Love and Economics


From Vox Day:

"Is marriage worth it? Well, I should say it increasingly depends on the sex and religion of the individual. In its present state-dictated form, marriage is very much worth it for women, it is a tolerable and necessary risk for religious men, and it is an incredibly stupid gamble for non-religious men. Was this man religious? If not, then you are not only dealing with whatever personal issues may or may not have been present, but also with the reality that you are asking him to stake his entire emotional and financial future on your passing fancies. That is problematic if you happen to be interested in men with IQs over 85.

As to the larger question, I don't know that it's entirely relevant. As a single mother, it very much behooves you to find a father for your child. That is more important than any questions of self-fulfillment or romantic stars, and anyhow, if you've had a long string of horrible relationships, it should be clear by now that the follow-your-feelings approach to acquiring a husband is probably not the optimal one. The good news, however, is that there isn't just one perfect man that you somehow have to find and curse the luck if he happens to have been born in Tibet where he's being raised to be a Buddhist monk sworn to celibacy and silence. More than a few of the three billion men on the planet are excellent potential husbands, the trick is to stop wasting your time on the non-starters. You shouldn't need 18 months to determine that a man isn't in the marriage market.

I really wish more men and women understood the concept of opportunity cost. Every day you waste with someone who has demonstrated that he is not a potential husband is one less day you have to meet a man who is. Don't seek to change them, accept and respect their perspective and move on. The other important thing is to refuse to let the ideal become the enemy of the real. The man you marry today will not be the man you are married to in a decade, just as you will not be the same woman. Remember that marriage and love are as much processes as states.

As for the gentleman who delivered the crushing blow, I think it might be educational to have a frank conversation with him. Ask him not to let you down gently and fall back on generalities as he has done, but to explain precisely why he doesn't see it working out. Make sure you let him know you're not trying to change his mind, you simply want to know in order to avoid making future mistakes. Don't argue, in fact, don't even talk, just listen to him. The purpose is not to salvage the dead relationship, but rather to help you make more intelligent decisions about your next one. Yes, breakups can hurt, but feelings always fade with time.

I think I can safely say, as someone who never thought about getting married and never wanted to get married, that marriage can definitely be worth it. While I happened to be fortunate rather than intelligent in finding Spacebunny, that doesn't mean that one can't approach the process in an intelligent manner. The greatest challenge, assuming you don't actually physically repel strangers with your looks, is that men are rightfully wary of gambling their future and family on momentary female whims. So, the more you make it clear that you will do anything and sign anything that helps reduce that unreasonable risk, the more likely it is that you will eventually find yourself in possession of a husband."

Discuss.

My thoughts. Vox is a libertarian Christian. He focuses on marriage as quintessentially a contractual exchange - sex for security. Or, perhaps, it is better to say that he perceives secular women (and men) in the marriage market as seeing marriage as a contractual exchange.

If one sees marriage as more transcendent, however, then marriage is more than contract. That requires some sense of a "sacramental" dimension to marriage, which in an essentially post-Modern, post-Reformation, post-Enlightenment world, there is no reason to expect.

For more on this, check out Jennifer Roback Morse's excellent "Love and Economics."

Gay Adoption not in the news.

Newsbusters has this non-MSM story:

Frank Lombard is an associate director at Duke University's Global Health Institute and a homosexual who was charged last week with the molestation of his adopted 5-year-old black son and actively trying to sell him for sex on the internet.

Newsbusters fleshed out the story:

At the time of this post not one television show has reported the story and only 17 newspapers in the United States featured it - a majority of which are only small local newspapers.

And most of these articles cited the American Press' report on the events,hich was as follows:

AP) WASHINGTON - A Duke University official has been arrested and charged with offering his adopted 5-year-old son for sex.

Frank Lombard, the school's associate director of the Center for Health Policy, was arrested after an Internet sting, according to the FBI's Washington field office and the city's police department.

According to an affidavit by District of Columbia Police Det. Timothy Palchak, an unnamed informant facing charges in his own child sex case led authorities to Lombard.

Authorities said that Lombard tried to persuade a person -who he did not know was a police officer -to travel to North Carolina to have sex with Lombard's child.

The detective's affidavit charges Lombard identified himself online as "perv dad for fun," and says that in an online chat with the detective, Lombard said he had sexually molested his son, whom he adopted as an infant.

The court papers say Lombard also invited the undercover detective to North Carolina to have sex with the young boy, and even suggested which hotel he should use."

In response to the AP report, which most of the newspapers used almost verbatim, Mike Adams of Townhall made the observation that "The Associate Press (AP) did not mention the fact that the five-year old offered up for molestation was black. Bringing that fact to light might be damaging to the political coalition that exists between blacks and gays. Nor did the AP mention that the adopted child is being raised by a homosexual couple. Bringing that fact to light might harm the gay adoption movement."

Remember when dissent was the highest form of patriotism?

Dissent on global warming and you are guilty of treason!

To the Planet!

According to New York Times columnist Paul Krugman:

So the House passed the Waxman-Markey climate-change bill. In political terms, it was a remarkable achievement.

It certainly was - never have so many been stampeded over such a non-existent issue without reading the bill they were passing.

But 212 representatives voted no. A handful of these no votes came from representatives who considered the bill too weak, but most rejected the bill because they rejected the whole notion that we have to do something about greenhouse gases.

Or maybe they thought that global temperature had something to do with the Sun.

And as I watched the deniers make their arguments, I couldn’t help thinking that I was watching a form of treason — treason against the planet.

Terrific. Now the left has a whole new numinous entity that it can claim as a basis for "thought crimes." In the past, it was the Proletariat. Now, it's the Planet.

