Keep Your Filthy Quotes Away From My Research, You Damned, Dirty Christian!

Great Gagdad Bob post.

Folks Who Think Medievals Believed In A Flat Earth Resemble The Flat Earthers They Think The Medievals Were, But Actually Weren't

Mark Shea:

Everybody Knows that Medievals Believed in a Flat Earth

Guess what?

Everybody is wrong.

One of the most marvelous things about Modernity is it's simultaneous ability to laugh at the small-mindedness of our ignorant medieval forbears combined with its utter inability to conceive of the possibility that it is almost preternaturally small-minded and ignorant about medievals.

Dante Alighieri was a medieval Italian poet who lived 1265-1321. Here's a map of the earth as portrayed in Dante's Divine Comedy:

[graphic]

Quick quiz: Is the shape of the earth

1. Flat?
2. Round?

Moral: A huge amount of what moderns "know" about medieval Catholicism is what various Enlightenment era types tell them and they believe with perfect, childlike faith. That's the only explanation for why an allegedly educated modern population could think of the period that gave us the hospital, the university, the foundations of Western democratic rule, the nation-state, the birth of the scientific era, and an unprecedented outburst of theological and artistic creativity the "Dark Ages".

Keep The Mass In Christmas

This is good. H/T Mark Shea.

Anti-Jihad Rapcore Video

Pretty good. Naturally, YouTube, who doesn't seem to have too much trouble with pro-Jihad videos, is doing what it can to suppress it. Video and details here.

Also, if you didn't see it before, this one is good.

Danny Partridge Gives 'Em What For

Some bleeped profanity, but this is amusing.

The Nativity Story

Just got back from seeing this movie. I thought it was absolutely splendid and very moving, and found nothing at all to complain about. It's a happy sign of our times that a movie like this can get made. Do go see it before Christmas!

Apocalypto

Saw it, liked it. It was about as violent as it needed to be, and no worse than many other movies. Quite a stunning piece of cinematography and imagination, especially depicting the hell on earth of the human sacrifices. But, thankfully, our society is more advanced than that, since Roe v Wade, and all. We wouldn't kill the innocent just so things will go well for us. That's a Mayan and Aztec thing.

Some Catholic reviews here and here, and more via this search.

I've Got A Better Idea: How About Not Raping Us All With Inflation In The First Place?

The U.S. Mint is worried that people will start melting down pennies and nickels because the metal has become worth more than the coins. Frankly I'm surprised that pennies and nickels contain anything valuable in them at all. I've noticed that quarters feel just about like compressed and spraypainted sawdust these days. The poor government. It must suck to be ripped off like this.

Is True Tolerance Intolerable?

Greg Koukl:

The Tolerance Trick

As it turns out, by the modern definition of tolerance no one is tolerant, or ever can be. It's what my friend Francis Beckwith calls the "passive-aggressive tolerance trick." Returning to the classic understanding of tolerance is the only way to restore any useful meaning to the word. Let me give you a real life example.

Earlier this year I spoke to a class of seniors at a Christian high school in Des Moines, Iowa. I wanted to alert them to this "tolerance trick," but I also wanted to learn how much they had already been taken in by it. I began by writing two sentences on the board. The first expressed the current understanding of tolerance:

"All views have equal merit and none should be considered better than another."

All heads nodded in agreement. Nothing controversial here. Then I wrote the second sentence:

"Jesus is the Messiah and Judaism is wrong for rejecting Him."

Immediately hands flew up. "You can't say that," a coed challenged, clearly annoyed. "That's disrespectful. How would you like it if someone said you were wrong?"

"In fact, that happens to me all the time," I pointed out, "including right now with you. But why should it bother me that someone thinks I'm wrong?"

"It's intolerant," she said, noting that the second statement violated the first statement. What she didn't see was that the first statement also violated itself.

I pointed to the first statement and asked, "Is this a view, the idea that all views have equal merit and none should be considered better than another?" They all agreed.

