Many people would sooner die than think. In fact they do.
-Bertrand Russell

Ok so I want to be clear that I'm to supporting this idea I just feel like it is too ridiculous not to be mentioned. However, I also want to point out that in no way (NO WAY) do I support the Obama campaign and I think his election would be a giant mistake.

So, I was at work yesterday and one of the girls there (she shall remain name less) said that she had heard someone suggest that Obama was the Anti-Christ. So I've done some searching and I found this. It is basically the place to go for anything outrageously bad about Obama (not that all of it is true of course). For the reason's Obama is the Anti-Christ see the bottom left corner. I also found this post on Rantings of a Sandmonkey. I thought it was funny.

That's it. But before I go I was saving this quote for something because I think it is profound, but it fits here too well. So, please give it some thought.

Finit.

Short words are best and the old words when short are best of all.
-Winston Churchill

So this isn't much of a post but I thought that it was. . . well at least worth mentioning. I was watching the Episode of George Lopez entitled "Dance Fever" the other day, and I noticed something I thought was unexpected. An image of El Santo Niño de Atocha is hanging in his Kitchen. That's all.

Finit

Better a thief than an inveterate liar, yet both will suffer disgrace.
-Sirach 20:24.

So I was watching a show called "Children of Abraham" on the History International Channel today. I was originally going to just write a short musing about the Apostolic Delegate to Jerusalem, but now that I have watched the whole thing, I'd like to give more of a response.

First, I'd like to say that I'm not quite sure why I watch things on the History Channel/Discovery Channel /BBC (especially)/etc. on religion because I know that, for the most part, they will piss me off. However, I like religion, and so I still find it interesting, and plus I always have the hope that they will make something that slightly reflects well truth to a moderate degree. I don't mean Divine truth, just religion as it actually ought to be. And, besides that, I do learn things every once in a while. For example I now know that there is a giant mosque around Abraham's tomb in Herbon, a section of which has been confiscated by Jews and turned into a synagogue. However this is a bit of a digression I really just want to write about two things prompted by the show.

First I'd like to talk about the Most Reverend Pietro Sambi Titular Archbishop of Belcastro and then Apostolic Delegate to Jerusalem and Palestine. This is more of a gripe that someone like this exists at all, let alone this high in the Church Hierarchy. Here is why. When asked the question: "Should Christians still seek to convert Jews?" He said, "No." No? Are you kidding? First off, if His Excellency is truly a believing Christian (I'm not implying he is not) and believes that Christianity is the way to all truth, then he is a very heartless man. How could you not want to share this with someone? Would he prefer to let them sit it what he admits is a "gravely deficient" religion? Second, someone, who would say this, has no business in any dialogue with Jews, let alone as the Apostolic Delegate to Jerusalem. I'm sick of people like this. Even if he doesn't actually believe this and said no but maybe said more later (after all the documentary clearly had an agenda), he is still playing word games in order to make it sound like he is not saying what he actually is saying. This man has since been removed from the post, Deum Benedicatur, but guess where he was moved to. The United States. I guess that sort of opinion can do a little less damage here.

Secondly, this show attempts to make the argument that all forms of Abrahamic religions are essentially equal, and that God above all wants first and foremost a lack of conflict (or at least violence), as if love always resulted in a lack of conflict, and a recognition of the equality of all ideas, or even that all Abrahamic religions have their focus on love. This seems to be a prevalent idea in at least PC society if not in the majority of the western world. The host (Mark Dowd) of this documentary was arguing with Baruch Marzel, a man Dowd described as a Jewish terrorist. Now, I'm not sure if Marzel truely is, but what I find relevant is that Dowd kept quoting Ex. 23:9, "You shall not oppress an alien; you well know how it feels to be an alien, since you were once aliens yourselves in the land of Egypt," as if this were a definitive point that all religions should get along. Marzel's response was that the same bible says an eye for an eye. I think a better response (although I don't think Marzel necessarily wants all Palestinians dead) would be the same Bible says

"Where the Lord said to Moses: Command the children of Israel, and say to them: When you shall have passed over the Jordan, entering into the land of Chanaan, Destroy all the inhabitants of that land: Beat down their pillars, and break in pieces their statues, and waste all their high places, Cleansing the land, and dwelling in it. For I have given it you for a possession. And you shall divide it among you by lot. To the more you shall give a larger part, and to the fewer a lesser. To every one as the lot shall fall, so shall the inheritance be given. The possession shall be divided by the tribes and the families. But if you will not kill the inhabitants of the land: they that remain, shall be unto you as nails in your eyes, and spears in your sides, and they shall be your adversaries in the land of your habitation. And whatsoever I had thought to do to them, I will do to you" (Numbers 33:50-56).

