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Monday, March 30, 2015

What The Framers Knew

Publius-Huldah's Blog (Understanding the Constitution): The Constitution, Vattel, and “Natural Born Citizen”: What Our Framers Knew

So! This Act of the First Congress implements the Principles set forth in Vattel, embraced by our Framers, and enshrined in Art. II, §1, cl. 5, that:
•A “natural born Citizen” is one who is born of parents who are citizens.
•Minor children born here of aliens do not become citizens until their parents are naturalized. Thus, they are not “natural born” citizens.

Our Framers rejected the anti-republican and feudal notion that mere location of birth within a Country naturalizes the children of a foreigner.

The distinction written into Our Constitution and implemented by the Naturalization Act of 1790 is between someone who is born a citizen, by being born of parents who are already Citizens, and someone who becomes a citizen after birth by naturalization. Only the former are eligible to be President.

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We *all* knew this ... all along

The choice before every man, and every society, is, and has always been: choose life or choose death. Whichever you (singular and collective) choose, it *will* be served.


The Telegraph: Killing babies no different from abortion, experts say

By the way, even if one didn't learn up-front what these (ahem) ethicists were about, the fact that they write 'she' and 'her' when English grammar demands 'he' and 'his', is a red-flag (*) tell that they are up to no good.


(*) Blood-red being the leftists' color, before those in the US media decided to apply it to conservatives.

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Thursday, March 26, 2015

Finding oneself agreeing with Richard Dawkins

Meh. It happens.

Michael at 'Shadow to Light' Atheist Safe Spaces -- "While Dawkins is mocking the whole idea of safe spaces, and I happen to agree with him on this, he fails to realize that atheists have been the safe space pioneers. Someone said a prayer in school? There is a Christmas tree in school? There is a picture of the Ten Commandments in the school? MAKE IT STOP! The atheist students are being traumatised by the scary expressions of Christian belief. If you think about it, the Freedom From Religion Foundation should be renamed the Making Atheist Safe Spaces Foundation."

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Monday, March 23, 2015

You *knew* it was gonna be

Mark Steyn: In related news -- "~In related news: The guy who put up "white people only" stickers all over Austin, Texas turns out to be "social justice warrior" Adam Reposa - just "raising awareness" of your racism, you racey-race racist you."

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Thursday, March 12, 2015

'So what?'

Michael, at the 'Shadow to Light' blog, has a recent post discussing Sean Carroll's argument (ahem!) that 'Science!' and "religion" are "incompatible". Michael and the commenter TFBW note that "So what?" may be an appropriate response to the claims or arguments (ahem!) of the God-haters.

In fact, the "So what?" response is appropriate to *any* normative assertion made by those who deny that moral duties and expectations are real (or "objective" as people like to say), transcendent and universally binding.

I've discussed the "So what?" response at various times and places; here I'll try to present my ideas on this in an easy-to-follow way.

Consider the following hypothetical exchange, wherein the hypothetical Christian is, for the sake of argument, adopting the hypothetical atheist’s presumptions and the logical entailments thereof -- which include (but is not limited to) the statements that:
1) there are no real, universal, binding, transcendent moral obligations or duties;
2) we cease to exist - as though we had never been - when we die;
3) ultimately, *all* things will cease to exist;
n) ergo, nothing really matters.

Atheist (or Moral Relativist): "Christianity is false."

Christian: "So what?"

Atheist (or M.R): "Well, Christianity presents a false view about "God", and about man, and about the universe, and about man's place in the universe."

Christian: "So what?"

Atheist (or M.R): "Well, people shouldn't believe -- and certainly shouldn't teach others to believe -- things that are false!"

Christian: "So what?"

Atheist (or M.R): "But, it's *wrong* to try to covince people to believe things one knows to be false."

Christian: "So what?"

Atheist (or M.R): "Well, it's not good, for the individual nor for society, when people believe things that are false."

(pseudo-)Christian: "So what? ... Still, you have convinced me -- with your mere assertion -- that Christianity is false. But, you know what? I'm going to keep trying to convince people that it's true."

