Johnson and Galileo...

Check Phillip Johnson's The Galileo Syndrome, in the March 2004 issue of Touchstone. He takes a slightly different spin on the oft-spoken of, and oft-misspoken of, story of Galileo and the Church. Some excerpts:

...Galileo, writing for the public in Italian rather than solely for the scholars in Latin, employed his immense prestige and rhetorical skill to teach that a rotating and revolving earth was not merely a fiction adopted for its convenience in scientific work, but was truly the way things really are, regardless of what the Church thought about the matter. By crossing that line, Galileo directly challenged the Church’s authority during a critical phase of the Counter-Reformation, and the Church understandably had objections, both scientific and theological. ...The aspect of the Intelligent Design movement that most irks the mandarins of science is that we do not limit ourselves to submitting papers to peer-reviewed scientific journals, accepting the inevitable judgment of the reviewers that the papers should not be published. The bishops and Jesuit scholars of Galileo’s time thought it was unfair and unprofessional for Galileo to appeal over their heads to the public, and the mandarins of science today are equally determined to confine thoughts that endanger their authority to professional circles they control. The cast of characters has changed, and the penalties are milder, but the drama is basically the same.

Welcome to the digital age...

Classics in the making...

Kerry-mania...

In A Triple with Three Men On, Eric Alterman states, regarding Kerry's DNC speech:

This was, I swear I’m not exaggerating, the most important speech any American politician has given in perhaps half a century.

Not exaggerating? Okay, how about overstatement?, embellishment?, or laying it on so thick that it covers even Michael Moore? Check these comments from Powerline?

9:31 -- Kerry's stuff about when he'll send troops may sound good to the inattentive, but (as Rocket Man says) it's baffling if you try to follow it. As near as I can tell, we'll fight only if we have no other choice (this would have ruled out every military action since World War II) and only if our allies are on board, but our allies won't have a veto. 9:35 -- Kerry has tried to thread the needle. He's signaled to his base that he rejects the notion of hitting the enemy before it hits us, but he's tried to sound at least as tough as President Bush. He's the fighting pacifist, or something. Even if this works tonight, it's not likely to work for long. When voters learn about all the weapons systems Kerry's opposed and how he's been unable to take a steady position on Iraq, those who remember this speech will feel they were deceived. The acceptance speech is billed as the candidate's opportunity to introduce himself to the country. People expect the introduction to be honest. If you don't believe me, ask Michael Dukakis. 9:51 -- Kerry says that he welcomes people of faith. What an extraordinary thing to have to say.

Two tactics...

Hat tip to Hugh Hewitt. From Kerry's speech:

I defended this country as a young man and I will defend it as president. Let there be no mistake: I will never hesitate to use force when it is required. Any attack will be met with a swift and certain response. I will never give any nation or international institution a veto over our national security. And I will build a stronger American military. (emphasis added)

It should be noted that while both Bush and Kerry's tactics will result in the loss of life for foreigners, Kerry's tactic virtually insures that there will be American civilian deaths. "I'm John Kerry, and I'm reporting for duty!"

Public school sports vs. Homeschool academics...

In Held Back to Get Ahead, from the L. A. Times (free registration required), we read about an apparently growing trend in which parents hold their children back a year in order to better position them for athletics. Consider the following: 

By eighth grade, Perry Webster had little doubt about his talent as a basketball player, but he also knew that when he reached high school, he might have to ride the bench for a while. It's something many young athletes go through, waiting to grow bigger and stronger. Webster took a different route.   With his parents' blessing, he chose to repeat his final year of middle school, staying behind as his friends moved on. This tactic, he hoped, might eventually "help me with getting a scholarship for basketball, which might help me with the rest of my life." …at Los Alisos Intermediate School in Mission Viejo, where Webster spent an extra year, Principal Jerry Ray sees a growing problem. "In my first 10 years, we probably had only one or two cases," Ray said. "In the last several years, there have been at least that many per year." Some school districts frown upon the practice, forcing parents to home-school or move their child to another district if they want to repeat. Ray's district gives parents the final say. The administrator worries about plucking children out of the educational cycle, taking them away from their peers where they might feel like "fish out of water." "Until Perry [Webster] came along, I'd never seen a success story, and I'm not even sure whether I'd call him a success story yet," Ray said. "Basically, you're giving up a year of a child's life on a bet that it will work out."