Here's all I'm going to say on the issue, before I'm done. Yes, God hates violence and conflict, but He hates them like I hate surgery. I don't like needles, but I must get stuck with one so that I don't feel the horrible pain. Then, I am unconscious and I'm trusting someone else to physically alter my body and possibly its function by making incisions into my flesh. Obviously it is something to find unpleasant, but if it between that process and my own death, or the inability to walk, or (as has already been the case twice) my teeth not coming in right, I say bring on the surgery. GOD IS NOT ENTIRELY AGAINST VIOLENCE AND CERTAINLY NOT ENTIRELY AGAINST CONFLICT. The most disadvantageous peace is not better than the most just war.

Finit.

Employ your time in improving yourself by other men's writings, so that you shall gain easily what others have labored hard for.
-Socrates

So as I said in my previous post I've started reading The Hobbit (and I hope to be done by Saturday). But what surprised me was that it is a children's book. I wasn't expecting this. It got me wondering about the Lord of the Rings series because it seems that the movies did a great deal of maturing of the story line if the other books were written in the same way.

So, I read a little bit from the Fellowship of the Ring and have decided that I don't think the Lord of the Rings series is written for children but we will see for certain when I get there (probably on Monday).

The real question then that I want to ask then about this issue is: what is The Hobbit movie, which is coming up in 2011, going to be like?

Tolkien, J. R. R. The Hobbit or There and Back Again. Revised ed. New York: Ballantine Books, 1982.


Finit

Even if we accept that Hitler and Stalin shared atheism in common, they both also had moustaches, as does Saddam Hussein. So what?
-Richard Dawkins

So, I've decided that, this summer, I’m gonna try and take a big chunk out of the collection of books that has been building up around me for the past few years. To be honest, I'm already way behind, but I have finished The God Delusion, FINALLY. At the moment I'd Trudging along through the Koran, and, after reaching the middle of the 108th page of moderately redundant monologue, I’ve decided that I need a break. So, I decided to start The Hobbit on Saturday and just read the Koran at a moderate rate (maybe a surrah a week until I get to the short ones near the end). My break at the moment, however, is writing this review of The God Delusion.

I picked up my copy in Heathrow, so that I'd have something to do on the plane ride back. It was basically a choice between this and a crappy British sex novel. That said though I was not disappointed by the book at all. It was very well written (or at least it was a page turner, some might make a distinction) and brought up some very interesting points, but on the whole, I think that it was rather unconvincing.

I have to admit it has been a while since I have read the beginning the book, so rather than put what I’m writing into a sequential order, I'm going to discuss topics individually.

The first is basically an assertion (and granted probably the proof in some cases) that the most brilliant men in all of history were atheists. He does demonstrate that many people use God as a metaphor for the universe, but then he asserts that those who didn't were almost all using religion as a way of getting grant money for their research or that they were hiding their atheism for some other reason. In this section one of the great ironies of this book becomes apparent. Richard Dawkins is truly a man of great faith. In this instance he has faint in the idea that brilliance and scientific achievement lead to atheism. Unless there is an absolute way to prove otherwise, he assumes that that is the case for everyone and will go to great lengths to defend it. Now, Dawkins would probably argue that he is merely trying to counteract theists, who try to claim people like Einstein as their own. This would be both fair and honorable, if it were his only aim, but Dawkins then does the opposite and tries to play Gregor Mendel, and the like, off as closet atheists. That's right Gregor Mendel the father of modern genetics and the Augustinian abbot of the Abbey of St. Thomas in Brno, and this is not an isolated incident.

