Limbo

Robert T. Miller writing at First Things is made uneasy by word that the Roman Catholic International Theological Commission might abolish the doctrine of limbo, a "place" where children go if they die unbaptized.

The attempt to harmonize the standard theological doctrines of salvation with the perfectly understandable hope that children who die have eternal life has resulted over the centuries in a number of theological contortions, limbo being one of them.

Miller describes limbo as a state wherein, according to Thomas Aquinas:

...the souls of the unbaptized infants enjoy the complete fulfillment of human nature, including a natural knowledge of God, the greatest possible for unaided human reason. The only thing such souls lack is the supernatural vision of God that is possible only through grace, and, according to Aquinas, they do not even regret not having that supernatural vision because they understand that it is a gift over and above anything human nature could merit and so not something they could ever have reasonably hoped to attain. They no more regret not having the beatific vision, Aquinas says, than a peasant regrets not inheriting a kingdom.

In limbo the child neither suffers the torments of hell nor exults in the joys of heaven. It is neither heaven nor hell, which is certainly a better fate than awaits the unfortunate child according to those whose theology follows the Westminster Confession of Faith:

Elect infants, dying in infancy, are regenerated and saved by by Christ....So also are all other elect persons, who are incapable of being outwardly called by the ministry of the word (Chap. X, sec. III).

This suggests the inference that there are infants who die who are not among the elect and which therefore go to hell for eternity. This is difficult, to understate the matter, to reconcile with the notion of a perfectly good and loving God. That such a God would cause to be created persons who live for a few hours and are then consigned to suffer the agonies of hell forever simply because they are human and thus a descendent of Adam is not a proposition one would think to be easy to defend.

Other Christians, wishing to avoid treacherous apologetic terrain, simply assert that all children who die before the "age of accountability" are saved forever by God. This seems much more in keeping with the teaching of Jesus about the love, mercy and compassion of God, but it also presents difficulties of a different kind.

For example, what is the age at which one becomes spiritually accountable and is there Biblical warrant for such an idea? More significantly, if it is granted that children and mental incompetents are saved without having to make a decision for Christ because they simply can't, that seems to crack the door open for the conclusion that perhaps such a decision is not necessary for others as well. If children can't make a decision for Christ because of a lack of comprehension, then neither can those who were born both before and after Christ who never heard the gospel.

And if we allow the possibility that at least some of these might benefit from the work of Christ on the Cross though they know nothing about it, then why not those who have heard the gospel but who for reasons of psychology rather than spiritual hostility find themselves unable to believe it?

We have now wandered far from the reservation staked out by the Westminster Confession and into the regions of what is called Christian inclusivism. Inclusivism is the belief that Christ's death on the cross atones for the sins of all humanity, not just some as in the Reformed view, and that all people are born saved by God's grace until they themselves explicitly reject God and/or spurn His forgiveness and offer of salvation.

This notion may be completely wrong, although it's not easy to see that it is, but it has at least one advantage. It allows us to put aside notions like limbo and unelect children suffering forever for the sin of an ancestor over 10,000 years ago.

According to this view Jesus takes to his bosom every child who dies early. His sacrifice has covered whatever price must be paid for these little ones, so that they can enjoy the presence of God forever. No limbo, no eternal damnation, just unending joy and happiness in the presence of God.

This seems to me to be a much better fit with what the Bible tells us about God than the belief that God allows some infants to be born for no purpose other than to be dispatched to an eternity of misery. If this is wrong, though, and if the Westminster Confession accurately states the way things really stand then parents would actually be doing the moral thing by seeking to have their unwanted children aborted. If the aborted child is one of God's elect then the abortion would not succeed. If the child is not among the elect then the abortion spares them a completely meaningless eternal suffering. Unless, of course, the child is damned from the moment it is conceived in which case it becomes even more difficult to imagine why God would do such a thing.

For Miller's part, he holds fast to the doctrine of limbo:

So, in my view, the argument from the universal salvific will of God is inadequate to support the view that all unbaptized infants are saved....the view that all unbaptized infants are saved is decidedly a modern one, a view very much in the spirit of our times. Ours is a culture that can't bear the thought of anyone going to hell, even the people who, for all the world, seem to deserve it. Thus we have the near universal custom at Christian funerals of proclaiming that the decedent, no matter how morally dissolute his life, is now enjoying the banquet of heaven in the company of the saints, without even a short stay in Purgatory. The spirit of the age hates hell, and so hates limbo as well, which it cannot adequately distinguish from hell.

With due respect to Mr. Miller it seems to me that part of what it means to be a Christian is that one not be able to "bear the thought of anyone going to hell, even the people who, for all the world, seem to deserve it". Does Mr. Miller suggest that we should rejoice that our non-Christian loved ones are destined to everlasting suffering?

Indeed, the spirit of the age does hate hell. This may be the only point of agreement between the spirit of the age and Jesus Christ who Himself hated hell so much that He died so that men, and children, may be spared from it's terrifying maw.

The Possessed

This piece of cheery news comes to us by way of the Drudge Report:

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has called Israel a "counterfeit and illegitimate regime that cannot survive", in a live broadcast on state television.

"The Zionist regime is counterfeit and illegitimate and cannot survive," he said in a speech to a crowd in the town of Islamshahr in southwestern Tehran.

"The big powers have created this fraud regime and allowed it to commit all kind of crimes to guarantee their interests," he added.

Ahmadinejad sounds for all the world like a psychopath bent upon plunging the world into nuclear war. He's striving strenuously to build a nuclear weapon and scarcely anyone in the world is interested in doing much to stop him except George Bush and the Israelis.

We have said this before, but it bears repeating: The only thing worse than going to war to disarm Iran would be to allow Iran to obtain nuclear weapons.

The Threat to Liberty Posed by Gay Rights

We have several times throughout our two and a half years of existence at Viewpoint argued that legalizing gay marriage would have the almost inevitable consequence of opening the door to the legalization of any union which any combination of persons wished to form. Marriage is currently the union of one man and one woman, but once the gender of the persons in the union no longer matters neither will the number. There would be no logical reason why the number of people entering into marriage should be limited to two. Once the Rubicon of gay marriage is crossed courts would eventually and ineluctably compel legislatures to legalize polyamorous unions.

Now comes an article by Maggie Gallagher in the Weekly Standard which claims that another consequence of legalizing gay marriage, or at least legitimizing the arguments which culminate in legalized gay marriage, will be the erosion of both religious liberty and our freedom of speech. As one lawyer puts it in the article "when religious liberty and sexual liberty conflict sexual liberty should almost always prevail because that's the only way that the dignity of gay people can be affirmed in any realistic manner". Despite the fact that the First Amendment of the constituition guarantees freedom of religion and despite the fact that there is no corresponding constitutional guarantee of sexual liberty, this lawyer asserts that the latter should nevertheless trump the former. This is more than a little disturbing.

A prelude to the coming storm occured last March when Catholic Charities in Boston decided it was getting out of the adoption business because the courts decreed that they had to allow gay couples to adopt children. This violated the teaching of the Catholic church, and so, rather than accede to what they saw as immoral and unbiblical policy, they simply stopped serviung as an adoption agency.

The consequences will not be limited, however, to adoption. Read this excerpt from Gallagher's very informative column:

Consider education. Same-sex marriage will affect religious educational institutions...in at least four ways: admissions, employment, housing, and regulation of clubs. One of (general counsel for the American Jewish Congress, Marc) Stern's big worries right now is a case in California where a private Christian high school expelled two girls who (the school says) announced they were in a lesbian relationship. Stern is not optimistic. And if the high school loses, he tells me, "then religious schools are out of business." Or at least the government will force religious schools to tolerate both conduct and proclamations by students they believe to be sinful.

Stern agrees...that public accommodation laws can and should force truly commercial enterprises to serve all comers. But, he asks, what of other places, such as religious camps, retreats, and homeless shelters? Will they be considered by courts to be places of public accommodation, too? Could a religious summer camp operated in strict conformity with religious principles refuse to accept children coming from same-sex marriages? What of a church-affiliated community center, with a gym and a Little League, that offers family programs? Must a religious-affiliated family services provider offer marriage counseling to same-sex couples designed to facilitate or preserve their relationships?

"Future conflict with the law in regard to licensing is certain with regard to psychological clinics, social workers, marital counselors, and the like," Stern wrote last December--well before the Boston Catholic Charities story broke.

Will speech against gay marriage be allowed to continue unfettered? "Under the American regime of freedom of speech, the answer ought to be easy," according to Stern. But it is not entirely certain, he writes, "because sexual-harassment-in-the-workplace principles will likely migrate to suppress any expression of anti-same-sex-marriage views." Stern suggests how that might work.

In the corporate world the expression of opposition to gay marriage will be suppressed not by gay ideologues but by corporate lawyers who will draw the lines least likely to entangle the company in litigation. Stern likens this to "a paroxysm of prophylaxis--banning 'Jesus saves' because someone might take offense."

Or consider a recent case at William Paterson University, a state school in New Jersey. A senior faculty member sent out a mass email inviting people to attend movies with a gay theme. A student employee, a 63-year-old Muslim named Jihad Daniel, replied to the professor in a private email asking not to receive messages "about 'Connie and Sally' and 'Adam and Steve.'" He went on, "These are perversions. The absence of God in higher education brings on confusion. That is why in these classes the Creator of the heavens and the earth is never mentioned." The result: Daniel received a letter of reprimand for using the "derogatory and demeaning" word "perversions" in violation of state discrimination and harassment regulations.

