jottings from tertius

not dead yet - only sleeping

2005-11-06T20:53:00.000+10:00

It is the one great weakness of journalism as a picture of our modern existence, that it must be a picture made up entirely of exceptions. We announce on flaring posters that a man has fallen off a scaffolding. We do not announce on flaring posters that a man has not fallen off a scaffolding. Yet this latter fact is fundamentally more exciting, as indicating that that moving tower of terror and mystery, a man, is still abroad upon the earth. That the man has not fallen off a scaffolding is really more sensational; and it is also some thousand times more common. But journalism cannot reasonably be expected thus to insist upon the permanent miracles. Busy editors cannot be expected to put on their posters, "Mr. Wilkinson Still Safe," or "Mr. Jones, of Worthing, Not Dead Yet." They cannot announce the happiness of mankind at all. They cannot describe all the forks that are not stolen, or all the marriages that are not judiciously dissolved. Hence the complex picture they give of life is of necessity fallacious; they can only represent what is unusual. However democratic they may be, they are only concerned with the minority.

G. K. Chesterton, The Ball and the Cross (1910)

a tale of two movies

2005-09-01T19:02:00.000+10:00

It seems like a bad dream but I remember it like it was only yesterday. The entire liberal media establishment got all self-righteous and suddenly theological about a movie made by "Mad Mel" Gibson. To say that the bi-coastals and the inner city latte-sipping chattering classes didn’t like The Passion of the Christ would be like noting that Stalin didn’t like the Kulaks. (It would of course be totally inappropriate to compare the response to the Passion as akin to Hitler hating the Jews...)

All over the planet movie critics, "social commentators", liberal theologians, op-ed writers, left wing academics (excuse the tautology), Hollywood producers and brain-dead bleeding hearts joined in a chorus that soon rose to a cacophony and then slipped into tyre-screeching condemnatory overdrive about the brutality, the violence, the hatred, the anti-Semitsm and the unabashed conservative Catholicism of Gibson’s little labour-of-love independent film.

Of course it was a box-office smash, seen by millions and making millions for Mel. Oh, the Outrage! The Horror. I swear you could hear them screaming "Red State rednecks!" over the sound of espresso machines as they filed their reviews.

Flash forward a year or so. Same critics, same commentators, another film about "brutality, violence and hatred". This time its made by Quentin Tarantino’s best buddy, Robert "How do I kill thee, let me count the ways" Rodriguez and is based on a comic book, not a holy book. They go into raptures over it! Reading some of the reviews you would think the second coming had just taken place. Am I dreaming? Five stars out of five just ain’t enough stars in the firmament for this one.

Sin City (an appropriate title for film with a passion for comic book violence and cheesy dialogue) is a piece of slick blood-letting from masters of the genre, a triumph of style over substance, a pop-art paean to amorality and guns (I thought liberals hated guns?), a homage to senseless violence and sexist stereotyping... and guns, a surreal and ridiculous tribute to the niche market of revenge, lust, nihilism, Catholic bashing... and guns, so ably cornered by... Tarantino and Rodriguez.

But the style, man the style...

This is indeed a nightmare – a superb and disturbing film portraying the betrayal and brutal execution of perhaps the pivotal figure of human history is feared and loathed by the liberal critics. These same critics then turn around and praise to the highest heavens a superbly executed but disturbing glorification of testosterone-fueled adolescent male fantasies merely because it is draped in the pretentious trappings of postmodern amorality and mindless brutality.

The Horror indeed.

Friday on my Mind

2005-08-16T23:57:00.000+10:00

one more reason to be skeptical of skeptics

On his anti-Christian hate website The Annapolis Valley Skeptic, the self-proclaimed (aren't they always?!) "Voice of Reason and Ridicule" has a link to a series of articles entitled Legends, Lies and Myths that refuse to go away. Nothing wrong with exposing lies and recognising myths and legends for what they are, but the Voice of Reason and Ridicule should clean up his own backyard before he starts throwing mud.

I suggest even an atheist should consider the inherent wisdom of the words of The-One-Whose-Name-Shall-Not-Be-Mentioned-Except-As-A-Curse-Word-Or-As-A-Subject-of-Ridicule when he said Let him who is without sin cast the first stone and If you wish to remove the splinter form your brother's eye, first take the plank out of your own.

It comes as no surprise to find that the Valley Skeptic site contains the usual quota of skeptical/atheist/humanist legends, lies and myths.

One of the articles in Lies and Myths that refuse to go away is A Brief History of Friday the 13th by professional skeptics Joe Nickell and Matt Nisbet. One can appreciate their rebuttal of the popular notion of Black Friday, but it really is a classic case of the pot calling the kettle black that these supposedly rational, scientific, reasonable skeptics then spin their own ridiculous lies, myths and legends about Friday and the Bible:

According to the Bible, Eve gave the apple to Adam on Friday, the great flood began on a Friday, the Temple of Solomon was destroyed on a Friday, execution day was Friday in Rome, and Good Friday exists because it is the reported day of Jesus' crucifixion.

According to what Bible, guys? Certainly not the Holy Bible!

We are informed that
Dr. Joe Nickell is a researcher, investigator and columnist for SKEPTICAL INQUIRER, THE MAGAZINE FOR SCIENCE AND REASON... [and] is the author or editor of over fifteen books on the occult and paranormal. Matt Nisbet is Public Relations Director for the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP.)

Nickell and Nisbet should be a little bit more skeptical of their own "skepticism" and check out their own acceptance of, and dissemination of, prejudicial nonsense.

The simple fact is: the Bible makes NONE of these supposed claims, not one. Not about Fridays, not about the Romans, not about an "apple", not even about "Good Friday".

So here we have two dedicated skeptics and debunkers spreading whoppers, not just at the Valley Skeptic site but at a number of other atheist websites.

Chapters and verses, please... or clean up your act.

Just joking, or are all atheists really this stupid?

2005-08-16T20:13:00.000+10:00

Via Dawn Eden comes this gem:

In the Finding My Religion (sic) page of the San Francisco Chronicle SF Gate website Comedian Julia Sweeney, a former Roman Catholic who lost her faith in God, talks about how she became an atheist... and vainly tries to keep her sense of humor.

She informs her interviewer, David Ian Miller, that:

It isn't that there aren't wonderful parts to the Bible, but it's just shocking to me that anyone spends their time defending it as anything more than a culturally special book. In terms of really taking it seriously as the word of God, I can't...

To me, the Iliad offers more insight into human character and lessons than the Bible. You know, like Jesus was angry a lot. When he turned all those people into pigs and made them run off a mountain, it was so hateful, not just to people but to pigs. I felt upset for the pigs!

If this quote is anything to go by Ms Sweeney demonstrates that ignorance played a major role in her conversion to atheism. Then again, she could be just trying to be funny...

I sure hope so because this piece of juvenile idiocy about the Bible and Jesus, while typical of both atheists and "former Christians", is a real howler.

Ms Sweeney could try picking up an actual copy of the Bible and reading exactly what Jesus did and note how it singularly failed to involve any humans transmogrifying into hogs. But because I seriously doubt whether she could find her way around the Bible, here is a link from the Bible Gateway site to the passage in question Mark chapter 5 verses 1-20 .

Nothing about Jesus being angry, turning people into pigs or forcing them to run off a mountain...

I guess that's why that's why Dawn Eden refers to the hapless comedian and "serious" student of the Bible as Sweeney Clod...

And why the SF Gate for Tuesday, August 16, 2005 notes that
San Francisco without yoga centers would be like the city without cafes...

Or like an ex-Christian without a clue about Christianity...

Here are some examples of the serious "I just think most people haven't thought about it as much as I have" thinking done by Ms Sweeney.

I have an open mind but it's firmly closed:
If somebody has credible evidence that there is a supernatural power that knows what I think and cares about me and offers me a life after death, I would look at that evidence with an open mind. On the other hand, I can't imagine there would be that evidence.

Lucky for me I happen to be a well-off American celebrity who lives in Hollywood and not some poor, starving, outcast living on a garbage dump in Manilla or some prisoner in a North Korean gulag, where reality might reduce somewhat my creative choices regarding meaning and purpose:
After I stopped believing in God, I realized it was completely up to me to create my own meaning and my purpose was my own.

See!:
Here [in L.A.] you're not defined socially by your religious views.

but by your leftist political views, your celebrity status, your clueless attempts at theology and philosophy and your looks?...

If me and my Hollywod friends can't take it seriously then it absolutely cannot be that millions of others, including some of the smartest and wisest people who ever lived, could:
Well, the most surprising thing overall is that anyone takes it seriously at all

I really don't have a clue about what constitutes "evidence", but it's something to do with science, so there!
I have all kinds of people writing me and saying, "Oh! I'm so glad you are open-minded, because here is the evidence!" And then the evidence is "Jesus is God. Read the Bible." I realize that those people don't know what evidence means. They don't have a scientific view of the world.

My truth is bigger than your truth - evolution proves there is no God, you dummy!:
I said God is this idea of a big man who lives up in the clouds and he created everything. And she goes, "Well I believe that!" And I go: "Well yeah, because it sounds like a cartoon character. But the truth isn't that, and I'll tell you the truth." And then I actually teach her about evolution.

My leap of faith is better than your leap of faith:
To a certain extent I am taking a leap of faith.

So I realised that I was wiser than most of the other great thinkers of history:
I'm adding up the evidence on either side, and I'm seeing the evidence of there not being a God is overwhelming compared to the evidence for there being a God.

And my brother and sister agree, so that proves it!

My reasoning skills have recently suffered a setback:
But what I wish is that people who haven't really looked into it but -- kind of like I was -- have a vague idea that there must be something there [God], I wish that they would look into it, because I think they wouldn't let people who are religious walk all over them as much as they do in our society.

[laughs]... nervously?

LILT - Liberals in Love with Totalitarianism

2005-08-11T19:47:00.000+10:00

Sleeper, awake!
Nick Cohen writes in the London Observer of coming to his senses after 44 years in the fantasyland of the Left.
I'm sure that any halfway competent political philosopher could rip the assumptions of modern middle-class left-wingery apart. Why is it right to support a free market in sexual relationships but oppose free-market economics, for instance?

I could add a couple of other "for instances": the case of the so-called "liberal" Left in Australia demanding both the maintenance of compulsory student union fees and the imposition of the Kyoto restrictions, while advocating complete freedom of choice when it come to sexual expression and abortion... or even the compulsory imposition of union fees upon all teachers in the State education system.

Meanwhile we continue to witness the spectacle of LILT - Liberals in Love with Totaliarianism. In the past this involved an inordinate fondness for the totalitarianisms of Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot but is now focussed upon an inability to do anything more than wring their hands, blame the West and apologise for the totalitarianism of Islamofascism.

pesky laws and decent white folk

2005-07-27T20:07:00.000+10:00

Spot the decent white folk

In Marr's world if they're Christians they must be white.

In his latest piece in the Sydney Morning Herald. David Marr seems to think that Christianity is the white man's voodoo.

Anti-vilification laws aren't the answer. In Victoria, two hellfire Christian preachers, Danny Nalliah and Daniel Scot, are facing jail after preaching against Islam in the aftermath of September 11, 2001. Ever since, they've been fighting an action brought by the Islamic Council of Victoria under the state's new Racial and Religious Tolerance Act.

That's the pesky thing about these laws that show almost zero tolerance for religious and racial intolerance: they can be turned against decent white folk. Nalliah calls Victoria's act a "foul law" and "sharia law by stealth". The two pastors have been asked to apologise but are contemplating martyrdom by imprisonment instead. Scott said: "You don't compromise truth for fear of jail."

David Marr is a man with a huge chip on his shoulder about Christianity in general and conservative Evangelicals in the Anglican Church in particular, and who has, as a result, been "preaching against" Christianity for years. He reveals his ignorance here by implying that the Pakistani born-and-raised Daniel Scot and the Sri Lankan born-and-raised Danny Nalliah are "white folk" simply on the basis of the allegiance to Jesus Christ. This despite the fact that Christians of colour in Africa and South America vastly outnumber Anglo and other European Christians. Indeed while Christianity declines in the West (as Marr himself is living proof) it grows rapidly in the South. I guess in Marr's topsy-turvy view of the world Nalliah and Scot are not "coloured" but are really white, on the assumption that only white folk could be Christians - and "hellfire preachers" to boot.

In the same way that Condi Rice and Colin Powell are not really black, and that Margaret Thatcher is not really a woman, I suppose...

Also in Marr's world the two Christian pastors are "contemplating martyrdom by imprisonment" apparently because they are not man enough to say "sorry" in self-funded and expensive newspaper ads addressed not just to the three Anglo converts to Islam who infiltrated their meeting and were offended by hearing the Koran accurately quoted - but to the entire Muslim community of Victoria. I point out that this is not a matter of choice for the two men for it is not they who have introduced this law, or who have brought these charges or who will be imposing the court's sentence. Any "choice" they now have is of a rather restricted kind. Once you have taken away a man's freedom of both conscience and expression you are left with something less than an open democratic society. Surely a "real" liberal can see that? How would Marr feel towards homosexual activists willing to be imprisoned because of their conscience and beliefs. A lot more supportive and sanctimoniously approving I would suggest! Then again would David Marr himself compromise truth for fear of jail? I hope not.

In conclusion I simply note that which Marr neglects: the Christian pastors are not contemplating martyrdom-by-suicide bombing-in-a-public-place-with-lots-of-innocent-bystanders either. That's only but one of the differences between Christian "fundamentalists" and Islamic "extremists" which Marr can't seem to spot.

liberal lemmings jumping off cliffs

2005-07-27T19:22:00.000+10:00

Fiddling while Rome burns

You know its the end of the world as we know it when liberals think that to the vast majority of Muslims "jihad" is a harmless concept meaning "decaf latte with skimmed milk and cinnamon sprinkles".

Mark Steyn writing in The Australian scores another bullseye with his analysis of the Western liberal infatuation with multiculturalism as a kind of societal Stockholm Syndrome

Bomb us, and we agonise over the "root causes" (that is, what we did wrong). Decapitate us, and our politicians rush to the nearest mosque to declare that "Islam is a religion of peace". Issue bloodcurdling calls at Friday prayers to kill all the Jews and infidels, and we fret that it may cause a backlash against Muslims. Behead sodomites and mutilate female genitalia, and gay groups and feminist groups can't wait to march alongside you denouncing Bush, Blair and Howard. Murder a schoolful of children, and our scholars explain that to the "vast majority" of Muslims "jihad" is a harmless concept meaning "decaf latte with skimmed milk and cinnamon sprinkles"....

That's the great thing about multiculturalism: it doesn't involve knowing anything about other cultures - like, say, the capital of Bhutan or the principal exports of Malaysia, the sort of stuff the old imperialist wallahs used to be well up on. Instead, it just involves feeling warm and fluffy, making bliss out of ignorance. And one notices a subtle evolution in multicultural pieties since the Islamists came along. It was most explicitly addressed by the eminent British lawyer Baroness Kennedy of the Shaws, QC, who thought that it was too easy to disparage "Islamic fundamentalists". "We as western liberals too often are fundamentalist ourselves. We don't look at our own fundamentalisms."

And what exactly would those western liberal fundamentalisms be? "One of the things that we are too ready to insist upon is that we are the tolerant people and that the intolerance is something that belongs to other countries like Islam. And I'm not sure that's true."

Hmm. Kennedy appears to be arguing that our tolerance of our own tolerance is making us intolerant of other people's intolerance, which is intolerable. Thus the lop-sided valse macabre of our times: the more the Islamists step on our toes, the more we waltz them gaily round the room...

Mark Steyn, a rare voice of sanity in an increasingly insane world...

the strange case of Kenneth Tynan and C. S. Lewis

2005-07-21T00:08:00.000+10:00

Fame and its price

The Diaries of Kenneth Tynan edited by John Lahr. London: Bloomsbury, 2001

Irreverent, indiscreet, wildly funny, sad, shocking and inspiring, the legendary diaries of Kenneth Tynan are above all compelling literature. His diaries - so resplendent with griefs and gossip - bear superb witness to the fame he courted and the price he paid for it.

I have just finished reading "The Diaries of Kenneth Tynan" which cover the last decade of his life (1970-1980). Tynan is of course lauded as one of the finest drama critics of the twentieth century. He is also remembered for his tenure alongside Laurence Olivier at Britain's National Theatre, his production of the long running but infamous full-frontal nude revue Oh, Calcutta! and his ubiquitous presence on the social scene with the "in crowd" of the "jet set". He was also the first person to utter the word "f**k" on British television, which hardly seems a big deal nowadays but was something of a seismic event back in the sixties when we were all fab.

All in all he was something of a poseur with his affinity for stylish clothes and the carefully calculated way he held a cigarette between the third and fourth fingers of his hand. Certainly he was the darling of the aforementioned elites. According to Lahr's book he was a brilliant and feared critic,... [a] daring impresario... a notorious eccentric, a louche sophisticate: connoisseur of cuisine, wine, literature and women. Considering the circles in which he moved Tynan was also something of a rarity, an unashamed heterosexual, though, as a stereotypical product of the English Public School tradition, he had a lifelong prediliction for spanking, thus making up for his lack of interest in that other English public school tradition of homosexuality.

He was an inveterate name dropper, simply because for over three decades, on both sides of the Atlantic, Tynan was at the hot centre of the theatre and film worlds. he knew everybody; and everybody wanted to know him. The diaries literally contain hundreds of names of the rich and famous with whom he attended a never-ending series of meetings, weekend gatherings, dinner parties and overseas jaunts: Gore Videl, L.O.(Laurence Olivier), Marlene Deitrich, Mel Brooks, Princess Margaret, Harold Pinter, Antonia Fraser, Germaine Greer, John Geilgud, John Osbourne, George Harrison, Robert Morley, John Huston, Tennesse Williams,... and so on.

Not just names but gossip, of course, usually of the who did what with whom and where and under the influence of what drugs type: one can read about Marlene Deitrich's tryst with JFK at the Whitehouse, Paul Getty's near fatal episode of priapism, etc., etc. Tynan was indeed a clever writer with a flair for words and a consummate skill for spotting and dissecting cant. Which is surprising considering the contradictions in his own lifestyle.

Whoever invented the term "Chardonnay Socialist" (was it Barry Humphries?) must have had Ken Tynan in mind. His committment to the creed of Utopian Socialism was breathtaking and unrelieved by reality. Safely inured by a lifestyle among the rich and famous, his only insights into the working class were therotical and abstract. He was a self-described "libertarian liberal socialist" which seems to have meant "I can do whatever I want socially and sexually without restraint but the Government should control every other aspect of society." (i.e. minimal sexual restraint accompanied by maximum political and economic control of the lives of the people.) But Tynan, the elitist, was hardly one of "the people".

In those heady socialist days prior to the fall of the Berlin wall and the collapse of Communism he was the classic leftist elitist snob, mixing his pursuit, via the Michelin guide, of exquisite wining and dining in France, his love of attending the bullfights in Spain and Mexico, vacationing in the south of France, and his globe-trotting to avoid the British taxman, with solemn pronouncements about the evils of capitalism, paens to the the joys of life in Castro's Cuba and the virtues of the National Health System, or unstinting praise for the proletrariat. Ironically his own contacts with male members of that class (seeing as, unlike several other well- known celebrities he didn't seek rough trade)usually involved them threatening a punch up or stealing his wallet. On the other hand proletarian women made fine spanking partners or excellent carers thus his praises for working class bottoms and the virtues of Irish and West Indian nurses who dominated the wards of Britain's NHS hospitals during his frequent hospitalisations for chronic empysema. Needless to say Tynan was a lifelong smoker... and it killed him in the end. An old story: living fast, he died relatively and tragically young. It further emerges from the diaries that many of the pretty young things around him also met early and tragic ends while the beastly boring bitches he despised often lived on.

Such is life.

The avowed anti-capitalist was always worrying about money, though no amount of lack in that department seemed to prevent him from inveterate globetrotting. In a breath-taking piece of self-exculpation he explains in his diaries that he is NOT a capitalist because capitalists live off the blood and sweat of the working class whereas as he, as a socialist socialite, journalist and theatre critic, while enjoying a lifestyle virtually imdistinguishable form that of these capitalists, does not.

To say Tynan was a contradiction is an understatement. Pieces of seering self-analysis appear in his diary alonside bits of shallow leftist rhetoric. Alongside pornographic spanking fantasies are found insightful discursions into the human condition. After accounts of the joys of family life he could write about wife-swapping and divorce as if these were casual events.

But one of the most interesting - and surprising - features of the libertine Tynan was his strong affinity foe the writings of C.S. Lewis, one of the twentieth century's premier Christian apologists and moralists. While at Cambridge in the late 40s Tynan was tutored by Lewis and the two developed a friendship. Tynan's respect for Lewis is evident in his many positive comments about the character of the man and about the wisdom of his writings. Tynan was an avid reader and the works of Lewis had a profound and particular philosophical impact upon him, though not in a way that translated into a change of lifestyle or a conversion to Christianity. At times it seems as if Tynan may be "almost persuaded" by the words of Lewis to consider Christianity but he always veers away. This teetering on the edge before careening back into the old lifestyle adds pathos to the self-portrait of an epicurean living under the cloud of his own mortality.

For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Mark 8:35-37

a day in the life of SBS

2005-07-20T19:01:00.000+10:00

Today's theme (same as previous ones): get Bush

Tim Blair in his Bulletin column has a wonderfully succinct summary of television broadcasting "highlights" on Australian TV. His SBS daily program guide is spot on:

6.00 News From Countries You Will Never Visit
Includes Laotian traffic report and latest on the Belize library scandal.

2.00 The Monster Craves Oil
Hard-hitting German documentary explores the real reasons behind George W. Bush’s War on Terror.

4.00 World Sport
Replay of the 1983 Zaire Cup nil-all semi final between Bongo Bongo and Ebola Utd.

5.30 Mosques Out, McDonald’s In
Powerful Danish documentary reveals the hidden forces driving George W. Bush’s War on Terror.

6.00 Tour de France
Grown men on bicycles.

7.00 World Sport
Soccer news from Italy, updates on the round-ball game from Greece, European football gossip, plus Premier League action from the UK.

8.30 Iron Chef
The challenger’s magnesium truffles are no match for Iron Chef’s coq au steel.

9.00 Go Back To Texas, You Big Stupid!
Thoughtful Norwegian documentary explores the history of George W. Bush’s War on Terror.

9.30 World News Tonight
Presented by Enton A ... er, Anton Enus.

10.00 George W. Bush: Jew
Insightful Saudi documentary exposes the secret motive behind George W. Bush’s War on Terror.

11.30 Guantanamo Bay – Live Eviction
A remote camera is trained on Gitmo in the desperate hope that young Aussie idealist David Hicks will one day be freed.

Fear and self-loathing in Las Liberal

2005-07-17T00:35:00.000+10:00

Gerard Baker speculates in the Times on why it's always "our" fault - and why so many of the western elites are such enthusiastic self-flagellators

Imagine this. Suppose we’d never invaded Iraq, and terrorists had blown up London in pursuit of their cause, what would the apologists have said about last week’s attacks? In fact we know exactly what they would have said because many of them did say it after al-Qaeda attacked the US on September 11 — long before any American or British soldier set foot in Afghanistan or Iraq.

They said it was because of our support for Israel and its "brutal occupation of Palestinian territory", our complicity in the victimisation of Arabs from the Balfour Declaration to the ascent of the Jewish lobby in America.

But what if there had never been an Israel and instead a Palestinian state existed peaceably in the heart of the Middle East, and the terrorists had still attacked us? What would the apologists have said then? They would have said, of course, that we were to blame for having abused the Arabs and Muslims generally for decades through our colonial ambitions and economic exploitation of Arabia and the broader Middle East.

And what if there had never been a British Empire and British occupation of Arab lands, and terrorists had still attacked us? Then it would have been the Crusades, and the long-standing ill-treatment of Muslims at the hands of deplorable Christian warriors.

And what if there had never been a crusade, and they’d still attacked us? I’m stumped at this point to confect an answer, but I can guarantee that whatever it was that would have been said it would have been Britain’s fault.

I believe I can help Mr Baker out, and it's no confection:

They would have blamed Christianity. And if there had never been a Jesus Christ nor an apostle Paul nor an Augustine they would have blamed the Jews. It's always comes back to the Jews...

giving a Hollywood liberal credit where credit is due

2005-07-17T00:25:00.000+10:00

Some quibble that he was a little wooden but I can only agree with those astute critics who consider that Tim Robbins was really good in Team America.

Stupid Broadcasting Service

2005-07-16T23:42:00.000+10:00

Tonight I was feeling a little restless, so in a moment of boredom I carelessly flicked on Australia's own paean to all things leftist and multicultural, SBS (Special Broadcasting Service). I used to be quite a devotee of SBS as I was of the ABC. I guess I considered myself "special", an elitist who despised the mind-numbling pabulum dished out to stupify rather than enlighten the masses as they sat glued to their sets watching Home and Away, Neighbours and Big Brother on the commercial networks. But not the road to mass media serfdom for me. I turned on the TV for the "serious" documentaries about issues and news, "explored" and "analysed" on the public and semi-public broadcasters by skilled and professional commentators who had honed their skills in journalism as media consultants and "researchers" to various Labor party figures. I was sort of like those guys who only read Playboy magazine "for the articles"... and who only watch SBS for the documentaries and not for the sexy foreign movies...

But the halcyon days of carefree youth came to an end and thanks in part ot the Blogosphere I consigned both SBS abd ABC to a lowly place in my own private dustbin of media history. I don't seem to be suffering any withdrawal pains or pangs of regrets even when colleagues ask me "Did you see that really, good program on SBS/ABC last night about... how Bush/Howard/Blair/the CIA/the FBI/the industrial-military complex/right wing/redneck/Christian/homophobic/neocon/sexist/racist/greedy/fat/Republican/capitalists are conspiring to... " and I have to say "No I didn't. Did I miss something?" But I never do.

SBS and the ABC are as elitist as the commercial broadcasters are plebian. Both networks are taxpayer-supported and government-sanctioned enterprises that deal in left/liberal agitprop big time. And tonight was no exception. Lo and behold here was another European documentary (this time French) cranking up the usual leftist paranoia machine about the dangers threatening the lifestyle of those Americans hedonists just like us - i.e. the liberal elites who make these kind of "documentaries" for the liberal elites who view them on stations like SBS.

And the evil empire? - moralists in the Christian Coalition who are pulling the strings of Bush and the Republicans to implement measures that would destroy the very foundation of modern civilisation, which is the right to have unrestricted, unrestrained sexual activity with anyone at any time, at any age, of any gender, as long as it feels good and no one is hurt - unless they specifically ask to be.

According to the French film-makers, the Christian Coalition is represented by a busload of middle-aged and elderly mid-western couples and spinsters with blue rinses who use their ill-gotten funds from a lifetime of capitalist exploitation (i.e hard work) to come to Washington to fund right-wing spivs who have the the ear of good ol' boy Republican senators and congressmen in order to bring about the total destruction of the greatest achievements of human civilisation: 1)the sexual revolution and 2)the right to dispose of any unwanted spawn that results from the exercise of the first revolutionary right.

Once upon a time conspiracy theories were a fixture of the extreme right wing, nowadays they are almost solely the prerogative of the left. In fact being a leftist pretty much means being under the sway of any number of outlandish conspiracy theories at any one time. The mainstream media is the official outlet for these leftist conspiracies and paranoid fantasies, none more so than the "public" broadcasters. Turn on SBS any night, or the ABC, and you will see that the end of the world as we know it is imminent and that Bush and Blair but not Kim Jong-il or Osama Bin Laden, Christians but not Muslims, capitalists but not communists, traditionalists but not radicals, Western white men but not black African dictators or Islamofascist terrorists, suburbanites but not inner city cliques, family and pro-life groups but not feminists or homosexual activists, are the enemy.

The shrill cries of "Non!" from the outraged French film-makers still reverberates in my head hours after viewing. And that pretty much sums up my own right as a viewer. To SBS I say "Non!" and go to bed to read a good book.

Frustratingly my taxes still go to help finance these house organs of the left.

the trouble with Islamofascism

2005-07-08T01:15:00.000+10:00

...it only gets worse

In a recent article The Washington Post presented an interview with Abu Ibrahim, a Syrian smuggler of jihadists to Iraq, and a militant member of the Salafism faction of fanatical Islam,in which he confirmed the realities of the threat posed to freedom and democracy by Islamic extremists:

Their goal is restoration of the Islamic caliphate, the system that governed Muslims before the rise of nation states.

Abu Ibrahim said he regarded Afghanistan during the Taliban rule as one of the few true Islamic governments since the time of Muhammad.

"The Koran is a constitution, a law to govern the world," he said.

"September 11 gave us the media coverage. It was a great day. America was defeated."

Two weeks after the attacks in New York and at the Pentagon, the group felt bold enough to celebrate in public in Aleppo with a "festival," as it was called, featuring video of hand-to-hand combat and training montages of guerrillas leaping from high walls.

By 2002 the anti-American festivals were running twice weekly, often wrapped around weddings or other social gatherings.

Jihad was being allowed into the open. Abu Ibrahim said Syrian security officials and presidential advisers attended festivals, one of which was called "The People of Sham Will Now Defeat the Jews and Kill Them All." Money poured in from Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries.

They were allowed to enforce their strict vision of sharia, or Islamic law, entering houses in the middle of the night to confront people accused of bad behavior. Abu Ibrahim said their authority rivaled that of the Amn Dawla, or state security. "Everyone knew us," he said. "We all had big beards. We became thugs."

Safe houses were established. Weapons were positioned. In the vast desert that forms the border with Iraq, passages through the dunes long used to smuggle goods now were employed to funnel fighters.

