According to Jerome Corsi on the 6/13/08 edition of "Radio Liberty with Stan Montieth", Obama was intellectually mentored by Saul Alinsky who dedicated his "Rules For Radicals" to Satan. Thus, Obama could in a sense be considered Satan's intellectual grandchild.
Monday, August 18, 2008
Friday, August 15, 2008
China Agitates To Undermine American Liberties
It's bad enough that those living under the heal of tyranny have their God-given rights suppressed, but one expects to hear of this transpiring in less-developed countries that have never really known freedom to begin with. However, things have really gotten out of hand when those living in the United States have to fear for their livelihoods for speaking out against abridgements of liberty occurring overseas.
According to an Associated Press story titled, "Protestors Take CNN To Task Over Commentator's China Remarks", Jack Cafferty observed, "We continue to import their junk with lead paint...and poisoned pet food and export, you know, jobs to places where you can pay workers a dollar a month to turn out stuff we’re buying from Wal-Mart. I think they’re [the Chinese government] the same bunch of goons and thugs they’ve been for the last 50 years.”
So instead of addressing the factuality of the allegations, a group of Chinese Americans took to the streets outside of CNN’s Hollywood office and called for the firing of Jack Cafferty. Of the group, one must question whether its loyalties were to be found with Red China or the United States.
One of the ringleaders is quoted as saying, “We understand free speech.” No, apparently they don’t as Cafferty stated a perfectly legitimate opinion in a non-obscene manner.
In such a situation, one ought to fight back against a claim one does not like by leveling a counterargument against it. However, in this case, the statement cannot be refuted so the only recourse is to appeal to the strong-arm tactics more like those used in Communist countries than those that ought to be considered in the land of the free and the home of the brave.
The Chinese leaders are in Cafferty’s words, “basically the same bunch of goons and thugs they’ve been for the last 50 years."
Are not the leaders of the People’s Republic of China still Communist? Do they still not engage in the same kinds of human rights violations inherent to that sociopolitical philosophy no matter how much they claim to liberalize the economy?
How else other than as goonish or thuggish does one describe a government that blocks its citizens from accessing the Internet unfettered, forbids its citizens the right to affiliate religiously with whomever they please without fear of reprisals, and interferes with the number of children couples are permitted to have?
Distracted by weightier matters such as Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan, many Americans have problems relating to issues and events beyond those directly brought to their attention on the nightly news. Even if that is the case, they still don’t have to stretch their diminished attention spans too greatly to become familiar with the goonishness and thuggery of the Red Chinese.
For as the Olympic torch made its way through Western lands, citizens of the Free World were granted the privilege of experiencing first hand on a small scale the kinds tactics employed by these Eastern despots. Chinese paramilitary units “protecting” the torch laid hands on American and European protestors demonstrating against this regime’s civil rights abuses and even threatened those carrying this global symbol not exactly in a manner how its Marxist caretakers thought it ought to be. I ask you, do these operatives have the right or authority to lay a finger on a single person outside their nation's territorial jurisdiction?
Here we are being told to shut our own mouths out of respect for a foreign society while representatives of this very same society have no intentions of honoring our tradition of dignity and restraint while on our own soil. And don't think this will all blow over with Westerners, particularly Americans, going back to enjoying our God-given right to say what we want about whomever we want.
According to a Reuters story dated 4/28/08 titled "CNN Now Sued For $1.3 Billion --- $1 For Every Person In China", the global network has been slapped with a lawsuit in a New York court by a beautician and elementary school teacher (both of Chinese origins) on the grounds that Cafferty's remarks "insulted all Chinese people and intentionally caused mental harm". One wonders if those shot in the skull by Red Chinese organ harvesters will be allowed to seek recompense for the "mental harm" inflicted upon them by the government there.
Such legal action could result in silencing criticism of Red China not only in areas controlled by these diabolical Communists but even in nations where freedom of speech is suppose to prevail. CNN might be able to stand up to such judicial challenges, but what about the average citizen journalist or blogger?
Yet despite droning on and on about how glorious their homeland happens to be and how we as Westerners are not to pass judgment against the regime ruling over this particular nation and its territory, there is one glaring hypocrisy that has to be pointed out. And here it is: if China is such a swell place that isn't ruled by a bunch of goons and thugs, why are those so eager to rush to its defense living over here rather than contentedly over there?
By Frederick Meekins
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Where Have All The White Folks Gone?
While biologically and ontologically we are all created equal and children of the same loving God, the way many areas no longer having a majority Caucasian influence have gone into decline, one almost cringes to think what the world of 2042 will be like.
Doctor Who Tackles Transgenic Menace
As culture passes through various stages of technological development, the science fiction of a particular point in history often reflects the concerns regarding the horrors discerning intellects at the time feared could possibly be inflicted upon the earth should what is then considered new knowledge get out of hand. For example, throughout the 50's and 60's, speculative literature often focused on the impact of radiation as embodied by the origins of Spider-Man, the Incredible Hulk, and the Fantastic Four.
Though these characters still remain at the forefront of popular culture, in some instances their origins have been slightly reinterpreted to reflect the concerns of the new generation of authors putting their own creative spins on them and to capture the imaginations of a contemporary fan base. For example, in the Spider-Man films, the arachnid conveying its abilities to an unsuspecting Peter Parker is no longer just an average one accidentally bombarded with radiation but rather one deliberately tinkered with at the genetic level that somehow escapes lab captivity.