Dissent is past its "sell-by" date now that the left is in power

Ethnic Cleansing

Bosnia's Catholics Nearly Gone:

The Muslim population is growing in Bosnia to such an extent that Sarajevo is a "practically Muslim city," according to Cardinal Franc Rodé.

The prefect of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life affirmed this when he spoke with Vatican Radio about his June 19-21 trip to the Balkans.

The prelate stated that Catholics were the main victims of the war and many fled the country, heading to Croatia or far-away nations like Australia, Canada and New Zealand. He explained that many had their houses burned and others fled for their lives. Many priests and religious were killed, and churches and monasteries destroyed.

"Numerically, they have diminished a lot," he said after his visit at the invitation of Cardinal Vinko Puljic. There are only 17,000 Catholics in Sarajevo, he noted, a city of 600,000. "In the Diocese of Banja Luka, before the war between 1991 and 1995, there were 150,000 Catholics; now there are only 35,000."

This is actually part of an ancient human phenomenon. According to Rodney Stark, whenever conflict flares up between two faiths, pressure increases against religious minorities, whether it is Jews in medieval Europe or Catholics in modern Bosnia, who are perceived as potential "fifth columnists."

Two atheists arguing over how enthusistic an atheist has to be in "liquidating" non-atheists.

This exchange at Sam Harris' website is rather chilling. It seems that Harris wants to purge Phillip Ball of his atheistic cum "rationalis" bona fides because he refuses to ascribe all Evil to believers.

It's interesting to see how much the Marxist mindset remains woven into New Atheism.

Another reason why popular culture is sick

Is there nothing else happening in the world? Must not be, otherwise why was there wall-to-wall coverage about the death of a middle-aged,narcissitic, bankrupt, has-been pedophile?

Canada Free Press apologizes "Sorry Neda, We Have a Pedophile to Worship":

You know what would be really shocking? Michael Jackson dying at the age of 87. That would have been a real stunner, well deserving of the nauseating nonstop narration that should be reserved for heads of state.

Time really stands still on the treadmill when you are listening to a fervid Geraldo lamenting Anna Nicole Jackson’s “shocking” death.

All other news of the day having been declared inconsequential, Fox proceeded to indulge in unnecessary and disproportionate keening about the calamitous death of the world’s most famous pedophile.

The same Michael Jackson who once told a reporter it was “sweet” and “charming” to sleep with little boys and ply them with “Jesus Juice” (known to lucid people as “wine”) has been deified. Jackson, who dangled one of his babies off of a hotel balcony also obtained those children via a bizarre and labyrinthine arrangement, named one of them Blanket and made them wear burkas.

Then there is this eye-witness account about Jackson's thirty minute visit to comic store's one person bathroom with a thirteen year old boy.:

Everyone I know who knew him said he was a very nice guy, kind of quiet and he did a lot with charity. No one had a bad thing to say about him. But I did detect a certain reluctant vibe when discussing Michael with my friends at the store. They didn’t say why, but they felt he was weird. And this is from people who worked at a store on Melrose in L.A.

So one day I came in the store and one of my friends told me Jackson was in the store. And there he was, over by the comics rack. He had his arm around someone like he was on a date. That someone was Jordy Chandler.

I walked over to the long racks and pretended not to notice them. Jackson had his people with him including his driver. That driver was later a witness against Jackson in his trial.

Jackson was whispering in Jordy’s ear and they were acting totally like people on a date. It was not the kind of behavior a couple of straight guys do together. Then they went back in the store in the employee area and disappeared. They were gone for a half hour. I stuck around and talked to my friends, just shooting the breeze. I assumed Jackson left by the back door to avoid people. But Bill the owner asked me if I wanted to meet Michael Jackson, and I said, sure.

Jackson reappeared, and left the store. I went out there with Bill and he introduced me. Jordy had detached from Michael and went to the black SUV. I didn’t shake hands with Jackson, I only got to exchange pleasantries. But I noticed something, when I tried to look him in the eyes, he had this very evasive…almost crazed look. Like someone who had just committed a crime and didn’t want anyone to see them. It was weird.

I’ve met a lot of famous celebs and have never seen them as anything other than people. People who work in the entertainment industry, which I was doing at the time myself. So I’ve been very laid back in these encounters. So I know it was nothing I did that made him look at me like that. I thought, “Man, is he paranoid or what? Maybe he’s on something.”

After they took off, I went back in the store to buy some comics and I asked one of my friends what they were doing in the back room for so long. He said Michael and Jordy were in the bathroom for a half hour.

Yeah.

I said, huh? He said that’s not unusual for him.

Now, I don’t know what they did in there, but it was a small one-person bathroom. And I can only think of a couple reasons two people would go into a small bathroom together. One of the nice reasons is they were helping the other with their costumes. He wasn’t wearing anything that out of the ordinary. So that leaves the other two reasons, since we can assume Jordy is potty trained at 13. Sex or drugs.

When the story about the molestation broke a few months later, that pretty much made up my mind which reason it was.

A lot of people say Michael Jackson did not molest kids. Maybe not. But I have a hard time believing it.

People are complex, they contain multitudes, both good and bad. Jackson may have done a lot of good, but when you look at his behaviors - like the costly theme-park home - most of it looks like oversized "grooming" behavior, what Andrew Breitbart calls "simply a more sophisticated, well financed variation on the molester with an ice cream truck."

