Jena and White Guilt

We've talked before about the phenomenom described by Shelby Steele in his book titled " target="_blank"> White Guilt, the feeling many whites have that they bear within them the stain of racism and the need many whites have to seek absolution by proving that they're not, in fact, guilty of this sin.

If there's anyone who is completely free of this politically correct affliction and who's able to think clearly on matters of race it's Heather MacDonald. MacDonald has an excellent column in City Journal on the episode in Jena, LA where six blacks, angered by the appearance on their high school campus of three nooses, beat a white kid who had nothing to do with the insult until he was unconscious. The young thugs were charged as adults with attempted murder, a charge which was seen as excessive by many, and which precipitated large protests and another round of media lamentations over what Jena says about racism in our judicial system and in our society.

MacDonald thinks the demonstrators' outrage and media concern are misplaced and that they're really smokescreens that obscure some hard truths about the condition of blacks in the United States. She concludes her column with this:

The orgy of Jena coverage will not just fail to improve the lagging performance of blacks; it will impede such improvement by strengthening the victim mentality. Both whites and blacks are complicit in this sabotage. These ecstatic festivals of racism-bashing are a crippling ritual in the codependency between absolution-seeking whites and angry blacks, a phenomenon that Shelby Steele has powerfully analyzed. The demonstrators exhibit a palpable desire for the moral clarity of the civil rights era, as do the reporters, who have covered their every utterance. "This is the first time something like this has happened for our generation," one student told the New York Times. "You always heard about it from history books and relatives. This is a chance to experience it for ourselves."

He's right; there has been nothing like Selma or Montgomery for the current generation, because much of America has accomplished almost an about-face on race since the 1950s. The current martyrs to American bigotry are a far cry from Rosa Parks. Like the "Jena Six," they tend to have committed acts of violence or other crimes for which they are allegedly being excessively punished. Think of the six high school hooligans from Decatur, Illinois, whom Jesse Jackson tried to beatify in 1999 when their schools expelled them for a violent stadium fight; their backgrounds included robbery, trespassing, truancy, and failing whole school years. We are only belatedly learning that Mychal Bell, the sole member of the "Jena Six" to have been prosecuted for knocking out and kicking Justin Barker, has a previous arrest record that includes battery and property damage. Barker's injuries led to $14,000 in medical bills, according to a lawyer.

The Jena situation is undoubtedly a bit more complex than the tale that the press has woven of hate-filled whites and peace-loving blacks. But even if it were not, the catharsis that this morality play has offered to its participants is spurious. The real tragedy is the dysfunctional culture that holds back too many blacks from seizing the many opportunities open to them.

Her column is too important to miss. It should be read and discussed by every American, black, white and otherwise, from beginning to end.

RLC

No More Beach

AOL has an interesting story on projected sea levels over the next century. Scientists anticipate a rise of one meter no matter what we do today. That one meter rise will significantly alter the east coast of the U.S. as the maps at the link show.

It looks like the eastern beaches which have been such a popular vacation spot are going to be pretty much gone by the time our great grandchildren want to use them.

It also looks like all the money we're spending to rebuild New Orleans and the Gulf coast might as well be dumped into the ocean. In fact, it soon (relatively speaking) will be.

RLC

Another Report of a Cancer Cure

Researchers believe they have discovered a way to cure cancer that should be available within two years. It involves the use of cells, called granulocytes, taken from the immune systems of cancer-resistant donors and transferred to cancer patients. The details can be read here.

It seems that every couple of months we hear of another breakthrough in cancer treatment and cure. Let's hope and pray that our medical reseacrhers really are getting this terrible disease under their control.

RLC

What We Can't Not Know

George Weigel makes several important points in a brief essay at The Ethics and Public Policy Center titled What We Can't Not Know Six Years After 9/11. Here are some of the things Weigel says we can't not know:

We can't not know that jihadists read history through the prism of their theological convictions. The West, tutored by a progressive view of history, read the Soviet defeat in Afghanistan as a victory for freedom. Jihadists read it as a victory for jihadism, a Phase One triumph in an ongoing war against the infidels. Phase Two, which jihadists imagined might be easier than Phase One, had the United States as its target.

Attacks on American embassies in East Africa in the mid-1990s were intended to trigger a struggle in which the United States would be defeated as the Soviet Union was defeated in Phase One. When that didn't work, jihadists blew a hole in the side of the U.S.S. Cole as it was refueling in the harbor at Aden. When that didn't elicit the expected response, Osama bin Laden concluded that an outrage impossible for the Americans to ignore was required. Thus 9/11.

Bin Laden got one thing wrong, and we can't not know that, either: he hadn't reckoned on the robust response of those allegedly decadent Americans, first in Afghanistan, later in Iraq. As the dean of western scholars of Islam, Bernard Lewis, has written, "it is noteworthy that there has been no successful attack on American soil since...the U.S. actions in Afghanistan and in Iraq indicated that there had been a major change in the U.S..."

But now, closely watching our politics and monitoring our national morale, jihadists like bin Laden may, Lewis suggests, be returning to their original assessment of American fecklessness -- and may conclude "that they need only to press a little harder to achieve final victory."

A determination to make clear that this re-assessment is wrong ought to be the threshold test of seriousness applied to any presidential or congressional candidate in 2008. For, as Lewis concludes, if the jihadists' reassessment is proven right, "the consequences -- both for Islam and for America -- will be deep, wide, and lasting."

Another thing we can't not know is that the war against jihadism is for the long haul: it won't be resolved in the next administration, or in the next three administrations. Staying power -- rooted in the conviction that religious freedom, tolerance and civility, the rule of law, and the method of persuasion in politics reflect universal moral truths -- is essential to victory.

Weigel then closes with this:

Prayer for the conversion of our enemies is yet another "front" in the war that has been declared upon us. Yet I've heard very few, if any, such prayers in the past six years. Their necessity is one more thing we can't not know.

He's right about this as well as much else. Read the rest of his essay at the link.

Thanks to Jason for passing the article along.

RLC

Let Him Speak

Unlike a lot of folks, evidently, I don't have a problem with Columbia University inviting Iranian president Ahmadinejad to speak on campus this week.

I think it will be an excellent way to spark discussion among people across this nation as to exactly who Ahmadinejad is and what he is trying to do. I'm afraid that most Americans have no idea of the extent of Iran's horrific machinations in the Middle East, and if it takes the controversy around Ahmadinejad's appearance to educate them then the invitation is a good thing.

My concern is not with the invitation, rather it's that this pyschopath Ahmadinejad who's responsible for the deaths and maimings of hundreds of American soldiers, who is seeking to build nuclear and chemical weapons with which to destroy Israel, who presides over a nation which supports terrorism around the globe and which savagely executes gays, women and children who transgress their barbaric laws at home, will be treated with more fawning deference and respect by the Colombia faculty and students than would, say, Ann Coulter.

I say let him speak, but I hope tens of thousands of people turn out to protest not his appearance, but his existence.

RLC

Why We Shouldn't Leave

There's a discussion going on over at Politics, Sex and Religion around a column I wrote for the newspaper on why it would be a mistake to leave Iraq at this stage of the mission. Check it out and join the discussion.

RLC

Hillary's Religious Faith

Mother Jones features an article on the nature of Sen. Clinton's religious faith. Reading this it's hard to think that Mrs. Clinton's faith is not genuine, although there are stories about her tenure with Bill that certainly raise doubts. Even so, none of us is perfect. Here are some excerpts:

Through all of her years in Washington, Clinton has been an active participant in conservative Bible study and prayer circles that are part of a secretive Capitol Hill group known as the Fellowship. Her collaborations with right-wingers such as Senator Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) and former Senator Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) grow in part from that connection. "A lot of evangelicals would see that as just cynical exploitation," says the Reverend Rob Schenck, a former leader of the militant anti-abortion group Operation Rescue who now ministers to decision makers in Washington. "I don't....there is a real good that is infected in people when they are around Jesus talk, and open Bibles, and prayer."

When Clinton first came to Washington in 1993, one of her first steps was to join a Bible study group. For the next eight years, she regularly met with a Christian "cell" whose members included Susan Baker, wife of Bush consigliere James Baker; Joanne Kemp, wife of conservative icon Jack Kemp; Eileen Bakke, wife of Dennis Bakke, a leader in the anti-union Christian management movement; and Grace Nelson, the wife of Senator Bill Nelson, a conservative Florida Democrat.

Clinton's prayer group was part of the Fellowship (or "the Family"), a network of sex-segregated cells of political, business, and military leaders dedicated to "spiritual war" on behalf of Christ, many of them recruited at the Fellowship's only public event, the annual National Prayer Breakfast. (Aside from the breakfast, the group has "made a fetish of being invisible," former Republican Senator William Armstrong has said.) The Fellowship believes that the elite win power by the will of God, who uses them for his purposes. Its mission is to help the powerful understand their role in God's plan.

It'll be interesting, if Sen. Clinton wins the presidency in 2008, to see whether she receives the kind of media criticism for depending upon divine guidance as has George Bush.

At any rate, there's much more in the story that reveals fascinating details about the people who have influenced her religious development and how that development has played itself out in some of her political positions.

