Sad Day: Student Absent From Class

Here.

Did I Miss Anything?

Nothing. When we realized you weren’t here
we sat with our hands folded on our desks
in silence, for the full two hours

     Everything. I gave an exam worth
     40 percent of the grade for this term
     and assigned some reading due today
     on which I’m about to hand out a quiz
     worth 50 percent

Nothing. None of the content of this course
has value or meaning
Take as many days off as you like:
any activities we undertake as a class
I assure you will not matter either to you or me
and are without purpose

     Everything. A few minutes after we began last time
     a shaft of light suddenly descended and an angel
     or other heavenly being appeared
     and revealed to us what each woman or man must do
     to attain divine wisdom in this life and
     the hereafter
     This is the last time the class will meet
     before we disperse to bring the good news to all people  on earth.

Nothing. When you are not present
how could something significant occur?

     Everything. Contained in this classroom
     is a microcosm of human experience
     assembled for you to query and examine and ponder
     This is not the only place such an opportunity has been gathered

     but it was one place

     And you weren’t here

—Tom Wayman

Monastic Military

Protestants are largely clueless about monastic orders, and that's a shame. They tend to think that they are not being of the world to the neglect of being in the world. They are strange. There were no monks in the Bible (never mind Jesus's words about celibacy, the fact that the Bible is silent on many things, and the fact that arguments from silence tend to be fallacious).

But that is a misconception from the monastic point of view. They are in the world conducting battle in a spiritual war on the front lines. Done properly they are Seal Team 6, unknown to most of the world and not in country. A largely thankless life except for the reward given by God about which the left hand does not know.

"Son, we live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men and women who pray ceaselessly. Who's gonna do it? You? You, Tully Borland? I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives! You don't want the truth, because deep down in places you don't talk about at parties, you want me on that wall. You need me on that wall. We use words like "faith," "hope," and "love."  We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something. You use them as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide, and then questions the manner in which I provide it! I would rather you just said "thank you," and went on your way."

My pastor who spent some time in a monastery conveyed to me that when he left, one of the monks told him that he would pray for him. Every day. For the rest of his life.

Islam, the Bible, Apologetics, and Religious Conversion

Talking with my 12-year-old daughter (who has never met a Muslim--we live in a small town with no mosques) about Muslims...

Malea: You know Muslims??

Me: One of my best friends in graduate school was a Muslim.

Malea: How were you friends??

Me: We had a lot in common with respect to a lot of things that were important to us.

Malea: Did he become a Christian?

Me: Actually, "Did she become a Christian?"

Malea: OK.  Did she become a Christian?

Me: No.  Her whole family was Muslim.  Imagine what it would be like.  Your whole family is Christian and you suddenly think that Christianity might be wrong.  Imagine what it would take to convince you that everyone you know, love, and respect is wrong about your most fundamental beliefs.

Malea: That's a whole different scenario because we have a Book that tells us about Jesus.

Me:  Well, every religion has a book.

Malea: Do Muslims have the Bible?

Me: Not exactly.  Their main book is the Koran.

Malea: But we have proof.

Me: But they'll say the same thing.

Malea: Dad, are you saying that you don't believe in Christianity?!

Me: No.  I'm just saying that changing one's fundamental beliefs is complicated and it involves more than having proofs.

Gender Neutral Language: Ed Feser's Run-In With a Copy Editor

Here.

Bill Vallicella has some strong words for overzealous copy editors: “Keep your political correctness to yourself. Don't replace the gender neutral 'his' with the abomination 'his/her.' Keep your stinking leftist politics out of my manuscript. And don’t try to be what the Germans call a Besserwisser: don’t presume to know better what I want to say and how I want to say it.”

Amen. To be sure, I’ve had some very helpful copy editors, as I’m sure Bill has. But then, like him, I’ve also had some real fools. My “favorite” was the copy editor who ruined an entire weekend several years ago by filling the proofs of one of my books with something even worse than the abominable ”his/her”: the dreaded ungrammatical “they” and “their” sprinkled liberally and indiscriminately throughout the text wherever I had written “he” or “his.” Hence “Someone might claim that he can conceive…” became “Someone might claim that they can conceive…”; “Someone who puts his right hand…” became “Someone who puts their right hand…”; etc. Standard college student term paper stuff, of course, but something you’d think a professional copy editor would avoid like the plague.

