Posted by Anthony on August 9, 2010
The article below is one I posted at the Cypress Times:
Probably the most entertaining thing about reading the article about the 7 year old girl who found her lemonade stand shut down by the Portland health department was reading the comments that followed. Those comments quickly devolved into a contest between ‘conservatives’ and ‘liberals.’ That discussion was probably warranted, and while I would sympathize with the conservative comments I tend to think a valuable facet was generally overlooked: the overarching belief in our society that it really is possible to eradicate all unpleasant experiences and even if it is not possible, it is moral and proper to make the attempt.
By ‘unpleasant experiences’ I mean literally any unpleasant experience, from being murdered to being offended to being made sick by a little girl’s lemonade not properly handled. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by Anthony on June 24, 2010
Here is a post that is a long time coming. First some caveats: my target audience here is the Bible-believing Christian, namely the kind that takes the Scriptures as authoritative. That said, I believe that Christianity manifests the true account of the moral code, and as such I think that what follows might apply to non-Christians, too.
Ok, now, this will sound like a weird place to start, but stick with me a moment. I consider myself a conservative (although more precisely, a libertarian-constitutionalist-voluntaryist) but I wasn’t always one. I grew up on default… that is, more or less as a liberal, especially on political and economic issues. What changed? Well, when I came to the place where I decided that Truth mattered, I realized that my belief system should, to the best of my ability, resemble reality.
This notion that I should adjust my mind to the world as it really was was really critical in shaping how I’ve come now. You see, there are lots of things that I wished were the case. Unfortunately, they aren’t. For example, I might wish that the members of the government can be trusted to look after the interests of the citizens, but it just isn’t the case. (Formative for me on this point was Bill Clinton/Monica Lewinsky). History and today’s newspaper reveal otherwise.
I have learned that in life, actions have consequences. I can try to shut my eyes to them and hope that by magic this time the action will have a different consequence (the one that I wished would happen) or I can accept reality. Accepting reality made me into a conservative.
Now, I say all of this in prelude because in this post I’m going to tackle something that I think even conservatives don’t get right a lot of times. I have heard liberals and pacifists and progressives all say something very similar to… “Violence is never the answer.” But I have heard conservatives say it, too. A quick google search reveals people across the spectrum making this statement.
But every sane person knows that, in fact, there are times when violence is the answer. Even most insane people know that sometimes violence is the answer.
So what we have here is a sentiment that is casually flung around that nearly all of us know isn’t true. In short, in saying such a thing, we are out of touch with reality. And one of the things I’ve learned about holding sentiments that don’t actually mesh with the real world is that inevitably bad things result. For example, if you think that you can step in front of a bus going 70 mph without getting hurt, a bad thing will result. Some times, the ‘bad things’ aren’t immediate or clear, but never fear, God cannot be mocked: we reap what we sow. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by Anthony on June 18, 2010
Yesterday I was on KFUO AM radio out of St. Louis, MO. You can listen to the segment here:
KFUOInterviewJune17 (12.5 MiB, 53 hits)
I believe I’m in the first half of the segment.
Topic: “Can you prove there is a God?”
We could tackle this topic another 3 times before we’ve covered a fraction of what could be said.
Posted by Anthony on April 28, 2010
I was reading CS Lewis’s The Four Loves and came across the quote below. Obviously, Lewis is not specifically addressing universal health care or liberalism or the question of using the government to administer love. Even Christians can be found thinking that it is a noble expression of a loving society to have the government do the loving… and this with no apparent thought to the actual effect that this ‘loving’ will have on the people ‘loved’ and the attitude it fuels in the people-government doing the ‘loving.’ The most important thing seems to be that, well, people’s intentions are good, and it’s better to do something rather than nothing. Here is the quote:
This [is] Gift-love, but one that needs to give; therefore needs to be needed. But the proper aim of giving is to put the recipient in a state where he no longer needs our gift. We feed children in order that they may soon be able to feed themselves; we teach them in order that they may soon not need our teaching. Thus a heavy task is laid upon this Gift-love. It must work towards its own abdication. We must aim at making ourselves superfluous. The hour when we can say “They need me no longer” shall be our reward. But the instinct, simply in its own nature, has no power to fulfil this law. The instinct desires the good of its object, but not simply; only the good it can itself give. A much higher love- a love which desires the good of the object as such, from whatever source that good comes- must step in and help or tame the instinct before it can make the abdication. And of course it often does. But where it does not, the ravenous need to be needed will gratify itself either by keeping its objects needy or by inventing for them imaginary needs. It will do this all the more ruthlessly because it thinks (in one sense truly) that it is a Gift-love and therefore regards itself as “unselfish.” (pgs 50-51)
Some discussion.
