DUFF & NONSENSE!

Rendition - Elizabethan style!

Of course, I refer to the first Elizabeth not the kind, grandmotherly lady who adorns our throne today.  This from Ian Mortimer's 'must-read' book The Time Traveller's Guide to Elizabethan England which will tell you in engrossing detail how life was lived - and lost - in those more robust times:

Consider the case of Dr. John Story, a Catholic lawyer and MP, who is locked up in 1563 after speaking some poorly chosen words against the queen.  Escaping by night and reaching the Spanish ambassador's residence, he manages to slip the country and flee to the Netherlands.   There the duke of Alba appoints him to search all vessels coming from England, and Story assiduously combs every English ship for Protestant letters, books and messages.  The zeal with which he conducts his work leads him to becoming the leader of a group of  émigré Catholic activists, and more than just a minor irritant  to the English merchants trading with the Low Countries.  [Sir William] Cecil therefore decides to take action.  In 1570 he sends agents to Dr. Story who win his trust.  They join him in searching English boats, until one day they lead him onto a boat whose captain has been primed.  Dr Story is seized, taken to England and handed over to the privy council for interrogation and trial.  Found guilty of high treason, he is drawn, hanged and quartered.  'Black operations' such as this, in which government agents seize residents in a foreign country and subject them to rendition, torture and eath, have a long pedigree.

Tut, tut, who'da thunk it?!  Not that 'good Queen Bess' didn't sometimes live up to her image:

On July 1579 a young man named Thomas Appletree is fooling about with some friends in a boat on the Thames near Greenwich.  He has a loaded gun, which to the great amusement of the party he fires three or four times at random.  Unknown to him, the glass-sided royal barge is slowly floating towards them.  The queen is aboard, discussing with the French ambassador the possibility of her marrying the duke of Anjou, when one of Appletree's bullets strikes the helmsman six feet from her and leaves him lying on his back bleeding profusely.  The queen tosses the injured man her scarf and tells him to be of good cheer: the bullet was surely meant for her and the fact that it struck him is good news, for the assassin had failed.  Later, there is a thorough investigation, and Appletree is soon found.  He confesses and is duly condemned to death for endangering the queen's life.  A gallows is set up on the bank of the river so that he may be hanged close to the scene of his crime.  Before his execution, Appletree makes a speech to the assembled crowds.  He is no traitor, he says, but admits that through his carelessness he had endangered the life of the sovereign and therefore deserves to diw.  When he has said goodbye to his friends, the hangman places the noose over his head.  Just then, when he is on the very brink of death, a man in the crowd steps forward with a pardon from the queen.  She knows Appletree is just a silly young man, but he had to be taught a lesson. 

So, not only were the dark arts of the security services in operation 450-odd years ago but so were the ones of the public relations industry, too!

 

'Dear Lord, don't make me good, make me lucky!'

My title seems to be the default prayer today for more and more people, men and women, in all stratas of our society.  You might care to add to my title, 'And, Lord, don't let me be found out!'  I do realise that old men are prone to wailing that things aren't like they used to be and so I should make clear that I don't believe there has been some sort of golden age in which honesty and probity and straight-dealing was the order of the day.  Even so, it seems to me that simple, old-fashioned notions of virtue seem to have almost disappeared.  Ethics, in so far as it exists anywhere, seems to be confined by large organisations to ensuring that no-one indulges in racism!

In the last few years I have spectated the goings-on in the dismal non-science of climatology in which politically (I use the word in its widest sense) committed 'scientists' have bent truth to suit their agenda.  When they were found out, various committees of 'the Great and the Good' were wheeled in to whitewash their behaviour.  Just yesterday, I pointed out the disgraceful fact that 47 out of 53 supposedly 'scientific' papers on possible cancer cures were found to be impossible to replicate.  In our civil service, our local authorities, our schools, our universities, our police, our media industry and, above all, our parliament and government, we find a constant practice, almost amounting to a deliberate policy, of lying and cheating.  I would remind you that, despite appearances, these dishonest activites are not conducted by 'organisations', they are executed by individuals, people - people like me and you!

Whilst I cannot claim with any certainty that such corrupting and corruptible behaviour never occurred in earlier generations, I think I can claim that at least there was a sense of shame involved.  The perpetrators knew they were doing wrong. Today, I rarely sense that in the behaviour of the lying liars who hold positions of influence in our society.  Whether it's a teacher giving her pupils hints on the exam questions to come, or a public employee 'throwing sickies' as often as he or she can get away with, or a managers of large corporations being 'economical with the actualité', or a 'scientist glossing his experimental results, everywhere and all the time people are lying through their teeth.

So why, I wonder, has the notion of ethical behaviour, of honesty, almost totally disappeared?  No doubt part of it is the loss of Christian teaching to the very young.  Whatever one might think of Christianity as a corporate body, so to speak, no-one can gainsay its fundamental teachings on personal virtue.  However, the loss of the ten commandments has been matched by the growth in political ideology in which ends justify means.  Examples of this are too numerous to list and they exist on both sides of the political divide.  Well, as individuals, of course, our power is limited but we do have dominion over ourselves.  So perhaps we should remind ourselves of Shakespeare's words:

The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves

Or, perhaps the words of many of my old school teachers, "Could do better!"

 

I suggest that we abort Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva with immediate effect!

I am obliged to 'SoD' (Son of Duff) for sending me the link to this Telegraph story which reports that the two brain-damaged (that's my description not theirs) mouth-breathers in my title call themselves 'medical ethicists'.  Before I contemplate an action under the Trades Descriptions Act, I had better tell you what this pair of latter-day moralists have to say.  In essence, they ask, why should babies who have actually been born be disqualified from abortion?  Being a man of generous, not to say, kindly disposition my first thought was that they were using an argument which philosophers describe as reductio ad absurdum. 

In the never-ending dispute over abortion it is an extreme example of an argument I have used myself in the past which goes something like this: at what point, exactly and precisely, does a bundle of self-reproducing cells change from being inhuman to being human?  I ask because, of course, that would decide whether an action to kill the cells was a moral abortion or a murder.  I have yet to hear from anyone, expert or not, who can tell me the precise point at which the change occurs.  Given that uncertainty, I have always maintained that abortion (except in a very small number of specific situations) should not be permitted.

So, in my innocence, I assumed that these two 'medical ethicists' were making my point (in extreme form) that unless you can point to some measurable factor upon which we can all agree that it demonstrates humanity, then the mere fact that a foetus has been expelled from a womb does not necessarily make it human.  Silly naive chap that I am, of course, this pair meant nothing of the sort.  They were being absolutely serious and published their views in a comic calling itself The Journal of Medical Ethics:

Abortion is largely accepted even for reasons that do not have anything to do with the fetus' health. By showing that (1) both fetuses and newborns do not have the same moral status as actual persons, (2) the fact that both are potential persons is morally irrelevant and (3) adoption is not always in the best interest of actual people, the authors argue that what we call ‘after-birth abortion’ (killing a newborn) should be permissible in all the cases where abortion is, including cases where the newborn is not disabled.

There you go, just drop it on its head, that should do it!

"Oh, brave, new world".  Someone pass me a sick-bag.

 

"Joy shall be in heaven . . .

. . . over one sinner that repenteth" and all that sort of thing.  Well, I know the quote is not a precise fit for the event but it was the one that leapt to mind when I heard the news.  According to The Telegraph a few days ago, 'Archbishop' Richard Dawkins engaged in a long debate with the Archbishop of Canterbury in the course of which he admitted that he was not entirely, absolutely, completely, convinced that there was no God:

There was surprise when Prof Dawkins acknowledged that he was less than 100 per cent certain of his conviction that there is no creator.

Prof Dawkins said that he was “6.9 out of seven” sure of his beliefs, referencing the seven point scale of belief that he sets out in his book The God Delusion.

The philosopher Sir Anthony Kenny, who chaired the discussion, interjected: “Why don’t you call yourself an agnostic?” Prof Dawkins answered that he did.

It was not reported at the time but I have it on good authority that Canterbury's beard shot out horizontal to the floor, and that several members of the Humanist Society required first aid!  When challenged as to why, therefore, he did not call himself an agnostic, he replied that he did.  At this point, I am led to believe, the scene resembled a Bateman cartoon with devout atheists rocking back on their heels with eyeballs threatening to burst from their sockets!

You see, that's one the very few advantages of living long - you get to see sundry chumps change their minds.  Even if, in this case, it is only 0.1 of his mind!

 

Is there anybody there? asks 'the Kraut'

But first, a terrific poem which came back to me through the ages from my long-lost school days provoked by the recent words of 'the Kraut':

'IS there anybody there?' said the Traveller,
Knocking on the moonlit door;
And his horse in the silence champed the grasses
Of the forest's ferny floor.
And a bird flew up out of the turret,	5
Above the Traveller's head:
And he smote upon the door again a second time;
'Is there anybody there?' he said.
But no one descended to the Traveller;
No head from the leaf-fringed sill	10
Leaned over and looked into his grey eyes,
Where he stood perplexed and still.
But only a host of phantom listeners
That dwelt in the lone house then
Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight	15
To that voice from the world of men:
Stood thronging the faint moonbeams on the dark stair,
That goes down to the empty hall,
Hearkening in an air stirred and shaken
By the lonely Traveller's call.	20
And he felt in his heart their strangeness,
Their stillness answering his cry,
While his horse moved, cropping the dark turf,
'Neath the starred and leafy sky;
For he suddenly smote on the door, even	25
Louder, and lifted his head:—
'Tell them I came, and no one answered,
That I kept my word,' he said.
Never the least stir made the listeners,
Though every word he spake	30
Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house
From the one man left awake:
Ay, they heard his foot upon the stirrup,
And the sound of iron on stone,
And how the silence surged softly backward,	35
When the plunging hoofs were gone.

I love that poem - how could I have forgotten it for so long? Anyway, on to 'the Kraut' who had some fascinating ruminations in The WaPo last week.  He asks one of those simple but deadly questions, "Are we alone in the universe?"  He was prompted to this by the, probably undue, excitement in cosmological circles (or should that be 'ellipses?) at the discovery of some planet-like objects circling suns in much the same way as our tired, battered, old planet does.  Instantly this raises the question of whether or not we are alone in the universe.  "Is there anybody there?" we mutter, and answer comes there none!

As the romance of manned space exploration has waned, the drive today is to find our living, thinking counterparts in the universe. For all the excitement, however, the search betrays a profound melancholy — a lonely species in a merciless universe anxiously awaits an answering voice amid utter silence.

That silence is maddening. Not just because it compounds our feeling of cosmic isolation, but because it makes no sense. As we inevitably find more and more exo-planets where intelligent life can exist, why have we found no evidence — no signals, no radio waves — that intelligent life does exist?

The silence, as they say, is deafening!  And perplexing.

It’s called the Fermi Paradox, after the great physicist who once asked, “Where is everybody?” Or as was once elaborated: “All our logic, all our anti- isocentrism, assures us that we are not unique — that they must be there. And yet we do not see them.”

'The Kraut' quotes something called The Drake Equation (1961) which seeks to enumerate how many advanced civilisations there must be in just our galaxy alone.  Apparently if you add in the information gained from modern satellite sources the number should be very great indeed.  And yet ... and yet ... despite all our signals sent out at the speed of light and our monitoring devices which could pick up the sound of an alien's fart from a zillion miles away - there is nothing, just the vast, endless emptiness of nothing.

Personally, I am not too unhappy because I always reckon that people - or beings, if you like - are nearly always trouble in the end and are therefore best avoided!  But 'the Kraut', being 'the Kraut', has an even gloomier explanation:

Carl Sagan (among others) thought that the answer is to be found, tragically, in the final variable: the high probability that advanced civilizations destroy themselves.

In other words, this silent universe is conveying not a flattering lesson about our uniqueness but a tragic story about our destiny. It is telling us that intelligence may be the most cursed faculty in the entire universe — an endowment not just ultimately fatal but, on the scale of cosmic time, nearly instantly so.

He lists the many man-made possibilities available to those madmen who, seeking a salvation in an after-world, would be happy to pull the trigger and bring about 'apocalypse now'.  But then, in a startling and original piece of thinking, he points to the only thing likely to save us - politics!

Rather than despair, however, let’s put the most hopeful face on the cosmic silence and on humanity’s own short, already baleful history with its new Promethean powers: Intelligence is a capacity so godlike, so protean that it must be contained and disciplined. This is the work of politics — understood as the ordering of society and the regulation of power to permit human flourishing while simultaneously restraining the most Hobbesian human instincts.

There could be no greater irony: For all the sublimity of art, physics, music, mathematics and other manifestations of human genius, everything depends on the mundane, frustrating, often debased vocation known as politics (and its most exacting subspecialty — statecraft). Because if we don’t get politics right, everything else risks extinction.

We grow justly weary of our politics. But we must remember this: Politics — in all its grubby, grasping, corrupt, contemptible manifestations — is sovereign in human affairs. Everything ultimately rests upon it.

Good man, 'the Kraut', he makes you think.

 

The swots begin to realise they are dumb and dumber!

Actually, my title is not only unkind but also a tad misleading if it leaves you with the impression that I am somehow anti-science and scientists.  I am frequently anti-technologists, particularly when they manifest themselves in quasi-scientific speculations like global climate and neo-Darwinism; but I have genuine, almost open-mouthed admiration for real scientists, particularly those grappling with the mysteries on the far horizons of our knowledge.  Some of them, like the late Richard Feynman, are almost heroes in my imagination. 

