Showing the Way

There's an interesting interview at BeliefNet with Ralph Winter the producer of, inter alia, "X-Men". Winter is setting a great example for young Christians to follow by leavening the culture. He's influencing it from within rather than trying to change it from outside.

People who are upset with Hollywood's slide into the sewer sometimes call for legislation to restore a modicum of decency to our entertainment industry, but laws are at best a temporary palliative. They're a finger in the dike. The culture will only be redeemed when more young people who are committed to being disciples of Christ, prepare themselves for careers in those institutions of our society and culture which have been historically ceded to people whose values and assumptions are alien to the gospel.

The more Christians who are making music and movies, who are writing television scripts and novels; the more Christians who are serving in government, education, law, business, finance and the military; the more Christians who are doing philosophy, science and history in the academy - the healthier our society will be and the brighter the future will be for our children and grandchildren.

All of American culture is a mission field, and although there is certainly a need for top-notch people in explicitly religious roles, there is an even greater need for waves of talented young men and women with a vision to redeem the culture for Christ to begin what the Marxists called the "long march through the institutions."

People like Ralph Winter are showing the way.

A Memorial Day Meditation

In order that we not forget what is at stake, why our young men and women are risking so much in Iraq and Afghanistan, Victor Davis Hanson gives us an essay for this Memorial Day that is simply superb:

There may be a lot to regret about the past policy of the United States in the Middle East, but the removal of Saddam Hussein and the effort to birth democracy in his place is surely not one of them. And we should remember that this Memorial Day.

Whatever our righteous anger at Khomeinist Iran, it was wrong, well aside from the arms-for-hostages scandal, to provide even a modicum of aid to Saddam Hussein, the great butcher of his own, during the Iran-Iraq war.

Inviting the fascist Baathist government of Syria into the allied coalition of the first Gulf War meant that we more or less legitimized the Assad regime's take-over of Lebanon, with disastrous results for its people.

It may have been strategically in error not to have taken out Saddam in 1991, but it was morally wrong to have then encouraged Shiites and Kurds to rise up-while watching idly as Saddam's reprieved planes and helicopters slaughtered them in the thousands.

A decade of appeasement of Islamic terrorism, with retaliations after the serial attacks-from the first World Trade Center bombing to Khobar Towers and the USS Cole-never exceeding the occasional cruise missile or stern televised lecture, made September 11 inevitable.

A decade was wasted in subsidizing Yasser Arafat on the pretense that he was something other than a mendacious thug.

I cite these few examples of the now nostalgic past, because it is common to see Iraq written off by the architects of these past failures as the "worst" policy decision in our history, a "quagmire" and a "disaster." Realists, more worried about Iran and the ongoing cost in our blood and treasure in Iraq, insist that toppling Saddam was a terrible waste of resources. Leftists see the Iraq war as part of an amoral imperialism; often their talking points weirdly end up rehashed in bin Laden's communiqu�s and Dr. Zawahiri's rants.

But what did 2,400 brave and now deceased Americans really sacrifice for in Iraq, along with thousands more who were wounded? And what were billions in treasure spent on? And what about the hundreds of collective years of service offered by our soldiers? What exactly did intrepid officers in the news like a Gen. Petreus, or Col. McMaster, or Lt. Col Kurilla fight for?

First, there is no longer a mass murderer atop one of the oil-richest states in the world. Imagine what Iraq would now look like with $70 a barrel oil, a $50 billion unchecked and ongoing Oil-for-Food U.N. scandal, the 15th year of no-fly zones, a punitative U.N. embargo on the Iraqi people-all perverted by Russian arms sales, European oil concessions, and frenzied Chinese efforts to get energy contracts from Saddam.

The Kurds would remain in perpetual danger. The Shiites would simply be harvested yearly, in quiet, by Saddam's police state. The Marsh Arabs would by now have been forgotten in their toxic dust-blown desert. Perhaps Saddam would have upped his cash pay-outs for homicide bombers on the West Bank.

Muammar Khaddafi would be starting up his centrifuges and adding to his chemical weapons depots. Syria would still be in Lebanon. Washington would probably have ceased pressuring Egypt and the Gulf States to enact reform. Dr. Khan's nuclear mail-order house would be in high gear. We would still be hearing of a "militant wing" of Hamas, rather than watching a democratically elected terrorist clique reveal its true creed to the world.

But just as importantly, what did these rare Americans not fight for? Oil, for one thing. The price skyrocketed after they went in. The secret deals with Russia and France ended. The U.N. petroleum perfidy stopped. The Iraqis, and the Iraqis alone-not Saddam, the French, the Russians, or the U.N.-now adjudicate how much of their natural resources they will sell, and to whom.

Our soldiers fought for the chance of a democracy; that fact is uncontestable. Before they came to Iraq, there was a fascist dictatorship. Now, after three elections, there is an indigenous democratic government for the first time in the history of the Middle East. True, thousands of Iraqis have died publicly in the resulting sectarian mess; but thousands were dying silently each year under Saddam-with no hope that their sacrifice would ever result in the first steps that we have already long passed.

Our soldiers also removed a great threat to the United States. Again, the crisis brewing over Iran reminds us of what Iraq would have reemerged as. Like Iran, Saddam reaped petroprofits, sponsored terror, and sought weapons of mass destruction. But unlike Iran, he had already attacked four of his neighbors, gassed thousands of his own, and violated every agreement he had ever signed. There would have been no nascent new democracy in Iran that might some day have undermined Saddam, and, again unlike Iran, no internal dissident movement that might have come to power through a revolution or peaceful evolution.