Atheist (or M.R): "But, but, but ... that woud be lying!"

(pseudo-)Christian: "So what?"

Atheist (or M.R): "But, it's *wrong* to lie. It's *wrong* to try to covince people to believe things one knows to be false."

(pseudo-)Christian: "You've already asserted that, and again I respond: So what?"


I expect that Gentle Reader is experienced enough, and a clear enough thinker, to be able to extend this hypothetical exchange indefinitely and in other directions, such that I need not belabor it.

But, notice this: atheism (or even merely moral relativism) is a curious worldview -- whether it is the truth about the nature of reality, and of God, and of ourselves matters *only* if it is not the truth about the nature of reality, and of God, and of ourselves. Is that *any* other worldview that matters only if it doesn't matter?

Notice another very important thing, not just from my hypothetical exchange (which, of course, I scripted), but also from your own experiences with so-called 'atheists' -- atheists' arguments against Judeo-Christianity, to the limited extent that they ever actually attempt to present an argument, *always* implicitly assume the very thing they (and the logic of their position) are adamant to deny (*): that there are real, universal, binding, transcendent moral obligations or duties, including, but not limited to:
1) it is *wrong* to lie;
2) it is *wrong* to reason or argue on the basis of what one knows, or at least believes, to be false;
3) it is *wrong* to decline or refuse to investigate, to the best of one's abilities, whether one's premises are sound;
3a) it is *wrong* to decline or refuse to learn, to the best of one's abilities, and adopt, a true view of the nature of reality;
4) it really does *matter*, not just now, but also after one has died and lo longer even exists, whether one lives one's life in accordance with what is true about the nature of reality;

(*) especially when these claims are deployed against their position of denial of God and of morality.

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Sunday, March 8, 2015

How ‘Science!’ works!

Im-a-fool-and-don’t-you-forget-it! wrote at Victor Reppert’s blog -- "Illion [sic] shows again that he has absolutely no idea what kind of physical laws are entailed by relativity and quantum mechanics. There actually IS a difference between "science" and feats of "magic" that have never, and will never occur. These things are not entailed by any physical law. They are nothing more than stories concocted by people like you who don't have a clue, but just want to justify an imaginary God."

From 'The Demon-Haunted World' by Carl Sagan

"Consider this claim: as I walk along, time -as measured by my wristwatch or my ageing process -slows down. Also, I shrink in the direction of motion. Also, I get more massive. Who has ever witnessed such a thing? It's easy to dismiss it out of hand. Here's another: matter and antimatter are all the time, throughout the universe, being created from nothing. Here's a third: once in a very great while, your car will spontaneously ooze through the brick wall of your garage and be found the next morning on the street. They're all absurd! But the first is a statement of special relativity, and the other two are consequences of quantum mechanics (vacuum fluctuations and barrier tunnelling,* they're called). Like it or not, that's the way the world is. If you insist it's ridiculous, you'll be forever closed to some of the major findings on the rules that govern the Universe.

*The average waiting time per stochastic ooze is much longer than the age of the Universe since the Big Bang. But, however improbable, in principle it might happen tomorrow.
"

Ah!

So, if one were to assert that at any time my "car [might] spontaneously ooze through the brick wall of [the] garage and be found the next morning on the street", with the caveat that any actual occurrence of the assertedly possible event is so improbable as to be effectively a non-existent possibility ... well, that's 'Science!' On the other hand, if one were to assert (and record) that one had actually witnessed the Risen Christ to *intentionally* walk through a locked door, damaging neither door nor self, well, that's just superstitious mumbo-jumbo.

So, if one were to assert that at any time all the oxygen molecules in the auditorium might spontaneously gather themselves into the upper corners of the room (this was an example assertion by one of my professors as an illustration of what QM “tells us”), thus leaving all the humans in the room lacking for the oxygen necessary to sustain their lives, with the caveat that any actual occurrence of the assertedly possible event is so improbable as to be effectively a non-existent possibility ... well, that's 'Science!' On the other hand, if one were to assert (and record) that one had actually witnessed a certain usefully-shaped collection of (primarily) iron atoms rise to the surface of a body of water into which it had fallen, well, that's just superstitious mumbo-jumbo.