Here is a column with some like-minded thoughts about the depravity of popular culture that ends:

Finally, pop culture worships the wrong gods. I wonder how many people who’ve attended a candlelight vigil for Elvis have recently said a prayer for a friend. I wonder how many people now crying over Michael Jackson’s death, outside his family and close friends, have visited the grave of a dearly departed in the last year. Music can salve. But it cannot save. The terrible lesson America has yet to learn is that as wonderful, pleasing and satisfying as art can be, we confuse the product itself, and its cultural immortality, with the deeply flawed people who make it. In our nearsightedness, we make gods out of monsters and mutants. I loved Michael Jackson’s music, but I have to say that if any of the allegations about his behavior with kids were in fact true–court gyrations and settlements aside–I’d hate the man’s actions … and pray for the strength to forgive him.

The Global Warming Scandal

The consensus - which was manufactured like the "Bolsheviks" manufactured their majority status - is breaking down according to the Wall Street Journal:

Among the many reasons President Barack Obama and the Democratic majority are so intent on quickly jamming a cap-and-trade system through Congress is because the global warming tide is again shifting. It turns out Al Gore and the United Nations (with an assist from the media), did a little too vociferous a job smearing anyone who disagreed with them as "deniers." The backlash has brought the scientific debate roaring back to life in Australia, Europe, Japan and even, if less reported, the U.S.

In April, the Polish Academy of Sciences published a document challenging man-made global warming. In the Czech Republic, where President Vaclav Klaus remains a leading skeptic, today only 11% of the population believes humans play a role. In France, President Nicolas Sarkozy wants to tap Claude Allegre to lead the country's new ministry of industry and innovation. Twenty years ago Mr. Allegre was among the first to trill about man-made global warming, but the geochemist has since recanted. New Zealand last year elected a new government, which immediately suspended the country's weeks-old cap-and-trade program.

The number of skeptics, far from shrinking, is swelling. Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe now counts more than 700 scientists who disagree with the U.N. -- 13 times the number who authored the U.N.'s 2007 climate summary for policymakers. Joanne Simpson, the world's first woman to receive a Ph.D. in meteorology, expressed relief upon her retirement last year that she was finally free to speak "frankly" of her nonbelief. Dr. Kiminori Itoh, a Japanese environmental physical chemist who contributed to a U.N. climate report, dubs man-made warming "the worst scientific scandal in history." Norway's Ivar Giaever, Nobel Prize winner for physics, decries it as the "new religion." A group of 54 noted physicists, led by Princeton's Will Happer, is demanding the American Physical Society revise its position that the science is settled. (Both Nature and Science magazines have refused to run the physicists' open letter.)

The collapse of the "consensus" has been driven by reality. The inconvenient truth is that the earth's temperatures have flat-lined since 2001, despite growing concentrations of C02. Peer-reviewed research has debunked doomsday scenarios about the polar ice caps, hurricanes, malaria, extinctions, rising oceans. A global financial crisis has politicians taking a harder look at the science that would require them to hamstring their economies to rein in carbon.

Credit for Australia's own era of renewed enlightenment goes to Dr. Ian Plimer, a well-known Australian geologist. Earlier this year he published "Heaven and Earth," a damning critique of the "evidence" underpinning man-made global warming. The book is already in its fifth printing. So compelling is it that Paul Sheehan, a noted Australian columnist -- and ardent global warming believer -- in April humbly pronounced it "an evidence-based attack on conformity and orthodoxy, including my own, and a reminder to respect informed dissent and beware of ideology subverting evidence." Australian polls have shown a sharp uptick in public skepticism; the press is back to questioning scientific dogma; blogs are having a field day.

Vox Day observes:

I've always had my doubts about the credibility of scientists due to their demonstrated willingness to sell biological philosophy as genuine science. But their collective behavior in what will eventually be known as the Great Global Warming Scandal really demonstrates what a bunch of greedy, power-tripping scum so many of them are. The amusing thing is that scientists like PZ Myers and Sam Harris, ex-scientists like Richard Dawkins, and would-be scientists like Daniel Dennett constantly worry about the "danger" supposedly posed to science by religion, while blithely and unquestioningly accepting the fraudulent gospel of global warming because it came wrapped in scientific clothing. They truly don't seem to understand how utterly devastating this ongoing scandal is going to be to the public regard for science and scientists alike.

And let's not forget those who declared global warming to be an established fact. Keep that in mind as you consider their credibility with regards to other matters where they claim science has settled the issue.

Indeed.

If only teachers could marry - part of a continuing series

This time it's in Indiannapolis and involves a male teacher and a 13 year old boy.

Dialogue on Calvin, nature and the knowledge of God

From an online discussion with other "Fresno Bookies."

Craig is the author of "The Trial of Man: Christianity and Judgment in the World of Shakespeare and writes at VDH, which is high up on the coolness index.

Craig wrote:

Thanks to Russ, Peter, and Jim for the great thought you've put into this discussion. It's teaching me a lot, but I continue to be troubled by things I've brought up earlier.

I'm just not seeing that big a gap between what little I know of Calvin's thought about ways of coming to know God and what I'm finding in the Catholic Catechism.

From the Catholic Catechism, paragraphs 31 to 34, in part:

31. Created in God's image and called to know and love him, the person who seeks God discovers certain ways of coming to know him. These are also called proofs for the existence of God, not in the sense of proofs in the natural sciences, but rather in the sense of "converging and convincing arguments" which allow us to attain certainty about the truth [query: what is meant by "certainty" here?]

32. The world: starting from movement, becoming, contingency, and the world's order and beauty, one can come to a knowledge of God as the origin and the end of the universe.

As St. Paul says of the Gentiles: For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived int he things that have been made.

And St. Augustine issues this challenge: Question the beauty of the earth, question the beauty of the sea, question the beauty of the air distending and diffusing itself, question the beauty of the sky...question all these realities. All respond: "See, we are beautiful." Their beauty is a profession [confessio]. These beauties are subject to change. Who made them is not the Beautiful One who is not
subject to change?

