There are a few atheists I have befriended at my school, the Universty of North Texas. I haven’t seen them much this fall, but last semester and the one before that I encountered them several times as they had a booth on campus with the poster “ask an atheist.” The conversations were always civil and enlightening and naturally, no one changed any fundamental beliefs of any serious nature.
However, there was one conversation I had that for some reason just came into my head today. With these thoughts out of the blue came an answer I should have given to a proposition one of them said to me.
I was speaking with Colin about evidences of a creator. I mentioned to him that if we were purely biological and merely one (or several) evolutionary steps ahead of our animal kin* then why do we have such an affinity for beauty? Animals follow their instincts to survive and procreate and do not do much else. There is no reason that a particular human’s love for a flower, or a sunset, or a poem, or a song would aid him or her in the great game of natural selection. And more to the point, there is certainly no reason a particular human’s talents to create beautiful art and anything aesthetically pleasing would help him or her survive. And furthermore, even were beauty to have survival value, this would be hard to describe in terms of instinct because the forms of beauty different people enjoy vary greatly! Why are we unique in such a distinctive way? I submitted that our love of beauty exists, at least in part, because a supreme being wants us to enjoy life. Whatever the reason, however, I challenged him to explain this human phenomenon in purely biological and evolutionary terms.
*and bear in mind I have no personal or theological disagreement with evolution; I believe in evolution, but I believe that God invented it
Colin’s answer surprised me and I remember we both had to go class so his answer was the end of the conversation. But even if we didn’t have classes to go to, I had no reply for him.
He explained that perhaps it was an advantage for men to be artistic because women find this attractive. As an evolutionary mechanism, men might have artistic inclinations that opened up greater potentials for spawning. After all, we both agreed that girls swoon over drummers (such as yours truly). We agreed that probably throughout history artistic talent has not, in fact, had a great effect on the pedigree of man, but this fact wouldn’t eliminate this biological possibility. And naturally he didn’t try to argue that artistic talent was the exclusive desirable trait in a man (just one of them). As my small brain tried to come up with an answer, he walked off to class.
But just today, months later, the answer popped into my head. I don’t know why I didn’t think of this before, I guess I’m kind of retarded.
My reply to Colin must be: if men are artistically inclined in order to experience greater mating possibilities, then what is the evolutionary advantage for women to be attracted to such men in the first place? If women love sunsets, and they therefore love men who paint sunsets, then we can understand why men would want to learn how to paint sunsets. However, we still have no answer for the question: what is the biologically compelling reason that the women love sunsets in the first place? And that is the rub. Colin hasn’t really answered the original question. Why are any humans inclined to love and create beauty?
Therefore, it still stands that one of the best arguments that we are not merely biological creatures is that we love beauty.
Here’s one of my favorite salient quotes. Christopher Fry said in his most famous play, “Laughter is surely the surest touch of genius in creation. Would you have ever thought of it…if you had been making man?”
No one will be convinced that because science cannot account evolutionarily for the human love of beauty and art there is a creator. This is because the creator has formed a world in which by observation and pondering alone it is difficult to determine whether he exists. Atheists use their powers of observation and critical thinking to explain to believers why he doesn’t exist. And believers also point to all sorts of observable phenomena (such as the fact that we love beauty) and convincing philosophical arguments involving the entirety of the universe such as the “first mover” argument, etc. Both believers and non-believers say that it is utterly obvious to see that there is and is not a god, respectively.
From a believer’s standpoint this makes perfect sense because this means that we must rely on faith (without which free will would be an impossibility). From an atheist’s standpoint this is merely a nuisance, which is ironically and even paradoxically another peripheral reason to actually believe in a creator.
Addendum January 25, 2010
I explained to my oldest friend, whom I visited recently, this argument of the human phenomenon of the love of beauty. He, a biologist and atheist, rebutted me by asking 'how do you know that animals don't love beauty?' I rolled my eyes. The conversation went on to other topics but here I'll add that his reply is inane. Even if animals could understand and appreciate beauty (and if they did, then why don't they create it?), then the question of 'how does the appreciation of beauty benefit them?' is still unanswered.
This seems like a big deal to me, because it is such a glaring problem for the rising militant atheist movement.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
I had a strange and vivid dream last night.
We were all in a room and the man stood up to tell us we would be voting for who would be the king of Switzerland. The family of whoever won would be royalty and that would settle the matter for the small, land locked country of who would be in charge forever. I stood up and asked why there couldn’t be a president. I argued in front of everyone that a president doesn’t take everyone’s money and spend it for him and people he wants to spend it on. A president is a good steward of the people’s hard earned money.
The guy announcing our vote said there would be no president on the ballot, only kings. People started lining up to vote, ignoring me, but I shouted louder saying that we should write on the ballot that there should be a vote to decide if Switzerland should be a democracy, not a kingdom. I said that if we’re voting for a king, we’re already acting like a democracy. The guy said we must have a king, no presidents and no elections after this first one.
I spoke to a gal in line who said if there’s royalty, then there will be more trade between Switzerland and other countries and people coming would be here for vacation to buy trinkets. She was poor and wanted the economy to do better and thought that having a king would do this.
I couldn’t understand why people wanted to vote for a king and then never vote again for a president and just let the king do whatever he wants with the money and taxes. Then I woke up.
On a completely unrelated note, there is no health care crisis in America. We have extremely good health care and relatively excellent survival rates for serious diseases like cancer. We have a crisis of health care costs. Ours are too high. What can government do about this?
Government cannot generate money, it can only spend money (printing more dollars devalues all others currently in existence leaving the sum total of American wealth the same as before). It cannot magically generate the right amount of money out of thin air to pay for healthcare, although sometimes it seems like Obama and the current Congress believes it can.
Government also cannot magically reduce the cost of something. It can artificially reduce the cost of health care premiums, for example, but the same total price as before will be paid somewhere (by someone) in the economy.
This inability of government to reduce the cost of something goes with a caveat, of course. The government can reduce the actual cost of health care by forcing a reduction in its quality. Health care will cost less if it is mandated to be worse in some ways. For example, if there is some kind of rationing in some way (which would be any type of restricted access to any part of health care) then there will obviously be less costs incurred. Naturally the difficult part is determining how much and what parts of health care must be restricted and whether that will reduce the costs enough.
There are options besides “rationing.” Though my understanding is that this is not currently a part of either the House or Senate bill, tort reform could reduce costs by having doctors perform less tests and less “defensive medicine.” These tests are often called superfluous, but doubtless there have been times they have saved lives. Not all, perhaps not even most malpractice suits are frivolous (I wouldn’t pretend to know what percentage). But reducing these tests will necessarily be a reduction in quality.
The guy announcing our vote said there would be no president on the ballot, only kings. People started lining up to vote, ignoring me, but I shouted louder saying that we should write on the ballot that there should be a vote to decide if Switzerland should be a democracy, not a kingdom. I said that if we’re voting for a king, we’re already acting like a democracy. The guy said we must have a king, no presidents and no elections after this first one.
I spoke to a gal in line who said if there’s royalty, then there will be more trade between Switzerland and other countries and people coming would be here for vacation to buy trinkets. She was poor and wanted the economy to do better and thought that having a king would do this.
I couldn’t understand why people wanted to vote for a king and then never vote again for a president and just let the king do whatever he wants with the money and taxes. Then I woke up.
On a completely unrelated note, there is no health care crisis in America. We have extremely good health care and relatively excellent survival rates for serious diseases like cancer. We have a crisis of health care costs. Ours are too high. What can government do about this?
Government cannot generate money, it can only spend money (printing more dollars devalues all others currently in existence leaving the sum total of American wealth the same as before). It cannot magically generate the right amount of money out of thin air to pay for healthcare, although sometimes it seems like Obama and the current Congress believes it can.
Government also cannot magically reduce the cost of something. It can artificially reduce the cost of health care premiums, for example, but the same total price as before will be paid somewhere (by someone) in the economy.
This inability of government to reduce the cost of something goes with a caveat, of course. The government can reduce the actual cost of health care by forcing a reduction in its quality. Health care will cost less if it is mandated to be worse in some ways. For example, if there is some kind of rationing in some way (which would be any type of restricted access to any part of health care) then there will obviously be less costs incurred. Naturally the difficult part is determining how much and what parts of health care must be restricted and whether that will reduce the costs enough.
There are options besides “rationing.” Though my understanding is that this is not currently a part of either the House or Senate bill, tort reform could reduce costs by having doctors perform less tests and less “defensive medicine.” These tests are often called superfluous, but doubtless there have been times they have saved lives. Not all, perhaps not even most malpractice suits are frivolous (I wouldn’t pretend to know what percentage). But reducing these tests will necessarily be a reduction in quality.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Five Sundry Bloglettes
Why, in the long run, America will legalize Gay marriage.
Let’s pretend that ½ of the general populace supports it. This seems likely since there’s about an equal number of those who consider themselves conservative as those who consider themselves liberal, and independents will likewise probably be split evenly on this issue. So, let’s just pretend. This ½ of the populace will vote to legalize gay marriage. The other ½ will oppose it.
However, among the ½ who oppose gay marriage, there is a much more difficult set of decisions that must be made, ones that aren’t in the equation for those who support it. Those who oppose it don’t have a harder decision because ‘they know in their hearts gay marriage is a good thing and they know in their hearts that they are just bigots deep down.’ Nothing like that. Those who oppose it have a harder decision because even though they feel it is wrong, they may feel that it is not the government’s job to determine morality, or to decide this particular issue of morality. I personally know some people who consider homosexuality a sin, but who support legalizing gay marriage.
There won’t be anyone in the ½ of America who thinks homosexuality is ok that will vote against gay marriage. But there will be some in the ½ of America who thinks homosexuality is a sin that will still vote to legalize gay marriage, considering it a trampling of rights – that’s what America is all about. Of course, so far, I’m wrong. In 31 states traditional marriage has prevailed, recently most notably and surprisingly in Maine.
Moral Relativists are mean people.
People tell me that evil doesn’t exist. Next time someone tells me that I’ll ask them if they believe that hatred exists. I’m sure they’ll agree.
Evil may best be described as actions motivated by hatred. I don’t think you can do an evil act and not feel hatred in some way, on some level. You can cause harm without out right angry hatred, such as allowing someone to be hurt and you don’t try to help them and that is evil too, derived from apathy. But even if it is out of apathy, there has to be some kind of hatred on some level. This is demonstrated by the fact that you cannot love someone and allow them to be hurt. Obviously this is different from allowing someone to be harmed so they can learn. This could be out of love. The obvious example is letting a kid get (slightly) burned on the stove so that the kid will learn to listen to her mother next time to not touch the stove. But imagine a parent that allowed her child to run into a busy street so that the child can ‘learn’ that cars hurt you. That’s evil (or insanity). Such a parent does not love the kid. The parent must loathe the child on some level. That is evil.
This argument is entirely semantic of course. But aren’t all discussions of evil? When people tell me that evil doesn’t exist, they are saying so because they are trying to argue that morality is a false notion. If you cut it down to evil = hatred, and they must agree that the concept of hatred exists, they will then be forced to argue that hatred isn’t wrong. What a lovely idea.
