Killing those fucking ragheads

Anti-Islamic hate speech? No, actually it is yet another example of the open-minded toleration practiced on campus these days. After writing an editorial on the dearth of conservative speakers being brought in by the university-funded Issues Committee at the University of Tennessee, a conservative activist who happens to be a Sikh was slagged rather viciously by the Committtee members who thought their email was secure.

"like most of you, i spent much of my day drafting a letter to the editor in response to the piece. however, i probably spent more time thinking about what a little brat this guy is and what i would do to him given the chance--torture that would put the spanish inquisition to shame" said one devotee of tolerance.

Another tireless activist for world peace concurred, suggesting ""...if you see one of those ragheads, shoot him in the fucking face."

Being somewhat technologically illiterate, these left-wing advocates of civil discourse were unaware that they were sending their emails to conservatives who did not share their desire to commit violence and torture on those whose opinions differed from their own. Now, how many times do I need to tell everyone - download GPG or PGP and encrypt your bloody email!

I actually had a brief chat with the head of the Issues Committee. She sounds like a very nice young woman, but she's obviously just beginning to learn the rules of the game. After telling me that some statements had been "misconstrued", she mentioned that she'd need to talk to her advisor first. Fair enough. I'm looking forward to hearing how they should have been construed. The Left does so love to twist the language; for a polyglot like myself, it's always a pleasure to view the contortions.

UT Deans Brown and Thompson are a little more experienced. Neither one is in the office today. I'm so shocked! At least they can give thanks for a timely Thanksgiving holiday.

What income tax

Does this sham of a court case sound anything like a government that is confident of its position before the law and Constitution? No way. The man was jailed for six months pre-trial for the "crime" of not withholding income tax from his employees, and the judge is not only shamelessly manipulating witnesses, but refusing to allow the jury to even look at the income tax code! No wonder the jury smelled a rat. I just wonder if the one hold-out from acquittal was a plant or had an IQ below 60.

Meanwhile, the corrupt IRS-federal court cabal has moved its "hearing" of former IRS agent Joe Banister to a military installation, to which all public access is forbidden in direct contradiction of Detroit Free Press v. Ashcroft, 303 F.3d 681 (Sixth Circuit 2002). I imagine that the IRS-FC cabal would argue that the hearing isn't "quasi-judicial". And they're correct. It isn't judicial at all. I'm only surprised they're not holding it at Guantanamo Bay.

We are quickly moving towards the point where the income tax fraud is unmasked for all to clearly see. The IRS-FC cabal is getting increasingly desperate. The fact that they find it hard to win even when the decks are stacked will make them even more vicious until the light of truth sweeps them away altogether. By the way, someone with more time than me needs to create a repository of all these court transcripts for future use and reference. When someone does so, please let me know the link.

Amazing depths of ignorance

Evan Thomas - he of third generational Communist fame thanks to Miss Coulter and professional coward Al Franken - is quoted by Brent Bozell as saying: "I really don't get this whole debate ... anything that promotes commitment between couples, and helps the institution of the family, is a positive thing."

Meanwhile, "A Wirthlin poll from last spring for the Alliance for Marriage found 63 percent of Hispanics and 62 percent of blacks favored a constitutional amendment defending marriage." As I mentioned on Monday, this is why Hillary is sitting this one out. Forget the war, forget the economy. All Bush has to do is wave a little flag called Defense of Marriage Amendment - which no Democratic presidential candidate can support - and the ethnic minorities will desert in droves.

Sometimes the secular media reminds me of my dog. He sees what is going on around him, but has absolutely no idea why. You see, Evan, Christians are generally not huge fans of what the Bible calls abomination. If you're suprised by the overwhelmingly negative reaction to gay marriage, I'm sure you'll be shocked beyond words at their attitude towards the UN overseeing a Nobel prize-winning peace treaty signed in Jerusalem.

Oh, and there's a better way to promote commitment and preserve families. It's called abolishing no-fault divorce. Better yet, pass a law forcing the courts to automatically assign custody of the children to the non-filing spouse if they request it.

We've got the tea

Cal Thomas writes: The time when the Republican Party stood for something worth standing for is over. The "G" in GOP might as well stand for government. Smaller, less intrusive government with less spending and lower taxes is the stuff of history books and fond memories for a party that once had a purpose. But Republicans, having tasted power, are now drunk with it. Like the Democrats before them who became inebriated with the wine of success, Republicans now seem interested only in preserving their elective offices.

Truly there is less than a dime's worth of difference between the two parties.... Is it time for another revolution yet? Who's got the tea?

The Libertarians have it, Mr. Thomas. In shiploads. You are either for the use of government to control individuals or you are against it. If you are against the use of government to control individuals, instead of simply guarding their unalienable rights, you should not support the Republican party. Yes, Republicans are better than Democrats. So what? Democrats are better than Communists, but that's no reason to support them.

It's about Charlemagne

Of course the Euroelite permitted France and Germany to break the stability pact. The EU is not about economics, for all that it descended from the Common Market. A free trade zone was just the rationale for getting the ball rolling. The whole point is to restore the empire, and allow the heirs of Charlemagne to rule over Europe. This was Napoleon's dream, Hitler's dream, and is now being quietly, but methodically implemented by the faceless grey men of Europa Uber alles.

At least we have a new word

As in, I love him - though not in a Goodridge way.

8.2 percent

I don't buy this number either. Not in the least. It's called inflation, people. Get used to it.

Fred Hickey, editor of The High Tech Strategist says, "Over the past couple of weeks, I've listened to scores of tech company conference calls. In nearly every case, from Cisco to Foundry to Motorola to CDW, the story was the same - their best customer was the U.S. government."

Gee, I'm shocked. Apparently, compassionate conservatism is the kinder, gentler way to nationalize an economy.

The eye that never sleeps

As the US government claims to be building democracy in Iraq, they appear to be engaging in a little Constitutionally suspicious behavior at home as well. Deux Ego had an interesting experience yesterday.

Yes, I support the war on those who have declared war on us, or at least I will should we ever get around to declaring war as the Constitution demands. No, I do not support many of the questionable actions of the US government performed under the cover of war-making.

When did we change the name of the country to the Union of Sauron's Affiliates?

The fundamental metaphor

To translate it into UNIX system administration terms, the post-modern, politically correct atheists were like people who had suddenly found themselves in charge of a big and unfathomably complex computer system (viz. society) with no documentation or instructions of any kind, and so whose only way to keep the thing running was to invent and enforce certain rules with a kind of neo-Puritanical rigor, because they were at a loss to deal with any deviations from what they saw as the norm. Whereas people who were wired into a church were like UNIX system administrators who, while they might not understand anything, at least had some documentation, some FAQs and How-tos and README files, providing some guidance on what to do when things got out of whack.
- Neal Stephenson, Cryptonomicon

This signifies nothing about Mr. Stephenson, of course, as it is usually a mistake to identify a character, even the protagonist, with the author. But it is an interesting notion, and at least tangentially related to some of the points I have made with regards to belief systems, or the lack of them.

Mailbox - the violins wail

JH writes through the tears: Even though I proudly identify myself as a liberal, I absorb as much right wing media as I can and reading your column is always good for a laugh. I notice that your bio refers to you as a "Christian libertarian". Can you please tell me where in any Christian doctrine it says that its acceptable to call names like "Lizard Queen", "snob", "cold-blooded", or (and this is my favorite) referring to someone as being "in the direct matrilineal line of Lilith, daughter of Asmodael, Hell Baron of the Seventh Circle". I attended years of Catholic school and every time I called names like that I was told to go to confession. I know that for those of you on the right its all right to think this way about Hillary Clinton because she's the epitome of evil, but I forgot liberals think the right is evil and the right just thinks that liberals are mistaken. Congratulations on raising the state of debate in America.

Since JH is confused, let me explain that my column on WorldNetDaily is an op/ed column, wherein one is expected to engage in op/ed rhetoric. Everyone knows what rhetoric is, I hope? Although I generally prefer logos, using pathos occasionally is fun and a nice change of pace. The state-of-debate point cracked me up, since editors at some of America's largest newspapers have complained that they can't follow my references or the complex sentence structure that I favor and asked if I would please - ahem- make it more accessible. I suppose JH is only reading my column since he's bored with Maureen Dowd's constant delving into Plato, Goethe,Calvino, Nietszche, Open Text, Open Source, and, of course, the Conscript Fathers.

Perhaps I should imitate Paul Krugman and just make things up on the fly:

PK: President Bush's budget will cause ten million jobs to be lost next year!
Krugman Truth Squad: Um, Paul, the budget covers the next decade. So, even if you're right, which you aren't, that's one million. As in, ten divided by ten?
PK: (freezes for a long, uncomfortable moment like a deer caught in the headlights before trying to bluff it out) How dare you question my math, fool! Don't you know I am a professor of economics? At Princeton!
KTS: So, is this Quantum Economics or something?
PK: You hateful bigots, you are stalking me! (bursts into tears)

When did I ever write that liberals are mistaken? Sure, they're mistaken about what they call themselves, as they are anti-liberal. BTW, I never even write liberal, I only use left-liberal as a partial concession to the perverted parlance of American politics. I do think left-liberals are mistaken with regards to their fundamental assumptions, which I think tends to reveal their functional - and quite frequently, actual in the IQ sense - stupidity. I also believe that their ultimate goals of egalitarianism and one-world government are deeply and profoundly evil. I do not, however, believe that JH is very familiar with my column. He's clearly conflating me with other writers of the Right, although he does appear to know enough to avoid referring to me as a conservative.

