Gary Zacharias

Obama's nightmare budget

2012-02-16T11:54:00.000-08:00

President Obama this week came out with his budget proposal for fiscal year 2013. Wow, after reading about its details, I’m impressed. Now before you go into shock, let me explain something. I’m impressed that he is such a leftie that he will never abandon or even modify his fanatic beliefs in higher taxes and reckless spending as a way for America to rebound. Some details are in order.

He makes several claims. For one, he thinks a tax increase on the wealthy and defense spending cuts that will never materialize will help solve our problems. He also asserts that in his second term revenues will soar, outlays will fall, and $1.3 trillion annual deficits will be cut in half.

But let’s review the past four years to see if these promises are based on Obama’s fiscal history. His can claim four years of spending of more than 24% of GDP, the four highest spending years since 1946. In the current fiscal year of 2012, despite talk of austerity, Mr. Obama predicts spending will increase by $193 billion to $3.8 trillion, or 24.3% of GDP. Also, another deficit of $1.327 trillion in 2012, also an increase from 2011, will make it four years in a row above $1.29 trillion. When was the last time that happened? Never. In addition, revenues are at historic lows because of the mediocre recovery and temporary tax cuts that are deadweight revenue losses because they do so little for economic growth. The White House budget office estimates that for the fourth year in a row revenues won't reach 16% of GDP. The last time they were below 16% for any year was 1950.

What is the financial result of these disasters over the past four years? All of this has added as astonishing $5 trillion in debt in a single Presidential term. We as a nation stand at a national debt held by the public (the kind you have to pay back) will hit 74.2% this year and keep rising to 77.4% next year. Economists warn that when debt to GDP reaches 90% or so, the economic damage begins to rise. And this doesn't include the debt that future taxpayers owe current and future retirees through the IOUs in the Social Security "trust fund."

Despite all the terrible news, Obama says this will change in 2013 if he is re-elected. Next year, revenues will suddenly leap to 17.8% of GDP thanks to tax increases on the wealthy, which we are supposed to believe will have little impact on growth. Didn’t someone say they never got a job from a poor person?

Meanwhile, spending will fall by one percentage point of GDP to 23.3%, thanks to the automatic cuts in last year's debt-ceiling bill. But there’s a catch here in this supposed good news. More than half of those cuts are scheduled to come out of defense, which even Mr. Obama's Defense Secretary says are unacceptable. They will be renegotiated next year no matter who wins in November. The cuts also include an estimated $1 trillion in savings in domestic discretionary programs that also won't happen, especially because Mr. Obama's budget proposes to add $350 billion to these programs. His budget also proposes no meaningful reforms in entitlements, which are the fastest growing part of the budget and will grow even faster once ObamaCare really kicks in. Won’t that be dandy?

So what can we count on? One thing only--the monumental tax increase. His plan would raise tax rates across the board on anyone or any business owners making more than $200,000 for individuals and $250,000 for couples. These are the 3% of taxpayers that Mr. Obama says aren't paying their fair share, though that 3% pays more in income tax than the rest of the other 97%.

That’s enough bad news for now. I’ll have one more blog to lay out the rest of the bad news. Thank goodness the G.O.P., weak and inept as it is, controls the House and will drive a stake through the heart of this budget.

The science fiction religion

2012-02-12T20:56:00.000-08:00

I love science fiction and have taught it several times out at Palomar College. When I was researching Scientology, I read about L. Ron Hubbard's belief in thetans. Wow, it's another great science fiction story. The only downside is that it has deluded so many people over the years and taken so much of their money. Here's the thetan story in a nutshell.

In the primordial past thetans brought the material universe into being largely for their own pleasure. The universe is thought to have no independent reality, but to derive its apparent reality from the fact that most thetans agree it exists. Thetans fell from grace when they began to identify with their creation, rather than their original state of spiritual purity. Eventually, they lost their memory of their true nature, along with the associated spiritual and creative powers. As a result, thetans came to think of themselves as nothing but embodied beings.

When a person dies — when a thetan abandons its physical body — he/she goes to a "landing station" on the planet Venus, where the thetan is told lies about its past life and its next life. The Venusians take the thetan, "capsule" it, and send it back to Earth to be dumped into the ocean off the coast of California. Says Hubbard, "If you can get out of that [the capsule], and wander around through the cities and find some girl who looks like she is going to get married or have a baby or something like that, you're all set. And if you can find the maternity ward to a hospital or something, you're OK. And you just eventually just pick up a baby." This is basic reincarnation.

Now, there's so much to say here. First, isn't it sad that sharp people who have ridiculed Christianity for its miracle stories of Jesus will fall for Hubbard's nonsense? None of his story can be backed up, of course, unlike the gospel stories of Jesus which have good manuscript evidence. Secondly, I love Hubbard's comments--they don't sound like they were thought out very well. Third, I'm amazed people don't see how he has simply taken Eastern religion and put it in a new wrapper.

People say it's too hard to choose between religions ("they're all the same"). Nah, that's lazy thinking. There are huge differences--look at the founder, look at the beliefs, consider the evidence they present. I'll take Christianity any day over the science fiction of L. Ron Hubbard.

More on the threat to higher education

2012-02-08T20:25:00.000-08:00

OK, last time I covered a new kind of educational practice--companies that offer tests for students to show their abilities without having to attend hugely expensive colleges. Of course, these colleges and universities won't let this happen without a fight.

One way they can strike back has to do with court decisions. The article I read in the Chronicle of Higher Education mentioned Griggs v. Duke Power Co. (1971), in which the U.S. Supreme Court held that companies could not administer IQ tests because they had a racially "disparate impact"--meaning, it discriminates against blacks because they score more poorly on average than whites do.

The Chronicle notes that the disparate-impact test in Griggs, written into law in the Civil Rights Act of 1991, applies only to employers. Educational institutions are free to administer IQ tests, which is essentially what the SAT and other entrance exams are. To assure that their degrees pass muster as a condition of employment, colleges and universities go to extreme lengths to ensure a "diverse" student body, including discriminating in favor of blacks (and selected other minorities) in admissions.

