Monday, July 29, 2013
Thought for the Day
The true value of a human being is determined primarily by the measure and the sense in which he has attained liberation from the self.
Albert Einstein
Sunday, July 28, 2013
Sunday, July 14, 2013
Thoughts
The third grade level of discussion about religion and God's creation of and purposes for man which appear in many popular publications may be amusing but they are also frequently pathetic. From the agnostic or atheistic view they usually depend on something about the age of the earth or its flatness or roundness, as if they had offered some serious profundity. Yes, though there are some fundamentalists, Christians and others, who believe that the Bible asserts 6,000 years on the first point and, at one time, flatness on the second, most Christians do not know or care about the earth's age and never thought it was anything but round. (The views of those who opt for recent and flat should be respected, not ridiculed, however mistaken most of us believe them to be).
Serious subjects exist about God's creation and man's purposes on earth, and for Christians about Jesus Christ's redemptive mission, but they have nothing to do with primitive but honest beliefs in principles of science, which is not what the Bible is about anyway. (I note in passing, however, that science and religion have been moving closer together even since the Big Bang was conceded in l965). Unfortunately a lot of people, knowing nothing about real science, think themselves sophisticated thinkers by talking about Salem witches or the views of some priest in the year 1200.
Saturday, July 13, 2013
Reasoning and Evolution
A high school student once asked me about the difference between deductive and inductive reasoning, and I explained that the second consists of going from particulars (this particular footprint), to the general (generally, when you see footprints they have been caused by someone walking). Syllogistic reasoning, the kind of reasoning which this illustrates, is basic. Why do most people seem unable to engage in it? Reasoning is an acquired process. It is one of several ways of knowing things through the five senses or by memory. It is either taught in school or by parents or by experience. You may learn it through the press of necessity. A battlefield soldier learns to reason because his life, and the lives of his friends, depends on it. As a lawyer, I learned that if you can't reason you lose cases.
Here is an example of the failure of reasoning, because both sides are guilty of it. I mean Darwin's Theory of Evolution (including certain variations of it. The Evolutionists and the Creationists scream at each other that they are right and the other side is wrong while neither one ever really knows what the Theory is, usually, or that before you can argue anything you must know what your premise is. if you are a biologists with all the necessary academic credentials you can argue science. But few people are in that position. About as far as most people can go is to pose questions which have not, so far as they can tell, been answered. It isn't that there are no answers, but if there are, what are they? For example, if an unassisted process of mutation and natural selection is the sole cause for man's existence in his present state, why did nature have to get so complicated? The simple botulism has been around longer than man and did not, to survive, require eyes, with their lens, cornea, retina, optic nerve, and brain just to mention the requirements for sight? And we could go through equally complex systems, such as the reproductive system. Why wasn't Nature content with the lowly botulism which survived without all that?
I do not mean to suggest that there is no answer to that and many other questions. But what is wrong with asking the question and why does that provoke insulting and sometimes hysterical reponses? Why are only "fundamentalist nut cases" accused of holding Creationist views? And where is the vaunted "missing link" that Evolutionists are so fond of? They once came up with a skull called the "Piltdown Man", which made them so happy until it proved to be a fraud. Otherwise, they have struck out. Search the world over; you probably won't find a "missing link" or, if you do, the ball will be in the Creationist's court on that issue.
But here is the denouement. What the parties to this hypothetical argument are really debating is whether there is a God who created the Universe, including man. It is in fact a religious argument, typically engaged in by people who do not know the first thing about the science implicit in the question, if there even is any science. So why don't they face the real question? Because there is some silly social taboo against discussing religion and politics in polite society, even though they are two subjects very much worth discussing.
Monday, July 8, 2013
Thursday, July 4, 2013
Michelle Malkin
In a letter to the editor of the News-Press, Fort Myers, Florida, a reader, obviously brimming with love for all mankind, objected to Michelle Malkin's column in the most vicious terms she could dig up, ignoring the handy expedient of not reading it while leaving others to their own preferences in choice of reading. To imply that a columnist should be removed from print because one reader doesn't like the product is contemptible. I put up with liberal writers without complaining . Others can return the favor.
Michelle Malkin writes a very well-researched and carefully documented column replete with facts. If some reader doesn't agree with her version of the facts she can say so, but to accuse her of "hate" for simply offering her analysis is way out of line. Michelle is factual, not judgmental. I defy anyone to point out any "hate" or unsupported criticism by Michelle of anyone, though liberal readers are doubtless too full of love and kindness to bother with facts.
Wednesday, July 3, 2013
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)