Could such a brain-dead PC automaton get any worse? Yes “they” can. This one also put in “themselves” for “himself” – as in “A certain copy editor proved themselves unworthy of the paycheck they were about to receive” – and (the pièce de résistance) even invented a new word, “themself” (!) – as in “This particular copy editor made a complete ass of themself.” And it got even worse still, as the copy editor in question exhibited as feeble a grasp of English vocabulary as of English grammar : “glossed” (in the sense of “provided an explanation or interpretation of”) was changed to “glossed over”; “conception” was changed, throughout the text, to “concept”; and so forth.

As I say, I had to work day and night over a long weekend to fix up my poor book so that I could get it to the publisher by deadline – all the while trying to avoid a nervous breakdown and to resist as strong a temptation to commit homicide as I’ve ever felt.

Read the rest.

This Pope and the Church catholic

From the Mav Phil:

I hope the Church is not about to commit 'suicide by pope.'  Pope Francis might do well to meditate on the following truths from the pen of the agnostic philosopher, Leszek Kolakowski.  The following from an interview:

It would be silly, foolish, to object to the Church on the grounds that it is "traditionalist". The whole strength of the Church is that it is faithful to its tradition - otherwise, what is the Church for? If the Church is going to become a political party which merely adapts its beliefs to changing opinions, it can be safely dismissed altogether, because there are political parties doing such things. If the Church is there to sanctify and bless in advance every change in intellectual and moral fashion in our civilisation, then again - what is the Church for? The Church is strong because it has a traditional teaching, a spiritual kernel, which it considers its immutable essence. It cannot just yield to any pressure from people who think that whatever is in fashion at the present moment should immediately be adopted by the Church as its own teaching, whether in the field of political ideas or of daily life.

I think the Church is not only right in keeping its historically shaped, traditional identity. Its very role, its very mission on earth would become unclear if it did not do that. And so I would not be afraid at all, and I would not take it as an insult, that critics describe the Church as traditionalist or conservative.

There must be forces of conservatism in society, in spiritual life, by which I mean the forces of conservation. Without such forces, the entire fabric of society would fall apart.

[. . .]

In my view, there is no way in which Marxist teaching could be reconciled with Christianity. Marxism is anti-Christian, not contingently, not by accident, but in its very core. You cannot reconcile it.

There is no Christianity where no distinction is made between temporal and eternal values. There is no Christianity where [the word 'where' is wrong; should be UNLESS] one accepts that all earthly values, however important, however crucial to human life, are nevertheless secondary. What the Church is about essentially is the salvation of human souls, and the human soul is never reducible to social conditions.

There is an absolute value in the human person. The Church believes that the world - the social world, the physical world - is merely an expression of the divine, and as such it can only have instrumental or secondary value. Without this, there is no point in speaking about Christianity.

I don't want to hear the pope talk about  global warming or capitalism or any other topic he knows nothing about.  Let him stick to faith and morals.  Let him show that he understands that Christianity is not just another load of secular humanist claptrap.  Let him demonstrate that he understands Kolakowski's point that this world has only instrumental or secondary value.  Let him preach on the Last Things. 

Boldly Go Where No MAN Has Gone Before!

My 12-year-old daughter, Malea, likes her some Star Trek.  The original series, that is.  I think she's watched every episode from every season twice.  So last night I asked her if she wanted to see one of the more recent films (2009) and, of course, she said that she did.

When we got to the end where Spock (the Spock played by Leonard Nimoy) does the voice-over send-off while the viewer gets a look at the Enterprise--to the delight of all who loved the original series--I heard Malea say something like "cool" or "awesome."  Any lover of Star Trek should have such a reaction.

But at the very end of the monologue there was a small surprise in store for her: "Space, the final frontier.  These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise.  It's mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no one has gone before!"

I asked her if she liked the film.  "Yeah, it was really good.  But they screwed up the ending."

"What do you mean?"

"They said 'to boldly go where no one has gone before.'  It's 'where no man has gone before.'  Why did they screw up the ending?"