Even so, regular readers will already know of my firm belief in disbelief, otherwise known as agnosticism, and my shivering delight in rich examples of irony.  Reading a recent article in Harper's Magazine by Alan P. Lightman, I was able to hug myself with delight at receiving a double helping of both!  Lightman, a considerable polymath, himself, reminds us of the incredible achievements of physicists during the 20th century.  I suppose it began in 1900 with Max Planck and his almost accidental discovery of the peculiar behaviour of electrons.  From that moment on it was the scientific equivalent of Renaissance travellers discovering America - a huge undiscovered continent filled with delights, riches and dangers.  In they rushed, Einstein, Bohr, Heisenberg, Feynman and many, many more.  At last, was the general feeling, we've almost cracked it, soon, very soon, there will be no more mysteries! 

“Back in the 1970s and 1980s,” says Alan Guth, “the feeling was that we were so smart, we almost had everything figured out.” What physicists had figured out were very accurate theories of three of the four fundamental forces of nature: the strong nuclear force that binds atomic nuclei together, the weak force that is responsible for some forms of radioactive decay, and the electromagnetic force between electrically charged particles. And there were prospects for merging the theory known as quantum physics with Einstein’s theory of the fourth force, gravity, and thus pulling all of them into the fold of what physicists called the Theory of Everything, or the Final Theory.

It just needed one more shove, but unfortunately, it was like shoving on the end of a piece of string.  Indeed, in their efforts to reach this final Theory of Everything they had to use what they called 'string theory', the implications of which are mind-bending.

In essence (and you need to read Lightman's essay to double-check my errors of omission and/or commission), they discovered that for life to exist at all, as it manifestly does on this planet, several critical criteria at the moment of the 'Big Bang' had to be within very tight and specific limits.  Too much, or too little, of this, or of that, and life would not have been able to develop.  And yet it did!  Looking back at this peculiar, one almost might say, contrived, state of affairs at the very beginning of the universe, there is a severe temptation to suggest that God is a sort of master chef adding a pinch of this, or slightly less of that, in order to ensure the flavour of the stew is just right!  In other words, the sheer exactness of conditions at the very instant of the 'Big Bang' might lead a physicist to mutter, sotto voce, if he has his eye on a Nobel prize, the dread words - Intelligent Design!

Recoiling in horror, the swots have been forced into ever more complex hypotheses to explain away this awkward set of circumstances.  One theory currently in vogue in some quarters is the idea of  a 'multiverse', that is, the notion of an almost infinite number of universes all of which are different.  Thus, we can all relax and forget about the amazing set of circs which has allowed life to exist in this universe because given a 'multiverse' of almost infinite proportions it was bound to happen somewhere, sometime.  I have to say that smacks of desperation, to me.  H0wever, I leave it to you to read Mr. Lightman's fascinating article and make up your own minds.  In the meantime, I will, after shifting my buttocks to obtain what comfort I can, remain sitting firmly on this fence.

 

The red mist that never clears

First of all, yes, I enjoyed a super Christmas with 'SoD' and his 'bouncing Czech', thank you for asking, and, yes, I am now in strict training to ready myself for New Year's Eve which, more and more as I get older, takes on the characteristics of a marathon!  But now to more curious matters.

I have remarked before on the oddity of coincidence.  Just before Christmas I was involved in some knockabout stuff with the mouth-breathing 'Trot-lot' brigade who inhabit the comments box at David Osler's (interesting) site.  The subject was the putative idea of a State funeral for Lady Thatcher when she dies.  It reduced them all to paroxysms of fury.  I could understand it if we were arguing 25 years ago when the shot and shell of battle were still flying about but at this late date how could anyone look back and say that the Thatcher medicine was anything other than absolutely necessary for a desperately sick country and which, on the whole, was beneficial.  Before any Trot brave enough to enter these hallowed columns starts to froth at the mouth, I do not mean that everything was perfect - nothing ever is - however, it is obvious beyond any argument that for the mass of 'the people' (dread words!) prosperity increased and the country was fortified accordingly.

So why, I have been asking myself, do the 'Trot-lot' continue against all available evidence before their eyes to fester in a visceral hatred of 'that woman' which almost amounts to a phobia!  I realise that most of them were in their youth during those turbulent times and generally speaking the young always tend to rebelliousness but they are all middle-aged now and there can be no excuse for failing to acknowledge that is was "A Good Thing" for governments to stop making motor cars, running telephone services and producing iron and steel.  It was an even better thing to sell off council houses and make tenants home-owners.  And it was a truly great thing for a government to recognise and act upon the truth that money supply is the critical ingredient of inflation.  The fact that this tiny rump of political detritus clings so fiercely to their teen-age dreams is surely an indication of the essentially religious nature of their beliefs.  Nobody expects total rationality from the deeply religious who continue to carry their burden of beliefs despite all the contradictory evidence that swells the tide against which they are wading.

Then I came across a piece by Alex Massie at The Coffee House who had picked up (whilst wearing gloves, I hope) some droppings from Simon Winchester not, as one might suppose, from The Guardian but from The Times (which is behind a paywall so I will not link).  Winchester was writing on the subject of Kim Jong-il's long-overdue death and in the course of his essay he wrote this:

The State’s founder, Kim Il Sung, claimed that all he wanted for North Korea was to be socialist, and to be left alone. In that regard, the national philosophy of self-reliance known in North Korea as “Juche” is little different from India’s Gandhian version known as “swadeshi”. Just let us get on with it, they said, and without interference, please. 

India’s attempt to go it alone failed. So, it seems, has Burma’s. Perhaps inevitably, North Korea’s attempt appears to be tottering. But seeing how South Korea has turned out — its Koreanness utterly submerged in neon, hip-hop and every imaginable American influence, a romantic can allow himself a small measure of melancholy: North Korea, for all its faults, is undeniably still Korea, a place uniquely representative of an ancient and rather remarkable Asian culture. And that, in a world otherwise rendered so bland, is perhaps no bad thing.

Sometimes the crass stupidity of well-educated men leaves me open-mouthed with astonishment.  According to Winchester, then, South Korea which is prosperous and free (well, their members of Parliament are free to constantly indulge in fist fights with each other!) is to be despised because - SHLOCK-HORROR - their way of life has been Americanised.  But North Korea is to be provided with a pat on the back by the ineffably superior, British-born Simon Winchester, who chose to become an American citizen, because they have maintained their Korean culture.  I need hardly add that Mr. Winchester chooses to live in the USA!  The totalitarian brutalities of the Kim family's regimes in which millions perished needlessly are simply flicked away by Mr. Winchester's limp wrist under a generalised expression: "North Korea, for all its faults".  Someone pass a sickbag, quick!

Is Winchester, I wonder, in any way related to the late and utterly despicable, Hewlet Johnson - I refuse to give him his clerical title, suffice to say that he was known from before the war as 'the Red Dean'.  I ask, because again in yet another coincidence just before Christmas, Charles Moore in The Telegraph was reviewing a new biography of this old Marxist 'criminal' who spent his entire life as an advocate for Joseph Stalin.  Now, I use the word 'criminal' deliberately and after some thought because, whilst it is possible for some people to be fooled some of the time, to continue in an advocacy of a regime that had been proven to have indulged in mass murder places you on their platform.  When, in addition, you take their money, as Hewlet Johnson did, that should place you in the dock with them.  I see no difference between the high-ranking Church of England prelate and, say, Lavrenti Beria, Stalin's not-so-secret Torturer-in-Chief.  Johnson did not die until 1966 by which time there was more than sufficient proof of the fact that Stalin out-murdered Hitler by a (rough) factor of ten.  Never once did Johnson admit the possibility that Stalin had been other than a 'saint'!

So there you have it.  Three examples of wilful and deliberate avoidance of the facts.  We have all done it from time to time, but eventually, truth will out, and somethat shame-facedly we own up to having been wrong.  But for some people, for some reason, this never happens.  "What a piece of work is a man".

More poetry: George Herbert

Yes, sorry and all that (well, I'm not in the least sorry, really) but you must blame my e-pal 'DM' who sent me a simply stunning link to a 'virtual tour' of King's College Chapel, Cambridge which must rank as one of the most elegant buildings in the world.  As I told 'DM', it is nearly as good as Sherborne Abbey which is just down the road from me!  I would urge you all to take a few minutes and enjoy the 'tour' and do take a look at the tracery ceiling.

Now, as you will have gathered over the years, I am not a believer; I remain firmly astride the fence of agnosticism, uncomfortable though it be at times.  Even so, with or without the presence of God the inherent wisdom of Christianity as a means of conducting one's life is obvious, or should be, to everyone.  Above and beyond all else it is both civilised and civilising.  Even as I write those words I can sense the atheists readying themselves to hurl at me an enormous list of crimes and misdemeanors carried out by Christians.  Thus, would they demonstrate their grunt-snuffling stupidity by failing to recognise that those very actions went against the teachings of Christ, or in other words, the perps were human beings not saints whatever labels they attached to themselves.

To me, there is one man who typifies, in his wisdom and in his humility, the very best of Christian values.  He was, amongst other things a poet, and was thus enabled to bare himself as a weak man, beset with sin, and yet always striving, with help from his God, to try, try and try again to live up to his ideals.  That man was George Herbert (1593-1633):

He was a Cambridge man and would have known King's College Chapel intimately, although I am not suggesting that this poem is based on his recollection.

 

THE CHURCH-FLOORE

 

MARK you the floore? that square & speckled stone,
Which looks so firm and strong,
Is Patience:
And th' other black and grave, wherewith each one
Is checker'd all along,	5
Humilitie:
The gentle rising, which on either hand
Leads to the Quire above,
Is Confidence:
But the sweet cement, which in one sure band	10
Ties the whole frame, is Love
And Charitie.
Hither sometimes Sinne steals, and stains
The marbles neat and curious veins:
But all is cleansed when the marble weeps.	15
Sometimes Death, puffing at the doore,
Blows all the dust about the floore:
But while he thinks to spoil the room, he sweeps.
Blest be the Architect, whose art
Could build so strong in a weak heart.

A public man exposed by a private deed

I have long been convinced that it is the small things that people do which tells you more about their character than anything else - particularly if they are politicians.  Here is a typical example, via Brutally Honest, from a man almost universally traduced from all directions - President George W. Bush. 

During his presidency, one of his White House Special Aids was caught out plagiarising other people's works.  He immediately resigned but returned a day or two later to empty his office.  He was told that the 'Boss' wanted to see him and he made his way, with all due nervousness, I suppose, to the Oval Office.  The following will strike normally tight-lipped Brits as more than a tad OTT (over the top) but remember these are Americans and religious Americans at that:

And I said, "Mr. President, I apologize. Please forgive me." He said, "I'll say it again: Grace and mercy is real. You are forgiven. Now we can talk about all of this, or we can talk about the last eight years." We spent 20 minutes together. We prayed and we embraced. I cried when I was looking around the Oval Office for the last time. And as I prepared to leave he said, "By the way, I want you to bring your wife and sons here so I can tell them what a great husband and father you've been." Sure enough, he invited them to come. He was the leader of the free world, validating me, after I did what I did, before my wife and children.

A commentator to the piece added this:

George W. Bush may not have been a great president, but my sense is that he was a great man. [...] Liberals mocked Bush for having been a drunk, or being a "dry drunk," but it seems that Bush did something that too few do after such an experience; he learned from it and projected his lessons onto other people.  That's is true greatness.

I can only add, for what it's worth, that George W. Bush is man I would be happy to go into a jungle with!

 

'Archbishop' Dawkins trips over his own cassock!

I am obliged to my e-pal, 'Whyaxeye' (which is hereby immediately reduced to 'W' for the simple reason that it takes me three goes to spell his 'name' correctly!), who in a comment thread below drew my attention to 'the mysterious affair of the William Lane Craig debate', or, to be precise with reference to 'Archbishop' Dawkins, the William Lane Craig non-debate.  That exactitude is necessary because no debate between these men ever took place except, I suppose, via the infinite world of Blogdom where-in all hell was let loose!

You see, Mr. Lane Craig is a devout Christian philosopher and scholar - and one need go no further than that to recognise instantly that he stands for everything that Dawkins finds abominable.  But it gets worse, in Dawkins's eyes, because Lane Craig at some stage in his career sought to defend the word of God as recorded in Deuteronomy 20: 13-15 and in which apparently, He commanded that all the men, women and children of Canaan be put to the sword.  Those of you interested enough to read Mr. Lane Craig's defence of ethnic cleansing may do so via Google - me? I can't be bothered at the moment. 

What does interest me is that on the basis of his disgust at Mr. Lane Craig's words, 'Archbishop' Dawkins, standing on a stack of Bibles copies of his book The Selfish Gene, pronounced from on high that he would never, not ever, debate with such a self-evidently evil man.  But why?  Surely Mr. Lane Craig was only describing an act on the part of the Israelites of the time that was absolutely and entirely in compliance with the genetic code which Dawkins maintains over and over again drives men to be selfish, that is, to do anything and everything in their power to ensure the success of their own gene pool.  Massacring an entire tribe of hostile neighbours seems to me to be exactly what, in Dawkins's world, is to be expected, after all, such an act definitely increases the chances of success for your own genes, anything less puts them at risk .  Thus, like every street corner thug who sticks a knife into the guts of a member of an opposition gang, the Israelites can shrug and say, "Wasn't my fault, guv, it was me genes, wannit?"

