Compare and Contrast

William Vallicella (2017/08/03): Reliably Inconclusive

Such is philosophical argumentation. Philosophers arrive at conclusions, but the conclusions they arrive at are inconclusive.

If the "conclusions" at which "philosophers" arrive are (always-or-generally) inconclusive, then philosophy is worthless.

On the other hand, if what he really means -- and he does (in part) -- is that no matter how "conclusively" one establishes a conclusion, it is always possible for a free being to ignore-and-deny the logical necessity-given-the-premises of the conclusion; that is a free being may assert the premise(s) and yet deny the logical entailment(s) of the very premise(s) he has asserted; or, to use other words: to lie to himself.

As I've said before, Vallicella's problem is that (in almost all cases where it matters) he care more for the chin-wagging side of "philosophy" than he does of logical/rational task of determining/discovering what is true-and-may-be-known-to-be-true. This flaw is most obvious as regards "the God question" -- he's a "theist" who *hates* (and thus denies) the fact that we can know, without recourse to the Biblical Revelation (or any other alleged divine-revelation), using only the application of reason to experience, that there is a Creator-God (that is, that atheism is a false understanding of reality and the nature thereof).


William Vallicella (2017/08/04): A Neurosurgeon on the Immateriality of Thought

Michael Egnor, A Map of the Soul. Not philosophically sophisticated, but worth a look.

Given Vallicella's witticism of just one day prior, who gives a damn that he holds Mr Egnor's piece to be not "philosophically sophisticated"?

So that people can see them

Douglas Wilson: In Which I Paint With Some Bright Yellows --

First, whenever we get to that elusive and ever-receding “hill to die on,” we will discover, upon our arrival there, that it only looked like a hill to die on from a distance. Up close, when the possible dying is also up close, it kind of looks like every other hill. All of a sudden it looks like a hill to stay alive on, covered over with topsoil that looks suspiciously like common ground.

So it turns out that surrendering hills is not the best way to train for defending the most important ones. Retreat is habit-forming.

This brings us to my second goal this morning, which is to highlight the principle. ...

...
But I am not trying [to] equate anything here — I am simply trying to illustrate how a believer’s conscience ought to work if he is employed by a government that tries to sin grievously through the instrumentality of a godly magistrate. This is just how I paint illustrations, with bright yellows and gaudy greens. I do that so that people can see them.

Douglas Wilson: Benedict and Beza Options

But that, though a nice statement of the problem, does not answer the problem. We need a solution to the impasse created by political polytheism, which is what under-girds our incoherent system of pluralism and diversity. Schizophrenia doesn’t work for cultures any more than it does for individuals.

So all these questions can be answered, I believe, by emphasizing something that all politically-engaged Christians should get tattooed on their frontal lobes — facing in, so that they can see it all the time.

Political process is not neutral. Administrative process is not neutral. Procedures are not neutral. Constitutional law is not neutral. Nothing is neutral. Everything we do corporately in the body politic is an expression of our foundational faith. That faith will either be the true faith — what I have been calling mere Christendom — or it will be an attempt to build a great skyscraper civilization on the foundation of our watered-down secular concrete.

The “rule of law” is not some “pure neutrality,” an ethereal gas that enables a bunch of members of different faiths and religions to bond together in the same society. The rule of law is actually a codified expression of certain aspects of our Christian inheritance. It is part of our legacy and heritage for a reason. It came from somewhere. It grew and developed in some countries and not in others for profound religious reasons. The rule of law has no evident authority apart from the authority of a transcendent God.

There is *always* a "god of the system", and if that god is not The Living God, then it's going to be some idol ... and there is going to be at least one demon inhabiting the idol, just waiting to feast on human souls.

Michael Egnor: Christian county clerk sent to jail for her opposition to gay marriage

Michael Egnor: What's the difference between a clerk not enforcing gay marriage law and a president not enforcing immigration law?

Michael Egnor: What's the difference between a clerk not enforcing gay marriage law and a president not enforcing IRS law?

Michael Egnor: Why are the President's myriad and persistent refusals to enforce law treated as discretionary, but a clerk's refusal to issue a marriage certificate deemed worthy of jail time.

