Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Blacks Riot To Avoid Going To School With Other Blacks
Yet we Whites are expected to have a smile plastered across our faces over such a scholastic prospect.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Glenn Beck Announces He Might Be Going Blind
No doubt the same liberals who insist that you undermine the Republic and promote racism if you consider Obama anything other than lord and savior will no doubt ridicule this they way they mocked Tony Snow's cancer.
Obama Spends Tax Dollars To Establish Abortion & Islamic Law In Kenya
And bet you the abortions aren't targetting the Muslims.
Monday, July 19, 2010
If Glenn Beck correctly points out the similarities between Obama's policies and Communism and Nazism, then why is it wrong for a group of Tea Party activists to do so with a billboard? Guess Tea Party luminaries don't think you should be permitted to exercise your own free thought and speech until you are a Fox News millionaire as well.
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Just learned from a Christian Reconstructionist how we are never to go through an emotionally down period about anything. So, if their ilk ever siezed power, not only will we have to hold membership in their Calvinistic churches in order to enjoy the rights of citizenship, I guess they will send "happy police" around ...to ascertain if the smiles plastered across our faces are irritatingly broad enough.
Friday, July 16, 2010
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Congress Threatens To Raise Retirement Age
Yet their own lavish retirement benefits will no doubt remain uncut even though most are already millionaires to begin with.
A percentage of hardcore fundamentalists condemn Mel Gibson's "The Passion Of The Christ" as a graven image because the actor portraying the title role isn't really Jesus. If so, wouldn't it also be idolatry to have a dramatic reading of the words of Jesus or to even read the text aloud in the privacy of one's own home because the voice enunciating the words isn't really the voice of Christ?
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Boycott The Boycotters
Most Americans are no doubt aware of the tragedy of the oil slick coating the Gulf Coast from the damaged petroleum rig. What they might not be aware of is the attitude among elites of how we as citizens and consumers are simply to go along with whatever position they craft as a response regarding the matter.
A headline from the 5/25/10 online edition of the Washington Post bemoans "For Some Washington Drivers, Convenience Outweighs Calls For BP Gas Boycott”. The story laments the tendency of certain consumers who “...prioritize convenience over taking a moral or political stand.”
For starters, in this day where it is constantly pounded into our heads that no one is to impose their views on any one else or to even dare to suggest that certain values might be superior to others, on what grounds are we expected to do something because someone with no real binding authority over us tells us to?
Many of the rabblerousers behind the BP boycott are some of the same nags behind the boycott of the state of Arizona regarding the immigration law. Yet these crusaders would turn around and become moral libertines if some pro-family coalition organized a boycott of states such as Vermont authorizing sodomite matrimony.
In all fairness, busybody progressives are not the only ones to use boycotts not so much in pursuit of a policy objective but rather to exert power and control over their respective constituencies.
I remember in the early 90’s in some Christian circles how an edict was handed down how the truly spiritual wouldn’t shop at K-Mart because at the time its B. Dalton Booksellers subsidiary was selling a line of erotic novels. From the vehemence behind the pronouncement, one almost feared the possibility of expulsion from the more doctrinally rigorous Christian schools if it was discovered that was where one’s parents shopped every once in a while.
It is a good thing to have as much information as possible as to the implications of one’s socioeconomic decisions. However, when an interest group advances beyond the function of conveying information regarding a perfectly legal and acceptable product to demanding that a certain action be taken in response to the purveyors of the product for reasons tangential rather than inherent to the particular product in question and threaten with sanction or approbation those deciding not to go along with the particular campaign, the group presenting the overly enthusiastic warning may also require additional scrutiny as a threat to our liberty.
by Frederick Meekins
A headline from the 5/25/10 online edition of the Washington Post bemoans "For Some Washington Drivers, Convenience Outweighs Calls For BP Gas Boycott”. The story laments the tendency of certain consumers who “...prioritize convenience over taking a moral or political stand.”
For starters, in this day where it is constantly pounded into our heads that no one is to impose their views on any one else or to even dare to suggest that certain values might be superior to others, on what grounds are we expected to do something because someone with no real binding authority over us tells us to?
Many of the rabblerousers behind the BP boycott are some of the same nags behind the boycott of the state of Arizona regarding the immigration law. Yet these crusaders would turn around and become moral libertines if some pro-family coalition organized a boycott of states such as Vermont authorizing sodomite matrimony.
In all fairness, busybody progressives are not the only ones to use boycotts not so much in pursuit of a policy objective but rather to exert power and control over their respective constituencies.