It is worth quoting Dawkins in order to fully appreciate what a complete bugger's muddle this 'first class brain' gets into when he seeks to explain the all-powerful, er, well, sort of all-powerful-ish, selfish genes that makes us what we are, er, selfish:

The argument of this book [The Selfish Gene] is that we, and all other animals, are machines created by our genes. [...]  This entitles us to expect certain qualities in our genes.  I shall argue that a predominant quality to be expected in a successful gene is ruthless selfishness. (My emphasis)

OK?  Alright?  Got that, have you? I mean, it's clear enough, pelucid, one might almost call it.  Ah, but hang on, there's all those awkward events in which people risk, and often lose, their own lives trying to save others.  Not very selfish, is it, 'your Grace'?  "No, no", the 'Archbishop' would cry, "it only looks altruistic because the people they are saving are their relatives and thus the carriers of the same, or very similar, genes to the rescuer, so, in  a sense, he or she is still being driven by those rascally, selfish genes."  But what about the people who are saved by rescuers who are not relatives?  Well, mutters Dawkins, as he shuffles uneasily on the spot:

Let us try to teach generosity and altruism,because we are born selfish.  Let us understand what our own selfish genes are up to, because we may then at least have the chance to upset their designs, something that no other species has ever aspired to. (His emphasis)

Yeeeeeeeees, quite, as Mr. Paxman might sigh!  Given that Dawkins has told us in one paragraph that we are merely machines governed by our genes, where are the genes that order us to "teach generosity and altruism"?  They, obviously, are not "selfish" genes by definition, just the opposite, they are altruistic genes.  Yet in his book Dawkins barely gives them a passing nod, almost, one might think because, like poor relations, he is slightly ashamed of them!  What they are, from whence they came and how they arrived, is neither asked not answered.

I have no opinion on Mr. Lane Craig.  However, I do view with considerable suspicion anyone who takes the words of the Old Testament literally, especially any words alleged by a writer several hundred years after the event to be the words of God. Happily, if that is quite the word, we have 'Archbishop' Dawkins with us here and now and consequently we can apply Duff's Law which states that when faced by a prat on a soap box the only course of action is to shout, "SHOW US YOUR WILLY!"

You can read Dawkins's defence of his refusal to debate, here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/oct/20/richard-dawkins-william-lane-craig

And in a comment thread below 'W' offers this link to a enjoyable example of the 'unspeakable in pursuit of the equally unspeakable', in which Dawkins is beaten up by a gang of feminastis - my dears, simply too, too, delicious but one just doesn't know which side to cheer for!

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2011/07/richard-dawkins-draws-feminist-wrath-over-sexual-harassment-comments/39637/

NB: All quotes from The Selfish Gene, chapter one.

 

Watch out next April - academic warfare is likely to break out!

I have, and enjoy, the occasional equivalent of a Saturday night punch-up over at the 'Trot-lot' and 'Warmer' sites but they are nothing compared to the unrestricted warfare that breaks out when academics fall out.  And a fall out of almost nuclear proportions can definitely be expected next April when the eminent biologist, E. O. Wilson, publishes his next book. Wilson, as some of you may know, was the 'father of sociobiology' which sought to explain evolution in terms of group behavior - Wilson was an expert on ants and their highly specialised and successful social model - whilst agreeing that the unit of evolution was the gene.

However, as I explained in a post last June, Wilson is no respecter of persons and reputations, particularly if the person and reputation concerned is 'Archbishop' Richard Dawkins!  Thus, in his forthcoming book, which follows a highly technical paper written for Nature in concert with two big-brained maths swots, he intends to press home his view that altruism, such a thorn in the side of Dawkins, is not confined to kin selection but arises from group selection.  Well, I could have told him that but who the hell listens to me?

Anyway, watch out next April for a mammoth, academic hissy-fit and a  barrage of deliciously vicious book reviews in which old scores might be settled but new ones will spring up to take their place.  Such fun!

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/11/e-o-wilson-rsquo-s-theory-of-everything/8686/?single_page=true

 

Contrarian or crank?

Looking at his photo you would find it hard to choose, he could be either.  However, given that he takes to wearing a red fedora you might think he was a comedian!

Raymond Tallis by Felix Clay, Eyevine

Actually, I think 'contrarian' is his best description given that he is a former clinical neuroscientist by the name of Raymond Tallis and that he spends most of his time at war with his fellow neuroscientists.  I am obliged to The Chronicle of Higher Education - and, no, don't ask what an ignoramus like me is doing in such high-falutin' company - for an interesting article on the man by Mr. Marc Parry in which he suggests that perhaps a better job description for Dr. Tallis is 'dustman' on the grounds that he describes most of the theories put forward by his fellow specialists as "neuro trash" which he is all too eager to deposit on the nearest dump!

Happily, on this occasion, given that I know nothing of the subject I do not have to offer an opinion (wadd'ya mean that never stopped me before?!) I can simply carry their coats whilst they set to.  On the one side we have, according to Mr. Parry, those who support:

[...] a rash of pseudo brain science that purports to explain behavior as varied as believing in God and falling in love.

In the other corner we have the redoubtable, and probably very irritating, Dr. Tallis, who:

In 2006, Tallis gave up hospital-ward rounds for a full-time writing life that unfolds in morning and afternoon rounds of two local pubs. In these "offices," the atheist-humanist nurses his animosity toward thinkers who reduce human beings to animals "acting out a biological script inscribed in our brains by evolutionary forces." He takes aim at their exaggerated claims in a new book, Aping Mankind: Neuromania, Darwinitis, and the Misrepresentation of Humanity (McGill-Queen's University Press).

I like his working routine, it reminds me of the old three-martini lunches so beloved and missed of yesteryear.  I think I would pay good money to attend one of his lectures:

In a cheerful voice, turned out in a magenta tie and a blue boating blazer with broad white stripes, Tallis informs 60 people gathered in a Kent lecture hall that his talk will demolish two "pillars of unwisdom." The first, "neuromania," is the notion that to understand people you must peer into the "intracranial darkness" of their skulls with brain-scanning technology. The second, "Darwinitis," is the idea that Charles Darwin's evolutionary theory can explain not just the origin of the human species—a claim Tallis enthusiastically accepts—but also the nature of human behavior and institutions.

As I confessed above, I have no knowledge of the arcane details of neuroscience but I instinctively side with Dr. Tallis, not, I hasten to add, for religious reasons but simply because I am by nature a 'Bolshie bugger' and I do not care for the notion that anyone tells me what to do - whether it's God or Darwin!

It's a good article well worth reading not least because it makes you wish you knew more.

 

One last chew and then you can spit it out!

(This follows the subject matter of the three previous posts.)

The last bit of trickiness arising from this sad tale of the unexpected earthquake which virtually destroyed L' Aquila in Italy which I would like to dwell upon concerns the all too common disputes between experts and non-experts in the fields of science and technology.  My own very slight personal experience of this sort of thing came years ago as a teenager reading Nevil Shute's No Highway and later seeing the film with the great James Stewart.  This story written in 1949 tells of a lonely scientist's efforts to convinve the authorities that the cause of an aircraft crash is metal fatigue which he worked out using a (fictional) version of quantum mechanics.  He is an awkward cuss with few social skills and his interest in the symbolic meanings of ancient Egyptian pyramids is used against him when he tries to get people to take his ideas seriously.  In the end, of course, he is proved to be correct and the consensus opinion of the scientific hierarchy wrong.

In L' Aquila, a local man with a scientific background but no high degrees or published works to back his opinions, undertook regular measurements of radon gas emissions, this gas being endemic in the area.  I am not quite sure exactly what he was doing but it was based, I think, on his theory that the nature of the gas changed when tremors were imminent.  Consequently he warned that the chances of a big tremor hitting were very much greater than the 'experts'.  He ran his own open blog on which he published his data and his theory and so many people were reading it and becoming panicked that the authorities decided to place him under investigation.  A big-ish shock occurred the same day, and the really big one hit about five days later.

Does that remind you of something?  AGW, for instance, although in that case the concensus science is the one predicting enormous catastrophes whilst the 'maverick' outsiders are denying it.  The 'Warmers'/'Changers' (at the moment they appear not to be certain which climate they are forecasting!) have retreated into their stockade defended by 'peer review' which in practice means reviews conducted by other scientists (and sometimes friends) who agree with them.  Happily, we now have 'internet review' in which everyone and his uncle can join in, although that mass rapidly filters down to a few very expert blogs whose owners are extremely knowledgeable.

So, yet another intractable problem to add to the others I have referred to.  I certainly do not pretend to have solutions.  I only ask for complete openness on all sides so that we, the public, can best decide for ourselves.  However, I would add that a healthy dose of scepticism when it comes to 'experts' is often very good for your, er, health!  Unless, of course, it is your local cardiologist telling you that your indegestion is actually a sign of an impending stroke and the prat selling you homeopathic lichen is having you on!

'What's a body to do?' you may ask.  'Pay yer money and take yer chance', is my fairly useless reply.

 

Doncha' just lurve those 'Amurican' lawyers?

Yes of course you do because you all spend a disgraceful amount of time watching their adventures on the 'telly'.  Every other blasted programme seems to feature American lawyers.  It all started years ago, I suppose, when the strong-jawed, stiff-upper-lipped and tremendously dignified Gregory Peck played the noble Atticus Finch and defended the black kid against a rape charge in To Kill A Mockingbird.  Since then, Hollywood has regularly placed lawyers on heroic pedestals and yet, oddly enough, this has gone hand-in-hand with a mounting detestation of the whole trouble-making bunch of them amongst the American population.  If I had a lawyer's fee for every anti-lawyer joke I have ever seen or heard I would be worth suing!

However, on this occasion I intend to leap to their defence.  Bless their silk socks, they'll do anything for money, including pleading cases on behalf of one of the most despised minorities in America - no, no, not paedophiles or Tea Party activists - I mean those who dare to question Darwinism (the unspeakable swine!), and even worse, those who by doing so upset 'Archbishop' Dawkins of 'The Holy Church of Genes & Memes'.

According to Evolution News, the California Science Center (CSC) has just been forced to cough up $110,000 for cancelling a booked film show called Darwin's Dilemma.  Apparently the film was sympathetic to Intelligent Design (ID), an idea which causes 'Archbishop' Dawkins's eyeballs to swivel in opposite directions simultaneously.  Anyway, the CSC, along with the Smithsonian Institution, and LA County Museum of Natural History, were all hauled in front of 'dee judge' for infringing the First Amendment Rights of the American Freedom Association.

Next in the dock, according to the Times Higher Education, was the magazine Applied Mathematics Letters which had begun by accepting a reviewed paper from Granville Sewell, professor of mathematics at the University of Texas El Paso, which posed criticisms of the awesome 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, but then withdrew it when the author's sympathies to ID were brought to their attention.  Sewell reached for his trusty lawyers and, lo, he won an apology and $10,000.

Finally, and almost unbelievably, I turn to The Guardian of last February which covers the story of:

Dr Martin Gaskell [who] applied for the position of director at the new MacAdam student observatory at the University of Kentucky. He stood "breathtakingly above the other applicants in background and experience" according to the chairman of the selection panel, but he did not get the job.

Gaskell, an Englishman by birth, is a devout Christian and also expresses doubts concerning Darwinism.  According to 'The Graun', his doubts are more nuanced than your average Bible-thumper which is hardly surprising in a man whose expertise lies in cosmological physics, in general, and massive black holes, in particular.  He was applying for the job of director of the University's observatory but his 'politically incorrect' views on biology were held against him and he was passed over.  After years of delay the university finally caved in and settled out of court for $125,000. 

God Bless America - and American lawyers!

Incidentally, the lawyers concerned were, in order:

William J. Becker Jr., of the Becker Law Firm

Pete Lepiscopo, of Lepiscopo & Morrow

Francis J. Manion, American Center for Law & Justice

So, let's hear it for American lawyers, altogether now - hip-hip-hip . . .  . . . oh come on, you can do better than that  . . .

 

Am I "crass and thoughtless"?

I ask the question because I stand so accused by my e-pal, Dom, in a spirited comment to my post on the Norwegian massacre.  It is worth reprinting his comment here:

When the unabomber published his manifesto, I was appalled but not surprised to find that some on the left read it approvingly. When Breivik published his manifesto, I thought, certainly no conservative will be so crass and thoughtless as to find something worthwhile (or non-insane) in this. Well, there goes that theory.

Why, in the world, would you write, "is it time for armed insurrection?" You live in a country that (a) has banned arms (why, I don't know, but it's your country), (b) has a vote, and (c) allows emigration. The last one is difficult for anyone who loves his country, but put emimgration in one hand, and insurrection in the other -- which is better?

Now Dom is a frequent and intelligent commenter here at D&N and his criticism deserves a full response.

If a man commits an atrocity because, he tells people afterwards, the moon was in the right (or wrong) quarter then it can be inferred that he is 'insane' in the sense that his explanation for mass murder lacks any basis in reason.  It is, so to speak, completely and utterly 'unreasonable' in the literal meaning of that word.  However, men have committed massacres of more or less 'innocent' people throughout the ages, in fact, since history was first recorded.  The particular reaons are several but all of them come under the general heading of 'political'.  Take a recent example - the slaughter of the Jews by the Germans under Hitler.  A truly monstrous act but not one that stands alone.  On the contrary, what Hitler did on the grand scale, other East Europeans, like the Russians, had committed many times before on a smaller scale - but only because they lacked the industrial capabilities of 20th century Germany.  I should add that in medieval times England indulged in the occasional pogrom, too.

