The Fruit of Cultural Relativism

They won't be celebrating the joys of multi-cultural diversity in Australia any time soon, nor in Sweden, we wouldn't think:

In Australia this week amidst anger over an Islamic man's rape conviction and the bashing of two Aussie life savers, working-class locals erupted in a rampage of anger and brawling in some of the worst racial riots in decades. But there is more to the story than is being repeated in the American mainstream media....

Four days after he set foot in Australia, the rape spree began. And during his sexual assault trial in a New South Wales courtroom, the Pakistani man began to berate one of his tearful 14-year-old victims because she had the temerity to shake her head at his testimony.

But she had every reason to express her disgust. After taking an oath on the Qur'an, the man - known only as MSK - told the court he had committed four attacks on girls as young as 13 because they had no right to say "no." They were not covering their face or wearing a headscarf, and therefore, the rapist proclaimed: "I'm not doing anything wrong."

MSK is already serving a 22-year jail term for leading his three younger brothers in a gang rape of two other young Sydney girls in 2002. In his own defence, he argued that his cultural background, was responsible for his crimes. And he is right.

In some parts of Pakistan, sexual assault - including gang rape - is officially sanctified as a legitimate form of enforcing the social value system. One village council recently ordered that five young girls should be "abducted, raped or murdered" for refusing to be treated as chattel. The girls were aged between six and thirteen when they were married without their knowledge, to pay a family debt.

And when Mukhtar Mai's 12-year-old brother was alleged to have committed an offence in a small Pakistani farming village, the village council ordered that his sister be gang-raped. So, she was taken to a hut where four men repeatedly assaulted her. According to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan there were 804 cases of such officially orchestrated sexual assault in 2000, and 434 of these were gang rapes. And if that isn't bad enough, the victims of these atrocities are then expected to commit suicide because rape victims bring irreparable shame upon their family.

So as MSK committed his acts of rape while visiting Australia, he was simply perpetuating his own cultural heritage. He hails from a society where officially sanctioned sexual violence is commonly employed as a means to enforce the subservience of women. And this is where two fundamental tenets of the modern Left clash: the irresistible force of cultural relativism collides with the immovable object of gender equality. But in the 21st century it is the latter that must prevail.

The laissez faire attitudes of cultural relativism are unacceptable in modern society. Female genital mutilation is not some quaint tribal custom that we are bound to respect: it is barbarism, pure and simple. Yet many Western leftists habitually excuse these crimes against women in order to maintain political solidarity with their allies in the Islamic world. After all, it would be tough to make common cause with Muslim groups in the antiwar movement if Progressives began to criticize the practice of polygamy.

But along with Islamic immigration to the West have come Third World value systems regarding the treatment of women. We must not be seduced by the false tenets of cultural relativism into a toleration of forced marriages, officially sanctioned rape, and honour killings. Australia's unique brand of multiculturalism confers both rights and obligations: while cultural and linguistic diversity are to be cherished, every Australian must subscribe to a single standard of human rights. Australians must forcefully repudiate the corruption of the multicultural idea that would condone crimes against women and support jihadism.

And it's not just Australia. Read this chilling report from Sweden. The phenomenon of Muslim rape in Western countries appears to be one of those stories that the MSM would rather not tell, but which seems to be busting out all over.

Who Will Rid Us of This Madman?

Recapping Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's call for the destruction of Israel and his denial of the holocaust, Charles Krauthammer writes this:

To be sure, Holocaust denial and calls for Israel's destruction are commonplace in the Middle East. They can be seen every day on Hezbollah TV, in Syrian media, in Egyptian editorials appearing in semiofficial newspapers. But none of these aspiring mass murderers are on the verge of acquiring nuclear weapons that could do in one afternoon what it took Hitler six years to do: destroy an entire Jewish civilization and extinguish 6 million souls.

Everyone knows where Iran's nuclear weapons will be aimed. Everyone knows they will be put on Shahab rockets, which have been modified so that they can reach Israel. And everyone knows that if the button is ever pushed, it will be the end of Israel.

But it gets worse. The president of a country about to go nuclear is a confirmed believer in the coming apocalypse. Like Judaism and Christianity, Shiite Islam has its own version of the messianic return -- the reappearance of the Twelfth Imam. The more devout believers in Iran pray at the Jamkaran mosque, which houses a well from which, some believe, he will emerge.

When Ahmadinejad unexpectedly won the presidential elections, he immediately gave $17 million of government funds to the shrine. Last month Ahmadinejad said publicly that the main mission of the Islamic Revolution is to pave the way for the reappearance of the Twelfth Imam.

And as in some versions of fundamentalist Christianity, the second coming will be accompanied by the usual trials and tribulations, death and destruction. Iranian journalist Hossein Bastani reported Ahmadinejad saying in official meetings that the hidden imam will reappear in two years.

So a Holocaust-denying, virulently anti-Semitic, aspiring genocidist, on the verge of acquiring weapons of the apocalypse, believes that the end is not only near but nearer than the next American presidential election. (Pity the Democrats. They cannot catch a break.) This kind of man would have, to put it gently, less inhibition about starting Armageddon than a normal person. Indeed, with millennial bliss pending, he would have positive incentive to, as they say in Jewish eschatology, hasten the end.

Negotiations to deny this certifiable lunatic genocidal weapons have been going nowhere. Everyone knows they will go nowhere. And no one will do anything about it.

Well, no one in Europe or on the American Left is likely to do anything, that's for sure. Whether no one at all will do anything remains to be seen this March.

AFR

From the folks at Americans for a Free Republic:

Could a full convertible gold standard be legally implemented in today's world with the amount of paper currency that has been floated by the Fed throughout the 20th century? No, it couldn't. But tomorrow's world is going to be radicalized beyond our conventional imaginations of today. America's almighty dollar could possibly go the way of the Argentine peso. That is how serious the mess is that we are in. Would the call for a new money system free from government manipulation resonate with voters in the midst of such a disaster? It certainly would; but we will need to have strong, articulate voices manning the megaphones to explain why and how.