I remember in the early 90’s in some Christian circles how an edict was handed down how the truly spiritual wouldn’t shop at K-Mart because at the time its B. Dalton Booksellers subsidiary was selling a line of erotic novels. From the vehemence behind the pronouncement, one almost feared the possibility of expulsion from the more doctrinally rigorous Christian schools if it was discovered that was where one’s parents shopped every once in a while.
It is a good thing to have as much information as possible as to the implications of one’s socioeconomic decisions. However, when an interest group advances beyond the function of conveying information regarding a perfectly legal and acceptable product to demanding that a certain action be taken in response to the purveyors of the product for reasons tangential rather than inherent to the particular product in question and threaten with sanction or approbation those deciding not to go along with the particular campaign, the group presenting the overly enthusiastic warning may also require additional scrutiny as a threat to our liberty.
by Frederick Meekins
Before denouncing the Tea Party movement as racist, shouldn't the NAACP expunge this epistemological tendency within itself. Is its "One Nation" counter rally going to renounce minority set asides and the denigration of White folks as epitomized by the Black Panther terrorists that Eric Holder let off scott free?
Monday, July 12, 2010
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Friday, July 09, 2010
Illegal Boatpeople Now Referred To As "Seafaring Immigrants"
Makes them sound like the Phonecian mariners of the ancient Mediterranean
Many Disability Pensions Faked
If they want to be treated like everybody else, why shouldn't cripples pay taxes as well?
Wednesday, July 07, 2010
The Bronx Turned Into A Mexican Ghetto
Though the word "decline" would make for a more dramatic headline, that part of the city was never much to begin with.
Tuesday, July 06, 2010
Because the California State Legislature has failed to pass a budget, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has reduced the salaries of state employee’s to minimum wage levels. In turn, will the mandatory employee contributions to their assorted benefit programs be reduced accordingly? Furthermore, if an employee is to have their salary reduced to minimal levels, they should in turn put in the minimal effort.
Monday, July 05, 2010
Lessons In Apologetics #2: Rationalism & Fideism
The next epistemological methodology is rationalism. Of rationalism, Geisler writes, "Rationalism is characterized by its stress on the innate a priori ability of human reason to know truth. Basically, rationalists hold that what is knowable or demonstrable by human reason is true (29)." To the rationalist, the mind takes precedence over experience and the information acquired through the senses as a foundation for truth and knowledge.
In a rationalist methodology, there exists in the mind a number of innate ideas or principles that allow the individual to arrive at an understanding of the universe. These include principles of logic such as the law of noncontradiction. It is from contemplation upon ideas generated through reflection upon such foundational principles that the thinker is able to postulate systems of truth in a manner reminiscent of mathematics and geometry.
For example, in his system, Descartes started from his "cogito, ergo, sum (I think, therefore I am)" as his ability to doubt was the one thing he could not doubt. From here, Descartes built a theistic proof.
Descartes begins this with the admission that, since he lacks knowledge, he is imperfect. However, to realize one is imperfect, one must have knowledge that perfection exists. Yet perfection cannot arise from within the imperfect. Therefore, there must be a perfect mind from which perfection originates and this is God (31).
An apologetic utilizing the rationalist approach possesses a number of strengths as well as drawbacks. As to its strengths, the rationalist method stresses a consistency of reality.
It follows that a rational God would create a universe that regularly operates in accord with verifiable laws that we as His creations would be able to arrive at through deliberative contemplation. As rationalists posit, the mind to an extent must possess some kind of mental architecture to process the jumble of sense experiences the individual is bombarded with almost constantly. Even Scripture indicates that part of man's knowledge regarding God and His character is innate as Romans says that even the Gentiles, who were not formally given the Law in the same direct manner as their Hebrew counterparts, still had many aspects of the Law written upon their hearts.
Despite the strengths of the rationalist approach to apologetics, the methodology is not without drawbacks. The foremost is the acknowledgement that it can be argued that the rationally consistent does not always translate into the realm of necessarily actual and does not provide the bedrock certainty its advocates claim. For example, regarding the ontological argument, Geisler notes, "But it is not logically necessary for a necessary Being to exist anymore than it is for a triangle to exist...But the point here is that there is no purely logical way to eliminate the 'if' (43)."
Of the next religious epistemology, fideism, Geisler writes, "In view of the fact that empiricism led to skepticism...and that rationalism cannot rationally demonstrate its first principles, fideism becomes a more reliable option in religious epistemology. Perhaps there is no rational or evidential way to establish Christianity (47)." Thus fideism holds that truth in religious matters rests on an accepting faith rather than a critical scrutiny.
As with the other methodologies, fideism comes in a variety shades. On its more moderate side, one finds Blaise Pascal. At the more extreme end of the spectrum, one would find the likes of Karl Barth.