As I blogged some time ago, colleges and universities have developed sprawling bureaucracies to encourage "diversity," at the expense of traditional academics. They suggest strongly that IQ tests are racist, thus keeping them in business and throwing doubt on tests that might replace their power.

The higher education industry's credential cartel is under financial threat owing to the necessity of state and local (and eventually federal) budget cuts and the increasing sense that a degree isn't worth incurring a mountain of debt.

Here's some good news. It has been reported that higher education's use of these racial preferences is under legal threat. There is a strong likelihood that the Supreme Court will abolish or severely curtail the use of racial preferences in college admissions sometime in the next few years. Sounds good to me.

Now, thanks to these testing companies, there is a competitive threat as well. You can expect that the higher-ed industry will do whatever it can to crush this threat. The obvious point of attack would be to claim that the new skills tests have a racially disparate impact. So, get ready, ETS and CAE. The Ivy League is coming after you.

A threat to traditional higher education (and I like it)

2012-02-05T10:53:00.000-08:00

As a teacher, I like to see what's going on in the world of education. There's an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education that tells of something called "Alternative Certification." It's a new development in the education marketplace that should make many educators nervous. I actually like the idea.

The announcement of agreements between Burck Smith's StraighterLine and the Education Testing Service (ETS) and the Council on Aid to Education (CAE) to provide competency test materials to students online is potentially very important, along with several other recent developments. It all comes down to economics to explain why this is important.

With regards to colleges, consumers typically have believed that there are no good substitutes–the only way a person can certify to potential employers that she/he is pretty bright, well educated, good at communicating, disciplined, etc., is by presenting a bachelor's degree diploma. College graduates typically have these positive attributes more than others, so degrees serve as an important signaling device to employers, lowering the costs of learning about the traits of the applicant. Because of the lack of good substitutes, colleges face little outside competition and can raise prices more, given their quasi-monopoly status. And, of course, this is the problem--no competition.

So colleges have been able to raise prices at will, knowing that students and their families will pay through the nose. But people are now asking an important question: Aren't there cheaper ways of certifying competence and skills to employers?

If someone could offer a less expensive job-hunting license--one that assessed an entry-level job-seeker's worth to a prospective employer at least as accurately as a college degree does--then the demand for college would plummet, as young adults could realize the same gains from a much smaller investment. I'm OK with this since the market should be allowed to operate and come up with better alternatives.

That's where ETS and CAE come in. They will offer two tests. One, called iSkills, "measures the ability of a student to navigate and critically evaluate information from digital technology." The other, the CLA, "assesses critical learning and writing skills through use of cognitively challenging problems." Students can tell employers, "I did very well on the CLA and iSkills test, strong predictors of future positive work performance." The idea is that the business can hire people for less than they would have to pay college graduates who score less well on these tests.

If the practice became widespread, it would drive college costs down and force cost-cutting and downsizing within the higher-ed industry. Sounds great to me. But you can expect the industry to fight hard against it.

I'll discuss ways the schools and colleges will fight back in the next blog.

The global warming scam--part 2

2012-02-01T20:38:00.000-08:00

Check my last blog on the further problems of global warming fanatics--no such thing over the past ten years. Why don't we hear more about this con game?

Fear is at work. Although the number of publicly dissenting scientists is growing, many young scientists furtively say that while they also have serious doubts about the global-warming message, they are afraid to speak up for fear of not being promoted—or worse. Take one example. In 2003, Dr. Chris de Freitas, the editor of the journal Climate Research, dared to publish a peer-reviewed article with the politically incorrect (but factually correct) conclusion that the recent warming is not unusual in the context of climate changes over the past thousand years. The international warming establishment quickly mounted a determined campaign to have Dr. de Freitas removed from his editorial job and fired from his university position. Fortunately, Dr. de Freitas was able to keep his university job.

Why is there so much passion about global warming? What stirs the hearts of scientists and politicians to get behind this theory? The article I read said there are several reasons, but a good place to start is the old standard, "Follow the money." Alarmism over climate is of great benefit to many, providing government funding for academic research and a reason for government bureaucracies to grow. Alarmism also offers an excuse for governments to raise taxes, taxpayer-funded subsidies for businesses that understand how to work the political system, and a lure for big donations to charitable foundations promising to save the planet. Al Gore has done very well for himself in the role of global warming prophet.

The sixteen scientists who wrote the article have a simple message: There is no compelling scientific argument for drastic action to "decarbonize" the world's economy.

A recent study of a wide variety of policy options by Yale economist William Nordhaus showed that nearly the highest benefit-to-cost ratio is achieved for a policy that allows 50 more years of economic growth unimpeded by greenhouse gas controls. This would be especially beneficial to the less-developed parts of the world that would like to share some of the same advantages of material well-being, health and life expectancy that the fully developed parts of the world enjoy now. Why? It is likely that more CO2 and the modest warming that may come with it will be an overall benefit to the planet.

The conclusion of these scientists is worth quoting in this year of politics: "Every candidate should support rational measures to protect and improve our environment, but it makes no sense at all to back expensive programs that divert resources from real needs and are based on alarming but untenable claims of 'incontrovertible' evidence." Amen.

Here's a list of the authors so you can see their credentials:
Claude Allegre, former director of the Institute for the Study of the Earth, University of Paris; J. Scott Armstrong, cofounder of the Journal of Forecasting and the International Journal of Forecasting; Jan Breslow, head of the Laboratory of Biochemical Genetics and Metabolism, Rockefeller University; Roger Cohen, fellow, American Physical Society; Edward David, member, National Academy of Engineering and National Academy of Sciences; William Happer, professor of physics, Princeton; Michael Kelly, professor of technology, University of Cambridge, U.K.; William Kininmonth, former head of climate research at the Australian Bureau of Meteorology; Richard Lindzen, professor of atmospheric sciences, MIT; James McGrath, professor of chemistry, Virginia Technical University; Rodney Nichols, former president and CEO of the New York Academy of Sciences; Burt Rutan, aerospace engineer, designer of Voyager and SpaceShipOne; Harrison H. Schmitt, Apollo 17 astronaut and former U.S. senator; Nir Shaviv, professor of astrophysics, Hebrew University, Jerusalem; Henk Tennekes, former director, Royal Dutch Meteorological Service; Antonio Zichichi, president of the World Federation of Scientists, Geneva.

