Crazy Christians

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

Bozell writes:

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

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

Bozell goes on to observe that:

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

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

Musharraf's Untenable Position

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

In his conclusion Moran says this:

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

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

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

Read the whole column. It's enlightening.

Bush Derangement Syndrome Continues Unabated

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

What is Consciousness?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Nature of the Conflict

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

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

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

At the end Marshall asks this question:

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

Good question. Read his answer at the link.

Toronto ID Conference Pt. IV

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

All the Difference in the World

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Columbia U. Video

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

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

Peace That Passes All Understanding

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

Divine Names and Titles

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Brownshirts at Columbia

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

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

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

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

Nancy and Harry

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Nonsense Density

The world record for "nonsense density", i.e. the number of nonsensical statements per line of print, is placed in serious jeopardy by this article at NewsMax.com. The nonsense is not generated by NewsMax, so much, but by the people they quote for the column:

Mexico lobbied for six years for a comprehensive immigration reform that would allow millions to cross into the United States legally. Instead, they're getting a fence. Mexicans - from leading politicians to migrants preparing to cross illegally - consider the U.S. plan to fence off much of the border shameful, offensive and ill-conceived.

People who want to break our laws and plunder our treasury think it's shameful that we resist? They think it's offensive that we insist that if they wish to come here they do so legally?

President Bush on Wednesday signed a bill that would allot $1.2 billion for hundreds of miles of fencing along the U.S.-Mexican border and for more vehicle barriers, lighting and infrared cameras. But migrants resting at a Tijuana shelter after being deported from the United States said more walls wouldn't deter them. Alfonso Martinez, a 32-year-old from southern Mexico, had been working as a farmhand for six months in Vista, Calif., when he was arrested and deported last week. "Wall or no wall, I will try at least three times," said Martinez, who said he would try to cross by himself through Tecate, a mountainous town about 35 miles east of Tijuana. "I have three girls that I have to support, and in Mexico there is no work."

This is truly sad, but it's a problem the Mexican government, which sits on vast reservoirs of oil, silver and other mineral assets, could do something about were they so inclined. Rather than create prosperity for all in Mexico, however, they prefer to keep the wealth in the hands of a corrupt few and send the discontented masses north while lecturing the gringoes on our obligation to receive them with open arms.

Mexican immigrants in the United States and the Mexican government had lobbied lawmakers for more ways to cross the border and work legally. While Bush had proposed a temporary worker program, it didn't garner enough support in Congress for passage. The idea has been dropped by Washington, at least until after the November congressional elections.

It didn't garner support because enough representatives had been instructed by their constituents that there was no sense in trying to mop up the water until someone managed to turn off the spigot.

Congress focused on security over immigration, arguing that the porous border could be used by terrorists who want to sneak into the U.S. undetected. There is no evidence that has happened, however.

Now there's a good argument. Terrorists could easily enter this country from Mexico, but, since we haven't caught any of them trying to do that, we might as well assume that they haven't done it. I take back what I said above about the nonsense not coming from the NewsMax writers.

The Mexican government this week sent a diplomatic note to Washington criticizing the plan for 700 miles of new fencing along the border. Foreign Secretary Luis Ernesto Derbez called it an "offense" and said Wednesday his office was considering taking the issue to the United Nations.

The United Nations?! Mexico is going to complain to the United Nations that the U.S. is building a fence along its border? What sort of herbs has Mr. Derbez been mixing with his pipe tobacco? What jurisdiction does the U.N. have in this matter? Mr. Derbez is like the neighbor who complains to the authorities because you're tired of having him coming into your house and using your bathroom whenever nature calls. Now you've locked your door and he's going to complain to the neighborhood association.

But Ruben Aguilar, the spokesman for President Vicente Fox, said Thursday that Mexico had ruled out that possibility. He added he was "confident" the additional fencing would never become a reality because an immigration accord would eventually replace it.

If an immigration plan will solve the problem of the massive illegal entry into this country why do Mr. Aguilar and Mr. Fox object to the fence? What do they care if the U.S. builds the fence if Mexicans will not be trying to sneak into the country illegally once an immigration accord is in place? Their only reason for caring is that they want Mexicans to be able to enter the U.S. illegally if they cannot get in legally.

President-elect Felipe Calderon Thursday criticized the U.S. plan, but said the case is a bilateral issue that should not be taken to any international organization. "I think it is a deplorable decision that has been made by the United States Congress for the construction of this wall, and it does not solve our common problem, which is emigration," Calderon told a news conference in Santiago, Chile.

This is exactly wrong. The problem is not a "common problem" at all nor is emigration a problem for the Mexicans. Emigration is rather a solution to the problem of poverty in Mexico. The Mexican solution is to export their poverty to the U.S. so that we will pay for it. The problem is ours in toto. The wall will be a problem for Mexico but emigration is not.

Guillermo Alonzo, a migration expert at the Tijuana-based Colegio de La Frontera Norte, said fences instead will force migrants to look for new ways to sneak into the United States and find new routes through deadlier terrain. "When migrants are determined to cross, they find a way to jump the fences," Alonzo said. "Walls don't stop anything." Alonzo cited the construction of a fence between Tijuana and San Diego, known in Mexico as "the tortilla wall." It was completed in the 1990s and forced migrants into the sparsely populated and dangerous Arizona desert.

If the fence will force migrants to cross where crossing is more hazardous and difficult then evidently the fence will indeed stop migrants from crossing where the fence is. The more difficult the crossing the fewer people who will try it and the fewer times they will try it. The solution to the problem of Mexican illegals risking death in the desert is for the Mexican government to stop them from attempting the crossing. This, however, is not a live option for the Fox administration.

While there are walls at various points along the border, the one in Tijuana is the longest stretch, running 14 miles west from the Otay border crossing and plunging into the Pacific Ocean. It has become a symbol of the divisive immigration issue, a blank slate for graffiti, crosses, photos and other remembrances of those who have lost their lives trying to sneak into the United States. Some families, divided by the border, even meet at the fence, talking through the metal wires.

The point being...?

While the wall downgraded Tijuana from the illegal migration mecca it was in the 1990s, hundreds of migrants still come here, Alonzo said. "Now smugglers hide migrants in trunks of cars or get false documents," he said.

Yes, but surely Alonzo doesn't think he's providing an argument against building the fence. He seems to be claiming that since smugglers will hide people in cars if we build the fence we may as well let them just walk across the border. Does that make sense to you? Me neither, but Alonzo sounds brilliant compared to Luis Kendzierski:

Luis Kendzierski, a priest who directs a Tijuana migrant shelter, said building a wall is an unfriendly gesture that will lead to a hike in smugglers' fees and more migrant deaths.