Michael Egnor: What Judge David L. Bunning got wrong

There is no place for racists on the Supreme Court

Michael Egnor: There is no place for racists on the Supreme Court

Scientism of the Day

Michael Egnor, quoting a Warm-monger -- "The hardest thing about communicating the deadliness of the climate problem is that it isn’t killing anyone. And just between us, let’s be honest: the average member of the public is a bit (how can I put it politely?) of a moron. It’s all well and good for the science to tell us global warming is a bigger threat than Fascism was, but Joe Q. Flyover doesn’t understand science. He wants evidence."

Damn those "morons" in Flyoverland for not understanding "science" and for wanting evidence before they're willing to submit their lives to the arbitrary whims of the Warm-mongers!


By the way, Egnor quotes the Warm-monger, and comments, far more extensively. Do read his post.

Out of the ballpark, or Stupid 'Atheist' Tricks VIII

Another great one from Michael Egnor: Ed Brayton: "Apparently, hurting the feelings of the religious is a crime in that county".

What's so great about Ilion's blog?

Recently, one of the God-hating leftists who infest Michael Egnor blog asked, "What's so great about Ilion's blog?"

In full, he said, " What's so great about Ilion's blog? His posts consist mainly of links. There are hardly any signs of intellectual activity there."

Think about this condemnation of me he offers -- because I think that others' thoughts are worth thinking about and are worth sharing with others, therefore, there are hardly any signs of intellectual activity here.

You just know that if I never posted anything but my own musings, he'd be condemning me for that ... and in the same terms.

Leftists, atheists ... they are almost always intellectually dishonest.

The MFAP hypothesis of human evolution

I've know about this particular howler for some months. I wish to share with Gentle Reader Michael Egnor's amusing take: You thought descent from apes was bad

A case of 'Big Business' takes a hit to the wallet

As we all know, "liberals", with their heartfelt solicitous concern for "the little guy", have a constitutional distrust/hate of "Big Business" (*) -- one of their favorite means of denigrating ideas or arguments they don't like and don't want to deal with is to associate them in some way with "Big Business", a la "Oh, that's just 'Big Oil/Pharma/Ag/etc' speaking ... so it's automatically false (and a lie)" -- so, I'm sure we can expect to see rejoicing from "liberals" all across the land, now that "Big Abort" has taken a hit to its quite ample wallet.

Michael Egnor (quoting Wesley Smith): "If abortion was really only 3% of [Planned Parenthood]..."


(*) except, of course, when they don't

More on the militarization of the police

Michale Egnor: The militarization of law enforcement

'There's too much money in politics'

Michael Egnor: There's too much money in politics. Your tax money, specifically.

Idolatry

Michael Egnor: Magdi Allam and the Catholic Church

Proph (at The Orthosphere): Losing our religion III: The Francis issue

The idolatry of which I speak is that of Mr Egnor and Proph and many of their commenters with regard to the RCC, the One True Bureaucracy. Let's concentrate on Mr Egnor's response to Mr Allam's reason/excuse for leaving the Roman denomination.

Gentle Reader may recall a recent post of mine, 'A Suicide Pact?', in which I linked to the web-page laying out the official position of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops with respect to "comprehensive immigration reform", wherein I said that the position of the USCCB is one of deliberate national suicide. Gentle Reader may not know that I linked to that page in response to Mr Engor's quote of Hilaire Belloc, to the effect that the One True Bureaucracy is the House of Man.

Linking to the USCCB's statement, I asked Mr Egnor:

Do you (and Belloc) mean this Catholic Church? You know, the one that asserts that Christians have a duty to aid in the destruction of the country, both as a polity and as a people?

To relate this to the OP, my thought is that the USCCB is telling us that [-- as Christians --] we must burn our house down.

One is free to follow the discussion (including, if so inclined, the postings by the intellectually dishonest fools 'Anonymous', 'Hoo', and 'Adm. G Boggs, Glenbeckistan Navy'), but the short of it is that despite his long-term expression of concern over Leftism's intentional acts and policies aimed at destroying America as a polity and as a people, when the leftists are wearing the robes of prelates, he can no longer find his voice.