HT: Hot Air

RLC

Inference to the Best Explanation (Part VI)

This is the sixth installment in the series which seeks to argue that belief in God is more reasonable, more compatible with our experience of the world and of ourselves, than is atheism. We consider here three more observations about our human condition that support this conclusion.

13. Human beings have a deep longing for justice, a longing for which there's no fulfillment if death is the end of our existence. We yearn to see good rewarded and evil punished. Our hearts break when evil appears to triumph over good, but it's the common human experience that many good people live lives filled with terrible fear, pain and grief, and then they die. Meanwhile, many who were the cause of that suffering come to the end of their lives peacefully and content after many years of pleasure. In a world without God everybody comes to the same end, everyone vanishes, and there's no reward or punishment, just nothingness. In the world of the atheist, it doesn't matter whether you're Mother Teresa or Adolf Hitler and there's no hope that justice will ever be done.

14. Human beings crave a meaning to our existence. We can't bear living a life we know to be pointless and insignificant, but death nullifies everything and renders it all nugatory. In the absence of God there's no fixed purpose or value to anything we do. Some day the earth will burn up in a solar explosion, and there'll be not a trace that humans once existed. What will all of our striving matter then? All our efforts are like the furious running of a gerbil in his wheel. Our lives are just a footprint in the sand at the edge of a space-time surf. Eventually all vestige of our lives will be washed away as though we were never here, and the greatest acts of heroism, charity, and scientific discovery will mean absolutely nothing.

If the atheist is correct, if our existence is simply a temporary fluke of nature, a cosmic accident, then we have no reason to think that anything we do matters at all. If, on the other hand, we have been created by God we may assume that He had some purpose for making us. We may not know what that purpose is, but we have a basis for hoping that there is one. Indeed, if there is a God then what we do is not ephemeral, it's eternal, and that makes all the difference.

15. In a Godless world there is no soul and therefore no self other than the physical body. Since our body is in constant flux we are continuously creating a new self, moment by moment, year by year. There is nothing which perdures through time which makes me the same person I think I was ten years ago. There is no permanent "I," only a kaleidoscopic, fragmented bundle of patterns, impressions, memories, none of which has any real significance in determining who we really are.

As T.S. Eliot put it, "What we know of other people is only our memory of the moments during which we knew them. And they have changed since then....at every meeting we are meeting a stranger." Our sense that we are a self strongly suggests, however, that there's more to us than just our physical being. Yet unless there is a God the physical is all there is.

Go here and follow the links to find previous posts in this series.

RLC

Science Literacy

We talked about this rather humorous and startling video some time ago, but it's worth bringing back. Fifty six percent of French people polled on this game show said that the sun revolved around the earth. Now France, of course, is a very secular nation in which evolution is taught in school and over 80% of the people believe it to be scientific fact. Yet a majority of the viewers of this show hold a pre-Copernican belief about the solar system.

The next time you hear someone trot out the old canard that if we allow evolution to be challenged in our schools it'll be the death of science literacy, point them to this video as anecdotal evidence that evolutionary belief and science literacy have very little to do with each other.

RLC

Near Miss IED

Here's video, taken by military personnel, of an uncomfortably close near-miss of an IED. It's pretty sobering. Viewpoint understands, but does not endorse, the soldier's verbal reflex.

RLC

What Were They Thinking?

It's difficult to understand how any Senator could vote against this Sense of the Senate Resolution but 24 Democrats and 1 Independent found it within themselves to do so and several of them, including Barack Obama and Joseph Biden, chose not to vote at all:

It is the sense of the Senate-

(1) to reaffirm its support for all the men and women of the United States Armed Forces, including General David H. Petraeus, Commanding General, Multi-National Force-Iraq;

(2) to strongly condemn any effort to attack the honor and integrity of General Petraeus and all the members of the United States Armed Forces; and

(3) to specifically repudiate the unwarranted personal attack on General Petraeus by the liberal activist group Moveon.org.

The Senate voted unanimously to confirm General Petraeus and to send him to Iraq to bring stability to the region. By all accounts he's handling that mission honorably, but when he came home to report to Congress on what he sees happening there Hillary Clinton essentially called him a liar and MoveOn.org accused him of treason.

No one has presented any evidence that Petraeus has done anything dishonorable yet his character and reputation are besmirched and smeared by people who simply can't bring themselves to entertain the possibility that things are not as bad in Iraq as they believe them to be.

For the full text of the resolution and a list of the twenty five senators who voted against it go here.

With this vote twenty five senators have by implication chosen to attack the reputation and character of a good man serving his country rather than repudiate MoveOn.org's disgraceful ad. Why would they do that?

RLC

Have the Taliban Admitted Defeat?

Strategy Page argues that the Taliban have acknowledged defeat in Afghanistan, at least for the time being:

The Taliban has offered to begin negotiating with the Afghan government. In Afghan parlance, that's the Taliban way of saying they are defeated and want to discuss peace terms. Over the past few months, Taliban attacks have become increasingly desperate and bloody. But most of the dead have been Taliban. The only "successful" attacks have been those using suicide bombers, and these kill mostly Afghan civilians.

The Taliban were able to build up a war chest in the last few years, allowing them to hired thousands of unemployed young men. But casualties have been high, with over a third of these hired gunmen getting killed, wounded or captured. In the last two weeks, over 200 Taliban gunmen have been killed in battles with Afghan and foreign troops. But the biggest source of problems has been the stupid things they do. Recently, a Taliban group kidnapped a dozen deminers (people who disarm and remove land mines).

This sort of thing is very unpopular with Afghans, as even the Taliban (officially, anyway) recognize the deminers as immune from attack. The millions of mines and explosives still in the ground don't discriminate between Taliban or non-Taliban. The deminers are arguably more important to the Taliban, who often sneak around at night in out-of-the-way places.

The Taliban also make themselves unpopular by attacking food relief convoys. One recent attack saw 13 Taliban and two police killed in such an unsuccessful attack. The Taliban want to shut down humanitarian and reconstruction projects, and thus force Afghans to support the Taliban in order to get any help at all. Most Afghans resent this sort of intimidation.

I'm not sure we should put too much hope in this acknowledgement of their tactical difficulties. It's true that the Taliban have suffered grievous losses, losing ten men to every policeman or soldier they've killed, but they will continue to be a threat to the Afghan people as long as they have safe havens in Pakistan and as long as there's a large pool of poor, uneducated young men for them to draw upon for cannon fodder.

RLC

Faith By Any Other Name

This video of Richard Dawkins is very revealing albeit not in any way that Dawkins intended. The famous Darwinian materialist is asked whether he can think of an example of a genetic mutation which actually increases the amount of information in the genome. He ponders the question for what seems like an hour, but which is actually eleven seconds, and finally gives an answer which is completely irrelevant to the question.

In other words, Dawkins' inability to think of an example of a beneficial mutation that actually makes the genetic material more complex than it was before the mutation suggests that not even prominent evolutionists can offer evidence that mutation is a driving engine of evolutionary progress.

The belief that genetic mutation has led to the myriad living forms and structures we see today is simply an act of faith in a process for which not even Dawkins can adduce evidence.

It's ironic that faith in natural processes can be taught in school, but faith in supernatural intervention cannot. One wonders what rationale there can possibly be for that dichotomy.

RLC

More WMD in the Middle East

According to The Jerusalem Post Syria is working with Iran to develop chemical weapons:

Proof of cooperation between Iran and Syria in the development and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction was brought to light Monday in a Jane's Magazine report that dozens of Iranian engineers and 15 Syrian officers were killed in a July 23 accident in Syria.

According to the report...the joint Syrian-Iranian team was attempting to mount a chemical warhead on a scud missile when the explosion occurred, spreading lethal chemical agents, including sarin nerve gas and VX gas.

The factory was created specifically for the purposes of altering ballistic missiles to carry chemical payloads, the magazine report claimed.

If the belief that Iraq had WMD was enough motivation for the Senate to vote to grant Bush the authority to overthrow Saddam, will proof that Syria and Iran have them be enough for the Senate to vote to grant Bush the authority to topple Assad and Ahmadinejad? Will it motivate the Senate to support any measures designed to bring an end to these regimes?

Here's a question for anti-war people: Should Bush just do nothing about the spread of WMD in Syria and Iran and leave the problem to his successor, or should he order the CIA to instigate a coup? Or, should he seek to cut off the flow of oil from Iran? What should the President do about WMD in Iran?

Those who oppose war in principle have been given a free ride on this question by the media. Very few anti-war folks have ventured to even comment on Iran except to deplore what they perceive to be administration saber-rattling and talk vaguely of negotiations. They need to be put on record as to exactly what they think Bush should do about this problem so that after he does it we don't have the kind of second-guessing and recriminations we've had with Iraq.

RLC

Why We Must Control Immigration

This clip presents perhaps the most important nine minutes and thirty five seconds of education on immigration you'll ever get. It's a must watch video for anyone who cares at all about their future and that of their children. Please watch it all the way to the end and if anyone knows who the speaker is, please let me know.

Thanks to my friend Dick Francis for passing it along.