Glad to have Obama as my president – no sarcasm.
People always talk about how Obama is a bad president, he’s a socialist, he’s inept, etc. Maybe he’s a bad president. But I would much rather have Obama than Putin or the guys who run the West Bank or the guys who run Lebanon or China or virtually any nation in Africa, or the vast majority of nations throughout history. Or for that matter, I’d rather have him than the majority of nations throughout the 20th century. It’s all in the comparison, like poverty, it doesn’t truly exist in America. We just think it does.
Sarah Palin, it’s simple.
Sarah Palin is always big news on the political scene. But I never read anything about her ever. I always skip anything involving Sarah Palin no matter what it is. I only learned two things about her last year and it’s enough for me. These two things are all I need to know to forever vote for her.
1) she fought against her own party who were corrupt and won the governorship in Alaska.
2) her voter approval rating was always astronomically high.
No one fights your own party and wins, and no one has such insanely high approval ratings. That’s a president I’d want to have. I trust someone who fights the corruption of their own party and who everyone on both sides of the aisle support overwhelmingly. People talk about how we’re too polarized as a nation, too partisan. Sarah Palin seems to be a bridge builder of far more acuity than Obama, and she did so by actually doing it, not by saying she would.
The Berlin Wall did not Fall
You read correctly. It did not fall. It was torn down. It was not an inevitable event. It had to be physically broken apart by people, not by time or its own weight. There was no fall of the Berlin Wall, there was a tearing down of the Berlin Wall. The distinction is highly relevant.
Just as Martin Luther King jr. said – “Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability.”
The wall was built by evil decisions and torn down by good ones. There was nothing inevitable about either event.
Let’s pretend that ½ of the general populace supports it. This seems likely since there’s about an equal number of those who consider themselves conservative as those who consider themselves liberal, and independents will likewise probably be split evenly on this issue. So, let’s just pretend. This ½ of the populace will vote to legalize gay marriage. The other ½ will oppose it.
However, among the ½ who oppose gay marriage, there is a much more difficult set of decisions that must be made, ones that aren’t in the equation for those who support it. Those who oppose it don’t have a harder decision because ‘they know in their hearts gay marriage is a good thing and they know in their hearts that they are just bigots deep down.’ Nothing like that. Those who oppose it have a harder decision because even though they feel it is wrong, they may feel that it is not the government’s job to determine morality, or to decide this particular issue of morality. I personally know some people who consider homosexuality a sin, but who support legalizing gay marriage.
There won’t be anyone in the ½ of America who thinks homosexuality is ok that will vote against gay marriage. But there will be some in the ½ of America who thinks homosexuality is a sin that will still vote to legalize gay marriage, considering it a trampling of rights – that’s what America is all about. Of course, so far, I’m wrong. In 31 states traditional marriage has prevailed, recently most notably and surprisingly in Maine.
Moral Relativists are mean people.
People tell me that evil doesn’t exist. Next time someone tells me that I’ll ask them if they believe that hatred exists. I’m sure they’ll agree.
Evil may best be described as actions motivated by hatred. I don’t think you can do an evil act and not feel hatred in some way, on some level. You can cause harm without out right angry hatred, such as allowing someone to be hurt and you don’t try to help them and that is evil too, derived from apathy. But even if it is out of apathy, there has to be some kind of hatred on some level. This is demonstrated by the fact that you cannot love someone and allow them to be hurt. Obviously this is different from allowing someone to be harmed so they can learn. This could be out of love. The obvious example is letting a kid get (slightly) burned on the stove so that the kid will learn to listen to her mother next time to not touch the stove. But imagine a parent that allowed her child to run into a busy street so that the child can ‘learn’ that cars hurt you. That’s evil (or insanity). Such a parent does not love the kid. The parent must loathe the child on some level. That is evil.
This argument is entirely semantic of course. But aren’t all discussions of evil? When people tell me that evil doesn’t exist, they are saying so because they are trying to argue that morality is a false notion. If you cut it down to evil = hatred, and they must agree that the concept of hatred exists, they will then be forced to argue that hatred isn’t wrong. What a lovely idea.
Glad to have Obama as my president – no sarcasm.
People always talk about how Obama is a bad president, he’s a socialist, he’s inept, etc. Maybe he’s a bad president. But I would much rather have Obama than Putin or the guys who run the West Bank or the guys who run Lebanon or China or virtually any nation in Africa, or the vast majority of nations throughout history. Or for that matter, I’d rather have him than the majority of nations throughout the 20th century. It’s all in the comparison, like poverty, it doesn’t truly exist in America. We just think it does.
Sarah Palin, it’s simple.
Sarah Palin is always big news on the political scene. But I never read anything about her ever. I always skip anything involving Sarah Palin no matter what it is. I only learned two things about her last year and it’s enough for me. These two things are all I need to know to forever vote for her.
1) she fought against her own party who were corrupt and won the governorship in Alaska.
2) her voter approval rating was always astronomically high.
No one fights your own party and wins, and no one has such insanely high approval ratings. That’s a president I’d want to have. I trust someone who fights the corruption of their own party and who everyone on both sides of the aisle support overwhelmingly. People talk about how we’re too polarized as a nation, too partisan. Sarah Palin seems to be a bridge builder of far more acuity than Obama, and she did so by actually doing it, not by saying she would.
The Berlin Wall did not Fall
You read correctly. It did not fall. It was torn down. It was not an inevitable event. It had to be physically broken apart by people, not by time or its own weight. There was no fall of the Berlin Wall, there was a tearing down of the Berlin Wall. The distinction is highly relevant.
Just as Martin Luther King jr. said – “Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability.”
The wall was built by evil decisions and torn down by good ones. There was nothing inevitable about either event.
Monday, October 5, 2009
Comparisons
I know I’m such a hard critic of the UN. I mean, should I really expect them to have enough time to take care of the problems of the world when such critical work as the dissolving of Switzerland and the re-drawing of the borders of Italy, France and Germany are at stake?
Anyways…
When people often spoke of Iraq as a second Vietnam, there were typically two points, or dimensions, they were trying to show. The first is to say that both wars were misguided and wrong in design. The second is to say that we will lose in Iraq like we did in Vietnam (the moral being that we’d better pull out, because we’re gonna lose anyway).
In addressing only the latter dimension, I say phooey. Anyone who has read anything on the military aspect of Vietnam will tell you that the result was unexpected and very unlikely to have happened. The chances were extremely remote that the NVA, even with the Vietcong, would win. It was a great upset in the course of history. As my dad once mentioned to me, the South Vietnamese were a match militarily all by themselves for the North, before ever adding the US Army into the equation. Additionally, the US won every single battle, yet lost the war. Who could possibly account for that, on a military level? The answer is, no one because we didn’t lose the war on a military level.
Now, back to the Iraq war. The US had a much better trained, funded, equipped and prepared military in 2003 than in 1965. Comparing the two wars for the purpose of arguing that we will also lose the Iraq War is like saying ‘well, I got struck by lightning on a clear day on October 5th in 2008, and now it is another clear day on October 5th 2009, so I better not go outside because I imagine I’ll be struck by lightning.’ Who would say that?
One problem with comparing the two wars in order to show we will lose in Iraq is the fact that the casualty rates are extremely different. In six years of war we have lost about 4000 soldiers in Iraq. In the eight years of direct involvement of US troops in Vietnam fifteen times more soldiers died (about 60,000). Wounded rates show a similar disparity with Vietnam involving ten times more than the Iraq war (about 300,000 to 30,000).
I find it difficult to believe we’re going to militarily lose the Iraq war with such low casualty rates. As far as I understand, this is an unprecedentedly low death rate for any conflict of similar scale.
After all this, let me change my mind and state that the comparison arguments are correct: if we lose the post 2003 counter-insurgent portion of the Iraq War,* it will not be because our military failed, it will be because our politics and policies fail. And that is an accurate comparison to Vietnam.
*[because we must acknowledge that technically the US already won the Iraq War by demolishing the old Iraq army and regime in three weeks in 2003].
Now, if we are so awesome, how come we can’t just win these wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? The answer is because we aren’t fighting a war with either Afghanistan or Iraq anymore. Both of these countries are great allies with us, since late 2001 and mid 2003 respectively. We are trying to a) stabilize their infant democracies, b) inoculate their governments against corruption, 3) eliminate the extremely evil and violent insurgents and jihadists who blow up schools, mosques and weddings, and 4) train armed forces and police to be self-sufficient in fighting these terrorists without the US.
In case you didn’t know, only the last half of those goals are what the US military does. In fact, only number 3 is what the military really does.
Not only is the military doing jobs it is not meant to do, but it is doing them under conditions that did not exist in other similar scenarios. Let me explain this by comparing the development of democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan to that in Japan and the US.
Japan: after World War II it took seven years for the US to export democracy to Japan.
US: declared independence in 1776, but it wasn’t until 1791, fifteen years later, that both the Constitution and Bill of Rights had been created and ratified. However you interpret when the real birth of the US democratic republic was, it was necessarily several years after 1776.
So, as a first comparison, it takes time
Don't expect the current 'wars' which are actually counter-insurgencies coupled with nation building do do wonders instantly.
But there are also some differences to be appreciated:
• Neither Japan nor the US had severe poverty (both peoples at the two times actually being among the richest on earth (although Japan had been devastated by war)). Afghanistan nevertheless had far severer poverty and Iraq wasn’t exactly swimming in wealth, having been bankrupted by Saddam.
• Neither Japan nor the US had intense drug problems like Afghanistan.
• And most stunningly of all, neither Japan nor the US had violently radical factions who are willing to kill their own people in order to kick out the foreigners who are seeking to help their people (which in a word, is insanity).
I’d have to say that these are significant differences. Be patient. Don’t give up. Let the military have all the resources it needs. Let our allies in Iraq and Afghanistan (and Pakistan) have all the resources they need. We need more stable democracies in the Middle East.* Heck, we need more stable democracies in the world. We must succeed in Afghanistan because if we do not, then necessarily, yes necessarily, it will revert to the ultra-oppressive, international terrorist-sponsoring, major drug-producing cesspool it was.
*[it would be great to have more than one (Israel), wouldn’t it?]
Anyways…
When people often spoke of Iraq as a second Vietnam, there were typically two points, or dimensions, they were trying to show. The first is to say that both wars were misguided and wrong in design. The second is to say that we will lose in Iraq like we did in Vietnam (the moral being that we’d better pull out, because we’re gonna lose anyway).
In addressing only the latter dimension, I say phooey. Anyone who has read anything on the military aspect of Vietnam will tell you that the result was unexpected and very unlikely to have happened. The chances were extremely remote that the NVA, even with the Vietcong, would win. It was a great upset in the course of history. As my dad once mentioned to me, the South Vietnamese were a match militarily all by themselves for the North, before ever adding the US Army into the equation. Additionally, the US won every single battle, yet lost the war. Who could possibly account for that, on a military level? The answer is, no one because we didn’t lose the war on a military level.
Now, back to the Iraq war. The US had a much better trained, funded, equipped and prepared military in 2003 than in 1965. Comparing the two wars for the purpose of arguing that we will also lose the Iraq War is like saying ‘well, I got struck by lightning on a clear day on October 5th in 2008, and now it is another clear day on October 5th 2009, so I better not go outside because I imagine I’ll be struck by lightning.’ Who would say that?