It amuses me how America's left-liberals believe they can run around calling everyone stupid,hate-filled bigots, then yowl like wounded kittens every time someone writes something insufficiently adoring about the object of their idol worship. Don't bring it if you can't take it, Penelope. And stop blubbering, Paul!

An interesting exchange

One of my secular political sisters-in-arms, DN, (she's an atheist Libertarian) wrote:

Your article regarding atheists is being discussed at the Secular Web. Thought you might want to brave the flame.

VD: Thanks, checked it out. Very little interesting there, as I've responded at length to two far more lengthy and significant critiques on the blog. By the way, please feel free to tell Anti-Creedance Front that I'm a full-contact martial artist. He's welcome to try giving me a wedgie any time he likes.

Yes, I must confess, I didn't read the thread until after sending you the link. I was then embarrassed. Lesson learned. I'll pass along the wedgie challenge. :)

I suspect DN is at least an occasional reader of the column. She knows perfectly well that I don't hate her, or atheists in general. I will say, however, that the Secular Web forum dwellers definitely appear to fall squarely into the highly irrational category. I will survive the flame.

Now there's a howler

Somehow, in writing my most recent article on Hillary, I managed to forget that she defeated Rick Lazio, not Giuliani. Thanks to reader ST for pointing this out. I've corrected the error, but the general point remains. She's TCU two weeks ago. Who has she beaten?

Of course, now that I've realized that my editor's mind is clearly occupied elsewhere, we can have some serious fun!

There they go again

"The British Left intermittently erupts like a pustule upon the buttock of a rather good country. Seventy years ago it opposed mobilization against Adolf Hitler and worshipped the other [master of] genocide, Josef Stalin. It has marched for Mao, Ho Chi Minh, Khrushchev, Brezhnev, and Andropov. It has slobbered over Ceausescu and Mugabe. It has demonstrated against everything and everyone American for a century. Broadly speaking, it hates your country first, mine second."
- Frederick Forsyth

Thank you, Jay Nordlinger of NRO, for bringing this appropos indictment to our attention. Think about it, all you self-righteous left-wing lunatics. Look at who your predecessors have supported in the past. Do you notice any pattern there? Maybe, just maybe, you might want to reconsider the accuracy of your Marxian analysis.

It reminds me of a great line from Spawn, when the demon looks at three would-be devil worshippers and laments: "why do we get all the idiots?"

But blame Shub-Niggurath on Lovecraft

Dr. DF writes humbly: Please enlighten me, o great mensa man. I've looked on Dictionary.com and encyclopedia.com and even used the Boolean feature; nada. It sounds Greek, but since you invoke some mention of Hell, I'm guessing some Dungeons & Dragons?

Being addressed like this makes it far more likely that I'll lose the Mensa reference than all the attempted slights. Seriously, it gives me shivers. Anyhow, Asmodael was simply a combination of Asmodeus and the common angelic form X-ael. I wanted to imply a name of some netherly weight, without invoking the much-overrused Prince of Darkness himself. Seriously, to judge by Hollywood, you'd think the poor Devil had no legions of fallen angels to do any of his work for him.

Believe it or not, I wasn't much of a D&D guy. More Akallabeth, Castle Wolfenstein and Wizardry. Except for: "Free Trader Beowulf... calling anyone....."

In any case, we apologize for the inconvenience.

Strange Semantics

This is the second response to The Irrational Atheist selected, from one SS. It is noteworthy primarily for correctly ascertaining that the Socrates quote actually had nothing directly to do with the subject of atheism, but more on that later. I'm not sure if the person who wrote this emailed it to me, or if someone else did, regardless, it was certainly one that demanded answer. In this case, SS is quoted in full in italics, my reply to SS is in bold.

So, someone has decided to trot out the hackneyed, unsound argument that because atheists don't have God, they don't have any (rational) foundation for morality or ethics. Woohoo! You have to wonder if these people read! I mean at all. The name-dropping doesn't convince me. Let's go through this, paragraph by paragraph, and see if there's any substance in there.

Name-dropping shouldn't convince one of anything, except that the author does, quite obviously, read. This introductory paragraph is typically meaningless chest-beating, but the last sentence indicates that SS is willing to give it a fair shake. Let's do it.

Paragraph 1: Ummm... ok

Likewise.

Paragraph 2: It's important to remember that the people doing most of the murdering in France were Christians. Most of the intellectuals, atheist or Christian, who had championed Enlightenment ideals, and were still alive when the terror began in France, were disheartened and distanced themselves from it. Ironically (given what this paragraph says), one of the few intellectuals to continue championing the Enlightenment, and to even excuse the terror, was Kant, a Christian. Remember that the Enlightenment was not, for the most part, an atheistic movement (primarily, it was an attempt to reconcile Christian and secular/scientific values). Furthermore, France wasn't the only place where the Enlightenment played out. The United States was the other, and I don't see this article mentioning the success it had here.

Some massive and unsupported assumptions here. Since atheists almost uniformly consider the deism of the Enlightenment as a significant step in the evolution of modern atheistic philosophy, I think it is odd, if not dishonest, to suddenly attempt to turn around and classify their deist heroes as religious men philosophically akin to evangelical Christians. Do Rousseau, Diderot and Voltaire truly belong to the party of those they regularly attacked? While Maximillian Robespierre did execute the avowedly atheist revolutionary leader Jacques-Rene Hebert for desecrating the altar at Notre Dame and creating a cult of Reason - hmmmm - he was no Christian. He was, rather, a deist, the very sort of quasi-religious man that atheists wrongly claim most of America's founding fathers were in an attempt to portray the early United States as a non-Christian nation. Read the Cult of the Supreme Being, which was inspired by Jean-Jacque Rousseau's deistic philosophy, and which Robespierre pushed the National Convention to adopt as France's official religion in the place of Roman Catholic Christianity, to get an insight into his thinking.

As to America, it was founded by a very different group of men. Of the 250 Founding Fathers, only a tiny percentage, between 3 and 7 individuals, were deists or irreligious. There were more Founders involved in founding the American Bible Institute than can be credibly called deists, much less atheists. 27 of the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence held seminary degrees or Bible school degrees and their affiliations with various Christian denominations were as follows: 34 Episcopalians, 13 Congregationalists, 6 Presbyterians, 1 Baptist, 1 Roman Catholic, and 1 Quaker. I submit that it was this divergence of allegience - between reason/deism and Jesus Christ - that accounts for the tremendous difference between the two revolutions.

Admittedly, it would be beneficial to have a better understanding of the religious affiliations, or lack thereof, of the French National Assembly and the Committee of Public Safety to support my claim. But given the strong degree of anticlericalism and the enthusiasm with which the openly religious were slaughtered, and the bloody fruit repeatedly harvested by those anti-religious ideologies that claim inspiration from the French Revolution, I stand by my assertion, pending specific information to the contrary. I would certainly welcome any research in this regard, as Simon Schama's Citizens and A Tale of Two Cities represents the greater part of my familiarity with the French Revolution. It is also nothing more than an assumption to claim that the Jacobins or the National Assemblymen were Christian, especially given that SS provides no information with regards to a single Jacobin's religious affiliation or claim of submitting to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. It is a huge failure of logic for SS to assume that every individual in a Christian-dominated society is necessarily a Christian himself. By his logic, future historians might well wrongly consider him to be a Christian.

Paragraph 3: Again, pretty much everyone in the west, Christian, atheist, or whatever, puts his or her faith in science. The linguistic division of labor does require faith, but it's a pragmatic faith, and in the west, a ubiquitous one. The example in the blog (age of the earth) is interesting. I imagine most non-scientists are agnostic about the actual age of the earth, though they think it's quite old. And of course, one doesn't need to be a specialist to have good reasons for believing this (fossilized bones of animals that no longer exist, for example, is a good reason for thinking that the Earth has been around for a while, and there are plenty more). It's fairly trivial to show that all rational arguments are based at some point, in their explicit or implicit premises, on assumptions that cannot be verified. This doesn't make them irrational. Of course, the bulk of specialized science is irrelevant to most atheist's beliefs systems, and probably unknown completely, so parts of this are wholly misguided (or dishonest, it's hard to tell which).

Following the example set by HG, SS misses the point, though not as completely. He assumes that most atheists have far more information and have spent more time thinking about their belief systems than I have usually witnessed or heard them claim. One does not have to have perfect knowledge to be rational, but to use two common examples, one has to at least know what evolution or the big bang actually is in order to claim that it is the foundation upon which one's rational belief system has been constructed. Furthermore, the fact that one's faith is pragmatic and ubiquitous does not make it any less faith, or prove that one has reasoned one's way to the conclusions it provides.


Paragraph 4: I'm not sure this faith is either as blind as the religious faith (which also generally relies on experts, but is also non-demonstrable, whereas most science, outside of particle physics, is demonstrable). "Childlike" makes no sense here, either, but hey, at least it's in keeping with the tone of the article. How is it childlike, again? I'm not sure how it's irrational, either. Appeal to authority? I suppose, but it's not really that in the sense that the fallacy with that name is meant to discourage, and since most science is demonstrable, it can be rationally evaluated even by non-experts, though they presumably won't have all the facts. Also see the comments on Paragraph 3.

