The Crucial Difference

In the clash of civilizations between the Muslim world and the West the latter enjoys many advantages - technological prowess not the least of them. Nevertheless, the Muslim world has one advantage that may eventually tip the scales in its favor. Muslims fervently believe in life after death and much of the West doesn't.

The secular world, especially Europe, having largely abandoned religious faith a century ago, believes that this life is all there is. The psychological, if not logical, entailment of this belief is that there is nothing that is worth dying for. No matter what principles one holds, if one is dead, the principles are worthless. Since there is nothing to look forward to beyond death, this life must be clung to at all costs because once it's over there's nothing.

Muslims, on the other hand, hold this life cheap. For them it's just a temporary way-station on the road to eternal bliss. Being willing to die to promote their cause of world-wide dominance makes them exceedingly difficult to deal with. Negotiation, which is predicated on people acting in their self-interest, is futile when people who want to live seek to arrive at a modus vivendi with people who believe it in their self-interest to die. Negotiation is predicated on willingness to compromise, but people who believe that God is guiding their every step are generally not willing to yield ground.

A secular democratic society will be tempted to appease, retreat, and ultimately surrender rather than, by fighting, risk war and death. A tyrannical jihadi society will risk everything, including death, in order to prevail. In such a contest the advantage is clearly on the side of those who see death as a passage into a new life. For this reason it may be that secular societies may prove to be no match for global jihad. It may turn out that only societies which also hold to a belief in the transience of this life and the permanence of the next will have the will to resist and withstand the long-term onslaught of the Muslim fanatics.

Our Human Condition

A couple weeks ago while attending my Sunday school class the discussion turned to the concept of altruism - the idea of total unselfishness as a motive for doing something. Eventually, someone posited the question that the "carrot" of eternal life in heaven might influence our motivation to "accept Jesus"* as our savior as well as pursue a personal relationship with God. And finally we were faced with the question: is there anything that we do with unselfish motives?

Several days later, I finished reading Surprised by Joy by C.S. Lewis, an autobiography of his conversion to Christianity. In the final pages of the book he says:

My conversion involved as yet no belief in a future life. I now number it among my greatest mercies that I was permitted for several months, perhaps for a year, to know God and to attempt obedience without even raising that question. My training was like that of the Jews, to whom He revealed Himself centuries before there was a whisper of anything better (or worse) beyond the grave than shadowy and featureless Sheol. And I did not dream even of that. There are men, far better men that I, who have made immortality almost the central doctrine of their religion; but for my own part I have never seen how a preoccupation with that subject at the outset could fail to corrupt the whole thing. I had been brought up to believe that goodness was goodness only if it were disinterested, and that any hope of reward or fear of punishment contaminated the will. If I was wrong in this (the question is really much more complicated than I then perceived) my error was most tenderly allowed for. I was afraid that threats of promises would demoralize me; no threats or promises were made. The commands where inexorable, but they were backed by no "sanctions". God was to be obeyed simply because he was God. Long since, through the gods of Asgard, and later through the notion of the Absolute, He had taught me how a thing can be revered not for what it can do to us but for what it is in itself. This is why, though it was terror, it was no surprise to learn that God is to be obeyed because of what He is in Himself. If you ask why we should obey God, in the last resort the answer is, "I am." To know God is to know that our obedience is due to Him. In His nature His sovereignty de jure is revealed.

...

On the other hand, while it is true to say that God's own nature is the real sanction of His commands, yet to understand this must, in the end, lead us to the conclusion that union with that Nature is bliss and separation from it horror. Thus Heaven and Hell come in. But it may well be that to think much of either except in this context of thought , to hypostatize them as if they had a substantial meaning apart from the presence or absence of God, corrupts the doctrine of both and corrupts us while we so think of them.

As I understand what Lewis is saying, there is a valid, totally unselfish motivation for a personal, loving relationship that involves worship and obedience to God even if there were no promise of eternal life in heaven, even if our existence is finite, simply because God is who He is. Fascinating.

* The following is what I consider (most humbly) to be one of many great rants from E.W. Bullinger, this time on the subject of "accepting Jesus" .

Man's conventional talk of this twentieth century (of the present era) is about the sinner's acceptance of Christ. God's Word, for nearly sixty centuries has been about the sinner believing what He had said.

God has spoken. He has told us that He cannot and will not accept the fallen sons of men in their sins. In ourselves we are not only ruined sinners because of what we have done, or not done; but we are ruined creatures because of what we ARE. The question is, Do we believe God as to this solemn fact?

What God accepted was Abel's "gifts" (Heb. xi. 4); Abel was accepted only in his gifts (Gen. iv. 4).

So, God has told us that He can accept us, as such, only in the merits and Person of that perfect Substitute -- His Christ -- whom He has provided. Do we believe Him as to this?

If we do we shall by faith lay our hand on Him, confess our belief in God as to our own lost and ruined nature, and as to Christ as God's provided Salvation; knowing that, by this faith, God pronounces us righteous, accepts us in the person of our Substitute; and declares us as accepted in the Beloved," because God accepted His one offering when He raised Him from the dead.

Christ's resurrection is the proof and evidence that God has accepted Christ. Christ risen is the sinner's receipt which God has given to show that He has accepted Christ's payment of the sinner's debt.

There is no other receipt.

Christ's blood is not the receipt. That is the payment.

The sinner's faith is not the receipt. It is no use for a man to go to his creditor and say he believes he has paid what he owes. He must produce the receipt.

What is the receipt which we can produce to God which will prove that our debt is paid?

Nothing but the blessed fact that God's Word assures us that He has accepted payment on our behalf in the person of our Substitute, when He raised Christ from the dead.

We are to believe what He says when He assures us of this, and He is pleased to accept us in Him.

It is always the Creditor who accepts the payment which the debtor makes. And, when payment has been once accepted, no further demand can be made upon the debtor.

This is how Abel was accepted; and this is how the sinner is saved to this day.

By the same faith in what God has said, we lay our hand on that Lamb of God as our substitute; and we obtain God's witness that we are righteous. God bears His testimony to this in that He raised Christ from the dead, and has accepted the believing sinner IN HIM.

It is not a question of whether the sinner accepts Christ, but whether he believes God when He says that He has accepted Christ.

Loading Up the Bar

Michael Metzger offers some advice at Comment that Christians, especially those who feel very strongly about evangelism, might do well to take to heart.

We don't help a weight-training partner if we load up his bar with too much weight before he's ready to handle it. Metzger relates this obvious fact to Christian witness at the link.

Opium of the Intellectuals

John Davidson poses the question, "How has Darwinism Persisted?" He believes there to be two reasons in particular which he explains briefly at Uncommon Descent.

I'd like to suggest a third: Darwinism (by which I mean the view that natural processes are sufficient explanations for the origin and diversity of living things) has persisted because it is the opiate of the intellectual elites. It anesthetizes them to the existential pain of a naturalistic world-view which rips all non-arbitrary meaning, morality and significance out of life. Like a drug it gives them a surge of metaphysical pseudo-strength that enables them to cling to an atheistic materialism which might have made sense a century ago but which no longer does. For the man who simply does not want God to exist, Darwinism is a narcotic.

As Richard Dawkins famously wrote, "Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist." Unfortunately, the satisfaction that it offers is much like the satisfaction the opium addict gains from his drug. It doesn't really fill the existential emptiness left by the removal of what has been taken away. It merely masks it. Man cannot live without meaning, and atheistic naturalism tells us that ultimately there simply is no purpose to your life or mine. Death is the end. Man is nothing more than an animal with no dignity or worth. Morality is purely subjective. There's no ultimate justice. Love is just a biochemical response. Consciousness is an illusion. Reason is an unreliable tool in the quest for truth.

The intellectual elites are like a bunch of numbed, unhappy addicts sitting around a room seeking to relieve their pain with a fix of materialistic opium, and Darwinism is the best brand on the market. It holds out the allure of an ersatz purpose, incorporating us into the great drama of biological development, it offers us a wafer-thin veneer of meaning by encouraging us to contribute to the well-being of our species. Like those who seek meaning and transcendence in drugs, however, Darwinism ultimately leaves us empty because if we are doomed to perish utterly nothing at all about this life really matters.

Nevertheless, this life is all the atheist has to hold on to. So, like the man dying of emphysema who keeps sucking on his cigarettes, the intellectual elites embrace their Darwinian world-view in hopes that somehow, against all indications, they'll be able to squeeze out of it a few precious drops of meaning for their lives. They're hooked and can't give it up.

Moral Absolutes

Science and Theology News has an interesting essay on ethics and morality written by Brian Henning, a philosopher at Mount St. Mary's College. Henning seeks to impress upon the reader that "Moral problems do not have indisputable answers existing prior to their solutions that we need only divine and then codify.... Moral laws should not be rejected wholesale, but how their status is conceived should be dramatically revised." He goes on to say that:

Just as there is no final or absolute certainty in physics that allows one to make perfect predictions about future physical events, there is no final truth in ethics that allows one to dogmatically determine in advance the good in any particular situation...every person must continually and resolutely revise his or her moral conclusions in light of the goods we see and resist the temptation to codify these conclusions in absolute moral laws.

