For 'liberals', the rest of the world isn't real

Wintery Knight: Surprise! WMDs from Iraq were moved to Syria by Saddam Hussein

Of course, there is in truth absolutely no surprise that Saddam Hussein's stockpiles of chemical weapons -- you know, those famously "missing" WMD -- were shipped to Syria during the Bush administration's infamous (and non-existant) "rush to war". The world watched the shippments happen in realtime, as the Bush administration spent months working to convince the "liberals" to get on-board with taking out Saddam Hussein regime.

But, to "liberals", the rest of the world isn't real, the lives of the people in the rest of the world aren't real, their mass-murders aren't real(*). Thus, since the most important thing to "liberals" was to cripple the Bush administration, any inconvieniet truth out there in the rest of the world could be ignored and denied(**) ... no matter the forseeable consequences.


(*) Though, in defense of the "liberals", the lives of the "small brown people" in the US whom they pretend to champion aren't real to them, either.

(**) And, for "liberals", any truth of reality that the rest of us cannot force them to acknowledge does not exist.

You get what you reward

Michael Barone, in Real Clear Politics: Men Find Careers in Collecting Disability

Only gentiles could be this dumb

That ["Only gentiles could be this dumb"] is the title Kathy Shaidle applied to her link this post: Jew-hating United Church members pretending to be self-hating Jews

This is my comment to that post --

"Independent Jewish Voices' claim that they are members of the United Church who happen to be Jews is about as valid as someone who says they are a Sunni Muslim who happens to be a member of the Roman Catholic Church. These are mutually exclusive terms and you're either one or the other. By their professed beliefs and actions, it seems clear that Independent Jewish Voices is made up of Christians masquerading as Jews for the sole purpose of attempting to lend a sick pseudo-legitimacy to their demonization of the Jewish state."

While I suspect that it's probably true that "Independent Jewish Voices" are not Jews, your argument against them lacks a certain umph. For, after all:

* one can be an 'atheist' ... and still be a "Jew"

* one can be an leftist ... and still be a "Jew"

* one can be a Buddhist ... and still be a "Jew"

* one can even be a Moslem ... and still be a "Jew" (at least in Reform circles)

Apparently, the only dual-loyalty not allowed is to be a Christian who is a Jew.

The United Church of Canada is a "liberal" -- which is to say, leftist -- "ecumenical Protestant" denomination of (these days) mostly pseudo-Christians: if there is an anti-Biblical, and especially leftist, proposition out there, you can be sure that the UCC will promote it. Of course they hate Israel, and Jews in general -- they're leftists.

At the same time, many Jews -- at any rate, the sort I call "bagel Jews" -- do seem to go out of their way to make it easy for non-Jews to have a low opinion of, or even hatred toward, Jews in general. When your "Judaism" amounts to little more than hatred of Christianity (*), how can you be surprized that persons whose "Christianity" amounts to little more than "my sainted mother was a Christian" have a low opinion of Jews?

You know, I myself have Jewish ancestors, and I will never be ashamed of nor hide that fact. I like the fact that Israel exists as a "Jewish State". I like the fact that Christian America has always thought highly of Judaism and has welcomed Jews as Jews. At the same time, there are times I get so fed up with irrational Jewish whinging, and irrational Jewish hatred of, and sometimes lies about, Christianity.


(*) By the way, there is a simiar dynamic amongst Canadians, especially the more "liberal" or leftist they are -- for many Canadians, their Canadianness amounts to little more than, "We're not Americans! ... and that makes us better, nicer, and more moral than they are!"

Sauce for the goose

Victor Reppert: Sauce for the goose --

Perhaps I can pose the question concerning the multiverse and ECREE this way. Look, if people consistently denied the probabilistic relevance of the multiverse in all contexts, that would be one thing. They could say "Regardless of the multiverse, we have to look at what is probable in the world as we experience it. but in fact, the multiverse theory is used to mitigate the initial improbability of a finely-tuned universe without a designer." But, if you can help yourself to the multiverse to blunt the effect of the fine-tuning argument, can't you also use the multiverse theory to blunt the effect of the initial improbability argument against miracles such as the Resurrection.