Precisely because support for marriage is public policy, once marriage includes gay couples, groups who oppose gay marriage are likely to be judged in violation of public policy, triggering a host of negative consequences, including the loss of tax-exempt status. Because marriage is not a private act, but a protected public status, the legalization of gay marriage sends a strong signal that orientation is now on a par with race in the nondiscrimination game. And when we get gay marriage because courts have declared it a constitutional right, the signal is stronger still.

The culture war against religion that the secular state has been waging at relatively low intensity for the last three decades is soon about to erupt into a very bitter battle. If gay marriage is codified it may well be unconstitutional to preach against it from the pulpit or to do anything which puts teeth into one's belief that it is incompatible with God's will for men and women.

This is why it's crucial that the next Supreme Court justice be an originalist, which is why it's crucial that the president who nominates this justice and the senators which confirm him or her be themselves constitutional conservatives.

Which is why your vote in November is so very crucial.

What's at Stake

Go to Michelle's blog and click on the video to see the new Republican ad. It'll get your attention. Michelle compares it to a Democrat ad that is best described as pathetic but symbolic of the current campaign. They have offered no answer to the question of what they'd actually do if they're returned to power in Congress. Their whole campaign seems to have been pretty much a plea to the voters to elect them for the single reason that they're not Republicans.

The Democrat ad is a good example of the vacuousness of this kind of politics.

The Twilight of the Neo-Darwinian Synthesis

"...the evidence that macroevolution has happened is all around us, in the patterns of biogeographical distribution of species and in the fossil record. What is not so obvious is the mechanism(s) by which such macroevolution has occurred. Prof. Giertych is probably right in asserting that the "modern synthesis" mechanisms grounded in theoretical population genetics are insufficient to explain macroevolution. However, scientists within the field of evolutionary biology have been saying the same thing for over a century." Allen MacNeill, Cornell University evolutionary biologist.

Well, they may have been saying this for over a century, but, if so, they haven't been very public about it.

At any rate, MacNeill isn't saying that evolution never happened. He believes quite the opposite. What he's saying is that the traditional Neo-Darwinian view that evolution is the product of a synthesis of natural selection and genetic mutation is an inadequate explanation. Large scale evolution (macroevolution) simply cannot be explained in terms of any purely mechanistic processes of which we are aware.

MacNeill is not known to be overly sympathetic to Intelligent Design, but what he's claiming is what ID theorists have been asserting for two decades to considerable resistance from the Darwinian establishment which, according to MacNeill, has largely been in agreement with them. That's pretty strange.

Read the rest of MacNeill's comment here.

Meanwhile, you can catch an audio interview with a leading ID proponent, Michael Behe, author of Darwin's Black Box, on The Sci Phi Show. To hear it go here and click on the link to Michael Behe on the Sci Phi Show.

Thanks to Uncommon Descent for posting the links for the Sci Phi shows.

The Imperiled French

Arnaud de Borchgrave at The Washington Times updates us on the state of the intifada in France. Here are a few excerpts from this deeply disturbing story:

An average of 14 policemen a day are injured in bloody clashes with jobless youths. France's Interior Ministry said 2,500 police officers had been "wounded" this year. The head of the hard-line trade union "Action Police" Michel Thooris wrote to Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy to describe conditions in housing developments turned slums as "intifada." Police cruisers are pelted daily with stones and "Molotov cocktails" (gasoline-filled bottles with burning wicks that explode on impact) and Mr. Thooris said cops assigned to what was rapidly degenerating into "free fire zones" should be protected in armored vehicles. Entire tall buildings empty into the streets to chase police and free an arrested comrade.

"We are in a state of civil war, orchestrated by radical Islamists," Mr. Thooris told journalists. Mr. Sarkozy, the leading center-right candidate for next year's presidential election, responded by dispatching cops in body armor, equipped with automatic weapons and rubber bullets, stun and teargas grenades into several Paris suburbs with orders to "restore control" from "organized crime."

Jean-Marie Le Pen's far right National Front (FN) appears to have opted for a can't-lick-'em-join-'em strategy, a rapprochement with France's large immigrant Muslim community -- with undertones of anti-Semitism. Mr. Le Pen's reasoning appears to be the recognition that Islamicization is in France to stay with 25 percent of France's under-20 population Muslim (40 percent in some cities), second- and third-generation North Africans.

FN's tough stance on immigration is tempered by support for Arab and Islamist causes in the Middle East (Hamas and Hezbollah are two favorites). There are an estimated 6 to 8 million Muslims among France's 62 million and Islam is now France's second religion. Mosques are well attended on Fridays; churches aren't on Sundays. More than 50 percent of France's prison inmates are Muslims.

Anti-Semitic incidents have proliferated in France in recent times, but the news seldom makes it across the Atlantic and when it does, it must still fight to be heard above the constant melodrama of constant trivia. A Jewish sports club in Toulouse attacked with Molotov cocktails; in Bondy, 15 men beat up members of a Jewish soccer team with metal bars and sticks; a bus that takes Jewish children to school in Aubervilliers attacked three times in the last 14 months; synagogues in Strasbourg and Marseilles and a Jewish school in Creteil firebombed in recent weeks; in Toulouse, a gunman opened fire -- all ignored in mainstream U.S. media. The metropolitan Paris police tabulated 10 to 12 anti-Jewish incidents per day in the last 30 days throughout the country.

The No. 1 best-selling book in France is "September 11: The Frightening Fraud," which posits no plane ever crashed into the Pentagon. A similar book in Germany sold more than 1 million copies.

Neither multiculturalism nor integration of Muslim communities seems to be working anywhere in Europe. Moderate Muslim voices cannot rise above radical hubbub.

Nothing like this has happened yet in the United States but if the situation is allowed to fester and deteriorate in Europe it won't be long before the same troubles visit our shores.

I read an article recently, I can't remember where, that claimed that Europe is all but lost. Whereas today we look forward to enjoying a holiday in Paris, London, or Rome, that is a luxury our children will not have. By 2030, Europe will be predominately Muslim and very probably hostile to Americans. The secularist or Judeo-Christian European remnant will either emigrate or live out their years in dhimmitude (Enforced second class subservience to Muslims and Sharia law). Europe will be a much different place, a much more dangerous place, twenty years from now than it was twenty years ago.

Whether this prediction comes to pass or not it certainly does seem that the trend lines all point in that direction.

YEC v. ID

Sal Cordova at Uncommon Descent offers an answer to a reader's question about the nature of the rift between Young Earth Creationists and Intelligent Design advocates. Along the way he offers a list of the IDers (and ID sympathizers) who favor an old age (on the order of billions of years) for the earth.

It's an interesting post and it sheds light on a perplexing dispute between two groups which should be allies against the common Darwinian opponent.

Collateral Damage

A recent report on the number of Iraqi deaths since the war began has renewed discussion about the morality of any policy which entails the deaths of innocent civilians. The report, put out by Lancet, estimates that 655,000 civilians have died in Iraq as a result of both coalition and insurgent action since the war began.

The study is critiqued here, but on the face of it the number seems absurd. The math works out to a death rate of 15,600 civilians a month or 520 dead Iraqis a day since March of 2003. This seems preposterous. Other estimates place the figure closer to 60,000.

Nevertheless, whether the number is 60,000 or ten times that figure the fundamental questions are legitimate: Is a policy that entails civilian deaths moral, and, if so, at what point does it cease to be so?

One answer given by objectors to the war in Iraq is that our policy there is morally wrong because it is always wrong to be the cause of deaths of innocent people. We are therefore wrong to go to war, not just in Iraq but anywhere, if it is probable that civilian lives will be lost as a result.

This argument is problematic. To illustrate why consider a couple of extreme, but entirely plausible, scenarios where what the military euphemistically calls "collateral damage" is a certainty.

Suppose first that terrorist hijackers have commandeered an airliner and are guiding it toward a skyscraper in which thousands of people are working. There is only one way to prevent the impending mass murder and that is to shoot down the plane.

Second, historians tell us that during the early years of American involvement in WWII it was feasible to have bombed some of the Nazi concentration camps, effectively putting them out of operation and mitigating, perhaps substantially, the horrific carnage taking place in those camps. Had the order to bomb them been carried out, however, hundreds, perhaps thousands, of innocent prisoners might have been killed.

Should the order be given to shoot down the plane? Should orders have been issued to destroy the concentration camps? If either order had been given would they have constituted unjust, immoral or criminal actions?

If downing the plane and/or bombing the camps would have been justified, then causing the deaths of some innocents in order to prevent even greater harm cannot be ipso facto wrong. If someone were to say that it would not have been unjust or immoral or criminal to give those orders then he is agreeing that, as agonizing and heartwrenching as it may be, the sacrifice of innocent lives is sometimes necessary or justified in order to thwart an enemy's larger aims.

If one were to respond, on the other hand, that those orders should not be given and that, if they were, it would be morally wrong or criminal, it would be interesting to hear the rationale for he bases his reply upon.

If it is agreed that sometimes, under some circumstances, killing innocent civilians may be justified then the debate shifts to a consideration of what those circumstances would be, whether they obtained prior to the commencement of the war in Iraq, and whether they still do today.

Some might argue that the deaths of 60,000 Iraqi civilians, reagrdless of who is responsible for them, is too many, and it's time for us to get out. But how many is too many? On what do we base whatever figure we consider to be the limit?

These are important questions but they lead to a different discussion than the one based on the assumption that it's always wrong to kill innocent civilians.

George Smoot

University of California at Berkeley physicist George Smoot was recently awarded the 2006 Nobel prize for work he did with John Mather in clarifying some of the details of the Big Bang theory of the origin of the universe.

Smoot, like a lot of others who study the fine structure of the cosmos, finds the cosmological evidence for intentional design hard to resist. He observes:

"There is no doubt that a parallel exists between the big bang as an event and the Christian notion of creation from nothing."