Though tastes in entertainment may differ on both sides of the Atlantic, it is pretty safe to say that Doctor Who is a venerable sci-fi icon among fans irrespective of their country of origin. Even though I myself am a relatively new fan as classic episodes use to air well past midnight on the local PBS affiliate when I was a youth, much of the appeal of the crumble-coated space-fairing time traveler has been because of the unique manner in which the show's creators project ethical concerns against unique cosmic backdrops and circumstances.
For example, one episode of season three of the revived series dealt with the frustration those of us dwelling in urban areas have to contend with in the form of what seems to be unending traffic congestion. In this story, commuters on what was a second earth set millennia in the future literally spent much of their lives in contraptions that looked like a cross between a flying minivan and a cramped apartment where it could literally take years to travel just a few miles.
Tucked away between that amusing tidbit and a complete singing of "The Old Rugged Cross" that was rendered with such seriousness that one could see tears in the eyes of the characters was another narrative detail that just jumped out at the viewer in tune with where science and philosophy might be headed if concerned people of common sense don't soon put a stop to it. Though the geriatric lesbian couple was shocking enough, their risqué union seemed outdated and quaint in comparison to that between two of the other commuters the Doctor came across.
For in one of the vehicles was a regular looking human woman who was married to an individual half human and half feline in his physiology. As unsettling as that was, viewers were in for an even bigger surprise when the husband beams with pride to the wife and asks her to let the Doctor see the babies. The doting mother returns with kittens that sound like they are meowing “momma”.
The scene alone served as a startling warning of the future we might have to confront if a growing number in the Transhumanist movement have their way. For those whose news diet consists primarily of what gutter Lindsay Lohan puked in the night before, Transhumanism is the movement hypothesizing that human beings must move beyond the limitations inherent to our physiology if we are to proceed to the next stage in our development as a species. Transgenics would be a subset of this movement believing this goal is best accomplished by incorporating characteristics of other organisms into the human genome by essentially engineering an amalgamation on the molecular level of two distinct species.
Proponents of this ontological melding will respond that the family in this episode of Doctor Who was depicted in such a positive light that Transhumanism could easily be seen as a benefit or as at least ethically neutral. However, despite dancing gingerly around the topic in one episode, producers were more blatant in their concerns in the next.
In the episode "Daleks In Manhattan", the Doctor and rebound companion Martha Jones travel back to the Big Apple of the Depression Era. Here they encounter a bit of a mystery intertwining missing transients from a Central Park Hooverville and the construction of the Empire State building. From that point forward, the story begins to parallel events and developments here in our own time more than most of us would be willing to admit.
The Cult of Skaro (think the Dalek version of the Free Masons or Illuminati in that it has been alluded to that this group exists above and beyond the normal authorities of this species in order to facilitate long term reflection regarding galactic domination) co-opts the construction of the Empire State building to use as a genetics research facility. As part of their experiments, the Daleks kidnap the nearby homeless and meld the dimwitted among the captives with porcine DNA to create a hybrid slave race similar in appearance to Jabba the Hutt’s Gomorrean guards in “Return Of The Jedi” or the things that ran Bespin’s carbonite freezing chamber in “The Empire Strikes Back.”
Eventually, the Doctor stumbles upon these pigmen. Interestingly, the pigmen are told by their Dalek overseers to take the Doctor and the captives of higher intelligence to the TRANSGENIC laboratory.
While one may come across science fiction stories where some lunatic tries to create some kind of abomination by fusing together disparate species, seldom has one heard the word “transgentic” bantered about that freely. Viewers then learn that the pigmen are not an end in themselves but rather tests to work the kinks out so that the Daleks might merge with human victims since it has been concluded that such a step is necessary to bring about the next stage in Dalek evolution. From the process emerges a cycloptic monstrosity that even the other Daleks turn against as the result was anathema even anathema to their worldview of destruction and conquest summarized by their Naziesque catchphrase of “EXTERMINATE. EXTERMINATE.”
All well and good for a Friday night's entertainment, but what does this have to do with real life, the unsuspecting might ask. Quite a bit, actually.
For starters, along the fringes, one hears accounts of individuals abducted by nonhuman entities (the origins of which is not relevant to this line of argumentation as one band of researchers sympathetic to this reality claims such beings are biological hailing from elsewhere in the universe while another claims these beings are actually non-corporeal or the offspring of the biological and non-corporeal) for the purposes of amalgamating distinct orders of life.
And even if one does not buy into speculation regarding intelligent life beyond our own, one has to bury one's head deep in the sand to avoid talk these days about proposals to join man and animal on a genetic level. Not long ago, one could easily dismiss such conjecturing as the hyperactive imagination of those who have spent too many hours watching the Sci-Fi Channel. Now though, one sees an increasing number of credentialed scientists with the financial backing of industry, academia, and government that can actually ruin innocent human lives openly discussing these kinds of experiments that will potentially result in hybrid entities such as mice with physiologically human brains and human beings with the wings of birds.
Use to be one would imagine the likes of Dr. Frankenstein prowling around in some dank laboratory or at some ultrasecret government facility. However, now such advocates of deliberate biological deviancy proudly herald their position and hold conferences at prestigious universities where they act like you are the sicko if you don't have a smile plastered across your face about the plans for a generation of intentionally disfigured children.
Now one doesn't even have to turn to obtuse scientific journals printed in exceedingly miniscule typeface read only by a handful of eggheads that have not seen a hairbrush in years. One only needs access to a mainstream newspaper.