An unfriendly gesture? Is locking your door when you leave your house an unfriendly gesture? Is refusing to allow your neighbor to raid your refrigerator whenever he gets the urge an unfriendly gesture? If Mexicans are dying in the American desert then the Mexican government should stop them from trying to cross the desert. If they're unwilling to do that then why are we obligated to open our doors to them? This is just nutty.

Between 2001 and 2006, almost 2,000 migrants died while trying to sneak into the United States, according to El Colegio de la Frontera Norte. "We are supposed to be neighbors and friends, and instead of building bridges and doors, we're building obstacles," Kendzierski said.

And this is even nuttier. The good Father is saying that anyone at all who wishes to take what's yours, who wishes to move into your home uninvited, who wishes to commit crimes against you and your family, who wishes to strain your resources and degrade your standard of living, should not only not be prevented from doing this but should actually be encouraged and assisted.

If we follow Fr. Kendzierski's logic to its conclusion then we should abolish police forces and eliminate all laws. Whatever you own really belongs to anyone who wants it. Whatever others want that they can't afford you are obligated to pay for. There should be no laws preventing people from taking what's yours, and, indeed, you should help them to take it.

Yes, we have an obligation to help the poor, but we do not have an obligation to help the poor ruin us. Our kindness must be our choice or else it's not kindness. Charity should not be a vehicle for national suicide.

There may be people reading this who agree with Fr. Kendzierski. If so, just answer a simple question. Do you lock your house or your car when you leave them? If so, why do you?

The Conservative Soul

Mark Gavreau Judge reviews Andrew Sullivan's latest book, The Conservative Soul, at Christianity Today. To sum up: Judge doesn't like it. Little wonder. Sullivan calls himself a conservative but he is so only on fiscal issues. He's a libertarian on social matters, and, although he's a Roman Catholic, he's at odds with almost all of the Church's teaching on sex. He's also viscerally contemptuous of the current administration as well as conservative Christians whom he disdainfully refers to as "Christianists".

Judge writes this about the book:

[I]n The Conservative Soul...there is ...tautology, narcissism, and enough moral relativism to light Manhattan for ten years. Sullivan's premise is simple: We just can't know anything for sure. There's no real truth, and anyone who claims otherwise is not really a conservative but rather a fundamentalist. "The essential claim of the fundamentalist is that he knows the truth," Sullivan writes. "The fundamentalist doesn't guess or argue or wonder or question. He doesn't have to. He knows." In opposition stands the true conservative, whose "defining characteristic" is that "he knows he doesn't know."

It should be pointed out that Sullivan has an expansive definition of "fundamentalist". The term as he uses it refers pretty much to anyone who holds to a more conservative theology than he does.

If you're familiar with Sullivan, who is one of the most popular bloggers on the net, you might want to check out the rest of Judge's review at the link.

The Plot Thickens

Matt Drudge has the inside scoop which shows that Florida congressman Mark Foley was apparently played for a fool by a bunch of young guys who were out for laughs. Somehow, the prank went awry and the instant messages wound up in the hands of some people sympathetic to the Democrats.

Not worried, apparently, that a sexual predator might be preying on young men under his charge, whoever had the IMs decided to sit on them until they could be used for political gain.

It's hard to tell who in this sordid tale is sleaziest: The pederastic Mr. Foley, the young men who egged him on, or the people who held onto the instant message exchanges until they could be used to destroy not just Foley, who deserves it, but also any other Republicans they could tarnish.

We say it's a tie between #1 and #3.

Clarice Feldman at The American Thinker believes this is going to have painful ramifications for Democrats:

Present state of play-the Dems and CREW* are implicated; ABC's Brian Ross has his own Rathergate, the FBI and Ethics Committee are going to find out which Dems were involved and CREW will probably lose their tax exempt status. The Dems have shown themselves to be perfectly willing to use homophobia to win when they have no saleable platform or issues; the Republican base is charged up and once again Soros turned his gold into Dem dross.

Foley will become a living example of the Dems' willingness to smear a homosexual for gain and will write a book, go on Oprah and make a mint. He will be this year's wronged victim. Mark my words: A fit ending to a sordid smear.

Patrick Godfrey puts it all together in this fine summation titled The Worst October Surprise, Ever. That is, it's the worst surprise for the Democrats, ever.

*CREW is Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. The claim to be non-partisan which gives them tax-exemption, but if they're implicated in this fiasco their tax exempt status could be in jeopardy.

Senate Races

The Democrats need to gain six seats to take over the senate in November. Real Clear Politics has them picking up five. The averages of the major polls on the senate races can be viewed here.

Even if the Democrats don't gain control of the senate an increase of five seats would be very worrisome for the Bush agenda. Throw in the half dozen or so liberal Republicans and the Democrats could have enough votes to block a Supreme Court, or federal judgeship nomination, or almost any piece of legislation that Bush tries to get passed.

For those who are hoping that Bush gets to make another nomination to the Supreme Court the possibility of a 50-50 senate is not comforting.

Peace on Earth

Well, it's the holy month of Ramadan and Muslims are presumably greeting each other with wishes of peace on earth and good will toward men. Or not. It turns out that on the Muslim feast of Ramadan the celebrations turn, at least in some Muslim precincts, toward ratcheting up the pace at which the brethren in Allah blow each other to bits. Ethel Fenig has the cheerful details at The American Thinker.

For example:

....a gunbattle erupted at Gaza City's main hospital when relatives of one of Sunday's victims arrived to retrieve his body. Fatah gunmen accompanying them opened fire on Hamas militiamen patrolling the hospital. No one was hurt, hospital officials said.

In the northern West Bank city of Nablus, Fatah militants shot at Deputy Prime Minister Nasser Shaer's bodyguards as they rode in a government car, injuring two of them, said Shaer, who was not present during the attack. Hospital officials said a Fatah militant was also injured.

In Jericho, a Fatah gunman trying to enforce the general strike shot a shop owner in the head, seriously wounding him, Fatah officials said. The wounded man was also a Fatah member, the officials said.

The Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, a Fatah-linked militant group, also circulated a flier threatening to execute Interior Minister Said Siyam, Syria-based Hamas political leader Khaled Mashaal and Youssef Zahar, the head of the Hamas militia.

See how they love one another. Fenig wonders "If all this violence occurs during a holiday period what will happen when the festive month is over?"

Let's all join in singing a couple of verses of Silent Night.

Toronto ID Conference

Denyse O'Leary reports on her experience at an academic conference in Toronto on the ID/Darwinsm controversy. Her report comes in three brief but interesting parts at Uncommon Descent and should be read in this order: Part I, Part II, and, perhaps the most interesting for those who follow the debate, Part III.

Disturbing Fact

According to a NewsMax article:

It is not a widely disseminated, downloaded or discussed fact that the average life expectancy for all pro football players, including all positions and backgrounds, is 55 years. Several insurance carriers say it is 51 years.

