Political Cynicism

The Wall Street Journal Online has a piece that illustrates the cynicism with which democracy is viewed by some of our public servants in Congress:

Senator Ted Kennedy, who is gravely ill with brain cancer, has sent a letter to Massachusetts lawmakers requesting a change in the state law that determines how his Senate seat would be filled if it became vacant before his eighth full term ends in 2012. Current law mandates that a special election be held at least 145 days after the seat becomes available. Mr. Kennedy is concerned that such a delay could leave his fellow Democrats in the Senate one vote short of a filibuster-proof majority for months while a special election takes place.

"I therefore am writing to urge you to work together to amend the law through the normal legislative process to provide for a temporary gubernatorial appointment until the special election occurs," writes the Senator.

What Mr. Kennedy doesn't volunteer is that he orchestrated the 2004 succession law revision that now requires a special election, and for similarly partisan reasons. John Kerry, the other Senator from the state, was running for President in 2004, and Mr. Kennedy wanted the law changed so the Republican Governor at the time, Mitt Romney, could not name Mr. Kerry's replacement. "Prodded by a personal appeal from Senator Edward M. Kennedy," reported the Boston Globe in 2004, "Democratic legislative leaders have agreed to take up a stalled bill creating a special election process to replace U.S. Senator John F. Kerry if he wins the presidency." Now that the state has a Democratic Governor, Mr. Kennedy wants to revert to gubernatorial appointments.

When it looked as if a Republican governor would get to appoint a senator Mr. Kennedy wanted the law changed to prevent that. When it looks like a Democrat governor will get to appoint a senator Mr. Kennedy wants the law changed to allow that. It's all about power and whatever works to get it and keep it. No wonder the folks at town halls are showing such contempt for their elected representatives.

RLC

Taking Fire from the Left

New York Times columnist Paul Krugman writes a column to express his dismay and that of his fellow leftists' with President Obama. As far as he and his progressive amigos are concerned President Obama is betraying them, not because his policies are too socialist, but because they're not socialist enough. This is fascinating. The most left-wing president in history is insufficiently left to suit progressives like Krugman:

According to news reports, the Obama administration - which seemed, over the weekend, to be backing away from the "public option" for health insurance - is shocked and surprised at the furious reaction from progressives.

Well, I'm shocked and surprised at their shock and surprise.

A backlash in the progressive base - which pushed President Obama over the top in the Democratic primary and played a major role in his general election victory - has been building for months. The fight over the public option involves real policy substance, but it's also a proxy for broader questions about the president's priorities and overall approach.

That the President is not as radical as his supporters would have him be is modestly good news, I suppose, if you're a conservative, but it raises an interesting question: If conservatives who criticize Mr. Obama and his proposals are motivated by racism, as many liberals have claimed, either explicitly or implicitly, are Krugman et al also racists? Just wondering.

RLC

The Euthyphro Dilemma

Is kindness right because God commands it or does God command it because it's right? Thus runs the ancient dilemma posed by Socrates to Euthyphro some 300 years B.C. Philosophers have come down on both sides of the question with most atheistic philosophers arguing that if God commands it because it's right then we don't need God's command and thus we don't need God. Theistic philosophers argue that an act is right not because it's commanded by just any deity but because it's commanded by an omniscient, morally perfect Deity.

I think the theist has the better reply. If the moral authority is ab defino all-knowing and perfectly good then anything It commands would be necessarily good and It wouldn't command anything that wasn't good.

God commands certain behavior for the same reason that a car manufacturer puts a maintenance manual in the new car. Just as failure to operate the car properly ruins the car, certain behaviors - like cruelty - are harmful to human beings and certain other behaviors - like kindness - enhance human existence.

God commands us to enhance human existence because he loves us. To mistreat others is wrong not because it's wrong in itself, but because God obligates us to refrain from hurting those He loves. It's wrong, and this is crucial, only because it violates the will of God. If there is no God, as the atheist maintains, then whether the atheist decides to be cruel or kind is of no moral moment. There's nothing which obligates us not to hurt others except our own subjective preferences.

Just as the sun generates light and heat which would not exist if the sun ceased to exist, so, too, goodness is ontologically dependent upon God. It's an attribute of His essence. If God did not exist neither would goodness and neither would any obligation to perform one act rather than another. We are obligated to do justice and kindness only because God demands it of humans. Take away God and human beings would be animals just like sharks and wolves for whom moral categories and moral obligation simply don't exist.

So, its not that atheists can't be kind. They certainly can. It's that, on atheism, kindness is neither right nor wrong. It's no different, morally speaking, than cruelty. It's simply a personal preference like one's preference for Pepsi rather than Coke. In a Godless world morality is just a matter of taste.

