Eighteen Facts (Pt.I)

Among the indictments of religious believers registered by skeptics is that belief in God is at best irrational and at worst pernicious. Theism, the skeptic often argues, is all blind faith and no evidence, but should a theist try to pin a critic down by asking exactly what he means by "evidence," it often turns out that the word is used as a synonym for "proof."

Well, perhaps there's no proof that a personal God exists, but that's hardly a reason not to believe that one does. After all, we can prove very little of what we believe about the world, yet we don't hold our convictions less firmly for that.

A materialist, for example, would have a very difficult time proving that the world exists objectively, outside his own mind, yet he believes it very firmly.

The skeptic's claim that there's no evidence for God and that theistic belief is thus irrational is, ironically, the reverse of the truth. In my view, it's actually more rational to believe that a personal transcendent creator of the universe exists than to disbelieve it. Moreover, if what I'll argue over the next few days is correct, the logical consequences of atheism turn out to be psychically, morally and politically toxic.

Indeed, though it may come as a surprise to some readers, almost all the evidence that counts on one side or the other of the question of belief in God rests more comfortably on the side of the believer. This is because almost every relevant fact about the world, and every existential characteristic of the human condition, makes more sense when viewed in the light of the hypothesis of theism than it does on the assumption of atheism.

Put differently, the conclusion of theism is what philosophers call an inference to the best explanation.

I don't mean to suggest that there are no facts about the world that militate against the existence of God - there are, of course. The existence of suffering being the most troubling example.

Nor do I mean to suggest that atheism can offer no account at all of the facts of human existence that I discuss in what follows. Perhaps it can. I only argue that on the assumption of atheism the facts are more difficult to explain, in some cases exceedingly so, than they are on the assumption of theism.

If that is the case, it follows that it's more reasonable to believe that the best explanation for these facts is the existence of a personal God.

So, here are eighteen facts about the world and human experience that, over the course of this week, I will argue are easier to explain on the assumption that traditional Judeo-Christian theism is true than on the assumption that metaphysical naturalism (atheism) is true:

1. The fact that the universe had a beginning
   
2. The fact of cosmic design
   
3. The fact that life's origin is inexplicable on naturalism
   
4. The fact of biological information
   
5. The fact of human consciousness
   
6. The joy we experience in an encounter of beauty
   
7. The fact that we believe our reason to be reliable
   
8. Our sense that we have free will
   
9. Our desire for answers to life's deepest questions
   
10. Our sense of moral obligation
    
11. Our sense of guilt
    
12. Our belief in human dignity
    
13. Our belief in human worth
    
14. Our belief that there are basic human rights
    
15. Our desire for justice
    
16. Our need for meaning and purpose
    
17. Our belief that we have an enduring self
    
18. Our desire to survive our own death
    

In what follows it will be argued that theism provides an easier, more comfortable explanation for each of the above than does atheism. Some of the phenomena may seem to be more compelling evidence of God than others, but when folded together they amount to a powerful cumulative case for the proposition that it's reasonable to believe that a personal mind, a mind similar to that imputed to the God of Christian theism, undergirds the world.

I claim no originality for the arguments. Others have called attention to these facts with more eloquence and brilliance than I can summon. What may perhaps be helpful, however, is to have these premises gathered into a single cumulative case for the reasonableness of theistic belief.

Tomorrow we'll discuss briefly how each of the first four facts listed above points to the existence of God or something very much like God.

What Jews Have Contributed to the World

I recently posted on the absurdity of calls for a boycott of anything connected to American or global Jewry. Today I want to continue excerpting from the internet email from which that post was taken.

The above title of this post should not be understood to imply that the following exhausts Jewish (or Muslim) contributions to humanity, but it's certainly an impressive statistic. Nor do I vouch for the accuracy of these claims, but anyone who's skeptical should be able to check them out easily enough.

In today's excerpt the anonymous author points out the disparity between the world's population of Muslims and Jews along with an indicator of their relative achievements:

The Global Islamic population is approximately 1,200,000,000; that is one billion two hundred million or 20% of the world's population.

They have received the following Nobel Prizes:

Literature:1988 - Najib Mahfooz

Peace:1978 - Mohamed Anwar El-Sadat, 1990 - Elias James Corey, 1994 - Yaser Arafat, 1999 - Ahmed Zewai

Economics:(none)

Physics:(none)

Medicine:1960 - Peter Brian Medawar, 1998 - Ferid Mourad

TOTAL: 7

The Global Jewish population is approximately 14,000,000; that is fourteen million or about 0.02% of the world's population.

They have received the following Nobel Prizes:

Literature:1910 - Paul Heyse, 1927 - Henri Bergson, 1958 - Boris Pasternak, 1966 - Shmuel Yosef Agnon, 1966 - Nelly Sachs, 1976 - Saul Bellow, 1978 - Isaac Bashevis Singer, 1981 - Elias Canetti, 1987 - Joseph Brodsky, 1991 - Nadine Gordimer World

Peace:1911 - Alfred Fried, 1911 - Tobias Michael Carel Asser, 1968 - Rene Cassin, 1973 - Henry Kissinger, 1978 - Menachem Begin, 1986 - Elie Wiesel, 1994 - Shimon Peres, 1994 - Yitzhak Rabin

Physics:1905 - Adolph Von Baeyer, 1906 - Henri Moissan, 1907 - Albert Abraham Michelson, 1908 - Gabriel Lippmann, 1910 - Otto Wallach, 1915 - Richard Willstaetter, 1918 - Fritz Haber, 1921 - Albert Einstein, 1922 - Niels Bohr, 1925 - James Franck, 1925 - Gustav Hertz, 1943 - Gustav Stern, 1943 - George Charles de Hevesy, 1944 - Isidor Issac Rabi, 1952 - Felix Bloch, 1954 - Max Born, 1958 - Igor Tamm, 1959 - Emilio Segre, 1960 - Donald A. Glaser, 1961 - Robert Hofstadter, 1961 - Melvin Calvin, 1962 - Lev Davidovich Landau, 1962 - Max Ferdinand Perutz, 1965 - Richard Phillips Feynman, 1965 - Julian Schwinger, 1969 - Murray Gell-Mann, 1971 - Dennis Gabor, 1972 - William Howard Stein, 1973 - Brian David Josephson, 1975 - Benjamin Mottleson, 1976 - Burton Richter, 1977 - Ilya Prigogine, 1978 - Arno Allan Penzias, 1978 - Peter L Kapitza, 1979 - Stephen Weinberg, 1979 - Sheldon Glashow, 1979 - Herbert Charles Brown, 1980 - Paul Berg, 1980 - Walter Gilbert, 1981 - Roald Hoffmann, 1982 - Aaron Klug, 1985 - Albert A. Hauptman, 1985 - Jerome Karle, 1986 - Dudley R. Herschbach, 1988 - Robert Huber, 1988 - Leon Lehman, 1988 - Melvin Schwartz, 1988 - Jack Steinberger, 1989 - Sidney Altman, 1990 - Jerome Friedman, 1992 - Rudolph Marcus, 1995 - Martin Perl, 2000 - Alan J. Heeger

Economics:1970 - Paul Anthony Samuelson, 1971 - Simon Kuznets, 1972 - Kenneth Joseph Arrow, 1975 - Leonid Kantorovich, 1976 - Milton Friedman, 1978 - Herbert A. Simon, 1980 - Lawrence Robert Klein, 1985 - Franco Modigliani, 1987 - Robert M. Solow, 1990 - Harry Markowitz, 1990 - Merton Miller, 1992 - Gary Becker, 1993 - Robert Fogel