  Yeah… unless a nasty little thing like a sport’s injury gets in the way. From a father who had his three children repeat kindergarten:

"I never saw the negative," he said. "Even in third grade, my kids were a little older, a little bigger, a little more mature. Maybe at that point they become the ball monitor because of it. We thought it was important for our kids to be leaders instead of followers."

  Even if it means giving them an unfair advantage, huh? I’ll grant that his kids were a little older and bigger, but simply because they’re sitting in a class of kids a year younger doesn’t make them more mature. I guess it’s never occurred to him that leaders can’t be leaders unless there’s someone around to follow. Finally, from Webster’s father:

"We wanted him to have a chance to be 18 years old his [entire] senior year because he is an athlete," Del Webster said. "We thought physically that would be the fairest and best way to go."

  That must mean that sports trumps academics. Of course, couch the issue as that of “fairness” and you’ve got a slam-dunk argument (pun intended). My personal situation was entirely different. I started kindergarten at a private school at 4 years of age. Throughout my schooldays I was always the youngest kid in the class. There were times I despised that fact (e.g., like… during puberty), yet there was one specific moment that I adored it – the day I graduated from High School at age 17. Now I’ll agree that keeping a kid back or moving them ahead is not for everyone, but what does it say about the priorities of some parents when they’re motivating factor for holding their children back in school is how well they’ll do in sports? Consider that the age / grade issue within the Homeschool movement is whether the child should graduate at an earlier age than his peers? The issue of academics typically holds a higher priority than that of sports. As far as maturity, what would one expect of a younger child possibly enrolled in AP level classes, with older classmates, at the local junior college? Contrast that with a 4th grade-age kid stuck in a class full of 3rd grade-age classmates. Who will influence whom? We, as parents, need to be reminded that we also teach our children by our actions and priorities.

Moral imperatives...

This whole morality thread that has played out here, at Dispatches, at Wheat & Chaff, and (at least partially) at The Evangelical Outpost, is really quite fascinating. It’s fascinating in the sense of how moral relativists attempt to respond to the very basic, and very simple claim that any assertion they make that an action is Right – as in, “vs. Wrong” – is tantamount to an appeal to some higher standard. Responses range from the use of a non sequitir (14th comment down), to evasion by means of hypothetical scenarios designed to show some sort of moral disconnect, to simple laughter. Inherent in all these so-called responses is the implied admission that there is some standard of Right and Wrong, that humans can’t not know. If it were not so, there would be no point in their putting forth an argument that their position is correct.  What can we learn from this discourse? Well, the most obvious lesson is that we can get a pretty good understanding of the loops that moral relativists get caught in when attempting to justify their position. Yet a more subtle aspect is that we see a clear manifestation of a rejection of God. Note the way in which most of the arguments against the claim of a higher standard of morality tend to veer off toward the so-called fiendishness of God. That the former topic must be addressed before the latter topic can be discussed is lost on the secularist. The reasons for this rejection are, most likely, very diverse and could very well be hidden behind the arguments put forth against God’s authority. Regardless, though, it merely emphasizes my point that acknowledging the authority of God is the first step in acknowledging the obligation owed to Him. In the March 2004 issue of Touchstone, James Hitchcock writes a small piece titled Intolerable Dogma. An excerpt:

Of the Ten Commandments, the one most under radical attack for some time has not been the Commandment against adultery, as appears obvious, but the First Commandment, which for most Christians is not even an issue. In the end, orthodox Christianity is feared and disliked because it is monotheistic. It affirms, along with Judaism and Islam, that there is only one God. In that sense, it is an inherently intolerant religion, and those who want Christianity to be endlessly “inclusive” forget that it is radically exclusive at its very foundation. Just a polytheism can tolerate any religion except monotheism, so relativism can tolerate everything except dogmatism.

  Liking it, or not, doesn’t enter into the equation.

Say it isn't so!...

SEC probes Krispy Kreme: Doughnut merchant discloses informal investigation into its reacquisitions, accounting; stock slumps    

Lessons in homeschooling...