According to the Washington Post in a June 24, 2007 piece titled "Making Manimals" by Slate.com correspondent William Saletan, at the moment most efforts at joining human and animal DNA are reasonably modest such as transplanting baboon hearts and pig valves into human subjects in order to keep them alive. However, it would not take too much effort beyond what is possible now to dramatically expand the scope of these endeavors.
Saletan writes, "To make humanized animals really creepy, you'd have to do several things. You increase the ratio of human to animal DNA. You'd transplant human cells that spread throughout the body. You'd do it early in embryonic development so the human cells would shape the animals architecture, not just blend in. You'd grow the embryo to maturity. And you'd start messing with the brain. We're doing all of these things."
Though the author will admit to the general public what is going on, instead of condemning the things such practices might lead to, he turns around and condemns those condemning this technology by casting suspicions on them as those Evangelicals the Washington Post likes to categorize as "poor, uneducated, and easy to command."
Saletan concludes his remarks by saying, "If you want permanent restrictions, your best bet is the senator who tried to impose them two years ago. He's the same presidential candidate now leading the charge against evolution; Sam Brownback, a Kansas Republican. He thinks we're separate from other animals, 'unique in the created order'. Too bad this wasn't true in the past --- and it won't be true in the future."
If that is how the elites of the scientific establishment are coming to feel, that should give all of us hayseeds that happen to think there is something special about the human race cause for concern. For although Saletan and others like him try to make a laughing stock of those opposed to the hobo stew of species amalgamation by insinuating that, as with evolution, only buffoons oppose the process, they are approaching a truth that defenders of this technology may not want to touch. That truth is of course being that without evolution as an operational paradigm (as it is not an established fact at the macro level) transgencis would not be morally permissible.
For if human beings are not "unique in the created order" as the transgenic evolutionists who now hold sway in the halls of corporate, academic and government research now argue, then why should human beings be granted any special rights at all? And in some circles, we probably have even fewer rights as some of the shrill harpies in the animal rights movement who go into apoplexy over a smashed eagle’s egg are often the loudest banshees for the right to hack human babies to pieces.
Initially, these technologies and procedures will be marketed under the banner of medical progress and those opposed will be castigated for their lack of sympathy for the suffering just as those opposed to embryonic stem cell research were cast as being opposed to Superman ever walking again as in the case of Christopher Reeve. Saletan writes, "We're not doing these things because they are creepy. We're doing them because they are logical. The more you humanize animals, the better they serve their purposes as lab models of humanity. That's what's scary about species mixing. It's not some crazy Frankenstein project. It's the future of medicine."
However, it is not like this is where researchers will stop their work out of some reverence for the well being of human beings made in the image of God as this ideal has already been held up for condemnation and ridicule. As even someone as sympathetic to this research as Saletan writes, "When Stanford first head of the proposal for humanized mice brains, they were grossed out. But after thinking it over, they tentatively endorsed the idea and decided that it may not be had to endow mice with some aspects of human consciousness or some human cognitive abilities.” The British Academy and the U.S. National Academy of Sciences have likewise refused to permanently restrict the humanization of animals.
Thus, once the urge to use this technology for legitimate medical applications has reached its limit, there will be little there to prevent its use just a little more and then just a little more. After it is used to bring a handicapped or diseased person back to normal, what is to prevent it from being used to make a perfectly healthy person better beyond what a rational person steeped in Judeo-Christian morality would conclude were God’s initial intentions and specifications?
For example, successfully transferred neurons from an animal to help the paralyzed? All well and good, but if someone does not put a foot down somewhere, what is to prevent the Pentagon from calling up soldiers given the charge of an electric eel?
Ghouls in lab coats want to create such creatures no doubt so the can carry out Dr. Mengle-like experiments. Saletan writes, “Imagine that: a hominid brain network you can treat like a lab animal because it is a lab animal.” The same thing use to no doubt be said about Jews and Black folks in decades past with atrocious consequences.
It is claimed in a New York Times article by Nicholas Wade titled “Chimeras On The Horizon” that, given the 20-day gestation period of a mouse compared to the nearly nine months a human being is baking in the oven, it is doubtful human cognitive abilities would have time to develop. But how can anyone be absolutely certain? To this day, despite the number of books on the subject containing five inch words no average person could possibly pronounce, scientists and philosophers are still not sure of the exact link between the brain and mind, this conundrum so perplexing that it is called the mind/body problem.
In the Wade article, Richard Doerflinger of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops provides probably the soundest advice: “If something were half human and half animal, what would our moral responsibilities be? It might be immoral to kill such a creature. It’s wrong to create creatures whose moral stature we are perplexed about.”
Many times, the unaware viewer sits back and thinks many of the things seen in science fiction could never become a reality. However, if things continue on their current pace, it won’t be long until such tales join the historical chronicle of what has already transpired rather than as a depiction of where things might be headed.
by Frederick Meekins
Though these characters still remain at the forefront of popular culture, in some instances their origins have been slightly reinterpreted to reflect the concerns of the new generation of authors putting their own creative spins on them and to capture the imaginations of a contemporary fan base. For example, in the Spider-Man films, the arachnid conveying its abilities to an unsuspecting Peter Parker is no longer just an average one accidentally bombarded with radiation but rather one deliberately tinkered with at the genetic level that somehow escapes lab captivity.
Though tastes in entertainment may differ on both sides of the Atlantic, it is pretty safe to say that Doctor Who is a venerable sci-fi icon among fans irrespective of their country of origin. Even though I myself am a relatively new fan as classic episodes use to air well past midnight on the local PBS affiliate when I was a youth, much of the appeal of the crumble-coated space-fairing time traveler has been because of the unique manner in which the show's creators project ethical concerns against unique cosmic backdrops and circumstances.