In the conversations I found myself in objecting to health care, I heard repeatedly how selfish I was being. In the comments on blog entries I saw the same thing. “If you really loved people you would support this bill. You’re just selfish. You just don’t want to pay taxes.”
I oppose universal health care, especially when put forward on secular grounds, precisely because I do love people. I do not believe it is in the best interest of most people in either the short term or long term. The Lewis quote above alludes to some reasons why. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by Anthony on April 26, 2010
Readers of this blog know that I have an interest in Antony Flew, having even had the honor of corresponded with him. Click here for a list of posts I’ve written regarding Dr. Flew. The short story below may be understood better by some if you read this particular post of mine where I discuss the Flew-Wisdom parable.
In order to better get a sense of my overall picture of things, you might (after reading the story below) want to read my short story titled, to your surprise no doubt, “Mother Teresa Goes to Heaven.”
Antony Flew Goes to Heaven
When the man opened his eyes the first thing he beheld was a garden. It was the assault on his being that alerted him to this fact. His sensory scouts went out and scoured his surroundings and came back with the report- first from the nostrils: here were delicate scents of flowers and dirt; and then the eyes: there were well ordered paths with ivy crawling up rocky walls; now touch: he realized he was lying on his back with blades of grass tickling his ear and when he flexed his fingers into the earth there was that soft moistness you always associated with good soil; the ears came announcing: birds here, birds there, birds everywhere, and somewhere yet unspotted a fountain, detected by alternating gurgles and tinkling; taste came back disappointed, as it had nothing yet to disclose.
It was comforted soon enough. The man sat up and saw at once the hanging branches of a fruit-laden tree. While feeling no pangs of hunger he knew he was famished. He stood up and strode with purpose to the tree and helped himself liberally. In his subconscious a fear flickered that he may be plucking his lunch from Augustine’s orchard. He set the fear aside and ate his fill.
He returned to the patch of soft grass that he had been lying when he had first awoken. There seemed nothing else to do. So he sat. It was the cool of the day and he was content enough to enjoy the tender breeze that played on his cheeks. That breeze, the man couldn’t help but think, seemed to be made just for him each and every time. It was the cool of the day, and suddenly the man knew that he was not alone. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by Anthony on April 9, 2010
KFUO radio interviewed me again, this time on the problem of pain and suffering.
Download and listen below.
Problem of Pain Radio Interview (7.8 MiB, 60 hits)
Posted by Anthony on March 25, 2010
It is generally agreed that for something to be considered scientific, it must at least in principle be falsifiable.
Let me suggest that evolutionary theory in all of its most controversial aspects is, at rock bottom, unfalsifiable.
I want to go right to the bottom: the claim and insistence that life on this planet can be explained satisfactorily as being the result of unguided, natural processes.
It is plain and simple common sense that tells us that in order to falsify the notion that something is unguided, we would need to show that it is in fact guided.
There is just one problem. The prevailing New Atheist Evolutionary Rabid Apologist froths at the mouth at the very notion that there could be any scientific validity to reliably detecting guidance, that is, intelligent agency and design. Unfortunately, if there is no scientific validity to design hypotheses, we are necessarily deprived of a scientific basis to falsify an ‘undesign’ hypothesis.
- In order for something to be considered robust science, it needs to be falsifiable.
- Modern evolutionary theory is usually presented so that it entails unintelligent operations.
- To falsify the claim that something is driven by unintelligent forces one would have to show how intelligent forces were at work.
- Evolutionary apologists insist (with heapings of derision) that such a showing is outside the bounds of science.
- But if showing design is outside the bounds of science than there is no reliable and objective way to conclude scientifically that something is not designed.
- Therefore, macroevolutionary theory cannot be scientifically falsified at the point that it is the result of unguided natural processes since they reject as unscientific the very things that could falsify it.
- Consequently, at one of its most controversial points- that it is unguided- macroevolutionary theory is shown to be scientifically unfalsifiable on the evolutionist’s own terms.
Unfortunately for modern evolutionary apologists, WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