RLC

Shameful Racial Legacy

Damon Root at discusses the attempt by Chip Berlet to link the opposition to Obamacare to white, right-wing racism:

Chip Berlet, a senior researcher at the liberal think tank Political Research Associates, went even further than that, telling New America Media: "For over 100 years-more like 150, you've had these movements, and they came out of the Civil War. It is a backlash against social liberalism and it's rooted in libertarian support for unregulated capitalism and white people holding onto power, and, if they see themselves losing it, trying to get it back."

Root is having none of it, however. If Berlet wants to go back 100 years to examine the history of racism in this country what he'll find is that it was largely a phenomenon of the left. Root provides chapter and verse:

Perhaps Berlet should consider the career of South Carolina's Benjamin "Pitchfork" Tillman (1847-1914), a leading progressive who railed against the sins of "unregulated capitalism" while preaching the salvation of white supremacy. An ally of the agrarian populist William Jennings Bryan, Tillman supported antitrust laws, railroad regulations, the free coinage of silver, and a host of other progressive panaceas. He first entered politics as a member of the Red Shirts, a Klan-like terror group that "came out of the Civil War" to menace African Americans during the early years of Reconstruction. When President Theodore Roosevelt entertained the black leader Booker T. Washington at the White House in 1901, Tillman served as a de facto spokesman for the Southern opposition, declaring: "The action of President Roosevelt in entertaining that nigger will necessitate our killing a thousand niggers in the South before they will learn their place again." It's hard to imagine a nastier threat of political violence than that-and Tillman is obviously nobody's idea of a libertarian.

In fact, as the historian David Southern has documented, the worst evils of the South's Jim Crow regime, including segregation, disfranchisement, mob violence, and lynching, all "went hand-in-hand with the most advanced forms of southern progressivism."

In a separate post, Root's review of Southern's book titled The Progressive Era and Race: Reform and Reaction, 1900-1917 provides excellent insight into the virulence of white racism during the Progressive era. Writing of Southern's book Root asks:

How did reformers infused with lofty ideals embrace such abominable bigotry? [Southern's] answer begins with the race-based pseudoscience that dominated educated opinion at the turn of the 20th century. "At college," Southern notes, "budding progressives not only read expos�s of capitalistic barons and attacks on laissez-faire economics by muckraking journalists, they also read racist tracts that drew on the latest anthropology, biology, psychology, sociology, eugenics, and medical science."

Popular titles included Charles Carroll's The Negro a Beast(1900) and R.W. Shufeldt's The Negro, a Menace to American Civilization (1907). One bestseller, Madison Grant's The Passing of the Great Race (1916), discussed the concept of "race suicide," the theory that inferior races were out-breeding their betters. President Theodore Roosevelt was one of many Progressives captivated by this notion: He opposed voting rights for African-American men, which were guaranteed by the 15th amendment, on the grounds that the black race was still in its adolescence.

Such thinking, which emphasized "expert" opinion and advocated sweeping governmental power, fit perfectly within the Progressive worldview, which favored a large, active government that engaged in technocratic, paternalistic planning. As for reconciling white supremacy with egalitarian democracy, keep in mind that when a racist Progressive championed "the working man," "the common man," or "the people," he typically prefixed the silent adjective white.

Throughout the post-civil war era the greatest impediment to the advance of the black man, especially in the South, was the Democratic party and Progressive infatuations with social Darwinism and eugenics. It's one of the ironies of our times that modern liberals are so eager to identify themselves as Progressives and that approximately 95% of African-Americans who voted in the last election voted for the most Progressive Congress and White House since Franklin Roosevelt - maybe since Woodrow Wilson.

One wonders how aware either liberals or African-Americans are of the history of twentieth century Progressivism in this country, not only the ugliness of its racism but also of its links to European fascism. If they are aware then their willingness to identify themselves with people who push the Progressive agenda is really puzzling.

In any event, it's important that we learn the lessons of history, philosopher George Santayana famously admonished, because if we don't we're just doomed to repeat them.

HT: Hot Air

RLC

The Value of Argument

What use, we sometimes wonder, are arguments? People are rarely persuaded by them to accept something they're not already disposed to believe so why bother? People who disbelieve in God, for example, don't often change their mind because they've heard someone effectively argue the opposite position.

This is probably because disbelief is not usually a consequence of a lack of proof in, or evidence for, God's existence. More often it's due to either a bad experience with Christians or the church, an incredulity over the doctrine of Christian exclusivism, the prevalence of suffering and terror in the world, or a simple desire that Christianity not be true and that God not exist. As such it's not something that can be changed by appeals to a person's reason.