Concerning the second topic I want to speak about I was rather impressed. Why, he asks, are people so upset when someone’s religion is criticized? If someone holds a faulty literary or scientific argument, which is flawed it will be criticized and people will praise the criticizer, but people get offended and beg us to stay away from religion, suggesting that it is a matter of choice and that what is true for one person is true for all. No, I say along with Dawkins, there is only on Truth. If you are wrong you ought to be convinced otherwise. On this point, all I can say is bravo. We ought to pursue this one truth and not be afraid that it won't be able to stand up to criticism.

The Third topic can be summarized in the following way: Of all the proofs for the existence of God the only one that is worth discussing at any length is the one from design; evolution is an example of one process by which something appears designed which isn't; all other appearances of design can be explained in this way, and, finally, something less complex cannot create something more complex, therefore God must be more complex than creation, if He exists, and therefore would also need to be created if the argument from design is of any worth, therefore he doesn’t exist.

Let's ignore the fact that his premise in the last section of that is flawed for a moment and discuss the beginning.

First off, I want to go on a little side tangent and talk about the fact that Dawkins is not fair to Aquinas at all. I'm going to assume that he did this out of ignorance and not out of a desire to deceive. So, I'll be asserting that Dawkins is merely mistaken since I have no proof otherwise. The first three argument He doesn't explain well. The first two are only moderately well done, but the third is atrocious. The problem with the first two is that he is ambiguous as to what the regress is. Someone, who is familiar with the argument, would get it, and someone particularly clever could as well, but the average person is not going to know what is going on. His argument in response to them is just as poor. Because he seems to imply that a big bang singularity would suffice to disprove it, and that other unrelated regresses come to a natural conclusion therefore this one could as well. What he doesn't address is that the argument that he is refuting would naturally assert that the big bang could not have started itself. Whatever started it would at least need to be outside of time (therefore unchanging) and yet still be able to act, and therefore able to act without being acted upon, and thus implicitly some sort of intellect. The big bang singularity doesn't answer the argument. The way that Dawkins dealt with the Third of Aquinas's arguments is even more atrocious. First, he lumped it in with the first two as an argument from infinite regress, when really it exists more as a way of showing that infinite regress of time is not possible. The first two arguments can only be refuted if time is infinite the third tries to demonstrate that it is not. The regress mentioned at the end of Aquinas's third argument is an after thought. Second he did a horrible job describing it. He says, "There must have been a time when no physical objects existed. But, since physical things exist now there must have been something non-physical to bring them into existence, and that something we call God." First he doesn't describe why there must have been a time when no physical thing existed, which is: All temporal things can exist and not exist; therefore, it is possible for all temporal things to not exist at the same time; the laws of probability dictate that given an infinite number of chances all possibilities will be exhausted; if time were infinite there would have been infinite possibilities and thus there must have been a time when nothing existed. If this were the case, then nothing would exist now because nothing cannot cause something. Since, then, things exist now time must not be infinite, then by arguments one and two there must be a God. Clearly Dawkins didn't do that one justice. And the ironic thing is that this is the easiest of all of Aquinas's proofs to defeat, because what is known now but was not obvious to Aquinas is that while energy is dissipated it is never destroyed, so his primary premise (that all temporal things can exist and not exist) is not necessarily true. Second the fact that he is separating it into a physical and non-physical issue proves that Dawkins doesn't get the argument. Dawkins then does a good job of describing Argument number four but fails to defeat it. He just laughs it off as absurd and claims that there must then be the ultimate stink. Well it is true that there must be the form of smell yes that is right, and this form of smell is God, but not necessarily that of stink because stink is a smell which causes displeasure and displeasure is an evil and thus a non-existence. Once again this is proof that Dawkins doesn't really understand what Aquinas is saying. The fifth Argument Dawkins clearly doesn't understand because first he turns it into the argument from design. IT IS NOT. Aquinas says that unintelligent things appear to act towards an end but only intelligent things act towards and end therefore something intelligent must be making them act toward this goal i.e. God. This is not the same as design. I'm not saying it is valid (I'm not saying number four is either) but it is not the argument from design. Also when Dawkins says that Aquinas, if he live now, would have done better to use a heat seeking missile instead of an arrow, he is missing the boat. A heat seeking missile is intelligent an arrow is not.