The "ECREE" to which Mr Reppert refers is that bogus, anti-reason, anti-logic, hypocritical, self-serving, selectively employed "principle" enunciated by Carl Sagan, and immediately latched upon by the self-proclaimed Epitomés of Reason (*) everywhere (who, while they are willfully irrational, are not wholly stupid): "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."

Victor Reppert: "Perhaps I can pose the question concerning the multiverse and ECREE this way ..."

By definition, human beings will never have, and can never have, "scientific evidence" of any "other universe", much less of a "multiverse". By definition, any evidence that is asserted to be of some "other universe" is just more facualy-claims about *this* universe, which is the only one to which we can ever have "scientific" access.

While he's far too "nice", or at any rate, far too much the academic, to come right out and bluntly say it like a man, what Mr Reppert is getting at in the above post is the intellectual dishonesty -- that is, the hypocrisy with respect to reason -- that undergirds *all* deployment of the "ECREE" pseudo-principle. (**)

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Victor Reppert: "But, if you can help yourself to the multiverse to blunt the effect of the fine-tuning argument, can't you also use the multiverse theory to blunt the effect of the initial improbability argument against miracles such as the Resurrection[?]"

I have discussed this previously, in the 'Science!' and Miracles ... and Skepticism! thread. Here is that same Carl Sagan, making "extraordinary claims" -- sans *any* evidence, whatsoever -- and expecting you simpy to believe them because they are 'Science!':

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."

As I have previously said concerning Sagan's 'Science!':

And, sometimes, iron axeheads which have flown off their handles and fallen into a pond or river float to the surface. [This is a reference to a miracle of the prophet Elisha, as recorded in II Kings 6:1-7] And, sometimes, the dead bodies of persons who really and truly are dead, rise back to life. [This is a reference to a number of resurrections recorded in both Old and New Testaments, including that of Jesus the Christ.]

So, given what 'scientistes' believe and assert about the nature of reality, how can their denial of, and refusal to believe, any of the miracles recorded in the Bible be anything other than selective hyper-skepticism, which is to say, intellectual dishonesty?

(*) Even Bob Prokop, who consistently employs this "principle" to protect his leftism from rational examination, understands that the entire point of "ECREE" is to protect God-denial and materialism/naturalism from rational examination: "In my experience, ECREE is simply another way for skeptics to say, "Whatever you say, and no matter what evidence you submit, there is no way in the world you will ever get me to change my already made up mind.""

(**) Concerning the "ECREE" assertion of a pseudo-principle -- Even if it were not offered hypocritically, it is false in itself: the simple truth is that just as with "ordinary claims", "extraordinary claims" -- whatever "ordinary" and "extraordinary" are supposed to mean -- require only appropriate evidence.

He doesn't quite get it

Dennis Prager: He Wants You

It's a good talk, mostly on the money, and brings out some important points that people, which is to say, women, really do need to understand. Nevertheless, Prager doesn't quite understand what he's talking about --

First off, it's *not* true that "men are programmed by nature to want variety". While, they may be "programmed" by pop culture -- which is just the logical out-working of society's buy-in two or three generations ago to the libertine project -- to "want variety", that "programming" assuredly is not "nature" (*).

Related: it's not really so much that looking at the women around us "turns us on" -- that's a libertine slander against all men -- rather, it's that we find women, and their bodies, and the details of their bodies to be the most beautiful things in the world, quite apart from "being turned on". Most of us, when we look at women -- when we study women -- are not really "lusting in our hearts" (**). Rather, we are admiring, and drinking-in, beauty.

Second, and most importantly -- and the honest truth that almost no one is willing to allow anyone to say out loud, much less to themselves admit -- the reason that women "feel threatened" by their man looking at another woman is because they would "feel threatened" by that woman even if her man was nowhere around. The sad truth is that most women, no matter the ages of their bodies, are still in junior high in their psyches -- which is to say, all women (except those few who are mature) see themselves as being in a never-ending sexual competition with all other women.

Prager correctly says that the woman mistakenly imagines that her man is comparing her to the woman he was/is looking at, and further imagines that he is or will become dissatisfied with her by the comparison. But, Prager totally misses the reason that she incorrectly imagines that the man is comparing/ranking the two women: it's because she is comparing herself to the other woman or women, and judging herself to be lacking rank. The reason that "she is sure that her man will continue to think about these women long after they've disappeared from sight" is because she will continue to think about (and compare herself to) these women long after they've disappeared from sight.