No, Saddam's police state was wounded, but would have recovered, given high oil prices, Chinese and Russian perfidy, and Western exhaustion with enforcement of U.N. sanctions. Moreover, the American military took the war against radical Islam right to its heart in the ancient caliphate. It has not only killed thousands of jihadists, but dismantled the hierarchy of al Qaeda and its networks, both in Afghanistan and Iraq. Critics say that we "took our eye off the ball" by going to Iraq and purportedly leaving bin Laden alone in the Hindu Kush. But more likely, al Qaeda took its eye off the American homeland as the promised theater of operations once American ground troops began dealing with Islamic terrorists in Iraq. As we near five years after September 11, note how less common becomes the expression "not if, but when" concerning the next anticipated terror attack in the U.S.

Some believe that the odyssey of jihadists to Iraq means we created terrorists, but again, it is far more likely, as al Qaeda communiqu�s attest, that we drew those with such propensities into Iraq. Once there, they have finally shown the world that they hate democracy, but love to kill and behead-and that has brought a great deal of moral clarity to the struggle. After Iraq, the reputation of bin Laden and radical Islam has not been enhanced as alleged, but has plummeted. For all the propaganda on al Jazeera, the chattering classes in the Arab coffeehouses still watch Americans fighting to give Arabs the vote, and radical Islamists in turn beheading men and women to stop it.

If many in the Middle East once thought it was cute that 19 killers could burn a 20-acre hole in Manhattan, I am not sure what they think of Americans now in their backyard not living to die, but willing to die so that other Arabs might live freely.

All of our achievements are hard to see right now. The Iraqis are torn by sectarianism, and are not yet willing to show gratitude to America for saving them from Saddam and pledging its youth and billions to give them something better. We are nearing the third national election of the war, and Iraq has become so politicized that our efforts are now beyond caricature. An archivist is needed to remind the American people of the record of all the loud politicians and the national pundits who once were on record in support of the war.

Europeans have demonized our efforts-but not so much lately, as pacifist Europe sits on its simmering volcano of Islamic fundamentalism and unassimilated Muslim immigrants. Our own Left has tossed out "no blood for oil"-that is, until the sky-rocketing prices, the U.N. Oil-for-Food scandal, and a new autonomous Iraqi oil ministry cooled that rhetoric. Halliburton is also now not so commonly alleged as the real casus belli, when few contractors of any sort wish to rush into Iraq to profit.

"Bush lied, thousands died" grows stale when the WMD threat was reiterated by Arabs, the U.N., and the Europeans. The "too few troops" debate is not the sort that characterizes imperialism, especially when no American proconsul argues that we must permanently stay in large numbers in Iraq. The new Iraqi-elected president, not Donald Rumsfeld, is more likely to be seen on television, insisting that Americans remain longer.

A geography more uninviting for our soldiers than Iraq cannot be imagined-7,000 miles away, surrounded by Baathist Syria, Wahhabist Saudi Arabia, and theocratic Iran. The harsh landscape rivals the worst of past battlefields-blazing temperatures, wind, and dust. The host culture that our soldiers faced was Orwellian-a society terrorized by a mass murderer for 30 years, who ruled by alternately promising Sunni, Shiite, and Kurdish collaborationists that cooperation meant only that fewer of their own would die.

The timing was equally awful-in an era of easy anti-Americanism in Europe, and endemic ingratitude in the Muslim world that asks nothing of itself, everything of us, and blissfully forgets the thousands of Muslims saved by Americans in Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Kuwait, Somalia, and the billions more lavished on Jordanians, Palestinians, and Egyptians.

And here at home? There are few Ernie Pyles in Iraq to record the heroism of our soldiers; no John Fords to film their valor-but legions to write ad nauseam of Abu Ghraib, and to make up stories of flushed Korans and Americans terrorizing Iraqi women and children.

Yet here we are with an elected government in place, an Iraqi security force growing, and an autocratic Middle East dealing with the aftershocks of the democratic concussion unleashed by American soldiers in Iraq.

Reading about Gettysburg, Okinawa, Choisun, Hue, and Mogadishu is often to wonder how such soldiers did what they did. Yet never has America asked its youth to fight under such a cultural, political, and tactical paradox as in Iraq, as bizarre a mission as it is lethal. And never has the American military-especially the U.S. Army and Marines-in this, the supposedly most cynical and affluent age of our nation, performed so well.

We should remember the achievement this Memorial Day of those in the field who alone crushed the Taliban and Saddam Hussein, stayed on to offer a new alternative other than autocracy and theocracy, and kept a targeted United States safe from attack for over four years.

For this we owe our veterans and their leadership, both civilian and military, an unpayable debt of gratitude.

The Kind of Men We Honor

On this Memorial Day weekend it's appropriate to call to mind the courage of the American young men whose memories and service we honor. To this end we might read this citation on the Navy Cross awarded to Corporal Jeremiah Workman, United States Marine Corps:

For extraordinary heroism while serving as Squad Leader, Mortar Platoon, Weapons Company, 3d Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, Regimental Combat Team 1, 1st Marine Division, US Marine Corps Forces, Central Command in support of Operation IRAQI FREEDOM on 23 December 2004. During clearing operations in Al Fallujah, Iraq, Corporal Workman displayed exceptional situational awareness while organizing his squad to enter a building to retrieve isolated Marines inside. Despite heavy resistance from enemy automatic weapon fire, and a barrage of grenades, Corporal Workman fearlessly exposed himself and laid down a base of fire that allowed the isolated Marines to escape. Outside the house, he rallied the rescued Marines and directed fire onto insurgent positions as he aided wounded Marines in a neighboring yard. After seeing these Marines to safety, he led another assault force into the building to eliminate insurgents and extract more Marines. Corporal Workman again exposed himself to enemy fire while providing cover fire for the team when an enemy grenade exploded directly in front of him causing shrapnel wounds to his arms and legs. Corporal Workman continued to provide intense fire long enough to recover additional wounded Marines and extract them from the besieged building. Although injured, he led a third assault into the building, rallying his team one last time to extract isolated Marines before M1A1 tanks arrived to support the battle. Throughout this fight, Corporal Workman's heroic actions contributed to the elimination of 24 insurgents. By his bold leadership, wise judgment and complete dedication to duty, Corporal Workman reflected great credit upon himself and upheld the highest traditions of the Marine Corps and the United States Naval Service.