So, if one were to assert that, contrary to all experience, and contrary to all scientific and medical findings to date, non-living chemicals can spontaneously arrange themselves into living organisms ... well, that's 'Science!' On the other hand, if one were to assert (and record) that one had actually witnessed a collection of once-living molecules walking around, eating, breathing, and talking to other collections of ambulatory molecules well after one knew that collection of molecules to have been dead, and one attributed this socking-and-totally-unexpected development to the sovereign power of the Being who created molecules and living organisms in the first place, well, that's just superstitious mumbo-jumbo.

I think we all see how ‘Science!’ - and ‘I-pretend-to-be-rational’ -- operates.

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Thursday, March 5, 2015

Pray for 'Tor'

The Other McCain: Bad Christianity, Worse Atheism

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Wednesday, March 4, 2015

About 'tidy-minded engineers' and our 'backward' retina

The Pope of Atheism, Richard Dawkins, in particular, and DarwinDefenders in general, like to claim that the layout of the vertebrate retina is "backwards" ... and that this is proof of the Darwinistic UIND ('unintelligent nondesign', pronounced "wind"), which blows where it blows, with no rhyme nor reason. Dawkins argues (ha!) that as no "tidy-minded engineer" would ever design the vertebrate retina in the manner that we observe, ergo it wasn't designed, but rather, just happened.

Here, Cornelius Hunter discusses merely the most recent finding of *real* science (as distinct from the 'Science!' so beloved of DarwinDefenders) that shows Dawkins and the other DarwinDefenders to be *wrong* in claiming that our eyes are "wired backward" -- It’s Just Getting Worse: Our Retina Structure is “optimized for our vision purposes”

Here is a little something I first read about a good decade ago -- The Retinal Pigment Epithelium in Visual Function
Abstract
Located between vessels of the choriocapillaris and light-sensitive outer segments of the photoreceptors, the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) closely interacts with photoreceptors in the maintenance of visual function. Increasing knowledge of the multiple functions performed by the RPE improved the understanding of many diseases leading to blindness. This review summarizes the current knowledge of RPE functions and describes how failure of these functions causes loss of visual function. Mutations in genes that are expressed in the RPE can lead to photoreceptor degeneration. On the other hand, mutations in genes expressed in photoreceptors can lead to degenerations of the RPE. Thus both tissues can be regarded as a functional unit where both interacting partners depend on each other.

I. INTRODUCTION
The retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) is a monolayer of pigmented cells forming a part of the blood/retina barrier (72, 372, 492, 558). The apical membrane of the RPE faces the photoreceptor outer segments (Fig. 1). Long apical microvilli surround the light-sensitive outer segments establishing a complex of close structural interaction. With its basolateral membrane the RPE faces Bruch’s membrane, which separates the RPE from fenestrated endothelium of the choriocapillaris (Fig. 1).

[figure 1]

Summary of retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) functions. PEDF, pigment epithelium-derived growth factor; VEGF, vascular epithelium growth factor; Epithel, epithelium.