For most people, believers and unbelievers alike, faith is a matter of the heart, not the head. It's rarely arrived at, or decided upon, on rational grounds. People are drawn to faith through their hearts or they reject it because their hearts are closed to it. People are moved more by story, song, film, testimonial, and what they see in other people's lives than they are, say, by Anselm's ontological argument.

For a man to be convinced of an idea or a truth, his heart needs to be persuaded, and, it's important to note, the head will always follow the heart. But arguments are useless with the heart, they only appeal to the head. Since the heart is the gate to the head, if the heart is closed no argument will ever compel the head to accept it. On the other hand, if the heart is sold on an idea anyway, then arguments aren't necessary. In most human beings the heart is the master. The head is merely an advisor that submits to the will of the heart.

Thus arguments aren't of much use to people who are unwilling to accept the conclusion that God is real. A person who doesn't want a particular idea to be true, whose heart is closed to it, will not be persuaded no matter how compelling the argument. He'll always find some way to evade its force and reject the idea.

Yet arguments are not without value. Arguments can strengthen the faith of those who already believe and they can blow away intellectual smokescreens that skepticism often hides behind. Most importantly, perhaps, they can alter the intellectual ambiance of a culture so that the assumption that Christianity is intellectually disreputable is no longer prevalent among young people. Arguments can shape the culture so that whether people accept their conclusions or not they live and move in an environment in which they know that belief can no longer be credibly portrayed as irrational. Indeed, arguments can so influence the larger culture that people accept that belief is even the most rational option, even if they don't always submit to the realization.

There are good reasons to believe that God exists and that Christianity is true, but the person who doesn't want to accept those beliefs, whose heart is already dead set against them, will, like a man who can look at the sky at noon on a clear day and claim not to see the sun, fail to see those reasons.

Even so, most people who have watched the debates between William Lane Craig and Christopher Hitchens or have read the work of any number of Christian philosophers and apologists will, whatever conclusions they eventually draw for their own lives, have a very difficult time holding on to the notion that being a theist is somehow for fools, dunces, and old people.

RLC

Somethin's Happenin' Here

Did you ever notice how, at family gatherings, the older folks sometimes seem to just sit quietly while the conversation and activity swirls around them? I'm beginning to understand why older people sometimes just feel "out of it," and according to this video it's not going to get any easier for them:

As impressive as all this is, I can't escape the feeling that any medium which reduces communication to a series of single words or sentence fragments, as happens on Twitter, for example, is not a good thing. Banal and trivial dialogue where no real thinking is taking place can't be good for one's mental development.

Of course, it's reactionary notions like this which are sure to render people who hold them completely irrelevant, and not just at family gatherings.

RLC

Re: We're Right Because You're an Idiot

Byron issues a plea that we point out the ugly rhetoric emanating from both sides of our political debates and not just what's coming from the left. His email is on the Feedback page.

His concern is a fair one, but as I replied to him, I'm just not hearing consequential people on the right, except for some talk radio hosts whom I have criticized in this space on more than one occasion, using the sort of invective that Paul Begala and others are using. Begala called Sarah Palin, for example, "half a whack job" because she espied the possibility of "death panels" in HR 3200. I haven't heard anyone use that kind of language to describe Mr. Obama, but maybe I'm just not tuned in to it.

I therefore invite any of our readers who would like to participate in what we'll call a "civility patrol" to submit any instances of incivility that you encounter from people who are leaders in their parties or in the media to our Feedback page, and we'll post the results. The examples can be from conservatives or liberals, it doesn't matter.

RLC

Back to the Future?

A lot of Americans are growing increasingly vocal in expressing their concerns about the ideological direction of the current administration. Some few have even peered out ahead of the trajectory and espied "Nazism" skulking about on the horizon. This seems to me to be unfair, hyperbolic, and ahistorical (I note in passing, though, that no one on the left seemed to mind when George Bush was compared to Hitler by people on the left). The Nazis were first and foremost blood and soil nationalists, bent on militarism, conquest, and, in the early 1940s, genocide. One has to have a very vivid imagination to discern those particular themes in anything President Obama has said or done.

That doesn't mean, however, that there's no reason for concern that modern progressivism, of which President Obama is the avatar, bears an eerie similarity to patterns and traits which typified other versions of twentieth century fascism, of which the Nazi party was an extreme type. The concern arises, firstly, because of the historical fact that prior to WWII American progressives and European fascists, particularly Italian fascists, enjoyed a cozy philosophical relationship.

But the apprehensions are made more acute by a number of disturbing developments on our domestic political scene that collectively sound a note that has been historically discordant with the ideals of political freedom. We have in the past year witnessed, for example, the apotheosis of a charismatic leader by a worshipful media; an inexplicable rush to pass opaque legislation that would vastly expand the role of government in our lives; and a menage a trois between big business, big finance and big government.

