History Repeats

Paul Nowack urges us to learn from the lessons of history:

The Mouse That's Roaring

Peter Hitchens in The Mail Online, a British newspaper blog, has an excellent piece on the Darwinism/ID controversy. He manages in a few paragraphs to capture perfectly the metaphysical nature of the dispute and the misrepresentations and obfuscations that Darwinists employ to try to mask the real nature of the controversy from the general public. Here are some excerpts:

The left-wing Guardian newspaper is in a state about what it calls "creationist teaching materials" being used in British schools. What is this row really about? What does "creationism" mean? Why does hardly anyone discuss it honestly?

For what I noticed (as I have also observed over the global warming controversy) is that the people on one side of this dispute tend to misrepresent the other side. Rational scientists who are doubtful about Darwinism are abused. And expressions such as 'Creationism' are used to suggest that a complex, nuanced position is in fact a crude Hillbilly superstition.

Now, there is no doubt that some of the people behind the campaign for 'Intelligent Design' are passionately religious. Well, so what? Religious belief is a legitimate position of choice, held to by many of the greatest minds who have ever lived (including many scientists) and in my view religion is the foundation of all morality, art, literature and culture. The Darwinist theory of evolution seems to me to knock religion on the head. If Darwin is right, the realm of nature was produced out of random, undirected chaos, in which case we have invented God, and there is no reason why any idea, action or work of art should be considered superior to any other. (Italics mine).

I am sure some supporters of ID do so for tactical reasons, and actually believe (but keep quiet about their belief) that the Genesis account of the creation of the world is literally true, and is an accurate and factual description of events - that the Earth was made in six days and is only a few thousand years old. This I, and many other Christians, do not agree with. I think the scientific evidence on the age of the planet simply contradicts this view.

But what's interesting is that many of the Genesis people, who control large funds, will not support the campaign for ID - because ID refuses to endorse the 'Young Earth' Bible literalist position. Now, when people turn down the possibility of generous cash aid, that seems to me to suggest that principle is involved.

The original opponents of Darwin tried to stick to the Biblical theory. But they were defeated not by Darwin but by the growing body of scientific proof that the Earth is far too old for the Bible account to be literally true. Many ID supporters concede all that. What they say is much more subtle.

They examine various organisms in the light of the latest science, and argue that it is highly improbable that such organisms could have evolved as Darwinists believe. This is the theory of 'irreducible complexity;' advanced by the microbiologist Michael Behe.

Behe cannot be certain that his chosen examples were not produced through natural selection, but he maintains that - for this to happen - an extraordinary number of changes would have needed to take place simultaneously. This is because of the interdependence of the parts of the organism, pointless on their own, all of which would have had to alter at once to have any evolutionary purpose.

Behe and his supporters are not trying to produce a mirror image of Darwinism, in which the hand of a Creator can be observed at work - as you might think from the rage and fury of the liberals who complain when schools propose to include 'ID' in their classes. All they are doing is casting doubt on the supposed certainties of Darwinism, and using advanced scientific knowledge to do so. If Darwinists are as secure in their beliefs as they claim to be, they should easily be able to see off the ID proponents, in school or out of it, without suppressing, abusing or misrepresenting anyone.

And surely the fact that some scientists question Darwin's theory is itself an interesting fact, which any inquisitive mind ought to be informed about. What good does it do to hide the existence of a scientific disagreement from the young?

Yet the evolutionists trumpet and bellow about this small, modest challenge, like an enormous elephant panicking over the presence of a mouse. I wonder why.

Hitchens is exactly right. IDers are not challenging science or the discoveries of science. Not a single empirical datum of science is called into question by Intelligent Design theorists. Rather, these philosophers and scientists are challenging the metaphysical naturalism of some scientists who fervently believe as an article of faith that there are no non-material, non-physical causes or agents responsible for our world. This belief is part of the creed of the naturalist, and, as such, it's a pillar of his materialist religion. It is, as Denyse O'Leary says, the creation story of materialism. It started out as a respectable theory of how species might change from one into another over time. Might be right, might be wrong. But it simply cannot bear the weight that is now placed on it, trying to make it the explanation as to why everything is the way it is.

This is why the Darwinists are so alarmed and outraged at the inroads being made by ID. It's not their science which is being threatened by ID, it's their religion, a religion in which they've invested their entire professional careers and reputations. Few men will suffer something so profoundly important to them to be discredited with equanimity.

Not a Saint, Just a Parent

Here's a beautiful love story, the kind of love story our culture has an increasingly difficult time comprehending. I hope everyone reads it.

Setting the Record Straight

Why the recent outpouring of anti-theistic zeal and hostility? Richard Shweder suggests an answer in the New York Times:

A deeper and far more unsettling answer ... is that the popularity of the current counterattack on religion cloaks a renewed and intense anxiety within secular society that it is not the story of religion but rather the story of the Enlightenment that may be more illusory than real.