Smoot draws attention not only to the fact that his team had provided more evidence for the creation event, but for a "finely orchestrated" creation event. Stephen Hawking was so impressed with this finding that he called it "the most important discovery of the century, if not of all time."

"In order to make a universe as big and wonderful as it is, lasting as long as it is-we're talking fifteen billion years and we're talking huge distances here-in order for it to be that big, you have to make it perfectly. Otherwise, imperfections would mount up and the universe would either collapse on itself or fly apart, and so it's actually quite a precise job. And I don't know if you've had discussions with people about how critical it is that the density of the universe come out so close to the density that decides whether it's going to keep expanding forever or collapse back, but we know it's within one percent."

"The big bang, the most cataclysmic event we can imagine, on closer inspection appears finely orchestrated."

There are many similar quotes from other physicists at The Veritas Forum.

Thanks to Intelligent Design The Future for the tip.

Danielle Pletka

Danielle Pletka of the American Enterprise Institute takes on Bill Maher, Ben Affleck and an unsympathetic audience and acquits herself well. The Republicans should be getting this woman on television more.

Coddling the Freeloaders

This will astonish you. Or maybe not. Thousands of emigrants, including Americans, are migrating to England and claiming asylum. Why? Because they get free accommodations, free health care, and 35 pounds a week in free money. A lot of this story will sound familiar to anyone who has been following our own immigration controversy:

Britain is such a soft touch that even Americans are coming here to claim asylum and sponge off the state. The incredible revelation comes from immigration whistleblower Rory Clarke.

And yesterday the Government was forced to admit figures that backed him up. Disgusted Rory, 34, contacted The Sun to expose the true depth of the asylum shambles. He said:

"Britain is seen as such a soft touch that poor people from countries such as America are even coming here now. A couple of years ago I met two black guys from the States who were over here because they thought they could get a better standard of living. One was from Ohio and the other from Kansas. They claimed asylum because they said they were racially discriminated against at home. But they freely admitted they were here for the free healthcare and accommodation. It is an absolute joke. They could have been here for up to five years before their application was processed."

Last night the Home Office admitted five American nationals have claimed asylum this year alone. Rory also revealed a shocking catalogue of blunders by officials, and lying by applicants that is making our asylum system the gravy train of the world.

He spent five years heading a team evicting failed asylum seekers from their homes after applications were turned down. But [he] quit the Government's National Asylum Support Service (NASS) in disgust at what he encountered.

When he started the job he calculates 50 per cent of asylum seekers were genuine. But now he reckons that figure is five per cent. Those waiting for applications to be processed get immediate free healthcare, free accommodation and 35 pounds a week in benefits.

Rory maintains the deluge is dominated by freeloaders. These include fit young men from Middle Eastern countries who are here because they want to dodge compulsory military service back home, he added.

Rory - who does not want his face to be recognisable in our picture - said: "Working for NASS was like banging your head against a wall. For example, I helped evict 30,000 illegals from their homes. But they weren't taken to detention centres.

"Instead of them being kicked out of the country, we were told to let them go. We once rounded up 56 illegals and were told to send them to the detention centre at Oakington in Cambridgeshire. The Immigration Service said they didn't have the staff to take them there so they would have to make their own way. Unsurprisingly, only five ever turned up."

Government studies estimate 300,000 bogus asylum seekers are still in the country after having applications turned down. But Rory said: "The Government figures are just the tip of the iceberg. I reckon there are at least a million and that number is growing every day.

"What really scares me is that we have no idea who is coming into the country. Less than a third of those here illegally have official papers or any identification. We let people in and take their word for who they are and what they are doing in Britain. Nobody knows if they are murderers, rapists or even terrorists.

"If Osama Bin Laden got off a boat today and gave a false name and age he could be on benefits for three years without anyone being any the wiser. In the end I just became so angry I just couldn't hack it any longer."

The Home Office yesterday said the number of asylum seekers had fallen "dramatically" in the past year.

No wonder Europe is dying. I wonder if anybody in Washington has read this article?

Foley's Mistake

NewsBusters detects the pungent scent of media bias and hypocrisy in the differing ways in which Gerry Studds, who passed away last Friday, and Mark Foley have been treated. Studds, you will recall, was the Massachussetts congressman who was caught having a sexual affair with a 17 year-old male page back in the 1970s. Foley was the Florida congressman who was recently found to be conducting a lewd instant message correspondence with a 17 year-old male page. Studds was then, and is now, treated with respect and deference by the media and congressional Democrats like John Kerry (see here). Foley is treated with contempt and contumely. Why the difference between how they are treated? Evidently it's that Studds was a Democrat and Foley was a Republican.

Foley's "lapse in judgment" was not his decision to carry on an improper dialogue with a 17 year old boy, it was, presumably, his decision to run for office as a Republican. If he had been a Democrat we would doubtless be inundated by the media with articles deploring how the poor man, a devoted public servant, had been hounded out of office by the prudes and homophobes in the Religious Right and the Republican leadership.

How Long Would it Take?

Joe Carter asks how long would it take for all traces of humanity to disappear from the earth after humans went extinct. By way of an answer he links us to this graphic.

I suppose the graphic assumes that the extinction was caused by a natural loss of reproductive vitality, but the numbers would probably be different were the extinction caused by the effects of a large-scale nuclear war.

In any case the chart should give pause to those who sunnily assume that the meaning of anything we do here on earth is independent of whether there is an eternal destiny awaiting us. If there is not, if existence is transient, then whatever we accomplish, the graphic reminds us, is doomed ultimately to be reduced to nothing but overgrowth and decay. Our efforts only have meaning if our existence has permanence, and belief that our existence has permanence is a truly blind and irrational hope unless it is based on belief in the existence of God.

Not <i>Opus</i>!

How long until the imams of the Religion of Perpetual Umbrage issue a fatwa against Opus?

I just wish I knew what he meant by "bad dogs".

Thirty-eight Ways to Win

Telic Thoughts links us to an old piece attributed to Arthur Schopenhauer which the philosopher surely meant as satire. It's titled 38 Ways to Win and Argument, and it's clear that the goal is indeed winning and not arriving at truth. Here are a couple of tactics Schopenhauer "endorses":

8. Make your opponent angry. An angry person is less capable of using judgment or perceiving where his or her advantage lies.

14. Try to bluff your opponent. If he or she has answered several of your question without the answers turning out in favor of your conclusion, advance your conclusion triumphantly, even if it does not follow. If your opponent is shy or stupid, and you yourself possess a great deal of impudence and a good voice, the technique may succeed.

18. If your opponent has taken up a line of argument that will end in your defeat, you must not allow him to carry it to its conclusion. Interrupt the dispute, break it off altogether, or lead the opponent to a different subject.

21. When your opponent uses an argument that is superficial and you see the falsehood, you can refute it by setting forth its superficial character. But it is better to meet the opponent with a counter-argument that is just as superficial, and so dispose of him. For it is with victory that you are concerned, not with truth. Example: If the opponent appeals to prejudice, emotion or attacks you personally, return the attack in the same manner.

32. A quick way of getting rid of an opponent's assertion, or of throwing suspicion on it, is by putting it into some odious category. Example: You can say, "That is fascism" or "Atheism" or "Superstition." In making an objection of this kind you take for granted 1) That the assertion or question is identical with, or at least contained in, the category cited; and 2) The system referred to has been entirely refuted by the current audience.

38. Become personal, insulting and rude as soon as you perceive that your opponent has the upper hand. In becoming personal you leave the subject altogether, and turn your attack on the person by remarks of an offensive and spiteful character. This is a very popular technique, because it takes so little skill to put it into effect.

These and the rest of Schopenhauer's thirty-eight stratagems are certainly in wide use today in the political arena, in theological debates, and in the controversy between Darwinists and Intelligent Design advocates. Some things never change.

Wells vs. Shermer

C-Span will be airing next week a recent exchange at the Washington D.C. Cato Institute between atheistic Darwinian Michael Shermer and Intelligent Design advocate Jonathan Wells. Shermer's remarks were taken from his book Why Darwin Matters: The Case Against Intelligent Design. Wells' address followed Shermer's and provided an excellent overview of ID. A transcript of Wells' talk can be found at Uncommon Descent.

If you don't want to wait for the C-Span showing there's a video of the whole event here. A critique of Shermer's presentation can be found at Evolution News and Views.

Challenges and Priorities

Christianity Today features a number of prominent evangelicals who discuss what they think are the challenges which will be facing our society and what should be our priorities over the next fifty years.

Orange Bowl Brawl

Video of Saturday's brawl between Miami U. football players and those from Florida International University can be seen here.

It's a disgraceful and pathetic scene, but despite professions of shock from everybody in the sportsworld whom I've seen or heard comment on it, I don't think anyone is really surprised. Big time college sports programs recruit semi-literate, semi-articulate non-students because they have the physical talent to win football and basketball games. No one should be surprised that out of every fifty such athletes a half dozen or so are genuine thugs.

There were at least that many players on the field at the Orange Bowl who should lose their "scholarships" and shouldn't play another game in the NCAA, and the announcer named Lamar, who seemed to warm so much to the action, should have just worked his last game in the braodcast booth as well.

The editor at the link has this comment:

The reaction of the Miami fans and organization might be even more shameful than the actual brawl. You have the announcer claiming he wants to go down the elevator and join the brawl. Quotes from Miami message boards include "I LOVED IT that may be the start of the U returning this will be a HUGE boost for recruiting", "we needed this in the worst way", "The reason we dominated the second half was due to the fight. Finally the players let out the emotion that has been controlled by a reserved Coker", and many more along the same lines. The fans in the Orange Bowl were cheering. The announcer wanted to leave the booth and join the brawl. Is this what Miami stands for? If so, the ACC should be redfaced that they were ever allowed to join the conference. Utterly ridiculous display by the Miami players, fans, staff and anyone associated with the program.