33, The human person: With his openness to truth and beauty, his sense of moral goodness, his freedom and the voice of his conscience, with his longings to the infinite and for happiness, man questions himself about God's existence. In all this he discerns signs of his spiritual soul...

[Although the above refer to proofs, it also seems to include something much more direct and intuitive than any of the classic arguments for God's existence.]

Now Calvin, and I take this from an online article by Alvin Plantinga:

http://www.leaderu.com/truth/1truth10.html

Taking it for granted, for example, that there is such a person as God and that we are indeed within our epistemic rights (are in that sense justified) in believing that there is, the Christian epistemologist might ask what it is that confers justification here: by virtue of what is the theist justified? Perhaps there are several sensible responses.

One answer he might give and try to develop is that of John Calvin (and before him, of the Augustinian, Anselmian, Bonaventurian tradition of the middle ages): God, said Calvin, has implanted in humankind a tendency or nisus or disposition to believe in him:

"There is within the human mind, and indeed by natural instinct, an awareness of divinity." This we take to beyond controversy. To prevent anyone from taking refuge in the pretense of ignorance, God himself has implanted in all men a certain understanding of his divine majesty . . .

Therefore, since from the beginning of the world there has been no region, no city, in short, no household, that could do without religion, there lies in this a tacit confession of a sense of deity inscribed in the hearts of all.[2]

Calvin's claim, then, is that God has so created us that we have by nature a strong tendency or inclination or disposition towards belief in him.

Although this disposition to believe in God has been in part smothered or suppressed by sin, it is nevertheless universally present. And it is triggered or actuated by widely realized conditions:

Lest anyone, then, be excluded from access to happiness, he not only sowed in men's minds that seed of religion of which we have spoken, but revealed himself and daily disclosed himself in the whole workmanship of the universe. As, a consequence, men cannot open their eyes without being compelled to see him (p. 51).

Like Kant, Calvin is especially impressed in this connection, by the marvelous compages of the starry heavens above:

Even the common folk and the most untutored, who have been taught only by the aid of the eyes, cannot be unaware of the excellence of divine art, for it reveals itself in this innumerable and yet distinct and well-ordered variety of the heavenly host (p. 52).

And now what Calvin says suggests that one who accedes to this tendency and in these circumstances accepts the belief that God has created the world-perhaps upon beholding the starry heavens, or the splendid majesty of the mountains, or the intricate, articulate beauty of a tiny flower- is quite as rational and quite as justified as one who believes that he sees a tree upon having that characteristic being-appeared-to-treely kind of experience.

Back to Bernthal: I do not see a vast gap here, defined by Protestant fideism v. Catholic rationalism. Going back to the quotation of Paul in the Catholic Catechism, he says that ever since the creation of the world this knowledge has been WIDELY available, presumably to nomads in 1000 BC, who didn't know from Aquinas. Paul and Augustine seem to be describing an apprehension of God which follows so close on the
experience of just being in the world that it is much closer to apprehension than deduction.]

Always looking for shortcuts,

Craig

Good points that raise an interesting question.

It may not be apparent, but most of my interest in these topics are historical. I'm interested in what people thought at various points in time and how that informed their view of the world. I'm not as up on Calvin and Calvinism as I'd like to be, but I have some clues from different sources.

For example, Calvinism tends to be systematic and logical in its approach to theology. If you communicate with Calvinists, you can see how they ride a few first principles to absolutely logical conclusions. I understand that this style comes from Calvin's Institutes. Presumably, this feature of Calvinist thought was what made it a force to be reckoned with by both Catholicism and Lutheranism.

It also appears that Calvin straddled a middle position between intellectualism and nominalism. Check out this article.

Though proponents of the idea that nominalism is the great enemy of natural law have identified the Reformers rather generally in the nominalist school, (12) the via antiqua in fact shaped the thought of several of the prominent Reformers. (13) Calvin is perhaps as difficult as any of them to categorize. Scholars have suggested many but have been able to prove few direct nominalist influences upon Calvin's early thought, (14) and his mature theology reflects a strident opposition to any form of extreme voluntarism that puts God ex lex. (15) Whether Calvin can be categorized as a nominalist or not, however, does not predetermine his status as a theologian of natural law.

Calvin had an idea called De Regnis Duobus - the Two Kingdoms - which I seem to have been misunderstanding, although I was participating in a Calvinist blog with that name, until I got tired of the Calvinist participants' inability to not use terms like "papist" and "Romanist" (and what is it with modern Calvinists who think it is de rigeur to sound like 17th Century bigots?). The article observes:

What then of Calvin's view of human ability to understand the heavenly things, that is, things pertaining to "the kingdom of God, and spiritual discernment?" In regard to knowledge of God and salvation, the first two branches of spiritual knowledge, Calvin believed that "men otherwise the most ingeneous are blinder than moles" and that "human reason makes not the least approach" in its understanding. The "natural man," who excels in all of the things listed in the previous paragraph, "has no understanding in the spiritual mysteries of God." (73) In Calvin's mind, therefore, the possibilities of human achievement in the earthly and heavenly things could not differ more greatly.