"We had specific meeting places for Iraqi smugglers," Abu Ibrahim said. "They wouldn't do the trip if we had fewer than 15 fighters. We would drive across the border and then into villages on the Iraqi side. And from there the Iraqi contacts would take the mujaheddin to training camps."

"Anyone - Christian, Jew, Sunni, Shiites - whoever cooperates with the Americans can be killed. It's a holy war."

Hope he's only joking, or it's a media hoax...

The sick, sick world of "compassionate" "caring", "tolerant" "liberals"

2005-07-08T00:22:00.000+10:00

A quick look around the Web lays bare the ugly underbelly of "progressive liberals":

a Democratic Underground thread about conservative radio talk show hostess Laura Ingraham undergoing surgery for breast cancer:

She probably gave it to herself...

I don't pray for Nazis or other Totalitarian Scum

I hope she goes into remission and fucking chokes to death.

Comments on the Huffington Post site on Vice-President Dick Cheney's hospitalization for heart problems:

I wish the evil zombie would stop leaving his underground bunker. Surely, there's a medical ward where he lurks below the surface, near Washington, D.C.

Hasn't he had his "last throes" of chest pains yet?

His heart is listening to all the lies coming out of his mouth. It can't take much more of this drivel.

You bet we losers want him dead. And I'm glad to be a loser. If I were a winner, I'd have to be around the kind of assholes who like Bush and Cheney.

"Last throes," does one suppose? Here's hoping.

Actually, I was thinking more along the lines of a stake through his heart.

A commentator at the Democratic Underground on the breaking news of the terrorist bombings in London:

Funny how Bu$h always gets a distraction just when he needs it the most. That Osama fellow always comes through just in the nick of time.

Various commentators at Indymedia UK on the same event:

Its an inside Job...

get these NAZIS out of power NOW!!!!

...seen it all b4

well they finally attacked london...the timing is almost too perfect it almost seems surreal...attempting to wipe the smile off the smug war criminal political liar blair's face...just one day after london got the olympics...its as if the IOC decision and now this terror attack will take the minds of the G8 leaders focus away from africa and climate change(or give them an excuse to).i for one did not want london to get the olympics...these events only end up being a burden to ordinary tax payers for years to come.they wasted money billions on the "dome" now they will do the same on an even bigger scale with the 2012 olympics...and one day afer the IOC granted the games to the capital city they show they cannot prevent a major terror attack...and would id cards have stopped this....NO.these terror attacks are as sensless as they are despicable...but once again we will see our political leaders use them to control us and restrict our freedom.
...

Without a shadow of a doubt, the work of MI operatives

Problem reaction solution scam so obvious, and on a 7/7/7 (2+5) date only of interest to the masonic bastards who run the intelligence services, and the knights of Eulogia and Malta (Bush and Bliar), and those other grotesque thieves,mass murderers and satanists meeting in Gleneagles

The last time Blair, Bush and Her Majesty met on UK soil, there were bomb blasts against British interests in Turkey

Blair and those controlling him will now feel they can do whatever they want, and some of the public will now start demanding their ID cards, in the mistaken belief they will shelter them from these attacks, which are indeed, AN INSIDE JOB
...

Like September 11th, this reeks of an inside job, right after Bush and Blair appeared before the media making trivial small talk and jokes. I'm afraid it's all so predictable.

As I predicted some time ago, if the Establishment conducted a "terrorist" outrage in Britain, the target would be London Underground. Sadly, today on the seventh day of the seventh month, I am in a position to say. "I told you so!"

From out of their own mouths comes a spew of bigoted, fascistic, hatred laced with a mindless conspiracy-theorising and undisguised glee at human suffering. This is the tragedy of what "enlightened" liberalism has become at the start of the 21st century - a cesspit full of rabid radical haters and despisers committed to "causes" but without a shred of empathy, human decency or consideration for actual people.

Victor Davis Hanson captures the self-immolating pathology that drives the Western elites to gleefully chop down the branch on which they themselves sit:
... Our own fundamentalist Left is in lockstep with Wahhabist reductionism — in its similar instinctive distrust of Western culture. Both blame the United States and excuse culpability on the part of Islamists. The more left-wing the Westerner, the more tolerant he is of right-wing Islamic extremism; the more liberal the Arab, the more likely he is to agree with conservative Westerners about the real source of Middle Eastern pathology.

The constant? A global distrust of Western-style liberalism and preference for deductive absolutism. So burn down a mosque in Zimbabwe, murder innocent Palestinians in Bethlehem in 2002, arrest Christians in Saudi Arabia, or slaughter Africans in Dafur, and both the Western Left and the Middle East's hard Right won't say a word. No such violence resonates with America's diverse critics as much as a false story of a flushed Koran — precisely because the gripe is not about the lives of real people, but the psychological hurts, angst, and warped ideology of those who in their various ways don't like the United States.

I will pass over quickly the day's other sorry stories, but they were equally revealing. From Karachi, we learn that Pakistani Shiite Muslims burned down a Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise. You see, a Sunni suicide bomber had just blown up 19 Pakistani Shia. In reaction to that attack, the Shiite mob went out and killed six employees of a business owned and operated by a Pakistani Muslim. Follow the logic of the Middle East: When you are angry at your own for their murdering, and are too weak or terrified to do anything about it, go out and destroy anything remotely American-affiliated.

I read the most of these news accounts last week while sitting in a Starbucks (Dunkin' Donuts next door) on the eastern side of the Brandenburg Gate in the former Communist sector of Berlin — watching a parade of protestors damn the militarism of the United States (a.k.a. "Top Gun") while a nearby TV blared accounts of a recent German mystery on state-run television, whose subtext was that the United States intelligence planned September 11 and blamed it on the poor jihadists.

Updates: Let's not forget the crazy "kossacks" who congregate at Daily Kos. And this after a warning from Kos himself to cut out some of the more extreme dishes of conspiracy-theory ratbaggery regularly served up:

Do we have any proof the [sic] Osama Bin A**hole orchestrated the 911 attacks? NO! We have all chosen to believe our governments account of the events, because to think otherwise would be too difficult to comprehend. And why shouldn't we believe our government? It's not like they are the most corrupt administration since the dawn of the republic who have lied to us every f***ing step of the way.

So there we have a snapshot of 60 years of American efforts to rid Germany of Hitler, pour in Marshall Plan money, keep 300 Soviet divisions out of Germany, and convince skeptical British, French, and Russians to support reunification: In response, welcome in American popular culture as you damn the United States in the conveniently abstract.

A war that cannot be won entirely on the battlefield most certainly can be lost entirely off it — especially when an ailing Western liberal society is harder on its own democratic culture than it is on fascist Islamic fundamentalism.

So unhinged have we become that if an American policymaker calls for democracy and reform in the Middle East, then he is likely to echo the aspirations of jailed and persecuted Arab reformers. But if he says Islamic fascism is either none of our business or that we lack the wisdom or morality to pass judgment on the pathologies of a traditional tribal society, then the jihadist and the police state — and our own Western Left — approve.

a medico-legal fiction creates the living dead

2005-07-07T17:37:00.000+10:00

...like that other medico-legal fiction that pretends the unborn aren't living.

Melanie Phillips reports on an article in which medical experts admit that the definition of brain death is merely an artificial construct to allow transplants to take place because organs, of necessity, have to be harvested from people who are not dead (but who give their permission, of course...)

Brain death is essential to current practices of organ retrieval because it legitimates organ removal from bodies that continue to have circulation and respiration, thereby avoiding ischemic injury to the organs. The concept of brain death has long been recognized, however, to be plagued with serious inconsistencies and contradictions. Indeed, the concept fails to correspond to any coherent biological or philosophical understanding of death.
Robert Truog and Walter Robinson in "Critical Care Medicine"

As M. Potts and David Evans note in the "Journal of Medical Ethics":
There were never sound empirical grounds for criteria of death based on the loss of testable brain function while the body remains alive. One difficulty is the near impossibility of diagnosing—with the necessary certainty—the "irreversible cessation of all functions of the entire brain, including the brain stem" while the rest of the body remains alive.

the solution: sign up to have your organs removed while you are still alive, because they're no good to anybody when you're dead...

that liberal thing you do

2005-06-19T22:49:00.000+10:00

Here’s the thing. And it’s a disturbing thing. Or should be. As far back as I reach and as much as I rack my brain trying to find the exceptions, the few that come to mind only prove the rule that most persons who strongly advocate left-wing, small "l" liberal views are self-righteous, opinionated and aggressive bigots who lack any real understanding or tolerance of those who don’t share their assumptions, prejudices and presumptions.

I know this is a very sweeping and controversial judgment. But I make it because it represents both my experience and my observation. Consider the field in which I have worked for nearly 25 years – one employing tertiary educated professionals. It is without fail liberal/left views and positions that are always most loudly and aggressively pushed, and most disturbingly, assumed to be the received wisdom and default position of all reasonable, intelligent, informed persons. In such an environment liberal advocates feel they have an absolute right, one overtly encouraged by the prevailing zeitgeist, to push their own political – and everything to them is "political" - hobby horses. The enemies are tradition, stability, and always but always – Christianity.

In this worldview conservative and traditional views are considered extreme or reactionary or beyond the pale. I have seen this principle operating at all levels and in all manner of professional contexts. This mindset is so entrenched that most of the conservative Christians I have encountered - and most conservatives I have met over the years are in fact Christian or at least "religious" - are very careful to keep their Christian views out of their professional dealings, and to act as prudently and circumspectly as possible to prevent their political, religious and social views from colouring their professional duties or limiting their prospects of advancement. Indeed many of them feel the need to hide their deepest beliefs from others so as not to offend - or to avoid persecution. But the other side feels free to make overt socio-political comments and advocate left-wing agendas at every opportunity including in their dealings with the impressionable young clientale we work with. In collegiate situations it is not uncommon for stereotypical anti-Christian jibes and derogatory epitaphs to be openly expressed, or if not openly, to be strongly insinuated.

In social situations these same "caring and concerned liberals" frequently express dumbfounded and shocked reactions to anyone else who voices, however carefully, conservative points of view, or dares to defend a conservative leader. Most such "liberals" cannot even conceive of a similarly well educated, professional, "thinking" person having any other view that the received left-wing one. Thus, in an age of politically correct tolerance, openness and multiculturalism with its celebration of difference, it is a chilling revelation that the strongest advocates for such an agenda apparently lack any ability and courtesy to appreciate that others may come to a position that does not march in lockstep with the "correct" view espoused by the academic Left and the "serious" media, and faithfully parotted by the self-appointed cultural elites.

The only thing worse than a bigot, is a liberal bigot. And most of the "educated" bigots I have met are "loud and proud" liberals. Intellectual bullies. This is not just a philosophical musing; it is a real world fact.

The values and beliefs that built Western society and civilisation over millennia of painful growth are now eagerly trampled in the dirt by the very people who have most benefitted from this heritage. And like spoilt brats they are filled with hate and self-loathing, lashing out at the hand that feeds them, decrying all that is tried and true, conventional and traditional, always tearing down, never building up, yet forever shouting "Peace! Peace!" when there is no peace, and dreaming utopian fantasies that are doomed because they have forgotten the first principles and the most important things. But perhaps what is most disturbing is that many of them are ignorant of history, raw and undeconstructed history as it really happened to real people. Why worry about facts when a slogan or ideological point-scoring will suffice. Link this with a lack of ability for honest self-examination and genuine reflection and you have a tragic tale. The modern liberal is a scholar’s parrot. Even a scholar’s parrot may talk Greek... but to what avail?

Re-Rethinking the Death Penalty

2005-06-14T19:05:00.000+10:00

"Every execution deters eighteen murders."

There's nothing new under the sun... and everything old is new again. "New" research only confirms common sense and the wisdom of the ages.

The Atlantic Online links to
A liberal's case for the death penalty - because if a "noted liberal scholar" says it, it must be true:

Support for capital punishment is, of course, usually associated with the political right. But the lead author of a new paper making what might be termed the "big government" case for the death penalty is the noted liberal scholar Cass Sunstein. The paper draws in part on a study conducted at Emory University, which found a direct association between the reauthorization of the death penalty, in 1977, and reduced homicide rates. The Emory researchers' "conservative estimate" was that on average, every execution deters eighteen murders. Sunstein and his co-author argue that this calculus makes the death penalty not just morally licit but morally required. A government that fails to make use of it, they write, is effectively condemning large numbers of its citizens to death—a sin of omission like failing to protect the environment or to provide adequate health care. "If each execution is saving many lives," they conclude, "the harms of capital punishment would have to be very great to justify its abolition, far greater than most critics have heretofore alleged."

Is Capital Punishment Morally Required? The Relevance of Life-Life Tradeoffs by CASS R. SUNSTEIN & ADRIAN VERMEULE, University of Chicago Law School. U Chicago Law & Econ, Olin Working Paper No. 239; AEI-Brookings Joint Center Working Paper No. 05-06; U of Chicago, Public Law Working Paper No. 85

Abstract:
Recent evidence suggests that capital punishment may have a significant deterrent effect, preventing as many eighteen or more murders for each execution. This evidence greatly unsettles moral objections to the death penalty, because it suggests that a refusal to impose that penalty condemns numerous innocent people to death. Capital punishment thus presents a life-life tradeoff, and a serious commitment to the sanctity of human life may well compel, rather than forbid, that form of punishment. Moral objections to the death penalty frequently depend on a distinction between acts and omissions, but that distinction is misleading in this context, because government is a special kind of moral agent. The familiar problems with capital punishment - potential error, irreversibility, arbitrariness, and racial skew - do not argue in favor of abolition, because the world of homicide suffers from those same problems in even more acute form. The widespread failure to appreciate the life-life tradeoffs involved in capital punishment may depend on cognitive processes that fail to treat "statistical lives" with the seriousness that they deserve.

Imagine if a conservative or a "right-winger" had written this? He would have been denied, mocked, abused, flagellated and then crucified...

Download the full text of the paper here.

the millions don't get it, but thank Heavens the Virgin Queen does

2005-06-14T18:07:00.000+10:00

In the beginning... was the Virgin:

I am writing this blog to chronicle the spiritual and political transformations that have happened to me in the past year. I have never felt compelled to share my story until now, perhaps because in the Before Time - in the Long Long Ago - my story was the twisted and cynical one that is so common among the secular youth of America. I lived life for my own purposes, shamelessly pursuing hedonism in all forms and indulging in what I can now see as a near-insane pursuit of violence. My regard for Life and Truth was nonexistent, my attitude towards morality utterly contemptuous. Everything changed for me one day when I was granted - even though I did not deserve it (and none of us ever does!) - the revelation that G-d exists. That His Word lives.

Now from the Court of the Virgin Queen, comes more on the epiphany:

on peering into the abyss...and seeing death...

on turning away from the abyss... and finding God...

The moment I found I had to reconsider Jesus was after the major aftershocks of my own conversion had calmed - while the details are too personal for me to tell just anyone, suffice to say that an essential part of it was the epiphany that Moses actually spoke with G-d and that the "story" of receiving the tablets on Mt. Sinai literally happened. For this to suddenly assert itself in the soul of someone whose complete faith in reason and science had previously made religious faith worthy of derision could only be the work of a higher intelligence than mine! To break through the dull flatness of modern cynicism was the single most exhilarating moment of my life. This meant that everything had changed: the Torah was not just a book, it was the living Word, and that meant G-d had revealed himself in a mass revelation to the Jewish people to form the Covenant.

I had of course known all these things beforehand as part of my general studies of literature (how I laugh now when I remember telling someone the Bible was a "good read" on par with a good sci-fi novel), but the gap between knowing and believing is a vast space with no bridge in between. Nietzsche famously said that "when you look into the abyss, the abyss looks back into you," and it is true beyond what even he intended that to mean. For one stands on one side of the gap in the comfortable arrogance of rational positivism, patting oneself on the back for one’s modernity and personal abilities, but eventually life becomes so boring and desperate that something compels the person to look down at the precipice beneath him. He cannot yet see the other side, which is where the delusion that the universe consists only of one’s ego falls happily away - the result is that all he peers into is the naked terror of death and the unconscious realms that ever threaten to draw in the seeking soul. Those who do not know G-d are yearning for contact so deeply that they are drawn into a morbid fascination with death, which they might be totally unaware of -not for nothing does the Bible clearly state that "those who hate G-d love death." The reason for this is that death is a mystery to science and the self-destructive urge so often seen in modern people is really one of exploration: after all, if you and your miserable fellow humans are all that exists in the universe, what else is left to explore but self-annihilation? They do not know it, but this is a yearning for release from the torture of being slaves to their ego, and thus separated from their Creator and furious at Him for abandoning them...

What is up to us is to meet Him halfway. G-d is not a tyrant who controls all of our actions and rules over ant-like men the way that the Greeks imagined that their gods did. We are able to enter into relationship with G-d because we are created in His image, with free will to negotiate and argue and set terms to a limited degree. I am called to uphold the original Covenant because those are the terms that all of the Jews at Sinai agreed to enter into, and those terms are eternal and unbreakable. Because of free will, I can choose to live my life in opposition to G-d and try to forget that I am bound by the Law, but to do so would only be to dive headlong into the abyss. Wise was He who said that we cannot break the Law, but only ourselves against it.

Some truths cannot be analysed or measured, they can only be experienced. This is the tragedy of the rationalist, ever gazing into the abyss - or seeking bread and circuses to distract himself from confronting the Dark.

The Jedi seem like a funny sort of bunch for a generation of overeducated slackers with a distaste for "organized religion" to be cheering

2005-06-06T20:11:00.000+10:00

Colby Cosh unmasks George Lucas' hidden agenda

We live in a period in which churches are regarded as sinister in themselves, but "faith" of all kinds receives exaggerated deference and legal protection. So has anyone noticed that, er, the Jedi are a hierarchical militarist religious order that takes great pains to impose orthodoxy on its members from childhood onward? Or that the rhetoric used by Darth Sidious to befuddle and win over Anakin Skywalker is basically liberal-relativist? "Good is a point of view?" Helloooo?

Obi-Wan Kenobi does make a remark at one point that "Only a Sith deals in absolutes"...but then he proceeds to mutilate the living bejeebers out of his heretical ex-acolyte. Which is a pretty "absolute" sort of thing to do, though nobody asked me. The Jedi, on the whole, seem like a funny sort of bunch for a generation of overeducated slackers with a distaste for "organized religion" to be cheering for. The Jedi virtues all seem to be particularly scarce in the contemporary age--obedience, humility, chastity, patience.

by the people, for the people, of the people

2005-06-05T10:58:00.000+10:00

Another condescending left-wing academic is set loose on the public with a blast of typical illiberal elitist rhetoric.

Associate Professor Judith Armstrong, a fellow of the Contemporary European Research Centre at Melbourne University comes down from her ivory tower to lecture selfish French and Dutch voters on their failure to toe the party line:

Europe squanders its chance...

...a clear majority of the supposedly civilised French and Dutch populations have put fear and self-protection ahead of global balance. If, as the adage goes, education is wasted on the young, it is tempting to wonder whether democracy is not wasted on voters.

Armstrong, of course, isn't just tempted. Like many contemporary "liberals" she actually despises democracy because it allows ordinary people to express politically-incorrect views that may run counter to the "trust us, we know what's best for you" elitist agenda. Most of the indignation and venom in her article is actually reserved for the heinous crime of "supposedly civilised French and Dutch" acting like - Americans!

You see, for these folks, it's always about the Americans, isn't it...

no contest

2005-06-03T00:10:00.000+10:00

Andrew Kenny writing in the Spectator asks Which kills more: ideology or religion?

The answer:

The sun set on the 20th century more than four years ago but you can still see a blood-red glow on the horizon. The century that saw unprecedented technological progress also saw unprecedented slaughter. Previously, religion had served mankind’s deep needs for explanation, order, spiritual comfort and transcendental meaning. Now a new and hideous thing was summoned up to serve the same needs. The thing was ideology, and in a few decades it caused more bloodshed than millennia of religion. It was darker and more irrational, and contained within it something unknown to all the Religions of the Book: a death wish. Religious leaders, however bad they may be, however prone to hubris and hatred, are constrained by fear of God above and by ancient tradition and wisdom. Ideological leaders have no such constraints...

Ideology comes in three colours: red, brown and green, representing Marxism, fascism and environmental extremism.

Perhaps it's just a weird world?

2005-06-02T23:55:00.000+10:00

Sex Offenders Get Medicaid-Paid Viagra reports Kevin Freking:

WASHINGTON -- Nearly 800 convicted sex offenders in 14 states got Medicaid-funded prescriptions for Viagra and other impotence drugs, according to a survey by The Associated Press.

The majority of the cases were in New York, Florida and Texas.

Medicaid, the health insurance program for the poor, is administered differently in every state. Thus, while some states allowed Medicaid payments for prescriptions for the drugs Viagra, Cialis and Levitra, other states did not.

New York, acting on a tip, was the first to uncover that Medicaid had paid for Viagra prescriptions for sex offenders. Its report prompted the federal government, which provides states with funds for Medicaid, to order states to take steps to stop the coverage for these felons.

The states that provided registered sex offenders with subsidized impotence drugs are Florida, 218 cases; New York, 198; Texas, 191; New Jersey, 55; Virginia, 52; Missouri, 26; Kansas, 14; Ohio, 13; Michigan, seven; Maine, five; Georgia, three; Montana, three; Alabama, two; and North Dakota, one. That comes to 788 cases.

The time surveyed varied widely among the states, from six months to five years...

Kyle Smith, a spokesman for the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, put it this way: "Do we have programs giving clubs to wife beaters or drinks for those committing DUI? Weird things happen in this world, and this is one of the weirder."

No freking way, Kevin!?

mad world

2005-06-02T23:05:00.000+10:00

...or is it bad world

In New York Newsday the aptly named Errol A. Cockfield reports that New York is to stop paying for drugs such as Viagra after convicted sex offenders were found to be receiving State funded "erectile dysfunction drugs".

Gov. George Pataki yesterday issued a temporary ban on all publicly funded erectile dysfunction drugs after the discovery that convicted sex offenders were receiving the medication. Pataki asked the state Health and Insurance departments to discontinue paying for drugs such as Viagra until he proposes legislation that would allow the state to cross-reference sex offender lists with taxpayer-funded health databases.

"I urge the Legislature to act quickly on this legislation that will allow us to put a targeted ban in place that will prevent sex offenders from receiving these drugs at taxpayer expense," the governor said in a statement.

Pataki's move came in response to state Comptroller Alan Hevesi, who on Sunday said his office had found that 198 convicted level 3 sex offenders - the most serious sexual culprits - were receiving erectile dysfunction drugs...

Strange, erectile dysfunction would seem to be just what the doctor ordered for these sex offenders - especially as "level 3" offences include crimes against children as young as 2 years old. It is ironic that, since effective "cures" for paedophilia have proven very elusive, Medicaid would be paying for 198 sex offenders to get it up all over again. But then, what's sense got to do with it? [Or love, for that matter?] It's all about one's rights, I guess. The ACLU will be taking it up soon...

And it came to pass that in a therapeutic society:

I have an erection
Therefore I am

Pity it's never about responsibilities or consequences.

the fact that dare not speak its name

2005-05-30T23:08:00.000+10:00

On the list of "risky sexual practices" unprotected anal intercourse with a promiscuous gay man would rate pretty much at the top... but in these times of rampant PC this is a fact that dare not speak its name.

"practice not preaching makes perfect"

2005-05-30T20:44:00.000+10:00

...but getting them to practice what you preach is another matter. It's an old, old story with a new politically-correct twist.

Anne Barbeliuk reports in The Mercury that

A huge rise in sexually transmitted diseases in Tasmania has prompted health authorities to...

[Hmm, I wonder what the "health authorities" are going to do? Wait for it... this could be a revelation... are you ready... but I guess you know what's coming... yes...]

...urge young people to practise safe sex.

I note the unfortunate use of the word "urge" here. They have been urging that same mantra for twenty years now with negative results in the "urge" department so, hey, why not continue with the same failed program.

But I wonder why the same "health authorities" don't run a safe smoking program, or even a safe drink-driving campaign?

Further elaboration comes from ABC News which dutifully reports that:

Tasmanian health authorities are developing a new education campaign to combat a massive rise in chlamydia cases.

[Sigh. Another social problem, another educational campaign foisted on schools...]

According to Dr Maree O'Sullivan from the State Government's Sexual Health Service what this "new" cutting-edge "education campaign" involves is a startlingly radical prescription:

"We're actually looking at doing a safe sex slogan campaign getting young people and hopefully mainly men between the ages of 14 and 24 to come up with slogans that are actually relevant to them, in language that's relevant to them," she said.

Slogans!
That's what we need! And more relevant slogans at that. (Didn't Dr O'Sullivan just play the old "relevance" card twice in one sentence?) Remember the last relevant slogan they got young people to come up with:

If it's not on, it's not on.

Apparently, it didn't work...

What was it Santayana said about people who redouble their efforts after forgetting their aims?

Dr O'Sullivan notes a rise in "risky sexual practices" - but in a completely non-judgmental way, of course. Apparently she wishes young people would opt for less risky sexual practices but I don't like her chances of getting the "young men" who are her main target to embrace the new staid sex.

Back to the drawing board, I think Doctor!

What about this one: Sex can kill... unless you remain faithful to one likewise faithful partner?

Or this one: Risky sex - the sex you have when you're not having a committed monogamous relationship

No, too puritanical, too judgmental and too emotional.
Shades of the infamous Grim Reaper advertising campaign at the height of the Aids scare that told us we were all going to die unless we wore condoms twenty-four hours a day...

Or too much like this PC faux pas committed by Discover magazine around the same time that really gave sodomy a bum rap.

Oh, but then death and disease only applies to smoking and and drink-driving, don't they?

showing no shame

2005-05-30T15:35:00.000+10:00

Marxism, the greatest fantasy of the [twentieth] century
Leszek Kolakowski

...and its most brutal nightmare.

The utopian fantasy of Marxists and their fellow travellers found its ultimate concrete expression in the latter part of the 1970s in a formerly insignificant country in south-east Asia. There was revealed Marxism's true face, its fatal flaw, its natural destination and its inherent evil. The history of the twentieth century is the history of how Marxism was tried and found wanting in every way and in every place on earth... but still the dream lives on in ther minds of Leftist elitists in love with "humanity" as expressed in ideas and ideologies rather than any real concern for actual human beings. Pray that the common sense of the common man will ever be on guard against the suicidal instincts of so-called intellectuals.

Welcome to Pol Pot's Cambodia, a place where Richard Dawkin's meme theory, Daniel Dennett's corrosive acid and Noam Chomsky's hypocrisy all materialised together:

Just as the Holocaust expressed the quintessential nature of National Socialism, so did the Khmer Rouge rule in Cambodia (1975-78) represent the purest embodiment of Communism: what it turns into when pushed to its logical conclusion. Its leaders would stop at nothing to attain their objective, which was to create the first truly egalitarian society in the world: to this end they were prepared to annihilate as many of their people as they deemed necessary. It was the most extreme manifestation of the hubris inherent in Communist ideology, the belief in the boundless power of an intellectual elite guided by the Marxist doctrine, with resort to unrestrained violence in order completely to reshape life. The result was devastation on an unimaginable scale.

The leaders of the Khmer Rouge received their higher education in Paris, where they absorbed Rousseau's vision of "natural man," as well as the exhortations of Frantz Fanon and Jean-Paul Sartre to violence in the struggle against colonialism. ("One must kill," Sartre wrote. "To bring down a European is to ... suppress at the same time the oppressor and the oppressed.") On their return to Cambodia, they organized in the northeastern hills a tightly disciplined armed force made up largely of illiterate and semiliterate youths recruited from the poorest peasantry. These troops, for the most part twelve - to fourteen-year-old adolescents, were given intense indoctrination in hatred of all those different from themselves, especially city dwellers and the Vietnamese minoriry. To develop a "love of killing and consequently war," they were trained, like the Nazi SS, in tormenting and slaughtering animals.

Their time came in early 1975, when the Khmer overthrew the government of Lon Nol, installed bv the Americans, and occupied the country's capital, Phnom Penh. The population at large had no inkling what lay in store, because in their propaganda the Khmer Rouge promised to pardon servants of the old regime, rallying all classes against the "imperialists" and landowners. Yet the instant Khmer Rouge troops entered Phnom Penh, they resorted to the most radical punitive measures. Convinced that cities were the nidus of all evil - in Fanon's words, the home of "traitors and knaves" - the Khmer Rouge ordered the capital, with its 2.5 million inhabitants, and all other urban centers to be totally evacuated. The victims, driven into the countryside, were allowed to salvage only what they could carry on their backs. Within one week all Cambodian cities were emptied. Four million people, or 60 percent of the population, suffered exile, compelled to live under the most trying conditions, overworked as well as undernourished. Secondary and higher schools were shut down.

Then the carnage began. Unlike Mao, whom he admired and followed in many respects, the leader of the Khmer Rouge, Pol Pot, did not waste time on "reeducation" but proceeded directly to the extermination of those categories of the population whom he suspected of actual or potential hostility to the new order: all civilian and military employers of the old regime, former landowners, teachers, merchants, Buddhist monks, and even skilled workers. Members of these groups, officially relegated to the lowest class of citizens and deprived of all rights, including access to food rations, were either summarily shot or sent to perform forced labor until they dropped dead from exhaustion. These condemned unfortunates constituted, potentially, over two-thirds of the population. They were systematically arrested, interrogated, and tortured until they implicated others, and then executed. The executions involved entire families, including small children, for Pol Pot believed that dissenting ideas and attitudes, derived from one's social position, education, or occupation, were "evil microbes" that spread like disease. Members of the Communist Party, considered susceptible to contagion, were also subject to liquidation. After the Vietnamese expelled the Khmer Rouge from Cambodia, they discovered mountains of skulls of its victims.