The article talks about the injuries associated with football, and suggests that these play a role in the early demise of retired players, but I doubt it. The article never comes out and states flatly what the causes of these deaths are so here's my guess: Most of the early deaths are caused by accidents, homicide, or drug and/or alcohol-related problems. Among those who die from natural causes, however, I suspect the leading killer is heart disease brought on by steroid use and excessive weight.

Despite the tacit message of the article which was that retired players are dying from the cumulative effects of injuries they suffered while playing, I doubt that many of them actually do. It would be interesting, though, to see a study done on the cause of death of retired NFL players and to see a comparison of the causes of death by position. My guess is that offensive linemen and defensive tackles, the behemoths of pro football, have the shortest life expectancies among those who die from natural causes.

Miscellaneous Thoughts on the Foley Furor

A few further thoughts on the Mark Foley Follies:

1) Despite the MSM's asseverations to the contrary, Mark Foley is not a pedophile. Pedophilia is a sexual attraction to prepubescent children. Foley was attracted to sixteen and seventeen year old boys.* The correct label for his type of sexual perversion is pederasty - sexual relations between an adult male and a boy.

2) The mention of perversion reminds us that Foley has been called a pervert by observers on both the Left and the Right, but this is a dangerous tactic for those on the Left who are otherwise engaged in the project to morally legitimize homosexual conduct. An adult heterosexual would not necessarily be considered a pervert if the adult found a seventeen year old of the opposite sex physically attractive. To call Foley a pervert is to strongly suggest that his perversion is not his attraction to the much younger individual but rather his attraction to, and sexual explicit conversations with, another male. This is tantamount to calling homosexuality a perversion, and that's a judgment that the liberal-Left, at least, has been fighting against for four decades.

3) The exchanges between Foley and the pages were not merely sexually "suggestive" as one news reader on the radio put it this morning. They were as explicit and revolting as they could be without involving violence.

4) Foley, in an attempt to achieve the victimhood trifecta, has announced that he's gay, alcoholic, and was abused by a priest when he was a boy. I suppose this is intended to make us feel sorry for him, but it's an odd threesome given today's PC orthodoxies. Alcoholism is a disease and sexual abuse is a crime so how does being gay fit in with these? Is it a disease? Is it a crime? Why does Foley think his sexual orientation is relevant to this situation? Does being gay explain why he has had internet sex with an adolescent? Does Mr. Foley believe that being gay makes his being a sexual predator more understandable and forgiveable?

5) The Democrats are anxious to use this episode to impugn the Republican Congressional leadership which, they happily allege, was much too slow to take action against Foley. Yet William Jefferson, the Louisianna congressman who had $90,000 of bribe money stashed in his office refrigerator, is still in congress. The Democrats have done nothing to purge him. Gerry Studds, a Democratic congressman from Massachusetts, was sexually involved with a 17 year old male page in 1973. He was censured by the House in 1983 but was unrepentant, refused to resign, and was re-elected by his strongly liberal district five more times. His Democratic colleagues in the House gave him a standing ovation when he gave a speech saying that what he does in a mutually consensual relationship is nobody else's business even if his paramour was only seventeen.

Bill Clinton, despite his forceful denials, had sexual congress with Monica Lewinsky, who was a subordinate, of course, and the Democrats vigorously defended him. Clinton had "phone sex" with Monica Lewinsky at least fifteen times, and the pervert, the man whom Democrats called upon to resign, was special prosector Ken Starr for publishing the details. Clinton was also accused of rape (Juanita Broderick) and sexual harrassment (Paula Jones), but the Democrats rallied to his defense to beat back the allegations and tarnish the reputations of the women who made them.

At the end of his presidency, Clinton pardoned a number of ne'er do wells from prison, among whom was Mel Reynolds, a former Democratic congressman. In August of 1994, Reynolds was indicted for having sex with a sixteen year old campaign volunteer, yet his party allowed him to continue running for re-election. In November of 1994 he was reelected by Democratic voters. Reynolds initially denied what he claimed were racially motivated charges of sexual misconduct. On August 22, 1995 he was convicted on 12 counts of sexual assault, obstruction of justice and solicitation of child pornography. He resigned his seat on October 1, 1995.

Reynolds was sentenced to five years in prison, but in April of 1997 he was convicted on fifteen counts of bank fraud and lying to SEC investigators. As a result, he was sentenced to an additional six and a half years. After serving 42 months of his 78 month sentence President Clinton commuted his sentence, yet there were no loud protestations from Democrats upset about the message this commutation of a sexual predator sent about the seriousness of Reynold's offenses.

So, when liberals wax indignant over Mr. Foley's contemptible behavior, their fury seems totally inconsistent with their past record in similar situations. It sounds contrived and insincere.

Mr. Foley's only real transgression, in the eyes of a lot of people on the Left, is not the age of the boy, nor his gender, nor his subordinate status, nor that the boy and Mr. Foley were conducting a salacious and disgusting dialogue over the internet. They've been just fine with each of those sorts of things in the past. For many on the Left Foley's real crime, the offense for which he and the House leadership must be made to pay, is that he was a Republican.

* UPDATE: Drudge tells us that the page with whom Mark Foley carried out his infamous IM exchange was 18 or barely shy of it at the time.

Biological Measures and CounterMeasures

In an article titled Biological Design Research: The Bat's Intercept and the Moth's ECM, Cornelius Hunter tells us this:

Military aircraft under enemy missile attack may use a variety of strategies to escape. There is, of course, the strategy of executing an evasive maneuver to avoid or disrupt the incoming missile. The aircraft may also use a variety of electronic signals to jam or fool the missile's sensor and tracking computer. These electronic strategies fall under the general category known as electronic counter measures (ECMs). As usual biology has its own incredible, organic, version of such technology. In the case of the bat and moth encounter, it is being elucidated by some excellent research.

Many bat species have a phenomenal biosonar, or echolocation, capability used to track insects. As they fly they may emit hundreds of ultrasonic squeaks per second. The squeaks are frequency-modulated and at frequencies in the hundreds of kilo Hertz. During the pursuit the bat shortens its squeaks and increases the transmission rate as it closes on the prey. In the terminal stage the bat rapidly adjusts its trajectory and posture to capture the insect. The return echoes are passed through a range-compensated automatic gain control to reduce signal strength variations during closure. The result is a tracking capability that is several times more accurate than our best military equipment.

While executing these tracking and intercept functions the bat is performing a complex signal processing task. For instance, the bat can discriminate the prey from background clutter. It also has a sort of synthetic aperture technology with which to construct image information. And it also uses complicated geometrical calculations to solve an advanced guidance scheme, as it closes on the target.