One problem with comparing the two wars in order to show we will lose in Iraq is the fact that the casualty rates are extremely different. In six years of war we have lost about 4000 soldiers in Iraq. In the eight years of direct involvement of US troops in Vietnam fifteen times more soldiers died (about 60,000). Wounded rates show a similar disparity with Vietnam involving ten times more than the Iraq war (about 300,000 to 30,000).
I find it difficult to believe we’re going to militarily lose the Iraq war with such low casualty rates. As far as I understand, this is an unprecedentedly low death rate for any conflict of similar scale.
After all this, let me change my mind and state that the comparison arguments are correct: if we lose the post 2003 counter-insurgent portion of the Iraq War,* it will not be because our military failed, it will be because our politics and policies fail. And that is an accurate comparison to Vietnam.
*[because we must acknowledge that technically the US already won the Iraq War by demolishing the old Iraq army and regime in three weeks in 2003].
Now, if we are so awesome, how come we can’t just win these wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? The answer is because we aren’t fighting a war with either Afghanistan or Iraq anymore. Both of these countries are great allies with us, since late 2001 and mid 2003 respectively. We are trying to a) stabilize their infant democracies, b) inoculate their governments against corruption, 3) eliminate the extremely evil and violent insurgents and jihadists who blow up schools, mosques and weddings, and 4) train armed forces and police to be self-sufficient in fighting these terrorists without the US.
In case you didn’t know, only the last half of those goals are what the US military does. In fact, only number 3 is what the military really does.
Not only is the military doing jobs it is not meant to do, but it is doing them under conditions that did not exist in other similar scenarios. Let me explain this by comparing the development of democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan to that in Japan and the US.
Japan: after World War II it took seven years for the US to export democracy to Japan.
US: declared independence in 1776, but it wasn’t until 1791, fifteen years later, that both the Constitution and Bill of Rights had been created and ratified. However you interpret when the real birth of the US democratic republic was, it was necessarily several years after 1776.
So, as a first comparison, it takes time
Don't expect the current 'wars' which are actually counter-insurgencies coupled with nation building do do wonders instantly.
But there are also some differences to be appreciated:
• Neither Japan nor the US had severe poverty (both peoples at the two times actually being among the richest on earth (although Japan had been devastated by war)). Afghanistan nevertheless had far severer poverty and Iraq wasn’t exactly swimming in wealth, having been bankrupted by Saddam.
• Neither Japan nor the US had intense drug problems like Afghanistan.
• And most stunningly of all, neither Japan nor the US had violently radical factions who are willing to kill their own people in order to kick out the foreigners who are seeking to help their people (which in a word, is insanity).
I’d have to say that these are significant differences. Be patient. Don’t give up. Let the military have all the resources it needs. Let our allies in Iraq and Afghanistan (and Pakistan) have all the resources they need. We need more stable democracies in the Middle East.* Heck, we need more stable democracies in the world. We must succeed in Afghanistan because if we do not, then necessarily, yes necessarily, it will revert to the ultra-oppressive, international terrorist-sponsoring, major drug-producing cesspool it was.
*[it would be great to have more than one (Israel), wouldn’t it?]
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Gaddafi: the visionary
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1926053,00.html
From Time Magazine:
“A few weeks ago, Gaddafi [dictator of Libya] submitted a proposal to the U.N. to abolish Switzerland and divide it up along linguistic lines, giving parts of the country to Germany, France and Italy. Although the motion was thrown out because it violates the U.N. Charter stating that no member country can threaten the existence of another, some Swiss leaders are still concerned that Libya could use its year-long presidency of the U.N. General Assembly, which began on Sept. 15, to keep up his vitriolic attacks on their country.”
What can I say? I laughed really hard when I read this. I love how the author specifies exactly why the motion was thrown out. Yes, tell us the reason! We must know!
But the real rub is found in the final thought. Why exactly would an organization composed of more than 99 percent of the sovereign nations of planet earth allow a crackpot like Gaddafi be the president of its general assembly?
If you ever wonder why the UN is so impotent at solving the big problems facing the world, here is a clue.
From Time Magazine:
“A few weeks ago, Gaddafi [dictator of Libya] submitted a proposal to the U.N. to abolish Switzerland and divide it up along linguistic lines, giving parts of the country to Germany, France and Italy. Although the motion was thrown out because it violates the U.N. Charter stating that no member country can threaten the existence of another, some Swiss leaders are still concerned that Libya could use its year-long presidency of the U.N. General Assembly, which began on Sept. 15, to keep up his vitriolic attacks on their country.”
What can I say? I laughed really hard when I read this. I love how the author specifies exactly why the motion was thrown out. Yes, tell us the reason! We must know!
But the real rub is found in the final thought. Why exactly would an organization composed of more than 99 percent of the sovereign nations of planet earth allow a crackpot like Gaddafi be the president of its general assembly?
If you ever wonder why the UN is so impotent at solving the big problems facing the world, here is a clue.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Seven Sundry Bloglettes
If you read this blog, you’re probably one of very few people. Nevertheless, sorry I haven’t been posting regularly. I’ve had an eventful summer with these events (not in the order they occurred):
A) We discovered a tiny parasite in my wife’s belly that I’m sure will one day rise to overthrow me and my wicked ways. Or just become my firstborn. Either one.
B) A short story of mine was published. It is included in an anthology you can purchase from amazon here:
http://www.amazon.com/Dead-Worlds-Undead-Stories-Anthology/dp/1935458213/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1252523984&sr=8-3
C) My CD, Big Rig, which I have very slowly begun to advertise on the net, has been made available, which can also be bought on Amazon (among other places, but that’s the cheapest)
http://www.amazon.com/Big-Rig/dp/B002A6O2TC/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=dmusic&qid=1252524441&sr=8-3
So anyway,
Here’s just a few bloglettes, numbered from 1 to 6
1) The Film of 2009
If you only see one film this year, it should be “The boy in the Striped Pajamas.” Just go rent it.
2) Health Care
I don’t feel I read enough to generally comment on domestic politics, but I’ll say a word or two this time.
Thomas Sowell, the economist said yesterday:
“One plain fact should outweigh all the words of Barack Obama and all the impressive trappings of the setting in which he says them: He tried to rush Congress into passing a massive government takeover of the nation's medical care before the August recess-- for a program that would not take effect until 2013!
Whatever President Obama is, he is not stupid. If the urgency to pass the medical care legislation was to deal with a problem immediately, then why postpone the date when the legislation goes into effect for years-- more specifically, until the year after the next Presidential election?
If this is such an urgently needed program, why wait for years to put it into effect? And if the public is going to benefit from this, why not let them experience those benefits before the next Presidential election?
If it is not urgent that the legislation goes into effect immediately, then why don't we have time to go through the normal process of holding Congressional hearings on the pros and cons, accompanied by public discussions of its innumerable provisions? What sense does it make to "hurry up and wait" on something that is literally a matter of life and death?”
3) Chicago Politics
My friend Ken Begg, of Chicago told me that in the summer of 2008 Chicago had the highest gas prices of anywhere in the US, and people complained at the pump. So gas stations began posting how much of the exorbitant price went directly to the state of Illinois and how much were taxes for Chicago (they had ten levels of taxation on the gas), and finally how much went to the actually gas station or gas company. It was the taxes that made the prices so high, gaining the majority of the money from the price. So the city of Chicago passed a law stating that you cannot post, as part of the price of gas, how much of that price was taxes! Hurray for Chicago politics!
4) Super Brains and their problem solving skills
On an episode of Aqua Teen Hunger Force I recently saw, Meatwad developed a gigantic brain. He devoted his brainpower to hilarious hijinks such as telekinesis. Master Fry chided him and asked why he isn’t devoting his unprecedented brainpower to solving the world’s problems such as war, poverty and starvation. The episode was funny, as usual, but, as almost all tv, displays only platitudes and empty morals.
It is not for lack of some unborn super-genius who can show us the solution we have been blind to that the world has problems such as poverty, starvation and war.
There is enough actual food produced in the world to feed all of its inhabitants. Therefore, the solution is not some as yet unfathomable puzzle.
How about poverty? This is almost philosophical as by definition, unless the entire world is egalitarian (which will never happen even in Marx’s wildest dreams) there will be stratification of all societies and the lowest will be labeled “the poor.” For the real reason this is partially meaningless has to do with the fact that much of the societies of the world today contain virtually zero people who are as poor as those a mere two hundred years ago…i.e. the entire world has been rapidly gaining wealth in the previous century. For my detailed explanation on this point, see the blog entitled “The Greatest Political Issue” on September 22, 2008 (Wow, almost a year ago!)
Could Einstein, instead of fleeing for America, have used a superior logical argument to dissuade Hitler from going forth with the Final Solution? How about the insanity of modern anti-Western Islamic Jihadism? If you read even a little bit of their retarded religious rhetoric you will understand why a sound mind could never convince them of their wicked ways.
Let me rephrase all this. These three issues are complicated problems. However, they are not mathematical or scientifics ones. And it will not be through superior intellectual arguments and revelations that will provide the sorely needed solutions. In short, these problems don’t exist because people are stupid, it is because people are evil.
Wherever there is more goodness, there is naturally less of these kinds of problems.
5) Co-workers
My coworker Terence is from Zimbabwe. Mugabe has always been his president since he was born. He grew up thinking, just like many Zimbabwens, that Mugabe is great. He didn’t know until recently that Mugabe, part of the Shona tribe of Zimbabwe (which represents 90% of the nation), attempted to exterminate the 10% Ndebele tribe. His brother was almost shot by the Zimbabwen army when he and his friends found diamonds and were sifting through them. His brother’s friend was shot in the back.
Another co-worker of mine is named Florian. He is from Romania. He fled in the 80’s to come to America because Romania was a horrible communist dictatorship. He told me he fears we are giving too much power to the government and we might become too socialist before it’s too late, when the government will have so much power on so many issues we can do little about it.
Another co-worker of mine is named Miralem. He is awesome because he named his son Alem and then his daughter Alema. He is a Muslim Croat. He grew up in communist Yugoslavia. He came here for the money, but does not like communism (it seems no one who lives under it does).
Another co-worker of mine is Waqar. He is a Muslim from Pakistan. His wife works for the government issuing visas and other immigration and visiting papers. They tell her that she cannot work overtime (not enough money in their coffers), but she does not have enough time (like all those in her position) to give a full background check on people red-flagged because of their name or background (such as Muslims from the Middle East). She wants to quit because she - and her husband, the Muslim from Pakistan - feel that the government isn’t doing enough on this front to keep out possible terrorists. They are tying the hands of those who issue visas by forcing them to meet quotas even when proper research has not been done for a particular individual.
6) Causes vs Behavior
Both the Israels and Palestinians can make certain convincing cases that their cause is just, or more just than the other. It has ever been tricky to determine who is "right." At least for me, though I devote a good amount of time to reading on the subject.
There are two parts to the issue: The causes being fought for; and the behaviors of the two participants.