The peasants were not spared, being driven into "cooperatives" modeled on the Chinese. The state appropriated all the food produced by these communes and, as in pharaonic Egypt, having stored it in temples and other government depositories, doled it out at its discretion. These measures upset traditional rural practices and led to food shortages that in 1978-79, following an unusually severe drought, produced a massive famine.

The killings intensified throughout the forty-four months that the Khmer Rouge controlled Cambodia. People were executed for such offenses as being late to work, complaining about food, criticizing the government, or engaging in pre-marital sex. In sadism, the brutalities were fully comparable to those perpetrated by the Nazis. Thus on the Vietnamese border

Khmer Rouge soldiers would rape a Vietnamese woman, then ram a stake or bayonet into her vagina. Pregnant women were cut open, their unborn babies yanked out and slapped against the dying mother's face. The yotheas [youths] also enjoyed cutting the breasts off well endowed Vietnamese women.

Cases were reported of children being ordered to kill their parents.

The toll of these massacres was appalling. According to reliable estimates, the population of Cambodia at the time the Khmer Rouge seized power in 1975 was 7.3 million; when the Vietnamese took over in 1978, it had declined to 5.8 million. Allowing for the natural population increase during the intervening four years, it should have been over 8 million. In other words, the Pol Pot regime was responsible for the death or population deficit of some 2 million Cambodian citizens, or over one-quarter of the population. These victims represented the best educated and most skilled elements of the nation. The gruesome experiment has been characterized as a "human tragedy of almost unprecedented proportions [that] occurred because political theoreticians carried out their grand design on the unsuspecting Khmer people."

Some Western intellectuals, unwilling to blame this unprecedented slaughter on the Communists, attributed it to the Americans, who in 1964-73 had bombed Cambodia in an attempt to destroy the Vietcong forces that had sought there. It is difficult to see, however, why the Cambodians' rage against the Americans would vent itself in the killing of 2 million of their own people.

It may be noted that there were no demonstrations anywhere in the world against these outrages and the United Nations passed no resolutions condemning them. The world took them in its stride, presumably because they were committed in what was heralded as a noble cause.

Richard Pipes Communism: a History, Random House, 2001 pp132-135

Where were the all the demonstrators who protested so loudly against the US liberation of Iraq, when the real killing fields was going down in Cambodia in the seventies? Where were the peace protestors, the rich Hollywood liberals, the literati, the intellectual elite? Same place they always are when the real villains of recent history are running amok. Same place they were when Stalin's Great Terror was underway in the thirties, Mao's collectivization famine was ocurring in the late fifties and the Rwanda tragedy errupted in the nineties? Making excuses for terror, hating America and blaming America, and all the while serving their gods that failed - Marx and Lenin - and showing no shame.

The horror, the horror

Leading scientific journals accused of censoring debate on global warming

2005-05-27T19:20:00.000+10:00

Leading scientific journals 'are censoring debate on global warming'

Two of the world's leading scientific journals [Science and Nature]have come under fire from researchers for refusing to publish papers which challenge fashionable wisdom over global warming.

Egad! Surely not?! It is not in the nature of science to be anything less than honest, fair and factually accurate...

Scott does the Crusades

2005-05-26T22:49:00.000+10:00

What would happen if you let an ageing Leftist agnostic preach finger-wagging political correctness in a movie purporting to give historical(sic) insight into the Crusades?

Dr Frank has the lowdown:

Kingdom of Heaven asks a question that has plagued historians for decades: what would happen if a late 20th-century, secular, agnostic, multiculturalist, progressive, sensitive Hollywood type were to be transported back in time to participate in one of history's grandest spectacles? Could one of the most embarrassingly culturally insensitive chapters of our history be rewritten or perhaps even avoided altogether, through the efforts of one determined, sensitive man who is as open-minded about stuff as we are?

It's a neat idea, and it is arguably needed now more than ever. So Ridley Scott, himself a knight like Walter Scott before him, sets the Wayback for the late 12th Century, and sends a former elf named Legolas back to medieval Jerusalem, just to see if he can single-handedly make the Crusades more palatable to modern sensibilities by forging a caring, mutually-fulfilling Christian-Saracen support network in the Crusader Kingdom.

Legolas has a degree of success, at first. Jerusalem folks, it is agreed, should stick together; Jerusalem folks should all be pals. Mohammedans dance with the infidels' daughters; Crusaders dance with the Saracens' gals. You're OK! No, man, you're OK! You and me are free to be you and me. These kids are all right.

And it might have worked, too, were it not for those meddling Knights Templar. Legolas ladles out prodigious quantities of chicken soup for the soul, and practically does himself an injury trying to buy the world a coke and keep it company, but there's just no way these Knights Templar are ever gonna be Peppers. No way. It only takes a few bad apples to spoil the whole idyllic, culturally tolerant People's Republic of Jerusalem, and these Templars are apples of surpassing badness. So in the end, the butterfly effect is negligible. The wise and gentle Saracens are finally provoked by the diabolical Templars into sacking Jerusalem, despite Legolas's spendidly anachronistic touchy-feely neurotic handwringing. Yet the handwringing does lend the story an otherwise hard-to-identify triumph-of-the-human-spirited-ness and transforms it into a Valuable Lesson for Us Today. As a caption reminds us at the end, the resulting conflict in the Middle East has lasted to this day. Maybe one elf with a time machine can't do it alone, after all. But, maybe, next time, with your help...

There's a long tradition of this sort of thing in movies, of course. Our hero will be the one guy with contemporary sensibilities, brooding and fretting amidst a swarm of depressingly ignorant, unevolved, unprogressive barbarians. He's not sure whether all this conflict is such a hot idea after all. "Maybe there's more to life than wealth and power and glory," the reluctant warrior will say. "After all, what has the minotaur ever done to me?" What he really wants, he realizes, is a more just society, good schools for our kids, funding for the arts, abortions that are safe, legal, and rare, some cage-free eggs, a 12 pack of Kabbalah water, maybe, and the love of one special person who truly loves you for who you are deep down inside. Of course, in order to give love, he realizes, one must be open enough to receive love, which isn't always as easy as it sounds. Above all, he really only wants to be the best parent he can be, even though it's hard to know if you've made the right choices till it's too late. Or that's how it seems sometimes. You need to set boundaries, but you need to give them the freedom to make their own mistakes, even when it hurts. It's a real dilemma. He throws down his weapons, sighs, pats the minotaur on the nose, and trudges off. We know how he feels...

Hilarious and brilliant review of a film that is obviously not so brilliant - apart from the SFX and the battle scenes - yet is nevertheless hilarious in its crusade against the facts of history.

Perhaps Losing my Religion by REM would have been the appropriate theme song? Not just for the movie I mean, but for the story of the entire Western liberal elite.

Suicide is not painless

2005-05-21T10:12:00.000+10:00

Another must read:
Suicidal Tendencies in the West:Tolerance unreciprocated by Bruce Thornton

...[I]n last Friday's sermon televised on Palestinian Authority television the paid employee of the PA described the Jews as an AIDS-like virus responsible for all the world's evils, blamed their economic sabotage of Germany for the Holocaust, and predicted the future triumph of Islam over America, a time when "everything will be relieved of the Jews, even the stones and trees." Yes, this is the same Palestinian Authority whose elected leader, himself a published Holocaust denier, will soon visit the President of the United States and whose organization will receive millions of taxpayer dollars.

Anyone familiar with the history of Islam and its 14-centuries-long violent jihad against the West and the Jews will not be surprised or shocked by these events. They express perfectly the arrogant intolerance of a religion convinced it has been chosen by God to rule the world, and so is justified in using every means, whether violence or propaganda, to fulfill that divine mandate. As the final and complete revelation of the divine, Islam feels no need to respect or tolerate other religions or secular notions like "human rights," for they are all the detritus of infidel history to be swept away in the final triumph of the one true religion.

Hence, while we in the West anxiously monitor our words and deeds for even the slightest offense against Islamic sensibilities, we receive in exchange no such consideration; indeed, our eager protestations of respect merely excite more contempt. Thus even as we protest our respect for Islam, Jews continue to be vilified with anti-Semitic rhetoric redolent of Nazi Germany, Palestinian terrorists befoul one of Christianity's most sacred churches, the Al-Aksa mosque in Jerusalem still sits on the site of the Jewish Temple, and in Istanbul Hagia Sophia, once one of Christendom's greatest churches, is still a mosque. Worse still, a whole revisionist history in which the intolerant, imperialistic conqueror is transformed into the tolerant, peace-loving victim of Western imperialism is propagated by self-loathing Westerners whose bigotry against their own culture confirms the Islamist view that we are indeed Godless heathens and spiritual cripples.

Just look at Ridley Scott's Kingdom of Heaven, a truly Orwellian reversal of history in which the fanatical jihadists are depicted as tolerant and civilized, the Christian believers are caricatured as either venal hypocrites or psychopaths, and the only good Europeans are those who have lost their faith. The mentality that would spend over a hundred million dollars on this historical lie is that of a psychological dhimmi, the non-Moslem who concedes Islam's superiority and hence right to rule him. That is, the world-view of those for whom appetite and pleasure are the highest goods, flabby tolerance is the camouflage of moral exhaustion, and respect for the culture of the "other" is merely an expression of disbelief in the value of one's own.

...only the irrational and ignorant would believe, this willingness to demonize the culture that created you and to extol as superior the culture that wants to destroy you can only be described as suicidal. Certainly the Islamist sees it that way, which is why he feels confident in predicting the ultimate triumph of his religion: he is willing to die and kill for his beliefs, whereas significant numbers of Westerners don't really believe that there is anything worth dying and killing for.

Increasingly we Westerners resemble the Eloi of H.G. Wells' The Time Machine, beautiful, gentle, highly civilized hedonists whose fate is to be devoured raw by the brutal Morlocks. We are the beneficiaries of a culture created by those before us who forged European civilization in the fires of resistance to Islamic jihad: in Spain, in Sicily, in Eastern Europe, in Greece — the plunder, rape, slaughter, massacres, sacks, kidnapping, and enslavement perpetrated by the armies of Allah were for centuries fought by those whose names now most Westerners have forgotten or would be embarrassed to claim as their own. Don John, Charles Martel, Leo the Isaurian, Prince Eugene, Montecuccoli, Andrea Doria, El Cid, Sobieski, Charlemagne, Suvorov, Boucicaut,, Hunyadi, Fernando II of Castile, Alfonso I of Aragon, Guiscard, Harold Hardrada-who among us knows anything about the men who fought and killed so that Europe, and Europe's offspring America, today looks like Europe and America instead of looking like Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, or Syria?

Because of the brutal violence of those warriors against jihad, we in the West today enjoy the luxury of cynicism, cheap irony, effete tolerance, and hedonism. We moral dwarves stand on the shoulders of those giants and spit on their heads, thinking our ingratitude is really an intellectual sophistication superior to the primitive superstitions and naïve ideals that have made our lives of freedom and prosperity possible. Meanwhile jihad by other means — demography, immigration, terrorism, the oil weapon — continues apace, at least until the time when a nuclear, chemical, or biological weapon falls into the hands of a modern jihadist and we are returned to the sort of slaughter our ancestors suffered for centuries. Maybe then we'll wake up.

Tragically, I do not believe the Sleepwalkers of the Left will ever wake up, even when their utopian dreams turn to Orwellian nightmares.

Media-watch watch

2005-05-21T09:04:00.000+10:00

The Media Watch files: how the ABC distorts news on the news

makes sense...

2005-05-18T09:51:00.000+10:00

You can’t cut tax for people who aren’t paying it
Peter Costello, Australian treasurer

"Mr Costello said the tax cuts for low earners were small in absolute terms, but amounted to a high proportion of their total tax bills."

Seems obvious and logical...

...but those on the Left* can't figure it out

*the media, the universities, the intelligentsia, the music industry, the comedians, the novelists, the young alternative crowd, and the chattering classes in general

Perhaps that's why the Left have lost four Australian federal elections in a row.

hat tip: Blithering Bunny

fisking a liberal non sequitur

2005-05-18T09:44:00.000+10:00

You can’t be a multiculturalist and believe in the legal equality of the sexes.
Theodore Dalrymple

death of the selfish gene: another fairy tale bites the dust

2005-05-15T22:19:00.000+10:00

Whoops, there goes another rubber tree plant.

A central tenet of Reductionist Dawkinsian Darwinism not so central in real world biology after all.

Johnjoe McFadden, Professor of Molecular Genetics at the University of Surrey writing in the Guardian unwittingly proves the old adage everything old is new again:

The new biology is reasserting the primacy of the whole organism - the individual - over the behaviour of isolated genes...

And what about "selfish genes", the concept introduced by the Oxford biologist Richard Dawkins to describe how some genes promote their own proliferation, even at the expense of the host organism? The concept has been hugely influential but has tended to promote a reductionist gene-centric view of biology. This viewpoint has been fiercely criticised by many biologists, such as the late Stephen Jay Gould, who argued that the unit of biology is the individual not her genes. Systems biology is reasserting the primacy of the whole organism - the system - rather than the selfish behaviour of any of its components.

(via Post-Darwinist)

indicative of an attitude

2005-05-13T12:41:00.000+10:00

More on the Eastley remarks on ABC's AM yesterday.

ABC accused of bias over poor-taste joke

Experienced ABC journalist Tony Eastley said it was a "figure of speech"; his boss, Greg Wilesmith, called it an "error".

But Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone said a comment made by Eastley in an interview about the Vivian Alvarez Solon affair was "indicative of an attitude" at the national broadcaster.

Listeners to ABC radio's AM may have choked on their cornflakes yesterday morning.

While attempting to establish how the seriously injured Ms Alvarez Solon, an Australian citizen, came to be deported to the Philippines, Eastley came out with the throwaway line that Government officials dropped her off in the country - perhaps from a moving car.

Senator Vanstone took umbrage, saying his comments were "extraordinary" and "indicative of an attitude" at the ABC.

ABC acting head of national programs Greg Wilesmith swiftly removed the interview's controversial parts from the transcript and audio links on AM's website.

"In the course of the interview and in the course of a question, Tony had made an error," he told The Age yesterday.

"It seemed to us best to remove the error rather than allow the inaccuracy to stand."

Mr Wilesmith described Senator Vanstone's assertion of an "attitude" at the national broadcaster as "a nonsense".

"I don't think that Tony Eastley's interview with Senator Vanstone is going to affect the relationship between the ABC and the Government at all because clearly live radio has certain perils and on this day... there was a slip of the tongue," he said.

Eastley admitted that there were "sensitivities" between the ABC and the Government, although he dismissed the notion that there was a poor attitude towards the Government at the broadcaster.

"I'm not surprised (that the interview was changed on the website) because of sensitivities and the like between the ABC and this Government," he said.

"(The comment) wasn't meant in real terms - that an immigration official had pushed a woman out of a speeding car... I wasn't casting aspersions on any immigration officials or the department."

So what was he doing? Eastley and The ABC are in damage control mode.

Reminds me of an old bush ballad:

And when at last the journo spoke, and said, ‘Twas all in fun -
‘Twas just a little harmless joke, a trifle overdone.’
‘A joke!’ she cried. ‘By George, that’s fine, a lively sort of lark;
I’d like to catch that murderous swine some night in Ironbark.’

[apologies to Banjo Paterson]

Courtesy of Tim Blair and The Australian Immigration Department the censored part of the transcript of the Eastley/Vanstone exchange on the ABC's AM program is now available.
Decide for yourself. Examine the tenor of Eastley's remarks and questions [and his use of a classic sleight of hand redirection *] then consider Vanstone's responses. Let him who is without sin, cast the first stone...

EASTLEY: This woman has been lost for four years. Your officials dropped her off, by all accounts, dropped her off – the car was still moving perhaps – and no records have been kept as to where she was left in the Philippines, Minister.

SENATOR VANSTONE: With respect, with respect...

EASTLEY: It’s quite an extraordinary case.

SENATOR VANSTONE: ... to what you’re just – what you’ve just said is extraordinary. It is extraordinary. You said she was dropped off by all accounts. On your own admission it’s by the account of one person who realised two days ago who she was and has [indistinct]...

* EASTLEY: So you’re happy with the way this case has been handled, is that what you’re saying?

SENATOR VANSTONE: ... conversations. No, I haven’t, I haven’t said that. I think it’s extraordinary that the ABC would make a suggestion that someone was dropped off when a car was moving. It is indicative of an attitude, but I’ll refrain from saying any more than that. The record does show what happened. The record shows she was returned to the Philippines and was met at the airport by the Overseas Women’s Welfare Association. That’s what the record shows.

EASTLEY: And from there, no record kept of where she went?

SENATOR VANSTONE: I don’t have advice that there is a subsequent record from that. But of course at the time, when people were of the view that she was a citizen of the Philippines, there would not be a further record kept.

EASTLEY: All right, we’ll leave it there. Senator Amanda Vanstone, the Immigration Minister.

SENATOR VANSTONE: Well I’d like to say thank you, but the suggestion from the ABC that the Australian Government would drop someone out of a moving car leaves me speechless.

EASTLEY: It was a comment said in jest, which was probably not appropriate.

SENATOR VANSTONE: Jest? On a matter like this? Help me please. I don’t think this is funny.

EASTLEY: Well it’s unbelievable, the entire story anyway as it goes.

SENATOR VANSTONE: It is a very difficult story. It is a very, very difficult situation.

Note: Amanda Vanstone was not Immigration minister four years ago at the time of this incident.

...Go and sin no more.

the commissar vanishes

2005-05-12T23:02:00.000+10:00

On the way to work of a morning I occasionally find myself making use of the "eight cents a day" I am required to pay to support the national broadcaster by listening to the ABC's AM program on the car radio. This is frequently a mistake - after a few minutes of the usual barely suppressed hyperventilations about the Bush/Howard/Vast Right Wing Conspiracy nexus, with associated tirades from spokespersons from leftist pressure groups, political parties and think-tanks, all accompanied by the condescending tones of presenter Tony Eastley as he interviews token conservative "perpetrators" - I usually figure it is better to switch it off and enjoy the quiet. Sadly I have all but given up hope of ever getting an honest, fair, accurate and unbiased presentation of "news" from anyone involved in "the media", especially from the taxpayer-funded public broadcaster.

But I was listening this morning, testing myself to see how long it would take before some professional "victim spokesperson" pleaded for "compassion" or "tolerance" for criminals, terrorists or illegal aliens and demanded the government "do something" to ensure the immediate arrival of the kind of utopia that Lenin, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot espoused in the last century with diabolical and disastrous results. Having had it resoundingly demonstrated that it is nothing but a dead end laid over the bodies of untold millions of victims, well-off upper middle class liberals still cling to the futile desire of creating a socialist heaven on earth.

And so I heard Tony Eastley's interview with Immigration minister Amanda Vanstone about the fate of a wrongly deported Australian citizen in the Philppines - as did many other Australians. For those who weren't tuned in, the transcript and a recording of the interview is available on the the ABC's AM website here. The only problem is, both the transcript and the recording are edited cleaned-up versions of the exchange between Eastley and Vanstone deliberately leaving out Eastley's poor-taste jibe at Vanstone and the Minister's picking him up on it.

In his usual world-weary style, that often strikes this listener as thinly disguised cynicism and sarcasm masquerading as politeness, Eastley, as he was ending the interview, made the remark to Vanstone that "...Australian officials dropped [the woman] from a moving car" clearly implying that the officials - and therefore Vanstone as Minister in charge of the Department - were remiss in their professional duties and callous in their care and concern. Vanstone responded immediately, objecting to his inappropriate and misleading remark. Obviously caught out Eastley defended himself by saying the comment was made merely "in jest".

In jest? Why on earth Eastley would be jesting about an issue that was apparently so important that it was one of the main stories in the half-hour program and which he himself considered so serious that he had spent some five minutes grilling the Minister on, so concerned was he for the welfare of this poor woman?!

We all make mistakes, we all let our guard down, we have all uttered intemperate remarks. The issue is, that if a conservative had made such a gaff, he would be immediately pounced upon, his integrity and humanity questioned, his character attacked, his job on the line; he would be the subject of news reports and opinion pieces baying for his blood, and ultimately crucified on the self-same ABC's Media Watch program, a shameless piece of leftist agitprop specialising in character assasinations of the few conservative voices in the Australian media. But in this case the politically-correct ABC has protected its own and erased Eastley's sin from the record. He's as pure as the driven snow. Perhaps those thousands of Australian who heard the exchange this morning were mistaken in what they heard. After all it's not in the official transcript... or the tapes...

And that is why I thank God for bloggers. Without them the commissars always vanish...

giving atheism a bad name

2005-05-09T17:38:00.000+10:00

...isn't hard to do

Dylan Evans writes in the Guardian on the woes of the 21st century atheist:

The non-religious person today is... rather like a person who wanders into a shop to buy a breakfast cereal and finds only one variety is for sale. Moreover, this variety isn't very tasty, because the kind of atheism that flourishes today is old and tired.

Today's prominent atheists - people such as Jonathan Miller and Richard Dawkins - hawk around a belief system that reeks of the 19th century, which is not surprising, for that is when it was born. Dawkins is virulently anti-religious, passionately pro-science and artistically illiterate - thus manifesting all three of the main characteristics of the old atheism in a particularly pure form. His attacks on religion are so vitriolic and bad-tempered that they alienate the sensitive reader and give atheism a bad name. As a friend of mine once commented, no other atheist has done more for the cause of religion than Richard Dawkins.

Evans goes on to propose a new kind of atheism that takes issue with the old atheism on all three of its main tenets: it values religion; treats science as simply a means to an end; and finds the meaning of life in art.

Well, two out of three ain't bad...

Hallelujah

2005-05-01T00:19:00.000+10:00

Now I've heard there was a secret chord
That David played, and it pleased the Lord
But you don't really care for music, do you?
It goes like this
The fourth, the fifth
The minor fall, the major lift
The baffled king composing Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah

Your faith was strong but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you
She tied you
To a kitchen chair
She broke your throne, and she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

You say I took the name in vain
I don't even know the name
But if I did, well really, what's it to you?
There's a blaze of light
In every word
It doesn't matter which you heard
The holy or the broken Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

I did my best, it wasn't much
I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch
I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you
And even though
It all went wrong
I'll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah

Leonard Cohen

go here, now...

2005-04-20T23:13:00.000+10:00

Blame Bush! Christianity: The Ultimate Evil

Tired of always being mister nice guy? Have you borne with infinite liberal patience and tolerance this spreading cancerous evil? Are you searching for the final solution to the evangelical Xtian menace? It's time...
The time has come for all patriotic Americans to unite under a common cause: getting rid of the Christians. Not all Christians, mind you - just the ones whose religious beliefs interefere with our political agenda - i.e. Christian Fundamentalists. Their backwards, outdated belief system is based on unwavering moral absolutes, which only alienate those enlightened Americans who have no morals at all. Ironically, these so-called "morals" Christians claim to possess aren't even true morals, as they stem not from a Noam Chomsky pamphlet or a Michael Moore film - but from some silly old book they found in a motel room dresser.

This ignorant Christian self-righteousness makes it next to impossible to reason with these people. Try getting a right-winger to fund homoerotic photography or a feces-smeared Virgin Mary with his tax dollars. Try explaining the joys of partial-birth abortion to some religious nut who worships an invisible diety in the sky more than a Woman's Right to Choose. Try talking a nun out of her habit for a few quick polaroids. Heck, try getting a "Born Again" gal into the sack without a marriage license and a big stinking committment! You can't even smoke some crack and have sex with your dog in the front yard without the fundamentalist neighbors screaming "Stop that! Stop that!". Intolerant by nature, self-righteous to the extreme, Christians are ruled by hatred and bigotry - and the sooner we're rid of them the better.

Now before you start sending in the hate mail, I'm not advocating violence against Christians - at least, not officially. *Wink wink, nudge nudge.* For the time being, we'll continue to simply mock and ridicule them for the self-righteous, hateful bigots they are - while graciously granting them the gift of our tolerance and understanding. But if they take advantage of that gift by stopping one single abortion, it's onto the metaphorical box cars with them!

I hear the train a comin', it's comin' round the bend
and I ain't seen the sunshine since I dunno when...

third boxcar, midnight train... it's a slow train comin' up around the bend...

and we're waiting at the station with yellow crosses pinned to our clothes...

grow up...

2005-04-20T22:04:00.000+10:00

In the age of crashing cymbals and resounding gongs, as leftist bloggers and liberal commentators start tearing their hair, foaming at the mouth and having apoplectic fits,

the new Pope, Benedict XVI, preaches to the College of Cardinals:

...[A]ccording to the Greek text, we should speak of the "measure of the fullness of Christ," to which we are called to reach in order to be true adults in the faith. We should not remain infants in faith, in a state of minority. And what does it mean to be an infant in faith? Saint Paul answers: it means "tossed by waves and swept along by every wind of teaching arising from human trickery" (Eph 4, 14). This description is very relevant today!

How many winds of doctrine we have known in recent decades, how many ideological currents, how many ways of thinking... The small boat of thought of many Christians has often been tossed about by these waves - thrown from one extreme to the other: from Marxism to liberalism, even to libertinism; from collectivism to radical individualism; from atheism to a vague religious mysticism; from agnosticism to syncretism, and so forth. Every day new sects are created and what Saint Paul says about human trickery comes true, with cunning which tries to draw those into error (cf Eph 4, 14). Having a clear faith, based on the Creed of the Church, is often labeled today as a fundamentalism. Whereas, relativism, which is letting oneself be tossed and "swept along by every wind of teaching," looks like the only attitude (acceptable) to today's standards. We are moving towards a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as for certain and which has as its highest goal one's own ego and one's own desires.

However, we have a different goal: the Son of God, true man. He is the measure of true humanism. Being an "Adult" means having a faith which does not follow the waves of today's fashions or the latest novelties. A faith which is deeply rooted in friendship with Christ is adult and mature. It is this friendship which opens us up to all that is good and gives us the knowledge to judge true from false, and deceit from truth. We must become mature in this adult faith; we must guide the flock of Christ to this faith. And it is this faith - only faith - which creates unity and takes form in love. On this theme, Saint Paul offers us some beautiful words - in contrast to the continual ups and downs of those who are like infants, tossed about by the waves: (he says) make truth in love, as the basic formula of Christian existence. In Christ, truth and love coincide. To the extent that we draw near to Christ, in our own life, truth and love merge. Love without truth would be blind; truth without love would be like "a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal" (1 Cor 13,1).

Amen.

witness

2005-04-20T21:07:00.000+10:00

My children, when you were little, we used sometimes to go for walks in our pine woods. In the open fields, you would run along by yourselves. But you used instinctively to give me your hands as we entered those woods, where it was darker, lonelier, and in the stillness our voices sounded loud and frightening. In this book I am again giving you my hands.

I am leading you, not through cool pine woods, but up and up a narrow defile between bare and steep rocks from which in shadow things uncoil and slither away. It will be dark. But, in the end, if I have led you aright, you will make out three crosses, from two of which hang thieves. I will have brought you to Golgotha – the place of skulls.

This is the meaning of the journey. Before you understand, I may not be there, my hands may have slipped from yours. It will not matter. For when you understand what you see, you will no longer be children. You will know that life is pain, that each of us hangs always upon the cross of himself. And when you know that this is true of every man, woman and child on earth, you will be wise.

Whittaker Chambers Witness, 1951

me too

2005-04-16T07:02:00.000+10:00

I had long wondered why people on the Left had the propensity to speak more positively about people who would slit their throats than they do about their own country, which affords them more freedom and opportunity than anywhere else.
Kat Bakhu

cane toads and Bush's America

2005-04-09T14:13:00.000+10:00

Recently Tim Blair took one of Australia's most prominent left wing media pundits Phillip Adams to task for claiming that the infamous and ubiquitous cane toad (Bufo marinus) was an imported "US critter".

In a piece on the Academy Awards, Adams, in his usual style, declared:

So let’s see the Oscars for what they are – symbols of US hegemony and, as such, about as desirable, attractive and threatening as that other US critter, the cane toad.

In pointing out Adams' careless linking of Oscar and Bufo as fellow symbols of imperialist Yankee domination, Blair may be making a mountain out of a toad hill. He links to a website examining invasive species in Australia that states that the cane toad was introduced to northern Australia in 1935 from Hawaii. In 1935 of course Hawaii was not yet a fully-fledged American state notes Blair triumphantly... and correctly.

But one could argue that if this was the full story Tim Blair is really just splitting hairs... or toads perhaps, a popular Queensland pastime (don't ask). Hawaii was nevertheless a U.S. controlled territory at the time.

But the simple fact is that cane toads are not native to Hawaii. The toads might have been imported from Hawaii but they were an introduced species in that locale just as they were to be in Australia - and for the same reason, the control of the sugar cane beetle.

The cane toad is the most widespread Latin American amphibian, native to Mexico and other parts of Central and South America. It's natural distribution extends from northern Peru in South America, through Central America to the very southern part of Texas in the United States where they can be found in areas around the Rio Grande. They have subsequently been introduced into Puerto Rico, Hawaii, the Phillipines, Australia, and Florida.

Adams gets away with calling the despised Bufo a a nasty Yank soley because of this slender Rio Grande connection, but it is a bit of a stretch for anyone to hold up this beast as a recognisable "US critter" on the basis of a few populations adjoining the Mexican border. Still, this is too good an opportunity for Adams to let pass. After all he has so little time and so much Bush bashing to do. So he migrates Bufo northward, just like that other "invasion" of Central and South American "illegal immigrants". The fact is that Latin America, the home of millions of the poor and oppressed with whom Phillip Adams presumably professes solidarity, is also the native place of a creature which has been a destructive menace and plague just about everywhere it has been introduced. When you've got airspace and coumn inches to fill, any straw, no matter how slender, will be grasped in pursuit of you mission to bring about the downfall of the most evil empire in the entire world, ever, period.

