Sometimes, 'Language' is Wholly Appropriate

Warning: In this post, I am going to use some crude, vulgar, and indeed, foul, language.  And the reason I'm going to do so is that it's appropriate to the goal of this post -- to help you to viscerally reject using a certain word which most Americans, even Christians, have been indoctrinated over the past 30-40 years to view as just innocent fun: 'hot', in the sense taught us by that pathetic slut, Paris Hilton.

Recently, I chanced to listen to some podcasts by a YouTuber (whom I won't identify, other than to say that he's an East Coast politician).  He's a Christian, and he displays a genuine heart for the young men growing up adrift in this feminism-controlled and feminized (*) age, without real manly examples on which to model themselves.

BUT: he uses the Paris Hilton sense of 'hot', he refers to his wife as "smokin' hot!"

You, Gentle Reader, know exactly what 'hot' means in this sense, though some of you will deny that it means what it means and that you know exactly what it means.  'Hot' does not mean 'lovely/lovable' nor 'beautiful/handsome' nor anything along such innocent lines.  'Hot' doesn't even mean something as crude/crass as 'sexy'; it's worse than that: it means 'fuckable'.

If you imagine you can deny that 'hot'  means 'fuckable', consider this hypothetical: Suppose that you are a father; and suppose that you have a young daughter, 3-4 years old; and suppose that every day when you come home from work, she excitedly bursts out of the house to greet you as quickly as possible; and suppose, as doting fathers have done for thousands of yours, you pick her up and twirl her around, and say, "How's my hot little girl!"

You would *never* do such a thing, because you know *exactly* what 'hot' means.  If some other man were to remark that your little daughter is lovely or beautiful, you'd beam with pride. If that same man were to remark on how 'hot' she is, you'd consider murder -- because you know *exactly* what 'hot' means.

So, back to the podcaster referring to his wife as "smokin' hot!" -- while he may not want to acknowledge it, he is inviting other men to consider his wife as little more than a walking 'pussy', to be fucked and discarded at whim.  No respectable man, and certainly no Christian, would ever invite other men to think of any woman he loves and respects in such a manner.

To publicly refer to your wife as 'hot' is to treat her as disrespectfully and dishonorably as King Ahasuerus treated Queen Vashti, when he commanded her to display herself to his drunken friends (see the Book of Esther).

(*) Most American men, especially the ones a generation or more younger than I, have the mindsets of junior-high girls: that's why they decorate their bodies with tattoos -- "Look at me! Pay attention to me!  See how I've decorated myself!" In contrast, a man seeks attention or status by his deed, by what he has built, by what he has accomplished.

The mask *always* slips

Recently, someone using the screenname 'justgin1978', and whom I understand to be a woman, and who calls herself(?) an 'agnostic', had inserted herself into a discussion (such as it was) that I had tried to have with a LiveJournal "friend", Jordan Bassior (who is an 'atheist' and who declines to understand what atheism means), on his Live Journal blog.

Here is the most recent response (in this case, I think "shot" is the word to use) by 'justgin1978' at me --

How's it working? It's working fine.

The only problem here is talking to you and I've been patient with you long enough.

Why don't you go join one of those theology debate websites? You'd fit right in with those goddamned hypocrites. You think you're never wrong; you think you have all knowledge, but you don't have love.

So, let's back up, and duplicate my interaction with 'justgin1978', which starts with my reaction to a claim made by Jordan Bassior about himself --

"... I am also an agnostic, in that I do not acknowledge proofs of any gods, since no valid proofs have been offered."

The truth is that you will not even examine the evidence for God.

Hell, you're so afraid of encountering even God's shadow that you *refused* to examine with me what, exactly, "an establishment of religion" means.

Now, 'justgin1978' made a response directly to my post. And, due to the way conversations (such as they are) on LiveJournal are presented, this is where it can immediately get confusing to try to follow the conversation, especially the more others add their own comments. Due to the nature of how LiveJournal presents the comments and responses to a thread, and due to my desire to present the responses 'justgin1978' and I made to one another as near as possible to the posts to which they are a response, the following is not in strict chronological order --

'justgin1978' post #1, response to the above --

We all have blind spots. We are all biased in some way and to some degree. There are things we are afraid might be true if we dare to look more closely. As someone who now considers herself an uncomfortable agnostic, that thought comforts me and terrifies me at the same time. I recall a saying that goes something like this: Man's capacity to be deceived by others is eclipsed only by his capacity to deceive himself.

Ouch.

Thoughts?

My response #1 to 'justgin1978' post #1 --

"There are things we are afraid might be true if we dare to look more closely."

I can't say that this is true of *every* person, but it certainly works as general rule of thumb.

"Man's capacity to be deceived by others is eclipsed only by his capacity to deceive himself."

Indeed.

Here is one way that I already know, and that you and Jordan himself may know, that his atheism is a self deception --

Jordan is forever making moral assertions and arguments; a great deal of what he says is meaningless without the moral premises on which he is standing.

Now, though it is true that most of the moral premises on which he is standing come from Biblical religion, it is also true that that fact doesn't mean that either Judaism or Christianity is true. However, the fact of where he is standing *ought* to motivate him to put his atheism to critical rational evaluation.

Furthermore, and here's the thing: if atheism is the truth about the nature of reality, then there *are* no true moral premises. If atheism is the truth about the nature of reality, then Jordan isn't standing even on quicksand when he makes the moral assertions and arguments he makes; he's standing on nothing. If atheism is the truth about the nature of reality, then Jordan's moral assertions and arguments -- including the assumption (and implicit assertion) that men *ought* to be rational -- have exactly as much force, and are exactly as binding on his readers, as the opposite assertions by Moslems.

'justgin1978' post #2, response to the above --

Hi!

First, please don't use my post to make potshots at Jordan. He's one of the kindest and most thoughtful atheists I know.