Now that my tangent is out of the way, I hope that I made clear then that I think the first two arguments from Aquinas to be essentially valid, and that the argument from design is not the only thing that need be addressed, but I will go on to discuss how he addresses it. Let's start with "evolution is an example of one process by which something appears designed which isn't; all other appearances of design can be explained in a similar way we just haven't though of it yet." I could accept this. I find it hard to believe but that is because I cannot think of a way in which it would have happened, but I'm not sure I could have done the same for evolution, if I had been born before Origin of Species. So, as Dawkins's argument stands, I think it is good enough to remove the absolute certainty with which the argument from design would leave one, but I don't think it does justice to the probability that certain things would happen the way they did. The fact is that the occurrence of any given mutation at the right time is still chance, even if its success is not, and I don't think that Dawkins adequately addresses this. But I'd rather talk about something else. That here as well Dawkins seems to have a lot of faith and even sounds religious. There is something which he does not understand (how a process like evolution can explain other apparent designs), but he has faith that there is an explanation, and he just doesn't understand it. I'll leave this one at that.

The last thing that needs to be addresses here is the assertion that in order to create the universe God must be more complex than it, and therefore would need to be designed. What surprises me is that Dawkins just takes this as a first principle. He never makes an argument for it nor refutes the idea that God is perfectly simple, other than by this sort of statement. The reason this is particularly surprising is that Most theologians (at least most Christian theologians), throughout the centuries, who have given any thought to the matter think that God is perfectly simple. Dawkins in the whole book only even mentions that fact once and then only in passing never giving it any real thought. But this is the only reason, when it comes right down to it, that he gives for not believing in God. True he supposedly wrote a whole chapter on the issue, but this is actually just him refuting the design theory for another 53 pages. I just feel like this topic should have at least taken up one of his subchapters. That said, isn't, in the end, the theory of evolution pretty simple? Yet, doesn't it create more complex things? In the near future, (presuming as he must that we don't have souls) won't human beings be capable of using a cloning procedure to make beings that are in fact more complicated than we are? I'm just going to assert both of those things since that is all I got from Dawkins.

From this point Dawkins moves toward the origins of Religion in Chapter 5. I must say that I have no real criticism of this chapter. If religion is merely something made up by humanity then these are perfectly reasonable ways for it to have happened. This chapter caused me to think a lot. I especially liked his sections, in which he described all of the things that seem absurd in Christianity. I've often said that I don't judge someone for joining a cult just because they joined it. Christianity after all is the personality cult of a first century Jewish day-laborer turned rabbi. But in the chapters following Dawkins turned into something of a Moral philosopher. There are three things that I'd like to address from the rest of the book. The first is that he clearly thinks that Morality can exist in an atheist world view. The second in about indoctrination, and the third about why theists are concerned with the individual morality of others.

First Dawkins seems to think that something like morality can exist without God. Even though he has already said it is an illusionary evolutionary construct in the beginning of Chapter 6, just like religion. If we are to over come religion, why not over come morality too? It is interesting that Dawkins makes a point about the question of why be good without religion. He seems to take it to mean: why be good if God isn't going to get you. This may very well be the case for many, but I'd like to propose two other reasons why this is a very valid question. The first isn't entirely relevant to the the paragraph, but I just want to throw it out there. Many religious people be good out of gratitude or love of a deity not fear. Second it makes sense because without a deity there is no such thing as morality. Whenever we speak of morality we speak of shoulds and oughts, of what is right and wrong. Yet we only speak of oughts and shoulds, right and wrong, in relation to a certain purpose. For example if one wants to pass a hard test one ought to study. If one wants to eat it is right to acquire food. But we never give moral distinctions an "if you want" or "for the purposes of doing this." It is like we intuit a purpose in humanity. Morality is humanity fulfilling its purpose. It is what they ought to do irrespective of every other factor. Without a deity or a creator, we have nothing to give us a purpose. Therefore it doesn't exist. So, this idea of morality progressing, in Dawkins world view, ought to be ludicrous. For the most part it seems that Dawkins believes morality to be benevolence but this has not been the case through almost every society throughout history. As Dawkins later points out, many moral systems require people to be malevolent to certain people.

