The Correlation of Forces

Strategy Page has a helpful analysis of what Marxists might refer to as the "correlation of forces" in Lebanon. It's a little dated now that it seems that there will be a cease-fire, but it's interesting nonetheless:

Hizbollah has no incentive to broadcast the extent of its injuries in the current war. The losses have been substantial. For example, Syrians have noted an enormous exodus of Lebanese Shia into Syria. Some 10-15 percent of Lebanon's Shia appear to have fled the areas of southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley, for refuge in Syria. They are not just getting away from Israeli bombs, but the rising possibility of another round of civil war with Lebanese Sunnis, Druze and Christians. Hizbollah is a terrorist organization, and for nearly two decades, other Lebanese have been on the receiving end of that terror. There are payback issues in play. Before Hizbollah attacked Israel, these issues were being worked out, but the deal involved Hizbollah disarming and giving up control of southern Lebanon. The Hizbollah militants didn't go for this, partly because they feared retaliation from Lebanese families they had terrorized (via murder, kidnappings or worse) over the last two decades. Better that all of Lebanon should suffer, than a few hundred Hizbollah thugs should pay for their crimes. The Lebanese know this, the Israelis know this, the international media ignores it. But it's these grudges that will destroy Hizbollah in the end. The Shia fleeing to Syria fear their fellow Lebanese more than they fear the Israelis.

Hizbollah doesn't have a large "army." Only a few thousand trained and trustworthy gunmen. About 20 percent of these have been killed or wounded so far. About half of the 70,000 man army is Shia, a consequence of depending on Syria to help form and train the army. That's one reason why most Lebanese don't trust their own army, and why the Israelis don't accept the Lebanese offer to send 15,000 of their soldiers into southern Lebanon to take over from Hizbollah. While the Shia Lebanese soldiers aren't all Hizbollah members, those that are Shia know that Hizbollah can reach their family members. Hizbollah is a terrorist organization, and good at that sort of thing.

While no Lebanese want another round of civil war, if it did happen, it would be everyone against the Hizbollah led Shia. The result would be up to half the Shia population exiled in Syria, and Shia power in Lebanon broken for a long, long time. The Shia sect (Alawites) that runs Syria wouldn't mind a few hundred thousand Shia refugees in their midst, as Shia are only about ten percent of Syria's population. The Sunni Arabs who are the majority of Syrians might mind. Iran would come through with lots of money to make it all better, and keep the Shia in charge of Syria.

Israeli troops advancing into southern Lebanon are finding a lot of late model Russian weapons. Especially abundant are recently manufactured Russian anti-tank missiles. Three post-Cold War Russian missile systems have been found in large numbers. These include the 9M111 Fagot, which has a 25 pound missile fired from a 24 pound launch unit for up to 2,000 meters. Then there is the 9M133 Kornet, a replacement for the 9M111. This is laser guided missile with a range of 5,000 meters. The launcher has a thermal sight for use at night or in fog. The missile's warhead can penetrate 1200 mm of armor, which means that the front and side armor of the Israeli Merkava tank are vulnerable. The missile weighs 18 pounds and the launcher 42 pounds. Then there is the 9M131 Metis 2, which is a 30 pound missile, with a 1,500 meter range. It is fired from a 35 pound control unit, that has a thermal sight. Missiles and launch units have been found in bombed out buildings. The 9M131 can be fired from inside buildings. The missiles are used to take long range shots at Israeli infantry, as Hizbollah knows that, up close, their gunmen tend to lose quickly, and with heavy casualties, to the better trained Israelis. Russia has been selling these new missile systems to Syria and Iran, and this is the first real combat test of these systems. A few Israeli tanks have been hit, but most of the missiles have been fired at Israeli infantry, causing over a hundred casualties. Israel won't release details of these operations until after the war is over, but has admitted that most of their casualties in southern Lebanon have come from these Russian missiles.

Israel is moving sufficient troops, to the Lebanese border, to clear an area about 20 kilometers north of the border. This would severely limit the ability of Hizbollah to fire 122mm rockets into Israel. The Israelis would systematically clear civilians and Hizbollah fighters out of the area. Hizbollah has already lost hundreds of millions of dollars in assets (buildings, vehicles and equipment). The Israelis are holding off on the "20 Kilometer Zone" operation to see if the UN can work out a ceasefire deal. That would have to include a force of "trustworthy" (Western) peacekeeping troops in southern Lebanon. There would have to be peacekeepers who could, like the Israelis, fight Hizbollah, and not be intimidated, or bribed by Hizbollah, as has been the case with the current UN peacekeeper force. Hizbollah refuses to accept this more robust force, and Israel will accept nothing less.

Although Israel has lost about fifty soldiers killed so far, this is a much lower loss rate than in previous wars. Better technology, weapons and medical care have all combined to reduce the casualty rate.