More failures of logic. The fact that it is demonstrable does not mean that it has been demonstrated to the believing individual. Furthermore, how can SS claim that religious faith is non-demonstrable? The Bible is no less a historical document, by any historian's standard, than anything recorded by Arrian, Herodotus or Thucydides. Indeed, the history of archeology is rife with examples of where the archeologists of the day have been wrong and the Bible has been subsequently proven more reliable by comparison - Hittites, anyone? And then there's the so-called myth of the Assyrians, too. How quickly these scientists forget! Also, many Christians will openly declare that God's power has been demonstrated to them - apparently SS is not only willing, but eager, to dismiss their testimony out of hand. Childlike, of course, is a sarcastic reference to the most perfect, unquestioning form of faith as defined in the Bible. And he's not sure that I read?

Paragraph 5: We don't? How can you know this? Is God the only good reason? Might we come up with other systems of values that lead to similar humanist conclusions? There's no argument in the article that we can't, and since plenty have, the burden is on the author of this article to show how these fail.

There is no argument that no atheist can, my argument is that the overwhelming majority of atheists can't, haven't, don't and won't. Ayn Rand has come up with a rational system of sorts. Utilitarianism, for all its lack of believability, is another possibility. However, I know many atheists and exactly none of them subscribe to either - and most are completely unfamiliar with both. In fact, none are even able to say much about their own moral systems, except to make banal claims such as "killing people is obviously bad" and assert self-evidence where none exists. Furthermore, my understanding is that the atheist position is generally that the burden of proof is on the theist to prove that God exists, not the atheist to prove that he does not. Why the sudden reversal here? Because, of course, SS' case is weak and he knows it. Is it a coincidence that the purportedly independently-reasoned moral system of the average Western atheist usually happens to mimic, almost precisely, the Judeo-Christian ethic in which he and his parents have been raised? I do not find this credible.

Paragraph 6: This paragraph seems to apply to both most atheists and most Christians (and the majority of people in general). People tend to be fair-weather moralists. I don't know any atheists who argue otherwise. Atheists don't think that not believing in God makes them less human, less prone to human fallibility.

The Christian who is a fair-weather moralist falls far short of the Biblical standards as laid forth in the Bible. The same is not true of the atheist, who simply modifies his individual moral system to match with his desires - if he is rational. The last statement is demonstrably untrue. I received many emails from atheists expressing the notion that they are better people, more altruistic, more moral and of a higher ethos because they do not believe in God. I suspect that like others who have emailed, SS needs to take more consideration of the vast breadth of the cognitive spectrum of the godless.

Paragraph 7: A value parasite? How so, again? Because he worked with the ethics inherent in his culture? Umm... who doesn't? In addition, I'm not sure the author knows what "post-facto" and "rationalization" mean, given that atheists may actually use things like consequentialist (including, perhaps, utilitarian) or altruistic considerations in determining their behavior. I imagine these things can even become internalized and automatized (they certainly seem to be in most of us), just like any other ethic. One might even argue that Chistians (and other types of believers) use similar considerations, and that their theological justifactions are "rationalizations."

A moral parasite, because the atheist is not only making use of a moral system to which he does not subscribe, but his individual modifications, taken in the collective and writ large upon the society, have the effect of poisoning it. Hence the ongoing secularization and decline of America. Who doesn't? Among others, Christians are commanded not to. "Be in the world, but not of it." Not that all, or even most succeed, but the extent to which evangelical Christians freak out those of the tolerant, PC secular media ethic demonstrates that many do.

I should have said "ex post facto" of course, but after the fact rationalization is exactly the way in which I believe most people naturally behave. I don't believe that most people determine their behavior, I believe that most people act first and think later. I find that even those who really try very hard to think first are usually too influenced by their momentary desires to perform a truly rational analysis. Everyone does this, Christians included, and I'll freely admit that some of the worst rationalizations I've ever heard have come from Christians attempting to justify their anti-Scriptural decisions based on Scripture. But in the Christian's case, this is clearly wrong and is usually condemned quite strongly by fellow Christians.

Paragraph 8: "I am saying nothing new here." No, you're not, not even close. Socrates was an atheist martyr (he wasn't really an atheist, but we'll claim him if you don't want him)? Hmmm... I wonder if the author has read the Republic. Taking that quote out of context is odd, here. It' be interesting to see if the author knows what comes next (this quote is part of a section containing one of the most interesting metaphors in Plato, leaders as physicians, and a discussion on marriage and breeding... I'm not sure if many atheists adhere to the ideas stated in this section of the Republic, and the ones who do are not alone - Eugenics was big among Christians in the U.S. in the early part of the 20th century). Of course, Plato has been more influential in Christian theology and philosophy than anywhere else, and his elitism has often been a difficult to reconcile part of his political thought in all philosophical circles.

Yes, you can have Socrates. I don't believe his theistic protestations, and my reading of him is that a) the god of whom he spoke was his reason; b) the absence of gods and the ur-deity of Man was an important part of the secret wisdom. The quote, as SS and a few others with the eyes to see have seen, was totally unconnected with the subject and I used it as both a key to understanding the article as well as a test designed to weed out the lesser lights - I have not only read the Republic, but I consider it central to understanding most 20th Century ideologies. The deeper point, since I have no objection to making it clear to those who have bothered to follow the debate, is that while my argument can be rightly viewed as a defense of a religious worldview, it is not only neither new nor Christian, it is in fact synonymous with and an important part of the atheist elite's justification for their right to rule over society. And for older, non-atheist elites as well.

Paragraph 9: Religion has been used as a means of control throughout history, by the religious as much as the areligious.

Seneca said it was useful. Socrates, Voltaire and I all happen to believe that it is necessary. I believe it is almost always necessary for individual morality just as it is necessary for the morals of society, and that we are beginning to see the results of allowing the once-secret knowledge to spill out over the masses. Fortunately, in my opinion, most modern atheists are irrational, intellectually lazy moral parasites, which tends to reduce the impact given a Judeo-Christian society. Nevertheless, the post-Enlightenment world has already witnessed the bloodiest and most brutal century in Man's history. Atheists may believe this to be a coincidence; I have already stated that I do not. And as more people turn their backs on God, worse will come. The irrational atheist says never again, I say it is inevitable. And somewhere, the rational atheist asks, why should I not?

Paragraph 10: I don't know what to say to this. It's true, but irrelevant to his points about atheists. See comment on Paragraph 9. Still,

It is not irrelevant. The fact that Voltaire, hero of atheists everywhere, should greatly fear the consequences of permitting atheism to take root amongst those inequipped to handle its implications, is directly relevant to my opinion that rational atheists are likely to lead humanity to the grave. At the very least, this should encourage an atheist to consider the likely implications of his non-belief, not only for him, but for the world around him.

Paragraph 11: This is, of course, nonsense. Most atheists who have the courage to, using the language of Nietzsche, create their own tables of values now that God is dead and we can no longer use His, are not sociopaths. Granted, most atheists (and non-atheists) do take the easy road, and stick within the value systems within which they were socialized, for the most part, but this isn't necessarily irrational, and the opposite of doing so isn't sociopathy. Do most atheists not reflect on their ethical beliefs/values? I imagine that's true, but the same goes for everyone else. I don't know many atheists who would claim that atheists, as a group, are any different in this way from the rest of the intellectually lazy population.

Here SS unwittingly concedes much of the argument, despite his many protestations above. He may not know many atheists who claim this, but I do. I also have the emails to prove it. And it is irrational to "take the easy road and stick within... value systems". Irrational is defined as not rational. Rational is defined:

[adj] having its source in or being guided by the intellect (distinguished from experience or emotion)
[adj] of or associated with or requiring the use of the mind
[adj] consistent with or based on or using reason

Simply doing what everyone around you is doing, believing what everyone around you believes does not have much to do with any of these definitions, much less constructing a coherent and independent moral system. It may be reasonable to do as everyone else does in order to keep from drawing attention to yourself, but you can hardly argue that you are guided by reason, since herd animals do the same. As for sociopathy, I have no research on this, but I'm quite confident that there are more serial killers lacking religious faith than are committed Church-going evangelical Christians. As before, any non-anecdotal information to the contrary is welcome.

Paragraph 12: This is nonses, as well. Since we know from history that the Enlightement's guillotine was as much or more a Christian tool as it was an atheist one, and since the Holocaust of Nazi Germany was carried out, primarily, by nominal Christians, one wonders why they're attached to the "path of the philosopher" and attributed to atheists. For Christian-perpetrated holocausts, by the way, we don't need to look back at the Inquisition. The Balkans, or present day Africa, will do fine.

The Jacobins were not Christians, by any stretch of the imagination, as has been already discussed. Notice the choice of "carried out" and "nominal", since the Holocaust was conceived and led by atheists who explicitely desired to wipe out Judeo-Christianity. If a nominal Christian does something, it is a real stretch to assign his motivation to a faith he may not even have. The Inquisition accounted for 6,000 deaths in 356 years; hardly a Holocaust. Europe - including the Balkans, is no longer considered even nominally Christian, and the conflict there is ethnic, not religious, at any rate. Post-colonial massacres in Africa have been ethnic when they have not been socialist or Islamic; as to the pre-Colonial era, one needs to know the religious affiliation of the colonial leaders to make any such statement. SS turns out to have a very poor grasp of history.