As a layer of pigmented cells the RPE absorbs the light energy focused by the lens on the retina (72, 86). The RPE transports ions, water, and metabolic end products from the subretinal space to the blood (144, 236, 369, 402, 558). The RPE takes up nutrients such as glucose, retinol, and fatty acids from the blood and delivers these nutrients to photoreceptors. Importantly, retinal is constantly exchanged between photoreceptors and the RPE (30, 58, 596). Photoreceptors are unable to reisomerize all-trans-retinal, formed after photon absorption, back into 11-cis-retinal. To maintain the photoreceptor excitability, retinal is transported to the RPE reisomerized to 11-cis-retinal and transported back to photoreceptors. This process is known as the visual cycle of retinal. Furthermore, the voltage-dependent ion conductance of the apical membrane enables the RPE to stabilize ion composition in the subretinal space, which is essential for the maintenance of photoreceptor excitability (144, 558, 559). Another function in the maintenance of photoreceptor excitability is the phagocytosis of shed photoreceptor outer segments (72, 170, 187, 575). The photoreceptor outer segments are digested, and essential substances such as retinal are recycled and returned to photoreceptors to rebuild light-sensitive outer segments from the base of the photoreceptors. In addition, the RPE is able to secrete a variety of growth factors helping to maintain the structural integrity of choriocapillaris endothelium and photoreceptors. Furthermore, the secretory activity of the RPE plays an important role in establishing the immune privilege of the eye by secreting immunosuppressive factors (280, 581). With these complex different functions, the RPE is essential for visual function. A failure of any one of these functions can lead to degeneration of the retina, loss of visual function, and blindness. In the following sections these functions will be described in more detail. ...
To put this into plain English: the supposed "backwards" design of the retina is actually critical to "maintain the photoreceptor excitability" of the cone and rod cells -- that is, to allow us to see as efficiently as we.

To put it another way, if Dawkins, being a "tidy minded engineer", had designed our eyes, our vision wouldn't be nearly as good as it is, and it wouldn't be nearly as fitted to how we actually live as it is. Since the photoreceptor cells couldn't react as quickly as they do to the *next* photon to strike them, we'd need to have much bigger eyes, with far more photoreceptor cells,to send the same amount of visual information to the brain. Or, perhaps our visual experience of the world would have to be as a series of stills, instead of smoothly flowing.


So, if it really were the case that our eyes were "wired backward" ... and that this were then proof that Darwinism, and atheism, are the truth about the nature of reality ... does the *real* scientific finding that they're not "wired backward" count as proof that Darwinism, and atheism, are falsehoods about the nature of reality? Of course not! For the "our eyes are wired backward" argument (ahem!) was never offered ion good-faith in the first place.

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Monday, March 2, 2015

Ye olde 'double-standard'

Any number of women -- and womenly men -- like to complain about some supposed "double standard" that "society" (by which they generally mean "men") imposes upon women vis-a-vis the selection of "partners". But, in fact, what they're really complaining about is the fact, well-known for centuries, that men and women value different things in the opposite sex -- or, to put it another way, they're complaining that men are not women.

There is a little exchange touching on this supposed "double-standard" over at K T Cat's blog. My response is far too long to post in a commbox, so I've turned it into an OP post here --
Ilíon: "So, the lady is complaining how unfair it is that men aren't women?
"

K T Cat: "Yep. Maybe there's a problem or two with telling girls to act like boys...
"

Jedi Master Ivyan: "No. I think the complaint is that men's standards for appearance are ridiculously high. Even men who don't look at pornography are bombarded with images of perfect women in media. A portly 40 year old man expects no less than a ravishing 20 something. There are plain women who need husbands, too."

K T Cat: "Jedi, you are right as well. Having said that, it does no good to tell young women to wait to begin sifting through the market until they're older. It only makes matters worse. You can bet that I will not be telling my daughter to wait until she's 30+. Instead, I'll tell her to find the right guy and not worry about her age.

The stories of what girls are doing in college these days - hooking up instead of shopping around - is heartbreaking. Many of them will end up like the unhappy woman writing in the UK newspaper.
"
"No. I think the complaint is that men's standards for appearance are ridiculously high. Even men who don't look at pornography are bombarded with images of perfect women in media. A portly 40 year old man expects no less than a ravishing 20 something. There are plain women who need husbands, too."

A man whose "standards for appearance [is] ridiculously high" -- given the context of what *he* has to offer that women value -- is a man who will remain single. Problem solved, don't you think?

"A portly 40 year old man expects no less than a ravishing 20 something. There are plain women who need husbands, too."

Now, see? You're doing the very thing that the woman in question is doing -- you're demanding that men be women.

What you're say is something like this: "If this particular man (a "portly 40 year old") were a woman, he wouldn't stand a snowball's chance in hell of attracting a mate he (as a 'she') desires."