Disregarding the rightness of either side's cause, the two have not behaved similarly. Anyone without blinders on their eyes who has studied the history of Israel and Palestine for the past entire century and especially into the new millennium will note that the Palestinians, on the whole, have behaved far worse. They are they who have been far more guilty of breaking the cease fires and the treaties, have engaged in the kidnappings, terror tactics, hateful indoctrination of their children and so forth. They are also the ones who have treated their own people horribly. In other words, this is an attack on the Palestinian leadership, not its people per se.
And because the Palestinians have behaved so poorly over the decades, the people in the world who most agree with their ideology and agenda (i.e. the rest of the middle eastern Muslim world) have begun to stop sending so much money and support. The Muslim world is beginning to see that the Palestinian leadership does not keep their word but that the Israelis do. The Muslim world is beginning to see that the Palestinians break cease fires and rig elections and mismanage the economy terribly and that the Israelis do not. This behavior is starting to matter for those people who agree with the Palestinian cause.
And I would argue that even if the Palestinian's cause is the more just (which I'm not saying it necessarily is), the Palestinians are still in the wrong because of their past and current behavior.
To put it simply in a bad analogy, it would be like a man stole your bike and so you chase him down. But instead of just taking back the bike you killed him. Then you went and killed his wife and kids. Then you even threatened people in his neighborhood and perhaps killed a few of them just so that none of them would even consider stealing your bike. Before you killed anyone your cause was just. The theft of your bike was wrong. But what you did as a consequence put you very much in the wrong.
That analogy is not to be taken literally, obviously the bike should not be considered to be analogous to the actual land of Palestine for example. It is just to illustrate the dichotomy between the rightness of one's cause (such as seeking to get back your bike which was stolen) and your behavior in attempting to accomplish your goals regarding your cause (such as extreme vindication and revenge).
And I'm not letting any ill behavior on the part of Israel be let off the hook either. The Israelis have sins upon their heads too. But theirs are not coterminous to the Palestinians, especially not with the leadership of Gaza - Hamas is blatantly evil to the Palestinians they govern. They use schools and hospitals as headquarters, they steal money and supplies meant for starving and needy citizens for their soldiers and they have created a police state in the Gaza strip.
7) Crime and Punishment determines the value of Human Life
Waiting for my dental checkup today, I read in People magazine about the horrible tragedy of Jaycee Dugard. The article briefly informed about how Phillip Garrido was originally convicted of rape and sentenced to 50 years in prison. He was released 11 years later. After that he kidnapped and raped the very young Jaycee, then held her for 18 years. The article didn’t mention (and I’m sure the author didn’t know) anything about those who made the decision to let the slime-shit Phillip Garrido out after serving a fifth of his sentence. I hope they are filled with horrendous shame and that they modify how they adjudicate over such matters in the future, based upon lessons they learn this time.
It reminds me of the Libyan who murdered over 189 Americans and 81 others in 1988 and was recently released by the UK (a Scottish official) government to die in Libya. He is old and probably won’t commit any other terrorist acts. So?
If a society gives a murderer the maximum penalty (execution), then society is making the statement that human life is so valuable we must deliver the maximum penalty for anyone who willfully takes another’s life. By giving a murderer a lesser punishment, society is ironically making the statement that it does not value human life very highly. It is cheapening the value of life for everybody.
On a side note, the prevalence of abortion in modern civilization is another indication that life is little valued. The supply of those who wish to adopt will always exceed the number of children who need to be adopted. Therefore, if we valued human life we would push for the adoption of children, not their abortion in the womb.
A) We discovered a tiny parasite in my wife’s belly that I’m sure will one day rise to overthrow me and my wicked ways. Or just become my firstborn. Either one.
B) A short story of mine was published. It is included in an anthology you can purchase from amazon here:
http://www.amazon.com/Dead-Worlds-Undead-Stories-Anthology/dp/1935458213/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1252523984&sr=8-3
C) My CD, Big Rig, which I have very slowly begun to advertise on the net, has been made available, which can also be bought on Amazon (among other places, but that’s the cheapest)
http://www.amazon.com/Big-Rig/dp/B002A6O2TC/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=dmusic&qid=1252524441&sr=8-3
So anyway,
Here’s just a few bloglettes, numbered from 1 to 6
1) The Film of 2009
If you only see one film this year, it should be “The boy in the Striped Pajamas.” Just go rent it.
2) Health Care
I don’t feel I read enough to generally comment on domestic politics, but I’ll say a word or two this time.
Thomas Sowell, the economist said yesterday:
“One plain fact should outweigh all the words of Barack Obama and all the impressive trappings of the setting in which he says them: He tried to rush Congress into passing a massive government takeover of the nation's medical care before the August recess-- for a program that would not take effect until 2013!
Whatever President Obama is, he is not stupid. If the urgency to pass the medical care legislation was to deal with a problem immediately, then why postpone the date when the legislation goes into effect for years-- more specifically, until the year after the next Presidential election?
If this is such an urgently needed program, why wait for years to put it into effect? And if the public is going to benefit from this, why not let them experience those benefits before the next Presidential election?
If it is not urgent that the legislation goes into effect immediately, then why don't we have time to go through the normal process of holding Congressional hearings on the pros and cons, accompanied by public discussions of its innumerable provisions? What sense does it make to "hurry up and wait" on something that is literally a matter of life and death?”
3) Chicago Politics
My friend Ken Begg, of Chicago told me that in the summer of 2008 Chicago had the highest gas prices of anywhere in the US, and people complained at the pump. So gas stations began posting how much of the exorbitant price went directly to the state of Illinois and how much were taxes for Chicago (they had ten levels of taxation on the gas), and finally how much went to the actually gas station or gas company. It was the taxes that made the prices so high, gaining the majority of the money from the price. So the city of Chicago passed a law stating that you cannot post, as part of the price of gas, how much of that price was taxes! Hurray for Chicago politics!
4) Super Brains and their problem solving skills
On an episode of Aqua Teen Hunger Force I recently saw, Meatwad developed a gigantic brain. He devoted his brainpower to hilarious hijinks such as telekinesis. Master Fry chided him and asked why he isn’t devoting his unprecedented brainpower to solving the world’s problems such as war, poverty and starvation. The episode was funny, as usual, but, as almost all tv, displays only platitudes and empty morals.
It is not for lack of some unborn super-genius who can show us the solution we have been blind to that the world has problems such as poverty, starvation and war.
There is enough actual food produced in the world to feed all of its inhabitants. Therefore, the solution is not some as yet unfathomable puzzle.
How about poverty? This is almost philosophical as by definition, unless the entire world is egalitarian (which will never happen even in Marx’s wildest dreams) there will be stratification of all societies and the lowest will be labeled “the poor.” For the real reason this is partially meaningless has to do with the fact that much of the societies of the world today contain virtually zero people who are as poor as those a mere two hundred years ago…i.e. the entire world has been rapidly gaining wealth in the previous century. For my detailed explanation on this point, see the blog entitled “The Greatest Political Issue” on September 22, 2008 (Wow, almost a year ago!)
Could Einstein, instead of fleeing for America, have used a superior logical argument to dissuade Hitler from going forth with the Final Solution? How about the insanity of modern anti-Western Islamic Jihadism? If you read even a little bit of their retarded religious rhetoric you will understand why a sound mind could never convince them of their wicked ways.
Let me rephrase all this. These three issues are complicated problems. However, they are not mathematical or scientifics ones. And it will not be through superior intellectual arguments and revelations that will provide the sorely needed solutions. In short, these problems don’t exist because people are stupid, it is because people are evil.
Wherever there is more goodness, there is naturally less of these kinds of problems.
5) Co-workers
My coworker Terence is from Zimbabwe. Mugabe has always been his president since he was born. He grew up thinking, just like many Zimbabwens, that Mugabe is great. He didn’t know until recently that Mugabe, part of the Shona tribe of Zimbabwe (which represents 90% of the nation), attempted to exterminate the 10% Ndebele tribe. His brother was almost shot by the Zimbabwen army when he and his friends found diamonds and were sifting through them. His brother’s friend was shot in the back.
Another co-worker of mine is named Florian. He is from Romania. He fled in the 80’s to come to America because Romania was a horrible communist dictatorship. He told me he fears we are giving too much power to the government and we might become too socialist before it’s too late, when the government will have so much power on so many issues we can do little about it.
Another co-worker of mine is named Miralem. He is awesome because he named his son Alem and then his daughter Alema. He is a Muslim Croat. He grew up in communist Yugoslavia. He came here for the money, but does not like communism (it seems no one who lives under it does).
Another co-worker of mine is Waqar. He is a Muslim from Pakistan. His wife works for the government issuing visas and other immigration and visiting papers. They tell her that she cannot work overtime (not enough money in their coffers), but she does not have enough time (like all those in her position) to give a full background check on people red-flagged because of their name or background (such as Muslims from the Middle East). She wants to quit because she - and her husband, the Muslim from Pakistan - feel that the government isn’t doing enough on this front to keep out possible terrorists. They are tying the hands of those who issue visas by forcing them to meet quotas even when proper research has not been done for a particular individual.
6) Causes vs Behavior
Both the Israels and Palestinians can make certain convincing cases that their cause is just, or more just than the other. It has ever been tricky to determine who is "right." At least for me, though I devote a good amount of time to reading on the subject.
There are two parts to the issue: The causes being fought for; and the behaviors of the two participants.
Disregarding the rightness of either side's cause, the two have not behaved similarly. Anyone without blinders on their eyes who has studied the history of Israel and Palestine for the past entire century and especially into the new millennium will note that the Palestinians, on the whole, have behaved far worse. They are they who have been far more guilty of breaking the cease fires and the treaties, have engaged in the kidnappings, terror tactics, hateful indoctrination of their children and so forth. They are also the ones who have treated their own people horribly. In other words, this is an attack on the Palestinian leadership, not its people per se.
And because the Palestinians have behaved so poorly over the decades, the people in the world who most agree with their ideology and agenda (i.e. the rest of the middle eastern Muslim world) have begun to stop sending so much money and support. The Muslim world is beginning to see that the Palestinian leadership does not keep their word but that the Israelis do. The Muslim world is beginning to see that the Palestinians break cease fires and rig elections and mismanage the economy terribly and that the Israelis do not. This behavior is starting to matter for those people who agree with the Palestinian cause.
And I would argue that even if the Palestinian's cause is the more just (which I'm not saying it necessarily is), the Palestinians are still in the wrong because of their past and current behavior.
To put it simply in a bad analogy, it would be like a man stole your bike and so you chase him down. But instead of just taking back the bike you killed him. Then you went and killed his wife and kids. Then you even threatened people in his neighborhood and perhaps killed a few of them just so that none of them would even consider stealing your bike. Before you killed anyone your cause was just. The theft of your bike was wrong. But what you did as a consequence put you very much in the wrong.
That analogy is not to be taken literally, obviously the bike should not be considered to be analogous to the actual land of Palestine for example. It is just to illustrate the dichotomy between the rightness of one's cause (such as seeking to get back your bike which was stolen) and your behavior in attempting to accomplish your goals regarding your cause (such as extreme vindication and revenge).