Now, consider Mr Egnor's recent post concerning Magdi Allam

Michael Egnor, quoting John Allen, Jr, concerning Magdi Allam:

Unfortunately, in thinking about why Allam took this step, most people haven't gotten past the headline. If you consider the entire essay he published March 25 outlining his thinking, it makes for very interesting reading.

Allam says he's leaving Catholicism because of what he describes as four "physiological" features of the church he can no longer tolerate:

* "Relativism," meaning the fact that the church "welcomes inside itself an infinity of communities, congregations, ideologies and material interests that translate into containing everything and the opposite of everything."

* "Globalism," meaning the church "takes positions ideologically contrary to nations as identities and civilizations that must be preserved, preaching the overcoming of national boundaries."

* A tendency to being "do-gooders," meaning "putting on the same level, if not actually preferring" the interests of people outside one's community with the community's own interests.

* A "temptation to evil," which Allam blames on "imposing behaviors in conflict with human nature ... such as priestly celibacy, abstaining from sex outside marriage and the indissolubility of marriage, along with the temptation of money."

I agree with Allen that Allam is right that the first three characteristics are those of the Church. They are also those of Christ.

"Relativism" and "Globalism" used in the sense Allam uses it is a good thing; the Church must avoid sectarianism and exclusion to the greatest extent possible. Certain ideologies must be anathema-- Marxism, Nazism, atheism, for example-- but the world's only truly global organization must not be captive to pointless sectarianism.

And a tendency to be "do gooders"? Goodness gracious, that is what the Christian life is. We are called to radical do-gooding, by the original do-gooder Himself.

Some of Allam's criticisms of the Church's supposed accommodation with Islam resonate with me a bit as well, but I trust the Church. She alone has fought Islam for 1400 years. She understands the issues as no other entity does. Defiance has its place, for sure, and I share Allam's general assessment of the totalitarian nature of Islam, but lives and souls are at stake, and the Church's policy of engagement and respect has much to say for it.

I trust the Church.

Allum's fourth "physiological" feature which he can 'no longer tolerate' is raw nonsense. The Church is right on all of these issues.

Quothe Michael Egnor, "I agree with Allen that Allam is right that the first three characteristics are those of the Church. They are also those of Christ."

Simply amazing!

Mr Allam's first three points, according to Mr Allen (who appears to be quoting Allam), and Mr Egnor's responses to them, are:

1) ""Relativism" -- meaning the fact that the church "welcomes inside itself an infinity of communities, congregations, ideologies and material interests that translate into containing everything and the opposite of everything."

2) "Globalism" -- meaning the church "takes positions ideologically contrary to nations as identities and civilizations that must be preserved, preaching the overcoming of national boundaries."

"I agree with Allen that Allam is right that the first three characteristics are those of the Church. They are also those of Christ.

"Relativism" and "Globalism" used in the sense Allam uses it is a good thing; the Church must avoid sectarianism and exclusion to the greatest extent possible. Certain ideologies must be anathema-- Marxism, Nazism, atheism, for example-- but the world's only truly global organization must not be captive to pointless sectarianism."

So, while avoiding addressing Mr Allam's actual criticisms of the socio-political stances of the ruling bureaucracy of the One True Bureaucracy, Mr Egnor nevertheless asserts that those socio-political stances are "those of Christ."

Let's consider "Globalism", as Mr Allam appears to be using the term -- meaning the church "takes positions ideologically contrary to nations as identities and civilizations that must be preserved, preaching the overcoming of national boundaries."

According to Mr Egnor, these positions are "those of Christ." According to Mr Egnor, it is God's Will to destroy the nations as discrete peoples, and to destroy the nation-states as discrete polities.

Now, I deny that this is God's Will for nations, as peoples or as polities ... but, is this not *exactly* what I had previously argued on his blog is the socio-political stance of the One True Bureaucracy, and which (at the time) he couldn't quite bring himself to acknowledge? Is it not *exactly* what I had previously said (though had not argued) on my blog is the socio-political stance of the One True Bureaucracy, and which Bob Prokop is unwilling to see, even though it is right there in black and white, requiring only that one read with comprehension?