Over in the alternative universe of Hollyworld one wonders if the all-pervasive liberals who award each other Oscars for making serious liberal message movies, realise just how much their efforts are mere tools of the right-wing, fundamentalist military/industrial capitalist hegemony.

Poem for Easter

2005-03-25T21:14:00.000+10:00

Tell me:
What came first
Easter or the egg?
Crucifixion or daffodils?
Three days in a tomb or four days in Paris?
(returning Bank Holiday Monday).

When is a door
not a door?
When it is rolled away.
When is a body
not a body?
When it is a risen.

Question.
Why was it the Saviour rode on the cross?
Answer.
To get us to the other side.

Behold I stand.
Behold I stand and what?
Behold I stand at the door and

knock knock.

Steve Turner

to sing the Lord's song in a foreign land

2005-03-25T20:16:00.000+10:00

Another Easter is upon us. For Christians it is a time to remember the sacrifice of Jesus. For us the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus is the crucial event of world history, both personally and in a cosmic sense.

And so of course, Easter means yet another annual occasion for the taxpayer funded public broadcaster to air a program which undermines orthodox Christian belief and throws doubt upon the person and work of Christ. As regular as clockwork, Easter - and increasingly Christimas - presents itself as another opportunity for the anti-Christians who seem to run the Religion department of the ABC to put the boot into biblical Christianity. No doubt John Dominic Crossan or John Shelby Spong will make their inevitable appearance on the program advising all sophisticated, modern viewers that the gospels are nothing more than pious myth and legend - or perhaps even ecclesiastical fraud.

For the rest of the year the Religion Department will keep beavering away at its program of promoting universal touchy-feeling tolerance and acceptance in the name of neo-paganism, environmentalism, world harmony and diversity. The ABC's flagship production is entitled Compass but anyone lost or at sea would be well advised not to rely on this instrument to find their way to a secure harbour. There will be the usual puff pieces on leftist religious/political activists, new age spiritual practioners, and liberal theological debunkers, interspersed with positive portraits of every human religious experience... except one - orthodox biblical Christianity, especially in its conservative Catholic and Evangelical forms.

The Christian worldview, once the undegirding and guiding force behind Western civilisation, is now the official sick man of the brave new world. To this end the Religion department will continue its propagandist exposes of "right wing fundamentalists", "creationists", Pentecostal "con-men", Catholic "conspiracies" pro-life "extremists", and the evils of the Bush and Howard governments - all with commentary form professional left-wing academics, liberal theologians and "psychologists of religion".

Meanwhile throughout the length and breadth of the land four-wheel drives are being loaded up for the annual bush or beach getaway of beer, fishing, swimming and camping afforded by the four day long weekend.

In shopping malls across the country chocolate bunnies and eggs are offerred to the God of Mammon as he once again trounces the suffering God of Calvary in the popularity stakes.

Yet while Rome burns and Nero fiddles, in small groups and congregations, members of the resistance will gather around a table laid with bread and wine and remember the one who said: "I am the way, the truth and the life"... and await the coming day.

Fashionable fascism dominates the scene

2005-03-25T00:02:00.000+10:00

...and it has nothing to do with social and moral conservatives.

Who really are the new social Darwinists, the new eugenicists, the new utilitarians, the new soft totalitarians and the new Nazis?

I've refrained so far from commenting on the Terri Schiavo case. It's a tragic situation about which many millions of words have already been written. Beyond the deep personal tragedy for those involved it is both symptomatic and paradigmatic of the growing fault line that runs through the collective heart of formerly Judeo-Christian based Western society, between those who still assert the values of that heritage and those who wish to destroy it and sweep it into the dustbin of history - much as they want to destroy and sweep away countless "lives unworthy of life" in the name of utilitarianism and Darwinian survival of the fittest. In the course of surfing the Web I have been shocked by the hatred, contempt and mockery which far too many "liberals" on the Left have been expressing towards Terri Schiavo; she has been reduced in their eyes to nothing more than a "vegetable" or a "lump of meat", to be treated as merely a worthless nonentity to be disposed of as soon as possible. None of these "good people" can apparently recognise the emergence of a culture of State sanctioned victimisation and discrimination against the disabled leading to State approved murder of "useless eaters" - like Terri Schiavo.

Would you if you were a cripple want to vegetate forever?
Dr Tergesten in the Nazi propaganda film Ich Kluge an! (I Accuse), 1941.

The same or similar comments in their thousands are currently appearing all over the Web from "compassionate and caring" liberals and leftists.

We've seen and heard this all before. For those who have ears to hear and eyes to see... and, more importantly for those who don't, I seriously recommend a visit to Regent University's Useless Eaters web site:

The methods used for mass extermination in the Nazi death camps originated and were perfected in earlier use against people with physical, emotional, and intellectual disabilities... this website tells the little known story of these victims...[it] describes the historical context of attitudes toward people with disabilities in Germany and how this context produced mass murder of people with disabilities prior to and during the early years of World War II. Several key marker variables, the manipulation of which allowed a highly sophisticated Western society to officially sanction the murder of people with disabilities, are examined. Important implications must continually be drawn from these events as we work with people with disabilities at the dawn of a new century.

The Nazis spoke of human husks, ballast lives, and life unworthy. We are hearing the same terms all over again in our own day.

Dr Mark P. Mostert identifies the "genocidal markers" that produced the Nazi culture of death as:

1) Darwinism and the Biology of Determinism
2) Eugenics
3) Forced sterilization
4) The Propagandization of Life Unworthy of Life
5) Disabilty as justification for State sanctioned murder of children
6) Justification for Homicidal Health Policies
7) Disabilty as justification for State sanctioned murder of adults

They're all in play in contemporary Western society...

What can one say about "sophisticated", modern, "democratic" individuals and societies that willingly promote, endorse and implement policies that hark back to those of the evil Nazi regime? And do so in the name of "compassion" and "freedom of choice"!

View the website. Read the material. And shiver.

History repeats itself
Has to
No one listens

See also:
The Social and Scientific Origins of Eugenics
The Nazi Euthanasia (T-4) Program
DNA Interactive: the Chronicle of how society dealt with mental illness and other "dysgenic" traits

What an eerie — and depressing — age we live in

2005-03-22T20:43:00.000+10:00

The sick analogy of Bush = Hitler: the rise and rise of liberal slander and hypocrisy.

More penetrating analysis from Victor Davis Hanson in "Little Eichmanns" and "Digital Brownshirts"

There is something profoundly immoral for a latte-sipping, upscale Westerner of the postmodern age flippantly evoking Hitler when we think of the countless souls lost to the historical record who were systematically starved and gassed in the factories of death of the Third Reich.

"John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, John Hinckley Jr. — where are you now that we need you?" Charles Brooker in the Guardian advocating assasination of the president on the eve of last year's US election.

Unfortunately this irresponsible, hate-filled attitude is both representative and symptomatic of the moral bankruptcy of the Left in our era. Something has indeed "gone terribly wrong with a mainstream Left that tolerates a climate where the next logical slur easily devolves into Hitlerian invective."

Hanson notes the chilling statistic that a typical Internet Google search of Bush + Hitler yields about 1,350,000 matches...

Like Prince Harry parading around in his ridiculous Nazi costume, quarter-educated celebrities who have some talent for song or verse know only that name-dropping "Hitler" or his associates gets them some shock value that their pedestrian rants otherwise would not warrant.

Ignorance and arrogance are a lethal combination. Nowhere do we see that more clearly among writers and performers who pontificate as historians when they know nothing about history.

And if there is one lesson that history repeatedly teaches, it is that civilisations crumble and fall, not ultimately from attacks from without, but from moral collapse and dissension within.

upper-middle-class elites: the new malcontents with discontents

2005-03-22T20:11:00.000+10:00

America's New Discontents

How sad that our most educated and sophisticated cannot fathom that an Iraqi Kurd, an Afghan woman or a Lebanese shopkeeper simply wants the same freedom and opportunity for their children that so many of the most blessed — but bitter — in America either take for granted, feel guilty about or so cynically dismiss.

a year is a long time in politics... so is five months

2005-03-19T18:52:00.000+10:00

Today is the by-election for the Australian federal seat of Werriwa.

Several bloggers have already linked to this news story from just before the last Australian federal election:
Latham predicts Bennelong by-election. 07/10/2004. ABC News Online

Win, lose or draw, Mr Howard's going to have a by-election in Bennelong[Howard's electorate], there'll be no by-election in Werriwa [Latham's electorate]. I'm 43 years of age and raring to go. I'm here for the long-haul service of the Australian people, whereas Mr Howard of course is cutting and running into retirement.

That's Mark Latham before cutting and running from the long haul...

Of course Howard and his Liberal/National Coalition won the election with an increased majority and rare control of both the House of Reps and the Senate. Latham was mauled and retired hurt from the leadership of the Australian Labor Party and from the Parliament. Perhaps these famous last words from October 2004 will make all politicians bite their tongues a little more before sounding off - but I doubt it.

What a difference a day makes... especially election day.

That'll Teach 'Em

2005-03-14T21:57:00.001+10:00

It isn't hard to do but someone has revealed "progessive" education's dirty little secret:

Slattsnews: Living, learning history

Shock! Horror!

"...lazy, ideologically driven policies have denied a generation a proper education."

They can't read anything more demanding than comics (oops "graphic novels"), cannot spell, punctuate, or string two written sentences together in a coherent manner; cannot add, subtract, multiply or divide without a calculator, cannot find their own country on a map, let alone Iraq or Afghanistan, but teenagers (oops "young adults") of today can spend years in an educational system in order to become "lifelong learners" so that they "express themselves", "know their rights" and "confront the issues that impact upon their lives" through creative dance, rap music videos, immersion in "cultural studies" and participation in "excellence in sport programs".

After having spent a significant proportion of their time at high school viewing endless DVDs for the purpose of "movie appreciation", messaging their friends on their mobile phones, surfing the web in order to download ring tones or send Hotmail messages, and cutting & pasting to produce travel brochures of their favourite holiday destination for "assessment" purposes, they can confirm that the ten commandments were an Irish rock band, that abstinence apparently doesn't "work" with sex, but it does with smoking, drugs and eating at McDonalds, and that George Bush - the leader of the said Iraq - is the most evil man in the world. That's progress for you... indeed that's a microcosm of the whole "progressive" agenda in a nutshell.

Addendum: I know, I know. Since time immemorial "older folks" have been whingeing about "the young people of today" and bemoaning "the loss of standards, respect and values". This state of affairs was most brilliantly satirised in a Monty Python sketch.

But anyone who knows anything about history knows that that societies and civilisations not only rise and prosper, but also decline and fall... Before forces from without complete its destruction there is often a prolonged period in which a loss of moral purpose and vision within sows the seeds of the dissolution and deconstruction(sic) of a society. Now that Education is firmly enscounced as the popular panacea for all society's ills, what happens when that "education" ("Is there a perceived social problem? Then let's introduce another program into the curriculum to address it!") is part of the sickness and not the cure?

No prophet is ever welcomed in his own backyard.

Indeed
history repeats itself.
has to, no one listens

the truth is out there

2005-03-12T20:26:00.000+10:00

Like a true nature's child
We were born, born to be lieve
We can climb so high
I never wanna die

Born to be lieve
Born to be lieve

(with apologies to Steppenwolf)

Always the question is How does this fit in with evolution, instead of, Does this fit in with evolution?

2005-03-12T20:06:00.000+10:00

Right on cue, comes this research that asks:

Religion may be a survival mechanism. So are we born to believe?
Guardian Unlimited | Life | Tests of faith

The following would seem logical and reasonable but has got some in a tizzy. Apparently brain activity can tell us nothing about the existence or otherwise of God...

...Newberg has been criticised for his investigations into the essence of spiritual experience - the most vehement attacks coming from atheists. "Some people want me to say whether God is there or not, but these experiments can't answer that. If I scan a nun and she has the experience of being in the presence of God, I can tell you what's going on in her brain, but I can't tell you whether or not God is there," he says.

Do atheists have "brain activity"? If so does their brain activity when they are "raving about atheism" have any objective effect on the whether a God really exists?

The conclusion, and bad news for atheists: religious belief is not going to fade away anytime soon... In fact religion is an "evolutionary survival mechanism"... unlike atheism apparently...

Evolution, the political correctness of science

2005-03-12T19:49:00.000+10:00

The Metaphysics of Evolution by Fred Reed, an agnostic:

...Early on, I noticed three things about evolution that differentiated it from other sciences (or, I could almost say, from science). First, plausibility was accepted as being equivalent to evidence. (And of course the less you know, the greater the number of things that are plausible, because there are fewer facts to get in the way.) Again and again evolutionists assumed that suggesting how something might have happened was equivalent to establishing how it had happened. Asking them for evidence usually aroused annoyance and sometimes, if persisted in, hostility.

As an example, it seems plausible to evolutionists that life arose by chemical misadventure. By this they mean (I think) that they cannot imagine how else it might have come about. (Neither can I. Does one accept a poor explanation because unable to think of a good one?) This accidental-life theory, being somewhat plausible, is therefore accepted without the usual standards of science, such as reproducibility or rigorous demonstration of mathematical feasibility. Putting it otherwise, evolutionists are too attached to their ideas to be able to question them.

Consequently, discussion often turns to vague and murky assertion. Starlings are said to have evolved to be the color of dirt so that hawks can't see them to eat them. This is plausible. But guacamayos and cockatoos are gaudy enough to be seen from low-earth orbit. Is there a contradiction here? No, say evolutionists. Guacamayos are gaudy so they can find each other to mate. Always there is the pat explanation. But starlings seem to mate with great success, though invisible. If you have heard a guacamayo shriek, you can hardly doubt that another one could easily find it. Enthusiasts of evolution then told me that guacamayos were at the top of their food chain, and didn't have predators. Or else that the predators were colorblind. On and on it goes. But...is any of this established?

Second, evolution seemed more a metaphysics or ideology than a science. The sciences, as I knew them, gave clear answers. Evolution involved intense faith in fuzzy principles. You demonstrated chemistry, but believed evolution. If you have ever debated a Marxist, or a serious liberal or conservative, or a feminist or Christian, you will have noticed that, although they can be exceedingly bright and well informed, they display a maddening imprecision. You never get a straight answer if it is one they do not want to give. Nothing is ever firmly established. Crucial assertions do not to tie to observable reality. Invariably the Marxist (or evolutionist) assumes that a detailed knowledge of economic conditions under the reign of Nicholas II or whatever substitutes for being able to answer simple questions, such as why Marxism has never worked: the Fallacy of Irrelevant Knowledge. And of course almost anything can be made believable by considering only favorable evidence and interpreting hard.

Third, evolutionists are obsessed by Christianity and Creationism, with which they imagine themselves to be in mortal combat. This is peculiar to them. Note that other sciences, such as astronomy and geology, even archaeology, are equally threatened by the notion that the world was created in 4004 BC. Astronomers pay not the slightest attention to creationist ideas. Nobody does – except evolutionists. We are dealing with competing religions – overarching explanations of origin and destiny. Thus the fury of their response to skepticism.

I found it pointless to tell them that I wasn't a Creationist. They refused to believe it. If they had, they would have had to answer questions that they would rather avoid. Like any zealots, they cannot recognize their own zealotry. Thus their constant classification of skeptics as enemies (a word they often use) – of truth, of science, of Darwin, of progress.

This tactical demonization is not unique to evolution. "Creationist" is to evolution what "racist" is to politics: A way of preventing discussion of what you do not want to discuss. Evolution is the political correctness of science...

The Theory of Implausibility

As previously mentioned, evolutionists depend heavily on plausibility unabetted by evidence. There is also the matter of implausibility. Suppose that I showed you two tiny gear wheels, such as one might find in an old watch, and said, "See? I turn this little wheel, and the other little wheel turns too. Isn't that cute?" You would not find this surprising. Suppose I then showed you a whole mechanical watch, with thirty little gear wheels and a little lever that said tickticktick. You would have no trouble accepting that they all worked together.

If I then told you of a mechanism consisting of a hundred billion little wheels that worked for seventy years, repairing itself, wouldn't you suspect either that I was smoking something really good – or that something beyond simple mechanics must be involved?

Evolution writ large is the belief that a cloud of hydrogen will spontaneously invent extreme-ultraviolet lithography, perform Swan Lake, and write all the books in the British Museum.

If something looks implausible, it probably is.

... Always the question is How does this fit in with evolution, instead of, Does this fit in with evolution?

Intelligent Design

An interesting thought that drives evolutionists mad is called Intelligent Design, or ID. It is the view that things that appear to have been done deliberately might have been. Some look at, say, the human eye and think, "This looks like really good engineering. Elaborate retina of twelve layers, marvelously transparent cornea, pump system to keep the whole thing inflated, suspensory ligaments, really slick lens, the underlying cell biology. Very clever."

I gather that a lot of ID folk are in fact Christian apologists trying to drape Genesis in scientific respectability. That is, things looked to have been designed, therefore there must be a designer, now will Yahweh step forward. Yet an idea is not intellectually disreputable because some of the people who hold it are. The genuine defects of ID are the lack of a detectible designer, and that evolution appears to have occurred. This leads some to the thought that consciousness is involved and evolution may be shaping itself. I can think of no way to test the idea.

In any event, to anyone of modest rationality, the evolutionist's hostility to Intelligent Design is amusing. Many evolutionists argue, perhaps correctly, that Any Day Now we will create life in the laboratory, which would be intelligent design. Believing that life arose by chemical accident, they will argue (reasonably, given their assumptions) that life must have evolved countless times throughout the universe. It follows then that, if we will soon be able to design life, someone else might have designed us.

The Silence of the Amps

2005-03-10T23:47:00.000+10:00

The next "big problem"?

REM frontman Michael Stipe confronts the silence of the amps and Tim Blair, in his inimitable way, considers the poetry of the situation in Ban the Electric Death Machines

Everybody hurts...

A question: Is Michael Stipe the Peter Garrett of U.S. Rock?

and we'll have fun, fun, fun now that daddy took her RV away

2005-03-09T20:43:00.000+10:00

Trailer for sale or rent
Rooms to let, fifty cents
No phone, no pool, no pets
I ain't got no cigarettes, ah but
Two hours of pushing broom
Buys a eight by twelve fourbit room

Those were the days! But the times they are achangin'! Now you have to pay big time for the same accommodation and experiences!

Calling all aging hippies, former sixties radicals, new agers and yuppies. Load up the VW Kombi or the Prius and head west! Announcing Ocean Haven: nature friendly lodging on the Oregon coast where the motto is:

"WE WELCOME DIVERSITY
Respecting the interdependence & diversity of all life."

Well, okay, not "all" life...

"FOR REASONS OF HEALTH & SAFETY
OCEAN HAVEN CANNOT ACCOMMODATE SMOKERS,
PETS, FOLKS TRAVELING IN A HUMMER, OR
FOLKS WHO VOTED FOR BUSH & HIS NATURE DESTRUCTIVE POLICIES"

It's a spoof, isn't it?! - the Landover Baptist Church of wacky environmentalism? Meet the diversity respectin', anti-discriminatory folks at Ocean Haven - where they proudly don't welcome the "wrong sort" of diversity and proudly discriminate against the "right people":

NO
a) smokers
"Cigarette butts represent the largest concentration of beach litter.
Ocean fish & birds frequently ingest the plastic filters".

b) pets
"Ocean Haven is home to marine & coastal wildlife. Wildlife is disturbed by the presence of dogs."

c) visitors (sic)
"We charge for all persons on premises, regardless of age or length of visit."
Don't bring the baby...in fact, don't bring any kids

d) Hummer drivers
"Committed to limiting human impact on nature."

e) RV owners
"environmental(sic)destructive"?

f) "Bush voters"
"due to his environmental (sic) destructive policies"

g) "impractical" people
"Be practical & wear sturdy shoes, bring wind & rain gear & non-perishable foods. We provide beach boots & hiking sticks."

h) meat eaters
Because meat is murder?

Also NO
i) open fires
j) beach fires
k) BBQs
l) candles
m) incense
Can't have anyone burning down the house, now...

NO
n) daily maid service
"Nature-friendly cleaning & maintenance."
What this really means:
"Guests are responsible for cleaning kitchen area & ware if used. Recycling & Composting. Water & energy conservation requested."

NO
o) room phones
p) internet
q) television
r) noise
s) alcohol

"Quiet Hours: 9 PM to 9 AM"

Remember when freedom was just another word for nothing left to lose?

Heck, you're here to
"RELAX & RETREAT"
at the
"NATURE FRIENDLY
WILDLIFE FRIENDLY
RUGGED & RURAL
INSPIRATIONAL
OCEAN SIGHTS
AND
OCEAN SOUNDS
FROM
EVERY ROOM" Ocean Haven

...just not human friendly?

Check out the Eatin'Inn menu which has "a selection of organic, simple for you to fix meals, sweets & treats for guests to purchase"

Take the tour of the rooms and cabin. Prices range from $85.00 per night for the Sky View Studio to $110.00 for the Shags' Nest Cabin. It's shagadelic, yeah baby! say db and he knows...

Stop off at the guest library with its "variety of games & beach toys, hiking & nature guides and works by many notable native & nature writers who have graced Ocean Haven with their visits."

Slip over to the Maple Street Day Spa in Old Town Florence for some Holistic services including massage, body treatments, hydrotherapy, facials, pedicures & manicures, etc : Renewing Inner Beauty Reviving Inner Strength.
[How exactly do facials, pedicures, and manicures, etc. renew "inner beauty" and revive "inner strength"?... And how many genuine Oregonian "old timers" can still afford to live in Old Town Florence?]

And don't forget to visit the Ocean Haven Advocacy page where you can link to and network with such fellow travellers as:

a) the Surfrider Foundation whose "'visionary surfers' make WAVES to protect the ocean & beaches; [Is visionary a 21st century word for stoned?]

b) Sea Flow: "Protecting Our Living Oceans by stopping LFA Sonar & other harmful underwater noise threatening the undersea web of life";

c) the Orca Network: "Connecting whales & people in the Pacific Northwest" [And conducting marriages between the two? It's Oregon after all...];

d) Brenda Peterson, "Nature author & worldwide protectoress of cetaceans. [How does one get appointed as protectoress of cetaceans? Perhaps it was a Clinton initiative... Is there also a UN protectoress of crustaceans?]... her book ANIMAL HEART is "A love story of people whose compassion for animals compels them into extraordinary acts of heroism.":

Of course, it costs $money$ to enjoy the nature-friendly practices, fragrance-free soap, organic coffee, organic rice, organic tea, organic beans, organic whole wheat pasta, Organic Saltine Crackers, Organic Tortilla Chips, organic whole wheat bread, organic dill pickles, Organic Roasted & Salted Pistachios, Organic Campfire Trail Mix, Organic Crystallized Ginger, organic oatmeal, organic Granola Oats, Low Fat Soy Milk, and organic plum tomatoes... not to mention the planetary harmony and natural beauty of Ocean Haven.

(No food fascism here: you CAN "indulge in a little chocolate" because "chocolate is food for the soul" and every "organic" chocolate bar comes with a "love poem inside wrapper!" And yes, BEN & JERRY'S ICE CREAM is available because "they" hate Bush, too.)

More on the bottom line:

"Two night minimum stay required.
Three night or more for some holidays & summer.
Credit Card Deposit Required.
VISA * Master Card * American Express * Discover
8% Hotel TAX added to total room rate

Guests are responsible for all nights reserved.
All reservations are final.
You pay for all nights reserved, unless they are re-rented.
Refunds of deposit only when all nights are re-rented.
Cancellation fee may apply."

Hippies with credit cards! Is this what the sixties hath wrought?

Cold Feet?
For $6.75 try a pair of "Maggie's Organic Tie Dyed Socks".

Capitalism sucks... but it pays the rent at Ocean Haven...

[Hat tip: the evangelical environmentalist via Opinion Journal].

"we're all born atheists" and other dumb ideas

2005-03-04T22:54:00.000+10:00

She said,"I know what it's like to be dead"

The materialist version of death is the ultimate killjoy null hypothesis. The epistemological problem of knowing what it is "like" to be dead can never be resolved... In a recent study, for example, I reported that when adult participants were asked to reason about the psychological abilities of a protagonist who had just died in an automobile accident, even participants who later classified themselves as "extinctivists" (i.e., those who endorsed the statement "what we think of as the 'soul,' or conscious personality of a person, ceases permanently when the body dies") nevertheless stated that the dead person knew that he was dead. For example, when asked whether the dead protagonist knew that he was dead (a feat demanding, of course, ongoing cognitive abilities), one young extinctivist's answer was almost comical. "Yeah, he'd know, because I don't believe in the afterlife. It is non-existent; he sees that now." Try hard as he might to be a good materialist, this subject couldn't help but be a dualist.

...Several decades ago, the developmental psychologist Gerald Koocher described, for instance, how a group of children tested on death comprehension reflected on what it might be like to be dead "with references to sleeping, feeling 'peaceful,' or simply 'being very dizzy.'" More recently, my colleague David Bjorklund and I found evidence that younger children are more likely to attribute mental states to a dead agent than are older children, which is precisely the opposite pattern that one would expect to find if the origins of such beliefs could be traced exclusively to cultural learning.

It seems that the default cognitive stance is reasoning that human minds are immortal...

JESSE BERING Psychologist, University of Arkansas, who, to avoid being caste into outer darkness by his peers, adds this rider:
"Don't get me wrong... I don't believe in the afterlife. Recent findings have led me to believe that it's all a cognitive illusion churned up by a psychological system specially designed to think about unobservable minds."

That comforting piece of reductionism should enable Dr Bering to sleep peacefully at night after an evening spent contemplating his own mortality...

She said She said
Lennon and McCartney

She said, "I know what it's like to be dead
I know what it is to be sad"
And she's making me feel like I've never been born
I said, "Who put all those things in your head
Things that make me feel that I'm mad"
And you're making me feel like I've never been born

She said, "You don't understand what I've said"
I said, "No, no, no, you're wrong"
When I was a boy everything was right, everything was right
I said, "Even though you know what you know
I know that I'm ready to leave"
'Cause you're making me feel like I've never been born

She said, "You don't understand what I've said"
I said, "No, no, no, you're wrong"

She said (she said) "I know what it's like to be dead"
(I know what it's like to be dead)

the trouble with godlessness

2005-03-04T22:34:00.000+10:00

Atheism worldwide in decline - (United Press International)

"Garbage!" fumes the completely fair and unbiased New Humanist

the next big thing?

2005-03-04T21:51:00.000+10:00

From downunder comes the sound of white by Missy Higgins.
Look, read and listen here and decide for yourself...

the demography of atheism

2005-03-04T20:43:00.000+10:00

Atheism is more common among people whose social obligations are weak

William S. Bainbridge of the National Science Foundation is one of America's premier scholars in the field of the sociology of religion. In his latest paper (published in the Interdisciplinary Journal of Research on Religion Vol.1, No.1, 2005) he addresses a hitherto largely neglected area of research: Atheism as a social or psychological phenomenon

Bainbridge notes that there is "a fairly large and disputatious literature in which Atheists and their opponents argue matters of belief" but that nevertheless little is known about atheism from a social-scientific perspective. (Tertius would point out that atheists tend to make a lot of noise, far in excess to their actual numbers.) Bainbridge highlights the dearth of research on atheism in comparison to the extensive body of material that exists on religiosity. He points out that the historical studies that do exist are largely written within the perspective of the history of ideas. However systematic attempts to understand Atheism as a social or psychological phenomenon, employing rigorous theory and quantitative research methods, are rare.

Bainbridge then examines two recent studies, based on international surveys, that do offer interesting data about atheism, and which he uses a springboard in order to advance the theoretical understanding of atheism.

The studies reveals the following data:
1.Atheists tend to be young, male, unmarried, and well-educated
2.Men are significantly more likely than women to be atheists
3.This gender difference is universally consistent
4.The very young and very old are less likely to be atheists
5.Atheism is more common among people whose social obligations are weak

In a nutshell Bainbridge advances the hypothesis that "lack of social obligations encourages disbelief in God" based upon the "compensator theory of religion". His analysis also traces "connections between Atheism and the demographic fertility collapse that has been occurring in most advanced industrial nations, suggesting
that secularization might best be understood in the context of declining social obligations". These findings contradict the popular view - especially among atheists themselves - that atheism represents the spearhead of secularization, as science supposedly sweeps away the superstitions of the past. He also questions the thesis that "atheists experience no need for religion".

The paper is well worth reading.
[But I note in passing that Bainbridge seems unaware of the work of Professor Paul Vitz on the psychology of atheism...]

the failure of secularisation theory, or why religion refuses to lay down and die

2005-03-04T19:24:00.000+10:00

The following primer on the secularization theory is based upon the work of Jeffrey K. Hadden from the Department of Sociology at the University of Virginia

Secularization is

"...a process of transfer of property, power, activities, and both manifest and latent functions, from institutions with a supernatural frame of reference to (often new) institutions operating according to empirical, rational, pragmatic criteria."

Bryan Wilson

It can be safely asserted that secularization is one of the givens of the modern world, particularly, but not soley, in the West.

Secularization theory seeks to explain the fate of religion in the modern world. The most popular version of Secularization theory is outlined as follows:

1. Reason and science are incompatable with religion.

2 As reason and science advance religion will recede from public life and eventually disappear altogether.

3 Human societies pass through three developmental stages
a)Primative societies
b)Developing societies
c)Modern societies

4.The dominant mode for understanding the world during each of these stages is
a)Magic
b)Religion
c)Science

5. This developmental model effectively forecasts that human societies will outgrow the need for religion. Science and rational thought will dominate human beings' understanding of their world. The essence of this view is captured by Rodney Stark and William S. Bainbridge in their book The Future of Religion:

At least since the Enlightment, most Western intelletuals have anticipated the death of religion as eagerly as ancient Israel awaited the messiah. Social scientists have particularly excelled in predicting the triumph of reason over 'superstition.' The most illustrious figures in sociology, anthropology, and psychology have unanimously expressed confidence that their children, or surely their grandchildren, would live to see the dawn of a new era in which, to paraphrase Freud, the infantile illusions of religion would be outgrown."

