aside a year or two later in favour of Nintendo…

Bloom seems oblivious to the fact that atheism predisposes him to think that a divine source for the universe is false, just as religion disposes others to think it true. So if "evolution" accounts for Mother Teresa's or Gandhi's beliefs, what accounts for his? He will reply triumphantly, "Science!" But it's not clear that any of this stuff is science. It all sounds more like an atheist's feeble attempt to explain the universe and life sans God.

Quote of the Day

2009-12-10T13:27:00.002-09:00

“In reading the lives of great men, I found that the first victory they won was over themselves... Self-discipline with all of them came first.” - Harry Truman

Daily Wrap-Up

2009-12-10T11:54:00.004-09:00

Requiem for the Dollar: "Ben S. Bernanke doesn't know how lucky he is...Section 19 of this country's founding monetary legislation, the Coinage Act of 1792, prescribed the death penalty for any official who fraudulently debased the people's money. Was the massive printing of dollar bills to lift Wall Street (and the rest of us, too) off the rocks last year a kind of fraud? If the U.S. Senate so determines, it may send Mr. Bernanke back home to Princeton." H/T: Mangan

Derrida in the Laboratory: “Post modernism is creeping into science. The bizarre rationalizations for the self-admitted scientific fraud perpetrated in the ClimateGate scandal are a radical departure from traditional scientific standards…The leading scientific journal Nature has defended all of these scientific crimes by asserting that these scientists were under stress… Peer review is the jury that decides what counts as valid science. Manipulation of peer-review is to science what jury tampering is to justice; it's a crime.”

7 Mysterious Moments in Evolution: "Scientists like to say evolution is a fact... Yet no one has ever demonstrated that genetic changes passed down to future generations can give birth to genuinely new life-forms. No one has witnessed an ape turning into a human, or a reptile turning into a bird. The changes required to go from the first living cell to everything alive today resist our understanding. What are the top 7 transformations that refuse to give up their secrets?..." H/T: Darwiniana

Survey of Professional Philosophers Conducted: David Bourget and David Chalmers have released the results of the largest survey of professional philosophers ever conducted. There were 931 respondents from 99 leading philosophy departments around the world. The most interesting result? 73% of the respondents support atheism; 15% theism; and 12% "other." H/T: Luke

"Ross Douthat, call your office!": British Christians on Trial for Hate Speech Against Muslim. H/T: Mangan

I've also updated my essay, A "Game" Debate with Obsidian

Ross Douthat Jumps the Shark (Again)

2009-12-09T18:28:00.009-09:00

In his latest blog post, Ross Douthat, the 30-year old political columnist at the New York Times, seems determined to show why his alma matter, Harvard University - and indeed, most Ivy League schools* - are a net liability on our society. The Ivies have attracted many of America's most gifted students, but when those students attend an Ivy League school, they will be indoctrinated with so much junk science, political correctness, and moral relativism, their raw brainpower morphs from an asset into a liability. Why? Because their mind becomes cluttered with dangerous nonsense – nonsense that is rarely questioned or expunged due to the student's sense of entitlement and superiority.

Take young Mr. Douthat, for instance. Even though he wear his Catholic faith on his sleeve, on October 4, he applied for lifetime membership in the Kumbaya Club by writing a long, dull, mealy-mouthed piece in which he basically blamed Christianity for the rise of the New Atheists. Now, that might be acceptable fare from an anti-Christian hack like Richard Dawkins or P.Z. Myers. But Mr. Douthat is supposed to be a defender of Christianity. If Douthat is being groomed by the nation's elite to become one of the leading Christian conservatives of the future, shouldn’t Douthat show a better understanding of his faith?

I’m not the only person who's noticed Douthat’s descent into the abyss…

On Monday, First Things editor David Goldman wrote…

Sad that the dumbest thing I’ve read in the New York Times for years came from the blog of Ross Douthat, the Catholic conservative voice at the Gray Lady:

"Maybe the encounter with a post-Christian Europe will supply the Islam of recent immigrants with the cultural vigor that’s been missing, for centuries now, in Baghdad and Cairo and Damascus. Maybe a kind of 'Euro-Islam' is being forged that’s capable of contending with secular liberalism for converts. Maybe a Tariq Ramadan-esque figure will emerge to play the Muslim Saint Paul to the E.U.’s Roman Empire."

Goldman explains why Douthat's prediction is absurd…

Europe’s Christians not only have declined to evangelize the Muslims in their midst: they have backed away from helping Muslims who came to Christianity quite on their own, as Magdi Allam protested. Paul Berman is a secular liberal, but a consistent one, and came to the conclusion that Tariq Ramadan is a menace. Ross Douthat is a Catholic conservative, but an inconsistent one, and flirts with the idea that Tariq Ramadan might be part of Europe’s spiritual re-awakening.

If this was the first dumb thing Ross Douthat ever said, I might let it slide. But, unfortunately, it’s part of a larger pattern in which he totally misunderstands religion, and specifically, the proper role of religion within society. In October, he criticized constructive efforts by Christianity to modernize itself; now he’s encouraging the growth of a parasitic form of Islam to validate his delusional hope that it might facilitate a continent-wide spiritual re-awakening.

Douthat should make Gates of Vienna his homepage and read a few of their articles. Then he might realize that the growth of Islam is not an "opportunity for spiritual awakening;" it is a grave, perhaps mortal, threat to European Civilization (including Christianity).

Douthat is not only jumping sharks; he’s jumping logic itself.

Note: *Of the 8 schools who formally constitute the Ivy League, Harvard is definitely the worst; Yale and Princeton are probably in the next tier of horror. And then Brown, Penn, Columbia are in the tier below that. Dartmouth and Cornell seem OK. Personally, I think the best university in the country is Stanford.

Note: Douthat's position on the Darwin/I.D. debate is equally troubling (see here).

**UPDATE, DEC. 13, 2009**

Goldman continues his criticism of Douthat in a new post here.

An Empire at Risk

2009-12-09T10:19:00.004-09:00

Niall Ferguson is a British historian and the author of several renowned books, including Empire: The Rise and Demise of the British World Order and the Lessons for Global Power and The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World.

This week's edition of Newsweek features a cover story by Prof. Ferguson entitled, An Empire at Risk: We Won the Cold War and Weathered 9/11. But Now Economic Weakness is Endangering Our Global Power.

Some of the highlights are below...

Under the CBO's alternative (i.e., more pessimistic) fiscal scenario, the debt could hit 215 percent by 2039. That's right: more than double the annual output of the entire U.S. economy…

No sweat, reply the Keynesians. We can easily finance $1 trillion a year of new government debt. Just look at the way Japan's households and financial institutions funded the explosion of Japanese public debt (up to 200 percent of GDP) during the two "lost decades" of near-zero growth that began in 1990.

Unfortunately for this argument, the evidence to support it is lacking. American households were, in fact, net sellers of Treasuries in the second quarter of 2009, and on a massive scale…

That just leaves two potential buyers: the Federal Reserve, which bought the bulk of Treasuries issued in the second quarter; and foreigners, who bought $380 billion. Morgan Stanley's analysts have crunched the numbers and concluded that, in the year ending June 2010, there could be a shortfall in demand on the order of $598 billion—about a third of projected new issuance.

Of course, our friends in Beijing could ride to the rescue by increasing their already vast holdings of U.S. government debt…

Right now, the People's Republic of China holds about 13 percent of U.S. government bonds and notes in public hands. At the peak of this process of reserve accumulation, back in 2007, it was absorbing as much as 75 percent of monthly Treasury issuance…

The Chinese keep grumbling that they have far too many Treasuries already…

Now, who said the following? "My prediction is that politicians will eventually be tempted to resolve the [fiscal] crisis the way irresponsible governments usually do: by printing money, both to pay current bills and to inflate away debt. And as that temptation becomes obvious, interest rates will soar."

Seems pretty reasonable to me. The surprising thing is that this was none other than Paul Krugman, the high priest of Keynesianism, writing back in March 2003. A year and a half later he was comparing the U.S. deficit with Argentina's (at a time when it was 4.5 percent of GDP). Has the economic situation really changed so drastically that now the same Krugman believes it was "deficits that saved us," and wants to see an even larger deficit next year? Perhaps. But it might just be that the party in power has changed.

History strongly supports the proposition that major financial crises are followed by major fiscal crises. "On average," write Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff in their new book, This Time Is Different, "government debt rises by 86 percent during the three years following a banking crisis." In the wake of these debt explosions, one of two things can happen: either a default, usually when the debt is in a foreign currency, or a bout of high inflation that catches the creditors out. The history of all the great European empires is replete with such episodes. Indeed, serial default and high inflation have tended to be the surest symptoms of imperial decline.

As the U.S. is unlikely to default on its debt, since it's all in dollars, the key question, therefore, is whether we are going to see the Fed "printing money"—buying newly minted Treasuries in exchange for even more newly minted greenbacks—followed by the familiar story of rising prices and declining real-debt burdens. It's a scenario many investors around the world fear. That is why they are selling dollars. That is why they are buying gold…

This is how empires decline. It begins with a debt explosion. It ends with an inexorable reduction in the resources available for the Army, Navy, and Air Force. Which is why voters are right to worry about America's debt crisis... If the United States doesn't come up soon with a credible plan to restore the federal budget to balance over the next five to 10 years, the danger is very real that a debt crisis could lead to a major weakening of American power.

The precedents are certainly there. Habsburg Spain defaulted on all or part of its debt 14 times between 1557 and 1696 and also succumbed to inflation due to a surfeit of New World silver. Prerevolutionary France was spending 62 percent of royal revenue on debt service by 1788. The Ottoman Empire went the same way: interest payments and amortization rose from 15 percent of the budget in 1860 to 50 percent in 1875. And don't forget the last great English-speaking empire. By the interwar years, interest payments were consuming 44 percent of the British budget, making it intensely difficult to rearm in the face of a new German threat.

Call it the fatal arithmetic of imperial decline. Without radical fiscal reform, it could apply to America next.

Note: The photo above is of the Empire State Building, which went red on October 1 in honor of the 60th anniversary of China's Communist Revolution.

Quote of the Day

2009-12-09T10:08:00.005-09:00

"Life is tough, but it's tougher if you're stupid" - Sergeant Stryker, Sands of Iwo Jima

Daily Wrap-Up

2009-12-08T12:52:00.006-09:00

John Stossel’s New TV Show Premieres Thursday Night: Click on the Fox Business Network at 8 PM EST. Supposedly, one of the first episodes will be about Atlas Shrugged.

'Tea party' Polls Better Than GOP: "Should the 'Tea Party' movement organize itself to run congressional candidates across the country, it would poll better than the Republican Party, according to a new survey by Rasmussen Reports. In the national telephone poll of 1,000 likely voters released Monday, 23% said they preferred to vote for a candidate from the yet unformed “Tea Party” for Congress in 2010. The Republican Party trailed the non-existent political organization by 5 percentage points, getting the support of 18% of respondents."

The Fiction Of Climate Science: "In 1974, the National Science Board announced: 'During the last 20 to 30 years, world temperature has fallen, irregularly at first but more sharply over the last decade. Judging from the record of the past interglacial ages, the present time of high temperatures should be drawing to an end…leading into the next ice age'…From the witch doctors of old to the elected officials today, scaring the bejesus out of the populace maintains their status.

Vive La Différence! But How Did It Begin?: "If we accept evolutionary theory we are required to imagine that each animal that today reproduces sexually, in the distant past was going about its business of reproducing asexually, dividing and budding away, when all of a sudden it accidentally produced an egg and at the same time, in the same locale, another animal of the same species just happened to make a sperm cell. Also, simultaneously and independently they each accidentally acquired the apparatus to get the egg and sperm together so they could produce offspring with a full set of genes. Are you buying this?… To my mind, the very fact of sexual differentiation necessitates, yes, demands a plan. And a plan demands a planner."

I’ve also updated 2 essays...

Tea Partiers Organize for 2010

Weekly Wrap-Up (9/25/09)

I also discovered a good website worth sharing: God vs. the Bible: How God's Creation Discredits Christian Scripture

Last but not least, the debate over consciousness continues at Luke’s blog. I’ll write a summary once the discussion wraps up.