For example, one episode of season three of the revived series dealt with the frustration those of us dwelling in urban areas have to contend with in the form of what seems to be unending traffic congestion. In this story, commuters on what was a second earth set millennia in the future literally spent much of their lives in contraptions that looked like a cross between a flying minivan and a cramped apartment where it could literally take years to travel just a few miles.
Tucked away between that amusing tidbit and a complete singing of "The Old Rugged Cross" that was rendered with such seriousness that one could see tears in the eyes of the characters was another narrative detail that just jumped out at the viewer in tune with where science and philosophy might be headed if concerned people of common sense don't soon put a stop to it. Though the geriatric lesbian couple was shocking enough, their risqué union seemed outdated and quaint in comparison to that between two of the other commuters the Doctor came across.
For in one of the vehicles was a regular looking human woman who was married to an individual half human and half feline in his physiology. As unsettling as that was, viewers were in for an even bigger surprise when the husband beams with pride to the wife and asks her to let the Doctor see the babies. The doting mother returns with kittens that sound like they are meowing “momma”.
The scene alone served as a startling warning of the future we might have to confront if a growing number in the Transhumanist movement have their way. For those whose news diet consists primarily of what gutter Lindsay Lohan puked in the night before, Transhumanism is the movement hypothesizing that human beings must move beyond the limitations inherent to our physiology if we are to proceed to the next stage in our development as a species. Transgenics would be a subset of this movement believing this goal is best accomplished by incorporating characteristics of other organisms into the human genome by essentially engineering an amalgamation on the molecular level of two distinct species.
Proponents of this ontological melding will respond that the family in this episode of Doctor Who was depicted in such a positive light that Transhumanism could easily be seen as a benefit or as at least ethically neutral. However, despite dancing gingerly around the topic in one episode, producers were more blatant in their concerns in the next.
In the episode "Daleks In Manhattan", the Doctor and rebound companion Martha Jones travel back to the Big Apple of the Depression Era. Here they encounter a bit of a mystery intertwining missing transients from a Central Park Hooverville and the construction of the Empire State building. From that point forward, the story begins to parallel events and developments here in our own time more than most of us would be willing to admit.
The Cult of Skaro (think the Dalek version of the Free Masons or Illuminati in that it has been alluded to that this group exists above and beyond the normal authorities of this species in order to facilitate long term reflection regarding galactic domination) co-opts the construction of the Empire State building to use as a genetics research facility. As part of their experiments, the Daleks kidnap the nearby homeless and meld the dimwitted among the captives with porcine DNA to create a hybrid slave race similar in appearance to Jabba the Hutt’s Gomorrean guards in “Return Of The Jedi” or the things that ran Bespin’s carbonite freezing chamber in “The Empire Strikes Back.”
Eventually, the Doctor stumbles upon these pigmen. Interestingly, the pigmen are told by their Dalek overseers to take the Doctor and the captives of higher intelligence to the TRANSGENIC laboratory.
While one may come across science fiction stories where some lunatic tries to create some kind of abomination by fusing together disparate species, seldom has one heard the word “transgentic” bantered about that freely. Viewers then learn that the pigmen are not an end in themselves but rather tests to work the kinks out so that the Daleks might merge with human victims since it has been concluded that such a step is necessary to bring about the next stage in Dalek evolution. From the process emerges a cycloptic monstrosity that even the other Daleks turn against as the result was anathema even anathema to their worldview of destruction and conquest summarized by their Naziesque catchphrase of “EXTERMINATE. EXTERMINATE.”
All well and good for a Friday night's entertainment, but what does this have to do with real life, the unsuspecting might ask. Quite a bit, actually.
For starters, along the fringes, one hears accounts of individuals abducted by nonhuman entities (the origins of which is not relevant to this line of argumentation as one band of researchers sympathetic to this reality claims such beings are biological hailing from elsewhere in the universe while another claims these beings are actually non-corporeal or the offspring of the biological and non-corporeal) for the purposes of amalgamating distinct orders of life.
And even if one does not buy into speculation regarding intelligent life beyond our own, one has to bury one's head deep in the sand to avoid talk these days about proposals to join man and animal on a genetic level. Not long ago, one could easily dismiss such conjecturing as the hyperactive imagination of those who have spent too many hours watching the Sci-Fi Channel. Now though, one sees an increasing number of credentialed scientists with the financial backing of industry, academia, and government that can actually ruin innocent human lives openly discussing these kinds of experiments that will potentially result in hybrid entities such as mice with physiologically human brains and human beings with the wings of birds.
Use to be one would imagine the likes of Dr. Frankenstein prowling around in some dank laboratory or at some ultrasecret government facility. However, now such advocates of deliberate biological deviancy proudly herald their position and hold conferences at prestigious universities where they act like you are the sicko if you don't have a smile plastered across your face about the plans for a generation of intentionally disfigured children.
Now one doesn't even have to turn to obtuse scientific journals printed in exceedingly miniscule typeface read only by a handful of eggheads that have not seen a hairbrush in years. One only needs access to a mainstream newspaper.
According to the Washington Post in a June 24, 2007 piece titled "Making Manimals" by Slate.com correspondent William Saletan, at the moment most efforts at joining human and animal DNA are reasonably modest such as transplanting baboon hearts and pig valves into human subjects in order to keep them alive. However, it would not take too much effort beyond what is possible now to dramatically expand the scope of these endeavors.