I then had to briefly explain to her that this was likely an instance of political correctness, and that there are many who think that girls like her are either not smart enough to distinguish between gender neutral tokens of the English word "man/men" and gender specific tokens of "man/men," or feel that helpless girls are being oppressed by the word.

It was a bit of a letdown.

This is another excellent example of the silliness of PC-whipped progressives.  The truth (within the fictional world) is that the Enterprise is boldly going where no man (i.e. for the dull-witted--where no human, man, and woman)  has gone before, not where no one has gone before, for almost every episode consists in going where persons of an alien race have gone before!  So instead of keeping a perfectly intelligible sentence, it is replaced (previously in some iteration of the series before that movie) with a more politically correct sentence which is false!

Better to say "boldly go where no human has gone before," since at least that is true.  But presumably whoever made the change had at least some aesthetic sensibilities and preferred "no one" because it sounds less clunky than "human."   Anyone with common sense would have just left the sentence alone.  But the left must infuse politics into everything.

Ahmed Mohamed: Explosion of Racism/Islamophobia Accusations

By now you've heard the story of the teen who made a clock, was arrested, and then suspended from school.  The pop culture narrative is the following: Totally innocent boy genius inventor was targeted for his race and religion (Islam) by bigoted teachers, administrators, and police.  That narrative is possibly true.  Maybe that's right.  But I don't think there is good evidence to believe it.  In fact, I think another narrative is at least as likely to be true.  That narrative is that Ahmed has a history of getting into trouble at school (his father denies this but so do millions of parents who, in spite of all evidence to the contrary believe their children are angels), he thinks he's more clever than his teachers, and perhaps he even pulled a grand political stunt (just like "Deez Nuts" who is his age).

I present the case for the alternative narrative (which I am not claiming is true, but might be true--plausible for all we know at this point.  In fact, because of what he says in the video he made, I think the alternative narrative--or something like it--is actually more likely than the completely innocent, angel narrative).

Obama to Nominate First Openly Gay Leader of Army

Here. The primary motivation of the left is sex, particularly sexual deviancy from the norm.  That would explain why they are more than willing to sacrifice millions of babies on the altar of Dionysus.

Han Solo or Luke?

Samuel (7-yr-old): Dad, who would you rather be, Han Solo or Luke?

Me (41-yr-old): Probably Han Solo if it's the TV Han Solo; Luke, if I'm reading the story because he can use the Force.

Johno (5-yr-old): I'd want to be Han Solo because he has a gun.

My son!

One Foot in Heaven....

Samuel (7-yr-old): Dad, are we going to have feet in heaven or will we just fly around?

Good question.

New Political Slogan

Republicans stage debates, Democrats stage angry protests.

Colleges Should not Have Football

That's the argument here.

"In the light of the brain damage resulting from football, it is a serious question whether it's morally permissible to participate in or support the sport at all. Still, one can make a case that there are human excellences that this sport provides a particularly good opportunity for (I am grateful to Dan Johnson for this point), and the brain damage is an unintended side-effect, so there might be a defense of the sport in general on the basis of the Principle of Double Effect."

"But I think it is particularly difficult to defend educational institutions supporting this sport among students. For the defining task of an educational institution is to develop the minds of the students. But brain damage harms the individual precisely in respect of mental functioning. And it is much harder for an organization to justify an activity that has among its side-effects serious harm to the goods pursuit of which defines the organization."

Lots of comments here.

Keep the Spotlight on Planned Parenthood

Stephen Heaney:

Do not be distracted by misdirection. Do not let the horror of abortion be the main issue. Stick to the pertinent facts: Planned Parenthood is profiting from the sale of fetal parts. Planned Parenthood is routinely violating federal law. Planned Parenthood does not care about women.

[...]

In the second video, Mary Gatter, president of the Planned Parenthood Medical Directors’ Council, and medical director at Planned Parenthood Los Angeles until 2014, is clearly willing to accept, not what it would cost her clinic to process the fetal organs, but whatever the buyer is willing to pay. In the third video, Deborah Nucatola, senior director of medical services for PPFA, recognizes that the affiliates are looking for ways, not simply to break even, but to make a profit. In the fifth video, we see Abby Johnson, former director of Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast, testifying before the Senate Committee on Health and Human Services, that fetal specimens were bringing in up to $120,000 per month. “That is certainly not ‘recouping costs,’” she concludes.