3) A tendency to being "do-gooders" -- meaning "putting on the same level, if not actually preferring" the interests of people outside one's community with the community's own interests.

"I agree with Allen that Allam is right that the first three characteristics are those of the Church. They are also those of Christ.

And a tendency to be "do gooders"? Goodness gracious, that is what the Christian life is. We are called to radical do-gooding, by the original do-gooder Himself."

Christ does not call us to prefer the interests of other families, communities, and nations over the interests of our own families, communities, and nations. Christ does not demand of us that we betray our natural loyalties; he calls us to rightly understand and order them, but not to betray them, not to violate them, not to destroy them.

Christ does, sometimes, call us to prefer the interests of other individuals over our own narrow personal interests. But, even then, it is a matter of proper understanding or ordering. It is not that Christ calls us to sacrifice ourselves for the sake of 'The Other', but rather that he calls us to *stop* sacrificing 'The Other' for the sake of our improper interests.

This is not Christianity to which Mr Egnor is agreeing and defending, it is Leftism.

Leftism is a heresy of Judeo-Christianity, and specifically of Catholicism -- Leftism could never have arisen in a purely Hindu social milieu, for instance -- and even in the best of times, Catholicism has *always* been on the brink of falling into Leftism. Apparently, The One True Bureaucracy has committed itself to Leftism, at last.

So, it seems to me, the question is now: who are the faithful Catholics who are faithful to Christ, and who are those who are faithful to the Bureaucracy? As for all men, the question is always "Whom do you worship? Is your God Christ, or is your god Something Else?"

Stupid 'Atheist' Tricks III

I suspect that I could make a new "Stupid 'Atheist' Tricks" post every day from the raw material provided by the 'atheists' who infest Michael Egnor's blog and not run the risk of exhausting the vein. Mind you, Gentle Reader, I'm not saying that any of these 'atheists' are themselves stupid. No, no, no: it's the tricks that are stupid; the 'atheists' are just intellectually dishonest.

Consider this recently unearthed gem, concerning a video to which Michael Egnor had linked --

troy: "Apart from the gullible and the demented, does anyone take that huckster still seriously?"

Ilíon: "We all know what you mean, troy. *Everything* about Dawkins, and especially that [prissy] sissy accent he uses, is hucksterish and quite annoying."

troy: "No, obviously I meant that huckster WLC. Except lining his own pockets at the expense of the gullible and demented, and making the insecure believers feel a little better about their superstitions, what do know now that we wouldn't have known without his 'scholarship'?"

And that, boys and girls, is atheistic "reasoning" in a nutshell.

Why is Willian Lane Craig a "huckster", who is "lining his own pockets at the expense of the gullible and demented"? Why is it that all he does is "making the insecure believers feel a little better about their superstitions"? Why is it that it is questionable there is anything we "know now that we wouldn't have known without his 'scholarship'"?

Why? One reason, and only one reason -- because he kicks atheistic butt, using logic they cannot counter; you know, logic, which 'atheists' like to imagine that they own, or even invented.

Why is it that Christians are "gullible and demented", who hold to "superstitions", rather than to ralional beliefs? Why is it that Christians are "insecure believers [who need someone to make them] feel a little better about their superstitions"?

Why? One reason, and only one reason -- because, in utter contrast to atheism, Christianity can be supported by evidence and logical reasoning ... and, because, moreover, even if evidence-and-logical-reason were to falsify Christianty, it remains forever the case that logical reasoning falsifies atheism.

This "projectile reasoning", as I call it -- this psychological "projection" having nothing to do with actually reasoning -- is how 'atheists' tend to "reason" about "religion", especially Christianity (*), and their own God-hatred.

Which is to say, they do not reason, for, they do the very opposite of reason. And this little example I've shown above really is standard-issue "reasoning" amongst the 'atheists' one will encounter on the internet or in real life.

(*) And really, other than Judaism, what other religion does *any* member of a Western society really care about?


BUT, let's play pretend -- let us pretend that some 'atheist', perhaps even this 'troy' (who brings disrepute to a noble name), has shown that WLC is a "huckster"; further, let us even pretend that some 'atheist', perhaps even this 'troy', has falsified Christianity, and thereby shown it to be a "superstitions" (which would, of course, seem to entail that Christians are "gullible and demented" "insecure believers [who need someone to make them] feel a little better about their superstitions).