Well, yes. But, the fact is, he's *not* a "plain woman" (presumably) trying to attract a man she finds desirable; he's a "portly 40 year old man" (presumably) trying to attract a woman he finds desirable.

And the plain fact is that men and women find quite different traits or characteristics to be desirable in the opposite sex --
1) men desire women who can give them children (and who *respect* them .. and who also desire sexual activity with them, as this is generally how men achieve the emotional-belief that “she loves-and-respects me”); this tends to skew towards "a ravishing 20 something";
2) women desire men who can -- and will commit to -- support their children (and who *cherish* them ... and who also sexually desire them while not being kinky in those sexual desires, as this is generally how women achieve the emotional-belief that “he loves-and-cherishes me”); this tends to skew towards "successful" men ... who, not infrequently, are "portly 40 year olds".

But, with women, there is an added twist: women tend to desire the men that already belong to other women (in this context, by 'women', I really mean "human females with the minds of junior high-school girls, regardless of their chronological ages"). That is, as women tend to be herd creatures, they not infrequently fall into the fallacy of judging the worth of a man not on his own merits, but on some amorphous herd consensus: “if some other woman desires him, he must be desirable” -- this is why, in the present day, we see masses of 'women' going ga-ga over absolute trolls ... provided those trolls are pushed on TV.


"Even men who don't look at pornography are bombarded with images of perfect women in media."

It's not due to "the media", and it's not due to pornography -- it's due to human nature and the *different* things men, in general, desire in women, compared to what women, in general, desire in men. There is an added twist, of course, and you can blame "the media" if you wish: our cultural elites (who tend to be leftists and God-haters) have spent the past couple of centuries working to make the vices of the sexes into the (perceived) virtues; and, most recently, having convinced most 'men' that being a cad is what manhood is all about, they've switched gears to trying to turn men into ersatz women (though, not, of course, virtuous women, but the opposite).

But, on the basic human nature angle, why do you think that older men -- even before Christianity -- have *always* cautioned younger men to not make physical appearance the most important criterion by which they pick a woman, but rather to look at the full package of what she can bring to a marriage, starting with whether she is a woman of honor (thus, being a slut pretty much out-weighed whatever good qualities she might have)? Why do you think that older women -- even before Christianity -- have *always* cautioned younger women to not make popularity the most important criterion by which they pick a man, but rather to look at the full package of what he can bring to a marriage, starting with whether he is a man of honor (thus, being a cad pretty much out-weighed whatever good qualities he might have)?

Now, it's true that we presently live in society in which the social elites devalue -- 'hate' is not too strong a word -- marriage and commitment. It's true that we live in a society in which the social elites (who tend to be leftists and atheists) have been hard at work for the past couple of centuries to divorce "sex" from reproduction in the minds and attitudes of "the masses" -- and thus we see masses of women, and men, in their 30s and 40s, with a lot of notches on their bed-posts, but no committment: no *real* marriage (even if they have gone through some ceremony); no (living) children, but any number of children murdered via abortion, and no grandchildren.

But, there is no *reason* that the individual must submit to this cultural suicide. As Mark Steyn always says: "The future belongs to those who show up" ... and those who fall prey to the leftist/atheistic hatred of real marriage, and real sexual activity -- which is to say, making babies -- tend to de-select themselves from The Future (tm). The current cultural consensus -- hatred of real marriage -- is unstable and, in fact, self-destroying.

Further, we live in a deliberately feminized age. By this I mean that most 'men' *already* have been trained by our leftist/atheist elites think and behave similarly to women (in this context, by 'women', I really mean "junior high-school girls"). And most 'women *already* have been trained by our leftist/atheist elites to never mature out of the mindest of junior-high girls.

The solution to the discontents of 'women' who have wasted -- as they were *taught* to do -- their 20s and 30s chasing after everything *except* the one thing that they, as women, really do most desire, is not "more of the same", and it's not "let's brow-beat men into trying to be women", and it certainly isn't "let's pretend that we were not intentionally mislead, and that we did not willingly join in our own deception and did not willingly cooperate in the ruination of our own lives."


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