At about the 2:23 mark, Prager says "But here's the point that most women, again understandably, don't know: with very few exceptions, it doesn't matter [that the man may have considered the passing woman to be more attractive than his woman]!" Now, it's true that in most cases it does not matter to the man that he considers the other woman to be objectively more physically attractive than his own woman -- for, after all, if he's a normal man, he's not fantasizing about bedding her; he just wants to enjoy her beauty. But, it's not "understandable" that women don't know this -- they don't know it because they don't want to know it, most of them refuse to know it.

If you’re the male half of the couple, (unless she’s one of the few mature women) she’s all-but-guaranteed to fishingly ask you, “Do you think that woman is prettier than me?” - if she asks this, it’s because she already thinks so, and she’s demanding that you tell her otherwise. My advice is: say the truth (***) - it won’t do you a bit of good, anyway, to say that the other woman is less attractive if she isn’t. In fact, in the long run, it will hurt you.

When a woman is comparing her man against another, whether the comparison is by appearance or social status or wealth, and so on, it’s generally the case that she is already dissatisfied with him, that she has already convinced herself that she “deserves better”. It’s generally the case that she’s comparing him to other men because she “window shopping” - when the man looks at another woman, his woman is likely to fear that he’s comparing her to the other woman, and will be dissatisfied with her, and may leave he because that’s the trajectory she’d already be on if she were comparing him to another man.


Lastly, here's the said truth about all this: most woman will not hear what Prager is saying: "He doesn't want the other woman he chanced to see and look at, he wants you". All but those few woman who are mature don't give a damn about what men, in general, or their man, in particular, wants with respect to women. Well, with respect to anything, really. Prager is talking about a decision, about an act of will on the man's part -- and women, by and large, want to imagine that that men have no say in the matter.

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(*) Seriously! Which sex is notorious for whinging to their friends about being "bored" with married life, in general, and specifically with the way their spouse approaches and carries out "loving-making"?

(**) And that is actually Prager's take-home message to women, he just phrases it differently.

(***) You could evade the question, you could refuse to answer it … but you’ll just repeatedly face it again until you teach her that you’re not going to lie when she insists upon asking you that.

True, but

William Vallicella posts an aphorism that "He who merely restates his position in the teeth of criticism has not responded to it." And this is true, so far as it goes. But, at the same time, most of what passes for 'criticism' isn't.

Electing a new people

via Kathy Shaidle: Allan Wall, on VDare: Memo From Middle America | Obama’s Administrative Amnesty Not Applicable To White, Legal, English Girl. And While We’re On The Subject, Aren’t British Immigrants Preferable To Mexican Immigrants Anyway?

When he's right, he's right

Lawrence Auster: a theory explaining Romney’s bizarre emptiness --

I have a theory explaining Romney’s bizarre emptiness. It has to do with his Mormonism. Mormonism consists, at its core, of many ridiculous assertions that no rational person could possibly believe. Why then does Mormonism “work” so well for its adherents? Because the practical core of the religion is not this folderol about a family of sixth century B.C. Jews sailing from Mesopotamia to North America or Joseph Smith discovering a 2,000 year old platinum scripture written by an angel buried behind his farm in upstate New York, but the patriarchal way of life it counsels. This is deeply appealing to people, and it works for them. That’s why they are Mormons. At the same time, in order to be Mormons, they have to turn off their rational faculty when it comes to questions of truth. They disregard questions of truth, and focus on the pragmatic, ethical aspects of Mormonism.

And this describes Romney perfectly. As a Mormon, he has turned off his faculty of the rational search for truth, but at the same time he follows the healthy and solid Mormon maxims on how to live a good life. As a result, he is a man devoid of principles, even while his personal character and behavior are exemplary.

To expand upon Mr Auster's theory -- it's not *merely* that Mormonism requires its adherents to believe empirical assertions "that no rational person could possibly believe", but that it requires them to believe metaphysical assertions (*) "that no rational person could possibly believe".

Mormonism is, in this regard, much like atheism in requiring the holding of irrational metaphysical assertions. And, most 'atheists' get around that problem by generally ignoring their metaphysical commitments ... and living their daily lives, for the most part, in accord with our Judeo-Christian metaphysical commitments. Can you imagine what the world would be like if every 'atheist' tried to live like Lenin, Stalin and Mao?