NOW, having pretended the truth of these things that 'troy' asserts (but *never* even attempts to demonstrate), allow me to ask you: So, what?

Do you not get it? On top of his claims-of-fact, this so-called atheist is asserting moral claims -- he is asserting that there is an objective-and-transcendent moral reality, knowable to human beings, and to which we are obligated to conform ourselves.

As the old saying goes: what the Hell?! Where did that come from?

'Error has no rights'

Michael Egnor: "Error has no rights"

... Cardinal Ottaviani's aphorism-- "Error has no rights"-- is either true or pernicious, depending on who it is who is granting the "rights". Certainly error has no rights in theology and in church doctrine and governance. The Lord's Church, and the many churches in His Body, should confer no rights on error. Orthodoxy is simply the truth, and with that there can be no compromise.

But "Error has no rights" is, in a different sense-- a secular sense-- true. Only persons have rights. Error-- ideas-- cannot have rights. Both theses assertions are true: error should not be permitted within the Church, and prohibition against error should not be imposed by the state. Persons have rights, vis-a-vi the state, to hold religious beliefs and to live in accordance to those beliefs, regardless of whether secular rulers regard those beliefs and practices as truths or as errors.

Ironically, as Weigel points out, "Error has no rights" was not enforced by the Church, as it should have been, and that has clearly led to doctrinal collapse and manifest sin. On the other hand, the secular state has taken up the doctrine of "Error has no rights" with a vengeance, and is in the process of crushing Christians who live by their faith.

Many Christian churches lack all conviction, while secular Torquemadas ferret out Christian belief and praxis with passionate intensity.

Irony abounds.

Egnor on 'separation of church and state'

Michael Egnor: Steven Novella on the "separation of church and state" --

...
So, one may ask, how did "separation of church and state" become a part of American jurisprudence, given that it originated in the personal letter of a man who had nothing to do with the Constitution and who believed that our rights were God-given?

Actually, "separation of church and state" had noting at all to do with American jurisprudence until 1870 (in the Supreme Court's Reynolds decision on Mormon polygamy), and there it was used only tangentially.

It remained absent from American law until it was used by Justice Hugo Black in the Everson decision in 1947, which addressed the use of public money to transport children to Catholic schools.

So how could a throw-away phrase written in a private letter by a man who had nothing to do with the Constitution become Constitutional law?

Well, "separation of church and state" was in fact a very popular phrase for several centuries, but not in law. It was a ubiquitous mantra among nativists and bigots. "Separation of church and state" was the desiderata of Catholic-haters beginning just before the Civil War, when Irish Catholic immigration became significant. It was incorporated in the Ku Klux Klan initiation oath.

I repeat: For a century and a half after the ratification of the Constitution, "separation of church and state" had essentially nothing to do with American law, where it was ignored. It was a prime theme of anti-Catholic bigotry, incorporated in the initiation oath of the Ku Klux Klan.

In fact, the insertion of "separation" into Constitutional law took place via the Klan, or more precisely, via a son of the Klan.

Justice Hugo Black, who had been the chief of KKK recruitment in Alabama in the 1920's and who had administered the Klan "separation of church and state" oath to new Alabama klansmen, was later appointed to the Supreme Court by FDR.

It's worth noting how Justice Black first achieved political notoriety. ...

Come to think of it, I knew that about the KKKer, Hugo Black, inserting the KKK mantra of "separation of church and state", into American Constitutional jurisprudence.

I feel rich when I ... spend money I don't have

Douglas Wilson: A Drunk Trying to Make the Next Lamp Post --

... This is another way of saying that every genuine solution to the problems created by our [civiliazational] fiscal irresponsibility will be a form of default. The only solutions now are defaulting solutions.

The only thing we don’t know is what kind of default it will be. The only thing we don’t know is who the unlucky victim of our defaulting will be.

Government does not make wealth. If government has wealth, then this means it was taken. The only way that the government can acquire the means to pay its obligations and debts is by taking it. The only question left before the house is “who will they take it from?” There are a limited number of options.