Jay Matthews, from the Washington Post, had an article on June 29th titled, Getting Schooled on Home-Schooling. He closes by asking his readers involved in homeschooling to send him their thoughts, pro and con. On July 27th, in Correcting Misconceptions about Homeschooling, Matthews published some of his findings. He writes:

Much of what I thought about home schooling was wrong. The conventional wisdom about this rapidly growing dimension of American education is too simple, too stereotyped and too stale. For instance, the Home School Legal Defense Association, despite its energetic lawyers and many admirers, is not the leader of home schooling in this country. There is no leader, and no reigning ideology. There are instead at least a million American children -- the real figure is probably twice that number -- whose families want them to learn at home for many reasons, often having little to do with religion or politics.

Mere morality...

In Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis wrote:

Every one has heard people quarrelling. Sometimes it sounds funny and sometimes it sounds merely unpleasant; but however it sounds, I believe we can learn something very important from listening to the kind of things they say. They say things like this: 'How'd you like it if anyone did the same to you?' -- 'That's my seat, I was there first' -- 'Leave him alone, he isn't doing you any harm' -- 'Why should you shove in first?' -- 'Give me a bit of your orange, I gave you a bit of mine' -- 'Come on, you promised.' People say things like that every day, educated people as well as uneducated, and children as well as grown-ups.

Now what interests me about all these remarks is that the man who makes them is not merely saying that the other man's behaviour does not happen to please him. He is appealing to some kind of standard of behaviour which he expects the other man to know about. And the other man very seldom replies: 'To hell with your standard.' Nearly always he tries to make out that what he has been doing does not really go against the standard, or that if it does there is some special excuse. He pretends there is some special reason in this particular case why the person who took the seat first should not keep it, or that things were quite different when he was given the bit of orange, or that something has turned up which lets him off keeping his promise. It looks, in fact, very much as if both parties had in mind some kind of Law or Rule of fair play or decent behaviour or morality or whatever you like to call it, about which they really agreed. And they have. If they had not, they might, of course, fight like animals, but they could not quarrel in the human sense of the word. Quarrelling means trying to show that the other man is in the wrong. And there would be no sense in trying to do that unless you and he had some sort of agreement as to what Right and Wrong are...

This is something to keep in mind whenever a moral relativist attempts to argue morality with you. Also, check Joe Carter's post titled, The Devil’s Chaplain: The Intellectual Incompetence of Richard Dawkins, for an excellent look at how difficult it is for Richard Dawkins stay within the logical boundaries of his chosen worldview.

The other Ron Reagan...

Check Robert P. George's, Snake Oil: Ron Reagan's dishonest presentation, at NRO. George states:

Ron Reagan's speech Tuesday night at the Democratic convention was breathtakingly irresponsible. For example, despite the fact that no one knows whether embryonic stem cells will ever be effective in curing Parkinson's disease or any other grave affliction, Ron Reagan virtually promised Parkinson's sufferers that embryonic stem cells will provide a cure for them in ten years or so. "Sound like magic?," he said. Welcome to the future of medicine." But Ron Reagan has no idea — no one does — whether this is the future of medicine. He is engaged in a campaign of outrageous hype to persuade suffering people that a mere change of administrations in Washington will lead to cures for "a wide range of debilitating illnesses: Parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis, diabetes, lymphoma, spinal cord injuries, and much more." Sound like snake oil? Welcome to the present of politics.

The People's Party continues to sink into an abyss filled with promises of utopian redemption for the oppressed peoples of America. Hat tip: Moteworthy.com

200+ days...

Mars Rover Spirit recently passed 200 solar days on Mars. Not bad for an expected mission length of 90 days.

Frank words...

Check a couple of articles from Frank Beckwith on the topic of abortion. In Choice Words: A Critique of the New Pro-Life Rhetoric, from the Jan / Feb 2004 issue of Touchstone magazine,  he critiques a new pro-life strategy that attempts to argue for the pro-life position by framing the issue in terms of the best interests of the mother-to-be. He states:

I will argue that this new rhetorical strategy, or NRS, is flawed in at least three ways: (1) its supporters over-confidently interpret the public’s “moral” condemnation of abortion as consistent with objective morality and a pro-life view of the fetus; (2) it rests on a questionable interpretation of social science data; and (3) it may nurture and sustain the moral presuppositions that allow for abortion.