Medicine:1908 - Elie Metchnikoff, 1908 - Paul Erlich, 1914 - Robert Barany, 1922 - Otto Meyerhof, 1930 - Karl Landsteiner, 1931 - Otto Warburg, 1936 - Otto Loewi, 1944 - Joseph Erlanger, 1944 - Herbert Spencer Gasser, 1945 - Ernst Boris Chain, 1946 - Hermann Joseph Muller, 1950 - Tadeus Reichstein, 1952 - Selman Abraham Waksman, 1953 - Hans Krebs, 1953 - Fritz Albert Lipmann, 1958 - Joshua Lederberg, 1959 - Arthur Kornberg, 1964 - Konrad Bloch, 1965 - Francois Jacob, 1965 - Andre Lwoff, 1967 - George Wald, 1968 - Marshall W. Nirenberg, 1969 - Salvador Luria, 1970 - Julius Axelrod, 1970 - Sir Bernard Katz, 1972 - Gerald Maurice Edelman, 1975 - Howard Martin Temin, 1976 - Baruch S. Blumberg, 1977 - Roselyn Sussman Yalow, 1978 - Daniel Nathans, 1980 - Baruj Benacerraf, 1984 - Cesar Milstein, 1985 - Michael Stuart Brown, 1985 - Joseph L. Goldstein, 1986 - Stanley Cohen [& Rita Levi-Montalcini], 1988 - Gertrude Elion, 1989 - Harold Varmus, 1991 - Erwin Neher, 1991 - Bert Sakmann, 1993 - Richard J. Roberts, 1993 - Phillip Sharp, 1994 - Alfred Gilman, 1995 - Edward B. Lewis, 1996 - Lu Rose Iacovino

TOTAL: 129!

The author goes on to note that,

The Jews are NOT promoting brainwashing children in military training camps, teaching them how to blow themselves up and cause maximum deaths of Jews and other non-Muslims.

The Jews don't hijack planes, nor kill athletes at the Olympics, nor blow themselves up in German restaurants.

There is not one single Jew who has destroyed a church.

There is not a single Jew who protests by killing people. The Jews don't traffic slaves, nor do they have leaders calling for Jihad and death to all the Infidels.

Perhaps the world's Muslims should consider investing more in standard education and less in blaming the Jews for all their problems.

Muslims must ask 'what can they do for humankind' before they demand that humankind respects them.

Whether one agrees with the foregoing or not one has to wonder if there's not a connection between the last few sentences and what preceded them.

Proper Disagreement

Reading about Wednesday night's GOP debates in which the candidates vied for the privilege of being the runner-up to Donald Trump for the Republican nomination, I was disappointed in some of the exchanges that occurred between a couple of the candidates.

I understand that political campaigns are often ugly, disputatious, ornery and gratuitously insulting, but they shouldn't be.

As we enter this period in our nation's political life it would be good for those of us who engage in the to and fro of political discussion with friends, family and acquaintances to keep in mind that there are more important things than proving ourselves right on this or that issue.

It would be good in the months ahead to keep in mind that those who disagree with us will not be won over to our way of seeing things if our demeanor is arrogant, scowling and angry. They certainly won't find our opinions compelling if we resort to insulting them or their ideas.

The most effective way to disagree in any discussion is with a humble attitude, acknowledging to ourselves and to the other person that we could be wrong about whatever it is we are debating. A winsome approach, seasoned with humility and humor, is likely to be far more persuasive than pummelling one's interlocutor with rhetorical body blows.

In almost every instance, it'll be more important that we respect the individuals we're engaged in conversation with than that we win an argument with them. After all, as an old aphorism has it, "A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still."

If the other person gets angry and insulting then it's better that we change the subject to something less contentious. What good can come of continuing it under those circumstances anyway?

If we can respect and love those with whom we disagree, if we can say, "I don't think you're correct, but you're more important to me than my being right," I think we'll be much more attractive to those who differ with us and much more effective in presenting our views and gaining them a hearing.

Political differences, as well as religious and philosophical differences, are important, in many cases extremely so, but they're not the most important thing. The most important thing is that we treat each other with dignity, respect and kindness.

Our politicians probably won't treat each other that way, but we should.

Most of the Money Stays Here

There are a lot of people who are upset about all the aid we're giving to Ukraine, especially in as much as the war effort against the Russians seems to have stalled. Even so, Marc Thiessen, writing in the Washington Post, takes a contrarian view, arguing that,in fact, most of the money we're spending on Ukraine stays in this country and is going into the pockets of American workers.

He writes:

Funds that lawmakers approve to arm Ukraine are not going directly to Ukraine but are being used stateside to build new weapons or to replace weapons sent to Kyiv from U.S. stockpiles. Of the $68 billion in military and related assistance Congress has approved since Russia invaded Ukraine, almost 90 percent is going to Americans, one analysis found.

But you wouldn’t know that from the actions of some U.S. lawmakers...It’s not just them. In all, 31 senators and House members whose states or districts benefit from funding for Ukraine have voted to oppose or restrict that aid.

At a time when both major parties are competing to win working-class votes and strengthen the U.S. manufacturing base, our military aid to Ukraine does exactly that — it is providing a major cash infusion into factories across the country that directly benefits American workers. It is also creating jobs and opportunities for local suppliers, shops, restaurants and other businesses that support the factories rolling out weapons.

We have identified 117 production lines in at least 31 states and 71 cities where American workers are producing major weapons systems for Ukraine. For example, aid that Congress has already approved is going to, among many other places....

Many other weapons systems are being built for Ukraine in factories around our country. Nor does this list count the suppliers that provide these contractors with parts, such as plastic and computer chips, or produce smaller items for Ukraine, such as cold-weather and night-vision gear, medical supplies, spare parts and millions of rounds of small-arms ammunition. As one Ukrainian official told me, “Every single state in the U.S. contributes to this effort.”

Even more importantly, perhaps, all this money being spent on weapons is reinvigorating an American defense industrial base that had become dangerously moribund:

[Senator J.D. Vance] said in October that “the condition of the American defense industrial base is a national scandal. Repairing it is among our most urgent priorities.” Well, our aid to Ukraine is doing exactly that.

For example, the United States had not built a single new Stinger antiaircraft missile since 2005. The terrorists we were fighting in recent decades did not have jet fighters, so production faltered. Now, thanks to the Ukraine aid...the Pentagon signed a $624.6 million contract last year to build Stinger missiles in Tucson, to replace about 1,400 sent to Ukraine.

Without our Ukraine resupply effort, the Stinger production line likely would have remained dormant — perhaps until bombs started dropping in a conflict over Taiwan.

Or take the $600 million being used to build two weapons systems for Ukraine in St. Charles, Mo. One is the Joint Direct Attack Munition-Extended Range (JDAM ER), an air-launched GPS-guided weapon that converts dumb bombs into precision-guided glide bombs with a range of up to 45 miles (triple the range of the original weapon).

The other is the Ground Launched Small Diameter Bomb (GLSDB), a weapon system newly developed for Ukraine that can be launched from High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) and can travel 93 miles, almost double the range of current ground-launched precision munition systems.

If we were not aiding Ukraine, the United States would not be producing either of these weapons. The funding Congress has provided to manufacture both systems injects many millions of dollars into Missouri’s economy and is busying production lines for these advanced capabilities.

Those systems will now be available for the United States and Taiwan should a conflict erupt with China, as well as available for Israel.

There's much more to Thiessen's column at the link. He closes with this observation:

It is in the United States’ vital interests to arm Ukraine in its fight to defeat Russian aggression. Our support for Ukraine is decimating the Russian military threat to NATO, restoring deterrence with China, dissuading other nuclear powers from launching wars of aggression and improving American military preparedness for other adversaries. The “America First” case for helping Ukraine is clear.

But if those arguments are not persuasive, then this should be: Our military aid to Ukraine is revitalizing manufacturing communities across the United States, creating good jobs here at home and restoring the United States’ capacity to produce weapons for our national defense. Helping Ukraine is the right thing to do for U.S. national security. It is also the right thing to do for American workers.

Anti-Zionism Is Anti-Semitism

The recent protests against Israel in general and specific Jews in particular raises once again the question of the distinction between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism.