RLC

Inference to the Best Explanation (Part V)

In Part V of Inference to the Best Explanation (See I, II, III, and IV) we continue our consideration of sixteen facts about our existential circumstance which cannot easily be explained if there is no God, but which harmonize with a theistic worldview. Today we'll look at three closely related human characteristics beginning with number ten in the series:

10. We profess a belief in human dignity but modern atheism tells us that we are little more than machines made of flesh - sacks of blood, bone and excrement. There is no soul, there is nothing about us that makes us much different than any other mammal. We are more intelligent, of course, but that only makes the difference between us and a cow about the same as the difference between a cow and a trout. In the absence of God there's no reason why someone who has the power should not use it to manipulate and exploit the rest of us like the farmer exploits his cattle for his own purposes, slaughtering them when he can profit from so doing. The universe tells us we're nothing but "dust in the wind" and there's no dignity in that.

If, however, we are made by God and personally and specifically loved by Him then we have a basis for believing that we are more than a machine. We have a ground for human dignity that is simply unavailable on the assumption of atheism.

11. Related to the previous fact is the further truth that we have a belief in human worth. If all we are, however, is an ephemeral pattern of atoms, a flesh and bone mechanism, then in what does our worth as human beings consist? We have value only insofar as others, particularly those who wield power, arbitrarily choose to value us. If atheism is true there is no inherent value in being human. Only if theism is true and we are valued by the Creator of the universe can human beings have any objective worth at all. There is no other non-arbitrary ground for it.

12. Similarly, we have a belief that human beings have certain fundamental rights. Unfortunately, if there is no God there's nothing at all upon which to base those rights save our own prejudices and predilections. As Thomas Jefferson acknowledged in the Declaration of Independence, we have the right to life and liberty only because we are children of the Creator of the universe who has invested those rights in us and in whose eyes we are precious. If there is no Creator then there are no human rights, just arbitrary rules, mere words on paper, which some people agree to follow but which could easily be revoked.

When atheists talk about human rights someone might ask them where those rights come from. Who confers them? Who guarantees them? If it is not God then it must be the state but if so, our rights are not inalienable. If the state decides what rights we shall have then the state can determine that we have no rights at all. The fact is that if atheism is true human rights are no more substantial or real than the grin of the Cheshire cat in Alice in Wonderland.

We'll continue the argument tomorrow.

RLC

Amnesty Redux

The Senate is going to vote this week on an amendment to a defense appropriations bill called the "DREAM Act" (Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act). Having had an attempt to grant amnesty to illegal aliens defeated two months ago, the amnesty advocates are making a back-door run at it again by hitching their legislation to a defense spending bill.

DREAM would, among other things, grant amnesty to any alien who entered the country illegally when under the age of 16 and who has subsequently graduated from high school. It would also grant in-state college tuition benefits to illegal aliens.

Meanwhile, Congress is trying to get SCHIP (State Children's Health Insurance Program) reauthorized, and a lot of people are pushing for it. However, in addition to providing health insurance coverage to all "poor" American "children" (the bill re-labels "children" as anyone under 25, and "low income" as up to 400% above the poverty level, or $82,600 for a family of four) the updated version would also extend coverage to the children of illegal aliens by eliminating the requirement that they present proof of citizenship.

In other words, American taxpayers are going to be required to subsidize both the education and the health care of another country's citizens.

You might say that we are a rich and generous nation. Why not help those who are less fortunate? We should, but we as individuals should determine the extent and nature of the help we provide.

Suppose your neighbor who is not as well off as you comes to you one day and tells you that his children have been experiencing some medical difficulties of late and that as soon as these are resolved he's decided to enroll them in a private school. You sympathize with him about the health problems and wish him well with his kids' new school until he tells you that he expects you to help with both the health care and the tuition costs. I suspect that your sympathy and well-wishing would diminish pretty quickly.

You may, out of the goodness of your heart, want to help him, but few of us want to be told that we must pay his bills.

You can read more about DREAM at Michelle's place. If you oppose it call your senator and tell him/her. Michelle has the number.

RLC

Had It Coming

As usual, Michelle Malkin has everything you could possibly want to know, including video, about the student who got tasered by security officers at a John Kerry speech. One thing is clear from the videos of this incident: This wasn't a suppression of free speech issue. The guy was tasered for butting in line, refusing to yield the microphone, refusing to obey the officers, resisting arrest, disturbing the peace, and being a jackass. Good reasons all.

RLC

No Way

What happens in this video is very hard to believe, yet it's far more probable, believe it or not, than that a living cell could be produced by chance. Just saying.

HT: Hot Air

RLC

Defending the Weak

You'll recall that in the climactic episode of The Lord of the Rings there was a walled city in which perhaps thousands of people, including many women, children, and elderly took shelter from inhuman savages who had laid seige to their fortress. The attackers thirsted for the blood of the hapless inhabitants and were eager to utterly destroy them and their city.

Those who huddled in terror within feared they would be horribly raped, tortured, and killed in the most gruesome fashion, but they took hope from the fact that they were protected by a phalanx of great warriors who had come from distant lands to defend the city from the savages who howled their threats from beyond the walls. The warriors were very brave and highly skilled in the art of war, but they faced enormous difficulties and what seemed to be overwhelming odds.

So, one night they decided that protecting those who shivered in fear in their hiding places really wasn't worth the cost and they considered leaving. "But what of the poor women and children in the fortress?" some asked. "Aren't they depending on us? Haven't we promised we'd protect them? Won't they be slaughtered if we abandon them?"

The reply came down from their superiors that "these people should be able by now to fend for themselves, and if they can't that's their problem, not ours." Thus the mighty army rode out that night under cover of darkness, fleeing to safety, and the people inside the fortress wept bitterly as the savage beasts swept in and brutally murdered them all.

Actually, that last part didn't happen in the movie, but only because the warriors in the story weren't listening to Harry Reid and MoveOn.org.

RLC

Another Taliban Murderer Eliminated

The Taliban leader responsible for the kidnapping of South Korean missionaries a couple of months ago has been killed in Afghanistan. He's the fifth Taliban involved in the kidnappings and murder of two of the Koreans to have been dispatched to his 72 virgins in recent weeks. So far this year that miserable land has been disinfected of over 4000 Taliban.

I recommend Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner to anyone who would like insight into the kind of people the Taliban and their allies in al Qaida are. Hosseini's novel, and, I'm told, his follow-up (A Thousand Splendid Suns) stunningly portray the Taliban's brutal human degeneracy prior to their defeat by American forces six years ago. The reader comes away from the book convinced that the elimination of these creatures from Afghanistan, and, indeed, the face of the entire globe, should be seen as a moral imperative by civilized people everywhere.

RLC

Inference to the Best Explanation (Part IV)

With this post we continue our series titled Inference to the Best Explanation. This installment follows Part I, Part II, and Part III.

The remainder of the argument (points 7 through 16) is based on certain facts about the human condition and might be called an Existential Argument for the existence of God.

7. Number seven stresses our deep longing for answers to life's most profound questions. As human beings we want answers to the deepest, most perplexing questions raised by our existence, but in the world as the atheist sees it there are no answers, there's no assurance about anything that matters, except that we'll eventually die. We shout the "why" questions of human existence at the vast void of the cosmos - Why am I here? Why do we suffer? Why do we want from life what we cannot have? - but in a Godless universe there's no reply, only silence. The cosmos is indifferent to our desire for answers. We are alone, forlorn, as Sartre put it, and our quest for answers is absurd.

If God exists, however, then it's possible that each of those questions has an answer, and if there are answers then the fact that we have those questions and desire the answers makes sense. We may not know what the answer is, but we have a reasonable hope that our questions aren't futile or meaningless and that there is a reason why they gnaw at us.

8. We are burdened with a deep sense that we are obligated to act morally. As human beings we strive to ground morality in something more solid than our own subjective preferences, but if there is no God there is nothing else upon which to base them. In a purely material world morality is whatever feels right to the individual.

This is not to say that the non-theist cannot live a life similar in quality to that of a theist. She can of course, but what she cannot say is that what she does is morally good or right. There simply is no moral good unless there is an objective, transcendent standard of goodness, and the existence of such a standard is precisely what the non-theist denies.

Apart from this standard all moral judgments are merely expressions of personal preference, and no one's preference is any more authoritative than anyone else's. This leads ineluctably toward a might makes right egoism, either on the level of the individual or the level of the state. Whatever those who have power do is not morally right or wrong, even if they commit torture or genocide, it just is.

In the absence of God morality is either subjective, and thus arbitrary and personal, or it doesn't exist at all, and our sense, indeed our conviction, that it does is simply an illusion. If God exists, however, then our conviction that objective moral value and obligation also exist makes sense.

9. Related to the preceding point, we experience feelings of guilt, and have a sense that guilt is not just an illusion, but without an objective standard of morality before which we stand convicted there can be no real guilt. Human beings are no more guilty in a moral sense than is a cat which has caught and tortured a bird. The feeling of guilt is merely an evolutionary epiphenomenon which arose to suit us for life in the Stone Age and which, like an appendix, we no longer need. Indeed, it's a vestige of our past that we should suppress since it bears no relation to any actual state of affairs.

On the other hand, if there is an omniscient, omnipotent, perfectly good Creator of the universe, then our sense we are indeed guilty has an explanation. We feel guilt because we have transgressed the moral law instituted by the Creator before whom we stand and to whom we must give an account.