Second, I realize you are passionate, but your profane language doesn't help make your point, even though you have good points to make! I'm pretty sure Jesus didn't have to be bleeped out every other word during any one of his sermons, lol. I know of 2 people who are devout about not cussing, ever. Yet they do not treat people well. Both of them are "Christians", yet they neglect "the weightier matters of the law." It would be better for them to let a bad word or two slip ever so often and pay much more attention to loving thy neighbor. So I don't hold your words against you so much, but they are an unnecessary distraction that does not compliment your belief.

I agree with your thoughts about moral premises. If there is no true ultimate authority to whom we answer, then what does it ultimately matter?

My response #1 to 'justgin1978' post #2 --

"First, please don't use my post to make potshots at Jordan. He's one of the kindest and most thoughtful atheists I know."

I did no such thing.

'justgin1978' response to the above --

"Ok. What I meant is if you have something to say to Jordan, say it to him directly and leave him out of our conversation, please.

My response to the above -- keep in mind that, chronologically, this response followed many (perhaps most or even all) the exchanges duplicated below --

"say it to him directly."

And how's that working for you?

"and leave him out of our conversation"

Our conversation? As I recall, *I* commented -- based upon long experience and many interactions with him -- upon a claim Jordan made about himself, and *you* joined in the conversation, such as it was and will be, between the two of us.

And that was all it took for 'justgin1978' to let slip the mask, as seen in the quoted response at the top of this post. *My* patience with *her* (as shown below); Jordan's misrepresentations of some things I had said in the thread; his sneering, chest-pounding responses to some things I had said in the thread; and his disinclination to engage some of the things *she* had said ... well, none of that matters!

My question to her, "And how's that working for you?" is a reference to her quite lengthy back-and-forth with Jordan, much of it before I was even aware of her first response to me, and some of it, from his direction, being of the character she falsely attributes to my responses to her.


My response #2 to 'justgin1978' post #2 --

"Second, I realize you are passionate, but your profane language doesn't help make your point, even though you have good points to make! I'm pretty sure Jesus didn't have to be bleeped out every other word during any one of his sermons ..."

I'm not passionate -- I have a very low opinion of passion.

As for my profanity, I'm not Miss Grundy: I'm not going to use an archaic word for 'shit' when I mean 'shit'

As for Jesus' profanity, well, he does use a word that continues to be translated as 'dung'; which is to say, in his time and place, and at the very least, he said 'shit'.

Sometime -- if you dare (as I'll explain) -- check out Ezekiel 23, and especially verse 20. This is presented as the word of Jehovah (YHWH), with whom the New Testament identifies Christ. If my calling 'bullshit' on Jordan's claim about his reasoning about God mildly offends you, then understanding what that verse says, stripping away the Bowdlerism which is these days generally applied to it, might cause your head to explode.

My response #3 to 'justgin1978' post #2 --

"I agree with your thoughts about moral premises. If there is no true ultimate authority to whom we answer, then what does it ultimately matter?"

This is actually a different thing from what I was saying. Not that what you've said here is false, but it goes in a different direction than I was going, and I believe it is a less complete understanding than what I had in mind.

"If there is no true ultimate authority to whom we answer ... "

The situation can be put that way, it's certainly not false to do so. But another way to put it, which I believe is a more complete way to put it, is that when a person denies the reality of God, he's also denying the reality of moral standards -- *not* because God decreed "This is moral" and "That is immoral", such that if there is no one to make and enforce the decrees they don't exist, but rather because God *is* the moral standard.

God is the "ultimate authority" about morality not because he's the strongest being (*) and thus able to force other beings to accept his decrees as objective (as people like to say) truth, but because he is Being Itself, he is Truth Itself, and he is Love Itself (**).

Ayn Rand thought she had disposed of God with her dictum, "Existence exists". But all she was doing was talking about the truth that God is Being Itself in de-personalized language.


(*) as though he were just one more being among beings

(**) and Love is where true morality is grounded

My response #2 to 'justgin1978' post #1 --

"As someone who now considers herself an uncomfortable agnostic ... "

Think about this, will you?

Agnosticism about God is *really* the assertion that we cannot know anything about anything. This is because the question of whether God is is what I call the First Question. By this, I mean that all other questions one may ask about reality, and thus all other answers one may give to those questions, depend upon the answer one gives to the First Question.

But, when one ascribes to agnosticism, one's "answer" to the First Question falls somewhere between "I can't answer that question" and "That is a meaningless question". Thus, when one ascribes to agnosticism, one's "answer" to *any* question about the reality in which we find ourselves, which reality *includes* ourselves, falls somewhere between "I can't answer that question" and "That is a meaningless question".

Agnosticism about God -- carefully cultivated ignorance about God -- turns out to be ignorance about everything.

"There are things we are afraid might be true if we dare to look more closely. As someone who now considers herself an uncomfortable agnostic, that thought comforts me and terrifies me at the same time."

Mind you, this next statement is a general statement about people in general; if it's not true about you, well then it's not true about you. It seems to me that the "comfort" you derive from "There are things we are afraid might be true if we dare to look more closely" might also be put this way, "Since lots of other people, perhaps even most people, have ideas or propositions they are afraid to look at too closely for fear of them being true, the fact that *I* do not examine very closely the proposition that 'God is' isn't such a big deal; I mean, look at all those other people!"

But, no person's reconciliation/union with God, which is what salvation is, has anything to do with what anyone else does. And no person's ultimate separation fomr God, which is what damnation is, has anything to do with what anyone else does. God is Life (that's not *all* he is, but that is what he is), God is Life Itself -- when a person rejects God, whether actively as in Jordan's case or passively as in your case, what he is rejecting is his own life, his own existence, and his own being.

'justgin1978' post #3, response to the above --

"Mind you, this next statement is a general statement about people in general; if it's not true about you, well then it's not true about you. It seems to me that the "comfort" you derive from "There are things we are afraid might be true if we dare to look more closely" might also be put this way, "Since lots of other people, perhaps even most people, have ideas or propositions they are afraid to look at too closely for fear of them being true, the fact that *I* do not examine very closely the proposition that 'God is' isn't such a big deal; I mean, look at all those other people! "

No, it's not true of me at all. Thank you for not just assuming it was. What I meant is I am unhappily stuck in agnosticism because I see no other way out, honestly, to truly believe in God, no matter how much I want to believe, and I do. (I'm sure I exceeded the comma limit in that last sentence. So sorry officers!)