The Enlightenment story has its own version of Genesis, and the themes are well known: The world woke up from the slumber of the "dark ages," finally got in touch with the truth and became good about 300 years ago in Northern and Western Europe.

As people opened their eyes, religion (equated with ignorance and superstition) gave way to science (equated with fact and reason). Parochialism and tribal allegiances gave way to ecumenism, cosmopolitanism and individualism. Top-down command systems gave way to the separation of church from state, of politics from science. The story provides a blueprint for how to remake and better the world in the image and interests of the West's secular elites.

Unfortunately, as a theory of history, that story has had a predictive utility of approximately zero. At the turn of the millennium it was pretty hard not to notice that the 20th century was probably the worst one yet, and that the big causes of all the death and destruction had rather little to do with religion. Much to everyone's surprise, that great dance on the Berlin Wall back in 1989 turned out not to be the apotheosis of the Enlightenment.

Indeed, critics are fond of pointing to the Catholic Church's Inquisition as the paradigm of religious evil. Throughout the 500 years of the Inquisition, however, something like 6000 people were murdered. That comes to about twelve people per year. By contrast 110,000,000 people were murdered by officially atheistic communist governments in the 87 years from 1900 to 1987. This does not count those killed in wars instigated by communists nor does it count those murdered by other state atheisms like Naziism. In other words, there's no comparison between the crimes of atheism and the crimes of Christians.

Why has atheism amassed such a horrific record? The English political philosopher John Locke, whose influence on the founding fathers was such that Jefferson incorporated whole sentences from his writings into the Declaration of Independence, offers an answer that has been stressed frequently on Viewpoint:

John Locke, who was almost everyone's favorite political philosopher at the time of the founding of our nation, was a very tolerant man. In his 1689 "Letter Concerning Toleration," he advocated a policy of live and let live for believers in many faiths, even heretics. But he drew the line at atheists. He wrote: "Lastly, those are not at all to be tolerated who deny the being of God. Promises, covenants and oaths, which are the bonds of human societies, can have no hold upon an atheist. The taking away of God, though but even in thought, dissolves all."

Atheists bristle at the suggestion that they cannot be trusted to keep promises, etc. but they shouldn't take umbrage. It's merely the logical consequence of their denial of a transcendent moral authority. There is no reason, given the truth of atheism, why anyone should keep a promise that becomes inconvenient and which can be discarded with impunity. Locke was correct. For the atheist integrity is nothing more than a subjective preference, if it is a preference at all, and as such it can be dispensed with whenever it suits one's self-interest.

As with promises, so with human lives. If it suits the state to murder its people then, unless there is a divine constraint, there is no constraint at all on those who have the power to realize their wish.

What They Can and Can't Do

Dick Morris explains at NewsMax (e-mailed report) why the Democrats' newly won majority in the House and the Senate will avail them nothing if they seek to pass left-wing legislation. Along the way he gives a quick lesson in how our national legislature works:

For all of the dire warnings and pre-election commotion about the impact of a Democratic majority in Congress, the fact is that - now that it is upon us - it can do little or nothing but harass the administration.

There is no real danger of any legislative action emerging from this Congress. Yes, the president has a veto the Democrats cannot override, but nothing will ever make it as far as the desk at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., are just spinning their wheels.

In the Senate, there is no such thing as a majority. Ever since the elder Bush's administration, the filibuster has become routine. No longer reserved for civil-rights issues or for egregious legislation, it now is used to counter even motions for recess and adjournment. Members of the Senate are no longer subjected to the indignity of standing on their feet and reading a telephone book. Rather, the gentlemen's filibuster applies.

The majority leader phones the minority leader and asks if a filibuster is in effect. With his feet up on his desk, the Republican replies that it is and the Democrat, despite his majority, does not even think about bringing up his bill for consideration unless he has a good shot at the 60 votes required to shut off debate. In the Senate, 51 votes determine who gets the corner office, but to pass legislation, one needs 60.

In the House of Representatives, with its 435 members, the Republican Party needed a simple majority - 218 - to rule. The Democrats need considerably more. The normal rules of a mathematical majority do not take into account the fractious nature of the Democratic Party.

Where the Republican majority best resembled the Prussian Army - disciplined, unified and determined - the Democratic majority in the upcoming Congress is disunited, dispersed and divided into myriad caucuses and special interest groups. One could purchase the Republican majority wholesale by making a deal with the speaker and the majority leader. But to get the Democratic majority in line, one has to buy it retail - caucus by caucus.

First, one has to go to check with the Black Caucus - hat in hand - to see if one's bill has enough liberal giveaways to round up its forty or so votes. Thence to the Hispanic Caucus for a similar screening. Then, with one's legislation weighted down with liberal provisions added by these two groups, one has to sell it to the Democratic Leadership Council moderates and, even worse, to the Blue Dog Democrats - the out and out conservatives.