It is this Creator who imposes upon us moral obligation. Take away God and there's no moral law, there's no moral obligation, there's no transgression, and there's no moral guilt. As Dostoyevsky put it, if God is dead then everything is permitted.

We'll consider a couple more aspects to this argument in Part V tomorrow.

RLC

Ayn Rand

Ayn Rand fans will enjoy this New York Times article on the woman and her influence. Rand was a powerful voice on behalf of individual greatness and achievement. Her books championed entrepreneurship and capitalism while heaping withering scorn upon the collectivist philosophy that plagued the twentieth century.

Unfortunately, Rand was herself a deeply troubled woman who led a tumultuous personal life. She also believed her views could only be rationally held by men and women who were atheistic in their fundamental worldview, a position which seems to me to be only partly true.

Even so, her books are still popular long after their original appearance back in the forties and fifties, and Atlas Shrugged has been one of the best-selling novels of all time in the United States. The Times article offers some good insights into Rand and her work.

RLC

A Clarification

My friend Byron has helped me to see that I should have expressed myself a little more clearly in the first paragraph of the post immediately below this one.

The reason I wrote that the claim that the war in Iraq has been a wonderful recruiting tool for terrorists is absurd is not because the war hasn't brought an increase in the number of terrorists. It doubtless has. The reason I think the claim is absurd is because when anti-war people make this claim the implication is that had we not gone to war in Iraq there would not be as many terrorists world-wide as there are.

Now there's certainly no absurdity in believing that this is so, but as long as there are good arguments to the contrary it is an overreach to say that it is so - as though it were a demonstrable fact when it clearly is not.

Are there good arguments to the contrary? I think one could plausibly maintain that the greatest recruiting tool for terrorists would be signs of American weakness and vacillation. Had we refrained from invading Iraq it's quite possible that many young Muslims would have been emboldened to join the ranks of what the imams would be assuring them is an army destined by Allah to destroy the infidel West. They would have been convinced, conceivably, that Allah had delivered the irresolute Americans into their hands and they would be eager to join the side of the victors.

This is certainly plausible and no one can know that this would not have been the way things would have worked out had we not invaded. Thus it's absurd to imply that the war has made things worse than they would have been had we not invaded. It is to claim a kind of knowledge that no one has or could have.

That was my point in the preceding post, but I'm afraid I didn't make it as clearly as I should have.

RLC

Redacted

How often have we heard the Iraq war condemned on the grounds that it has been a wonderful recruiting tool for terrorists? Of course, such a claim is absurd since no one who makes it is in a position to know whether it's true or false. They simply offer an unprovable speculation as though it were apodictic truth.

But nevertheless let's play along. Let's suppose it's true. Which do you think would be a better recruiting tool for Islamic terrorists, the creation of stability in Iraq and the eradication of al Qaida killers or a movie which depicts American troops raping and murdering Muslim civilians such as the one (titled Redacted) made by Brian DePalma and which will be played over and over in the Islamic world?

DePalma's film is bound to inflame Muslim hatred for Americans and inspire thousands if not millions of young men to want to kill us. It's at least as reasonable to assume that this movie will eventually be responsible for as many American deaths at the hands of terrorists as has been our effort in Iraq, yet DePalma is applauded by the left.

One can only shake one's head at the moral irresponsibility and callousness of these people.

RLC

Phony Video?

An expert on such things casts doubt on the aunthenticity of the recent bin Laden video and gives us reason once again to wonder if bin Laden really is still alive.

I, like most people, I suppose, suspect that our intelligence agencies know a great deal more about bin Laden than what they have chosen to disclose. For whatever reason they have perhaps decided that it's best to keep everyone in the dark about what they know. At least I hope that's the case.

HT: Hot Air

RLC

Inference to the Best Explanation (Pt.III)

With this post we continue our examination of those aspects of the world which seem to fit more easily into a theistic worldview than that of atheism (See Part I and Part II). The fourth of these aspects is the fact of human consciousness.

How does it happen, for instance, that mere matter can produce qualia (e.g. the sensation of red or the taste of sweet)? How do electrochemical reactions in our neurons produce a belief, a value, a doubt, gratitude, regret, expectation, or disappointment? How does material substance produce forgiveness, resentment, or wishes, hopes, and desires? How does it appreciate (e.g. beauty, music, or a book)? How does it want, worry, have intentions, or understand something? How does matter come to be aware of itself and its surroundings?

These are vexing questions for a materialist view of the world. It may be that if we put the proper chemicals in a flask under the appropriate conditions the flask would become aware of itself, but we have no idea how it could do so, and the assumption that it could is simply an article of materialist faith.

In other words, on the assumption that matter is all there is consciousness is inexplicable. The existence of consciousness suggests that material substance is not the only constituent of reality.

5. The fifth aspect of the world that is better explained in terms of a theistic rather than an atheistic worldview is our sense that reason is trustworthy. If matter, energy, and physical forces like gravity are all there is then everything is ultimately reducible to material, non-rational particles. If so, our beliefs are just brain states that can be completely explained in terms of non-rational chemical reactions.

But any belief that is fully explicable in terms of non-rational causes cannot itself be rational. Therefore, if materialism is true, none of our beliefs are rational, reason itself is a non-rational illusion, and both truth and the reliability of scientific investigation are chimerical. Thus the atheistic materialist has no rational basis for believing that materialism, or anything else, is true.

As Stephen Pinker of MIT has said, "Our brains were shaped [by evolution] for fitness, not for truth."

Only if our reason is an endowment from an omniscient, good Creator do we have actual warrant for placing confidence in it. We may, if we don't believe that there is a Creator, decide to trust reason simply as an act of faith, but it's very difficult to justify the decision to do so since any justification must itself rely on reason. And, of course, employing reason to argue on behalf of its own trustworthiness commits the fallacy called begging the question.

6. The sixth characteristic of human beings that makes more sense given the existence of God than given atheism is our sense that we are free to make genuine choices and that the future is open. In the absence of God our sense that we have genuine choices and are responsible for those choices is problematic. In a Godless world we are just a collection of physical particles, and ultimately physical particles have no freedom, they simply move according to physical laws. There is no free will, there is only an inexorable determinism. At any given moment there is only one possible future, and our belief that we can freely create a future is pure sophistry and illusion.

Thus an atheist who faults me for writing this series of posts is acting inconsistently with his own assumptions. If there is no God I am driven to write by causes beyond my control and for which I am not responsible. Indeed, if there is no God, it's hard to see how anyone could be ultimately responsible for anything they do.

One can be an atheist and deny that we have consciousness, that reason is reliable, and that we have free will, but he will find few people who agree with him. If one believes that we do possess these attributes it's easier to explain them on the basis of theism than on the basis of atheism.

More tomorrow.

RLC

Petraeus' Answer

Matthew Rothschild at The Progressive makes much of General Petraeus' answer to a question from Senator John Warner on Wednesday. Since Chris Matthews of MSNBC's Hardball also went into orbit over Petraeus' response to this question last Tuesday night it might be worthwhile to consider a point I would have thought was obvious, but apparently isn't. Here's the first part of Rothschild's post:

During the Petraeus hearings in the Senate on Tuesday, there came a crucial and unexpected confession from the general .... then Warner asked whether the war in Iraq was making America any safer, a pretty fundamental question, one that Russ Feingold had tried to get an answer to a little earlier but failed.

Here's what Petraeus said: "Sir, I don't know, actually."

After 3,750 U.S. soldiers dead, 28,000 wounded, and maybe close to a million civilians killed, and the leading U.S. general in Iraq can't tell us whether it's made us any safer?

What a confession, what a concession for Petraeus to make!

Why are we there, then?

And how does he ask more soldiers to risk their lives for a war that he knows might not (indeed, is not) making us any safer?

And how does he talk to families of our fallen soldiers when he can't affirm that the war is doing any good?

And how does he console a mom whose son sustained horrific brain injuries in Iraq when he doesn't know, actually, whether Bush's war is making us any safer?

Nor could Bush have been happy with that answer, for Petraeus's confession undercuts Bush's whole rationale for this war in the first place, the notion, repeated ad nauseum, that the Iraq War is crucial for our safety.

It should be clear, however, that no one other than God can know whether what we're doing in Iraq is making us safer. Suppose the Iraq project was a total success and Iraq became terrorist-free zone. Does that make us safer? Who knows? Perhaps the terrorists flee Iraq and take up residence in some other country to which they wouldn't have otherwise fled but from which they're able to launch several successful attacks against us. If so, did the Iraq war make us safer or less safe?

Suppose Petraeus gave an affirmative answer to Sen. Warner and tomorrow a terrorist cell from Indonesia or someplace hits an American city. The terrorist act might have had nothing to do with Iraq but we can be pretty sure the media would be blasting the Petraeus' assurances of the previous day.

We can't know whether we're being made safer by what we're doing in Iraq, we can only hope we are, but we can be pretty confident that if we pull out of Iraq we will almost certainly be less safe. In other words, success in Iraq is a necessary condition for the safety of the United States, but it's not a sufficient condition. This is not a difficult concept to grasp, but it's apparently beyond the ken of those who grasp at any straw to discredit the war effort.