Quote of the Day

2009-12-08T12:14:00.002-09:00

"There is no theory of evolution, there is only a list of creatures Chuck Norris has allowed to live." - This Guy

The Enchantment of Life

2009-12-08T08:01:00.002-09:00

David Klinghoffer's new article, The Enchantment of Life...

Our increasingly secularized world is one where the sense of enchantment is diminishing very rapidly.

By enchantment I mean our intuitive sense that something else, something more, lies behind and somehow all around the façade of ordinary material reality. Darwinism is not just a scientific theory, with its Tree of Life and its proposed mechanism that explains how one form of life transforms unguided into another. It is that, but more importantly it is a picture of reality. It is a whole worldview that seeks to explain all the beauty and wonder of life by reference exclusively to blind, churning, purposeless, mindless, meaningless natural forces. It excludes all enchantment.

The phrase goes back to Max Weber who taught about it dispassionately: "The fate of our times is characterized by rationalization and intellectualization and, above all, by the 'disenchantment of the world.' Precisely the ultimate and most sublime values have retreated from public life either into the transcendental realm of mystic life or into the brotherliness of direct and personal human relations." That was in a lecture he gave, "Science as a Vocation," in 1918. Since then, the sense that life is pervaded by secrets has retreated even further, with heartbreaking results…

As with physical diseases, the spiritual disease of disenchantment builds in its effect. Its power is cumulative as, leech-like, it sucks the mystery out of life. Liberal religious strains seek to accommodate rather than fight it, fearing it will get worse if opposed, but that only gives the leech encouragement. This is one problem with accommodationist strategies like "theistic evolution." In the context of alcohol or drug addiction, they would be called forms of co-dependency.

The Cannibals of the Scientific Revolution

2009-12-07T10:37:00.005-09:00

"All revolutions devour their own children." - Ernst Rohm

Rohm was a despicable bastard, but his life and death is a testament to this valuable truth. From an historical perspective, all revolutions – even the most worthy ones – have a habit of going too far and eventually – generations later – destroying those who benefit from it.

I was reminded of this line while participating in a comment thread at the Common Sense Atheist website.

During a discussion on the nature of consciousness, one commenter – Urbster 1 – wrote…

There is no “I”; Dennett explains this in his book, where he proposes a “multiple drafts” view of consciousness, in stark contrast to the “I” view (he calls it the “Cartesian theater” view) of consciousness. In Dennett’s view, our brains evolved to do lots of parallel processing tasks; consciousness, then, is like a virtual serial “I” machine running on top of these parallel processors.

I wrote back…

Dennett is a very dishonest man. To say – as he does – “there is no ‘I’” and then smugly wipe his hands clean of the subject is preposterous. That doesn’t answer anything. There is DEFINITELY an “I.” Who is writing this question? Me. “I.” Who is reading it? YOU! (Another “I.”).

The irony, of course, is that Dennett is merely taking materialism to its logical conclusion…If materialism can’t explain “I,” then “I” can’t exist.

Brilliant!

While Dennett sips his margarita on the beach, I have some real questions to ask: What is consciousness? What is it made of? Where did it come from? How does it work? These are serious questions that deserve serious research, not just smoke and mirrors from atheist propagandists.

Urbster 1 continued to insist that “The ‘I’ IS reducible. It’s not just one thing; it’s many parts of the brain that come together to form this ‘story’ of an ‘I.’"

I wrote back…

“I” exist. I would also point out that “I” is the foundation of science. Don’t you remember Descartes’ “I think, therefore I am?” To postulate that the “I” is an illusion is to destroy reason and thus destroy the scientific enterprise in the long-term. You are making science intellectually defenseless to the theists you claim to oppose. Why science allowed itself to descend into this abyss I’ll never understand.

Nietzsche would be sympathetic to the point I’m trying to raise.

As told by Tom Wolfe in his essay Sorry but Your Soul Just Died…

[Nietzsche] added one final and perhaps ultimate piece of irony in a fragmentary passage in a notebook shortly before he lost his mind (to the late–nineteenth–century's great venereal scourge, syphilis). He predicted that eventually modern science would turn its juggernaut of skepticism upon itself, question the validity of its own foundations, tear them apart, and self–destruct. I thought about that in the summer of 1994 when a group of mathematicians and computer scientists held a conference at the Santa Fe Institute on "Limits to Scientific Knowledge." The consensus was that since the human mind is, after all, an entirely physical apparatus, a form of computer, the product of a particular genetic history, it is finite in its capabilities. Being finite, hardwired, it will probably never have the power to comprehend human existence in any complete way…

This, science's Ultimate Skepticism, has been spreading ever since then…If only Nietzsche were alive! He would have relished every minute of it!...

I suddenly had a picture of the entire astonishing edifice collapsing and modern man plunging headlong back into the primordial ooze. He's floundering, sloshing about, gulping for air, frantically treading ooze, when he feels something huge and smooth swim beneath him and boost him up, like some almighty dolphin. He can't see it, but he's much impressed. He names it God.

The Scientific Revolution bloomed in 1637 with Descartes’ earnest statement, “I think, therefore, I am.” Nearly 400 years later, by joyfully killing the “I,” the Scientific Revolution is eating its own children.

If there was ever a reason to move beyond materialism, this my friends, is it.

Note: This isn’t a full transcript. See the full comment thread at Luke’s website.

**UPDATE, DEC. 17, 2009**

Click below on the Comment section to read a fun exchange between me and "Ian." One clip...

Ian: “The only difference between the rock and the rabbit is that the rock's chemical processes are somewhat less complex, but that is a difference in quantity, not quality.”

TW: No. It’s more complicated than that. And I’ll try to create an analogy: Let’s compare, say, a mousetrap and a VCR. Both are made up of the same “stuff” but the thing that makes the VCR work is electricity. The “stuff” by itself (all those wires and buttons) can’t make the VCR work by itself. The electricity is essential. Ditto for life itself. There is a something “extra” in Life that science can’t explain, and even more worrisome, science doesn’t seem interested in trying to explain it (as shown by your flippant approach to this subject).

'Tis the Season for Self-Promotion

2009-12-06T14:30:00.003-09:00

With December 25th rapidly approaching, don't forget that The Mustard Seed makes a perfect Christmas gift - especially for any of your family members who are in their teens and twenties.

The plot of The Mustard Seed focuses on 3 friends (Brian, Mark, and Troy) who just graduated from college, and the challenges they overcome as they adjust to the "Real World." As the plot unfolds, each character goes through a spiritual and intellectual journey (although only one of them will complete that journey).

The Mustard Seed is a coming-of-age story, a love story, and a story about ideas – the big, overarching ideas about love and faith, truth and morality – and how those ideas shape our lives and control our destiny.

I am confident that you will enjoy this gripping, emotionally riveting novel that is finding a wide audience among young people, spiritual seekers, and intellectuals.

On Amazon.com, Ethan Meyers gave TMS 5 out of 5 stars. He wrote...

I have to say, this was a really, really good book. I didn't know what to expect since I had never heard of the author, and there was only one review on Amazon, but I took a chance and decided to order it. I wasn't disappointed. Once I started reading the book, I had a hard time putting it down. I finished it in 2 days. It's truly amazing how Mr. White was able to explore the thought process and motivations of 3 very separate individuals, and show how their "life philosophy" steered them into different directions. And I will say that I will never look at faith the same way again. Mr. White has some very unique and powerful insights on that. Overall, I highly recommend this book.

You can read the first 5 pages of TMS here. And you can buy it here, here, or here.

America: The Case for Pessimism

2009-12-06T13:59:00.002-09:00

Last month, Larry Auster reflected on the descent of America under the Obama Administration, and wrote...

I have said many times that liberalism is doomed, and that the only question was whether liberalism would die before it had destroyed our civilization, thus allowing the civilization to live, or after it had destroyed our civilization. I am now tilting to the latter, more pessimistic view: liberalism is so deeply entrenched in Western institutions and in the souls of Western people that it will not come to an end until after it has destroyed our civilization, and, by destroying the civilization, destroying itself.

I sent him the following email in response...

Larry,

Like you, I've been "tilting" toward the "pessimistic view" about the future of American civilization. Indeed, my only source of optimism is the fact that most Americans - even now - pay tribute to the ideals and values of our Founders - even though they don't act on those principles (exhibit A: electing Barack Obama as President).

But lately, even that thread of hope is withering away for me. Even in an almost best case scenario - say, Obama is repudiated and loses in 2012 - we'll still end up with a morally and intellectually bankrupt Republican Party led by a Bush-clone like Mitt Romney or Tim Pawlenty. They might slow the decline, but not reverse it. We no longer as a nation seem to have the type of leaders in either Party who have the intellectual and moral commitment to the Christian/Enlightenment ideals that made our country great.

With that in mind, last night I came up with the following analogy for America: America is like a 50-year 400-pound man who just survived his second heart attack (the first being 9/11, the second being the Wall Street Crash of '08).

The man was once a great athlete (indeed, a professional athlete), but during his playing days he got by on talent alone and never reached his full potential (in America's case, we've been getting by on talent alone for generations, never bothering to understand our founding ideals and traditions).

The man (and America) spent decades eating junk food, refusing to exercise, drinking too much alchohol, even dabbling a bit in naroctics. Now, in middle age, the man (and America) are being told: You MUST change your lifestyle or you will die; if you follow our regimen, there's an excellent chance you'll survive."

The man - laid up in his hospital bed - says, "You're right. I need to do better. And I will do better. If I did it once - as a young man - I can do it again."

But here's the thing: While the 50-year old man might be sincere, given his decades of bad habits, would you really trust him to make good on his promise?"

I wouldn't.

And here's the saddest thing of all: In the year 2009, while most Americans DO think something is fundamentally wrong with the direction of our country, there's no real consensus on what to do about it (it would be like having 4 or 5 doctors, each suggesting doing radically different things).

Would you trust this man to reach his 55th birthday, never mind live a normal lifespan?

I expect there will be a major breakdown in U.S. civilization in the next 4-10 years. The USSR analogy is a good one. But sadly, I don't trust our leaders in DC to be as peaceful as Gorbachev was when it comes having their authority challenged. There will be a contest of wills. The few of us out there who still love our country will be challenged more than we ever thought possible.

John Derbyshire: A Collection

2009-12-06T11:11:00.005-09:00

Over the years, National Review columnist John Derbyshire has written some excellent articles on science, religion, and philosophy. While I don't agree with him on the Darwin/I.D. debate, and I find him a little too eager to advance Reductionism, I find him congenial on most other issues. So without further ado, here are some of his best articles, along with a few highlighted tidbits.

God and Me: Faith FAQ: "Religious feeling just is, there in human nature, unremovably and inescapably…It’s there, and decent societies have to incorporate it somehow, to the general advantage…The trick, if you want a reasonably happy and stable society, is to corral human nature into useful, non-socially-destructive styles of expression… Any aspect of human nature can get out of hand, as we see with these Muslim fanatics that are making such nuisances of themselves nowadays. That doesn’t mean the aspect is bad, just that some society has done a bad job of corraling it.

What's So Scary About Evolution? — For Both Right and Left, a Lot: "A Darwinian view of human nature really is quite sensationally revolutionary. In particular, it makes a hash of intrinsic human equality. We may of course — and we should, and I hope we ever shall! — hold equal treatment under the law to be an organizing principle of our civilization; but that is a social agreement, like driving on the right, not a pre-existing fact in the world."

The Rapture for Nerds: "Hopes for AI have been around as long as hopes for fusion power…Some folk at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute are tackling the fruit fly brain. This may actually be more promising, as fruit flies are the most studied of all creatures, especially by geneticists. Still, the scale of the project is intimidating. A fruit fly brain is barely visible — about one-eightieth of an inch from side to side. Yet the full mapping of one such speck will need, the researchers are estimating, about a million gigabytes of data storage, and 'To get any good data, you'd have to compare hundreds of fruit-fly brains.' Says the project director: 'In a hundred years I'd like to know how human consciousness works. The 10- or 20-year goal is to understand the fruit-fly brain.'"