Thanks to Chester for the info.

Where Is Your Conscience?

From the link:

Amnesty [International] claims at least 50 "prisoners of conscience" in China have been arrested with the help of Yahoo. Among them, civil servant Li Zhi, who was jailed for eight years in 2003 after posting comments that criticized government corruption.

And the position of Yahoo is:

"We balance the requirement to comply with laws that are not necessarily consistent with our own values against our strong belief that active involvement in China contributes to the continued modernization of the country--as well as a benefit to Chinese citizens--through the advancement of communications, commerce, and access to information."

It is beyond my ability to comprehend that any individual would invest money in any of the companies mentioned in the article linked above. The fact that they do indicates that their moral judgment is lacking or they are completely ignorant of world affairs. If corporations, under the concept of globalization, are permitted to behave in such a way with impunity it's only a matter of time before we, here in America, will most certainly be subject to the same abuse.

It's clear that the leadership of much of corporate America is morally bankrupt. Consider the recent convictions of Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling. While the judgment on their behavior was long over due, it appears that at last justice has finally been served concerning them yet it's apparent that these miscreants are so deluded that they don't believe they did anything wrong. Ken Lay said "I am stunned with the findings of the jury"! Personally, I'm stunned that no victim of the Enron debacle who lost their life savings in terms of pension and investments because of his lies hasn't put him in the crosshairs of a telescopic, high-powered rifle and squeezed the trigger.

Dear readers, given all of the above, don't believe for a minute that this won't effect you. You may not have any stock in Enron, WorldCom, Adelphia or a host of others but it really doesn't matter. It's about the moral character of the people in charge of corporate America as well as the moral fabric of the politicians in office. Together they are surely controlling where this once great country is headed. Unfortunately, too many of them have been weighed in the scales and have been found sorely wanting.

Ultimately, the moral content of the American individual will determine the future of America. Isn't it interesting that America, the greatest super power, the wealthiest nation on the planet, is nowhere referenced in the Biblical book of Revelations?

Robert Miller's Reply

Robert T. Miller replies to my letter in First Things with a number of arguments which, in my opinion, fall short. His response appears in block quotes below and my replies follow:

Richard L. Cleary runs together several things that ought to be kept separate. Multiverses, strings, and multiple dimensions are unobservable entities posited to explain observed phenomena, such entities are no less scientific posits than subatomic particles or gravitational fields, which are equally unobservable.

A designer is also an unobservable entity posited to explain observed phenomena. In this it is analogous to multiverses, etc. To state that other worlds, strings, and so on are "no less scientific posits" as particles and fields is simply false. Particles and fields are detectable and measurable, which is why they are part of empirical science. Other worlds, dimensions, etc., like a designer, are not measurable, or at least at present we know of no way to quantify them.

Discussions of the scientific method or standards of scientific reasoning, while not scientific posits, are properly part of science education, which not only conveys scientific knowledge but teaches the methods and principles by which such knowledge is gained.

In other words, the undergirding philosophical principles of science, i.e. the content of the discipline of the philosophy of science, is a legitimate topic for science education. Intelligent Design is, at least, a philosophical hypothesis with implications for the work of science. Why then should it not be a suitable topic for a science classroom? Mr. Miller offers an answer:

The philosophy of science by contrast, is a subdivision of philosophy that treats philosophical questions arising from science, like whether scientific laws are mere regularities or metaphysically necessary truths.

This is incorrect. The questions he mentions comprise only part of the philosophy of science. Discussions of the methods and standards scientists observe and practice are also part of the philosophy of science and Miller is making an illicit distinction here by trying to separate them. The point is that science is often, in practice, inseparable from the philosophy of science. Mr. Miller wants to exclude the latter from the teaching of the former in order to quarantine ID, but what he's proposing is heuristically undesirable. It would reduce science instruction to the sheer presentation of facts and eviscerate it of everything that gives it life and fascination.

All of these are different from Intelligent Design, which is a philosophical theory in direct competition with a scientific theory.

This is also incorrect. ID is in conflict or competition with no scientific theory. It is in direct competition, rather, with the metaphysical claim that the cosmos and life are exhaustively and plausibly explicable, in principle, solely by reference to physical forces and processes. If Mr. Miller thinks that this claim is a scientific assertion then I would ask him to explain how it can be tested. Furthermore, even were he correct that it is a scientific assertion he would be in the awkward position of assigning the claim scientific status while arguing that the denial of the claim is philosophical.

As a I have already said, as a matter of policy, we ought not to teach philosophical theories in science classes; as a matter of constitutional law, if for religious purposes we teach nonscientific theories in public schools, or even scientific theories not accepted in the scientific community, we also violate the establishment clause.