Then I pointed to the second statement—the "intolerant" one—and asked the same question: "Is this a view?" They studied the sentence for a moment. Slowly my point began to dawn on them. They'd been taken in by the tolerance trick.

If all views have equal merit, then the view that Christians have a better view on Jesus than the Jews have is just as true as the idea that Jews have a better view on Jesus than the Christians do. But this is hopelessly contradictory. If the first statement is what tolerance amounts to, then no one can be tolerant because "tolerance" turns out to be gibberish.

Escaping the Trap

"Would you like to know how to get out of this dilemma?" I asked. They nodded. "You must reject this modern distortion of tolerance and return to the classic view." Then I wrote these two principles on the board:

Be egalitarian regarding persons.
Be elitist regarding ideas.

"Egalitarian" was a new word for them. Think "equal," I said. Treat others as having equal standing in value or worth. They knew what an elitist was, though, someone who thought he was better than others. "Right," I said. "When you are elitist regarding ideas, you are acknowledging that some ideas are better than others. And they are. We don't treat all ideas as if they have the same merit, lest we run into contradiction. Some ideas are good, some are bad. Some are true, some are false. Some are brilliant, others are just plain foolish."

The first principle, what might be called "civility," is at the heart of the classical view of tolerance. It can be loosely equated with the word "respect." Tolerance applies to how we treat people we disagree with, not how we treat ideas we think false.

We respect those who hold different beliefs than our own by treating them courteously and allowing their views a place in the public discourse. We may strongly disagree with their ideas and vigorously contend against them in the public square, but we still show respect for the persons in spite of our differences.

Classic tolerance requires that every person be treated courteously with the freedom to express his ideas without fear of reprisal no matter what the view, not that all views have equal worth, merit, or truth.

These two categories are frequently conflated in the muddled thinking created by the myth of tolerance. The view that one person's ideas are no better or truer than another's is simply absurd and contradictory. To argue that some views are false, immoral, or just plain silly does not violate any meaningful definition or standard of tolerance.

...

Topsy-Turvy

The modern definition of tolerance turns the classical formula for tolerance on its head:

Be egalitarian regarding ideas.
Be elitist regarding persons.

If you reject another's ideas, you're automatically accused of disrespecting the person (as the coed did with me). On this new view of tolerance no idea or behavior can be opposed—even if done graciously—without inviting the charge of incivility.

To say I'm intolerant of the person because I disagree with his ideas is confused. Ironically, it results in elitism regarding persons. If I think my ideas are better than another's, I can be ill-treated as a person, publicly marginalized and verbally abused as bigoted, disrespectful, ignorant, indecent and—can you believe it—intolerant. Sometimes I can even be sued, punished by law, or forced to attend re-education programs.

Tolerance has thus gone topsy-turvy: Tolerate most beliefs, but don't tolerate (show respect for) those who take exception with those beliefs. Contrary opinions are labeled as "imposing your view on others" and quickly silenced.

...

Catch-22

Classical tolerance involves three elements: (1) permitting or allowing (2) a conduct or point of view one disagrees with (3) while respecting the person in the process.

Notice that we can't truly tolerate someone unless we disagree with him. This is critical. We don't "tolerate" people who share our views. They're on our side. There's nothing to put up with. Tolerance is reserved for those we think are wrong, yet we still choose to treat decently and with respect.

This essential element of classical tolerance—disagreement (elitism regarding ideas)—has been completely lost in the modern distortion of the concept. Nowadays if you think someone is wrong, you're called intolerant no matter how you treat him.

This presents a curious problem. One must first think another is wrong in order to exercise true tolerance, yet saying so brings the accusation of intolerance. It's a "Catch-22." According to this approach, true tolerance becomes impossible.

Intellectual Cowardice

Most of what passes for tolerance today is nothing more than intellectual cowardice, a fear of intelligent engagement. Those who brandish the word "intolerant" are unwilling to be challenged by other views or grapple with contrary opinions, or even to consider them. It's easier to hurl an insult—"you intolerant bigot"—than to confront an idea and either refute it or be changed by it. In the modern era, "tolerance" has become intolerance.