So were they all 'insane'?  I think not because they all had reasons for doing what they did.  The reasons might have been mistaken and the acts were certainly immoral but there was a reasoned basis for their actions.  I have forgotten which particular one of my Napoleonic history books describes the advance into Russia and the way in which the Russian population fled but the Jewish money-lenders stayed and , for a price, were prepared to be helpful.  If you were born and bred in Eastern Europe the local Jewish money-lender was your bank manager and no-one loves their bank manager!  If, as most money-lenders do, your 'bank manager' held you in your desperation during a failed harvest to a usurious rate of interest and then turned you off your land to starve if you failed to pay, then a lack of love becomes hatred.  These conditions prevailed for centuries and thus was born a deep and abiding detetestation of Jews.  So one is forced to ask the question, were the regular pogroms carried out by madmen or by maddened men - a subtle difference.  In Germany in the 1930s the localised nature of Jewish moneylending was more or less over - but, as the old song has it, "The memory lingers on".  The massacre of the Jews was, of course, worse than immoral from a political point of view because it was also stupid beyond belief.  The Jews of Germany were the brains of Germany and lack of brainpower is all too apparent when one studies Nazi history and its downfall.  However, from the point of view of the politicians at the top of Nazi Germany, and the prejudices of so many of the general population below handed own through the generations, there was a reasoned case to be made for killing all the Jews!  They were wrong, they were immoral, they were dimwitted, but they were not insane.  And, if you were antogonistic towards the Germany of those days it would have been a folly to shrug their actions off to mere insanity.  Such policies, as and when they arise need to be faced up to and argued, or even fought, against and this is best done on the basis of a full understanding of your enemy's thinking.

So now I return to Anders Breivik and his single-handed atrocity.  I have not read his manifesto in full - my dear, simply too, too, tedious!  However, from the various extracts I have read it is quite clear to me that whatever you think of his actions, he was not insane.  His atrocity was not committed because the moon was in the wrong quarter but because he had studied his country's condition and come to the conclusion, based on the facts that he had accrued, that it was in a dire state of peril.  Now you can argue against that opinion - and there-in lies the proof that he was not insane because it is impossible to debate an argument with a loony.  I know virtually nothing of Norway so I can only take his template and apply it to the UK.  I do not think we are in peril of a Muslim takeover - yet!  In fact, I believe (hope?) that there are several factors operating against Islam in this country which will eventually bring about its downfall.  They are, amongst others, science, technology, culture and pornography.  They will work like acid on the religion of Islam in exactly the same way that they have eroded Christian belief.  The Muslim fanatics, in their hearts, recognise this and fear has turned to fury and provoked them into fighting.  They will not win - although the battle might be bloody - because the science, technology, culture and pornography are all-pervasive.  What they do cannot be undone!  Every Muslim girl who forsakes her veil for the 'freedom' of her western school friends is one more victory for secularism over religion.

However, Breivik came to the opposite but reasoned conclusion and with the facts and figures to support him decided to take violent action in defence of his homeland.  You may apply any epithets you like to him and his actions but I repeat, he was not insane.  I would also add a shrewd insight offered by Richard North today.  He notes the political fury, as opposed to any personal fury from relatives of the dead and injured, which has been engendered:

Another point of interest is how far the Norwegians and the other political establishments go down the line of branding Breivik "mad". For some - particularly the Right (as it is known) - this would be a convenient diagnosis. Then, everything he has done and represents can be dismissed as the frothing of a madman.  The issues raised can be ignored and the discussion shut down. [My emphasis]

He then adds yet another reason why the politicians are so eager to stamp on Breivik:

What offends, therefore, it not the deed itself, but the fact that it was not state sanctioned. The killing of men, women and children is perfectly acceptable, as long as it is ordered by grave men in suits, sitting at tables in the offices of government, and carried out by men in pretty uniforms with lots of badges.

It is even deemed admirable if done at a distance with high-tech toys. The deeds are applauded and the bodies quietly buried. The men (and indeed women) involved even get shiny new medals for their labours, promotions, more badges and pensions.

Thus, Breivik's great "crime" was to breach the state monopoly on killing. You have to get elected before you are allowed to order killing on this scale. And then, only state employees may carry out the orders even to the extent of indulging in mass, indiscriminate killing. But if an individual conducts targeted slaughter, on the basis of his own careful analysis, he must be mad. It is the only acceptable diagnosis.

Exactly so, and in precisely the same manner in which, as several recent cases illustrate, the establishment always comes down heavily on a property-owner who kills a burglar in defence of his own home.  It's OK for the state to take action but heaven help the individual - or you and me, as I like to think of him - who does!

My final comment in response to Dom is this, whenever you see and hear the entire political class all united and singing the same song - lock up your daughters and bury the spoons!

 

A sideways glance at the Norwegian massacre

I have delayed writing anything on this subject until matters became a little clearer.  It is now obvious that Anders Breivik was not a loony in the sense of walking around with his arm in the front of his jacket and insisting that everyone call him l'empereur!  Quite the contrary, he appears to be an intelligent, well-read and studious man who has gone to considerable trouble to analyse current affairs in his country and his continent and came to some reasoned conclusions. 

I am obliged to Mr. Ken Ferguson at Anna Raccoon's site for this:

One of conservatism’s most important insights is that all ideologies are wrong. Ideology takes an intellectual system, a product of one or more philosophers, and says, “This system must be true.” Inevitably, reality ends up contradicting the system, usually on a growing number of points. But the ideology, by its nature, cannot adjust to reality; to do so would be to abandon the system. Therefore, reality must be suppressed.

If the ideology has power, it uses its power to undertake this suppression. It forbids writing or speaking certain facts. Its goal is to prevent not only expression of thoughts that contradict what “must be true,” but thinking such thoughts.

But what happens today to Europeans who suggest that there are differences among ethnic groups, or that the traditional social roles of men and women reflect their different natures, or that homosexuality is morally wrong? If they are public figures, they must grovel in the dirt in endless, canting apologies.

Actually, those were not Mr. Ferguson's words but those of Mr. Breivik and who, outside of the  Brussels autocracy, can disagree with them?  I repeat, whatever else he is, this man is not mad.

Hang on, I hear you cry, this man slaughtered some 70+ Norwegian civilians, his own country men and women.  Quite true, but I would refer you to another Norwegian 'patriot',  Knut Haukelid, who with deadly 'malice' aforethought placed a bomb in a ferry and blew it up killing a considerable number of his fellow Norwegians.   He, like Breivik, had analysed his country's position and come to the conclusion that it was overrun by malevolent foreigners aided and abetted by a 'quisling' government.  Quite right, of course, because the government of his day was indeed run by Vidkin Quisling, a Nazi sympathiser, and Haukelid was fighting in the Resistance.  For this, and other,  acts involving the deliberate killing of his fellow citizens he was showered with medals!

Another factor which has hitherto inhibited any commentary from me is my almost complete ignorance of contemporary Norwegian society.  Again, I am obliged to Mr. Ferguson and will quote him again in the hope that he does know where-0f he speaks:

Norway and Sweden are often held up as models of social democracy. They are countries with highly efficient commercial and industrial systems featuring a well cared for and highly educated work force. In terms of politics, the Social Democratic Workers Party in Sweden and the Labour Party in Norway have been dominant for almost 100 years. But although both countries have constitutional monarchies and left of centre governments, the real authority is invested in a ruling cabal of financiers and industrialists who make the decisions behind the scenes. It is a close knit ruling elite, the members of which tend to build their summer houses round the same lakes.  [My emphasis.]

So whilst there are elements of the Nordic societies that look, from the outside, like a form of socialism, it is actually more like corporate paternalism. This produces a very controlled environment and, whilst there is a general culture of deference to authority within all organisational structures, liberal and egalitarian values are dominant.  [My emphasis.]

Hmmmn!  I know the feeling!

I must add that although I know Scandinavia has a considerable Muslim immigrant population I have never understood why.  They have no history of empire and thus no 'obligation' to former members of it.  However, it must be stated clearly that Norway is not a dictatorship and that the people have had many chances to change the political scenery and consequently, as I frequently remind my British readers, they have the government they deserve!  But dictatorship comes in new forms these days.  As the Germans have discovered the hard way over the last century, there is more than one way to skin a cat!  Bullets and bayonets have their part but their staying power is limited.  Much better to bribe a population into slothful acceptance and, of course, once they have become accustomed to the bribes and the soft living which comes with them, they are hooked.  Thus, today is born the soft Left ascendency, or Blair's 'Third Way', as it used to be called and which continues in contemporary Britain under the 'benign' dictatorship of the "heir to Blair", aided by its principle agitprop organisation, the BBC, and the massed chorus of 'the Great and the Good'.  It is worth noting that Breivik did not attack Muslims.  Instead, he went for the leadership of the ruling socialist party which has more or less run Norway for the last 100 years, and their children.  This was shrewd of him because it indicates that (as seen from his point of view) he knew who constituted his true enemy.  The retards of the BNP here always seek confrontation with the Muslims thus demonstrating their idiocy by attacking the puppet instead of the puppet-master.

So the question arises: is it time for armed insurrection over here?  I simply do not know.  According to Pew Research, as of last year Muslims represented 4.6% of the population.  Via Wiki, Richard Kerbaj of The Sunday Times reckons that Muslims are breeding 10 times faster than all other groups. Also, it is imperative to realise that each and every time the government, any government, assures us that they are cutting down on immigration - they are lying!  Thus, a second question arises: what percentage figure would it take to convince a majority of people in the UK that they were about to be taken over?  Again, I do not know.  Obviously in Norway, one man at least came to the conclusion that a take-over was dangerously close.

Finally, let me leave you with a single and critical question.  If, at some time in the future, you reach the same conclusion that Mr. Breivik arrived at - what will you do?

 

It's that God-thing again!

In a previous post on the subject of Bernard Nathanson, a man I think of as the Dr. Mengele of the abortion butchers' shop, I was sternly rebuked by Gabriel in the comments thread who thundered at me, but perfectly politely, from his own personal Christian pulpit because I had indicated my absolute lack of forgiveness for this wretched man despite the fact that he later repented and became as fervent for pro-life life opinion as he had been whilst keeping himself busy (and rich) yanking bits of babies out of their mothers' wombs.  As you can imagine, a fairly lively conversation ensued but was cut short by bloody TypePad interference which automatically shuts down comments threads after a certain period of time.  Needless to say I haven't a clue how to rectify it so I thought it was quicker to compose a new post in which I would attempt a riposte to Gabriel's last criticism of my 'Old Testament' outlook.

Let me take some of his salient points in order.  He wrote:

That a man may deserve the death penalty has nothing to do with forgiving him if he asks for forgiveness. I am able to forgive you for breaking my window, but it doesn't mean that I will not demand that you pay to repair the damage you have done in order to satisfy justice. I other words, you can forgive someone as they wall to the gallows.

To which I can only ask, what then is 'forgiveness'?  I have puzzled over this word and its meaning without result and can only phrase the dilemma in a series of question;

a: Is it that you 'forgive' a villain his trespasses such that, were you to meet him in a pub later on, you would buy him a drink?  That is not as frivolous as it may sound because surely such a wholehearted stance is required by the word 'forgiveness'.  Anything less is only part-forgiveness.

b: Or does 'forgiveness' just  mean that you will forego all personal revenge and leave matters to the law.  Again, somehow that does not quite express the full meaning of the word.  You still hate the guy but prefer the hangman to do your job for you!

c: But supposing, as a Christian, you forgive the evil-doer completely and utterly.  Does not that infringe on a responsibility which lies entirely with God?  Surely, it is not up to us to forgive, it is up to God.

Then Gabriel reminded me that what Nathanson did was completely legal, a non-sequiter of epic proportions.  What has mere legality to do with this matter, I thought we were discussing morals.  He then suggests that my anger should be directed at the Supreme Court and, by implication, everyone who aided the passing of legislation that permitted Nathanson's activities.  To which I can only reply - it is, and I do!

Then Gabriel moved on to my lack of belief, or faith, in the existence of a God.  Happily, he tells me, I do not require faith despite every priest of every denomination I have ever known constantly calling on their flock to 'have faith'.  No, no, he tells me, the 'proof' can be reasoned out:

1) If nothing existed 500 trillion billion years ago, nothing would exist now, simply because it is impossible for "nothingness" to bring anything into existence. Thus, something always had to exist (because here we are today.)

2) In order for something to have a beginning it must exist in time. Therefore, if something always existed, it is outside of time. Philosophers call this "an eternal state" where there is no past, no future, but just an "eternal now" Scientists today will tell you that before the "Big Bang", "time" and "matter" simply did not exist.

3) The fact that the universe is comprehensible through the language of mathematics is and that man can intellectually grasp the laws which govern the universe is an important key.

Therefore the Cause of the universe is:

1) Outside of time (Eternal)
2) Outside of matter (Spiritual)
3) Rational (A Producer of an intellectually comprehensible universe)

Thus, the universe is timeless, so bang goes the, er, Big Bang theory!  Well, as it happens I gather that some scientists are already having doubts on that one. In his second point he confuses, I think, two entities, matter/energy and time.  I agree that in the very nano-second matter/energy is produced then time begins, because time is measurement and you can only measure something that exists.  But if he is correct that matter/energy have always existed then it follows that time has always existed - the two go together hand in hand, indivisible - until of course, that wretched 2nd Law of Thermodynamics  has its wicked way and all energy ceases, at which point all time ceases because there is nothing to measure.  Gabriel touched a sympathetic nerve with me by the way he stressed the importance of mathematics.  It is indeed the very keystone to our understanding, despite the fact that at the moment it merely serves to underline how much we do not know, rather like a man lighting a match in a cave as big as St. Pauls and trying thus to understand where he is.  He also rather spoils his argument by suggesting that the universe is rational, to which I can only respond with one expression - irrational numbers!  And as for 'harmony', again, without wishing to become bogged down in details, I would simply remind him of the correctly named Chaos Theory.  Yet again, I would remind him that if the Big Bang theory is correct, part of what permitted the eventual cohesion of sub-atomic particles which eventually led to the existence of planets and stars was their very slight dis-harmony as they flew away in the explosion.  None of any of this offers the slightest proof of the existence of a God.