What Mr. Miller does not seem to realize is that everything a Christian does is done for religious purposes. For the Christian there is no sacred/secular dichotomy. All of life is lived in service to God. What is "secular" is whatever the Christian happens to do that non-Christians also do. Christian school board members who serve their school district do so because they believe that they are thereby serving God. Mr. Miller's interpretation of the establishment clause would constitutionally exclude Christians from making curriculum decisions, or, indeed, any decisions about the governance of a school. It would indeed, followed to its logical conclusion, exclude Christians from serving on school boards altogether.

Moreover, if Mr. Miller's interpretation of the First Amendment is correct why does it apply only to theists? After all, many atheists have a religious motivation for demanding that only materialist explanations be taught in schools. Mr. Miller seems willing to allow the atheist's religious motivation while excluding the motivations of those who might wish to avoid giving Christian students the impression that their school's teachers reject some of their basic beliefs about the world. Is that what the framers of the constitution intended?

The Bush Steamroller

You may not have noticed it, but the man whose nomination to head the CIA we were told was going to catalyze a tough examination of the NSA eavesdropping program, the man whose nomination would lead to a public outing of the truth about Bush's perfidious spying program, Air Force general Michael Hayden was quietly approved by the Senate yesterday 78-15. So much for Democrat outrage over "domestic spying."

Meanwhile, another conservative judge was successfully ushered through the confirmation process. White House aide Brett Kavanaugh only had to wait for three years until the Democrats finally wearied of resisting the inevitable and went along with approving him as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

And George Bush, with approval numbers down around those of Harry Truman, continues to pile up the congressional victories. The only time he seems to lose is when he angers conservatives. The liberal Democrats are at present a political irrelevancy, which fact simply fuels their anger and frustration. It's fun to watch.

Sadly Typical

Andrew Sullivan and at least some of his readers are so anxious to discredit any Christian who opposes them on the matter of gay marriage that they're willing to say the vilest things to accomplish their mission.

James Dobson, who opposes gay marriage, has evidently been encouraging people to go to the Focus on the Family web-site to get a prefabricated letter to send to their congressman to express support for a Marriage Protection Amendment.

We think using a form letter is not the best way to influence one's representatives, but Sullivan and some of his readers have called it plagiarism, which Dobson denies. Because he denies that he is encouraging plagiarism Mr. Dobson is sent a letter like this one which Sullivan approvingly posts on his blog:

Why do "Christians" reserve the right to lie, cheat and steal when it suits their purposes, while turning around and decrying situational ethics and denial of truth?

I am referring to you and your organization's organized plagiarism campaign. Focus on the Family, under your direction, is encouraging people to copy material from its website, assemble it into letters and submit the letters to the editors of various newspapers under their signature.

Webster's Dictionary defines plagiarism as to "present as new and original an idea or product derived from an existing source." This is exactly what someone who copies material from your website, fashions it into a letter and submits it as their own work does.

When you tell people that what they're doing isn't plagiarism, you are lying. But then you're a "Christian," and as such you believe that the rules apply to everyone but yourselves. How sadly typical.

What's sadly typical is the puerile willingness of so many people to use invective as a substitute for lucid argument. Webster's College Dictionary defines plagiarism not as the mere use of someone else's material but rather as the unauthorized use of that material. Focus on the Family, as I understand it, is authorizing others to use their material. What they're doing may be counterproductive, it may be dumb, but it's not plagiarism.

This seems like such an obvious distinction that even a junior high student could understand it, but apparently it is complicated enough to have exceeded the cognitive powers of some of those, like Sullivan's reader, for whom insult is the polemical weapon of choice.

Another Indonesian Earthquake

Another disaster has struck Muslim Indonesia, killing almost 3000 people, and, as they did in the wake of the 2004 tsunami, the non-Muslim world is mobilizing to assist. We're sure that the absence of any mention of assistance from the Arab Muslim world is just an oversight.

Letter to First Things

A month ago I sent a letter to the journal First Things in response to an opinion piece by Robert T. Miller on why Intelligent Design should not be taught in public schools. Unfortunately, access to First Things is by subscription and his column is too lengthy to copy here. In any event, the recent issue has a very truncated version of my letter along with the submissions of others, including Michael Behe, to which Mr. Miller responds. My letter, slightly shortened, follows. The portions run by FT are italicized. I will post Mr. Miller's response tomorrow:

Robert T. Miller asserts in his article Darwin in Dover, PA (April 2006) that ID "is not science but neither is it religion." He explains that it's not science, at least in the strong sense, because a designer does not operate by law-like necessity. ID, he concludes, is metaphysics, a branch of philosophy, and thus does not belong in a science classroom.

Even if we grant Professor Miller's premise that intelligent design is philosophy and not real science, a point about which philosophers of science are certainly in dispute, it's not clear that his conclusion that ID should be kept out of science classes follows. There is much philosophy of science that science teachers, at least the good ones, discuss with their students everyday. For example, anyone sitting in on a high school honors science class might hear mention, overt or tacit, of any of the following:

1. Many universes: The idea that ours is just one of a nearly infinite number of universes all of which are closed off from each other thus defying detection.

2. Oscillating universes: The theory that our universe has expanded and collapsed an infinite number of times.

3. String theory: The idea that the fundamental units of material substance are unimaginably tiny vibrating filaments of energy.

4. Other dimensions: The theory that the four dimensions of space-time are only part of physical reality.

5. Principle of uniformity: The assumption that the laws and properties of the universe are homogenous and constant throughout the universe.

6. Assumption of uniformitarianism: The idea that the same processes and forces at work in the world today have always been at work at essentially the same rates.

7. Scientific method: The idea that there is a particular methodology that defines the scientific process which ought to be followed.