The Scarlet 'R'

Good post by Dr. Helen. Also, a good comment to the post:

Dear Dr. Helen:

Bravo! The "Scarlet R" is real, and it is a big deal in many places. Rather than simply accept that good people can have different philosophies, we demonize our opponents. And in academia, anyway, there is little to no tolerance for anything other than leftwing groupthink.

Yes, many academics pooh-pooh this, claiming that it never happens (and at the same time, actually writing editorials claiming that Republicans are "less intelligent" than Democrats).

So I have a thought experiment in mind, for left of center academics who think I am wrong.

Professor #1: this person wears a button that says "SEND BUSH PACKING" on his label. On his office door is a bumper sticker stating "NO BLOOD FOR OIL."

Professor #2: this person wears a button that says "I SUPPORT THE TROOPS." On his or her office door is a bumper sticker that says "WHY DO BELIEVERS IN THE RELIGION OF PEACE WANT TO BEHEAD THOSE WHO DON'T?"

Friends, you know that no one will say a word about Professor #1. Even if this person had a bumper sticker on his or her door that read "BUCK FUSH," it would be called freedom of expression (which it is).

But what about Professor #2? Committee assignments? Progress toward tenure or promotion? I hate to tell you what would happen to this professor.

Oh, I have heard from many, many leftist academics that nothing bad would happen to such a professor.

I know better.

And if any leftist academic reading this disagrees, why not try my experiment yourself? Since freedom of expression is paramount, and so common among the tolerant Left?

Go ahead and do the experiment: tell your academic friends you are a born again active Republican, sponsor the student Republican club, speak out in favor of conservative causes. As an experiment, just to prove that academics support all points of view.

No fair telling anyone that you *really* are a progressive leftist. Nope: you need to prove how accepting the academic Left truly is of different points of view, of intellectual diversity.

After you do this for one year, and everyone on campus treats you exactly the same as they did before, that nothing negative happens to you career wise...well, then you get to tell everyone about your experiment. Heck, write it up for Slate. You will have proven that the academic environment is tolerant and welcoming of different ideas.

But it ain't going to happen that way.

So prove me wrong! Put on the Scarlet R and show everyone how tolerant the progressive Left can be.

Just make sure your unemployment insurance is up to date.

Check out this case, just to prove my point:

http://www.thefire.org/index.php/case/726.html

I look around campus, and I see plenty of anti-Republican cartoons on office doors. I don't see any cartoons that oppose the progressive Left "talking points."

Again, Dr Helen: Bravo! One's personal politics should never matter in the workplace.

Also this one:

Tired of the constant harping from a close friend I've known for ten years about those 'evil Repugs especially the theocrat Christers' I ended up saying that I was Republican and a Christian (even though I haven't been in a church for almost 30 years) just to see what would happen.

It has been two months now and haven't hear nary a peep from him. For the last five years I tolerated some of the most hateful and vile words and actions (I'm in NYC theater) ever uttered or acted yet the most horrifying thing a person can say in my neck of the woods is either the word Republican or Christian.

It's this bad and the intolerance exhibited by those who believe themselves to be the perfect example of tolerance is appalling.

If you ever wish to rid your life of intolerant and vile bigots simply tell them you are a Republican. Tack on the word Christians and you will insure success.

Hanukah Celebrates A Culture War In Which The "Open Minded Leftists" Lost To A Bunch Of "Armed Fundamentalist Hillbillies"

Just in case you didn't know. Michael Medved has the details.

excerpt:

Most Jews (and certainly most Christians) dismiss the winter holiday as a trivial, feel-good festival about candles, potato pancakes, spinning tops (dreidls),and eight nights of gifts, without coming to terms with its serious, relevant and distinctly uncomfortable messages. While frequently (and fatuously) described as a “celebration of tolerance,” Hanukah is more properly designated as an annual re-dedication to the values of the Religious Right.

