More Heather Macdonald

Here's a few more comments on articles by Heather MacDonald at Rossputin.

I had the chance to add some of my own to the post and had followup replies from Ross.

I'm sure he sees me as a well-intentioned dunderhead religious nut, but I was happy to have a chance to put thought to paper, so to speak.

"...why very bad things happen to good people..."

In the National Review article by Heather Macdonald, a couple good points are made and she raises a traditional question that is almost always raised by non-believers (and often by believers when bad things happen).

1. "If a belief system is not true, however useful it may be, it seems frankly cynical or condescending to counsel it for others." Absolutely true. Unless, of course, it benefits them in some objective way that all could agree as a net positive, in that case it would fall into a less black and white area, such as the Easter Bunny or Flying Reindeer. However, that's not my main point, just a side comment and a great anchor for another discussion topic.

2. "...subjective experience is not always a guarantor of objective reality....an outside observer needs something more to reach that conclusion" Also true. Simply believing something to be true does not make it objectively true. The opposite is also true: Something absolutely true is not rendered untrue by lack of empirical evidence.

3. And then the question: " I have to revert to the question of why very bad things happen to good people...". I have heard this many times and it is a fair question. In Heather's (and perhaps every case) the real thrust of all the above could be restated to say:

"Many people say they know or believe what is true regarding Christianity, Christian Science, Islam, etc. However, I need proof that a there is a God and that this God knows and loves me. Unfortunately, the proof I need is undermined by the very fact that terrible things happen to good people, so therefore that contradiction between a God's supposed love and the objective reality makes me an atheist or agnostic. As an Atheist/Agnostic, your efforts to create an environment in line with your beliefs clashes with my rights to not operate in that environment."

In a "show me" world, I think the above is a fair statement and I've heard it many times.

However, I think the above is really just smoke. People believe what they want to believe, regardless of the evidence and will stick to that belief to their dying breath until a fundamental change occurs inside that allows them to accept a change.

Those who claim a need for objective proof do not want objective proof, they want to not believe. If Jesus showed up at their door, they'd call the police to have him arrested for door to door preaching.

You do not have to go into the spiritual realm to see this behaviour. The anti-Bush crowd cannot accept anything coming from his administration as genuine or real; everything is fabricated for consumption by the evil genius, Karl Rove. The President is a stupid puppet on someone's knee, etc.

People believe what they want to believe and order their facts to support their beliefs.

Why do bad things happen to good people? I don't know, but I could talk for hours on why I think it is. A more interesting thing to ask a non-believer is, why do bad things happen to bad people? That answer will be a far more interesting one.

Shitty Little Country?

This a great post regarding Israel (thanks Rossputin). I haven't fact checked it, but my personal experience causes me to accept it at face value.

I had the opportunity to be in Israel during an awards presentation for a technology company at the Weizmann Institute of Science (Israel's equivalent of MIT). During this presentation, there were at least 40 patents awarded from the previous year from among a crowd of less than 300 people. I was stunned.

They perform this way in nearly every area.

To survive on as little arable land as they have, they needed to find ways to increase productivity and effectiveness in every area. They did and turned desert into thriving farm land. I suspect the food grown in Israel is probably more nutritious than elsewhere. The dairy and produce certainly tastes much better than anywhere else I've eaten (although they don't seem to understand beef very well).

To compete economically, they needed to produce innovative products. They have. See the list on the link.

To survive as a Nation, they needed to produce the most effective local military. They have. (In spite of the recent standoff in Lebanon, they are still the best in the region. Because of political interference/hesitation, they won every battle and lost that war. They will not make that mistake again).

In my deep dark past, I have had the opportunity to train both Israelis and other regional military pilots (Saudi, Kuwaiti, Bahrani). Night and Day. The Israeli pilots arrived prepared and in many cases understood selected aircraft systems better than I did. As a group, they were the best pilots I ever trained. As a group, the others were below average.