The underlying assumptions of secularization theory are:

1.Religion is irrational

2.People who believe are irrational

3.As the world becomes more rational, guided by science, knowledge rather than superstition, religion is destined to disappear.

While some view the disappearance of religion with concern atheists celebrate its disappearance. In fact it is an atheist wet dream!

The evidence for the validity of secularization theory seems to be massive, even overwhelming, but the past quarter-of-a-century has seen a wide array of evidence, both historial and contemporary, which challenges this position. There is a growing consensus among scholars in the field of the sociology of religion that it is an inadequate explanation. The challenges come from many directions, but the main intellectual perspective is the theory of religious economy (also referred to as rational choice theory, or the "new paradigm"). This new paradigm does not deny that secularization is a powerful force in the modern world, but that secularization theory does not adequately explain what has happened in the modern era.

The new paradigm grew out of research that showed that the growth of conservative religous beliefs in the US accompanied the period of greatest secularization.

The theory of religious economy posits the rise of five worldwide phenomena that contradict the traditional secularization thesis:

1)Global Fundamentalism

2)Nationalist Movements

3)Liberation Theology Movements

4)Pentecostal-Charismatic Movements

5)Religious revivals in Post-Communists Societies

It is now just as much a given that there is a backlash against secularization most demonstratably in the rise of militant Islamic "fundamentalism", but also in the rise of "new age consciousness" in the West and and the revival and resurgence of conservative religious beliefs in many parts of the world.

Dhimmi dat ding

2005-03-04T10:34:00.000+10:00

Melanie Phillips reports on another decision by a judiciary to let the inmates run the asylum: Melanie Phillips's Diary: Dhimmi judges, or just dim?

Even the French baulked at this one...

Once again we see judges kow-towing to repressive, extremist and undemocratic non-western ideologies in the name of freedom and democracy, and all the while patting themselves on the back for their enlightened liberal tolerance.

The question arises: Who needs suicide bombers, fanatics and terrorists when the ruling elites of the Western world are at the forefront of self-destructing their own society through random acts of hari kari and self immolation?

The voice of a prophet echoes plaintively in the wilderness of academia, government and mass media... but no one's listening:

Counterfeit philosophies have polluted all of your thoughts...
You got some big dreams, baby, but in order to dream you gotta still be asleep.
When you gonna wake up, when you gonna wake up
When you gonna wake up and strengthen the things that remain?

a voice crying in the liberal wilderness

2005-03-01T09:35:00.000+10:00

Cinnamon Stillwell's account of her personal journey from knee-jerk anti-American leftism to reflective conservative makes powerful and insightful reading: The Making Of A 9/11 Republican

A MUST read.

the defaming game

2005-02-26T00:02:00.000+10:00

Roger L. Simon: Litterbugs of Amazon

Popular fiction writer and recovering liberal, Roger L. Simon, has some indignant words to say about an increasingly annoying phenomenon at amazon.com, particularly from so-called progressive, leftist and freethinking "reviewers" who leave derisory and insulting "reviews" attacking, besmirching and attempting to censor those works or authors not considered by them to politically correct. What Simon finds particularly galling is that frequently they haven't even read the book in question!

Simon writes:

Several people have called to my attention that some "progressive thinkers" have been going to the Amazon URLs where my books are sold and giving those books one-star (out of five) reviews and leaving derisory comments. These people (or person, who knows?) were undoubtedly motivated by their dislike of the content on this blog. In several cases, they admit they didn't even read the books.

This juvenile behavior is, of course, a problem with the Amazon system. I am not sure if it is actually costing me money (turning people off buying the books), but I can promise you it doesn't make me feel good. It's sort of like waking up in the morning and finding graffiti all over the front wall of your house - and not very artistic graffiti at that - more like idiotic scrawls...

Roger Simon touches on an issue that I myself have seen occurring with greater frequency at amazon.com. One only has to read many of the so-called reviews that target books written by Christians or intelligent design advocates or books advocating conservative social, moral and religious positions to be thunderstruck by the polemical nature of the the attacks levelled by many of these "reviewers".

The amazon.com system is being abused by ignoramuses with an axe to grind. Serious critical reviews are always to be welcomed but adolescent rants, raves and insults from partisan hacks, disguised as legitimate reviews, are an abuse of the system. They are also a sad testament to the illiberal world in which many "liberals" dwell.

This problem will need to be adressed by amazon, and some suggestions are given by commentators at Simon's site. However many of these "idiotic scrawls" are actually counterproductive and certainly encourage thoughtful browsers to consider that perhaps the targetted authors and books have something important to say. It is obvious that a nerve is being hit. It is not without chilling historical precedent for ideas that challenge ruling orthodoxies and paradigms to send those who would crush dissent into paroxyms of outrage and outpourings of diatribe.

Here's a couple of examples of the genre:
from Stephen J. Snyder who goes by the moniker of the Socratic Gadfly "reviewing" Agents Under Fire, Materialism and the Rationality of Science by Angus Menuge:

I'd give it a zero if I could, and every other book of his...That's after reading his obscurantist lies about ID in "Debating Design."

The accusation of "lies" by "a liar" is standard rhetorical fare from these "reviewers"... at least he claims to have read the book...

These guys haven't even bothered to read the book they eviscerate:
Doubts About Darwin: A History of Intelligent Design by Thomas Woodward
[scroll through the reviews comparing the thoughtful and reflective comments to the kneejerk hate responses]

And this non-review from Internet axe-grinder S. Carr supposedly analysing From Darwin to Hitler : Evolutionary Ethics, Eugenics, and Racism in Germany by Richard Weikart succeeds only encapsualting the ignorant "foaming at the mouth" response of the committed polemicist.

NB The flip side of this phenomenon, though somewhat less distasteful and certainly not as offensive, is the presence of effusive cheering "reviews" from fans, regardless of the actual merit of the work.

inventing a John Calvin quote

2005-02-24T18:09:00.000+10:00

Macht at Prosthesis debunks a virulent myth that has found, like so many others, a life of its own on the Internet. The myth concerns an alleged comment by John Calvin to this effect:

"Who will venture to place the authority of Copernicus above that of the Holy Spirit?"

It seems a rather innocuous question but much mileage has been made out of it in order to attack Calvin, Calvinism, Christianity and creationism. According to Macht a quick Google search reveals this exact quote is mentioned at least 200 times on the Internet. When I ran the search I found significantly more than that number. Those who particularly make use of the quote are either atheists/anti-Christians or anti-Calvinists who don't necessarily fall within the first category. Gloating, finger wagging and point-scoring seem to be the chief accompaniments to the revelation of this alleged quote from Calvin.

A few representative samples:

Cliff Walker at Positive Atheism's Big Scary List of Holy Bible Quotations ignoring the fact that it isn't even a "Bible quotation" confidently tells us that the quote comes Calvin, "citing Psalm 93:1 in his Commentary on Genesis"

As does the webmaster at exchristian.net

As does Austin Cline while invoking the word "fundamentalist" to describe a historical situation at least 300 years before such a concept existed at atheism.about.com

Paul Tobin on his site Rejection of Pascal's Wager: a skeptic's guide to christianity appears to offer no source for the quote or perhaps refers to page 72 of Kline's Mathematics and the Search for Knowledge - it is a little unclear.

Chaz Bufe, the author of 20 Reasons to Abandon Christianity offers no reasonable explanation for the source of his use of this quote.

At infidels.org Eugene Y. C. Ho refers to Bertrand Russell in Religion and Science (1935), p. 23. as the source of the quote.

The problem is, as Macht points out, a search of Calvin's commentaries on Genesis reveals that, not only did he not write this, he didn't say anything about Copernicus at all! So where did this popular polemical [mis]quote come from?

Hugo Holbling from Studi Galileiani offers the follwing link to the article The Key to Academic Adventure: Read the Footnotes by Irving Hexham who notes:

A good example of the havoc caused by poor citation is found in Edward Rosen's article "Calvin's Attitude Toward Copernicus" [Rosen 1960:431-441, cf. Ratner and Rosen 1961:382-389]. Rosen begins by drawing attention to Bertrand Russell's remark that "Calvin similarly, demolished Copernicus with the text: 'The world also is established, that it cannot be moved' (Psa. Xciii.I), and exclaimed: 'Who will venture to place the authority of Copernicus above the Holy Spirit?'" [Russell 1962:515; cf. Rosen 1960:431]. The problem, Rosen points out, is that Russell provides no citation for this remark. But, in another book he uses the same argument which he attributes to Andrew Dickenson White, the first president of Cornell University, in his book A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology [White 1955; cf. Russell 1935:23; Rosen 1960:432]. When the reader checks White, however, he or she quickly discovers that White himself fails to provide a reference to Calvin's works.

Instead, he cites the preface of Canon Frederic William Farrar's (1831-1903) History of Interpretation [White 1955:127-128 note; cf. Farrar 1886:xviii, cited by Rosen 1960:435]. When Farrar is consulted we again find that he provides no reference for his citation. At this point Rosen argues that in fact there are no references to Copernicus in any of Calvin's works...

From this example by one careless scholar we see how an idea which has a certain immediate appeal because it supports certain prejudices easily becomes an accepted truth. The fact is that many people dislike Calvin. Therefore, it is easy for them to accept that he made the type of statement attributed to him by Farrar. But, once accepted this distortion of the truth becomes general knowledge and an accepted fact...

Hexham also writes:

Scholarship demands that claims and sources are continually checked. Of course, no one can check the sources of every book they read. But, it is possible to examine footnotes and to carry out random checks to see if an author is using or misusing their sources. Only if this is done can we be sure that what we read is reliable...

Far too many authors are slipshod in their use of their sources. But, what is really disturbing is that most academic reviewers never comment on such problems. It is the task of academics and students to check sources and to draw attention to their misuse. Otherwise the whole academic enterprise collapses into the writing of fiction...

Many students react to the discussion of citations with a shrug and the questions "what does it matter? Why should anyone get excited just because an author is careless or uses misleading quotations?"... But, when those mistakes are taken up and reproduced by other authors our understanding of an entire field can be distorted...

[W]hen similar mistakes are made in books which influence legal and political decisions the impact of such falsehoods can be very important for society as a whole. For this reason, and because as scholars we are obliged to seek the truth, poor citation must be exposed and the highest standards insisted upon by the reader otherwise the lies of holocaust deniers will soon become accepted truth.

It's all about polemics and scoring points. Atheists, anti-Christians and anti IDers, the self-appointed advocates of "naturalism", "reason" and "science" - those who most frequently denounce anyone who questions their wordview as "Liars! Big fat stupid liars!" - are found in this instance to be the perpetuators of a lie. Anyone can make a mistake, true - but this lie is exposed. Therefore people of goodwill will set about cleaning up their own backyards.

See also: Calvin and the Astronomical Revolution by Matthew F. Dowd

Cultural wars

2005-02-23T23:37:00.000+10:00

Roger Ebert and Jim Emerson, have indignantly attacked Michael Medved for his supposedly "spoiler" review of Clint Eastwood's latest film Million Dollar Baby.

I have not seen Million Dollar Baby so I cannot comment on the film’s artistic, technical, or moral standing. In principle I agree with the thesis proposed by Jordan at The Last Renaissance Man "that a film need not be in tune with our moral code to be great, and that real people - even Christians - make the wrong decisions each and every day."

Both of these statements would seem to me to be self-evidently true. No Christian I have ever encountered has ever disputed the second proposition and I cannot believe many reflective Christians would dispute the first. Of course "greatness" is not a synonym for "goodness". Some undeniably great movies could hardly be called "morally good". But I do think that all genuinely great movies have a profound moral dimension to them, a point I’m sure Ebert, Emerson and Jordan would heartily endorse.

The sad fact remains is that moral goodness is extremely hard to portray in plays or films; it is easier for flawed, conflicted and even outright evil characters to be more powerfully presented than the "goodness" and "morality" of people going about the ordinary lives in quiet determination or staisfaction. Those in this latter category are almost universally portrayed in both "serious" and popular films as shallow and inflexible hypocrites, rubes, or fanatics.

Roger Ebert is probably right to expect sophisticated and tactful reviewers not to give away key plot points in the movies they review, but in practice, as he notes, "spoiler alerts" are becoming more common - even in his own! This may be tacky, but it is not a profound moral issue for me.

What I would point out, is the ferocity of his and Jim Emerson’s attack on spoilers of THIS particular movie. After all we are only talking about a movie here, not world peace, brain surgery, or the eternal destiny of human beings. The villifying of Medved and Limbaugh and other conservative reviewers as "right wing commandos", "partisan opportunists", "exploiters", "fantasists", "religious activists", etc. pretty clearly sets both the agenda and bias of Ebert and Emerson, both highly respected representatives of the mainstream liberal establishment.

And the reason is obvious to me. Both Ebert and Emerson, as members of the urban cultural elite, reject, and in some cases despise, the conservative and religious values of a significant sector of middle America. Their attack is against religious and social conservatives, as much as it is against "spoiling". So I was surprised at Jordan's whole-hearted endorsement of their take on this issue.

I would argue strenuously that in both popular and elite culture, conservative values are marginalised. The social conservative beliefs in and respect for order, tradition, patriotism, religion, family and morality is anathema to the prevailing liberal and post-modern ethos of the educated elites who dominate academia, the arts and the media.

Both liberals and conservatives recognise the power of popular entertainment and media to shape – both overtly and covertly – the values, aspirations and beliefs of the community. This is what makes these fields a battleground for the hearts and minds of the people - and why concerns about the undeniable liberal, even anarchic, values that dominate "Hollywood reality", serve as a rallying cry for concerned conservatives.

What I find particularly hypocritical is Emerson’s own grab for the high moral ground with his tut-tutting about how appalling it is "to engage in a campaign to harm the movie for those who may not agree with them" and his plea that "to actively attempt to sabotage a movie with its intended mainstream audience... is not justified". This, in the light of the huge campaign by virtually the entire media establishment, including a majority of film reviewers, to "harm" and to "sabotage" Mel Gibson and his film The Passion of the Christ - along with the scorn and vitriol directed at the huge audience for THAT film - strikes me as a classic case of ignoring the log in one’s own eye in order to detect the speck in the other fellow’s. Emerson's sective indignation over the harming of a movie rather than concern about the discarding of a human life unfortunately sums up rather succinctly the liberal mindset.

Secondly, as Medved and Limbaugh both address audiences composed overwhelmingly of people who heartily endorse their views and values already (since when do liberals care what anyone on the 700 Club had to say about anything?) why are Ebert and Emerson so worked up over up over them preaching to the choir? I do think there is a much broader agenda at work here, one vigorously pursued by those on the left of the fault line dividing elitist liberal values from conservative traditional ones in society. And in that regard, and regardless of the merits or otherwise of Million Dollar Baby, I am less than sympathetic with the gripes of Ebert and Emerson and more open to the position of Medved and Limbaugh.

2005-02-20T21:01:00.000+10:00

In science's pecking order, evolutionary biology lurks somewhere near the bottom, far closer to phrenology than to physics...

For evolutionary biology is a historical science, laden with history's inevitable imponderables. We evolutionary biologists cannot generate a Cretaceous Park to observe exactly what killed the dinosaurs; and, unlike "harder" scientists, we usually cannot resolve issues with a simple experiment, such as adding tube A to tube B and noting the color of the mixture.
evolutionary biologist, Jerry Coyne

another month, another anthropological fraud...

2005-02-20T20:19:00.000+10:00

The Guardian: History of modern man unravels as German scholar is exposed as fraud

See also: Old bones and stones never lie... but what about some of the people who dig them? by Denyse O'Leary

Let's pull all the strings

2005-02-18T21:38:00.000+10:00

The Australian: Let's pull all the strings

The first rule of Australian satire: only send up "bigoted right wing types" and "fuddy duddy conservatives".
The second rule of Australian satire: never, ever send up trendy "progressive" elitist opinions

Imre Salusinszky writes on the nature of satire and why politically-correct liberal/leftist elitists - like Australian film reviewer David Stratton, and nearly all Australian "comics" - neither get it or like it when it is directed at themselves or others of their ilk.

Darwin, Dogma and Doubt

2005-02-18T20:42:00.000+10:00

The Nature Institute - Dogma and Doubt by R.H. Brady

When a theory becomes part of the common working knowledge of an entire community it becomes the context within which that community understands the world. Doubt comes to be regarded as something less than legitimate, and critics find themselves talking only to each other. The critic is, in a certain sense, self-exiled, for he or she is trying to question what the common language of the field takes for granted, and this linguistic hurdle is a difficult one to overcome. Yet for the critic, the task is merely one of clarification. The other side, however, must deal with a condition which may turn out, in the end, to be far more debilitating, i.e. belief...

At the moment, the critics of Darwinian theory are turning in rather profitable work for those interested in empirical investigation. They are clearing the ground for new questions, new investigations—questions which could not be heard in a dogmatic context because their area of inquiry was preempted by the Darwinian answer. While that answer was believed, there was nothing to inquire about. The critics are on their way to moving that answer back into the realm of theory, where it belongs. Once this has been done it will result in a certain freeing of inquiry... What is at stake is not the validity of the Darwinian theory itself, but of the approach to science that it has come to represent. The peculiar form of consensus the theory wields has produced a premature closure of inquiry in several branches of biology, and even if this is to be expected in 'normal science,' such a dogmatic approach does not appear healthy.

absence of evidence is not evidence of absence

2005-02-18T19:42:00.000+10:00

Carbon dating backs Bible on Edom

The Mideast's latest archaeological sensation is all about Edom.The Bible says Edom's kings interacted with ancient Israel, but some scholars have confidently declared that no Edomite state could have existed that early.

The latest archaeological work indicates the Bible got it right, those experts got it wrong and some write-ups need rewriting. The findings also could buttress disputed biblical reports about kings David and Solomon...

The doubters figured the Bible erred because the earliest discovered remains from Edom and nonbiblical references dated back only to the eighth century B.C. Such thinking ignored the old archaeological warning that "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence."

Update: read more here.

Dingoes don’t steal babies… do they?

2005-02-16T18:39:00.000+10:00

A case of scientific inquisition

Recently I wrote about Australia’s own crime of the century, the case of the disappearance of baby Azaria Chamberlain in 1980 from a campsite at the foot of Uluru, the stone monolith that rises abruptly and ominously from the flat outback landscape in the "dead heart" of the continent. In that post I focussed particularly on the bigotry and prejudice of both the Australian media and the general public who both fanned and participated in a virtual witch hunt of the child’s parents, Lindy and Michael Chamberlain; a witch hunt that eventually saw the former wrongly sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of her daughter and the latter wrongly convicted as an accessory after the fact. It was indeed, in the words of original Coroner Dennis Barrett, "a national disgrace".

But there is another wolf (or is it dingo) in sheep’s clothing in this tragic story and it’s identity may come as a surprise to many, particularly that vocal group to whom it is revered as a quasi god, and its practitioners as infallible high priests of secret and arcane wisdom. I speak of "Science".

I have just been reading Colin Evans’ excellent book A Question of Evidence (Hoboken NJ, John Wiley and Sons, 2003) which examines a number of important cases from around the world in which forensic evidence was crucial to either securing or quashing a conviction, but which also raised disturbing forensic controversies in their wake. One of the cases examined is that of the trial(s) of Lindy Chamberlain.

In my original post I pointed out that Australia is a thoroughly secular country where, to borrow Evans’ words, "skepticism is chiselled into the national character". While this scepticism is directed with withering intensity at anything religious, supernatural, anomalous or otherwise removed from the narrow confines of a worldview dominated by empiricism, materialism and utilitarianism, it has a significant blind spot. It is so fawning of the power and prestige of Science that it is often incapable of seeing the forest for the trees in its unreflective acceptance of the authority of scientific "experts". This often has tragic consequences.

Evans accurately describes the consensus that developed throughout Australia over the Chamberlain case:

Public opinion was already beginning to harden against the Chamberlains. In a country where skepticism is chiseled into the national character, many found the concept of "baby-stealing dingoes" just too bizarre to swallow. This was the stuff of nursery rhymes; big, bad wolf, that kind of thing. Besides, no such an incident had ever been recorded. It didn't take long for the doubts to give way to vicious rumors. The most nonsensical had the deeply religious Chamberlains - they were both Seventh-Day Adventists, and Michael was a pastor - slaughtering their infant because she was subnormal, then manufacturing the dingo story to cover their misdeeds. Behind the scenes there was more than rumor at work...

Evans succinctly summarises the forensic case built against Lindy Chamberlain by a cast of eminent Australian and international scientific experts for hire including one of the world’s foremost pathologists Dr James Cameron, Professor of Forensic Medicine at the University of London and his self-styled "team", all skilled professionals and leaders in their various fields. Other who played crucial roles in building the Crown’s case against Lindy Chamberlain included Joy Kuhl, a forensic biologist with the New South Wales Health Commission, Dr Kenneth Brown and Bernard Sims, forensic ondontologists, Professor Malcolm Chaikin from the University of New South Wales, Australia’s leading authority on textiles and fibres, and other pathologists, psychiatrists and "animal experts". The scientific experts solidly stood behind the Crown’s contention that, for whatever reason - postnatal depression was the popular diagnosis - Lindy Chamberlain had murdered her nine-week-old baby, probably in the family car, then hid the body in her husband's camera bag, until such time as she could bury it in the desert, before returning to the campsite and fabricating the story of the dingo coming into the tent and taking the baby.

Evans asks "Since so many distinguished forensic experts had cast doubt on Lindy’s version of events, was it possible for that many specialists to be wrong?"

Or as an Australian might say "Fifty thousand blowflies can’t be wrong!?"

In court the answer was "No". In the court of public opinion the answer was also a resounding "No!". In reality, as is now recognised, the answer is an alarming "Yes!". Travesties of justice are sadly nothing new, but the faith implicitly given to the authority of science and to scientific experts whose credentialled evidence perpetuates such travesties is a cause for concern, particularly as "science" and the pronouncements of scientists are increasingly seen as the royal road to all truth and knowledge.

Eventually through the dogged campaign by a group of dissenters from the party line - as pushed by the Government, the judicial system, the media, the experts, and popular opinion - the forensic evidence was recognised to be seriously flawed. Lindy Chamberlain was freed. Many of the Chamberlain's supporters were Seventh-day Adventists and other Christians but many were also scientists who began to question the forensic evidence presented at the inquiries and trial by their peers. Several of these dissenting scientists had previously been ridiculed by the "expert consensus". A Royal Commission in 1986 headed by Judge Trevor Morling reserved its strongest criticism for the slipshod science that had condemned Lindy Chamberlain to jail for three years. Morling noted "I conclude that none of Mrs. Kuhl's tests established that any such blood was Azaria's," he said, continuing, "With the benefit of hindsight it can be seen that some of the experts ... were over-confident of the ability to form reliable opinions on matters that lay on the outer margins of their fields of expertise.... In my opinion, if the evidence before the Commission had been given at the trial, the trial judge would have been obliged to direct the jury to acquit the Chamberlains on the ground that the evidence could not justify their convictions."

Ironically, "science had sent Lindy Chamberlain to prison; now it had freed her." Finally, in 1992, the Court of Criminal Appeal in Darwin awarded the Chamberlains the sum of $Aus 1.3 million. While they had finally been vindicated, sadly it had come too late to save the Chamberlain's marriage which had broken down under the strain of the ordeal.

Evans notes:

Significantly, public opinion polls registered a deep resentment among many Australians over this payment. In their eyes Lindy Chamberlain remained a fiend in human form, someone who'd done away with her own child and then concocted a fantastic story about cradle-robbing dingoes. Not possible, they murmured; dingoes don't steal babies.

Myths die hard but two recent events have surely laid this one to rest: In April 1998 on Fraser Island, a popular camping spot off the coast of Queensland, a thirteen-month-old baby, Kasey Rowles was attacked and dragged away by a dingo. Only prompt action by her father, who rushed the dingo, forcing it to release the child and run off, prevented a repeat of the Azaria tragedy. Unfortunately three years later in April 2001, also on Fraser Island, nine-year-old Clinton Gage was fatally mauled in a dingo attack. In fact there are hundreds of recorded cases of dingoes attacking people including young children.

Not only did [Lindy Chamberlain] lose her baby she also had the misfortune to fall foul of a regime utterly convinced of her guilt and seemingly prepared to go to any lengths to prove it. Within, hours of Azaria's disappearance the shutters had come down on all explanation save one - Lindy Chamberlain had murdered her own baby. This is a recurring problem around the world. Once the authorities have someone's name in the frame, a dreadful impetus builds; suspicion feeds on doubt, and prejudice feeds on suspicion.

Evans concludes with this chilling pronouncement:

Science is supposed to be our safeguard in such a volatile situation, a bulwark against the twin dangers of emotion and bigotry. Here it merely fanned the flames of hate. What happened to Lindy Chamberlain was nothing less than a forensic lynching.

big trouble in little China

2005-02-05T17:01:00.000+10:00

The Chinese are at it again, trampling on personal autonomy and individual rights, in order to benefit the State. Someone notify the United Nations. Repeal this unjust law - NOW!

Shortage of girls forces China to criminalise selective abortion

The Chinese government is to make the selective abortion of female foetuses a criminal offence and will ban parents from obtaining ultrasound scans to discover their unborn baby's sex, in an attempt to tackle an unwanted side-effect of its "one-child" policy.

The Telegraph reports that Chinese officials are investigating ways to "prevent women aborting baby girls".

Surely no women abort "babies" or "girls" or "persons" - they only abort foetuses, don't they?

Could someone explain then the ninety degrees turnaround that has transformed these foetuses into babies/persons? And how soon will pro-abortionists in the West be launching a campaign objecting to China's violation of a "woman's right to choose"...

The silence of the feminists

2005-02-05T14:21:00.000+10:00

Why don't left-leaning Western women speak up about abuses in the Islamic world, asks Pamela Bone in The silence of the feminists

The great silence by left-leaning Western feminists, and other large parts of the left, to human rights abuses carried out in the name of Islam is, to see it as its kindest, caused by an overdeveloped sense of tolerance or cultural relativism. But it is also part of the new anti-Americanism...

Dislike of George Bush's foreign policy has led to an automatic support of those perceived to be his enemies. Paradoxically, this leaves the left defending people who hold beliefs that condone what the left has long fought against: misogyny, homophobia, capital punishment, suppression of freedom of speech. The recent reaffirmation by Iran's Ayatollah Khamenei of the fatwa against Salman Rushdie has been met by virtual silence; as has the torture and murder in Iraq of a man who would be presumed to be one of the left's own - Hadi Salih, the international officer of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions. The hard left these days is soft on fascism, or at least Islamofascism.

Note to Ms Bone: it's not just the "hard left" - soft totalitarianism infects the entire left. Consider the rise of the liberal (sic) "Food Fascists", for example...

Science as the opiate of the masses

2005-02-05T10:04:00.000+10:00

Benefit of the Doubt by Fred Reed

We live in a wantonly irreligious age —at least at the level of public discourse. In America the courts, the schools, and the government seek to cleanse the country of religion. More accurately, they seek to cleanse it of Christianity. We are told, never directly but by relentless implication, that religious faith is something one in decency ought to do behind closed doors—an embarrassment, worse than public bowling though not quite as bad as having a venereal disease. Which is odd.

I do not offer myself as one intimate with the gods, and on grounds of reason would be hard pressed to choose between the views of Hindus and those of Buddhists. I note, however, that over millennia people of extraordinary intellect and thoughtfulness have taken religion seriously. A quite remarkable arrogance is needed to feel oneself mentally superior to Augustine, Aquinas, Isaac Newton, and C.S. Lewis. I’m not up to it.

Of course arrogance comes in forms both personal and temporal. People tend to regard their own time as wiser and more knowing than all preceding times and the people of earlier ages as quaint and vaguely primitive. Thus many who do not know how a television works will feel superior to Newton because he didn’t know how a television works. (Here is a fascinating concept: arrogance by proximity to a television.)

The world is too much with us. The nature of modernity itself engenders loss of attention to other than the pedestrian and merely technical. In the vast silence of the Alaskan woods in winter, or on the beach of a remote Pacific island with the waves booming endlessly in, one senses dimly something that is above our pay grade. It is harder in climate-controlled living rooms with olefin carpets and the box singing of new improved whatever that will give life meaning by making our counters spotless. The pathological sterility of the shopping mall does not conduce to reflection. And so we focus on the here and now—the problem with this being that we are only here now.

It will be said that we have learned much since the time of Newton, and that this knowledge renders us wiser on matters spiritual. We do have better plastics. Yet still we die and have no idea what it means. We do not know where we came from, and no amount of pious mummery about Big Bangs and black holes changes that at all. We do not know why we are here. We have intimations of what we should do but no assurance. These are the questions that religion addresses and that science pretends do not exist. For all our transistors we know no more about these matters than did Heraclitus—and think about them less.

Many today do know of the questions and do think about them. One merely doesn’t bring them up at a cocktail party, as they are held to be disreputable.

Yet I often meet a—to me—curious sort of fellow who simply cannot comprehend what religion might be about. He is puzzled as distinct from contemptuous or haughty. He genuinely sees no difference between religious faith and believing that the earth is flat. He is like a congenitally deaf man watching a symphony orchestra: with all the good will in the world he doesn’t see the profit in all that sawing with bows and blowing into things.

This fellow is very different from the common atheist, who is bitter, proud of his advanced thinking, and inclined toward a (somewhat adolescent) hostility to a world that isn’t up to his standard. This is tiresome and predictable but doesn’t offend me. Less forgivably, he often wants to run on about logical positivism. (I’m reminded of Orwell’s comment about “the sort of atheist who does not so much disbelieve in God as personally dislike him.”)