No wonder that so many American Jews (with their reflexive, often ignorant liberal instincts) refuse to acknowledge the real Hanukah and its politically incorrect messages. In last week’s Washington Post, a householder from Potomac, Maryland named Kenneth Nechin proudly explained that his home attempts to honor the “deeper meaning” of the holiday: “Religious tolerance, the freedom to practice religion, minorities overcoming majorities who are trying to take your rights away.”

Actually, far from celebrating “diversity” or “tolerance” or “respect for every faith,” Hanukah (the name means “dedication” in Hebrew) marks a singular display of intolerance-- when religious zealots, exalting the values of “that old time religion,” came into the Temple in Jerusalem and drove out all alternate, “creative” forms of worship. In the “For the Miracles” (Al HaNissim) prayer recited at least three times a day by religious Jews during the eight days of the festival, we salute this uncompromising assertion of absolute truth: “Your children came to the Holy of Holies of Your House, cleansed Your Temple, purified the site of your Holiness and kindled lights in the Courtyards of Your Sanctuary.” No, the fervently faithful rebels did not assign a special area for other religious impulses as part of some ancient commitment to multiculturalism...

The rest of the column recounts the interesting story.

Undercover

A fun little audiovisual presentation about disguised West Palm Beach cops busting red light runners. This is actually a better way of telling some stories than text alone or video alone.

Here's a bonus photo.

Start Making Cents

Has to be heard to be believed. Put it on as background and be glad it isn't you. H/T Ace of Spades.

I suppose to some people, all small-sounding numbers are equal. So no harm done.

The poor guy finally did achieve victory, as recounted in this blog post.

Unusual Conversion Essay

Here.

excerpts:

Why I am not a Deist.

I was asked a good question:

"I suppose I still don't really understand why you flipped from fervent atheist to Christian. Not Deist, but *Christian*. Meaning you went from not even believing in God - and I assume all supernatural elements - to believing in a very specific story about Jesus."

Well, I don't like talking about this, but it would be dishonorable if I avoided answering. I am Christian because I had a religious experience with specifically Christian elements in it, albeit the mystical unity of other religions was not absent. What I saw was as simple as Love itself, and as mysterious. It was not some vague light or misty sensation I met, but people to whom I spoke, a ghost, an apostle, the Madonna, the Paraclete, the Messiah, and the Father. The Holy Spirit entered my soul, I felt it happen, and something changed inside me: grace was poured into my like wine into a tin cup, alchemic wine that turns tin into gold.
I was taken on a journey outside of time, and saw the fine structure of the universe, encountered a mind infinitely superior to my own, as well as infinitely loving, and also was shown the secret roots of thought, the somewhat Platonic place ideas live before they pop into human awareness as ideas. I have had prayers answered. I saw millions of spirits, a choir as large as a galaxy and as intricate as a formal dance, bending all their efforts to save just one soul. The list just goes on and on. I should say experiences. Plural. Not one, but six, over a period of months, and continuing to the present day. I have seen visions and experienced miracles, seen prayers answered, and had things even stranger happen. One supernatural event would be enough to convince an honest atheist that there was something in the universe which could not fit into the materialistic, scientific model. I have had half a dozen such experiences, each one different in nature, duration, and kind from the other: An embarassment of evidence; overwhelming; overkill.

You might think I am exaggerating or that I am very much out of my mind: I do not blame you.

All I can report is that to myself I seem oriented as to time, place, and person. I am not aware of any failure of my reasoning faculty, nor do I see other evidence of hallucination or psychosis in my thought or action. If anything, I seem better equipped to deal with life than before, more human, more charitable. I actually try to be nice to people, and, once in a blue moon, I am.

Also, if this is an hallucination, it more useful than sanity. For one thing, this 'hallucination' resolves certain philosophical conundrums that have haunted me for years, such as the mind-body problem or the determinism-freewill paradox.