The great majority of economists in our government and in our colleges today will naturally attempt to deny the necessity of such a step, becoming almost apoplectic upon hearing that the utilization of gold money is being advocated. They will go to great lengths to try and convince their audiences that the economy's money supply must be continually inflated via the Federal Reserve in order to produce growth. But this is totally erroneous! America's productive growth during the 19th century was spectacular, and there was no Federal Reserve pumping unconvertible paper money into the system at all.

For example, the Consumer Price Index decreased by 30% from 43 to 30 between the years 1800 and 1913 (an average of 1/4 percent per year). This was because the money supply of this time, being tied to gold, was next to impossible to expand with a printing press in excess of the growth of goods and services. As a result, there was no upward pressure on prices.

In contrast, today we no longer use gold as money, but paper printed by the Federal Reserve as it sees fit. As a result, the Consumer Price Index increased by 1,663% from 30 to 529 in the years 1913 to 2000. This was because the money supply was created at a far faster rate than the production of goods and services -- all of which should tell us quite clearly that government money managers are not reliable and never will be, and that a fiat paper money system will never be stable. [The above percentages are taken from The World Almanac 2002, p. 103.]

When the above figures are combined with other vital 19th century statistics, we readily see that the Keynesian claim of "growth needing inflation" is a fallacy. During the 19th century due to the dollar being backed by gold, we enjoyed gently deflationary prices (the beneficial kind of deflation) and yet also rapid economic growth of all goods and services. America's GDP increased over 500% in just the years 1870 to 1913, averaging 4.3% annual growth, and real wages for the workingman tripled. In comparison, we average about 2.5% annual growth today, real wages are stagnant, and we are plagued by inflationary prices brought on by the Federal Government's relentless monetary expansion, with a possible gargantuan credit collapse now looming ahead to balance our government created excesses. [These figures are taken from The Statistical History of the United States from Colonial Times to the Present, Fairfield Publishers, 1960, pp. 91, 141, 409, 413.]

The Keynesian claim of monetary inflation being a requisite for healthy economic growth is thus totally in error. So also is its claim that only with government control over the currency and banking system can we have "stability" in our economy. Growth will take place very nicely without government inflation of the money supply; and what's more, it will be real growth, not the frenzied, speculative, boom-bust kind of growth our Great Society dreamers have given us. As for stability, how can any logical observer of the 20th century claim that the Fed's inflationary monetary policy has given us stability? Yet this was the publicly announced reason for the Fed's creation in 1913. It was going to be the great "stabilizer" of the banking system and our economy. Yet it has brought us precisely the opposite.

The reason the collectivists throughout the country oppose the stable monetary policy of a gold-backed system is because they know their ever-expanding welfare state is tied directly to Keynesian inflationary policy. Without the ability to egregiously inflate the money supply year after year, the vast panoply of big government programs could not be financed because American citizens would not pay for such fiscal extravagance with taxes. Without such welfare programs, the collectivists' egalitarian dream of a Great Planned Society, regulated and manipulated from Washington, is dead.

The future of America lies in ending the Keynsian inflation-deflation cycle. This requires the restoration of a gold-backed money system. The answer to so many of our problems would come if we would just end excessive monetary inflation by the Fed. Prices of goods and services would stop relentlessly rising. Excessive labor union demands would subside. Capital formation would increase. True prosperity would result. Poverty would shrink at a faster pace. Yet life would churn at a more moderate and predictable pace. The elderly would be able to keep the security they worked for. Jobs would stop leaving America for third world countries. And we could all get off this infuriating treadmill of never quite catching up with our bills. In general, life would again be stable, productive, and free rather than the speculative, frenzied, Washington managed economy that has evolved under the whip of collectivist-liberal ideology.

It's interesting to note that in the last 80 years, the economic cycle of boom and bust has been experienced and seemingly accepted as the natural order of things. I wonder how long the American people will continue to be sheared like sheep by the money masters.

The following, from the same link, sounds almost radical but given that this country was established as a republic and not a democracy (pdf), it's actually quite appropriate.

But such a flat tax must be a REAL flat tax, not the imposters put forth by the likes of Steve Forbes and Dick Armey. These two attempts to promote a flat tax were no answers at all because of their huge personal exemptions ($36,000 for a family of four). They would greatly increase the amount of people who pay zero taxes, and thus the amount of people who have infinite demand for government services. This type of "tax reform" is totally assinine. If we wish to shut down the inferno of government growth and spending, then we must truly shut down the PROGRESSIVE RATES that are causing its relentless expansion, which means all voters must pay the same rates, which means no exemptions!

As sure as the sun will come up tomorrow, however, liberals will attack any genuine "equal rate tax" as unfair to the poor people. So if a floor is to be established under which no one will have to pay the tax, i.e., an exemption for those under the poverty level, then a provision must be included in the tax bill stating that those who are exempted from paying are to also be excluded from voting. Remember we are trying to restore a RESPONSIBLE electorate and legislature. This cannot be done if voters get their services free. All who vote must pay the tax period! This is the only way they will act responsibly. This is human nature. After all, we deny children the right to vote. Why do we do this? Because they are not mature enough to vote responsibly. The same principle applies to men and women who are exempt from taxes; they will never vote responsibly. They will possess "infinite demand" for government services.

The entire AFR website offers some important reading and I encourage you to visit.

Just A Coincidence?

From the link:

On March 23, 2006, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System will cease publication of the M3 monetary aggregate. The Board will also cease publishing the following components: large-denomination time deposits, repurchase agreements (RPs), and Eurodollars. The Board will continue to publish institutional money market mutual funds as a memorandum item in this release.