Critics of religion say, correctly, that horrible crimes are committed in the name of religion. So are they in the name of communism, anti-communism, Manifest Destiny, Zionism, nationalism, and national security. Horrible crimes are what people do. They are not the heart of the thing.

The following seems to me to be true regarding religion and the sciences: either one believes that there is an afterlife or one believes that there is not an afterlife or one isn’t sure—which means that one believes that there may be an afterlife.

If there is an afterlife, then there is an aspect of existence about which we know nothing and which may, or may not, influence this world. In this case the sciences, while interesting and useful, are merely a partial explanation of things. Thus to believe in the absolute explanatory power of the sciences one must be an atheist—to exclude competition. Atheists, of course, believe what they cannot establish as much as the faithful.

Here is the chief defect of scientists (I mean those who take the sciences as an ideology rather than as a discipline): an unwillingness to admit that there is anything outside their realm. But there is. You cannot squeeze consciousness, beauty, affection, or Good and Evil from physics any more than you can derive momentum from the postulates of geometry: no mass, no momentum. A moral scientist is thus a contradiction in terms. (Logically speaking—in practice they compartmentalize and behave as well as anyone else.)

Thus we have the spectacle of the scientist who is horrified by the latest hatchet murder but can give no scientific reason why. A murder, after all, is merely the dislocation of certain physical masses (the victim’s head, for example) followed by elaborate chemical reactions. Horror cannot be derived from physics. It comes from somewhere else.

Similarly, those who believe in religions often do not really quite believe. Interesting to me is the extent to which those who think themselves Christians have subordinated God to physics. For example, I have often read some timid theologian saying that manna was actually a sticky secretion deriving from certain insects and that the crossing of the Red Sea was really done in a shallow place when the wind blew the water out.

Perhaps. I wasn’t there. Yet this amounts to saying that God is all-powerful, provided that he behaves consistently with physical principles and prevailing weather. Science takes precedence.

Now, people who seek (and therefore find) an overarching explanation of everything always avoid looking at the logical warts and lacunae in their systems. This is equally true of Christians, liberals, conservatives, Marxists, evolutionists, and believers in the universal explanatory power of the sciences. Any ideology can probably be described as a systematic way of misunderstanding the world.

That being said, at worst the religions of the earth are gropings toward something people feel but cannot put a finger on, toward something more at the heart of life than the hoped-for raise, trendy restaurants, and the next and grander automobile. And few things are as stultifying and superficial as the man not so much agnostic (this I can understand) as simply inattentive, whose life is focused on getting into a better country club. Good questions are better than bad answers. And the sciences, though not intended to be, have become the opiate of the masses.

Smothered By the Security Blanket

2005-02-05T09:32:00.000+10:00

It's not up to governments to protect people from their mistakes. We must take responsibility for our own actions, writes Caspar Conde in this piece from the Sydney Morning Herald:

The blame game has gone too far when governments become guardians

Australians enjoy a quality of life unknown to earlier generations. Generally, we live longer than ever before; we are better housed, better fed and better educated; and few of us have faced the dangers of war or the traumas of poverty.

Scientific and technical progress has made our lives much less risky. Modern agriculture means we no longer face the threat of famine while modern medicine has banished many previously life-threatening diseases.

But the advance of science has created new risks. In some cases - for example, the possibility of global warming or nuclear proliferation - the threat posed by these risks is catastrophic.

Because we have grown accustomed to an easy, comfortable life, and because the risks that we now face can appear genuinely frightening, we have as a society become a lot more risk-averse. There is an increasing use of the "precautionary principle" - the idea that it is better to err on the side of caution, even if this means letting opportunities slip by.

The precautionary principle has unfortunately crept into everyday policy. Governments today are increasingly legislating and regulating with a view to minimising all risks, no matter how trivial.

Take the preoccupation with obesity. Western populations are getting fatter, which has health implications. At the last federal election both major parties released policies to tackle obesity. The Liberals suggested after-hours exercise programs for schoolchildren; Labor wanted to ban junk-food advertising during children's TV shows.

These initiatives are well-intentioned, but it is devastating for personal responsibility when the most basic decisions of what to eat and when to exercise are delegated to government.

True, the main focus in Australia so far has been on children, but isn't it the parents' or guardians' role to raise their children so that they learn about self-control and a good diet? Rather than government banning the ads, shouldn't parents be teaching their children how to respond to them?

The banning instinct does not stop at obesity. In Victoria, following two incidents where broken glass was used as a weapon in pub brawls, the police chief commissioner proposed a ban on glasses in pubs and nightclubs as the best way to prevent injuries.

In NSW, the Premier, Bob Carr, announced a $1100 penalty for people who buy alcohol for friends who are intoxicated.

The message in both cases is that drinkers should no longer be expected to control their alcohol intake, or to behave with restraint.

Instead, pubs must prevent risk by serving beer in plastic glasses, as if at a children's party, and friends must under pain of law determine when others have had enough.

In the risk-averse society that is emerging, government is making it its business to anticipate and prevent every foreseeable negative event. This is the precautionary principle gone mad; nothing is to be allowed to go wrong.

When a population is encouraged to depend on government to protect it from risks, personal dignity is threatened and the principle of limited government disappears. Before World War I, the federal government passed an average of 23 new pieces of legislation each year. Today, that has risen to average 178. As time goes by we become increasingly regulated and monitored, which means we lose the habit of self-reliance.

The clearest example of this is the growth of the welfare state, the ultimate government risk-minimisation strategy.

In 1965, only 3 per cent of working-age adults relied on welfare payments as their primary source of income. Today, that figure is 16 per cent, or one in six people.

The less we are required to look after ourselves, the more government assumes the task for us.

And for all the cost, the erosion of liberty, and the learned helplessness, preventive government policies do not even work...

Effective or not, politicians keep spending money as "proof" they are "doing something" even though in many instances there is very little they can do. And the more preventive programs fail in their declared objectives, the stronger the pressure to bring in more controls.

The philosopher David Hume wrote: "It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once". Instead, governments - often with the best of intentions - just chip away at our freedoms.

We need to recognise that, even in our modern world, we cannot eradicate all risks and all dangers, and that the attempt to do so signals a path to totalitarianism, not happiness. It is better to be left to make our own mistakes than to be smothered in the suffocating embrace of a paternalistic state.

absolute morality... absolutely

2005-02-04T01:19:00.000+10:00

over at The Conservative Philosopher Jim Ryan explains why some things are always right and others are always wrong:

Particle physics may undergo revolutionary changes, but morality cannot. It is something we already know, and the revolutions it gives rise to are faithful to its core. If it’s not clear why morality can’t bring surprises, then consider these propositions:

"Friendly children may be killed at will for fun."
"It is not right for members of a tribe that has never bothered others to take up arms and fight courageously when violent marauders come to commit mayhem and collect booty."
"Breaking important promises for meager pleasure is permissible."

These paradigmatic cases of wrongdoing or right action show that some acts, and likely many more that we could describe, are by definition wrong and others by definition right. Nothing would count as evidence that any of those three propositions was true; they are logically false.

becoming Elvis

2005-01-31T20:51:00.000+10:00

Another week, another Elvis impersonator. There's always a silver lining in your local community newspaper...

By day he's a truck driver.
When night falls he's keeping the memory of the King of Rock 'n' Roll alive.

In my local paper this week there is the story of (another) truck driver dealing with the pains of family break-up and custody battles who seeks to turn his life around by finding salvation in a resurrected King - the King of Rock 'n' Roll, that is.

Mr Elvis Aaron Williams intones: "For me this a way to move on and become someone."

For the rest of us the question is, do we need another Elvis impersonator? This particular cultural phenomenon seems to be pretty much played out. The world is already full of Elvises. Someone ought to conduct a census - the result would certainly win a spot in the Guinness Book of Records. So many white sequined jumpsuits and velvet-lined capes, so many sideburns, so much black dye, so many ah-uh-huhs...

The real problem with Elvis impersonators, like Mr Elvis Aaron Williams, is that they only ever impersonate the ageing Elvis, the Elvis in decline, the bloated Elvis losing the battle with drugs and hamburgers, the Caesar's Palace lounge lizard Elvis. Where are the impersonators of the young and virile Elvis of the fifties who revolutionised the face of popular music? Where are the impersonators of the slick and sanitised movie star Elvis of the early sixties enjoying his wealth and fame? Where are the impersonators of the taut, trim and terrific leather-clad Comeback Elvis of the late sixties? It's always the fat Elvis of the seventies with his appalling on-stage satorial tastes who keeps getting resurrected.

If the Las Vegas Elvis was but a parody of his former glory, then his impersonators are offerring a parody of a parody. What we are left with is Elvis imitators impersonating Elvis impersonating himself.

Mr Williams ironically hopes to become someone by his performances as Elvis. But the only thing he becomes is someone else.

And tragically that someone was also wishing he too was someone else...

the vast right wing conspiracy spreads downunder

2005-01-31T20:46:00.000+10:00

Loony-leftist New Zealand religious academic (Is there any other kind?) who thinks "governments can make us nicer" by "legislating to bring out our best rather than our worst" has her conspiracy theory view of Australian politics fisked by Emma-Kate Symons in Revenge of the Righteous in The Australian of January 29, 2005

Some excerpts:

Repressive, racist, homophobic, sexist, a free market economic ideologue and downright nasty - that's the cruel and jealous God that John Howard, Machiavellian wolf in relaxed and comfortable sheep's clothing, has inflicted on Australia's collective soul.

At least that's the startling finding of Marion Maddox's inquisition into the religious-political state of the nation under our second-longest serving prime minister. God Under Howard, with its pointed subtitle, How the Religious Right has Hijacked Australian Politics, is a crusader's document worthy of a Methodist-raised religious studies academic. And woe betide any who dare question its dogma - that Howard is a rampaging heretic, re-creating the Australian political landscape in the image of the American Christian Right, and in the process destroying the fabric of Australian democracy.

The title and cover illustration leave readers in little doubt about the author's intentions to expose what she declares is "Howard's spiritual assault on Australian values". She casts herself and the mass of Australian people in a role akin to John Proctor in Arthur Miller's The Crucible, fighting nobly against the puritanical, sexually repressive witch-burning forces led by Reverend Samuel Parris. It seems weirdly out of sync with reality, proferring a theocratic dystopia of an Australia more like the Taliban's Afghanistan than the nation we inhabit.

Perhaps it is a tribute to Howard's political longevity that he incites such rage among that vocal minority of Australians who see in his every move evidence of a vast right-wing conspiracy. The list of Howard-despising authors stretches from Bob Ellis to David Marr, Margo Kingston and Robert Manne; it is not a global genre like the profitable industry that is Bush-bashing, but the Not Happy John Crowd has found a willing reading public while failing to convince the mainstream of the Prime Minister's sins...

What makes her perspective unusual is that she does not proceed from the standard secular distrust of all things religious: "Howard and the market God have served each other well. Understanding their relationship, and how Australia has fallen under their thrall, we can reject market idolatry and reclaim more inclusive, loving ways of life," she preaches. She is a different kind of evangelist, longing for a new synergy between religion and politics where "by legislating to bring out our best rather than our worst, governments can make us nicer".

No wonder Howard and his muscular Christian soldiers are winning the partisan battle for Australia's political soul.

Maddox espouses the same tired old utopian Marxist rhetoric that gave us those "workers' paradises" of the twentieth century.

"Howard and the market God have served each other well. Understanding their relationship, and how Australia has fallen under their thrall, we can reject market idolatry and reclaim more inclusive, loving ways of life."

Just like New Zealand, of course...

thank you Hollywood

2005-01-30T11:53:00.000+10:00

"Just another friendly thanks to Hollywood liberals for inadvertently helping the president win reelection."

A couple of the billboards sponsored by Citizens United to be displayed in Hollywood for the Month of February.

Tertius suspects there might be an upsurge in billboard vandalism among the beautiful people as a result.

new atheism goes down the Drange

2005-01-30T11:44:00.000+10:00

The original 1998 essay by Theodore M. Drange entitled
Atheism, Agnosticism, Noncognitivism that challenged the viabilty of the new atheism:

Suppose you are to answer the following two questions:

(1) Does the sentence "God exists" express a proposition?
(2) If so, then is that proposition true or false?

If you say no to the first question, then you may be classified as a noncognitivist with regard to God-talk. If you say yes to it, thereby allowing that the given sentence does express a proposition, then you are a cognitivist with regard to God-talk. (Let us henceforth abbreviate these expressions, simply using the terms "cognitivist" and "noncognitivist".) All theists, atheists, and agnostics are cognitivists, so the second question applies to them: is the proposition that God exists true or false? You are a theist if and only if you say that the proposition is true or probably true, you are an atheist if and only if you say that it is false or probably false, and you are an agnostic if and only if you understand what the proposition is, but resist giving either answer, and support your resistance by saying, "The evidence is insufficient" (or words to that effect).

One virtue of this way of characterizing the three groups of cognitivists is that it captures the way the terms are commonly used in ordinary language, and, in particular, it makes the groups mutually exclusive. No one can consistently be both a theist and an agnostic, or both an atheist and an agnostic. Some other ways of drawing the distinction fail to capture that important feature. For example, if the term "agnostic" were defined as anyone who claims that there is insufficient evidence to know whether or not God exists, then it would be possible for a person to be both a theist and an agnostic. He could be what is called a fideist and say, "I realize that the evidence is insufficient, but I believe in God anyway." (Incidentally, I am here taking the expression "believe in God" simply as shorthand for "believe that God exists.") Alternatively, such an "agnostic" could be a "fideistic atheist" and say, "Though the evidence is insufficient, I deny God's existence anyway." That would make it possible for someone to be both an atheist and an agnostic. This result is a drawback to such a definition of "agnostic," for it conflicts with the way the term is commonly used.

...An agnostic could also be an atheist if the term "atheist" were defined more broadly, for example, as anyone who lacks a belief in God, or who classifies the proposition that God exists as anything other than true. Such a definition is recommended by George H. Smith in his book Atheism: the Case Against God.[2] Other writers who support the definition are cited in Michael Martin's book Atheism: A Philosophical Justification.[3] According to this usage, people would be "atheists" even if they answer the question whether it is true that God exists with "no one knows." This is a departure from the most common use of the word "atheist" in ordinary language, which is in itself an important reason to avoid it. Another reason is that infants and fetuses have no belief in God, yet it would be perverse to say that they are all atheists.

Sometimes the use of the term "atheism" to mean "lack of theistic belief" is supported by an appeal to etymology. For example, Martin, in the book mentioned above, says the following:

In Greek a' means without' or not' and theos' means god.' From this standpoint an atheist would simply be someone without a belief in God, not necessarily someone who believes that God does not exist. According to its Greek roots, then, atheism is a negative view, characterized by the absence of belief in God.[4]

This argument is rather unsatisfactory for at least two reasons. First, it is not completely clear that the correct translation of the Greek prefix "a" is "without." It might also mean "no," in which case "a-the-ism" could be translated as "no-god-ism," or "the view that there is no god." Note that there is no "ism" in Greek. Second, even if the etymology of the word "atheism" did indicate that it once meant "without belief in God," that is still not a good guide to current usage. It is quite common for words to acquire new meanings over time. It seems far more important what people mean by a word today than what it once meant long ago.

Another argument sometimes put forward is that we should ascertain what the word "atheist" means by taking a poll among atheists. But that is an unclear suggestion. How are we to decide who is an atheist (and thus to be polled) prior to ascertaining what the word "atheist" means? Let us assume that the poll is to be taken among all those native speakers of English who are not theists. It is still not clear what the result of such a poll would be. I have never seen any statistical result presented on the matter. My conclusion here is that no good case has ever been made for using the word "atheist" in the sense of "one who is without belief in God."

In this essay, I shall use the term "atheist" in its (more common) narrow sense. Martin draws a distinction between "negative atheists," who are without any belief in God, and "positive atheists," who deny God's existence.[5]) Applying that distinction, it could be said that I (and most people) use the term "atheist" in the sense of "positive atheist." It should be noted that all positive atheists are automatically negative atheists, which may sound somewhat peculiar when those expressions are used.

In place of the expression "negative atheist," I shall use the term "nontheist." That seems to be a better term (than "atheist") for capturing the more general concept of "one who is without belief in God," for several reasons:

(1) Almost everyone who employs the term "nontheist" already uses it in the given way.

(2) As indicated in dictionaries, most native speakers of English use the term "atheist" for the more definite concept of "one who denies that God exists." It is desirable that we abide by common usage and it is foolish (and probably futile) to try to reform people's usage of terms.

(3) It would be more natural to call infants and fetuses "nontheists" than to call them "atheists."

(4) It is desirable to have a system in which the familiar three classes, theists, atheists, and agnostics, are mutually exclusive, and that would not be possible if the term "atheist" were instead used for the more general concept.

...The reason I call the view "noncognitivism with regard to God-talk" rather than "noncognitivism with regard to religious language" is that the sentence "God exists" occurs in contexts other than religious language. One such context is the field of metaphysics. The existence of God is a standard topic in metaphysics, and there need be no reference within that context to religion or to religious discourse. Thus, the noncognitivist is rejecting the cognitive meaningfulness of various sentences that contain the word "God," whether those sentences occur within religious discourse or not. Consider now the sentence "God1 exists," where some definition has been previously given for the subject term "God1." Relative to that sentence, we may put forward the following definitions:

A noncognitivist is someone who declares that the sentence does not express any proposition at all.

A theist is someone who allows that the sentence expresses a proposition and who classifies the proposition as true or probably true.

An atheist is someone who allows that the sentence expresses a proposition and who classifies the proposition as false or probably false.

An agnostic is someone who allows that the sentence expresses a proposition, and who grants that he/she knows what that proposition is, but who is noncommittal about its truth or falsity on the grounds of insufficient evidence.

It is to be borne in mind here that each category is relative to a particular interpretation of a sentence of the type "God exists," A person may be in one category relative to one interpretation (or one sense of the word "God"), but in a different category relative to another interpretation.

To illustrate these distinctions, consider the following four responses to a request for a definition of the term "God":

God1 = the universe itself (all that exists). [Or, alternatively, God1 = love.]

God2 = the powerful being who created the universe.

God3 = the omnipotent creator of the universe whose highest goal regarding humans is that they believe that he has a son who died for them so that they might obtain salvation.

God4 = ? (No definition is possible; the word is indefinable.)

Now suppose there were a philosopher who examined these four responses. When asked the question "does God exist?" he might very well respond as follows:

In the case of God1, yes, God definitely exists, for it is obvious that the universe [or love] exists. In the case of God2, I understand the question but have no answer to it since the evidence is insufficient. In the case of God3, there is good evidence that such a being does not exist, for most humans do not believe in his son, etc., yet, if such a being were to exist, then probably he would have done things to cause them to have the given belief. And in the case of God4, I do not understand the question. Since no definition of "God4" has been given, the sentence "God4 exists" expresses no proposition whatever.

Given this response, we should say of such a philosopher that he is a theist relative to God1, an agnostic relative to God2, an atheist relative to God3, and a noncognitivist relative to God4. I would say that these answers to the four "does God exist?" questions are reasonable, though they are not necessarily the correct (or "best") answers.

It should be noted that the term "theist" is here being taken in a broad sense, one which includes what are often referred to as "deists" and "pantheists." In a narrower sense, a theist only affirms the existence of a certain type of deity (a personal deity who rules the universe). The distinction between different types of theist (or different senses of the term "theist") is outside the scope of the present essay.

A question might be raised here. Suppose "God5" is defined as "a transcendent spirit capable of thought, feeling, and action," and suppose there is a man who says of the sentence "God5 exists" that it is cognitively meaningless and expresses no proposition. When he says that, does he mean to speak just for himself or does he mean to speak for everyone? In other words, is he merely claiming that he himself does not understand the sentence, whereas there may be others who do? Or is he, instead, claiming that no one understands it? We can initially refer to these two types of noncognitivist as the "subjective noncognitivist" and the "objective noncognitivist." When the man claims not to understand the idea of a transcendent spirit capable of thought, feeling, and action, we need to ask him: Do you mean just that you personally can't grasp that idea (at the present time), allowing the possibility that others may understand it (or that you yourself may come to understand it in the future)? Or, alternatively, are you claiming that the idea is inherently unintelligible, so that no one can possibly grasp it or think it? These are two essentially different types of claim, and so we have here a fundamental distinction between two essentially different types of noncognitivist.

The objective noncognitivist is making a bolder claim, one which is in the public arena and in need of support. His view could be refuted by showing that the term "God5" can be understood sufficiently to allow the sentence "God5 exists" to express a proposition. There could be philosophical debate about such an issue. In the case of the subjective noncognitivist, presumably he is not making a claim in the public arena. He only says that he himself fails to grasp the concept, allowing that possibly others might (or perhaps that he himself might come to grasp it later). Of course, if he were to have very strong doubts about such a possibility, then his position would come close to that of the objective one. In expressing such doubts, he would be making a statement in the public arena.

A similar distinction could be drawn in the case of agnosticism. Subjective agnostics would be people who simply make autobiographical reports regarding their own situation. Each of them says, for example, "I don't have enough evidence one way or the other to give an answer to the question whether God5 exists." In contrast, objective agnostics would be making a statement in the public arena. It is the statement that there just does not exist sufficient evidence to warrant an answer to the given question, and if anyone at all were to answer the question with a yes or no, then that would be a mistake, and perhaps irrational.

The way I have been construing agnosticism, it is the objective view that I have in mind. And similarly for noncognitivism. When I speak of that position, it should be understood that it is the objective form to which I mean to refer. Thus, given a specific definition of "God," agnostics are people who claim that no one has sufficient evidence to warrant acceptance of either theism or atheism. And noncognitivists are people who claim that no one understands the sentence "God exists" in a way that would allow it to express a proposition.

One objection to my definition of "atheism" is that it seems to allow no way for anyone to simply proclaim, "I am an atheist" irrespective of the definition given for "God." It seems to force one to always listen to a definition of "God" before saying, "I am an atheist relative to that definition." A better way of defining "atheism," it is claimed, is "denial of the existence of all gods." I have two replies to this objection. First, to define "atheism" as the denial of the existence of all gods is unsatisfactory, because there may be gods that clearly do exist. Some people say, "God is the universe" or "God is love." The reasonable response here should be to grant that God does exist when defined that way. Consider also primitive tribes who worshiped huge statues as gods. We should be able to say, "Their god was a huge statue." But if we say that, then we need to grant that their god did indeed exist. Second, discussions of the existence of God almost always occur within linguistic contexts in which a certain particular concept of God is understood. So one could legitimately proclaim "I am an atheist" in such a setting without first agreeing on a definition of "God," for the simple reason that some definition of "God" is already being assumed. For example, if one is discussing the topic with Christians, then it might be assumed that it is the Christian concept of God that is at issue. There would then be no problem in simply proclaiming, "I am an atheist," for it would be understood within that particular context that what is meant is "I am an atheist with regard to the God of Christianity."

As indicated previously, agnostics allow that "God exists" expresses a proposition, but they regard the evidence as insufficient to warrant committing oneself one way or the other about the truth value of the proposition. They are not even willing to say that the proposition is probably true or that it is probably false. If a person were to say that it is probably true, then I would call him a "theist," even if he is not willing to go so far as to say that he "believes in God." He may just say that the evidence presently available favors the proposition that God exists (where the term "God" is given some particular definition). I would call him a "theist" so long as he leans to that side. Similarly, I would call a person an "atheist" even if he is not willing to say that he believes in God's nonexistence. He may just say that the available evidence favors the proposition that God does not exist (given some particular definition of "God"). I would say that's enough to classify the person as an "atheist," at least relative to the given definition of "God." We could draw a distinction here between "weak theists" and "strong theists," and between "weak atheists" and "strong atheists," depending on how strongly they proclaim their view. But in contrast to these positions, the agnostic does not claim that the available evidence favors either side, even to the slightest degree.

defining atheism

2005-01-30T11:23:00.000+10:00

Chris Baba's collection of dictionary and encyclopedia definitions of atheism:

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From Merriam-Webster OnLine

atheist: one who believes that there is no deity

atheism:
1 archaic : UNGODLINESS, WICKEDNESS
2 a : a disbelief in the existence of deity b : the doctrine that there is no deity

disbelief: the act of disbelieving : mental rejection of something as untrue

disbelieve:
transitive senses : to hold not worthy of belief : not believe
intransitive senses : to withhold or reject belief

agnostic: a person who holds the view that any ultimate reality (as God) is unknown and prob. unknowable; broadly : one who is not committed to believing in either the existence or the nonexistence of God or a god
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From the Cambridge Dictionary of American English

atheist: someone who believes that God does not exist

atheism: the belief that God does not exist

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From the Oxford English Dictionary 2nd Ed. 1989

Atheist:
1. One who denies or disbelieves the existence of a God.
2. One who practically denies the existence of a God by disregard of moral obligation to Him; a godless man.
B. attrib. as adj. Atheistic, impious.

[Note: The last word usage example for sense #1 is: 1876 GLADSTONE in Contemp. Rev. June 22 By the Atheist I understand the man who not only holds off, like the sceptic, from the affirmative, but who drives himself, or is driven, to the negative assertion in regard to the whole Unseen, or to the existence of God.]

Atheism:
Disbelief in, or denial of, the existence of a God. Also, Disregard of duty to God, godlessness (practical atheism).

Agnostic:
A. n. One who holds that the existence of anything beyond and behind material phenomena is unknown and (so far as can be judged) unknowable, and especially that a First Cause and an unseen world are subjects of which we know nothing.
[Suggested by Prof. Huxley at a party held previous to the formation of the now defunct Metaphysical Society, at Mr. James Knowles's house on Clapham Common, one evening in 1869, in my hearing. He took it from St. Paul's mention of the altar to ‘the Unknown God.’ R. H. HUTTON in letter 13 Mar. 1881.]

B. adj. Of or pertaining to agnostics or their theory.

Disbelieve:
1. trans. Not to believe or credit; to refuse credence to:
a. a statement or (alleged) fact: To reject the truth or reality of. (With simple obj. or obj. clause.)
b. a person in making a statement.
2. absol. or intr.
3. intr. with in: Not to believe in; to have no faith in: cf. BELIEVE 1, 3.
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From The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. 2000.

atheist: One who disbelieves or denies the existence of God or gods.

atheism:
1a. Disbelief in or denial of the existence of God or gods. b. The doctrine that there is no God or gods.
2. Godlessness; immorality.

ETYMOLOGY: French athéisme, from athée, atheist, from Greek atheos, godless : a-, without; see a–1 + theos, god; see dhs- in Appendix I.

disbelief: Refusal or reluctance to believe.

denial:
1. A refusal to comply with or satisfy a request.
2a. A refusal to grant the truth of a statement or allegation; a contradiction. b. Law The opposing by a defendant of an allegation of the plaintiff.
3a. A refusal to accept or believe something, such as a doctrine or belief. b. Psychology An unconscious defense mechanism characterized by refusal to acknowledge painful realities, thoughts, or feelings.
4. The act of disowning or disavowing; repudiation.
5. Abstinence; self-denial.

agnostic:
NOUN:
1a. One who believes that it is impossible to know whether there is a God. b. One who is skeptical about the existence of God but does not profess true atheism.
2. One who is doubtful or noncommittal about something.

ADJECTIVE:
1. Relating to or being an agnostic.
2. Doubtful or noncommittal: “Though I am agnostic on what terms to use, I have no doubt that human infants come with an enormous ‘acquisitiveness’ for discovering patterns” (William H. Calvin, New York Times Book Review August 10, 1997).

WORD HISTORY: An agnostic does not deny the existence of God and heaven but holds that one cannot know for certain whether or not they exist. The term agnostic was fittingly coined by the 19th-century British scientist Thomas H. Huxley, who believed that only material phenomena were objects of exact knowledge. He made up the word from the prefix a–, meaning “without, not,” as in amoral, and the noun Gnostic. Gnostic is related to the Greek word gnsis, “knowledge,” which was used by early Christian writers to mean “higher, esoteric knowledge of spiritual things”; hence, Gnostic referred to those with such knowledge. In coining the term agnostic, Huxley was considering as “Gnostics” a group of his fellow intellectuals—“ists,” as he called them—who had eagerly embraced various doctrines or theories that explained the world to their satisfaction. Because he was a “man without a rag of a label to cover himself with,” Huxley coined the term agnostic for himself, its first published use being in 1870.
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From the 1913 Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary

atheist:
1. One who disbelieves or denies the existence of a God, or supreme intelligent Being.
2. A godless person. [Obs.] Syn. -- Infidel; unbeliever. See Infidel.

atheism:
1. The disbelief or denial of the existence of a God, or supreme intelligent Being.
2. Godlessness.

disbelief:
The act of disbelieving;; a state of the mind in which one is fully persuaded that an opinion, assertion, or doctrine is not true; refusal of assent, credit, or credence; denial of belief.
Syn. -- Distrust; unbelief; incredulity; doubt; skepticism. -- Disbelief, Unbelief. Unbelief is a mere failure to admit; disbelief is a positive rejection. One may be an unbeliever in Christianity from ignorance or want of inquiry; a unbeliever has the proofs before him, and incurs the guilt of setting them aside. Unbelief is usually open to conviction; disbelief is already convinced as to the falsity of that which it rejects. Men often tell a story in such a manner that we regard everything they say with unbelief. Familiarity with the worst parts of human nature often leads us into a disbelief in many good qualities which really exist among men.
disbelieve:
Not to believe; to refuse belief or credence to; to hold not to be true or actual.

deny:
(transitive verb)
1. To declare not to be true; to gainsay; to contradict; -- opposed to affirm, allow, or admit. &hand; We deny what another says, or we deny the truth of an assertion, the force of it, or the assertion itself.
2. To refuse (to do something or to accept something); to reject; to decline; to renounce. [Obs.]
3. To refuse to grant; to withhold; to refuse to gratify or yield to; as, to deny a request.
4. To disclaim connection with, responsibility for, and the like; to refuse to acknowledge; to disown; to abjure; to disavow.