...

Speaking as a philosopher, one who has sworn upon Truth itself never to turn aside from where Reason leads, all I can say it that Christianity makes for better philosophy than philosophy itself. It is a rational and self-consistent meaningful view of the world, one which promotes virtue and honesty, as well as a philosophical attitude toward suffering.

Pagan philosophy, like that of Aristotle and Plato, urge men to live and die like great-souled men, like Stoics, and to live honestly and honorably, without fear: but their world is one where even Achilles is a shade in Hades, their universe is one where fear is rational, for the Unmoved Mover will not move itself to save you. Stoicism, the doctrine of Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius, Seneca and Cicero, shows logically why it is better to live a life in accordance with Nature, but it does not arm the soul with the tools needed to do so.

Modern philosophy, the speculations and screeds of Rousseau, Nietzsche, Sartre, Marx, Russell, Wittgenstein, is rubbish, and a sophomore can detect the self-inconsistencies, inhumanity, and outright absurdity in their work. Christianity does all that these thinkers set out to do, plus you get Cathedrals and the St. John's Passion, Christmas and John Milton.

[M]y philosophical soul tells me that that the saints are more sagacious than the sages, the martyrs more stoic than the Stoics, the schoolmen more rational than the Rationalists, the ghostly catechism a good deal more human than the Humanists, not to mention more humane. If this is illusion, why is it the only thing that gives deep meaning to an otherwise dull, dead, paradoxical and futile reality?

But the question of it being a dream is unreasonable. At some level, I am aware of Christ living in me, the way you might be aware of your own heartbeat. You do not really hear it, except in moments of excitement, but you know it is there, in the background.

Is that hallucination? Or it is merely an assumption, an axiom of the empirical epistemology, to place no credit on the testimony of eyewitnesses credible in all other respects.

If you ask me to prove to you God exists, I will ask you to prove to me that your conscience exists. If you cannot prove it, why should I waste my time and effort presenting evidence before a jury which very well might have no conscience? How will I know your verdict will be honest?

And yet surely, surely your conscience is real! If you do have a conscience, tell me by what means you are aware of it: not through the senses, surely. Do you admit immediate perception of a nonphysical reality is possible? If so, perception of other real things, even perception of divine things, is not impossible. It then merely becomes a question of prudence whether all those who claim to have had religious experiences have perceived something by this means. Since this seems to be the only point that all cultures of all the history of mankind has in common, that some sort of spiritual reality exists, it is not prudent to begin the discussion with the assumption that spiritual reality does not exist.
You might think all this was some great privilege or awesome experience.

It was totally humiliating.

So much evidence of the Christian religion was given to me so abundantly that it is an embarrassment to me. Other Christians, who have faith, do not need to be hit over the head with the blunt instrument of obvious supernatural events, one after another after another. I was visited not because I was wise or smart, but because I was foolish and stupid.

You might wonder why, if God can convince atheists to worship Him merely by dropping by for a visit, He does not do it more often. The reason is that it does not help, not at all, not a bit. When I suffer doubts, when my faith gets weak, my faith in my memory gets weak too. Faith and faithlessness have NOTHING TO DO with evidence presented to reason or senses. It has to do with a humble will and an upright heart. If God presented evidence to skeptics, all that would happen is that skeptics would doubt their evidence. If God gave a logical argument to prove His own existence, all that would happen is that skeptics would doubt the power of logic to prove anything.

Skepticism pretends it is all about open-mindedness and evidence. Not so. Skepticism is about suspicion and pride and self-will. It is about pretending you are smarter than people who, if you only knew, are actually wiser than you and your sneering questions and foolish word-tricks. The only place we ever see a humble skeptic is in the physical sciences, because scientists are willing to let their conclusions be ruled on by nature.