Mr. Henning has many good things to say in this piece, but I think he goes too far when he suggests that we should abandon the idea of absolutes in ethics. While it's true that the circumstances surrounding an act usually determine the moral value of the act this is not always the case. In the real world it is absolutely wrong no matter what the circumstances (unless one posits circumstances that would obtain only in the hyperactive mind of philosophers) to beat a child with one's fists, to commit genocide or rape, to commit suicide by driving the wrong way on the Interstate, to torture someone for pleasure, etc.

These acts are always wrong because they violate the absolute commands of Scripture. Those absolutes are found in the Old Testament in Exodus 20:1-17. In this passage God gives the Isaraelites the Ten Commandments. The first four govern our relationship toward God and can be summed up in the imperative to "Love God." The last six are to govern our relationships toward each other and can be summed up in the imperative to "Love others." These are the two great absolutes of Scripture and Jesus Himself affirms this in Matthew 22:36-40 where He responds to a lawyer who asks Him to name the greatest commandment in the Law. Jesus doesn't reply that it is any of the ten, instead He sums up the first four and says that the greatest commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind. Then He goes on to say that the second greatest commandment is to love others like we love ourselves. In other words, He sums up the last six.

We may define love not as a kind of feeling but rather treating people with dignity, respect, and kindness. In the Old Testament such actions are considered "justice" and the emphasis in the O.T. is on loving people by doing justice. In the New Testament the emphasis is on loving others by showing them compassion.

So, then, we are called to love God and do justice/show compassion. Any act, such as those specified above, which is unjust and/or uncompassionate violates the imperative of love and is therefore absolutely wrong. Lying, for example, is almost always unjust or uncompassionate, but there are times when, on the contrary, it is both just and compassionate and therefore the right thing to do. The classic example is the case of a family hiding Jews in their home from the Nazis in WWII. The Gestapo comes to the door and informs the householder that they are rounding up all the Jews in the town and they ask whether there are any in the building. It's a lie to deny that there are but it would be both unjust and uncompassionate to answer truthfully.

There are other cases where we might think lying is actually morally right. An undercover operative seeking to infiltrate a terrorist cell must lie to succeed. Would he be wrong to do so?

The serious ethical dilemmas arise in the attempt to balance justice and compassion because sometimes these seem to be at odds. The case of the moral propriety of capital punishment is an example. Justice may demand that a life be forfeit. Compassion demands that it be done in as humane a way as practical even though the criminal may seem to deserve much worse.

At any rate, although Henning is surely correct when he says that most of the time right and wrong must be gauged by the context in which the act occurs, he errs in suggesting that there are no moral absolutes. Such a claim would be true, of course, if there is no God, but if there is a God, and if He has revealed moral truth to us in Scripture, then He has indeed given us absolutes in the commands to do justice and to show compassion.

Generation "Whatever"

Mike Metzger in his Clapham Commentary (free subscription required) pens a fine short essay on the last virtue left in America - the virtue of openness or tolerance.

Metzger borrows from Allan Bloom's classic 1987 book, The Closing of the American Mind, to make the point that openness as ity is practised in today's culture is really not a virtue at all but a vice. He writes:

Bloom was pointing out "there are two kinds of openness, the openness of indifference... and the openness that invites us to the quest for knowledge." The first type of openness is what Bloom claimed prevails to this day in American education. "It is open to all kinds of men, all kinds of life-styles, all ideologies. There is no enemy other than the man who is not open to everything."

Metzger goes on to say that:

...religion is relegated to the territory of taste - like a preference for a particular kind of pizza. Religion then becomes a mindless exercise "about other nations or cultures and a few social science formulas. None of this means much" to students. If one person prefers veggie pizza and another pepperoni, why fight over it? Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Hezbollah... what's the big deal? We're clueless because we equate piety with pizza - beliefs and preferences not worth dying over.

In other words, religious beliefs aren't exactly true, or if they are we could never know such a thing, they're simply preferences with which people feel comfortable. Just as people exercise brand loyalty in their shopping or in their political party affiliation, they exercise a loyalty to religions which resonate with their view of the world.

Metzger adds that,

...according to Bloom, ..."what is advertised as a great openness is a great closing." Our mental gears have been stripped so that we can no longer distinguish between evil, good, better, and best. We're left with a vague "awareness that there are many cultures, accompanied by a saccharine moral drawn from that awareness: We should all get along." We see this in the continuing hesitancy among students to condemn the atrocities of Hitler, Mao, Stalin, or Saddam Hussein because that would appear "judgmental." .... If we believed religion was in the realm of knowledge, we'd have no hesitancy attempting to delineate between good and evil. Bloom chides us: "Openness used to be the virtue that permitted us to seek the good by using reason. It now means accepting everything and denying reason's power."

He might have added that one way in which this openness is manifesting itself in today's news is the moral equivalency that people tend to draw between contending forces in the global struggle against terror. Israel, for example, is said by some to be just as bad as its enemies. Israel has killed civilians and caused terrible hardships for the Palestinian people, thus, even though suicide bombings are wrong, they're understandable. This sort of equivalence acts as a salve to the intellect as it enables the individual to feel righteous without having to do any difficult thinking or read any history. To place on the same moral plane people who in acts of self-defense build walls to keep killers out, and in trying to eliminate the killers accidentally harm bystanders, with those who deliberately premeditate the murder of school children on a bus by strapping bombs to other children who are sometimes unaware of the full consequences of what they're doing, is intellectually and morally otiose.

We need to recover the conviction that there is good, there is evil, and there are mixtures of the two. Those who deliberately slaughter innocents in order to achieve power, or to spread their version of religious truth throughout the world are doing evil. Those who seek to make life better for all people are doing good. We need to recover a knowledge of the difference, but we'll never recover that knowledge until we recover a belief in truth and get rid of the oppressive burden of an "openness" that manifests itself as an indifference to truth.

Coulter Bad For America?

Rod Dreher, author of Crunchy Cons, writes about Ann Coulter at Belief.net. He concludes that she's bad for America, or more precisely, what she stands for is bad for America, but although his criticism of her is fair, it doesn't seem to support such a strong conclusion.

Anyway, read it and decide for yourself.

Blame it on the Pil

An article in a British newspaper offers some clues to the reasons behind certain phenomena of which we've been aware for some time:

A third of male fish in English rivers are changing sex due to 'gender-bending' pollution, alarming research shows. Experts say female hormones from the contraceptive pill and HRT are being washed into our rivers and causing male fish to produce eggs.

The problem - which is country-wide - has raised fears that the pollutants could also be contaminating our drinking water - and even be affecting the fertility of men.

The Environment Agency study looked at the health of more than 1600 roach found in 51 rivers and streams around the country. Overall, a third of the male fish were between sexes. However, in one waterway, near a particularly heavy discharge of treated sewage more than 80 per cent had female characteristics.

Tests showed the males developed female sex organs and were producing eggs. Such fish also produce less sperm and the sperm that is produced is of low quality. Females may also be affected, producing abnormal eggs. Previous studies have shown that cod, trout and flounders are all being feminised.

Researcher Professor Charles Tyler said that the fish are swimming in a soup of oestrogen-like compounds, found in the Pill and in HRT. The hormone, which is also produced naturally by women and found in industrial waste, is released into our waterways after surviving the sewage treatment process.

Human health could also be at risk, with oestrogen from contaminated food and water building up in our bodies. Although there is no conclusive proof, it is thought the hormone, which has similar actions in fish and humans, could be partly to blame for falling sperm counts in men.

British men's sperm counts dropped by almost a third between 1989 and 2002, and one in six couples now have difficulty conceiving. Prof Tyler said: 'There is certainly the potential for it to have an effect in humans - and possibly a marked effect.'

We wonder if there are high levels of estrogen in the water in the United States. If so, it would certainly explain a lot. I leave it to the reader to come up with the particular phenomena it would explain on his/her own.

Atheistic Science

P.Z. Myers, the militant atheistic Darwinist who holds forth at Pharyngula writes about how much he likes this quote from J.B.S. Haldane:

My practise as a scientist is atheistic. That is to say, when I set up an experiment I assume that no god, angel, or devil is going to interfere with its course; and this assumption has been justified by such success as I have achieved in my professional career. I should therefore be intellectually dishonest if I were not also atheistic in the affairs of the world. And I should be a coward if I did not state my theoretical views in public.

It's interesting that an atheist can feel free to base his views on the world's issues on his atheism and feel free to proclaim his atheism in public places, but if a politician, like, say, Senator Santorum or President Bush were to publically acknowledge that his opinions and policies are informed by his Christian worldview he would be accused by people like Myers of doing something terribly stupid or insidious.

Haldane thinks he would be a coward were he to refrain from stating his atheistic views in public and presumably Myers agrees. We should remember this the next time a politician gets heat from the secularists among us for being too explicit about his faith.

It's also interesting that it's a point of pride for Haldane/Myers that their science is consciously "atheistic", but let a scientist embrace theistic assumptions such as that the cosmos and/or living things show evidence of intention and intelligence in their design, and people like Myers consider him a crackpot. Yet why should an assumption of atheism on the part of a scientist be any more intellectually estimable than the assumption that one is "thinking God's thoughts after Him" when one is doing science?