And what about the prey? Often on the receiving end of this carbon-based interceptor is the lowly moth. Some moths, however, sport their own battery of impressive capabilities to counter the bat's onslaught. They are not only able to hear the bat's ultrasonic squeaks, they also can perform complex, aerobatic escape maneuvers, and some moths even counter the bat's squeaks with their own ultrasonic reply. These designs are not simple, and while years of excellent research have elucidated much of the details, many of the complexities have yet to be fully understood.

Sometimes it just makes me giddy to contemplate the miracles that blind, random processes like natural selection and genetic mutation can accomplish. I also stand in awe of the enormous credulity displayed by those who believe that such systems as Hunter describes could have evolved solely from such processes without any intelligent input. It's just astonishing what one can make oneself believe if only one tries hard enough. Would that we all had such faith.

Islam's Long War Against the West

Jonathan Last writes a column in The Philadelphia Inquirer about Islam's centuries-long war against the West. Last offers some good perspective on the nature of the conflict, and he begins with this:

Soon after 9/11, the Bush administration labeled the conflict into which it plunged this country the "war on terror." But this is no more descriptive than calling the fight in Iraq a "war on IEDs." The more pressing question is: Are we, or are we not, engaged in a larger clash of civilizations?

If the answer is "We are," the clash long predates 9/11, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and George W. Bush. It predates America itself. It is a clash between Western civilization and the Islamic world.

Harvard professor Samuel Huntington first made this case in 1993, in his famous article "The Clash of Civilizations" in the journal Foreign Affairs. "Conflict along the fault line between Western and Islamic civilizations has been going on for 1,300 years," he wrote. After the founding of Islam, Muslims spread their faith by the sword. Islam conquered North Africa and pushed into Europe, where it ruled in Sicily, Spain, Portugal, and parts of France. Twice, the forces of Islam laid siege to Vienna. For 1,000 years, Islam advanced and Christendom retreated.

As Pope Benedict XVI explains in his book Without Roots, the very concept of "Europe" emerged as a reaction to the surge of Islam. Not until the failure of the second Turkish siege of Vienna in 1683 did the Islamic tide recede definitively. For the next 300 years, Western civilization was ascendant and the Islamic world stagnated.

But the conflict between the two cultures never fully abated. Throughout the 20th century, Western countries tussled with Islamic states or their non-state proxies. And, as columnist Mark Steyn points out, when you gaze at conflicts around the globe today, the one constant is Islam. Muslims are fighting, or have recently fought, Jews in the Mideast, Hindus in Kashmir, Christians in Nigeria, atheists in Russia, Buddhists in Thailand and Burma, Catholics in the Philippines, and Orthodox Christians in the Balkans.

The rest of the essay is very much worth reading.

Liberals And the Foley Fiasco

Left-wing blog The Daily Kos and its readership are in a righteous stew over Mark Foley's "despicable" behavior. This has led me to wonder what it is, exactly, that they find despicable in Mr. Foley's pederast fantasies.

Are they outraged that Mr. Foley is a homosexual? That can't be it, of course, because they're deeply commited to the liberal doctrine of moral equivalence between homo- and hetero- sexuality.

Are they incensed that his lubricious attractions are directed at subordinates? That can't be it either since they weren't upset at all about Bill Clinton's similar attractions for his subordinates.

Perhaps they're furious because the boys Mr. Foley was instant messaging were only sixteen years old. Indeed, this is the high ground liberals on the talk shows are trying to occupy, but I don't think it works. Attraction to young boys is a common aspect of gay culture. If the Kos Kids are upset about that then they're essentially rebuking or renouncing the Left's entire history of facilitating and championing sexual deviancy and libertinism.

Not every liberal, of course, supports laws that would make it easier for adult men to have sexual liaisons with adolescent boys, such as lowering the age of sexual consent (which, by the way, is sixteen in Washington, D.C.). Even so, virtually everyone who does favor them is on the political Left and everyone who strenuously opposes them is on the political Right. Sexual freedom and the abolition of laws limiting sexual expression are Left-wing issues, so it's a little unusual to see Lefties condemning the very behavior they or their ideological allies think should be legal.

Maybe their moral "outrage" is simply a convenient ploy to try to make political hay against the Republicans whom they hate, in part because Republicans stand in the way of the emergence of the kind of society in which laws against sex with minors would be a thing of the past.

New ID Site For HS Students

There's a new site for high school students interested in Intelligent Design called Overwhelming Evidence. It's a site that enables high schoolers to network and communicate their views on Intelligent Design and evolution.

The site managers write that they believe that "today's students are smarter than they are given credit for, and that rather than being told what to believe, they have the ability to explore the range of possibilities and figure out what to believe on their own. The site is meant to encourage students to explore the facts, report the facts, and debate the facts."

If you're in high school, or just out, and interested in the controversy swirling around ID and Darwinism, give this site a look.

Fearing For His Life

Robert Redeker is a French philosopher who can no longer spend more than two nights in any one place. He must be constantly on the move to elude those who seek his life. What was his offense? In an article in Le Figaro titled "Faced with Islamic intimidation, what should the free world do?" he said this:

"Pitiless war leader, pillager, butcher of Jews and polygamous (people), this is how Mohammed is revealed by the Koran."

For this Redeker is in fear of his life, not in some dysfunctional Arab state, but in France. The Islamists know nothing of the freedoms we in the West take for granted and they're determined to wipe them out. Their weapon now is to intimidate those who speak against Islam by killing some and threatening others. Eventually their goal is to reduce the West to a state of abject servitude to Islamic overlords who will demand that it be written into our laws that no one be permitted to speak ill of Islam or the Prophet.

Read Redeker's story here.

Vindicated!

Ever since 1969 I have been silently convinced that the whole world was wrong about a certain historical event and that I was right. I could never prove it, of course, and besides it wasn't a big deal, but it was always an irritant for me whenever I heard the mistake repeated.

When Neil Armstrong stepped down onto the moon's surface and uttered his famous words, quickly engraved in stone by, I think, Walter Cronkite, as "One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind," I recall saying to my future wife, who was with me at the time, "That's not what he said. That doesn't even make sense. It's like saying 'One small step for mankind, one giant leap for mankind. What he said was one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind." Subsequently, every time I heard the apocryphal rendering repeated, I cringed, just as I cringe when someone says "I could care less" when what they mean to say is "I could not care less".

Anyway, now, after all these years, I have been vindicated, and I want to tell the world:

HOUSTON (Sept. 30) - That's one small word for astronaut Neil Armstrong, one giant revision for grammar sticklers everywhere.

An Australian computer programmer says he found the missing "a" from Armstrong's famous first words from the moon in 1969, when the world heard the phrase, "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." The story was reported in Saturday's editions of the Houston Chronicle.