I believe the Israelis are possibly the smartest population in the world. You can argue race or environment, but with as many ethnicities as they have absorbed, it has to be environment. I think if one needs an example of true darwinian adaptation, Israel is a perfect example.

Are the others jealous. Is that why they hate Israel?

Yes.

So, What will Tomorrow Bring?

I have always loved science fiction. Ever since I learned the magic of reading, these kind of stories and books drew me like a magnet. I can remember reading 4-5 books in a week, sometimes through the summer nights, with the windows open; the heat still radiating from the rooftops and the crickets and cicadas chirping and rattling.

Sometimes my father would come in and say "You're still up? Go to sleep!", and I would roll over, turn out the light and close my eyes. Usually I fell asleep, but sometimes I could not and I would wait till he went back to bed and start reading again, sometimes even by flashlight.

I loved science fiction, as it told of futures not yet seen, inventions not yet invented but already saving and condemning worlds we had yet to discover. Mostly I loved science fiction because it was the closest thing I could find to my Holy Grail: Time travel. The things I read in the older stories had frequently become reality in my present. I intuitively knew that the things I read of that were not yet were someday to be. I could travel to the future in my mind and see what was coming. Of course not everything I read actually became reality, but many things did, along with many things no one thought of at the time.

In the linked article, Dan Simmons quotes a book 'Replay', by Ken Grimwood. I have read it and loved it. I'm sure it influenced, at least in part, Bill Murray's 'Ground Hog Day' which I also loved. In Dan's (fictional?) story, a time traveller arrives from the future and our immediate future is spelled out for us. It is an unhappy one.

Tomorrow brings the 22nd of August, 2006. This is the day Iran's President, Ahmadinejad, says Iran will answer the world as to their nuclear program and the world's demands that it cease developing weapons and enriching uranium. You can read elsewhere of his determined beliefs that he can hasten the arrival of their messiah/prophet/Madhi through war and bloodshed. The bottom line is that his particular sect believe they can, and that August 22 is a forecasted day of the Mahdi's return. What I focus on is Ahmadinejad's claim that he will light up the sky over Jeruselem.

As in the science fiction of my youth, not all that is predicted will occur. However, something tells me that soon this may be one of those things that did.

Hold on.

Worst Hurricane Season...Ever!

I cannot help but notice: As the world spun irreversably toward a man-made global warming nightmare: We were supposed to experience an even more brutal hurricane season in the U.S. in 2006 than in 2005.

There's still lots of time to have several bad ones, but it should be obvious to even a casual observer that 2006 will be nowhere near as bad as 2005.

Unsurprisingly, all the voices of 'An Inconvenient Truth' are strangely silent, whereas they dominated the press only weeks ago with hysteria.

Maybe they're at the beach. Waiting. For a hurricane. That must be it.

Update 8/21/06: Apparently I'm not the only one noticing.

Neo-Neocon: Solzhenitsyn

I've heard of Solzhenitsyn, but never before read anything he wrote or said. I just finshed his 1978 Harvard speech courtesy of Neo-Neocon and....Wow!

Talk about predicting the future.

I read it and added my own $0.02 to the comments:

Dicentra says above: "I'm afraid that our public devaluation of religion, especially among the intellectually elite, has created a vacuum into which the structure and certainty of Islam might thrive."

At first, I laughed and said "Islam filling our moral vacuum? Right, when pigs fly!"

However, in retrospect, I've been wondering if it could happen, though not in Dicentra's exact terms. My thinking was more along the lines of "how does a murdering, fanatical theology conquer a Western world that is committed to freedom of self over any greater good? As soon as the mass murders begin (again) on American soil, the left will finally awake (ala Neo-Neocon) and get with the program."

Now I'm not so sure. Islam is a theology of works. In this theology, one's actions are your ticket to heaven. How else can an angry Mohammed Atta fly an airplane into a tower and believe he is redeeming himself?