When a politician says that we cannot allow our government to default on its solemn obligations, he either believes what he says, and is a fool, or he knows what he is saying is false, and wants us to believe that we must avoid Default A, which is what he is really talking about, and must select from defaults b, c, d, and e, which he does not really consider defaults “technically,” because the people who are going to get hosed by them are not part of his constituency.

The government does not make, and in order to have, must therefore take. Here are the basic ways in which such a taking can happen. The government can wage war on other countries, and take from them. The government can raise taxes, and take that way. The government can debase the currency, and take that way. The government can run up a big debt which it finds itself unable to pay, and take that way. And of course, given the realities of the ongoing political circus, the government can stagger between these options, like a drunk trying to make it to the next lamp post.
…
One last thing. I would like to address a few words to those evangelicals [Ilíon: and Catholics, for this perverse foolishness is very strong amongst Catholics, and is, in fact, encouraged by the Bureaucracy that *is* that RCC in America] who have been seduced by leftist economics, or who are in some way flirting with leftist economics. You may have cannonballed into the deep end, like Jim Wallis, or you may just be sidling sheepishly in that direction, with some cover provided by distributist literature. You think that the language of compassion is more biblical, and the idea of communitarian sharing makes you feel warm all over. You think that businessmen who know how to add and subtract are those who are in the grip of mammon-lust. You don’t like the hard lines of clear thinking, and the blinking sums on their calculators do nothing but harsh your mellow.

Do me a favor, and look at Detroit. Look at the failure of all the compassionate nostrums. Look at the collapse of real integrity. Look at the grasping and demented idiocy of the unions. Look at the abandonment of government’s true functions. Look at the wreckage of human lives. Look at the ruin of a once great city. Look at what aching greedlust does. Behold the handiwork of your compassion. [Ilíon: emphasis added]

Look at what mammon in sheep’s clothing can do.

I had almost posted a link to Wilson's essay last night, but then I didn't.

Michael Egnor links to it and adds some comments -- Michael Egnor: "Do me a favor, and look at Detroit" -- "... Detroit is leftism, which is a Christian heresy, incarnated as a city."

I have a neighbor, a young man young enough to be my son, old enough almost to have a grown son of his own. As I understand it, he has never worked a day in his life. He lives off "disability", his "disability" is that he misused drugs when he was a kid.

The title I gave to this post comes from something he said to me some months ago when I had tried to help him make better use of the limited resources at his disposal. Specifically, after I had seen him coming back from a local "convenience store" pushing his lawn-cart with groceries in it, I had thought to take him to an actual grocery store, where the food on offer is more varied and far less costly. This is a high-crime neighborhood, and consequently the prices at that "convenience store" can be expected to be even higher than at most.

Anyway, we never did get to a grocery store (*) (**) ... but I inadvertantly helped him waste a significant amount of money. I mean, this is money I would have considered a significant amount, and my income is greater than that of most Americans; to someone needing to live on $28 per day (if I correctly recall what he once told me), it can only be a very significant amount (***).

Anyway, after I'd fed him at a Chinese buffet, I agreed to go into the mall. ... To make the story shorter, he bought some bottle of cologne for $60 at Macy's.

For me, that was the final straw. I could no longer watch, I could no longer help, him squander money like that. Leaving Macy's, I just made a bee-line for the parking lot.

As we neared my vehicle, he said to me, "I felt rich when I bought that cologne".

And *that* Gentle Reader, is why America is going down the tubes -- as a nation, as a culture, we are willfully expending resources we do not have, for (over-priced) things we do not need, because we (collectively) *feel* rich when we (collectively) waste limited resources, expecially when we can lie to ourselves that someone else is going to pick up the tab.

Why is destroying America, and the West in general, isn't a weak economy. Our ecomonies are weak because we (collectively) are spiritually and morally weak. And we are are spiritually and morally weak because we (collectively) have *chosen* to openly rebel against God, have (collectively) chosen to abandon and denegrate the Christianity that for at least the past 1500 years has given form and focus to our civilization -- we (collectively) hate our Fathers, and we will defy them no matter the cost to ourselves or our children (assuming that we even allow the little bastards to see the light of day, in the first place).