I don't know of any studies demonstrating that the incidence of human rights violations is higher among atheists (percentage wise or in absolute numbers) than among the religious, and I doubt that if such a study were conducted we would find such a difference. This would be much more interesting if the author had actual facts/data/studies to back it up. The author is right in that the consequences of breaking away from the culturally and psychologically solid foundation of western religion is very difficult, and the consequences can be painful. Since Nietzsche, much of philosophy has attempted to build a foundation for ethics after the symbolic death of God. Some of it has been successful, and some has not. It's interesting that most atheistic philosophical movements in the 20th century have criticized science as often or more often than they've criticized religion. Rational or scientific realism is on as shaky a ground as religion, among atheistic philosophers. I wonder if the author knew this?

I agree, it would be more interesting. Maybe when I have a team of 14 researchers, I'll do just that. There is, however, the many incidents of democide committed by atheist socialist mortacracies, which in a relatively short period of time has amassed a body count unparalleled in human history. I find it intriguing that atheists are now attempting to deny any connection between Communism, socialism and atheism, when for many years atheist intellectuals were arguing for the obvious superiority of the godless State. Also, while I very much agree that for many Leftists, the State serves as a sort of god - or to paraphrase Schumpeter, there is no god but History and Karl Marx is its prophet - the State as God metaphor is a very questionable escape device for the atheist uncomfortable with the murderous results of godless state rule.

I did not know that rational realism is on as shaky a ground as religion. Philosophy is only a tertiary interest of mine at best, which is why I seldom write on it. But it is an interesting intellectual development. I left off SS' final paragraph, which is primarily an inaccurate summary of my argument and more chest-beating.

Linux and the dolce vita

I'm still running quite happily on Red Hat 9, blogging this blog with Mozilla Firebird, and writing both my columns and novels using OpenOffice 1.1. No operational problems, although I still have to switch back into Windows to hotsync my Alphasmart Dana, which has sadly turned out to be far too flaky to trust with important data anyhow. In other words, I don't bother much. There's not much to talk about, really. My machines run, I write, that's pretty much it.

I still have to get the house network finished off, but I'm waiting to try SUSE 9.0 and Mandrake 9.2 first. Other than games, there's nothing mission critical that needs to be done, just a few minor issues. Does anyone know a good way to convert .wdb or .csv files into .vcf that can be read by Evolution? I've tried two different methods so far - never got csv2vcard working properly with Ruby and everything, and a web-based form system did convert the file, but did so poorly.

No big deal, I'm just not in the mood to type all of my contacts in again.

Intellect in the machine

Here's a random thought. People have theorized that as the complexity of computers increases, it is likely that some form of machine intelligence and self-consciousness will appear. At what point, however, can we say that this is unlikely, and that it is more logical to assume that intelligence and consciousness cannot be created through technology? When a brain-like network has as many connections as the human brain, but no self-consciousness? 10x? 100x? I don't have an answer, I'm just wondering.

Yes, I can tell

JH writes: I know next to nothing about Voltaire and Diderot, and less about the French Revolution; none have any bearing on how I arrive at my particular philosophical viewpoint. I suffer little time to argue about the historical atrocities of atheists versus theists. Adolf Hitler, by the way, was neither an Episcopalian nor an atheist. He was baptized as a Roman Catholic, served as an altar boy, and was confirmed as a soldier in Christ. He claimed to be doing the Lords work by killing Jews. He never left the Church, and the Church never left him. If there was ever a case for excommunication, it was Hitler, yet it never happened, not even posthumously. Id love to hear that doddering old man in Rome explain that one.

He doesn't know very much about Hitler and National Socialism either. A few quotes from the unlamented architects of the Holocaust:

"The Jew who fraudulently introduced Christianity to the ancient world-in order to ruin it-reopened the same breach in modern times, this time taking as his pretext the social question. It's the same sleight of hand as before. Just as Saul has changed into St. Paul, Mordechai became Karl Marx." - Adolf Hitler

Christianity was "the heaviest blow that ever struck humanity" and "introduced the deliberate lie of religion into the world". - Adolf Hitler

"In the same way, any doctrine which is anti-Communist, any doctrine which is anti-Christian must ipso facto, be anti-Jewish as well. The National Socialist doctrine is therefore anti-Jewish in excelsis, for it is both anti-Communist and anti-Christian." - Martin Bormann

I don't suppose it's possible that given these statements, one might conclude that these gentlemen had fallen away - just a bit - from their youthful Christian upbringings, do you? And at what age was it, exactly, that you had your irreligious awakening?

Who is more rational?

This is the question asked by atheist critic HG, who took the time to respond at length to each paragraph. The beginning of my original paragraph is in italics, his response is quoted in full, and my subsequent reply is in bold. I expect this should help dispell the oft-repeated accusation that my failure to respond to anyone stems from some form of cowardice. And thanks, to HG and everyone else who took the time to compose a thoughtful and considerate response to The Irrational Atheist. If you happen to be interested, I expect to post at least one more response at length on this subject, but please also keep in mind that every new column generates its own little deluge of email.

>The idea that he is a devotee of reason....

Lest you forget, that "so-called Age of Enlightenment" also ushered in the rediscovery of the principles of democracy upon which our country's founders relied upon heavily. This is especially true when you realize that many of that age's philosophers were building upon the writings of pre-cursors such as Locke and Hume.

I'm not a big fan of democracy either, at least not the fetish that is its latter-day universal form. The founders were mistrustful of it as well, which is why they hedged it about so in the Constitution. I am a Christian Libertarian and a republican, not a democrat, a Democrat or a Republican. Thus, this point means little to me.

>The atheist is without God....

As you know, the scientific process is used for studying a particular idea. It is that process which gave us modern geology, cosmology, evolution, genetic engineering, et cetera. However knowledge and faith of that process has nothing to do with the knowledge of those grand scientific theories which have been developed in the years since it was first conceived and implemented. Why does someone using the scientific method to study the principle of structural elasticity care about the latest modern theories on star formation or cosmic expansion? They don't. They therefore require no foundation in such a theory in order for them to pursue their own scientific process. His faith in the process is therefore not undermined at all by the lack of such knowledge.

HG, like most of his fellow critics, completely missed my point. I did not attack the scientific method or the truth that is determined by repeated tests with reliable and predictable results. Whereas a scientist will declare that of course he does not believe there are multiple universes since it is only a hypothesis designed to counter the anthropic principle, the non-elite atheist whose only exposure to science is his science fiction novels will declare that of course they exist since Dr. X said so - this is the faith in science of which I spoke. The same holds true of evolution, the geological age of the Earth and many other untested scientific and pseudo-scientific hypotheses. Based on my experience as well as the emails I have received, the number of atheists who fall in the latter category far exceeds the number of those who belong to the former.

>In fairness, he cannot be faulted for this....

The failure in perception is your own. You believe that in order to use reason or scientific process on one particular thing, a person needs to have full knowledge of all things which have been discovered or postulated from that process. There is no reason to believe that such a conclusion is warranted. I've highlighted one very simple example above where it isn't warrented, of which there are a near infinite number.

No, I don't. HG's failure to grasp the first point led him to make a mistaken conclusion here. It's not that full knowledge is required with regards to a certain subject... it's that when no knowledge except untested hypotheses exists on the subject, but the untested hypotheses are accepted as tested and proven fact by the less than fully informed, this is blind faith, not reason. Statements that begin with "according to science", "studies show" and "everyone knows" are strong indicators of this sort of unreasoning faith.

>The irrationality of the atheist....

Why should the origin of a given rule be important when its effectiveness is self evident? That "irrational reason" you highlighted above is what allows a person to see the effectiveness in such moral concepts as the Golden Rule. In fact the ubiquitousness of certain morals is derived from the fact that it is readily observable to be a stabilizer of a society. Whether that was something our ancestors inferred over thousands of years of experience or had written into stone tablets at a particular moment by a supernatural being is irrelevant to its effectiveness. The atheist seeks to adhere to the effective rules of life because they work, not because they believe some invisible entity proposed them. That doesn't point to irrationality on their part but rational thought applied to a given principle. Irrationality would be adhering to principles which are shown time and again to be cultural artifacts and superstition.

I do not agree that the effectiveness of the Gold Rule is self-evident. History suggests otherwise. Gandhi's campaign depended upon the good will of India's British overlords to succeed; Tianamen Square is one example of the limits of dependence upon the good will of tyrants. While there are surely a few atheists who operate from the highly abstract concept of altruistic utilitarianism, the overwhelming majority of those with whom I have spoken do not. Their morality is utterly dependent upon the theistic morality in which they have lived, one which they have never questioned. This does not make them bad people - actually the opposite - but irrational and unreasoning nevertheless. Their usual answer, when asked why thou shalt not kill, is something on the order of "because killing is bad". Remember, they, too are atheists. Just as I willingly claim kinship who believe in the inerrant truth of the Bible without having giving the matter a moment's thought, even the most intelligent secular scientist must acknowledge both the amoral nihilist and the mindless, godless existentialist frat boy as his atheistic brethren.

>Still, even the most admirable of atheists is nothing more than a moral parasite....

Speaking from a theistic perspective you draw that conclusion. Speaking from a non-theistic position the parasite is simply an assimilator. Are we parasites for absorbing the knowledge of previous generations and applying it to our present day life? Are the present day religions who based their laws on predecessor regional religions parasite religions for doing so (that includes Judaism and Christianity by the way)? The great genius of man is his capacity to learn both from other's lessons as well as their own. The atheist's borrowing is nothing more than implementing and living by what has been shown time and again to work. These universal rules require no divine origin as proof of usefulness because its effectiveness is readily apparent to any observer. It is therefore rational, not irrational, to try and implement them in one's personal code of ethics.