(intransitive verb) To answer in negative; to declare an assertion not to be true.

denial:
1. The act of gainsaying, refusing, or disowning; negation; -- the contrary of affirmation.
2. A refusal to admit the truth of a statement, charge, imputation, etc.; assertion of the untruth of a thing stated or maintained; a contradiction.
3. A refusal to grant; rejection of a request.
4. A refusal to acknowledge; disclaimer of connection with; disavowal; -- the contrary of confession; as, the denial of a fault charged on one; a denial of God. Denial of one's self, a declining of some gratification; restraint of one's appetites or propensities; self-denial.

agnostic:
(noun) One who professes ignorance, or denies that we have any knowledge, save of phenomena; one who supports agnosticism, neither affirming nor denying the existence of a personal Deity, a future life, etc.

agnosticism:
That doctrine which, professing ignorance, neither asserts nor denies. Specifically: (Theol.) The doctrine that the existence of a personal Deity, an unseen world, etc., can be neither proved nor disproved, because of the necessary limits of the human mind (as sometimes charged upon Hamilton and Mansel), or because of the insufficiency of the evidence furnished by physical and physical data, to warrant a positive conclusion (as taught by the school of Herbert Spencer); -- opposed alike dogmatic skepticism and to dogmatic theism.
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From the MSN Encarta Dictionary

atheism: disbelief in the existence of God or deities
atheist: somebody who does not believe in God or deities
disbelief: the feeling of not believing or of not being able to believe somebody or something

Note: If you click on these entries you should note that the bold type at the the beginning of each definition (i.e. "unbelief in God or deities" and "unbeliever in God or deities") is a "Quick Definition" that is unique to the Microsoft Encarta Dictionaries. Only the full definitions are quoted above. The following is a quote from the Microsoft Encarta College Dictionary:

Another important point highlighted by our research was that people often find it difficult to find their way through longer dictionary entries. The words in our language often have more than one meaning. A dictionary divides each of these meanings up and defines each one separately. These are called "senses". The word "take", for example, has over 40 senses. To help you find just the right meaning fast, we have included "Quick Definitions" in boldface capitalized type at the start of each sense of a word with more than three meanings. The "Quick Definitions" give the broad meanings. They are followed by the full definitions. This makes these longer entries easier to navigate.

From The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2001.

atheism: denial of the existence of God or gods and of any supernatural existence, to be distinguished from agnosticism, which holds that the existence cannot be proved. The term atheism has been used as an accusation against all who attack established orthodoxy, as in the trial of Socrates. There were few avowed atheists from classical times until the 19th cent., when popular belief in a conflict between religion and science brought forth preachers of the gospel of atheism, such as Robert G. Ingersoll. There are today many individuals and groups professing atheism. The 20th cent. has seen many individuals and groups professing atheism, including Bertrand Russell and Madalyn Murry O’Hair.

agnosticism: form of skepticism that holds that the existence of God cannot be logically proved or disproved. Among prominent agnostics have been Auguste Comte, Herbert Spencer, and T. H. Huxley (who coined the word agnostic in 1869). Immanuel Kant was an agnostic who argued that belief in divinity can rest only on faith. Agnosticism is not to be confused with atheism, which asserts that there is no God.

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From the article "Atheism and Agnosticism" in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

‘Atheism’ means the negation of theism, the denial of the existence of God.

Smart, J. J. C., "Atheism and Agnosticism", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2004 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.)
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stupid arguments for "lacklustre atheism"

2005-01-30T10:28:00.000+10:00

Chris Baba continues his critique of weak atheism with an examination of "some incredibly stupid arguments" used to support that position:

Some... people who want to redefine the words "atheism" and "atheist" to mean "a lack of belief in the existence of gods" have used some incredibly stupid arguments to support their position. I will list some of these arguments and examine them in detail...

Stupid Argument #1: The etymology of the word "atheism" means "a lack of belief".
A commonly repeated error is that the word "atheism" was derived from the prefix "a-", meaning "without", and the word "theism", meaning a belief in God. Therefore they claim that "atheism" means "without a belief in God". This is incorrect because the etymology of the word "atheism" derives from the Greek word "atheos" meaning "godless". The "-ism" suffix, which can be roughly mean "belief", was added later. The etymology of the word means "godless belief" not "without a belief in gods".

A couple of etymologies from respected dictionaries are shown below:

From Merriam-Webster Online:
Etymology of "atheism": Middle French athéisme, from athée atheist, from Greek atheos godless, from a- + theos god

From The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 4th ed.:
Etymology of "atheism": French athéisme, from athée, atheist, from Greek atheos, godless : a-, without; see a–1 + theos, god

Stupid Argument #2: Most Dictionaries Define "Atheism" as a "Lack of Belief".
I see this lie quite often on the internet. The truth of the matter is that no reputable dictionary has a "lack of belief" definition. See page 3 for more on this subject.

Stupid Argument #3: Most Dictionary Definitions of "Atheism" are Wrong Because They are Written by Biased Christians.
This absurd claim is totally unsupported by any facts, much like the gigantic government conspiracy to cover-up UFO landings.

Stupid Argument #4: Only Atheists get to Define What the Word "Atheist" Means.

This argument is absurd for two reasons. First of all, words are defined by common usage, not by the people who fit that definition. For example the word "handicapped" is defined by common usage not just by handicapped people.

Secondly, a "lack of belief" definition for the word "atheist" would include so many agnostics, babies, infants, and the undecided that the self-identified atheists would be a very small minority. Babies and infants would make up a majority of the "lack of belief" atheists and I haven't heard of any of them who could express a coherent definition.

Stupid Argument #5: Most Atheists Want a "Lack of Belief" Definition.

This argument is usually presented as fact without any actual surveys to back it up. The first problem with this is the "babies and infants" problem described above. The second problem is that most scientific surveys of religious beliefs show that only a minority of the non-religious people self-identify as atheists. For example the 2001 American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) shows that 13.2% of the US population self-identified as "no religion" while 0.4% self-identified as atheists and 0.5% self-identified as agnostics. The 2000 Encyclopedia Britannica Book of the Year also shows similar numbers.

Stupid Argument #6: The Phrase "Tom does not believe in the existence of God" does not mean "Tom believes that God does not exist."
This idiotic argument is sometimes presented by brain dead morons who don't understand basic English grammar. I really don't expect most people to know that "raising" is the technical name for the location of the negative in the first sentence, or that raising simply shifts the negative from the subordinate clause where it logically belongs to the main clause, especially when the main clause’s verb is suppose, think, believe, seem, or the like. (Here are two links from The Columbia Guide to Standard American English that explain it: Link 1, Link 2)

However, I find it impossible to believe that anyone with half a brain would use this argument. The English language is literally filled with many common examples of raising. I'll post a few for clarity:

A) "I don't believe the mail has arrived" means "I believe the mail has not arrived". It does not mean that I don't have any beliefs about the mail arriving.

B) "I do not believe we missed the last bus" means "I believe we did not miss the last bus". It does not mean that I don't have any beliefs about missing the last bus.

C) "I don't think the kicker can make a 55 yard field goal" means "I think that the kicker can not make a 55 yard field goal". It does not mean that I did not think about the kicker making a field goal.

D) "I don't believe in the existence of deities" means "I believe that deities do not exist". It does not mean that I don't have any beliefs about the existence of deities.

Stupid Argument #7: A "Lack of Belief" Definition is Useful in Debates.

Some people think that a "lack of belief" definition of atheist shifts the burden of proof to the theist and requires them to prove the existence of their god. The truth of the matter is that the theist's claim of a supernatural god with magical powers is an extraordinary claim and requires substantial evidence if it is to be logically believed. The burden of proof is on the theist regardless of the definition of the word "atheist".

As an analogy, if someone claimed that flying pigs existed, then they would have the burden of proof to prove this regardless of whether I told them I "lacked belief" in the existence of flying pigs or if I told them that I believed that flying pigs did not exist.

Stupid Argument #8: All Atheists Lack a Belief in Gods so Anyone who Lacks a Belief in Gods is an Atheist.

This argument is so damn stupid that it is rarely expressed explicitly. Usually it is only vaguely implied by statements such as "the only thing atheists have in common is a lack of belief in gods".

The logical mistake here should be self-evident to any adult with half a brain, so I won't explain it. But if you are in a child in elementary school, try to figure it out with this analogy: All dogs have fur so anything with fur is a dog.

"lack" atheism is just another term for lacklustre atheism

2005-01-30T10:19:00.000+10:00

Christopher Baba is a certifiable sufferer from VAS (Village Atheist Syndrome)and is one hell of a VAA (Very Angry Atheist). He runs the website Evil Bible.com, "a non-profit web site which was developed to promote atheism by revealing the wicked truth about the Bible and religion." Let's just say that Chris hates Christianity with all the passion of a disgruntled former adherant. His is the kind of atheism, perhaps the most common kind, that is fueled by an intense, even pathological, hatred of God and religion - which is inevitably a kind of self-hatred considering the ubiquitousness of the religious impulse in human beings. But live and let live, I say; he is entitled to his views, as I am to mine. Judging by his website Chris would disagree, but then it is not a place I would choose to hang out. He is welcome to his bitterness and vituperation; if he thinks it is going to make the world a better place, and himself a better person, I'll leave it to time and tide to show him the folly of such a notion.

There is very, very little that Chris Baba and I would agree on, but one thing we stand united on is the definition of atheism. What follows is Chris Baba's piece, in which, in familiar atheistic manner, he doesn't hesitate to calls a spade a "moron":

On the Definition of the Words Atheism and Atheist

It has come to my attention that some atheists on the internet are trying to redefine the words "atheism" and "atheist" to mean anyone who simply lacks a belief in gods. This definition would include babies, agnostics, and people who have not come to a conclusion about the existence of gods.

Some proponents of this definition can be found in the alt.atheism newsgroup and at the following web sites:

http://www.infidels.org/news/atheism/intro.html
http://atheism.about.com/library/FAQs/ath/blathq_atheism101.htm
http://www.alabamaatheist.org/awareness/questions/atheist.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism

A "lack of belief" definition is a bad definition for many reasons. It is not commonly used. It is not defined that way in any reputable dictionary. It is too broad because most agnostics and babies don’t consider themselves atheists. And it makes no sense for an "-ism" to be a based on a lack of belief.

These atheists are usually motivated to redefine the word "atheist" because they want to enlarge the definition of "atheist" to include as many people as possible, or because they perceive it to be an advantage in debates with theists. Unfortunately, some of these people have used lies and distortions to support their opinions, and some have made extremely ignorant and grossly incorrect statements that may reflect badly on all atheists. I will correct some of these incorrect statements later in this essay.

But first I will try to illustrate the problem by using three groups of people:

Group A believes that gods do not exist (atheists).

Group B neither believes that at least one god exists nor do they believe that gods do not exist. This would include agnostics, babies, and the undecided.

Group C believes that at least one god exists (theists).

It is generally agreed that the people in group A are atheists and the people in group C are not. The main point of disagreement is whether the people in group B are considered atheists or not. The people who want a "lack of belief" definition would define group B as atheists while most people, and all reputable dictionaries, do not. Many of the people who are pushing a "lack of belief" definition call group A "strong atheists" and call group B "weak atheists."

One of the main problems of a "lack of belief" definition is that it is too broad. If someone told you they were an atheist, you would still not know if they were agnostic, undecided, believed that gods don’t exist, or never thought about it. This makes the word nearly useless.

Another problem with a "lack of belief" definition is that it is not accepted by the vast majority of people. I personally don’t know anyone who considers babies atheists because they lack belief in gods. I also don’t know of any people who are agnostic or undecided about the existence of God who call themselves atheists.

The lack of public acceptance for a "lack of belief" definition of "atheism" is reflected in the fact that no reputable dictionary has a "lack of belief" definition for either "atheism" or "atheist". However, this has not kept a few morons from incorrectly claiming that various dictionary definitions have a "lack of belief" definition...

"sounds like agnosticism to me"

2005-01-30T03:06:00.000+10:00

Atheism and Natheism: Part II by Tony Pasquarello in the American Atheist, Winter 2003

In an earlier paper, I coined the term 'natheism' to stand for a relatively new version of Atheism which defines 'atheism' as "lack of belief in God." Natheism retains the term 'atheism' but redefines it. I then argued that natheism is mistaken; the standard conception and dictionary definition - "denial of the existence of God" - is indeed, correct...

...In other words, the emphasis is put on the objective, the facts of the matter, the relevant evidence, the state of reality -not the subjective, psychological considerations.

...Those distinguished thinkers who, deliberately or unwittingly, retain 'believe in' in their formal examinations of these concepts, all the way to their last formulations, are just perpetuating muddiness and murkiness, bad weather for reasoning. The flawed believe-in locution is endemic in the writing -and thinking -of Natheists; it might even be fingered as the "enabler." Here are direct quotes from leading proponents of natheism:

"All atheism requires is the lack of belief in God."

"An atheist does not believe in the existence of a God."

"Atheists ... lack belief in a god."

"'Atheist' means 'without belief in God'."

Yes, these would be considered ordinary, commonly employed expressions, but they're hardly appropriate if one claims to be doing serious, philosophical explication. In that context, they must be adjudged as circuitous, bloated, evasive attempts at hinting (wink, wink), that God doesn't exist, without saying it directly.

...Santa is a current, vivid, and dynamic figure with tens of millions of devout followers. And, they're all small children, i.e. intellectually immature. If an adult, native-born American were to state his position on Santa, using similar expressions -natheispeak - we would conclude that his sleigh wasn't hitting on all reindeers. "I'm just without belief in Santa"; "I lack a belief in the existence of Santa." Statements like these would make us cringe, if not scream. Why doesn't he speak plainly? Why doesn't he say simply that Santa isn't real?

As we acquire the terms of a language, we acquire concepts. As we acquire facility in using a term, we acquire the cluster of related concepts that comprise that linguistic family. We acquire beliefs, ideas, opinions, judgments, etc. It is, therefore, logically impossible, at that point, to assume the pose of the feral innocent emerging from the deep jungle, clutching his unsullied tabula rasa. It is logically impossible to know how to use the term 'God' yet not have any beliefs pertaining to God.

For any person, A, fluent in the language, who does not 'have', or 'hold', or 'believe in', or who is 'absent', 'lacks', is 'free from' or 'without belief in' some proposition, p--(these are typical of the cumbersome circumlocutions employed by Natheists to express this new version of Atheism)--this may be the case because: (1) A is unfamiliar with the component concepts of p; A does not understand p. As indicated, for the God concept, this option is not open to a practiced speaker of the language. (2) A lacks the information enabling one to judge the probability or truth value of p. (E.g., p is "Magnesium can be found on Jupiter"). A may believe that p's value is unknown or unknowable at his intellectual level, or unknowable in general, or at the present time, or to science, or in principle. A may be gathering information about p, or awaiting some event, or the outcome of some experiment bearing on p. Perhaps A has simply not made up his mind about p. Any of these could be, and has been, considered some form of classic Agnosticism. (3) Finally, A considers p to be highly improbable or false. Given our topic, this is classic Atheism. A is 'free of' belief in God because A is convinced that God does not exist. It is quite normal, and logical, not to 'hold' or 'embrace' a belief that one considers false!

Without the baggage of the bloated belief-vocabulary, a much more succinct summary can be given. For any mature language-user, a given proposition will be meaningless or meaningful; if meaningful, its probability or truth value will be known or unknown.

Taking Good Advice
If we follow our own schematic, 'A doesn't believe in God' becomes 'A doesn't believe that God exists'. Now, how is that to be parsed? Common sense, ordinary linguistic practice, and reasonable understanding of the thrust of the negative all point to 'A believes that God doesn't exist'. That is one, standard way of expressing standard Atheism.

But, the reform Atheists, the Natheists, are adamant in their insistence that they are painstakingly carving out another interpretation that is significantly different from the flat-out denial that God exists. (It is different, but it's certainly not new, since it is no more than the old, familiar Agnosticism.) Natheism claims that 'A doesn't believe that God exists' must be unpacked to 'A is without the belief that God exists'.

Let us grant that, for the sake of our analysis. Now, only one crucial question: How about the belief that God does not exist? Is A also 'without' or lacking that? Either he is or he isn't.

If he is, i.e. A holds neither the belief that God exists, nor the belief that God does not exist, for whatever reasons, A, an intellectually mature language user, is properly classified as an Agnostic. If A is not lacking the belief that God does not exist, then he has the belief that God does not exist, which is traditional, strict, hard, explicit Atheism. There is no other alternative. It follows that Natheism is not a separate, discrete stance on "belief in" God but collapses into either traditional Agnosticism or traditional Atheism. But, since Natheism itself is unyielding in insisting that it is positively not traditional Atheism, then it must be Agnosticism. Q.E.D...

The same sorts of skewed conclusions can be deduced from the various redefinitions of 'atheism' proposed by Natheism. A definition is, by definition, an equivalence. If '... all that Atheism requires is the lack of belief in God," then that lack of belief is both necessary and sufficient for Atheism, and therefore, equivalent to Atheism. But, an Agnostic, by definition, lacks belief in God (for any of a slew of problematic reasons connected to concepts like 'knowledge', 'certainty', 'unknowability', etc.). Therefore, it follows, rigorously, that an Agnostic is an Atheist! This would surely come as startling news to most Agnostics, who constantly, vigorously strive to differentiate their stance from the "arrogant certitudes" of Atheists. Grotesque results like these are inevitable when Natheists engage in this redefinist orgy reminiscent of the absurd claims of Soviet revisionism. When leaving the semantic boundaries of the dictionary's realm, the Twilight Zone often lies just ahead.

It's hardly surprising that our analysis has led us to the conclusion that Natheism is really Agnosticism. Every philosophically sophisticated acquaintance to whom I mentioned the natheistic redefinition of 'atheism', without any comment, had essentially the same reaction--"Sounds like Agnosticism to me". Our analysis confirms that first impression as absolutely correct.

Under a Semantic Spell
How bewildering when so many distinguished thinkers seem to be linguistically bewitched by Natheism when, logically speaking, that theory has so little to recommend it. One can only speculate as to which fallacies might have entrapped them, though I suspect that the ultimate source of the errors is not poor logic, but a political motivation. That involves creating a position that could be seen as a kinder, gentler Atheism; one that is politically correct and less confrontational. The redefinition of Atheism so that it emerges as Agnosticism is a significant part of a larger agenda calling for downplaying Atheism, and rendering it impotent and irrelevant--in the present case, by defining it out of existence. As the best-known of all humanist thinkers wrote to me some six years ago, "... atheism is out"!...

Illicit conversion of the universal affirmative proposition could possibly be one of the snares that influenced some of these profound thinkers to adopt such a peculiar interpretation of 'atheism'. 'All X is Y' cannot be reversed or converted with impunity; it is risky business to do so because there is no guarantee that the original truth value will be retained. Hence, the reversal is an invalid procedure. Could this, then, be the trap that gave rise to Natheism? They realized that all Atheists lack belief in God (because they deny that God exists), unwittingly turned that around, and came up with 'All who lack belief in God are Atheists', (an obviously false proposition). Could it have been that simple?

Or perhaps it was the fallacy called undistributed middle in syllogistic logic. All Atheists are without belief in God, and all Agnostics are without belief in God, but it surely does not follow, either that all Atheists are Agnostics, or that all Agnostics are Atheists. (To see that, try "All members of American Atheists are Atheists" and "All Communists are Atheists".)

Whatever other traps ensnared Natheists, they definitely commit this specific, little-noticed faux pas - definition by negatives. Informal logic teaches that a definition should not be negative where it can be positive. Eminently reasonable advice. Define apple as "not blue, not Martian, not uranium ..." - and, a few trillion negative properties later, you will still be no closer to conveying the idea of what an apple is. Define atheist as "without belief in God" and, while that may be true, it is hardly informative. For the Atheist is also without the beliefs that grass is red, squares have 5 sides, etc. Consequently, the natheistic redefinition only tells us what the Atheist does not believe and fails to convey the essence of Atheism, the positive claims that make it distinctive.

Incidentally, one wonders if the natheistic formula for definitional reconstruction applies to all negative belief statements. When A, confiding in his friend, B, confesses that he doesn't believe in his wife, B might reasonably respond, "So, you think your wife's unfaithful?" But A, having absorbed a little too much natheist rhetoric, replies indignantly, "What? I never said any such thing! I merely meant that I lack the belief that my wife is faithful. That's all." Well, while we may differ on the definition of atheism, surely, we'd all agree that such a conversational exchange would be the very definition of ludicrous.

So many ways to go wrong! These are merely hints at what might have led Natheists astray. Then again, that gamy aroma emanating from Natheism could be the result of having been too long in the stable, putting the cart before the horse. To be sure, Atheists are 'without', 'free of', or 'lacking' belief in God, for the very same reason that we are without belief in statements we consider false. Ordinarily, we do not knowingly incorporate false proposition into our belief systems. Atheists claim that God does not exist; naturally, they do not hold or have the belief that God does exist. Their lack of the latter belief follows from, is a consequence of, their Atheism; not vice-versa. That seems clear enough.

This cart-before-the-horse blunder, essentially a causal fallacy, seems to be a key misstep. For, in general, it is a matter of misplaced emphasis. Emphasis on the believer and his mental state, rather than what is or is not believed. Emphasis on a person's lack of belief rather than the reasons for that lack. Mistaking a consequence of Atheism--lacking the belief that God exists--for the essence/definition of Atheism--the denial that God exists. When we do not have or hold a belief that we understand and know something of, it is usually because we have previously rejected the belief as false or highly improbable. That is, after all, why I don't hold the belief that grass is red.

"Why are you without?" This is the crucial question to pose to Natheists. When one is without a near-universal belief, it is surely fair to ask why. Why is the Natheist lacking the belief that God exists? How come? It would be equally legitimate to ask "Why? of a three-year old child who lacked belief in Santa. (And the child would surely answer that his parents taught him that Santa isn't real.)

When Natheists talk of "freedom from" or "being without" God-beliefs, what do they have in mind? The child of some sturdy Nordic freethinkers in a remote corner of Montana? It's probably not a good idea to base philosophic analysis, or anything else, on an anomaly, a rarity. Our explorations of these tangled concepts should stem from, and apply to, real Atheists in the real world. That isolated child will hear about God the moment he begins the socialization process. He will acquire the term 'God', and, with it, beliefs about God. Given the smothering omnipresence of religion in the contemporary milieu, any adult in the Americas has beliefs about God. Those beliefs will be either theistic, atheistic, or agnostic...

Similarly, intellectuals and sophisticates, pseudo or genuine, often express their disdain for the entire religious scene by ignoring it, by dismissing it as "beneath" them, or calling it "unimportant."

In reflecting on these commonplace cases, it could be tempting to assert that these individuals proceeded directly to a state of lacking God-beliefs, without passing GOd, i.e. without claiming that God does not exist. It seems that they are without God-beliefs, but have never expressly denied the existence of God. They exult in the Atheist life style but cannot remember ever having explicitly declared "God does not exist."

While this may be true in some cases, it misses the point. First, many Atheists can recall some life point at which they did explicitly deny God's existence. But, explicit denial is not necessarily the criterion; implicit denial, implied denial also counts. Whatever is implied is thereby, presupposed. And, we have been attempting to show that being responsibly and securely without the belief that God exists, presupposes having the belief that God does not exist.

The argument - a very simple one - goes something like this: if God, the interactive, wrathful/ loving, punishing/ rewarding, Judeo-Christian-Islamic deity really existed, it would be extremely important. It would be important to ascertain the deity's wishes and commands; important to live by them; important to have the proper religious beliefs. Indeed, if that sort of god existed, it would be the most important fact about life, about reality. I assume everyone would agree.

Now, add the premise that religion and religious beliefs are unimportant, and it is possible and rationally acceptable to be 'without' or 'lacking' them (another way of saying they're unimportant) and it follows, deductively, that God does not exist. This shows, I think, that one cannot casually, safely take the natheistic high-road of freedom from God-beliefs, without presupposing old-fashioned Atheism.

Pro-Non-Existence
...Here's the analogy: in all cases of any interest to our inquiry, being 'without belief in God' describes Agnosticism, or presupposes Atheism. And if the usual description of God as all-powerful and all-knowing, as well as all-rewarding and all-punishing, is at all accurate, the only way to be comfortably free of god-beliefs is to have made the prior judgment that God is mythical. The nine-year-old child who feels secure in no longer putting out cookies for Santa on Xmas Eve, has, at some prior point, decided Santa is not real. I claim that Natheists must have made the analogous judgment--"God does not exist." For both the child and the Natheist, it is too dangerous to be blithely "lacking" certain beliefs without being pretty sure of the non-existence of the respective entities.

there's a new kid in town...

2005-01-30T02:33:00.000+10:00

...and

He's a real nowhere Man,
Sitting in his Nowhere Land,
Making all his nowhere plans
for nobody.

Doesn't have a point of view,
Knows not where he's going to

He's as blind as he can be,
Just sees what he wants to see

Atheism and Natheism Part 1 by Tony Pasquarello in the American Atheist, Autumn 2003

...Communication, like energy transfer, is never perfect, but rarely wholly opaque. Notwithstanding all the forces conspiring to consign each of us to a solitary cubicle in that lonely, Babelian Tower, we do sometimes--even most times--communicate. Intentions are made known; understanding happens; meanings get comprehended. Ideas, concepts, feelings, truths... knowledge/s transferred from one person to another.

The fact that communication occurs presupposes a linguistic community wherein words and meanings--those slippery devils--are stabilized for most language users, for a relatively extended period of time. In turn, this must mean that, for each term, there exists an intentional core, a set of concepts that change very slowly, if at all. Thus, the California vintner, the Iowa librarian, and the Jersey farmer can all use the same word to mean, not just 'roughly,' but also 'mainly,' the same thing. The general significance of a term in common usage is community property. It is this basic core meaning that is at issue when we ask for the definition of dog, God, or atheism.

Fortunately, these necessary nuggets of minimal comprehensibility and transmissibility for each term have been collected and compiled in a single, marvelous volume. It's called a dictionary.

I have always been a strong advocate of 'dictionary philosophy,' since the ground rules for any sensible discussion or debate must include preliminary agreement on the meanings of key terms. A good dictionary will list those meanings the ways that language-users are employing the term. If the term is archaic, colloquial, obsolete, regional, slang, etc., a dictionary will say so. If the term is Ambiguous or vague, the dictionary will say so and rank-order meanings based on usage / importance. If a term has widespread, common connotations, they will be noted. Manifestly, it cannot list everything that comes to the mind of each language-user upon hearing the term. It cannot list personal, private associations of individuals or small groups. It cannot list proposals for what a term 'really' means, or 'should have come' to mean...

...I believe a convenient, shorthand term is needed for the new Atheism mentioned at the start -"Atheism means without belief in God." Contracting New Atheism, I got Natheism. The question can now be put "Is Natheism correct?" (While noting that Natheism is not a theory about the contents of reality, but a semantic claim about meaning.) Of course, we note how each of these terms has a slightly different semantic 'aura' about it; that is to be expected in such a vibrant, abundant language...

Two Important Points
Nevertheless, frequent concentration on the '...ist,' the person holding or "believing" a certain theory or claim, rather than the '...ism' the theory or claim itself, often has disastrous results for logical analysis. The difference, the shift in perspective is enormous. We begin to focus, e.g. on the Atheist, and gradually find ourselves talking about the Atheist life-style, the Atheist personality, the Atheist belief system, etc. These are surely legitimate avenues of inquiry, but not when one's goal is to ascertain the nature of Atheism. Subtly but surely, we begin analyzing persons, people. Seldom do we then do serious epistemology, but usually proceed directly to pop psychology. In so doing, we expose ourselves to all the informal fallacies that human reasoning is heir to. This shift in focus is, I claim, the root cause of the muddles and confusions that mark all the expositions of Natheism. Its proponents--and even some opponents--invariably, cannot even articulate what the proposal is, without using the fatally flawed locution "believe in." That virus then infects their entire analyses, through to their dubious conclusions.

II. …Humanism, as befits its aesthetic origins, is primarily a theory about values, morals, proper emphasis; about what is good, or right or important. As such, it is properly classified as a normative, valuational, or ethical theory...

Agnosticism is a claim about what is known or can be known, by individuals or the human mind generally, now or at any time. Or, perhaps it is a cautionary, methodological precept about "asserting more than one knows." Whichever interpretation is taken, Agnosticism is, clearly, to be classified as an epistemological or psychological theory, having to do with knowledge and the human mind.

Natheism, as specified when I coined the term, is a claim about meanings, and thus correctly classified as a semantic or etymological theory.

But now, Atheism, in contradistinction to those three concepts, should be seen as a wholly different ball game. Atheism is, first and foremost, a claim about reality, about the contents of the universe. That claim is that reality does not include the entity normally called "God." In this respect, Atheism is much like heliocentrism, a theory about the relative positions and motions of various bodies in space, not about heliocentrists and their beliefs. Indeed, it would be a correct or true description of this solar system even if there were no heliocentrists, and never had been any.

Precisely the same point can be made for Atheism. It would be true that 'God' does not exist even if no Atheist had ever existed. Atheism is about the objective facts of reality. The other major theories are necessarily linked to people, their language, thought processes, behavior, etc. Clearly, it would be absurd to say that humanism would still be true even if there were no humans or humanists.

This radical, categorical distinction between Atheism and other terms is vital in grasping what Atheism means essentially, and this distinction is obscured--or lost--in the attempt to change Atheism to Natheism. Ultimately, that strategy attempts to revise and redefine Atheism as a sort of Agnosticism; in so doing, it abandons the essence of what Atheism is all about. Atheism is a metaphysical or ontological claim about what's out there; in that respect, it is much like science.