To suggest, finally, that a scientific practice which assumes that God is not going to interfere with one's experiments is atheistic is ridiculous. Just because one assumes that God doesn't interfere in the day to day operation of the universe it does not follow that therefore one is an atheist or doing "atheistic science". All scientists, including theists, make the assumption that the regularities of nature will hold at least the vast majority of the time. This certainly does not mean that theists are metaphysical atheists.

Is Growth Good?

It's part of the received economic wisdom that growth is good and, since development is a means of growth, turning rural spaces into suburban housing, malls, and industrial parks is desirable. Nevertheless, despite the near universal acceptance of this assumption, at least by conservatives, I've never read a convincing argument in support of the proposition that development and the population growth it brings are actually good for a community and, in fact, I've never been able to see how they are.

The arguments I've heard all point to the jobs that are created when a new shopping center or industry moves into an area, but who fills these jobs? When jobs are created they attract people into the community who would not otherwise move there. This generates a demand for housing, the construction of which employs still more new arrivals who require yet more housing. Farmland and natural spaces get gobbled up and turned into lawns and parking lots. Traffic increases, roads must be built to relieve the congestion, and schools and hospitals must be erected to accomodate the new residents.

Moreover, sewers, water and other utilities must be provided. Police and other public employees must be hired. All of this costs money, so taxes go up, crowding goes up, and the native residents of the community wind up with a lower quality of life than they had before all the development occurred except now they have a new shopping mall.

Speaking of growth, our population - expected to cross the 300 million mark this summer - is burgeoning and lots of people say this is a good thing, but it's hard for me to see why it's a good thing. It seems that there really are only two advantages to a growing population: The first is that since Congress has squandered our social security we need more workers to support the elderly "boomers" as they (we) shuffle into our dotage. The second is that it allows us to avoid implementing a military draft by providing a reservoir of young volunteer soldiers to fight our enemies.

Neither of these seem to be worth the cost of an ever-expanding population making ever-increasing demands on an ever-diminshing amount of open space and water. The first reason is a short-term fix that'll eventually wind up in disaster since it requires that every generation be larger than the previous. At some point, however, the whole system will become unsustainable and collapse. The second justification for population growth could be made moot, of course, by a military draft.

In other words, the more people we have the more the quality of American life diminishes and the more stresses we place on resources and the natural environment. We don't need so many people. The advantages of a larger population could be met with far less harm by reforming social security, encouraging families to assume more responsibility for their elderly, and by initiating a mandatory period of public service which would include a military option.

We vote to save what's left of our open spaces and the natural beauty of rural America.

Insignificant?

Skye Puppy has a series of photos that are breathtaking in what they illustrate about the size of the planet upon which we live relative to the cosmos. Look at the photos and then remember that there are billions of stars like those shown in the bottom photo just in our galaxy alone and there are billions of galaxies in the universe (To enlarge go to the link).

Some twentieth century thinkers have cited the immensity of both space and time as an argument for the insignificance of the earth and therefore of man. They gazed at the vastness of the heavens and scoffed at the medieval idea that man is at the center of the cosmos, that somehow it's all here just for us. That idea, though, no longer elicits derision. It's become clear to even the most adamantine skeptic that there's something eerily special about the construction of our universe. It is as if, cosmologist Freeman Dyson once said, the universe knew we were coming.

As for its great size and age, cosmologists note today that, given the fact that the elements necessary for life are forged in the centers of stars by nuclear fusion and distributed throughout space when those stars die in catastrophic explosions, the elements of which life is comprised would not have been available until at least one generation of stars had been born and died. This is a process judged to take billions of years. All through that enormous stretch of time the universe would have been expanding. Thus, by the time it was chemically ready to support living things it had to be very old and consequently very large.

In other words, the cosmos has to be as old as it is and as big as it is in order for us to be here. It's vastness is not a sign of some divine (or natural) profligacy, but, assuming that God chose to use stellar evolution as His means of producing carbon, oxygen and the rest, it is a divine necessity. We may not reside at the geometric center of the universe, indeed there probably isn't such a thing, but we very well may reside at its ontological center. It very well may be that we are the reason that the incomprehensibly huge universe exists at all.

Judge Jones, Call Your Office

This article at Science and Theology News caught our eye for two reasons. First the article, then the reasons:

For Einstein, as for many contemporary physicists, the orderliness of nature was specifically grounded in a series of numbers known as the fundamental physical constants. The Newtonian constant of gravitation, for example, specifies how any massive object will be attracted to any other massive object. Indeed, Einstein built his magnum opus, General Relativity, around the recognition that the speed of light in a vacuum never changes: it is a true universal constant.

What then becomes of ... this sense of cosmic stability if not even the constants are constant?

Public confidence in the "constants" of nature may be at an all time low. Recent research has found evidence that the value of certain fundamental parameters, such as the speed of light or the invisible glue that holds nuclei together, may have been different in the past.

"There is absolutely no reason these constants should be constant," says astronomer Michael Murphy of the University of Cambridge. "These are famous numbers in physics, but we have no real reason for why they are what they are."

The observed differences are small -- roughly a few parts in a million -- but the implications are huge: The laws of physics would have to be rewritten, not to mention we might need to make room for six more spatial dimensions than the three that we are used to.

That mention of extra spatial dimensions is a reference to string theory, a contemporary attempt to understand how all the forces in nature fit together. String theory, so far, is without falsifiable predictions, so it isn't yet true science. But even the possibility that the so-called "universal constants" will be found to be in flux throws a significant curve at the search for stability in a world of change.

What's interesting about this is, first, if the constants of nature are not constant that means, among other things, that radiometric dating may be an unreliable procedure for determining vast ages. Radiometric dating is based upon the decay rate of radioactive atoms into more stable daughter products. This rate has been assumed to be constant over the age of the universe, but if it hasn't been, if rates are slower today than they were in the past, the values that they yield would show the earth and anything else whose age is being measured to be "older" than they really are. Thus the notion of a 4.5 billion year old earth would have to be revised. If it were in need of sufficient revision it could make the earth too young to have permitted a long, slow evolutionary process. This news would precipitate a real crisis in science.

Second, if string theory is not falsifiable and not "true science", then why is there no outrage over the fact that it's often discussed in public school physics classes? Why is it that there are lawsuits over the teaching of intelligent design in biology classes, ostensibly because ID is not "true science", but one never hears complaints about string theory being taught? Apparently, some non-science is more acceptable in public schools than other non-science. Or, more likely, string theory is not perceived to be a threat to the regnant naturalistic metaphysics that so many objectors to ID have embraced so they don't mind giving it a pass that is arbitrarily denied to other hypotheses that have more profound philosophical implications.

Perhaps, someone should inquire of the current Dover school board, the members of which were elected in part as a protest against the previous board's attempt to squeeze ID into the biology curriculum, whether they permit the teaching of string theory in their physics classes (or, say, the oscillating universe theory in their Earth-Space classes). If so, perhaps there might be grounds here for a lucrative lawsuit.

From Dove to Hawk

Spiegel Online has an op-ed written by a former Israeli peace activist who has been on the road to Damascus, so to speak, and has had the scales fall from his eyes. Here are some excerpts:

The first Intifada began a month after I was drafted. At that point, when I had just joined the army, I was filled with a sense of mission to continue the heritage of Israeli civilians who join the army for three years at the age of 18 to protect the country from its enemies.

But when I got deployed to Gaza and Nablus, fighting an unknown enemy, patrolling streets where, again, civilians drank their tea and played backgammon in caf�s, my conviction was shaken. I became confused about who the good guys were and who were the bad. When I finished my mandatory service, I decided never again to be a soldier. When I was called up from the reserves and ordered back to Gaza, I refused and became an outspoken and active opponent of the Israeli occupation. I spent a total of 45 days in military prison for my refusal to serve.

Today, I am convinced that Israel is fighting a justified war. Far from being an "optional war," this conflict was forced upon us. There is a feeling that every positive step taken in recent years has been answered by punishment. Now we are prepared to do whatever it takes to turn Israel into a safe place, even if this means invading Lebanon once again. We also want to sip coffee and play backgammon. We've had enough of rockets from the north and south and suicide bombers from everywhere. We also want to lead a normal life, just like the people in New York, Berlin or Rome who don't have to look up every time a stranger enters their favorite cafe.

I too am turning back the clock. Eighteen years after finishing my military service -- almost two decades after swearing that I would never again wear a uniform -- I called the Israeli consulate in New York and gave them my phone number. If the army needed me, I told them, I would be the first on a plane back to Israel. And Sharon, of course, has still not woken from his coma. But I miss him.

In between these paragraphs there's much that's worth reading.