A hugely important piece on global warming (or the lack thereof)

2012-01-29T10:09:00.000-08:00

I read something the other day that was confirmation of a belief I have expressed many times in this blog--global warming is NOT something we should allow people to use to ruin our economy. The Wall Street Journal had an article entitled "No Need to Panic About Global Warming," which was signed by sixteen well-respected scientists in fields dealing with climate and related endeavors.

We're in a time of great political activity. The article points out a key thing: candidates should understand that the oft-repeated claim that nearly all scientists demand that something dramatic be done to stop global warming is not true. In fact, a large and growing number of distinguished scientists and engineers do not agree that drastic actions on global warming are needed.

Here's proof of their claim. In September, Nobel Prize-winning physicist Ivar Giaever, a supporter of President Obama in the last election, publicly resigned from the American Physical Society (APS) with a letter that begins: "I did not renew [my membership] because I cannot live with the [APS policy] statement: 'The evidence is incontrovertible: Global warming is occurring. If no mitigating actions are taken, significant disruptions in the Earth's physical and ecological systems, social systems, security and human health are likely to occur. We must reduce emissions of greenhouse gases beginning now.' In the APS it is OK to discuss whether the mass of the proton changes over time and how a multi-universe behaves, but the evidence of global warming is incontrovertible?"

Dr. Giaever is not alone, and he's no crank. In spite of a multidecade international campaign to enforce the message that increasing amounts of the "pollutant" carbon dioxide will destroy civilization, large numbers of scientists, many very prominent, share his opinions. And what's interesting is that his position is not growing weaker. The number of scientific "heretics" is growing with each passing year. The reason is a collection of stubborn scientific facts.

Perhaps the most inconvenient fact is the lack of global warming for well over 10 years now, according to the article. This is known to the warming establishment, as one can see from the 2009 "Climategate" email of climate scientist Kevin Trenberth: "The fact is that we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can't."

How has this hugely important factor (no global warming over the past 10 years) been missed? Computer models have greatly exaggerated how much warming additional CO2 can cause. Faced with this embarrassment, those promoting alarm have shifted their drumbeat from warming to weather extremes, to enable anything unusual that happens in our chaotic climate to be ascribed to CO2. Nice maneuver, right?

The article points out something important that's often missed, and it's so simple. CO2 is not a pollutant. CO2 is a colorless and odorless gas, exhaled at high concentrations by each of us, and a key component of the biosphere's life cycle. Plants do so much better with more CO2 that greenhouse operators often increase the CO2 concentrations by factors of three or four to get better growth. The scientists who write this piece say that better plant varieties, chemical fertilizers and agricultural management contributed to the great increase in agricultural yields of the past century, but part of the increase almost certainly came from additional CO2 in the atmosphere.

I'm going to stop here even though this is only about half of the Journal piece. I think this is so important that I'd like everyone reading this to take another look and share this with your friends. I'll take on the other half in the next blog.

Obama and his energy policy

2012-01-25T12:14:00.000-08:00

The other day Holman Jenkins had an interesting piece in The Wall Street Journal in which he examined President Obama’s energy policy. Our President is trapped by his own rhetoric just when interesting things in energy are taking place.

Look at his recent decision to nix the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada to the United States. It will cost him votes, but he did it anyway. He has to do this despite seeing what’s going on around the world. He knows China and India are opening a new coal plant every week. He knows the huge amounts of fossil energy lying at humanity's feet won't be abandoned just because an American president says so. In addition, Canada's oil sands won't remain undeveloped; the oil will go to the Far East.

He’s smart enough to recognize the problems with the global warming theory. I have blogged on that many times in the past, so I won’t spend much time on it here. The theory may be popular, but the evidence has thus far eluded the tens of billions spent on climate science. The temperature data are so messy that they reveal no pattern connecting rising CO2 in the industrial age with temperature trends.

Obama is smart enough to realize these problems exist with the global warming theory. But he's also a political operator and an acolyte of radical theorist Saul Alinksy. He understands politics as a matter of power, and democratic politics as a matter of powerful coalitions cultivated and maintained with self-interest (aka money, money, money).
For Obama, oil and other traditional energy sources are connected with Republicans. Anything that's good for the oil industry is bad for the alternate power structure he's been trying to build with handouts and mandates for green energy. Remember Solyndra? Somehow he must justify the "investments" he's dishing out to placate a support base whose need for subsidies and regulatory favors jibes with the Democratic Party's need for donations. Oil sands are the "dirtiest" fossil energy, requiring great releases of CO2, so, of course, the green fanatics oppose it. To approve Keystone, then, would compromise his own credibility as a leader who can be trusted to deny advantage to "Republican" industries and deliver it to "Democratic" ones.

Obama is in a tight place. The natural-gas fracking boom has demolished his (the greenies) position that all ordinary energy sources are drying up, so we must turn to the uproven, unsteady, and expensive alternatives (hydrogen, solar, wind, etc.). For example, Solyndra must be defended all the more fiercely now that solar is collapsing globally as countries repent of foolish subsidies. Green energy must be hugged all the more tightly as the shale revolution renders hopeless any chance of wind and solar becoming cost-competitive with fossil fuels.

Our poor President. Green energy metamorphosed from a policy notion into a political strategy and then into a dead weight his campaign must lug to November. That’s quite a risk he’s taking--spurning affordable, strategically convenient energy from Canada. We’ll see how it plays out this year as gas prices under his watch remain high.

Something to look forward to this week

2012-01-23T09:11:00.000-08:00

I’m in a good mood today. The national and international news certainly isn’t what has made me happy. This week we start an apologetics class at our church.

For the last three years we have been meeting to tackle ways to defend the Christian faith. We watched a DVD series, we critiqued a debate between an atheist and a Christian, and we’ve read books that challenged us in many ways.

This time we are doing a couple of things. Steve Bruecker is going to discuss various tactics we can employ in discussions with those who don’t agree with us. We want to be good ambassadors, so there are effective and ineffective ways to interact with others. We want to avoid bitter arguments and raised voices. We also want the person who has raised objections to share the burden of proof.