Saletan writes, "To make humanized animals really creepy, you'd have to do several things. You increase the ratio of human to animal DNA. You'd transplant human cells that spread throughout the body. You'd do it early in embryonic development so the human cells would shape the animals architecture, not just blend in. You'd grow the embryo to maturity. And you'd start messing with the brain. We're doing all of these things."
Though the author will admit to the general public what is going on, instead of condemning the things such practices might lead to, he turns around and condemns those condemning this technology by casting suspicions on them as those Evangelicals the Washington Post likes to categorize as "poor, uneducated, and easy to command."
Saletan concludes his remarks by saying, "If you want permanent restrictions, your best bet is the senator who tried to impose them two years ago. He's the same presidential candidate now leading the charge against evolution; Sam Brownback, a Kansas Republican. He thinks we're separate from other animals, 'unique in the created order'. Too bad this wasn't true in the past --- and it won't be true in the future."
If that is how the elites of the scientific establishment are coming to feel, that should give all of us hayseeds that happen to think there is something special about the human race cause for concern. For although Saletan and others like him try to make a laughing stock of those opposed to the hobo stew of species amalgamation by insinuating that, as with evolution, only buffoons oppose the process, they are approaching a truth that defenders of this technology may not want to touch. That truth is of course being that without evolution as an operational paradigm (as it is not an established fact at the macro level) transgencis would not be morally permissible.
For if human beings are not "unique in the created order" as the transgenic evolutionists who now hold sway in the halls of corporate, academic and government research now argue, then why should human beings be granted any special rights at all? And in some circles, we probably have even fewer rights as some of the shrill harpies in the animal rights movement who go into apoplexy over a smashed eagle’s egg are often the loudest banshees for the right to hack human babies to pieces.
Initially, these technologies and procedures will be marketed under the banner of medical progress and those opposed will be castigated for their lack of sympathy for the suffering just as those opposed to embryonic stem cell research were cast as being opposed to Superman ever walking again as in the case of Christopher Reeve. Saletan writes, "We're not doing these things because they are creepy. We're doing them because they are logical. The more you humanize animals, the better they serve their purposes as lab models of humanity. That's what's scary about species mixing. It's not some crazy Frankenstein project. It's the future of medicine."
However, it is not like this is where researchers will stop their work out of some reverence for the well being of human beings made in the image of God as this ideal has already been held up for condemnation and ridicule. As even someone as sympathetic to this research as Saletan writes, "When Stanford first head of the proposal for humanized mice brains, they were grossed out. But after thinking it over, they tentatively endorsed the idea and decided that it may not be had to endow mice with some aspects of human consciousness or some human cognitive abilities.” The British Academy and the U.S. National Academy of Sciences have likewise refused to permanently restrict the humanization of animals.
Thus, once the urge to use this technology for legitimate medical applications has reached its limit, there will be little there to prevent its use just a little more and then just a little more. After it is used to bring a handicapped or diseased person back to normal, what is to prevent it from being used to make a perfectly healthy person better beyond what a rational person steeped in Judeo-Christian morality would conclude were God’s initial intentions and specifications?
For example, successfully transferred neurons from an animal to help the paralyzed? All well and good, but if someone does not put a foot down somewhere, what is to prevent the Pentagon from calling up soldiers given the charge of an electric eel?
Ghouls in lab coats want to create such creatures no doubt so the can carry out Dr. Mengle-like experiments. Saletan writes, “Imagine that: a hominid brain network you can treat like a lab animal because it is a lab animal.” The same thing use to no doubt be said about Jews and Black folks in decades past with atrocious consequences.
It is claimed in a New York Times article by Nicholas Wade titled “Chimeras On The Horizon” that, given the 20-day gestation period of a mouse compared to the nearly nine months a human being is baking in the oven, it is doubtful human cognitive abilities would have time to develop. But how can anyone be absolutely certain? To this day, despite the number of books on the subject containing five inch words no average person could possibly pronounce, scientists and philosophers are still not sure of the exact link between the brain and mind, this conundrum so perplexing that it is called the mind/body problem.
In the Wade article, Richard Doerflinger of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops provides probably the soundest advice: “If something were half human and half animal, what would our moral responsibilities be? It might be immoral to kill such a creature. It’s wrong to create creatures whose moral stature we are perplexed about.”
Many times, the unaware viewer sits back and thinks many of the things seen in science fiction could never become a reality. However, if things continue on their current pace, it won’t be long until such tales join the historical chronicle of what has already transpired rather than as a depiction of where things might be headed.
by Frederick Meekins
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Thursday, August 07, 2008
Potty Humor Increases In Popularity
I can understand how one can get sucked in by bawdy humor such as South Park on the idiot box if one lets one's defenses down for a bit as I have fallen into that myself from time to time, however, it is a sad comment on our society when some deliberately seek out and pay for something they know to be filth beforehand.
Wednesday, August 06, 2008
Tuesday, August 05, 2008
Monday, August 04, 2008
Friday, August 01, 2008
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Do The Swansonites Oppose The Right Of Women To Vote?
In this sermon on the nature of law and grace, around the 38 minute mark, Kevin Swanson makes a comment that could easily be interpreted that extending the right to vvote to women ranks among the great evils of the contemporary era and seems to endorse putting sassy teens to death and child labor.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Intellectually Excavating Indiana Jones Unearths Epistemological Artifacts
As a discipline, archaeology examines the artistic and technological remains of various cultures in the attempt to learn more about them. Often from these objects, students learn about more than the subject's material nature but also insight into the beliefs and paradigms important to the human species at a particular time.