8. Law of parsimony: The principle that assumes that the simplest explanation which fits all the facts is the best.

9. Assumption that human reason is trustworthy: The notion that a faculty which has evolved because it made us better fit to survive is also a dependable guide to truth, which has no necessary connection to human survival.

10. Assumption that we should value truth: The idea that truth should be esteemed more highly than competing values, like, for instance, personal comfort.

11. Preference for naturalistic explanations: A preference based upon an untestable assumption that all knowable truth is found only in the natural realm.

12. Materialistic abiogenesis: The belief that natural forces are sufficient in themselves to have produced life.

13. Assumption that if something is physically possible and mathematically elegant then given the age of the universe it probably happened.

14. Assumption that the cosmos is atelic. I.e. that it has no purpose.

15. Assumption that there's a world external to our own minds.

16. Reductionism: The conviction that all phenomena, including mental phenomena, can be ultimately explained solely in terms of physics and chemistry.

17. Assumption that the universe arose out of a "vacuum matrix" rather than out of nothing.

18. Any ethical claim regarding the environment, nuclear power, cloning, or genetic engineering.

19. Memes: According to biologist Richard Dawkins memes are the cultural analog to genes. They are ideas or customs that are believed by Dawkins and others to get passed along according to their survival value rather than their truth value. An example of this, unfortunately, is the concept of the meme itself.

20. The criteria by which we distinguish science from non-science.

None of the above precipitate the levitation of a single eyebrow when they're discussed in public school science classrooms yet every one of them is a matter of metaphysical preference, not empirical fact. Why, then, must we suddenly wax squeamish when the philosophical topic turns to the possibility of an extra-cosmic designer?

Professor Miller also mentions that the argument for ID is weaker than arguments for traditional cosmological hypotheses because it's vulnerable to being falsified whereas cosmological fine-tuning arguments are not.

This is an interesting observation since it is explicitly denied by most of ID's opponents. One of the claims anti-IDers adduce in support of their view that ID is not science is that it can't be tested, i.e. falsified. If it's true, as Professor Miller avers, that ID is vulnerable to being falsified, then it must be testable, and thus the only valid grounds for proscribing it in public school science courses would be that it is indeed false. That ID actually is false, however, has yet to be demonstrated.

Moreover, Professor Miller is drawing a questionable distinction between design in the biosphere and design in the abiotic physical universe. If there really is a cosmic designer then it is reasonable, and parsimonious, to assume that it played a role not only in engineering the physical constants, parameters, and forces that govern the universe but also those processes which led to the origin and diversification of living things. In other words, intelligent design is a comprehensive theory. It seems somewhat arbitrary to maintain that the cosmos had a designer but that life is purely serendipitous.

Judge Jones, in presiding over the Dover ID trial, may have got things partially right, as Professor Miller says, but the part that he got right is that those who were pushing ID into the Dover biology curriculum were motivated by a religious purpose. This is really the only solid legal or philosophical grounds the Judge had for deciding the way he did. Nevertheless, there is a very troubling problem inherent in his reasoning on this point.

For a Christian everything one does is ultimately "religiously" motivated. There is no distinction in the life of the Christian between sacred and secular. If religious motivation is a disqualifier under Lemon v. Kurtzman, and it is, then Christians who take their faith seriously are constitutionally unfit to serve on school boards or in the classroom because it can be truthfully asserted that a religious motivation underlies everything they do. Any attempt to introduce ID, or anything else, for that matter, into a public school curriculum by anyone who can be shown to be a devout Christian is ipso facto impermissible under Lemon. That would seem to put the Lemon test at odds with the religious protections guaranteed by the first amendment.

Of course, there is a religious motivation behind everything the non-believer does as well, since, as Roy Clouser reminds us in The Myth of Religious Neutrality, there is no such thing as religious neutrality, but Judge Jones was unfortunately never made aware of this fact of philosophical life in the course of his deliberations. It is, parenthetically, an oddity of the Judge's ruling that the materialist claim that natural processes are adequate by themselves to account for living things is considered science, but its contrary, the claim that natural processes are not adequate by themselves to account for living things, is deemed religious.

#1

Here's Michael Long's explanation for his pick as the best conservative rock song ever:

If conservatism were expressed as one line from which the rest could flow, it might be this: Human nature does not change. This is not pessimism so much as realism: The banners of every war are carried over from the last. Liberation should live between quotation marks, because new regimes are so often similar to those that came before. Thus the French Revolution gives rise to the tyranny of Napoleon.

Or you could put it this way: The party on the left will become the party on the right-revolutions slide from attack into self-preservation. They begin softly, like the insistent synthesizer that drives the track, and then roar into the main, all power chords and bullet holes. But it always ends in a throat-ripping scream.

Almost without exception, revolutionaries are greedy little prigs, planning utopia while measuring for the office drapes. Sometimes they swear to put the public itself in charge. That's what Brother Karl proposed to do. But this never comes to pass, since every selfless idealist so far has decided that the populace wise enough to propel him to power is not quite wise enough to hold the reins themselves.

It's not just the Left. Anyone who has watched our own government has met the new boss and come away with the scent of the old boss in his clothes. Forty years of Democratic rule in the House of Representatives turned to bloat and arrogance. A decade of Republican dominance is now yielding much the same thing. Revolution, where is thy sting?

Power corrupts both Left and Right, hence the deep conservative passion for reducing the power of government itself. Some of us go further, advocating that we smash government into little bits that, if need be, can be crushed under your shoe or dusted off the collar with your fingertips. Better to keep the burden light, since at some point we will have to throw off the burden. We get fooled again and again. We always do.