Viewpoint agrees.

The Flesh and The Spirit

Back in April I posted If I May as a response to Living Like Jesus and in that post I mentioned The Deeper Journey by M. Robert Mulholland. Here's a quote from the back cover of the book that sums up what the book is about:

Robert Mulholland exposes the false selves that we hide behind and helps us discover the true self that comes from being hidden with Christ in God. If the goal of the Christian journey is Christ-likeness, then we must reckon with the unhealthy ways that we root our sense of being in things other than God. Along the way, we will discover a growing sense of intimacy and abandonment to God. Not only will we encounter the joy of discovering our own self, we will also find a greater love for others and compassion for the world.

Mulholland also mentions that the apostle Paul spoke of the same concept by contrasting "life according to the Flesh" (the false self) with "life according to the Spirit" (the true self) in Romans 8.

I mention this simply to provide some background for the following from Great Cloud of Witnesses in Hebrews Eleven by E. W. Bullinger where he addresses the problem somewhat differently. Whether his is a more effective approach I'll leave to those of our readers who have also read The Deeper Journey to decide.

Interestingly, this gem is found in the end of the chapter entitled Sarah: Faith's Conclusion.

We have already remarked on the place which Sarah occupies in the Divine order manifest in this chapter. This is clearly seen from the structure on page 109 where Sarah is placed in direct correspondence with Rahab.

In these correspondences the same characteristic of faith is obviously emphasized by the Holy Ghost.

In Sarah and Rahab we have FAITH'S CONCLUSION. This is common to both women. Sarah "judged Him faithful Who had promised" (v. 11). Rahab said, "I know...for we have heard" (Josh. ii. 9, 10).

Moreover, both women stand in connection with the two examples of FAITH'S OBEDIENCE, forming two corresponding pairs, with Abraham and Israel respectively.

But we must now give the text in full (verses 11 and 12).

"By faith, Sarah herself also received power for [the] foundation of a posterity, and [that], after the ordinary time of life, since she esteemed Him faithful Who gave the promise. Wherefore, even from one, who was as good as dead as to such things, there sprang [a posterity] even as the stars of heaven for the multitude, and as sand which is by the sea-shore, which cannot be numbered."

...

The birth of Isaac was the introduction of a new element in Abraham's household.

It corresponds with the introduction of the New nature in the believer today. Ishmael corresponds with the Old nature, which, when the New nature comes, it finds in possession.

Its introduction at once brings to light, and arouses to greater life and strength, the activities of the Old nature.

There was no conflict in Abraham's house till Isaac was born "not of the will of man, or of the will of the flesh, but of God" (John i. 13).

"But, as then, he that was born according to the flesh persecuted him [who was born] according to spirit, even so it is now" (Gal. 1v. 29). "The flesh lusteth against the pneuma (or New nature) and the spirit against the flesh, and these are contrary the one to the other" (Gal. v. 17).

"The mind of the flesh is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be" (Rom. viii. 7).

In Abraham's house this enmity was at once manifest.

The birth of Isaac did not improve Ishmael, or change his character, or his activities.

There was only one remedy, and that was "cast out the bond-woman and her son; for the son of this bondwoman shall not be heir with MY SON, even with Isaac" (Gen. xxi. 10). The bond-woman was an Egyptian, and savoured of Egyptian bondage; and the only remedy was to "cast out" both her and her son.

But what was possible in the allegory or type is impossible in the antitype.

The old nature cannot be "cast out" from believers now, but we have to reckon it to be so, by faith.

This is to be for us FAITHS CONCLUSION, Faith's reckoning (Rom. vi. 11), Faith's judgment (Heb. xi. 11).

This is what Abraham considered in Rom. iv. 19. "He considered his own body as already having become dead, and the deadness of Sarah's womb; but staggered not at the promise of God, through unbelief, but was strengthened by [his] faith, giving glory to God" (Rom iv. 20). This is to find its exact counterpart in us who believe God, as Abraham did.

This is to be faith's consideration, faith's judgment, faith's conclusion for us.

All that we are called on to do now, is to believe God; to consider our Old nature to be dead, and unable to conceive, beget, or to bring forth, or produce anything for God.

It requires great faith to do this; because, all the time we are conscious of its presence and its power. Our faith, therefore, has to be "against hope," as Abraham's was.

All the while they where believing God's promise, he and Sarah were faced with the undeniable fact that all was "against hope."

It is even so with us. We are faced with the ever present fact of the workings of the Old nature; and, therefore, we must, "against hope," "reckon ourselves to be dead [persons] to sin, but alive to God, through (or in) Christ Jesus."

To attempt to improve our Old nature is to give a flat denial to Rom.vi. 11.

To attempt to change Ishmael is direct disobedience to God (Gal. iv. 30).

To "consider" our Old nature as being alive and able to produce anything for God is a refusal to reckon it as being dead.

To "mortify" its members, in the popular sense, is to consider them as not being "already dead", but to recognizes them as being very much alive. But to "mortify" in the Scriptural sense is to consider them as good as dead! This is the meaning of the word in this connection, as is clear from our context, Heb. xi. 23 and Rom. iv. 19.

Abraham could not have considered his own body as already actually dead, or that he could mortify it by any activities which he could put forth; but only by considering it "as good as dead."

That is what we are called on to do in exercising FAITH'S CONCLUSION.

We are not to seek to improve our members by mortifying them by any process of rules for daily living. This is only to treat them as though they were alive. But we are to treat them "as good as dead," and as being as incapable of doing good, as they are capable of doing evil.

But this can be done only by believing God; and, by faith-obedience, reckoning ourselves as already dead in ourselves. Until this is done, there can be no peace. For it is as being "justified by faith, we have peace with God.". This is the conclusion of the whole argument of Rom. iv. as continued in ch. v. 1.

Until this is done, there can be no joy, no happiness, no "laughter".

As long as Ishmael was in Abraham's house there was only grief (Gen. xxi. 11). But when God's faithfulness was realized, then Sara could say "God hath made me to laugh" (Gen. xx1 6).

Yes, it is the same God Who hath "made us meet for the inheritance of the saints in light," Who makes us thus to laugh.

But if we stagger through unbelief, and do not come to FAITH'S CONCLUSION and believe Him, "against hope," and in spite of all our feelings and experiences, then there is only one alternative for us: we shall go on our way in grief and unhappiness, mourning for what we have done or not done, instead of "giving thanks unto the Father: for what HE HATH DONE (Col. i. 12). We shall sink under the burden of the incessant confession of our trespasses, because we steadfastly refuse to believe what we hear from God, that "you being dead in your sins...hath He quickened together with Him (Christ) HAVING FORGIVEN YOU ALL TRESPASSES" (Col. ii. 13).

Oh, that we may have Sarah's faith, and "against hope" be strengthened by faith, and have our mouths filled with God-given laughter, and give glory to God, because we have judged Him faithful Who hath promised.

CT's Top Fifty

Everybody enjoys lists of the top 10 of this or that (Well, maybe not everybody). Christianity Today offers a catalog of the top fifty books which have shaped the lives and thinking of Evangelicals. As with any such list you'll feel that they left some books off that they should have listed, including classics like Pilgrim's Progress and In His Steps, and that they included some that they shouldn't have. If you're an evangelical Christian and a reader - and if you're the first then surely you're the second - give it a look and see what you think.

Just War in an Age of Jihad

A friend links us to this article by David Aikman who writes that the moral criteria Just War thinking are teetering on the brink of obsolescence in an age in which one side regards such criteria with disdain. He argues that we must not discard the principles of Just War but that we need to rethink what "Just War" means in an age of jihad:

Just war principles work successfully only among nations that acknowledge the same moral laws at work, as in Europe, for example, in general before World War I. Now, however, we are all in a wider and starker conflict, in which ruthless Islamic ideologists are prepared to immolate their own children for the sake of ultimate victory. We should not be pressured by the enormity of the challenge they pose to civilized life to abandon our own rules of "just war." But we need to think through-and make public-how to cope with guerrilla adversaries who operate according to barbaric and totalitarian rules. Civilization is at stake-not only ours, but the world's. Do we have the moral imagination to oppose such adversaries without compromising the very integrity we fight to protect?

For my part I'm not sure exactly which Just War criteria are threatened by the Islamist assault upon the West (See here for a helpful discussion of Just War theory). I do agree, however, that we need to rethink some aspects of Just War theory. For instance, we need to clarify the concept of proportionate response, the question of who is a non-combatant, and what constitutes torture, but I agree with Aikman that the tradition of Just War and the principles which comprise it should not be abandoned.

Walid Shoebat

There is a CNN interview with Walid Shoebat at Hot Air that everyone should watch. Shoebat was a Palestinian terrorist who renounced terrorism and now tours the U.S. trying to educate Americans on the nature of Islamic jihad. It's a powerful piece.

Shoebat spoke last Wednesday night at Columbia University which, still smarting from the criticism they got for their miserable response to the near riot that prevented Minuteman Jim Gilchrist from speaking, decided to rescind some 77 invitations and admit only Columbia students to the lecture.

This was a very unpopular move (some are calling it gutless) since they withdrew the invitations by e-mail just two hours or so before the lecture, but at least the students at Columbia were able to hear him speak.