If it's true there is no God, then there is no reason for being, other than selfish pursuits which will all rot. All we are doing individually is distracting ourselves while the clock ticks down and that last day comes when we are no more. If there is no ultimate authority then ultimately nothing we do really matters. If the sum total of all my actions either add to or subtract to future generations, what difference does that make to me? I'll be dead anyway. Maybe I might feel differently if I had children. But even if I did, they too will be dead one day.

Not believing in God causes me pain. I once believed, and even though I had so many questions, I was at peace. For a time.

It also terrifies me that IF there is a God to whom I will answer, I know I will have to answer to so much. I hate my sisters, with good reason. I'm judgemental as HELL. I'm not perfect.

My response #1 to 'justgin1978' post #3 --

"What I meant is I am unhappily stuck in agnosticism because I see no other way out, honestly, to truly believe in God, no matter how much I want to believe, and I do."

I'm the very last person who would "answer" your dilemma by saying, "Well, then, just choose to believe".

"... If the sum total of all my actions either add to or subtract to future generations, what difference does that make to me? I'll be dead anyway. Maybe I might feel differently if I had children. But even if I did, they too will be dead one day."

Even if we were not, after all, "immortal souls", our lives can still matter if God is and remembers us. Frodo is not an "immortal soul", but his life (and suffering) isn't absolutely meaningless, because you and countless other "immortal souls" remember him.

Future generations may remember one, or they may not. But, if atheism is the truth about the nature of reality, then in the end, "not" will prevail; in the end, *everything* dies; in the end, nothing at all matters.

"It also terrifies me that IF there is a God to whom I will answer, I know I will have to answer to so much."

It's not so much that you will have so much to answer for to God, and that as you lack an answer he will reject you, as that in rejecting God now, you are rejecting living directly in his presence, unmediated by the physical world.

Imagine that you continue you life on its present trajectory, and then you eventually die. And, imagine that God is, and that you find yourself -- vastly aware of your moral imperfection, yet not repentant of it -- standing before him in judgment. And imagine that all this judgment amounts to is your admission that you had violated morality, not a repudiation of the violations, but merely acknowledgement of them. And imagine that having ackowledged, but not repudiated, your violations of morality, you are "in".

That is, imagine that no one *really* "goes to Hell", as people put it. Do you really imagine that you will, or could, be happy "going to Heaven", as people put it, without repudiation of your immorality, without *loving* God?

If a person has not rejected his immoralities, then for that person "being in Heaven" would be like being lost out in the middle of the Sahara ... and the sun never sets! It's *not* that God is torturing the person, it's that his very presence is torture to that person; much like merely being forced to be in the presence of a person one hates is torturous, even if both ignore the other.

Far from being a place of deliberate torture, "being in Hell" is a mercy. It's still a horrible state of being, but not nearly as horrible as "being in Heaven" would be for the persons who do not love God.

The reason Hell is torture for its inmates is because, even there, God is: God is Being Itself ... *everything* that is has being by virtue of sharing in the Being of God. The only "peace" that those who reject God *can* have is the "peace" of not-being. The other side of this is that unless God withdraws Being from them, that is, he utterly destroys them, then God himself experiences all the horribleness of "being in Hell".

Hell is a mercy toward its inmates and a torture to God -- that is how much God loves you even before you love him, even if you never love him. Our lives, right now, are a torture to God; he created us because he loves us, he endures the torture of our existence because he loves us ... and he will, reluctantly, "send" some of us "to Hell" because he loves them and will not force them to be directly in his presence when their hatred toward him makes that an even worse torture than being "in Hell".

'justgin1978' post #4, response to the above --

Yeah, weiI I did in fact try to "just believe" and it didn't work. I don't pretend very well.

I wouldn't say that I am rejecting God outright. That's not how it happened. I held on tooth and toenail to my dwindling faith. For years. I tried with all my might to not let go. But I did. Not happily either. It's not as though I have embraced incontrovertible evidence and then calmly decided to reject it. If that were so, I wouldn't be in pain now. It's true I was once so much more sure. But I had to ask questions, didn't I? Is that so bad though? Perhaps this desert I've found myself wandering around in may lead to a much more stable place than the one from which I started out years ago. A more mature belief based on, yes, logic and reason. I can only hope. For now my hope lies in the knowledge that I don't know all things. I need help connecting the dots, but I'm not about to rush to do that. I want to be careful, after all the bottom line is finding the truth, whatever truth really is.

And I understand all the arguments about why God sends people to hell. I used to make these arguments myself.

So, having digested all the above, let's look again at 'justgin1978's' parting shot at me --

How's it working? It's working fine.

The only problem here is talking to you and I've been patient with you long enough.

Why don't you go join one of those theology debate websites? You'd fit right in with those goddamned hypocrites. You think you're never wrong; you think you have all knowledge, but you don't have love.

Really?

By the way, the above exchange is a good illustration of *why* I never try to justify myself -- go on the defensive -- when people make the various false accusations so many of them like to make about me.

Look at her accusations. Not a single one of them has anything at all to do with *anything* I said. Rather, they are statements about *her* mental state.

When she accuses "you think you're never wrong; you think you have all knowledge", what she *means* is that it "offends" her that I speak as a man; I don't play the post-modernist (and academic ... and womanly, when you get down to it) game of making unfounded assertions, pretending that I haven't made any assertions, and then "going postal" when those assertions are criticized.

When she accuses "you don't have love", what she *means* is that as I am "brutally logical", I do not leave any space for her to cling to "yes-and-no simultaneously".

When she accuses "Why don't you go join one of those theology debate websites? You'd fit right in with those goddamned hypocrites", what she *means* is that she hates God, but also fears to admit it to herself. What she means is that I have spooked her with God's shadow.