Civilization that lasts more than a lifetime requires understanding all this: that the world is a place where human nature does not change and where revolutions are coming-out parties for perfectionists with shotguns. The only lasting revolutions are personal and spiritual and they may be the only way-to "get on my knees and pray"-we don't get fooled again.

If you haven't figured it out yet go here. The entire list of fifty songs is here.

Neil Postman's Commencement Address

Last year at this time I posted a graduation speech composed by Neil Postman. Despite his numerous achivements, Postman was never invited anywhere to deliver such an address so he made the speech available to anyone who wanted to use it. It's a speech that every graduate could hear or read with profit:

Members of the faculty, parents, guests, and graduates, have no fear. I am well aware that on a day of such high excitement, what you require, first and foremost, of any speaker is brevity. I shall not fail you in this respect. There are exactly eighty-five sentences in my speech, four of which you have just heard. It will take me about twelve minutes to speak all of them and I must tell you that such economy was not easy for me to arrange, because I have chosen as my topic the complex subject of your ancestors. Not, of course, your biological ancestors, about whom I know nothing, but your spiritual ancestors, about whom I know a little. To be specific, I want to tell you about two groups of people who lived many years ago but whose influence is still with us. They were very different from each other, representing opposite values and traditions. I think it is appropriate for you to be reminded of them on this day because, sooner than you know, you must align yourself with the spirit of one or the spirit of the other.

The first group lived about 2,500 years ago in the place which we now call Greece, in a city they called Athens. We do not know as much about their origins as we would like. But we do know a great deal about their accomplishments. They were, for example, the first people to develop a complete alphabet, and therefore they became the first truly literate population on earth. They invented the idea of political democracy, which they practiced with a vigor that puts us to shame. They invented what we call philosophy. And they also invented what we call logic and rhetoric. They came very close to inventing what we call science, and one of them-Democritus by name-conceived of the atomic theory of matter 2,300 years before it occurred to any modern scientist. They composed and sang epic poems of unsurpassed beauty and insight. And they wrote and performed plays that, almost three millennia later, still have the power to make audiences laugh and weep. They even invented what, today, we call the Olympics, and among their values none stood higher than that in all things one should strive for excellence. They believed in reason. They believed in beauty. They believed in moderation. And they invented the word and the idea which we know today as ecology.

About 2,000 years ago, the vitality of their culture declined and these people began to disappear. But not what they had created. Their imagination, art, politics, literature, and language spread all over the world so that, today, it is hardly possible to speak on any subject without repeating what some Athenian said on the matter 2,500 years ago.

The second group of people lived in the place we now call Germany, and flourished about 1,700 years ago. We call them the Visigoths, and you may remember that your sixth or seventh-grade teacher mentioned them. They were spectacularly good horsemen, which is about the only pleasant thing history can say of them. They were marauders-ruthless and brutal. Their language lacked subtlety and depth. Their art was crude and even grotesque. They swept down through Europe destroying everything in their path, and they overran the Roman Empire. There was nothing a Visigoth liked better than to burn a book, desecrate a building, or smash a work of art. From the Visigoths, we have no poetry, no theater, no logic, no science, no humane politics.

Like the Athenians, the Visigoths also disappeared, but not before they had ushered in the period known as the Dark Ages. It took Europe almost a thousand years to recover from the Visigoths.

Now, the point I want to make is that the Athenians and the Visigoths still survive, and they do so through us and the ways in which we conduct our lives. All around us-in this hall, in this community, in our city-there are people whose way of looking at the world reflects the way of the Athenians, and there are people whose way is the way of the Visigoths. I do not mean, of course, that our modern-day Athenians roam abstractedly through the streets reciting poetry and philosophy, or that the modern-day Visigoths are killers. I mean that to be an Athenian or a Visigoth is to organize your life around a set of values. An Athenian is an idea. And a Visigoth is an idea. Let me tell you briefly what these ideas consist of.

To be an Athenian is to hold knowledge and, especially the quest for knowledge in high esteem. To contemplate, to reason, to experiment, to question-these are, to an Athenian, the most exalted activities a person can perform. To a Visigoth, the quest for knowledge is useless unless it can help you to earn money or to gain power over other people.

To be an Athenian is to cherish language because you believe it to be humankind's most precious gift. In their use of language, Athenians strive for grace, precision, and variety. And they admire those who can achieve such skill. To a Visigoth, one word is as good as another, one sentence in distinguishable from another. A Visigoth's language aspires to nothing higher than the clich�.

To be an Athenian is to understand that the thread which holds civilized society together is thin and vulnerable; therefore, Athenians place great value on tradition, social restraint, and continuity. To an Athenian, bad manners are acts of violence against the social order. The modern Visigoth cares very little about any of this. The Visigoths think of themselves as the center of the universe. Tradition exists for their own convenience, good manners are an affectation and a burden, and history is merely what is in yesterday's newspaper.

To be an Athenian is to take an interest in public affairs and the improvement of public behavior. Indeed, the ancient Athenians had a word for people who did not. The word was idiotes, from which we get our word "idiot." A modern Visigoth is interested only in his own affairs and has no sense of the meaning of community.

And, finally, to be an Athenian is to esteem the discipline, skill, and taste that are required to produce enduring art. Therefore, in approaching a work of art, Athenians prepare their imagination through learning and experience. To a Visigoth, there is no measure of artistic excellence except popularity. What catches the fancy of the multitude is good. No other standard is respected or even acknowledged by the Visigoth.