In What Would Reagan Do?: A consistent ethic on life, at NRO, he takes a look at the book Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation, published by Reagan in 1984, and applies the principles Reagan followed to the current stem-cell debate. Frank states:

As Reagan understood, if one's value is conditioned on certain accidental properties, then the human equality affirmed by the Declaration and advanced by Lincoln — the philosophical foundation of our constitutional regime — is a fiction. In that case there is no principled basis for rejecting the notion that human rights ought to be distributed to individuals on the basis of native intellectual abilities or other value-giving properties, such as rationality or self-awareness. One can only reject this notion by affirming that human beings are intrinsically valuable because they possess a particular nature from the moment they come into existence. That is to say, what a human being is, and not what he does, makes her a subject of rights. But this would mean that, like slavery, the nation ought to discard the right to abortion, for it is as inconsistent with our fundamental principles as was slavery.

Also check an interesting blog post from Frank titled, Yahoo/Planned Parenthood T-Shirt Offer - No Joke. The following apparel was up for sale by Yahoo / Planned Parenthood, but has apparently been withdrawn.

On a fiendish God...

In my On better morality… post I addressed the self-defeating aspects with regards to the secularist argument that morality can evolve. My point was that, by positing a comparison between various moral applications, the secularist has essentially acknowledged that some higher standard exists (with which to compare differing “moralities”). Along those lines, C. S. Lewis wrote, “A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line.” Now the subject of the particular post I was drawing attention to, by Ed over at Dispatches, had to do with the apparent ruthlessness of the God of the Bible (e.g., Numbers 31 in which God commanded that the Midianite men and sexually active women be slaughtered, and their children taken captive). DarkSyde thought I was not only avoiding, but running away from, the topic of Ed’s post, as the following excerpt of his comment suggests: 

I did notice Rusty that you retreated from addressing the gist of the post which is that the God of the Old Testatment is a monstrous, bloodthirsty, creature with morals that make Pol Pot look like a girl scout. It's always amusing to see fundamentalists try to apologize for their genocidal invisible sky wizard. So by all means if you share that view, outline why you think it's OK to worship this fiend.

  There are several avenues of response available to the questions posed by Ed and Dark (very good questions, by the way). For one, I could discuss how the instances of God commanding the Israelites to slaughter their enemies varied in application. In other words, the commands were situation specific and had to do, among other things, with God’s judgment regarding the level of depravity of the particular people in question. With regards to the Numbers 31 incident, one must first look at Numbers 25:1-3 to see the type of depravity that Israel had fallen into:

When Israel lived in Shittim, the people began to commit sexual immorality with the daughters of Moab. These women invited the people to the sacrifices of their gods; then the people ate and bowed down to their gods. When Israel joined themselves to Baal-peor, the anger of the Lord flared up against Israel. (all NET)

  By joining themselves to Baal-peor, Israel sinned against God. The initial judgment levied by God was against Israel in which a plague wipes out 24,000 Israelites (Numbers 25:9). In Numbers 31:1-2 we read: 

The Lord spoke to Moses: “Exact vengeance for the Israelites on the Midianites—after that you will be gathered to your people.” 

The level of judgment is tied to the level of depravity that occurred (i.e., Israel’s sexual immorality with the daughters of Moab). The nation of Israel could not exist in union with both God and the Midianites. That certain nations had degenerated to a state of debauchery which included child sacrifice is a point that some critics seem to conveniently ignore. God’s commanded judgments are always situation specific, and it’s interesting to note that there are instances of even more extensive destruction than that recorded in Numbers 31 (e.g., Joshua 6:21, in which everything in Jericho is destroyed; Genesis 19:24-25, in which Sodom & Gomorrah are completely destroyed; and Noah’s Flood, in which only Noah and his family survive). In Genesis 15:12-16, four hundred years before Israel entered the Promised Land, we read:

When the sun went down, Abram fell sound asleep. Then great terror overwhelmed him. Then the Lord said to Abram, “Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a foreign country. They will be enslaved and oppressed for four hundred years. But I will execute judgment on the nation that they will serve. Afterward they will come out with many possessions. But as for you, you will go to your ancestors in peace and be buried at a good old age. In the fourth generation your descendants will return here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its limit.”