If you are fortunate enough to pass these contradictory litmus tests, you then have to go to the environmentalists, the labor people, and even the gays to see that your bill passes muster. Only then can you begin to hope for House passage.

The result of this labyrinth is that the relatively moderate bill you first sought to pass ends up like a Christmas tree, laden with ornaments added to appease each of the caucuses. Unrecognizable in its final form, it heads to House passage.

This road map will be familiar to all veterans of the Clinton White House of 1993 and 1994. The most recent administration that had to deal with a Democratic House, the shopping from caucus to caucus and the festooning of moderate legislation with all manner of amendments will seem dej� vu to all of the early Clintonites. When Clinton proposed an anti-crime bill with a federal death penalty, he needed to add pork projects in the inner city like midnight basketball to get it past the Democrats in the House.

Nancy Pelosi will face the same obstacle. By the time her legislation emerges from the lower chamber, it will bear little resemblance to what she had in mind, liberal as that might have been. As Clinton said, after he watched the mangling of his legislative program by the various caucuses in the House, "I didn't even recognize myself."

Once the highly amended liberal legislation emerges from the House, it will make easy fodder for a Senate filibuster. So left leaning that it stands no chance of attracting 60 votes, it will be dead-on-arrival.

So forget the nightmares about an amended Patriot Act or restrictions on wiretapping for homeland security. Don't worry about House Ways and Means Chairman Charlie Rangel's, D-N.Y., ravings about the draft or the rumors of a tax increase. It's not going to happen.

What is the Democratic majority good for? One thing and one thing only - to give their party control of the committees and the subpoena power that goes with it. The two House Democratic majority can only make noise and make trouble. It can't pass legislation.

What Morris doesn't mention, however, is the power the Senate Democrats have to block judicial nominees. The now unlikely prospect that we will get another Supreme Court jurist of the caliber of Roberts, Alito, Scalia, or Thomas may well be the most unfortunate consequence of the recent elections.

RLC

Angier's God Problem

Natalie Angier, science writer for the New York Times, discusses her God Problem at The Edge. She's mystified, evidently, as to why so few people believe that evolution occurred. Maybe we at Viewpoint can be of service in explaining the mystery. Perhaps it has something to do with the Darwinian insistence that the amazing complexity of living things is a matter of pure accident. This just seems to many people to be too literally incredible for anyone who's not already committed to atheism to accept.

She also seems puzzled as to why many astronomers are open to the possibility of that an intelligent Creator is responsible for the cosmos, but not so much open to the possibility that astrology is true. Perhaps, again, it's because the fine-tuning of the features of the universe astronomers study is so breathtakingly improbable, so unexpectedly exquisite, that the heavens fairly scream that they were intentionally designed. Whereas astrology is obviously just pure guesswork.

She wonders, too, why scientists don't speak out more against belief in God. Perhaps it's because they realize that as scientists their opinions on whether God exists are no more authoritative than anyone else's. Scientists trading on their authority as scientists in order to make metaphysical pronouncements are like, say, Judge John Jones of the famous Dover Intelligent Design trial, speaking authoritatively on matters pertaining to the philosophy of science. In brief, many scientists recognize that to speak publicly and dogmatically on the existence of God would be hubristic, pompous, and absurd, but Ms Angier would apparently like to see them do it anyway.

Nevertheless, at least these were interesting ponderings, even if they were philosophically maladroit. Most of the rest of her essay leaves the reader scratching his head trying to figure out how what she writes has anything to do with the problem of the existence of God.

Limitless Self-Delusion

Syria has been implicated in two recent political assasinations in Lebanon, and Iran's president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has repeatedly called for the utter destruction of Israel. Yet there are those who believe these two criminal nations can be counted on to help bring stability to Iraq. The ability of some people to delude themselves about the nature of our foes seems utterly boundless.

Ramirez has a more realistic appraisal of the aims of Iran in offering to be a broker for peace in Iraq:

Clean Out Baghdad

Mohammed at Iraq the Model gives us a depressing but riveting glimpse of what life is like for an ordinary citizen in Baghdad these days.

It is Iraqis like Mohammed who are the reason it is morally imperative that we crush the insurgency in Baghdad. They've placed their hopes, trust, and the lives of their families in our hands. If we leave, as John "I don't want a bribe now but maybe later" Murtha is demanding, then we abandon people like Mohammed and his family to the cutthroat thugs who burn innocent worshippers to death in the streets.

Upon our withdrawal, anyone who cooperated with the coalition will be hunted down, tortured and killed by these savages. Maybe the Murthas and Pelosis of the world can live with that likelihood, but no one with any decency should be willing to take the risk. If anything, we should be sending in more troops to clean the vermin out of the city so that the people there can live normal lives free from fear and grief.