In the fifth video, Melissa Farrell, current director of research at PP Gulf Coast, expresses her pride in how she contributes to the diversification of the revenue stream both locally and nationally. She talks about ways of “framing” compensation so that it does not look bad, especially if they are being paid more for tissue that is more difficult to obtain. If this were all just about recouping costs, there would be absolutely no reason to be looking for legal cover for their monetary gain.

The real kicker comes in the eighth video, where the CEO of StemExpress, Cate Dyer, explains why it is better for clinics to work with her company than rival Advanced BioScience Resources (ABR). ABR previously had a lock on the market because they had employees of their company on the advisory boards of Planned Parenthood affiliates. However, ABR, as a not-for-profit organization, was unwilling to pay as much as StemExpress, which was willing to give a kickback from their profits to the clinics.

In the ninth video, Perrin Larton, Procurement Manager for ABR, says that the company has people waiting right outside the operating room door to take the desired fetal tissue. If this is true, what possible cost could there be to be reimbursed? Any money received by a clinic under such circumstances is pure profit.

The whole thing is worth reading.

See also, On Abortion, Medical Science is Still Waiting to be Heard

Men Are Stronger Than Women (on average)

Zexy

I posted before on a study which claims that conservatives and progressives are about equally anti-science.

Well, I'm beginning to wonder if that is correct.  It occurred to me that the study about which I posted seems to ignore some obvious propositions about sexuality progressives have a tendency to deny.

Just take the painfully obvious claim of common sense that men are stronger than women on average and ask yourself how many progressives today would think you are a sexist for even thinking about this let alone believing that it's true.   It took me exactly one Google search on the first page to find people at TED actually debating the issue, like this guy at the top of the page:

Now Playing

It has been said that Heavy Metal is music to pound out fenders by.  It's also music to wash dishes by.

                                                                       Supernaught
                                                                           One

                          All My Life (not metal but what is more appropriate to dish-washing than fighting food.  "Done, done, on to the next one!")

Gods and Ghosts

Sam [7-yr-old]: How much do you weigh?

Me: About 200 lbs, give or take 10 lbs depending on the season.

Sam: Wow, that's a lot.

Me: It's not so much.

Sam: Dad could you lift up this [chest-of-drawers]?

Me: Yeah, I built it and carried it in there.

Johno [5-yr-old]: Dad, could you lift up this [bed]?

Me: Sure, no problem.

Sam: Dad could you lift up the whole house?

Me: No way.  No normal human could lift up the house.

Sam: Yeah.  But God could.
God's a ghost.

Me: [One eyebrow highly raised]

Sam: Well.  Sort of.

Either Agent Causation is Conceptually Prior to Event Causation or Causality is Known A Priori

Some people believe that events are causes.  What caused the event of the Twin Towers collapsing?  The event of the planes crashing into the buildings.  Events cause other events or states of affairs.

I'm suspicious that events are causes at all.  But suppose events are causes.  Could they be the only causes?  Could one reasonably hold that there is only event causation but not agent causation?

I doubt it.  It seems that our concept of agent causation is more fundamental than event causation.  If you have the concept of an event as a cause you also have the concept of an agent cause.

Imagine that you are a sentient rock or tree.  Let's say you are a rock that can think but that's all you can do.  You are a completely passive observer of the world.  Perhaps you have eyes and ears but they don't move.  For if you were to move your eyes to the right or left, up or down, you would no longer be simply a passive observer; you would also be able to do something which would affect what you observed.

So you sit, inert, observing the world around you.  Would you ever acquire the idea of a cause?  You would see regularities in nature.  You would see the sun rising each day and setting, you would see leaves falling after they changed colors, you would see mice dying after being bitten by cats, but from your observations you would have no basis to distinguish between causal and non-causal regularities.

Generally, when one wants to distinguish between a non-causal correlation and a causal one, one runs an experiment.  But then one has the concept or belief that one can do something such that one will be in a better position to determine the difference between a non-causal correlation and a causal one.

Perhaps, though, an inert, thinking rock could come equipped with a priori knowledge about which regularities would be genuinely causal regularities and which would not.  But is it known a priori that events are causes but there are no agent causes?