Gabriel then moves on to the sort of arguments I might aim at atheists, that is, the nature of life and how it began - that is what I call, in an attempt at humour, Phase II of creation!  Like the beginnings of matter/energy, I have found no satisfactory explanation as to how life began.  That is not to say that one day there will not be such an explanation but I can only take the world as I find it today.

Gabriel then proposes the notion of 'soul'.  According to him "all living things" possess a soul which, given the selfish, false friendship of my cat who would sit by cleaning its ears as a burglar murdered me, I find hard to accept let alone define.  I mean, what sort of 'soul' does a fir tree own?  Or a frog?  According to Gabriel, Man's soul lies in his ability to reason, but surely that is a product of his brain which in turn is the product of evolution, so if Gabriel is right then the nature of Man's soul has changed over the millennia.

Sorry, Gabriel, but I remain unconvinced.  Mind you, ten minutes listening to that mouth-foamer, Richard Dawkins, might swing me your way!

More killing, sorry

Alas, more of my ruminations on the morality of killing which, as most of you will have guessed, is more for my benefit than yours being a method by which I can try and tidy up the ragbag that is my mind.

I think I established in my previous piece that morality stems from genetic provenance and that the establishment of societies has resulted in a general agreement that wanton killing must be disbarred by general censure and harsh punishment.  Extreme pacifists will, of course, abjure killing for any reason at all but Leonard Read in his essay to which I drew your attention earlier, Conscience on the Battlefield, does allow it in certain circumstances.  That is surely sensible because most of us would kill to defend kith and kin but, and it is a large 'but', once you open that door all sorts of other possibilities enter.  For example, where does kith and kin end and tribe begin?  And what is a nation but a tribe writ large?  That is surely not a high moral hurdle to clear.  If the tribe/nation perishes then chances are that you and yours will also perish, or at least, suffer mightily.  History abounds with such examples - ask any Jew!  So, if threats to the tribe/nation are likely to include death and destruction to you and yours then presumably counter-measures are permissable.

At this point, I would suggest, it is necessary to personalise the problem.  For example, you might ask yourself whether, in the circs prevailing, you are prepared to blow the arms and legs off a baby?  A question like that "concentrates the mind wonderfully"!  Of course, you will not know the baby, nor, in this day and age, will you be likely to see it, or what's left of it.  Indeed, you may be able to extend your personal defence by claiming that your role in parting the infant from its limbs was several stages away from pressing the button.  Naturally I would not expect any of the intelligent readers of this blog to indulge in that sort of sloppy thinking.  In war, if you are in, you are in, irrespective of the part you play.

At this point I find myself in agreement with Read when he insists that it is our duty, and from his Christian point of view, a sacred duty, to think long and hard before participating in war.  Certainly in our western states where education (of a sort!) is available to all there can be no excuse for not attempting to weigh the pros and cons; and also, given our democratic system of governance, we should have the courage to question our leaders and even refuse to participate despite the personal costs involved.  I happen to believe that both the 20th century world wars had to be fought but my admiration for the principled pacifists who refused is enormous.

There is one further, and more practical, point I would like to stress.  War is inextricably entwined in human affairs.  Despite the fervent wishes of the pacifists war was present in the past, it is here with us today and it will smash and bash its way into our future.  It sits comfortably hand-in-hand with love and kindness as part and parcel of our nature.  What a shrewd insight Shakespeare demonstrated in his magnificent play Troilus & Cressida when he deliberately avoided an ending.  What he was saying, in effect, is that peace and war, love and hate, are all part of the great "wheel of fire" which is our existence and which never ceases in its constant turning.

The morality of killing!

I promised to return to the tricky subject raised by the late Leonard Read in his essay Conscience on the Battlefield which I posted on yesterday.  Not being a great thinker I might have to take two or three bites at it but I would like to begin by pondering on the general subject of morality and from whence it draws its authority.  Theists, in this respect at least, have it easy because they simply point to God.  Non-theists, like me, then enjoy pointing out that there appear to be a plethora of Gods each with a slightly different take on morality and one is therefore left wondering who is, so to speak, the God of Gods?  Theists, of course, then enjoy coming back with the undoubted fact that the concept of morality, albeit a tad fuzzy around the edges, does exist and so they, too, ask us upon what authority we base our sense of morality?

I would suggest that morality, and here I want to concentrate on the particular morality of killing, has arisen as part of the Darwinian principle of survival of the fittest.  The higher animals, or at least, those that have survived, do so on the basis of living in a 'society'.  I use that in the widest possible sense of the word including, in the case of animals, herding and flocking and so forth.  In other words, all the higher animals, even in a very loose way, still recognise their own kind and conduct themselves in a way which has proved successful over the generations particularly in regard to feeding and breeding, activities which are the most likely to cause dissension and trouble.  Indeed, even the most ferocious animals, ruthless in their pursuit of prey, rarely kill each other unless there is good reason.  A species which goes in for wanton killing would not survive for long.  But even when there are good grounds for fighting, again, even the most ferocious rarely take the fight to the point of death, flight always being an option.  Perhaps the greatest contribution made by Darwinists in recent years is the way oin which they have clarified the meaning of survival of the fittest which dummies like Adolph Hitler took to mean the strongest killing the weakest.  The great truth that 'he who fights and runs away lives to breed another day' has finally been spelled out for all to understand.

Man is, for most intents and purposes, just another higher animal.  Our societies frown on wanton killing because, of course, it is a personal danger but also because it is self-destructive to the whole notion of a society, and we are all aware, even if only dimly, that it is the 'invention' of society which has provided us with the benefits we enjoy.  If society breaks down then we return to a state of savagery which is likely to bring about a rapid end not only to our own lives but also to our species.  Thus, killing must be controlled and, at some time in our remote history, probably amongst the earliest tribes, custom (and common-sense) became codified and, lo, the first lawyer was created - Dread Thought!  Ayn Rand might be a somewhat derided figure in these semi-socialist days but she was surely right in her analysis of the mutuality between priests and kings in our early times.  It seems to be part of human nature to yearn for a higher authority and a king, who was instantly recognisable as just another human being, albeit an exalted one, was just not enough.  At which point, enter the priest who claims to speak to, and on behalf of, an all-powerful, all-knowing entity called God.  Between priest and king it was love at first sight, although, as we all know, love doesn't always last!

Anyway, to end this first rather amateurish effort, let me conclude by saying that I do believe morality, in the general sense, does exist and that it includes a particular morality over killing.  I believe the authority for this derives from Darwinian principles of survival of the fittest.  In my next try I will attempt to spell out my thoughts on how the morality of killing is applied to war and the individual. 

"Conscience doth make cowards of us all", or heroes: Discuss!

I have just read one of the most fascinating and thought-provoking essays I have seen on the internet for some time.  Once again that mystifying little imp, coincidence, has danced his little jig in my consciousness because only this morning I remarked in a comment thread on the fact that some people prefer the 'comfort' of crowds, and I posed one or two somewhat superficial reasons why.  Also, on another blog I have been engaged, somewhat fiercely, on the subject of morality in politics and warfare.  Thus, this deeply thoughtful paper on the subject of the relationship between the individual and society could not have come to me at a better time.  It was written by the late Leonard E. Read, a gentleman hitherto unknown to me, and is entitled Conscience on the Battlefield.  I urge you to read it!  In doing so it will quickly become apparent that Read was motivated by two imperatives in his life, his Christianity and his libertarianism.  I, myself, am not a theist and so his occasional appeals to God have no effect on me but, and this is important as you read him, they have no effect on his argument either.  In effect, he treats God as the originator and standard-bearer for virtue in general, but in particular, His injunction that "thou shalt not kill!"  Personally, I do not require the services of God to tell me that although I am content if others do.  If you ask me, therefore, from where my 'authority' for taking such a moral stand emanates, I can only shrug and answer honestly that I do not know but that I firmly believe it is a view shared by most people for most of the time although the percentages will vary according to the circumstances and, confirming Read's assertion in his essay, my own personal belief will also vary under circumstances.

If Read's words were simply another pacifist treatise I would not bother myself, or you, with it.  Not that I have anything against pacifism but it is a belief which simply beggars debate.  If you say 'I will not under any circumstances kill another' then all argument ceases.  But Read does not quite say that, and it is precisely that exceptionalism which makes his words worth reading and debating. 

His other argument against war stems from his libertarian (and free market) convictions.  He is not so much a small government man as a 'titchy-tiny' government man!  He points out, with telling accuracy, I think, the fact, and it is a highly dangerous one, that government has the effect of standing between a man and his conscience and in doing so it absolves a man of his personal duty to think for himself and justify his actions to his God or to his conscience.  There is also, perhaps, another unspoken (maybe because it is unconscious) imperative behind his philosophy - he is American.  The notion of 'Fortress America' lies deeply embedded in the American soul and leads them to a very different world view than the rest of us.

Read presents telling arguments and they deserve an equally thoughtful response.  I have only read his piece once so I have now printed it off and I will study it further before I return to the subject.  And I must return because, whilst I am hugely sympathetic to much of what Read says, I do sense flaws.  So, to be continued  . . .

Testing times

We all believe in free speech, don't we?  Well, no, actually.  Most of us want to pick and choose a bit.  And that is not unreasonable given that absolutes almost always break down when they run into the vagaries of human nature.  However, freedom of speech is recognised as a fundamental aspect of a free society, particularly in the UK and the USA.  In Europe they pretend to bow to it but only with their fingers firmly crossed behind their backs.  Hence, that ridiculous fashion designer who was caught out in an anti-Semitic rant is to be hauled before the French courts for voicing an opinion; and the nation currently heading the European Union, Hungary, has just instituted anti-press legislation to shackle opposition newspapers.  But as I say, in Britain and the States, however lax we are in upholding the principle we do take it fairly seriously, which is just as well because recently we have both been tested severely.

Yesterday, a spiteful Muslim head-banger called Mohammad Haque was found guilty of "using threatening or abusive words or behaviour" when he and others shouted insults whilst burning poppies during the two-minute silence on Armistice Day.  He was given a paltry £50 fine on the grounds that his actions were likely to cause a breech of the peace.  'Over there', the equally spiteful Christian head-bangers who are devotees at the Baptist Church of Westboro won an 8-1 SCOTUS judgement to allow them to continue to picket the funerals of dead soldiers from Afghanistan on the grounds that they believe American tolerance of homosexuality makes their country an abomination in the eyes of God and that anyone who dies in service to it deserves to be heckled and spat upon.

I confess that in both cases I had to swallow the bile that immediately rose in my throat but, through gritted teeth, I support both judgments; and oddly enough I feel a swell of pride that our two countries could find the inner strength and dignity to stand above the mouth-foamers and their hatred.  In an exchange yesterday with my regular commenter, DM, I tried to explain why at a very fundamental level I continue, despite the very many political shifts and changes and disagreements that occur, to hold America in a special relationship, not in the political sense, but in the knowledge that most of us, Brits and Yanks, most of the time, share similar ideals which we hold dear.

 

Bernard Nathanson: Saint or Monster?

I have just filled in my census form which had the impertinence to demand that I state my religion.  I thought about it for a while because, despite my rapid approach to finding out the answer to the Great Unanswered Question, I remain a devout, not to say, fundamentalist, agnostic - and, yes, I do find this fence perfectly comfortable, thank you for asking!  But on the other hand, I was baptised into the Christian faith as a child, and my entire upbringing and the society to which I belong is, despite the mounting evidence to the contrary, imbued with a vague sort of Christianity, and so I ticked that box with a clear conscience.  Also, as it happens, setting aside the God Question, I do think that Christian principles are a pretty good basis for running a society.  But of course, any sort of acceptance of Christian principles entails the duty to forgive the sinner who repents and, as regular readers of this blog will confirm, forgiveness does not come easily to me.  I am, by and large, more of the Old Testament than the New.  This has been confirmed to me in spades today as my regular commenters, Hank and Dom, have brought to my atttention a latter-day monster called Bernard Nathanson who has just died and who, if the God-believers are correct, I trust is even now frying slowly, ever so slowly, in hell!

According to Joseph Bottum in The Weekly Standard (thanks, Dom, for the link), this man, above all, stands as the onlie begetter, or at least, the main one, of the contemporary murder-machine that we call the abortion movement.  He was one of the leading agitators and the man who produced most of the lying agitprop to support his case:

Back-alley butchers. That was the catchphrase. And 10,000 women a year killed in illegal abortions, that was another. Coat hangers were what those butchers used to perform their grisly trade, and the only thing American women wanted was medical safety on the rare occasions when they made the agonized choice to abort their fetus. Not their unborn child. Fetus was the more scientific word, the true medical term, and besides, the argument wasn’t really about abortion. It was about choice​—​and who could be against that?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In 1969 he began operating, in all senses of the word, and ten years later he had supervised some 75,000 abortions of which he, personally, had performed some 5,000 including, of course, one of his mistresses who was carrying his child!

But then, in the early '80s, whilst literally up to his elbows in the blood and the slaughter, like an SS man toppling yet another hundred innocents into a mass grave they had been forced to dig themselves, he suddenly saw the light of reason.  However, in the manner described long ago by the psychiatrist, William Sargant, in his book Battle for the Mind, extremists in one direction, if changed, simply become extremists in the opposite direction.  Thus it was with Nathanson who joined the Catholic church against which he had railed so violently and turned all his demonic energies into the anti-abortion movement.  You can read more of his late repentence in the link kindly offered by Hank.