As a fideist, one might find Pascal a bit subdued. Though one would assume reason had no place in fideism, Pascal did not dismiss rational appeals outright. He just did not build his foundation or case upon them. Of Pascal's position, Geisler writes, "A proof at best may be the instrument by which God places faith in one's heart (49)."
Thus, the real difference between Pascal and the rationalist was basically a differing estimation in what each thought reason could achieve. To the rationalist, the thinker is able to deduce their way to a logically irrefutable foundation for a belief in God. To Pascal, such proofs were not absolutely conclusive and the chasm separating doubt and certainty had to be crossed by a bridge of faith.
Since at best, in the mind of Pascal, the individual is left with a fifty/fifty chance regarding the existence of God, the matter did not come down to a dispassionate calculation but rather to a matter of personal existential destiny best summarized by his famous wager (49). According to this wager, if the odds as to whether or not God exists are about even, one is better off believing God exists and then be proven wrong since upon death you would merely pass out of existence than to say God does not exist and then be proven wrong upon death as then one would end up in Hell.
At the other end of fideism's spectrum stands the Neo-Orthodox such as Karl Barth. According to Barth, God is "wholly other" in that God can only be known through faith in revelation. Geisler summarizes Barth's position as such: "We do not know the Bible is God's Word by any objective evidence. It is a self-attesting truth (54)." Thus to the Barthian, the accounts contained in the Bible transpired on a plane beyond the parameters of objective, investigative history. One either accepts them by faith or one does not. Therefore, the believer does not have to answer and is immune from those such as the Higher Critics claiming to apply the rigors of scholarship to the scriptural texts in the hopes of either authenticating or discrediting these documents.
As with rationalism, fideism has both strengths and drawbacks. Fideists are to be commended for holding that the God of the Bible is much more than the God of mathematics. Though there is merit in the attempt to prove that belief in God does not violate reason and logic, there is a great danger in reducing God to the level of a distant first cause not all that interested in how human beings live their daily lives. Fidesits are also correct that ultimately, no matter how much evidence one might collect or how many syllogisms one might be able to deduce, one has to make a leap of faith over those gaps of doubt that remain no matter how small they might be.
Yet despite the strength of their methodology, it has shortcomings as well. Foremostly, fideism makes it very difficult to engage in a debate or discussion with someone holding to another worldview if one must accept a comprehensive system of faith solely by faith without evaluating between them with some agreed upon criteria. Geisler writes, "...either a fideist offers a justification for his belief or else he does not. If he does not, then as unjustified belief it has no rightful claim to knowledge (63)."
Source:
Geisler, Norman. "Christian Apologetics". Baker Academic, 1988.
by Frederick Meekins
In a rationalist methodology, there exists in the mind a number of innate ideas or principles that allow the individual to arrive at an understanding of the universe. These include principles of logic such as the law of noncontradiction. It is from contemplation upon ideas generated through reflection upon such foundational principles that the thinker is able to postulate systems of truth in a manner reminiscent of mathematics and geometry.
For example, in his system, Descartes started from his "cogito, ergo, sum (I think, therefore I am)" as his ability to doubt was the one thing he could not doubt. From here, Descartes built a theistic proof.
Descartes begins this with the admission that, since he lacks knowledge, he is imperfect. However, to realize one is imperfect, one must have knowledge that perfection exists. Yet perfection cannot arise from within the imperfect. Therefore, there must be a perfect mind from which perfection originates and this is God (31).
An apologetic utilizing the rationalist approach possesses a number of strengths as well as drawbacks. As to its strengths, the rationalist method stresses a consistency of reality.
It follows that a rational God would create a universe that regularly operates in accord with verifiable laws that we as His creations would be able to arrive at through deliberative contemplation. As rationalists posit, the mind to an extent must possess some kind of mental architecture to process the jumble of sense experiences the individual is bombarded with almost constantly. Even Scripture indicates that part of man's knowledge regarding God and His character is innate as Romans says that even the Gentiles, who were not formally given the Law in the same direct manner as their Hebrew counterparts, still had many aspects of the Law written upon their hearts.
Despite the strengths of the rationalist approach to apologetics, the methodology is not without drawbacks. The foremost is the acknowledgement that it can be argued that the rationally consistent does not always translate into the realm of necessarily actual and does not provide the bedrock certainty its advocates claim. For example, regarding the ontological argument, Geisler notes, "But it is not logically necessary for a necessary Being to exist anymore than it is for a triangle to exist...But the point here is that there is no purely logical way to eliminate the 'if' (43)."