So Many Books, So Little Time

I thought it might be fun to compose a list of two dozen or so of the best books I've read on topics which lie at an intersection which includes at least two of the three disciplines of philosophy, science, and/or religion. There are a number or works that I omitted because they're either a little too technical or because they made it onto previous lists that I've compiled. There are probably others that I should have included in this list as well, but I thought twenty eight was a good round number:

1. The Existence of God - Richard Swinburne
   
2. The Coherence of Theism - Richard Swinburne
   
3. Our Idea of God - Thomas V. Morris
   
4. C.S. Lewis' Dangerous Idea - Victor Reppert
   
5. Warranted Christian Belief - Alvin Plantinga
   
6. God, Freedom, and Evil - Alvin Plantinga
   
7. On Miracles - C.S. Lewis
   
8. The Abolition of Man - C.S. Lewis
   
9. Scaling the Secular City - J.P. Moreland
   
10. Reason in the Balance - Philip Johnson
    
11. Revenge of Conscience - J. Budzizewski
    
12. Written on the Heart - J. Budzizewski
    
13. Finding Darwin's God - Kenneth Miller
    
14. Darwin's God - Cornelius Hunter
    
15. Moral Darwinism - Benjamin Wiker
    
16. The Soul of Science - Nancy Pearcy
    
17. Total Truth - Nancy Pearcy
    
18. Science and Its Limits - Del Ratzsch
    
19. Nature, Design and Science - Del Ratzsch
    
20. Science and Religion - Alistair McGrath
    
21. Twilight of Atheism - Alistair McGrath
    
22. Gods of Atheism - Vincent Miceli
    
23. The God Who is There - Francis Schaeffer
    
24. Escape From Reason - Francis Schaeffer
    
25. How Shall We Then Live - Francis Schaeffer
    
26. Atheism: The Case Against God - George Smith
    
27. The Miracle of Theism - J. I. Mackie
    
28. Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion - David Hume
    

If readers can suggest other titles that have been helpful to them and would belong on a list of books that connect science, philosophy and/or religion we'll be happy to post the recommendations on Viewpoint.

CT Interviews Michael Gerson

Michael Gerson, former speech writer for George W. Bush, has some advice for both parties and both ideologies in this interview at Christianity Today. Here are some excerpts:

Until recently, the Republican Party and Christian conservatives have complained that government is the problem. Is that a view they will likely return to?

I think it's a temptation, but I don't think it's going to happen. One reason is because of what's changed in evangelical political involvement.

I think there are lots and lots of young people, in their 20s to 40s, who are very impatient with older models of social engagement like those used by the Religious Right. They understand the importance of the life issues and the family issues, but they know the concern for justice has to be broader and global. At least a good portion of the evangelical movement is looking for leaders who have a broader conception of social justice. President Bush has provided that in many ways. He ran his initial campaign on education and on faith-based answers to poverty and addiction. And then he's led the international efforts we've undertaken, both on the development and disease side, but also on the spread of human liberty.

You're starting to sound like Jim Wallis!

No, because I also don't think the answers can be found in the Religious Left. I don't think we can minimize some of the traditional issues. I don't believe it's possible to be concerned about social justice without being concerned about the weakest members of the human family. I also think that America can play an active and positive role in the world and that we're not at fault for everything.

Many evangelicals are looking for something that's still developing, if you talk to people like Rick Warren or Tim Keller. One thing that's catalyzed it is probably Africa, where so many young evangelicals I know have spent time. They've seen the needs and the extraordinary kind of spiritual strength that's found in the continent, and they've come away changed.

What challenges do you see for evangelicals who want to broaden the movement's social agenda?

It's probably a long-term mistake for evangelicals to be too closely associated with any ideology or political party. The Christian teaching on social justice stands in judgment of every party and every movement. It has to be an authentic and independent witness. It should have an influence in both parties. I would love to see the Democratic Party return to a tradition of social justice that was found in people like William Jennings Bryan. During that period, many if not most politically engaged evangelicals were in the Democratic Party, because it was a party oriented toward justice.

I don't see much of that now in the Democratic Party. Instead of an emphasis on the weak and suffering, there's so much emphasis on autonomy and choice. And so the party of William Jennings Bryan, the party of Franklin Roosevelt, I'm not sure it exists any more. But it would be good if it did.

Where specifically do you think the Religious Right has gone off track?

Some of it is what I would call baptizing policy recommendations, as if there were a Christian view on tax policy or missile defense. These are questions of prudence and judgment on which reasonable people disagree.

Sometimes the agenda has been important but too limited. The goal is to have a Christian worldview that encompasses domestic and foreign policy, that speaks broadly without essentially trying to claim there's only one Christian view on a variety of issues.

I think there are informed and correct views on tax policy. I don't think there's necessarily a Christian view. But there is a Christian view on human dignity and on the responsibility of government to protect the weak and on making sure societies are not just organized for the benefit of the strong. Those are consistent teachings that have relevance in every time, and they motivate people across the spectrum.

What are the challenges for Christians regarding contentious issues like gay marriage and abortion?

These are the toughest issues in American life. How you argue makes a huge difference. Proof-texting arguments from Scripture or arguments made in a spirit of anger are often counterproductive. I don't think that's been general or uniform, but it's been known to happen. Christians should acknowledge that opponents aren't enemies, that ultimately every person is worthy of respect and tolerance.

The pro-life debate is a case in point: It's a strong principle of Christian teaching and Roman Catholic social doctrine, as well as other sources, that says we as a society have to have solidarity. A test of that solidarity is how we treat society's weakest members. We're all in this together. We should be a welcoming society that includes everyone. The way we argue for that should be through appealing to [people's] aspirations, not to their anger. We should be talking about inclusion, not judgment-this could be very effective.

You can read the rest of the interview at the link.

Absolutely Essential?

We've all heard that the theory of evolution is absolutely essential to understanding all of biology, if not all of science. Indeed, it'd be the end of science, some fear, should any competing theory be taught along side Darwinism in our high schools and colleges. So why, Sal Cordova wonders, are so few college students required to take a course in evolution and why do so many biologists think that evolution as a discipline is "near the bottom" of the scientific pecking order?

Cordova cites the following statements made by respected Darwinian biologists:

"In science's pecking order, evolutionary biology lurks somewhere near the bottom, far closer to phrenology than to physics." Jerry Coyne

"There's a striking asymmetry in molecular versus evolutionary education in American universities. Although many science, and all biology, students are required to endure molecular courses, evolution-even introductory evolution-is often an elective. The reason is simple: biochemistry and cell biology get Junior into med school, evolution doesn't. Consequently, many professional scientists know surprisingly little about evolution." Allen Orr

Cordova goes to no less an authority than Ernst Mayr for the reason evolution doesn't get junior into med school:

"Evolutionary biology, in contrast with physics and chemistry, is a historical science...[where] Laws and experiments are inappropriate...Instead one constructs a ... narrative."

So, if Darwinian assumptions are of secondary importance to the work being done by many people working in the biological sciences, why are we so frequently subjected to fearsome prophecies of doom and gloom if public school students are allowed to hear that some scientists believe that intelligence somehow played a role in the ascent of life? Could the fears of the Darwinians be overblown - or maybe insincere?

Leaving Church

This story by Laurie Goodstein of the New York Times is perplexing, not least because it's hard to tell how accurately it's being reported. Taking it tentatively at face value, though, it seems that both sides at this church have made some mistakes. Here's the gist of the story:

MAPLEWOOD, Minn. (July 30) -- Like most pastors who lead thriving evangelical megachurches, the Rev. Gregory A. Boyd was asked frequently to give his blessing -- and the church's -- to conservative political candidates and causes.

The requests came from church members and visitors alike: Would he please announce a rally against gay marriage during services? Would he introduce a politician from the pulpit? Could members set up a table in the lobby promoting their anti-abortion work? Would the church distribute "voters' guides" that all but endorsed Republican candidates? And with the country at war, please couldn't the church hang an American flag in the sanctuary? After refusing each time, Mr. Boyd finally became fed up, he said. Before the last presidential election, he preached six sermons called "The Cross and the Sword" in which he said the church should steer clear of politics, give up moralizing on sexual issues, stop claiming the United States as a "Christian nation" and stop glorifying American military campaigns.

I think Pastor Boyd was wrong about political involvement, wrong about "moralizing" on sexual issues, partly correct about the U.S. not being a Christian nation (although it was founded on the basis of Christian principles), and completely correct about not glorifying military campaigns (although they should certainly be assessed in terms of how well they conform to Just War thinking). War should be regarded by the church as a necessary evil. Individual service and valor can certainly be praised but war itself should be regarded with sadness, not triumphalism.

"When the church wins the culture wars, it inevitably loses," Mr. Boyd preached. "When it conquers the world, it becomes the world. When you put your trust in the sword, you lose the cross."

No and yes. How the Church inevitably loses if it prevails in the culture war is certainly far from clear. After all, what does it mean to be salt in the world if it doesn't mean trying to influence the culture to move in a moral direction?

If, however, a nation's ultimate confidence is in its military might rather than its assurance that it is not transgressing the law of God, then we will not only lose the cross, but we'll lose our nation as well. Though we surely need to be militarily strong, ultimately our confidence must not rest in the might of our army but in the rightness of our principles.

Mr. Boyd says he is no liberal. He is opposed to abortion and thinks homosexuality is not God's ideal. The response from his congregation at Woodland Hills Church here in suburban St. Paul -- packed mostly with politically and theologically conservative, middle-class evangelicals -- was passionate. Some members walked out of a sermon and never returned. By the time the dust had settled, Woodland Hills, which Mr. Boyd founded in 1992, had lost about 1,000 of its 5,000 members.