Probably the most prominent representative of the discipline in public culture is none other than Indiana Jones, with Stargate's Dr. Daniel Jackson coming in at second. As a narrative itself created at a particular point in time, the Indiana Jones movies themselves can be placed under investigation to unearth what our own culture has believed at various points in recent history as well as the ideas shaping those having such influence over our own society.
Through comparing "The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" and the other films of the Indiana Jones saga, especially with "Raiders of the Lost Ark" and "Indiana Jones & The Last Crusade", one can detect the shifts taking place all around us as to what the broader and popular culture perceives as foundational truth. For example, though the films should not be seen as a systematic theology upon which to base one's faith, "Raiders of the Lost Ark" and "Last Crusade" had at their base Judeo-Christian assumption in that artifacts connected with this tradition, namely the Ark of the Covenant and the Holy Grail (the cup used by Jesus Christ at the Last Supper) were actual historic objects and, since these objects in legend exude a power that cannot be explained by conventional science, one assumes they are connected to the divine.
In the latest film of the series, "Indiana Jones & The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull", ultimate wisdom and power is not seen as originating in a traditional conception of God as in "Raiders Of The Lost Ark" or "Last Crusade" or even in spirits as in "Indiana Jones & The Temple Of Doom". Rather in the latest installment, the source of enlightenment happens to be those entities with the bulbous heads and lanky limbs we have come to know as extraterrestrials whose crystalline skulls in this story can serve as powerful tools through which to augur the future, communicate with these beings, and to gain control of the world. Though an entertaining story, it may have considerable basis in reality --- or at least in the worldviews of its high level producers.
For example, the opening scene with Indy trouncing through the military hanger is set in none other than Area 51 and the top secret project he alludes to working on 10 years prior to the events of the story is none other than the Roswell crash. Some might flippantly dismiss these as urban legends that have taken on lives of their own beyond the significance of any incidents that may have occurred in these locations that now fire the imagination. However, it is pretty hard to ignore the Nazca lines which were not discovered by modern man until the discovery of flight and the existence of a tribe of Indians that mutilated the shape of their skulls to make themselves appear as if they were from beyond this earth.
Even these can be dismissed as historical or anthropological curiosities as human beings have believed or done some rather bizarre things since nearly the dawn of time. The thing is that there are those among the influential who would imbue intelligences from beyond this earth with a metaphysical prominence above that which you would bestow upon someone from another country as being different from but frankly no better ontologically than you ultimately.
While a highly creative individual, to Steven Spielberg, these creatures are much more than imaginative characters or plot elements. Rather, the acclaimed director has had an interest and belief in the paranormal throughout much of his life beyond that of a mere narrative device and he has been reported to have had a number of encounters with the unexplained.
In the movie, the quest was not so much to verify whether or not transterrestrial life simply existed as a biological fact but rather that enlightenment was somehow obtained from these beings and as such they were worthy of the adoration and devotion once reserved for God Himself. As the public comes to embrace this worldview more and more, we are beginning to see a shift from viewing beings like this in a solely naturalistic context of beings from another planet not all that unlike our own to, as in the case of “The Kingdom of The Crystal Skull” as coming from a realm transcendent to our own from what could be referred to as another dimension.
Thus, in essence, in terms of our paradigms, the Western mind has come full circle to an extent but on a less sure footing than when it set out on the quest to comprehend the cosmos in which we find ourselves. It use to be believed that nonhuman intelligences originated from another realm (initially Heaven but tossed out when they followed Lucifer/Satan into rebellion). Then as the West increasingly fell under the spell of what Francis Schaeffer termed “modern modern science” (meaning science opposed to the existence of the spiritual realm) such entities were believed to come from other planets.
However, as the New Age movement has become so entrenched that it is no longer new anymore and prefers even fancier titles such as "cosmic spirituality", now it seems our alleged betters along the path of evolutionary consciousness take on the best and worse depending upon one’s perspective. For example, in the latest Indiana Jones adventure, no longer are the gods of the dawning order disembodied spirits we cannot see but rather posses physical form we can relate to even if it differs vastly from our own. And yet even though they are like us, the also come from a place apart from and above our own so as to avoid banality by providing us with the hope of somewhere possessing a transcendence we can still aspire to.
Those watching “Indiana Jones & The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull” can feel free to do so with a clear conscience as it is primarily an entertaining adventure story. However, as with the protagonist of this series, viewers should take with them the assorted equipment necessary to avoid the pitfalls and traps they are likely to encounter as they undertake an expedition into this realm where imagination intersects belief.
by Frederick Meekins
Raiders news Update Published Indiana Jones Commentary
A word of gratitude to Pastor Tom Horn of RaidersNews for publishing my commentary on "Indiana Jones & The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull."
As the foremost newspage analyzing the intersections of technology, culture, and the paranormal from a Christian perspective, it has always been an honor to be published there.
Monday, July 28, 2008
Novak Diagnosed With Brain Tumor
If the Ted Kennedy case is to serve as precedent, does this mean all the liberals have to now say what a great man Novak is. Shouldn't be too hard; for unlike Kennedy, Novak is not known to have killed anyway despite last week's close call.
Friday, July 25, 2008
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Novak Runsdown Pedestrian
In all fairness though, bicyclists also act like they are superior to the remainder of the human race and immune from both laws and commonsense.