So the question arises, can I find it in my heart to forgive this man?  Alas, the answer is 'no'.  I am glad that he changed his mind but the colossal  crimes of which he was guilty so outweigh his repentence that I simply cannot find it in myself to forgive him.  And that, of course, makes my entry in the census form a fraud.  But for God's sake don't tell them, in these daft times they will probably fine me £500 quid!

Photo courtesy of The Daily Telegraph.

 

Wishful thinking? Perhaps, but we can hope, can't we?

I mentioned not long ago that one subject best avoided on blogs is abortion.  Almost always opponents on the issue take up extreme positions from which nothing is ever going to shift them.  However, I raise the subject because I have just read a piece over at The American Thinker by Peter Heck in which, whilst the author is obviously anti-abortion, he concerns himself mainly with the possibility (he thinks it is a probability) that this generation of Americans will finally overturn the Roe v. Wade ruling and consign legalised baby-killing to the same fate as the slave trade.  He points to the (dare I say?) 'killer point' raised in the original court case, that is, the question of whether or not an embryo is human?  I have always believed that it is from the very moment sperm hits egg for the simple reason that I consider life to be a process which begins at that instant and continues until death.  Opponents of that view simply dismiss the idea that a bunch of cells can be human but they suffer the terrible weakness of not being able to pinpoint exactly and precisely, and on scientific evidence, when a bunch of cells becomes human.  As I never fail to insist over and over again, it is crucial because one minute's difference either way means the difference between murder, or not.

According to Heck, the pro-abortionists have taken some heavy hits in the States recently.  There was the truly shocking (even in this day and age) story which emerged from the killing factory abortion clinic run by Dr. Kermit Gosnell who specialised in late abortions and who, apparently, stabbed living babies with scissors if they were unfortunate enough to by pulled alive from the womb.  Also, Heck has it that the anti-abortionists have taken some heavy hits from a campaign in which billboards were put up all round New York showing a picture of a little black girl and warning that "The most dangerous place for an African-American is in the womb" - ouch!  The pro-abortionists instantly screeched their outrage but people began to notice that nowhere did they, or could they, dispute the truth of the message for, indeed, "three out of every five black children in New York City are killed by abortionists".

The most recent blow was deliberately aimed below the pro-abortionist's belts when some 'wannabe' news investigators went undercover into an office of Planned Parenthood, the leading abortion advisors, and secretly filmed and recorded their meetings:

After being caught flagrantly thwarting the law to conceal abusive prostitution rings, statutory rape violations and an underage sex slave operation, Planned Parenthood's leadership didn't demand immediate internal investigations to clean up their act.  No, they mused about suing Lila Rose and her organization Live Action Films who exposed them.

All of this and more leads Peter Heck to believe? hope? that the American moral compass point is shifting.  We shall see.

 

Sometimes all you can do is bow your head in humble admiration

I confess that up until a few days ago I had never heard of Irena Sendler.  Now that I have, I feel better about the human race.  She provides me with a tiny hope that there is, there might be, there's a chance, that we humans might make out alright in the end.  This remarkable lady was born Irene Krzyżanowska in Poland in 1910 and perhaps under the influence of her father who died when she was only seven she grew up without the anti-Semitism which was as in-bred and pernicious in Eastern Europe then as it is today.

During the Nazi occupation of Poland, Irena worked in the German-controlled Children's Department of the Social Welfare Service.  She and others forged some 2,500 false documents for Jewish children in the ghetto and thus helped them to safety by placing them with sympathisers round the country.  She was granted a permit to visit the Warsaw ghetto and under that cover she smuggled these children out in boxes, suitcases and trolleys.  She was aided in much of this clandestine and highly dangerous work by various members of the Catholic Church.  Eventually she was caught by the Gestapo, tortured and sentenced to death, but this remarkable woman bribed the guards on the way to her execution and they dumped her in some woods with broken arms and legs.  She spent the rest of the war in hiding.  Throughout, she kept every detail of the children and their families so that, she hoped, when the war was over they could be re-united.  The details were hidden in several jars which she buried in different locations.  Alas, after the war when the jars were disinterred the contents were of little help because the families had long since perished in the camps.  Needless to say, the Communist regime which followed the Nazis continued to harass her but eventually when they, too, departed her activities were made public and she received the honours due to her.  In 2007 she was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize but, true to form, the noodles who run that particular set-up decided to award it to, of all things, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.  I suppose it takes one set of noodles to recognise another!  She died a year later in 2008 at the age of 98.

I feel guilty of my ignorance of her life and her courage.  In small recompense, I salute the memory of a truly good and brave woman:

The 'Arab street' finally erupts and the virgins are helpless!

For years the 'old middle east hands' and sundry Left-wing 'experts' have been warning us gravely that the 'Arab street' will erupt against this or that disgracefully wicked American or Israeli action taken in support of Big Oil/Israeli ambition/American colonialism (delete to taste) but now, without any warnings at all from the so-called experts, the 'Arab street' really has erupted, but not against the usual suspects, instead it is against their own Arab governments.  I think the irony is too, too, delicious and sufficient to warrant several good, hearty whinnies - nya-nya-nya!

It all confirms my own opinion based on nil expertise that the rise of fundamental Islam has been brought about by their own intuitive insight that in this modern communicating world their religion and their way of life is doomed, and like most people faced with this prospect, one thinks of the American Indians, the Australian aborigines, the 16th century Roman Catholic church and others, they are determined to fight to the end to preserve what they cling to.  Unfortunately, this democracy lark is such a simple and highly subversive idea, easy for even the illiterate and stupid to understand, that is, that on  the whole it is better to be ruled by a set of rascals under a system in which at least you have the chance to turn the rascals out every few years.  They remain rascals, of course, and the lot you bring in will be equally rascally, but at least they must pay a due regard for your wishes.  Now it may well be that the wishes of you and your fellow voters might be incredibly stupid but at least you voted for it so there is no one else to blame, and there is a chance that having changed your mind you can also change the government eventually.

So I wish the 'Arab street' well even if I doubt whether they will quite achieve what they think they want.  Only one question of real interest remains and that is exactly how much protection the ludicrous 'Col.' Gaddafi will receive from his security guard unit made up of virgin females?

Photo courtesy of The Mail

Will it, one wonders, depend on exactly how virginal they are?  Anyway, old chap, don't fancy yours much but I quite like the one in the middle - back in the day I could have made her tassles swing, eh? what? those were the days - another chota peg, boy!!

 

The decline and fall of Arab civilisation?

That proposition is discussed in a fascinating essay at The American Thinker by Michael Frayly who takes as his cue a thought-provoking paper written 5 years ago by Lt. Col. James G. Lacey called "The Impending Collapse of Arab Civilization" in The Naval Institute: Proceedings.  Like them, I have been struck by the intellectual stasis into which the whole of Araby seems to have fallen since the early spread of Islam although Col. Lacey is at pains to point out that it is Arab civilisation, not Islam, which is in danger of collapse, re-enforcing his point by reminding us that the Asian Muslim nations are thriving.  He predicted the Arab collapse some years ago and today would no doubt point at the current Egyption crisis as merely a step on the way.  He points to the Arab League's own website which proudly lists all the achievements of Arab civilisation which though long and impressive ends abruptly in 1406!  There-after Arabia has contributed nothing to the world's stock of ideas:

That makes next year the 600th anniversary of the beginning of a prolonged stagnation, which began a dive into the abyss with the end of the Ottoman Empire. Final collapse has been staved off only by the cash coming in from a sea of oil and because of a few bright spots of modernity that have resisted the general failure.

Frayley would date the beginning of the terminal inertia which has frozen the Arab intellectual mind a couple of centuries earlier when Ibn Rushd, an original thinker much influenced by the Greek philosophers, was banished by the traditional Caliphate.  Frayley suggests that a later and more malignant intellectual has been far more influential in Arab thinking:

Arab scholarship, in contrast, went on to hold up Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406), born in what is modern Tunisia, as one of their greatest political thinkers. His definition of government as "an institution which prevents injustice other than such as it commits itself" still dominates Arab political thought. (My emphasis)

The current state of Arabian society is best summed up by the UN's own statistics on the region quoted by Col. Lacey 5 years ago:

There are 18 computers per 1000 citizens compared to a global average of 78.3.

Only 1.6% of the population has Internet access.

Less than one book a year is translated into Arabic per million people, compared to over 1000 per million for developed countries.

Arabs publish only 1.1% of books globally, despite making up over 5% of global population, with religious books dominating the market.

Average R&D expenditures on a per capita basis is one-sixth of Cuba's and less than one-fifteenth of Japan's.

All of this potential for disaster is further aggravated by a demographic explosion in the numbers of young people.  Several commentators remarked on the recent Tunisian 'revolution' that much of the impetus came from young people given good educations but with no jobs in which to put their knowledge to use.  Of course, in Saudi Arabia the reverse is the case and with even more dire results likely; there, the entire educational system has been passed over to the religious authorities:

In Saudi Arabia over a quarter of all university degrees are in Islamic studies. In many other nations primary education is accomplished through Saudi-financed madrassas, which have filled the void left by government's abdication of its duty to educate the young.

Col. Lacey spells out the appalling statistics:

While predictions of the future are usually fraught with peril, those based on demographics are, barring some unforeseen plague or truly catastrophic war, uncannily accurate. Using even the most optimistic assumption—that fertility rates drop by fifty percent in a generation—the respected Population Resource Center, based in Princeton, New Jersey, expects Arab populations to grow from 280 million to almost 460 million by 2020 and to over 600 million a generation later. On the face of it the Arab world is staring political and economic disaster in the face. Arab governments and institutions are already failing to meet basic human needs in many Arab countries. It is hard to imagine how they will cope with the stress of such a massive population increase.

The percentage of the population under age 15 is double that of Western Europe and those under age 24 make up 50% to 65% of Middle East countries—an astonishingly young population. This youth bulge is already beginning to rock the foundations of Islamic society. Upheaval and revolution are the likely results of a massive number of youth confronted by stagnating or collapsing economies as they enter adulthood.

For a young Arab man living under a strict security apparat run by his dictatorial government the only outlet for his naturally idealistic and aggressive energies is within the religious community which is, in many countries, left to its own devices by its secular leaders.  A recipe for trouble of which even Macbeth's three witches would approve!

All of this makes the outcome of the current 'experiment' in Egypt absolutely crucial.  If, and it's a huge if, they can produce some sort of semi-coherent democracy in which the political factions can live safely and patiently and take their turn at government as and when the people decide, then just possibly an important part of Arabia will have taken a giant step forward.  More important, if the west (ie, America) can bolster this democratic and secular infant whilst simultaneously keeping Turkey from falling into the clutches of the Islamists, then we will have gone a considerable way to sealing off the western edges of Arabia and keeping the coming chaos well away from us.  But I wouldn't bet the deeds of the house on it!

 

Hurrah - some good news

I am aware that reading this blog almost constitutes a health risk, or at least, you tend to leave it feeling worse than when you arrived; so today I have some good news but, alas, I cannot find the original report so I must rely on my memory - and you can stop that sniggering right now!

Somewhere, I read that following the recent murderous attacks on Arab Christians in Egypt whilst they were attending services, the churches are now surrounded by Muslims on Sundays who form a protective cordon so that that the Christians may worship in peace and security.  Also, I hear on today's news that an Egyptian judge has sentenced one of the attackers to death for murder.

There - feeling more cheerful now, are you?

 

The West's secret weapon in the Afghan war

I read this story some weeks time ago and saved it as the basis for a post the following day and then, of course, forgot about it.  So, better late than never, and also because good news is hard to come by, allow me to introduce the conqueror of Afghanistan - 'Afghan Elvis'!

 

Or, to be precise, pop star Farhad Darya, who recently performed in Lashkar Gah in Helmand province.  So what, you might ask, not unreasonably?  Well, the reason to be cheerful is that the Taleban hate music, an outlook they share with Plato, and when they were in control the only permitted music was religious chanting.  Pop music was forbidden, which is yet another proof of Duff's Theory that no-one is totally bad!  Anyway, a few thousand Afghanis crowded into a local arena and watched 'Afghan Elvis' do his stuff and a good time was had by all, including a small selection of British officers seen waving red-stained hands, an Afghani way of showing appreciation (can't think what that signifies!)  Security was in the hands of the Afghans themselves and everything passed peacefully.

I mention this odd, indiosyncratic event, not for itself, but for what it portends.  The fact is that there is a war between Islam and the West but it is not primarily a war for resources and land but a cultural war.  The development, at an ever increasing pace, of modern cyber-communications means that it is only on the uppermost slopes of Everest, or the very deepest part of the Amazon forest, that you will find any relief from the insidious bombardment of western 'culture' at its worst, and it doesn't get much worse than pop music and all the inherent corruption that goes with it.  But the gloomy fact is that 'The People' - everywhere - love it.  They tap their feet in Peking, they wave their arms in Tehran, they listen in private in Riyadh as they sip their illicit single-malt scotch, young girls squeal together in Jakarta and, as we see now, the men, at least, enjoy the antics of 'Afghan Elvis' in Helmand Province

When I saw the story I was instantly reminded of Sir Tom Stoppard's superb play Rock 'n' Roll in which he pointed up the rebellious nature of young people in Czechoslovakia (as it was then in the '70s), whose love of rock and roll was only increased by the disapproval of the authorities, and which gradually raised their political awareness to revolutionary action.  The hatchet-faced Imams and their political henchmen hate this manifestation of western 'culture' and to be honest I am not totally unsympathetic, but then, I confine my disapproval to grunts from an armchair (or moaning on this blog) to which no one pays any attention, rather than chopping peoples limbs off and stoning girls to death.  Anyway, no matter how hard they try to stop the ears of their people, or cut them off, the cyber-waves always get through and in the end the liberty verging on licence that is at the very heart of rock and roll will out.