Some historians and critics have dogged Armstrong for not saying the more dramatic and grammatically correct, "One small step for a man ..." in the version he transmitted to NASA's Mission Control. Without the missing "a," Armstrong essentially said, "One small step for mankind, one giant leap for mankind."

The famous astronaut has maintained he intended to say it properly and believes he did. Thanks to some high-tech sound-editing software, computer programmer Peter Shann Ford might have proved Armstrong right.

Ford said he downloaded the audio recording of Armstrong's words from a NASA Web site and analyzed the statement with software that allows disabled people to communicate through computers using their nerve impulses.

In a graphical representation of the famous phrase, Ford said he found evidence that the missing "a" was spoken and transmitted to NASA.

"I have reviewed the data and Peter Ford's analysis of it, and I find the technology interesting and useful," Armstrong said in a statement. "I also find his conclusion persuasive. Persuasive is the appropriate word."

See? I knew it.

Self-Destruction

Rep.Mark Foley (R-FL) resigned from congress when e-mails and instant messages he had been sending to congressional pages all under the age of 18 came to light last week.

The internet dialogue reveals a sick man who desperately needs help. Like former NJ governor Jim McGreevy who resigned when the sordid details of his double life were exposed last year, Foley's life and reputation are destroyed.

On one hand one can't help but be disgusted by the sleaziness to which these men have descended (the incriminating dialogue Foley engaged in with a minor can be accessed through the above link, but I don't recommend it unless you have a high tolerance for human degradation), on the other, one must feel very sorry for them. Their lives, even before they were found out, must have been filled with fear of being caught and self-loathing at what they had become.

It's easy to feel contempt for powerful people when, despite their transgressions, they are arrogant, defiant, and unrepentant, but surely when they're broken and devastated, contempt must give way to compassion. To the extent that Jim McGreevy and Mark Foley are humiliated and laden with self-reproach they need, and should have, our prayers. Unfortunately, it's not clear that either of them are yet at that stage.

In any event, as if the Mark Foley imbroglio hasn't done enough to harm Republicans going into the mid-term elections, it turns out that House speaker Dennis Hastert and House Majority leader John Boehner are both being accused of having known of Foley's illicit involvement with underage House pages and lied to cover it up.

If this is true, and I'm not persuaded yet that it is, it would be absolutely astonishing, especially in light of the ordeal the Catholic Church has been undergoing for the last decade over similar revelations about some of their clergy. It's hard to believe that in light of the Catholic Church's nightmarish experience the Republican party would make the same mistake.

Ed Morrissey at Captain's Quarters has details and is calling for the resignation of both Hastert and Boehner from their leadership positions. I think this is a little premature since it's not clear yet how much anyone knew about what Foley was doing. If it turns out, however, that anyone, including Democrats and media types, knew for months what was happening and didn't do anything to stop it, then those people should indeed be required to pay a price.

UPDATE: Dennis Hastert has just come out with a statement insisting that the Republican leadership knew nothing of the salacious instant messages, but, he notes, somebody did know about them and evidently did nothing to stop them. It's beginning to look as if these messages have been withheld in order to use them for political purposes close to the election. That's almost as immoral as the messages themselves.

Feedback

There are a couple of good replies on our Feedback Page to the posts this week on the Open Letter to the Religious Right and Mr. Cell Phone Guy.

Give them a look.

John Calvin's Theological Legacy

Christianity Today has an article which discusses the appeal Reformed (Calvinist) theology has lately been exerting, especially on young people. For those of our readers with a theological inclination we've duplicated the sidebar to the main article. It lays out in basic form the doctrinal heart of Reformed theology.

Calvinism as an identifiable theological school began with John Calvin (1509-1564). Also referred to as Reformed theology, Calvinism draws on pre-Reformation theologians like Augustine. It has taken a variety of forms over the centuries, but the acronym TULIP is still a handy summary of its distinguishing marks.

Total depravity: We cannot respond to God's offer of salvation, since our will-indeed, our whole being-has been rendered incapable by sin (Rom. 3:9-10; Rom. 8:7-8; 2 Cor. 4:4). Regeneration by the Holy Spirit must precede our response of faith. This contrasts with Christian traditions that say we have sufficient free will to respond to God's offer of salvation or that we can "cooperate" with grace.

Unconditional election: God chooses to save some people, not because of anything they have done, but according to his sovereign will (Acts 13:48; Rom. 9; Eph. 1:3-6). Some Calvinists have also taught that God elects certain people to damnation, but few advance this view aggressively. This contrasts with other Christian traditions that teach that God desires to save everyone, but only elects those whom he foreknows will respond to his grace.

Limited atonement: Christ died for the sins of the church, not for the whole world (John 10:15; Mark 10:45; Rev. 5:9). This contrasts with traditions that teach that Christ died for all, even though all may not appropriate the benefits of his sacrifice.

Irresistible grace: Those God elects cannot resist the Holy Spirit's draw to salvation (John 6:44; 1 Cor. 1:23-24; Acts 16:14). Again, this contrasts with Christian traditions that teach that we are able to reject God's forgiveness-thus, while God may choose to save everyone, not everyone chooses to believe.

Perseverance of the saints: By God's power, believers will endure in faith to the end (John 10:28; Rom. 8:30; Phil. 1:6). Other Christian traditions teach that people can forsake faith and lose salvation.

Each of these five petals of the TULIP raises interesting questions. Are we indeed "totally depraved"? Does God predestine some people to be saved for eternity and others to be lost? Was Christ's death an atonement only for those who had been predestined to be saved? Is God's calling irresistable or can someone reject God even though God is calling him/her to Himself? Can someone whom God has "saved" lose that salvation? Any comments from the theologians among you?

Quotes From the Darwinism/ID Debate

Following are a series of quotes that bear on the Darwinian/Intelligent Design controversy.

First is University of Delaware physicist Stephen Barr's literary allusion which illustrates why Divine creation and evolution are not necessarily incompatible:

Did this insect evolve or is it created by God? To ask that is as silly as to ask whether Polonious died because Hamlet stabbed him or because Shakespeare wrote the play that way.

Barr, who is a theistic evolutionist, believes that just as Shakespeare used the character of Hamlet to bring about Polonious' death, so to God could have used physical laws and an evolutionary process to bring about those forms of life He wished to create.

----------------

Jonathan Wells is officially an IDer and personally a creationist. He's writing on the topic Why Darwinism is Doomed, and makes an important distinction which writers on this subject seem almost perversely unable to grasp:

The issue here is not "evolution" - a broad term that can mean simply change within existing species (which no one doubts). The issue is Darwinism - which claims that all living things are descended from a common ancestor, modified by natural selection acting on random genetic mutations.