Consider, for example, these words from Senator Clinton:

"There is no military solution, that is why I believe we should start bringing our troops home."

This unfortunate non sequitur is from the mind of the lady who was once acclaimed to be the smartest woman in the world. That lofty accolade notwithstanding Mrs. Clinton evidently doesn't understand that it simply doesn't follow from the fact that military action will not by itself produce peace in Iraq that therefore military action is unnecessary to produce peace in Iraq.

No policy, no strategy, has a guaranteed outcome, and it's disingenuous of Rothschild to jump on Petraeus' reply to Warner's question as if it was some sort of proof that all is really lost. Moreover, by saying as he does above that he knows the war is not making us safer, he dons the fool's cap that Petraeus wisely shunned. Rothschild knows no such thing, but it would be interesting to ask him to cite precisely those facts which assure him that he does possess the knowledge he claims to have.

RLC

Diplomatic Breakdown

If war with Iran comes let the record show that much of the responsibility must be borne by the Germans, Russians and Chinese who have refused to go along with any further economic sanctions imposed by the U.N.:

Germany - a pivotal player among three European nations to rein in Iran's nuclear program over the last two-and-a-half years through a mixture of diplomacy and sanctions supported by the United States - notified its allies last week that the government of Chancellor Angela Merkel refuses to support the imposition of any further sanctions against Iran that could be imposed by the U.N. Security Council.

The announcement was made at a meeting in Berlin that brought German officials together with Iran desk officers from the five member states of the Security Council. It stunned the room, according to one of several Bush administration and foreign government sources who spoke to FOX News, and left most Bush administration principals concluding that sanctions are dead.

And why are the Germans loath to impose sanctions on Iran?

The Germans voiced concern about the damaging effects any further sanctions on Iran would have on the German economy - and also, according to diplomats from other countries, gave the distinct impression that they would privately welcome, while publicly protesting, an American bombing campaign against Iran's nuclear facilities.

How like the Europeans. Like people witnessing a mugging who don't want to get involved the Germans don't want to risk their own peace and comfort. But if the Americans want to take action for them that'd be great. "Let's you and him fight." Of course, if Bush does do what the Germans apparently hope he does, they'll be sure to reward him with public contumely and criticism.

The view in the administration is that diplomacy has failed.

The Bush administration "has just about had it with Iran," said one foreign diplomat. "They tried the diplomatic process. China is now obstructing them at the U.N. Security Council and the Russians are tucking themselves behind them.

"The Germans are wobbling ...There are a number of people in the administration who do not want their legacy to be leaving behind an Iran that is nuclear armed, so they are looking at what are the alternatives? They are looking at other options," the diplomat said.

Consequently, according to a well-placed Bush administration source, "everyone in town" is now participating in a broad discussion about the costs and benefits of military action against Iran, with the likely timeframe for any such course of action being over the next eight to 10 months, after the presidential primaries have probably been decided, but well before the November 2008 elections.

The discussions are now focused on two basic options: less invasive scenarios under which the U.S. might blockade Iranian imports of gasoline or exports of oil, actions generally thought to exact too high a cost on the Iranian people but not enough on the regime in Tehran; and full-scale aerial bombardment.

On the latter course, active consideration is being given as to how long it would take to degrade Iranian air defenses before American air superiority could be established and U.S. fighter jets could then begin a systematic attack on Iran's known nuclear targets.

Most relevant parties have concluded such a comprehensive attack plan would require at least a week of sustained bombing runs, and would at best set the Iranian nuclear program back a number of years - but not destroy it forever. Other considerations include the likelihood of Iranian reprisals against Tel Aviv and other Israeli population centers; and the effects on American troops in Iraq. There, officials have concluded that the Iranians are unlikely to do much more damage than they already have been able to inflict through their supply of explosives and training of insurgents in Iraq.

There's more interesting insight on this developing crisis at the link. It certainly seems that a ground invasion of Iran is out of the question, but I wonder why there's no mention in the article of an aerial bombardment followed by surgical ground assaults on the nuclear facilities to completely destroy them. Whatever is done, and we still hope that Iran comes to its senses before military force is necessary, it's almost certain that there will not be an Iraq style occupation.

The most likely scenario, in my uninformed opinion, will be a destruction of the nuclear facilities, a serious degradation of the Iraqi military, and a decapitation of the government after which the Iraqi people will be left to reconstitute their leadership on their own.

We'll probably know by late February or early March. Pray for peace, prepare for the worst.

RLC

Scandal? What Scandal?

Michelle Malkin has pretty much all there is to know about the John Hsu/Hillary Clinton campaign finance scandal. And it's a good thing, too, because the MSM has suddenly developed a severe case of laryngitis.

Perhaps part of the reason for the MSM blackout on Hillary's complicity in this crime is the fact that for the liberal media scandal equals something that only Republicans do. Besides who cares about real criminality when we can talk about Larry Craig's wide stance in the men's room?

RLC

Threat to Civilization

There have been a number of statements recently by various individuals expressing deep concern about the threat to society posed by "radical Christianity." The CNN documentary titled God's Warriors which aired last week was the most recent attempt to insinuate into the public consciousness the notion that freedom in the U.S. is as imperiled by Christians who take Christianity seriously as it is by radical Islamists.

This is a jarring claim to anyone familiar with both "radical" Christianity and radical Islam and Gary Bauer does a good job pointing out how nonsensical it actually is. His column is so good that I've copied most of it here:

I'll spare you the details of the six hour mini-series and get right to the documentary's central message:

Conservative Christians who pray in front of abortion centers and orthodox Jews who settle down to live in Israel pose as much of a threat to freedom-loving Americans as fanatical Muslims who preach hatred of all non-Muslims and send their children off to become suicide bombers. "God's Warriors" trumpets the stale myth that what threatens America is not Islamic extremism but, more broadly, religious fundamentalism of all stripes.

Merriam Webster defines "radical" as: "of or relating to the origin: fundamental" and "forming a basis or foundation." The foundation of Christianity is Jesus Christ and His injunction to "love one another as I have loved you." In the Gospel of Matthew, a Pharisee tests Jesus with a question: "Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" Jesus replies, " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments." Love is the foundational virtue in Christians' relationships with God and with other Christians and non-Christians alike.

But "radical" can also mean "extreme," and Christians are explicitly called to an extreme, or radical, love, which, following the example of Jesus on the Cross, has at its core an authentic forgiveness that is to be extended even to our enemies. Understanding that love and forgiveness lie at the heart of Christian faith helps illuminate why Christians respond to attacks against their faith not with violent protests and murderous threats but by "turning the other cheek."

Consider a recent case. When a New Jersey high school held a mock hostage emergency drill for their students, it chose to portray the terrorists as a group of fundamentalist Christians seeking justice after the daughter of one of its members had been expelled for praying before class. Students were further told that the terrorist group, called the New Crusaders, had already gunned down several students and had taken hostages in a classroom.

While the incident provoked the ire of many Christians, no violent protests were held and no death threats were issued. Instead, Christians wrote letters to the editors of their local newspapers and parents voiced their displeasure by writing to the school's principal and the city's mayor.

Perhaps the best recent example of "radical Christianity" was on display in the wake of the Amish school massacre last fall, when mentally disturbed milk truck driver Charles Roberts stormed the West Nickel Mines Amish School in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and tied up and shot 10 girls before killing himself.

What the nation saw in the aftermath of this unfathomable rampage was the core of Christianity, a Christ-like love and forgiveness. While undoubtedly overwhelmed with feelings of anger and sorrow, the entire Amish community immediately forgave Roberts for his crimes. How did they do it? As one Amish leader explained, "We forgive because God has forgiven us. God extends his forgiveness to us in Christ, then, we must receive it. Once we do, we must share it with others."

For Christians, forgiving one's enemies is not to agree with what they do, or to be deluded into thinking they are nice people when they are not. It means hating the sin but loving the sinner. Anyone would hate what Roberts did. His actions were evil, and love does not diminish our hatred of those acts. In fact, Christians are called to hate the sin precisely because we love the person. And our hate for the sin deepens when we realize what it has done to a person whom God loves and values beyond our comprehension.

In the wake of the school shootings, many commentators seemed surprised that the family and friends of the victims were able to forgive someone who had committed such unspeakable acts of violence. Some even suggested that it was wrong for them to show such forgiveness. But the community's response was the essence of the Christian message. When God commands us to "love one another as I have loved you," He means exactly that. Is it radical? Yes. Is it a threat to America? Hardly.

Radical Islam is indeed a threat to civilization, but radical Christianity is a blessing and a gift.

RLC

Frustrated and Stymied

Anti-war leaders are, in their words, "frustrated and stymied" by the refusal and/or the inability of the Democratic congress to end the war in Iraq. Reading the article about a conference call involving a number of leaders in the anti-war movement, however, it's plain to see why they have failed. They simply offer no good argument as to why we are doing the wrong thing by staying. They have opted instead to try to advance their cause with bumper sticker slogans like "Bush Lied" and "Stop the War."