 

But God does play with dice!

A friend of mine has recently suffered a catastrophic personal tragedy of the very worst, almost unimaginable, kind.  Looking from the outside in - so superficially that I am almost ashamed to be commenting on it - one can be tricked into thinking that the seeds were sown many years ago; a case, one might suppose, of the sins of the father (or in this case the grandmother) being visited even unto the third generation.  This is the devil at work in hindsight.  As humans we constantly search for a reason to explain the inexplicable, and like so many amateur sleuths we sift history for clues to an answer that we are convinced lies just beneath the surface.  We are not totally foolish to do so, for causality certainly exists, however, its ramifications are so immense, so inextricably complicated, that it is almost impossible to follow a single thread.  For example, if A takes an action, a1, which impinges on B, C, D, E and F, then their immediate re-actions may be said to stem from the original impulse of a1.  However, because B to F inclusive exist in their own time and space and are therefore different from each other, the effect of a1 on them will differ, too.  Consequently their re-actions will be different, not just in force but in direction.  Thus a plethora of b1, c1, d1, e1 and f1 will ensue, not merely aimed back at A but also at their 'neighbours', so to speak.  From this point on, all hope of following a tidy analytical line of cause and effect will be lost, not because it does not exist in theory but simply because it is impossible to define in practice.  And all of that, of course, without ever asking why A undertook a1 in the first place!

Moving from the personal to the historical, I return again to the lead-up to WWI, an avoidable catastrophe, we like to think, or hope, and yet any study of the subject leaves one with an overwhelming feeling that a monstrous machine had been put into motion and then it developed such momentum that it proved to be unstoppable.  That naughty hindsight at work again!  And yet . . . and yet . . . there was, there must have been, a series of causes and effects which did, in reality, lead up to WWI, even if we cannot exactly follow the route.  In my talks on the subject I blame Bismarck, despite the fact that he died in 1898, for being so brilliantly successful in creating, with the exception of Austria, the unification of the German-speaking nations of Europe under Prussian leadership.  But immediately the question arises, who 'created' Bismarck, or perhaps, what 'caused' Bismarck?

Those brainy chaps, the quantum physicists, tell us that the basic materials of the universe are, in effect, immeasurable.  Their movement or their position may only be wagered!  Of course, because they are so brainy, these scientists are usually pretty accurate with their 'bets' - but they are never absolutely and completely accurate which is why, like the excellent bookmakers they are, they can only offer odds for and against any particular answer.  This, of course, is an open admission of the fundamental 'unknowability' characteristic of the very basic building blocks of everything that exists in the universe.  Humbling, isn't it?

Cassius tells Brutus that "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, / But in ourselves".  Alas, when we attempt to look into the unfathomable depths of human psychology our hopeless ignorance is even more starkly illustrated.  My unfortunate friend seeks, desperately, for reasons or explanations for the tragedy and far from finding none, finds too many!  The fact that one direct cause of it was an accident, a blow from fate, simply compounds the inexplicable and adds to my friend's anguish.  Truly, it must seem to my friend that Lear, in his nihilistic misery, was right;

As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods; 

They kill us for their sport.

Footnote: For those wondering about my title, Albert Einstein, affronted by the weirdness of quantum mechanics once said, "I am convinced that He [God] does not play with dice." 

Progress? What progress?

In a post further down I mentioned that I was beginning to read Annabel Patterson's book Nobody's Perfect which seeks to argue in favour of the whig(*) theory of history.  What with the gardening and all, I haven't progressed (no pun intended) very far but I have been mulling over some thoughts and observations.  In essense, the whig theory of history states that gradually over time the human condition has improved and that this very improvement is the essence of the progressive movement.

Instantly, the barrack-room lawyer in me demands to know what is meant by 'improved'.  This is important for the whig case because immediately whole layers of 'improvement' in our daily lives can be removed from claims by philosophers and politicians and instead laid correctly to the credit of scientists.  From Francis Bacon onwards, the scientific method has led to technological improvements which have, to use 'Obama-speak', transformed our lives.  We live longer, we live healthier and, most important in my view, we live richer.

It is, I suspect, the riches which have really transformed our political lives.  When you have nothing, a condition shared by roughly .01% of the population today, then political activity has no meaning.  The minute you own something you begin to take notice of what the rascals above you are up to, and the more you own, the more you wish to make your masters accountable.  If I am right, I cannot see how high falutin' ideas emanating from politcal philosophers are anything other than descriptions of what is happening rather than prescriptions on what should happen.

However, today, with the universal franchise, we live pretty close to the ideal of the early whig thinkers but pause and ask yourselves, exactly how free are we?  One might look at our present condition and suggest that it is not the Marxist nations who live under the dictatorship of the proletariat, but the western 'democracies'.  I am an elderly, English, white, heterosexual christian (with a small 'c') and my life and my desires and my thoughts on what constitutes a civic society are over-ruled by a great tidal wave of the great and ignorant unwashed.  So, how free am I?

I look back to the renaissance age of Shakespeare.  England was ruled by a claque of nobles surrounding the autocratic queen.  Daily life was hedged about with religious edicts the most onerous of which was the strict requirement to attend church on Sundays.  For a free-thinking middle-class man like Shakespeare it was necessary to be exceedingly careful as to what opinions you voiced on various sensitive subjects, much as today, it would be unwise to crack jokes of a sexual or religious (that is, Islamic) nature in public.  So no change there, then!  However, that did not stop him making a successful career in theatre and accruing a considerable fortune in doing so, even if he had to rely on the fact that the authorities, or their jacks-in-office, were too thick to spot the religious and political sedition hidden in his texts.  So again, I ask, apart from the material benefits provided by science and technology, how has life improved.

At this point I am aware of a growing rumble of approaching fury from the militant feminists all screeching with but one voice, "What about the 'wimmin'?"  My response is, what about them?  In Shakespeare's day middle and lower class women were rarely educated and were confined to domestic duties.  Of course, higher class 'ladies', depending on position and looks, might well exert considerable influence in certain political circumstances.  Today, women, like men, are educated to the level needed to satisfy the job market and the nature of their daily drudgery has only altered in having been moved from one sphere to another.  So again, I ask, what's really changed?

I hasten to add that these are preliminary thoughts, and not particularly well articulated but if anyone has any further comments to make I would welcome them.  How I miss my old e-pal, Deogolwulf, whose blog is currently on hold, which is such a pity because he is what I call a real thinker.

 (*) Prof. Patterson is eager to differentiate between small capital 'whig' and large capital 'Whig'.  The former being the general philosophy which today we would call 'progressive, and the latter indicating the political party whose leaders and members would hold a variable belief in progress depending on the circs - well, they're politicians, after all!

 

Trust an Aussie to tell it the way it is

Like you, I suppose, despite a frantic scrabble I was unable to find the 'do-flicker-thingie' that changes the channels on the TV the other day when Sky News dwelt with vicarious curiosity on the horrible sight of a huge gathering of hideously ugly weirdoes and some of our most famous druggies accompanied, of course, with surely our most famous black, celebrity diamond-collector of all times.  I actually paused in my efforts to peer under my armchair looking for that damned device when the commentary told me that these apparent escapees from The Rocky Horror Show were actually intending to enter not just a church but one of the premier churches in our nation!  The reason for this invasion of what looked like body-snatchers was to celebrate the life of "a frock designer" who committed suicide.  I intended to Bore for Britain on the subject but terminal tedium set in at the thought of composing anything much longer than two words ending in "off" but I have returned to the subject because an Aussie, made of sterner stuff than me, has now said all that needs to be said.  Hal Colebatch in The American Spectator captured the essence of the matter, thus:

The latest milestone in Britain's government-sponsored deliquium is a service at St. Paul's Cathedral to celebrate the life of Alexander McQueen, a frock designer who committed suicide by hanging himself. He had made a great deal of money and like many degenerates, he was fascinated by skulls.

St. Paul Cathedral! This, where a procession of fashion-freaks and coke-snorters trooped, had previously seen the funerals of, among others, Nelson, the Duke of Wellington and Sir Winston Churchill. It was the site of the Jubliee celebrations for Queen Victoria and services marking the end of the first and second world wars. [...]

In the bombing of London in 1940 its dome, even more than Westminster Abbey, photographed apparently standing alone in a sea of fire as the bombs fell, was a tangible reminder that what the Poles called "last hope island" was the last hope in Europe of not merely civilization but what Churchill called "Christian civilization," and that though it was standing alone, it stood yet.

Happily, as Colebatch reminds us:

We have certainly come a long way since suicides were buried in unconsecrated ground, at night, with a stake in them. Suicide is still however, officially regarded in the Christian church as a great sin and an insult to God, throwing His gift of life back in His face.

That bastion, nay, that rock of Christian rectitude who masquerades as the Archbishop of Canterbury has absolutely firm views on suicides:

"Do I have a right to die? Religious believers answer for themselves that they do not. For a believer to say: 'The time could come when I find myself in a situation that has no meaning, and I reserve the right to end my life in such a situation,' would be to say that there is some aspect of human life where God cannot break through. It would be to say that when I as an individual can no longer give meaning to my life, it has no value, and human dignity is best served by ending it."

So you would think after that that he might take a rather strong line about glorifying a suicide in one of the greatest churches of the land, but as Colebatch suggests, slyly:

Presumably, however, money is an effective lubricant.

Yes, I think that about sums it up.

 

Well, this wiped the smile off my face

I must confess that this item came as a bit of a shock although it appears to have been circulating for some time.  Even the BBC broadcast a report into the ramifications about 5 years ago.  Alas, it all passed me by, ignorant fellow that I am.

I was not aware of the implications of Islamic law which allows marriage between cousins.  This, combined with the fact that daughters can inherit, provides an imperative for Islamic families to encourage consanguineous  marriage between cousins in order to preserve family wealth and/or to avoid adulterating tribal blood.  I suppose this practice if reserved for the benighted inhabitants of inner Afghanistan could be ignored but it is not.  The practice flourishes here in the UK amongst the hundreds of thousands of Pakistani immigrants - and it has some alarming outcomes.

Nicolai Sennels is a Danish psychologist who has worked amongst Muslim criminals in Denmark.  In an article printed in PajamasMedia he points to some of the dangers - and the horrors - that arise from this practice:

There is a dire phenomenon rising in Europe that is crippling entire societies and yet the continent sleeps, refusing not only to confront the destructive elephant in the room, but also to admit its very existence. The troubling reality being referred to is the widespread practice of Muslim inbreeding and the birth defects and social ills that it spawns.

He emphasises that mention of this unmentionable subject is likely to bring down howls of outrage and acusations of racism and Islamaphobia on the messenger's head - which makes it all the more surprising that the BBC once broadcast on the subject.

Massive inbreeding among Muslims has been going on since their prophet allowed first-cousin marriages more than 50 generations (1,400 years) ago. For many Muslims, therefore, intermarriage is regarded as being part of their religion. In many Muslim communities, it is a source of social status to marry one’s daughter or son to his or her cousin. Intermarriage also ensures that wealth is kept within the family. Islam’s strict authoritarianism plays a large role as well: keeping daughters and sons close gives families more power to control and decide their choices and lifestyles.

As far as this country is concerned he informs us:

A BBC investigation in Britain several years ago revealed that at least 55% of the Pakistani community in Britain was married to a first cousin. The Times of India affirmed that “this is thought to be linked to the probability that a British Pakistani family is at least 13 times more likely than the general population to have children with recessive genetic disorders.”

The BBC’s research also discovered that while British Pakistanis accounted for just 3.4% of all births in Britain, they accounted for 30% of all British children with recessive disorders and a higher rate of infant mortality. It is not a surprise, therefore, that, in response to this evidence, a Labour Party MP has called for a ban on first-cousin marriage.

Unfortunately, I cannot identify the Labour MP concerned who deserves congratulations for speaking up.  And lest you think the dangers are small and remote:

Medical evidence shows that one of the negative consequences of inbreeding is a 100 percent increase in the risk of stillbirths. One study comparing Norwegians and Pakistanis shows the risk that the child dies during labor increases by 50 percent. The risk of death due to autosomal recessive disorders — e.g., cystic fibrosis and spinal muscular atrophy — is 18 times higher. Risk of death due to malformations is 10 times higher.

Of course, cousin marriage is permissable in England but is something of a rarity amongst the indigenous population because we do not have the same familial relationships, and also because paternal authority melted away years ago.  However, if Sennels is right, and so far I only have his word for it, then it is time the government took action.

 

Why The Guardian's not even fit to put your chips in!

I am obliged to yet another 'very naughty boy', in this instance, the irrepressable 'Oirish oik' (as his many enemies in Parliament would describe him), 'Guido Fawkes', for supplying the story and the illustrations which go to prove the assertion I make in my title above.  He directs our attention to the semi-literate Ms. Riazat Butt who after chewing her computer mouse for an hour managed this:

And just in case there is anyone out there who might take Ms. Butt seriously as a journalist, 'Guido' reprints this self-description:

"No really", to quote a phrase, is there anyone out there who still parts with their cash to buy a so-called newspaper in which the Religious Affairs correspondent affects such disdain for her own occupation and specialist subject?  If you do then you must be deaf, dumb, blind and lack a sense of smell!

 

Priest tells truth - SHLOCK-HORROR!

Now look here, just because the Pope's popped in for a chat with Her Maj we can't have these priest chappies coming over here and actually telling us the truth!  Some Kraut Cardinal has had the infernal cheek to tell us that anyone landing at Heathrow airport would think they were in a Third World country.  What a nerve!  Just because one would be hard-pressed to spot a white face anywhere except the departure lounge, that is no excuse to disparage our new, exciting, multi-racial Britain.  Anyway, he should pay a visit to some of his own German cities which look and sound like down-town Ankara!