The pressure seems too much

It seems that the pressure of freeing one's mind of the evils and lies of leftism may be too much for some to bear. Of late, Bob Prokop seems to be trying to get free of the falsehoods to which he has devoted so much of his life and effort. And, of course, given human nature, and the nature of belief-systems, and the nature of leftism in supplying its adherents with hefty doses of self-righteousness, one does expect relapses.

It appears that for B.Prokop, the proverbial straw prompting him to try to de-leftify himself has been the epiphany that even though Catholicism, Inc. has faithfully acted the good little bitch to Progressivism (i.e. American Leftism) for well over a century, in their present seeming cultural triumph, this batch of leftists have as little use for, or respect of, The One True Bureaucracy, or of Roman Catholic persons who happen to be Christians (in contrast to the Kennedys and Pelosis and Bidens and such-what), as any other batch of leftists has ever had.

First, let's examine an example of intellectual dishonesty involving someone who is not B.Prokop, so that one may more easily recognize for what it is the example that does involve him --

Over at Victor Reppert's blog, in the Marriage legal and moral thread, B.Prokop had posted this:

"making a judgement of the moral character of the wedding participants ... is the issue that I have been saying matters most"

I think this is what frightens me the most about this whole debate. People like Doug seem perfectly ready (and even eager) to employ the full weight of state power to compel others to not only act in certain ways, but also to think in proscribed fashions. The above quote is crystal clear. The pro same sex marriage side wishes to make disagreeing with them a thought crime, punishable by the loss of one's job, business, livelihood, whatever it takes.

And you think this is improbable? That "it can't happen here"? Well. Over on Ilion's website, he links to a news story about a Canadian jeweler who cheerfully and professionally did everything his lesbian customers wanted. Yet they still threatened action against his business solely because he did not approve of what his customers were doing. So Doug is right. This has nothing to do with cakes, etc. Read the quote at the top of this posting again. It's all about thought crime.

In response, concerning lesbians' subsequent progressive-mob attack on the the Christian jeweler, I wrote:

I suspect that the sexual pervert fascists did this on purpose: that they intentionally ordered custom-made "engagement" rings from this jeweler, intending all along to raise the progressive mob against him to demand a refund ... after he had gone to the expense of buying the materials and doing the labor to make the rings.

And, as sure as night follows day, some lying leftist "social justice warrior" needed to pipe up

What's next - jet fuel can't melt steel beams? There was a second gunman on the grassy knoll?

Which is rather amusing, when you think about it: the fool's examples of "crazy conspiracy theories" to which he wants to liken what I said are the sort that leftists love to love, and to spread.

Now, anyone who has *read* just a couple of the public news items about the particular case -- to say nothing of all the other cases in which sexual perversion fascists and other "social justice warrior" fascists conspire to ruin the livelihoods, and lives, of persons who will not agree to pretend that two dudes butt-fucking equals a marriage -- understands that there is no "crazy conspiracy theory" involved in what I wrote. And, moreover, those who have read a couple of public news items about the Canadian sexual perverts attempting to ruin the livelihhod of the Christian jeweler understand that my use of "I suspect" was just me using understatement, as I do from time to time.


So, if Gentle Reader has grasped the essential dishonesty of the fool, 'John Doe', trying to liken what I'd written to some "crazy conspiracy theory", let us move on to B.Prokop attempting a similar move (in his case, in two parts).

Victor Reppert has another recent post, called An ethicist's nightmare

There are ethical problems with some research. Let's take, for example, selective breeding of human beings. The issues surrounding racism are made a lot easier by the fact that there is really no such thing as a superior race. But, if we started breeding superior human beings, then there would be a superior race in reality. Then what would our duties of the superior race be to the inferior race? That would be an ethicist's nightmare.

But a certain famous scientist keeps playing around with the idea.

I made two comments to Mr Reppert's OP --

comment #1 " The issues surrounding racism are made a lot easier by the fact that there is really no such thing as a superior race."

Oh, silly! There are any number of "superior race(s)" ... it all depends upon the metrics one is using to define or delineate "superior".

Admittedly, my comment could have been clearer had I quoted Reppert's next sentence. In the sentence I quoted, he says that there is presently no such thing as a "superior race". In the next (and unquoted) sentence, he says that in the future, there could be such a thing as a "superior race", were eugenicists (and 'Science!' worshipers in general) to have their way. My response is to point out that, no, there is no difference at all between now and this imagined future with respect to the existence of a "superior race".

comment #2 "Then what would our duties of the superior race be to the inferior race? That would be an ethicist's nightmare."

It would [NOT] be "an ethicist's nightmare" nightmare because "ethics" is about coming up with rationales to "explain" how it is that immoral behavior is really moral, after all.

Races don't have moral duties to races. Individuals have moral duties to individuals, and those don't change just because one's race is superior according to this metric, rather than that.

Ah-ha! B.Prokop -- who is still a leftist at heart, and who is really fighting to hold onto his leftism -- apparently imagined he had found -- or could manufacture -- a "Gotcha" moment

What are your metrics, Ilion, that would indicate the existence of a "superior" race in the Real World today? I don't know of any.

Superior cultures, yes. But races? Can't see it.

Now, even if Gentle Reader doesn't yet fully understand that I do not play that game, B.Prokop surely knows it by now.

I replied --

Do you (singular and plural) practice at this? Is there some special class one takes to learn to un-read what another has written so clearly?

Do you remember the last time you beat your wife, B.Prokop?

See? In two different ways, I had told B.Prokop that he was barking up the wrong tree (and that I wasn't going to play that game).

And, so, of course, being a not yet recovered leftist, B.Prokop had to play another popular leftist game: "I'm a Special Snowflake and It's All Always All About Me!" --

It would have been sometime before she died, literally in my arms, with our daughters weeping at the foot of her bed, from pancreatic cancer some 6 years ago. Care to apologize for that remark, Ilion?

That ain't never gonns happen, and he knows it; for I apologize only if I have done something wrong. And someone else's decision to invent an insult where there is none is not *me* doing something wrong.

Shoot! Someone else even tried, round-about, to explain it to him --

Your wife may have been a poor topic for Ilíon's question, but I think the point he was trying to make was that your question about what metrics he would use to determine which race is superior is leading, and it misses his point. I wouldn't take it personally.