The perception has grown that we're being misled about the purpose of major legislation, and that health care reform would subsidize death, both early and late. We've seen our President select as advisors several men who are radical advocates of either population control, euthansia and/or eugenics. We've been alarmed by the President's weird call during the campaign for a civilian defense force as well-trained and well-funded as the military and by attempts by some in our government to intimidate, silence, and demonize those in the media who oppose them.

Together these developments have engendered deep concern among a lot of Americans, an uneasiness that's been exacerbated by the President's nebulous vow to "fundamentally change America" and the failure of his administration to keep its promise to allow ample time for the public to review and debate its legislative proposals. The confidence originally reposed in Barack Obama by the American people and the willingness to give him the benefit of the doubt on his radical past associates and associations have been eroded by the fact that so many Democrats, and the President himself, were prepared to pass a massive arrogation of power by the federal government in the form of health care reform before they, or almost anyone else, even knew what was in the bill.

All of this is very troubling to those who value personal liberty and the lessons of history because so much of it has happened before. Most of the items listed above were associated with totalitarianisms and tyrannies of various stripes which plagued the twentieth century. Mr. Obama might sincerely recoil from any suggestion that he would want to retrace that history, but the fact is that, whether intentionally or not, much of what he says and does is an echo of it. The growing fear that once his policies are implemented they'll make it much easier for his successors to impose increasingly greater control over people's lives is genuine and largely salutary. It's rooted in the same skepticism that Americans have always had for big government going all the way back to the Founding Fathers' experience with the oppression of King George III.

It may be that concerns about the political themes and direction of our country will turn out eventually to be incorrect, but, given the evidence at this point in time, they certainly seem warranted, reasonable and prudent.

RLC

Atheism and the Future

Atheists often claim to be more rational than theists. They claim to base their lives on reason rather than faith, but they don't. What reason, for example, does an atheist have for arguing that we should preserve the earth's beauty and resources for future generations? What reason is there for caring what happens to the earth after we are gone from it? Would it be immoral for the present generation to use up everything and leave nothing for those who come after? Why, on the assumption of atheism, would it?

According to the atheist all we have is our own life. There's absolutely no reason why we should care about anyone else. We may care about others, of course, but if we don't why is that wrong?

The atheist may respond that we shouldn't leave our descendents bereft because we wouldn't have wanted that done to us. Of course we wouldn't, but that's no reason why we shouldn't do it to someone else. In other words, if there is no God, there is just no reason why we shouldn't live for ourselves. Atheism can give no reason why egoism is wrong except to say that it just is.

That doesn't sound to me like a very rational reason.

RLC

Confusion and Paradox

The Gallup organization has found something very puzzling:

According to new data released by Gallup on Friday, conservatives outnumber liberals in all 50 states--including President Obama's home state of Illinois--even though Democrats have a significant advantage over Republicans in party identification in 30 states.

"In fact, while all 50 states are, to some degree, more conservative than liberal (with the conservative advantage ranging from 1 to 34 points), Gallup's 2009 party ID results indicate that Democrats have significant party ID advantages in 30 states and Republicans in only 4," said an analysis of the survey results published by Gallup.

What are we to conclude from this paradox? Perhaps people either don't understand what it means to be conservative/liberal or they don't understand what it means to be Republican/Democrat. In any case, I think it shows that any politician who thinks that because he won an election he has a mandate to implement an ideological agenda is making a big mistake. Chances are, people voted for him because he was taller or better looking or more charming or a better speaker than his opponent or maybe because their friends were voting for the guy. I'm guessing, of course, but I doubt that very many people, even among those who take the trouble to vote, really have any idea who a candidate is or what he's going to do once elected.

That may be why, when President Obama sought to implement pretty much what he promised in the campaign that he'd do, he was reportedly taken by surprise at the public reaction and resistance. He thought people voted for him to do what he's doing, but many people voted for him for reasons completely unrelated to policy.

It's very discouraging.

RLC

Re: The Heavens Declare

Mike writes regarding yesterday's post titled The Heavens Declare to share with us a quote from C.S. Lewis:

It's hard to imagine a more fitting response to the writer of the article you posted on Hubble Telescope than the words of C.S. Lewis in Miracles:

"If our Reason told us that size was proportional to importance, then small differences in size would be accompanied by small differences in importance just as surely as great differences in size were accompanied by great differences in importance. Your six-foot man would have to be slightly more valuable than the man of five feet, and your leg slightly more important than your brain...

To a mind which did not share our emotions and lacked our imaginative energies, the argument against Christianity from the size of the universe would be simply unintelligible. It is therefore from ourselves that the material universe derives its power to overawe us. Men of sensibility look upon the night sky with awe: brutal and stupid men do not...For light years and geological periods are mere arithmetic until the shadow of man, the poet, the maker of myths, falls upon them."