Despite any similarities, Judeo-Christian law cannot be described as being based on predecessor regional religions, as by its own lights it is based on the Word of God. It is internally consistent and complete. HG is also agreeing here that the atheist is borrowing and assimilating, not developing from first principles, as more abstract-oriented atheists have stated. A decision to assimilate and borrow and behave according to the dominant ethic is certainly rational in light of the cultural norm, however, it is intellectually irrational which is precisely why the abstract atheists deny that atheists do this. Some even go so far as to deny atheists of HG's stripe as being atheists - I do not agree. This notion also depends, again, on the assumption of the efficacy of the Golden Rule. I still disagree there, too.

You next highlight the fact that most people can't be rational atheists. That is probably true. Most people don't want to spend the time to actually study these sorts of topics, nor do they have the capacity to. Many who do have the capacity would still rather have their ethics spoon fed to them as well, since it is easier than trying to imagine how mere mortal man could have figured all this out by themselves. "Religion" however can come without trying to pray to a particular deity or set of deities. It can also come without the absolutist teachings that have historically gone along with it, as Catholics and Buddhists have started teaching the rest of the world.

I was very surprised to come across this admission, considering the previous points raised. And, as I have stated before, an argument against the rationality of atheism neither presupposes a belief in a specific religious system nor the rationality of the theist.

>This is not to say there are no atheists who are rational....

I'm sure you added this last part for some spice. You here are implying that all atheists are either irrational or rational sociopaths to the exclusion of all other possibilities. As a former atheist by your own admission, which were you? This sort of slight is equally reprehensible as someone assuming you're a moron because you are a Christian. Such a slight you've admitted trying to stave off with your Mensa label, yet you don't mind throwing such blanket and biased statements at other belief systems. How hypocritical on your part.

Correct, although I do believe it AS A GENERALITY. I'm an op/ed columnist with a taste for polemicist rhetoric, after all, and this is op/ed commentary, not a scholarly article. And my regular readers know that a certain amount of discretion with regards to the degree of literalism is always necessary when reading my columns. Is it really necessary for me to state, for the record, that I do not believe Hillary Clinton is a crocodile? I believe that the vast majority of Western atheists are good people who irrationally, but understandably, subscribe to the morality dominant in their culture. I believe that a small minority of atheists are rational sociopaths - unfortunately, these are the ones who seem to have the will to power. I also believe that an even smaller minority are rational and moral - these individuals are those capable of allowing the abstract to rule the material. They are the virtuous few of whom Socrates spoke. They are also numerically insignificant. As for the latter statement, what you see as being hypocrisy, I see as turnabout being fair play. It is also very amusing to see how being labled irrational sends most atheists through the roof, as it pricks the very root of their pride.

The virtuous few from whom I heard appeared to realize that I was not talking about them, with only two or three exceptions. They tended to see the piece as humorous and reasonably fair, if handicapped by virtue of the misapprenhensions of the writer. As to the other question, I was somewhat of a rational quasi-sociopath, who was always amused at how I would receive lectures on my "bad" behavior from atheists who subscribed to moral relativism. "Do what thou wilt, with due regard for the policeman around the corner" was pretty much my amoral code.

>Without God, there is only the left-hand path....

As a person of faith this seems to be the only rational conclusion for you. You start with the presumption that we began with god given ethics which we are now diverging from. The "death of god" therefore marks the death of civilization. The atheist starts from the notion that man pulled himself from the wild to civilization. Since it is a much harder task to discover something as opposed to maintain or learn it, as is evident in the documented history of technology around us, there is no need to worry about the repercussions of having atheists in our society. It's true that atheism won't work for everybody, but what belief system does?

Obviously I agree with the first statement. I very much disagree with the latter conclusion, as it ignores both the warnings of Voltaire as well as the history of the 20th century. Atheist anti-religious ideological movements have killed more people in less time than the worst religious inspired warfare. Worse, such movements don't even require war, as they typically involve the society turning on itself. This has been the murderous French Revolutionary model which has been exported to cultures ranging from Western post-Enlightenment Germany to New World Mexico and the Eastern societies of China and Kampuchea. Atheists often attempt to insist that the substitution of the State for God does not lie at their hands. I don't buy it, nor did the architects of such man-made disasters.

Interestingly you pretend in the comments to this article, and in fact in one line of the article, to be noncommittal on the type of religion necessary. As a "Southern Baptist Christian fundamentalist" I doubt that you take any credence in the morals embedded in Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism or any other "ism" are any more than fanciful creation by humans.

I'm not noncommittal, but the argument is. A Hindu could make the very same points. Consider that I cited three non-Christian thinkers without a single reference to the Bible or any theologian.

If you believe otherwise, then I would doubt your self professed affiliation, especially the "fundamentalist" part. You therefore believe that all of the followers of all these other religions are delusional. Namely, they have deluded themselves into believing they have some sort of transcendental knowledge encapsulated in their belief system which compels them to follow their moral laws. Obviously many of those religions' fundamentalist followers would say the same thing about Christians. You therefore have all religions claiming everyone else is delusively following their own moral codes. Ironically, the core of those moral codes have significant overlap. Therefore the religious are blindly following their individual "delusions" and still managing to keep their civilizations afloat.

I don't believe otherwise, so no problem there. Christians don't believe the faithful of other religions are deluded, but are instead deceived by an intelligent, supernatural army That the deception would bear some similarities to the base moral core is not to be unexpected, indeed, the apostle Paul writes more than once in warning to be careful of the inevitable perversions of the New Testament teachings. And since the other religions, like the irrational atheists, are working off of the fundamental moral core, it should come as no surprise that their civilizations should benefit by this.

The rational atheist on the other hand observes this fact, and sees the common codes which have effectively bound the society together. They have thus "borrowed" those common elements, like any good creature capable of learning would do, and ties them into a cohesive code of ethics for themselves. If they did a half decent job of it, those codes of ethics may even get adopted by other atheists and agnostics--for no other reason than the fact that they work. Between the fundamentalists and the atheists, who is being more rational?

This assumes a great deal. Why should a rational atheist not observe the fact, and assume that he can take advantage of the weaknesses of the mythology to create a better one of his own, or simply to better realize his individual desires? As did Voltaire, I see no reason why he could or should not. I believe that it is precisely this reasoning that has led so many rational, godless men into destruction of one form or another, be it of themselves or others. I am not insisting that an atheist cannot rationally come to a utilitarian moral perspective, but I don't believe it is anywhere nearly as common or likely as most atheists would like to believe. I expect the rational ones are far more likely to embrace nihilism, existentialism and sociopathy. At the same time, keep in mind that far from despising the irrational atheists, they give me hope in the remnants of goodness that remain in fallen Man.

Who is more rational? It is rational for the irrational atheist to behave as he does in a Judeo-Christian society, but his behavior - the virtuous few excluded - is irrational by his own logic. The Christian's morality is rational within the peculiar framework of the Judeo-Christian belief system, but it is utterly irrational from an outside perspective. I am not temporizing here, I wrote the original article from the perspective that there are few, very few, who can truly say that their behavior and beliefs are entirely rational and moral. In any case, I am not one of them. The odds are statistically slim that you are either.

I'll admit it, I'm lost

I was expecting a few emails that would be beyond my ability to digest or dispute, I just wasn't expecting them from my side! I mean, I can follow the concept-analogy point, but other than that, I have to confess that I've never even HEARD of what he's talking about. Now, I'm fully aware that there are worlds within worlds everywhere you look - I'll never forget seeing horizons expand before me after asking our credit manager exactly what he did all day - but generally, I've read broadly enough in three languages to have something at least ring a bell most of the time. This time - nada.

The Reverend C writes: As a 150+ who is not a member of any IQ club, I am constantly reminded of the reason I am a Christian every time I read atheist slams. It never does cease to amaze that atheists seem never to have been exposed to religious thought above the Sunday-school level. Perhaps when confronted with an overly literalistic slam on anthropomorphism, you could inquire concerning said writer's knowledge of: a) via negativa theology; b) the analogia entis. These currents have only been around since, oh, I don't know, the 4th C. AD, but hey, who's counting? Are they not aware that pressing back the conceptual boundaries _requires_ analogies to sense data, analogies which are then cleansed, as far as possible, from their sensual forebears?

Find any volume of von Balthasar's great trilogy (the Glory of the Lord, Theo-drama, Theo-logic). There you will find upwards of twenty volumes detailing a fundamental theology based on the convertability of transcendentals (beauty, truth, goodness). Not to mention, some unbelievable patterns of and for scholarship.

Wasn't Balthasar the bad guy on Battlestar Galactica? Only twenty volumes... hmmm, if it's all the same to you, I think I'll stick with finishing my second immersion in the literary pleasure that is Cryptonomicon. So, if any atheist would care to enlighten me with regards to the Black Road of Balthasar or the Parable of the Duck, I'd appreciate it. And here I was content with being familiar with the ontological argument and mechanical avunculogratulation.

Go away

The Sports Guy has a draft diary up. Go away and read it!

GodIdiot of the Week

I have been so distinguished by a web site called the Raving Atheist. I can live with that. I accept the award with no small delight, and in place of the usual litany of thanks, submit the obvious quote:

For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written:

"I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
And bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent."

Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?
- 1st Corinthians 1:18

I am dangerous... Derb...man

John Derbyshire of National Review writes: Jonah, Ramesh: Seems to me these libertarians e-mailing in saying "let's get govt. out of the marriage business" might as well call themselves Anarchists. Their line seems to be: "We don't need no steenkin government to tell us what marriage is. We got our churches to do that for us." The logic here is:

---Marriage is a private thing between two people.
---The govt has no business messing in our private lives.

Both are tenable, just about. Problem is, they throw 2,300 yrs of conservative thinking down the trash chute. Come on. We are being invited to join a revolution here. And it's not a conservative revolution.

I feel like Maverick in Top Gun. The amusing thing is that I have been saying for years that I am not a conservative. Finally, someone agrees! I still laugh every time a left-liberal wets himself because of something I've written and accuses me of being an arch-conservative. However, I'm a little disappointed with Derb's rhetoric here. I know he doesn't actually believe that the government does nothing but manage society through its laws relating to marital status. And anyone who argues that the church defines marriage is far more likely to be a Christian Libertarian than one of our secular brothers-in-intellectual-arms, if you want to know what to call someone of this persuasion. Anarchist isn't even a near miss.

Reloaded

After some gentle persuasion, I finally watched Matrix Reloaded this week. I'd avoided doing so primarily because I liked the first movie so much that I knew the sequel couldn't possibly live up to it. I was pleased to find that it was a pretty good movie after all, although I am informed that the fact that an interruption caused me to miss a good portion of the scenes set in Zion may have enhanced my enjoyment. I particularly liked the Merovingian, although the fact that I know of the Merovingian kings as well as their mythic connection with the cadet line of Jesus Christ - alternatively, with the sea-goat Makaru - left me with the impression that the writers a) are doing something very thematically complex that I can't follow; or b) have found themselves in a little over their heads and are throwing in everything but the kitchen sink to disguise this.

I think (b) is more likely, but I'm open to the notion that I'm wrong. Neo is a strange sort of Christ figure - if you can't pick that up by now, you are in serious denial - as he doesn't seem to follow any destiny so much as direct orders from pretty much everyone he encounters. This strikes me as suboptimal thriller writing, but the effects and the overall setting for the story are intriguing enough that it held my interest throughout. Still, it will probably be another two years before I bother seeing the third.

I will, of course, be at Return of the King on opening night.

Stone cold killa

Don't mess with Chucky. I was impressed with him before, and I felt that Tampa made a reasonable deal in trading two-first rounders for him before he won a Super Bowl. But Jon Gruden has established himself as a coach apart, proving that he will do anything he feels is necessary to improve his team. Axing Keyshawn, a solid possession receiver, for his distracting off-field antics, is a bold move that no one in the NFL except possibly Marvin Lewis would make. It will be interesting to see if the move works.

Chucky is clearly one of those people, who, when you meet their eyes, make you realize that you're going to have to knock him out if you're going to win. Maybe you can beat me, but I'll never quit. I like that. No, I admire that.

As I said, World War III

Death toll rises to 26, 450 injured in coordinated suicide car bombings in Istanbul Thursday that destroyed part of London-based HSBC bank branch, damaged adjacent Metro City shopping mall in Levent residential district, tore down part of British consulate and much of narrow street. British consul general Roger Short among 14 killed at and outside British consulate. Some consulate staff unaccounted for.

Remember, World War I started over much smaller acts of terrorism.

Smooth criminals and secret knowledge

I wasn't surprised that a surprising percentage of the Harvey Milk School for Gays or whatever it's called have turned out to be rather less than law-abiding. If you reject both Judeo-Christian morality and societal norms, what are the chances that you're going to have a significant respect for the law? It's not impossible, but it is rather less likely.

I couldn't help but notice that the Texas journalist who quoted my statement of homosexuality as an "Apollonian death cult" omitted the "Apollonian" bit. Apparently he wasn't too eager to bring Camille Paglia into the discussion, - if he even understood what I was saying - but simply wanted to make my position look as extreme as possible. I'm not complaining, as it was a fair rhetorical device on his part, but for those of you who wanted to know why I never responded to his piece, it's because I very seldom bother responding to rhetorical sound-bite slingers.

I'm working on next week's column now, so I'll get to the two best atheist critiques of last week's piece either tomorrow or the weekend. Good stuff, for the most part, especially the guy who picked up my little Classics cheat. He didn't understand why it was there, but he definitely noticed it. I'd thought it was fairly obvious, but apparently not.

If you've noticed there are often little things in various columns that seem somewhat odd, remember two things. 1. I'm a game designer. 2. According to Space Bunny, I have a strange sense of humor.

Better than sliced bread

Patrick Davis of the National Bread Leadership Council said that it was unclear whether the fall in bread sales was a temporary blip or indicative of a more permanent change in eating habits. The average American eats 54lbs of bread a year, barely a third of the quantity consumed by the French and Italians. But the Italians and the French are not notably obese, Mr Davis said.

I lived in Italy for over a year. They do eat more bread, but significantly less carbohydrates, especially in the form of sugar. It's hard to find proper cookies and cake over there - after all, who wants a second helping of marzipan? It also doesn't hurt that the normal portions are about one-third the size of American servings.

Finally, you can actually go and get things done by walking to the corner post, or the local farmacia. I think weightlighting is a much better way to burn fat, but Atkins is probably a lot easier for most people.

Space Bunnies wear black

She went shopping recently. New little black dress, knee-high black boots. We were out in public, mingling with friends, and I saw her from across the room. All I could think is that I am an extraordinarily fortunate man.

And yes, I thank God for her. If that makes me "stupid" or an "ignoramus", it's a burden I bear lightly.

Mensa

What is up with the Mensa obsession? The latest offendees in particular seem to have some issue with this, as they keep dropping words like "claims" and "so-called" Mensahood. Let me put it this way. Mensa is not the only IQ society for which I am qualified, but as it is the only one of which most people have heard, it serves very well to put my would-be critics on notice that they will unlikely be able to get away with the usual "I disagree with you and I'm a [fill-in-the-blank] so therefore you are stupid" line of argument.

Which, doubtless, is why I seldom hear it. And, lest I be accused of vaingloriousness through implication, no, I am not qualified for Mega. Now, here's my question. Why do you care anyhow?

Why I'm not a Republican #424

John Derbyshire of NRO notes that the Massachusetts judges who have authored the latest judicial absurdity were appointed by the following governors:

Michael Dukakis (Democratic) 1983-1991
William F. Weld (Republican) 1991-1997
Argeo Paul Cellucci (Republican) 1997-2001
Jane M. Swift (Republican) 2001-2003
Mitt Romney (Republican) 2003-

Enjoy Goodridge, folks. That's what putting pragmatism before principle gets you.

Will you take this sheep...

I'd personally prefer to see the Christian churches separate marriage before God from marriage before the State. But, given the realities of American politics, Goodridge has now shown why the Defense of Marriage Amendment is both necessary and inevitable. Still, conservatives should take note: Goodridge and gay marriage are the direct result of attempting to use state power for conservative and traditional ends. It's the old good king/bad king problem. Investing power in the crown ensures that it will one day be worn by a man of evil intent.

Let them have their state marriages. Let men marry men, women marry golden retrievers and whatever other combinations those of diverse inclinations will be pushing next. In any case, the Church must break off its collusion with the State, which, in my opinion, is a desirable thing anyhow.

And by the way, congratulations, George Bush. Goodridge just assured his re-election. Hillary can't run now, as gay marriage and DOMA just became a major campaign issue, and anyone opposing DOMA will get slaughtered.

World revolution v. 2.0

This piece effectively connects the dots for those who don't understand that the War on Terror already is World War III. Once you realize that Osama bin Laden is Trotsky, you will understand that his removal will not end it. The next question is: who is the next Lenin and where is he now?

The evolution of war

TP writes: Would you flesh out why war has recently taken on a religious theme?

I think there are two reasons. First, the decline of Communism as an overtly expansionary force has removed the ideological impetus for many of the wars of the last seventy years. I haven't taken the time to sit down and count, but there were probably between 50 - 75 Soviet-sponsored wars throughout the world during that period. While there were some religious clashes, such as India-Pakistan or possibly the Arab-Israeli wars - although this strikes me more as ethnic conflict, since Israel has been secular since its founding - the ideological Cold War dominated the globe. Now, other forces are coming to the fore.

Second, the world is witnessing the second wave of violent Islamic expansion, which began with the ripples in Kashmir. To understand this better, you must read more about the first wave, which started from an even smaller disturbance. Egypt, for example, would never have become Islamic and its culture might have proven much more similar to that of Greece were it not for its conquest in the first wave. I strongly believe that some form of religous conflict in Western Europe will begin in the next fifty years, and quite possibly in twenty. An Islamic France or Holland may sound impossible today, but it is quite thinkable, if not necessarily probable. In any case, it is certain that there are those who are working hard to make it so.

Attempting to convert the United States to Islam sounds like a gnat trying to swallow an elephant, but consider how Christianity has been systematically, if only partially, eradicated from society in the last fifty years. Rest assured that the jihadists have taken note of this, and hope to do likewise to the secular inheritors. The vaccuum, as they see it, only makes their task easier.