Toward a Science of Consciousness, Part 1: "Down at the quantum level, things get radically weird, we all know that. The issue here this morning was: Do brain processes partake of the weirdness? Sheehan believes they do. He offered some arguments from physics, and some experimental results. Most startling of the latter were experiments that seemed to show presentiment. In brief: You show your suspect a blank screen. Then you randomly display a picture, either an 'emotional' one, that will evoke a strong neuro-response (e.g. naked woman) or a 'calm' one (e.g. seascape). Then you quickly go back to the blank screen. You are monitoring neural reactions all the time. The 'emotional' pictures show a strong reaction after they are shown, of course; but they seem to show a measurably stronger reaction before being show, too."

Toward a Science of Consciousness, Part 2: "How far do we still have to go 'toward a science of consciousness'? A long way yet, was my parting impression. In his 2007 Teaching Company lecture series Consciousness and its Implications (which I recommend), philosopher Daniel Robinson remarks that: 'Despite the tremendous growth of knowledge over recent decades, the problem of mental causation … is pretty much where it was in the time of the ancient Greek philosophers.' That matches my own conclusions from the Tucson meeting."

The Dream of A.I.: "Artificial humans? We could not create an artificial ant, with all its complex social behavior based on scent and visual clues. Even in fields where there is obviously a great deal of money to be made, progress has been barely perceptible. Anyone who could get a computer to drive a car as safely as a human being does would certainly clean up, yet the news from the auto manufacturers, who are throwing a lot of resources at this, is that we are not even close. Yet driving a car is a very low-level function of the brain, as proved by the fact that you can think about several other things while you are doing it."

Islamophobophobia: "Inside every Muslim today there is a voice whispering: 'Our faith is so pure and true, our civilizations lasted so long and ruled so many, our God was so potent: yet here we are in the modern world, backward and poor except where accidents of nature have blessed us, our rulers corrupt, our culture mocked or ignored, our people squabbling among themselves, or fleeing the homelands to work as taxi drivers and menials in the great glittering cities of the infidels, those homelands themselves part-stolen by the wretched Jews. It's all wrong, wrong, wrong! Grrrrr!!!' That's the Islam we're up against. I don't myself believe we can do much to reform it. Muslims have to do that for themselves."

March of the Godless: "Outside the sphere of religion, it is difficult for most of us to get a firm grip on the big questions, the questions that have agitated mortals since Achilles moped in his tent before Troy: 'How shall we live?' and 'Why must we die?' These matters, dealing with the foundations of morality and the place of human life in the grand scheme of things, color political issues here in the U.S.A., and so are constantly discussed and debated. This gives a depth and gravity to national political discourse that in other countries, I think, is mainly lacking. Now that I have acclimatized myself to this aspect of American public life, in fact, I find myself thinking, when I read newspapers and magazines from England, that there is something frivolous and shallow about the way matters are presented over there. (And China, where they are not spoken of in public at all, seems a very dark place.)"

Don't Blame Islam: "In our current conflict, our enemies are all Muslims. I don't believe that our enemy is Islam, though. Islam came up in a primitive, tribal society that has never since enjoyed any real political progress. The Arabs are still primitive and tribal today; but their failure to create modern nation-states arises from their ancient habits of thought, behavior and social exchange, and from geographical constraints, not from anything in Islam. Indeed, those Arab countries — Iraq, Syria — that are established on secular principles are even more degraded and corrupt than the theocracies…Instead of mocking or dismissing Islam, we should appeal to believers to look to the nobler and more generous texts in their scriptures, the texts that emphasize a common humanity. We have nothing to gain from alienating honest Muslims, any more than they have anything to gain by being enemies of the West."

Note: For my other articles on Derbyshire, click here.

Who is a Spiritual Rationalist?

2009-12-04T12:11:00.018-09:00

As far as I know, I'm the only person who calls himself a “Spiritual Rationalist.” About a year ago, I described the tenets of “Spiritual Rationalism in my blog post, The Philosophy of Heather Manning. In that post, I organized S.R. into 10 separate planks.

However, I didn't believe - and still don't believe - that a “Spiritual Rationalist” must believe in all 10 planks. Rather, my intention was to organize Heather’s personal version of S.R as described in The Mustard Seed. After all, S.R. is a philosophy of individualism and creativity which - by definition - could never have the dogma of an organized religion. And besides, dogma would severely limit its appeal.

Having said all that, I do think that a “Spiritual Rationalist” should have the following 3 qualities…

1) Respect for Reality and a commitment to using Reason to master Reality

2) Acceptance of the spiritual element to Life, and finding pleasure in that element

3) A conviction that it is appropriate, and indeed beneficial, to use Reason to understand Spirituality

That’s it. Just those 3 things. Everything else is commentary.

Who can be a Spiritual Rationalist?

*She can be a member of an organized religion (such as Christianity or Islam) as long as she thinks that Revelation is an aid to Reason instead of a substitute for Reason (i.e, anyone who isn't a fundamentalist).

*She can be a Darwinist.

Who CAN’T be a Spiritual Rationalist?

* She can't believe that Religion and Reason belong to separate spheres that shouldn’t overlap (i.e., someone like Dr. Francis Collins)

* She can't believe that Reality is an illusion (i.e, most Buddhists)

*She can't be an agnostic who is leans more towards atheism than theism (i.e., someone like Arthur C. Clarke)

With that in mind, here’s a list of historical figures who I think would probably qualify as “Spiritual Rationalists…”

Philosophers:

Aristotle

Rene Descartes

Francis Bacon

John Locke

Charles de Montesquieu

Adam Smith

Politicians:

Thomas Jefferson

Ben Franklin

George Washington

Abraham Lincoln

Writers:

Thomas Paine

Samuel Johnson

Scientists:

Albert Einstein

Alfred Wallace

Mystics:

Rudolf Steiner

Emanuel Swedenborg

Businessmen:

John Templeton

Other Possibilities:

Jiddu Krishnamurti, Philosopher

Albert Schweitzer, Philosopher

David Bohm, Scientist

Freeman Dyson, Scientist

This is surely an incomplete list, and I will add to it as time goes on. And if you have any suggestions, please let me know.

Also, I’d like to begin a series in which I go into detail about each of these person’s philosophical and spiritual beliefs (like I did with Alfred Wallace). So stay tuned!

Quote of the Day

2009-12-04T07:32:00.003-09:00

“I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they have delighted in explaining to colleagues, which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives.”

–Leo Tolstoy

H/T: William Dembski

Daily Wrap-Up

2009-12-03T15:32:00.003-09:00

Muslims are Outraged Over Swiss Minaret Vote, But How Do They Handle Churches?: "Muslim reaction across the world to Sunday’s Swiss referendum banning the construction of further minarets for mosques in the tiny Alpine nation has been almost entirely negative…Egyptian Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa, close to the regime of President Hosni Mubarak, said the ban was an attempt to 'insult the feelings of the Muslim community in and outside Switzerland.' Yet the referendums outcome pales in comparison to restrictions on non-Muslims who aim to practice their faith in Muslim lands."

Obama Will Bankrupt America:"When President Barack Obama entered office in January, the greatest problem America faced was neither the war in Afghanistan nor the recession. It was the imminent crisis of the welfare state. Not only has Obama failed to deal with this crisis, he is pursuing policies that will bankrupt America."

Georgia Editorial in Support of Intelligent Design: "David Berlinski, a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture, states that it takes approximately 50,000 morphologic changes to go from an ocean to a land-based animal. If there was only one change required it would be easy to miss in the fossil record, but what about the 49,999 others?"

Have We Discovered it All?: "Billions are spent on medical research, but we have entered an era of diminishing returns."

A Pornography Study Doomed to Fail: "Scientists studying the effects of pornography fell at the first hurdle - after failing to find a man who had not viewed X-rated material."

I've also updated my essay, If Darwinists Worked in the Private Sector.

Quote of the Day

2009-12-03T10:11:00.003-09:00

"Is the Creation unfinished? Yes. And that's the requirement in which, inevitably, God slips into the world to me. If God made us to its image, does God contain the human evil? I answer —Yes. We're too reflection of that evil and unfinished part of God. We work in order to complete God."

- Carlos Fuentes

Slight Inconsistency Found In Bible

2009-12-02T23:41:00.002-09:00

From The Onion...

STILLWATER, OK—The world's theological community is in an uproar following Monday's discovery of a slight inconsistency in the Bible.

"I was reading Jeremiah 17:4, in which God says, 'Ye have kindled a fire in mine anger, which shall burn forever,'" said Pastor Theodore Strait of First Lutheran Church in Stillwater. "And I immediately recalled Jeremiah 3:12, which says, 'For I am merciful, saith the Lord, and I will not keep anger forever.' I thought, how can this possibly be? The Bible, contradicting itself?"

Biblical scholars are scrambling to explain the strange paradox, believed to be the first time a passage in the Bible has been found to contain flaws in logic.

The Chill of Orwellianism

2009-12-02T23:27:00.005-09:00

At Monday's White House press briefing, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs was challenged by a reporter over the Obama Admisnitration's decision to press ahead with a climate change treaty in light of the recent "ClimateGate" scandal...

Lester Kingsolving, WCBM Radio Baltimore: “Are you aware of the list of 31,000 scientists who oppose this idea of global warming? 6,000 of them are PhDs.”*

Robert Gibbs: “I don’t doubt that there’s such a list, Lester. I think there’s no real scientific basis for the dispute over this.”

Gibbs says there’s “no real scientific basis for the dispute” just after being told that 31,000 scientists ARE disputing it? How Orwellian is that!

Note: *Actually, the number is 9,021.

Quote of the Day

2009-12-02T14:10:00.006-09:00

Nathaniel Branden was Ayn Rand's protege and "intellectual heir" for 2 decades before they had a famous falling out in 1968.

In a 2004 interview, Branden recalled...

Ernest Van Den Haag, a sociologist, wrote a fascinating book called The Jewish Mystique. I read that book, got a lot out of it, and went over to Ayn and said, “I’ve got to tell you something shocking.” Because we never thought of ourselves as Jewish in any important way, I announced, laughing, “We are both exponents of the Jewish messianic tradition. We believe we are here on earth to be signposts pointing to the good life.”

What I got out of that book was how Jewish that was. The whole idea of these prophets coming along, or however he was describing it—it fit Ayn and me to a tee. I thought that was very funny.

I thought it was funny too - but for personal reasons. As someone who is half-Jewish by descent, maybe I've inadvertently become part of the "Jewish messianic tradition."

Also, I think it's interesting that according to Branden's Wikipedia page...

Branden has also been known to talk freely of his interest in matters that Rand would have considered epistemological "mysticism," such as ESP, and has had a publicized relationship with Ken Wilber.

Hmm, maybe Mr. Branden - like other materialists before him - is stumbling into a form of "Spiritual Rationalism..."

Alfred Russel Wallace: Spiritual Rationalist?

2009-12-01T20:55:00.007-09:00

While I am the first – and as far as I know, the ONLY - “Spiritual Rationalist” – I find that many historical figures could be described as sympathetic to “Spiritual Rationalism,” even though – needless to say – they probably wouldn’t embrace every tenet of my philosophy.

With that in mind, last night, I was scrolling through the Wikipedia page of British naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace. Wallace is usually credited – along with Charles Darwin) as the co-discoverer of the Theory of Evolution. However, it seems that Wallace – despite his stance on evolution - could easily be described as a true “Spiritual Rationalist.”

According to Wikipedia, in the mid-1860s…

Wallace became a spiritualist. At about the same time, he began to maintain that natural selection cannot account for mathematical, artistic, or musical genius, as well as metaphysical musings, and wit and humour. He eventually said that something in "the unseen universe of Spirit" had interceded at least three times in history. The first was the creation of life from inorganic matter. The second was the introduction of consciousness in the higher animals. And the third was the generation of the higher mental faculties in mankind. He also believed that the raison d'être of the universe was the development of the human spirit.

