Saturday, June 26, 2010
Saw an academic journal with the words "Black Heritage" printed on it. Since the "B" was capitalized, are the tolerancemongers on the social bookmarking sites going to ask if there is a racial chip on the shoulder of whoever wrote that, call into question the quality of the person's scholastic credentials, and insinuate that the author's First Amendment rights should be revoked?
Friday, June 25, 2010
Airline Forces Girls To Ditch Turtle
Parks To Eliminate Outhouses
Welfare Spent In California Casinos
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Contrary to what Albert Mohler insinuates, why is it the fault of men these days that uppity women are so materialistic that they won't marry someone that they look down their noses at along the occupational hierarchy? Interesting he never has any guilt to load upon women thinking they are too good to work within the home.
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Val Kilmer Loses Spines & Apologizes For Failing To Enunciate Communally Enforced Delusions
These anal retentive Internet commenters that find it logical to invalidate an essay based on a handful of spelling errors overlooked by a chronically tired eye are the same ones that celebrate the mush-mouthed grunts of Black ghetto youth as a beautiful dialect or insist that Hispanic illegals be allowed to fill out welfare applications in their native Spanish.
Mexico Joins Lawsuit Insisting Arizona Immigration Law Is Unconstitutional
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Maybe what I write is riddled with typographic errors. Maybe if these grammar fetishists had only a single, partially functioning eye strained by the end of the day, perhaps their own columns wouldn't be quite so pristine. O, wait, they don't write any. They only nitpick the technicalities of others.
I guess for not enthusiastically embracing polytheism, I have been accused of talking like a toaster. I suppose that was a Battlestar Galactica reference since toaster was slang for a Cylon. For the record, I think I am more a Gauis Baltar. He said, "Just because I might be crazy doesn't mean I'm not right."
Interesting how Blacks and Hispanics can capitalize the first letter of their respective racial designation but I have been labelled as “a stupid racist asshole” for extending the same respect towards the word “White”. Don’t like my use of a mild profanity? I am just letting you know the disdain out there for WHITE Americans.
Monday, June 21, 2010
Lessons In Apologetics, Part 1: Introduction & Agnosticism
For anyone pursuing a degree in Apologetics that was given a dollar for every time they were asked "What is that, learning how to say you are sorry" upon answering the question of what it is that they study so many times, many would have financed a considerable portion of their academic pursuits. Unfortunately, such ignorance as to what exactly this theological discipline entails symbolizes the neglect the defense of the faith has fallen into in the contemporary church and is one of the reasons that everywhere the believer and student of religion turns today they find Christianity losing considerable ground both within and without its boundaries to a wide variety of opponents and adversaries. To the serious student of this field of study, one of the best tools around which to build a fundamental understanding of the discipline's ins and outs is "Christian Apologetics" by Norman Geisler, one of the field's foremost living practitioners.
Basic to any academic discipline is the approach or methodology which scholars and researchers apply to the subject matter. The field of Apologetics is no different. Geisler lists the methodologies to knowledge in general and about God in particular as agnosticism, rationalism, fideism, experientialism, evidentialism, pragmatism, and combinationalism. In the course of his analysis, Geisler evaluates each in terms of their epistemology regarding religious matters and how these approaches stack up under the weight of being scrutinized by their own criteria.
The first approach to knowledge of God is agnosticism. Coined by T.H. Huxley, the term agnosticism means "no knowledge" and thus contends one is unable to know anything about God (13).
Agnosticism is itself divided into two branches. The one holds that not yet enough conclusive evidence pointing in one direction or the other regarding the existence of God has been gathered. The other holds that God is not knowable.
Of the agnostics that claim God is not knowable, this claim is based upon their understanding of the nature of knowledge. Drawing upon David Hume's Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding and A.J. Ayers' Language, Truth, & Logic, these agnostics have divided the tree of actual knowledge into two branches.
The first variety of valid statements are analytic statements meaning they are valid by the terms of their definitions. For example, all bachelors are unmarried. The second type of valid statements are known as synthetic and are what we would refer to as matters of fact as they are about empirically gathered data (17).
Geisler writes of the agnostic views regarding talk about God, "For the term 'God' is neither analytic nor synthetic; that is, it is neither offered by the theist as an empty contentless definition corresponding to nothing in reality nor is it filled with empirical content since 'God' is allegedly a supraempirical being. Hence, it is literally nonsense to talk about God (18)."
To the aspiring apologist hoping to present an objective case for the Christian faith beyond how warm and fuzzy Jesus makes their innards, it may seem that the agnostic methodology has struck an early and potentially crippling blow to this noble effort. However, a bit of careful reflection may even the scales once more between the agnostic and the Christian.
