Intellectuals and Politics – NYTimes.com.

Just found John Piper’s new book, “Think”.  I got it as a free audio download which I have included a link to below.  So far I am very impressed.  Check it out!

Think – Desiring God.

“Think” free audio download!

"She would hold him in her hands and sing to him."

There was once a songbird who, when young, had a strong voice and bright plumage but who now was old and feeble with a trembling voice and faded and tattered feathers.  He knew his time on Earth was fast ending so he called his four sons to him, “I was a songbird and I sang beautiful songs; you also shall sing beautiful songs.”

After the old songbird’s funeral, the oldest son spoke to his brothers saying,  “My father was a songbird who grew old singing.  He lost his voice and his plumage and now he is dead.  Why should I loose my voice and my plumage?”  With this he flew to the ground with his back to the cat.  He sang beautifully and loudly and the cat swallowed him whole.

The next brother said, “My brother was a fool but I will do better!  My end is coming sure enough; I will live my life while I have it!”  He flew to the highest branch in the tree and sang loudly and beautifully.  The hens flocked to him and the other songbirds envied him.  He sang all the more and his fame spread though out the neighborhood.  But after a time, he realized that he was not happy.  “I have all that this life could offer and I am not satisfied, will you eat me?” he asked the cat.  “With pleasure!” said the cat, and swallowed him up!

The next brother said, “Both my brothers were fools, for the one did not live and the other lived only for himself but, he was only a songbird so what was that worth?  I will live for the other songbirds!”  He flew to a branch in the middle of the tree to be among the other birds and sang beautiful and sweet songs and he took requests.  The hens all wanted their daughters to mary him, “he sings as sweetly as his brother but his brother was proud and arrogant!”  Soon however, he realized that he was not happy, “I have lived for other songbirds but they are only songbirds and what is that worth? Will you eat me?”  “With pleasure!” said the cat, and gulped him down!

The last brother saw a little girl through a window and he thought she was beautiful.  He thought, “I am a songbird, what can I do for her but sing?”  So, he landed on the windowsill and began to sing.  The little girl thought his song was beautiful and she called in her brothers and sisters to hear him.  The little girl brought seed to the windowsill for the songbird to eat and gave him a name.  When the cat tried to catch him the little girl herself came outside and chased the cat away and she made the dog sit on the porch to guard the songbird.  After a while the little girl became a young lady and she took photographs of the songbird and recorded his songs and would bring her friends to the window to listen to the songbird sing and to admire his beautiful plumage. Soon though, his plumage began to fade and his voice began to get week but the young lady would still come to hear him and bring him seed.  When the songbird was too weak to fly, the young lady brought him inside and would hold him in her hands and she would sing to him and he was happy.

Presidents Obama and Chavez and Secretary of State Clinton are all among the throngs of politicians around the world calling for the reinstatement of ousted Honduran president Zelaya.  The rallying cry is that Zelaya is the democratically elected president and that reinstating him would restore constitutionality to Honduras.  This is not only gross patronization to the Hondurans but is also beyond stupid.

Zelaya was ousted by the military, on orders of the Supreme Court and with the Congress accepting his resignation (if he wrote it or not is not the issue, Congress no longer recognizes him as the president) and swearing in the constitutionally next in line and Zelaya ally as the new president.  Oh and also the people don’t seem too upset; in a country of 7 million, 200 have shown up to protest.

So the only way I can see of reinstating Zelaya would be to invade Honduras, kill soldiers defending their homeland from foreign aggression, arrest the Supreme Court Justices, arrest most of the members of Congress,  execute the top military brass, and install Zelaya as president and enforce his rule (his military is dead at this point so it will have to be done by foreign troops) on a population that does not want him.  And this is what is referred to as “restoring the constitutionality”.  If you know of any other way to do it feel free to comment.

This video is interesting and entertaining to say the least.  The producers certainly take a position but it is tough not to take a position on this issue; that American education is based on the Prussian model is undisputed.

“It is nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of intruction have not yet entirely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry.” – Albert Einstein

“Drop out of school before your mind rots from exposure to our mundane educational system… go to the library and educate yourself if you’ve got any guts.” – Frank Zappa

Via here

bbc.co.uk/blogs/ni/

It really disturbs me when terms are abused and this happens often.  It is especially disturbing when those who are adversarial to the term in question use it to mean something it does not.  This means they are either ignorant or dishonest.  So this is a public service announcement for the benefit of all the adversaries of Intelligent Design out there.