Now, it must be obvious what all of this has to do with you. Eventually, like the rest of us, you must be on one side or the other. You must be an Athenian or a Visigoth. Of course, it is much harder to be an Athenian, for you must learn how to be one, you must work at being one, whereas we are all, in a way, natural-born Visigoths. That is why there are so many more Visigoths than Athenians. And I must tell you that you do not become an Athenian merely by attending school or accumulating academic degrees. My father-in-law was one of the most committed Athenians I have ever known, and he spent his entire adult life working as a dress cutter on Seventh Avenue in New York City. On the other hand, I know physicians, lawyers, and engineers who are Visigoths of unmistakable persuasion. And I must also tell you, as much in sorrow as in shame, that at some of our great universities, perhaps even this one, there are professors of whom we may fairly say they are closet Visigoths. And yet, you must not doubt for a moment that a school, after all, is essentially an Athenian idea. There is a direct link between the cultural achievements of Athens and what the faculty at this university is all about. I have no difficulty imagining that Plato, Aristotle, or Democritus would be quite at home in our class rooms. A Visigoth would merely scrawl obscenities on the wall.

And so, whether you were aware of it or not, the purpose of your having been at this university was to give you a glimpse of the Athenian way, to interest you in the Athenian way. We cannot know on this day how many of you will choose that way and how many will not. You are young and it is not given to us to see your future. But I will tell you this, with which I will close: I can wish for you no higher compliment than that in the future it will be reported that among your graduating class the Athenians mightily outnumbered the Visigoths.

Thank you, and congratulations.

Thanks to Joe Carter at Evangelical Outpost from whom I was able to borrow the speech.

What the World Needs Now

Mary Katherine Ham deconstructs the difference between how our institutions handled the case of the Duke lacrosse players and Taheri-azar. You don't know who Taheri-azar is? That's pretty much the point. She concludes her piece with this.

I have heard it said that what America needs to win the war on Islamofascism is moral clarity - a strong belief that our ideology and theirs are not comparable; that there is a good and an evil and we are on the good side; that Western civilization, for all its faults, is a damn sight better than that which seeks to destroy it.

Taheri-azar and the Duke lacrosse players were all technically innocent until proven guilty. In one case, public officials, the press, and the local community did their best to deny the accused that particular courtesy of American justice. Tellingly, it was not the case of the murderous thug who confessed to attempting to kill his classmates [at UNC by running them over with his car], in a fashion reminiscent of Mohammad Atta, just for being non-Muslims - and then detailed his plans and motivations in letters to a local paper.

Moral clarity is what we need. It was in short supply in a pair of college towns this spring.

Read the whole thing. It's very good.

Debunking the Anti-Bush Myths

Here's Peter Whener at The Wall Street Journal:

Iraqis can participate in three historic elections, pass the most liberal constitution in the Arab world, and form a unity government despite terrorist attacks and provocations. Yet for some critics of the president, these are minor matters. Like swallows to Capistrano, they keep returning to the same allegations--the president misled the country in order to justify the Iraq war; his administration pressured intelligence agencies to bias their judgments; Saddam Hussein turned out to be no threat since he didn't possess weapons of mass destruction; and helping democracy take root in the Middle East was a postwar rationalization. The problem with these charges is that they are false and can be shown to be so--and yet people continue to believe, and spread, them. Let me examine each in turn...

Which he proceeds to do. In the process he demonstrates how irresponsible, perhaps even dishonest but certainly reckless, many of his critics are. He closes with this:

These, then, are the urban legends we must counter, else falsehoods become conventional wisdom. And what a strange world it is: For many antiwar critics, the president is faulted for the war, and he, not the former dictator of Iraq, inspires rage. The liberator rather than the oppressor provokes hatred. It is as if we have stepped through the political looking glass, into a world turned upside down and inside out.

It is indeed strange to hear people still today - when so much evidence of Saddam's complicity with terrorists has been unearthed and so many good reasons have been adduced for assuming that Saddam was working on WMD - it is indeed strange to see people clinging tenaciously to the myth that Bush lied about these things. I suppose there are psychological reasons for the tightness with which Bush's opponents grasp these thin reeds. To admit that they were completely and utterly wrong in their assessment of the president would be so devastating to their ego and to their credibility that they cannot bring themselves to do it.

They'd rather ignore the evidence and continue to impugn the president's character than to face up to the fact that they have been miserably and detestably irresponsible and wrong. Professing themselves to be wise they prefer nevertheless to look like fools rather than admit their error.

National Review's Top Five

Earlier this week we mentioned National Review's ranking of the fifty most conservative rock songs, and noted that the compiler of the list, Michael Long, would be counting down the top five this week. Number five is here, along with Long's explanation for why the song merits inclusion on such a list, number four is here, number three is here, and number two is here.

Number one will be announced tomorrow along with the other forty-five.

Sick Man

Here's left-wing British MP George Galloway staking out his accustomed terrain in the febrile swamps of moral depravity:

The Respect MP George Galloway has said it would be morally justified for a suicide bomber to murder Tony Blair.

In an interview with GQ magazine, the reporter asked him: "Would the assassination of, say, Tony Blair by a suicide bomber - if there were no other casualties - be justified as revenge for the war on Iraq?"

Mr Galloway replied: "Yes, it would be morally justified. I am not calling for it - but if it happened it would be of a wholly different moral order to the events of 7/7. It would be entirely logical and explicable. And morally equivalent to ordering the deaths of thousands of innocent people in Iraq - as Blair did."