And:

For Calvin, the sinful human person, by use of reason and natural knowledge, can attain to great things in the domain of earthly things, that is, of the civil kingdom. By use of reason and natural knowledge, however, the sinful person cannot even begin to make the slightest approach to knowledge of God's being or salvation, that is, of the heavenly kingdom of Christ. Natural law, therefore, has a positive function to play in the life of the earthly, civil kingdom, according to Calvin. However, as he explains in a subsequent section, natural law has only a negative function to play in regard to spiritual things and the heavenly kingdom of Christ, where it serves merely to convict people of their sins and to strip them of all pretexts for ignorance. (74) These conclusions, therefore, show the practical context in which Calvin put natural law to work. He denied that natural law could ever give knowledge of salvation in the heavenly kingdom, even while he affirmed that it provided true and useful knowledge of mundane things in the civil kingdom.

and:

For Calvin, any action performed apart from the saving grace of Christ, arising out of the judgment of reason alone, is sinful and displeasing in God's sight. No such action can earn any merit before God. This conviction, however, pertained to matters of salvation (85) and, therefore, to the kingdom of Christ. The same action, having no value for one's standing in the kingdom of Christ, may be of great value from the perspective of the civil kingdom. The ancient lawgivers of whom Calvin wrote accomplished astonishingly great things for life in the civil kingdom, though their achievements were worthless for attaining life in the kingdom of Christ. Calvin, therefore, could attribute both a wholly negative role and a remarkably positive role to natural law not because of internal inconsistency but because the former was true for the kingdom of Christ and the latter for the civil kingdom. Barth's famous claims about Calvin on the natural knowledge of God are thus only half true. His appraisal would accurately portray Calvin as viewing the natural knowledge of God as wholly negative and merely a possibility in principle, not in reality (86)--if his discussion were limited to matters of the kingdom of Christ. In fact, however, Barth overlooked the importance of the two kingdoms doctrine at this point. His claim that Calvin always viewed the natural knowledge of God in terms of the history of salvation (87) is certainly incorrect and seems rooted in a failure to recognize that much of Calvin's treatment of this natural knowledge occurred in the context of the civil kingdom, which, as defined by Calvin himself, had nothing to do with the gospel or salvation.

So, maybe we can put Plantinga together with this article. It seems that Calvin asserted that man had naturally implanted in him by God some awareness of God. This would not necessarily involve "reason" - which, according to Aquinas, was the application of the intellect to facts obtained through the senses. Calvin's view seems to make the awareness of God prior to the senses.

Catholicism certainly recognizes a desire or an appetite toward God. It can't do otherwise without repudiating St. Augustine's dicta that "we have no rest until we rest in thee." But an "appetite" or a "desire" is simply the tendency of the will to be attracted to a "good." An appetite is not necessarily intellectual - the intellectual appetite is directed toward truth in the same way as the non-intellectual appetite is directed toward good. (Cf. "The good is that which all men desire") Catholicism does not deny that the will is always directed toward some particular good and, moreover, is ultimately directed to the Good which is behind all lesser goods. In fact, Catholicism rather has a patent on that kind of language.

According to the article, Calvin apparently denied the ability of human reason to obtain a knowledge of God's existence. I don't think that Plantinga says anything to the contrary. Plantinga's argument is that knowledge of God is "properly basic," According to Plaintinga, we are instinctively aware of God whether or not we ever open our eyes. Plantinga isn't saying - as Aquinas and para 36 of the Catechism says - that we open our eyes and we see evidence of God's handiwork through our senses from which we can deduce the existence of God.

Thinking about this approach, I can see why Calvinism may take this approach. Calvinism holds - like most nominalism - that there is an alienation of God from Creation. We cannot find God in Nature. Pace Calvin, there are natural laws that God put into Nature and which we can deduce, but those natural laws could have been entirely different. In other words, there is nothing innately good or special about the way that nature is currently ordered - the way things are ordered is good, but only because that's the way God decreed it to be.

Consequently, looking for God in nature is a waste of time, which means that we aren't going to find God in the evidence of our senses, and, therefore, any knowledge of God has to be prior and independent of our senses.

In contrast, Catholicism teaches that nature reflects the Creator and therefore we can achieve some understanding of God by examining nature, which means that it is not a waste of time to look at nature to find evidence of God.

That at least is my present take.

Perspective

Victor Davis Hanson responds to a Letterman apologist:

The intent of Letterman's tripartite sexual reference was to suggest that the Palins were synonymous with female promiscuity. (cf. Letterman's further references to the governor's "slutty" look, and remarks about former governor Eliot Spitzer's interest in a Palin daughter, e.g., the "toughest part" of Palin's visit "was keeping former New York governor Eliot Spitzer away from her daughter.")


Cf. that logic: (a) Palin is in N.Y. with her 14-year-old daughter; (b) former N.Y. governor Spitzer was caught visiting a young prostitute. Ergo . . . (c) Sarah Palin will naturally have to "keep" a randy Spitzer away from a likewise randy 14-year-old with dug-out propensities.


Zengerle then finishes with "P.S. VDH says Letterman would never make jokes about the offspring of the Obamas, Kerrys, Bidens, or Gores. Not true." (He then references a Letterman pun to a speeding ticket by the Gore son. Some moral equivalence that — a pun on speeding versus a pun on the statutory rape of a 14-year-old.)


First, Zengerle cannot read. I did not write that Letterman does not generically attack others; rather that in this particular context he would not have used such grotesque references to the children of iconic liberals: "But the reason he picked the Palins, and not the Obamas, Gores, Bidens, or Kerrys, was precisely because he knew it would not equate to his "last show."


Letterman would never make a joke about an underage daughter of Barack Obama, Joe Biden, John Kerry, or Al Gore having sex with Alex Rodriguez or Eliot Spitzer. Sorry, he would not. Any idiot knows that.


Letterman offered no apology, but more of his usual postmodern, I'm goofy; feel sorry for me; "got the wrong daughter;" I'm Dave after all junk. The fact remains that in three separate references he slurred the female governor of Alaska and her 14-year-old daughter on a recent visit to his New York. And when he tried to contextualize it, all he did was make it worse by suggesting that he meant instead Governor Palin's 18-year-old daughter, who recently delivered an out-of-wedlock child.