For proof, check out my column "Those Deliberately Playing In Traffic Should Get Runover".
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Pastor Sentenced To Chinese Labor Camp
According to the China Aid Association, Pastor Zhang Zhongxin has been sentenced to two years in a Chinese labor camp by Shandong Province authorities for participation in cultic activities. To American ears, such allegations bring to mind images of passing around poisoned Kool-Aid or of adolescent brides forced to wed lecherous old men; however, in this case this pastor engaged in religious exercises most of us take for granted as harmless as organizing a Sunday school.
Since freedom of religion is listed in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, it is a duty of the United States to stand for this liberty in any way proper or possible around the world.
Radical multiculturalists will respond that it is not the place of the United States to be spreading American notions around the world as this could be construed as imposing Western values on other societies. However, another axiom of the economic age in which we live posits that the customer is always right.
If the government of the People’s Republic of China wishes to continue to benefit from the financial patronage and cooperation of the United States, it is only reasonable for authorities over there to respect certain inalienable rights held by all individuals irrespective of what regime they happen to live under.
After all, firms here seeking to do business with the government in terms of being granted contracts are expected to honor any number of obligations that go beyond basic human rights such as minority quotas and prevailing union wages.
It is the prayer and hope of believers in Christ around the world that Pastor Zhongxin’s sentence would be commuted or suspended because in the contemporary world citizens embracing Christianity bring stability to a nation rather than disruption. Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ assists both individuals and communities in balancing the seemingly conflicting tendencies towards order and liberty, and in so doing actually makes a nation stronger.
In the Western press, considerable debate has taken place as to the prudence of allowing China to host the 2008 Olympic games. With the eyes of the world turning to that particular nation at this time, there would be no better gesture that China could make to prove it takes its responsibility as a leading power of the 21st century seriously than by guaranteeing that citizens within that country’s borders are free to practice their religion without fear of incarceration or reprisals
by Frederick Meekins
Monday, July 21, 2008
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Monday, July 14, 2008
Saturday, July 12, 2008
Friday, July 11, 2008
Thursday, July 10, 2008
The Word "Black" In Ethnically Neutral Contexts Deemed "Racially Insensitive"
Racemonger also denounces Devil's Food and Angel's Food Cake.
Wednesday, July 09, 2008
Tuesday, July 08, 2008
Promient Evangelicals Badmouth Independence Day
I find it interesting how those that love America are to be castigated from setting aside a worship service to reflect upon the blessings we have in this country but just a few days before there was a broadcast of the Albert Mohler program lecturing us fuddie-duddies as to why the church ought to embrace rap and hip-hop music as a way to reach out to the younger crowd.
I cannot speak to the absolute propriety of that but can only observe to me it looks like yet another example to both drive away the elderly and those more with a tendency to think for themselves and simply not to regurgiate what they are told by their eccesliastical and denominational higher-ups.
Monday, July 07, 2008
Hispanosupremacists Infiltrate Evangelical Movement
Minority activists and other guiltmongers often whine that 11 am Sunday morning is often the most segregated hour of the week. I wonder what the we-are-all-one-big family agitators have to say about the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, which bills itself as the National Hispanic Association of Evangelicals.
While prominent Christian leaders are correct that all of mankind descends from one set of parents, interesting, isn’t it, how these speakers only expect Whites of a more Northern European extraction to abide by such radical color-blindness. For if a group of Caucasians a little to wrapped up in their pigmentation ratios established the Nordic Christian Association, it would not be tolerated in contemporary Evangelical circles, and rightfully so.
Yet, in browsing the NHCLC’s website, one finds alliances and linkages with a virtual who’s who of American religion today. On their main page at one time or another have been inks to prominent ministries such as Promise Keepers, Christianity Today, Franklin Graham’s Samaritan’s Purse, and Rod Parsely’s Center for Moral Clarity. Unless otherwise stated, usually such prominent banner placements denote a high degree of fellowship between the partners.
As one probes deeper into the site, one discovers this outfit has conducted theological dialogue with arch apostates such as T.D. Jakes (denier of the Trinity) and Benny Hinn, known for endorsing epilepsy-esque convulsions in the name of the Holy Spirit. Ted Haggard, the former head of the National Association of Evangelicals caught in a scandal involving a gay male prostitute dealing drugs, at one time also came bowing and scrapping before the group in an effort to curry its favor.
But before most weak-willed pew fillers simply shrug their shoulders and flippantly remark, “Well it’s simply God’s will we don’t look at color” perhaps they should be told that it’s doubtful the concerns of the NHCLC are as broadminded and universal in nature as they seem to be giving their socioecclesiastical imprimatur to the Hispanic conquest of the United States.
For in a letter addressed to the President and Congress and in a “Statement of on Comprehensive Immigration Reform”, the NHCLC calls for aliens already living here to be granted permanent legal status, an increase in the numbers of visas granted, and a “viable guest worker program that will strengthen the economic vitality of both employer and employee”. So basically, to use Biblical vernacular, to Sheol with the American people so long as the elites and their new indentured servants are pleased. All you are to any of these people, both in the government and in the clerical class is either someone that pays taxes or tithes.
In their statement, the NHCLC calls for end to all illegal immigration. For those unable to decipher socialistic doublespeak, what this group is calling for is really not all that different than what Communist front groups such as La Raza has called for or the Tri-Lateralists at the highest levels of the State Department.where no one will be illegal anymore when the United States, Mexico, and Canada are merged into a broader hemispheric union where Mexican corruption will pervade, Canadian anti-hate speech tribunals will reign supreme, and America’s constitutional liberties will have been flushed down the sewer pipe like last nights half-digested refried beans.