One often hears that one can be a critic of Israel without being anti-Semitic. That's true. One also hears that one can be anti-Zionist without being anti-Semitic. That's not true.

Dennis Prager gives us a very helpful explanation of the nature of anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism at PJ Media and why the latter really amounts to the former.

His essay opens with a thought experiment:

Imagine a group of people who work to destroy Italy because, they claim, Italy's origins are illegitimate. Imagine further that these people maintain that of all the countries in the world, only Italy is illegitimate. And then imagine that these people vigorously deny they are in any way anti-Italian. Would you believe them? Or would you dismiss their argument as not only dishonest but absurd?

Substitute "Israel" for "Italy" and "Jew" for "Italian" and you'll understand the dishonesty and absurdity of the argument that one can be anti-Zionist but not anti-Semitic.

But that is precisely what anti-Zionists say. They argue that the very existence of a Jewish state in the geographic area known as Palestine -- there was never an independent country known as Palestine -- is illegitimate. They do not believe any other country in the world is illegitimate, no matter how bloody its origins. And then they get offended when they're accused of being anti-Semitic.

Prager then goes on to respond to five arguments commonly employed by anti-Semites, like those student protestors and others, who wish to mask their anti-Semitism under the guise of anti-Zionism. Here they are:

Zionism is the movement for the return of Jews to their ancient homeland, Israel. Over the past 3,000 years, there were two independent Jewish states located in what is called Israel. Both were destroyed by invaders, and no Arab or Muslim or any other independent country ever existed in that land, which was only named Palestine by the Romans in an attempt to remove all memory of the Jewish state they destroyed in the year A.D. 70.

Second, anti-Zionists claim they can’t be anti-Jewish because Zionism has nothing to do with Judaism. That, too, is equally false. It is the same as saying that Italy has nothing to do with being Italian. Judaism has always consisted of three components: God, Torah and Israel. If Israel isn’t part of Judaism, neither is the Bible or God.

Third, anti-Zionists claim that Judaism is only a religion; therefore, Jews are only members of a religion, not a nation. But the Jews are called the “nation of Israel” repeatedly in the Bible. That is why there are irreligious, secular and even atheist Jews — because Jews are not only a religion. There are no atheist Christians because Christianity is only a religion.

Fourth, the anti-Zionists claim that Israel is illegitimate because it is racist. This is the charge Israel- and America-haters make against two of the least racist societies in the world. In the case of Israel, it is fraudulent because:

a) Half of Israel’s Jews are not white.
b) Anyone, of any race or ethnicity, can become a Jew.
c) One out of every 5 Israelis is not a Jew. And these Israeli citizens — mostly Arab Muslims — have the same rights as Jewish Israelis.
d) Israel’s control of the West Bank has nothing to do with “race.” Israel does not control the West Bank because Palestinians are of another race but because Palestinians tried to destroy Israel in 1967, and they lost the war. The only reason Palestinians do not have their own state has nothing to do with race: They rejected offers to found their own state on five separate occasions since 1948. They have always rejected building a Palestinian state because they have always been more interested in destroying Israel.

Fifth, the anti-Zionists claim that Israel’s origins are illegitimate.

The fact that, of all the world’s 200-plus countries, the only country anti-Zionists declare illegitimate is also the only Jewish country is pretty much all you need to know about their motives. Why, for example, don’t they make this claim about Pakistan? In 1947, nine months before the establishment of Israel, India was partitioned into a Muslim state — Pakistan — and a Hindu state — India.

Read the rest at the link. Prager's arguments are based on facts and reason, but sadly, for most people on the left facts and reason don't matter. After all, if facts mattered to them they wouldn't be leftists.

One more thought: Many leftist/progressives support the BDS movement (Boycott, Divest, Sanction) directed against Israel. The tacit purpose of the BDS effort is to so weaken Israel economically that it can no longer resist those who would destroy it. That goal is both anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic.

The kind of hatred that drives the BDS movement should have no home in any country but especially not a country like the United States of America.

Brilliant Feats of Micro-Engineering

I show this video to some of my classes because it's so well done. Drew Berry is an animator who creates computer generated animations of cellular processes. The processes he depicts here are occurring all the time in each of the trillions of cells in your body. As you watch it keep in mind a few questions:

1. The proteins which work with the DNA to produce other proteins were themselves produced by DNA. So which came first? How did the DNA produce the helper proteins before the helper proteins existed to guide the process?

2. How did unguided processes like mutation and genetic drift produce such coordinated choreography? How did blind, unguided processes produce the information which tells the proteins where to go and how to function?

3. How does this information get processed by mindless lumps of chemicals and how is it passed on from generation to generation?

And notice how the motor proteins are structured in such a way that enables them to "walk" along microtubules carrying various items to locations where they're needed. How do these motor proteins "know" how to do this, and how did they evolve in the first place?

Perhaps we'll eventually discover naturalistic, materialistic answers to these questions, but it seems that the more progress we make in biology the more implausible naturalistic explanations sound to all but the irrevocably committed and the more it looks like the living cell has been intelligently engineered by a mind.

If you don't have time to watch the whole video start at the 2:54 mark:

Two Amazing Animals

It's been said that the fact that someone cannot imagine how nature can accomplish some amazing feat or other is not a reason to think that nature cannot do it. Those who doubt the theory of Darwinian evolution, for example, on the grounds that the anatomy, physiology and behaviors of living things are so intricate and complex that its unimaginable that they evolved by unguided chance processes are often derided for employing what's called an argument from incredulity.

The argument from incredulity occurs when someone disbelieves something because it's just so hard for them to believe.

Of course, it's not just Darwin skeptics who employ this argument. Materialists also do it when they argue that because we can't imagine how minds and brains can interact with each other that therefore belief that we have an immaterial mind is unwarranted. Or when their inability to imagine why a good God would allow suffering is given as a justification for their belief that a good God doesn't exist.

Or when they doubt that we have free will because they can't imagine how free choices could exist in a world governed down to the tiniest particle by the inexorable laws of physics. Or when they scoff at the possibility of miracles for the same reason.

In fact, materialistic naturalists (atheists) are probably the most frequent invokers of incredulity as a legitimate epistemic criterion among those who think about topics like those just mentioned, and indeed there's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with doubting some claim because its implausibility intuitively renders it deeply suspect. We do it all the time.

For that reason, it seems to me completely appropriate when watching the following short video to be deeply skeptical that the Darwinian explanation of how these creatures came to possess the food gathering mechanisms they do is correct. One attempt at a Darwinian explanation, in which this video was featured, is discussed here.

Notwithstanding materialists' attempts to wave the magic wand of natural selection and throw the pixie dust of Science! in our eyes it seems completely appropriate and rational, unless presented with compelling evidence to the contrary, to believe that the likelihood that a mindless, unguided process created and synchronized all the adaptations these animals exhibit, from the molecular level on up, is much lower than the likelihood that these marvels are the result of intelligent engineering and foresight.

But watch the video and come to your own conclusion:

How the Left Actually Supports Bombing Civilians

A lot of people are outraged that the Israeli military operation in Gaza has reportedly killed thousands of civilians. Many on the left are using these civilian casualties as grounds for their demands for a permanent cease-fire in Gaza, but there's an irony in this that I'll get to in a moment.

First, it should be agreed that Hamas, by virtue of their mass slaughter of over 1200 Israeli civilians and the kidnapping of hundreds more, has made themselves a legitimate target. Moreover, anyone who supports Hamas is morally complicit in their crimes and most of the Palestinian people and many leftists in the U.S. are supportive of Hamas.

That support makes them an enemy of Israel, just as any supporters of the German Holocaust or the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor would've been seen as morally complicit in these crimes had those supporters marched in our streets in 1943.

Many Palestinians in Gaza voted for Hamas and joined the terrorists on Oct. 7th. in committing atrocities. They cheered the slaughter, spit on kidnap victims, held Israeli victims captive in their homes, returned an escapee to Hamas, and they jeered and deliberately frightened kidnapped children who were being released.