Israel is on the front lines of a war whose battle zone covers the globe. Right now the conflict is raging most obviously in the Middle East, but, as Thursday's revelations indicate, the Islamists are eager to extend the fight to Europe and the United States as well. Let us hope that Israel can eliminate Hezbollah and make at least that theater a little safer for civilized people to dwell in.

If Materialism is True

Materialism is the philosophical view that matter is all there is and that everything can therefore ultimately be reduced to, and explained in terms of, material entities. Terry Mirl offers six predictions based on materialism which, assuming that view were true, should eventually be confirmed. If, after a suitable period of time, these predictions have not come to pass, the lack of confirmation should be taken as an indication, Mirl claims, that materialism is false.

His six predictions are quite provocative. If you read them, ask yourself what you think the likelihood is of any of them ever being fulfilled and what the implications of that might be. You can find them at Uncommon Descent.

Have we Got a Deal For You!

Paul Nowak sums up the Israeli position after the recent passage of the U.N. Security Council cease-fire resolution:

Sex Slaves

Andrew Sullivan has a You Tube video of a comedian who has an interesting, and funny, take on the Muslim view of heavenly rewards for terrorists. Go here and click on the video.

Thoughts of a Lebanese Christian

These remarks by Brigitte Gabriel, a Lebanese Christian, delivered at the Duke University Counter Terrorism Speak-Out on October 15, 2004, are well-worth our attention today:

I'm proud and honoured to stand here today, as a Lebanese speaking for Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East. As someone who was raised in an Arabic country, I want to give you a glimpse into the heart of the Arabic world.

I was raised in Lebanon, where I was taught that the Jews were evil, Israel was the devil, and the only time we will have peace in the Middle East is when we kill all the Jews and drive them into the sea.

When the Moslems and Palestinians declared Jihad on the Christians in 1975, they started massacring the Christians, city after city. I ended up living in a bomb shelter underground from age 10 to 17, without electricity, eating grass to live, and crawling under sniper bullets to a spring to get water.

It was Israel who came to help the Christians in Lebanon. My mother was wounded by a Moslem's shell, and was taken into an Israeli hospital for treatment. When we entered the emergency room, I was shocked at what I saw. There were hundreds of people wounded, Moslems, Palestinians, Christians, Lebanese, and Israeli soldiers lying on the floor. The doctors treated everyone according to their injury. They treated my mother before they treated the Israeli soldier lying next to her. They didn't see religion, they didn't see political affiliation, they saw people in need and they helped.

For the first time in my life I experienced a human quality that I know my culture would not have shown to their enemy. I experienced the values of the Israelis, who were able to love their enemy in their most trying moments. I spent 22 days at that hospital. Those days changed my life and the way I believe information, the way I listen to the radio or to television. I realized I was sold a fabricated lie by my government, about the Jews and Israel, that was so far from reality. I knew for fact that, if I was a Jew standing in an Arab hospital, I would be lynched and thrown over to the grounds, as shouts of joy of Allah Akbar, God is great, would echo through the hospital and the surrounding streets.

I became friends with the families of the Israeli wounded soldiers: one in particular Rina, her only child was wounded in his eyes.

One day I was visiting with her, and the Israeli army band came to play national songs to lift the spirits of the wounded soldiers. As they surrounded his bed playing a song about Jerusalem, Rina and I started crying. I felt out of place and started walking out of the room, and this mother holds my hand and pulls me back in without even looking at me. She holds me crying and says: "It is not your fault." We just stood there crying, holding each other's hands.

What a contrast between her, a mother looking at her deformed 19 year old only child, and still able to love me, the enemy, and between a Moslem mother who sends her son to blow himself up to smithereens just to kill a few Jews or Christians.

The difference between the Arabic world and Israel is a difference in values and character. It's barbarism versus civilization. It's democracy versus dictatorship. It's goodness versus evil.

Once upon a time, there was a special place in the lowest depths of hell for anyone who would intentionally murder a child. Now, the intentional murder of Israeli children is legitimized as Palestinian "armed struggle."

However, once such behaviour is legitimized against Israel, it is legitimized everywhere in the world, constrained by nothing more than the subjective belief of people who would wrap themselves in dynamite and nails for the purpose of killing children in the name of God.

Because the Palestinians have been encouraged to believe that murdering innocent Israeli civilians is a legitimate tactic for advancing their cause, the whole world now suffers from a plague of terrorism, from Nairobi to New York, from Moscow to Madrid, from Bali to Beslan.

They blame suicide bombing on "desperation of occupation." Let me tell you the truth. The first major terror bombing committed by Arabs against the Jewish state occurred ten weeks before Israel even became independent.

On Sunday morning, February 22, 1948, in anticipation of Israel's independence, a triple truck bomb was detonated by Arab terrorists on Ben Yehuda Street, in what was then the Jewish section of Jerusalem. Fifty-four people were killed, and hundreds were wounded. Thus, it is obvious that Arab terrorism is caused not by the "desperation" of "occupation" but by the VERY THOUGHT of a Jewish state.