Whoa! Even though most scientists would consider Mr. Wallace to be a “Darwinist” – and Wallace himself used that word to describe himself – it would seem that Wallace is actually a proponent of Intelligent Design.

In fact, Wallace’s perspective is very similar to what I wrote last month in my essay, Intelligent Design is Not "God of the Gaps:" A Rumination…

Life is a true mystery, and any honest scientist will admit as much. What is "Life" – the mysterious essence which turns inert matter into volitional consciousness (and keeps that consciousness churning every second of every day until death)? We don’t know… We aren't even close to explaining what "Life" is - never mind its origin. So while it's fair to reject a “God of the Gaps” argument for purely material phenomenon, when it comes to Life we shouldn’t automatically reject it because Life itself strongly suggests at least a partly non-material dimension. We have to keep our minds open to the possibility of a divine origin and plan…

The fine-tuning of the Universe began with the Big Bang 14 billion years ago. So why can’t there be a fine-tuning of Life with the creation of the first cell 3 billion years ago? And once we accept that possibility, it becomes OK to consider the chance that there was some monkeying around with the creation of human beings

Beyond evolution, though, Mr. Wallace was also sympathetic to the “reality” of spirituality.

Wikipedia again…

Wallace began investigating spiritualism in the summer of 1865, possibly at the urging of his older sister Fanny Sims, who had been involved with it for some time. After reviewing the literature on the topic and attempting to test the phenomena he witnessed at séances, he came to accept that the belief was connected to a natural reality. For the rest of his life, he remained convinced that at least some séance phenomena were genuine, no matter how many accusations of fraud sceptics made or how much evidence of trickery was produced…

Wallace's very public advocacy of spiritualism and his repeated defence of spiritualist mediums against allegations of fraud in the 1870s damaged his scientific reputation. It strained his relationships with previously friendly scientists such as Henry Bates, Thomas Huxley, and even Darwin

Wallace’s perspective on evolution AND spirituality was guided by a fearless commitment to reason, and a willingness to follow the facts wherever they go… As he wrote in the preface to the first edition of On Miracles and Modern Spiritualism…

From the age of fourteen I lived with an elder brother, of advanced liberal and philosophical opinions, and I soon lost (and have never since regained) all capacity of being affected in my judgments either by clerical influence or religious prejudice. Up to the time when I first became acquainted with the facts of Spiritualism, I was a confirmed philosophical sceptic, rejoicing in the works of Voltaire, Strauss, and Carl Vogt, and an ardent admirer (as I still am) of Herbert Spencer. I was so thorough and confirmed a materialist that I could not at that time find a place in my mind for the conception of spiritual existence, or for any other agencies in the universe than matter and force. Facts, however, are stubborn things. My curiosity was at first excited by some slight but inexplicable phenomena occurring in a friend's family, and my desire for knowledge and love of truth forced me to continue the inquiry. The facts became more and more assured, more and more varied, more and more removed from anything that modern science taught or modern philosophy speculated on. The facts beat me. They compelled me to accept them as facts long before I could accept the spiritual explanation of them; there was at that time "no place in my fabric of thought into which it could be fitted." By slow degrees a place was made; but it was made, not by any preconceived or theoretical opinions, but by the continuous action of fact after fact, which could not be got rid of in any other way.

According to Wallace enthusiast Charles H. Smith...

Wallace distilled the teachings of spiritualism in a number of his later writings. Excerpts from several of these follow for the sake of illustration and later reference:

...The universal teaching of modern spiritualism is that the world and the whole material universe exist for the purpose of developing spiritual beings--that death is simply a transition from material existence to the first grade of spirit-life--and that our happiness and the degree of our progress will be wholly dependent upon the use we have made of our faculties and opportunities here...

...we are, all of us, in every act and thought of our lives, helping to build up a mental fabric which will be and constitute ourselves in the future life, even more completely than now. Just in proportion as we have developed our higher intellectual and moral nature, or starved it by disuse, shall we be well or ill fitted for the new life we shall enter on. The Spiritualist who...knows that, just in proportion as he indulges in passion, or selfishness, or the reckless pursuit of wealth, and neglects to cultivate his moral and intellectual nature, so does he inevitably prepare for himself misery in a world in which there are no physical wants to be provided for, no struggle to maintain mere existence, no sensual enjoyments except those directly associated with sympathy and affection, no occupations but those having for their object social, moral, and intellectual progress--is impelled towards a pure and moral life by motives far stronger than any which either philosophy or religion can supply...

...our condition and happiness in the future life depends, by the action of strictly natural law, on our life and conduct here. There is no reward or punishment meted out to us by superior beings; but, just as surely as cleanliness and exercise and wholesome food produce health of body, so surely does a moral life here produce health and happiness in the spirit-world...

...all the material imperfections of our globe, the wintry blasts and summer heats, the volcano, the whirlwind and the flood, the barren desert and the gloomy forest, have each served as stimuli to develop and strengthen man's intellectual nature; while the oppression and wrong, the ignorance and crime, the misery and pain, that always and everywhere pervade the world, have been the means of exercising and strengthening the higher sentiments of justice, mercy, charity, and love, which we all feel to be our best and noblest characteristics, and which it is hardly possible to conceive could have been developed by other means...

...Not only is a healthy body necessary for a sound mind, but equally so for a fully-developed soul--a soul that is best fitted to commence its new era of development in the spirit world. Inasmuch as we have fully utilised and developed all our faculties--bodily, mental, and spiritual--and have done all in our power to aid others in a similar development, so have we prepared future well-being for ourselves and for them...

I agree with nearly all of that, and having learned of Wallace’s philosophy, I’m not surprised that while Wallace is the co-discover of evolution, only Darwin gets the full credit. After all, Darwin was a committed materialist and an atheist-leaning agnostic. Wallace, meanwhile, was neither. And worse, Wallace's embrace of Spirituality was a product of reason, NOT faith. That raised the everlasting ire of the Scientific Elite. If Wallace was someone like Dr. Francis Collins – an advocate of keeping science and faith totally separate – the Scientific Elite might have tolerated Wallace. But Wallace had too much integrity for that. And for that, we should thank him.

Was Alfred Russel Wallace a “Spiritual Rationalist?” Yes, I think so.

Book Reviews for 2009

2009-12-01T20:54:00.009-09:00

Since the year 2009 is rapidly coming to a close, I've decided to compile a list of all the of books I've read this year which focus on topics (science, philosophy, culture, etc.) that pertain to my book, The Mustard Seed.

If you scroll down, you'll see that I've provided titles and rankings on a 1-10 scale. I wish I could review all of these books, but sadly, I just don't have the time.

Science:

By Design or By Chance? The Growing Controversy on the Origins of Life in the Universe (8.5)

Why Us?: How Science Rediscovered the Mystery of Ourselves (8.5)

The Vital Dimension: A Quest for Mind, Memory and God in the Thickness of Time (8.0)

From Darwin to Hitler: Evolutionary Ethics, Eugenics, and Racism in Germany (7.5)

The Spiritual Brain: A Neuroscientist's Case for the Existence of the Soul (7.5)

Reason in the Balance: The Case Against Naturalism in Science, Law & Education (7.0)

Do Gentlemen Really Prefer Blondes?: Bodies, Behavior, and Brains--The Science Behind Sex, Love, & Attraction (6.0)

Spirituality:

The Big Book of the Soul: Our Many Lives as Holographic Aspects of the Self (9.0)

Human Devolution: A Vedic Alternative to Darwin's Theory (9.0)

Journey of Souls: Case Studies of Life Between Lives (8.0)

Life After Death: The Evidence (8.0)

The Lost Secret of Death: Our Divided Souls and the Afterlife (7.5)

There is a God: How the World's Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind (5.5)

Philosophy:

The Ominous Parallels: A Brilliant Study of America Today - and the 'Ominous Parallels' With the Chaos of Pre-Hitler Germany (8.0)

Ayn Rand and the World She Made (7.0)

When Nietzsche Wept (6.0)

Culture:

We Are Doomed: Reclaiming Conservative Pessimism (8.5)

I Am Charlotte Simmons (8.0)

Reflections on the Revolution in Europe: Immigration, Islam, and the West (7.5)

Night (7.5)

God is Back: How the Global Revival of Faith Is Changing the World (7.0)

The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century (3.0)

The Conservative Soul: Fundamentalism, Freedom, and the Future of the Right (2.5)

Economy:

Meltdown: A Free-Market Look at Why the Stock Market Collapsed, the Economy Tanked, and Government Bailouts Will Make Things Worse (8.0)

Clive Crook Gets It

2009-12-01T16:59:00.005-09:00

Yesterday, Clive Crook - the Senior Editor of The Atlantic Monthly and typically a mouthpiece for bland, conventional thinking - wrote a heartfelt piece on the implications of "ClimateGate" for the scientific and political communities...

In my previous post on Climategate I blithely said that nothing in the climate science email dump surprised me much. Having waded more deeply over the weekend I take that back...

The closed-mindedness of these supposed men of science, their willingness to go to any lengths to defend a preconceived message, is surprising even to me. The stink of intellectual corruption is overpowering. And... this scandal is not at the margins of the politicised IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] process. It is not tangential to the policy prescriptions emanating from what David Henderson called the environmental policy milieu. It goes to the core of that process...

This is not an academic exercise. We contemplate outlays of trillions of dollars to fix this supposed problem. Can I read these emails and feel that the scientists involved deserve to be trusted? No, I cannot. These people are willing to subvert the very methods--notably, peer review--that underwrite the integrity of their discipline. Is this really business as usual in science these days?

Dr. Michael Egnor analyzes Cook's turnaround here.

Daily Wrap-Up

2009-12-01T13:51:00.002-09:00

Intelligent Design Film Shut Down By Museum: “A decision at a popular museum in Los Angeles to shut down debate over Darwin's theory of evolution has prompted a lawsuit alleging officials violated the First Amendment rights of supporters of a documentary exploring Intelligent Design…It claims museum CEO Jeffrey Rudolph ‘was pressured to cancel the event by colleagues at the Smithsonian Institution, the University of Southern California, the Huntington Library and elsewhere.’ But as a state agency, it is not allowed to 'suppress legitimate discussion.'"

Year of Darwin Lecture to Feature 'What Darwin Got Wrong': “In his forthcoming book with co-author Massimo Piattelli-Palmarinin, What Darwin Got Wrong (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, February 2010), [Jerry] Fodor argues that the Darwinian account of evolution is committed to a fallacious inference from “creatures with such and such a trait are selected,’ to “creatures are selected for having such and such a trait.’ He argues that this fallacy is fatal and suggests new ways of thinking about evolution.” H/T: Darwiniana

Darwinism Used as Cudgel Against Human Exceptionalism: "When Darwinism is brought to bear to undermine human exceptionalism and reduce us to merely another animal in the forest–as opposed to explaining biological processes–it gives aid to powerful and profoundly destructive social forces. So, no more complacency. No more pretending that the elites still generally believe that all men are created equal or that Jefferson’s insight is still considered a self-evident truth. No more blithely assuming that if one can just prove that a threatened life is human, that it will necessarily win the debate over whether the most vulnerable among us can be killed or objectified. It really is time to defend human exceptionalism against all its foes. I mean if being human is not what, ipso facto, gives rise to ultimate moral value, the very principle of universal human rights becomes intellectually untenable." H/T: Darwiniana

Dr. Michael Egnor on Climategate: "I'm not sure that the scientific community can or will respond to this debacle in a courageous or ethical way. The ID-Darwinism debate clearly demonstrates that venality and shameless self-interest, as well as a toxic leftist-atheist ideology, runs very deep in the scientific community. Science surely provides much benefit to mankind, but we may need to pursue scientific truth with a different set of scientists than the ones we have now. Surely many many scientists knew of the frauds so clearly documented in the ClimateGate scandal; where were the august scientific organizations--the Royal Academy, the UN's IPCC, the National Academy of Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science--while this fraud was growing and gaining power. The obvious truth is that these citadels of organized science were part of the fraud, or at least acquiescent in it...It may well be that the public will be forced to protect itself from organized science, as we now protect ourselves from organized crime."