(*) For instance, that "God" is merely one more entity, amongst the many, in 'the universe'. That is, the Mormon "God" is not different in kind from you and me, or from Zeus. To put it another way, the Mormon "God" is an effect of 'the universe', rather than its cause.

'‘... a lying, thieving Albanian dwarf.'

... or, Stupid Atheist Tricks, Part 'N'

Michael Egnor has a recent post called "... a lying, thieving Albanian dwarf." concerning "[a]n atheist group at Dartmouth College [which] is planning an event aimed at skewering the reputation of the late Mother Teresa." This strange title comes from the late Christopher Hitchens' "description" and moral condemnation of that saintly woman.

Disregarding, for the sake of argument, whether or not it is true that she was "a lying, thieving" person, Mr Hitchens' asserted "description" of her certainly seems to be asserting a moral judgment about her, in particular, and about liars and thieves, in general. To wit: that one ought not be either a liar or a thief.

Now, keep in mind, Christopher Hitchens was a militant atheist. He was one of the patron saints, so to speak, of the silly and obnoxious fools known as 'New Atheists'.

The point is that -- as every rational being knows, and as every honest rational being admits -- IF atheism were indeed the truth about the nature of reality, THEN there neither is, nor could be, any such truths as "one ought" and "one ought not". IF atheism were indeed the truth about the nature of reality, THEN to assert that Mother Teresa was a liar and a thief is no more informative than to assert that she was an Albanian or a dwarf (*).

With the above logically inescapable truth in mind, I said: "Wait a cotton-picking minute, here! Since when was there anything, you know, wrong with being "... a lying, thieving Albanian dwarf"? Do 'atheists' have some rational ground by which to object to Albanians and/or dwarves?"

This comment, of course, became the cue for one of the lying, thieving, moral midgets who infest Mr Egnor's blog to pipe up and demonstrate his intellectual dishonesty: "Wait, we're in 2012 and there still are morons who think "how can you be moral if you are an atheist?" is not a ridiculously stupid question?"

Mr Egnor tried to treat that particular intellectually hishonest Anonymouse as though he were merely mistaken, as though he simply misunderstood the point at issue, rather than as that the Anonymouse is an intelectually dishonest man -- a liar, and worse than a liar -- who will not understand the point at issue.

In response to Mr Egnor's comment to the Anonymouse, the intellectually dishonest God-hater who posts there as 'bachfiend' chose to demonstrate both his intellectual dishonesty and his disinclination to reason soundly (the two traits are differerent sides of the same coin, after all): "No you're wrong again. Morality is objective. It's not decided by the individual. It's decided by the community, the society, in which the person lives. ..."

Responding to the initial Anonymouse in his own style, I said: "Wait, we're in 2012 and there still are God-damned morons who try to pretend that the question "on what objective ground are you basing the moral assertion you just asserted?" equals the assertion that "God-haters do not know, and cannot conform themselves to, the objective moral law!""

Now, do no imagine that I was simply being profane in calling the Anonymouse 'God-damned' -- when I assert that someone is 'God-damned', I am being deadly serious. I asserted that the Anonymouse is damned-of-God because he shows himself to be an hypocrite with respect to reason and truth. Of course, that damned-of-God Anonymouse is not *really* a moron -- my use of that word was simply to echo his style -- if he really were a moron, then he'd (likely) not be able understand that what he'd said was false, in which case he couldn't be intellectually dishonest in saying it.

My point, as always, is not that these people cannot reason, but rather that they will not reason. My point is not that they are 'morons' or 'stupid', but that they are fools, that they are intellectually dishonest: for they purposely lie about the very nature of truth itself.

(*) And, by the by, Mother Teresa wasn't a dwarf, much less a lying, thieving dwarf. Though, apparently sadly, she was an Albanian. So: Hitchens got one assertion out of four correct ... which was far better than his usual average.

How is it that ...

How is it that 900 "votes" can be cast in a precinct with seven registered voters? It seems to me that Democrats are almost as amazing mathematicians as Darwinists -- the Darwinists win because they can sum all negative numbers and get a positive result.

Oh, come on, be serious! The Democrats didn't steal the election in just this one race.

(h/t Laura Rosen Cohen: One Man, One Vote, One Hundred Times)