So many times in history in the last 100 years, citizens have stood by and done nothing, allowing evil to prevail. As America stood up against and defeated communism, now it is time to stand up against the terror of religious bigotry and intolerance. It's time to all stand up and support and defend the state of Israel, which is the front line of the war against terrorism.

HT to Andrew Sullivan.

No Way to Win a War

Ed Morrissey is mildly optimistic about the U.N. cease-fire resolution unanimously approved by the Security Council this evening. I hope he's right that the resolution works to Israel's advantage, but I have my doubts. Israel has lost a lot of momentum by their on-again off-again incursion into Lebanon. If the Lebanese army fails to disarm Hezbollah and take control of the south as the resolution calls for, and of course it will, it will be enormously difficult for Israel to recover the political will and the military heart to do what they should have done several days ago - drive Hezbollah out of southern Lebanon.

Unless Nasrallah offers another clear provocation, which he'd be foolish to do, world opinion will be solidly against any future attempt by Israel to defeat Hezbollah no matter how much they flaunt the U.N. resolution. A once in a decade opportunity has been squandered by the Israelis and in a year or two we will be right back to the status quo ante. Voting for this resolution is no way for the United States to win a war against terrorists.

Ten Ways Darwinists Help ID

Joe Carter at Evangelical Outpost has put together a series of posts titled 10 Ways Darwinists Help Intelligent Design, and it's quite perceptive. The series is in three parts. Part one is here, part two can be found here and part three is here.

The following is a list of Carter's ten ways. Go to his site to read his explanations of them:

1. By remaining completely ignorant about ID while knocking down strawman versions of the theory.
   
2. By claiming that ID is stealth creationism.
   
3. By resorting to "science of the gaps" arguments.
   
4. By claiming that ID isn't science since it's not published peer-reviewed literature...and then refusing to allow publications of ID papers in peer-reviewed journals.
   
5. By making claims that natural selection is responsible for all behaviors and biological features.
   
6. By invoking design in non-design explanations.
   
7. By claiming that the criticism of ID has nothing to do with a prejudice against theism - and then having the most vocal critics of ID be anti-religious atheists.
   
8. By separating origins of life science from evolutionary explanations.
   
9. By resorting to ad hominems instead of arguments (e.g., claiming that advocates of ID are "ignorant").
   
10. By not being able to believe their own theory.
    

Also, on the evolution/ID front, here's a brief video geared toward kids that succinctly explains the difference between materialist and theistic explanations of the origin of life.

Thanks to Uncommon Descent for the tip.

The Nature of the Foe

Gary Varvel explains why the casualties among Lebanese civilians are "disproportionately" high:

Botching the War on Terror

Not content with having botched, from all appearances, the post-war in Iraq, the Bush administration is now trying to botch the Israeli war against Hezbollah, at least it seems that way if this Jerusalem Post story is accurate:

After 30 days of fighting, the war with Hizbullah seemed to be nearing its conclusion Thursday.

Just a day earlier, the situation had looked drastically different. The security cabinet had approved the army's request to send thousands of troops up to the Litani River and beyond in an effort to destroy Hizbullah's infrastructure and to stop the Katyusha attacks. After the cabinet meeting, one division actually began moving north from Metulla. Its goal - to clear out al-Khiam and Marjayoun and to reach the Litani.

But then, under pressure from the US, Defense Minister Amir Peretz made a frantic call to Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Dan Halutz and ordered him to stop the division in its tracks. "We need to give the diplomatic process one last chance," Peretz told Halutz. The orders trickled down the chain of command and by the time they reached 366, it had already reached Marjayoun, a stone's throw from the Litani.

With the UN Security Council on the verge of passing a cease-fire resolution, the IDF understood on Thursday that Operation Change of Direction was ending, for better or for worse.

Any United Nations cease-fire resolution will inevitably allow Hezbollah to survive and insure that more Israeli civilians will die from terrorist rockets in the future. The only solution to Hezbollah's murderous aggression is to eliminate Hezbollah. One might think that if anyone would understand that it would be George Bush. Apparently, however, the Bush administration is of the view that the cause of peace and justice is best served by enabling those who care about neither to continue their assaults on the villages and towns of northern Israel.

The pressure from the White House to stop the Israeli advance is inexplicable. Surely there is no one in the administration who actually believes that if only the Israelis end their military action that Hezbollah will lay down its weapons and live in peace with its Jewish neighbors. Surely this administration recognizes that the only road to peace with terrorist fanatics is to extirpate the terrorists. Why then, do they stand in the way of an opportunity to do just that?