Even the leftist protestors in the U.S. who claim to distinguish between the average Palestinian and Hamas unintentionally blur the distinction in practice.

When they chant "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free" they're calling for the eradication of Israel. When they wear the keffiyeh they're identifying with the terrorists who raped, tortured and murdered children and their parents on Oct. 7th.

And the irony I mentioned above is this: When they go on social media and declare their sympathy for Osama bin Laden and his view of the collective guilt of the American people, they're tacitly endorsing the concept that a people bear collective responsibility for the actions of their government.

If that's so, however, if many on the left really do endorse the concept of collective guilt, then how do they avoid the conclusion that the Palestinian people must bear the brunt of the consequences of the actions of those who govern them, i.e. Hamas?

Israel has traditionally done everything that could be reasonably expected of a nation fighting to survive to minimize civilian casualties, but when the enemy insists on using their own people as human shields, when many of those people support Hamas's the stated goal of annihilating Israel and Israelis, then their suffering, as tragic as it may be, is on their own heads and those of their leadership.

What Is a Soul?

Usually when people talk about the soul and life beyond the death of the physical body they draw looks of incredulity and even scorn from fashionably skeptical materialists, but when a scientist as prominent as physicist Roger Penrose talks about it, well, then the skeptics should at least listen.

Penrose's theory is that the soul consists of information stored at the sub-atomic level in microtubules in the body's cells. At death this information somehow escapes the confines of the microtubules and drifts off into the universe. He claims to have evidence to support this hypothesis, and perhaps he does.

I haven't seen the evidence, but I'd like to know how the information "knows" that the body has died and what mechanism controls it. I'd also like to know what the information is about, how it functions without a physical body, and what disembodied information leaking out into the universe "looks" like.

Anyway, I'm not altogether skeptical of Penrose's theory. I've long advocated the view that, if we do have a soul (as a substance that's neither physical nor mental - neither body nor mind), that it consists of information. In this I'm in agreement with Penrose.

Where I differ from him is that in my view the soul is the totality of true propositions about a person - an exhaustive description of the person at every moment of his or her existence. It's the essence of the person. But whereas Penrose locates the information in cellular microtubules I posit that the information is located in a vast database, i.e. the mind of God. In God's mind there is, so to speak, a "file" containing a complete description of every person who has ever lived.

Since the information is located in the mind of God it's indestructible - immortal - unless God chooses to destroy it. Each of us is therefore potentially eternal.

To take this line of thinking one more step, perhaps when our physical bodies die our "file" is "downloaded," in whole or in part, into another body situated in a different world, or at least in a different set of dimensions than what we experience in this world, somewhat like the characters in Star Trek were teleported from the starship to the surface of a planet. It would be a different kind of body, perhaps, but a body all the same.

On this view, the soul is not something wraith-like that's contained in us, but rather it's "in" God. As with a computer file, God could choose to delete it altogether or to express it in any "format" he sees fit.

In any case, if this hypothesis is at all close to describing the way things are, then we are souls and we have bodies. Moreover, the death of our bodies is not the death of us, and, if physical death is not the end of our existence, we're each confronted with some pretty serious philosophical and theological questions.

Theism, Naturalism and Universals

Neurosurgeon Michael Egnor, borrowing from a book by philosopher Ed Feser, argues that the reality of universals poses a serious problem for metaphysical materialism. A universal is an abstract idea, a pattern that particular objects share in common.

For example, there are probably thousands of different species of trees, but there's something about each particular tree, something we can call "treeness," that all of them share in common and by which we distinguish a tree from, say, a bush. "Treeness" is the universal manifested by particular trees.

Egnor writes that universals - abstract thoughts like treeness, or redness or circularity - are not material yet they exist, but according to materialism everything which exists, including "minds," must be material or at least completely reducible to material stuff. The materialist holds, therefore, that abstract ideas must be the product of a material brain.

Egnor argues that triangularity, the quality of having three straight sides and three angles, would exist even if there were no triangular objects and would exist even if there were no material brains to conceive it.

Here's the nut of his argument:

There are four general ways that philosophers have tried to explain universals, and they may be termed Platonism, Aristotelianism, Conceptualism, and Scholasticism. Platonism, Aristotelianism, and Scholasticism assert that universals are real, in one sense or another.

Conceptualism asserts that universals exist only as constructs of the mind, and have no existence outside of the mind. Platonism, Aristotelianism, and Scholasticism are realist/dualist views of nature, and are consistent with a dualist view of the mind. Conceptualism, while not requiring a materialist perspective, is consistent with materialism and is the understanding of universals generally (and necessarily) taken by materialists.

Platonism, following Plato but developed in greater depth by the Platonists of the early first millennium AD, is the view that universals exist in a pure realm of Forms, and that we intuit copies of these Forms in the natural world. Platonic realism has a number of well-known problems (including problems of infinite regress: is the theory of Forms a Form? is the theory that Forms are a Form, a Form?).

Aristotelianism is the view that universals exist in particular objects, not in a separate realm, and are abstracted from the particular object by the active intellect when the universal is contemplated.

Scholasticism is in some sense a synthesis of the Platonic and Aristotelian views: it is the view that universals exist first in the Mind of God, and are instantiated in particular created objects and are abstracted by the mind by the active intellect.

Conceptualism is the denial that universals have any real existence apart from concepts in the mind. It is derived from Ockham’s theory of Nominalism, which is the assertion that universals are merely names we give to categories of particular objects, but that universals themselves have no real existence at all.

It seems fairly clear that realism (whether Platonic, Aristotelian, or Scholastic) is true and that Conceptualism/Nominalism is false. A number of arguments demonstrate this. It seems, for example, that “triangularity” doesn’t exist wholly in any particular object. Nothing in the real world is “triangularity,” in the sense that nothing has three closed perfectly straight sides with internal angles summing exactly to 180 degrees.

All real triangles are imperfect instantiations of triangularity, yet triangularity is something real in a meaningful sense. We are talking about it, and if we and all triangular objects ceased to exist, triangularity — closed three straight-sidedness with 180 degrees interior angles — would still be a thing.

Triangularity is more than merely conceptual; it's real in a meaningful sense, independent of the mind, and it is not perfectly instantiated in any particular object.

Realism is the only coherent view of universals. Universals are real, and not merely mental constructs.

Very well. I'm inclined to agree that universals are real and independent of matter, but I wonder whether it's as easy to demonstrate this as Egnor's argument makes it out to be.

For instance, if universals are independent of matter would universals still exist if there were no universe, i.e. if there were nothing at all. How could anything, even immaterial concepts, exist if nothing existed? In other words, it seems to me that the only way universals could exist apart from a universe containing both matter and human brains would be if they existed in the mind of God.

If so, the realist must presuppose that God exists in order to make the case that universals are independent of matter.

In other words, it seems to be the case that universals exist, but whether they're ontologically distinct from matter and would or could exist if no physical, material stuff existed is not so clear, at least not to me.

If God exists then universals could certainly exist in God's mind. If God doesn't exist then universals would seem to be somehow ontologically dependent upon particular material objects and physical brains, and materialism would thus be correct.

Therefore, the debate between materialism (matter is the only substance) and dualism (mind and matter are two disparate substances), like many philosophical debates, is ultimately a debate between naturalism and theism.

Egnor adds this:

So how is it that the reality of universals demonstrates the immateriality of the human intellect? Since universals cannot exist wholly in particular things, universals as objects of thought can’t exist wholly in brain matter. A “concept of a universal” — a concept of redness or triangularity or whatever — must be an immaterial concept, because a universal cannot be a particular thing.

Particular things can be instances of a universal, but the universal itself, and any concept of it, is immaterial. Abstract thought, such as thought of universals, is inherently immaterial. Materialism fails to account for concepts that abstract from particular things.

If one accepts this argument the conclusion that the human intellect or mind is immaterial pushes one in the direction of theism. If, however, one rejects theism a priori then materialist conceptualism seems to be the most plausible option left.