Barbara Hollingsworth on Scientific Corruption: When former Cambridge biochemist Douglas Axe computed the chances that the four amino acids that form DNA could self-arrange themselves into just one functional protein, he found it was 1:10164 -- or less than the odds of finding one marked subatomic particle in the entire observable universe. In other words, the evolutionary story now universally taught to students fails to account for the origin of the basic information that forms the very blueprint of life.… 'If we've defined science such that it cannot get to the true answer, we've got a pretty lame definition of science,' Axe said." H/T: Darwiniana

The Dangerous Mystery of Consciousness: "If I had the time, I would establish an international Mysterian society for those who recognize that the universe is still a profoundly mysterious place and yet don't want to be alone thinking dark thoughts about it. That's really all I want to do. It bothers me. I want it to bother others, too… I don't think religion has the answers, but I don't think science does either. Yet. Whether it ever will is the fourth great mystery." H/T: Darwiniana

Why Ayn Rand Still Resonates

2009-12-01T07:54:00.006-09:00

Last week, FoxNews.com ran a fine piece by Dr. Onkar Ghate, a teacher at the Objectivist Academic Center, defending Ayn Rand's influence on America's youth...

From the pages of The New York Times to the signs of tea party protesters to Jon Stewart’s "Daily Show," Ayn Rand is everywhere…

As an educator I can attest to the fact that she is wildly popular among the young, who typically are not very political. Some 27,000 students submitted entries this year to essay contests on her novels and, in the past three years alone, high-school teachers have requested over 900,000 copies of "Anthem" and "The Fountainhead" to use in their classrooms. They know that students respond to her stories and heroes as to few other books.

Sadly, however, it remains all too common for a young person to be told--as I was told in high school--that interest in Rand is a stage he will (or should) grow out of. You may have seen versions of this attitude in the many recent stories about her. “It’s fine to believe in that now,” the refrain goes, “but wait until you’re older. You’ll discover that life isn’t like that…”

The key to Rand’s enduring popularity is that she appeals not to the immaturity but to the idealism of youth…To sustain this youthful conviction throughout life, Rand teaches, you must achieve a radical independence of mind. Independence does not mean doing whatever you feel like doing but rather forging your convictions and choosing your actions rationally, carefully, scientifically. It is refusal to subordinate your ideas or values to the “public interest,” as liberals demand, or to the “glory of God,” as conservatives demand. It is refusal to grant obedience to any authority, human or divine.

The independent mind rejects faith -- secular or supernatural -- and embraces reason as an absolute. “The noblest act you have ever performed,” declares the hero of "Atlas Shrugged," “is the act of your mind in the process of grasping that two and two make four.” Rand meant it…

Hold your own life as your highest value, follow reason, submit to no authority, pursue unwaveringly the true and the good, create a life of productive achievement and personal, selfish joy--enact these demanding values and virtues, Rand teaches, and an ideal world, here on earth, is “real, it's possible--it's yours.”

Does an adult world that dismisses this philosophy as “simplistic” not convict itself?

Thankfully, Rand had the courage to take on that world and challenge its rampant skepticism, eager cynicism and unyielding demand for compromise, to portray and explain--at the most fundamental level--the heroic in man.

Intelligent Design Should Not Be Excluded From Schools

2009-12-01T06:11:00.005-09:00

In today's Guardian, Alastair Nobel has a fine piece defending the teaching of Intelligent Design in schools...

As a former science teacher and schools inspector, I am disturbed that proposals for science education are based on near-complete ignorance of intelligent design. I also think the views of most British people in this matter should not be so readily set aside.

It is easily overlooked that the origin of life, the integrated complexity of biological systems and the vast information content of DNA have not been adequately explained by purely materialistic or neo-Darwinian processes. Indeed it is hard to see how they ever will.

In an area such as this, where we cannot observe what happened directly, a legitimate scientific approach is to make an inference to the best explanation. In the case of the huge bank of functional information embedded in biological systems, the best explanation – based on the observation everywhere else that such information only arises from intelligence – is that it too has an intelligent source.

There is a tendency in school science to present the evidence for evolution as uniformly convincing and all-encompassing, failing to distinguish between what is directly observable – such as change and adaptation over time through natural selection – and the more hypothetical elements, like the descent of all living things from a common ancestor. The evidence for these various strands is not of equal strength.

If you insist that intelligent causation is to be excluded in the study of origins then you are teaching materialist philosophy, not science.'

I believe current government guidance is wrong in denying intelligent design the status of science. However, it does encourage teachers to handle it "positively and educationally". That's a small step in the right direction.

Quote of the Day

2009-11-30T20:04:00.004-09:00

"In holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite."

- President Dwight Eisenhower in his Farewell Address, 1961

Quote of the Day

2009-11-29T18:51:00.006-09:00

"Ideology has corrupted too much of science...But in the end, the ideologues and censors can’t make dissenters go away. Popular belief in global warming is plummeting precisely because people see these tactics for the desperate impositions that they are...Stephen Meyer’s book, Signature in the Cell, is in its fifth printing and was named one of the best science books of the year by the Times of London.

The most severe harm these scientism ideologues cause is to science itself. And to think these censors and bullies smugly presume that they’re walking in the footsteps of Galileo, when in fact, they are actually the new Inquisition."

- Wesley J. Smith

"But Is It Science?:" Global Warming Edition

2009-11-28T21:21:00.006-09:00

On Monday, I channeled my inner Darwinist by attacking Global Warming with the King of All Questions: "But is it science?"

Then yesterday, I stumbled upon a wonderful website that compiles ALL of the horrible things scientists blame on Global Warming. And it's a LONGGG list...

Acne, agricultural land increase, Afghan poppies destroyed, poppies more potent, Africa devastated, Africa in conflict, African aid threatened, African summer frost, aggressive weeds, Air France crash, air pressure changes, airport malaria, Agulhas current, Al Qaeda and Taliban Being Helped, Alaska reshaped, moves, allergy season longer, alligators in the Thames, Alps melting, Amazon a desert, American dream end, amphibians breeding earlier (or not), anaphylactic reactions to bee stings, ancient forests dramatically changed, animals head for the hills, animals shrink, Antarctic grass flourishes, Antarctic ice grows, Antarctic ice shrinks, Antarctic sea life at risk, anxiety treatment, algal blooms, archaeological sites threatened, Arctic bogs melt, Arctic in bloom, Arctic ice free, Arctic ice melt faster, Arctic lakes disappear, Arctic tundra to burn, Arctic warming (not), Atlantic less salty, Atlantic more salty, atmospheric circulation modified, attack of the killer jellyfish, avalanches reduced, avalanches increased, Baghdad snow, Bahrain under water, bananas grow, barbarisation, beer and bread prices to soar, beer better, beer shortage, beer worse, beetle infestation, bet for $10,000, big melt faster, billion dollar research projects, billion homeless, billions face risk, billions of deaths, bird distributions change, bird loss accelerating, bird strikes, bird visitors drop, birds confused, birds decline (Wales), birds driven north, birds face longer migrations, birds return early, birds shrink, bittern boom ends, blackbirds stop singing, blackbirds threatened, Black Hawk down, blood contaminated, blue mussels return, bluetongue, brain eating amoebae, brains shrink, bridge collapse (Minneapolis), Britain one big city, Britain Siberian, British monsoon, brothels struggle, brown Ireland, bubonic plague, budget increases, Buddhist temple threatened, building collapse, building season extension, bushfires, business opportunities, business risks, butterflies move north, carbon crimes, camel deaths, cancer deaths in England, cannibalism, caterpillar biomass shift, cave paintings threatened, childhood insomnia, Cholera, circumcision in decline, cirrus disappearance, civil unrest, cloud increase, coast beauty spots lost, cockroach migration, coffee threatened, coffee berry borer, cold climate creatures survive, cold spells (Australia), cold wave (India), computer models, conferences, conflict, conflict with Russia, consumers foot the bill, coral bleaching, coral fish suffer, coral reefs dying, coral reefs grow, coral reefs shrink , coral reefs twilight, cost of trillions, cougar attacks, crabgrass menace, cradle of civilisation threatened, creatures move uphill, crime increase, crocodile sex, crops devastated, crumbling roads, buildings and sewage systems, curriculum change, cyclones (Australia), danger to kid's health, Darfur, Dartford Warbler plague, deadly virus outbreaks, death rate increase (US), deaths to reach 6 million, Dengue hemorrhagic fever, depression, desert advance, desert retreat, destruction of the environment, dig sites threatened, disappearance of coastal cities, disasters, diseases move north, dog disease, Dolomites collapse, dozen deadly diseases - or not, drought, ducks and geese decline, dust bowl in the corn belt, early marriages, early spring, earlier pollen season, Earth axis tilt, Earth biodiversity crisis, Earth dying, Earth even hotter, Earth light dimming, Earth lopsided, Earth melting, Earth morbid fever, Earth on fast track, Earth past point of no return, Earth slowing down, Earth spins faster, Earth to explode, earth upside down, earthquakes, earthquakes redux, El Niño intensification, end of the world as we know it, erosion, emerging infections, encephalitis, English villages lost, equality threatened, Europe simultaneously baking and freezing, eutrophication, evolution accelerating, expansion of university climate groups, extinctions (human, civilisation, logic, Inuit, smallest butterfly, cod, ladybirds, pikas, polar bears, possums, walrus, toads, plants, salmon, trout, wild flowers, woodlice, a million species, half of all animal and plant species, mountain species, not polar bears, barrier reef, leaches, salamanders, tropical insects) experts muzzled, extreme changes to California, fading fall foliage, fainting, famine, farmers benefit, farmers go under, farm output boost, fashion disaster, fever, figurehead sacked, fir cone bonanza, fires fanned in Nepal, fish bigger, fish catches drop, fish downsize, fish catches rise, fish deaf, fish get lost, fish head north, fish shrinking, fish stocks at risk, fish stocks decline, five million illnesses, flames stoked, flesh eating disease, flies on Everest, flood patterns change, floods, floods of beaches and cities, flood of migrants, flood preparation for crisis, flora dispersed, Florida economic decline, flowers in peril, food poisoning, food prices rise, food prices soar, food security threat (SA), football team migration, footpath erosion, forest decline, forest expansion, frog with extra heads, frostbite, frost damage increased, frosts, fungi fruitful, fungi invasion, games change, Garden of Eden wilts, geese decline in Hampshire, genetic diversity decline, gene pools slashed, giant oysters invade, giant pythons invade, giant squid migrate, gingerbread houses collapse, glacial earthquakes, glacial retreat, glacial growth, glacier grows (California), glacier wrapped, global cooling, global dimming, glowing clouds, golf course to drown, golf Masters wrecked, grandstanding, grasslands wetter, gravity shift, Great Barrier Reef 95% dead, Great Lakes drop, great tits cope, greening of the North, Grey whales lose weight, Gulf Stream failure, habitat loss, haggis threatened, Hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, harmful algae, harvest increase, harvest shrinkage, hay fever epidemic, health affected, health of children harmed, health risks, heart disease, heart attacks and strokes (Australia), heat waves, hibernation affected, hibernation ends too soon, hibernation ends too late, HIV epidemic, homeless 50 million, hornets, high court debates, human development faces unprecedented reversal, human fertility reduced, human health risk, human race oblivion, hurricanes, hurricane reduction, hurricanes fewer, hurricanes not, hydropower problems, hyperthermia deaths, ice age, ice sheet growth, ice sheet shrinkage, icebergs, illness and death, inclement weather, India drowning, infrastructure failure (Canada), industry threatened, infectious diseases, inflation in China, insect explosion, insect invasion, insurance premium rises, Inuit displacement, Inuit poisoned, Inuit suing, invasion of alien worms, invasion of cats, invasion of crabgrass, invasion of herons, invasion of jellyfish, invasion of king crabs, invasion of midges, island disappears, islands sinking, Italy robbed of pasta, itchier poison ivy, jellyfish explosion, jets fall from sky, jet stream drifts north, Kew Gardens taxed, kidney stones, killer cornflakes, killing us, kitten boom, koalas under threat, krill decline, lake and stream productivity decline, lake empties, lake shrinking and growing, landslides, landslides of ice at 140 mph, large trees decline, lawsuits increase, lawsuit successful, lawyers' income increased (surprise surprise!), lawyers want more, legionnaires' surge, lives saved, Loch Ness monster dead, locust plagues suppressed, lush growth in rain forests, Malaria, mammoth dung melt, mango harvest fails, Maple production advanced, Maple syrup shortage, marine diseases, marine food chain decimated, Meaching (end of the world), Meat eating to stop, Mediterranean rises, megacryometeors, Melanoma, Melanoma decline, methane emissions from plants, methane burps, methane runaway, melting permafrost, Middle Kingdom convulses, migration, migration difficult (birds), migratory birds huge losses, microbes to decompose soil carbon more rapidly, minorities hit, monkeys at risk, monkeys on the move, Mont Blanc grows, monuments imperiled, moose dying, more bad air days, more research needed, mortality increased, mountain (Everest) shrinking, mountaineers fears, mountains break up, mountains green and flowering, mountains taller, mortality lower, Myanmar cyclone, narwhals at risk, National Parks damaged, National security implications, native wildlife overwhelmed, natural disasters quadruple, new islands, next ice age, NFL threatened, Nile delta damaged, noctilucent clouds, no effect in India, Northwest Passage opened, nuclear plants bloom, oaks dying, oaks move north, ocean acidification, ocean acidification faster, ocean dead spots, ocean dead zones unleashed, ocean deserts expand, ocean waves speed up, oceans noisier, Olympic Games to end, opera house to be destroyed, outdoor hockey threatened, ozone repair slowed, ozone rise, Pacific dead zone, penguin chicks frozen, penguin chicks smaller, personal carbon rationing, pest outbreaks, pests increase, phenology shifts, pines decline, plankton blooms, plankton destabilised, plants lose protein, plants march north, plants move uphill, polar bears aggressive, polar bears cannibalistic, polar bears deaf, polar bears drowning, polar tours scrapped, popcorn rise, porpoise astray, profits collapse, psychiatric illness, puffin decline, pushes poor women into prostitution, rabid bats, radars taken out, railroad tracks deformed, rainfall increase, rape wave, refugees, reindeer endangered, release of ancient frozen viruses, resorts disappear, rice threatened, rice yields crash, rift on Capitol Hill, rioting and nuclear war, river flow impacted, rivers raised, roads wear out, robins rampant, rocky peaks crack apart, roof of the world a desert, rooftop bars, Ross river disease, ruins ruined, Russia under pressure, salinity reduction, salinity increase, Salmonella, satellites accelerate, school closures, sea level rise, sea level rise faster, seals mating more, seismic activity, sewer bills rise, severe thunderstorms, sex change, sexual promiscuity, shark attacks, sharks booming, sharks moving north, sheep shrink, shop closures, short-nosed dogs endangered, shrinking ponds, shrinking sheep, shrinking shrine, Sidney Opera House wiped out, ski resorts threatened, skin cancer, slow death, smaller brains, smog, snowfall decrease, snowfall increase, snowfall heavy, snow thicker, soaring food prices, societal collapse, soil change, songbirds change eating habits, sour grapes, space problem, spectacular orchids, spiders getting bigger, spiders invade Scotland, squid aggressive giants, squid larger, squid population explosion, squid tamed, squirrels reproduce earlier, stick insects, stingray invasion, storms wetter, stormwater drains stressed, street crime to increase, subsidence, suicide, swordfish in the Baltic, Tabasco tragedy, taxes, tectonic plate movement, teenage drinking, terrorism, terrorists (India), threat to peace, ticks move northward (Sweden), tides rise, tigers eat people, tomatoes rot, tornado outbreak, tourism increase, toxic seaweed, trade barriers, trade winds weakened, traffic jams, transportation threatened, tree foliage increase (UK), tree growth slowed, trees in trouble, trees less colourful, trees more colourful, trees lush, tropics expansion, tropopause raised, truffle shortage, truffles down, tundra plant life boost, turtles crash, turtle feminised, turtles lay earlier, UFO sightings, UK coastal impact, UK Katrina, uprooted - 6 million, Vampire moths, Venice flooded, violin decline, volcanic eruptions, walrus pups orphaned, walrus stampede, war, war between US and Canada, wars over water, wars sparked, wars threaten billions, wasps, water bills double, water scarcity (20% of increase), water stress, weather out of its mind, weather patterns awry, Western aid cancelled out, West Nile fever, whale beachings, whales lose weight, whales move north, whales wiped out, wheat yields crushed in Australia, wildfires, wind shift, wind reduced, winds stronger, winds weaker, wine - Australian baked, wine - harm to Australian industry, wine industry damage (California), wine industry disaster (US), wine - more English, wine - England too hot, wine -German boon, wine - no more French , wine passé (Napa), wine - Scotland best, wine stronger, winters in Britain colder, winter in Britain dead, witchcraft executions, wolves eat more moose, wolves eat less, workers laid off, World at war, World War 4, World bankruptcy, World in crisis, World in flames, Yellow fever.