Where Was Your Head?
...In the preceding, I've used the term "Atheism" many times. What did you, the reader, think of on all those occasions? Be honest. What did it mean to you?

If my hunches are correct, you first thought, not of Atheism, but of Atheists. Maybe Madalyn Murray O'Hair or Michael Newdow; Daniel Dennett, Richard Dawkins, or Tom Flynn. Or, for the more classically oriented, you had fleeting thoughts of Voltaire, Hume, Holbach; Lucretius or even Socrates. I'd bet my piano that you didn't think of the tot next door, the newborn down the street, the wolf-boy discovered on that remote Pacific island, the ne'er-do-well in the next block who never had a serious thought in his life.

Well, why not? According to Natheism, they are all genuine Atheists, since they're all "without belief in God." But, what really happened was that you automatically grasped my usage of the term 'Atheism' because I employed the standard, accepted meaning. You thought of prominent figures who had grappled with religious issues, done some analyses, weighed the logical considerations. Perhaps some shattering, inexplicable evil jarred them into pondering the matter of deities. Eventually, they arrived at the considered conclusion that 'God' does not exist. For what it's worth, the fact that you understood what I was expressing demonstrates that Natheism is at best, misguided, and at worst, wrong.

The Authorities Speak
Atheism--disbelief in or denial of the existence of God. (American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language: New College Edition).
Atheism--the belief that there is no God, or denial that God or gods exist.(Webster's New World Dictionary: Second College Edition).

Atheism--1, the doctrine or belief that there is no God. 2. disbelief in the existence of God or gods. (Webster's New Universal Unabridged Dictionary).

Atheism--1a) disbelief in the existence of God or any other deity. b) the doctrine that there is neither God nor any other deity. (Webster's Third New International Dictionary--Unabridged)

I would hope that the complete unanimity of four dictionaries sufrices. Notice that there is no hint of Natheism or natheistic revisionism. Although some are flawed by use of the "believe in" locution, nevertheless the intent is clear, and is made clear by alternative wordings that specify the "denial" that God exists, or "doctrine" that there is no God.

None of these definitions remotely suggests that Atheism is merely freedom from God-beliefs. And the definitions reprinted here are the first, primary entries under atheism, not some tertiary, obscure meaning.

I suppose, that, like chicken soup, it cannot hurt to cite one small, encyclopedic reference:

Atheism--denial of the existence of God or gods, and of any supernatural existence ... (The New Columbia Encyclopedia).

Again, perfect agreement with the dictionaries. Now, lest someone raise the cavil that the dictionaries reflect common usage for ordinary terms, but atheism is a specialized, technical term of philosophic discoarse, let us cite what is widely held to be the most authoritative reference work in philosophy:

Atheism--(from Greek a-, 'not', and theos, 'god'), the view that there are no gods. A widely used sense denotes merely not believing in God and is consistent with agnosticism. A stricter sense denotes a belief that there is no God; this use has become the standard one. [emphasis mine] (The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy; Robert Audi, ed.)

Here, the citation does indeed reference Natheism as a "widely used sense," the very phenomenon that spurred the writing of this and, probably, future articles. But note that Natheism is summarily dismissed as a marginal meaning of atheism; unquestionably not the standard use. It is also noted that Natheism is "consistent with Agnosticism." I hope to show that it is agnosticism; that its proponents have been beguiled by the epistemic twist given the definition of Atheism and unwittingly equated Atheism and Agnosticism.

I don't think that the presence of this entry implies that "atheism" is a purely technical term of the philosophic discipline. On the contrary, it is an ordinary language term comprehended by the overwhelming majority of language-users. In addition to that widespread, standard usage, some philosophically minded thinkers, concentrating on the psychology of belief, and swayed by the vagueness of 'believe in,' produced the convoluted monstrosity, Natheism. However, this philosophic dictionary leaves no doubt that "atheism" means the "belief that there is no God."

...Ernest Nagel, the "preeminent American philosopher of science" of the mid-20th century spoke directly to the point at issue:

"I shall understand by 'Atheism' a critique and a denial of the major claims of all varieties of theism ... Atheism is not to be identified with sheer unbelief, ... Thus, a child who has received no religious instruction and has never heard about God, is not an atheist--for he is not denying any theistic claims. Similarly in the case of an adult who, if he has withdrawn from the faith of his fathers without reflection or because of frank indifference to any theological issue, is also not an atheist--for such an adult is not challenging theism and is not professing any views on the subject." (E. Nagel, from Basic Beliefs: The Religious Philosophies of Mankind, J. E. Fairchild, ed.)

Penultimate Point
...It has been shown--conclusively, I think--that Atheism is the theory, claim, position ... that God does not exist. It is an ontology that denies genuine reality to the Deity, or indeed, any deity, as usually conceived. The semantic corollary is obvious: Atheism means or signifies, at this time and place, what Atheism is. An 'Atheist' is a person who, with some measure of deliberation, has consciously adopted that position. These conclusions hold whether 'atheism' is classified as a term of ordinary language--which it most certainly is--or a specialized term of philosophic discourse. The reference works of both realms concur. Enough said...

investigating the fourth option

2005-01-30T01:52:00.000+10:00

I have written many posts on this blog about the ridiculousness (philosophically linguistically and etymologically) of the new definition of atheism (which atheist philosopher Tony Pasquarello calls "natheism") and about the foolishness and irrationality with which many of its vocal defenders passionately and cluelessly argue in favour of this unwieldy beast. At last it seems some atheist thinkers are waking up to the topsy-turvy, Alice in Wonderland world of "weak" atheism.

There is a lot that the following authors and tertius would disagree on but the proper defintion of atheism is not one of them. We all agree on the standard definition of atheism, in preference to the new in-house sleight-of-hand cop-out definition bandied around in cyberspace like "holy writ". It is refreshing to read these writers' comments upon the terminology of atheism but I fear it will fall on deaf ears...

Jeffrey Jay Lowder is one of the more reflective atheists on the Net. He attempts to defend his philosophical position through civil discourse and well-reasoned points. Sadly he is a role model that few of his fellow atheists seek to emulate. Their preferred approach is that of the "mad dog" school of agressive vitriol.

Lowder notes in A Brief Survey of Evidential Arguments for Atheism:
...I think it would be useful to define some terms. In doing so I will adopt the definitions put forth by Professor Theodore M. Drange in his excellent essay, Atheism, Agnosticism, Noncognitivism. Consider the sentence, "God exists." Do you think that sentence is meaningful? In other words, do you think that sentence is either true or false? If you think the sentence, "God exists" is a bunch of meaningless nonsense, you are a noncognitivist with respect to God-talk. (However, I don't recommend using that word at cocktail parties!) If you do think the sentence is meaningful, then ask yourself a follow-up question: is that sentence true or false? If you think that sentence is true or probably true you are a theist. (I discuss the arguments for theism elsewhere.) If you think that sentence is false or probably false you are an atheist. Finally, if you do not have a position on whether the sentence is true or false then you are an agnostic.

By defining terms in the above manner, I am rejecting the definition of terms used by many atheists, where atheism is defined as simply the lack of theistic belief. Indeed, I used to also passionately defend that definition of atheism on Usenet. The only problem with that definition, however, is that nobody outside of nontheistic circles ever uses it. When the average "person on the street" uses the word "atheist," they mean someone who holds the belief that God does not exist. Thus, when nontheists use the word "atheism" in a nonstandard way, it makes communication with the general public difficult. And while it might be possible to persuade the general public to use the 'correct' definition of atheism, it would hardly be worth the effort. The primary dispute between theists and nontheists is whether God exists; we should focus our energy on that issue.

What Lowder recognises as "not worth the effort" is unfortunately the primary focus of much atheist hand-wringing and a favourite atheist sound bite used when trolling Christian discussion sites. All sorts of loud and ignorant assertions are thrown out about the definition, semantics, etymology of the words atheism and atheist by persons who haven't got a clue about that which they pontificate.

The terms theist and atheist are in themselves meaningless and pointless distractors from the central question concerning the existence of theos -god.

"Does God exist?"

How a person responds to this question is the central issue. One either answers Yes, No, or, I don't know - the responses of standard theism, atheism and agnosticism respectively. If one really thinks there is a serious intellectual fourth option - I don't have any opinion- then one is merely demonstrating his own lack of serious deep thinking. Pretending that his mind is a tabula rasa with respect to God is an exercise in either philosophical shallowness or mental deficiency.

Catch 22

2005-01-29T22:21:00.000+10:00

This is how the game is played:

"ID is not science because it hasn't been published in peer-reviewed publications."

ID will not be published in peer reviewed publications because it is ideologically unacceptable.

Thus ID is not published in peer-reviewed publications.

Therefore ID is not science.

Game, set, match.

But what happens when an ID-friendly article IS suddenly published in a respected peer-reviewed publication?

The witch hunt begins.

Not only the author, but the editor, is abused, insulted, stigmatised, vilified, isolated, hounded and branded a heretic. David Klinghoffer investigates The Branding of a Heretic:Are religious scientists unwelcome at the Smithsonian?

"You are being singled out..."

How the fashionable fascism of the ruling scientific orthodoxy, fears politically-incorrect ideas, punishes dissenters and subverts freedom of expression.

fear and loathing and atheism

2005-01-29T19:33:00.000+10:00

Christopher Price reviews Alister McGrath's book The Twilight Of Atheism and makes some pertinent comments about the nature of militant atheism as it is practiced by a significant majority of "internet infidels" one encounters on the Net.

...[I]rrespective of its merits, atheism as a belief system is often motivated by emotion and factors other than sheer intellect. The attractiveness of atheism rises when it can be used as a weapon against the establishment. Against the perceived oppressor. I notice this in many of my personal dealings with atheism. Many are very militant. They do not just disagree with religion, they loathe and fear it. To them, even though they are free of any religious coercion whatsoever, they still see Christianity as an oppressive force. Indeed, many of them appear to have felt this oppressive force in a very personal way -- having been hurt by Christians or the Church or overly religious family members. Atheism is the ultimate weapon against this oppressive force. It strikes at the very heart of Christianity and eliminates all of its legitimacy. There need be no talk of reform or shared responsibility. Christianity is a lie and nothing it does to affect a person's life need be tolerated.

Because Christianity is an oppressive force, it should not be tolerated. It should be rolled back. People who believe in Christianity are either oppressors taking advantage of others, or oppressed themselves. Thus, they should either be exposed as frauds and exploiters or be "liberated" from Christianity. Perhaps this explains the special hatred that so many atheists have against Christian apologists. The poor kid who was raised in the South and sent to Sunday School by his parents may not know better. He simply needs to be enlightened. But militant atheists cannot conceive of informed and seemingly intelligent people sincerely choosing Christianity (choosing to be oppressed), so apologists must be oppressors. They are not victims of the system, but its guardians.

Turin shroud older than thought

2005-01-28T18:03:00.000+10:00

Chemical analysis shows the cloth that formed the Shroud of Turin is up to 3000 years old

The Shroud of Turin, the piece of linen long-believed to have been wrapped around Jesus' body after the crucifixion, is much older than radiocarbon tests suggest, according to new microchemical research.

Published in the 20 January issue of Thermochimica Acta, a peer-reviewed chemistry journal, the study dismisses the results of the 1988 carbon-14 dating...

According to Tom D'Muhala, the president of the American Shroud of Turin Association for Research, the new chemical tests produced "conclusive evidence". "They indicate that the linen shroud is actually very old, much older than the published 1988 radiocarbon date," D'Muhala says.

Well, he would say that woudn't he... but the evidence is pointing his way.

archaeology confirms the Bible... yet again

2005-01-28T17:55:00.000+10:00

No seriously, The Globe and Mail reports Archeologist unearths biblical controversy

Artifacts from Iron Age fortress confirm Old Testament dates...

...Prof. Adams of Hamilton's McMaster University says, he and an international team of colleagues fit into place a significant piece of the puzzle of human history in the Middle East - unearthing information that points to the existence of the Bible's vilified Kingdom of Edom at precisely the time the Bible says it existed, and contradicting widespread academic belief that it did not come into being until 200 years later.

Their findings mean that those scholars convinced that the Hebrew Old Testament is at best a compendium of revisionist, fragmented history, mixed with folklore and theology, and at worst a piece of outright propaganda, likely will have to apply the brakes to their thinking...

The team led by Prof. Adams, Thomas Levy of the University of California at San Diego and Mohammad Najjar of the Jordanian Department of Antiquities was investigating copper mining and smelting at a site called Khirbat en-Nahas, by far the largest copper-production site in the region.

They applied high-precision radiocarbon-dating methods to some of their finds, and as they say in the British journal Antiquities, "The results were spectacular."

They firmly established that occupation of the site began in the 11th century BC and a monumental fortress was built in the 10th century BC, supporting the argument for existence of an Edomite state at least 200 years earlier than had been assumed.

What is particularly exciting about their find is that it implies the existence of an Edomite state at the time the Bible says King David and his son Solomon ruled over a powerful united kingdom of Israel and Judah...

He concludes: "We're not out to prove the Bible right or wrong. We're not trying to be controversial. We're just trying to be good anthropologists and scientists, and tell the story of our archeological site."

Oops, there goes another rubber tree plant...

the tedium of dogmatic atheism

2005-01-26T22:45:00.000+10:00

Chris Lehmann reviews The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason by Sam Harris and finds it "lacking"...

Among the Non-Believers: The tedium of dogmatic atheism.

the Village Atheist Syndrome

2005-01-26T21:28:00.000+10:00

Pathological atheism and its discontents

The Village Atheist Syndrome by Vern L. Bullough & Bonnie Bullough Humanism Today, Vol. 10, 1996

This paper from The Humanist Institute publication Living as Humanists reads like a satire or a parody. However for anyone who has ever met the archetypal "village atheist" it is such a devastatingly accurate portrait of those suffering from the "syndrome" that it deserves to be savoured.

Some extracts:

In psychiatric terms, some humanists suffer from a dysphoria, a dysphoria which we have named the "Village Atheist Syndrome"...

In outward appearances the persons afflicted with the syndrome appear to be no different than anyone else. Most tend to hold respectable positions in society, have the normative family affiliations, and do most of the things that other people of their age or economic condition do. Some of our more sociobiologically oriented colleagues with whom we have discussed the behavior feel that there might well be genetic or be a result of other biological forces but if this is the case, no one to our knowledge has isolated them...

A few psychologists have suggested that the village atheist syndrome could be classed as a form of obsessive compulsive behavior. So far, however, no one has been able to test serotonin levels of any of those we would class as having the syndrome. We ourselves feel that multiple factors are involved and since we are primarily social scientists we tend to look for social and cultural factors...

We first became interested in the syndrome from our mutual experience on boards and committee meetings of humanist and free thought organizations. Once our interest was aroused we noted that sometimes in such settings, the individual becomes so dominating, we might even say irrational, that the proceedings are totally disrupted. We also have noted that certain words, for example "God" or "religion," seem to set them off, sometimes the reaction is so severe that it seems to be an apoplectic attack. If we were to follow the psychiatric model mentioned at the beginning of this paper, this apoplectic reaction could be called a sort of third stage syndrome, and could be labeled the paranoid village atheist syndrome. We have noted also that the symptoms seem to become more severe with age, although when the person reaches 80 or so there is a gradual decline in the response pattern.

Perhaps the most obvious symptom is an inability to compromise, to get along with others. This is first noticed in board meetings of humanist and free thought groups where the village atheist is attempting to get his/her way. We should state that though the condition most frequently appears in males, when females present with it they seem to get a more severe case. Obviously if it has any genetic source, it must be carried on one portion of an x chromosome and is a recessive trait in females where it can be overshadowed by the genetic inheritance on the paired x chromosome unless it too carries it. It, however, would be dominant in males because it is not carried on the y chromosome. Whether this explanation has any validity is certainly unproven, and we offer it not as a hypothesis but only as an interesting possibility which might explain why women with the syndrome suffer such severe dysphoria.

Apparently when the individuals with a proclivity for the syndrome find themselves among what they had believed to be like-minded free thinkers, they are both shocked and appalled to find that others disagree with them, often on major issues. This disagreement is marked by what can be only called anti-social behavior, a clear mark of the village atheist syndrome. In order to get their way they nit-pick everything to death, and if outvoted at one meeting will come back at the next and start over again. We should add that the condition is not only common in humanist and free thought groups, but a similar phenomenon exists in many Unitarian/Universalist congregations...

In fact, distinguishing the village atheist syndrome from the similar syndrome in Unitarianism/Universalism, and perhaps elsewhere, is the almost total intolerance of "religious" belief by those so afflicted. This hostility to religion is often accompanied by a feeling of superiority in their ability to function without religion. Sometimes this superiority is outright arrogance, an arrogance which only the possessor of the truth can have. Sometimes the arrogance seems to be accompanied by insecurity because they seem to almost lose control of their reason if a fellow humanist or free thinker does not view religion in the same way that they do. In severe cases they seem almost to foam at the mouth, their voices rise, and their whole body shakes. Related to this is their basic intolerance of religious professionals, whether ministers, priests, rabbis, imams, or in the more severely afflicted, ethical culture leaders and humanist counselors...

The person afflicted with the syndrome also spends considerable time hunting up obscure facts, feeling that nothing should be overlooked to buttress his or her case. In the process village atheists often loses themselves in detail, ignoring the larger picture. This behavior is obviously self-destructive. Unfortunately, it is not only self-destructive to the individual but to free thought groups themselves...

There are other factors also involved. We have found that a significant percentage of those with the village atheist syndrome were born into religiously orthodox religious traditions. Usually they themselves were very religious, until in their teens or in their twenties, they began questioning the tradition they grew up in and had accepted. As they did so, they found more and more errors and superstitions in it, and in the process became real experts on various systems of belief. This kind of background, however, is common to many in the free thought movement and by itself is not enough to give rise to the syndrome. Rejecting religion, however, was usually not an easy thing for the village atheist since it meant breaking with their family and loved ones. In many cases the trauma is so severe that the break with the family remains irreparable. Since they are so conscious of what their own commitment to free thought has cost them, they find it difficult to accept those who arrived at a free thought pattern more casually, or at least without the trauma they feel they suffered.

The most severe cases occur among those who either had not yet broken with their past when they married and their mate refused to join them in their thinking, or who entered into a marriage with a belief that they could change the thinking of their loved one. It seems that not infrequently the new convert to free thought is like any other convert, convinced that they have the truth and want others to have it. Many naively believed that once they presented the truth to their loved ones, they too would believe as they did. When this did not occur, hard choices had to be made and often peace was kept by not talking about such things at home. It seems quite plausible that forced to keep quiet at home about such issues, they often became embittered about religion, taking out on religion and the religious the antagonisms they feel to their own spouse. The situation is even worse if children are involved and the free thinking individual is unable to communicate his or her own ideas effectively to them.

Unfortunately there is no easy cure for what we can abbreviate as the VAS. Therapy has not helped and antibiotics do not touch it. This means that with the current knowledge we have to use subjective approaches, treat the symptoms and not necessarily try to effect any radical change. Probably the first step in dealing with the condition is to recognize it. We do not think that it needs to be entered into the DSM IV (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association) to be recognized, but we need to alert ourselves about the condition and the danger that it poses to our movement, not so much because of the destructiveness of the village atheist but because all of us are carriers of some of the elements that go into the syndrome. We think that perhaps a necessary second step is to recognize the emotional trauma that many of us had to go through to become humanists and free thinkers...

A more succint and accurate portrayal of "village atheism" would be harder to find than that given here by Humanists Vern and Bonnie Bullough. The article seems thoroughly legit, but even if it were a hoax the truth shines through loud and clear. The world is full of disturbed religiously-obsessed people, some of them are theists and some of them are atheists. "Free thinker", "rationalist" and "humanist" groups need to wake up to the fact that the atheism of many of their members is just another dogmatic and deformed manifestation of an innate human religion impulse and not a sign of superior wisdom, intelligence, reason or psychology.

utopia is nowhere but its victims are everywhere

2005-01-24T17:44:00.000+10:00

When science becomes religion: a cautionary tale about utopian folly

Socialism is man’s most ambitious attempt to supplant religion with a doctrine about how life ought to be lived that claim[s] grounding in science rather than revelation.
Joshua Muravchik Heaven on Earth: The Rise and Fall of Socialism

Richard Kimball writes:

It is significant that the socialist mentality is usually also an atheistic mentality, where atheism is understood not so much as the disbelief in God as the hatred of God — an attitude as precarious logically as it has been destructive in practice. There is an important sense in which religion as traditionally understood reconciles humanity to imperfection and to failure. Since the socialist sets out to abolish failure, traditional religion is worse than de trop: it is an impediment to perfection. ("Criticism of religion," Marx said, "is the prelude to all criticism.")

It is one of the great ironies of modern history that socialism, which promises a more humane, caring, and equitable society, has consistently delivered a more oppressive and mismanaged one. Socialism’s motto... turns out to be: "If you build it, they will leave."

If, one must add, they are allowed to leave...[E]ncouraging dissent is never high on a socialist’s agenda. The socialist pretends to have glimpsed paradise on earth. Those who decline the invitation to embrace the vision are not just ungrateful: they are traitors to the cause of human perfection. Dissent is therefore not mere disagreement but treachery. Treachery is properly met not with arguments but (as circumstances permit) the guillotine, the concentration camp, the purge.

...[T]he socialist dream... with clocklike regularity becomes a nightmare. If...socialism was the most popular political idea ever invented, it is also undoubtedly the bloodiest. Of course, many who profess socialism are decent and humane people. And it is worth noting that socialism comes in mild as well as tyrannical versions... Nevertheless, "regimes calling themselves socialist have murdered more than one hundred million people since 1917". Why? Why is it that "the more dogged the effort to achieve" the announced goals of socialism, "the more the outcome mocked the human ideals it proclaimed?" And why is it that conservatives, who by and large have agreed with Samuel Johnson that "A decent provision for the poor is the true test of civilization", have regularly been demonized as uncaring brutes?

A large part of the answer lies in the intellectual dynamics of utopianism. "Utopia" is Greek for "nowhere": a made-up word for a make-believe place. The search for nowhere inevitably deprecates any and every "somewhere." Socialism, which is based on incorrigible optimism about human nature, is a species of utopianism. It experiences the friction of reality as an intolerable brake on its expectations. "Utopians," the philosopher Leszek Kolakowski observed in "The Death of Utopia Reconsidered," "once they attempt to convert their visions into practical proposals, come up with the most malignant project ever devised: they want to institutionalize fraternity, which is the surest way to totalitarian despotism."

home on the range with the angry atheists

2005-01-24T17:09:00.000+10:00

Religion is stronger here [in the United States] than it is in any other first-world nation, but so is atheism. God is honored here more than in any other free country, and He is also hated here more than anywhere else. Two of the most striking things about this country, to a foreigner, are the breadth of religious belief, and the number of people you meet who are angrily, bitterly anti-religious. There are angry atheists in other countries, of course,... but I have never met so many as I have met over here. The dominant mood in England — and in Europe, too, I think — is indifference. Nobody much cares about religion. In the U.S. pretty much everybody cares, one way or the other.

...Let us reflect with satisfaction, as we hurl our arguments to and fro, that this is the one country in the world where the First Things are still taken seriously. Not so seriously that we have set one dogma in the seat of power, and allow it to harass and kill unbelievers; but seriously enough that before big policy decisions are made, we want to hear them argued from a point of view that believes there is more to morality than mere expedience, more to human life than the slaking of brute appetites, and more things in the universe than cold stones and spiritless lumps of flesh.

John Derbyshire

love and death, God, meaning and suicide

2005-01-24T16:47:00.000+10:00

Boris: Sonja, what if there is no God?

Sonja: Boris Dimitrovich! Are you joking?

Boris: What if we’re just a bunch of absurd people, who are running around with no rhyme or reason?

Sonja: But if there is no God, then life has no meaning. Why go on living, why not just kill yourself?

Boris: Well, let’s not get hysterical; I could be wrong. I’d hate to blow my brains out and then read in the papers they found something.

Woody Allen Love and Death

living human voodoo dolls

2005-01-24T16:20:00.000+10:00

More not more

I don't mean to cling to you my friend
It's just I hate the day to have to end
Never enough time to spend
I haven't done enough for this to be the end

There must be more... more...
More songs more warmth
More love more life
Not more fear not more fame
Not more money not more games

There - you - coming through the crowd
Blue light silhouettes your head
I want to shout your name out loud
But I shout inside instead

There must be more... more...
More current more spark
More touch deep in the heart
Not more thoughtless cruelty
Not more being this lonely...

Don't I hear them talking?
Don't I know what they say?
I'm a fool for thinking
Things could be better than they were today

There must be more... more...
More growth more truth
More chains more loose
Not more pain not more walls
Not more living human voodoo dolls

Bruce Cockburn

nostalghia of the spirit

2005-01-24T16:14:00.000+10:00

Now summer has passed,
As if it had never been.
It is warm in the sun.
But this isn't enough.

All that might have been,
Like a five-cornered leaf
Fell right into my hands,
But this isn't enough.

Neither evil nor good
Had vanished in vain,
It all burnt with white light,
But this isn't enough.

Life took me under its wing,
Preserved and protected,
Indeed I have been lucky.
But this isn't enough.

Not a leaf had been scorched,
Not a branch broken off. . .
The day wiped clean as clear glass,
But this isn't enough.

Arseniy Tarkovsky

How the mighty have fallen

2005-01-23T17:59:00.000+10:00

Ripley's believe it... or not

No longer germane, former sixties icon Germaine Greer continues her spin into the outer limits.

Greer quits 'fascist prison' of Big Brother

What was this supposedly intellectual feminist heavyweight doing on Celebrity Big Brother alongside Brigitte Nielson in the first place?

Apparently we can blame it on the rainforests...

a decent atheist laments elitist prejudice and bigotry

2005-01-23T17:04:00.000+10:00

Blogger Joel Fleming affirms human dignity and respect in "Guts"
I am an atheist. I don't believe in any divine presence, or any organizing force. That being said, I'm bowled over by the mental toughness it takes to be openly religious at university. In tutorial today, we were discussing from where morality is derived. One girl in the class was a devout Catholic and made cogent, reasonable arguments from her theistic perspective. The ridicule, vitriol and scorn poured upon this girl by the class, and especially by the TA, was, to my mind, disgraceful. I've participated in class discussions where students have advocated communism, defended shari'a and dismissed democracy as "one Western type of system." Their views were opposed in a respectful, non-judgemental manner without a hint of personal acrimony or contempt. Where the fuck was that respect today?

...I jumped in and did my best to defend her... but was surprised to realize she didn't really need it. There was some inner strength there that allowed words savaging her faith and mocking her belief structure to roll off as easily as water from a duck's back. She smiled, nodded politely and thanked her tormentor, seemingly untouched by the stream of venom aimed in her direction.

I may disagree with what she believes... I can't help but applaud her guts.

The legacy of Nazi Medicine

2005-01-23T16:06:00.000+10:00

The New Atlantis - The Legacy of Nazi Medicine - Naomi Schaefer

Naomi Schaefer, writes about a new exhibit at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum entitled "Deadly Medicine: Creating the Master Race":

The exhibit... focuses on the period from 1933 to 1945. It traces the rise of "positive eugenics" in Germany’s public health campaigns, to the forced sterilization programs, to the euthanasia of mentally and physically disabled children and adults, to the inhuman experiments on Jews and other prisoners in Nazi concentration camps. It shows how the eugenic idea took hold of German scientists and the German public, and how it degenerated to the systematic use and slaughter of the "unfit" in the Final Solution.

Schaefer reminds us that the dangers of creating a "master race" are still with us and that the "normalization and bureaucratization of murder" displayed in "Deadly Medicine" has unsettling parallels to our own time:

It is surely worthwhile to show the eugenic mindset in its beginning stages, but the creators of the exhibit should have devoted more space to its ghastly end stages, when the great evil of eugenics-gone-mad was most vivid. But this weakness is also, perhaps, its strength. Only by understanding the rise of eugenics in Weimar Germany can we grasp how even a supposedly humanitarian science can end, as Flannery O’Connor put it, "in forced labor camps and in the fumes of the gas chamber."

O’Connor’s point was also a warning. What we are discovering in our own time is that nations built on the principles of individual rights and human equality may have their own reasons for pursuing eugenics—a "soft eugenics" of personal choice, not a totalitarian eugenics of racial purity and mass slaughter. In America, parents are free to choose "fit" children and abort the "unfit", and many defenders of equality seem to believe that we should use our genetic knowledge to ensure that our offspring have the "best genetic endowments". While it is perverse to compare our own baby-making practices to the German programs of sterilization and euthanasia, the exhibit could not have come at a better time.

Our tools for predicting the likelihood of certain genetic illnesses are much more accurate today, and perhaps even more widely used. Couples with family histories of hereditary disease often consult with geneticists to see whether they should try to have children together. Women who decide to keep a baby with Down syndrome rather than abort it are considered by many to be downright irresponsible. And there are even more extreme voices, like Peter Singer, who believe the mentally or physically handicapped should be killed before they become a burden on the rest of society.

the times they are achangin'

2005-01-21T16:57:00.000+10:00

CIA agents under the bed

The guys in John Lennon glasses are now The Establishment but they are still freaking out...

Now that the generation of the sixties is firmly in control of academia, the media, education and public discourse in the western nations, the old Cold War fear of reds under the bed has been replaced by a new fear. The new bogeymen are CIA agents under the bed. Liberals see them everywhere - at home, abroad, even in outer space. In this liberal nightmare no leftist can sleep peacefully at night knowing that under his bed, and under beds all over the world, the dreaded and fiendish CIA monsters are rolling back the love revolution of the sixties to further the maniacal plans of the American industrial-miltary complex for world domination and an end to free sex.