So the Fed is going to begin hiding vital statistics from the US people and the rest of the world about a critical measure of our money supply. It's bad enough that there isn't anything "federal" about the Federal Reserve as it isn't a branch of the federal government but, rather, a privately held institution. And to make matters worse, some of the "owners" of that private institution are banks outside of the US. And they have no "reserves" to speak of. The Federal Reserve is kind of like that little guy behind the curtain in the Wizard of Oz. Do a search on the internet of "Wizard of Oz Federal Reserve" for some interesting reading.

Ah, but I digress. The question is, what else of international importance is scheduled to occur on or about the same time as the discontinuation of the Fed's reporting of M3?

If we remember back to this article from November we read that Iran is scheduled to begin trading oil for euros on their newly established Iranian Oil Bourse - IOB.

So the Fed's last report of M3 just happens to be the week prior to the first day of trade on the IOB? If countries like Japan and China and other Asian countries with their trillions of U.S. dollars no longer need them or require less of them to buy oil - does anyone suppose they might begin a wholesale liquidation of their U.S. Bonds (the primary instrument where foreigners 'store' their U.S. dollars)?

If foreigners begin wholesale liquidation of U.S. debt obligations, the Fed would have no recourse but to print the dollars necessary to redeem them and this would necessarily imply an absolutely enormous expansion of our money supply - which would undoubtedly be captured statistically in M3 or its related reporting.

What Sort of God Are We Talking About?

This caught our attention recently:

A new Gallup survey released today finds that four decades after the "God Is Dead" controversy was first noted, Americans retain a strong belief in a higher power. Some 94% think God exists.

Only 5% feel God "does not exist" -- and even most of them "are not sure" of that. Exactly 1% are certain there is no God. But how strongly do the believers believe? Nearly 8 in 10, in fact, say they are "convinced" God exists, although Gallup does not ask them why that is.

Conservatives are more likely to be convinced than liberals (87% vs. 61%), women a little more likely than men (82% vs. 73%), and residents of the South more than those in the East (88% vs. 70%). Surprisingly, some 61% of those who seldom or never attend church are nevertheless convinced that God exists.

The poll sampled 1,002 national adults, Nov. 17-20.

If a space alien were to observe our culture would he not think that Gallup got the numbers backward? It would be interesting to know what god it is that most Americans believe exists. Dionysius? Bacchus?

A poll like this is less meaningful than it could be if it does not provide some idea of what sort of god the respondents are saying they believe exists.

An Interview With Richard Dawkins

BeliefNet has an interview with Richard Dawkins. Here are some of the more provocative portions:

Interviewer: What are your thoughts about the despair some people feel when they ponder natural selection and random mutation? The idea of evolution and natural selection makes some people feel that everything is meaningless--people's individual lives and life in general.

Dawkins: If it's true that it causes people to feel despair, that's tough. It's still the truth. The universe doesn't owe us condolence or consolation; it doesn't owe us a nice warm feeling inside. If it's true, it's true, and you'd better live with it.

Interviewer: Is atheism the logical extension of believing in evolution?

Dawkins: They clearly can't be irrevocably linked because a very large number of theologians believe in evolution. In fact, any respectable theologian of the Catholic or Anglican or any other sensible church believes in evolution. Similarly, a very large number of evolutionary scientists are also religious. My personal feeling is that understanding evolution led me to atheism.

Actually, Dawkins draws a much stronger correlation between evolution and atheism in a speech he gave last Fall. You can hear what he had to say about the incompatibility of evolution and theism here.

The fact is that almost all of the more prominent writers on evolution say the same thing Dawkins says, i.e. that an understanding of evolution leads to atheism. It's obvious that evolution is a trojan horse for getting atheism into our schools and as such teaching it clearly violates the separation of church and state. The desire on the part of people like Dawkins to have evolution taught in schools is really an ill-disguised attempt to brainwash our children with atheistic materialism.

Does the foregoing sound a little extreme? Does it sound a bit laughable? If your answer is no, it sounds about right to you, then what justification is there for teaching evolution in schools? If your answer is yes, the assertions in the previous graph are absurd, then why is the same argument not considered absurd if we insert Intelligent Design in place of evolution and theism in place of atheism?

Interviewer: If you had to name top sources for optimism and hope in a naturalistic or materialistic worldview, what would they be?

Dawkins: I think there is something glorious in the universe, in contemplating the Milky Way galaxy, in contemplating the fact that this is only one in billions of galaxies, contemplating the fact that at the beginning of the 21st century, humanity really has gone a very long way toward understanding the universe in which we live and the life form of which we are a part. I find that a truly inspirational thought.

Here's another inspirational thought that follows from Dawkins' worldview: We're born, we look at the stars, and we die. So what's the point? For Dawkins' answer go back to the interviewer's first question and Dawkins' reply.

Dawkins says the following, and then the interviewer asks him about it:

Dawkins: Then there's the added fact that it is the only life we're ever going to get. Don't kid yourself that you're going to live again after you're dead; you're not. Make the most of the one life you've got. Live it to the full.

Interviewer: You've criticized the idea of the afterlife. What do you see as the problem with a terminally ill cancer patient believing in an afterlife?

Dawkins: Oh, no problem at all. I would never wish to disabuse or disillusion somebody who believed that. I care about what's true for myself, but I don't want to go around telling people who are afraid of dying that their hopes are unreal.

Funny, we thought he'd just done pretty much exactly that just prior to the interviewer's question.

Stop and Think

The editors at National Review urge us to stop and think about what we are doing in adopting the McCain amendment and its blanket ban on "torture." Here are some key paragraphs in their editorial:

So, what is torture? Under CAT and U.S. law, it is the infliction of "severe pain or suffering." Bush critics like to ignore the word "severe" and pretend that subjecting a detainee to any pain is torture. It is not. While most people instinctively know what they consider torture - fingernails pulled out, electric shocks, beatings - defining what rises to the level of cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment is a trickier question. What, then, do McCain and his colleagues think of those methods that aren't included in the manual but don't necessarily constitute CID?