The Second Stage

Canadian journalist David Warren writes that we are in stage two of the clash of civilizations, the war of Islam against the West, and that even many liberals are now rubbing their eyes, rousing themselves from their torpor, and sitting up to take notice. His essay begins with this warning:

Not all my readers appreciate that we are seeing now, in southern Lebanon and northern Israel, and across swathes of Afghanistan and Iraq, a harbinger of our future. The war with fanatical Islam is spreading, and must come to us. It already has, in its terror phase. We have huge police and security forces working around the clock to prevent terror attacks from happening in Canada; all convinced that such attacks are inevitable.

We cannot know how the war will develop; only that it will. It will be quite unlike previous world wars. We can only observe that we are now in transition from the terrorist stage, to the guerrilla warfare stage. I can only guess, but would think the next threshold will be crossed when a country, most likely Iran, brings true "weapons of mass destruction" into play. The word "threshold" could mislead. Each new stage adds another layer, so that the terrorism will continue, joined to guerrilla war; and then both will continue, with WMD added.

Does that sound alarmist to you? If so, I can only reply, wake up, gentle reader. The very people who guard you in your sleep are alarmed on your behalf.

The West has three choices in the face of the threat posed by an extremely determined Islamic enemy. It can simply refuse to defend itself and capitulate to the vicious savages that we've seen so much of on grainy al-Jazeera videos; Or, it can try to postpone the inevitable through limited police actions, playing prevent defense while the jihadis move the ball of war inexorably closer to our end zone; Or, we can conclude that we really are at war not just with a rag-tag band of criminals, not just with stateless militias, but with a large portion of the world's population, a population which is not confined to the boundaries of a state but which is diffused throughout the West which it wishes to destroy.

Many of the world's Muslims are committed to world-wide conquest and they're convinced that their moment is now. They may not themselves become suicide bombers or terrorists, but they quietly rejoice whenever one of these succeeds. They hate the West and everything about it, and nothing in their religion prevents them from using or supporting the use of violence to change it.

So what should Western countries do? First, they need to place a moratorium on Arab Muslim immigration. Just as it would have been foolish to allow Germans to immigrate into Britain during WWII it is foolish to allow Arab populations to burgeon throughout Europe and the U.S. Many of these immigrants have no desire to assimilate into the cultures in which they live. They're there not to become English or German, French or Danish. They're there simply to exploit the host country. They hate the culture and its people and those countries are only sowing the seeds of inevitable civil strife by taking them in. They are committing the folly of the Trojans who unwittingly afforded the Greeks the opportunity to slay them all.

Second, the West should close down madrassas and other centers of hate. Constitutional guarantees of religious freedom do not, or should not, confer upon citizens the right to preach violence and sedition. Their religious rights end where others' right to live without fear of being blown to bits begins. The first amendment to the United States' constitution was not ratified in order to protect those whose religion entails the murder of those who don't accept it. A religion which is clearly antithetical to all that is noble and good in the human species, a religion which inculcates hatred and a love of bloody violence, disqualifies itself, or should disqualify itself, from constitutional shelter.

Third, all Arab Muslims who are not citizens should be immediately and permanently deported if they violate the host country's criminal code. There should be zero tolerance for criminal activity among non-citizens.

People will object that all of this is discriminatory since it singles out a particular ethnic group and a particular religion for special treatment. Yes, it does. That's the point. We're in a war for our survival and the enemy isn't the Amish. To pretend that those who wish to destroy us do not belong to a specific ethnic and religious group is absurd. We need to recognize who and what our enemy is and take appropriate steps to prevent them from doing the sorts of things to us that they planned to do to the passengers on those flights from England, what they did on 9/11, as well as in Madrid and London. We can not allow the Islamists to live freely among us and simply hope that our police forces will always be able to thwart their plots to commit mass murder. As long as the Muslim haters have the opportunity they will continue to exploit it to kill our children until finally they sap us of our desire to survive the onslaught.

We must limit their opportunities. We must recognize that we're fighting for the lives of our families and the survival of our civilization.

Delta's Strict Standards

On our return trip from Rome recently we flew Delta Airlines and received quite a shock when the third movie of the flight came on. Let me explain by sharing with you the e-mail I sent to Delta Wednesday:

Sirs,

I wish to express my deep disappointment at the judgment shown by Delta in featuring the movie Lucky Number Slevin on a flight (8/7/06) from Rome to JFK. There were numerous young people on board and unless they were asleep they could hardly miss seeing a man and woman having graphic sex on the screens throughout the plane. I don't know whether Delta assigns actual grown-ups to make the selections for their movies rather than employing teenage boys for the job, but if not you should. To show something like this in such a way that entire families are subjected to what is explicit pornography demonstrates a serious lack of judgment on the part of whomever is responsible. I am not one to "cancel my subscription" because I'm displeased with something, but I have to say that if this is what I'm in for when next I fly overseas with my wife and daughter, I'm simply not going to fly on an airline that has so little regard for what they show in the cabin.