Good stuff.

RLC

Ruse on the New Atheists

Philosopher Michael Ruse takes the "New Atheists" to the woodshed and gives them a good thrashing in a short essay at Belief.Net. Ruse is himself an atheist but he holds the quaint idea that atheists and believers can still respect each other and even like each other even as they disagree with each other's ideas. He also argues that the new atheists are hurting the cause of science in America. Here are a couple of paragraphs to give you the gist:

Let me say that I believe the new atheists do the side of science a grave disservice. I will defend to the death the right of them to say what they do - as one who is English-born one of the things I admire most about the USA is the First Amendment. But I think first that these people do a disservice to scholarship. Their treatment of the religious viewpoint is pathetic to the point of non-being. Richard Dawkins in The God Delusion would fail any introductory philosophy or religion course. Proudly he criticizes that whereof he knows nothing. As I have said elsewhere, for the first time in my life, I felt sorry for the ontological argument. If we criticized gene theory with as little knowledge as Dawkins has of religion and philosophy, he would be rightly indignant. (He was just this when, thirty years ago, Mary Midgeley went after the selfish gene concept without the slightest knowledge of genetics.) Conversely, I am indignant at the poor quality of the argumentation in Dawkins, Dennett, Hitchens, and all of the others in that group.

Secondly, I think that the new atheists are doing terrible political damage to the cause of Creationism fighting. Americans are religious people. You may not like this fact. But they are. Not all are fanatics. Survey after survey shows that most American Christians (and Jews and others) fall in the middle on social issues like abortion and gay marriage as well as on science. They want to be science-friendly, although it is certainly true that many have been seduced by the Creationists. We evolutionists have got to speak to these people. We have got to show them that Darwinism is their friend not their enemy. We have got to get them onside when it comes to science in the classroom. And criticizing good men like Francis Collins, accusing them of fanaticism, is just not going to do the job. Nor is criticizing everyone, like me, who wants to build a bridge to believers - not accepting the beliefs, but willing to respect someone who does have them....

Most importantly, the new atheists are doing terrible damage to the fight to keep Creationism out of the schools. The First Amendment does not ban the teaching of bad science in publicly funded schools. It bans the teaching of religion. That is why it is crucial to argue that Creationism, including its side kick IDT, is religion and not just bad science. But sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. If teaching "God exists" is teaching religion - and it is - then why is teaching "God does not exist" not teaching religion? Obviously it is teaching religion. But if science generally and Darwinism specifically imply that God does not exist, then teaching science generally and Darwinism specifically runs smack up against the First Amendment. Perhaps indeed teaching Darwinism is implicitly teaching atheism. This is the claim of the new atheists. If this is so, then we shall have to live with it and rethink our strategy about Creationism and the schools. The point is however that the new atheists have lamentably failed to prove their point, and excoriating people like me who show the failure is (again) not very helpful.

....I have written elsewhere that The God Delusion makes me ashamed to be an atheist. Let me say that again. Let me say also that I am proud to be the focus of the invective of the new atheists. They are a bloody disaster and I want to be on the front line of those who say so.

I think Ruse is wrong about Intelligent Design, of course, but he's a good man, a lapsed Quaker who still retains much that is admirable about the Quaker people, and I appreciate and admire his tone and openness.

RLC

We're Right Because You're an Idiot

It's getting tiresome hearing political hit-men like Paul Begala and others mocking Sarah Palin for suggesting on her website that the Democrats' health reform proposals would include "death panels" that would decide whether people suffering from severe disabilities, terminal illness, or advanced age would be eligible for major medical care.

Yesterday morning our Sunday paper carried a piece by a staff columnist calling people who believed such things "bat-guano insane," "charlatans," "nuts," and "lunatics." According to this writer the idea of death panels is "idiocy," and Sarah Palin is suffering from a "paranoid delusion rattling around in her empty skull." Of course, the only counter he offered to Palin's claim, when he wasn't shooting off personal insults like a fireworks finale, was to cite a minor error of fact by a misinformed writer at Investor's Business Daily and one or two fuzzy questions and accusations that emerged among the many town hall meetings held over the last couple of weeks. In other words, our columnist denied vehemently and viciously that the proposed legislation really provided for Palin's "death panels," but he never gave his readers any reason to believe that it didn't.

Maybe this was because the fear that the legislation would allow for such panels is grounded not in paranoia but in the President's own words. In an interview last April with the New York Times the President was talking about the story of his terminally ill grandmother who had hip replacement surgery so that she would not be bed-ridden for the last year of her life. Here's what he said:

PRESIDENT: So that's where I think you just get into some very difficult moral issues. But that's also a huge driver of cost, right?