That's the key question. Given the way the debate is now playing out, if McCain's amendment becomes law it will be interpreted as banning almost every coercive interrogation technique. In dealing with captured terrorists, we will then be able to apply only methods formulated to deal with conventional soldiers in a different sort of conflict than the one that faces us now. This is folly.

The most constructive path forward would be for Congress to put aside legalisms and empty phrases and work its way through interrogation practices, starting with the least controversial. Is dietary manipulation "cruel"? Are cold rooms? Is sensory deprivation? Is being made to stand for hours? How about an "attention grab," i.e., shaking a detainee? Sleep deprivation? A belly slap? We think these methods would all pass muster in any rational debate, provided they are applied within reason (there is a difference between standing for two hours and twenty hours).

Then Congress could make its way to the most aggressive techniques, such as water-boarding, which simulates drowning. It has reportedly been effective in breaking high-level al Qaeda detainees within seconds, but is a practice with which most people would be uncomfortable. It is at least close to the line of what constitutes torture, and is certainly "cruel" in almost every circumstance.

But circumstances matter. Even some of the most fervent backers of McCain, including McCain himself, say we should torture someone in a ticking-bomb scenario, where saving a U.S. city depended on doing so. Such scenarios are unlikely in the extreme, but there are other exceptional cases that are more probable: for instance, the capture of a top-level al Qaeda operative who may have knowledge of a coming attack or know the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden.

To deal with such cases, the president should be able to sign a finding - on the model of a finding authorizing an assassination - to use an extraordinary method like water-boarding. The definition of CID depends on context. While water-boarding may be unacceptably cruel if applied to 69,990 of the roughly 70,000 people we've detained since the war on terror began, there are perhaps ten top-level captives in whose cases water-boarding doesn't "shock the conscience," to employ the phrase often used in defining CID. Requiring presidential authorization in these cases would ensure accountability while shielding from criminal exposure the agent charged with obtaining information that could save lives.

The use of water-boarding and stress positions, etc. is unacceptably cruel only if the measure is used for wicked ends, i.e. to punish, to amuse, to inflict suffering for the sake of suffering. This is what torture is throughout most of the world, and this is why it is evil. Harsh measures employed, however, to save lives and which cease the moment they are no longer necessary is in a completely different moral category. Indeed, to conflate them is to commit the fallacy known as undistributed middle: Because two acts share a common feature they are considered to be in all important moral respects the same. Thus the execution by the state of a serial killer is often claimed to be morally identical to the crimes committed by the killer because in both cases someone is being killed. This is silly, of course, but it is, unfortunately, a common error.

To be sure, we need to be more vigilant than we have been in preventing the use of cruel, inhuman and degrading practices, such as occured at Abu Ghraib, but we should not prohibit the use of what are called "harsh measures" altogether without defining precisely how it is we are constraining ourselves. We need to know exactly what we mean by words like "cruel", "inhuman", and "degrading" before we tell the world that we will not resort to them. Is it cruel or inhuman to deceive a terrorist into thinking he's going to die when in fact he's not? Is it degrading refuse to allow a detainee unsupervised lavatory privilege?

We must also allow for the use of extraordinary measures in extraordinary circumstances. To say that we would never, ever use a particular method of interrogation like water-boarding no matter what the exigencies might be, is both foolish and immoral. It is foolish because although the technique is terrifying it causes no real harm and it is immoral because it places a higher premium on the welfare of a murderer than it does on the lives of his victims.

Lionizing a Killer

FrontPageMag has an on-scene photo shoot by Zombie.com of the protests which accompanied the execution of Tookie Williams. Anyone who may have been leaning toward clemency for Williams may be deeply troubled by the behavior and allegiances of some of the people who hold that position, and anyone who feels any sympathy for Williams should be sure to look at the photo of the young woman he killed.

No Joy in Demville

The festive spirit and euphoria of the Iraqi people at being able to vote for their government in a meaningful election is displayed all over Iraq (see here, here and here). Smiles and waves are everywhere as the people ignored the threat of violence and filled the streets to walk to the polls.

At home, however, it's rather a different story. The sourpuss Dems look like they've bitten into an aspirin. They know they have to express satisfaction that things have gone well, but it's just not in their nature to be happy with a George Bush success. So on Hardball tonight Bob Schrum, a synecdoche of the liberal response to the day's events, mumbled lip service to the accomplishment that the elections represent and quickly moved on to warning that the real measure of success will be what happens in the months ahead.

The Dems say this everytime something good happens in Iraq. Like the illusory "puddles" on the highway on a hot day, however, we never seem to arrive at the "months ahead." If Iraq is a stable democracy by this time next year, and a force for peace in the Middle East, the Democrats will still be saying that Iraq may be a haven for freedom now, but what matters is whether it will still be a democracy twenty years from now.

Chris Matthews kept demanding on his show that Pat Buchanan and other guests tell him whether the president's strategy was really going to work, as if any mortal could actually know such a thing. How can anyone say that it will all be like the Garden of Eden in Baghdad this time next year? No one knows that. What we do know, though, is that things are moving in the right direction and that despite the constant wailing and teeth gnashing by the Howard Deans and Harry Reids and the MoveOn.orgs, every benchmark that the Bush administration has set for Iraq has so far been met.

The Democrats are in an awful predicament. Having cast their lot in opposition to Bush on Iraq, if that tragic nation succeeds the Dems will suffer a grievous political setback yet they certainly can't be seen hoping that Iraq fails. So, they have to keep cautioning the American people that as good as it appears to be going in Iraq, it's not really all that good. They have to hope that they convince enough voters that doom is just around the next bend as long as Bush is in the White House and Republicans control Congress. Of course, the next bend, like the months ahead, never arrives and eventually the American people are reminded of the story of the boy who cried "wolf" and the Democrats will be cast into the political outer darkness of irrelevancy. It's a just desert for people who have sought to undermine the president on a matter as absolutely crucial as Iraq.