Very well, but as soon as one asks the question why we should stop the war all we hear, if we hear anything at all, is a series of assertions that too many Americans are dying, the surge isn't working, and the Iraqi government isn't functioning well. None of these, however, presents an argument persuasive enough to convince the majority of our representatives in Congress that we should risk throwing the region into utter chaos by pulling out.

Perhaps I'm wrong about this. Perhaps there really is a good argument for retreating from Iraq before that nation is stable enough and strong enough to defend itself from its enemies. If anyone is familiar with one please share it with me.

Until they come up with one the anti-war people are just going to have to accept the reality that bumper sticker slogans are a poor substitute for thoughtful deliberation.

RLC

Another Lunatic

What is it about the anti-war left that seems to attract so many people who have taken leave of their senses? Could it be that all the hatred and venom that have been directed at the war and those responsible for it push some people right off the cliff of sanity? And when is the media going to begin to hold the left accountable for that venom? Unfortunately, it doesn't appear that the New York Times feels much responsibility in this regard.

If one expects the worst from people he will find that the secular left rarely disappoints. The recent ad placed by MoveOn.org in the Times (below) has proven too much even for the stomachs of many of its satellites in the United States Congress.

The problem with much of the left is not just that they're wrong. About that people can certainly disagree. It's that so many of them simply don't know how to function in a civil society. They seem to think that the basic rules of human decency don't apply to them. Two of their favorite weapons are vitriol and character assassination. The NYT ad attacking General Petraeus is a disgraceful blend of both.

It was bad enough that Al Gore apoplectically accused George Bush of betraying the United States, but at least that was one politician making a despicable charge against another. For the MoveOn people, though, to besmirch a man whom everyone agrees has conducted himself with honor, professionalism and extraordinary competence in service to his country, for the people at MoveOn, most of whom have accomplished nothing in their lives comparable to what Petraeus does every day before breakfast, for the people at MoveOn to label this man a traitor is absolutely revolting. But then what else should we expect from people who have never grown up?

I wonder if an ad that suggested that, say, Hillary Clinton was somehow involved in the Vince Foster suicide would ever be run on the Times' pages. I doubt it, but the Times has no problem with a sophomoric ad accusing a decent and honorable man of treason when he is serving his country more competently and bravely than any of his critics ever could. Pretty pathetic.

RLC

Was Clinton Worse Than Craig?

Byron forwards this New Republic article on the recent flurry of sex scandals among politicians. The column, by Michael Schaffer, raised a couple of thoughts:

Schaffer refers to the hypocrisy of Republicans who espouse family values nevertheless being discovered engaging in very family unfriendly circumstances, but as I wrote a couple of weeks ago, I think the hypocrisy angle of these sad episodes is being overstated. It's not hypocritical to think that a behavior is wrong even if one engages in it oneself, and, if a legislator thinks his behavior is wrong, the fact that he engages in it himself is hardly a reason why he should vote to legitimize it.

Schaffer also contrasts the relatively "normal" affairs of two California Democratic mayors and the more sordid escapades of Republican senators David Vitter and Larry Craig as though Democratic dalliances are somehow not as bad as those of Republicans. I'm not sure what he's trying to prove with this argument, but it fails in any event once one recalls that for sheer sleaziness there's little that can compare with New Jersey's former Democrat governor Jim McGreevy's secret lifestyle.

I did think, though, that Schaffer was on the mark with this:

But once we start having scandals that involve extramarital others with real power who demand real payoffs from our pols, we may well be wishing they'd take their cheating selves straight back to the bathroom stall.

In fact it was precisely this concern which so deeply disturbed many people about President Clinton's satyriasis. What would happen (or what might have actually happened), people wondered, if a man in Clinton's position received "favors" from someone who in turn demanded a political quid pro quo - especially one which compromised our national security?

The question itself seems crass, but the media might well ask it of themselves as they gleefully pillory Senators Vitter and Craig: Which is worse, anonymous degrading encounters with powerless prostitutes or men in a restroom, or elegant liaisons in luxury hotels with sophisticated women who might use their sexual power to extort or blackmail a president of the United States?

I don't think Schaffer intends to say this, but the logic of his column leads to the conclusion that Clinton's infidelities were far more dangerous to the nation, far more reckless, and therefore far more reprehensible than those of either Vitter or Craig.

RLC

Worst GOP Candidate?

Richard Brookheiser at National Review Online thinks the worst candidate among the leaders of the GOP field is ..... Check the link to see if you guessed correctly.

RLC

Inference to the Best Explanation (Pt. II)

On Sunday we introduced a series of posts which will attempt to make the case that the existence of a personal God is the best explanation for a host of facts about the nature of the world and the human existential condition. In this post we'll discuss three of those.

1) The first is our conviction that the universe must have had a cause and that it didn't cause itself. The universe is contingent, or seems to be. It's therefore prima facie reasonable to think that its existence depends upon something beyond itself. It's possible, perhaps, that it somehow created itself, but that seems counter-intuitive and ad hoc.

Many atheists tell us that the existence of the universe is just a brute fact and that nothing is gained by positing a Creator since the Creator Itself requires an explanation. As Del Ratzsch (Nature, Design and Science: The Status of Design in Natural Science) points out, however, this sort of reply, as common as it is, is not very compelling. He invites us to consider this analogy:

"Suppose a perfect ten-meter cube of pure titanium were discovered on Mars. Most people would think that the cube was produced by aliens and would regard the cube as virtual proof that aliens existed. Suppose, though, that there are those who deny either the existence or relevance of aliens, claiming that the cube is just there - a brute fact of nature. Suppose, too, that when pressed for some further explanation, their reply was to point out that the advocates of the alien theory had no clue as to where the aliens came from or how they had manufactured the cube."

Ratzsch goes on to explain that the inability to say anything much about the aliens doesn't count at all against the theory that aliens were responsible for the cube nor does it mean that the alien theory is on par with the brute fact theory. The existence of an intelligent alien manufacturer of the cube is an inference to the best explanation.

2) The second fact about the world is that the cosmic parameters, forces and constants which govern it are exquisitely fine-tuned. Here is one example of the dozens which could serve:

If the initial density of matter in the universe had deviated by as little as one part in 10 to the 60th power (a value referred to by scientists as the "density parameter"), the universe would have either fallen back on itself or expanded too quickly for stars to form. This is an unimaginably fine tolerance.

Imagine a stack of dimes stretching across 10 to the 30th universes like our own. Let the dimes represent calibrations on a gauge displaying every possible value for the density parameter. Imagine, too, that a needle points to the dime representing the critical value. If the initial density of our cosmos deviated from that critical value by a single dime our universe, if it formed at all, would not be suitable for life.

Or imagine a console featuring dials and gauges for each of the dozens, or perhaps hundreds, of constants and parameters which define the structure of our world. Imagine that each dial face shows trillions upon trillions of possible values. Each of those dials has to be calibrated to precisely the value to which it is set in our world in order for a universe to exist and/or for life to thrive.

Of course, it could be an astonishing coincidence that all the dials are set with such mind-boggling precision. Or it could be that there are a near infinite number of universes having all possible values and that ours just happens to be one that is perfectly calibrated for life. But not only is this an extraordinarily unparsimonious hypothesis, it also elicits the question of what it is that's generating these universes and what evidence we have that they even exist. It's much simpler to bow to Ockham and assume that there is just one universe and that its structure manifests a level of engineering of breath-taking precision, a conclusion perfectly compatible with the idea that there's an intelligent agent behind it all.

3) The third fact about the world from which we might infer that there is an intelligence behind it is the existence of biological information. The biosphere is information-rich, a fact which raises the question of where this information came from and how it got here. The naturalist's answer is that the information, such as we find in DNA and cellular processes, resulted from blind mechanistic forces acting purposelessly and randomly over the eons. Such a thing is within the realm of the logically possible, of course, but if we're going to limit ourselves to the lessons of experience we must acknowledge that information whose provenience we can ascertain is always the product of an intelligent mind.

Random processes can produce highly improbable structures (like the particular arrangement of rocks at the base of a mountain) and they can produce very specific recognizable patterns (like the repetition of a single letter typed by a monkey), but what we've never observed a random, non-teleological process do is generate both (such as a computer program). Yet that is precisely what we have in the genetic code.

There may someday be a satisfactory naturalistic explanation for the origin of biological information, but until that day arrives the obvious existence of that information suggests an intelligent agent somewhere in its history.

We'll continue this series of posts tomorrow.

RLC

Re: Racial Disparity

A student of mine comments on our Feedback Page about our recent post on the academic shortcomings of minority students. Give it a look.

RLC

The Challenge of Iraq

Reading between the lines of this brief but very good primer on the history and problems of Iraq, one gets the impression that a major impediment to any kind of functional government in Baghdad is Islam. What is needed between Sunni and Shia is trust and forgiveness and Islam is not a religion notable for its emphasis on either.

Indeed, a religion that emphasizes retribution and vengeance and which is deeply ingrained into the cultural assumptions by which people live is not likely to result in harmony between groups which have been at each other's throats for centuries. It's interesting to note that every Arab state is either a dictatorship or a monarchy. True democracy is not part of the heritage handed down to Arabs by their Islamic tutors and ancestors.