This is not very clear. It's hard to tell whether the congregants left because Pastor Boyd opposes abortion and homosexuality or because he doesn't preach strongly enough against these things. Presumably it's the latter, but perhaps it's that he was challenging his people to think more deeply about these matters than they cared to. If so, it's unfortunate that they took this as a justification for leaving. Sermons should challenge people to think more deeply both politically and theologically than they otherwise might. If Christians don't want to be challenged that would be a shame. It would give point to the title of historian Mark Noll's book The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind.

But there were also congregants who thanked Mr. Boyd, telling him they were moved to tears to hear him voice concerns they had been too afraid to share. "Most of my friends are believers," said Shannon Staiger, a psychotherapist and church member, "and they think if you're a believer, you'll vote for Bush. And it's scary to go against that."

Sermons like Mr. Boyd's are hardly typical in today's evangelical churches.

That may be but I wonder how Goodstein knows that.

But the upheaval at Woodland Hills is an example of the internal debates now going on in some evangelical colleges, magazines and churches. A common concern is that the Christian message is being compromised by the tendency to tie evangelical Christianity to the Republican Party and American nationalism, especially through the war in Iraq.

There is a reason for this, of course, which is that the Democrat party has become the party of abortion, moral laxness, and theological liberalism. Evangelicals, rightly or wrongly, feel that their faith is under attack and see the Democrat party as at best indifferent to the attacks and at worst complicit in them. They feel that Republicans are more sympathetic to their concernas and values so it's no wonder that many evangelicals have gravitated to that party.

And Mr. Boyd has a new book out, "The Myth of a Christian Nation: How the Quest for Political Power Is Destroying the Church," which is based on his sermons.

Whether the quest for political power is destroying the church or whether there realaly is a significant quest for political power is not clear, but surely Pastor Boyd is correct that it is unwise for the Church to snuggle up to government. Of course, the New York Times might have pointed out that the black church has been doing this for decades but since they've been cozying to Democrats that gets a pass from the Times.

Mr. Boyd said he had cleared his sermons with the church's board, but his words left some in his congregation stunned. Some said that he was disrespecting President Bush and the military, that he was soft on abortion or telling them not to vote.

"When we joined years ago, Greg was a conservative speaker," said William Berggren, a lawyer who joined the church with his wife six years ago. "But we totally disagreed with him on this. You can't be a Christian and ignore actions that you feel are wrong. A case in point is the abortion issue. If the church were awake when abortion was passed in the 70's, it wouldn't have happened. But the church was asleep."

Mr. Berggren is right. Abortion is a legitimate, if very delicate, issue in the church. Any matter that bears upon human life and morality is a proper subject for a sermon. It's not clear, though, from this excerpt whether Mr. Berggren is concerned that Pastor Boyd is reluctant to preach on it or that he doesn't take the position on the issue that Mr. Breggren would like.

Mr. Boyd, 49, who preaches in blue jeans and rumpled plaid shirts, leads a church that occupies a squat block-long building that was once a home improvement chain store.

The church grew from 40 members in 12 years, based in no small part on Mr. Boyd's draw as an electrifying preacher who stuck closely to Scripture. He has degrees from Yale Divinity School and Princeton Theological Seminary, and he taught theology at Bethel College in St. Paul, where he created a controversy a few years ago by questioning whether God fully knew the future. Some pastors in his own denomination, the Baptist General Conference, mounted an effort to evict Mr. Boyd from the denomination and his teaching post, but he won that battle.

This is also disappointing. Whether God fully knows the future is a legitimate question. There are many passages in Scripture would could be taken to mean that he doesn't and many which indicate that He does. This seems to me to be an issue upon which Christians could disagree without feeling that they have to "break fellowship".

He is known among evangelicals for a bestselling book, "Letters From a Skeptic," based on correspondence with his father, a leftist union organizer and a lifelong agnostic -- an exchange that eventually persuaded his father to embrace Christianity.

Mr. Boyd said he never intended his sermons to be taken as merely a critique of the Republican Party or the religious right. He refuses to share his party affiliation, or whether he has one, for that reason. He said there were Christians on both the left and the right who had turned politics and patriotism into "idolatry."

This is certainly true and he's right to try to guard against it.

He said he first became alarmed while visiting another megachurch's worship service on a Fourth of July years ago. The service finished with the chorus singing "God Bless America" and a video of fighter jets flying over a hill silhouetted with crosses. "I thought to myself, 'What just happened? Fighter jets mixed up with the cross?' " he said in an interview.

Well. There's nothing at all wrong with singing a hymn petitioning God for His blessing on one's country, and I don't see why Pastor Boyd should find that offensive. Moreover, although I would probably wince myself at a church service that seems to be a little too heavily militarized, I don't know that I would have been as scandalized by the fighter jets as Pastor Boyd was.

Patriotic displays are still a mainstay in some evangelical churches. Across town from Mr. Boyd's church, the sanctuary of North Heights Lutheran Church was draped in bunting on the Sunday before the Fourth of July this year for a "freedom celebration." Military veterans and flag twirlers paraded into the sanctuary, an enormous American flag rose slowly behind the stage, and a Marine major who had served in Afghanistan preached that the military was spending "your hard-earned money" on good causes.

I don't know why a church, especially a Lutheran church, shouldn't celebrate the blessing of political freedom, nor is there anything wrong with churches recognizing the contribution of those in its congregation who served in the military. As for the major telling the congregants that their money is being spent on good causes, one certainly hopes that that's the case.

In his six sermons, Mr. Boyd laid out a broad argument that the role of Christians was not to seek "power over" others -- by controlling governments, passing legislation or fighting wars. Christians should instead seek to have "power under" others - "winning people's hearts" by sacrificing for those in need, as Jesus did, Mr. Boyd said.

Pastor Boyd here traipses out onto rhetorical thin ice. If he means that the Church as an institution shouldn't seek to control governments then I join him, but if he means that individual Christians should refrain from exercising their rights as citizens, I have to dissent. There is nothing wrong with Christians seeking to influence legislation or fighting wars. The latter depends, of course, on whether the war conforms to the criteria of Just War theory.

"America wasn't founded as a theocracy," he said. "America was founded by people trying to escape theocracies. Never in history have we had a Christian theocracy where it wasn't bloody and barbaric. That's why our Constitution wisely put in a separation of church and state. "I am sorry to tell you," he continued, "that America is not the light of the world and the hope of the world. The light of the world and the hope of the world is Jesus Christ."

This is true enough, and if this is what upsets his congregants then they need to spend some time reading the four gospels.

Mr. Boyd lambasted the "hypocrisy and pettiness" of Christians who focus on "sexual issues" like homosexuality, abortion or Janet Jackson's breast-revealing performance at the Super Bowl halftime show. He said Christians these days were constantly outraged about sex and perceived violations of their rights to display their faith in public. "Those are the two buttons to push if you want to get Christians to act," he said. "And those are the two buttons Jesus never pushed."

Maybe Jesus never pushed those buttons because He didn't have as much occasion in the society in which he lived. There wasn't much pornography around in the centuries before Gutenberg, one guesses. Nevertheless, John the Baptist did push that button at the cost of his head, and so did Paul. The fact is that a flawed view of human love and sexuality devastates more lives today than probably any other single factor. Proper understanding of the appropriate role of sexuality in our lives and of the enormous damage that can be wrought from a misuse of this gift is extremely important and I can't understand why a pastor who sees that damage in his counselling sessions every day would think otherwise.

Mr. Boyd gave his sermons while his church was in the midst of a $7 million fund-raising campaign. But only $4 million came in, and 7 of the more than 50 staff members were laid off, he said. Mary Van Sickle, the family pastor at Woodland Hills, said she lost 20 volunteers who had been the backbone of the church's Sunday school.

"They said, 'You're not doing what the church is supposed to be doing, which is supporting the Republican way,' " she said. "It was some of my best volunteers."

The Rev. Paul Eddy, a theology professor at Bethel College and the teaching pastor at Woodland Hills, said: "Greg is an anomaly in the megachurch world. He didn't give a whit about church leadership, never read a book about church growth. His biggest fear is that people will think that all church is is a weekend carnival, with people liking the worship, the music, his speaking, and that's it."

In the end, those who left tended to be white, middle-class suburbanites, church staff members said. In their place, the church has added more members who live in the surrounding community - African-Americans, Hispanics and Hmong immigrants from Laos.

"In their place"? Did these new members have to wait until the disgruntled folk moved on before they could join Pastor Boyd's church?

Mr. Boyd now says of the upheaval: "I don't regret any aspect of it at all. It was a defining moment for us. We let go of something we were never called to be. We just didn't know the price we were going to pay for doing it."

His congregation of about 4,000 is still digesting his message. Mr. Boyd arranged a forum on a recent Wednesday night to allow members to sound off on his new book. The reception was warm, but many of the 56 questions submitted in writing were pointed: Isn't abortion an evil that Christians should prevent? Are you saying Christians should not join the military? How can Christians possibly have "power under" Osama bin Laden? Didn't the church play an enormously positive role in the civil rights movement? One woman asked: "So why NOT us? If we contain the wisdom and grace and love and creativity of Jesus, why shouldn't we be the ones involved in politics and setting laws?"