Why, though, would anyone reject theism a priori?

A Philosopher Considers Cosmic Fine-Tuning

The physicist Bernard Carr once declared that "if you don't want God you better have a multiverse." What he meant is that the fine-tuning of the force strengths and constants that comprise the fabric of our universe have to be calibrated with an astonishing precision or else life could not exist.

That dozens of these values should be so exquisitely fine-tuned as to permit life is such an astronomically improbable state of affairs if our universe is the only one that exists that the only way to avoid the conclusion that it was intentionally designed to be this way is to accept the idea that there are an incomprehensibly vast number of other universes beyond our own that are all different.

If that's so, then the existence of one as fine-tuned for life as is ours becomes almost inevitable, just as the odds of getting a royal flush if one is dealt enough hands of cards becomes inevitable.

Yet the multiverse hypothesis seems to be foundering, and Phillip Goff, a philosopher at Durham University, explains why in a recent article at The Conversation. Goff writes:

One of the most startling scientific discoveries of recent decades is that physics appears to be fine-tuned for life. This means that for life to be possible, certain numbers in physics had to fall within a certain, very narrow range.

One of the examples of fine-tuning which has most baffled physicists is the strength of dark energy, the force that powers the accelerating expansion of the universe. If that force had been just a little stronger, matter couldn’t clump together. No two particles would have ever combined, meaning no stars, planets, or any kind of structural complexity, and therefore no life.

If that force had been significantly weaker, it would not have counteracted gravity. This means the universe would have collapsed back on itself within the first split-second – again meaning no stars or planets or life. To allow for the possibility of life, the strength of dark energy had to be, like Goldilocks’s porridge, “just right”.

This is just one example, and there are many others.

The strength of dark energy is said to be fine-tuned to within one part in 10^123. For a point of comparison there are "only" 10^80 atoms in the entire known universe. Goff continues:

The most popular explanation for the fine-tuning of physics is that we live in one universe among a multiverse. If enough people buy lottery tickets, it becomes probable that somebody is going to have the right numbers to win. Likewise, if there are enough universes, with different numbers in their physics, it becomes likely that some universe is going to have the right numbers for life.

Goff, though formerly a believer in the multiverse, has been persuaded that the multiverse hypothesis is based on a fallacy:

Suppose Betty is the only person playing in her local bingo hall one night, and in an incredible run of luck, all of her numbers come up in the first minute.

Betty thinks to herself: “Wow, there must be lots of people playing bingo in other bingo halls tonight!” Her reasoning is: if there are lots of people playing throughout the country, then it’s not so improbable that somebody would get all their numbers called out in the first minute.

But this is an instance of the inverse gambler’s fallacy. No matter how many people are or are not playing in other bingo halls throughout the land, probability theory says it is no more likely that Betty herself would have such a run of luck.

It’s like playing dice. If we get several sixes in a row, we wrongly assume that we are less likely to get sixes in the next few throws. And if we don’t get any sixes for a while, we wrongly assume that there must have been loads of sixes in the past.

But in reality, each throw has an exact and equal probability of one in six of getting a specific number.

Multiverse theorists commit the same fallacy. They think: “Wow, how improbable that our universe has the right numbers for life; there must be many other universes out there with the wrong numbers!” But this is just like Betty thinking she can explain her run of luck in terms of other people playing bingo.

When this particular universe was created, as in a die throw, it still had a specific, low chance of getting the right numbers.

Betty would be wrong to infer that many people are playing bingo. Likewise, multiverse theorists are wrong to infer from fine-tuning to many universes.

Goff then looks at the question whether there is scientific evidence for a multiverse and also examines a hypothesis called the "anthropic principle" which is another attempt to avoid the conclusion that fine-tuning points to an intelligent creator. You can read about that peculiar argument and also why there's only very tenuous scientific evidence for a multiverse at the link.

So, does Goff accept Bernard Carr's other option, that the universe we live in was created by God. Well, no. Instead he embraces the pantheistic idea that the cosmos is itself the intelligent, purposeful agent of its own creation:

[We] face a choice. Either it’s an incredible fluke that our universe happened to have the right numbers. Or the numbers are as they are because nature is somehow driven or directed to develop complexity and life by some invisible, inbuilt principle.

In my opinion, the first option is too improbable to take seriously. My book presents a theory of the second option – cosmic purpose – and discusses its implications for human meaning and purpose.

Evidently, any theory, no matter how bizarre or lacking in evidential support, is preferable to having to accept that the universe is the creation of an intelligent, personal and transcendent God. Why?

A Question Concerning Pro-Palestinian Demonstrators

Given that the official, elected government of the Palestinians in Gaza is Hamas, and given that it is Hamas's stated purpose to annihilate Jews and the nation of Israel, and given that the keffiyeh is worn as a symbol of solidarity with the Palestinians in Gaza, how is parading in keffiyehs in support of the Palestinians, and thus Hamas, any different than Klansmen parading in white hoods in support of racial purity?

Both are symbols of hatred, the keffiyeh for Jews, the hood for minorities of any kind. Yet, although our media would be outraged if the Klan displayed their hatred for minorities by demonstrating on university campuses and in our cities, flaunting their hoods and robes, they seem to applaud Palestinian sympathizers displaying their hatred for Jews and Israel by flaunting their keffiyehs as they demonstrate in these same venues.

Someone may respond that support for the Palestinian people is not the same as support for Hamas, but that won't work. The Palestinian people have repeatedly elected Hamas to represent them and many of them cheered Hamas's barbaric butchery on October 7th. Indeed, many Palestinian citizens of Gaza participated in the slaughter, gleefully recording their atrocities on their cell phones, and even caught an escaped kidnap victim and returned him to Hamas.

Anyone who sports the keffiyeh today is choosing to identify with the perpetration of that horror. They're on the same moral plane, or lower, actually, as those who prance about in white robes and hoods applauding the lynchings of blacks and other minorities, and they're both a national disgrace.

The Limits of Free Speech

Steven Hayward at PowerLineblog argues that free speech is not an absolute right. The founding fathers never intended that speech that aims to destroy the nation should be granted the freedom to promote that cause.

Hayward writes that:

....it is perfectly reasonable to shut down Students for Justice in Palestine chapters on college campuses purely on the grounds that they abuse the principle of free speech because their success as a movement would end the right of free speech for Jews (not to mention end the lives of Jews). Any SJP support for Hamas is a secondary question.

... the principle is seldom better expressed than by David Lowenthal in his 1998 book No Liberty for License: The Forgotten Logic of the First Amendment:

Citizens may ... find themselves asking whether our founding fathers, known for their prescience and realism, meant the First Amendment to protect those who would use freedom for the destruction of freedom. Was this keystone of the Bill of Rights really intended to guarantee the freedom of expression and organization to the enemies of freedom? . . .

Some will protest that the First Amendment guarantees freedom even to those who would destroy freedom, that it guarantees freedom to those who would counsel, urge, or even incite to the violation of the law. Such cannot be the case if the First Amendment is intended, above all, as an instrument of republican government, a way of ensuring that the national government is responsive to citizens, so that their rights may be kept secure.

Only if it can be shown that a [violent organization] contributes to republican ends can a case be made through the First Amendment for permitting it legal status. Otherwise, such groups are all legally and prudently shorn of this status from the outset, and not only without violating any part of the Constitution, but in keeping with its positive injunctions.

Does the First Amendment guarantee a right to promote the death and destruction of others? Does it guarantee the right to express public hatred for a particular group?

Isn't it ironic that we make hateful thoughts an exacerbating circumstance when committing a crime, but public manifestations of hate are supposed to be acceptable?

If someone chose to burn the Quran would those demonstrating on behalf of Hamas see the act as a legitimate expression of free speech? Are not those who protest in favor of an organization like Hamas, whose sole purpose is the eradication of Israel and the Jews who live there, doing the same thing as one who burns a Quran? Why do such people have any more right to free speech than does someone who publicly advocates political assassination or public lynchings?