He also told us that "Christians were at a disadvantage" in facing up to "aggressive new atheism".  Who can he mean?  Surely not the ever affable and mild-mannered Prof. Dawkins who is always open to anyone's opinion, er, so long as they are not theists.  Or the equally broad-minded Johann Hari who strives constantly during the occasional 3-second silences which crop up in his discourse, whilst he takes a breath, to listen to other people's opinions before then continuing to spew forth torrents of anti-Christian agit-prop.  Behind them and their ilk, of course, stands a mighty army of outraged, atheistic, anti-Christian Trots and their 'useful idiots' some of whom, nevertheless, are only too pleased to lick the arse of Allah when it suits them, like for example, elections in a Muslim area.  These are the people who screech their opposition to the Pope's visit on the grounds, probably true, that the Catholic Church indulged in a criminal conspiracy to cover up child molestation by its priests, but who are nowhere to be seen when one of the many thugs, thieves and mass-murderers who have stolen the leadership of their own countries pays a visit to London  - provided they are Left-wing, of course, and have the word "Socialist" somewhere in the name of their ruling mafia family political party.  Should they be Right-wing, like the late President Pinochet, of course, these vermin will erupt from the drains in their multitudes to express their support for 'the people'.

Lest anyone of either side of the God debate feels provoked by my words let me make clear that I remain a deeply committed, fundamentalist agnostic and I just wish that both sides of this frequently tedious and pointless argument would just - shut the fuck up!

Additional: I apologise for my concluding remark above.  Normally I keep four-letter invective off my postings but I had an exceedingly irritating morning, driving here, walking there, dodging the rain, and failing to find any of the things I was looking for!  It will not happen again - until the next time!

Another 'hero' bites the dust

I try not to use the word 'hero' without giving it some thought because the poor little word has been gutted of all meaning since the first red-top rag described our bunch of big girls' blouses, a.k.a. the England 'footie' team, as 'heroes'!  Never having had my courage tested in any meaningful way, however, I do have a tendency to instantly admire those that have and who passed with flying colours.  Also, this admiration tends to obscure whatever other misgivings I might entertain concerning their character.  For example, I give you Peter Tatchell, a Left-wing homosexual who has, from time to time, run some considerable risks in propogating his beliefs.  I doubt that Tatchell and I would agree on the time of day but whilst I think his politics are mostly barmy I admire his courage - or, I did.

I have kept clear of commenting on the Pope's visit to this country, it being of no particular interest to me except for the enjoyment to be derived from watching people who call themselves 'liberals' foaming at the lips and trying hard to hide their disappointment at not being able to burn bibles because that dreadful old hillbilly preacher beat them to it by promising to burn Quorans, about which they all shrieked in outrage and thus tied themselves up.  The whole matter of the Pope's visit has been enflamed by the child abuse scandal, and whilst all of that was undoubtedly a terrible series of crimes against little children, one sense that for the irreligious Left it came as a very welcome weapon with which to beat up the Catholic church in general and the Pope in particular.  In this, I gather, Peter Tatchell has been a leading 'warrior'.

So it was with some sardonic amusement that I read Peter Hitchen's column in The Mail in which he reminds us of a letter Tatchell sent to The Guardian (where else?) back in 1997.  He was writing in support of a book about "boy love" which was being attacked and threatened with censorship.  According to Hitchens, Tatchell's defence went much further than merely defending free speech:

Personally, I think he went a bit further than that. He wrote that the book’s arguments were not shocking, but ‘courageous’.

He said the book documented ‘examples of societies where consenting inter-generational sex is considered normal’.

He gave an example of a New Guinea tribe where ‘all young boys have sex with older warriors as part of their initiation into manhood’ and allegedly grow up to be ‘happy, well-adjusted husbands and fathers’.

And he concluded: ‘The positive nature of some child-adult sexual relationships is not confined to non-Western cultures. Several of my friends – gay and straight, male and female – had sex with adults from the ages of nine to 13. None feel they were abused. All say it was their conscious choice and gave them great joy.

‘While it may be impossible to condone paedophilia, it is time society acknowledged the truth that not all sex involving children is unwanted, abusive and harmful.’  (My emphasis)

At this point my admiration for Tatchell's physical courage shrivelled, not only in the face of his outrageous claims above, but in contemplation of his stinking hypocrisy in attacking the Catholic church for its in-house paedophilia.

 

Pastor Plonker Pulls their Strings!

What an almighty fuss and furore over nothing!  Some latter-day loudmouth with a self-donated dog-collar and a congregation of around 35 - so long as the sun is shining - threatens to burn some copies of the Quoran (if that's how you spell it) and all the not-so-great-and-definitely-not-too-good nearly wet themselves in fear and trepidation and trip over each other in their eagerness to reach a microphone to tell the world how much they disapprove and it's nothing to do with them, honest it's not!  For God's sake - and I don't care which particular God - have Obama and his polit-bureau no sense of pride and decorum?  Are they so shit-scared of Islam that they are prepared to tremble in public lest the 'Arab street' erupts.  Allow me to remind them that the 'Arab street' regularly erupts, usually after a few bob have been distributed to ensure a good turn out, and that will be their excuse to burn the Stars and Stripes, a precious and hallowed icon for all Americans, assuming of course that they can actually find one given that they have burned so many so often before.

Look, I hate book-burners, not just 'Pastor Prat' and his daft acolytes, but all of them from the Inquisition and Cromwell onwards.  I also loathe book-banners which covers virtually all Muslim countries and their hideous governments today.  If some loon and his 35 fairies want to look ridiculous and/or despicable it is only necessary for a government spokesman to state 'the bleedin' obvious' that it is nothing to do with the United States government which is proud to defend the right of people to express an opinion however daft or obnoxious it might be.  It's the American way - right?  And if indeed the Arabs cut up rough, well, if it wasn't for that it would have been something else.

The main thing is for the current President of the United States, and his wannabe-in-'12 successor, to maintain their dignity - to say nothing of their pride - by remaining silent.

 

Hurrah for Ron Rosenbaum!

Who? 

What?  You mean you have never heard of Ron Rosenbaum! 

Oh, alright then, I 'fess up, neither had I until today but now he is my new best friend, although the news may not have reached him yet.  Courtesy of the ever-excellent Arts & Letters Daily I was pointed to an essay in Slate written by Mr. Rosenbaum.  I suspect he might be Professor, or even Doctor, Rosenbaum because he is obviously fearfully knowledgeable and mixes in high academic circles.  However, his greatest intellectual virtue is that he agrees with me!

I cannot compute the number of times on this blog and others when I have come to verbal fisticuffs with militant athiests.  Oddly enough, I cannot remember a single occasion in which I had a fight with a theist, but the atheists, or the New Atheists, as exemplified by the apoplectic Richard Dawkins, come across as born-again fundamentalists which is why I normally refer to him as 'Bishop' Dawkins.  The reason for the mutual antagonism is that I remain a convinced agnostic.  On every occasion I point out to them that the proposition that God exists, and its negative, cannot be proven.  They are propositions outside the scope of science.

Rosenbaum, being more intelligent than me, puts it better:

Faced with the fundamental question: "Why is there something rather than nothing?" atheists have faith that science will tell us eventually.

That their beliefs are faith-based is something I have hurled at atheists many a time and oft'.  It drives them potty.  But the fact, uncomfortable to them, is that the very fundamental and basic question of how something can come of nothing remains unsolved and unsolveable.  Rosenbaum contemptuously dismisses the wilder thrashings of the scientific community to answer the unanswerable:

Recently scientists have tried to answer it with theories of "multiverses" and "vacuums filled with quantum potentialities," none of which strikes me as persuasive. (For a review of the centrality, and insolubility so far, of the something-from-nothing question, I recommend this podcast interview with Jim Holt, who is writing a book on the subject.)

He continues:

Atheists have no evidence—and certainly no proof!—that science will ever solve the question of why there is something rather than nothing. Just because other difficult-seeming problems have been solved does not mean all difficult problems will always be solved. And so atheists really exist on the same superstitious plane as Thomas Aquinas, who tried to prove by logic the possibility of creation "ex nihilo" (from nothing). His eventual explanation entailed a Supreme Being standing outside of time and space somehow endowing it with existence (and interfering once in a while) without explaining what caused this source of "uncaused causation" to be created in the first place.

However, what I like about his essay is his militancy which advocates, in effect, Agnostic Pride!  Well, if the gays can have pride why not us agnostics?  We might take the title of his article for our placards:

   AN AGNOSTIC MANIFESTO

At least we know what we don't know!

Paraphrasing Shakespeare, I am tempted to shout

Now, Gods, stand up for agnostics!

but the delicious irony might excite my delicate temperament too much.  Rosenbaum sums up the new agnostic pride, thus:

[T]here are really two claims agnosticism is concerned with: Whether God exists or not is one. Whether we can know the answer is another. Agnosticism is not for the simple-minded and is not as congenial as atheism and theism are.  The courage to admit we don't know and may never know what we don't know is more difficult than saying, sure, we know. (My emphasis)

Rosenbaum's essay is worth reading in full.

 

A useless, trivial (pursuits) fact

I am not very well educated (yes, yes, don't bother!) but I am possessed of some spectacularly useless facts, you know, the sort of thing which if you drop them into the middle of a dinner party conversation it brings the entire thing to a dead stop as people are stumped for anything to say.  I mention this because my golden store of useless facts is about to be enriched further - so best not to invite me to dinner.  The reason is that I have just started a new book and, to paraphrase that awfully brave chap, Oates, who took a walk into the Antarctic night, 'I may be reading for some time'!  You see, this book, even in paperback version, is as big as a house brick.  Including the index it runs to 1,118 pages and it is absolutely cram-jam-packed full of facts.  I have given up going to the gym because just lifting and carrying this tome around gives me all the exercise I need.

It is called IDEAS: A History from Fire to Freud by Peter Watson.  It begins way back when the apes descended from the trees and some of them began to walk upright-ish.  Now, stand by because here comes my piece of useless information: did you know that one of the advantages of standing upright was that it allowed the descent of the larynx to a lower level in the throat which in turn, and over time, made it easier for vowel and consonent sounds to be articulated?  In addition, and as a bonus (presumably from the 'Intelligent Designer'!) the upright stance changed the pattern of breathing and thus the range of possible sounds.  Finally (ahem! not dropping off, are you?) eating meat was easier than chewing on tough, stringy, old plants and thus allowed the formation of new, more delicate, facial muscles which aided a wider range of movements for the tongue and this in turn helped in the formation of sounds which eventually would become speech.

Anything you wish to say?  No, thought not, that sort of useless information does tend to leave one gob-smacked, does it not?  And yet . . . and yet, it excites me enormously!  To think that all those miniscule, accidental(?) occurrences led eventually, over millions of years, to Mankind.  The danger, of course, is to use the 20/20 vision of hindsight and to assume that somehow it was all meant to be.  That is a question for another time but for now I am happy to hold Mr. Watson's comforting hand as he takes me step by faltering step through the history of ideas.  His breadth of knowledge is enormous but he carries it, and dispenses it, with ease bordering on elegance.  He treads carefully but surely through the inumerable squabbles of Academe and where doubt or controversy exist he spells it out. 

It is a terrific book and if you were lucky enough to be given some book vouchers for Christmas you could not do better than spending it on a copy of this - and then, you, too, could become an 'A1 crasher' like me and no-one will invite you to their boring dinner parties ever again so you can stay at home and read more books - hurrah!

On the one hand . . . but on the other . . .

I am reminded, and by an American, too, that yesterday was the anniversary of King John signing Magna Carta, perhaps the greatest example of the dreaded 'Law of Unintended Consequences' the world has ever seen.  It co-incides with events in Iran where instead of robber barons armed with swords we have a militant middle-class armed with 'Blackberrys'!  The essence of the events, however, is very similar, a particular group rising up in order to insist on what it calls its 'rights'.  At this stage no-one can tell how the Iranian imbroglio will end; in the short term, the scimitar being mightier than the key-board, the mullahs will probably have their way, but somehow one senses that the ground has shifted beneath their feet.  Of course, if 'New Iran' eventually wins over 'Old Iran' then the perpetrators of the revolution, or their successors, will suffer under the same dread Law that later caught out the landed aristocracy in Britain.

My perception of the Iranian version of Islam is that it is hateful and loathsome, somewhat akin to the Spanish version of Catholicism in the 16th century.  However, it is not the only version of Islam on offer.  One thinks of the Muslim rule over Spain in which infidels and Jews were easily tolerated.  I am reminded of the Arab guide who took us on a bus tour of Tangiers pointing out the Christian quarter, the Jewish quarter and the Arab old town.  An American lady piped up to ask how come they hadn't slaughtered each other?  "Ah", said the guide, "We're all too busy making money to bother with that sort of thing!"  Even so, there is much of Islam with which I would disagree but I am a conservative (with a small 'c') and part of me mourns its eventual loss to the forces of (so-called) progress and the scientific rationalism of the West.  I am forced to ask myself if life under the mullahs in Tehran and the enforced adherence to strict Muslim discipline is necessarily worse than life in a British or American city under the brutal indifference of liberal licence?

ADDITIONAL: This is a 'must read' for anyone seeking the subtleties behind Iran's strategic  situation which is a good deal shakier than appears on the surface.  (Thanks again to Alan Sullivan, much more of this and I'll have to start paying him!)

And don't miss 'Spengler's' two links.  The first: Sex, drugs and Islam:

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/KB24Ak02.html

The second: A book review entitled: Predicting the death of Islam:

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/KE05Ak02.html