Christian Belief I

On Monday we posted a piece on the essential beliefs held by Christians and remarked that we would be elaborating on some of those over the course of the next two weeks. I'd like to briefly consider the first of them today.

The most fundamental belief in Christianity, of course, is the conviction that God exists, but this claim means different things to different people. A recent poll shows that 94% of Americans believe that God exists, but it's not clear that these people all share the same concept of God. For example, is the God one believes exists intimately involved in the world or is He/It remote, indifferent, and impersonal? Is God just the universe, or some part of it, or is God a transcendent being which created the universe and cannot be identified with any aspect or combination of aspects of it?

Christianity has historically answered those questions by affirming that God possesses, at a minimum, the following attributes:

1. Personality: I.e. It is appropriate to refer to God as He. It is the case that God is self-aware and aware of the world in which we live. He cares about this world and cares about us. It makes sense to speak or pray to God because it matters to Him.

2. Transcendence: God is other than the world of space/time and matter and not identifiable with it.

3. Extraordinary potency: His power is at least great enough to have created the universe and to work out His will in it. He may be more powerful than this and, indeed, may be able to do anything which it is logically possible to do, but He is at least this powerful.

4. Extraordinary knowledge: God knows at least enough to have created the universe and to work out His will in it. His knowledge may be greater than this in that He may know everything that it is logically possible to know, but His knowledge is at least this great.

5. Eternality: God has no beginning and no end.

6. Moral perfection: God always acts in the best interest of His creation. He is the exemplar of Love and is the source of all moral categories and understanding.

7. Omnipresence: There is no place in creation, either spatially or temporally, where God is not.

8. Ultimate causality: God is the source of all that we can possibly experience. He is the creator and sustainer of the universe. The entire cosmos is ultimately contingent upon Him.

When Christians assert the existence of God they are claiming that a being with at least these attributes exists. Many Christian believers may not be able to articulate this concept of God off the top of their head, but if they were to be shown the list they would surely agree that these qualities accurately describe what they mean by God.

In any event, nothing else about Christianity (or anything else in the cosmos and in life, for that matter) would make any sense whatsoever were not the case that God exists. This is the foundational theological belief for theists in general and Christian theists in particular, and everything else is based upon it and flows from it.

PC Dunderheads

FoxNews.com offers up a few samples of that bane of modern society, the perpetually aggrieved citizen who takes umbrage at the possibility that someone, somewhere might be enjoying his or her life. These Gestapo-like enforcers of the PC orthodoxy keep a wary look-out for anyone who might show the slightest hint of having fun or doing good on the tax-payers dime, lest what they are doing have about it the foul odor of the incendiary R words - Religion and Racism:

A Christmas charity drive by some elementary school kiddies in Bellevue, Wash., has been axed after some parents complained that the "Giving Tree" with colored mittens all over it was a symbol of Christianity that has no place in public schools, according to KOMO-TV.

The tree at Medina Elementary School, described as a nondescript coil of silver with a star on top, had mittens as decorations with the ages and sex of prospective gift recipients along with some suggestions about what they wanted for Christmas.

When a parent complained that the tree was too Christian, the school covered the star on top with a bow to appease the parent but it wasn't enough. So the principal put the mittens on other secular symbols of the season - a sled, a snowman, a 'regular' tree and a plain old counter.

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

The success of the Narnia movie is bringing the usual C.S. Lewis critics out of the woodwork - especially anti-Christian zealots who object to its allegory and allusions to Christianity.

The Associated Press, in an analysis of Lewis' Christianity, points out that Americans United for Separation of Church and State criticized Florida Gov. Jeb Bush for offending the Constitution by choosing "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" for his state's annual student reading campaign.

"This whole contest is totally inappropriate," said Barry Lynn, the group's director. "This would be like asking children to watch the movie 'The Passion of the Christ' and to write an essay with the winner getting a trip to Rome."

Oh, and Polly Toynbee of the UK's Guardian today says "Narnia represents everything that is most hateful about religion."

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

A schoolgirl in the UK claims she was tossed out of school because she refused to remove a small crucifix necklace, reports the Daily Telegraph.

Sixteen-year-old Sam Morris says she was sent home from Sinfin Community School in Derby for breaking a school policy that bans jewelry. Her mother complained about the rule, claiming it is unfairly enforced because Sikh students are allowed to wear karas because it is required by their faith.

A school official defended the policy by saying Christianity doesn't require its adherents to wear crosses, but the Sikh faith does. "We have to be understanding," he said. "We live in a multi-faith society."

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

The Toledo Blade quotes a high school principal as "quickly correcting himself" when he accidentally says his school has a Christmas tree up:

"Oh, it's a holiday tree," he corrects himself when questioned about end-of-year decorations. "We try to respect everybody's beliefs," he said. "The music department does a Christmas concert. Well, actually it's a holiday concert."

The anecdote comes in a roundup about how local schools have in recent years been sliding away from use of the C-word and opting for the more neutral "Holiday" instead.

A student at a high school in Missouri creating a giant calendar for the hallway was told by a teacher that Christmas tree imagery was off-limits, according to the Springfield News-Leader, and that only winter themes could used.

This follows news about an e-mail sent out to fine arts teachers across the district who were preparing for an assembly to be held later this month. The e-mail stated: "This is just a reminder that we agreed to have a winter assembly on December 8th at 9:00 in the HPER. This assembly will display the talents of your students and can include holiday themes, but not direct references to Christmas or the birth of Jesus."

And here are a few more examples of PC stupidity compliments of Tongue-Tied:

Third-graders in Madison, Wisc. won't be allowed to ring bells to raise money for the Salvation Army as they have in the past because one parent complained about the kids helping a religious-based charity, according to The Capital Times.