Read Mohammed's post at the link.

Kauffman's Emergentism (Pt. I)

Stuart Kauffman is a very bright man who, despite being an atheistic materialist, rejects the reductionism that most materialists embrace and advocates instead a philosophical notion called emergentism.

Simply put, emergentism is the view that when matter reaches a certain critical mass it gives rise to phenomena which cannot be explained in terms of matter alone. Think, for instance, of the picture produced by thousands of color dots on the tv screen. To try to explain the meaning of the picture as nothing but excited dots of color misses something significant about the picture, namely the information and importance it conveys. The emergentist believes that life, consciousness, meaning, and value all emerge out of the universe in somewhat analogous fashion.

Kauffman writes:

In the West, those who hold to a view of a theistic God, including the Christian fundamentalists of such power in the United States, find themselves in a cultural war with those who do not believe in a transcendent God, whether agnostic or atheistic. This war is evidenced by the fierce battle over Intelligent Design being waged politically and in the court systems of the United States. While the battleground is Darwinism, the deeply emotional issues are more fundamental. These include the belief of many religious people that without God's authority, morality has no basis. Literally, for those in the West who hold to these views, part of the passion underlying religious conviction is the fear that the very foundations of Western society will tumble if faith in a transcendent God is not upheld.

Indeed, it's interesting that Dr. Kauffman doesn't assay to refute this belief. He doesn't, of course, because there is no refutation available to him. In order for someone to have a right, say, not to be harmed, others must have an obligation not to harm him, but whence comes this obligation if we are all alone in the cosmos? In order for us to be "obligated" something or someone must lay that obligation upon us and in the naturalistic metaphysics of Dr. Kauffman there's nothing that is up to that task. Even if he's correct that moral value is an emergent property of the universe, which we will see is highly dubious, it is a long and treacherous logical road from the appearance of a value to an obligation to somehow promote that value.

Beyond that, reductionism, wrought by the successes of Galileo, Newton, Einstein, Planck, and Schrodinger, and all that has followed, preeminently in physics, has, as I will expand upon in a moment, left us in world of fact - cold fact with no scientific place for value. "The more we know of the cosmos, the more meaningless it appears", said Stephen Weinberg in Dreams of a Final Theory.

Precisely so. If everything that exists can ultimately be explained completely in terms of quarks and energy, if there's no intelligence out there, nothing beyond death but annihiliation, then life is just a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. This is where the materialist's reductionism takes us. Unfortunately what Kauffman seeks to put in its stead offers no more satisfaction than does reductionism.

In this scientific world view, we can ask: Is it more astonishing that a God created all that exists in six days, or that the natural processes of the creative universe have yielded galaxies, chemistry, life, agency, meaning, value, consciousness, culture without a Creator. In my mind and heart, the overwhelming answer is that the truth as best we know it, that all arose with no Creator agent, all on its wondrous own, is so awesome and stunning that it is God enough for me and I hope much of humankind.

First, Kauffman sets up a choice as ridiculous as it is false - he tells us we must either believe in a six day creation or accept atheism - and then concludes that it is more reasonable to believe that consciousness, agency, meaning, and value have somehow emerged out of the aforementioned energy and quarks than to believe that these phenomena, as well as the material world itself, are the product of an intelligent Being.

Thus, beyond the new science that glimmers a new world view, we have a new view of God, not as transcendent, not as an agent, but as the very creativity of the universe itself.

The universe is God and God just is the universe. But the universe is intellectually inert. Kauffman still hasn't explained how physical matter can give rise to meaning and value. He just holds out the hope that it has.

In short, in wondrous ways, these our universe, biosphere, econosphere, and culture are ceaselessly creative and emergent. The two cultures, science and humanities, stand united in this world view. Meaning and value have a scientific base.

Actually, nothing he has said in this essay supports this claim. He offers not a single testable assertion in support of his belief. Kauffman is a scientist doing speculative metaphysics and the speculations are based on nothing more than his hope that such things as meaning and value really exist.

And ethics? At a recent meeting on science and religion on Star Island, we heard more than one lecture on animal emotions and the sense of fairness in chimpanzees. Group selection, we were told, is now making its way into evolutionary biology. With it, natural selection can get its grip on behaviors that are advantageous to the group, like fairness, so it emerges. Far from evolution being anathema to ethics, evolution is the first source of human morality. But not the last, for we can argue whether we should want what we want.

This takes us back to what we said above. Even if a sense of fairness has emerged through natural selection, we still are given no reason why we should actually be fair to others. The fact that evolution produces some behavior is not an argument for that behavior being morally right or obligatory. Natural selection produces a lot of behaviors that we do not regard as particularly moral - war being one example - so why pick out fairness as an example of a behavior we should cultivate rather than war. The only way Kauffman can do this is by holding war and fairness up to some other standard and seeing which one conforms to the standard and which doesn't. But where does this higher standard come from? Neither Kauffman, nor any atheist, has an answer to that question.