Sincerely, Richard L. Cleary

Here's the reply I received today from a Delta representative:

Dear Mr. Cleary,

Thank you for your message via delta.com. We are grateful for your taking the time to share your concerns with us.

The films shown on Delta reflect those currently produced. We realize many contain material that may be objectionable to individuals for various reasons. Delta maintains strict codes in screening and booking films, and most of the ones we accept have been edited for our use. We show a preview of the movie so passengers have information about the content before choosing to view it. The feedback we receive from our passengers play a direct role in our decisions regarding future programs, and we will continue to exercise as much discretion as possible in this area.

Your selection of Delta is appreciated, and we will always do our best to merit your confidence and support.

Sincerely, Mark Rodgers Online Customer Support Desk

I'm not sure Mr. Rodgers understands the nature of the problem. We did not choose to view the film. The film is shown on screens all through the cabin including a big screen at the front of the coach section. A passenger can block out the sound by not putting on the earphones, but there's no way to block out the visual assault on one's children. If this movie passed muster with Delta's screeners those screeners must have been sub-contracted from the editorial staff of Hustler magazine.

At any rate, if any of you are planning a flight with your family, you may want to bear in mind that Delta's "strict standards" leave plenty of room for some pretty salacious stuff, and when they show it your kids are going to see it whether you "choose" it or not.

Pertinent Questions

The question that I haven't heard anyone ask on any of the wall-to-wall coverage of the Brits' foiling of the plot to explode bombs inside U.S. bound airliners: Did the British authorities use warrantless eavesdropping surveillance measures? Did they track financial transactions of suspected terrorists? If so, then we will eagerly await the howls of outrage from the British left at such gross invasions of their citizens' privacy.

Speaking of the tv coverage of this story: Do you think that the news anchors at the various networks compete with each other to see which of them can ask the greatest number of dumb questions? Just wondering.

Another question: Has anyone heard anybody in the MSM mention the fact that all the men arrested in this plot were Muslims? Have I missed mention of this fact or is it that 21 mass murderers all happened to Muslims just not considered relevant? I wonder if the media would be equally reticent had the suspects all belonged to opus dei.

Absolution For Stone

In case you're interested in seeing the movie, Anthony Sacramone at First Things gives Oliver Stone's World Trade Center two thumbs up and claims that the film about 9/11 absolves Stone of the guilt incurred by the making of the execrable Alexander.

Lopsided Coverage

Bruce Kesler at Democracy Project quotes top NBC correspondent Ike Seamans explaining why we can't trust the media coverage of the Israeli war in Lebanon:

As a veteran journalist who has been in countless war zones around the world (especially the Middle East) as an NBC network correspondent, it pains me to see what passes for accurate coverage in the early stages of a conflict like the one between Israel and Hezbollah.

Because almost none of the American television networks have a vast stable of experienced reporters any longer who understand the region, they employ the old "parachute them in" philosophy, i.e. dispatching perfectly good -- and frequently very young -- journalists, few of whom have any experience in covering this story and don't stand a snowball's chance in Gaza of getting it right initially. They engage in what I call "nerve end journalism." reporting what they think they see in one of the most confusing places on earth, with very little context. Their movements are also very restricted by both sides.

In the case of Beirut and other parts of Lebanon under the control of terrorists, Hezbollah usually runs daily press tours, making sure reporters and photographers see the worse that Israel has inflicted -- killing civilians, etc. -- in order to slate the coverage, but never reveals that Hezbollah uses private homes, mosques, schools, hospitals and other public buildings for their headquarters or to launch their lethal missiles.

Then there's the danger factor if a reporter angers his terrorist tour guides. Christopher Albritton, a freelance contributor for Time magazine, wrote in his blog a couple of weeks ago, "To the south, Hezbollah is launching Katyushas, but I'm loathe to say too much about them. The Party of God has a copy of every journalists' passport and they've already hassled a number of us and threatened one." They also take pictures of all journalists, warning they better follow the ground rules or else. Terrorists in that part of the world have been doing this for years.

"Hezbollah has a very sophisticated and slick media operation in suburban Beirut," says CNN's Nic Robertson, one of the few seasoned TV reporters out there. "They deny journalists access." He adds that the terrorist group, "designated the places that we went to and we certainly didn't have time to go into houses or lift up the rubble to see what is underneath. They realize this is a good way for them to get their message out." So what you see back home is precisely what Hezbollah dictates.

There's a lot more on the lopsided coverage of this conflict at the link.

August 22nd

Matt Drudge cites a Wall Street Journal op-ed by Bernard Lewis, a Princeton scholar who has written several excellent books on Islam. Lewis warns that Iran's president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad may have 'cataclysmic events' in mind for August 22. Drudge says:

In a WSJ op-ed Tuesday, Princeton's Bernard Lewis writes: "There is a radical difference between the Islamic Republic of Iran and other governments with nuclear weapons. This difference is expressed in what can only be described as the apocalyptic worldview of Iran's present rulers."