At this point, I have to take off my glasses, stroke my chin, and ask: "But is it science?"

Quote of the Day

2009-11-28T21:09:00.005-09:00

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his livelihood depends on not understanding it." - Upton Sinclair

If that's true in life, it's also true in science. Thus, we have "Climategate."

And as Denyse O'Leary notes, "You've heard of Climategate? Wait till Darwingate."

The Failure of Modern Philosophy

2009-11-25T08:11:00.007-09:00

Today, Larry Auster linked to one of his old essays, Philosopher Says We Must Create Meaning and Goodness.

In his 2004 piece, Larry critically examined Bill Moyer’s TV interview of Susan Neiman, the director of the Einstein Forum, a liberal think tank in Germany.

Larry sent Ms. Neiman the following email…

Dear Miss Neiman:

When Bill Moyers asked you (I'm paraphrasing), "Does life morally make sense?,” you paused a long, long time, and then you said:

"Meaning is up to us. We have to create it. If the meaning were given from the beginning, we wouldn't be free."

Moyers said: "How do we create meaning?"

You said: "By doing little things to make the world more just ... by trying to make the world a little more intelligible ... by trying to make the world good."

With all due respect, these statements strike me as incoherent. You say there is no inherent moral meaning in existence, and that we have to create the meaning by trying to create justice and goodness and intelligibility. But how would we know there is such a thing as justice or goodness unless these things already existed? How could we "make the world more just" unless there was objectively such a thing as justice? How could we make the world more intelligible unless existence was inherently intelligible?

I wrote about why modern philosophy degenerated into moral relativism in my essay From Rorty to Obama to Beyond.

Where Have All the Obama Supporters Gone?

2009-11-25T07:52:00.004-09:00

According to a Gallup report released yesterday, since President Obama took office, his approval rating among whites has collapsed by 22 points (61% to 39%). Meanwhile, his approval rating has gone UP 1 point among blacks (from 90% to 91%) and fallen only 5 points among Hispanics (from 75% to 70%).

So clearly my thoughts from Nov. 17 are being confirmed: If you peel through some of the polls (which usually still have Obama above 50%), you can see that Obama has actually lost a ton of support among the "Silent Majority" this year.

**UPDATE, NOV. 25, 2009**

This essay has been cross-posted at Larry Auster's site.

Tea Partiers Organizing for 2010

2009-11-25T07:34:00.006-09:00

From Sunday's Huffington Post article, Tea Parties Organizing, Training For 2010 Under The Radar...

For some, including important figures in the conservative power structure, Tea Parties are a reaction against a floundering Republican Party. For others, Tea Parties are a Republican Renaissance. For the many libertarians in the Tea Party movement, they are a means to bucking the two-party system. Regardless, Tea Partiers of all stripes want the same thing in 2010: electoral victory...

Many local Tea Party groups are taking the initiative to prepare for 2010 elections on their own. In at least 21 states, local homegrown Tea Party groups are already recruiting precinct leaders and providing them with formal training. Many are also hosting candidate recruitment and training seminars. Some are hosting multi-day "boot camps" for activists and candidates…

On Saturday, Glenn Beck announced an ambitious plan to turn his media megaphone into a community organizing pulpit. He already had a list of "912 candidates" and an "In or Out in 2010" challenge. Now Beck promises to step up efforts to elect like-minded politicians in 2010 by sponsoring voter registration drives and several day-long educational seminars culminating with the release of his upcoming book The Plan, which he will launch on the anniversary of Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech in August 2010 on the National Mall. The Plan will detail Beck's 100-year plan for America. Beck's educational "conventions" will include policy-specific education, community organizer training, and Beck's personal take on history and economics…

From day one, well-funded libertarian groups have been commandeering the Tea Party movement for electoral gain. American Majority, along with their sponsoring organization, Sam Adams Alliance, and several other like-minded groups, are sponsoring a National Tea Party Convention. Local Tea Party leaders attending the convention will participate in workshops, seminars, and organizing training. Sarah Palin will be the keynote speaker.

American Majority is also co-sponsoring PrecinctProject.com, along with RedState.com, to provide online training to Tea Partiers to "take back the Republican Party…"

Eric Odom, who is most often characterized as the Tea Party founder, is organizing week-long 2010 Tax Day Tea Parties across the country through his new organization American Liberty Alliance (and his former employer Sam Adams Alliance). In each city, the week will kick off with a full day of activist training on Saturday, April 10. Tax Day Tea Party protests will be held on Thursday, April 15, and the week will culminate with door-to-door voter canvassing on Saturday, April 17.

Odom announced recently that he is re-joining the GOP, but he qualified his support for the GOP by saying his new Liberty PAC (1) will not support any incumbent Republican, (2) will help libertarian candidates defeat Republican incumbents that are not conservative enough, and (3) will educate the electorate on why it makes sense for Republican candidates to be Scozzafava'd. Odom explained his plan, "Love or hate the Republican Party, it's our only vessel in the short term."

**UPDATE, DEC. 4, 2009**

Alex’s most recent article on the Tea Party movement appeared in the Huffington Post yesterday. It can be found here. Other articles in this series are here and here.

Quote of the Day

2009-11-25T06:48:00.002-09:00

"When studied with any degree of thoroughness, the economic problem will be found to run into the political problem, the political problem in turn into the philosophical problem, and the philosophical problem itself to be almost indissolubly bound up at last with the religious problem." - Opening paragraph of Irving Babbitt's Democracy and Leadership

H/T: Lawrence Auster

The Thin Gruel of Karen Armstrong

2009-11-24T06:26:00.009-09:00

Yesterday, Nemo posted a link to a Sep. 12 Wall Street Journal piece in which arch-atheist Richard Dawkins and “Kumbaya Gal” extraordinaire Karen Armstrong debated the question, “Where does evolution leave God?”

While Armstrong is a best-selling "religious scholar," after reading the piece, I am shocked by 1) how ignorant she is about basic aspects of religion, and 2) how she draws terrible conclusions from what little knowledge she has. Dawkins wipes the floor with her. It’s no contest.

Nemo comments:

One of the strange oddities of Armstrong’s devious self-promo is the way her book on theology tossed in the towel on Darwinism.

You would think the great critic of modern scientism, and rationality, would expose the theory of Darwin. But no, that’s too dangerous: best to compromise on that issue.

We could certiainly do with a more compassionate theory of evolution, the more so since Darwin’s theory looks like an ideology designed for anti-compassion.

Later, Nemo also wrote…

Armstrong is basically an atheist who is trying to keep her irons in the god fire, so she can be a religious expert.

I responded…

Karen Armstrong sounds like an atheist who grew disillusioned with atheism because it leads to nasty consequences, and thus, tried to salvage God by saying that we should honor “Mystery” itself as a God-like force worthy of worship and sacrifice.

Needless to say, this perspective will not be persuasive to ANY atheist or believer.