I mean, the chronically ill and those toward the end of their lives are accounting for potentially 80 percent of the total health care bill out here.

NYT: So how do you - how do we deal with it?

PRESIDENT: Well, I think that there is going to have to be a conversation that is guided by doctors, scientists, ethicists. And then there is going to have to be a very difficult democratic conversation that takes place. It is very difficult to imagine the country making those decisions just through the normal political channels. And that's part of why you have to have some independent group that can give you guidance. It's not determinative, but I think has to be able to give you some guidance. And that's part of what I suspect you'll see emerging out of the various health care conversations that are taking place on the Hill right now.

As of last April the President certainly seemed to be talking about some sort of group (Okay. He didn't use the words "death panel") which would make the kind of decisions that Ms Palin was concerned about. Why is it "bat-guano insane" to think that the President meant what he said?

Other commentators, no friends of Sarah Palin in particular or conservatives in general, have come to the same conclusion:

Lee Siegel at The Daily Beast, Charles Lane, editor of The Washington Post, and columnist Eugene Robinson at the WaPo have all held their noses and acknowledged that Palin was right. Are they also insane?

Indeed, the writers of the bill were so concerned that the language of the legislation was compatible with Palin's interpretation that they decided to strike it from the original bill. Were they crazy?

It would be helpful in this very important matter if the defenders of the current health reform legislation would just answer the many incisive questions that are being asked about it and address the problems being raised by it. It's harder than just calling them names, it requires more effort, but it'd also be a lot more instructive and persuasive.

RLC

The Heavens Declare

Bradlaugh at Secular Right posts this marvelous video based on the Hubble Deep Field photo, but he draws from it an odd conclusion:

He writes:

I have heard Heather (MacDonald) say that she has never been afflicted with any musings about the significance of human consciousness, or the place of humanity in the universe. (I hope I am not misquoting her.) I can't say the same. Images like this fill me with wonder, with something quite close to terror, and with something considerably closer to despair.

They also of course make the notion of a loving god with a particular interest in humanity, seem pretty darn ridiculous.

Just how does the fact that the universe is huge make the idea of a personal God who cares about us ridiculous? Is God's concern for humanity somehow contingent upon the size of the universe? Does your love for your children depend on the size of your house?

Cosmologists have demonstrated that in order for life to appear anywhere in the universe - given that the universe began in a big bang - the universe has to be about as old as it is and thus as big as it is (since it's been expanding since its origin).

It also has to have about the precise amount of mass/energy that it does, in fact, contain. More or less matter and the universe would have either collapsed or blown itself apart long ago.

In other words, if God created the universe as a home for humans, and did so along the lines that modern cosmology has elucidated, then in order for us to exist on this tiny speck, everything else must be almost exactly as it is to a breathtakingly precise order of magnitude. In order to create us God had to create the whole universe, all 100 billion galaxies. They are there so that we can be here.

Like Bradlaugh, I'm overwhelmed by the sheer size of the world, but unlike him I feel the opposite of terror and despair. The thought that God cares so much for us that, like a man who lavishes everything He can upon His beloved, He fills the whole of space with marvels beyond our imagining fills me with a sense of confidence and awe.

HT: Hot Air

RLC

Wind Turbine Mortality

As the Obama administration pushes for clean energy one possible source would be wind farms with dozens or even hundreds of wind turbines. These might be thought to be environmentally friendly, although they're aesthetic eyesores, since they don't have any perceptible impact on the land and don't generate any pollution. They do have an important downside, though, as this article from the American Bird Conservancy explains:

Recent U.S. studies indicate that bird mortality at wind turbine projects varies from less than one bird/turbine/year to as high as 7.5 birds/per turbine/year. This means that between 10,000 and 40,000 birds may be killed each year at wind farms across the country - about 80% of which are songbirds, and 10% may be birds of prey. While not a large figure, local or regional impacts may be significant, and the rate of increase in turbine construction has conservationists concerned that new generators be built to standards that minimize the potential for bird kills. Bats are also subject to high mortality at wind farms frequently at considerably higher rates than birds.

The increasing number of proposals for new projects has stimulated discussion on the need for proper siting, operation, and monitoring guidelines or regulations to prevent, or at least keep to a minimum, avian and bat mortality.

Before construction of new wind farms, detailed studies should be conducted to assess the potential impact on birds, bats, and other wildlife. Sites known to be used by birds and bats listed under the Endangered Species Act should be avoided if the construction and operation of wind plants might adversely affect these species, as should locating turbines in known local bird migration pathways, in areas where birds are highly concentrated, or in areas or landscape features known to attract large numbers of raptors.