"In Islam as in Judaism and Christianity, there are certain beliefs concerning the cosmic struggle at the end of time -- Gog and Magog, anti-Christ, Armageddon, and for Shiite Muslims, the long awaited return of the Hidden Imam, ending in the final victory of the forces of good over evil, however these may be defined."

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad "and his followers clearly believe that this time is now, and that the terminal struggle has already begun and is indeed well advanced. It may even have a date, indicated by several references by the Iranian president to giving his final answer to the US about nuclear development by Aug. 22," which this year corresponds "to the 27th day of the month of Rajab of the year 1427. This, by tradition, is the night when many Muslims commemorate the night flight of the prophet Muhammad on the winged horse Buraq, first to 'the farthest mosque,' usually identified with Jerusalem, and then to heaven and back (c.f., Koran XVII.1).

"This might well be deemed an appropriate date for the apocalyptic ending of Israel and, if necessary, of the world. It is far from certain that Mr. Ahmadinejad plans any such cataclysmic events precisely for Aug. 22. But it would be wise to bear the possibility in mind."

We'll see. Lewis obviously thinks Ahmadinejad is a lunatic and he has no difficulty believing that the Iranian president is capable of launching a nuclear holocaust to further his religious dreams. There should be no doubt in anyone's mind that if Ahmadinejad gets his hands on nuclear weapons he'll use them.

The Coliseum

I mentioned yesterday that I had just returned from a five day visit to Rome. The city is a place of many wonders for the tourist looking for magnificent art and architecture as well as history and charm. There are important lessons, too, to be teased out from among the ruins and the opulence.

Our hotel was just a block or two from the ancient Coliseum which is something of a focal point of activity. A Metro station is nearby the ancient arena and there are several restaurants across the street so we found ourselves in its shadow every day.

(My wife and youngest daughter dining out on our last evening in Rome)

It was difficult to contemplate this enormous structure, which could seat over 50,000 people, without reflecting upon the events that occured there nearly 2000 years ago. From the time it was built around 80 AD until about 400 AD over ten thousand men were slaughtered in the gladiatorial fights, and countless wild animals - lions, tigers, elephants and the like - were killed in the staged "hunts" which entertained the Romans until the 6th century.

The relentless, brutal killing was accompanied by thunderous roars of approval from the huge crowds of men, women, and, presumably, children excited by the bloodshed and suffering which took place on the floor of the arena beneath them.

(The floor of the Coliseum is mostly gone revealing the chambers underneath where gladiators and beasts were held until they fought.)

It may be difficult to imagine human beings so depraved that they would cheer at a severed arm or head. Yet it's probably not so far from the fascination that people have today for "sports" like extreme fighting and other expressions of human brutality. I read an article just this morning about how children in Uganda are kidnapped by rebels and forced to kill other children by biting off their skin and flesh until the terrified victim bleeds to death. The evil of which men are capable seems boundless.

The gladiatorial contests held in the Coliseum were, like forcing children to bite other children to death, the logical consequence of man's alienation from God. Human nature is bestial and unless it is constantly re-oriented toward the lodestone of divine love its natural tendency will be toward ever-increasing depravity. The Romans knew nothing of true divinity. Their gods were made in their own corrupt image, and thus their amusements included cheering for people to be cruelly dismembered and die.

Roman society, by the time the Coliseum was built, was thoroughly sick and effete because it was not bound by any transcendent moral law. The Romans exulted in their power and moral autonomy and bloodlust was the consequence. Whenever man declares his independence from God, it seems, moral degeneracy eventually follows.

So it was for the Romans and perhaps there's a lesson for us, too, in the ruins of their ancient Coliseum.

Fire Rainbow

Bill Dembski posts this photo of a "fire rainbow" and wonders how a materialist can account for the human appreciation for beauty. How does random mutation and natural selection explain our sense of wonder and awe at such phenomena?

Dembski writes:

This is a fire rainbow - one of the rarest naturally occurring atmospheric phenomena. The picture was captured this week on the Idaho/Washington border. The event lasted about one hour. Clouds have to be cirrus, at least four miles in the air, with just the right amount of ice crystals; and the sun has to hit the clouds at 58 degrees. It's the gratuitousness of such beauty that leads me to rebel against materialism.

The world is filled with beauty. Why, on Darwinian terms, we should appreciate it as something special, why it should move us, is difficult to imagine. The poet Keats observed that beauty is truth and indeed there is a truth to be discerned in the beauty of a fire rainbow. That truth is that our ability to appreciate beauty such as this is no accident of vibrating atoms and blind forces, but rather the product of a purposeful, intelligent artistic mind which has created us to enjoy the aesthetic richness of the natural world.

Fauxtography

For those of you who enjoy media shenanigans Michelle Malkin has some examples of faked photos - she calls it "fauxtography" - from the war in Lebanon which have appeared recently in the New York Times and U.S. News.