The truth is Darwinism is not a scientific theory, but a materialistic creation myth masquerading as science. It is first and foremost a weapon against religion - especially traditional Christianity. Evidence is brought in afterwards, as window dressing.

This is becoming increasingly obvious to the American people, who are not the ignorant backwoods religious dogmatists that Darwinists make them out to be. Darwinists insult the intelligence of American taxpayers and at the same time depend on them for support. This is an inherently unstable situation, and it cannot last.

If I were a Darwinist, I would be afraid. Very afraid.

I would add to what Wells says about Darwinism that the trait which makes it anathema to many theists is not that it is a form of evolution but that it insists that only physical forces were involved in the emergence of life and all of life's diversity. In other words Darwinists hold that intelligence is irrelevant to the existence of the cosmos and the biosphere. This strikes many people as implausible to the point of incredulity.

-----------------

Jonathan Wells also notes that it is a myth, and a false one at that, that biologists have actually witnessed one species evolving into another:

So except for polyploidy in plants, which is not what Darwin's theory needs, there are no observed instances of the origin of species. As evolutionary biologists Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan wrote in 2002: "Speciation, whether in the remote Galapagos, in the laboratory cages of the drosophilosophers, or in the crowded sediments of the paleontologists, still has never been directly traced." Evolution's smoking gun is still missing.

From: Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design , p. 55, quoting Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan, Acquiring Genomes: A Theory of the Origin of Species (New York: Basic Books, p. 32).

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Richard Dawkins is a militantly atheistic Darwinian who makes a startling admission in an essay which first appeared here, but which subsequently disappeared. Speculation has it that Dawkins was pressured to take it down by fellow Darwinians because his admission makes it very difficult for them to maintain the twin fictions that Intelligent Design is religion and that it can't be science because it can't be tested:

You then realize that the presence of a creative deity in the universe is clearly a scientific hypothesis. Indeed, it is hard to imagine a more momentous hypothesis in all of science. A universe with a god would be a completely different kind of universe from one without, and it would be a scientific difference. God could clinch the matter in his favour at any moment by staging a spectacular demonstration of his powers, one that would satisfy the exacting standards of science.

I wonder if the Big Bang is spectacular enough to qualify.

Here In America

This song by Diamond Rio deserves a wider audience than what I'm told it's getting on most radio stations. Maybe if Brittany Spears sang it....

Thanks to Dick Francis for the link.

JDAMs

Strategy Page has a fascinating piece on the development and impact of the JDAM (Joint Direct Attack Munition), a bomb guided by GPS satellites. This weapon has revolutionized modern warfare in ways that should please advocates of just war theory.

The essay begins with these words:

Military commanders the world over are struggling to figure out how to deal with the massive changes created by the arrival of GPS guided bombs (like JDAM). The United States has them, most of them, and the ability to stop others from using them (because America control the GPS satellites). The impact of JDAM has been enormous. It has made air power much more effective, reduced casualties for the force using them, and speeded up combat operations. Few non-professionals have noticed this, but generals and admirals of the major military powers have. These changes are enormous, but the mass media has not really noticed what is going on here. So few people are aware of how much JDAM has changed the way wars are fought.

The rest of the column explains how the JDAM has come about, why we have a monopoly on their use, and why just war theorists should hail their development.

Only if We See it as a Gift

Stephen Barr writes a review of E.O. Wilson's new book (The Creation: A Meeting of Science and Religion) which pleads for a concerted effort to save the rich and vanishing diversity of living things in our world. The review appears in the current issue of First Things (subscription required).

Wilson, as Barr points out, is a naturalist in both the biological and philosophical senses of the term. That is, he's someone deeply in love with plants and animals, and he is also a man who believes that nature is all there is.

Wilson's hope, according to Barr, is that man will eventually adopt philosophical naturalism as his religion and come to revere the natural world so much that he will do whatever he must to save it.

This, I suggest, is a forlorn hope. Naturalism as a metaphysic can offer us no reason why we should save the world. It can give us no reason why we should care whether beautiful species of birds and flowers survive after each of us has died. Once we're dead what does it matter whether every beautiful bird and butterfly goes extinct? There's no naturalistic reason why we shouldn't exploit the earth to make our lives as comfortable as we can while we're alive. If this means that our descendents will not we enjoy the wonders and richness we have experienced, so be it. Naturalism affords no reason why we should care about that. Once we're dead nothing matters.

Ironically, it is only the theist, indeed, the Christian theist, who has a non-subjective, non-arbitrary reason for valuing the natural world. The Christian has at least three such reasons. First, the world and its ecosystems were created by God and are ours to use and enjoy, but they're not ours to destroy. We are merely renters, not owners. Second, the wonders of the natural world are a gift to us from God, a token of His love, and as such they're to be prized, cherished, and cared for just as we would any precious gift given to us by one we love. Third, we're commanded by God to be responsible caretakers or stewards of the world we inhabit.

The Christian, then, has a solid basis for an environmental ethic that prominently features preservation, conservation and responsible management. The philosophical naturalist who adopts these same values does so only as a result of an arbitrary subjective preference. Neither the decision to preserve nor the decision to exploit and destroy are right or wrong in a moral sense in a Godless universe any more than there is a moral right or wrong involved in one's decision to paint his house blue or to paint it green.

I share Wilson's hope that we can preserve most of our planet's natural beauty and biological diversity, but contrary to Wilson, I see naturalistic philosophical assumptions as doing nothing to aid that cause. Preservation and conservation, if they're to be more than just an aesthetic preference that some people have for nature rather than housing developments and shopping malls, have be founded on the belief that we are not mere consumers but rather grateful stewards of God's marvelous gift to us.

Some Things Never Change

Bill passes along a link to an exchange of letters that evidently took place c. 635 A.D. between an Arab Muslim Caliph named Omar Ibn-Kat'tab and an Iranian (Persian) ruler named Yazdgerd III. The first letter is an ultimatum from the Caliph demanding the surrender of the Iranians to Islam. The second is Yazdgerd's wonderful and heroic reply. Here's the ultimatum:

Bism-ellah Ar'rahman Ar'rhim
To the Shah of the Fars

I do not foresee a good future for you and your nation save your acceptance of my terms and your submission to me. There was a time when your country ruled half the world, but see how now your sun has set.

On all fronts your armies have been defeated and your nation is condemned to extinction. I point out to you the path whereby you might escape this fate. Namely, that you begin worshipping the one god, the unique deity, the only god who created all that is.

I bring you his message. Order your nation to cease the false worship of fire and to join us, that they may join the truth.

Worship Allah the creator of the world. Worship Allah and accept Islam as the path of salvation. End now your polytheistic ways and become Muslims that you may accept Allah-u-Akbar as your savior.

This is the only way of securing your own survival and the peace of your Persians. You will do this if you know what is good for you and for your Persians.