The Daily Infidel has an excellent report of the event at which Shoebat appeared. Apparently several former terrorists who have converted to Christianity told their stories and gave their opinions of modern Islam. There were a number of remarkable things said that evening, but one of the most interesting was a reply by one of the panelists to a questioner who pointed out that most Muslims, even clergy, are moderate. The former terrorist, a man who said that he had killed 233 people by the time he was 16, replied, "If you think your imam is moderate, ask him what would happen if his son converted to Christianity."

There's much more at The Daily Infidel.

Straw Poll

A straw poll carried by a lot of conservative-leaning blogs is showing that the favored candidate for the 2008 presidential nomination is Rudy Giuliani with Newt Gingrich coming in second. You can cast your vote below:

UPDATE: Apparently the page at which the results are posted has been taken down. Maybe somebody didn't like the fact that Giuliani was doing so well.

Sci Phi

Jason at Sci Phi conducts audio interviews with prominent thinkers on various scientific and philosophical topics. For example, William Lane Craig explains how God can know the future without precluding human free will here, and Alvin Plantinga explains why it is irrational to believe that both naturalism and evolution are true here. The sound on this one is sometimes a little scratchy.

William Hasker explains a possible solution to the mind/body problem called emergent dualism. The sound is unsteady, but you can hear Hasker well enough.

There is also a discussion on Intelligent Design with skeptic Michael Shermer and IDer Salvador Cordova. To link to the Cordova audio, however, you have to go here and follow the links since navigating around Sci Phi is difficult. They really do need an index of links to their shows.

Thanks to Uncommon Descent for the tip.

Dirty Harry

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, who was one of the principal spokesmen in the campaign to establish in the public mind the image of Republicans as incorrigibly corrupt, grew suddenly silent when it was disclosed that he had ties to the Luciferian Jack Abramoff. Now it turns out that there's even more odor clinging to the Senator. He appears to have profited handsomely from some land deals, the details of which he is obligated to reveal to the Senate, but which he chose to keep secret.

Old Harry Reid is starting to look a little dirty, and more than a little hypocritical, again.

For the scandal junkies among our readers Ed Morrissey has the details. And just in time, too, since despite the strenuous efforts of Chris Matthews and Keith Olberman at MSNBC to keep the story on life-support, the Mark Foley unpleasantness is beginning to expire. People are coming to realize that the scandal was pretty much over once Foley resigned, much to the disappointment of libs who were hoping to club Republicans over the head with it all the way up to election day.

AWOL in the Greatest Battle of Our Time

News reports indicate that the population of the United States will pass 300 million this week, and it occured to me that there has been scarcely a peep about this from environmentalists who, throughout the sixties, seventies, and eighties, were shouting from the rooftops that population growth was the most serious problem the world and this nation were facing. A burgeoning population puts enormous stress, we were told, on agricultural and natural lands, endangered species of wildlife and their habitats, resources like timber and water, and the over-all quality of life. People like Paul Ehrlich in his 1968 book Population Bomb warned us that if we did nothing to stop or reverse our growth we were headed for doom. Others claimed, a bit hyperbolically, that we'd already passed the point of no return.

I happen to agree that population growth is a serious environmental and ecological problem, perhaps one of our two or three most serious middle-term problems, and am very concerned about the consequences, both ecological and aesthetic, of adding 100 million people to our nation just since the 1960s. I support most efforts to conserve and protect our natural heritage from the voracious demands of a burgeoning population.

So I wondered why the people who led the struggle over the past generation to warn us of the perils we risk by not controlling population growth are silent as we pass the 300 million mark. I was curious as to why Leftish organizations, like the Sierra Club for instance, which have been fighting to limit population growth for decades, who have been warning us that we are facing a biological calamity, and who are concerned about conserving natural lands were as quiet as the Nevada desert.

Then it was all made clear by a feature column written by Valerie Richardson in the Washington Times (subscription required).

The reason, Richardson explains, why these groups have suddenly gone mute on what is arguably the greatest threat to the ecological health of natural lands and population stability in the U.S. is that much of the growth (40%) we are experiencing is due to immigration, both legal and illegal, and much of the rest is due to high reproductive rates among native-born poor. None of the environmental groups, most of which are staffed by liberals and Leftists, wish to be seen as racist by opposing illegal immigration and pointing fingers at minority groups with high reproductive rates.

In other words, these people, who were grabbing us by the lapels twenty years ago and pleading with us to do limit the skyrocketing numbers of people who were placing unsustainable demands upon the earth, actually care more about being falsely accused of racism than they care about doing what must be done to preserve the health of the North American biosphere. They're more concerned about being politically correct than about easing the pressure growing populations impose on endangered species and precious ecological resources.

Because of their fear of transgressing liberal orthodoxies on race they are AWOL on perhaps the most important issue of our time, the issue that has been their whole raison d'etre for the last fifty years. It is quite astonishing. It's also very sad that they would sell out their principles for a mess of PC pottage, but principles are quite expendable and very malleable things in the hands of liberals.

Off to Nuremberg With Them!

The liberal instruction manual on how to win debates evidently offers the following guidance:

When the facts aren't on your side shout the other guy down so that he can't be heard. If that doesn't work then haul him before a tribunal and threaten him with imprisonment for having the impertinence to doubt your truth.

At least that's the conclusion one would have to draw from this article:

A U.S. based environmental magazine that both former Vice President Al Gore and PBS newsman Bill Moyers, for his October 11th global warming edition of "Moyers on America" titled "Is God Green?" have deemed respectable enough to grant one-on-one interviews to promote their projects, is now advocating Nuremberg-style war crimes trials for skeptics of human caused catastrophic global warming. Grist Magazine's staff writer David Roberts called for the Nuremberg-style trials for the "bastards" who were members of what he termed the global warming "denial industry."

Roberts wrote in the online publication on September 19, 2006, "When we've finally gotten serious about global warming, when the impacts are really hitting us and we're in a full worldwide scramble to minimize the damage, we should have war crimes trials for these bastards -- some sort of climate Nuremberg."

Gore and Moyers have not yet commented on Grist's advocacy of prosecuting skeptics of global warming with a Nuremberg-style war crimes trial. Gore has used the phrase "global warming deniers" to describe scientists and others who don't share his view of the Earth's climate. It remains to be seen what Gore and Moyers will have to say about proposals to make skepticism a crime comparable to Holocaust atrocities.

Sure. Once the erstwhile champions of "free-speech" on the Left can make it illegal to disagree with them they'll probably want to make any dissent from their orthodoxies punishable by firing squad. Joseph Stalin must be pleased.

Guns in School

Alan Gottleib and Dave Workman argue that greater efforts to restrict guns leads, counter, perhaps, to conventional opinion, perhaps, to more gun crime. They make a good case that the "gun-free zones" set up around schools are a farce. Such feel-good nostrums accomplish nothing more than to assure the psychopaths who roam the halls of every large public school in the nation that if they decide to go on a killing spree no one will be able to hinder them.

The allure of exerting total, unstoppable power over others is irresistable to certain twisted minds, and gun-free zone laws don't do anything to keep them from bringing weapons into schools to carry out their horrific fantasies. They only prevent school staff from being in a position to stop them once the carnage begins.

Anyone who smuggles a gun into a school can massacre students for a long time before police arrive, and despite all the precautions that schools take to prevent such tragedies there's really no practical way an unarmed staff can stop a student who wishes to murder his fellow students from actually doing it.

As a parent of a high school student I know I would feel better if I knew that at least some appropriate school personnel had been thoroughly trained in the use of firearms, particularly in a school environment, and were allowed to keep weapons, under lock but easily accessible, in the building. If they were the chances that someone would attempt, or succeed in an attempt, to perpetrate mass murder in the halls and lobbies of a school would be greatly diminished.

Some people will understandably blanche at the idea of having guns in school, but they're already there. Some schools have armed guards roaming their hallways and some have armed kids roaming the hallways. The question is not whether we will have guns in our schools - we already do. The question is who in the school do we want to have access to them.

Sartre's Intellectual Heirs

Waller Newell writes in The Weekly Standard that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was strongly influenced by an Iranian intellectual by the name of Ali Shariati and that Shariati, like the genocidal Cambodian Pol Pot, was strongly influenced by the French existentialist Jean Paul Sartre and the Marxist Frantz Fanon:

The key figure here is the acknowledged intellectual godfather of the Iranian revolution, Ali Shariati. To understand Ahmadinejad's campaign to return to the purity of the revolution and why it leads him to flirt with nuclear Armageddon, it is necessary to understand Ali Shariati.

Ali Shariati (1933-1977) was an Iranian intellectual who studied comparative literature in Paris in the early 1960s and was influenced by Jean-Paul Sartre and Frantz Fanon. He translated Sartre's major philosophical work, Being and Nothingness, into Farsi, and coauthored a translation of Fanon's famous revolutionary tract The Wretched of the Earth. Sartre and Fanon together were responsible for revitalizing Marxism by borrowing from Martin Heidegger's philosophy of existentialism, which stressed man's need to struggle against a purposeless bourgeois world in order to endow life with meaning through passionate commitment.

By lionizing revolutionary violence as a purifying catharsis that forces us to turn our backs on the bourgeois world, Sartre and Fanon hoped to rescue the downtrodden from the seduction of Western material prosperity. Fanon was even more important because he imported from Heidegger's philosophy a passionate commitment to the "destiny" of "the people," the longing for the lost purity of the premodern collective that had drawn Heidegger to National Socialism.

This potent brew of violent struggle and passionate commitment to a utopian vision of a collectivist past deeply influenced Ali Shariati, just as it had influenced another student in Paris a few years earlier, the Cambodian Pol Pot. Fanon in effect replaced the international proletariat of classical Marxism with the existentialist Volk of Heidegger's Nazi period, repudiating both liberal democracy and Marxist-Leninist politics as too materialistic. As applied in practice by the Khmer Rouge, this led to the bloodbath of 1975-1979 in which the cities of Cambodia were forcibly evacuated and the Cambodian people were purified of the taint of Western corruption by being reduced to a primitive collective of slave labor. Just as the the Jacobins had literally started the calendar over at the Year One, so Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot, on assuming power, proclaimed the Year Zero.

