Category: Uncategorized

As I was reading Daniel Dennett’s “Darwin’s Dangerous Idea”, which is really quite good thus far, it struck me that Christians and other theists such as myself are taking a less effective route to crippling atheist arguments than we might.

Instead of trying to logically demonstrate to them that they have no claim on morality and that this would have a negative effect on human society, we really should take their arguments against God and ask them to make a scientific case for the very existence of morality. Not the “atheist morality” about which I have written, but rather the basic concept itself.

Where is the proof of “good”? Where is the scientific evidence that defines the distinction between “good” and “bad”? And if there is no scientific evidence for such a distinction, then don’t we have the same obligation to teach children the nonexistence of a moral imperative that we do of God?

This won’t stop the “I feel it” idiocy on the part of either atheists or theists, but it should shut the intelligent ones down. Then we can return to the inevitable utilitarian conclusion and end up agreeing that Israel must be driven into the sea, fat people must be converted into gasoline and women must be forcibly bred to the most fit.

The good of the greater number demands it!

Some of you may have noticed that I was experimenting with Blogger’s new template options. It’s not bad, but since it doesn’t seem to have an easy way to add Haloscan comments into the Post box, it’s unusable. It did provide a nice means of showing the recent posts on the sidebar, as per a request a few people have made, but that’s not worth breaking the comments. Also, it had some graphical glitches that were annoying.

Thus we shall stick with the tried and true for the nonce.

And has an unusual request:

The announcement is that a couple weeks ago I created a blog. Please check it out. I hope you find it mildly entertaining and a more than a little theologically challenging. At least that is my hope. Indeed, I have failed one of my primary goals for starting a blog if this is not the case.

So here’s the request. If you would be willing to put me on your blog roll, could you put me in Target Rich Environments? If you’re not sure on whether to grant this request, what might put you over the edge? Want me to talk about how pleased I am, as a home-schooling parent, that Public Schools exist? Can do. Do want me to make nasty remarks about people who spend too much time watching football? I can fit it in.

Do you want me to say that people who say that God doesn’t know the future are speaking He- . . theologically incorrect statements. Consider it done. Want me to say bad stuff about Nate? I’m there (but not SpaceBunny. I am no fool and SpaceBunny’s like a decent person, whereas Nate once called me a hippy. (Yes, it was a hard day for me.))

I also plan on putting in some personal poetry which you (no stranger to verse) might describe as having . . . questionable quality. And I might speak well of Star Trek. And I might trash “Dark is Rising,” as well as point out your startling inconsistency on that matter. You just never know.

Yes, yes I do want you to say bad stuff about Der Hausfrauhrer, but that’s neither here nor there. But the mere fact of Jamsco’s having publicly committed poetry makes his blog, by definition, a Target-Rich Environment.

Request granted.

AD wishes to see some atheist-vlogging:

Enjoy your columns and blog, it’s great to know there are other intelligent, technical people who are Christian. I know you’ve done some podcasts, but have little interest in the usual talking head media shows.

Have you thought about Vlogging? YouTube (or others like LiveVideo) seam to have some steam currently. There are several Atheist types vlogging on YouTube recently who try to present arguments against Christianity and religion in general. Mostly they are an embarrassment to themselves, but I can see they are attracting an audience. With the number of young frequenting these sites, it would be great to have a practiced debater such as yourself pointing out the flaws in their argument and ramblings. I think your creativity and imagination could have you owning these sites in no time.

Yes, I actually wrote a bit about Nick Gilburn’s situation in tomorrow’s column. (Don’t worry, it’s in context with some other stuff which should provide some small matter for amusement.) Anyhow, I’m open to trying this if someone will provide me with a transcript from which to work, perhaps taken from one of Mr. Gilburn’s more popular videos.

I can’t watch many videos without my brain going into sleep mode, usually after the second or third obvious howler I can’t even bear to listen to it. For whatever reason, I’m much more amenable to critically reading logical nonsense than listening to it or watching it.

I think I have the Microsoft video software on my other laptop, does anyone know if that will let you pop in still images such as Excel charts or whatever? Alternatively, is there any good open source video producing software, similar to Audacity for audio?

Miss Khindiwoilkajfioehieqhg of Sports Illustrated objects to an inkorrekt attitude:

Rene Portland still has a job. And I am utterly stumped at how….Five Big Ten titles and one Final Four apparently forgive a heckuva of a lot.

So, apparently the fact that the woman is an excellent, championship winning coach shouldn’t count as much as her failure to love the lesbians. What are nearly three decades of success compared with a reluctance to embrace abnormality?

It’s clear that SI is more concerned about die korrekt Attitüde than Penn State, otherwise one doubts Miss Khiwarbliahekfj320i1okjsdf01ij would have a job writing for it, given her complete lack of interest in sports.

Come to think of it, that swastika was an Indian thing originally, wasn’t it. And it’s more than a little ironic to be enduring lectures on korrekt thinking from a woman who apparently hails from the country that invented caste.

The more reasonable question is: how long will Miss Aei1893482upncai1[34091jfqpoi have her job? The answer is: not very.