Dawkins goes through considerable pains to bemoan the existence of indoctrinization through out the book, but especially in Chapter 9, to the point that he suggests that it is child absurd. Here is my problem. Children will be indoctrinated. It is part of their nature. And Dawkins had previously Supported indoctrinization in Chapter 5, and he argued that it is inherent in humanity as an evolutionary advantage:

"More than any other species, we survive by the accumulated experience of previous generations, and that experience needs to be passed on to children for their protection and well-being. Theoretically, children might learn from personal experience not to go to near a cliff edge, not to eat untried red berries, not to swim in crocodile-infested waters. But, to say the least, there will be a selective advantage to child brains that possess the rule of thumb: believe, without question, whatever your grown-ups tell you. Obey your parents; obey tribal elders, especially when they adopt a solemn, minatory tone. Trust you elders without question. This is a generally valuable rule for a child" (203).

Any idiot can see that here Dawkins is talking about indoctrinization. And here, he is praising it and saying that it is inherent in humanity. The fact that Dawkins doesn't see this astounds me. The fact that he is contradicting himself is too self-evident to say more. So I’ll only discuss one more comment by Dawkins: "I thank my own parents for taking the view that children should be taught not so much what to think as how to think" (367). What Dawkins doesn't seem to realize here is that in this situation parents are still teaching their children that independent rational thought is better than the following to authority and tradition. The children will still be indoctrinated with that ideology.

Finally Dawkins Criticizes Religion for "car[ing] passionately about what other people do (or even think) in private" (327). He is talking here about many things, but the major example that he uses is homosexuality, that is what I will specifically respond to. My challenge to Dawkins would be: why do you care so much about what religions people hold? From reading his book my assumption would be that he would say for three reasons. First religion is bad for society, individual believers, and those who come into contact with believers, especially children. It is bad for society because it praises irrational belief and blind faith; it is bad for individual believers because it causes them to make sacrifices which are of no benefit, it is bad for those who come into contact with them because people kill over religion etc. This is especially true of children because religion is bad for people and religious people make children religious. Well my response to Dawkins is that homosexuality does the same. It is bad both physically and physiologically. The physical ramifications are more true in male homosexuals, but the physiological is true for both. Homosexuality confuses the natural state of men and women causing them to become something they are not meant to be something unhealthy, rather than what they are meant to be. The natural state of humanity is the relationship between a man and a woman, that is why nine times out of ten in a homosexual relationship you see the two taking on male and female roles even though both are male or female. Ignoring these two things, for the religious person, this action also has a negative spiritual consequence, it breaks a relationship with God and could lead to damnation. Only a callous person would be ok with anyone taking this path. Religious people care about homosexuality and other private actions because they care about the people who are making them and want the best for them. Secondly homosexuality promotes homosexuality. This is especially true when it becomes accepted in a society. It perverts the society and will bring more people to become homosexual. Even if it does not cause homosexuality it also creates a break down in sexual morals which will affect heterosexuals as well. This is especially true because it affects children, who, as I have already said, will be indoctrinated, thus leading them to make the same unhealthy actions. I assume Dawkins doesn't want the government to promote religion. In fact, I'd bet that he wants it to be discouraged by the government. Theists merely feel the same way concerning homosexuality.

Dawkins, Richard. The God Delusion. London: Black Swan, 2006.

Finit.

An author in a Trappist monastery is like a duck in a chicken coop. And he would give anything in the world to be a chicken instead of a duck.
-Thomas Merton

I have a question to ask in this post. Has anyone from Hollywood ever been to a Catholic mass? Scratch that. Have they ever been to church? Cause it seems that they almost never get anything close to a real mass. I'm thinking about things like the opening scenes to The Boondock Saints, and the church scenes in this other movie I've scene about Jesus coming and living in this little American town (Anyone got a name?). But the most recent example is from Boston Legal [[SPOILER ALERT]] The specific episode which I'm talking about is the one where the black guy named Joe is wrongly accused of rape, and then murdered at the end. Alan is defending this woman who murdered her daughter's killer and is trying to plead insanity.[[SPOILER ENDED]] In the episode there is a church scene. I know it is a Catholic Church because one of the women in the congregation had said something like, "This is a nice town where people still go to mass Friday nights." In the back of the church they had stuck some candles which clearly didn't belong. And the priest was wearing moderately correct vestments (alb, chasuble, etc.), but the rest of the situation was Presbyterian. The Altar and the dressings for the altar, the choir (at least distinctly protestant), the fact that the priest for whatever reason was standing in the congregation during the hymn they were singing. It was clearly a Presbyterian church that they were filming in (someone correct me if you know I'm wrong). Why the crappy hodge podge of denominational differences? Ok. That's it. Rant over.