Ali Shariati aimed to politicize the Shiite faith of his fellow Iranians with this same existentialist creed of revolutionary violence and purification. He sought to turn Shiism from pious hopes for a better world to come to the creation of a political utopia in the here and now.

What a legacy - Pol Pot and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. One wonders whether Sartre and Fanon would be proud of their intellectual descendents. When people possess a passionate commitment to changing the world, the use of any means, including genocide, is justified if it produces the desired outcome. The only check on such fanaticism is the belief that such means are immoral, but for the existentialist and the Marxist there is no morality other than pragmatism. Whatever works to advance one's cause is right. Indeed, It was Karl Marx himself who wrote in the Communist Manifesto that "Communism abolishes all eternal truths, it abolishes all religion and all morality".

The only ideology or belief system that gives any grounds at all for believing that some means and ends are evil is the Judeo-Christian religion, but Sartre and Fanon, Pol Pot and Ahmadinejad all reject the moral teaching of the Judeo-Christian tradition root and branch. Thus we got the killing fields in Cambodia in the 1970s from Pol Pot and the threat of a nuclear holocaust in Israel today from Ahmadinejad. Ideas have consequences, and bad ideas in the minds of evil and powerful men often have catastrophic outcomes.

The 4% Panic Attack

A recent article in the New York Times by Laurie Goodstein calls attention to growing concern that evangelical Christianity is losing appeal among teens and frets that only 4% of today's teenagers will be conservative Christians as adults. Here are some excerpts from Goodstein's article:

At an unusual series of leadership meetings in 44 cities this fall, more than 6,000 pastors are hearing dire forecasts from some of the biggest names in the conservative evangelical movement.

Their alarm has been stoked by a highly suspect claim that if current trends continue, only 4 percent of teenagers will be "Bible-believing Christians" as adults. That would be a sharp decline compared with 35 percent of the current generation of baby boomers, and before that, 65 percent of the World War II generation.

While some critics say the statistics are greatly exaggerated (one evangelical magazine for youth ministers dubbed it "the 4 percent panic attack"), there is widespread consensus among evangelical leaders that they risk losing their teenagers.

Genuine alarm can be heard from Christian teenagers and youth pastors, who say they cannot compete against a pervasive culture of cynicism about religion, and the casual "hooking up" approach to sex so pervasive on MTV, on Web sites for teenagers and in hip-hop, rap and rock music. Divorced parents and dysfunctional families also lead some teenagers to avoid church entirely or to drift away.

Over and over in interviews, evangelical teenagers said they felt like a tiny, beleaguered minority in their schools and neighborhoods. They said they often felt alone in their struggles to live by their "Biblical values" by avoiding casual sex, risqu� music and videos, Internet pornography, alcohol and drugs.

That the Church is competing with enormously seductive rivals for the affections of its young people cannot be denied. That the pressures on teenagers to abandon their faith are high is obvious, but even so, to the extent that the statistics quoted in this article are accurate, and I'm not convinced they are, much of the responsibility for the decline in Christian commitment will lie at the door of the local church.

Too many local congregations, especially in "main-line" denominations, are unwilling to invest in their young people. They cannot see their way clear to make Christian education and Youth Ministry their top priorities. Any church today that allows finances to deter them from seeking out and hiring a full-time youth pastor savvy in contemporary culture, knowledgeable about the Bible, good at apologetics, talented on the guitar or keyboard, and who possesses a charismatic personality is essentially ceding their youth to the modern Zeitgeist.

It may be true that there aren't very many candidates such as I have described out there to be hired, but that's largely because churches haven't created the demand for such individuals. If the jobs were available, so, too, would be the talented young pastors to fill them. Moreover, the mainline congregations will find slim pickings if they search for candidates among their denominational seminary graduates. Mainline seminaries aren't churning out the kind of people, unfortunately, who are either adept at or inclined to nurture teens in their faith. Churches need to be willing to look outside their denominational plantations and seek candidates who grew up in independent or semi-independent churches and were themselves educated at schools which take the Bible and Christian faith seriously.

Nevertheless, despite the gloomy portents in the Times' article Christianity Today isn't too concerned. They think the statistics are overblown. I hope they're right.

Jaw-Dropping Ad

The producer and director of "Airplane" and "The Naked Gun", David Zucker, has made a political ad for the GOP that the GOP has declined to use. Matt Drudge tells us that:

In the ad, Zucker, producer of "Scary Movie 4", recreates former Clinton Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's 2000 visit to North Korea. During the visit, Secretary Albright presented North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il with a basketball autographed by former NBA superstar Michael Jordan.

An actress playing Secretary Albright is shown presenting Kim Jong Il with the Michael Jordan basketball, painting the walls of Osama bin Laden's Afghanistan cave and turning a blind eye to suicide bombers. In one scene her skirt rips as she changes the tire of a Middle Eastern dictator's limousine.

One GOP strategist said "jaws dropped" when the ad was first viewed. "Nobody could believe Zucker thought any political organization could use this ad. It makes a point, but it's way over the top."

You can view the ad here.

Coercive Interrogation

Vasko Kohlmayer at Front Page Mag makes a case for the moral propriety of waterboarding which he believes to be the most benign of the coercive interrogation techniques we have at our disposal. Regular readers of Viewpoint will find little different in his argument from what we have presented here from time to time, but perhaps there is value in reading it in someone else's words.

Here's an excerpt:

.... careful consideration shows that waterboarding is in fact one of the least injurious among interrogation techniques. To see why this is so, it is enough to contrast it with the most common approach which involves a combination of sleep deprivation and cold exposure. Frequently requiring days and even weeks to break the captive's spirit, it carries a real possibility of long-term physical and psychological damage. Worse still, it often fails to achieve the desired effect with the result that the captive is subjected to prolonged hardships, but we still end up without the information we so urgently need.

Waterboarding, on the other hand, is fleeting in duration with the actual discomfort seldom lasting more than a couple of minutes. And since a man can be safely deprived of oxygen for at least twice as long, there is almost no risk of long-term harm. The possibility of injury is further reduced by the fact that the procedure calls for no direct physical contact between the subject and his interrogators. Not even as much as pushing or chest slapping is required at any time, making waterboarding one of the safest and least confrontational among interrogation methods. Involving the lowest risk of long-term harm and the least amount of cumulative discomfort, it is also the most humane. Most importantly, it is the most effective.

While other interrogation procedures employ raw force, intimidation or long-term duress, waterboarding brings the terrorist face to face with that which he himself seeks to inflict upon his victims - the horror of dying. Viewed in this light, waterboarding may well be the most just form of interrogation for this kind of criminal, because it gives him a taste of his own evil. The difference is that his anguish is stopped the moment he expresses a desire for it to be so. This, tragically, is something which his victims would never be granted. While the terrorist turns his prey into mangled corpses, waterboarding gives him a chance to see another day without being so much as scathed by his momentary ordeal. But even as he goes on living, we have in our possession crucial intelligence that will save innocent lives.

Some people reply to this sort of argument by saying that the end of saving lives does not justify the means of causing suffering and fear to another human being. This is nice ivory tower theorizing, but all one needs do to show the hollowness of the objection is to ask whether the person who makes it would think the same thing if he/she knew that among the lives saved by coercing information from a murdering thug would be those of his/her own children.

If the objector to waterboarding replies that even then she would not condone waterboarding then I would ask her to imagine looking into the eyes of her child a moment before a terrorist's bomb's blast incinerates the child and telling him or her that the impending death could have been prevented, but as a matter of principle the means to prevent it could not be used because they would have caused the murderer to suffer discomfort and fear.

Kohlmayer poses the same question in slightly different terms. He writes:

And as far as opponents of waterboarding are concerned, I have these questions to ask: Are a few moments of a terrorist's discomfort more important than the lives of the innocents he seeks to destroy? Are two minutes of Moussaoui's anguish worth more than the three thousand lives lost on 9/11? Does his momentary pain override a lifetime of hurt in the hearts of those left behind?

To answer "yes" to either of these questions, which is the implicit answer one gives if they oppose waterboarding as a means of coercing information, is to manifest colossal moral confusion.

Crazy Christians

Brent Bozell gives us a preview of the upcoming Studio 60 television series created by producer-writer Aaron Sorkin. Like much else coming out of Hollywood, Sorkin's show serves as a platform for anti-Christian animus. In one segment a fictional producer wants to run a show called "Crazy Christians" but is cautioned against it.

Bozell writes:

Sorkin uses his first script to throw sharp knives and rusty razors at the Americans who've lobbied for less filthy television. The show begins with an improbable "standards and practices" censor telling the producer of the fictional "SNL" that he can't run "Crazy Christians" because "what do you want me to say to the 50 million people who are gonna go out of their minds as soon as it airs?" The producer cracks wise: "Well, first of all, you can tell 'em we average 9 million households, so at least 41 million of them are full of crap. Second, you can tell 'em that living where there's free speech means sometimes you're gonna get offended."

Gutsy, eh? Cutting edge, to be sure. We look forward to the episode where the bold, audacious creator of this show exercises his free speech rights to do something really intrepid, like offending Muslims instead of Christians. We're looking forward to it, but we're not holding our breath. That much gutsiness is in short supply in Hollywood.