We shouldn't be too derisive of these major news organizations' inability to know when they're being duped. After all, it's not the facts that matter but the "deeper truth" of what's happening at the hands of the Israeli military to the poor people of Lebanon that's important. Any photo which conveys that "deeper truth" is itself truth whether or not the picture was actually staged. At least that's apparently how the post-modernists in the American media see things.

Is Bono a Republican?

If U2 lead singer Bono were an American no doubt he'd be a Republican, at least that seems a legitimate conclusion to be drawn from the following Newsmax article:

U2 and its lead singer Bono have been pushing the U.S. and EU countries to fork over more money for Third World nations to relieve debt and fight AIDS. But when it comes to paying their fair share of taxes to help those efforts, U2 wants a free ride.

That's the word from Ireland, where the group has been based since it was founded in the early 1980s. The Irish Examiner reports that U2 and Bono are furious that Ireland is doing away with its law exempting artists and authors from taxation.

Under the Irish government's last budget, artists and authors can get up to 250,000 euros ($325,000) in income tax free, but after that they pay like everyone else. Most taxpayers would be joyous they could get the exemption Ireland provides.

But U2 rakes in tens of millions globally, and the new schedule doesn't sit well with the millionaire singer and his band members. The Examiner reports that beginning in June of this year the group began moving parts of their business to Netherlands. The paper said now U2 pays "virtually no tax on royalties" in Holland.

And there's more news that U2 may be more of a savvy business than a social cause. Forbes magazine - the "capitalist tool" - revealed this week that U2 front man Bono and others in a financial investment company called Elevation Partners have purchased a large minority stake in Forbes Media, which owns the magazine.

Elevation Partners is a private equity firm which invests in intellectual property and media and entertainment companies. The Times said the investment amounted to $250 to $300 million. "This investment by Elevation Partners will now accelerate our pursuit of a number of very exciting opportunities for growth," said Forbes Chief Executive Steve Forbes, who is also editor in chief of Forbes magazine.

Forbes has good reason to be gleeful: he's been a champion of free market ideas forever. But the Times noted the irony of Bono's investment "in a magazine that celebrates wealth and consumption . . . "

Roger McNamee, a co-founder of Bono's Elevation Partners, responded: "The way you solve poverty is giving people the tools to overcome it." It's a good point, but one never pushed by Bono.

On the other hand, it's ironic that Bono has urged governments to contribute more and more of their citizens' taxes to Africa while he shelters his own obscene wealth from Ireland's exchequer by shuffling it offshore. He seems to be a very generous man with the money of other people so perhaps, if he were an American, he would be a Democrat after all.

Donohue and Colbert

Catholics and others among our readers might be interested in this amusing interview of William Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, by Stephen Colbert.

Something I didn't know: Colbert is evidently a devout Catholic. He's also a funny one.

Thanks for the link to Bill Dembski at Uncommon Descent.

Why?

Ramirez asks, and answers, the question: Why are the Israelis' bombs killing civilians?

Faking the News. Again.

Reuters has chosen to pull some nine hundred photos in their file of photographer Adnan Hajj after Little Green Footballs showed that several of his photos from the war in Lebanon were doctored.

Hot Air has links on the story.

There's no reason why Reuters couldn't have seen for themselves that these photos were phony. The photoshopping is pretty obvious, but Reuters ran them anyway perhaps because they show Israel inflicting "disproportionate" damage on Lebanese cities. It's no wonder nobody trusts the liberal media to report either the war in Iraq or the war in Lebanon accurately or fairly.

What's at Stake

Andrew Sullivan sums up an outstanding column by Bernard-Henri Levy on the Lebanese/Israeli war with this observation:

For the first time, we're not really discussing a conflict over land or territory or even the treatment of individuals. We're not talking about Arab nationalism. We're not talking about the Palestinians. We're not even talking about the political existence of the Jewish state. We're talking about the divine mandate that the Islamists believe they are following, an eschatological struggle toward the End-Times, where the Jews must be destroyed as a people and as a sovereign state in order for the Apocalypse to occur.

Levy says many good things in his essay, but one of the most important is this:

...the problem, the real one, is that these incoming rockets make us see what will happen on the day - not necessarily far off - when the rockets are ones with new capabilities: first, they will become more accurate and be able to threaten, for example, the petrochemical facilities you see there, on the harbor, down below; second, they may come equipped with chemical weapons that can create a desolation compared with which Chernobyl and Sept. 11 together will seem like a mild prelude. For that, in fact, is the situation. As seen from Haifa, this is what is at stake in the operation in southern Lebanon.

Israel did not go to war because its borders had been violated. It did not send its planes over southern Lebanon for the pleasure of punishing a country that permitted Hezbollah to construct its state-within-a-state. It reacted with such vigor because the Iranian President Ahmadinejad's call for Israel to be wiped off the map and his drive for a nuclear weapon came simultaneously with the provocations of Hamas and Hezbollah. The conjunction, for the first time, of a clearly annihilating will with the weapons to go with it created a new situation. We should listen to the Israelis when they tell us they had no other choice anymore.