Once I was touched by the Spirit (I, who did not until that moment even believe the word 'spirit' had any meaning) everything else fell into place.
The Christian religion places an emphasis on Reason that other religions, with the exception of the Jewish, do not share, or not to the same degree. None of them mention LOGOS, the rational account, the word, issuing directly from the Father. The Incarnation makes the Christian God more human and humane than the God we see in the Old Testament or the Koran. The God of the Trinity is not alone.

Christianity seems to fit better with the way human life actually is than other religions, at least in my humble estimation. There is a concern and a love for children I have not noticed in other religions, a sanctity toward marriage, a concern for human life, a concern for monogamy, for individual worth, more central to Christian tradition than to the traditions of other faiths. Christendom wiped out slavery world wide; Christendom invented science. If Christianity were the foe of science, the West would be the most backward of technological powers, and the Chinese, following the pragmatic and this-worldly Confucius, would be the leader.

...

The Christian world-view is not only NOT incompatible with the scientific and logical one, they reinforce each other. You must imagine my befuddlement when I see science presented as somehow being the enemy of religion. Science is the enemy of Taoism or Buddhism, perhaps, but not the enemy of a religion that combines the rationalism of Athens with the mysticism of Jerusalem. We invented the University, for God's sake.

Science without philosophy simply makes no sense: it leads to Behaviorism and Nihilism. Philosophy without religion is abstract and bloodless, unable to perform, at least in my limited experience. I could not live as a Stoic back when I was a Stoic: as a Christian, a spirit allowed me to do endure what Stoics are supposed to be able to endure. As a theist, I can live as rationally as, back when I was an atheist, I thought atheists were supposed to live.

The absence of reincarnation, the horrible doctrine of hell, places a certain urgency beneath the question which Eastern religions, for all their manifest glories and good works, do not share. Christianity seems, to me at least, to possess the good points of other religions but also to have a clearer insight into the human condition they do not share. I believe the other major religions, and certain forms of paganism, to be on the right track, children of light, but simply not go far enough.

The Image On The Tilma

Cool description of the symbolism in the Virgin Of Guadalupe image. H/T Anchoress.

Step Right Up

And watch this circus:

The Great Sea-Tac Holiday Tree Seige of '06 is over!

The whole thing makes for great comedy in my book. You've got the wimpy "Holiday Trees" reminding us that Christmas is, for Blue Staters, the Holiday that Dare Not Say it's Name. You've got the rabbi who goes to the Port with his Big Gun lawyer demanding an instant menorah or else it's lawsuit city (and then acting surprised that the Port felt threatened). You've got the cowardly Port guys who were too timid to even defend "Holiday Trees" and too thick to say, "Sure, stick a menorah over there by Baggage Claim." You've got the wincing Jewish community in Seattle going to the Rabbi and saying, "Way to go. Now you've pissed off a bunch of people for no good reason other than your need for Insensitivity Training." You've the got the Big Gun lawyer with the chutzpah to say, "We are not going to be the instrument by which the port holds Christmas hostage" (as though the Port has somehow been plotting to remove Holiday trees and was happy to see the well-intended lawyer come in the door with his threats, the better to implement their nefarious plan). You've got the angry and bitter Christians who are demonstrating the love of Christ by sending the rabbi hate mail. You've got the hilarity of Seattle's Leftist Orwellian Newspeak about "the holidays" and the tortured attempts to simultaneously "celebrate diversity" while making a desert and calling it peace. You've got the Plucky Rebel Alliance of airport workers who stage a revolt and put more trees up anyway, political correctness be damned.