It's a bit perverse that free speech is granted to those who hate this country, who hate Jews and Christians, who even hate the idea of free speech itself. It's astonishing that we grant free speech to the haters who deny the same right, via "cancel culture", to those who love this country and wish to see its people thrive and prosper by returning to the principles that made the U.S. the greatest nation in human history.

Maybe it's time to rethink the meaning and limits of freedom of speech.

A Follow-up Christmas Suggestion

Yesterday I urged readers to consider my novel In the Absence of God (2012) as a Christmas gift for friends and family and mentioned in passing its companion novel Bridging the Abyss which came out three years later.

Bridging is, in part, the story of the search for a young girl who has disappeared off the streets of Baltimore, MD and is believed to have been abducted. Members of the girl's family as well as those involved in the search are forced to confront the tension between a secular view of life which offers no ground for thinking any act "evil" and the obvious evil of which some men are capable.

Here's an excerpt from the Prologue:

In 1948 philosopher W.T. Stace wrote an article for The Atlantic Monthly, a portion of which serves as an appropriate introduction to the story which follows in these pages. Stace wrote:

"The real turning point between the medieval age of faith and the modern age of unfaith came when scientists of the seventeenth century turned their backs upon what used to be called "final causes" …[belief in which] was not the invention of Christianity [but] was basic to the whole of Western civilization, whether in the ancient pagan world or in Christendom, from the time of Socrates to the rise of science in the seventeenth century ….

They did this on the [basis that] inquiry into purposes is useless for what science aims at: namely, the prediction and control of events.

"…The conception of purpose in the world was ignored and frowned upon. This, though silent and almost unnoticed, was the greatest revolution in human history, far outweighing in importance any of the political revolutions whose thunder has reverberated around the world….

"The world, according to this new picture, is purposeless, senseless, meaningless. Nature is nothing but matter in motion. The motions of matter are governed, not by any purpose, but by blind forces and laws….[But] if the scheme of things is purposeless and meaningless, then the life of man is purposeless and meaningless too. Everything is futile, all effort is in the end worthless.

A man may, of course, still pursue disconnected ends - money, fame, art, science - and may gain pleasure from them. But his life is hollow at the center.

"Hence, the dissatisfied, disillusioned, restless spirit of modern man….Along with the ruin of the religious vision there went the ruin of moral principles and indeed of all values….If our moral rules do not proceed from something outside us in the nature of the universe - whether we say it is God or simply the universe itself - then they must be our own inventions.

"Thus it came to be believed that moral rules must be merely an expression of our own likes and dislikes. But likes and dislikes are notoriously variable. What pleases one man, people, or culture, displeases another. Therefore, morals are wholly relative."

This book, like my earlier novel In the Absence of God, is a story of people living in the wake of the revolution of which Stace speaks. It's a portrait of a small slice of modern life, a glimpse of what it is like to live in a world in which men live consistently, albeit perhaps unwittingly, with the assumptions of modernity, chief among which is the assumption that God does not exist or is in any case no longer relevant to our lives.

A world that has marginalized the God of the Judeo-Christian tradition is a world which finds itself bereft of any non-arbitrary basis for forming moral judgments, for finding any ultimate meaning in the existence of the human species as a whole or the life of the individual in particular, and for hope that the human yearning for justice could ever be satisfied.

Modern man dispenses with God and believes that life can go on as before - or even better than before - but this is a conceit which the sanguinary history of the 19th and 20th century confutes. A world that has abandoned God has abandoned the fountain of goodness, beauty and truth as well as the only possible ground for human rights and belief in the dignity of the individual.

Modernity has in some ways of course been a blessing, but it has also been a curse. History will ultimately decide whether the blessings have outweighed the curse. Meanwhile, Bridging the Abyss offers an account of what I believe to be the only way out of the morass into which widespread acceptance of the assumptions of modernity has led us.

If you'd like to read more about either novel click on the link at the top of this page, and if you're looking for a gift for someone who likes to read and who thinks like W.T. Stace, both Absence and Bridging might be just the thing. I hope you'll give them a look.

They're available at Hearts and Minds Bookstore, a great little family-owned bookshop, and in both paperback and e-book at Amazon.

A Modest Christmas Gift Proposal

Is there someone on your Christmas shopping list you think might enjoy reading a novel which blends philosophy, religion, and a tense crime story all together on a college campus during football season? If so, you might consider giving them a copy of my book In the Absence of God.

I know the foregoing sounds like a shameless plug, but Absence encapsulates a recurring theme throughout our nineteen years here at Viewpoint. It's a fictionalized argument for the proposition that naturalism affords little or no basis for either moral obligation or ultimate meaning and renders a host of other human needs and yearnings absurd.

Naturalism, to put it succinctly, is an existential dead-end, for unless there is a God, or something very much like God, then life really is, as Shakespeare described it, a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

In the Absence of God is set on a mid-sized university campus in New England at the beginning of the fall semester sometime in the early years of the last decade.

The main plot line involves a professor named Joseph Weyland who's forced by the events swirling around him, as well as the challenge presented by a young nihilist in one of his classes, to come to grips with the implications of his materialistic worldview. As he wrestles with the issues his materialism raises he's engaged in an ongoing series of dialogues with a colleague and friend named Malcolm Peterson, and also with the pastor of his father's church, Loren Holt.

Meanwhile, the campus has been terrorized by an apparent serial rapist, and several young student-athletes find themselves thrust into the role of both victim and pursuer of the individual perpetrating these crimes.

Over the course of three weeks in late August and early September the lives of these students become intertwined with those of Weyland and Peterson in ways none of them could have foreseen when the semester opened.

In the Forward to the book I write this:

This is not a book about football, though it may at first seem to be. Neither is it a crime novel, though it ends that way. Nor is it just a book about people sitting around talking, although I'm sure some readers will think so.

In the Absence of God is a novel about ideas concerning the things that matter most in life. It's a tale of three different worldviews, three different ways of seeing the world and of living our lives in it. It's the story of how for a few short weeks in September these three views come into conflict on a college campus in New England and how that clash of ideas forces people on campus to think seriously about the implications of their deepest convictions.

It's often said that ideas have consequences, and nowhere is this more true than in one's personal philosophy of life - one's beliefs about God.

It's my hope that in reading this book you'll be stretched to think about things you perhaps hadn't thought about before, or that you'll at least think about your own beliefs in new and different ways. I hope that whatever your convictions about the matters taken up in this book may be, by the time you close its covers you'll agree that those convictions matter, and matter more profoundly than any other opinions you hold.

< /br> You can read more about In the Absence of God by following the link at the top of this page. It's available at my favorite bookstore, Hearts and Minds, and also at Amazon (paperback and kindle), where reviewers have given it 4.5 stars.

I hope you'll consider putting it and/or it's companion novel Bridging the Abyss (about which more tomorrow) on your Christmas shopping list.

The Pilgrims' Voyage

Every year since 1961 the Wall Street Journal has been running an account of the departure of the Pilgrims from Holland for the New World where they believed they could be free to worship without being threatened by an oppressive state church.

The recorder was a man named Nathaniel Morton, and he introduces his history with these words:

Here beginneth the chronicle of those memorable circumstances of the year 1620, as recorded by Nathaniel Morton, keeper of the records of Plymouth Colony, based on the account of William Bradford, sometime governor thereof:

What follows is Morton's recollection of the Pilgrims' departure:

So they left that goodly and pleasant city of Leyden, which had been their resting-place for above eleven years, but they knew that they were pilgrims and strangers here below, and looked not much on these things, but lifted up their eyes to Heaven, their dearest country, where God hath prepared for them a city (Heb. XI, 16), and therein quieted their spirits.

When they came to Delfs-Haven they found the ship and all things ready, and such of their friends as could not come with them followed after them, and sundry came from Amsterdam to see them shipt, and to take their leaves of them.