Mr. Boyd responded: "I don't think there's a particular angle we have on society that others lack. All good, decent people want good and order and justice. Just don't slap the label 'Christian' on it."

I'm not sure what the pastor means by this, but surely the province of the Good and of Justice are appropriate arenas in which Christians should be engaged. If he means that Christians aren't the only ones who seek the Good and Justice, why, of course, he's right, but it doesn't follow that Christians shouldn't be especially distinguished by their concern for these virtues.

Ambassador Gillerman

In case you missed it yesterday it would really be worth your while to go here and read the transcript of Meet the Press featuring Tim Russert's interviews with Israeli ambassador Dan Gillerman and Lebanese special envoy Nouhad Mahmoud. Better yet go here and watch it.

Gillerman is extremely impressive, intelligent, and convincing. Mahmoud seemed like he was just giving pro forma responses to Russert's questions about the Israeli incursion into Lebanon. At some points he sounded as if he didn't really believe himself what he was saying.

Read the transcript and decide for yourself.

<i>Suicide Killers</i>

The Counterterrorism Blog has a disturbing interview with Pierre Rehov a French documentary filmmaker, who is completing a film titled Suicide Killers on the psychology of suicide bombers.

It's hard to read this interview with Rehov without coming to some deeply troubling conclusions about Islam. Here's part of it:

What inspired you to produce "Suicide Killers," your seventh film?

I started working with victims of suicide attacks to make a film on PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) when I became fascinated with the personalities of those who had committed those crimes, as they were described again and again by their victims. Especially the fact that suicide bombers are all smiling one second before they blow themselves up.

Why is this film especially important?

People don't understand the devastating culture behind this unbelievable phenomenon. My film is not politically correct because it addresses the real problem-showing the real face of Islam. It points the finger against a culture of hatred in which the uneducated are brainwashed to a level where their only solution in life becomes to kill themselves and kill others in the name of a God whose word, as transmitted by other men, has became their only certitude.

What insights did you gain from making this film? What do you know that other experts do not know?

I came to the conclusion that we are facing a neurosis at the level of an entire civilization. Most neuroses have in common a dramatic event, generally linked to an unacceptable sexual behavior. In this case, we are talking of kids living all their lives in pure frustration, with no opportunity to experience sex, love, tenderness or even understanding from the opposite sex. The separation between men and women in Islam is absolute. So is contempt toward women, who are totally dominated by men. This leads to a situation of pure anxiety, in which normal behavior is not possible. It is no coincidence that suicide killers are mostly young men dominated subconsciously by an overwhelming libido that they not only cannot satisfy but are afraid of, as if it is the work of the devil. Since Islam describes heaven as a place where everything on earth will finally be allowed, and promises 72 virgins to those frustrated kids, killing others and killing themselves to reach this redemption becomes their only solution.

What was it like to interview would-be suicide bombers, their families and survivors of suicide bombings?

It was a fascinating and a terrifying experience. You are dealing with seemingly normal people with very nice manners who have their own logic, which to a certain extent can make sense since they are so convinced that what they say is true. It is like dealing with pure craziness, like interviewing people in an asylum, since what they say, is for them, the absolute truth. I hear a mother saying "Thank God, my son is dead." Her son had became a shaheed, a martyr, which for her was a greater source of pride than if he had became an engineer, a doctor or a winner of the Nobel Prize. This system of values works completely backwards since their interpretation of Islam worships death much more than life. You are facing people whose only dream, only achievement is to fulfill what they believe to be their destiny, namely to be a shaheed or the family of a shaheed. They don't see the innocent being killed, they only see the impure that they have to destroy.

Do all Muslims interpret jihad and martyrdom in the same way?

All Muslim believers believe that, ultimately, Islam will prevail on earth. They believe this is the only true religion and their is no room, in their mind, for interpretation. The main difference between moderate Muslims and extremists is that moderate Muslims don't think they will see the absolute victory of Islam during their life time, therefore they respect other beliefs. The extremists believe that the fulfillment of the Prophecy of Islam and ruling the entire world as described in the Koran, is for today. Each victory of Bin Laden convinces 20 million moderate Muslims to become extremists.

Describe the culture that manufactures suicide bombers.

Oppression, lack of freedom, brain washing, organized poverty, placing God in charge of daily life, total separation between men and women, forbidding sex, giving women no power whatsoever, and placing men in charge of family honor, which is mainly connected to their women's behavior.

How can we put an end to the madness of suicide bombings and terrorism in general?

Stop being politically correct and stop believing that this culture is a victim of ours. Radical Islamism today is nothing but a new form of Nazism. Nobody was trying to justify or excuse Hitler in the 1930s. We had to defeat him in order to make peace one day with the German people.

There's more at the link.

Five Questions About Qana

The bombing of the building in Qana has had a tragic result and, if it turns world opinion against Israel, it will be many times more tragic, so we have a couple of questions about the attack:

1) Why would anyone think that Israel intentionally bombed civilians? There could have been absolutely no benefit to Israel whatsoever from intentionally killing a large number of women and children.

2) Who does benefit? The only beneficiary of this tragedy is Hezbollah which has won not only a two day reprieve from the bombing but has also scored a public relations coup.

3) Why was this building hit in the first place? Israel tracks rocket launches and uploads the satellite data to a bomber on site which assesses the target. If the target is judged to be free of civilians the pilot launches a bomb which is guided by the satellite. Evidently, Hezbollah was using this building as a launch site for the rockets it was sending into Israel and there was no indication, the hour being late, that it was occupied by civilians.

4) Why were so many women and children gathered together in a building which, in some reports, was said to be under construction? There were approximately 70 people huddled in this structure when it collapsed. What were they doing there? Were they placed there by Hezbollah? Why?

5) The attack occurred between 12:00 a.m. and 1:00 a.m. but the building didn't collapse until about 8:00 a.m. Do we know for sure that the Israeli bomb caused the collapse? The IDF thinks there were explosives housed in the building that may have caused a secondary explosion that resulted in the collapse.

Who knows. Maybe there are answers to these questions that would make sense from the point of view of a Lebanese. But in the rush to report the story it would be nice if some reporters would at least show an interest in finding those answers.

Mel Gibson

Mel Gibson has made some good movies and his The Passion of the Christ was, in my opinion, excellent. Nevertheless, he has essentially undone himself with his drunken rage at the police who apprehended him for DUI.

His behavior is not just appalling, it's reprehensible. The charges of anti-semitism that have followed him throughout his career and especially in the lead up to the release of The Passion have been amply confirmed by Gibson himself.

His drunkenness is tragic but, as serious as it is, it might win our sympathy, or even our empathy. His obvious hatred of Jews, however, is a much more profound sin, especially in the anti-semitic world we find ourselves in today. It's a sin which commands not our sympathy but our dissociation.

It is with deep sadness that we read of his fall, and as much as we'd like to believe his apology no one says the things he said unless those things are deeply rooted in his soul.

Mel needs to think about some very serious penance, purgation, and contrition. He needs to spend some quality time on his knees laying open his soul so that God can cleanse his heart of the hatred he harbors there. Until he spends that time I don't know how there can be anything more that he could ever offer the Church.

Sounds Like a Trend to Us

Michelle lists eight or nine examples of Muslims who've initiated deadly or near deadly attacks on innocent bystanders in this country in the last ten years, the one in Seattle the other day being the most recent. Had she not omitted the attack by a university student in North Carolina who drove his SUV into a crowd of students a year or so ago there's have been even more. When is the media going to start pointing out that there seems to be a trend here?

Fortunately, the Seattle police have their priorities straight. In the wake of the recent shooting that left one dead and five wounded the police have set up protective surveillance of ... the local mosque.

Let's ask a couple of questions: How many American citizens have been murdered in America by Muslims in the last ten years? On the other hand, how many Muslims have been murdered in America by non-Muslim Americans? Who should the police be protecting from whom?

The Current Crisis

More incisive analysis of the current war in Lebanon from Victor Davis Hanson:

We can answer these absurdities by summing up the war very briefly. Iran and Syria feel the noose tightening around their necks - especially the ring of democracies in nearby Afghanistan , Iraq , Turkey , and perhaps Lebanon. Even the toothless U.N. finally is forced to focus on Iranian nukes and Syrian murder plots. And neither Syria can overturn the Lebanese government nor can Iran the Iraqi democracy. Instead, both are afraid that their rhetoric may soon earn some hard bombing, since their "air defenses" are hardly defenses at all.

So they tell Hamas and Hezbollah to tap their missile caches, kidnap a few soldiers, and generally try to turn the world's attention to the collateral damage inflicted on "refugees" by a stirred-up Zionist enemy.

For their part, the terrorist killers hope to kidnap, ransom, and send off missiles, and then, when caught and hit, play the usual victim card of racism, colonialism, Zionism, and about every other -ism that they think will win a bailout from some guilt-ridden, terrorist-frightened, Jew-hating, or otherwise oil-hungry Western nation.