The challenge the United States faces is trying to impose a form of government based on Christian assumptions of freedom, equality, civil rights, and honesty on people who despise Christianity. Yet what realistic alternative do we have at this point but to do our best to try?

RLC

Scandal, Scandal Everywhere

The buzz around Washington for the last two years has been all about how the Republican party is the party of corruption, etc. etc. Not that there haven't been Republicans who have disgraced the party and the ideals they were elected to work for, but the notion that corruption is a monopoly of the GOP is going to be a much tougher sell now that eleven New Jersey Democrats, including some big fish and friends of Hillary, have been indicted by the FBI on corruption charges.

Michelle Malkin has the details.

Coming on the heels of the Norman Hsu scandal this news can't be helpful. By the way, how is Hsu feeling, I wonder, after his sudden illness?

Meanwhile, the lips of the MSM are zipped tight on separate scandals involving Democratic Senators Chuck Schumer and Dianne Feinstein. If you look on the sidebar on the right of Malkin's page you'll find the background on these stories which the media, ever vigilant to broadcast every tawdry truth about Republicans, have done their best to say nothing about.

I wonder when Keith Olberman and Chris Matthews at MSNBC are going to get around to mentioning this. Probably this week, I should think.

RLC

Dawkins on Hitchens

I haven't yet read God is Not Great: The Case Against Religion, by Christopher Hitchens, but judging from Richard Dawkins' gushing review any serious reader looking for a telling argument against the truth of Christianity will find the book disappointing.

If Dawkins' analysis is any measure, the closest Hitchens comes to scoring a blow against Christian belief is when he trots out the same old higher critical hypotheses about the New Testament's supposed lack of authenticity. It's a pretty shallow harbor in which to anchor an argument that Christianity is false, but Dawkins gives us no reason to think he has access to a deeper one. A readable antidote to this old chestnut is Mark Roberts' Are the Gospels Reliable?

Hitchens also tries to discredit Christian belief on the basis of the alleged "evil" of the Gospel message. What exactly is that evil, you ask? It turns out to be the vicarious atonement of Jesus Christ. Really. After finding all manner of horror in the sacred writings of the Muslims and Jews, the best that Hitchens can do to show the moral equivalence of Christianity to Islam is to hold up the idea that God became man to demonstrate the depth of His love for us by sacrificing Himself in our place. In Hitchens' mind that's a terrible evil.

Those not familiar with this aspect of Christian theology are invited to read this little allegory and decide for themselves where exactly the evil lies in the idea of substitutionary atonement.

Anyway, like I said, I haven't read Hitchens book, and perhaps if I had I would be more impressed. If any readers have read it and think that it makes a stronger case against Christianity than what I've suggested here please let me know.

RLC

Inference to the Best Explanation Pt. I

Among the indictments of religious believers recently handed down by skeptics such as the coterie of anti-theists lead by Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, et al. is that belief in God is at best irrational and at worst pernicious. Theism is all faith and no evidence, the believer is condescendingly assured, but should a theist try to pin down his antagonist and ask him exactly what he means by evidence, it often turns out that the word is being employed as a synonym for "proof."

Well, of course there's no proof that there is a personal God, but that's hardly a reason not to believe that one exists. We have proof for very little of what we believe about the world, yet we don't hold our beliefs less firmly for that.

The skeptic's claim that there's no evidence that God exists and that theistic belief is thus irrational is, ironically, the reverse of the truth. It's actually more rational to believe that a personal transcendent creator of the universe exists than to disbelieve. Moreover, as I hope becomes evident in what follows, the logical consequences of atheism turn out to be psychically toxic.

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

Put differently, the conclusion of theism is what philosophers call an inference to the best explanation. I don't mean to suggest that there are no facts about the world that militate against the God of Christian theism - there are, of course. Nor do I mean to suggest that atheism can offer no account of the facts of human existence. Perhaps it can. I only argue that on the assumption of atheism the facts are more difficult to explain, in some cases exceedingly so, than they are on the assumption of theism. If that is the case, it follows that it's more reasonable to believe that the explanation for them is the existence of a personal God.

In Part II tomorrow we'll consider seven or eight particulars about the world and our existential condition within the world which harmonize more easily or readily with the belief that there exists a transcendent personal Creator than with the belief that the universe is all that there is. The series will conclude with Part III in which we'll review an additional eight or nine such facts.

RLC

The Darwinians' Learned Desperation

Eugene Koonin has written a paper on the origin of life in which he acknowledges that, given what we know, the odds of any system capable of replication of genetic material and translation (replication and translation: R&T) into proteins of that genetic material arising by chance are exceedingly close to zero.

That being so how can we account for the appearance and existence of life? We must certainly increase the odds somehow, but there are really only two ways of doing that - either introduce intentionality (Intelligent Design)or postulate a near infinite number of worlds in which chance operates.

Koonin explicitly wants to avoid the former so he embraces the latter and plunges himself into the very metaphysical speculation he wants to avoid:

I only discuss here what is often called "weak" anthropic principle and is the only acceptable scientific rendering of this concept. The so-called "strong" anthropic principle is the teleological notion that our (human) existence is, in some mysterious sense, the "goal" of the evolution of the universe; as such, this idea does not belong in the scientific domain.

Having discarded an explanation because he considers it metaphysical and unscientific he then adopts a second hypothesis that is itself metaphysical and unscientific.

He argues that the universe is really a multiverse, infinite in extent, containing every possible kind of universe consistent with the laws of physics (I'm not sure why he adds this qualifier since there could certainly be universes which are inconsistent with the laws of physics, at least as we know them). If that is so, and given that a universe in which R&T occurs by pure chance is a possible universe, no matter how unlikely, such a universe must exist and we're in it. In other words given enough trials anything that is possible to happen, no matter how improbable, will happen. Since our universe is a possible universe, given an infinite number of worlds and an infinite amount of diversity, our universe must exist.

This is a wonderful piece of metaphysical legerdemain. Simply postulate the existence of a near infinite number of worlds, never mind about adducing evidence for them, stir in the tacit but crucial assumption that those worlds would be infinitely diverse, and presto, a world with life in it just has to exist.

Koonin's goal in writing this paper is, as he makes clear, to allow his fellow materialists to avoid the despair which results from having no answer to those pesky Intelligent Design people. He writes:

A final comment on "irreducible complexity" and "intelligent design". By showing that highly complex systems, actually, can emerge by chance and, moreover, are inevitable, if extremely rare, in the universe, the present model sidesteps the issue of irreducibility and leaves no room whatsoever for any form of intelligent design.

Perhaps, but at what cost? After all, if we are to accept the assumption that in an infinite number of worlds all possibilities consistent with the laws of physics become actual (and they must do so an infinite number of times) then it follows that there must be an infinite number of worlds that are intentionally designed since that is certainly a possibility consistent with the laws of physics.

But set that aside and note the implicit admission in Koonin's words. Unless there are an infinite number of worlds representing all possible biological histories the idea of Intelligent Design becomes very difficult to avoid.

Note, too, that Koonin purports to be advancing a legitimate scientific hypothesis even though it's full of metaphysical speculation. Yet Intelligent Design is condemned by the scientific establishment because it has metaphysical implications.

Koonin's paper is very learned, but it's really an act of learned desperation.

RLC

BDS in Seattle

How deep is the hatred for George W. Bush among Democrats in this country? How completely irrational is it? Well, this story out of Seattle might offer us some insight:

Are you still fans of Matt Hasselbeck and Mack Strong after they visited President Bush last week in Bellevue? Or have their political leanings turned you against them?

The Seahawks quarterback and fullback gave the 43rd president a No. 43 jersey with his name on it at a $1,000-a-plate fundraiser for Rep. Dave Reichert at the Hyatt.

At the time, Hasselbeck called it a thrill and said it was a win-win, this opportunity to meet the president and get out of a team meeting.

But as soon as he saw the picture of the two players with Bush, Gary Wright, the team's vice president of administration, said he was concerned about negative reaction.

Maybe in really red Republican states, it would not have been a big deal. But Washington is a blue state, and deep, deep Democratic blue in King County. So objections were raised, and Hasselbeck heard them and read them. He got nasty voice mails, e-mails and text messages.

"I had no idea," Hasselbeck said.

One guy told him: "I hate you, I'll never wear your jersey, I'll never like the Seahawks again."

"Huh?" Hasselbeck thought. "Seriously?"

"Politics can be very mean and dirty," he said. "The things politicians say about each other, and what activists say, I had a brief glimpse of that for a couple of days.

"If I ever had any questions about whether I wanted to run for office, I now know the answer -- I don't."

As a quarterback, he's used to getting booed. "But this was a whole new level," he said. "I was very surprised how mean (they were)."

As evidence were these responses to Angelo Bruscas' blog posting on seattlepi.com:

"How dare Hasselbeck declare Bush an honorary Seahawk," wrote one. "Who is Matt speaking for? Bush is no Seahawk. He is the worst president of my lifetime, and I'm almost 60. Shame on you, Matt."

"To learn that two of the most popular Seahawks are strong (Bush) supporters ruins the season for me and my family," wrote another.

And Timothy P. wrote: "Just goes to show you that being a great athlete doesn't make you smart."