I'll have more on Kauffman's emergentism later.

Listing Toward Fascism

Ralph Peters rejects the pessimistic prognosis of those who predict that Europe will be Islamified by the the middle of the present century. He believes that the increasing Arabification of Europe will give rise to a nascent fascism which will stem the Islamic tide through forced deportations or, since Europe is so good at it, genocide. Herewith some excerpts:

The notion that continental Europeans, who are world-champion haters, will let the impoverished Muslim immigrants they confine to ghettos take over their societies and extend the caliphate from the Amalfi Coast to Amsterdam has it exactly wrong.

The endangered species isn't the "peace loving" European lolling in his or her welfare state, but the continent's Muslims immigrants - and their multi-generation descendents - who were foolish enough to imagine that Europeans would share their toys.

In fact, Muslims are hardly welcome to pick up the trash on Europe's playgrounds.

Don't let Europe's current round of playing pacifist dress-up fool you: This is the continent that perfected genocide and ethnic cleansing, the happy-go-lucky slice of humanity that brought us such recent hits as the Holocaust and Srebrenica.

The historical patterns are clear: When Europeans feel sufficiently threatened - even when the threat's concocted nonsense - they don't just react, they over-react with stunning ferocity. One of their more-humane (and frequently employed) techniques has been ethnic cleansing.

And Europe's Muslims don't even have roots, by historical standards. For the Europeans, they're just the detritus of colonial history. When Europeans feel sufficiently provoked and threatened - a few serious terrorist attacks could do it - Europe's Muslims will be lucky just to be deported.

Sound impossible? Have the Europeans become too soft for that sort of thing? Has narcotic socialism destroyed their ability to hate? Is their atheism a prelude to total surrender to faith-intoxicated Muslim jihadis?

The answer to all of the above questions is a booming "No!" The Europeans have enjoyed a comfy ride for the last 60 years - but the very fact that they don't want it to stop increases their rage and sense of being besieged by Muslim minorities they've long refused to assimilate (and which no longer want to assimilate).

We don't need to gloss over the many Muslim acts of barbarism down the centuries to recognize that the Europeans are just better at the extermination process.

Mark Steyn, author of the highly acclaimed America Alone, disagrees. He sees the emergence of an Islamic caliphate covering almost all of Europe as inevitable, and although he doesn't say this, exactly, Christian dhimmitude would be an ineluctable concommitant along with death to any infidels who refuse to submit.

Good grief! Are these our choices? Have we allowed things to come to the place where someone who augurs the reappearance of fascism actually sounds like an optimist?

Change Toward What?

A friend sends along this meditation on the voters' decision to heed the Democrats' call for a change in Washington:

By now, he writes, you've all seen the Democrats' latest slogan: "A New Direction For America!" Let's analyze this promise:

The stock market is at a new all-time high and America's 401K's are back. A new direction from there means what?

Unemployment is at 25 year lows. A new direction from there means what?

Oil prices are plummeting. A new direction from there means what?

Taxes are at 20 year lows. A new direction from there means what?

Federal tax revenues are at all-time highs. A new direction from there means what?

The Federal deficit is down almost 50%, just as predicted over last year. A new direction from there means what?

Home valuations are up 200% over the past 3.5 years. A new direction from there means what?

Inflation is in check, hovering at 20 year lows. A new direction from there means what?

Not a single terrorist attack on US soil since 9/11/01. A new direction from there means what?

Osama bin Laden is living under a rock in a dark cave, having not surfaced in years, if he's alive at all, while 95% of Al Queda's top dogs are either dead or in custody, cooperating with US Intel. A new direction from there means what?

Several major terrorist attacks already thwarted by US and British Intel, including the recent planned attack involving 10 Jumbo Jets being exploded in mid-air over major US cities in order to celebrate the anniversary of the 9/11/01 attacks A new direction from there means what?

Just as Bush had planned and foretold us of on a number of occasions, Iraq was to be made "ground zero" for the war on terrorism -- and just as Bush said they would, terrorist cells from all over the region are alighting the shadows of their hiding places and flooding into Iraq in order to get their faces blown off by US Marines rather than boarding planes and heading to the United States to wage war on us here. A new direction from there means what?

Moreover, bear in mind that all of the above occurred in the face of the 1999 tech crash, the epidemic of corporate scandals throughout the 90's, and the 9/11/01 terrorist attacks on NYC years in the planning which collectively sucked 24 trillions dollars and 7.8 million jobs out of the US economy even before G. W. Bush had time to unpack his suitcases in the White House.

It's easy for the Democrats to attempt to discredit, disgrace and defame our commander in chief, George W. Bush -- that's what they do. What's not so easy for them to do is to refute irrefutable facts no matter how they might try.