It is just a short step, perhaps an imperceptibly short step, from justifying a man's murder to hoping for it or calling for it. Try to imagine a member of the House of Representatives saying that the murder of George Bush would be justified. There have been a number of people on the left who have made somewhat similar statements but no one, so far as I know, of such lofty position as George Galloway enjoys in England.

He is a sick man.

Ominous News

This does not sound good:

Military activity in the Gulf has been increasing tremendously in the past few months. According to British sources, the stock of weapons, missiles and combat planes in the six neighboring countries to Iran is now three times what it was at the onset of the Iraq war in 2003.

This arsenal is also composed of submarines, destroyers belonging to Iran and also to the international community in the Sea of Oman. An impressive number of offensive and defensive weapons are also deployed in the region. For instance, since March ,Gulf refineries and vital oil installations are protected by batteries of Patriot missiles. Furthermore, according to the Kuwaiti daily Al Seyassah, the US has built a massive stock of oil and could ask the temporary stop of Gulf refineries in order to prevent heavy damage in case of an Iranian attack. Iran has indeed warned Gulf monarchies that their oil facilities would be the first target in case of a US operation on Iranian nuclear facilities.

Let's hope that if war with Iran breaks out the Bush administration has lots of allies on board. Being solely responsible for a shock to the world's oil supply would create enormous ill-will both at home and abroad, even if the war is necessary to keep Iran from getting nuclear weapons.

The Liberal Plan For Victory

Will Marshall and Jeremy Rosner tell us what the Democrats' plan for the war on terror should be. Not surprisingly the plan is to do pretty much what the Bush administration is already doing:

Democrats should begin by reaffirming their party's commitment to progressive internationalism -- the belief that America can best defend itself by building a world safe for individual liberty and democracy.

Progressive internationalism occupies the vital center between the neo-imperial right and the noninterventionist left, between a view that assumes our might always makes us right, and one that assumes that because America is strong it must be wrong. It stresses the responsibilities that come with our enormous power: to use force with restraint but not to hesitate to use it when necessary; to show what the Declaration of Independence called "a decent respect for the opinions of mankind"; to exercise leadership primarily through persuasion rather than coercion; to reduce human suffering where we can; and to bolster alliances and global institutions committed to upholding an increasingly democratic world order.

By applying the organizing principles of progressive internationalism -- national strength, equal opportunity, liberal democracy, U.S. leadership for collective security -- Democrats can design a strategy that will defeat Islamist extremism. That strategy should specifically revolve around five key imperatives:

First, we must marshal all of America's manifold strengths, starting with our military power but going well beyond it, for the struggle ahead.

Second, we must rebuild America's alliances, because democratic solidarity is one of our greatest strategic assets.

Third, we must champion liberal democracy in deed, not just in rhetoric, because a freer world is a safer world.

Fourth, we must renew U.S. leadership in the international economy and rise to the challenge of global competition.

Fifth, we must summon from the American people a new spirit of national unity and shared sacrifice.

Okay. The Bush administration hasn't been too good on number five, but what is Marshall and Rosner's alternative? A military draft? Nooo. It's raising taxes. Like "progressives" everywhere they propose that we all share the burden of the war by making ourselves all worse off than we are now. Sounds like a winner in '08.

Bush's Chance

Dick Morris thinks that Bush's best chance for a political resurrection is to get pump prices down. He notes that:

As incredible - and almost sacrilegious - as it seems, Iraq has faded as the dominant political issue even though we are still losing 50 to 60 good young men and women there every month.

And - even after a prime-time speech and a solid week of congressional action on the subject - immigration runs a distant third to pump prices as the major topic of conversation these days.

I doubt that Morris is correct about this. If Bush signs a weak immigration bill he's going to permanently alienate his base, and, in my opinion, the Republicans will lose their majority, if not in 2006 then certainly in 2008. Bush's only hope for political resurrection lies in the House of Representatives. If they can negotiate a tough compromise bill with the senate in conference committee - a bill which closes our borders - and Bush signs it, then he can recover. If not, conservatives all across the country are going to throw up their hands in disgust, and it'll take years to win them back to the Republican fold.

From Our Feedback

Your post on Rollins cracked me up. I'll have to check it out. Before coming to Christ I worshipped Rollins. I went to hear his band multiple times, read his books, and went to his spoken word performances. :)

MR

UPDATE: Here's a picture of Henry Rollins sharing his affection for Christians and ID supporters:

Or maybe this is really Senator John McCain in disguise telling us what we can do with our desire to stop illegal immigration.

Thanks to Uncommon Descent for the tip.

Defining Our Terms

Telic Thoughts has a discussion of the nature of "metaphysical naturalism" here to which I've submitted the following comment:

One of the fundamental problems in the debate over design is the vagueness of the terms "natural" and "supernatural." What exactly are natural or supernatural entities? Is a natural entity simply something which is part of the space-time universe and a supernatural entity something which transcends this universe?

If so, then those cosmologists wrestling with theories about "other worlds" are really doing theology, not science. If, however, we wish to consider the theorizing of cosmologists to be legitimate science then we have to say that excluding theorizing about an extra-cosmic designer from science is an arbitrary and unwarranted step.

For all we know, the designer could be a denizen of one of those universes or it could be the "generator" which manufactures those universes.

In other words, the concept of other worlds effectively erases the natural/supernatural distinction and greatly expands the purview of science.

The question then becomes not whether talk of a designer is scientific or not but whether there is reason to think that our universe and the living things in it show evidence of intention and intelligent engineering.

The next time someone tells you that Intelligent Design is not science because it invokes the supernatural and science only deals with what is natural ask them what they mean by those terms. Chances are they won't be able to give a coherent, non-arbitrary reply.