Students from Chavez Elementary have for years helped out the red kettle brigade during the Christmas season, along with hundreds of students from around the county. For some, it qualifies as part of their community service obligation.

Principal Howard Fried said the school administration stood down immediately when faced with the complaint. "When the objection was raised, the administration downtown told us, in no uncertain terms, not to allow it," he said.

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

Black men, says a writer in the London Times, will think twice before seeing the new King Kong movie because the story "feeds into all the colonial hysteria about black hyper-sexuality" and "touches the raw nerve of the Darwin-based association between black men and apes."

The filmmaker, Peter Jackson, used the same hackneyed stereotypes in his Lord of the Rings triology, so Kong's racism comes as no surprise to writer writes Kwame McKenzie. In those films, he says, "the most fearsome baddies were big black and just a bit too Maori looking, the good guys - well white."

Mr. McKenzie says the folks who do movie ratings should look for negative racial stereotypes in addition to sex and violence.

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

A UK author who said during a radio interview that it might not be such a hot idea to allow homosexual men to adopt young boys during a radio interview found herself under investigation by local police for her "homophobic incident," according to the Daily Telegraph.

Children's rights campaigner Lynette Burrows took part in a panel discussion about the UK's new civil partnerships act on a regional BBC program. During the course of the discussion she said placing boys with homosexual fathers was as risky as placing girls with two heterosexual men.

Scotland Yard said a member of the public complained of Burrows' homophobia and police are obligated to follow-up on such "priority crimes." No charges were filed.

We marvel that the average IQ is around 100 when we reflect that there are so many people, especially among the multitudes of liberal bureaucrats, whose IQ must approximate their age.

Reply to Critics of <i>Icons</i>

We noted a week or so ago that Intelligent Design: The Future was posting Jonathan Wells' response to critics of his book Icons of Evolution. Parts 1 through 5 are now up and can be read here.

On the subject of ID CafePress.com has a great selection of apparel with Intelligent Design motifs. Check it out here. Click on Browse Designs in the left margin for other offerings.

Sex and Christmas

Carol Platt Liebeau raises a pertinent question about our attitudes toward sex and religion in public places:

One of the most difficult tasks of a democracy is deciding which messages are suitable for universal consumption in the public square - especially when it comes to sex and religion.

Americans are bombarded with sexual images year-round. In October, Victoria's Secret introduced mall floor displays, titled "Backstage Sexy," featuring bare-bottomed mannequins in provocative poses and suggestions of bondage. Billboards advertising sex shops, strip shows and "gentlemen's clubs" appear alongside highways. Women's magazines at checkout counters offer graphic sex tips. Television is rife with innuendo and more. The FM airwaves are saturated with musical paeans to lust. When it comes to sex in the public square, envelope-pushing is the order of the day.

The graphic images, sights and sounds offend many religious, cultural or social conservative Americans. Some even voice outrage, but to little lasting effect.

That's because American "tastemakers" - elites in the media and the courts - have shaped a libertarian social consensus. That an advertising campaign, television program or song transgresses traditionalist values is irrelevant. Americans have decided, for better or worse, that one group's sensitivities cannot govern what is available to others. The traditionalists must avert their eyes from what offends them lest their sensibilities infringe on others' freedom of expression.

Contrast the treatment of sex in the public square with that of religion. A 2003 Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll found that 96% of Americans celebrate Christmas. About 90% recognize Christmas as the birthday of Jesus Christ, according to a 2000 Gallup poll. These are substantial majorities, larger than the number of citizens who feel proud to be American (84%), higher than support for the war on terror only five months after Sept. 11, 2001 (93%), and greater than the percentage of Americans who believed that Elvis Presley was dead as of 2002 (88%).

Even so, in recent years, people who want to celebrate Christmas as a religious holiday avoid overtly religious allusions in the public square, lest a stray reference to the birth of Jesus somehow offend either nonbelievers or non-Christians.

The result has been a strait-laced self-censorship that would be derided were it applied to matters of sex rather than faith: Last year, a mayor in Massachusetts apologized for having identified the city's "holiday party" as a "Christmas party." In Denver, a religiously themed float was barred from participating in the city's December "parade of lights."

This year, Boston Mayor Thomas Menino briefly considered renaming the city's Christmas tree - an annual gift from Nova Scotia since 1917 - as a "holiday tree." Retail clerks are instructed to wish their customers "Happy Holidays" or to offer "Season's Greetings." Seasonal music on the radio is merrily (and almost exclusively) secular - much more "Frosty the Snowman" than "Joy to the World." Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Santa Claus have supplanted angels, wise men - and, of course, the baby Jesus - as Christmas' most visible icons. Would anyone be surprised to hear a modern classic reissued as "Rocking Around the Multicultural Celebration Tree"?

All these measures spring from a laudable aversion to giving offense, and the impulse that prompts them is a tribute to the nation's history of religious tolerance. But nonbelievers or non-Christians are not being forced to celebrate Christmas (much less profess belief in Jesus' divinity). So it's worth wondering: In a nation founded on religious principles, why should spiritual messages be tailored to the sensitivities of nonbelievers, while sexual messages are not similarly constrained for the sensibilities of traditionalists?

If there's a standard for deciding what content is appropriate for the public square, surely it should be uniformly applied. At the very least, we should rethink a status quo that presumes religious messages will elicit the kind of indignation once reserved for the crude sexual messages that pass without comment (or censure) today.

Liebeau makes an interesting point here. If a traditionalist takes umbrage at the hyper-sexualization of our public spaces he or she is called a prude and told to just not look. Advertisers, shock jocks, and television studios have the right to free speech, and if you don't like it, that's tough, just don't listen.