Steve will be using tactics suggested by Greg Koukl, a popular Christian apologist and radio show host. Greg has written a book called Tactics, which was of the ten top best-selling apologetics books last year, so it obviously has useful things to say.

I will be leading discussions that are based on another of Greg’s books—Faith Is Not Wishing. This is a collection of essays he has written that cover a wide range of issues. Some of these include the idea that Jesus is just another in a long line of mythological figures who shared the same story line, the complaint that God is just a crutch, the idea that evil in this world shows that God doesn’t exist, and the new tolerance that’s so big in our society. Each essay has much to discuss, so I’m looking forward to this part of our classes.

The real fun of the classes will be the people in attendance. We have a lot of people from previous classes, so that will be great catching up with them. They are sharp and able to engage in good discussions. About a third of the class will be made up of new people. It’s always nice to hear how they got interested in apologetics and how they are able to incorporate our class information into their daily lives into practice.

The real key to the class is whether we make it work in the real world. So many people today are critical of Christianity and don’t hesitate to express their views. It’s a good thing that there are solid answers that we as confident Christians can give them.

Books I read last year

2012-01-19T19:57:00.000-08:00

At the end of each year, I look back on the books I read and think about my favorites. Let me tell you about a few of them here.

I really enjoyed The Autobiography of Mark Twain, a huge book that Twain asked be held back until long after his death. I still prefer his famous stories like Life on the Mississippi, Roughing It, and Innocents Abroad. But anything by Twain is enjoyable for his command of the English language.

I'm a history nut, so there were plenty of good history books on the list. One chilling example was Stalin, the story of the ruthless butcher who took over the Soviet Union. As an airplane lover, I enjoyed the autobiography of Jimmy Doolittle, known for his daring attack on the Japanese mainland not long after Pearl Harbor. The title was I Could Never Be So Lucky. Another powerful historical book was Flags of Our Fathers, which followed the lives of the flag raisers on Iwo Jima from recruitment through the battle and on to their lives afterwards.

Maybe my favorite of the entire year was a book by Peggy Noonan. She told the story of Ronald Reagan in When Character Was King but not in a traditional, dry format. She injected her own thoughts and a sense of the dramatic as she told stories of the man who came to power at a crucial time in American history.

Then there is the story of two brothers growing up in Montana early in the 20th century – A River Runs Through It. This has beautiful writing that I wish I encountered in student papers I see out at Palomar.

A few more books round out my favorites. Two of them, The Japanese Imperial Conspiracy and The Rising Sun, followed the rise of the Japanese Empire before World War II, the war itself, and the destruction of the empire by the end of that war. We in the West have a hard time understanding the Japanese mindset that led to the war, but both books helped a great deal. Then there was Canvas Falcons, a detailed look at the men and their airplanes of World War I. It took a lot of guts to get into these rickety crates without parachutes and maneuver them all over the skies. One more good read was simply called Apollo; it had wonderful pictures and stories of the moon missions in the 1960s and 70s. I miss the optimism and engineering skills that America displayed during this time period.

Well, those were some of my favorites of 2011. I look at my bookshelf now, and it's full of unread books that are calling out to me. Guess I better get started with one.

Political commentary from last year

2012-01-16T12:40:00.000-08:00

World magazine had an article at the end of the year by Marvin Olasky, who apparently is a judge for the Media Research Center awards given to the worst mainstream journalism of 2011. Wow, these were pretty amazing statements by people who claim to be giving us the straight news.

How was President Obama portrayed? It's really not much of a question. We all know the answer. For example, ABC's Christiane Amanpour called him "full of sunny optimism, very Reaganesque." Lara Spencer on the same network asked, "Is President Obama a baby whisperer? Watch as the First Lady tries to quiet down the fussy little friend. She then hands the bawling baby to the big man, and, presto, the tot is simply transfixed."

How was the Tea Party portrayed? Again, not much of a question, considering the political beliefs of so many in the mainstream media. New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman equated Tea Party people with Hezbollah. Another New York Times columnist (see a pattern here?) wrote this: "Tea Party Republicans have waged jihad on the American people." MSNBC's Chris Matthews, whom I despise for his past pretense of fairness, said that the "GOP has become the Wahhabis of American government."

Here's one more statement by Matthews to give you an idea of his demented beliefs. Last month he commented on Republican voters: "They hate.… Their brains, racked as they are by hatred, they lack the 'like' mode."

Another New York Times columnist, Maureen Dowd, gives Matthews a run for his money. She said GOP budget-cutters were "cannibals… vampires… zombies… the metallic beasts in Alien."

Of course, these are the same people that call plaintively for a return to kindness and gentility in politics. Remember, they blamed the shooting of an Arizona Congresswoman on mean-spirited Republican political comments. Don't you love the hypocrisy of that?

Faith Is Not Wishing--8

2012-01-11T21:03:00.000-08:00

One of the chapters in Greg Koukl's book Faith Is Not Wishing deals with a topic that gets me steamed every time it is raised. It has to do with hate crime legislation. In this essay, Greg says it makes sense to be against hate crimes, yet still oppose hate crime laws. I agree totally with his position – hate crime legislation is a frontal assault on fundamental liberties that should not be restricted, and represent an unfair use of power to prop up the legitimacy of politically correct values.

The first reason Greg opposes hate crime laws has to do with criminal thought. It's obvious – hate crime laws criminalize thought, not conduct. We can already punish assault using existing statutes. This legislation of hate crime levies an additional penalty solely for the attitude of heart. Government can coerce actions, but it should not attempt to govern people's hearts. When it tries to do this, it creates excuses for the worst kind of tyranny.

The second complaint Greg has for hate crime legislation focuses on the types of hate that are stressed. Virtually any crime of passion could be construed as a hate crime because it entails malice toward persons. However, all crimes of passion are not considered hate crimes under this new legislation since they do not involve a protected class of people. This leads to a key question – Is hate crime legislation about hate per se or is it really about something else? We see that such laws mandate penalties for particular government-disapproved states of mind. Only certain types of people gain protection from hate crime legislation. If a gay was attacked, the person doing it would receive a heavier penalty than a person who attacked me. That's because I don't belong to a class protected by the law. So this law has to do with groups of people, but groups have no rights, according to the Constitution.