And I'm not letting any ill behavior on the part of Israel be let off the hook either. The Israelis have sins upon their heads too. But theirs are not coterminous to the Palestinians, especially not with the leadership of Gaza - Hamas is blatantly evil to the Palestinians they govern. They use schools and hospitals as headquarters, they steal money and supplies meant for starving and needy citizens for their soldiers and they have created a police state in the Gaza strip.
7) Crime and Punishment determines the value of Human Life
Waiting for my dental checkup today, I read in People magazine about the horrible tragedy of Jaycee Dugard. The article briefly informed about how Phillip Garrido was originally convicted of rape and sentenced to 50 years in prison. He was released 11 years later. After that he kidnapped and raped the very young Jaycee, then held her for 18 years. The article didn’t mention (and I’m sure the author didn’t know) anything about those who made the decision to let the slime-shit Phillip Garrido out after serving a fifth of his sentence. I hope they are filled with horrendous shame and that they modify how they adjudicate over such matters in the future, based upon lessons they learn this time.
It reminds me of the Libyan who murdered over 189 Americans and 81 others in 1988 and was recently released by the UK (a Scottish official) government to die in Libya. He is old and probably won’t commit any other terrorist acts. So?
If a society gives a murderer the maximum penalty (execution), then society is making the statement that human life is so valuable we must deliver the maximum penalty for anyone who willfully takes another’s life. By giving a murderer a lesser punishment, society is ironically making the statement that it does not value human life very highly. It is cheapening the value of life for everybody.
On a side note, the prevalence of abortion in modern civilization is another indication that life is little valued. The supply of those who wish to adopt will always exceed the number of children who need to be adopted. Therefore, if we valued human life we would push for the adoption of children, not their abortion in the womb.
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Obama: Spreading Democracy Bad
Walid Phares is an American mideast expert who lives in Lebanon. On speaking of Obama's visit in Cairo tomorrow, he said “[Obama] criticized President Bush for taking action to spread democracy."
What a great president we have.
Ok, on the basis of this statement it sounds like we have an awful president, but, as far as foreign policy goes, we don't have an awful president. Obama intends to work with the regimes in place and use diplomacy for the good of stability.
Now it doesn't sound so bad, huh.
I mean, I can understand how important stability is. In fact, one of the reasons I supported the war in Iraq was for the stability of the middle East. And after Al Qaeda made Iraq the front of the war on Terror, it was almost entirely based upon the stability of the middle East that I supported the surge and Bush's perseverance in keeping our troops there. I have no problem with "stability."
I mean, the US has pursued "stability" in the mideast for, I don't know, always, and look where it's gotten us! It's a surefire strategy if you ask me! Oh wait. It's been failing for decades...
I'm glad our new president sees the urgency in ignoring the politically oppressed in Egypt and elsewhere as he continues using the most powerful country in the entire world's retarded policy of merely pursuing the eternally elusive "stability" in middle East affairs.
I mean, it's not like Obama cares about "victims" or anything, right?
What a great president we have.
Ok, on the basis of this statement it sounds like we have an awful president, but, as far as foreign policy goes, we don't have an awful president. Obama intends to work with the regimes in place and use diplomacy for the good of stability.
Now it doesn't sound so bad, huh.
I mean, I can understand how important stability is. In fact, one of the reasons I supported the war in Iraq was for the stability of the middle East. And after Al Qaeda made Iraq the front of the war on Terror, it was almost entirely based upon the stability of the middle East that I supported the surge and Bush's perseverance in keeping our troops there. I have no problem with "stability."
I mean, the US has pursued "stability" in the mideast for, I don't know, always, and look where it's gotten us! It's a surefire strategy if you ask me! Oh wait. It's been failing for decades...
I'm glad our new president sees the urgency in ignoring the politically oppressed in Egypt and elsewhere as he continues using the most powerful country in the entire world's retarded policy of merely pursuing the eternally elusive "stability" in middle East affairs.
I mean, it's not like Obama cares about "victims" or anything, right?
Thursday, May 21, 2009
The Watchmen's Conclusion
Don't worry, I won't spoil the film for anyone.
After the climax, the Watchmen (and the villain(s)) come to a conclusion that I did not quite understand. Or, I understood it, but I disagreed with on such a basic level that I was left wondering why none of them, including the villain(s) took possible actions X,Y or Z that I considered in my mind after the final unfolding of events. Even Rorschach who, because of his unique moral compass, decides to take a different course of action than the others, his choice and thinking is still guided and is derived from the same conclusion that everyone else came to.
I am too verbose. Here is the heart of the matter. The conclusion everyone came to only makes sense if one basic assumption is accepted. The author apparently accepted it so fully that none of his characters ever questioned it, even at the end.
It is that the nuclear capabilities of the US and USSR (and the destructive potential of Doctor Manhattan) are the cause of the Cold War. The implication at the end of the film is that had there been no nukes, nor any Dr. Manhattan, the Cold War would never be, nor would it continue if the nukes and Dr. Manhattan go away.
I find this assumption quite absurd. When the credits were rolling I was expected to believe that if nuclear power were as possible as cold fusion is today, then there would have been no standoff between Nato and the Warsaw Pact. That if only conventional arms existed, the free democracies and the communist world dominated by the Soviets would get along fine.
I can accept that nukes defined the nature of the Cold War and that they created idiosyncratic and intense situations and dynamics for it, but not that they are the cause of the "conflict" themselves.
One has to only consider that both the US and Russia have nukes today to see that this assumption is bogus. Why are we not scared of Russia now? Oh yeah, because they aren't an evil totalitarian state. Now they're just corrupt.
After the climax, the Watchmen (and the villain(s)) come to a conclusion that I did not quite understand. Or, I understood it, but I disagreed with on such a basic level that I was left wondering why none of them, including the villain(s) took possible actions X,Y or Z that I considered in my mind after the final unfolding of events. Even Rorschach who, because of his unique moral compass, decides to take a different course of action than the others, his choice and thinking is still guided and is derived from the same conclusion that everyone else came to.
I am too verbose. Here is the heart of the matter. The conclusion everyone came to only makes sense if one basic assumption is accepted. The author apparently accepted it so fully that none of his characters ever questioned it, even at the end.
It is that the nuclear capabilities of the US and USSR (and the destructive potential of Doctor Manhattan) are the cause of the Cold War. The implication at the end of the film is that had there been no nukes, nor any Dr. Manhattan, the Cold War would never be, nor would it continue if the nukes and Dr. Manhattan go away.
I find this assumption quite absurd. When the credits were rolling I was expected to believe that if nuclear power were as possible as cold fusion is today, then there would have been no standoff between Nato and the Warsaw Pact. That if only conventional arms existed, the free democracies and the communist world dominated by the Soviets would get along fine.
I can accept that nukes defined the nature of the Cold War and that they created idiosyncratic and intense situations and dynamics for it, but not that they are the cause of the "conflict" themselves.
One has to only consider that both the US and Russia have nukes today to see that this assumption is bogus. Why are we not scared of Russia now? Oh yeah, because they aren't an evil totalitarian state. Now they're just corrupt.
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Change
I wrote a while back that I would not enter the argument of whether torture was moral with regards to terrorism.
There may be gradations of harshness in dealing with people. Once it has reached a certain level, it is torture. Whenever that degree is reached, it is always wrong. Always.
There, I have entered the moral argument.
There may be gradations of harshness in dealing with people. Once it has reached a certain level, it is torture. Whenever that degree is reached, it is always wrong. Always.
There, I have entered the moral argument.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Poverty and Bad Things People Do
The scriptures say that in the city of Zion during the time of the prophet Enoch there were no poor...(From the LDS cannon of scripture, in what is called the "Pearl of Great Price," in the Book of Moses 7:18).
This seems so obvious - if there were a city of exclusively righteous people, then poor people's burdens would be entirely lifted through charity.
Politicians and liberal ideologues love to say that poverty is the cause of all crime, war, etc. They say it is not primarily the fault of criminals' choices, but rather it is exclusively the fault of their environment and low level of wealth.
They have it exactly backwards. Righteousness eliminates poverty, rather than poverty creates wickedness (such as crime/war)!
In the case of Islamic terrorism, where even Obama has said (on the campaign trail - who knows if he really feels this way) that Islamic terrorism's root cause is poverty.
There are three gaping flaws in this belief.
1) There are plenty of Islamic terrorists who are wealthy or come from a wealthy background (Osama bin Laden himself is a billionaire).
2) There are huge amounts of even poorer peoples in other parts of the world who do not produce terrorists at all.
3) While the overwhelming majority of Muslims are not terrorists, the overwhelming majority of terrorists are Muslims. It is virtually an Islamic problem.
To demonstrate this, there have been 12,939 terrorist attacks by Muslims in 55 countries since September 11, 2001. This information can be found at www.thereligionofpeace.com I will immediately delete this portion of my blog post if someone can demonstrate that the sum total of all non-Islamic terrorist attacks since 2001 is even one quarter as many.
This seems so obvious - if there were a city of exclusively righteous people, then poor people's burdens would be entirely lifted through charity.
Politicians and liberal ideologues love to say that poverty is the cause of all crime, war, etc. They say it is not primarily the fault of criminals' choices, but rather it is exclusively the fault of their environment and low level of wealth.
They have it exactly backwards. Righteousness eliminates poverty, rather than poverty creates wickedness (such as crime/war)!
In the case of Islamic terrorism, where even Obama has said (on the campaign trail - who knows if he really feels this way) that Islamic terrorism's root cause is poverty.
There are three gaping flaws in this belief.
1) There are plenty of Islamic terrorists who are wealthy or come from a wealthy background (Osama bin Laden himself is a billionaire).
2) There are huge amounts of even poorer peoples in other parts of the world who do not produce terrorists at all.
3) While the overwhelming majority of Muslims are not terrorists, the overwhelming majority of terrorists are Muslims. It is virtually an Islamic problem.
To demonstrate this, there have been 12,939 terrorist attacks by Muslims in 55 countries since September 11, 2001. This information can be found at www.thereligionofpeace.com I will immediately delete this portion of my blog post if someone can demonstrate that the sum total of all non-Islamic terrorist attacks since 2001 is even one quarter as many.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
UN: short for UNimpressive, UNable and UNdesirable
It is asked, ‘do organizations such as the UN help states reach cooperative solutions that they would be unlikely to reach on their own?’ When a cooperative solution between nations cannot be reached, the most dire outcome is armed conflict. Therefore I will seek to answer the proposed question by discovering a relationship between the emergence of the UN as a factor in world politics and the breakout of armed conflict. If the UN effectively helps states to reach cooperative solutions, then one should expect to see less armed conflict in the years following its founding.
The official website of the UN maintains that “preserving world peace is a central purpose of the United Nations. Under the Charter, Member States agree to settle disputes by peaceful means and refrain from threatening or using force against other States.” Under the heading “what the UN does for peace” it is claimed that “[The UN] has worked to prevent conflicts from breaking out.” In this section it lists a single conflict the UN helped prevent – the Cuban missile crisis.(1) They claim to have prevented one. How many conflicts have they been unable to prevent?