Submission is your only option
Allah u Akbar
The Calif of Muslims Omar Ibn-Khat'tab

Read Yazdgerd's response at the link. May the Yazdgerds of the world increase, and may all the Omars follow Yazdgerd's excellent advice.

Open Letter to the Religious Right

Joe Carter pens an Open Letter to the Religious Right. It's mostly good stuff and coming from a political and theological conservative, much of it would be surprising to both liberals and conservatives alike. I don't think he's correct in everything he says, but where I think he's wrong he's not off by much.

He begins his letter with these words:

During the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln was purportedly asked if God was on his side.

"Sir, my concern is not whether God is on our side," said the President, "my greatest concern is to be on God's side, for God is always right."

Ironically, though Lincoln is often praised for this remark, it contains three of the most controversial ideas in American politics: that God should be invoked in the political sphere; that God's existence matters, much less that he is always right; and that since He takes sides on certain issues, some people will be divinely justified while others will be in opposition not only to their political opponents but to the very Creator and Sustainer of the Universe.

If you find these ideas absurd and repugnant, you are most likely a secularist. If you find them to be embarrassing truths, then you may be on the religious left. If you find them so obvious that they hardly need stating, then you are probably a member of the so-called "religious right."

I embrace them whole-heartedly, which makes me a certified member of the religious right. Although I've often been uncomfortable with that term, I find it fits me more and more, as if I'm growing into it. So be it.

Read the rest of the letter at the link. It's worth it.

Al Qaeda's Estimate of the Iraq War

Al Jazeera has published a leaked copy of a classified al Qaeda Intelligence Estimate similar to the excerpts from the National Intelligence Estimate printed by the New York Times (Okay, not really. Al Jazeera understands something about loyalty).

The American Thinker has obtained part of the "document" here.

Here's part of it:

Our judgment that the war in Iraq is an unmitigated disaster rests on another logic entirely - one that, praise be to Allah, our allies on the American left fail utterly to grasp. By dragging on for so long, and thus generating so much political controversy, this war has created the opportunity for those among the infidels who truly understand us to find their voice. Today in the American media once-obscure scholars such as Bernard Lewis, James Arlandson, and Andrew Bostom are reaching large and growing audiences with their accurate and deeply insightful analyses of Islam.

And while it is one thing when the moron Bush stumbles onto the truth and calls us "Islamofascists"-it is quite another when the infidel leader Benedict visits a minor university in Germany, and there gives a scholarly speech about the nature of Islam that echoes across the globe and focuses worldwide attention on the central role of violence in our faith.

History teaches that when attacked, the infidel responds slowly - and at first, clumsily. (Consider how many centuries went by before Christianity responded to our conquests in the seventh and eighth centuries with what they are pleased to call the Crusades.) And of all the infidels, none responds more clumsily than the Americans. They are too corrupt - too distracted by their pornography and their shopping - to see clearly or even to think clearly about the threats they face.

But history also teaches that, given enough time, the Americans always come to understand the true nature of their enemy. And history teaches that once they do, they win.

We judge that a great shift is now under way within the Great Satan. While the "elites" in Washington continue to fight each other rather than us, the masses are becoming more resolute in their opposition to our jihad. Our agents report that throughout the Great Satan, in places like Birmingham, Alabama, and Raleigh, North Carolina, and Naperville, Illinois, and Fargo, North Dakota - and even in the outlying districts of New York itself - ordinary, working Americans are starting to wake up to who we truly are and what we mean to do. The people are moving ahead of their corrupt politicians.

For all the mistakes the Americans and their lackeys have made in Iraq - may Allah continue to mislead them - this war has been a disaster because it has triggered the one thing we were most determined to prevent: It has enabled the infidel to understand our true objective - which is, of course, the destruction of Western civilization.

Read the rest at the link.

Powder Scare

Paula Froelich at the New York Post wrote this piece on MSNBC's talk host and commentator Keith Olbermann:

September 27, 2006 -- MSNBC loudmouth Keith Olbermann flipped out when he opened his home mail yesterday. The acerbic host of "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" was terrified when he opened a suspicious-looking letter with a California postmark and a batch of white powder poured out. A note inside warned Olbermann, who's a frequent critic of President Bush's policies, that it was payback for some of his on-air shtick. The caustic commentator panicked and frantically called 911 at about 12:30 a.m., sources told The Post's Philip Messing. An NYPD HazMat unit rushed to Olbermann's pad on Central Park South, but preliminary tests indicated the substance was harmless soap powder. However, that wasn't enough to satisfy Olbermann, who insisted on a checkup. He asked to be taken to St. Luke's Hospital, where doctors looked him over and sent him home. Whether they gave him a lollipop on the way out isn't known. Olbermann had no comment.

Now I defer to no one in the matter of finding Mr. Olbermann hard to take. He is snide, pompous, arrogant, mean-spirited, and petty, but none of that, as bad as it is, justifies the prank that Froelich reports. In fact, I think Froelich is being unfair to Olberman in portraying him as something of a sissy in the way he reacted to the powder in the envelope. If I were a celebrity in the public eye, given the anthrax scares of a couple of years ago, I'd probably react the same way, and I suspect Froelich would too.

Worse, though, is the fact that someone ostensibly from the conservative side of Olbermann's meager viewing audience would engage in such a tactic, which is really a form of terrorism. It disgraces anyone to do something like this, and whoever did it should be ashamed.

No doubt Olbermann suspects the sender was Bill O'Reilly. O'Reilly certainly has motive, given Olbermann's relentless public assaults on him, but I prefer to think that O'Reilly, who is every bit as pompous and obnoxious as Olbermann, is nevertheless above this sort of hooliganism.

Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap

Coming on the heels of a reporter's stunningly maladroit question concerning Republican Senator George Allen's (VA) Jewish ancestry are allegations now by Salon.com which accuse him of past racist remarks. Salon's piece tries hard to make Allen look like a racist and a bigot, but, as usual, there's more to the story.

Ed Morrissey has a good summary of events here and here for those interested in seeing how political dirty tricks are played by those with no moral principle guiding them except "win at all costs".

Egg On Their Faces, Again

The New York Times made much of the secret NIE report which proved, the Times assured us, that Iraq and Bush were making the terrorism problem worse. As you probably guessed even without having seen the report (which Bush has now declassified), the Times' take on the NIE report was somewhat skewed. The relevant section can be read here (It's not very long).

The Times and others in the media quoted this sentence and concluded that we need to get out of there and stop the bleeding:

The Iraq conflict has become the "cause celebre" for jihadists, breeding a deep resentment of US involvement in the Muslim world and cultivating supporters for the global jihadist movement.

What they didn't tell us was the very next sentence:

Should jihadists leaving Iraq perceive themselves, and be perceived, to have failed, we judge fewer fighters will be inspired to carry on the fight."