Intelligent Design is not a rival to Evolution.  When you pit the two against one another, you sound stupid.  You are making either a claim from ignorance or are being dishonest.  Both discredit you and your argument.  Furthermore, intellectual dishonesty runs completely contrary to the ideals of scientific inquiry which you attack Intelligent Design for violating.  Therefore you are a hypocrit.

Young Earth Creationism is a rival to Evolution, Intelligent Design is not.  Most Intelligent Design proponents reject Evolution, but the theory itself does not.

Evolution (personified) should take no issue with Intelligent Design.  Intelligent Design (though not a direct rival) is a rejection of Modernism, with its rejection of all things super-natural.  It is not a rejection of Evolution which makes no claim with regards to the super-natural.  Lets get this right, Please!

The Real Victims of Islam.

The news is filled with reports of the terrorist attack on Mumbai, India.  We do not yet know what the terrorists’ motives are; they could have to do with Kashmir, Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel, or any number of other hotspots.  One thing that is known is that the assailants are Muslim.  I believe one of the most effective aspects of Islamic terror is that it causes non-Muslims to hate and despise Muslims.  The actions of the terrrorists are reprehensible and I do not defend them at all.  The fate of their victims are horrendous and tragic and not to be belittled in any way.  However, I believe that the ultimate victims of Islam are often forgotten because it i easier to divide the world in to us and them and because we prefer to hate.

The murdered victims of Islamic terrorism are tragic but they are also dead, Islam can harm them no more.  The real victims of Islam are the people who have to live under it.  Much has been made of the plight of women in strict Islamic countries and rightly so; they are some of the most oppressed people on the planet.  I would like to point out however, that Muslim women in less strict and even western countries and even Muslim men have to live everyday of their lives believing in Islam.

Allah is a very distant god.  He would not even speak directly to the prophet Mohammed but had an angel mediate between them.  Muslim men and women spend their lives attempting to fulfill all the requirements to get into Heaven and escape Hell.  One of these is a visit to Mecca.  The Saudi governement places a strict cap on the number who can go to Mecca each year and hundreds of millions of Muslims will never even have the chance. Even completing the requirement is not gaurentee; those who escape Hell do so by the arbitrary descision of Allah. Even Mohammed said “What Allah will do with me, I know not.“   Think of the phychologcal and spiritual oppression of these teemining millions, these are Islam’s real victims.

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Liberal and conservative economic models share a common flaw.  For the most part Democrats and Republicans are synonymous with liberals and conservatives but not quite.  The vast majority of Democrats and Republicans take a compromised position on economic policy.  They lean liberal or lean conservative but are unwilling to commit fully.  This is symptomatic of one or more of the following, intellectual laxity, a lack of commitment or belief in the cause, or pandering to voters which in turn shows  a lack of moral character and fortitude.  Socialists and Libertarians tend to be much more consistent in their economic policy views and carry liberal and conservative philosophy much closer to their respective logical conclusions than most members of the two major parties do.  For the sake of this article the terms “liberal” and “conservative” will refer more to the ideals of those philosophies rather than to the mostly inconsistent members of any particular party.

The thing that liberals and conservatives mutually miss or mess up in economic policy is love.  Yes that’s right, love.  I’ll start with the liberals.

Liberals tend to be concerned with the well being of the poor, which is good and loving.  So they begin on the right track but, they forget about love, and so go about it all wrong.  Liberal economic policy in a simplified form is like Robin Hood, take from the rich and give to the poor.  Because the money was not given freely, but rather forced by law, it is not charity. The rich, some of whom are very charitable, resent their money being voted out of their hands and given to the voters.  They feel that the masses have risen up and stolen from them like a pitchfork mob storming the castle.  Because it was not charity (that is, a gift), the poor begin to feel they have a right to it and thus that the rich have stolen from them.  The poor then come to resent the rich.  So liberal economic policy leads to greater mutual class resentment and less love.

Conservative economic policy focuses on what is just.  It is unjust to take a man’s private property so conservatives push for fewer taxes and freer markets.  They count on the market growing when there are fewer restrictions and generally it does.  This they reason, should help the poor in a trickle down effect.  In this model, the poor are an afterthought, not very loving.  The poor resent being an afterthought and the rich assume that the poor are poor because they are either lazy or stupid.  This is not a good way to breed love.