The only difference from the usual scripted Middle East war is that this time, privately at least, most of the West, and perhaps some in the Arab world as well, want Israel to wipe out Hezbollah, and perhaps hit Syria or Iran . The terrorists and their sponsors know this, and rage accordingly when their military impotence is revealed to a global audience - especially after no reprieve is forthcoming to save their "pride" and "honor."

What should the United States do? If it really cares about human life and future peace, then we should talk ad nauseam about "restraint" and "proportionality" while privately assuring Israel the leeway to smash both Hamas and Hezbollah - and humiliate Syria and Iran, who may well come off very poorly from their longed-for but bizarre war.

Only then will Israel restore some semblance of deterrence and strengthen nascent democratic movements in both Lebanon and even the West Bank . This is the truth that everyone from London to Cairo knows, but dares not speak. So for now, let us pray that the brave pilots and ground commanders of the IDF can teach these primordial tribesmen a lesson that they will not soon forget - and thus do civilization's dirty work on the other side of the proverbial Rhine.

In this regard, it is time to stop the silly slurs that American policy in the Middle East is either in shambles or culpable for the present war. In fact, if we keep our cool, the Bush doctrine is working. Both Afghans and Iraqis each day fight and kill Islamist terrorists; neither was doing so before 9/11. Syria and Iran have never been more isolated; neither was isolated when Bill Clinton praised the "democracy" in Tehran or when an American secretary of State sat on the tarmac in Damascus for hours to pay homage to Syria 's gangsters. Israel is at last being given an opportunity to unload on jihadists; that was impossible during the Arafat fraud that grew out of the Oslo debacle. Europe is waking up to the dangers of radical Islamism; in the past, it bragged of its aid and arms sales to terrorist governments from the West Bank to Baghdad.

There is much more along this vein at the link.

Re: A Little Humility Please

In a recent post I chided political scientist Larry Arnhart for what I took to be a bit of over-reaching in describing his new book Darwinian Conservatism. Arnhart made the claim that he shows in the book "why the arguments of ID proponents are weak". I wrote that I thought this an inappropriate statement for a non-specialist in the relevant disciplines to make and that it displayed a lack of humility. Via e-mail Mr. Arnhart challenged that judgment.

I am unpersuaded that a non-specialist should be given much credence when he or she claims to have essentially settled a controversy that many specialists are still vigorously debating, but, although he did not mention or suggest it, I looked up Mr. Arnhart's curriculum vitae and noted that he is not exactly a non-specialist. He has indeed published widely on the issue of ID/evolution, and I feel as a result that I was hasty and unfair to him in the criticism I placed in the original post.

I apologize to him and will delete the offending post after those who may wish to go back to it to see what this is all about have had a day or two to do so.

Good Teaching

Cornell Professor Allen MacNeill has set an example of what a college education should look like. Professor MacNeill offered a seminar this summer on the issues surrounding the Intelligent design/ Darwinian evolution controversy. MacNeill is a Darwinian himself, but by all accounts he did an outstanding job of moderating the discussions and being fair to all students and all viewpoints.

Sal Cordova publishes MacNeill's summary of where matters stand with two weeks left to go in the course at Uncommon Descent.

Student commentary on the class discussions is posted here.

MacNeill has given his students a fine model for how such debates should be conducted, and, as Cordova notes, he's to be commended for what he's accomplished.

Colbert and Norton

Andrew Sullivan has a funny video clip of a Stephen Colbert interview with Eleanor Holmes Norton. Go here and click on the screen.

Just War in Lebanon

The New Republic inexplicably touts Michael Walzer as the "great political philosopher who developed the theory of 'just war'. One wonders if the folks at TNR have never heard of Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) and his Summa Theologica or any of a host of pre-twentieth century thinkers (e.g. Francisco de Vitoria (1486-1546), Francisco Suarez (1548-1617), Hugo Grotius (1583-1645), Samuel Pufendorf (1632-1704), Christian Wolff (1679-1754), and Emerich de Vattel (1714-1767)), but never mind. Even if TNR embarrasses both Walzer and itself in its enthusiasm, he is still a very important contemporary just war theorist and he has a piece in TNR on the Lebanon/Israeli war that's worth reading. Here's the second half of it:

So, what can Israel do? It is an important principle of just war theory that justice, though it rules out many ways of fighting, cannot rule out fighting itself--since fighting is sometimes morally and politically necessary. A military response to the capture of the three Israeli soldiers wasn't, literally, necessary; in the past, Israel has negotiated instead of fighting and then exchanged prisoners. But, since Hamas and Hezbollah describe the captures as legitimate military operations--acts of war--they can hardly claim that further acts of war, in response, are illegitimate. The further acts have to be proportional, but Israel's goal is to prevent future raids, as well as to rescue the soldiers, so proportionality must be measured not only against what Hamas and Hezbollah have already done, but also against what they are (and what they say they are) trying to do.

The most important Israeli goal in both the north and the south is to prevent rocket attacks on its civilian population, and, here, its response clearly meets the requirements of necessity. The first purpose of any state is to defend the lives of its citizens; no state can tolerate random rocket attacks on its cities and towns. Some 700 rockets have been fired from northern Gaza since the Israeli withdrawal a year ago--imagine the U.S. response if a similar number were fired at Buffalo and Detroit from some Canadian no-man's-land. It doesn't matter that, so far, the Gazan rockets have done minimal damage; the intention every time one is fired is to hit a home or a school, and, sooner or later, that intention will be realized.

Israel has waited a long time for the Palestinian Authority and the Lebanese government to deal with the rocket fire from Gaza and the rocket build-up on the Lebanese border. In the latter case, it has also waited for the United Nations, which has a force in southern Lebanon that is mandated to "restore international peace and security" but has nonetheless watched the positioning of thousands of rockets and has done nothing. A couple of years ago, the Security Council passed a resolution calling for the disarming of Hezbollah; its troops, presumably, have noticed that this didn't happen. Now Israel has rightly decided that it has no choice except to take out the rockets itself. But, again, how can it do that?

The crucial argument is about the Palestinian use of civilians as shields. Academic philosophers have written at great length about "innocent shields," since these radically exploited (but sometimes, perhaps, compliant) men and women pose a dilemma that tests the philosophers' dialectical skills. Israeli soldiers are not required to have dialectical skills, but, on the one hand, they are expected to do everything they can to prevent civilian deaths, and, on the other hand, they are expected to fight against an enemy that hides behind civilians. So (to quote a famous line from Trotsky), they may not be interested in the dialectic, but the dialectic is interested in them.

There is no neat solution to their dilemma. When Palestinian militants launch rocket attacks from civilian areas, they are themselves responsible--and no one else is--for the civilian deaths caused by Israeli counterfire. But (the dialectical argument continues) Israeli soldiers are required to aim as precisely as they can at the militants, to take risks in order to do that, and to call off counterattacks that would kill large numbers of civilians.

That last requirement means that, sometimes, the Palestinian use of civilian shields, though it is a cruel and immoral way of fighting, is also an effective way of fighting. It works, because it is both morally right and politically intelligent for the Israelis to minimize--and to be seen trying to minimize--civilian casualties. Still, minimizing does not mean avoiding entirely: Civilians will suffer so long as no one on the Palestinian side (or the Lebanese side) takes action to stop rocket attacks. From that side, though not from the Israeli side, what needs to be done could probably be done without harm to civilians.

I was recently asked to sign a condemnation of the Israeli operation in Gaza--a statement claiming that the rocket attacks and the military raid that led to the capture of Gilad Shalit are simply the inevitable consequences of the Israeli occupation: There "never will be peace or security until the occupation ends." In the past, I am sure, some Palestinian attacks were motivated by the experience of occupation. But that isn't true today. Hamas is attacking after the Israelis departed Gaza and after the formation of a government that is (or was until the attacks) committed to a large withdrawal from the West Bank.

Similarly, Hezbollah's attacks came after the Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon. The aim of these militants is not to create a Palestinian state alongside Israel; it is to destroy Israel. Admittedly, that is a long-term aim that derives from a religious view of history. Secularists and pragmatists have a lot of trouble acknowledging such a view, let alone understanding it.

By contrast, the Israeli response has only a short-term aim: to stop the attacks across its borders. Until that is achieved, no Israeli government is going to move forward with another withdrawal. In fact, it is probably true that the Hamas and Hezbollah attacks have made any future unilateral withdrawals impossible. Israel needs a partner on the other side who is, first of all, capable of maintaining security on the new border and who is, second, actually willing to do that. I can't pretend that the Israeli military operations now in progress are going to produce a partner like that.

At best, the army and air force will weaken the capacity of Hamas and Hezbollah to attack Israel; they won't alter their resolve. It will probably take the international community--the United States, Europe, the United Nations, some Arab states--to bring the Lebanese army into the south of the country and make it an effective force once it is there. And it will take a similar coalition to sponsor and support a Palestinian government that is committed to two states with one permanent and peaceful border and that is prepared to repress the religious militants who oppose that commitment. Until there is an effective Lebanese army and a Palestinian government that believes in co-existence, Israel is entitled to act, within the dialectical limits, on its own behalf.

Walzer says a thing or two in the first half of the essay that I believe are somewhat problematic but what he says above is on the mark.