Carolus offers misguided praise:

Not even when the gayly righteous ‘stache developed a hysterical case of the vapors over Vox’s WND piece, sending over swarms of flying monkeys, did VD cave.

Gotta give you credit for than one, VD.

Thanks, but honestly, none is due. It never occurred to me to even consider apologizing, much less retract the statement. To credit me for that is like praising a dog for bravery under fire, when in truth the dog has no idea that the big booming noises are anything but thunder.

I don’t regard Medved’s yapping as any different than anyone else’s. If criticism is based on substance, it demands consideration. If it isn’t, it doesn’t. In either case, it doesn’t matter who is doing the yapping.

But don’t mistake my indifference for courage. I could walk away from WND and this blog tomorrow without it costing me anything except negative time. (Not that I plan to do so, it’s just a fact.) But in fairness, even if it’s a cheap integrity, it is a form of integrity nonetheless.

I don’t think this sort of statement is particularly helpful to the cause of those who insist that President Bush isn’t intending to attack Iran at the behest of Israel:

Ex-Israeli Prime Minister “Bibi” Netanyahu has told CNN: “Iran is Germany, and it’s 1938. Except that this Nazi regime that is in Iran … wants to dominate the world, annihilate the Jews, but also annihilate America.”

Wait, I’m having trouble keeping this straight. I thought Hussein was Hitler, or was it Milosevic? And where does Kim Jong-il, who appears to actually have nukes and is formally still at war with the USA, fit into this ever-increasing multitude of Hitlers?

This appears to be the 2007 remake of The Boys From Brazil. (Frankly, I much preferred the sequel, The Babes From Brazil, starring Miss Adriana Lima.) But here’s the important question: if it turns out that it’s George W. Bush who is actually Hitler after all, does this mean that Bibi and everyone is down with nuking Washington DC?

Personally, I’d be against it on the grounds that radiating the Lizard Queen is more likely to supersize her than neutralize her, and let’s face it, those thunder thighs are big enough already.

See, he went to Bible school!

Scores of police have been sent to the jungles of remote Papua New Guinea to hunt for a cult leader known as the Black Jesus, who is said to have sacrificed three young women to the devil and eaten their bodies.

In one case reported by villagers, a mother who had fallen under the cult leader’s spell led her 14-year-old daughter to his hideout, offered her to him as a virgin then stabbed her to death.

The Black Jesus, 31-year-old Steven Tari, started his cult last year after he was expelled from a Bible college for stealing from fellow students

Now do you see why evil men might like the idea of women’s suffrage? If you can talk a woman into sacrificing her virgin daughter, I imagine you can talk her into pretty much anything you might want. But this actually makes me think of how nonsensical it is when atheists attempt to prove that obvious non-Christians are Christians based on a definition that would prove that they themselves are Christians.

I’m not talking about the No True Scotsman fallacy, but rather, ignoring overt evidence that people have actively set themselves up in direct opposition to basic Christian principle as well as the Church.

Atheist: “Sure, Hitler may have tried to create a new church with himself as the Christ figure, but you know, he was an altar boy. And he said some nice things about Jesus when he was trying to get elected to office, so obviously he was a Christian.”

Vox: “Didn’t Mohammed say some nice things about Jesus?”

Atheist: “Well, yeah.”

Vox: “Didn’t you go to Lutheran school and get confirmed?”

Atheist: “Well, yeah, but I don’t believe in God now!”

This does, of course, make one wonder if the Christian seminaries of the world might not want to examine their prospective students a little more closely. This whole “let in the gays and the devil worshippers” concept doesn’t seem to be a particularly effective strategy.

In any case, you’d think the media would realize that the more sensitive term for this devil-worshipping cannibal would be “African-Papua New Guinean Jesus”.

More proof that there is no law in the USA, only pronouncements from the bench:

Sixteen months after his divorce, Richard Parker made a devastating discovery. A DNA test revealed that his 3-year-old son had been fathered by someone else.

Mr. Parker immediately filed a lawsuit claiming fraud by his apparently unfaithful ex-wife. He took his case all the way to the Florida Supreme Court.

Last week, the Florida justices ruled 7-0 against him. They said that Parker must continue to pay $1,200 a month in child support because he had missed the one-year postdivorce deadline for filing his lawsuit. His court-ordered payments would total more than $200,000 over 15 years to support another man’s child.

No doubt he’ll be labled a “deadbeat dad” despite not, in fact, being a father at all. Of course, if the court genuinely had the interests of the child in mind, they wouldn’t have left it with the lying cow in the first place.

The thing is, all contracts are null and void if there is fraud on the part of one of the contracting parties. You can’t be held liable for something that isn’t yours, except, of course, when a judge magically declares you to be on some imaginary basis.

And this is just yet another example of how women are legally inferior to men, given the courts’ customary expectation that they are incapable of providing for themselves or their offspring, whereas a man is quite clearly considered capable of providing even for those who are not his.

Or he will be for the next month, anyhow. It seems Fox News is reporting that Anna Nicole Smith died today. It’s a pity, but not exactly a shock. Physical attractiveness, psychiatric problems and drugs just don’t seem to be the ideal recipe for a long and happy life.