Perhaps a few agnostics will find it compelling, and I’m sure the MSM will continue to honor her as a bold, trailblazing thinker (when she’s nothing of the sort). But I guess that’s inevitable when most people are tired of the New Atheists and the New Fundamentalists. They’ll cling to any mushy moderate, even if it’s a total clown like Karen Armstrong.

Nemo replied…

Good points. I think that theists will discover to their surprise that Armstrong makes a poor case for god.

*Note: In my writings, I usually refer to Karen Armstrong, Robert Wright, Francis Collins, and their ilk as “Kumbaya Guys.”

The Kumbaya Guys are believers in God who wants to find a “compromise” with atheists by accepting Darwinism without condition – in return for the atheist’s permission that they can believe in a God, as long as that God is separate from the material world. The “Kumbaya Guys” will sell out any religious principle just so they can find “peace” with those who have no interest in “peace.” They’re the Neville Chamberlains of 21st Century religious debate.

Note: Novaseeker has written on this topic too.

Happy Darwin Day!

2009-11-24T05:39:00.003-09:00

150 years ago today - on November 24, 1859 - Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species.

"But Is It Science?:" Thanksgiving Edition

2009-11-23T07:24:00.005-09:00

For the political elites who know very little science (George Will, Charles Krauthammer, and John Debryshire come to mind), they like to shrug off the I.D./Darwin debate by asking I.D. supporters (who aren’t there to defend themselves): “But is it Science?”

I guess they ask that question because they think I.D. supporters will reluctantly admit that the answer is “No,” and thus, they can end the debate in 5 seconds flat.

Apparently, the question, “But is it science?” has some unknown magical power.

Over Thanksgiving, I’m going to test this theory for myself. When I’m sitting at the kitchen table, and my mom asks me to pass the turkey, I’m going to look at her scornfully and ask, “But is it science?” That oughta shut her up! ;)

But seriously…When I read articles like the one below, I really do have to ask, “But is it science?”

Harvard Says Kidney Stones, Malaria Are Climate Risks

Kidney stones, malaria, Lyme disease, depression and respiratory illness all may increase with global warming, researchers at Harvard Medical School said.

Oh brother! Have we learned nothing from the last few days??

The Sad Past and Sadder Future of Elliot Frost

2009-11-23T05:56:00.004-09:00

On Friday, Ferdinand Bardamu posted a new essay at The Spearhead: Letter from an Omega. The letter - from a self-described "omega" named Elliot Frost - queries Ferdinand about the purpose of Game while expressing some concerns about it.

Elliot writes...

One of the things that I hate about game and the world view that comes with it, is the way it paints human beings as animals. Animals prodominantly controlled by base, primal urges that we can hardly even control. But as much as I hate it I really can’t argue with it, it just makes me hold humanity in lower esteem.

Ferdinand replies...

To a certain extent, you’re correct. The alpha/beta/omega hierarchy that is used to classify men is based solely on said man’s sexual attractiveness. You also rightly note that society at large does this as well. There’s a reason why the number one insult feminists and women use on anti-feminist writers like myself is “you can’t get laid,” just above “you have a small penis.”

I won’t lie and say that I don’t regard a man’s sexual attractiveness as an integral part of his character. One of the goals of all life is to reproduce and pass on your genes – if you don’t have the ability to do that, you have failed at existence. The fact that reproducing is much more difficult for men then for women, as judged by the fact that less then half of the former have successfully done so throughout human history, means that the ability to get with women (and by extension spread your seed) is a quality that other people respect…

All life, from protozoa to plants to puppies, is possessed of one primary goal – survival. I separate survival into two subcategories - corporeal survival and genetic survival. The former entails staying physically alive, and the latter consists of passing on your genes to the next generation; reproduction, in other words. The Mystery Method posited a similar premise, with survival and replication being the purpose of every living entity. Every living being wants to reproduce, and will do anything in its power to accomplish that goal. This includes human beings…

While I wouldn’t argue that we humans, being sapient, are identical to chimpanzees rutting in the trees, our sentience is a tower constructed on a foundation of animal drives and instincts. The low, base urges may not be out in the open, but they’re still there and are still holding up everything else. We cannot escape our nature, we can only work with it.

In the Comment Thread, I wrote in response...

This is an honest, articulate description of Game (and no, I’m not being sarcastic). But here’s the problem: By explaining some of the “inherent assumptions” of Game you reveals its flaws.

For example, you write (quite casually and confidently): “Every living being wants to reproduce, and will do anything in its power to accomplish that goal.”

Really? Read that sentence again. EVERY LIVING BEING will do ANYTHING IN ITS power to REPRODUCE.

Does that really describe yourself, Ferdinand? Does that describe anyone in this forum? It certainly doesn’t describe Elliott who describes several goals for his life – but never mentions reproduction as one of them.

Elliot is correct that the “worldview” of Game “paints human beings as animals.” And therein lies its fatal flaw.

Once you understand the truth that human beings are not mindless meat puppets manipulated by our selfish genes to survive and reproduce the appeal of Game dwindles to zero.

Game may – on some level – help a man get sex, but by harming his soul, it will ultimately lower – not bolster – his happiness.

I guess my arguments (and those of other people like "Jon," "Codebuster," and "Porkchop") didn't have much influence on Elliot. Near the end of the comment thread, he wrote...

I have no doubt that the explanations for male/female behavior game provides are true. I do hate it, believe me… My goal in trying to understand/study game is that I may rid myself, permanently, of all these wretched lies about women (which women encourage!) and cease being an emotional slave. If game can help me and other omegas achieve those humble outcomes, than game is worth its hype.

I wrote in response...

In my experience, the best way to stop being an “emotional slave” is to sever the knee-jerk response whereby a woman’s indifference to you causes “emotional slavery.” To do that, you must take ownership of your life, love yourself, and achieve a level of character that a worthy woman would be overjoyed to love.

There are no short-cuts in life. You have to do your homework. Life is a perpetual school, and unfortunately – to use Dave’s analogy – Game is a pill; a drug that may boost your self-esteem in the short-run but will leave you with a hangover tomorrow. And then – when the hangover passes – you’ll be back at Square One.

So why is Elliot going to fall for all this nonsense?

Advocatus Diaboli has the answer. He wrote...

Evolutionary psychology is a BS religion, not unlike randism and scientology. It tells the true believers that they are righteous and deserving.

If you feel that people are treating you poorly and there is no chance they will change, hurt them as you please.

I responded...

That’s a good point, Advocatus. I’ve long believed that the quest to feel superior to the great mass of humanity is a very common and dangerous drug that can come in many forms. “Game” (as practiced by the Roissysphere) is one of those forms.

Good luck to you, Elliot. You deserve more than you'll ever know.

Quote of the Day

2009-11-22T12:10:00.005-09:00

In many ways, I agree with Hegel and Marx that indeed, the Truth is Relative. But, from a position of what works for a civilization? Well… that must have elements of an Absolute Truth to it, or cultural hegemony will never arise, and civilization will never occur...

Christianity has been not too bad, because it is firmly based in the concept of Absolute Truth, and can be used to pull us back from the brink of La La Land when we get a little too insane. It is an anchor...

If you want to know why most Communist countries abolish Christianity, it is because it is firmly rooted in the concept of “Absolute Truth” which is directly at odds with dialectical manipulation...

It is for this reason as well, that the lefties are so adamant about Evolution...

Marx and Engels were extremely excited when Darwin came out with his theory, because it was the “science” that supported their political philosophy – namely, that the Truth is Relative...

Whether one believes in Evolution or not, this very important political aspect rarely gets mentioned in the debate, but it is core to the importance of a lot of philosophy about “truth.”

This is why the leftists pee their pants so quickly whenever someone begins to discuss intelligent design. If intelligent design were to be proven, it would indicate a “plan,” which would indicate the existence of Absolute Truth… and the entire political philosophy of the left would fall to bits. They need evolution to be true for more reasons than what they… so does the Creationist side… the Intelligent Design side doesn’t, however, because it is dispassionate. - Fedrz in his essay Men, Religion, and Morality

"Climate-Gate" and Why It Matters

2009-11-22T11:41:00.003-09:00

For the purposes of this blog, the only reason I occasionally cover the Global Warming controversy is because it reveals - in a way most people can understand - how the Scientific Establishment - despite all of its protests of being "objective" and "unbiased" - actually is motivated by an anti-life ideology while working to impose that ideology on the rest of us.

The same people who push Global Warming down our throats are the same people who push Darwinism down our throats. In the case of both Darwinism and Global Warming, scientific and political elites advance junk science as "Da Truth" and ostracize anyone who interferences with that "Truth."

With that mind, I hope this new, remarkable scandal about the IPCC - the Nobel Prize-winning organization which is the loudest voice for global warming scaremongering - gets major media attention.

In Friday's Telegraph, James Delingpole dubbed the scandal "Climategate" in his piece, Climategate: The Final Nail in the Coffin of 'Anthropogenic Global Warming'?

The conspiracy behind the Anthropogenic Global Warming myth (aka AGW; aka ManBearPig) has been suddenly, brutally and quite deliciously exposed after a hacker broke into the computers at the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit (aka Hadley CRU) and released 61 megabites of confidential files onto the internet…

As Andrew Bolt puts it, this scandal could well be “the greatest in modern science”. These alleged emails – supposedly exchanged by some of the most prominent scientists pushing AGW theory – suggest:

Conspiracy, collusion in exaggerating warming data, possibly illegal destruction of embarrassing information, organised resistance to disclosure, manipulation of data, private admissions of flaws in their public claims and much more…

Here are a few tasters…If genuine, they suggest dubious practices such as:

Manipulation of evidence:

I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) amd from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline.

Private doubts about whether the world really is heating up:

The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t. The CERES data published in the August BAMS 09 supplement on 2008 shows there should be even more warming: but the data are surely wrong. Our observing system is inadequate.

Suppression of evidence:

Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith re AR4?

Keith will do likewise. He’s not in at the moment – minor family crisis.

Can you also email Gene and get him to do the same? I don’t have his new email address.

We will be getting Caspar to do likewise…

And, perhaps most reprehensibly, a long series of communications discussing how best to squeeze dissenting scientists out of the peer review process. How, in other words, to create a scientific climate in which anyone who disagrees with AGW can be written off as a crank, whose views do not have a scrap of authority.

“This was the danger of always criticising the skeptics for not publishing in the “peer-reviewed literature”. Obviously, they found a solution to that–take over a journal! So what do we do about this? I think we have to stop considering “Climate Research” as a legitimate peer-reviewed journal. Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues in the climate research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers in, this journal…

Hadley CRU, established in 1990 by the Met Office, is a government-funded body which is supposed to be a model of rectitude…

If the Hadley CRU scandal is true, it’s a blow to the AGW lobby’s credibility which is never likely to recover.

Time for a Third Party?

2009-11-21T11:03:00.004-09:00

Mort Kondracke in yesterday's Roll Call...

With Republicans and Democrats fighting all the time and improving nothing, there's an opening for a third-party challenge as strong as Ross Perot's in 1992…

The likeliest figure to seize upon this opening is populist demagogue (and self-styled "Mr. Independent") Lou Dobbs, formerly of CNN, so let's hope a better alternative appears - or the direction of the country improves.

But, right now, the prospects are dismal. My favorite economic guru, David Smick, editor of International Economy magazine, summarized them in a speech last week at the Colony Club of New York, soon to be excerpted in Commentary magazine.

"Americans are worried," he said, "about a pending national fiscal nightmare that could doom the U.S. economy to slow growth and second-rate status. "They instinctively sense we may be becoming like Britain after the Second World War, quickly fading in relevance, our currency losing credibility, our industrial and entrepreneurial edge dulled, our people deeply frustrated"...

"Reducing unemployment to where it was before the [current] crisis may be impossible," he said. "So get ready for an American work force full of long-term anxiety - and anger."

Smick, once chief of staff to the late Rep. Jack Kemp (R-N.Y.) and a 1996 presidential campaign adviser to Democratic Sen. Bill Bradley (N.J.), added that the barely recovering economy is burdened by "a 300-pound backpack of personal and public debt."