One night was spent with little sleep with the most, but with friendly entertainment and Christian discourse, and other real expressions of true Christian love.

The next day they went on board, and their friends with them, where truly doleful was the sight of that sad and mournful parting, to hear what sighs and sobs and prayers did sound amongst them; what tears did gush from every eye, and pithy speeches pierced each other’s heart, that sundry of the Dutch strangers that stood on the Key as spectators could not refrain from tears.

But the tide (which stays for no man) calling them away, that were thus loath to depart, their Reverend Pastor, falling down on his knees, and they all with him, with watery cheeks commended them with the most fervent prayers unto the Lord and His blessing; and then with mutual embraces and many tears they took their leaves one of another, which proved to be the last leave to many of them.

They originally departed in two ships but one leaked badly and they had to turn back to England.

The leaking ship was found to be unseaworthy so some of the pilgrims abandoned the idea of trekking the ocean and returned to Holland. The rest, plus some others who wanted to accompany the pilgrims, boarded the one remaining ship, the Mayflower, and finally set sail six weeks after leaving Leyden.

One hundred and two men, women and children plus 30 crew made the voyage. They originally intended to land in northern Virginia and make their way to the Hudson river valley, but landed first near Provincetown on Cape Cod and later moved inland to establish their colony.

Morton goes on to write about what the company found upon their arrival in the New World:

Being now passed the vast ocean, and a sea of troubles before them in expectations, they had now no friends to welcome them, no inns to entertain or refresh them, no houses, or much less towns, to repair unto to seek for succour; and for the season it was winter, and they that know the winters of the country know them to be sharp and violent, subject to cruel and fierce storms, dangerous to travel to known places, much more to search unknown coasts.

Besides, what could they see but a hideous and desolate wilderness, full of wilde beasts and wilde men? and what multitudes of them there were, they then knew not: for which way soever they turned their eyes (save upward to Heaven) they could have but little solace or content in respect of any outward object; for summer being ended, all things stand in appearance with a weatherbeaten face, and the whole country, full of woods and thickets, represented a wild and savage hew.

If they looked behind them, there was a mighty ocean which they had passed, and was now as a main bar or gulph to separate them from all the civil parts of the world.

These were doughty men and women. It's hard to imagine what must have gone through their minds when they faced the prospect of winter in a land where they had to start a civilization almost from scratch.

The hardships they endured seem almost unimaginable to those of us accustomed to the comforts of modern life, comforts which we take for granted and for which we should be thankful to God.

On Gratitude

The Thanksgiving holiday which Americans observe tomorrow is a beautiful celebration, not least because it reminds us of the importance of gratitude in our lives - gratitude to God, family, friends, neighbors, and country.

It's been said that gratitude is the most fragrant of the virtues and ingratitude one of the ugliest of character defects, and that certainly seems true. One of the most unpleasant aspects of critical theories and cancel culture is the complete lack of any trace of gratitude and grace.

Those who are grateful for what others have done for them have about them a sweetness and loveliness not exuded by any other personality trait, while those who take all their blessings for granted, or think of them as things to which they're entitled, or who are otherwise unappreciative for what others have done for them, project a self-centeredness or ignorance that's thoroughly unpleasant to be around.

Anyway, here are a few quotes for your contemplation that reinforce the significance of gratitude:

• “Entitlement is such a cancer because it is void of gratitude.” — Adam Smith
• “Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues but the parent of all others.” — Cicero
• "It's not happiness that brings us gratitude, it's gratitude that brings us happiness." - Anonymous
• “Showing gratitude is one of the simplest yet most powerful things humans can do for each other.” — Randy Rausch
• “Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it.” — William Arthur Ward
• “Gratitude is the sign of noble souls.” — Aesop
• “The more grateful I am, the more beauty I see.” — Mary Davis
• “When a person doesn't have gratitude, something is missing in his or her humanity.” — Elie Wiesel
• “Make it a habit to tell people thank you. To express your appreciation, sincerely and without the expectation of anything in return. Truly appreciate those around you, and you'll soon find many others around you. Truly appreciate life, and you'll find that you have more of it.” — Ralph Marston
• “In ordinary life, we hardly realize that we receive a great deal more than we give, and that it is only with gratitude that life becomes rich.” — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

I hope that for all our readers (including even those outside the U.S. who don't celebrate the holiday) tomorrow will be a day filled with gratitude, love and joy.

Just War Theory

Given events in Israel and the controversy over Israel's conduct of its war against Hamas I thought it it might be useful to rerun a post from about a year ago in which I wrote about the war in Ukraine in terms of what philosophers and theologians call Just War theory:

From the time of Augustine (c.400 A.D.) many Christian philosophers and theologians have thought about the question of the demands and restrictions the Judeo-Christian tradition imposes on the use of force.

One result of that thinking has been several somewhat different lists of criteria that must be satisfied in any situation in which force, particularly military force, is contemplated. This is called jus ad bellum (justice in going to war).

Most lists generally include the following criteria:

1. Just cause. Examples of a just cause for the use of force include: Defense against an unjust invader; Protection of family, home, or other innocent victims from direct harm; Recovery of goods unjustly taken; Protection of constitutional rights and liberties from government encroachment; Defense of allies who have been unjustly attacked, etc.

2. Just intent. The purpose of the war must be to establish peace or to protect the innocent. Hatred, economic gain, or the exercise of power are all illicit reasons for using force against another.

3. Legitimate authority. The war must be declared/waged by a legitimate government authority. A war declared by a terrorist organization like ISIS is by definition unjust.

4. Reasonable prospect of success. Deliberately protracted wars or wars initiated with no reasonable hope of success are unjust.

5. Last resort. When it's clear that no measure short of the application of force will avail, or that an attack upon one's nation is imminent, war is justified provided the other criteria are met. This requirement is problematic in that it's always possible to imagine yet another set of peace talks, etc. that could be embarked upon and which would delay war indefinitely.

Thus, governments have to exercise reasonable judgment in determining whether they have actually exhausted all practical options and have been left with no realistic alternative to war.

Just War theory also requires that wars not only be warranted by these stringent criteria (jus ad bellum) but that when fought they be conducted according to certain guidelines (jus in bello - justice in fighting war). The two chief criteria of jus in bello are:

1. Discrimination. Civilians should never be deliberately targeted. This follows from the Christian imperative to be compassionate and merciful. It entails that prisoners not be mistreated and that property and livelihoods not be unduly or unnecessarily damaged.

2. Proportionality. The means employed must be no more brutal or violent than what is necessary to secure victory. It would be unjust to slaughter defeated and retreating enemy soldiers if they no longer pose a threat. It would be a disproportionate response, and therefore unjust, to respond to a cross-border raid with nuclear weapons.

As is no doubt obvious, the heat and stress of actual war or incipient war may create a lot of gray areas for those seeking to hold to the criteria of Just War, and there's often much room for differences in interpretation. Nevertheless, those who wish to wage war justly will strive to hew as closely to these principles as the exigencies of war permit.

Even so, I think it's clear to anyone who's been following the war in Ukraine that Russia is waging an unjust war. They fail the jus ad bellum test, particularly criteria #1,2 and 5, and they also fail the first criterion of the jus in bello test. The response of the Ukrainians is compatible with criteria #1,2,3, and 5 of the jus ad bellum test and #1 of the jus in bello test.

None of the other criteria really apply to their struggle.

The Russians from Vladimir Putin on down to those infantry troops who are shooting, torturing and raping civilians are war criminals, and one hopes that the world will not forget their crimes and return to the status quo ante once this conflict is over.

Those responsible for the death, terror and destruction visited upon the Ukrainian people should remain international pariahs as long as they live and as long as history is written.

Regarding the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, it's clear that Hamas has violated most of the jus ad bello criteria and both of the jus ad bellum criteria. Whether Israel has also violated any of these may not be known for sure until after the war is over, if ever. Nevertheless, it's incumbent upon anyone who makes the claim that Israel is indeed waging an unjust war to give convincing evidence as to why this is so.