So I wonder if the following isn't a plausible scenario. President Obama gets cap and trade and wipes out the coal industry as he admitted his policy would do (see here). Entrepreneuers then try to get into the wind farm business, but they find that because of the effect of turbines on wildlife few of their siting proposals can pass EPA muster. So now we have no coal generated electricity and no wind generated electricity. Then what? Relax EPA standards? Build nuclear plants? Fat chance of that as long as the Democrats control the approval process.

What's most likely, it seems to me, is that electricity will get rationed just like medical care. You'll only be able to use it during certain hours of the day and in certain amounts. Kiss that air-conditioner good-bye, hope and change are cool enough all by themselves.

RLC

Interesting Disparity

The Pew Research Center recently conducted a study of scientists and their religious beliefs. Some of the results were expected and some were a bit surprising.

Whereas most Americans (83%) profess a belief in God, just a third (33%) of scientists say they hold such a belief. There's nothing unexpected there since those figures have been around for a while. What was a surprise, though, was the finding that younger scientists are substantially more likely than their older counterparts to say they believe in God. Forty two percent of scientists (or students studying to be scientists) between the ages of 18 and 34 claim to be theists, but only 28% of those over 65 make that claim.

I don't know what this portends for the future of theistic belief among the nation's scholars, but I would like to see if these numbers are similar across other disciplines. Assuming these survey results accurately reflect the state of theistic belief among contemporary scientists, I'd also like to know what's happening in the culture that's responsible for the disparity between the younger generation of scientists and their elders. Any ideas?

RLC

Does She Or Doesn't She?

Does Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi appreciate disrupters or does she not? I guess it all depends on who's doing the disrupting (via Hot Air):

Since Speaker Pelosi also seemed shocked that someone was sporting a swastika at one recent town meeting, although this was never confirmed, I'll bet she was apoplectic at the demonstrations against President Bush that took place throughout his presidency in her very own district. I seem to remember, in fact, her fiery speeches denouncing the protestors whose photos appear here. I think I recall her outrage that people in her district would resort to such despicable tactics and ugly rhetoric. Or maybe I'm just hallucinating from being up too late and awake too long.

RLC

Why No Supermarkets?

An article at CNN raises disturbing questions. The piece addresses the predicament those who live in Detroit face as unemployment in the state continues to rise and fewer families have the money to buy food. It goes on to talk about how social agencies and volunteers from churches and parachurch organizations are working to meet the need (I didn't see any mention of the help being offered by the local secular humanist society, but, I hasten to add, that doesn't mean they're not doing anything.).

Anyway, the disturbing part was this paragraph:

"In this recession-racked town, the lack of food is a serious problem. It's a theme that comes up again and again in conversations in Detroit. There isn't a single major chain supermarket in the city, forcing residents to buy food from corner stores. Often less healthy and more expensive food."

Now why is that? Why would supermarket chains not exploit a market niche that they exploit in every other city and suburb in the nation? I'm sure someone will say that it must be racism, but of course that's absurd. Why Detroit and not Chicago? Or is the lack of supermarkets in cities more widespread than the article indicates?

Whatever the case, the urban poor are caught in a vicious cycle. They are poor, sometimes, because they can't find jobs. Because they're impoverished their communities are subject to all the dysfunctions often associated with poverty, including lousy education, crime, and feral fatherhood. Because their communities are ridden with crime and populated by uneducated, unskilled workers, businesses don't want to operate there. Because businesses don't locate in poor neighborhoods, the residents can't find employment and thus are poor.

What's the solution? The strongest predictor that a person will have weak education, turn to crime, and be economically poor is not having a father. When urban communities realize that fatherlessness is a blight on their neighborhoods and a curse upon their children perhaps pressure will mount on women to hold off having children until they're married and men will realize that if they want what women can give they have to be committed to a monogamous relationship. Until that day comes we'll not solve the problem of poverty in America no matter how much the government redistributes the nation's wealth.

RLC

New National Park

Some people think I never say anything nice about liberalism, but that's not true. I might not be able to remember when the last time was that I said anything nice about it, but I'm sure I did. One area, for instance, in which I think liberalism has it all over conservatism (although it really shouldn't be this way), is, ironically enough, the matter of conservation. I applaud President Clinton for preserving vast tracts of the southwest, President Bush for preserving vast tracts of ocean habitat, and now Senator Carper and Vice-President Biden for working to preserve Delaware's historical and natural heritage in a new National Park:

It's been a long time since tiny Delaware distinguished itself as it did way back in 1787 when state fathers huddling at Dover's Golden Fleece Tavern became the first to ratify the Constitution. Now, more than two centuries later, Delaware is back as the state of firsts. And not just because Joe Biden is the first vice president from Delaware. The mid-Atlantic coastal state could finally get its first national park, a goal championed by Biden in the 1990s. And he's now in a position to make sure it happens.