And, of course, everyone knows that the question, "When did you quit beating your wife?", or variations on it, has nothing to do with making "your wife" the "topic for [the] question".

But, of course, B.Prokop is still a fool (and is resisting freeing himself of his long-cherished foolishness), and so he *cannot* admit his error, or even just let it drop quickly down the memory-hole --

I did [take it personally], and he needs to apologize - abjectly, and now.

Ain't never gonna happen ... and everyone knows it ain't.

New Geico Commercial: 'When you're an [X], you [y]. It's what you do.'

Victor Reppert: Organized Disrespect

Victor Reppert: "John [Loftus], do you actually read your combox? When I got into the David Wood discussion, I was called intellectually dishonest, a Liar-4-Jezus, and then we get this gem ...

And you complain about Ilion???? I didn't think it was possible to make Ilion look like Miss Manners, but I see it done every day on Debunking Christianity"

Ilíon: Surely, you've seen the new Geico commercial: "When you're an 'atheist', you lie. It's what you do."

====
By the way, "the David Wood discussion" to which Mr Reppert refers is the (ahem) discussion on Loftus' blog about this video -- it's a moving video, as they say.

As Michael ('Shadow to Light') says on the page to which I linked

When someone becomes a Christian, what sets the stage is the following intuitive insight: There is something very wrong with me; I need to change.

When someone becomes an atheist, what sets the stage if the following intuitive insight: There is something very wrong with them; they need to be stopped.

Not fit for the Kids' Table

Victor Reppert: "It must be noted that there is no way, on the model I have presented, to show that everyone who denies the Resurrection is irrational, or engaged in bad faith."

How about showing that *almost* everyone -- and certainly the most vocal -- who denies the Resurrection is engaged in bad-faith hypocrisy?

[The point here is that most "skeptics" have no problem at all with Carl Sagan's scientistic assertions about things just happening for no reason nor cause nor meaning -- events that have never been observed to have happened and that would be considered by nearly everyone except "skeptics" to be miracles, or probable miracles, were they ever to be observed to actually have happened.]


There is another point it seems to me that you constantly overlook -- which is that even were Christianity false, that is, even if Christ did not rise from the dead [and his rising did not mean what Christianity says it means], that doesn't touch on the even more basic question: "Is God?"

The question of Christ's Resurrection is pointless unless there is a Creator-God who intentionally restored life and soul to that dead body as a promise to do likewise with those who love him. After all, one could acknowledge that Jesus really was dead and really did come back to life ... and then "explain" it as one of those (asserted by scientism) pointless [meaningless], astronomically improbable events that just happen from time to time all by themselves for no reason and with no cause [and no attendant meaning], as discussed in the above link.

[To reiterate a point I've made many times -- it's not the (alleged) fact that Jesus really was dead and really did come back to life that gets the so-called skeptics' panties in a bunch, it's the (alleged) meaning of his coming back to life that they hate; for that meaning points to the reality of the Creator, and of moral duties ... and of moral judgment. If Jesus' coming back to life were just a strange historical footnote, to which no one ascribed any particular significance, then the "skeptics" wouldn't be at all skeptical that it really did occur.]

Now, as it happens, we human beings have many lines of argument and evidence that show:
1) belief in the Creator is rational;
2) disbelief in the Creator is irrational.

ERGO, anyone who denies the reality of the Creator is [willfully] irrational.

WHY do you continue to waste your time -- and encourage others to waste their time (to say nothing of sanity) -- in the logically impossible quest of rationally convincing irrational people to acknowledge that you are rational? Arguing Christ with Jews, or even with Hindus, may be a rational undertaking; arguing anything "religious" with God-deniers is the epitome of irrational behavior.

UNTIL a person acknowledges that there is a Creator, he has nothing to say: he "has no place at the table", as the saying goes. It's not that he "belongs at the Kids' Table" [as some God-haters like to say of Christians ... and even of persons who are not necessarily Christians], for even children are rational beings ... it's that, in willfully choosing irrationality, the God-denier belongs on the floor, fighting with the dogs for whatever scraps fall from the Kids' Table.

Gettin' your freak on ... and not

Bob Parks: How To Piss Off Your Wife

A walking illustration

A walking illustration of her own argument ... OR, to parody the Iconic Question (*), "Does this attitude make me look like a big ass?"

Kathy Shaidle has made herself a walking illustration of her own argument (I use the term loosely) that women should never have been given the vote. And she will never allow herself to see it, much less step back from it.

I'll keep my own comments and opinions to a minimum and let Miss Shaidle speak for herself.

On her personal blog a few days ago, Miss Shaidle linked to her recent effort at PJ Media. The first few sentences left me both yawning and sure that whatever it is she was on about, it was something about which I don't give a damn ... apparently something to do with her Glory Daze as a leftist (**) and a 'punk'. *Oh! Yawn! Rebellion! Edginess!* No biggie; we're not all going to be interested in the same things. So, I just closed the window and moved on to something else on her blog that would interest me.

Then, today, she linked to a comment someone had made that tickled her fancy. I don't normally read the comments made in response to her (or other authors') articles. But, I followed the link ... and while I was there I read this comment by a 'MAPN':

Came here because of a Kathy Shaidle link. Read it, and still have no idea what the point is. Except that I've always avoided people with strong clothing prejudices of any kind, or who use clothes to "make a statement".

and her response to it:

Not a fan of subtlety. Noted!

I'll spare the reader my opinion of that sort of use of "noted".

So, because 'MAPN' has a valid point about her style and because her brush-off mildly irked me, I sent her this little email:

I think the problem the fellow was trying to bring to your attention is that oftentimes your "subtlety" approaches that of a blank piece of paper.

The point being, of course, that that "subtlety" which leaves your readers with no idea what your point is is a "subtlety" too far.

This is her response to me:

No, he's just a moron. Anyone who doesn't understand what I'm getting at should stick to their college football games, because expecting them to catch up with my years of reading and influences would obviously be too much for them

This is my response back:

I hope you someday re-read what you just said.