Bozell goes on to observe that:

What Hollywood likes is having the almighty power to offend - to "challenge" society, as they like to describe it - freely. But only some people are sought out for offending. For every supposedly crazy parent who worries about sex, violence and smutty talk on TV, perhaps there's another supposedly crazy parent who worries about different offenses, such as Twinkie commercials or scenes with cool, beautiful people smoking cigarettes. But those parents don't get mocked by scriptwriters. It is those with religious objections who get singled out.

There's more insight into Sorkin's adolescent attitude toward religion at the link. Bozell wonders in his concluding paragraph whether Aaron Sorkin will ever do a show on those "Crazy Atheists". We can see the puzzled look on Sorkin's face even now. Crazy atheists? What crazy atheists?

Musharraf's Untenable Position

For those who would like to know more about, and understand better, the goings on in Pakistan we recommend Rick Moran's primer at The American Thinker. Moran covers the recent history and highlights the very difficult position Prime Minister Pervez Musharraf finds himself in.

In his conclusion Moran says this:

Beset as he is on all sides, is there anything to be done with Musharraf? Outside of supporting him as much as we can, there really is nothing to be done. Replacing him is out of the question because the chances of someone coming to power who would be much less friendly to the United States and more accommodating to the Taliban are too great. And the likelihood of elections throwing up even more radical extremists is very high.

In this way, Musharraf is almost like an American tar baby. We're stuck with him for as long as he can survive.

How long that will be depends on Musharraf's knack for avoiding the assassin's blade and his complex political maneuverings. Because like it or not, Musharraf is still the best ally we have in the War on Terror. And he will remain so as long as he can continue to juggle the clashing interests and competing factions that threaten to bring him down at any time.

Read the whole column. It's enlightening.

Bush Derangement Syndrome Continues Unabated

More examples of the sickness that seems peculiar to the contemporary Left can be found at an art showing in Chelsea, New York. Whether the artist who labored over these canvasses deserves recognition for his talent, I can't say, but I will say that he should immediately check himself into a mental health clinic.

What is Consciousness?

One of the enduring problems in the philosophy of mind is the nature of consciousness. Exactly what it is and where it comes from has baffled philosophers and neuroscientists alike. Philosopher David Chalmers, one of the leading thinkers in this field, has a good paper on the matter in which he lays out the arguments against the materialist view that consciousness is reducible to material entities like atoms and chemical reactions. He begins the paper with this:

Consciousness fits uneasily into our conception of the natural world. On the most common conception of nature, the natural world is the physical world. But on the most common conception of consciousness, it is not easy to see how it could be part of the physical world. So it seems that to find a place for consciousness within the natural order, we must either revise our conception of consciousness, or revise our conception of nature.

The word 'consciousness' is used in many different ways. It is sometimes used for the ability to discriminate stimuli, or to report information, or to monitor internal states, or to control behavior. We can think of these phenomena as posing the "easy problems" of consciousness. These are important phenomena, and there is much that is not understood about them, but the problems of explaining them have the character of puzzles rather than mysteries. There seems to be no deep problem in principle with the idea that a physical system could be "conscious" in these senses, and there is no obvious obstacle to an eventual explanation of these phenomena in neurobiological or computational terms.

The hard problem of consciousness is the problem of experience. Humans beings have subjective experience: there is something it is like to be them. We can say that a being is conscious in this sense - or is phenomenally conscious, as it is sometimes put - when there is something it is like to be that being. A mental state is conscious when there is something it is like to be in that state. Conscious states include states of perceptual experience, bodily sensation, mental imagery, emotional experience, occurrent thought, and more. There is something it is like to see a vivid green, to feel a sharp pain, to visualize the Eiffel tower, to feel a deep regret, and to think that one is late. Each of these states has a phenomenal character, with phenomenal properties (or qualia) characterizing what it is like to be in the state.

There is no question that experience is closely associated with physical processes in systems such as brains. It seems that physical processes give rise to experience, at least in the sense that producing a physical system (such as a brain) with the right physical properties inevitably yields corresponding states of experience. But how and why do physical processes give rise to experience? Why do not these processes take place "in the dark," without any accompanying states of experience? This is the central mystery of consciousness.

What makes the easy problems easy? For these problems, the task is to explain certain behavioral or cognitive functions: that is, to explain how some causal role is played in the cognitive system, ultimately in the production of behavior. To explain the performance of such a function, one need only specify a mechanism that plays the relevant role. And there is good reason to believe that neural or computational mechanisms can play those roles.

What makes the hard problem hard? Here, the task is not to explain behavioral and cognitive functions: even once one has an explanation of all the relevant functions in the vicinity of consciousness - discrimination, integration, access, report, control - there may still remain a further question: why is the performance of these functions accompanied by experience? Because of this, the hard problem seems to be a different sort of problem, requiring a different sort of solution.

A solution to the hard problem would involve an account of the relation between physical processes and consciousness, explaining on the basis of natural principles how and why it is that physical processes are associated with states of experience. A reductive explanation of consciousness will explain this wholly on the basis of physical principles that do not themselves make any appeal to consciousness.[*] A materialist (or physicalist) solution will be a solution on which consciousness is itself seen as a physical process. A nonmaterialist (or nonphysicalist) solution will be a solution on which consciousness is seen as nonphysical (even if closely associated with physical processes). A nonreductive solution will be one on which consciousness (or principles involving consciousness) is admitted as a basic part of the explanation.

It is natural to hope that there will be a materialist solution to the hard problem and a reductive explanation of consciousness, just as there have been reductive explanations of many other phenomena in many other domains. But consciousness seems to resist materialist explanation in a way that other phenomena do not. This resistance can be encapsulated in three related arguments against materialism, summarized in what follows.

Go to the link to read the rest of this interesting paper.

One of the important things to note about it is that if consciousness is not reducible to physical entities then it becomes more plausible that it has a non-physical cause, but non-physical causes would be beyond the scope of science and indeed could be considered extra-natural or super-natural. Chalmers himself doesn't go this far but much of the argumentation in his paper lends support to this hypothesis.

The Nature of the Conflict

Paul Marshall has a fine, concise explanation of the Islamic grievance against the West. Quoting Osama bin Laden's words he makes clear the motivations and nature of the struggle we find ourselves in. Here are a couple of excerpts:

The network's central grievance, continually expressed, is the collapse of the Islamic world in the face of "Christendom" - a collapse explained by Muslims' apostasy from Islam, and which can be reversed only by returning to their version of Islam.

At the end of 2004, bin Laden lamented the "control exerted by the Zionists and the Cross worshippers" on Muslims, and he described the world conflict as "a struggle between two camps. One camp is headed by America, and it represents the global Kufr (infidelity), accompanied by all apostates. The other camp represents the Islamic Ummah (nation) headed by its Mujahideen Brigades." Similarly, his December 27, 2004 "Letter to the Iraqi People" referred to the war "between the army Of Mohammed, the army of belief, and the people of the cross." He warned Iraqis not to participate in the January 30, 2005 elections since the Iraqi constitution is "a Jahiliyya (pre-Islamic) constitution that is made by man," and Muslims may elect only a leader for whom "Islam is the only source of the rulings and laws."

At the end Marshall asks this question:

How should we respond to this radical, worldwide movement with millions of adherents whose programme it is to unite Muslims worldwide into one people, with one divinely sanctioned leader, governed by a reactionary version of Islamic law, and organized to wage a permanent war on the rest of the world - a war that from its perspective can only end in the annihilation, conquest or conversion of all non-Muslims?

Good question. Read his answer at the link.

Toronto ID Conference Pt. IV

Denyse O'Leary offers the fourth installment of her experiences at the Toronto Intelligent Design conference. Links to her first three posts on the meeting can be found in the right margin of the page at the link. There's also a lot of other interesting reading to be found there, not least of which is her blog comment policy note at the bottom of the page.

All the Difference in the World

There appears to be at least this difference between Republicans and Democrats. When Republicans are involved in scandal they're soon gone. When Democrats are involved in scandal they are permitted to remain in office as long as they're not in jail. Republicans Bob Livingston, Newt Gingrich, Tom Delay, Duke Cunningham, Bob Ney, and Mark Foley are all gone.

Not satisfied with that, however, the Democrats continue to call for Majority Leader Dennis Hastert's head over his handling of the Mark Foley disgrace even though their party allows their crooks and scoundrels to cling to power as long as they can be reelected. Ted Kennedy is still in office 25 years or more after being responsible for the death of a girl because he was DUI. Gary Condit was never forced to resign even though he was implicated in the murder of a young woman with whom he'd been having an affair. John Murtha was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Abscam bribery scandal but he still holds forth in the House. William Jefferson refuses to resign after being caught hiding $90,000 in bribe money in his office refrigerator, and the list goes on - Alcee Hastings, Marion Barry, and many others (See here for a full, and very lengthy, list of Democratic malefactors.).

The only way a Democrat is removed from office for corruption, it seems, is if he's sent to jail for it. Even then, as in the case of Marion Barry and Bobby Rush, they're sometimes re-elected to office when they get out.

There's lots of hypocrisy here, especially in the matter of Mark Foley's salacious instant messages to young congressional pages. The Democratic spokespersons on the television talk shows would have us believe that they're deeply concerned about sick adults luring children into sexual activity. They tell us how reprehensible what Mark Foley did is, and of course it is, but, as a recent New York Times column (subscription required) by David Brooks reminds us to ask, where are the liberal outcries over the theatrical performances of The Vagina Monologues which is celebrated on campuses all across the nation and has garnered great acclaim from the "anything goes" Leftists among our cultural elites?