One final point. A number of philosophers have expressed serious doubt that the criteria of just war are applicable in modern conflicts in which combatants mix with civilians and use civilian homes, hospitals and schools to such an extent that it's very difficult to apply the jus in bello criteria. Even so, it's an ideal to which civilized nations must strive.

Gen Z and Our Expanding Moral Vacuum

What's going on with our young people?

For a month now we've watched as thousands of students and others in their age cohort have demonstrated all across the country in thinly veiled support of a terrorist organization that had just slaughtered 1200 people.

Following hard after is news that a host of social media "influencers" are actually commending and excusing Osama bin Laden, the man chiefly responsible for the deaths of 3000 Americans on 9/11.

National Review's Jim Geraghty elaborates:

TikTok users are approvingly quoting a 2002 letter from al-Qaeda terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden, and insisting that bin Laden makes a lot of legitimate points, is the sort of thing that makes you wish gullible young people would go back to eating Tide Pods.

You might have thought that the minds of America’s young people would not be so malleable that they could perceive one of the most notorious mass murderers of Americans in history as a justifiable critic of American policies, but here we are. For those of us of a certain age, this development is a difficult reminder that the unforgettable events of our younger years, the ones that shaped us and the world we live in, are just dry pages in a history book to the younger generation.

Is Generation Z so morally unmoored that they can't distinguish between good and evil? They talk of injustice but what is their concept of justice? What is justice grounded upon? Is justice simply a matter of their own personal feelings? Geraghty excerpts from an article in Newsweek:

A decades-old document allegedly written by Osama bin Laden and titled “Letter to America” recently went viral on TikTok, with some young Americans believing that the al-Qaeda founder made valid points about their own country.

The two-page document, which was published by The Guardian, is a letter Bin Laden wrote in 2002 as a polemic against the U.S. and an explanation of the ideology that led him to orchestrate the 9/11 attacks. . . .

“It’s wild and everyone should read it,” said one TikTok user, warning that the letter had left her “very disillusioned” and “confused.” Another user talked of having an “existential crisis” after reading the document and having her entire viewpoint on life changed by it. . . .

“The American people are the ones who pay the taxes which fund the planes that bomb us in Afghanistan, the tanks that strike and destroy our homes in Palestine, the armies which occupy our lands in the Arabian Gulf, and the fleets which ensure the blockade of Iraq,” bin Laden wrote. “This is why the American people cannot be innocent of all the crimes committed by the Americans and Jews against us.”

Slate has this:

In what may be the most stunning case of antisemitic distortion and disinformation in the last six weeks—a very high bar, given the slew of such cases since the terrorist assault on Israel—hundreds of TikTok videos have cropped up praising excerpts of a letter written by Osama bin Laden in 2002 that allegedly explains (and, to many social media readers, justifies) al-Qaida’s attack on Sept. 11, 2001, and by extension, Hamas’ attack on Oct. 7, 2023.

“If you haven’t, you have to go read Osama’s letter to America,” one user who posted it wrote. “Then you’ll see what this has to do with us. They have lied to us more than enough. Reading that was honestly life changing. My bond with this conflict”—presumably Hamas’ conflict against Israel—“is unshakable.”

Another user said, “So I just read ‘A Letter to America’ and I will never look at life the same. I will never look at this country the same.” The video lured 1.2 million views in less than 24 hours.

Does it occur to young people reading this that there might be very good reasons why our military has had to fight in these far off cesspools? Do they think that other young men and women actually want to have themselves burned and disfigured and killed fighting against people who glory in death and violence?

Have young people become so indoctrinated with critical theory that they now sympathize with mass murderers like Hamas and bin Laden? Have they swallowed the absurd claim of the critical theorists that anyone who is of darker complexion is oppressed and anyone who is paler is an oppressor and that whatever the oppressed do to the oppressor is ipso facto justified?

It seems that many of those marching in the streets and chanting for the annihilation of Israel are victims of a horrible moral inversion where evil is embraced as good and good is regarded as evil.

Why has this come about? Perhaps part of the reason is that too many young people know too little history. They don't know the history of the 1300 year war between Islam and the West nor do they know what has transpired over the last century in Palestine.

Add to that the fact that many of our young are growing up in a moral vacuum created by a secular, materialistic worldview that cuts out from under them any objective basis for moral judgment, a worldview in which right and wrong are simply whatever makes them feel good or bad, and you wind up with young adults on Tik Tok saying the sorts of things that we read in the above excerpts.

Comatose but Conscious

Anyone who has had a family member in a coma from a brain injury has probably wondered whether their loved one could hear them and wondered what it must be like for someone to be conscious but completely unable to express themselves. We've discussed this on VP on several occasions in the past but whenever I come across an article on the topic, I feel like I should mention it again.

In a partial transcript of a podcast interview with neuroscientist Michael Egnor, Egnor elaborates on the work of Adrian Owen who discovered about fifteen years ago that many comatose patients were capable of thinking and could hear what was being said to them.

Subsequent research has determined that in a significant number of cases, as high as 40%, comatose patients are indeed able to hear what is being said to them and, with modern MRI techniques, even able to respond.

Here's part of Egnor's discussion of Owen's work:

Owen took a woman who was in a persistent vegetative state—she’d been in a car accident and had severe brain damage, and she’d been in this state for several years—and he put her in an MRI machine and did what’s called a functional MRI test. A functional MRI test looks at changes in blood flow in the brain that we believe correspond to activation of parts of the brain. So you can kind of tell what’s going on inside the brain during the time they’re in the machine.

So he put her in the machine and he put headphones on her and he asked her to think about things. Now remember, she’s a woman who, supposedly, is in the deepest level of coma, just a hair above brain dead. And he said, “Imagine you’re walking across the room.” “Imagine you’re playing tennis.” “Think of things.” And he found activation in her brain.

So he then took fifteen normal volunteers, put them in the machine, and asked them the same questions. And her patterns of activation were identical to theirs. So he said, well, to a first approximation, it looks like she can think just like they can think.

But, he said, you know, maybe the activation that we are seeing in the brain isn’t because she understands. Maybe it’s just the brain’s reaction to sound. Maybe it doesn’t necessarily mean that you understand, maybe just the noise from the headphones is causing this activation. So he scrambled the words. Instead of saying, “Imagine walking across a room” he would say “across walking imagine room your”.

So it made no sense. And the activation went away in her brain and in the volunteers’.

So he showed that the only time she had activation in her brain was when what was asked of her made sense. And her activation was completely indistinguishable from the activation of completely conscious people. So he concluded that she was able to understand and think about things that he was asking her to understand and think about, even though she was in the deepest level of coma.

This alone is astonishing, but there's more:

His research has been repeated by a number of other laboratories on many, many patients with persistent vegetative state. And about forty percent of people in persistent vegetative state show high levels of intellectual functioning even in deep coma.

There are ways of conversing with people in deep coma where you can, for example, look at the activation state representing "Yes" and the activation state representing "No" and you can ask them questions. You know, “Are you lonely?” “Do you wish your mother were here?” “Would you like something to eat?”, stuff like that, and they can answer you, with these brain states.

In addition, some people can do mathematics in a coma. You can ask them “Is the square root of 25, 6?” and they do a "No." And “Is it 5?” and they do a "Yes." So there can be very high levels—not in all patients that we have found—but in many patients, forty percent, at least—of mental function in profoundly damaged brains. To the point where the medical profession has actually added a category to this list of ways you can be in a coma, and this is called minimally conscious state.

So patients who have evidence of intellectual functioning in deep coma are called “minimally conscious,” although, frankly, they’re not really minimally conscious, they’re quite conscious.

I've always wondered whether the comatose patient was in pain but unable to communicate their suffering to anyone. If so, it would be hellish. These sorts of developments give hope that medical professionals will be better able to care for and comfort those who appear to be unconscious but aren't.