A final argument Greg has with this type of legislation is the oppression that comes with it. These laws can serve as a legal tool to enforce a particular moral and political point of view that goes by the misnomer of "tolerance." So, for example, if a gay is attacked, it encourages many to actually blame Christians for such incidents. By claiming homosexuality is evil, Christians, according to critics, demote homosexuals to a "less than" status. That makes the homosexual marked in a way to become an object of scorn, hatred, and physical abuse. Greg points out this kind of thinking would make Alcoholics Anonymous responsible every time a drunk gets beat up in an alley. It does not follow that moral condemnation of homosexuality encourages gay bashing. To those who want hate legislation, people taking a moral position are hatemongers. But objecting to hate is also a moral position. So, are those who demonize Christians for their views equally guilty of hate-mongering? I have seen something like this out at Palomar College where a group claiming to be against hate lashed out with hateful language itself.

Hate crime legislation is not the answer. It turns the government into thought police and turns the law into a club to enforce political correctness. Existing laws should be enforced to give equal protection to all people, punishing the crime, not the frame of mind.

A final note: We as Christians believe homosexuality is an evil. But we are all fallen individuals made in the image of God. We must always be grieved and angered at any injustice.

Faith Is Not Wishing--part 7

2012-01-08T19:36:00.000-08:00

The next section of Greg Koukl's book Faith Is Not Wishing deals with an issue we hear often, especially from the new atheists. It has to do with the idea that there is a conflict between faith and science. Critics of Christianity say science tells us what's real while religion tells us fairy stories that can be comforting but have nothing to do with the real world. Greg, instead, argues that the object and domain of science should be the natural, physical world, but the goal of science should not be to produce naturalistic explanations, but rather to follow the evidence wherever it leads to find truth. In other words, science should be about getting the right answers, not the right kind of answers (materialistic ones).

Even some Christians find comfort in the idea of science and religion as occupying two complementary but totally separate realms. Natural science studies the physical universe while the non-physical realm belongs to religion. Science cannot tell us of the ultimate origin of the universe nor discuss the governance of the universe.

Greg says that, at first glance, the two-realms of view is inviting, but he sees problems with it. Why should we accept the view that science reigns supreme in the area of the empirical?

For thousands of years science was viewed differently. The old tradition had one aim-- to identify ideas worth believing. But by the modern era there was a shift in science from a general methodology aimed at determining truth to one that was solely empirical. Science became the final measure of all truth.

Greg sees three errors in the view that religious theories should not intrude in science. First, it commits the either/or fallacy by asserting that a view is either scientific or religious. Some metaphysical issues might have empirical support. Think about near-death experience research or conclusions on the existence of a creator based on Big Bang cosmology or the fine-tuning of the universe.

Secondly, it commits the straw man fallacy by assuming that those who advance intelligent design make no use of scientific methods. This is simply not true. Those who promote intelligent design are quite happy to present an abundance of properly gathered scientific evidence for their viewpoint if they're allowed to. Instead, what they run up against are major scientific journals which summarily disqualify them.

Third, it assumes that the reigning scientific view (materialistic macro- evolution) does not have religious significance. But this is false. Any view about ultimate origins has metaphysical ramifications. In this case, if evolutionary naturalism is a true description of how life developed on earth, then the only room for God is in the imagination of the faithful.

Christianity is, by its very nature, wedded to the physical realm known by the senses. But modern man apart from religion lives in a two-story house where nature/science/reason occupy the bottom floor while meeting/value/freewill are in the second floor. Because modern individuals are told there should be no interaction between the upper story and the lower story, people try to live in the lower floor. But human dignity and purpose are crushed in the gears of nature's determinism. So people without religious beliefs must take a leap apart from reason into the upper story of meaning and significance. They pay a heavy price for this – schizophrenia and loss of rationality.

But Greg suggests an alternative – restore to the scientific process the classical emphasis on truth. Science and theology can still have their separate domains, but they need not be arbitrarily isolated from one another. After all, early scientists believed they were "thinking God's thoughts after him" and saw no problem merging the two. It may be the case that physical phenomenon might be caused by an agent rather than a prior physical event. Though science is restricted to examining physical effects, when causes are inferred, there should be no limitation to the physical world.

Those who believe in intelligent design claim that issues like origin and governance can be properly inferred using empirical methods. For example, take a look at forensic medicine. Medical examiners use scientific methods to determine if an individual died of natural causes or by foul play. It may have been a heart attack or an intelligent agent may have been involved. In the same way, scientific evidence could, in principle, indicate that creation was the result of an agent rather than chance physical factors. Think about the old movie Contact in which researchers use scientific methods to infer intelligent causes. I wonder what Carl Sagan would say if he knew his book and movie were used to justify respect for intelligent design.

Faith Is Not Wishing--part 6b

2012-01-04T20:15:00.000-08:00

Last time I only finished half of one of Greg Koukl's chapters in Faith Is Not Wishing. He was discussing a complaint often brought against Christianity – historical bloodletting in the name of God. Is Christianity a blood-thirsty enterprise?

In the last blog I covered two of Greg's points. First, the crimes leveled against Christianity have been exaggerated. Secondly, the greatest evil in the world actually came from the ones who denied God's existence. Consider Stalin, Hitler, and Mao. Enough said.

Another point Greg brings up has to do with the teachings of Christ. It certainly is true that there has been oppression and bloodshed as a result of Christianity, but the question is simple – did this come because it is a religious duty of Christianity or a logical application of the teachings of Christ? If not, then any violence done in his name cannot be laid at his feet. Critics can't hold Christianity responsible when so-called Christians violate the written instructions. Jesus spoke often about the need for us to love, and this extended to even our enemies (John 14:15 and Luke 10:29-37). You can't find any Christian teaching that mandates forcible conversion to the faith or coerces adherence to biblical doctrines.

Greg claims that Christianity has actually been the greatest force for good in the history of the world. After all, it is part of the Judeo-Christian morality that says human beings are made in the image of God and therefore have transcendent value.