I suppose the voters who wanted "a change" knew what they were doing three weeks ago. I just wish they'd explain it to the rest of us.

Purpose Driven Prevarications?

Joseph Farah seems to have it in for Rick Warren, author of Purpose Driven Life, and Warren seems to be making it easy for him. See here and here. Maybe Pastor Rick should stick to evangelism and stay away from political pronouncements. Evangelism makes fewer demands on a man's integrity.

Land of Few Friends

One leftist Brit decides that the left-wing anti-Israel drumbeat is unwarranted, and her former allies vigorously protest. Read Lorna Fitzsimons' succinct explanation of her support for Israel and then scroll down to the comments her essay elicits. Many on the left seem to believe that if only Israel would stop defending itself against the Palestinians peace would be at hand.

It would, of course, but only because Israel as a nation, and Jews as inhabitants of the Middle East, would cease to exist. This would certainly make Arab Muslims, and perhaps much of the European left, happy as clams, but it's hardly an acceptable way to resolve the problem.

Until the Arab world reconciles itself to the fact that Israel is in the Middle East to stay, and that they have a right to exist, there will be no peace in that region. Every time the Arabs feel strong enough they will provoke new wars and conflicts with Israel and every time Israelis defend themselves they will incur condemnation from those parts of the globe that wish to see them gone.

Cheap Labor

A friend shares this bit of insight with us:

Isn't "cheap labor" what so much of the immigration issue is about? Business doesn't want to pay a decent wage. Consumers don't want expensive produce. Government will tell you Americans don't want the drudge jobs. But the bottom line is cheap labor.

The phrase "cheap labor" is a myth, a farce, a lie...an oxymoron. There is no such thing as "cheap labor." Take, for example, an illegal alien with a wife and five children.

He takes a job for $5.00 or $6.00/hour. At that wage, with six dependents, he pays no income tax, yet at the end of the year, if he files an Income Tax Return, he gets an "earned income credit" of up to $3,200 free.

He qualifies for Section 8 housing and subsidized rent. He qualifies for food stamps. He qualifies for free (no deductible, no co-pay) health care. His children get free breakfasts and lunches at school.

He requires bilingual teachers and books. He qualifies for relief from high energy bills. If they are or become, aged, blind or disabled, they qualify for SSI. Once qualified for SSI they can qualify for Medicare.

All of this is at the taxpayer's expense. He doesn't worry about car insurance, life insurance, or homeowners insurance.

Taxpayers provide Spanish language signs, bulletins and printed material. He and his family receive the equivalent of $20.00 to $30.00/hour in benefits. Working Americans are lucky to have $5.00 or $6.00/hour left after paying their bills and his.

The American taxpayers also pay for increased crime, graffiti and trash clean up.

Is this what people mean by "cheap labor"?

Good question. In his book State of Emergency Pat Buchanan notes that each immigrant who comes to the U.S. without a high school education costs the American taxpayers a net $90,000 over the course of his lifetime. He cites economist Donald Huddle of Rice University who estimated that by the end of this year the net annual cost of immigration, both legal and illegal, will be $108 billion.

Crazy Old Aunts

Now isn't this about the silliest thing you've ever heard:

According to reports, Carolyn Porco, a senior research scientist at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, CO said this at a recent conference for atheist scientists:

"We should let the success of the religious formula guide us. Let's teach our children from a very young age about the story of the universe and its incredible richness and beauty. It is already so much more glorious and awesome - and even comforting - than anything offered by any scripture or God concept I know."

She said this while displaying a picture taken by the Cassini spacecraft of Saturn and its glowing rings eclipsing the Sun, revealing in the shadow a barely noticeable speck - our Earth.

This specimen of materialistic fatuity was delivered at a conference at La Jolla, CA the theme of which was "Beyond Belief: Science, Religion, Reason and Survival." The proceedings rapidly escalated into an "intellectual free-for-all" as reported by George Johnson at The New York Times.

It seems that it was the usual suspects at this donnybrook who were throwing most of the low blows:

A presentation by Joan Roughgarden, a Stanford University biologist, on using biblical metaphor to ease her fellow Christians into accepting evolution (a mutation is "a mustard seed of DNA") was dismissed by Dr. [Richard] Dawkins as "bad poetry," while his own take-no-prisoners approach (religious education is "brainwashing" and "child abuse") was condemned by the anthropologist Melvin J. Konner, [who assured the atheistic faithful that he himself had "not a flicker" of religious faith], as simplistic and uninformed.

After enduring two days of talks in which the Templeton Foundation came under the gun as smudging the line between science and faith, Charles L. Harper Jr., its senior vice president, lashed back, denouncing what he called "pop conflict books" like Dr. Dawkins's "God Delusion," as "commercialized ideological scientism" - promoting for profit the philosophy that science has a monopoly on truth.