"The Named Person"

Real life horror movie.  Even the sound of it is chilling.

Mike Huckabee, Kim Davis, and "The Law of the Land"

Mike Huckabee is making news regarding Kim Davis saying that Dred Scott is still the "law of the land":

Michael Huckabee has permanently lost his mind.  On Michael Medved’s radio program yesterday, Huckabee said the United States Supreme Court’s 1857 ruling in Dred Scott v. Sandford — which held that all blacks, free or enslaved, could not be American citizens — is still the law of the land.

[Huckabee] Michael, the Dred Scott decision of 1857 still remains to this day the law of the land which says that black people aren’t fully human, said Huckabee. Does anybody still follow the Dred Scott Supreme Court decision?

Huckabee states that the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Dred Scott is still the law of the land, yet no one follows it. Thus, Huckabee argues that no one should follow the U.S.  Supreme Court decision saying same-sex marriage is constitutionally mandated.

There is a major problem with your argument Mr. Huckabee. The Dred Scott decision was overturned by the 13th and 14th amendments to the Constitution in 1865 and 1868. Thus, the Dred Scott decision is no longer the law of the land. It was superseded by specific amendments to the Constitution.
If you no longer want same-sex marriage to be constitutional, then you and your bigot friends need to get the votes for a constitutional amendment. 

I think Huckabee's major point is correct, though what he says is slightly misleading.

"Thou Shalt Not KILL?"

I was talking with a colleague who knows Hebrew more than I (i.e. he knows Hebrew and I don't) about the Hebrew meaning of the term "kill" in the Ten Commandments. I was curious if there were a good English equivalent of the term, since I either hear things like, "It says, 'Thou Shalt not Kill,' therefore, pacifism" or "Thou Shalt not Murder," hence manslaughter is permissible.  But I hear much more of the former.  I don't know how many times I've heard from the more pacifist crowd, "Thou Shalt not KILL" (even from professors who should know better) which take the verse to prohibit all killing.  Of course, if it prohibits killing in general, that's a prohibition against killing fish, bugs, and plant life.  This, of course, is absurd, since the Old Testament in surrounding contexts permits (and sometimes commands) some killings.

His response:  "[The Hebrew word] is ordinarily restricted to use with humans as the object.  It seems to be used for both voluntary and involuntary killing, so the commandment seems to be urging care not to kill as well as simple prohibition of murder.  In the culture of the time, of course, there was a whole class of sanctioned killing (capital punishment, war) that would not have been included here."


My response: There doesn’t seem to be a good, single English equivalent word, then, at least that I can think of off the top of my head.  “Kill” is far too broad.  “Manslaughter” is too narrow (it includes reckless killing but excludes intentional killing like murder.)  “Murder” is too narrow (since it includes only unjustified, intentional killing of an innocent.)  “Homicide” is too broad (since there are justifiable homicides in self-defense, etc.)    

However the legal term “negligent homicide” seems pretty close, though it’s a lesser offense than murder, so it’s still inexact.

The Latin Vulgate is “Non occides.”  Roughly, don’t kill/slay (but can mean don’t murder in certain contexts).  It might be broader, though, than “interficio.” This is speculation, but if “occides” has a broader semantic range perhaps the Vulgate use had some influence in the choice of the English word "kill." 

"Make America Great Again!"

Say what you will about Donald Trump (I've said a bit, mostly not in his favor) but his slogan taps into one American sentiment diametrically opposed to another.

The Inegalitarian Sentiment: One should do what one can to make one's country as best as it can be, even if this means that it is better than others.

The Egalitarian Sentiment: Equality is the highest value, so if that means making one's country as mediocre as every other that is fine as long as equality is achieved.

Is Hatred Ever Appropriate?

According to John Duns Scotus, to love something is to will its goodness; and following Augustine, goodness and being are coextensive.  Something is good to the extent that it has being, thus something that is completely evil would not exist.  The more being the more goodness.  In loving one wills the being of something or the being in a certain way.

To hate something is to will its non-existence.  So, for instance, a murderer might commit the murder out of hatred wanting the person no longer to exist (but perhaps one could kill one's pet out of love). Or if one hates pinball one wills that pinball machines cease to exist.