This is telling us that God is not only cognizant of our current and future actions, but is also exact in His execution of judgment. We need to also understand that God has a plan He is working out with which to bring blessing to all the peoples of the Earth. Yet, because the plan is administered within the realms of free will, we will see its intersection with the effects of sin. Gleason Archer, in The Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties, states:

In every case the baneful infection of degenerate idolatry and moral depravity had to be removed before Israel could safely settle down in these regions and set up a monotheistic, law-governed commonwealth as a testimony for the one true God.

...These incorrigible degenerates of the Canaanite civilization were a sinister threat to the spiritual survival of Abraham's race. The failure to carry through completely the policy of extermination of the heathen in the Land of Promise later led to the moral and religious downfall of the Twelve Tribes in the days of the Judges.

 I could also go into how the rules of the Mosaic Covenant (the Law) should be understood. They were never meant to be a comprehensive listing of rules but, rather, a means through which Israel could experience the blessings of the Abrahamic Covenant while living here in this life (ref. Deuteronomy 30:11-20). Building on that idea I could also show how the promised Davidic Covenant superceded the Abrahamic Covenant with its administration being accomplished not through the Mosaic Covenant, but through the New Covenant. A related issue is the fact that the Holy Spirit had not been sent upon the world until after Jesus’ Ascension. One of the consequences of this is the New Testament writings that state that Christians battle not within the earthly realms, but within the spiritual (ref. Ephesians 6:10-12). In other words, the types of depravity that Israel so easily fell into are not accessible within our current New Covenant. Paradoxically, although the God of the Old Testament is typically viewed as wrathful, it is only in the New Testament that we hear of the perils of eternal punishment. Yet regardless of the multiple theological responses that are applied, the point of my original post should be addressed. Dark finishes his comment regarding God by asking why I “think it's OK to worship this fiend?” Inherent in that question is the fact that Dark has made a judgment call on what he considers to be fiendish morality. Again I would ask, just where do you get this idea that the God of the Bible is a fiend? What standard are you using to make that determination? If there is no absolute morality, then the word fiend immediately loses any meaning whatsoever – or it has whatever meaning one may wish to grant it. Building off of the C. S. Lewis quote above: How can you make the statement that someone or some deity is depraved (crooked) unless you have some idea of what is good (straight)? You only have two options: 1) that the idea of straight is purely natural or, 2) that the idea of straight is supernatural. Unfortunately, for the naturalist, option # 1 is self-defeating, for natural events are neither good nor bad – they simply are. C. S. Lewis also said,

If the whole universe has not meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning.

Yet look at the consequences of option # 2. If the idea of straight (i.e., morality) is supernatural, then it comes from a mind that is supernatural (there’s that little notion of ideas coming only from minds). Now if that mind is supernatural, and if it is powerful enough to mandate moral law, how should we respond to it? Do we choose to follow or not? Do we acknowledge where we stand? Hence the closing statement of my original post: we had better well understand that we aren’t in charge. The question of just of who is in charge is very critical, for both Dark and Ed have taken the God of the Bible to task for allegedly not acting with, what they have deemed to be, moral character. Yet my argument has been that before we can make any judgment call with regards to a being’s moral actions, we must first determine if the moral standards we are using are valid, as well as understand where these moral standards came from. In What We Can’t Not Know, J. Budzsiszewski states, regarding the First Commandment:

The point of the First Commandment is that the one true God, and only the one true God, is to be worshipped as God. To hold that this biblical injunction belongs equally to the natural law is to hold that although not everyone believes the Bible as the word of God, everyone does know that there is one true God and that he owes Him sole worship. If this is true, then those who say they don't know of any such God are fooling themselves, and biblical revelation merely "blows their cover." The Commandment presupposes more than just the knowledge that God is real. It presupposes that we also understand that benefit incurs obligation, supreme benefit incurs supreme obligation, and we are indebted to God for benefits beyond all others. This in turn presupposes that we know the principle, "Give to each what is due to him," what we owe God being loyalty, worship, and obedience. To deny Him is the deepest form of treason - much more serious than the ordinary sort.