That brought an angry rejoinder from Richard P. Sloan, a professor of behavioral medicine at Columbia University Medical Center, who said his own book, "Blind Faith: The Unholy Alliance of Religion and Medicine," was written to counter "garbage research" financed by Templeton on, for example, the healing effects of prayer.

With atheists and agnostics outnumbering the faithful ... one speaker after another called on their colleagues to be less timid in challenging teachings about nature based only on scripture and belief. "The core of science is not a mathematical model; it is intellectual honesty," said Sam Harris, a doctoral student in neuroscience and the author of The End of Faith: Religion, Terror and the Future of Reason and Letter to a Christian Nation.

"Every religion is making claims about the way the world is," he said. "These are claims about the divine origin of certain books, about the virgin birth of certain people, about the survival of the human personality after death. These claims purport to be about reality."

By shying away from questioning people's deeply felt beliefs, even the skeptics, Mr. Harris said, are providing safe harbor for ideas that are at best mistaken and at worst dangerous. "I don't know how many more engineers and architects need to fly planes into our buildings before we realize that this is not merely a matter of lack of education or economic despair," he said.

What?! In order to flay religion he has to travel all the way to the madrassas of Saudi Arabia where the 9/11 terrorists were weaned to obtain his illustrations. This is a marvelous example of a straw man argument - find the most dastardly examples of religious people you can and then present them as if they were typical of all religious people. Is this what Mr. Harris has in mind when he refers above to "intellectual honesty"?

Then Francisco Ayala inadvertantly let the cat out of the bag. He tacitly acknowledged that people need to believe their lives are meaningful and although scientific naturalists bravely insist that an unimaginably vast ocean of nothingness is nevertheless a wondrous and meaning-laden place, the fact is that there's no meaning in Prof. Porco's universe. There's no meaning, value, hope, or purpose if we're all alone on a tiny speck adrift in a near infinite sea of matter and energy:

"There are six billion people in the world," said Francisco J. Ayala, an evolutionary biologist at the University of California, Irvine, and a former Roman Catholic priest. "If we think that we are going to persuade them to live a rational life based on scientific knowledge, we are not only dreaming - it is like believing in the fairy godmother."

"People need to find meaning and purpose in life," he said. "I don't think we want to take that away from them."

In other words, if people really understood the metaphysical implications of Darwinism they'd be in despair, but Dr. Krauss wants to leave them an "out". It's still possible to believe in God, he helpfully assures the audience:

"Science does not make it impossible to believe in God," Dr. Krauss insisted. "We should recognize that fact and live with it and stop being so pompous about it."

But Captain Ahab Dawkins will have none of it:

That was just the kind of accommodating attitude that drove Dr. Dawkins up the wall. "I am utterly fed up with the respect that we - all of us, including the secular among us - are brainwashed into bestowing on religion," he said. "Children are systematically taught that there is a higher kind of knowledge which comes from faith, which comes from revelation, which comes from scripture, which comes from tradition, and that it is the equal if not the superior of knowledge that comes from real evidence."

It would be interesting to learn what real evidence there is for God's non-existence. I hope he wasn't referring to the "evidence" he alludes to in his book The God Delusion which is about as insubstantial an argument against God's existence as has ever been put to print.

By the third day, the arguments had become so heated that Dr. Konner was reminded of "a den of vipers."

"With a few notable exceptions," he said, "the viewpoints have run the gamut from A to B. Should we bash religion with a crowbar or only with a baseball bat?"

Neil deGrasse Tyson, director of the Hayden Planetarium in New York City and an adviser to the Bush administration on space exploration, said. "Something fundamental is going on in people's minds when they confront things they don't understand." "Science is a philosophy of discovery; intelligent design is a philosophy of ignorance,"

And this is an admission of ignorance by Dr. Tyson. He's evidently unaware that intelligent design is not a claim about what we don't know, it's a claim about what we do know. What we know is that complex specified information is the product always of an intelligent agent. To the extent we find CSI in the biological or physical universe it is more reasonable to infer, IDers maintain, that it is the result of intelligence than that it is the result of blind, mechanical processes.

Before he left to fly back home to Austin, Dr. Weinberg seemed to soften for a moment, describing religion a bit fondly as a crazy old aunt.

"She tells lies, and she stirs up all sorts of mischief and she's getting on, and she may not have that much life left in her, but she was beautiful once," he lamented. "When she's gone, we may miss her."

Dr. Dawkins wasn't buying it. "I won't miss her at all," he said. "Not a scrap. Not a smidgen."

Talk about a crazy old aunt.

Big Trees and Satellite Photos

If you enjoy the beauty of old, massive trees, as I do, then this site, passed along by our friend Byron at Hearts and Minds Bookstore is for you. In the left margin you'll find links to state registers for the largest trees of each species in each state. There's also information on "tree hunting", an activity in which people search out record trees in their states. It's pretty neat.