One of the verses tolerancemongers love to rip out of its original context and toss around the most is “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.” If one’s highest loyalty in this life is to be found with one’s tribe above all else as these ethnocentric ministries seem to insinuate, Hispanics have a lot of cleaning of their own house to do before they go about pointing out the faults of broader America.
Since the NHCLC has now set its sites on condemning the shortcomings of the broader American society, I guess they have finished evangelizing their own community and brought just about all of them to Christ. I guess they have convinced their kinsmen to forsake their carousing ways characterized by public boozing and raucous music and persuaded them to pick up after themselves and not to let their liter lie where it falls. However, from the appearance of many of our suburban neighborhoods, such is clearly not the case.
Another Biblical injunction the Hispanophiles love to invoke is “Oppress not the stranger”. But in comparison how Mexico treats immigrants to that nation, Americans pretty much treats those wantonly violating our borders like virtual kings.
In an April 4, 2006 piece appearing in the Washington Times, Frank Gaffney of the Center for Security Policy exposes the rank hypocrisy of highlighting America’s alleged “mistreatment” of those who don’t even have the right to be here in comparison to how poorly Mexico even treats immigrants there playing by the rules.
For example, according to Gaffney, the Mexican constitution forbids foreigners from expression political opinions on domestic affairs in public (no mass demonstrations as the human debris is allowed to wallow in here in America) and non-native born Mexicans can’t even become lawmakers or cabinet officers (thus no Henry Kissinger or Madeleine Albright). And though we are to fundamentally alter our Constitution in order to stroke Arnold Schwarzenegger’s ego so he can become President, a natural born Mexican citizen cannot become president unless his parents are also natural born Mexican citizens.
Yet in the spirit of multiculturalism and inclusion, we should not be so quick to dismiss all Mexican ways and in a spirit of international brotherhood, perhaps we should adopt some of the policies implemented by the Mexican government. According to Gaffney, Article 11 of the Mexican constitution guarantees protection against undesirable alien residents and Article 16 grants permission for citizens to detain illegals and hand them over to police who in turn authorized to expel them from the country without additional legal action.
And if the NHCLC feels it must speak out against the abuse of the innocent, perhaps they should address the civil rights violations that go in the organization‘s beloved cultural home and. According to Larry Elder, Black Mexicans (Afro-Mexicans?) can be stopped by police and forced to sing the Mexican national anthem as a test of citizenship. But since they are not part of the “la raza” translated as “THE RACE“, the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference probably doesn’t really care.
And those simply made to sing the Mexican Anthem are the lucky ones. Though Hispanics of the world claim to be unified against the United States, they hate one another almost as much as they hate the Yankee. For while the United States is expected to allow anyone in that pops through the door, Mexican officials regularly shoot, abuse, and sexual molest other Latin Americans coming into their nation for the purposes of, to borrow a phrase, “do jobs Mexicans themselves won’t do”.
This animosity among ethnic kinsman raises another interesting point. It is known that eventually most revolutions consume their own. Elitists in radical Hispanic organizations such as in the National Hispanic Leadership Conference, who could be accepted as Caucasians as many are as light complected as Italians or any other kind of White person with a suntan but just can’t pass up those affirmative action and racial preference spoils, should stop and wonder who the swarthier masses are going to turn against when the dreaded gringos no have finally been eliminated and no longer roam the earth?
American Christians concerned about their own futures since we will have to look after ourselves (since obviously no one else, not even our own church leaders intend to anymore) as well as the well being of their own children should think long and hard about who their religious dollars are going to support and under whose teaching they are going to sit. For the motto of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference is “Empowering the Hispanic Church, Engaging the Hispanic Vision and Enriching the Hispanic Dream.”
Where in that is any room for a common American dream, not to mention anyone that is not Hispanic? And if there isn’t, why should the average White Christian, heralded as the bane of earth by every malcontent from Guadalahara, to Los Angles, to Bejing to Baghdad participate in his own demise by either financing it through the collection plate or have to sit there every Sunday morning and be forced to smile about it?
by Frederick Meekins
Tuesday, July 01, 2008
Monday, June 30, 2008
Friday, June 27, 2008
Hinckley's Harem
Frankly, should nutcases be granted "fondling privileges" with other kooks in the looneybin?
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Supreme Court Grants Blessing To Pedophiles
This ruling struck down the death penalty for a child rapist as "cruel and unusual punishment".
Seems to me, child rape is so "cruel and unusual" that this piece of filth would be getting what he deserved if made to sit on "Old Sparky's" lap.
Pastor Insinuates Daters Should Be Put To Death
A series of sermons by an outright kook. And as a borderline kook myself, I know kookery when I hear it.
This pastor believes daters should be put to death as such individuals are whores and fathers should permit their daughters from talking to gentleman callers on the telephone.
According to this fanatic, even "pre-marital sitting next to each other" is an abomination that must be driven from sound churches.
From the tone in these sermons, there is no room for Christian liberty or foregiveness whatsoever with children disagreeing with these principles are to be excommunicated.
This pastor also believes there is nothing wrong in bruising a child when spanking them, even for "offences" as miniscule as bashfulness.
I wonder how long until we hear of this pastor pulling a Jonestown.
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Monday, June 23, 2008
Aussie Cartoon Says Children Must Die To Save The Planet
And you thought the Islamist "Jihad Mickey" was bad.
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
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