Yet many of these same intrepid champions of libertarian morality grow suddenly meek and timid when it comes to offending anyone who might be a dissenter from the majority view of Christmas. We need to be inclusive, they say. We need to make everyone feel welcome in our malls, they insist. We can't turn people off to the products we advertise by inserting a religious message, we're told. No, we suppose not. We can place billboards in the public square that tell our young people that sex (or alcohol, or both) are great ways to spend the holidays, but we'd never dream of insulting the gods of secularism by displaying religious symbols or music in our stores at Christmas time. Wrong message. Bad for business. Don't want to offend. Separation of Church and commerce, or something.

We suggest that Christians might take a page from the secularist playbook. When next we are asked what we plan to do over the holidays we should reply that, well, among other things we intend to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. If our interlocutor winces at the brazen vulgarity of our plans we should simply reply, hey, if you don't like what I say then don't listen to me say it.

The Worst Idea Ever

Sometimes very smart people say the most ridiculous things. Peter Watson, the author of Ideas: A History of Thought and Invention is the latest example. He was interviewed last weekend by Deborah Solomon for the New York Times Magazine. At one point the interview goes like this:

Solomon: "What do you think is the single worst idea in history?"

Watson: "Without question, ethical monotheism. The idea of one true god. The idea that our life and ethical conduct on earth determines how we will go in the next world. This has been responsible for most of the wars and bigotry in history."

With one short sentence Mr. Watson shows himself to be a most unserious intellectual. The single worst idea - worse, mind you, than the idea of totalitarian fascism which was responsible for over 10 million deaths in the 20th century; worse than the idea of totalitarian communism which was responsible for over 100 million deaths in the same century; worse than the idea that man is just a brute animal which should live for his own pleasures, an idea responsible for millions of wasted and shattered lives - is the idea that there is a transcendent, personal God who enjoins us to love our neighbor as we love ourselves.

The worst idea in history is the idea that there is a non-arbitrary, non-subjective ground for human rights, dignity, morality, and meaning. The worst idea ever is the idea that there is a basis for believing that we are more than a pile of atoms, just so much dust in the wind.

The worst idea ever is an idea that has inspired the building of hundreds of universities, hospitals, and orphanages. It's an idea which fueled, or gave birth to, numerous charitable organizations, the women's and civil rights movements, the abolition of slavery, the rise of modern science, and it's an idea which has inspired, in addition to a multitude of other benefits to mankind, much of the greatest art, literature and music ever produced by human effort.

Nevertheless, the sage Prof. Watson sees it as "without question" the single worst idea in human history. Has he ever asked what the benefits of atheism have been? Atheism or atheists gave us the holocaust, the forced famine in Ukraine in the 1930s, the Gulag, the Cambodian killing fields, the rape of Nanking and a myriad of contemporay sociological dysfunctionalities like pornography, drugs, and gangsta' rap. But it's the idea that there is a God who judges the crimes of men that Mr. Watson abhors. With all his learning one has to wonder if Mr. Watson has never read Tocqueville.

Solomon: "But religion has also been responsible for investing countless lives with meaning and inner richness."

Watson: "I lead a perfectly healthy, satisfactory life without being religious. And I think more people should try it."

Mr. Watson responds to the objection that belief in God has invested millions of lives with meaning by testifying that he himself doesn't need such belief. What he needs is not the point, of course. The fact is that millions of people's lives have been enriched, directly or indirectly, by belief in God and for Mr. Watson to ignore this fact is to make himself intellectually frivolous and irrelevant.

Mere Christianity

Joe Carter at Evangelical Outpost laments the fact that so many Christians see it as their God-given mission in life to rip apart the theological beliefs of other Christians. It's not that beliefs aren't important, but some beliefs are very important and some are not. It's unfortunate that Christians too often can't tell the difference.

Which are the important beliefs, the ones that we really can't be Christians without believing? Well, I wouldn't want to argue about the list, but I'll suggest these seven propositions are pretty much the sine qua non of Evangelical belief. It would be hard to maintain a muscular Christian faith while denying any one of these seven affirmations.

1. God exists

2. Scripture is authoritative

3. Man is fallen

4. Death is not the end of our existence

5. Jesus is in some sense divine

6. Jesus' death on the cross is essential to our eternal life

7. Jesus rose literally and historically from the dead

The reader may disagree with some of the above or, more likely, may wish to include other propositions in addition to these seven. That's fine, but this is what I consider to be the core of Christian belief, what C.S. Lewis called "mere Christianity," and over the days leading us to Christmas I wish to elaborate on each of these claims and explain how and why I believe each is essential to Christian faith.

More Good News From Iraq

Despite the impression the MSM strives to create of an Iraq in chaos and on the brink of civil war, that's not the perception of most Iraqis according to this ABC/Time poll:

Surprising levels of optimism prevail in Iraq with living conditions improved, security more a national worry than a local one, and expectations for the future high. But views of the country's situation overall are far less positive, and there are vast differences in views among Iraqi groups - a study in contrasts between increasingly disaffected Sunni areas and vastly more positive Shiite and Kurdish provinces.

An ABC News poll in Iraq, conducted with Time magazine and other media partners, includes some remarkable results: Despite the daily violence there, most living conditions are rated positively, seven in 10 Iraqis say their own lives are going well, and nearly two-thirds expect things to improve in the year ahead.

Not all the results are good, of course, Iraqis are less positive about the outlook for the country as a whole than they are about their own lives, for example, but the fact that most Iraqis are optimistic about their future is an important bit of news. We'll be interested in how the evening news shows and the nation's pundits spin it.

Reform or Disband the U.N.

Here's another reason, if one were needed, why the U.N. cannot be trusted to arbitrate the world's conflicts: At a public meeting celebrating the International Day of Solidarity With the Palestinian People held at U.N. headquarters on November 29th, the three top U.N. officials, including Kofi Anan, appeared on a platform on which was displayed a map of the middle east. The map was a pre-1948 edition which does not show Israel. What message do you suppose the leadership of the U.N. is sending by that little gesture? Lest there be any doubt, those assembled also observed a moment of silence for Palestinians who died as suicide murderers.