And this is what will likely be the last correspondence between us:

Other people's thickness isn't my problem; when they boast about it, it is singularly unbecoming and deserving of scorn. It's that simple.

Call me old fashioned, but you've recently begun assuming a "familiar" tone with me that I don't care for. I have no time for patronizing scolds who presume to tell me what to write and how to write it, particularly total strangers.

Well played! It is surely the goal of every author of note to pointlessly alienate her fans.

Kathy Shaidle has no time for "patronizing scolds" ... and I have no time for whining feminist hypocrites.



(*) Oh, you know the one I mean! "Do these jeans make my ass look big?"

(**) News Flash: She's *still* a leftist ... she just, for whatever reason, no longer wishes to consider herself a leftist.

Names of Democrats on House Oversight Committee who walked out on Benghazi victim family members

Names of Democrats on House Oversight Committee who walked out on Benghazi victim family members

h/t Bob Parks

Living in the past

The other day, I happened to read some article (as I recall, it was a publication, not merely a blog post) in which some hypocritical "liberal" (that's a redundancy, isn't it?) opined about Paula Deen's persecution that she is "living in the past".

And, you know, maybe she is ... if she expected fairness and justice from her fellow "liberal" sock-puppets of the leftists.

Anyway, I can't find the article I'd read, but I did find this Facebook comment, which has the virtue of expressing its irrationality in a few sentences, rather than taking many hundreds of words to assert the same thing. Here is the comment and my response to it --

Ajibade Fasina-thomas:

Paula Deen should be pitied. She is living in the past. In fact, she needs a psychological deliverance. She probably doesn't know the United States of America has a sitting BLACK President in the White House. Poor sod.

Let's see -- *she* used the word 'nigger' privately 30 years ago [it was actually 26 years ago, in 1987] in reference to a black thug who had put a gun to her head. Whereas *you* seem to imagine that because there is now an AFRICAN interloper occupying the White House -- whom she actively and openly campaigned [to put there] -- that her use of a slur 30 years ago about a thug who had been threatening to murder her means that *she* is "living in the past."

Really! Just who is "living in the past"? Just who "needs a psychological deliverance"? Just who is truly the "poor sod"?

Still, I have no sympathy for the woman personally -- she is a "liberal" and she actively worked [for years] to bring about and empower the immoral "liberal" political culture that now finds it convenient to destroy her.

Update -- Paula Deen's Robber Comes to Her Defense

How To 'Outreach' To Minorities

Bob Parks: How To 'Outreach' To Minorities: Treat Them Like Adults -- "Conservatives are always complaining about identity politics. Yet, we hear all this talk about how they need to reach out to blacks and Latinos, just like the liberals do - because, if they don't, they're doomed. Maybe, the reason conservatives don't have a viable outreach strategy is that they really shouldn't have one. ..."

Of course, there is a difference between 'conservatives' and 'Republicans', and the people who run the GOP tend not to be, and certainly those who are always trying to make Republicans into Mini-Me Democrats are not, conservatives.

I am her equal

"...I am her equal" ... by which the poor pussy whipped shlubb really means, "She is my superior" (h/t Mark Richardson)

'Liberals' are hypocrites

Gentle Reader, and all right-minded persons, need to get this fact firmly planted into their minds: "Liberals" are hypocrites.

It's not merely that "liberal" politicians are hypocrites; it's not that *some* "liberals" are hypocrites; it's not that *most* "liberals" are hypocrites. It's that *all* "liberals" are hypocrites. And their hypocrisy is firmly rooted in their "liberalism" -- which, anyway, is mostly all about how wonderful in all ways they themselves are (in contrast to you!) -- and mostly serves the purpose of protecting their "liberalism" from rational/critical scrutiny.

Now, this is not to say that all "liberals" are hypocrites in the same ways, or about the same things, or to the same extent. Some, like the politician Harry Reid of Nevada, are massive hypocrites; and coincidentally "hate filled", as they like to accuse conservatives of being.

Even someone like Victor Reppert, who is a good man, mostly, is a hypocrite with respect to preserving his "liberalism" from critical evaluation, and with respect to living out his "liberalism". For example, with respect to living out his "liberalism", and something I've needled him about since I first read him making the complaint: Victor Reppert, good "liberal" that he is, insists that "the rich", whatever that is supposed to mean, should be forced to "pay their fair share" -- which is to say, no matter how much in tax monies is being forcibly extracted from "the rich", it's never enough, for they can never, ever be said to be "paying their fair share". At the same time, Victor Reppert bitches about the amount of *his* taxes.

That is not only an example of hypocrisy, it's also an example of the studied stupidity (that is, hypocrisy-of-reasoning-and-learning) that "liberals" need to employ to protect their "liberalism". Think about it: if your politics is premised on the righteousness of making "the other guy" pay more in taxes, and you're bitching when it turns out that you're "the other guy", then, non-exhaustively:
1) you don't really think it's righteous to compel "the other guy" pay more in taxes; but you did find it politically expedient ... until you turned out the be "the other guy";
2) you refuse to learn that the problem is in the premises of your politics;
3) because you refuse to learn the truth about your politics, your politicians, such as Harry Reid, are going to continue to use you as a tool.

'Did your son always have ...?'

So far as I know, no one has publicly noticed something telling concerning Joe "Gaff-o-Matic" Biden's coarse, vulgar, and wholly inappropriate question to Charles Woods, father of Tyrone Woods, at the ceremony for the return home of the bodies of the four Americans murdered in Benghazi -- "Did your son always have balls the size of cue balls?"

Consider - at the time, the entire supporting staff of alleged-President Obama, and the man himself, were still claiming that:
1) the attack on the consulate was merely a movie-review “gone wrong” - as though that would have any Constitutional relevance, even were it true;
2) and, just as importantly, that US officials didn’t know what had happened during the attack, and couldn’t know until after “an investigation”.