The rest of this sad story can be read at the link. Evidently, there are quite a few people in the northwest who need to get a life. It may be comforting to the left to hear that Bush Derangement Syndrome is flourishing in Seattle, but it's certainly disturbing to the mentally sane to read this stuff.

RLC

Terrorist Takedown

ABCNews has a few details on the German investigation that led to the arrests of three German Muslims who plotted to kill Americans in night spots near Ramstein Air Force base in Germany (Yes, our military is still in Germany sixty seven years after the end of WWII).

RLC

Testing Syria's Defenses

The Israeli foray, into Syrian airspace earlier this week has apparently mystified commentators, some of whom have speculated that it was a navigational mistake.

Probably the real reason was to test the capability of a newly-installed anti-aircraft system that the Russians have sold to both Syria and Iran. The system failed to down any of the Israeli jets which failure has no doubt embarrassed the Russians, frustrated the Syrians and caused deep concern among the Iranians who were surely hoping it would give some measure of protection against an American strike on their nuclear facilities.

DEBKAfile says:

The purported Israeli air force flights over the Pantsyr-S1E site established that the new Russian missiles, activated for the first time in the Middle East, are effective and dangerous but can be disarmed. Western military sources attribute to those Israeli or other air force planes superior electronics for jamming the Russian missile systems, but stress nonetheless that they were extremely lucky to get away unharmed, or at worst, with damage minor enough for a safe return to base.

The courage, daring and operational skills of the air crews must have been exceptional. They would have needed to spend enough time in hostile Syrian air space to execute several passes at varying altitudes under fire in order to test the Pantsyr-S1E responses. Their success demonstrated to Damascus and Tehran that their expensive new Russian anti-air system leaves them vulnerable.

There's more on this incursion at the DEBKAfile link.

RLC

Support the Mission

If you agree with the following four points you can go here to sign a petition that will be given to members of Congress this month to let them know how you feel.

• Recognize the importance of fighting and defeating al-Qaeda, wherever they can be found, not least in Iraq;
• Consider the testimony of General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker with an open mind and without regard for partisan politics;
• Recognize the significant threat to U.S. national security that a hasty retreat or a made-in-Washington timetable for withdrawal from Iraq would generate; and
• Listen to the U.S. service members who willingly sacrifice to protect our country and who do not want defeat legislated in Washington so long as American troops are on the battlefield.

It's important.

RLC

Dog Evolution

Denyse O'Leary has an interesting post at Uncommon Descent in which the diversity among dogs is explained. The variations among canines, it turns out, are not the result of an evolutionary process in which genetic information is increased, as Richard Dawkins suggested in his critique of Michael Behe's The Edge of Evolution. Rather what happens is that new varieties arise when genetic information is actually degraded.

O'Leary quotes David DeWitt:

Many of the traits for different dog breeds are examples of neoteny.

Neoteny refers to the maintaining of juvenile characteristics into adulthood. Mutations can prevent proper development and maturation. Even though particular traits might seem like they are novel, in such cases it is really a loss of information since the animal has stunted development in one trait.

This is why some breeds of dogs are so cute and look like puppies even though they are full grown (Jack Russel, Shitzu etc).

In other words the regulatory processes that shut off the juvenile characteristic and allow for maturation have been somehow disrupted, probably through some genetic mutation, so that the juvenile characteristic persists. This is not Darwinian evolution which posits an increase in genetic information. It is in fact, the opposite.

In other words, in at least one area where we have evidence of evolution, it seems to go from more complex genetic arrangements to less complex which is exactly what creationists have been claiming for decades that all evolution does.

I'll bet Dawkins wishes he hadn't brought up the subject of dog evolution.

RLC

Worldviews

Civis at Politics, Sex and Religion asks some important questions about worldviews and their philosophical implications. Check out his site and join the conversation.

RLC

From Iraq

Ralph Peters has been to Iraq several times and has given us some good insights into the situation there. His latest column is a must-read piece for anyone who wishes to be informed on both the difficulties and the successes that we are experiencing. He looks down the road at what the problems will be several months hence and also at the current state of the war against the insurgency. He tells us, for instance of one officer's rather startling assessment of the military conflict:

One blade-sharp officer, Lt. Col. Doug Ollivant, the 1st Cavalry Division's G-5 Plans officer, even proposes that "our counterinsurgency fight is largely won," with the fading of the Sunni insurgency and the gutting of al Qaeda in Iraq.

Peters goes on to say that:

I've listed the key problems that may lie ahead, but this visit to Iraq further convinced me that we're on a promising track, security-wise:

• Al Qaeda, America's enemy, has suffered a catastrophic strategic defeat and a humiliation - rejected by its own kind - that will resound in the Muslim world.
• That hotbed of insurgency, Anbar Province, has largely come over to our side.
• The surge strategy is bringing peaceful conditions to ever more Iraqi neighborhoods - and street-level Iraqis are grateful. They don't want us to leave.
• Despite Iran's growing involvement, we've limited Tehran's effectiveness - thus far.

Meanwhile, Fox News recently ran an article in which they mentioned a comment by a Lt. Col. Kenneth Adgie. Adgie said he received a report last Monday that Al Qaeda in Iraq beheaded a 12-year-old boy in the middle of the street because his father was cooperating with the Americans. "That's the level of evil we're dealing with here," he said.

Think of the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who have cooperated with Americans. What would be their fate and that of their children if we were to pull out before Iraq was safe from these cretins?

Those who advocate withdrawal respond with something like, "Well, we don't really know that these people would be massacred when we get out." That response is as stupid as it is pusillanamous. The rational course is to assume that the future will resemble the past, that the people who behead 12 year-old children to get revenge on the parents and who booby trap children's bodies so as to also kill their grieving parents, aren't going to renounce their savagery just because the Americans leave.

What is far more likely is that the horror inflicted upon that 12-year-old boy and his family will be repeated tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of times. It is that expectation, that liklihood, which should inform our policy, not the wishful thinking embraced by those who rely on the desperate hope that our withdrawal will miraculously assuage the hatreds and change the hearts of these most evil of men.

RLC

Atheist Manifesto

TotheSource has an interview with Alister McGrath, author of The Dawkins Delusion, a book written in response to atheist Richard Dawkins' God Delusion. In the interview it's pointed out that Dawkins' arguments are so bad that even fellow atheists like Michael Ruse are saying that they cause him to be embarrassed to be an atheist.

This comment by Ruse is equally appropriate to another atheist book, a big seller in Europe but less well-known in the United States, by French philosopher Michael Onfray. Onfray has composed a work which he titles, Atheist Manifesto: The Case Against Christianity, Judaism, and Islam about which there are several things which might be said:

First, anyone expecting an argument for an atheistic view of the world should go elsewhere. Onfray nowhere in the book actually provides an argument for atheism or, for that matter, against theism. The entire book is instead a screed against the three major monotheistic religions.

Moreover, even if everything the author says about the failings and crimes of the adherents of these religions is true, none of it gives anyone any reason to abandon belief in God. The book can be distilled to a single sentence: Religious people in each of the three major traditions have done many awful things, terrible things, therefore these religions are all false. It's not much of an argument, of course, but there you have it.

So, if the book is not an argument for the truth of atheism and doesn't really demonstrate that the world's major religions are false, then what is Onfray's point? He seems to be intent on showing that Christians (and Jews and Muslims) are generally evil people. Of course, to make this case he has to be very selective in the evidence he cites, and he has to put the worst possible construction on much evidence that admits of more than one interpretation.

This passage, taken from among the many which could serve, will afford the reader a sense of Onfray's style: (p.67)

The religion of the one God .... seeks to promote self-hatred to the detriment of the body, to discredit the intelligence, to despise the flesh, and to despise everything that stands in the way of a gratified subjectivity. Launched against others, it foments contempt, wickedness, the forms of intolerance that produce racism, xenophobia, colonialism, wars, social injustice .... the three monotheisms share a series of identical forms of aversion: hatred of reason and intelligence; hatred of of freedom; hatred of all books [other than their scriptures]; hatred of sexuality, women, pleasure, hatred of the feminine; hatred of the body, of desires, of drives ....

This description sounds a great deal like the state atheisms of the twentieth century, and perhaps Islam, but Christians, at least, will have a hard time recognizing in the indictment anything resembling the faith to which they cling.

It might help Onfray if he would provide some support for at least some of his claims, but there's not a footnote nor a literature citation anywhere in the book (not even an index!). The reader is left to trust him on those matters upon which the reader feels incompetent to judge, but Mr. Onfray's accuracy in those matters upon which the reader does have a little knowledge fails to inspire confidence in his overall veracity.

To take but one example, the author claims that Adolph Hitler, so far from being an atheist, was a Christian sympathetic to the Catholic Church (p.187). This is simply false. Hitler was at most a deist or pantheist who in fact despised Christianity (See here). Onfray's book is rife with similar examples of historical distortions.

There is one thing about it, however, which redeems it from total uselessness. Onfray's catalogue of horrors perpetrated by religious people throughout history contains more than a few which actually happened. Reading these should open the eyes of theists everywhere to the evil latent within every human heart and should make Christians, especially, more resolved than ever to fulfill their obligation as representatives of the Christ whose own heart breaks when such crimes are committed in His name.

RLC