The lofty sounding name given to this epistemology of language is the Verification Principle. If the Christian turns the Verification Principle back on itself, one sees it is self-referentially incoherent as the concept cannot live up to its own criteria as the Verification Principle is neither purely definitional or merely a statement of fact.
Thus to remain consistent, the agnostic must admit that, since our knowledge of the empirical and metaphysical realms is limited, by definition of man's own finitude, this understanding cannot be totally comprehensive. Of those unwilling to admit God may exist in those reaches man cannot fully fathom, Geisler writes, "And there is simply no way short of omniscience that one can make such sweeping and categorical statements about reality...Hence total agnosticism is only self-defeating. Only an omniscient mind could be totally agnostic and finite men do not possess omniscience (27)."
By Frederick Meekins
Source:
Geisler, Norman. "Christian Apologetics". Baker Academic, 1988.
Clinton Pimp Out Chelsea's Wedding Reception
Life Jacket Regulations Deemed More Vital Than Saving Animals & Livelihoods
Saturday, June 19, 2010
Though the armed forces need to be respected for the role they play in defending the people of the United States, that does not mean that individual members of those respective services exist in a metaphysical realm beyond the propriety of civilian analysis and criticism especially in regards to matters not directly related to the military.
Friday, June 18, 2010
Deadbeats Rampage In California Streets
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Lieberman Wants To Abolish The Internet
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Is Bristol Palin Back As Her Baby Daddy's Concubine?
Wonder if she mentions in her $10,000 speeches on abstinence how they are shacking up some nights now.
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Olympics Subtly Lure Tots Into Paganism's Embrace
For example, in an audio commentary I noted the blatant paganism at the 2006 games in Greece where the ancient gods were not so much depicted as curiosities of mankind’s religious history with the possibility of a few moral axioms derivable occasionally from these myths when approached as literature. Rather, adoration of these entities was approached as a viable system of belief around which humanity could draw ongoing sustain inspiration moving the world towards cultural unification.
For the most part, such ideological manipulation was aimed largely at a generalized audience irrespective of age. Now it seems Olympic organizers may have more carefully targeted their indoctrination efforts towards children.
During each Olympiad, mascots are created as appealing embodiments of each unique set of games. For example, the 1984 Olympics held in Los Angeles were represented by Sam the Olympian, a bald eagle clad in red, white, and blue which alluded to Uncle Same and the highest ideals of the American people.
It has been a quarter of a century since then and the practice continues. It is doubtful, though, parents with a lick of sense about them will be as enthusiastic about what is being pushed now as adorable imaginative companions.
The first outrage is really more economic than anything else. Though cluttered over with all the nauseating sentiments about international cooperation and competition being the focal point of the games, ultimately under the banner of these spectacles, significant amounts of money changes hands.
No doubt, nice checks went to the firms and/or artists creating the mascots of the Vancouver games. What the artists this time deserve are gold metals for the least amount work possible going into the artistic rendering of an Olympiad’s mascots.
For example, Sam the Olympian was rendered with the skill, precision, and appeal for which 20th century Disney characters were noted and adored for by the public. One does not need to go into a lengthy backstory to figure out what Sam the Eagle is and what he stands for.
This is not the case of the mascots of the Vancouver winter Olympics. In fact, the firm that designed the characters should have been paid no more for these rendering than one would a doodler in a high school art class. In the high school art class I was enrolled in, one would have received a grade not much above passing had one handed in something looking as ridiculous and simplistic.
What becomes really questionable, however, is in regards to what the mascots represent. The following comes not from conservative or even Christian fundamentalist conspiracy theorists, but rather from the Wikipedia entry for the 2010 Winter Olympic and Paraolympic Games mascots.
Of the trio, the most realistic is a Sasquatch named “Quatchi”. That isn’t too bad as for decades as the Sasquatch or Bigfoot has been a cryptozoological celebrity of the Pacific Northwest.
However, it today’s world, it’s never enough to let characters be huggable and adorable in and of themselves. Why waste an opportunity to manipulate young minds away from the values decent parents are trying to inoculate into their children?
Those that look closer at Quatchi will notice that there is a tattoo on his bicep. With over a third of the population mutilated and defaced in this fashion, do children of the world really need additional peer pressure as to this questionable form of bodily ornamentation?
The free spirit who are of a live-and-let-live mindset regarding every questionable practice with the exception of questioning the live-and-let-live mindset will respond, "Why are you fuddiduddies making such a production out of a simple tattoo that no one is going to notice?"