Point 1) has been dealt with previously - the very premise of it is invalid. Yet, nevertheless, this alleged-administration used it as the pretext to arrest, as Hillary Clinton has whispered to Charles Woods that they would do, their designated fall guy, the no-name producer of some You-Tube film-clip that no one had even heard of. To put it another way, this alleged-administration blatantly violated the Constitution with respect to the human rights of a guest in our country … and the very people who were always falsely accusing Bush II, Bush I, and Reagan of violating Americans’ Constitutional-and-human rights said nothing.

Concerning point 2), as we now know - as anyone wishing to know the truth now knows - this alleged-administration knew, in real-time, as it was happening, what was going on in Benghazi. And that three requests for military support were explicitly denied. And further, that somewhere in the chain of command, the order was twice issued to the men there to “stand down”.

It seems that, in the end, Tyrone Woods and Glenn Doherty disobeyed the order to “stand down”, and engaged in a several-hours battle with the Islamic attackers.

Now, consider again Biden’s crass question: "Did your son always have balls the size of cue balls?" Does such a question even make sense if it were true that this alleged-administration hadn’t yet known what had happened? Does such a question even make sense if Biden had not known what had happened.

Does such a question even make sense if Biden had not already known that a mere two Americans, Tyrone Woods and Glenn Doherty, armed mostly with just what they could carry, had fought for hours against superior numbers armed with rocket launchers and mortars?

===
You know, considering how often over the past four plus years Biden has put his foot into Obama’s mouth -- you see, ol' coal miner Joe is one of those people who cannot resist saying "I know something you don't know" -- it’s kind of surprising they he hasn’t had an “accident” by now.

Vandals desecrate pile of manure with Democrat Party headquarters

Michael Egnor: Vandals desecrate pile of manure with Democrat Party headquarters

On the one hand, I wouldn't put it past the Democrats themselves to have done this. But, let's take it as given that some Republicans, or at least non-Democrats, dumped the manure. Now, for sure, dumping a pile of manure at the headquartes of the "other" party isn't a very respectful thing to do. But, notice -- and in contrast to what Democrats, or their supporters, so typically to do -- no one was killed or even injured, nothing was damaged, broken or destroyed, and nothing was stolen. Plus, manure is actually valuable, unlike the sort of trash "liberals" leave behind.

Touching upon Benghazi and consequences

1) On the significant date of September 11, "radical Islamists" (which is to say, Moslems who take seriously the demands/commands of Islam) attack and overrun the US Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, hunting down and capturing, then murdering (*) the US ambassador, who happened to have been openly "gay", and three other Americans.

(*) There are reports, and official denials, that he was sodomized before or after (or both) the murder.

2) The alleged US Administration claims that this clearly-planned assult, along with protests at, and attacks upon, US Embassies in other Moslem countries is to be blamed upon not the free choices of the attackers and murderers (**), but rather upon the existence of a piss-poor (**') movie "trailer" that no one had seen until then -- and immediately "apologized" to all Moslems everywhere for the fact-and-right of Freedom of Speech in the US.

(**) Which rationalization Moslems ought to take as an insult, for its logical entailment is that they are not moral agents, as you and I are.

(**') The piss-poor YouTube video is an attempt simply to act-out things Moslems thenselves have proudly said about ole' Mo for more than 1000 years.

3) A few days later, officers of the LA County Deputy show up -- in the middle of the night -- at the residence of the man identified as the source of the YouTube video, to "voluntarily" (***) take him in to "answer a few questions" related to possible violations of his parole (****).

(***) Riiight! And what would have happened had he declined the "request" to "voluntarily" come in to "answer a few questions"?

(****) Really? In the middle of the night? Requiring a falanx of officers to "voluntarily" escort a non-violent 55 year-old man in for "questions"? With so-called journalists as part of the deployment?

4) Does no one recall the deliberate provocations to Moslems of hosting "gay" "pride" events at US embassies in Moslem countries? (for example)

4a) So this is how it appears to stand -- if some private person in America states certain truths about Islam or Mohammed that Moslems don't want non-Moslems to understand, and some Moslems claim that at a pretext to riot and/or murder Americans, then the First Amendment has to go. However, if the US government officially and quite in-your-face endorses behaviors that offend most Americans *and* Moslems, and explicitly makes it a point to wave this red-flag in the faces of Moslem, in their own countries, then ... what?

Is it really plausible that the leftists running our government have our best interest at heart?

[edit: 2012/09/28] The B&R Thursday Matinee

The Joe that keeps on jivin'

Bob Parks: The B&R Wednesday Skim

Re: the video which leads the above post --

I suppose that no one is shocked that a (rich) Northern "light-skinned" (*) "liberal" who speaks "with no [condescending] Negro dialect, unless he want[s] to have one" doesn't know that, in this context, the correct phrasing isn't "they gonna put y'all back in chains", but rather "they gonna put [ALL] y'all back in chains!"



(*) and, clearly, light-headed ... except for the plugs.

====
The Colored Conservative: Joe Biden and Liberal Racism

Bumbling Biden is at it again. This guy is his own worst enemy.

Tuesday during a campaign speech in Virginia, VP Biden told the crowd that Mitt Romney’s policies where going to “unchain Wall Street,” while at the same time would also put people “back in chains.”

Whether or not you agree with what he said isn’t the issue. The issue is that a Democrat – once again- speaks to an audience which is predominately black or in a city which is predominately black in a condescending, jive-talkin’, faux- negro dialect seeking to exploit blacks by affecting verbal mannerisms to achieve solidarity while exploiting an undercurrent of racial tension…simply to collect votes.

This is the same Joe Biden who said that Barack Obama- who at the time was running for president – was “[the] first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.”
...
What the hell is wrong with Democrats that they think they can’t relate to blacks like regular folk? Why do they feel the need to constantly appropriate the mannerisms of a Baptist preacher or to stereotypically, “talk black?” Why are Democrats always using race as an issue to manipulate black emotions?

Answer- blacks let them.

If a white non-Democrat or conservative attempted to shuck-and-jive a black audience it would rightly be called what it is- racist. But when a Democrat of any color does it, it’s defended by the President, the WH spokespeople and the mainstream media as being within the bounds decency.

So, as we often see: liberal racism=good; conservative racism=bad.