(*) We stopped at Wal-Mart ... to get the money his mother had wired him (which I think equaled about half his monthly "income" from "disability") ... where he spent $18 on some protein drink powder.

(**) Well, we did get to Meijer's, but he didn't shop; he'd supposedly applied there and was supposed to talk to some manager (but she wasn't there on the weekend)

(***) $28 per day works out to about $840 per month. I've lived on that, and not all that long ago. I *know* that it's not abject poverty.

This must be Democrat history month

Michael Egnor: This must be Democrat history month -- "... The racial struggle in America is not between those who love black people and those who hate black people, nor between those who love white people and those who hate white people. It is between those who work for a color-blind society on one side, and on the other side those who work for a society in which skin color is the coin of the realm and racial hate and fear are the down-payment on political power."

On 'Liberal' white-guilt condescension towards blacks

Bob Parks: Pundits Lament 'Profiling of Blacks,' But Don't Some of Us Kinda Invite It? -- Mr Parks takes on the sanctimonious hypocrisy of the "liberals" --

While MSNBC and CNN are both vying for the position of being the new "Black Entertainment Television," giving air time to every black face they can find to give an opinion of the "not guilty" verdict in the George Zimmerman-Trayvon Martin murder trial, the tone of the conversation is reduced to white-guilt condescension towards blacks.

... The Zimmerman-Martin trial was a media concoction that was done for ratings. Any damage done to race relations in this country makes for potentially profitable sequels. ...

Certainly, the leftist media outlets ginned up the case for ratings; but the primary purpose of ginning up the case was to frighten black Americans into turning out to the polls to vote for that illegal interloper occupying the White House.

Michael Egnor: The Zimmerman acquittal was a massive victory for the [Obamanation] -- "It's almost as if the prosecution didn't want to be successful. ... The [leftists] won this case, by losing. Deliberately. The trial was not about law. It was politics, by other means."

Puppy Love

Michael Egnor has a post concerning an aspect of the "slippery slope" that, even now, even before it has been fully imposed on us, is following straight upon the heels of "gay" "marriage" -- Puppy Love -- Just as we tradionalists and/or Judeo-Christians were mock for pointing out -- the very same "arguments" used to justify stretching real marriage beyond all recognition, in the name of "gay" "rights", can, and will, also be used to justify even worse outrages. The ultime goal of the leftists is to *destroy* marriage ... and family, for family, and familial obligation and love always stands in the way of The Supreme State.

I made a comment there that I wish to share with Gentle Reader:

I have mixed thoughts on this -- that is, on the execution of that unfortunate young man, so long ago [a young man, little more than a boy as we moderns count these things, who was executed in colonial New England for beastiality].

On the one hand, not everything that is a gross (in multiple senses of the word) sin -- fully meriting death -- is necessarily something *we humans* should be executing people for doing. Most of this can be, and ought to be, left in God's hands.

Furthermore, not *every sin* that the Old Covenant commands the Israelites to execute people for committing is one that we, under the Covenant of Grace, ought to execute people for doing.

On the other hand, the fact that we, as a society, *don't* execute those who commit beastiality -- and, in fact, under the "liberal" corruption of Grace, we, as a society, do our best to pretend that nothing noteworthy is being done (until, of course, the leftists demand we celebrate it) -- goes far to explain why the "beastlovers" are emboldened, and why they will soon be demanding access to our children.

The same applies to, for instance, "out and proud" homosexuals -- it goes far to explain why such are emboldened, and why they are currently demanding, and getting, access to our children.

What Gosnell did is what abortion is

Michael Egnor: What Gosnell did is what abortion is -- Exactly. Warning: Graphic -- yet, mild in context -- images

Moral realism and anti-realism

Michael Egnor: Moral realism and anti-realism --

... If morality is an adaptive strategy, then morality is not real. It is a delusion. I think that Baggett is right. This debate will come down to classical theists (Christians mainly) vrs. atheists. Moral realists vrs. anti-realists.

I think that the prime motivating ideology of modern atheism is moral anti-realism anyway, so at least the debate will move in an honest direction.

New atheism has always been about morality, not science. Scientism is a tactic, not a motive, for atheist evangelism.