The UN was officially founded in 1945. 64 years have passed since its founding. Wikipedia conveniently displays lists of wars and the date each war broke out. 164 conflicts have begun since 1945 (or an average of 2.5 per year). There were 113 wars begun between the years 1881 and 1944 (or an average of 1.7 per year). This means that in the 64 years that have transpired since the founding of the UN there has been about 50% more wars begun compared to the 64 years extending back before its founding. While it is true that the worst decade as far as number of wars begun was 1911 through 1920 involving 37 conflicts, the second place prize goes to the ‘90s which saw 32 wars begun. However, no other decade prior to 1945 had more than 18 wars begun during it whereas only one decade after 1945 had fewer than 25 wars begun during it (which was the ‘50s which saw only 11 conflicts begun).(2) The founding of the UN and its effect on conflict appears to be a footnote in military history.
In fact, rather than preserving world peace, apparently the interference of the UN in international relations has abetted the breakout of more wars! If abet is too strong or dubious (even malignantly deceptive?) a word, then let us replace it with ‘been utterly impotent to prevent.’ Here is the retry: ‘rather than preserving world peace, apparently the interference of the UN in international relations has been utterly impotent to prevent the breakout of more wars!’
Is this fair to the UN? After all, what I haven’t told you is that some of these wars involved far fewer than 1,000 casualties (for example, the Slovenian War in 1991 claimed 62 person’s lives). If the distribution of the death toll caused by wars from 1881 to 1944 is commensurate to the distribution of the death toll caused by wars from 1945 to 2009 then I am completely fair in my argument. Sadly, I did not have the time to learn how to do a statistical analysis and then perform one for the 277 wars. Let us therefore give the UN the benefit of the doubt and pretend that I did a statistical analysis and found that, on average, the wars begun after 1945 involved fewer human deaths.
Does this mean the UN has been an effective force in assisting cooperation between states? Far from it. This would mean that the UN in its illimitable might cannot even stop small petty wars. How are we to expect it to fare better in stemming the tides of major wars? Surely the reasons which cause nations to invest greater manpower and greater resources (which ultimately result in the major wars’ greater loss of blood and treasure) are of greater concern to the nations involved than the reasons which cause nations to invest smaller amounts of manpower and resources (which will result in the relatively smaller loss of blood and treasure). In other words, if the UN cannot even resolve these pettier disputes which result in smaller conflicts, than why could it resolve the weightier disputes which result in the greater conflicts? If there are on average more small wars do not thank the UN. Be amazed at their incompetence
An apologist would point out that overwhelmingly more people were killed by the wars prior to 1945. But this is skewed because of the two World Wars. Could Hitler’s war and the East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere have been prevented by the UN? The same reasoning could be used to answer this question: the UN is unable to prevent literally hundreds of less involved and less meaningful conflicts, how then could it have prevented the more complex and meaningful conflicts where more nations and more complex issues were involved?
If armed conflict is still being resorted to in the efforts between states to resolve conflict then at least one of two things must be true. Either there are some disputes which can only be resolved through conflict and these disputes are increasing in number; or the UN is simply extremely ineffective and incompetent in performing one of its primary and crucial functions.
Either way, organizations such as the UN are currently incapable of helping a surprising number of states avoid the most dire outcome of a dispute between states. If they are incapable of this, who could believe they are capable of helping enough states avoid lesser consequences of interstate disputes? For all the good the UN may do, there is an overwhelming amount of evil it has not and apparently cannot or will not prevent.(3)
Sources
1
Official website of the UN
http://www.un.org/Overview/uninbrief/chapter2_intro.html
2
Lists of wars from Wikipedia.org
1800 -1899
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_1800%E2%80%931899
1900 - 1944
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_1900%E2%80%931944
1945 – 1989
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_1945%E2%80%931989
1990 – 2002
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_1990%E2%80%932002
2003 – current
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_2003%E2%80%93current
3
My incredibly brilliant brain
Lists of Wars by Decade:
1881 to 1944
7 wars from 1881 to 1890
15 wars from 1891 to 1900
13 wars from 1901 to 1910
37 wars from 1911 to 1920
17 wars from 1921 to 1930
18 wars from 1931 to 1940
6 wars from 1941 to 1944
Total - 113
1945 to today
12 wars from 1945 to 1950
11 wars from 1951 to 1960
29 wars from 1961 to 1970
25 wars from 1971 to 1980
26 wars from 1981 to 1990
32 wars from 1991 to 2000
29 wars from 2001 to the date of this writing
Total – 164
The official website of the UN maintains that “preserving world peace is a central purpose of the United Nations. Under the Charter, Member States agree to settle disputes by peaceful means and refrain from threatening or using force against other States.” Under the heading “what the UN does for peace” it is claimed that “[The UN] has worked to prevent conflicts from breaking out.” In this section it lists a single conflict the UN helped prevent – the Cuban missile crisis.(1) They claim to have prevented one. How many conflicts have they been unable to prevent?
The UN was officially founded in 1945. 64 years have passed since its founding. Wikipedia conveniently displays lists of wars and the date each war broke out. 164 conflicts have begun since 1945 (or an average of 2.5 per year). There were 113 wars begun between the years 1881 and 1944 (or an average of 1.7 per year). This means that in the 64 years that have transpired since the founding of the UN there has been about 50% more wars begun compared to the 64 years extending back before its founding. While it is true that the worst decade as far as number of wars begun was 1911 through 1920 involving 37 conflicts, the second place prize goes to the ‘90s which saw 32 wars begun. However, no other decade prior to 1945 had more than 18 wars begun during it whereas only one decade after 1945 had fewer than 25 wars begun during it (which was the ‘50s which saw only 11 conflicts begun).(2) The founding of the UN and its effect on conflict appears to be a footnote in military history.
In fact, rather than preserving world peace, apparently the interference of the UN in international relations has abetted the breakout of more wars! If abet is too strong or dubious (even malignantly deceptive?) a word, then let us replace it with ‘been utterly impotent to prevent.’ Here is the retry: ‘rather than preserving world peace, apparently the interference of the UN in international relations has been utterly impotent to prevent the breakout of more wars!’
Is this fair to the UN? After all, what I haven’t told you is that some of these wars involved far fewer than 1,000 casualties (for example, the Slovenian War in 1991 claimed 62 person’s lives). If the distribution of the death toll caused by wars from 1881 to 1944 is commensurate to the distribution of the death toll caused by wars from 1945 to 2009 then I am completely fair in my argument. Sadly, I did not have the time to learn how to do a statistical analysis and then perform one for the 277 wars. Let us therefore give the UN the benefit of the doubt and pretend that I did a statistical analysis and found that, on average, the wars begun after 1945 involved fewer human deaths.
Does this mean the UN has been an effective force in assisting cooperation between states? Far from it. This would mean that the UN in its illimitable might cannot even stop small petty wars. How are we to expect it to fare better in stemming the tides of major wars? Surely the reasons which cause nations to invest greater manpower and greater resources (which ultimately result in the major wars’ greater loss of blood and treasure) are of greater concern to the nations involved than the reasons which cause nations to invest smaller amounts of manpower and resources (which will result in the relatively smaller loss of blood and treasure). In other words, if the UN cannot even resolve these pettier disputes which result in smaller conflicts, than why could it resolve the weightier disputes which result in the greater conflicts? If there are on average more small wars do not thank the UN. Be amazed at their incompetence
An apologist would point out that overwhelmingly more people were killed by the wars prior to 1945. But this is skewed because of the two World Wars. Could Hitler’s war and the East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere have been prevented by the UN? The same reasoning could be used to answer this question: the UN is unable to prevent literally hundreds of less involved and less meaningful conflicts, how then could it have prevented the more complex and meaningful conflicts where more nations and more complex issues were involved?
If armed conflict is still being resorted to in the efforts between states to resolve conflict then at least one of two things must be true. Either there are some disputes which can only be resolved through conflict and these disputes are increasing in number; or the UN is simply extremely ineffective and incompetent in performing one of its primary and crucial functions.
Either way, organizations such as the UN are currently incapable of helping a surprising number of states avoid the most dire outcome of a dispute between states. If they are incapable of this, who could believe they are capable of helping enough states avoid lesser consequences of interstate disputes? For all the good the UN may do, there is an overwhelming amount of evil it has not and apparently cannot or will not prevent.(3)
Sources
1
Official website of the UN
http://www.un.org/Overview/uninbrief/chapter2_intro.html
2
Lists of wars from Wikipedia.org
1800 -1899
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_1800%E2%80%931899
1900 - 1944
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_1900%E2%80%931944
1945 – 1989
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_1945%E2%80%931989
1990 – 2002
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_1990%E2%80%932002
2003 – current
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_2003%E2%80%93current
3
My incredibly brilliant brain
Lists of Wars by Decade:
1881 to 1944
7 wars from 1881 to 1890
15 wars from 1891 to 1900
13 wars from 1901 to 1910
37 wars from 1911 to 1920
17 wars from 1921 to 1930
18 wars from 1931 to 1940
6 wars from 1941 to 1944
Total - 113
1945 to today
12 wars from 1945 to 1950
11 wars from 1951 to 1960
29 wars from 1961 to 1970
25 wars from 1971 to 1980
26 wars from 1981 to 1990
32 wars from 1991 to 2000
29 wars from 2001 to the date of this writing
Total – 164
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Evolution and the Creation
I love dinosaurs. I always have. I found out last night that they just recently discovered a T-rex bigger than any previous, and putting T-rex once again as probably the largest land predator ever (though we still haven’t found an adult Spinosaurus).
The Lord is so awesome to create such creatures. Definitely a God I want to worship.
I have a very smart friend who recently told me a qualm he has with the theory of evolution. He said “it is based on [a] logical fallacy” Of course, what he meant to say was, ‘since we cannot be empirically 100% sure that evolution results in speciation (i.e macroevolution), it is illogical to believe unequivocally with 100% accuracy in the theory.’ He was essentially saying that in order to believe completely in evolution we’d need complete proof.
Sure, I guess according to the (non-universal) laws of logic, that’s one way of looking at it. But to me that is hardly a reason to not believe in evolution or even macroevolution. In fact, that is hardly a reason to not believe in anything. Humans don’t believe in something because we have empirical data with 100% uneqivocal proof telling us to believe in it. For example, I believe in a great many social and political ideas with much less evidence to support them than the evidence supporting evolution. I think humans believe in most things based on their merit and power of convincing (not on 100% empirical confirmation). In a previous blog I identified several ways humans know truth other than empiricism.
But recently, I have come to a startling conclusion. It came to me as inspiration that kind of knocked my socks off, so to speak. It was the kind that once you realize it, it is so profoundly obvious you can’t go back. The first part of it is something that I had known and had hit me before, but never quite in conjunction with the second part.
The first part is this: Humans tend to believe that their own ideas are what God thinks.
The second part is this: The way humans organize, identify and understand the complexities of lifeforms is not necessarily the way that God organizes, identifies and understands the complexities of the lifeforms he created.
Now let me say that all the ideas that follow are my own. I did not get them from any literature, article or another human being. I looked in the scriptures myself to find this information out. And I used my own brain to come to these conclusions. Now, let me explain these two “parts.”