Greg specifically lays out four areas where Christianity has transformed the world for the better. First is education. Modern education owes its origins to Christianity. Think of the Reformation – the goal was to get the Bible into the hands of the common man. To do this, primary public education was important. It's hard to believe, but most of the Ivy League schools were started with theological intentions. Missionaries spread out around the world, creating literate societies wherever they went.

A second area where Christianity has improved things has to do with human rights. William Wilberforce, a Christian, spent a lifetime working to abolish slavery in England and the British Commonwealth. It was Christian missionaries who entreated European powers to intervene in Africa to stop the slave trade carried on by the Arabs.

A third positive result of Christianity has been acts of mercy. Think of Mother Teresa, a humble Christian who spent her life serving the poor people of Calcutta. William Booth started the Salvation Army, and Chuck Colson began Prison Fellowship. George Mueller started orphanages all over 19th-century England. Many historians acknowledge that evangelist John Wesley's preaching saved England from a bloody revolution like that in France. Most of the social reforms in England between 1787 in 1850 were the outcome of evangelical Christians trying to help the poor.

Finally, Christianity has done wonderful things through its missionaries. They have tackled social evils throughout the years. In India, for example, they worked tirelessly to stop child marriage, the immolation of widows, temple prostitution, and untouchability. They opposed foot binding, opium addiction and the abandoning of babies in China. In the continent of Africa they opposed polygamy, the slave trade, and the destruction of twins. All over the world they have opened schools, hospitals, clinics, medical colleges, orphanages, and leprosaria. Missionaries often protected indigenous peoples against their own governments or rapacious business interests.

Does Christianity have a perfect record? Of course not. But Greg has pointed out the true record of the followers of Jesus, and it's much better than some would tell you.

Faith Is Not Wishing--part 6a

2012-01-01T19:12:00.000-08:00

I love history. It was my minor in college, so I was especially interested in reading Greg Koukl's chapter called "Christianity's Real Record " in his book Faith Is Not Wishing. He deals with the question of whether followers of Christ actually have been the cause of great evil in the world.

Current critics of Christianity and religion in general see a history littered with examples to support their point of view. They bring up witchhunts, crusades, and religious jihad. For example, Thomas Friedman, a popular New York Times columnist, said our battle is not really against terrorism but against any religion that claims to be true, which he calls "religious totalitarianism."

What is his solution? Pluralism, the idea that "God speaks multiple languages." But Greg points out the self-defeating nature of Friedman's argument. Friedman's claim that God is a pluralist is, in fact, a narrow, exclusivist religious claim that he thinks is true. He's dogmatic about this doctrine of God, and is also militant about it since he believes people who disagree with him should be silenced.

Friedman actually misdiagnoses the problem, according to Greg. Friedman sees it as religious dogma, but everyone, including Friedman, is dogmatic about issues of truth. The problem is not religious dogma, but religious error. The problem with Muslim terrorists is not fundamentalism, but that their fundamental beliefs are simply false.

Another key problem with Friedman is his complaint that religion has been responsible for more devastation than anything else in history. But the crimes themselves have been exaggerated. In some cases, conflicts that appear to be religious in nature are actually political or cultural wars that divided along religious lines (Northern Ireland is a prime example). Yes, people did die in the Crusades, the Inquisition, religious wars of the Reformation, and the Salem witch trials. However, the numbers of deaths are far smaller than what some people have suggested. In addition, the Crusades were a defensive war, the Spanish Inquisition involved the government more so than the church, and the Salem witch trials were stopped by Christians.

Friedman's look at history is incorrect also because the greatest evil in the world actually comes from those who deny God's existence. The greatest evil has always resulted from a denial of God, not pursuit of him. Greg points out that noted radio talk show host Dennis Prager has said, "In the 20th century alone, more innocent people have been murdered, tortured, and enslaved by secular ideologies – Nazism and communism – then by all religions in history." Think about communist China, the USSR, and Cambodia – millions were slaughtered in each of these countries where people in charge were convinced that there is no God to whom they must answer.

The above represents only half of Greg's chapter on Christianity's real record. I'm going to save the other half for a future blog.

Faith Is Not Wishing--part 5

2011-12-28T21:13:00.000-08:00

We have discussed four chapters in Greg Koukl's book Faith Is Not Wishing. Probably the biggest attack on Christianity is the problem of evil – this is what Greg tackles next.

The problem of evil drove Einstein away from the God of the Bible. It was part of the inspiration for the atheism of British philosopher Bertrand Russell. For so many people it has been the number one complaint against Christianity.

Some people suggest God would like to do something about evil but is unable to do so. Rabbi Harold Kushner delivered this answer in this popular book Why Do Bad Things Happen to Good People? This God cannot inspire a rescue. There's not much comfort to be gained from worshiping a God like this.

Back to Bertrand Russell for a minute. He wondered how anyone could talk of God while kneeling at the bed of a dying child. This, of course, is a powerful image, which seems devastating to the Christian worldview. But there's a simple response – what is the atheist Bertrand Russell going to say to that dying child? Too bad? Tough luck? That's the way it goes?

Greg brings up an important point. If God does not exist, the one thing we can never do is call something evil or tragic. When we use terms like this, we require some transcendent reference point, some way of keeping score. If there is no standard, then there is no good or bad. As C. S. Lewis said, "My argument against God was that the universe seems so cruel and unjust. But how had I gotten this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call something crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust?"

In fact, if there is no God, it's hard to even make sense of the notion of evil. Instead, all we can say is that stuff just happens. We can say we don't like this stuff, but we can't call it evil.

We still have a key question – where was God? Why didn't he intervene in evil situations? But Greg says we don't really want God to end evil, not all of it. How much evil happens every day unnoticed and unlamented because we are the perpetrators, not its victims? Think of adultery, lying, abortion, and other evils that occur on a day-to-day basis. We actually don't want God to be sniffing around the dark recesses of our own evil conduct. As somebody once said, if God heard your prayer to eliminate evil and destroyed it all at midnight tonight, where would you be at 12:01?