A salute to atheists

Space Bunny was going through my email, and she pointed out that these emails were a) the longest; b) the most thoughtful; and c) the least desirous of inflicting personal violence that I have received from an interest group whose ox has been gored. This speaks well of atheists in general, and really does not surprise me. There are a virtuous few; those who behave with genuine altruism, be it on an understanding of the optimal handling of the Prisoner's Dilemma, a genuine commitment to rational utilitarianism or simple goodness of heart. I may disagree with these atheists; they are also not those of whom I wrote. Some of you recognized this, most did not.

It is a pity that this virtue does not hold true for the vast majority of humanity, which is incapable of even beginning to address the required logic. Once Maughm's due regard for the policeman around the corner is gone - or due regard for the Father in Heaven, if you prefer - I think that the less imaginative among the virtuous few will be very unpleasantly surprised to learn exactly what shadows lurk in the hearts of most men.

Perhaps you don't need a God to prevent you from behaving in an immoral manner. I certainly do.

The great challenge of atheism is dealing with the fact that when 'do what thou wilt' is the whole of the law, most will choose to do "evil", against which the atheist has very little to offer except abstract reason. As for me, I see this as a hot knife v. butter situation.

Truth is what it is

RR writes: If I understand your argument -if atheists have ethics different from yours, ATHEISTS BAD

Apparently you did not understand. As I expressly pointed out, atheists can be good, even according to various religious moralities. They simply have no reason for doing so - excepting the virtuous elite - and in so doing are irrational. Irrational isn't bad, though it is a red flag to the atheist bull. Almost everyone is irrational, at least part of the time. I prefer to think of myself as extra-rational in certain areas.

if atheists have ethics similar to yours, ATHEISTS BAD (parasites, squash!)

Who said anything about squashing, or being bad? I just find it amusing and ironic that atheists often claim to have independently constructed independent moral systems that just happens to be identical to that of the culture in which the atheist is steeped. I am sure there are a few hard-core thinkers who actually have done so. They are the virtuous few for whom Socrates felt the secret knowledge was to be reserved. I simply don't believe the vast majority, and I conclude that they are piggy-backing on something in which they don't believe. They are Judeo-Christian atheists here, and they would be Hindu atheists in India. Had I used the term cultural moralists, very few people would have complained, but it is the same thing. I prefer the term moral parasite, as I do believe that the secularization of American society will eventually kill it. Could I be wrong? Sure, it's possible.

Sorry if this humble parasite fails to do you justice. I saw Joe Sobran bring up a presumably old question: Is the Good good because God commands it, or does God command it because it is good? If the latter, then atheists might duplicate God's reasoning and not be ethical parasites. If the former, then God could command all manner of atrocities, and they would be Good.

No apology needed. In any case, doesn't being an atheist mean never having to say you're sorry? I conclude the former. If the king makes the law, which requires a tax of five gold coins from every subject, it is a crime to fail to pay five gold coins. However, if the king decides that subject X does not have to pay the tax, the citizen commits no crime by failing to do so. If God is the authority, he alone defines the good. The Bible not only suggests but outright declares that God's wisdom (and presumably his notion of good) is beyond ours. It is also pretty clear that God has commanded all manner of what we see as atrocities. Then again, if we're living in some material form of a Matrix construct, as Christians believe, there are no atrocities per se, there is only the fundamental test. Can you kill a digital bit, even if it thinks it's alive?

I imagine there will be many who say that they cannot believe in such a God. That's fine. It is also irrational and irrelevant. The truth is what the truth is, regardless of what you or I believe. I happen to see more truth of the world as it is through the lens of the Bible than I do from the cockeyed, imaginative tangents of pseudo-science which emanate from the hard core of hard-won truth as understood by properly scientific knowledge.

Who wants the Yellow Tiger?

I can't decide if this sounds more like a psychotic theist or a bitterly disappointed one turned rational atheist:

The Heaven gave rise to everything to nourish men.
Men has not even a thing to thank the Heaven.
Kill kill kill kill kill kill kill.
- Zhang Xianzhong, subsequent to his mass depopulation of Chengu and Sichuan in 1640 AD

Mailbox: And besides, it's fun

MS writes: it's interesting to note that you choose to post to the easily attacked, hastily composed, ill considered kind of responses on your blog, but not to ones which are "good rejoinders" which 'merit a response".... But why waste bandwidth on "ill considered rants" and ignore a well-considered rebuttal? Afraid your readers might see the chinks in your armour?

No, not at all. I am absolutely sure that there are chinks in the armor, such as it is. Unfortunately, I haven't seen more than a handful of "good rejoinders". The vast majority consist of:

1) Some variant of the "I know you are but what am I" response.
2) Wild and hysterical name-calling. Consider that I've been e-assaulted by feminists, abortionettes, gays and the Council on American Islamic Relations. You can't possibly think this will bother me in the slightest, can you? I haven't even heard any creative insults. Very disappointing, especially from the self-appointed rational elite.
3) Assertions with no support.
4) An obvious failure to grasp the major points. Alternatively, a failure to address any of them.
5) A shocking degree of historical ignorance.

In fact, I've received more that have hit the quinfecta - assuming that's a word - than merit any response. But I will certainly respond to two or three of the more thoughtful rejoinders once the flood ceases and I can select from the best of the lot. The easy ones demand no effort in responding, hence the speedy posts, but don't think those were the bottom of the barrel. If I truly wanted to slag the godless, I'd post a few of the more gutteral rejoinders I've received from the incompletely evolved.

Mailbox: The sheep bleats

WK writes: You, sir, are an irrational ignoramus and you happen to be a christian. You write an article like this to evoke a response from your sheep that may not question you. You fall in line with the Falwell's, the Robertson's and many other right wingers who would like to impose their morality upon everyone. However, us Atheists who understand and can dissect your writings will always be here to question you and your ilk!

This is funny. The point that such morality is already self-imposed by the vast majority of atheists too lazy to develop an independent moral compass obviously escaped WK. The sheep who have responded to the provocation should be, well, obvious.

Mailbox: War and religion

TP writes: Can you really justify this claim? "Most wars are not caused by religion. Read the Chronicles of the Assyrian Kings or Chinese history if you think war and religion are synonymous. War is about power, plain and simple."

Yes, easily. None of the wars of the Roman Empire, the Persian empire, the wars between the Greek city-states, the wars between the various Chinese kingdoms (7?),the wars of Assyria, Babylon, the Mongols, the Huns or in pre-Reformation Europe (with the exception of the Crusades) were the least bit religious in nature. To make the statement that most wars are caused by religion, much less all wars, requires an ignorance of military history that is almost complete. Those that are religious, such as the Islamic conquests or the 30-Years War, are the exception.

Sparta and Athens weren't at war because of the latter's devotion to Athena, they were at war for control of the Greek peninsula. Likewise, the long rivalry between France and England had virtually nothing to do with anything religious - Joan of Arc notwithstanding, the war had far more to do with the English King's legitimate claim to the French throne.

Even the Crusades were not completely religious in nature, or the Crusaders would not have allied with various Islamic principalities as they did. The fact that the same two examples are always cited while much more historically significant wars are ignored tends to prove this point. And consider the notion from an American perspective. Was World War I about religion? World War II? The Civil War? The Revolutionary War? The Spanish-American War? The Korean War? The Vietnam War? The War of 1812? The misnamed War on Terror, yes, I'll give you that. This one's about religion, for all that our leadership insists it isn't.

The fact that only one of nine American wars have anything to do with religion should be your first clue. But the same holds true of nearly every other country's history, with the exception of wherever Islam is involved. But, since Islam is a religion of the sword, this should come as no surprise.

An absence of Ayn

JL writes (as did others): How come in this article of yours, you never mentioned Ayn Rand? She was an atheist and a modern philospher who had written about her strong moral convictions in the context of rational self-interest.

Two reasons. 1) I have a 750 word limit. 2) Ayn Rand's objectivism is outside the mainstream of atheist thought. I respect her work - was a big fan of it in high school - but I think her line of thinking primarily applies to the elite who are capable of accepting Socrates' virtuous knowledge. It's beyond the vast majority, and therefore neither useful for them nor directly relevant to the subject of the article.

There is a Prisoner's Dilemma case for an amoral embrace of the Golden Rule. But as a one-time amoral proto-elitist, I don't believe the vast majority are capable of seeing this, let alone pursuing it. I know I wouldn't have, being cut more in the Nietschean mode.

Oh, the irony

RH writes: Atheists are most definitely altruistic because they _do_ subscribe to and believe in a higher ethos and live by a higher moral standard. Something most religeous zealouts like you are jealous of. You can only lash out in diatribes to wrestle with the little voice inside your head that says "you're wrong". ... You are also wrong in trying to blame atheists for evil. History shows that all of the worst atrocities ever committed in the world were by religeous fanatics and cultists like you. And for the most heinous religeous atrocities ever commited, the Jews and Christians are the most responsible. Whether as victims or persecutors the fact is without religios psychos like you the world would most definitely be a better place.

Yes, Hitler was an Episcopalian missionary prior to his career as a totalitarian dictator, wasn't he? And the other 23 Socialist mortacracies of the 20th century were actually run, not by atheist Communists as everyone thought, but by a Catholic-Mormon cabal.

There was a lot more, but that last sentence is priceless. And ever so damning. Not hard to picture him shoving little children on the death trains, is it.