So follow the additional sick logic there: Having one illegitimate son naturally implies inherent promiscuity of the sort that would send you down to the dugout to have sex with a baseball player or draw in a frequent patron of prostitutes?


Letterman has devolved into a mean-spirited, demented sort. Good luck to his apologists, like Zengerle, who try to explain what he said was not quite what he said. All they accomplish is to end up as foolish and creepy as Letterman himself.

Also - miracle of miracles! - NOW has bestirred itself into a grudging defense of Palin. Apparently, the constant stream of condemnation at its blatant hypocrisy had an effect on the usual full throated lionesses of feminism, but even their defense came with qualifications and slams at conservative women for basically deserving jokes about raping them or their daughters.

Politically Correct Apology

Letterman explains that he really meant to smear an 18 year old girl - who was no where near New York - as a rape victim or prostitute:

"We were, as we often do, making jokes about people in the news and we made some jokes about Sarah Palin and her daughter, the 18-year-old girl, who is — her name is Bristol, that's right, and so, then, now they're upset with me . . ."

"These are not jokes made about her 14-year-old daughter. I would never, never make jokes about raping or having sex of any description with a 14-year-old girl. I mean, look at my record. It has never happened. I don't think it's funny. I would never think it was funny. I wouldn't put it in a joke..."

Because it's obviously wrong to joke about sex with a 14 year old, but the moment she turns 18, it's all good.

Classy.

Victor Davis Hanson - grounded in reality - points out:

Third, he strangely amplifies his joke by confessing it really was about "raping" and "having sex of any description," but just not with a "14-year-old girl," suggesting it would have been okay had he just been more explicit and named Bristol, the 18-year-old. In Letterman's world, because Bristol is 18, she is a year past most statuary rape clauses and thus the joke would have only been about "raping or having sex of any description with a [18-year-old] girl."

Sure, so long as it's not technically illegal, it's perfectly alright.

VDH also offers:

The self-serving, creepy apology was as bad as the initial slur. Letterman is emblematic of an aging, baby-boomer culture, that dresses up street vulgarity with a tie and coat. The only thing that saves him is his care to do this with the Palins from Alaska that don't figure into the usual no-go race/class/gender paradigm.

God help us now that they - my deranged, spoiled, unhinged Baby Boomer generation - is in charge.

14 or 18, I can imagine Todd Palin horse-whippin' Letterman for smearing the names of his children, whether or not they are beyond statutory rape charges.

There was a time when we instinctively understood this. As Harry Truman wrote to music critic Paul Hume after Hume gave a particularly bad review of Truman's daughter:

THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON

Mr Hume:

I've just read your lousy review of Margaret's concert. I've come to the conclusion that you are an "eight ulcer man on four ulcer pay."

It seems to me that you are a frustrated old man who wishes he could have been successful. When you write such poppy-cock as was in the back section of the paper you work for it shows conclusively that you're off the beam and at least four of your ulcers are at work.

Some day I hope to meet you. When that happens you'll need a new nose, a lot of beefsteak for black eyes, and perhaps a supporter below!

Pegler, a gutter snipe, is a gentleman alongside you. I hope you'll accept that statement as a worse insult than a reflection on your ancestry.

H.S.T.

The insult that Hume gave was nothing compared to Letterman's classless antics.

Sooner or later, the left is gonna get ya'

Carrie Prejean fired as Miss California.

Toleration is not enough; you must express your unreserved support for the love which dares not speak its name but won't shut up.

Holding Paper

NIPCC Report on global warming.

Keeping it Classy

I just love how those newly-minted eternal truths go out the window when its the left's turn to act decently. For example, supposedly, there is the rule that the children of politicians is off-limits for ridicule or personal attack, unless, of course, it is the fourteen year old daughter of Sarah Palin.

Here's a video of Dave Letterman's comedy gold about Willow Palin being "knocked up" by Alex Rodriguez:



Beyond the crassness of Letterman's child-rape joke, Letterman is just not funny, although the audience seems to appreciate the joke, in the same way, perhaps, that crowds in ancient Rome applauded the humiliation of their foes in the Coliseum.

Here is VDH's take on David Letterman's "decline into dotage":

Letterman attacked in crass sexual terms both Palin and her daughter: Two of the rhetorical cornerstones of the feminist movement used to be zero-tolerance for sexual slurs by men alleging promiscuity ("slutty flight-attendant look"), and jokes about something as serious as rape (e.g., Palin's 14-year-old daughter "knocked up by Alex Rodriguez"). David Letterman, who has become ever more creepy in his dotage, on both counts proved a boor — and receives only silence? (Personally, I admire flight attendants a great deal: They put up with a great deal from jet lag to obnoxious passengers, and somehow remain polite and hard-working — and with a modest and professional look.)

Ah, more child sex humor about Palin's fourteen year old daughter:



Jim Treacher suggests some jokes that Letterman could use if he wanted to be really edgy:

realize I’m just an inbred backwoods moron who can’t abide by any criticism of Sarah Palin whatsoever, but is this really the precedent we want to set for our politicians and their families?

After all, Samson Obama, one of the president’s many half-brothers, isn’t allowed in the UK because he tried to assault a 13-year-old girl. Are we to impose the Letterman standard there? Is it okay to make a joke like this?

“How come the First Family never invites Uncle Samson to visit? Because whenever Sasha and Malia sit on his knee, it takes six Secret Service guys to pry them off!”

Or how about this?

“Joe Biden keeps saying he’s not really sure where all that stimulus money is going. In other news, Ashley Biden’s coke dealer just bought Luxembourg.”