In other words, success in Iraq is predicted to have a moderating influence on terrorist activity. The Times and its allies chose not to tell us that what the NIE report says is that what would really inspire the terrorists to redouble their barbarous efforts would be to do precisely what the Times and many Democrats have advised: Cut and Run.

Now that the relevant portions of the document have been released and reveal the Democrats' dissimulations they're calling for the entire document to be made available. They're implying that if only we saw everything in the NIE report we'd see that "Bush's War" is actually making us less safe.

This really is amusing. When the original exposè ran in the Times they only printed the single sentence above. Yet no Democrat complained that we weren't seeing the whole report. No Democrat complained that we couldn't judge the context. No Democrat demanded that the relevant portions be released so that the whole thing could be assessed. Now that they have been, and the Democrats have egg on their faces, they're insisting that we haven't seen the whole thing and that if we did we'd be convinced that they're right. Sure.

Mr. Cell Phone Guy

For all of you who have ever sat in a restaurant and been forced to listen to every word spoken by someone on the other side of the room who thought it necessary to shout into his/her cell phone - someone who was oblivious to the fact that a phone can carry normal amplitudes perfectly well and who obviously believed that other people enjoy having their own conversations drowned out by his/her phone conversation - this one's for you.

Disclaimer: Nothing in this post should be construed as an endorsement of the product advertised at the link!

Blessing and Curse

Daveed Gartenstein-Ross has a column on Counterterrorism Blog in which he argues that Pakistan's deal with the the tribes and Taliban in Waziristan to withdraw from that province as long as they don't cause mischief in the rest of Pakistan effectively grants terrorists a safe haven in Waziristan.

I wonder, though, if there's not a silver lining here. I know that Pakistan has said that just because they are essentially ceding sovereignty over this region that that doesn't mean that they will permit foreigners to move in with impunity. Even so, as Waziristan becomes more independent of Islamabad, Musharef will find it increasingly convenient to do nothing if coalition forces in Afghanistan strike Taliban bases in western Pakistan.

In other words, an autonomous Waziristan could be both a blessing and a curse to the Taliban who use that area as a safe-haven. They no longer have to contend with the Pakistani military but they may soon have to contend with coalition smart bombs.

Counterterrorism Blog thinks that Pakistan's withdrawal is a serious blow to the effort to nurture Afghanistan's nascent democracy. It may, on the contrary, be a stroke of strategic genius that actually winds up making Waziristan less of a safe-haven that it was before. We'll see in due course.

Creeping Theocracy

Joe Carter recycles a fine 2004 piece that's still relevant to the latest bit of liberal paranoia over religion. He notes that the fear of many lefties, and even some conservatives, of what they see as creeping theocracy is really quite risible. He writes:

After all, more than half of American evangelicals are either Baptists or non-denominational. We don't even want a centralized church government much less a central government controlled by the church. So where does this silly canard come from?

He goes on to quote Eugene Volokh:

I keep hearing evangelical Christian leaders criticized for "trying to impose their religious dogma on the legal system," for instance by trying to change the law to ban abortion, or by trying to keep the law from allowing gay marriage.

I like to ask these critics: What do you think about the abolitionist movement of the 1800s? As I understand it, many -- perhaps most or nearly all -- of its members were deeply religious people, who were trying to impose their religious dogma of liberty on the legal system that at the time legally protected slavery.

Or what do you think about the civil rights movement? The Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., after all, was one of its main leaders, and he supported and defended civil rights legislation as a matter of God's will, often in overtly religious terms. He too tried to impose his religious dogma on the legal system, which at the time allowed private discrimination, and in practice allowed governmental discrimination as well.

Or how about religious opponents of the draft, opponents of the death penalty, supporters of labor unions, supporters of welfare programs, who were motivated by their religious beliefs -- because deeply religious people's moral beliefs are generally motivated by their religious beliefs -- in trying to repeal the draft, abolish the death penalty, protect labor, or better the lot of the poor? Perhaps their actions were wrong on the merits....But would you condemn these people on the grounds that it was simply wrong for them to try to impose their religious beliefs on the legal system?

Volokh does a nice job of pointing out the absurdity of the complaint about people using religion as a motivation for public policy, and the rest of his piece is worth reading, but beyond his sensible reply there are other reasons why the idea that Christians have no right to impose their values on the rest of society is inane. For one thing, the person voicing the objection is trying to impose his value on others by intimidating the rest of us into accepting it. His value is that people who don't believe like him must not be allowed to legally burden the rest of society with their values. But by prohibiting Christians from having recourse to legislative action his value becomes a legal proscription on Christians and everyone else. So he's doing exactly what he condemns the Christian for doing.

Moreover, coming from anyone who does not believe in a personal God the claim that imposing one's values is wrong is simply incomprehensible. If there is no God then nothing is wrong, including imposing one's values on others. I have the right to do whatever I have the power and the desire to do in a godless universe, and it's simply empty rhetoric to insist that I don't.

An example, though, of someone who wants to say just this is in the comment section of Volokh's blog. The commenter writes:

Personally I hold the position that it's illegitimate (from an ethical, not a constitutional standpoint) to justify one's decisions about how society should be run based on assumptions one cannot defend reasonably. As I have yet to see any compelling defense made on evidence that ...1) there is a god and 2) that god does not want me to be a homosexual, I find it unethical to try to legislate my choice to be or not be homosexual based on those propositions.

My understanding is that a significant segment of the religious right makes their case exclusively on these grounds. I take this position not because of moral relativism, but because of the lack of a reasoned argument that can be presented for the case. To the extent that one desires to restrict another based on propositions one cannot defend reasonably, I believe that one is behaving unethically. I think that legislating me based on assumptions based on faith rather than reason disrespects me as a human being capable of thought.

Note that the writer is not saying that it should be illegal to impose one's values on others legislatively but rather that it's unethical. But an appeal to ethics works no better for him than an appeal to the law. The writer is evidently skeptical of the existence of God, but if there is no God then what he asserts in his last two sentences makes no sense. What does it mean to say "one is behaving unethically"? It can only mean that one is behaving in ways that the writer doesn't like, but, if so, so what? Why is that bad or wrong?

He suggests that it's unethical to treat him this way because it's a form of disrespect, but he gives us no reason why we should think that treating him with disrespect is wrong. What makes him think that he must be respected? Does he have a right to be respected? Certainly he does not if there's no transcendent moral authority that confers that right upon him. On the assumption that there is no such being he has no such right.

So, the irony of all this is that the only people who can say that nobody has the right to impose their values on others is a person who believes that there is a God who insists that we respect each other. Failing that all the talk of morality, ethics, and rights is just so much rhetorical blather signifying nothing.