Charity (that is, grace) is the action of love.  Charity and love are two sides of the same coin. Where there is no love, there can be no charity, this is the problem of conservative economics.  Where there is not charity, there can be no love, this is the problem of liberal economics.  So liberals and conservatives take different paths to smothering love as much as possible.  Call me crazy.

This is the eighth article I have written as part of an ongoing debate with Mr. Adrian Thysse on the reasonableness of Christian faith.  It has been a while; I think I am the most inconsistent blogger in the western hemisphere, I apologize for that.

I am honored that you think my logic to be Lewisian. JPWSR is correct to not defend God, and I do not either. God knows, He doesn’t need my help. I am defending the belief in God as being reasonable. God is reasonable by virtue of being the supremely perfect being. He can be nothing else; what is unreasonable is certainly less perfect than what is reasonable.

I already addressed the genocide issue in my comment to “Evil in Society” but I’ll address it further here.

I believe people who take issue with the warfare in the Old Testament and how it was conducted have a flawed understanding of God and who He is. Life and death are in God’s hands. He is sovereign in the universe. The only reason that you and I are here, living, breathing, and having this debate is that God continues to will us both to live*. That is grace. We have no claim on God. We have no right to make any demands. All that we have is undeserved grace from God and this includes life and the continuation of life. If I die before I finish this sentence, it will be because God decided I had finished my mortal life and I could not justifiably complain because my life up to this point has been a gift. It makes no sense to say “God, you owe me more gifts!” God owes me nothing.

God owed the Canaanites nothing. He decided that their time had come, just the same as He has done for every other man, women, hyena, earthworm, virus, and oak tree in history. God did the Canaanites no injustice. On the contrary, God shed much grace on the Canaanites** by sustaining them as long as He did and even in killing them off (it seems likely) by preventing them from further degrading themselves.

Its interesting to me that people often point to the destruction of the Canaanites as evidence that God is unjust but not to Sodom or Gomorrah. The only difference that I can see is that in the case of Sodom and Gomorrah, the destruction was visibly an act of God, whereas in the case the Canaanites, God used the Israelites to accomplish the same thing. If God is who He says He is then there is no difference in the two cases.

After a thorough understanding of God’s sovereignty is established, the next question that comes up is often, “why does God allow evil at all?” Thank God He does, and don’t question your good fortune! If He did not allow evil then we would not be here at all. This Earth is filled with evil, you’re evil, and I’m evil. God allows evil because He is loving, merciful, and delights in giving us grace. We also know from the Bible that God will not continue to allow evil forever but that He will restore creation to what He intended it to be. This is further grace, for God is taking evil and undeserved people and restoring them (rather than destroying or punishing them) and allowing them to be part of His newly perfected creation.

The Bible is a love story and God is the greatest lover. Throughout the Bible mankind is portrayed as an unfaithful wife who is constantly whoring herself out. God is portrayed as a husband who would be justified in divorcing us but instead continues to sacrifice Himself in hopes that He will redeem us.

*And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
(Col 1:17 ESV)

**And they shall come back here in the fourth generation, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.”
(Gen 15:16 ESV) (This was 400 years before the wars of conquest. Those were 400 years of continued grace.)

Jiminy is the manliest of bugs.

I have written several times before on truth, the lack of it, the abuse of it, and the blatant disregard of it.  USA Today published an article and an opinion piece that should be of interest to any of my fellow lover’s of truth out there.  This is just downright infuriating.  The articles are both on the lack of truth in the political TV ads from the McCain and Obama campaigns.

If you want my concise paraphrase of both articles here it is, “Neither of the United States presidential candidates seems to have scruples about completely  misleading the American people for their own political gain and McCain is the worse of the two.” There you go.

There is so much more I could say on this.  I believe this is the inevitable result manifest, of living in the postmodern era.

The fact checking websites,  FactCheck.org and PolitiFact.com were heavily cited in both the article and the opinion.  The chart below helps to demonstate how widespread the problem is.

PolitiFact.com rates candidates’ statements on a six-category scale from “true” to “pants on fire” falsehoods.

Barely true

McCain 22

Obama 14

False

McCain 23

Obama 18

Pants on fire

McCain 6

Obama 1

Source: PolitiFact.com, a joint venture of the St. Petersburg Times and CQ.

This stuff makes me want to pull my hair out and start lighting things on fire!