Now comes the next phase in the comedy, when the "make a desert and call it peace" agenda and the Celebrate Diversity guys try to haggle things out. In a sane world, we'd allow Christmas (not Holiday) trees, menorahs, whatever the Muslims do this time of year, as well as Kwanzaa disco balls or whatever it is they use. It would be pretty. Then it would be over. But in this insane world, we have to pretend that Christmas trees are not Christmas trees. And when some rabbi says, "Yeah, but everybody knows it's really a Christmas tree anyway, so I want a menorah too!" We can't say, "You're right. It *is* really a Christmas tree" or else we've taken the first step toward a new Dark Ages of Theocratic Christianist Fascism. On the other hand, if we *do* celebrate diversity, acknowledge the Christmasness of the tree and include the menorah, we have taken a step toward transforming the United States into a vast Davidic Kingdom of compulsory circumcision for all, because while the tree is not particularly religious, the menorah certainly is, and the Port's acknowledgment of it can only constitute an establishment of religion by the state. It couldn't be that the state just, like, acknowledge that a couple of important religious traditions in the US are having an annual celebration and we get to reap the benefits of that in the form of some beautiful lights and glass balls. Nope. Anything other than the complete denuding of the Public Square means that the 30 Years War is just around the corner.

The Worldview Is Simply Incoherent

Mark Shea tells why in this short post.

A Bit Of The Ol' Cut And Paste

Regarding the Dover v Kitzmiller decision of Judge Jones:

“Masterful” Federal Ruling on Intelligent Design Was Copied from ACLU

Seattle — The key section of the widely-noted court decision on intelligent design issued a year ago on December 20 was copied nearly verbatim from a document written by ACLU lawyers, according to a study released today by scholars affiliated with the Discovery Institute.

“Judge John Jones copied verbatim or virtually verbatim 90.9% of his 6,004-word section on whether intelligent design is science from the ACLU’s proposed ‘Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law’ submitted to him nearly a month before his ruling,” said Dr. John West, Vice President for Public Policy and Legal Affairs at Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture.

“Ironically, Judge Jones has been hailed as ‘an outstanding thinker’ for his ‘masterful’ ruling, and even honored by Time magazine as one of the world’s ‘most influential people’ in the category of ’scientists and thinkers,’” said West. “But Jones’ analysis of the scientific status of intelligent design contains virtually nothing written by Jones himself. This finding seriously undercuts the credibility of a central part of the ruling.”

The study notes that, while judges routinely make use of proposed findings of fact, “the extent to which Judge Jones simply copied the language submitted to him by the ACLU is stunning. For all practical purposes, Jones allowed ACLU attorneys to write nearly the entire section of his opinion analyzing whether intelligent design is science. As a result, this central part of Judge Jones’ ruling reflected essentially no original deliberative activity or independent examination of the record on Jones’ part.”

Jones’ copying was so uncritical that he even reprinted a number of factual errors originally made by ACLU attorneys...

The Ones Who Complain Loudest That Their Critics Know Precisely Jack About Science Yammer On Against Religion Knowing Precisely Jack About Theology

Good post.

Good Questions

Kevin McCullough:

According to Fox News Mary Cheney, the 37 year old daughter of Vice President Cheney is pregnant. She and the woman she lives with and engages in sexual behavior with - Heather Poe - are ecstatic at the news.

This development prompted some important questions...

1. How did the exclusive sexual union of these two women bring about this conception?

2. What does it mean, from a biological nature to realize that a man WAS in fact necessary for this conception to take place?

3. What does it mean to the supposed "intimacy" that "two people share" which was intended by the Creator to be a function that creates life, to be forced to include a third party?

4. Doesn't it make a rather strong statement that biologically speaking, the sexual union these two women share - is in fact, scientifically speaking - inadequate?

5. Is it healthy for a society to celebrate inadequate sexual unions that lead to everything except what it was designed to be?

6. Knowing from scientific data that children excel best when given the full and natural parental structure of one mother and one father, is it moral to bring a child into such a scenario - purposefully, simply to stroke one's own desire to have a child - sort of like a new handbag, or pair of shoes?

Would love to know your responses to these five in that order in the comment section below... (Most likely I will report your responses on my show.)

And in a followup column:

Is there a more obvious product of heterosexual behavior than the creation of children? If so then isn't it somewhat peculiar that those who shun the behavior of heterosexuality so deeply crave the product that it brings?