Another amazing site recommended to me by my student Hannah is Google Earth. The site allows you to navigate the globe from the perspective of a satellite and zoom in on any part of the planet you wish. The resolution of the satellite photos is best in urban areas, but it's impressive wherever you choose to zoom down. Unfortunately, the software has to be downloaded, which takes a while, but maybe the computer literate readers will be able to figure out how to just download Google Earth without having to download all the other stuff that comes with it.

Enjoy.

Another Myth About Religion

Julie Ponzi at No Left Turns links to this piece by Dinesh D'Souza writing on the myth that religion has been responsible for more wars and death than any other force in history. D'Souza explains that the myth is not supported by the historical facts which, indeed, point in quite the opposite direction.

Ponzi then goes on to relate this amusing story:

This reminds me of a time sitting in one of the required (but not so interesting or rigorous) courses I took in graduate school. The professor, who was a nice man but not the most engaging teacher, made the point in passing that more people had died in the name of religion than anything else in the history of the world. It sort of woke up the room for one brief shining moment. The lefties in the class became engaged as they finally heard a claim being staked--something that was not milquetoast from their point of view. I looked around the room at some of my like-minded friends and we prepared to go to battle. But we overlooked one of our more quiet friends who usually sat in the back of the room and rarely made comments in class. To our amazement, he slowly raised his hand. When called upon he asked the following question, "What religion, exactly, were Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot working to advance?" And then he put his hand down, put his head down, and went back to reading whatever it was that he brought with him to pass the time. There was stunned silence in the room.

Read D'Souza's piece. It really is quite good, and the lesson it contains needs to be learned by believers and unbelievers alike.

It needs to be borne in mind that unless there is a transcendent moral authority to impose moral obligation upon us there is no compelling reason, absolutely none, why anyone should not simply adopt a might-makes-right ethic. It is almost inevitable that in states which are officially and formally atheistic might-makes-right will be the unofficial policy of the government, and any government which adopts this standard will almost inevitably devolve into tyranny, war, and mass killings. This is the lesson of the twentieth century and the lesson which historian Paul Johnson hammers home repeatedly and insistantly in his wonderful history, titled Modern Times, of the century in which materialistic atheism reached its high water mark.

Defending "Science" Against the Yahoos

The secular humanists are made as hornets and they're not going to take it any more. They've decided to set up a think tank in Washington D.C. from whence they will sally forth when necessary to defend Truth, Justice, and Scientific Naturalism from the Christian fundamentalists who have the impertinence to seek to undermine the latter by insisting on a wall of separation between genuine science and speculative metaphysics.

What the humanists are trying to protect, of course, is not science, because science is not under assault. What is under assault is the philosophical assumption of many scientists that, to paraphrase Carl Sagan, physical, material nature is all there is, all there ever was, and all there ever will be. This assumption is an article of faith among secularists, and they are mobilizing to launch a crusade against the infidels who have emerged from the intellectual backwaters of American society to challenge it.

Meanwhile, Back in Iraq

Here's more on the war in Iraq that you'll never hear on the evening news. Whenever the insurgents try to take on our troops they just get walloped. Bill Roggio gives some details.

The Times Online also has a good feature on how the people of Ramadi are taking up the fight against al Qaeda and the insurgents. Michael Fumento has been to Ramadi recently and files an excellent report on his experiences in that city here.

The impression the average person in the U.S. gets of Iraq from the evening news is of a land torn by a hopeless civil war raging throughout the country, with American troops hunkered down to avoid the bullets. The facts are a lot different. The real picture isn't rosy, certainly, but it's a lot brighter than most of us have been led to believe.

Carter v. Campolo

Joe Carter takes Bart Campolo, son of Tony Campolo, to the woodshed for what he perceives to be a wimpish, even heretical view of God. Carter once or twice comes across as uncharacteristically nasty, but the post is pretty interesting. So are the comments.

Here's what Campolo said that elicited Carter's chastisement:

Some might say I would be wise to swallow my misgivings about such stuff [like God's sovereignty, wrath, hell, etc.], remain orthodox, and thereby secure my place with God in eternity. But that is precisely my point: If those things are true, then God might as well send me to Hell. For better or worse, I simply am not interested in any God but a completely good, entirely loving, and perfectly forgiving One who is powerful enough to utterly triumph over evil. Such a God may not exist, but I will die seeking such a God, and I will pledge my allegiance to no other possibility because, quite frankly, anything less is not worthy of my worship.

Please, don't get me wrong. I am well aware that I don't get to decide who God is. What I do get to decide, however, is to whom I pledge my allegiance. I am a free agent, after all, and I have standards for my God, the first of which is this: I will not worship any God who is not at least as compassionate as I am.

Read Carter's response to Campolo at the link.