"Within a decade," he said, "the U.S. will be borrowing $722 billion a year just to pay interest" on the national debt.

"We're about to enter a fiscal trap, chasing our tail just to pay off our creditors. That's the experience of Third World regimes. Their currencies lose all credibility. They suffer from high and crushing interest rates, ending up as wards of the International Monetary Fund."

Smick is an expert on all this. He's made a fortune as an international trader and he wrote a best-selling book, "The World Is Curved," on the dangers of the unregulated world financial system.

Both George W. Bush and Barack Obama ("George W. Obama") have made matters worse, he said.

"Both proposed huge new entitlements with no way of paying for them. Both are at a loss at understanding the means of creating new private sector employment opportunities...

"Both offered the big Wall Street banks an incredible $700 billion in taxpayer funding with no stipulation that the banks lend the money, which today they are not doing."

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, Smick says, is trying to keep the economy afloat by holding down interest rates - but all that means is that big banks borrow at zero, invest (often overseas) at 3 percent or 4 percent, make huge profits and refuse to lend to small U.S. businesses, which create 70 percent of new jobs… Smick agrees that the moment is ripe for a third-party candidate - "a problem-solving, no-nonsense leader who can come to Washington to clean out the swamp created by both political parties."

"We need to reignite America's fires of innovation, daring and confidence. If the current crowd in Washington lacks this vision, the American people, I can assure you, will find someone who has it"...

There is an opening. Help wanted.

Quote of the Day

2009-11-21T11:01:00.004-09:00

“No one can make you feel inferior without your permission.”- Eleanor Roosevelt

Daily Wrap-Up

2009-11-20T15:29:00.005-09:00

The Selective Compassion of Karen Armstrong: "Among people who know nothing about religion and don’t care much about factual information (an unfortunately large demographic), Karen Armstrong has become something of a sensation. But for those who think that claims about religion, ethics, or history should have some grounding in reality, Armstrong is considered an embarrassment." H/T: Darwiniana

A Christian Defends Ayn Rand: "There is one aspect of Rand's worldview, known as objectivism, which any Christian should appreciate: her belief in absolute reality. Rand believed in an objective world external to man's senses, and with it, absolute truth and morality…Rand's belief in objective truth and morality, regardless of its form, is an aberration among atheists."

Scientists are Objective Seekers of Truth, Right? A hilarious gaffe from Kevin Trenberth, a lead author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: “‘The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of [global] warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t.’” A “travesty?” Why is it a "travesty?" And yes, the gaffe is real.

Ken Wilber Rejects Darwinism: “Folks, give me a break on this one. I have a Master’s degree in biochemistry, and a Ph.D. minus thesis in biochemistry and biophysics, with specialization in the mechanism of the visual process. I did my thesis on the photoisomerization of rhodopsin in bovine rod outer segments. I know evolutionary theory inside out, including the works of Dawkins et al…. Instead of a religious preacher like Dawkins, start with something like Michael Behe’s Darwin’s Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution. And then guess what? Neo-Darwinian theory can’t explain shit. Deal with it.”

Confusing Evidence for Common Ancestry With Evidence for Darwinian Evolution: "Both at the Dover trial and in his lectures and books (such as Only a Theory), one of Dr. Kenneth Miller’s primary responses to Michael Behe’s arguments for irreducible complexity is to cite evidence for common ancestry. This class of evidence does not refute Behe because at most, evidence of sequence similarity in DNA demonstrates common ancestry—not a Darwinian evolutionary pathway. Indeed, on closer inspection, it turns out that much of Miller’s favorite evidence does not even provide a strong case for common descent: Miller assumes that functional genetic similarities must result from common descent, ignoring the possibility that such biochemical similarities might result from common design upon a functional blueprint."

Why I.D. Isn't “God of the Gaps:” A Rumination

2009-11-20T11:00:00.006-09:00

When Darwinists criticize Intelligent Design, one of their chief lines of attack is that I.D. is basically a modern-day regurgitation of the “God of the Gaps” argument.

What’s “God of the Gaps?” Per Wikipedia...

The phrase God of the gaps refers to a view of God as existing in the "gaps" or aspects of reality that are currently unexplained by scientific knowledge...

The term "God of the gaps" is sometimes used in describing the perceived incremental retreat of religious explanations of physical phenomena in the face of increasingly comprehensive scientific explanations for those phenomena. An example of the line of reasoning starts with the position that early religious descriptions of objects and events (such as the Sun, Moon, and stars; thunder and lightning) placed these in the realm of things created or controlled by a god or gods. As scientific explanations were found for observations in the realms of astronomy, meteorology, geology, cosmology and biology, the use of supernatural explanations for phenomena was progressively reduced, occupying smaller and smaller 'gaps' in knowledge…

One example of such an argument, which uses God as an explanation of one of the current gaps in biological science, is as follows: "Because current science can't figure out exactly how life started, it must be God who caused life to start." Critics of "intelligent design", for example, have accused proponents of using this basic type of argument.

On the surface, equating I.D. with “God of the Gaps” is a fair criticism. Considering everything we’re learned about the material world in the last few centuries, equating a lack of knowledge about physical phenomenon (weather currents, the shifting of tectonics plates, the power of magnetic fields, etc.) to divine intervention seems a tad odd. We can explain patterns in non-living matter fairly well without resorting to the possibility of a supernatural agent.

However, biology – “Life” itself – is fundamentally different from non-living matter. Life is a true mystery, and any honest scientist will admit as much. What is "Life" – the mysterious essence which turns inert matter into volitional consciousness (and keeps that consciousness churning every second of every day until death)? We don’t know. In his solid book, The Vital Dimension, Carl Gunther examines the awe-inspiring mystery of Life in exquisite detail. We aren't even close to explaining what "Life" is - never mind its origin. So while it's fair to reject a “God of the Gaps” argument for purely material phenomenon, when it comes to Life we shouldn’t automatically reject it because Life itself strongly suggests at least a partly non-material dimension. We have to keep our minds open to the possibility of a divine origin and plan. Based on what we know about “Life” (which is practically nothing) it would be irresponsible to rule out a divine source automatically.

Consider this: Everything in the Universe – all matter, all life, everything - started with the Big Bang. But when scientists are inevitably asked, “What caused the Big Bang?” their typical answer is, “We don’t know and we may never know.” That's a fine answer. And an honest one. So why can’t we ask the same question about Life itself: “What caused Life?” Given what little we know about Life, why is it unthinkable to answer – in light of the failure of Darwinian theory - “We don’t know and we may never know.” On such a question, the materialist framework fails us. And thus we come to the possibility of an Intelligent Designer – the same Designer who instituted the “fine tuning of the Universe (as demonstrated in the “Anthropic Principle"). The fine-tuning of the Universe began with the Big Bang 14 billion years ago. So why can’t there be a fine-tuning of Life with the creation of the first cell 3 billion years ago? And once we accept that possibility, it becomes OK to consider the chance that there was some monkeying around with the creation of human beings (this would go against the concept of “Common Descent” – perhaps the only part of Darwinian theory that seems plausible given the evidence at hand).

If we accept this possibility – this distinct possibility, this likelihood, in fact – that doesn’t mean science comes to an end. Centuries ago, when God-believing scientists (Newton, Kepler, Copernicus, and others too numerous to count) worked to understand the laws of matter, they accepted the inherent “mystery” of the true source of matter, but out of a spirit of curiosity, they still groped to understand the mystery, and through that process, they advanced our knowledge and – through technical innovations – they improved our quality of life enormously. Why can’t we recapture that same attitude toward God as we work to say to unlock the mysteries of Life? We can. And we must. Because it’s true.

If Darwinists Worked in the Private Sector

2009-11-19T06:57:00.005-09:00

Today's Debate inside the Scientific Community

Darwinist: I.D. isn’t science. And if it’s not science, it isn’t true.

I.D. Proponent: Isn’t science the quest for truth about life and the universe?

Darwinist: Only if that quest is done within a materialist framework.

I.D. Proponent: But what if that quests needs to go OUTSIDE the materialist framework?

Darwinist: Then it’s not science. And thus, it's not true.

Let’s take this debate into the private sector…

Employee: Boss, I have a great idea. Instead of using typewriters, why don’t we start using computers? Computers are a lot faster and better.

Boss: Do computers use a mechanical process?

Employee: Well, yes – but what makes them better is their use of information technology.

Boss: We can’t use information technology.

Employee: Why not?

Boss: Because it’s outside the realm of mechanics. We decided a long time ago that work – by definition – can only be a mechanical process. Information theory (or any form of “mind”) must be ruled out.

Employee: Um, but computers are a lot better than typewriters! With computers, we can do twice as much work in half the time!

Boss: Sorry, get back to your typewriter.

In the private sector, that boss would never survive. How much longer can Darwinism survive?

**UPDATE, DEC. 3, 2009**

This entry has been cross-posted by Denyse O'Leary with commentary here and here.

Daily Wrap-Up

2009-11-18T13:12:00.005-09:00

Going, Going...Galt: "Many people briefly go through an 'Ayn Rand phase' where they devour Anthem, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged and dream of being a heroic architect standing athwart mediocrity. But government expansion in 2009 has touched off a remarkable revival of interest in Rand, spurring endless speculation that her philosophy of self-interest and free-market economics will come back in vogue. Writers point to a spate of Rand-themed releases, including two new biographies, uncountable articles, talk-show bits, merchandise, even a videogame. Here's a history…"

John Derbyshire Hearts Roissy: "I'm by no means the first to admit it, but I find the Roissy in DC blog hilarious and totally addictive. He's one of us, for sure (secular, Right); and his stone reductionism appeals to me enough to override the nagging feeling that I'm probably a bit of a herb myself, or was when it mattered."

John Derbyshire on the Death of Intellectual Protestantism: "So far as the great mass of American Protestants are concerned, theology is a dead letter. They are either “tribal Protestants,” going to church because their parents did, or because their neighbors do, or else they are Left Behind fundamentalists of the Huckabee persuasion, fundamentally anti-intellectual and indifferent to theology, or to any kind of intellectual inquiry...Intellectual Protestantism probably survives in a few seminaries somewhere, but nobody cares."

Chuck Ross Analyzes the "Vibe" on Different Blogs: "Todd White's site reminds me of the house of this Mormon kid I used to be best friends with. You go over there and his mom is always baking ginger bread cookies. They want to keep up the auspices of Pleasantville, but deep down, they just want to convert you. Those Mormons (and Todd White) are tenacious."

The U.S. Budget Deficit in International Context: "A few weeks ago, the International Monetary Fund released a report analyzing the fiscal situation of the world’s largest economies. As I discuss at greater length in a piece over at e21, the IMF finds that the United States is not alone in facing daunting fiscal challenges. For example, the IMF predicts that the United States will have the fifth highest structural primary budget deficit in 2010."

Quote of the Day

2009-11-18T11:46:00.002-09:00

"Tell me what a man finds sexually attractive and I will tell you his entire philosophy of life. Show me the woman he sleeps with and I will tell you his valuation of himself." – Ayn Rand

For more Ayn Rand quotes on sex, click here.

"Just Follow Your Penis and Balls!"

2009-11-18T01:10:00.006-09:00

The pro-Game blogger Ferdinand Bardamu has a lovely new post up today, Women Don’t Get to Define Female Beauty. And it closes with these charming words of wisdom...

Ladies, if you think it’s unfair that we get to determine what we find attractive in you, keep in mind that it’s also unfair that you get to determine what you find attractive in us. We can’t help our dicks any more then you can help your pussies. This is the Age of Flesh, where the desires of the loins rule all. I don’t make the rules, I just point them out.

"We can't help our dicks!" cry the Gamers. So why fight it?!

Cue the soundtrack to The Wizard of Oz, and instead of singing "Just Follow the Yellow Brick Road," sing the phrase "Just Follow Your Penis and Balls!"

"Just Follow Your Penis and Balls!"

Come on, it's catchy. Besides, you won't have to waste any more time on Game websites, because whenever you need advice, you can just hum to yourself, "Just Follow Your Penis and Balls! Just Follow Your Penis and Balls!..."