This week as I read the news that Mary Cheney, the 37 year old daughter of the Vice-President, was pregnant, I had many such questions running through my head.

I'm not supposed to mind you.

I'm not supposed to be allowed to think such things.

I'm not supposed to openly wonder what such conclusions might mean. Such wondering might bash the belief structure that men and women are completely interchangeable with one another. Yet I wonder them nonetheless. (Call it an ever growing desire to know the truth of the matter.)

Let's face it in America today if we bring up such obvious inconsistencies we are immediately branded and labeled a bigot. I was repeatedly labeled such this week for asking six additional questions arising from the fake act of two women supposedly "becoming parents." Argue with me all you like - the truth is Mary Cheney's baby will share DNA with Mary and the male DNA donor. Genetically he/she will share nothing with Cheney's partner Heather Poe.

So here's the next item I'm not allowed to bring up... Two women who desire children can not achieve satisfaction, because their sexual union is incapable of producing it. And this is fully true - even if all parties involved have healthy, fully functional reproductive biology.

When I mentioned this earlier in the week homosexual bloggers like Andrew Sullivan took exception with the notion and accused me of being hypocritical of the issue when it comes to infertile couples. Yet it is the critics who are being inconsistent.

If a man and wife struggle with infertility, it is because of biological breakdown. What God designed to work a certain way short circuited. He has low sperm count. She doesn't produce eggs as she should. They have trouble getting the two together. The biological dysfunction is not voluntary, they attempt sexual intercourse, time and time again but because of the faulty genetics in the machinery they are unable to complete the conception. And should medicine ever develop a cure for whatever that specific breakdown might be - there will be no problem for the couple, through natural sexual engagement to have another child.

Not so with Cheney and her partner. If they were to choose to engage in sex acts a thousand times over, their biological machinery would never produce what is needed - but for a different reason. There is no dysfunction in this case. Instead the reason the sexual engagement does not work is because the necessary parts are not even present. It is the equivalent of screwing a nut onto a bolt, by using a hammer. They just don't fit.

So after a cacophony of naughty e-mails being sent to me describing thousands of positions a male participant or a turkey baster can be used to impregnate a woman who only has had sex with women, I'm supposed to be intimidated so as to no longer ask these questions.

But they're good questions.

And doesn't the sick attempt at humor reveal what the purpose of my questions was from the very beginning?

In normal relationships the privacy and intimacy of the act of procreation is a spiritual and beautiful thing. In the sexual acts of women who sleep together that adequacy will be something they always long for and never have the satisfaction of knowing, thus undermining the fidelity of what they believe their relationship to be.

In our culture we don't think about our actions from the viewpoint of the One who created us. Rather we obsess about our rights to do what we want, how we want, and as often as we want.

But children are never about what we want. Raising them is about supplying what they need. Britney Spears does no one a service when she gets pregnant on the cheap in a marriage that doesn't last only to end up not providing a father for her children while flashing her nether region for paparazzi. Like wise how moral is it for Mary Cheney to bring a child into society who from the outcome is told that her second mommy is the equivalent of a true father?

There is a reason for homosexual activists to have kids; it is part of the great deception that no one is to question. By having children in the picture the attempt to complete the circle and to convince the world that such a family unit is normal is all important.

Since we do not live in a theocracy it is unreasonable to maintain that Americans will not all make the same choice when it comes to morality and sexual behavior. However that reality has nothing whatsoever to do with whether sexual behavior should be considered moral that extends beyond moral boundaries.

And since homosexuals insist upon desiring limitless sexual activity, not governed by provincial rules and traditions, why would they want children?

Children are the undeniable product of the superiority of heterosexual engagement. And since homosexual behavior in large terms wishes to throw off the weight of conventional sexuality, I am curious as to why they would desire to reinforce the inferiority of their sexual behavior.

And no amount of hate-mail from small minded radical activists will stifle the curiosity from which I seek to learn.

It's a good question. Is inherently sterile union really union at all?