Atheists can't read, either

I've been very disappointed in most of my critics, for the most part. Re-read the column more closely, especially if you find yourself getting upset. A few points:

1) The piece has nothing to do with Christianity per se. The same points hold true with regards to Hinduism or Zen Buddhism. The fact that I stated my argument is one with that of the pre-Christian Socrates, not to mention the self-professed antichrist Nietzsche, should have been your first clue. Yes, I'm a Christian. No, the argument does not depend on that. Hell in this case refers to both the Christian concept as well as the hell on earth regularly created by atheist-run societies.

2) I made no statements about the rationality of Christians or any other group of faithful. In any case, there is no irony with regards to them, as they do not hold themselves up as devotees of Reason. Quite the opposite, in many cases.

3) I do not hold myself up as a moral examplar at any point. Nor would I. Trying to bring Rush Limbaugh into it only shows that you're not equipped to even begin understanding the piece.

4) Get your facts straight. I will not waste any time responding to anyone who is so ignorant as to equate the Spanish Inquisition (6,000 deaths in 356 years) with the National Socialist's Holocaust (12 million in 11 years). This does not make me a coward, it makes you an ignoramus unworthy of debate. Most wars are not caused by religion. Did the significance of the Seneca quote escape you? Read the Chronicles of the Assyrian Kings or Chinese history if you think war and religion are synonymous. War is about power, plain and simple. Religion, most of the time, is only the excuse. If it does not suffice, another excuse is always found.

5) If you seriously want to argue that the Soviet Communists were not atheists, please go talk to a Russian emigre. The State as God is a metaphor. Metaphors are not to be confused with reality.

6) There is an important distinction between the acceptance of established and proven scientific method and the unquestioning acceptance of untest, untestable scientific theory. Riding on an airplane is not an act of faith. Arguing that the Earth is X years old - 6,000 or 6 billion, is. Remember, scientists used to say that the Hittites and Assyrians didn't exist either. Scientific theory is a moving target, and faith in it as a constant is not only blind faith, but blind faith sure to be shattered soon.

7) Remember, you're not only arguing with me, but with Socrates, Voltaire, Plato and Nietszche. Do you like your odds? I don't.

God in X dimensions

I'm Agnostic, and for a good reason: I can't visualize a space with more than three dimensions. What the hell has it to do with the concept of God, would you say. Well, for me it matters, and matters a lot. Our brain, where our mind is created, is a result of evolution which is tied to the development of our senses, so, something really concrete, objective, down to earth and more, unable to perform spatially abstract thingking, I mean, a thinking independent, free, from our environment, from our frame of reference. That is why physics, as a science, is reaching a dead end. Our mind can't "see" more than three spatial dimensions, time is another one but not spatial. The Universe is so overwhelmingly vast, infinitelly mighty, inbelievably complex that an entity able to create it would be out of our experience. We, could, by no means, grasp it, reach it. The only way has been to create a God with anthropomorfic features, some sort of super man, but we are short of stuff, we used to create a God with our characteristics, only that at a higher scale. I don't buy such a God anymore.

Some reasonable points - except the faith-based acceptance of the untested, never-replicated evolution theory - but I disagree with the conclusion. The God of the Bible tells us flat out that we cannot understand Him or His wisdom, and the reasons listed above are only part of why. There are also numerous hints about God's existence outside of space and time. You don't buy such a God, but I do. That's fine - we can certainly agree to disagree on this.

Plumbing the moronic depths

Opponents of conceal and carry, such as Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Madison, are just as passionate -- and just as mindful of Minnesota's precedent. [in passing a pro-gun law that has caused zero problems in the last year] "Usually I think of Wisconsin and Minnesota as very responsible states," Pocan said. "We're hoping not to duplicate [Minnesota's] mistake. From looking at Minnesota and other states, we believe this will put 36,000 new guns on the streets of Wisconsin. There will be that many people walking around with guns in their coats and purses, after applying for this permit. If people are packing guns like cell phones, those guns will go off at the most inopportune times, like cell phones."

Sure they would - if other people could trigger them remotely at will, like cell phones.

Mailbox - they never learn

TW writes: As an atheist, I found your column to be simplistic and illogical, rendering your title just a tad ironic. I'd label it, and therefore you, hypocritical as well, but for the fact that one cannot be hypocritical if he has no understanding of what he's done. Your comments are wholly unbecoming of one who employs Mensa status as a credential. If you need a one-liner description on the column, it's: My God, that was profoundly ignorant.

Of course, TW doesn't provide a single example of how the column is simplistic, illogical, hypocritical or ignorant. Mostly because he can't. Nevertheless, we're just expected to take his word for it, never mind that my argument is in synchronicity with the intellectual positions of two of history's leading atheists. I thought this bit was particularly amusing: "As an atheist.... My God...." So TW, by just what god do you swear? And why? This is genuine irony, in contrast to TW's understanding of the concept, which rivals that of Miss Alanis Morrissette.

I've pointed this out before to my would-be critics, apparently to little avail: Don't bring it unless you can back it up. TW sounds exactly like many a clueless feminist - substitute woman for atheist and sexist for hypocritical and it would be identical to emails I've received in the past. And profoundly ignorant? Yes, because the op/ed bar has been set so high that people are bored with Maureen Dowd's constant expositions on Plato, the Encyclopedists and quantum mechanics. This is nothing but defensive name-calling without substance. Color me underwhelmed.

The Left is right... for once

I don't often agree with the leftist writers at WND, though I have enjoyed an occasional exchange of email with both Bill Press and Marilyn Lois Polak. But Ellen Ratner has the Bush administration dead to rights in this column, in which she points out only a few of the administration' inconsistencies. I mean, she doesn't even point out that last week, the president predictably began backing away from his previous commitment to allowing democracy in Iraq - something that only surprises those who don't remember the last democratic vote in Algeria, which was cancelled by the military at the last minute.

You see, radical Islamic populations have this disturbing, but predictable tendency to elect radical Islamic politicians. This is likely what will happen in Iraq the moment that a popular vote is permitted, which is why it makes no difference what the administration says, they simply can't allow a vote without first putting into place a convoluted system designed to prevent the will of the people from prevailing. This is, of course, only one of the reasons our Founding Fathers weren't dumb enough to design this nation as a democracy, and why our sanctification of the idea is so astoundingly stupid.

Ellen also doesn't point out that we're not even at war, from a legal point of view. Which renders all the administration's arguments about "enemy combatants" completely moot. I thought ignorance of the law is no excuse, Mr. Attorney General.

Poisoning the soul

Do you ever get the impression that a young baby is more aware of what is going on than you think it should be? One of the pastors I respect most theorizes that the spirit is mature at birth, and is capable of being influenced by things that can't possibly be grasped by its developing mind. That makes this report of a baby toy that says "I hate you" even more chilling. There's no way of knowing, of course, but I suspect that the evil logic behind whoever hid this message behind the soothing melodies is more spiritual than political.

My column today notwithstanding, there is much evil that is done by those who are not atheists. The worst evildoers are those who have a glimmering of understanding of how the spiritual world operates, and attempt to use that knowledge against others. To use it against defenseless infants is truly despicable.

To understand infinity, one need only contemplate the limits of human perversity.

Black quarterback watch

From the noise emanating from the sportsjabbersphere, McNabb really was injured earlier in the season, as I had speculated. But the Eagles' recent success notwithstanding, it's not as if he's been lighting it up for the last three weeks, though they have been an order of magnitude better than before. A 61 percent completion rate can't be considered exceptional when it results in only 217 yards and 1 TD per game. Not when your three opponents have been Green Bay, Atlanta and the Jets, with a total of 9 wins between them.

Meanwhile, unheralded black quarterback Daunte Culpepper has lost the last three games, while exceeding McNabb's performance by 4 percent completions, 54 yards and 1.66 TD's per game. Guess which quarterback is paired with a defense that served up 42 points on a platter last week, and which one only had to rack up more than 14?

Which pretty much gets us back to Rush Limbaugh's original point, if you think about it.

WEEK 11 POSTSCRIPT - McNabb looked pretty good today, though. Got to give credit where credit is due. And, I fear, the Vikings collapse is complete. I knew they were doing it with smoke and mirrors, but I thought Michael Bennet's return would make it easier to keep up the act, not harder. No one deserves to win the NFC North at this point.

You've never heard of teleconferencing?

Charles Stross lists a few of the president's requests to Her Majesty's Government for his upcoming trip.

1. The entire London underground railway system to be shut down for the duration of the visit (apparently in response to fears that suicide bombers might hijack a tube train and blow it up under the President's feet)
2. That US military aircraft, including helicopters and ground attack aircraft, be allowed to patrol London's airspace
3. That 250 Secret Service agents, including snipers, who will be travelling with the President be granted diplomatic immunity from prosecution in the event they shoot and kill civilians (whether deliberately or by accident)
4. That the Presidential security detachment should include units armed with miniguns (read: high cyclic rate machine guns)
5. Closure of a large chunk of central London (to the point where Cabinet staff are being advised to "work from home" for the duration of the visit, if possible)

I wouldn't blame the Brits if they took one look at this list and decided, you know, maybe we can get this done by phone.

Cryptocrazies

In Cryptonomicon, Neal Stephenson submits that a knowledgeable government eavesdropper - hi guys! (wave to the camera) - noting the use of a 4096-bit key, will conclude one of the following:

1) The encryptor doesn't know what he's talking about.
2) The encryptor is clinically paranoid.
3) The encryptor is extremely
a) ...optimistic about the future development of computer technology
b) ...pessimistic about the political climate
c) ...both
4) The encryptor has a planning horizon that extends over a period of at least a century.

File me as 3c, gentlemen.

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