Works are a material thing - of this world. The rapidly sinking West is engaged in its own religion of works (humanism) and all that comes with it: Sensual, material living. Under a microscope, the two (Islam and Humanism) are fundamentally the same theology: what you do is more important that what you believe.

In comparison, Christianity, in all its major variants (even the Catholic church, although many of us seem not to understand that) is a theology of faith. What you believe matters more than what you do in terms of your salvation. Of course what you do matters, but only in the context of what you believe.

You cannot work your way to heaven, but you can believe your way there. (I apologize for this horrible Cliffnotes abbreviation of Christian beliefs. Try to overlook this and catch my broader point). Therefore, a Christian can never be "good enough" to redeem himself. It takes an act of faith, a belief, that one who is good enough (Christ) can redeem the sins- for free- and will vouch for the believer at the time of judgement. That belief is supposed to drive the subsequent actions and works.

Those who perform the same actions and works, but do so in the belief that this is what saves them, have crossed into the same core theology as Islam and Humanism.

So, yes, I agree with Dicentra. I can envision a scenario where Islam conquers the west by offering salvation based on a set of black and white works instead of the more popular rainbow colored set, with the alternative being head removal for those who insist on more than two colors.

Stilton Cheese Perfume? Smells like Fumunda to me.

Interesting post from Drudge.

"Why has our perfumery been so successful? Without question, I think it's because so many people are fed up with everything smelling the same. There's no individuality any more."

Seems to me, in a world where everyone smells with their own special fragrance, the next big trend will be easy: Just take a bath and spray on - nothing. It'll probably catch on, especially with the leading edge consumers.

I can see it now: Fancy bottles, elegantly packaged, very expensive...completely empty.

"It's like I'm wearing Nothing at All!" will probably be the catch phrase of the best selling brand.

The Real Mel Gibson

Above links to Rossputin and his comments on Mel Gibson. Below follow my comments on his site.
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I think Mel's actions show that regardless of what one does in life, it is awfully difficult to unravel the unconscious lessons learned in childhood.

I would agree that his actions show a strong anti-semite streak in his nature that came out while drunk. However, step away from the particulars for a moment and consider the mild-mannered office worker that turns into a mean drunk, or the otherwise moral woman (or man) that turns into a slut after drinking too much.

Are they really just assholes and sluts, hypocritically running around under the facade of normalcy? Or, are they otherwise decent people who have a character flaw that was revealed when they lost control?

I know what happens when I drink too much - one of the reasons I don't drink much anymore. I can sympathize with Mel Gibson in this sense. I see him as the latter of that described above - an overall decent person with a character flaw that was unfortunately revealed through drink.

I do not apologize for his behavior as it was abhorrent. He needs to follow up this incident and his apology with action. Yes, some action is appropriate to convey repentence to the world, but he shouldn't overdo it. Those who want to skewer him will not be satisfied regardless of what he does and says. The real action he needs to take is to address that which make him drink so much as well as the obvious inner conflict that led him to lash out at Jews. After that, he needs to drive on and continue to make great movies.

As to the Passion: I saw it three times, once at the release and twice more over the last 2 years. I think folks see in it what they wish to see. Nothing I saw led me to believe he was being anti-semitic or intended to denigrate the Jewish people. As I watched the movie, I didn't say to myself "Those hateful Jews, can't they see it's JESUS, our GOD?" Instead, I only saw myself and the rest of humanity reflected in their faces. The same fears, the same hates, the same failures to see who this man is and what he came to do and why it what necessary. Sadly, not much has changed today.

I love Israel, I love the Jewish people I am fortunate to work with on a weekly basis and feel blessed by the chance to visit Israel twice; once in the military and once on business. Each time I found nothing but gracious people. I have found them to be an amazingly brilliant group, focused and hard working. They have my utmost respect.

I don't see the Jewish people as those who murdered Christ. We all did. I see the Jewish people as those who brought Christ to the material world. And for that, the material world hates Israel and the Jewish people.