So why doesn't God stop the evil? The answer is the same one when we ask another question, "Why doesn't God stop me every time I do wrong?" We end up with an obvious point – human moral choice give us dignity but at the same time make serious evil possible.

Actually, suffering, tragedy, and evil function as warning signals. The pain we see tells us that our world is broken, that something is amiss. If God took away the pain, we would never deal with the disease. And the disease will kill us, sooner or later.

Greg points out that God has done something about evil, the most profound thing imaginable. He has sent his Son to die for evil men. God offers us mercy instead of the punishment we deserve.

Eventually, God will get rid of evil. Until then, he has a different strategy. It's called forgiveness. That's something we can access right now.

Faith Is Not Wishing--part 4

2011-12-26T07:47:00.000-08:00

This is my fourth blog dealing with Greg Koukl's book Faith Is Not Wishing. I'm spending time on this book because so many of his chapters reference common criticisms leveled at Christianity. For example, this chapter concerns people who have never heard the gospel, ones who are basically good and sincerely worship God in their own way. Would God send them to hell for not hearing about Jesus?

Greg admits that it is the most taxing objection he faces and also the most odious to others. To non-Christians, it's a despicable doctrine. After all, if hearing the name of Jesus is a requirement for salvation, entire cultures would be sent to hell, meaning God becomes a petty racist. Is that fair? Is that just?

Paul argues against works salvation by saying there is a single common denominator for people of all ages and cultures – faith. We think of Old Testament believers like Melchizedek or Rahab. In the New Testament we encounter Cornelius and Lydia, non-Jews who are shown grace. In Romans 2, Paul says God "will render to every man according to his deeds… For there is no partiality with God."

Greg points out that most people in the world worship something beyond themselves with complete sincerity. Is this enough? Has God said that this is adequate? No. In his sermon on Mars Hill, Paul indicates that worshiping in ignorance is not adequate (Acts 17:23). He also indicates in Romans 10:2 that the Jews were zealous for God, but their zeal was not based on knowledge.

But what of the good person? God won't reject him or her? And actually, the Bible agrees: If a man keeps God's law, he'll have no problem with God. But here's the key question: Where is such a person? When measured by God's standards, we fall so far short. Where is the good Buddhist, the good Hindu, or the good Muslim? Actually, where is the good Christian? They don't exist. God's absolute standards silence every claim to self-righteousness. This is bad news because it makes the whole world accountable to God. This is critical to Greg's presentation here – People are not ultimately condemned for their rejection of Christ; they're punished for breaking God's law.

He says we make a big mistake when we think people are basically good and would turn to God if they had the chance. Romans 1:18-19 tells us that people reject the light given them not out of ignorance, but out of willful suppression of truth. We run from God, not towards Him.

If this is the case, then God must make the first move to block man's retreat. Again, this is important because it means that no "heathen in Africa" begins a genuine search unless God has first moved in him to do so (John 6:44).

Here's Greg's message up to this point. First, God only punishes those who are guilty. Second, guilty people don't seek God; they run from him. Third, God takes the initiative to pursue us out of love.

How does God pursue us? It certainly possible that in isolated situations he communicates directly. This he did with Abraham. There are so many stories coming today out of restrictive Muslim countries of people having dreams and encountering Jesus in them. This happens all around the world. Greg tells the story of an Indian who was a member of the Brahman caste. He had experienced astral travel to other planets, had psychedelic experiences, and received yogic visions. He found that each step closer to his Hindu gods was actually a step farther from the true God that he sought in his heart. When confronted with the utter emptiness of life and the shallowness of religion, he cried out, "I want to know the true God, the Creator of the universe." God responded by bringing the gospel to him through the witness of a young woman. Usually, however, the message of the true Savior comes on the lips of a preacher who comes bearing the good news (Romans 10:14-15).

We know based on the Bible and cultural stories that anyone seeking God in truth will find him and be accepted by him. God does not condemn anyone for rejecting a Jesus he's never heard of. Rather, men are held accountable for their own moral crimes against God and for rejecting the Father, whose voice is heard everywhere.

Faith Is Not Wishing--part 3

2011-12-22T07:52:00.000-08:00

The third chapter in Greg Koukl's book Faith Is Not Wishing has a intriguing title: "Was Jesus a Fraud?" He's referring to the fact that some people believe the story of Jesus was just a recycled version of ancient pagan religions. This has been a recent criticism that many skeptics are using to challenge Christianity. Is Jesus just a copycat messiah?

Greg starts by looking at the ancient historical accounts of the life of Jesus. The authors do not appear to be writing fairy tales for future generations. For example, the opening words of the author Luke talk about compiling an account handed down by eyewitnesses. He's referring to the use of oral tradition, a huge part of the Jewish society of the time. He and the other gospel writers are aware that they are relating a remarkable story, but they are obviously convinced that the events in these accounts really happened. Their accounts include vivid details of observers who witnessed the events or, in Luke's case, a chronicler who had obtained the information from people who are actually there. C. S. Lewis once remarked that he knew myths from his literary studies, and the gospels do not read as myths.

One internet documentary has challenged the authenticity of these gospel accounts. It's called Zeitgeist: The Greatest Story Ever Sold. According to this account, the Egyptian sun god Horus was born on December 25 of a virgin. His birth was accompanied by a star in the east, and three kings followed it to locate the new-born savior. At the age of 30 he was baptized and began his ministry. Horace had twelve disciples and performed miracles. After being betrayed, he was crucified, buried for three days, and then resurrected. Sound familiar? The documentary claims other gods followed this same structure, including Krishna, Dionysus, and Mithras. Osiris, another Egyptian god, also follows this pattern of a dying and resurrected god.

What's the Christian response? First, the facts listed above in the previous paragraph are almost all false. For example, Osiris did not rise bodily from the dead, and neither Horus, Mithras, or Krishna were born of a virgin. In addition, the dating of these myths causes a big problem for skeptics because most of them actually postdate the time of Jesus.