As long as black folks continue to vote Democrat and not make the party of the Klan actually earn black votes with outcome-based policies rather than intention-based policies and to force the Democrats to relate to them in a dignified manner, we will continue to see Democrat politicians perform more and more minstrel, Stepin Fetchit speeches that insult the very people who support them.

If blacks don’t take themselves seriously, who will?

"Answer- blacks let them" and "If blacks don’t take themselves seriously, who will?"

Exactly. "Liberals" look down their noses at blacks because most American blacks have willingly sold their own honor -- and the futures of their own children -- for the same old few rhetorical baubles come election time. "Liberals" have no respect for black Americans because most American blacks have no self-respect.

Moreover, it is in the DNA of Democrats to look down their noses at blacks; for let it never be forgotten that the Democratic Party is the party of slavery and Jim Crow and the KKK.

====
Also, Gentle Reader, pay attention to that bit before: "... Romney wants ta let the ... he said, in the first hundred days, he's gonna let the Big Banks once again write their own rules .... un-chaaiinn Wall Street!"

What is this [merde]!? Joe Biden (Joe Biden!!?), of the Obama/Biden pseudo-Administration, has the audacity-of-hope to accuse-and-condemn someone else for assertedly wanting to "let the Big Banks once again write their own rules"? What?! Is he outraged (outraged! I say) that Romney is, according to his own allegation, trying to "steal" the Dems' position vis-a-vis "letting the Big Banks once again write their own rules"?

=========
edit 2012/08/19:
Bob Parks: Defending Racism, Liberally -- "Any number of white liberals have had no problem breaking into negro dialects in front of black audiences. Hillary Clinton in Selma or Al Gore in front of the NAACP in 2000. Thank God they don’t break into spirituals."

'Above My Paygrade'

Victor Reppert: "... For me, loving people like that is, as Obama would say, "above my pay grade." It's tough enough for me to maintain an appropriate loving attitude toward people who behave rudely on Dangerous Idea (of all persuasions)."

I think I know what you mean (*) ... which, by the by, may just have something to do with a mild complaint aired in the penultimate paragraph of this post.

edit:
Victor Reppert: "... And to pretend that you have actually succeeded in loving people when you really haven't is worse than just hating their guts. Falwell makes a fool of himself, of course, when he pretends that he loves gay people."

Really? And you know this, how?


(*) In case the casual reader doesn't quite follow the point: I present reasons against the judicially-invented doctrine of 'judicial review'; left-wingers are against 'judicial review' only when they fear that for once it may not break in their desired direction. Mr Reppert pretends there is a moral equivalency between the two positions. I wonder, is there a succinct term by which one might denote such a pretense?

Well, D'uh!

Lawrence Auster: "A reader says, not unreasonably, that he was treated somewhat unfairly in the "Gingrich vs. Romney" thread ..."

Dude, the concatenation of human nature, your own personal nature, and your "gatekeeper" approach to blogging makes it inevitable that you are going to treat unfairly at least some who send responses to you.

Even without bothering to looking at 'Reader's' statement and Auster's response, I can state with honest conviction that the only shocker here is that Auster openly says that the reader's claim is "not unreasonable".

Being Lydia McGrew

In the comments section -- I trust Gentle Reader to be able to see my point, within reading just a few comments, without me explicitly spelling it out.

It's too bad, really.

--
Incidentally, Mrs McGrew's point in the article ('Making a virtue out of necessity') is much the same as mine in objecting this.

What a wicked man ...

... along with being a sissy-crybaby hypocrite with respect to the non-wicked aspects of the very attitude of which he boasts.

Addendum (2010/09/28):
To perhaps aid in the commbox discussion, I'm adding (the significant part of) Vox's post --

Culling the weak and simple

From the blogosphere:

As an observer to this blog controversy, I am reminded of many similar incidents over the past six years of my blogging. I can certainly remember posts that I authored that (1) were taken the wrong way; (2) really upset folks in an unpredictable way or to an unpredictable degree; and/or (3) prompted personal and quite vindictive attacks. I remember the awful way I would feel for a day or two, afraid to even look at my email for fear of comments that felt like knives being thrown my way. The feeling (let's call it "bloghorror") is hard to describe. First, bloghorror is in part just a reaction to being attacked, but it's also a shame at having hurt someone else, even unintentionally, and it's also an anger at the completely unfair nature of the response. But most of all it's this feeling of being misunderstood. And unfortunately, there's no way to cure this. In 2005, my first reaction would be to explain myself, so that the blog audience would say, "Ah, I understand now." It took me a year or two to learn that once your audience has concluded that you are the devil saying devil things, any effort to explain will just add to the arsenal of the ammunition that will be hurled back at you.

As I read this, I was filled with a mix of incomprehension, amusement, and scorn. Needless to say, an AWCA feels no shame at the idea of having hurt someone else, intentionally or unintentionally, because sometimes an emotional evisceration is the entire point of a post. As it is said, no pain, no gain. By inflicting pain, I am merely helping others to grow. The humiliation that is felt by an interlocutor whose arguments have been methodically carved up by remorseless logic is my gift to them.

I ask for no thanks. Artistry is its own reward. ...

This is the beginning of his post, this is what he intentionally chose to quote and comment upon from his target's post.

There is *nothing* in what he quoted which justifies what he said in the part of his post I have quoted.


Now, let us consider the next (and reasonable) thing this particular fool said:

And there is no shame in being misunderstood. Being misunderstood is the norm. ...

Obviously, and by his own standard (*) and admission, Mr Beale is among the "weak and simple" who deserve to be "culled." For, his target didn't say she'd felt shame at being misunderstood ... she said she felt shame at having hurt others, even unintentionally. Her mention of being (feeling, actually) misunderstood was to say that that feeling was the larger part of what she is calling "bloghorror," which was the temptation to just give up on blogging due to the negative, and often unfair, nature of (some of) the responses to what she'd previosly written.

(*) by his own standard -- except, of course, that he is a hypocrite: he cannot and will not abide criticism of what he says and does. The more just/deserved and to-the-point the criticism, the less he will abide it.