Oh really? If the bio-graffiti was not going to be noticed by spectators, the why did the artist take the time to add this particular design element? It takes so long to produce a finished artistic work that has to go through multiple editorial reviews that it is doubtful that any detail would be overlooked. And if the marking is not there for any particular reason, then why does it need to be there at all?
However, a tattoo strategically placed upon a mascot is not the only aspect about these characters designed to subconsciously lead Western children away from the values of their forefathers. For even though the games are presented as belonging to the world, only Westerners of a multiculturalist inclination would be deluded into thinking that Westerners wouldn’t be the only ones with enough leisure time to soak up the ambiance of the games as well as enough disposable income for all of the assorted trinkets pushed at spectators. After all, though they might excel at warm weather sports such as running, sub-Saharan Africans aren't exactly renowned for their alacrity to ice and snow.
The other mascot of the Olympics Proper is Miga, a mystical sea bear that is part orca and part kermode bear. In other words, unless the poor creature is languishing in a laboratory somewhere, which one shouldn't put past some deranged geneticist just for the Sheol of it these days, it doesn't exist.
Perhaps the most questionable mascot is Sumi. According to Wikipedia, Sumi is "an animal guardian spirit with the wins of a Thunderbird and the legs of a black bear who wears the hat of an orca whale." In other words, it is a mishmashed critter that likes to cross dress.
Though there are numerous jokes that could be made about these two, the important issue is the role guardian spirits and orcas that transform into white bears play in American Indian mythology and belief systems. From as much hoopla that is being made about so-called "native populations" of the Pacific Northwest, one would assume that not Whites lived there or at least ones that did not go around with their shoulders slouched and their heads hunched for simply being White. Since Whites pay taxes too and are less likely to be on the public dole, shouldn't they get some kind of honorable mention for contributing to the culture or at least the economy of the area?
Olympic organizers are no doubt playing up the animistic belief of the area's history for the very same reason that the Athens Olympiad played up that culture's pagan past. For the thing with the amorphous religiosity of the New Age movement under which both Greco-Roman paganism and American Indian shamanism both find acceptance is the idea that the realm of the spirit is coterminous with the physical world. As such, in this system, there can be no authority higher than the earthly institutions that embrace such a mindset.
As an antithetical perspective, monotheism cannot be countenanced since its God exists transcendent to the socio-physical order. God decrees what is and is not right and good. He does not take the findings of committees into consideration and as such the authority of any committee is circumscribed by Him.
This column should not be construed as a blanket condemnation of the imagination. For as a fan of speculative fiction myself, I don’t even hop on the anti-Harry Potter bandwagon with the unreserved enthusiasm demanded by many rigorous theologians and Bible scholars.
Rather, what is being called for here is a notion of epistemological equality. It is quite obvious that a mascot with a Christian or even Hebraic background or origins would not be put up with.
At the Copenhagen Global Warming Summitt, though the God of the Bible had the last laugh as He socked the proceedings with a blizzard, theophobes complained about evergreens planted in front of the conference center because some kook might misconstrue them as Christmas trees. The trees had to be removed in order to prevent any appearance of an endorsement of any particular religion at a UN function. Yet these very same environmental bureaucrats would support multiple layers of laws and regulations ranging all the way from international treaties down to the minutest municipal statutes that would prevent you from removing trees from your very own property.
Proponents of the Olympic games might claim the festival is all about friendly competition and the pursuit of athletic excellence. Realists will point out that it has just as much or even more to do with money and power.
At the global level, the boundaries between government and big business grow increasingly blurred. Thus, at some point in terms of either direct sponsorship or roundabout subsidies, taxpayers around the world are at some level financing the Olympic games out of their own pockets.
Often, even if there is minimal public money flowing into a government agency or even a private organization, these administrative entities must go out of their way to guarantee that they in no way exhibit any kind of preference for one religious system or spiritual belief over another. This standard is especially applied to Christianity.
Though initially founded as a celebration in adoration of heathen idols, theoretically the contemporary Olympic games could be held strictly as a secular competition in terms of philosophical neutrality if its administrators distanced the celebration from its questionable past and stuck to officiating races. Whatever path is decided upon, it will be a deliberate choice.
If those trusted with overseeing this event insist upon pursuing a manipulative mysticism, those redeemed by the one true God should first and foremost boldly warn what is rally going on beneath all the pageantry and excitement. Only then is the individual able to make a truly informed decision in keeping with their conscience.
by Frederick Meekins