Delaware doesn't have what most national parks do-vast acreage. But at the suggestion of First State citizens, Interior is looking at a unique model that would connect historical and cultural landmarks in a collection of spoke and hub patterns, like a bike. "A hub with spokes leading to maybe the Golden Fleece Tavern where the Constitution was first debated and ratified in 1787," suggests Senator Tom Carper. "Or the spokes could lead to stops on the Underground Railroad."

Legislation is required, but with the support of Biden and [Secretary of the Interior] Salazar, says Carper, "I like our chances."

Details of the Park's unique design can be read here. Kudos to both Joe Biden and Tom Carper for their contribution to this effort. Why is it that more conservatives aren't interested in conserving our natural and historical treasures?

RLC

Materialism Isn't Science

There's a piece, in the LA Times, written by atheists, taking their fellow atheists to task for trying so strenuously to persuade people that science and religious belief are not only incompatible, but that science has shown religious belief to be empty:

This fall, evolutionary biologist and bestselling author Richard Dawkins -- most recently famous for his public exhortation to atheism, "The God Delusion" -- returns to writing about science. Dawkins' new book, "The Greatest Show on Earth," will inform and regale us with the stunning "evidence for evolution," as the subtitle says. It will surely be an impressive display, as Dawkins excels at making the case for evolution. But it's also fair to ask: Who in the United States will read Dawkins' new book (or ones like it) and have any sort of epiphany, or change his or her mind?

Surely not those who need it most: America's anti-evolutionists. These religious adherents often view science itself as an assault on their faith and doggedly refuse to accept evolution because they fear it so utterly denies God that it will lead them, and their children, straight into a world of moral depravity and meaninglessness. An in-your-face atheist touting evolution, like Dawkins, is probably the last messenger they'll heed.

Dawkins will, however, be championed by many scientists, especially the most secular -- those who were galvanized by "The God Delusion" and inspired by it to take a newly confrontational approach toward America's religious majority. They will help ensure Dawkins another literary success. It's certainly valuable to have the case for evolution articulated prominently and often, but what this unending polarization around evolution and religion does for the standing of science in the U.S. is a very different matter.

It often appears as though Dawkins and his followers -- often dubbed the New Atheists, though some object to the term -- want to change the country's science community in a lasting way. They'd have scientists and defenders of reason be far more confrontational and blunt: No more coddling the faithful, no tolerating nonscientific beliefs. Scientific institutions, in their view, ought to stop putting out politic PR about science and religion being compatible.

What people like Dawkins are doing is actually intellectually dishonest for at least two reasons. First, in The God Delusion Dawkins argues that the proposition God exists is a scientifically testable claim. If so, how can he now argue that propositions about ultimate reality are not scientific? Secondly, some of the "New Atheists" confuse people about what science is by conflating the practice of science with a metaphysical position held by many atheistic scientists called materialism.

Science is a search for truth that relies on testing theories about the physical world by observing how well those hypothetical explanations conform to the empirical evidence. As such, science, ironically perhaps, can provide us reasons for thinking that the universe is in fact the product of a transcendent mind, but no matter how much we learn about the cosmos, science will never be able to conclude that God does not, or even probably does not, exist. Once a scientist starts making claims like that he's no longer doing science, he's doing metaphysics.

Scientists, qua scientists, simply cannot say that there is no Creator or that miracles are impossible. On questions like these scientists must follow Wittgenstein's dictum that "whereof we cannot speak, thereof we should be silent." Scientists assume in their day to day work that physical phenomena will have physical, natural, proximal causes just as everyone assumes that the events that occur in their everyday lives have causes that could, in principle, at least, be observed. This is called methodological or procedural materialism. It's simply the assumption that, in general, things in our experience can be expected to follow physical laws. This procedural assumption has nothing to do with whether God exists or whether metaphysical materialism is true.

Atheists, however, are metaphysical materialists. That is, they believe that matter is the fundamental reality and that nature is all there is (also called naturalism). There is no room in their worldview for a supernatural reality. Now both materialism and naturalism are incompatible with theism, so what people like Dawkins do, is conflate metaphysical materialism with methodological materialism so that the unwary reader doesn't realize that a bait and switch has occurred. In other words, they piggyback their metaphysical materialism onto science and argue that because science has shown that many phenomena have material proximal explanations that therefore there are no immaterial ultimate explanations. At this point he's no longer speaking as a scientist but as a philosopher, even though he's using his standing as a scientist to authorize his metaphysics.

It's a kind of shell game that they play, they know they're playing it, and it's fundamentally disingenuous.

RLC