Why would Heavenly Father use our definition of “species” ? Certainly the being who knows everything doesn’t follow our very limited definitions of things. This question is especially appropriate right now because the very definition of the term “species” varies depending upon who you ask. It kind of boils down to the idea that a species is defined by whatever the experts of that particular lifeform or group of lifeforms says is a species. When God uses the words “after its kind” in the Pearl of Great Price referring to different animals, whose definition of species is God referring to? Or is he even referring to “species” ? How could we know?
It is likely he isn’t even trying to explain his definition of “species” (or whatever he defines as the most distinct level of animal identification), he is merely saying that he created them all. Whatever sets of classifications humans come up with to try to identify and understand the living things of the earth, it probably doesn’t matter to God. He created it all and He understands it all.
In other words, humans don’t define “species” according to God; and it seems absurd that God would define “species” according to what humans say.
In fact, God seems to use the word “kind” referring to kinds of animals in two different ways. In Moses 2:25 it says “And I, God, made the beasts of the earth after their kind, and cattle after their kind…” This suggests that God made the beasts, each after its own kind of beast. But in the same verse it immediately goes on to say “and everything which creepeth upon the earth after his kind.” Going with the use of the word “kind” in the first half of the verse, is God saying in the second half that there is a species of baby-earth-creatures walking around? Of course not. Grammatically he is saying he made everything upon the earth after the “kind of the earth.” This is very different than saying “kind of beast.” It is saying that there are creatures on the earth that are of the “earth variety” of creature. This implies to me that there are kinds of creatures not related to this earth (but that’s a totally different discussion). The important thing is that God is clearly using the term “kind” in two different ways in the same verse.
So, why should we believe that when God is using the term “kind” he is specifically referring to what we call “species” ? He uses it in two different ways in the same verse, after all.
Additionally, we know that God numbers all of his creations and knows them each individually. He presumably has a name for each individual living thing that has ever existed, and can identify each individual one. So then, why would he even need some kind of classification system such as taxonomy which includes the concept of "species" ? To him, each spawn of its parents is an individual, idiosyncratic in some way no matter how minutely different to human perception. So if he invented evolution, why would that matter to him? In this sense he is not looking at the level of "species" in any case - he is looking at a far more refined level - that of the individual.
In the King James Version of Genesis the Lord tells the moving creatures to “be fruitful, and multiply.” Since we don’t know what the Lord considers a distinct level of life, when he uses the term “multiply” could he have been saying to the creatures: “multiply into a greater variety of creatures” ? I’m not saying I believe that this is what the term “multiply” means in this particular passage (Genesis 1: 22), but there is no reason that I know that says it cannot mean “multiply into more varieties.”
To believe in evolution, even speciation and macroevolution, is not contradictory to any scriptures in the LDS canon (and I believe in that canon).
The LDS church, which I fully believe in, does not have an official position on the matter.
Ok, now I'm going to use sources other than my own brain and the scriptures.
In a letter dated February 3, 1959, President David O. McKay said this: “...The Church has issued no official statement on the subject of the theory of evolution.”
What is stated in LDS doctrine is that man was created in the image of God. This doctrine, however, does not somehow contradict evolution, even macroevolution.
Henry Eyring, prominent scientist and father of Henry B. Eyring the first counselor to President Monson has this to say:
“Animals seem pretty wonderful to me. I'd be content to discover that I share a common heritage with them, so long as God is at the controls.
I have always felt comfortable with the views of our trained scientists among the General Authorities. For example, James E. Talmage delivered a sermon entitled "The Earth and Man" from the Salt Lake Tabernacle on August 9, 1931, and John A. Widtsoe published "Science and the Gospel" in the Young Men's Mutual Improvement Association manual of 1908-9. Each of these brethren regarded the earth as having a very great age and were open to the testimony of science to uncover the truth on those questions.”
And
“The only important thing is that God did it. I might say in that regard that in my mind the theory of evolution has to include a notion that the dice have been loaded from the beginning in favor of more complex life forms. That is, without intelligent design of the natural laws in such a way as to favor evolution from lower forms to higher forms of life, I don't think the theory holds water. I can't see randomly generated natural laws producing these remarkable results. So, in my mind, God is behind it all whether we evolved or not.”
If God invented speciation, I have no qualms with that. It seems to be the kind of thing that God does – invent truly amazing and creative processes such as the creation of diamonds, the incredible formations of crystals, the formation of galaxies (if you’ve ever seen a computer model of one it is incredible to behold) and, why not, the intuitive and inventive process of evolution? None of these amazing processes is in the scriptures, but we can watch a crystal grow in our science labs.
There have been people in the church decades ago who did not believe in the theory of Relativity. I think it’s safe to assume they were wrong. Who in the church doesn’t believe in the theory of relativity today based upon church doctrine? There may be some who don’t believe in it or parts of it because modern physics is shedding more light on the matter, but that is a separate issue. I believe that in 50 years or so members of the LDS church will believe in macroevolution.
About interpretation of scriptures:
There is a tendency among people who read Genesis to believe that God is explaining how he created the world. I think his message and purpose may have been that he created the world. Given that the world is more complex than we now understand, shouldn’t we suppose that it’s creation may have been an extremely complex process? Perhaps more complex than we can even understand in this lifetime? God wasn’t interested in telling us the methods of creation in Genesis. He was trying to give us a spiritually pertinent revelation about the fall of Adam and Eve and other matters, including the important of the Sabbath, etc.
I very much disagree with those guys who say “the scriptures are just spiritual fables that should not be taken at face value."
I believe in all the miracles of Christ and of every prophet. I have no problems believing that God can do all things. But I also believe that God wasn’t trying to teach science to Moses. Why would he have done so? Didn’t Moses have better things to do than to become a zoologist or taxonomist? And when does God ever try to teach science in the scriptures? Nowhere.
When the scriptures say “the four corners of the earth” (such as it does in the King James Version of the Book of Revelation), I’m pretty sure that that is not scientifically accurate. A globe has no corners. But this doesn’t mean I disbelieve in the book of Revelation and it doesn’t mean I believe the scriptures are merely fables meant to increase my spirituality. It means this particular statement is meant to be understood in some symbolic way and it especially means that it has some purpose other than to teach the geography of the world.
Likewise, the creation as described in Genesis has a purpose other than to teach the method God used to create the world. There is no method described. There is just statements that God created such and such things.
In Genesis, man is clearly created as the final and last being or even thing on the earth. But, as I was just reading at Institute in the Pearl of Great Price, in Moses 3: 7 it says that “man became a living soul, the first flesh upon the earth, the first man also.”
Does this mean that either Genesis or the Pearl of Great Price is wrong? They seem to be in direct contradiction. Maybe the words “first flesh” means “most important flesh” ? I don’t know how to reconcile these verses. I am not a scriptorian. It does not shake my faith that both the books of Genesis and Moses are holy scripture. But it does suggest to me that what is being said is not meant to be scientific or empirical, but spiritual or symbolic in nature. It suggests that there is some importance to these words other than to explain the actual sequence of things created by God.
The Lord is so awesome to create such creatures. Definitely a God I want to worship.
I have a very smart friend who recently told me a qualm he has with the theory of evolution. He said “it is based on [a] logical fallacy” Of course, what he meant to say was, ‘since we cannot be empirically 100% sure that evolution results in speciation (i.e macroevolution), it is illogical to believe unequivocally with 100% accuracy in the theory.’ He was essentially saying that in order to believe completely in evolution we’d need complete proof.
Sure, I guess according to the (non-universal) laws of logic, that’s one way of looking at it. But to me that is hardly a reason to not believe in evolution or even macroevolution. In fact, that is hardly a reason to not believe in anything. Humans don’t believe in something because we have empirical data with 100% uneqivocal proof telling us to believe in it. For example, I believe in a great many social and political ideas with much less evidence to support them than the evidence supporting evolution. I think humans believe in most things based on their merit and power of convincing (not on 100% empirical confirmation). In a previous blog I identified several ways humans know truth other than empiricism.
But recently, I have come to a startling conclusion. It came to me as inspiration that kind of knocked my socks off, so to speak. It was the kind that once you realize it, it is so profoundly obvious you can’t go back. The first part of it is something that I had known and had hit me before, but never quite in conjunction with the second part.
The first part is this: Humans tend to believe that their own ideas are what God thinks.
The second part is this: The way humans organize, identify and understand the complexities of lifeforms is not necessarily the way that God organizes, identifies and understands the complexities of the lifeforms he created.
Now let me say that all the ideas that follow are my own. I did not get them from any literature, article or another human being. I looked in the scriptures myself to find this information out. And I used my own brain to come to these conclusions. Now, let me explain these two “parts.”
Why would Heavenly Father use our definition of “species” ? Certainly the being who knows everything doesn’t follow our very limited definitions of things. This question is especially appropriate right now because the very definition of the term “species” varies depending upon who you ask. It kind of boils down to the idea that a species is defined by whatever the experts of that particular lifeform or group of lifeforms says is a species. When God uses the words “after its kind” in the Pearl of Great Price referring to different animals, whose definition of species is God referring to? Or is he even referring to “species” ? How could we know?
It is likely he isn’t even trying to explain his definition of “species” (or whatever he defines as the most distinct level of animal identification), he is merely saying that he created them all. Whatever sets of classifications humans come up with to try to identify and understand the living things of the earth, it probably doesn’t matter to God. He created it all and He understands it all.
In other words, humans don’t define “species” according to God; and it seems absurd that God would define “species” according to what humans say.
In fact, God seems to use the word “kind” referring to kinds of animals in two different ways. In Moses 2:25 it says “And I, God, made the beasts of the earth after their kind, and cattle after their kind…” This suggests that God made the beasts, each after its own kind of beast. But in the same verse it immediately goes on to say “and everything which creepeth upon the earth after his kind.” Going with the use of the word “kind” in the first half of the verse, is God saying in the second half that there is a species of baby-earth-creatures walking around? Of course not. Grammatically he is saying he made everything upon the earth after the “kind of the earth.” This is very different than saying “kind of beast.” It is saying that there are creatures on the earth that are of the “earth variety” of creature. This implies to me that there are kinds of creatures not related to this earth (but that’s a totally different discussion). The important thing is that God is clearly using the term “kind” in two different ways in the same verse.
So, why should we believe that when God is using the term “kind” he is specifically referring to what we call “species” ? He uses it in two different ways in the same verse, after all.
Additionally, we know that God numbers all of his creations and knows them each individually. He presumably has a name for each individual living thing that has ever existed, and can identify each individual one. So then, why would he even need some kind of classification system such as taxonomy which includes the concept of "species" ? To him, each spawn of its parents is an individual, idiosyncratic in some way no matter how minutely different to human perception. So if he invented evolution, why would that matter to him? In this sense he is not looking at the level of "species" in any case - he is looking at a far more refined level - that of the individual.
In the King James Version of Genesis the Lord tells the moving creatures to “be fruitful, and multiply.” Since we don’t know what the Lord considers a distinct level of life, when he uses the term “multiply” could he have been saying to the creatures: “multiply into a greater variety of creatures” ? I’m not saying I believe that this is what the term “multiply” means in this particular passage (Genesis 1: 22), but there is no reason that I know that says it cannot mean “multiply into more varieties.”