Hey, I didn’t say they were good jokes. But are they really worse than what Letterman just got away with on national TV? If so, why?

But, then, the trained seals in Letterman's audience might not laugh.

The Palin parent's comments are here:

"Any 'jokes' about raping my 14-year-old are despicable. Alaskans know it and I believe the rest of the world knows it, too."

- Todd Palin

"Concerning Letterman's comments about my young daughter (and I doubt he'd ever dare make such comments about anyone else's daughter): 'Laughter incited by sexually-perverted comments made by a 62-year-old male celebrity aimed at a 14-year-old girl is not only disgusting, but it reminds us some Hollywood/NY entertainers have a long way to go in understanding what the rest of America understands - that acceptance of inappropriate sexual comments about an underage girl, who could be anyone's daughter, contribute to the atrociously high rate of sexual exploitation of minors by older men who use and abuse others.'"

- Governor Sarah Palin

A good rule of thumb for Letterman in this area might be whether he would have made these remarks in front of Todd Palin, or any father.

Good Quotations in the Metaphysics

I'm starting to read a chapter a day in St. Thomas' commentary on the Metaphysics.

There are a lot of good quotes in there:

"All men naturally desire to know."

"Now in men experience comes from memory."

"But we see that men of experience are more proficient than those who have theory without experience." (Too true!)

"A sign of scientific knowledge is the ability to teach." (i.e, those who can, do; those who can't, teach.)

"For it is because of wonder that men both now and formerly began to philosophize."

From St. Thomas "For when an inexperienced person acts correctly, this happens by luck" (explaining Polus' "Experience causes art and inexperience luck.")

Upcoming Science Fiction Movies

Remakes, Phillip K. Dick, and, for the those deeply into SF nerdiness, a movie based on E.E. "Doc" Smith's Lensmen series.

Wow. Lensmen. That's hardcore.

Speaking of hardcore, here is a radio interview between Harlan Ellison and Robin Williams. The interview is worth watching for two reasons. First, Ellison drops a lot of inside stories about great but mostly forgotten science fiction writers like L. Sprague De Camp, and offers a story about how L. Ron Hubbard created Scientology from story ideas offered by his fellow writers. Second, Robin Williams remains silent for the most part during this clip.

Free Speech in America, or St. Thomas More Call Your Office.

Americans are free to discuss whatever they want so long as it involves pornography or art and does not get anywhere near politics or religion.

Check out this story about Catholic Answers' claim that it has been subjected to intimidation by the IRS:

The apologetics organization Catholic Answers has filed suit against the Internal Revenue Service claiming the federal tax collection agency has “intimidated” churches and non-profit groups into silence on politically controversial moral issues.

In an announcement posted at the organization’s web site, Catholic Answers president Karl Keating explained that the IRS fined the group for a 2004 e-letter it wrote saying that Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry should not be allowed to receive Holy Communion.

So, apparently, Catholics are not permitted to talk about matters of Church discipline.

Re - freaking- markable.

Here is the Catholic Answers' explanation and appeal for donations concerning the lawsuit.

Makes you really confident about how all those hate-speech laws are going to be applied if gay marriage becomes the law of the land.

Combine that with the 9th Circuit's ruling that it was not an infringement of the First Amendment for San Francisco to pass on anti-Catholic resolution.

The resolution used classic Anti-Catholic tropes such as a nativist appeal to the putative "alien status" of Catholicism and the control of Catholics by a foreign power, e.g.,:

WHEREAS, It is an insult to all San Franciscans when a foreign country, like the Vatican, meddles with and attempts to negatively influence this great City’s existing and established customs and traditions such as the right of same-sex couples to adopt and care for children in need; and...

And, of course, there was the traditional gratuitous dig at the Inquisition, beloved by Know-Nothings of every age:

RESOLVED, That the Board of Supervisors urges Cardinal William Levada, in his capacity as head of the Congregation of the Doctrine of Faith [sic] at the Vatican (formerly known as Holy Office of the Inquisition), to withdraw his discriminatory and defamatory directive that Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of San Francisco stop placing children in need of adoption with homosexual households.

And the usual attempt by dictators of every age to split the local church from the universal church:

WHEREAS, The Board of Supervisors urges Archbishop Niederauer and the Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of San Francisco to defy all discriminatory directives of Cardinal Levada; now, therefore, be it

This resolution is ranks with any of the classic statements by Know-nothings in the 19th Century. Since we are supposed to hang our head in shame at the ignorance and bigotry of our ancestors, you would think that the 9th Circuit would quickly slap down this resolution, but you would be wrong. According to the majority opinion:

As discussed above, the Board’s unequivocal promotion of non-discrimination against same-sex couples in adoption is secular, regardless of whether the Catholic Church may be opposed to it as a religious tenet. The question is whether promotion of same-sex adoption is reasonably understood as the primary message conveyed by the Resolution.10 It is not enough that one might “ ‘infer’ ” disapproval of Catholic religious tenets; rather, disapproval or inhibition must “ ‘objectively be construed as the primary focus or effect.’ ”

So, the fact that stigmatizing a portion of San Francisco's citizenry as having a treasonous allegiance to a foreign power because of their religion is hunkey-dory because that message is secondary to the secular message.

And this is not a use of state power in the cause of anti-Catholic bigotry because?