I take it as a doctrine of Christianity that no human is to hate another human.  Instead, one is to love (love taking on various forms in various contexts).  So is there ever an appropriate object of hatred for humans?

Sin seems like a prime example, ("Love the sinner, hate the sin.")  But on the Augustinian view (which Scotus also holds) sin is a privation, a lack, an absence.  Now if there are lacks or privations in one's ontology, then one has an appropriate object of hatred ready to hand: sin.

But suppose one holds to a sparse ontology which admits of no lacks (no holes in the pavement, etc.) Then statements about sin are true ("murder is a sin") though we should not think that sin has being (and thus goodness on the Augustinian view) in virtue of which such statements are true.  Rather the statements are true because there are things which lack goodness, things which are disharmonious with the way they should be and the like.

So are there any other candidates for appropriate hatred?  Here are three:

1. Sinful thoughts, beliefs, ideas--those thoughts, beliefs, etc. which lack truth, goodness, etc.  One should want them eradicated and replaced with true and pure thoughts.

2. Sinful desires, intentions, and actions--actions which are evil and not as they should be.  One should want them destroyed and replaced with one's which are better or the best.

3. Finally, the sinful states of affairs produced by sinful beliefs, desires, etc.

Labor Day Humor

From June 2nd:

I love this birthday girl.

Me: Birthdays are the dumbest day of the year.

Malea (12-yr-old): No, Dad, that's Labor Day.

Red Monday.

Conversations with Harvey Mansfield and Christina Hoff Sommers

More winners from Bill Kristol.

On Tocqueville:
On Strauss:
On lunatic feminism:

Christina Hoff Sommers: “Femininity and masculinity are real and most people, not all, but most people, many of the stereotypes are true. That women do tend to be more nurturing and risk-adverse and have usually a richer emotional vocabulary, and men tend to be a little less explicit about their emotions, emotionally flattened – we’ll say, stoical to be nice. More stoical, more competitive and they do engage in a lot of risky behavior, for better or worse. Men tend to show up at the extremes of success and failure more than women because they are sometimes more – single-minded in the pursuit of, more obsessive pursuits – more likely to do that than women. But you take gender studies and they say, ‘Oh, it’s all a social construction.’ Unless you’re gay, then they say, ‘Okay, that’s just the way they are, and then if you’re trans, I don’t know how they’re going it account for that….”

The Left's Nihilistic Agenda

In the absence of a practical alternative to the capitalist system, the [Marxist] revolutionary project is a nihilism--the will to destroy existing societies without an idea of what to do next.

The persistence of the revolutionary illusion without the revolutionary fact has given rise to what should properly be called a neo-communist movement--one that has learned nothing from the failures of Communism but has not abandoned the cause itself. Neo-communist radicals add new dimensions of oppression to the Marxist model, like racism and "sexism." But it is the same Marxist model that divides the world into oppressors and oppressed, identifies capitalism as the root cause of global problems, and regards the United States as the global system's guardian-in-chief.  Consequently, like the Communist perspective it has replaced, the contemporary radical outlook opposes America's wars and opposes America's peace.  All that really distinguishes this neo-communist perspective from its Communist predecessor is its ad-hoc attitude towards the revolutionary future, and the nihilistic agenda that follows.

As an expression of its nihilism, the contemporary left defines and organizes itself as a movement against rather than for.  Its components may claim to be creating egalitarian futures in which racism, "sexism" and corporate dominance no longer exist and in which "social justice" prevails.  But unlike Communists, the neo-coms are not committed to even a rudimentary blueprint as to what such an order might be.  It is this lack of programmatic consensus that leads some leftists to deny that there even is a "left," and makes it possible for a fragmented coalition of neo-coms--including anarchists, eco-radicals, radical feminists, "queer" revolutionaries, Maoists, Stalinists, and vaguely defined "progressives"-to operate side by side in improbable coalitions like the antiwar movement.  It is why they can do so in ways that benefit such anti-egalitarian allies and regimes as Islamic radicals and the Baathist, fascist state of Iraq.

-David Horowitz, The Black Book of the American Left, Vol II: Progressives (2013): pp.28-29