The U.N. has become a society of thugs, tyrants, and thieves - third world petty crooks and dictators masquerading as statesmen. The organization is a charade, pretending to be devoted to settling disputes when in fact it's dedicated to plundering the wealth of the developed world and facilitating the demise of Western values and civilization. It's past time to pitch it into the Atlantic and start over with nations that share a common commitment to the principles upon which the U.N. was originally founded.

No Clemency For "Tookie" Williams

We take no pleasure whatsoever in the fact that Stanley "Tookie" Williams is apparently going to be executed tomorrow morning. We do take some measure of satisfaction, however, in the fact that justice is finally going to be done, at least in part, for the families who have suffered so much because of this man.

Williams had nothing but contempt for the lives of his victims and those who loved them. He held their lives so cheap that he laughed about how one of them died. It would be a gross miscarriage of justice were he allowed to live out his years at taxpayer expense while the families of his victims live everyday with the pain he so callously and savagely inflicted.

Mr. Williams will die tomorrow. What will be done to him is just. The manner in which it will be done, having given him every opportunity to convince an entire series of courts that he doesn't deserve to die, will be compassionate. The state of California is giving Tookie Williams far, far more than what he gave those four innocent, terrified victims in 1979.

He should be executed as painlessly as possible and then completely forgotten. He should expect no better and indeed deserves far worse.

Embarrassment to Our Children

Chris Wallace thinks its time for daddy to recuse himself from offering political opinions according to this NewsMax article:

Fox News Sunday anchorman Chris Wallace says father Mike Wallace has "lost it" - after the legendary CBS newsman told the Boston Globe last week that the fact George Bush had been elected president shows America is "[expletive]-up."

"He's lost it. The man has lost it. What can I say," the younger Wallace lamented to WRKO Boston radio host Howie Carr on Friday. "He's 87-years old and things have set in," the Fox anchor continued. "I mean, we're going to have a competence hearing pretty soon."

Wallace Jr. quickly dispelled any notion that he was joking. When Carr suggested that his comments were likely to be covered by NewsMax, he responded: "You know what? Fine. Go ahead. Call them. That's fine. I'll stand by that."

Returning to the topic of his father's competence, Wallace Jr. explained: "He's checked out. I don't understand it," beyond the fact that Wallace Sr. has "problems with the war."

"I don't know why he said what he said," he added.

On Thursday, the elder Wallace told the Boston Globe that if he had the chance to interview President Bush, he'd ask: "What in the world prepared you to be the commander in chief of the largest superpower in the world? In your background, Mr. President, you apparently were incurious. You didn't want to travel. You knew very little about the military. . . . The governor of Texas doesn't have the kind of power that some governors have. . . . Why do you think they nominated you? . . . Do you think that has anything to do with the fact that the country is so [expletive] up?"

Still, despite his criticism, Wallace Jr. seems to have inherited some of his father's shoot-from-the-lip-style. Asked about DNC chair Howard Dean's recent prediction that the U.S. would lose the war in Iraq, Wallace told Carr:

"We are in a war. We do have 150,000-plus American soldiers over there. I mean, it's Tokyo Rose, for God sakes, going on radio saying we can't win the war."

We guess parents are always an embarrassment to their off-spring.

Down the Rat Hole

Think about Live 8 and all the warm feelings it produced because we knew we we're doing something good for the poor people of Africa. And then read this:

"It is widely reported that an African child dies of hunger and malnutrition every three seconds while in the same period African leaders steal $14,000 from their people and put it in foreign bank accounts. In the words of Milovan Djilas, they squander the nation's wealth as though it was someone else's and dip into it as if it were their own. Isn't it strange that exactly two weeks after the G8 deal that wrote off 80 percent of my country's debt, all our parliamentarians, who earn $300 per month, are to receive $25,000 each in free car loans and $60 a day in rent allowance? I call it free car loans because five years ago they each received $20,000 but have yet to pay it back.

It is insulting that the bill for this lavish behavior is passed on to the disrespected poor as they struggle to pay a 40 percent tax on fuel that is used to support, among other things, government entities that consume almost one-third of the country's fuel. One would have thought that African leaders would be better advised to use resources to build the infrastructure that will increase the volume of trade within the continent and thereby improve economic activity." - Franklin Cudjoe, Ghanaian libertarian advocate

When will we ever learn that the worst way to address poverty is to throw money at it? This will be a good lesson to keep in mind as pressure mounts to "do something" about the awful condition of the poor in New Orleans and other major urban areas. People should be helped, of course, but help should be contingent upon a willingness to make changes in lifestyle choices. If people are to receive public assistance they should be expected to foreswear the behaviors that perpetuate their poverty. To expect the taxpayer to fork over a significant portion of his/her earnings to people who feel no obligation to do anything in return helps no one and is successful only in generating resentments.

Perhaps this sounds harsh, but if so, it's the sort of harshness with which people need to be more frequently confronted. Too often the poor in this country are impoverished because throughout their lives they rejected the advice of others who urged them not to have sex and babies until they were in a committed marriage and once they were married to stay that way. They rejected the advice of others to shun drugs, alcohol, and other dysgenic behaviors, and to do all they could to get a good education. They rejected the advice of others to build their lives around their children and not around their own wants and desires. They rejected all of this and more, and now they demand the tax-payer pay the bill for their lack of wisdom so that they don't have to bear the full brunt of the consequences of their foolish choices themselves.

It's past time to tell people that if they want what you have they should adopt the same values and virtues of education, fidelity, hard work, etc. that enabled you to acquire what you have. If they're unwilling to do that then they shouldn't feel entitled to much help from society at large.