Of the next religious epistemology, fideism, Geisler writes, "In view of the fact that empiricism led to skepticism...and that rationalism cannot rationally demonstrate its first principles, fideism becomes a more reliable option in religious epistemology. Perhaps there is no rational or evidential way to establish Christianity (47)." Thus fideism holds that truth in religious matters rests on an accepting faith rather than a critical scrutiny.
As with the other methodologies, fideism comes in a variety shades. On its more moderate side, one finds Blaise Pascal. At the more extreme end of the spectrum, one would find the likes of Karl Barth.
As a fideist, one might find Pascal a bit subdued. Though one would assume reason had no place in fideism, Pascal did not dismiss rational appeals outright. He just did not build his foundation or case upon them. Of Pascal's position, Geisler writes, "A proof at best may be the instrument by which God places faith in one's heart (49)."
Thus, the real difference between Pascal and the rationalist was basically a differing estimation in what each thought reason could achieve. To the rationalist, the thinker is able to deduce their way to a logically irrefutable foundation for a belief in God. To Pascal, such proofs were not absolutely conclusive and the chasm separating doubt and certainty had to be crossed by a bridge of faith.
Since at best, in the mind of Pascal, the individual is left with a fifty/fifty chance regarding the existence of God, the matter did not come down to a dispassionate calculation but rather to a matter of personal existential destiny best summarized by his famous wager (49). According to this wager, if the odds as to whether or not God exists are about even, one is better off believing God exists and then be proven wrong since upon death you would merely pass out of existence than to say God does not exist and then be proven wrong upon death as then one would end up in Hell.
At the other end of fideism's spectrum stands the Neo-Orthodox such as Karl Barth. According to Barth, God is "wholly other" in that God can only be known through faith in revelation. Geisler summarizes Barth's position as such: "We do not know the Bible is God's Word by any objective evidence. It is a self-attesting truth (54)." Thus to the Barthian, the accounts contained in the Bible transpired on a plane beyond the parameters of objective, investigative history. One either accepts them by faith or one does not. Therefore, the believer does not have to answer and is immune from those such as the Higher Critics claiming to apply the rigors of scholarship to the scriptural texts in the hopes of either authenticating or discrediting these documents.
As with rationalism, fideism has both strengths and drawbacks. Fideists are to be commended for holding that the God of the Bible is much more than the God of mathematics. Though there is merit in the attempt to prove that belief in God does not violate reason and logic, there is a great danger in reducing God to the level of a distant first cause not all that interested in how human beings live their daily lives. Fidesits are also correct that ultimately, no matter how much evidence one might collect or how many syllogisms one might be able to deduce, one has to make a leap of faith over those gaps of doubt that remain no matter how small they might be.
Yet despite the strength of their methodology, it has shortcomings as well. Foremostly, fideism makes it very difficult to engage in a debate or discussion with someone holding to another worldview if one must accept a comprehensive system of faith solely by faith without evaluating between them with some agreed upon criteria. Geisler writes, "...either a fideist offers a justification for his belief or else he does not. If he does not, then as unjustified belief it has no rightful claim to knowledge (63)."
Source:
Geisler, Norman. "Christian Apologetics". Baker Academic, 1988.
by Frederick Meekins
Saturday, July 03, 2010
Was pointed out on this week's MacLaughlin Group that eventually Social Security cards will be required to contain finger prints and retinal scan. Why not include an anal smear as well? Interesting how Americans will be forced to comply with this but the nation is on the verge of a civil war simply because one state has enacted a law requiring those apprehended by police produce documentation proving they are in the country legally.
Was a hardbutt vet on NatGeoWild's "Swamp Men". Didn't tell the wildlife refuge rescuer that the owl was put down until after the fact without consulting them. Since the government, especially the Obama Administration, doesn't see you as much above an animal, once his healthcare reform kicks into high gear, that's the way doctors and medical bureaucrats are going to treat our loved-ones and elderly.
Friday, July 02, 2010
The American Bar Association has denounced the Arizona Immigration Law as "racist". Isn't it logically inconsistent for this group of lawyers to come out in opposition to a statute saying who is allowed to be in America and what documentation validates that status while that guild promulgates regulations saying who can practice law and the paperwork governing such?
The American Bar Association has denounced the Arizona Immigration Law as "racist". Isn't it logically inconsistent for this group of lawyers to come out in opposition to a statute saying who is allowed to be in America and what documentation validates that status while that guild promulgates regulations saying who can practice law and the paperwork governing such?
McLaren is a nut. In his interview on Issues Etc, he characterized purchasing food in a grocerry store as being complicit in cultural accomodation. Though his Burtonsville compound is in what was once the more rural suburbs of the DC area, it doesn't exactly look to be self sustainining nor McLaren a burly agricultural type.
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