In the play, a thirteen year old girl (later changed to a sixteen year old) is seduced by an adult and persuaded to engage in Foley-like behaviors that are explicitly sexual and pedophilic. Despite its glorification of adult sex with children this play is extolled as "cutting edge" cultural criticism. Colleges which have made the gauche blunder of prohibiting its performance have suffered loud protests and obloquy from campus "free speechers" and civil libertarians.

But where do the liberals who are so concerned about sexual predation stand on this? Why have they not uttered even a peep about how contemptible a play like this is? The only complaints I have read about TVM, which clearly endorses adult/adolescent sex, have come from the pens of conservatives.

So, any liberal who regales us about the Republicans' culture of corruption and the sexual deviants in their ranks or who demands Dennis Hastert's resignation should be required to explain why he or she doesn't also object to the showing of a play which clearly promotes the very sort of thing that Foley evidently only fantasized about. They should also be compelled to explain why they don't condemn and urge boycotts of musical groups like the Rolling Stones for performing songs with explicitly pedophilic lyrics like Stray Cat Blues.

Their failure to do either causes them to forfeit all credibility on the subject of sexual deviancy with minors and whatever censure they express on the matter should be regarded as empty hypocrisy.

By the way, there is a reason, I suppose, why TVM doesn't get bombarded with the same sort of moral brimstone from the Left that Foley and Republicans in general are being pelted with. TVM is a feminist rhapsody. The adult who seduces the young girl in the play is a woman. Apparently, for liberals, that makes all the difference in the world.

The Columbia U. Video

One of my students provides a link to the deplorable behavior of the Left/liberal mob at Columbia University when Minuteman founder Jim Gilchrist tried to speak there last week. When facts and reasoned argument are not on one's side people sometimes resort to thuggery as though that were a suitable substitute. This is the sort of behavior that might be expected of citizens of some third world banana republic, but it's not what one hopes for in a country whose citizens value free speech, the open exchange of ideas and who have been brought up to be polite and tolerant of other opinions. Unfortunately, those virtues seem to be missing among the portion of the Columbia student body who chose to take the stage last Wednesday night.

You can check out the video here. Thanks to Isaac for the tip.

Peace That Passes All Understanding

Rod Dreher, author of Crunchy Cons, has a lovely essay in the Dallas Morning News about the Amish response to the murders of five of their little girls. The Amish certainly have been an amazing example, to those of us who claim to be followers of the same Christ, of the meaning of reconciliation.

Divine Names and Titles

Some of our readers may be aware of the fact that the God of the Hebrew Canon had many names that were used to describe God according to the context of the particular passage in question. From Appendix 4 - "The Divine Names and Titles" of The Companion Bible by Kregel Publishing we find that:

I. Elohim occurs 2,700 times. Its first occurrence connects it with creation, and give it its essential meaning as the Creator. It indicates His relation to mankind as His creatures (see note on 2 Chron. 18:31, where it stands in contrast with Jehovah as indicating covenant relationship). Elohim is God the Son, the living "WORD" with creature form to create (John 1:1. Col. 1:15-17. Rev. 3:14); and later, with human form to redeem (John 1:14). "Begotten of His Father before all worlds; born of His mother, in the world." In this creature form He appeared to the Patriarchs, a form not temporarily assumed. Elohim is indicated (as in A.V.) by ordinary small type, "God". See table on page 7.

II. Jehovah. While Elohim is God as the Creator of all things, Jehovah is the same God in covenant relation to those whom He has created (Cp. 2Chron. 18:31). Jehovah means the Eternal, the Immutable One, He Who WAS, and IS, and IS TO COME. The Divine definition is given in Gen. 21:33. He is especially, therefore, the God of Israel; and the God of those who are redeemed, and are thus now "in Christ". We can say "My God," but not "My Jehovah", for Jehovah is "MY God."

III [my note: other Divine Names are examined in detail in the appendix but I have not included them here due to size considerations.]

Jehovah is indicated (as in A.V.) by small capital letters, "LORD" and by "GOD" when it occurs in combination with Adonai, in which case LORD GOD = Adonai Jehovah. The name Jehovah is combined with ten other words, which form what are known as "the Jehovah Titles." in the Hebrew Canon (Ap. 1). All are noted in the margin, in all their occurrences:--

1. JEHOVAH-JIREH = Jehovah will see, or provide. Gen. 22:14.
2. JEHOVAH-ROPHEKA = Jehovah that healeth thee. Ex. 15:26.
3. JEHOVAH-NISSI = Jehovah my banner. Ex. 17:15.
4. JEHOVAH-MeKADDISHKEM = Jehovah that doth sanctify you. Ex. 31:13. Lev. 20:8; 21:8; 22:32. Ezek. 20:12.
5. JEHOVAH-SHALOM = Jehovah [send] peace. Judg. 6:24.
6. JEHOVAH-ZeBA'OTH = Jehovah of hosts. 1Sam. 1:3, and frequently.
7. JEHOVAH-ZIDKENU = Jehovah our righteousness. Jer. 23:6; 33:16.
8. JEHOVAH-SHAMMAH = Jehovah is there. Ezek. 48:35.
9. JEHOVAH-ELYON = Jehovah most high. Ps. 7:17; 47:2; 97:9.
10. JEHOVAH-RO'I = Jehovah my Shepherd. Ps. 23:1.

We have seven of these, experimentally referred to, in Ps. 23, inasmuch as Jehovah, the "Good," "Great," and "Chief Shepherd," is engaged, in all the perfection of His attributes, on behalf of His sheep:--

In verse 1, we have No. 1 above.
In verse 2, we have No. 5.
In verse 3, we have Nos. 2 and 7.
In verse 4, we have No. 8.
In verse 5, we have Nos. 3 and 4.
[my note: verses 1 and 6 reference No. 10]

1. The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.
2. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.
3. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.
4. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
5. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
6. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.

If you look at a transliteration of the Hebrew Canon, you will in fact see the actual Jehovah Titles. In the process of translating the Hebrew text to English, the following "mapping" has been employed and so all of the Divine Names and Jehovah Titles are rendered accordingly.

• God = Elohim.
• GOD = Jehovah (in combination with Adonai, "Lord").
• GOD* = Jehovah in the Primitive Texts, altered by Sopherim to Elohim as the Printed Text. (See Ap. 32.)
• GOD = El.
• GOD (Old English font) = Eloah.
• LORD = Jehovah.
• THE LORD = Jah.
• LORD* = Jehovah in the Primitive Texts, altered by Sopherim to Adonai as in the Printed Text. (See Ap. 32.)
• Lord = Adonai.
• LORD = Adonim.
• ALMIGHTY = Shaddai.
• MOST HIGH = Elyon.

This practice leads to a totally unacceptable, unnecessary, and unfortunate loss of information especially when all ten Jehova Titles are rendered simply as LORD. It's a shame that this has been done as it hides from the reader information about the Personality of Him whom they are reading and the greater concern is that the practice has never been corrected.

Isn't it odd that scholars would spend their lives tediously studying the earliest manuscripts and scrolls to discover what the Word of God has to say to us only to turn around and obfuscate something as fundamentally significant as His Name?

Fortunately The Companion Bible provides the Divine Names and Jehovah Titles in the margin.

Brownshirts at Columbia

This story in the Columbia Spectator suggests to us that freedom of speech at Columbia University takes peculiar forms. Minuteman founder Jim Gilchrist was invited to give a speech on the matter of illegal immigration last Wednesday night but was prevented from doing so by the usual suspects on the Left. These thugs know they can't win a debate on the merits of their arguments so they seek to prevail by stifling the opposition. Here's how one protestor defended the action:

"We were aware that there was going to be a sign and we were going to occupy the stage," said a protestor who was on stage and asked to remain anonymous. "I don't feel like we need to apologize or anything. It was fundamentally a part of free speech.... The Minutemen are not a legitimate part of the debate on immigration."

So, a legal organization which has done more to bring the issue of illegal immigration to the nation's attention than perhaps anyone else in the nation, certainly more than the Bush administration whose job it is to secure our borders, is not a "legitimate" part of the debate. Thus these dopes feel justified in silencing their spokesmen. Sounds just like the tactics used by the Nazi brownshirts to pave the way for Adolf Hitler in the early '30s.

See also Powerline's detailed reports on the incident here and here.

Nancy and Harry

Yahoo reports that Democratic House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi appears to be very concerned with protecting congressional pages from the likes of Mark Foley:

Not long before sitting down for a lunchtime interview, she turned down a suggestion from Speaker Dennis Hastert that they jointly appoint former FBI Director Louie Freeh to recommend improvements in the page program. "That was about protecting their majority" rather than the pages, she said dismissively.

Instead, she wants to put Hastert and other Republicans under oath and make them say what they knew of Foley's actions, when they learned it and what they did to stop him.

Nancy Pelosi is very concerned about protecting young people from sexual predation by older men, or so she would have us believe. Her concern for young boys, however, doesn't rise to the level of refusing to have anything at all to do with people who promote legalizing sex between men and boys.

For instance, Ms. Pelosi's piety on the issue, one might have thought, would have prevented her from marching in the San Francisco Gay Pride Parade in 2001 almost right next to Harry Hay, an outspoken advocate of man/boy "love".

Hay is the gentleman who once wrote this: "Because if the parents and friends of gays are truly friends of gays, they would know from their gay kids that the relationship with an older man is precisely what thirteen-, fourteen-, and fifteen-year-old kids need more than anything else in the world."

Lest you think I'm attaching too much significance to Ms Pelosi choosing to march within conversation distance of such a person in the parade, let's imagine some conservative, say, Dick Cheney, who, it is discovered, marched in a "white-pride" parade alongside an outspoken member of the KKK. What do you suppose the media reaction would be? And how credible would the Vice-President, or anyone in an administration of which he was a member, be when it spoke on matters bearing on race relations in America?