Inherent in this argument is that God is Sovereign over His created order. If He is Sovereign, then He sets the rules. This line of thinking leaves no room for the self-defeating logic of moral relativism, much less the substance-deprived wasteland of deism. The God of the Bible has been revealed not only as a wrathful God, but as a God who forgives. Both of these characteristics are due to the essence of His being. In The Case for Faith, Lee Strobel quotes Norman Geisler as stating:

God created life and he has the right to take it. If you can create life, then you can have the right to take it. But if you can’t create it, you don’t have the right.

 And,

People assume that what’s wrong for us is wrong for God. However, it’s wrong for me to take your life, because I didn’t make it and I don’t own it. …Well, God is sovereign over all of life and he has the right to take it if he wishes.

Those are difficult words to read. Not to drive the point too deep, but this is the whole gist of my argument – that in order to understand true morality, we need to understand who God is; that in order to even begin to understand why God’s judgments have been so harsh in the past, we need to acknowledge His authority. To accept the notion that God has the authority to do as He wishes with His creation involves not only admitting that He is in control, but that He is worthy of worship. Yet the act of acknowledging that God is in control – and, therefore, that we are not – is a willful act of submission. That one may not like the act of submitting is separate from whether or not one understands the obligation of submitting. Consider the following, by C. S. Lewis, describing his conversion to Christianity:

In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed; that night a most dejected and reluctant convert in all England. …Who can duly adore that Love which will open the high gates to a prodigal who is brought in kicking, struggling, resentful, and darting his eyes in every direction for a chance to escape?

The first step in understanding God’s actions is to understand God’s authority – the reasons why He can act the way He does, as well as what our response should be. Whether we like it or not is, in reality, irrelevant.

Additional references: The Case for Faith, Lee Strobel     Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties, Gleason Archer What We Can’t Not Know, J. Budziszewski    Surprised by Joy, C. S. Lewis   Also check Matt Powell’s posts, Judging God and, The Morality of the Bible, at Wheat & Chaff.

Comments? We don't need no stinkin' comments...

In attempting to get my blog layout straightened out I decided to use a new template. Unfortunately the HTML is structured differently with this new layout and I have to research just where to put the code for the comments. They're still out in cyberspace (hopefully)... just not on my blog. Update: the Haloscan comments should be up and running now.

Another case of our superior morality...

Please check Imago Dei for some very insightful posts. In What is happening?, he relates an article by Michelle Malkin regarding, as Michelle puts it,

a cosmopolitan woman who recounts her decision to undergo "selective pregnancy reduction." Let me translate that for normal people who reject the euphemisms of the pro-death camp. The privileged woman finds out she is carrying triplets. The thought of having to move from Manhattan's East Village to a suburb, where "I'll have to start shopping only at Costco and buying big jars of mayonnaise," fills her with dread. So she undergoes "selective pregnancy reduction"--killing two of her eight-week-old unborn children...

Imgao Dei also has chilling photographs such as this:

Voters, voters, we need voters...

Per the L.A. Times (registration required), S.F. Voters to Decide if Noncitizens Can Vote Ballot measure would affect only school board elections. A legal challenge is expected. 

Testing state law for the second time this year, San Francisco city leaders approved a controversial ballot proposal Tuesday that could allow noncitizens to vote in school board elections. The proposal, the first in the state but not the nation, would permit any adult with a child in public school — parent, guardian or caretaker — to vote regardless of citizenship status. ..."Every time you're on the cutting edge of any issue you're going to have legal issues," said Supervisor Matt Gonzalez, a Green Party member who introduced the proposal. "This body has taken a strong position on things like gay marriage, domestic partnership…. I don't think this is any different." ...David Chiu, an early proponent of the ballot proposal, said that at least one in three students in San Francisco's public schools has an immigrant parent. Chiu, co-founder of the public relations firm Grassroots Enterprise, said his organization had pushed for voting rights in part because long waits to become citizens had left immigrant parents disenfranchised when their children were in school.