Unless Israel completely defeats Hezbollah in Lebanon Hezbollah will just grow stronger and more determined to extirpate the Jews in the Middle East.

Back Home

My family and I are back from a five day visit to the marvelous city of Rome, and I'm trying to get caught up on what's been happening in the world while I was gone. I scarcely glanced at a newspaper in the past week.

I want to thank Bill for posting on Viewpoint a number of pieces that I had prepared before leaving and for adding a couple of his own.

I haven't been in every major European capital, but I can't imagine a city more beautiful, more full of art, architecture, history and charm than Rome. Perhaps London comes as close as any other city I've ever been in (I've never been to Paris). Tomorrow, when our luggage is supposed to arrive (having been loaded onto the wrong plane at JFK), I hope to share a couple of photos and some reflections on our trip.

Altruism

Not long ago I had the opportunity to consider a fascinating question. I was sitting in my Sunday school class when the conversation turned to the concept of altruism - the idea of total unselfishness as a motive for doing something. Then another person in the class posited the question that the "carrot" of eternal life in heaven might influence our motivation to "accept Jesus"* as our Savior and pursue a personal relationship with God. And finally we found our selves faced with the question: is there anything that we do with unselfish motives?

A couple days ago, 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's Great Cloud of Witnesses 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.

Flouting Geneva

So there I was the other night in thrall to the taut drama and machinations unfolding in the second season DVD of 24.

Determined to be patient with several gaping holes and other silliness in the storyline, I let myself be caught up in the suspense as terrorists planted a nuclear bomb somewhere in Los Angeles and set it to go off "today". The Counter Terrorism Unit led by superhero Jack Bauer is tasked with saving the lives of millions of people.

Well, what should happen but that one of the terrorists who knows where the bomb is located falls into Jack's hands. Time is short and he has to discover the whereabouts of the weapon before it explodes, incinerating everything and everyone within a radius of a couple of miles and spreading a deadly cloud of radiation for hundreds of miles more.

Naturally, the terrorist refuses to talk. Jack cuffs him about the head once or twice but he knows that such measures are futile. He could, of course, employ waterboarding but that seems to be unknown to the script writers and besides it would violate the Geneva Conventions which sagely affirm that the lives of millions of Americans are simply not worth the terror experienced by a single thug who wishes to slaughter them.

So, what does our superhero do? Those of you who are fans will find this to be very old news, but for those of you who have more important things to do on Monday nights than to watch a television show, I shall tell you and then ask a question.

Jack has anticipated his prisoner's reticence and has had, unbeknownst to the viewer, the police in the terrorist's home country (which for some reason is never named) arrest the man's family (two sons and a wife). They bind and gag the hapless innocents in chairs and train a television camera on them. The video feed is uplinked and sent to a computer screen that the prisoner in L.A. can see. Already I can envision Andrew Sullivan and the editorial staff of the New York Times yelling at their televisions that Bauer can't do this, he's flouting the Geneva Conventions, he's a cruel, amoral imperialist pig, he's no better than the terrorists, etc. But it gets worse.

Agent Bauer then tells the prisoner that unless he spills the beans right now about where the bomb is to be found he will order the police in the unnamed foreign country to execute the man's eldest son. The terrorist's resolve is shaken but not broken. Bauer gives the order by phone, and the viewer sees on the computer screen a policeman kick over the boy's chair and shoot twice. The terrorist's family screams, the viewer is stunned, mostly at how little regard Bauer seems to have for the Geneva Conventions, international law, and enlightened moral opinion.

Now Bauer is screaming at the terrorist to tell him where the bomb is or he will order the execution of the youngest boy. The terrorist cannot withstand the psychological and emotional torture any longer. He breaks and gives Bauer the information he needs. The terrorist is then taken out of the room, and the scene focusses on the computer screen where we see the foreign police untying and releasing the man's family, including the boy who was supposedly shot. The whole thing was a set-up, a ruse to deceive the prisoner into thinking that his family was being murdered when in fact they were not.

Now this ploy was certainly a violation of the Geneva Conventions on torture, even if no one was physically harmed (although no doubt both the prisoner and his family were terrified). So here's my question: Given the circumstances, was Bauer justified in deceiving the prisoner in this way?

Is what he did so beyond the pale that it would have been better to allow millions of people to die a horrible death than to lie to this man in such a way as to make him believe that his silence was costing the lives of his loved ones when it really wasn't? An awful lot of people would answer that question with a resounding "yes, it would be better that millions die than that this man have to endure the pain of that awful deception". Certainly the auhors and signatories of the Geneva Conventions would answer this way.

Doesn't that strike you as absurd?

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?