The concurring opinion offered some concerns, which it assuaged by not finding a "pervasive campaign" against Catholicism:

For that reason, I think it critical that the result in American Family and in this case be understood as limited by three considerations — first, that no regulation at all was attached to the resolutions — they were purely speech, albeit governmental speech; second, that the speech was broadcast to the public, as far as appears in the opinions, only by the enactment of the resolution itself, and not in any other, more intrusive and permanent way — for example, through plaques in public places, or advertisements in newspapers or on radio; and third, that the resolutions were not repeated or pervasive, but discrete. If any of these circumstances were different, I would think that the notion that there was an establishment of religion rather than the predominant pursuit of a secular purpose with a predominantly secular effect would have considerably more force, and the result might be therwise. So, for example, a pervasive public campaign by a city to condemn Jews for not shopping on Saturday or Muslims from observing Ramadan because of the effect on the economy would probably trigger Establishment Clause concerns not here present.
We need not address such matters here, however, as the Resolution, as far as the record shows, was passed but then left dormant, and so did not pervade public perception of Catholicism or Catholics as would a public advertisement campaign.

Notice the examples? Muslims or Jews? What about real American history in the 19th Century, such as the Know-Nothing Party? What about the the very real tradition of Anti-Catholicism that the resolution played on?

Seriously, in Romer v. Colorado, the Supreme Court knocked down a Colorado law that homosexuality could not be made a "protected class" because it intuited that the real purpose of the law was to stigmatize a particular group. Likewise, public libraries cannot take books off the shelf because of their content because of the message of disapproval that such action implies.

But this resolution stands?

Re-freaking-markable.

Here is the decision.

Weakening the Brand

The Rev. Canon J. Gary L'Hommedieu is Canon for Pastoral Care at the Cathedral Church of St. Luke, Orlando, Florida at Virtue Online has a few things to say about Father Alberto Cutie. Father Cutie is the former Catholic priest who, after having been discovered an affair, did what all good Catholics do when they are troubled by an inconvenient vow, i.e., become Episcopalian.

The Rev. Canon points out that this "trickle down" approach to church growth is not quite the win/win scenario that it has been made out to be in the press:

TEC's latest foray into the public eye is a slight variation on a major theme in postmodern Americana--the Catholic priest who falls in love with the nun next door and lives happily ever after in the Episcopal Church.

Well, that's the normal pattern. The present story is a little off the beaten track, involving a priest and a divorcée. Father Alberto Cutié, affectionately known as "Padre Alberto", was recently received into the Episcopal Church along with his fiancée. The two of them are preparing to make serious vows before God in their new ecclesiastical home: marriage vows for the two of them, and for him priestly vows in the Episcopal Church.

At present we only know one thing about Padre Alberto, aside from the fact that he is related to pop stars and that he hangs out with Miami's glitterati. Those are all externals. What we know about his interior life is, of course, hard to read, and it's not really anybody's business to go passing judgment.

The one thing we know as a matter of fact, not based on anyone's judgment or opinion, is this: he doesn't keep the vows he makes before God.

And:

I can't say I blame the good Father for wanting to live a non-celibate life. I'm happy that he has found a soul mate. I hope things work out for the two of them. I hope his wife-to-be eventually finds she can take him at his word.

I have no interest in judging Father Cutié for breaking his vow to the Church. Here's my problem. If someone breaks a promise on Monday and makes the same promise again on Tuesday, it is not possible for me to believe his second promise. It has nothing to do with judging him. It is possible to forgive him for breaking his promise, but it is not possible to believe the next several promises he makes, particularly if they reinforce the perception that he is acting out of pure self-aggrandizement. The burden of credibility is on him. Such a conclusion is not a moral judgment but the only possible interpretation of his own actions.

If only women teachers could marry - part of a continuing series.

According to AOL Wire News Service

A former music teacher in Michigan accused of having sex with two students was sentenced to nine months in jail on Wednesday.
Police say 42-year-old Ranee Proper had sex with boys ages 16 and 17. She was originally charged with five counts of third-degree criminal sexual conduct with a student.

Musical Treat of the Day

A literalistic treatment of a Bonnie Tyler music video.



There are some very clever people out there with waaaaaaaay too much time on their hands.

FYI - Here's the original music video.

Liberal Fascism Alert

It's amazing how liberals permit themselves to traffic in the racism and misogyny that they seem to see on the right. I've pointed out the shamefully racist attacks on Michelle Malkin and the sophomoric Olbermann screeds about Carrie Prejean.

In the same vein, Playboy decided to ramp it up a bit with some leftists piece indulging rape fantasies about Conservative women.

Hot Air describes Playboy as a "hate site."

Sauce for the goose, sauce for the gander.

Michelle Malkin points out that a writer on Politico somehow managed to scrub any description of the vulgar misogyny from her description of the Playboy post.

Thank goodness the left is in charge of the culture so that we can finally stamp out racism and sexism.

Ed Driscoll's take is worth reading. Driscoll points to this semi-defense by the liberal Salon magazine:

Cimbalo’s conservababes are parasites on the body of feminism, free-riding on its gains to denounce its goals. The image of Coulter or Malkin in a miniskirt denouncing, say, the Equal Rights Amendment is supposed to thrill us with its irony: the whole point is to elicit exactly the kind of response Cimbalo offers up so willingly. Rather than deign to respond to the awfulness of their ideas, Cimbalo’s article echoes their irony, practically screaming, “I’m a liberal, but what these crazy bitches need is a good fucking.” And though these pundits shouldn't be taken especially seriously, the mockery they deserve is the same kind that Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly deserve. Trying to mask a degrading fantasy behind a thin sheen of would-be cool, liberal kidding around isn’t anywhere near convincing. And, ultimately, not really that funny, either.

So, after such deliberation, we discover that the problem with the Playboy piece is that it is "not really that funny" or "anywhere near convincing"????

What about the usual liberal list of "hateful" and "treating women like objects" and "inciting hateful acts against women"?

Oh, I see, these women don't count as women because they are conservatives.

Thanks for clarifying that.