To believe in evolution, even speciation and macroevolution, is not contradictory to any scriptures in the LDS canon (and I believe in that canon).
The LDS church, which I fully believe in, does not have an official position on the matter.
Ok, now I'm going to use sources other than my own brain and the scriptures.
In a letter dated February 3, 1959, President David O. McKay said this: “...The Church has issued no official statement on the subject of the theory of evolution.”
What is stated in LDS doctrine is that man was created in the image of God. This doctrine, however, does not somehow contradict evolution, even macroevolution.
Henry Eyring, prominent scientist and father of Henry B. Eyring the first counselor to President Monson has this to say:
“Animals seem pretty wonderful to me. I'd be content to discover that I share a common heritage with them, so long as God is at the controls.
I have always felt comfortable with the views of our trained scientists among the General Authorities. For example, James E. Talmage delivered a sermon entitled "The Earth and Man" from the Salt Lake Tabernacle on August 9, 1931, and John A. Widtsoe published "Science and the Gospel" in the Young Men's Mutual Improvement Association manual of 1908-9. Each of these brethren regarded the earth as having a very great age and were open to the testimony of science to uncover the truth on those questions.”
And
“The only important thing is that God did it. I might say in that regard that in my mind the theory of evolution has to include a notion that the dice have been loaded from the beginning in favor of more complex life forms. That is, without intelligent design of the natural laws in such a way as to favor evolution from lower forms to higher forms of life, I don't think the theory holds water. I can't see randomly generated natural laws producing these remarkable results. So, in my mind, God is behind it all whether we evolved or not.”
If God invented speciation, I have no qualms with that. It seems to be the kind of thing that God does – invent truly amazing and creative processes such as the creation of diamonds, the incredible formations of crystals, the formation of galaxies (if you’ve ever seen a computer model of one it is incredible to behold) and, why not, the intuitive and inventive process of evolution? None of these amazing processes is in the scriptures, but we can watch a crystal grow in our science labs.
There have been people in the church decades ago who did not believe in the theory of Relativity. I think it’s safe to assume they were wrong. Who in the church doesn’t believe in the theory of relativity today based upon church doctrine? There may be some who don’t believe in it or parts of it because modern physics is shedding more light on the matter, but that is a separate issue. I believe that in 50 years or so members of the LDS church will believe in macroevolution.
About interpretation of scriptures:
There is a tendency among people who read Genesis to believe that God is explaining how he created the world. I think his message and purpose may have been that he created the world. Given that the world is more complex than we now understand, shouldn’t we suppose that it’s creation may have been an extremely complex process? Perhaps more complex than we can even understand in this lifetime? God wasn’t interested in telling us the methods of creation in Genesis. He was trying to give us a spiritually pertinent revelation about the fall of Adam and Eve and other matters, including the important of the Sabbath, etc.
I very much disagree with those guys who say “the scriptures are just spiritual fables that should not be taken at face value."
I believe in all the miracles of Christ and of every prophet. I have no problems believing that God can do all things. But I also believe that God wasn’t trying to teach science to Moses. Why would he have done so? Didn’t Moses have better things to do than to become a zoologist or taxonomist? And when does God ever try to teach science in the scriptures? Nowhere.
When the scriptures say “the four corners of the earth” (such as it does in the King James Version of the Book of Revelation), I’m pretty sure that that is not scientifically accurate. A globe has no corners. But this doesn’t mean I disbelieve in the book of Revelation and it doesn’t mean I believe the scriptures are merely fables meant to increase my spirituality. It means this particular statement is meant to be understood in some symbolic way and it especially means that it has some purpose other than to teach the geography of the world.
Likewise, the creation as described in Genesis has a purpose other than to teach the method God used to create the world. There is no method described. There is just statements that God created such and such things.
In Genesis, man is clearly created as the final and last being or even thing on the earth. But, as I was just reading at Institute in the Pearl of Great Price, in Moses 3: 7 it says that “man became a living soul, the first flesh upon the earth, the first man also.”
Does this mean that either Genesis or the Pearl of Great Price is wrong? They seem to be in direct contradiction. Maybe the words “first flesh” means “most important flesh” ? I don’t know how to reconcile these verses. I am not a scriptorian. It does not shake my faith that both the books of Genesis and Moses are holy scripture. But it does suggest to me that what is being said is not meant to be scientific or empirical, but spiritual or symbolic in nature. It suggests that there is some importance to these words other than to explain the actual sequence of things created by God.
Monday, February 2, 2009
I have heard a great deal of adulation for Obama since he's become president (and for that matter since he's become president-elect, and for that matter since he's become a candidate for president). Much of this from people (neighbors, people at my school, people on the radio, etc.) who give as a primary reason for their joy of and praise of Obama because he is African American.
I can partially understand the joy of a black person happy that another black person is elected president. However, I think it goes beyond this. Many of these people seem to me by their words that they are judging Obama in a way that Martin Luther King jr. said we must never do in America.
It seems that they are judging him by the color of his skin and not by the content of his character.
I can partially understand the joy of a black person happy that another black person is elected president. However, I think it goes beyond this. Many of these people seem to me by their words that they are judging Obama in a way that Martin Luther King jr. said we must never do in America.
It seems that they are judging him by the color of his skin and not by the content of his character.
Saturday, January 17, 2009
“Good and evil are present in this world, and between the two there can be no compromise. Murdering the innocent to advance an ideology is wrong every time, everywhere. Freeing people from oppression and despair is eternally right. This Nation must continue to speak out for justice and truth. We must always be willing to act in their defense and to advance the cause of peace.”
- George W. Bush 2009 (farewell address)
- George W. Bush 2009 (farewell address)
Friday, January 16, 2009
America creates decent people.
I do not here wish to enter the debate about whether waterboarding is torture. Nor do I wish to make a statement about whether waterboarding is right or wrong to use as an interrogation technique in the war on terror, or to use ever.
Abu Zubayda was a “wholly uncooperative” al Qaeda suspect and prisoner. He refused to speak for weeks. Finally, they used the waterboarding technique which led to Abu Zubayda giving up actionable intel. This intel led to a 2003 raid in Pakistan in which Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was captured. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was “the principal architect” of 9/11 as part of al Qaeda.
It has also been revealed that the CIA has used waterboarding a total of only three times since 9/11. The ex-CIA who told all of this to CNN also stated that “waterboarding has saved lives.”
Nevertheless, America is such a decent, charitable place that a great debate has erupted so that no other al Qaeda operative or any other terrorist would have to undergo such treatment even if it might save American lives. In other words, either Americans are entirely idiotic, or they are the most decent people on the face of the earth. They would rather allow some of them to be murdered by terrorists than perform a very uncomfortable and painful technique on those murderers and terrorists.
Islamic extremists who have actually become terrorists operate out of different organizations and within different nations. However, virtually all that are within the Mideast, Holy Land and Persia, have one thing in common: they hate America and want to kill Americans. Many of them call America “the great Satan” and in reading their public statements it is clear they actually pray for the death of America and Americans. These people can all reasonably be termed “enemies of America.” Here are some of the things they’ve done, just in the last three months alone - November 2008, December 2008 and January 2009:
• Strap explosives on mentally handicapped women as “involuntary martyrs”
• Use infants in a car containing a carbomb to allay suspicion that the driver is a terrorist (yes, the infants were killed too).
• Behead prisoners and then lick the blood off the sword
• Chop the ears off of private security guards
• Bomb buildings while a wedding is taking place inside
• Bombing innumerable businesses and even the occasional Mosque
• Murdering a woman in her home
• Murdering a married couple with guns
• Bombed a college campus
• Cleric murdered in front of his mother
• Members of a religious minority in Iraq are targeted and murdered
• Countless other bombings, car bombings, drive-by shootings, kidnapping and murder
To recap, America has merely been quite harsh to prisoners three times in the past seven years. This harshness led to the saving of American lives. Nevertheless, Americans in great numbers protest these three instances and work through proper government channels to cause the method to become illegal for our spies.
America’s enemies have killed countless prisoners, tortured and mutilated others, have killed many civilians, including infants and mentally retarded women in the last three months alone.
Not even close to all Americans are decent and good people. Not even close to all Muslims are evil people. But in this war on terror, the combatants coming forth from either side are completely and utterly different. The moral divide is a moral grand canyon.
The people of America are great and decent. The combatants of America are great and decent. Its enemies are evil.
There were 2204 terrorist attacks executed by self-described Islamic radicals during the whole of 2008. These attacks killed 10779 people and critically injured 18213 more in 41 countries of 5 different religions.
Abu Zubayda was a “wholly uncooperative” al Qaeda suspect and prisoner. He refused to speak for weeks. Finally, they used the waterboarding technique which led to Abu Zubayda giving up actionable intel. This intel led to a 2003 raid in Pakistan in which Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was captured. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was “the principal architect” of 9/11 as part of al Qaeda.
It has also been revealed that the CIA has used waterboarding a total of only three times since 9/11. The ex-CIA who told all of this to CNN also stated that “waterboarding has saved lives.”
Nevertheless, America is such a decent, charitable place that a great debate has erupted so that no other al Qaeda operative or any other terrorist would have to undergo such treatment even if it might save American lives. In other words, either Americans are entirely idiotic, or they are the most decent people on the face of the earth. They would rather allow some of them to be murdered by terrorists than perform a very uncomfortable and painful technique on those murderers and terrorists.
Islamic extremists who have actually become terrorists operate out of different organizations and within different nations. However, virtually all that are within the Mideast, Holy Land and Persia, have one thing in common: they hate America and want to kill Americans. Many of them call America “the great Satan” and in reading their public statements it is clear they actually pray for the death of America and Americans. These people can all reasonably be termed “enemies of America.” Here are some of the things they’ve done, just in the last three months alone - November 2008, December 2008 and January 2009:
• Strap explosives on mentally handicapped women as “involuntary martyrs”
• Use infants in a car containing a carbomb to allay suspicion that the driver is a terrorist (yes, the infants were killed too).
• Behead prisoners and then lick the blood off the sword
• Chop the ears off of private security guards
• Bomb buildings while a wedding is taking place inside
• Bombing innumerable businesses and even the occasional Mosque
• Murdering a woman in her home
• Murdering a married couple with guns
• Bombed a college campus
• Cleric murdered in front of his mother
• Members of a religious minority in Iraq are targeted and murdered
• Countless other bombings, car bombings, drive-by shootings, kidnapping and murder
To recap, America has merely been quite harsh to prisoners three times in the past seven years. This harshness led to the saving of American lives. Nevertheless, Americans in great numbers protest these three instances and work through proper government channels to cause the method to become illegal for our spies.
America’s enemies have killed countless prisoners, tortured and mutilated others, have killed many civilians, including infants and mentally retarded women in the last three months alone.
Not even close to all Americans are decent and good people. Not even close to all Muslims are evil people. But in this war on terror, the combatants coming forth from either side are completely and utterly different. The moral divide is a moral grand canyon.
The people of America are great and decent. The combatants of America are great and decent. Its enemies are evil.
There were 2204 terrorist attacks executed by self-described Islamic radicals during the whole of 2008. These attacks killed 10779 people and critically injured 18213 more in 41 countries of 5 different religions.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