Funny Stunt

Jodi Applegate wanted to film a couple of guys demonstrating how easy it is to steal a bike for her Good Day, New York tv show. Unfortunately, the two men, Casey and Van Neistat, feigned an accident in which one of them leaned too close to the chain cutter and, pressing ketchup packs against his throat, simulated having had his throat seriously lacerated. It's actually kind of funny, in a goofy kind of way, but Jodi is not at all amused, which makes it even funnier.

See the video here.

With Friends Like This...

Robert Casey, the Democratic candidate for the senate from Pennsylvania, just received a rousing endorsement from, of all people, al Jazeera. To be sure the endorsement was largely implicit since the article was a tirade against Casey's opponent Rick Santorum, and concluded with a plea to readers to vote Democratic. With supporters like this surely Mr. Casey feels cursed.

Indeed, it's not hard to imagine Santorum reading this editorial aloud in every speech he gives from now until election day. He couldn't have asked for a better break than to have al Jazeera place itself squarely in the opposition's camp. From Santorum's point of view, the only thing better than having al Jazeera endorse Casey, as one political observer once put it, would be for Casey to be caught in bed with a dead woman or a live boy.

Thanks for the tip to Captain's Quarters.

Moral Equivalency

Gary Varvel illustrates the witlessness of trying to equate the deaths of civilians at the hands of the Israelis with the deaths of civilians at the hands of their Muslim enemies:

And here's Chip Bok's meditation on the same subject:

And this at Michelle's:

The Silence of the Blogs

Andrew Sullivan notes the stunning silence on left wing blogs over the war in Lebanon and speculates about the reasons for it.

For my part, I suspect that the southpaw bloggers are reluctant to talk about the war for a couple of reasons. First, posting about the war would unleash a flood of commentary from their readers, many of whom are virulently anti-semitic. The lefties who run the blogs realize that triggering the hateful rhetoric likely to spew from this reptilian element of their readership would be a PR disaster. Second, there's no really good argument against what Israel is doing and the bloggers would make fools of themselves if they tried to criticize it. But, third, they can't take a position supporting Israel because that would put them in bed with George Bush and that's a circumstance too repugnant to contemplate. Not only would they be alienating a sizable chunk of their base - the antisemites and Bush haters - by having to share the mattress with Bush but they'd also be ineluctably led by the logic of their position to generally agree with his views on the larger war on terror.

The Israeli/Hezbollah war is thus a philosophical minefield for the left, and for the most part they're seeing the wisdom of just ignoring it. It's unprincipled, to be sure, but then we are talking here about the secular left.

Bint Jubayl

Bill Roggio discusses the battle of Bint Jubayl at CounterTerrorism Blog:

As the smoke clears from the fighting in the Lebanese border town of Bint Jubayl, Hezbollah's military capabilities become clearer. Today, 8 Israeli soldiers from the Golani Brigade's 51st Battalion were killed and 22 wounded during a "well-planned Hezbollah ambush on the outskirts" outside of Bint Jubayl. This follows the 4 killed and 18 wounded during Sunday's engagement in the town.

Hezbollah was reported to have suffered 150 killed as of this morning, and another 40 killed in today's action after fighting "gun battles at point-blank range." An unnamed American military officer reports several Hezbollah operatives, whose primary purpose is logistical support, have been captured and are currently being interrogated by Israeli intelligence.

The Hezbollah bunker in Bint Jubayl was taken nearly intact. Hezbollah attempted to destroy the equipment in the bunker, but was not successful in destroying it all, according to an intelligence source. Abu Jaafar, the Hezbollah commander in southern Lebanon, may have killed himself rather than being captured. The Israeli troops seized Hezbollah computers, documents and monitoring devices used to observe the Israeli border, in addition to the "electronic surveillance equipment, weapons and communication devices made in Iran" which was reported yesterday. The bunker served as the equivalent of a Hezbollah headquarters and command and control center for the southern border.

The Israelis targeted the town of Bint Jubayl with the hope of obtaining further intelligence on Hezbollah's organization and capabilites, as well as the location of their two captured soldiers. The documents and computer seized by the IDF may outline Hezbollah's command and organizational structure in southern Lebanon, although this is unknown at this time. Israeli intelligence is currently analyzing the data.

The Israelis have confirmed that Hezbollah is fighting like a professional military. Their units are fighting at the company level at the least (Unit size of approximately 100 men), and perhaps in larger formations. Intelligence also confirms there is specialization within the Hezbollah units, including trained infantry, mortar teams, missile squads, and logistical personal. Iran has trained and organized Hezbollah's army into something far more deadly than a militia force. Hezbollah's core 'active' army is estimated at 3,000 - 5,000, with as many as 50,000 part time militia and support personnel that can be called upon to fight (20,000 is the average estimate).

Intelligence sources also have confirmed that members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps have indeed been killed during the fighting in Bint Jubayl.

The Lebanese coastal city of Tyre (also referred to as Sour) has "has steadily fallen more and more under Hezbollah's influence since the Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon, and rocket launchers in the city are hitting the city of Haifa and the northern Israeli towns. Israeli air strikes have been focusing on the city, but a steady barrage of about 100 missiles continue to fall in Israeli territory each day.

The Israeli government is signaling their plan to combat Hezbollah is to establish a 1-2 kilometer security buffer along the border and accept international peace keepers without explicitly requiring Hezbollah to disarm in accordance to United Nations Security Council Resolution 1559. This would give Hezbollah a monumental political and propaganda victory, while allowing Hezbollah's army the time and space it needs to rearm, train and improve their tactics for the next battle with the Israeli Defense Force.

This is why Israelis are saying that the war will continue for several more weeks. Either Hezbollah does not survive or ultimately Israel will not survive.

There's more analysis at DebkaFile.

Neo-Cons

Front Page Mag has an interview by Jamie Glazov with Douglas Murray, author of Neoconservatism: Why We Need It. Murray has a number of interesting things to say about neoconservatism, among them is the distinction between liberals, traditional conservatives, and neo-cons.

The latter, according to Murray, see the world as it is and feel a duty to make it what it should be. Traditional conservatives (sometimes called Paleo-cons) see the world as it is and want to isolate themselves from it. Liberals, unfortunately, lack the capacity to see the world as it is.

Murray also ventures to identify some of those who fall into the neo-conservative mold:

Of the sustained neocons, none is a better example than Tony Blair. His axiom before the Iraq war on toppling dictators 'When you can, you should' seems to me a perfect neoconservative expression. But, that said, he is not remotely a neocon on domestic matters (which I go into at some length in my book) - not even on the domestic war on terror. It's purely a foreign policy thing with him.

There are of course a number of writers who I would say are great examples of neoconservative thinking. From very different directions, Christopher Hitchens and Charles Krauthammer spring to mind. But again it's worth pointing out that whenever you get more than one neoconservative in a room they're as likely to disagree as agree with each other. It's not a doctrine or fraternity - simply a way of looking at the world which, in my opinion, is particularly relevant to the world in which we live.

In answer to a question about why he thinks we need neoconservatism (from the title of his book) he replies:

Because the West is getting lost. Not just the Western way of life - which is increasingly becoming little more than a 'lifestyle choice'. But lost in the sense that it is forgetting what it believes in and therefore why it should even believe in itself. A combination of historical ignorance and moral posturing has led to what Ratzinger called the 'dictatorship of relativism'. In this situation moral clarity - which is one of the things neoconservatism provides - is desperately lacking. And I think this situation is dangerous. Dangerous because into this vacuum any of the worst creeds can stalk. Relativism's descent into nihilism is not the end of the problem. It is the beginning of it.

Regarding the war in Lebanon he speaks with refreshing good sense:

We must emphasise that parity does not exist when there is a war between a democratic state and a terror organisation. This is something that large swathes of the media - and the UN - simply cannot understand. Such a conflict is not a 50/50 event. And the scales do not tip against Israel because Israel has suffered fewer casualties to date. You do not decide who is right by affecting a body-count. Germany lost more troops than Great Britain in the last World War, but it didn't make Germany right. Would those who talk so idiotically of disproportionate response against Hezbollah be happier if more Katyushas were making direct hits on Israeli citizens?

Any decent person must emphasise that this is a conflict between free people and terrorists - an army that does everything it can to limit civilian casualties and an organisation whose aim is to maximise civilian casualties. Between two such sides no equivalence can be made.

The battle will - and must - be over only when Hezbollah's weaponry of terror is entirely destroyed. Neither the US nor any other ally of Israel should demand a ceasefire at any date before the time of Israel's choosing. If they do demand it, Israel should ignore it. A ceasefire which returns us to the status-quo ante would be a temporary ceasefire which would make the sufferings of recent weeks and months not just pointless, but perpetual.

The conflict currently going on is a local version of the war in which we are all engaged. Trace back just one step, in Iraq, Lebanon, London or New York, and you get the same story, and the same ring-leaders. Israel's war is our war, and we should be proud that at least one of our allies is successfully fighting this war for us as well as for themselves. Victory for Israel against Hezbollah will be a victory for all free peoples, not least the people of Lebanon.

Please read the whole interview at the link. It's worth the time.