Finit.

The principle of judicial restraint is a covenant between judges and the people from whom their power derives. It protects the people against judicial overreaching. It is no answer to say that judges can break the covenant so long as they are enlightened or well-meaning.
-Justice Carol A. Corrigan of California's Supreme Court.

It seems that the Courts of California have recently decided that same-sex partners have an inherent right to call there civil unions marriages.

To be perfectly honest I have not read the entirety of the court's opinion, if for no other reason than, with the concurring and dissenting opinions, the document is 123 pages long, and I don't have the time to read that before this post would be entirely irrelevant. However, I have skimmed portions of it, and I think I have a pretty fair understanding of its arguments. Basically, it is based on the assumption that a right to marry is inherent to humanity, and that thus the SEC. 7 of their Bill of Rights which begins: "A person may not be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law or denied equal protection of the laws;" I base this on the fact that the court said, "We therefore conclude that in view of the substance and significance of the fundamental constitutional right to form a family relationship, the California Constitution properly must be interpreted to guarantee this basic civil right to all Californians, whether gay or heterosexual, and to same-sex couples as well as to opposite-sex couples," and I have read California's Bill of Rights and nothing in it mentions a "right to form a family relationship." Ergo it must be one of the countless unnamed liberties that American courts have begun to impose over the years. I also say this based on the fact that Justice Corrigan in her detecting opinion mentions that even she thinks that such a right exists under the equal protection clause, but that she thinks the current law now provides for it. The presumption then is that someone has the right to form this "family relationship" gives one the right to do it as they see fit or at least in a homosexual manner. Thus, homosexuals are not being granted equal protection under the law.

I must begin by saying that this argument is flawed because there is no inherent right to homosexual marriage. The idea that such a right exists is a new phenomenon and makes no sense from the natural state of humanity. Man and woman are obviously two naturally different types of individuals, who are anatomically (as well as spiritually) designed (regardless if it was by God or natural selection) for union and complimentarity and thus for marriage. Because the reason for marriage is based on the difference between genders, it is ludicrous to imply that humanity has an inherent right to form it between members of the same gender.

It is also flawed because there is equal protection being granted. Marriage licenses are granted in the same way to both heterosexual and homosexual people. Homosexuals simply don't want a marriage license, as it exists, but they are not being refused them, as they do exist, because they are gay. California I presume grants drivers licenses for certain vehicles and prohibits the use of others. Yet, regardless, of whether or not someone wants to drive a prohibited vehicle, he's still granted licenses in the same way as everyone else.

On the other side of it, I heard most of my first information about this case on very conservative radio stations. This is not because that is all I would be inclined to listen to (not to imply that I'm not a conservative) but because, save NPR (which is often playing classical music rather than talk radio), virtually all talk radio that exists between Irving, Texas and Pueblo West, CO is very conservative radio. The one thing that I kept hearing was: The people had spoken, and the courts were over ruling the will of the people, and this is an atrocity because it is inherently undemocratic. Well, yes, it is very undemocratic. The idea of a bill of rights is very undemocratic. The idea of a constitution that cannot be change by a simple majority is very undemocratic. The simple fact of the matter is that if such a right did exist and was necessarily protected under Section 7 of California's bill of rights (as presumably these justices believe) it would be morally right and obligatory for the judges to over rule the will of the people. We don't live, thanks be to The Almighty, in a complete democracy, or even a complete democratic republic.

Finit

Every generation enjoys the use of a vast hoard bequeathed to it by antiquity, and transmits that hoard, augmented by fresh acquisitions, to future ages
-Thomas Macaulay

Ok. So, here is a random fact that I probably told most people who would ever read this, but I feel like it must be recorded as many places as possible. JPII has a Bacon number of 3. You have to count documentaries, but let's face it, they are movies. Don't believe me?

Finit.