But what about the myths of dying and rising gods which predate the Christian era? Claims made regarding Jesus of Nazareth are distinct from them in three critical ways – Jesus was a real human whose resurrection happened at a particular place and time on earth, the mythical deities were tied to the repeated seasons of the agricultural cycle (Jesus's resurrection was a one-time event), and Jesus died as a vicarious sacrifice for sins. Greg spends time on the first point above – the historicity of Jesus. Scholars both liberal and conservative overwhelmingly agree that Jesus was a man of history. For example, Will Durant, the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian, says this about the gospels: "No one reading the scenes can doubt the reality of the figure behind them… After two centuries of higher criticism, the outlines of the life, character, and teachings of Christ remain reasonably clear and constitute the most fascinating feature in the history of Western man."

So, there are plenty of reasons to reject the complaint of critics who say Jesus was a fraud.

Faith Is Not Wishing--part 2

2011-12-19T17:09:00.000-08:00

Another chapter in Greg Koukl's book called Faith Is Not Wishing has an intriguing title – "Is God Just a Crutch?" Greg deals well with that attack on theism.

Atheists like to talk a lot about emotional and cultural factors that might induce somebody to become committed to Jesus. They claim the concept of God is a crutch. But Greg points out that no one can refute an idea by showing the psychological reasons a person happens to believe it. You can't refute someone's views by faulting his feelings. This is the key to his entire chapter.

Of course, this game can be played the other way around. Maybe it's the atheist who uses his or her beliefs as a crutch, an invention of that person's non-religious wishful thinking. In fact, it was Aldous Huxley who said he bought into atheism because it gave him the freedom to do what he wanted in the area of sexuality.

The key here is simple – objections about the believer, rather than the belief are not valid. Whatever cultural, emotional, psychological, or historical reasons people have tell you only about their cultures, emotions, history, or psychological states.

When someone focuses on the origin of a belief, not its content, this is called the genetic fallacy. Very well-known thinkers have committed this error – Sigmund Freud, Frederick Nietzsche, and Karl Marx all said God was nothing more than a psychological projection. Psychological motivations give you information about the person who believes, but they tell you nothing about the truth of his or her beliefs. Psychological motivations have nothing to do with whether a belief is true or not.

If someone says to us that Christians just want a father figure, there's a simple answer. We say, "Maybe we do and maybe we don't, but what does that have to do with whether God exists or not?" As C. S. Lewis said, "You must show that a man is wrong before you start explaining why he is wrong."

So we have to start with reasons first, rather than misleading talk about motives or desires. The atheist needs to give the Christian a convincing argument that God does not exist before asking why the Christian would believe in such a fantasy. Of course, it's easier for the atheist to ignore the argument and fault the feelings.

What I find interesting is Greg's final comments in this chapter. If men were to invent a God, he asks, what would he be like? Would we create a God like the one in the Bible? Wouldn't we want Him to reflect our desires by dismissing our shortcomings? But the God of the Bible is so unlike us. His wisdom confuses us and his purity frightens us. He makes moral demands that we can't possibly live up to. He does not come running to us when we call on him.

If somebody insists that Jesus is a crutch, there is an element of truth to this. After all, crippled people need crutches. At least he is a crutch that we can lean on. What is the atheist putting his trust in? Can his crutch hold him?

Faith Is Not Wishing--part 1

2011-12-15T07:47:00.000-08:00

This coming spring our apologetics group will be going through a short but extremely thoughtful book called Faith Is Not Wishing by Greg Koukl. I wanted to highlight some of his chapters here.

The first chapter deals with the concept of faith. Atheists see an inverse relationship between knowledge and faith. They believe the more knowledge of this world that is gained, the less spiritual faith people will have. They see faith as a leap in the dark, a desperate clinging to something when no information is available. It is often seen as wishful thinking. But Koukl points out that biblical faith is very different – it actually comes out of knowledge. It means active trust. He gives an example in the book of Exodus where Moses through the power of God brings forth miracles. In Exodus 14:31, we see the result: "And when Israel saw the great power which the Lord had used against the Egyptians, the people feared the Lord, and they believed in the Lord and in his servant Moses." There's a definite pattern we see in this story--giving the people knowledge of God, in whom they then place their active trust. The key point is that knowledge went before belief. God didn't ask the Hebrews or Moses for mindless faith, blind leaps, or wishful thinking.

The same is true in the New Testament. In Mark 2 Jesus says to a paralytic that his sins were forgiven. Scribes grumbled about such an audacious claim. So Jesus said, "But in order that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins, I say to you, rise, take up your pallet and go home." Jesus gave the same lesson that we saw in Exodus. He provided something that can't be seen (the forgiveness of sins) with evidence that can be seen, in this case a dramatic supernatural healing. Again, the concrete evidence allowed the doubters to know the truth so they could then trust in the forgiveness Jesus could give.

Other places in the New Testament follow the same pattern. Peter's sermon on Pentecost ends with this statement: "Therefore, let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made Him [Jesus] both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified." In 1 John the author ends his letter by saying, "These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, in order that you may know that you have eternal life."

Biblical faith isn't wishing; it's confidence. It's not denying reality, but discovering reality. It's a sense of certainty grounded in evidence that Christianity is true – not just "true for me," but actually, fully, and completely true. So knowledge comes first, and confidence follows. So we need to gather evidence, which will increase our knowledge and deepen our faith. Today, thanks to the Internet and other sources, it's easy to gather evidence for the reliability of the Christian faith. Let me know if you'd like some ideas of places to go for further evidence.

Diversity on college campuses--part 2

2011-12-12T07:22:00.000-08:00

My last blog dealt with increasing bureaucracy at colleges and universities. I want to continue this sad story for one more entry today.

This exploding diversity bureaucracy is not confined to public universities. Here are more depressing examples. In 2005, Harvard created a new Senior Vice Provost for Diversity and Faculty Development, responsible for $50 million in diversity funding, and six new diversity deanships. Can you imagine the cost for all these people? Don't forget to count the cost of adding whole new staffs to help these deans. Then there's Yale. This school already has 14 Title IX coordinators (14!), but it nevertheless recently put a Deputy Provost in charge of assessing the “campus climate” with respect to gender and overseeing the 14 Title IX coordinators. Ah yes, it needed more than 14. After all, we can't get enough information from a mere 14 coordinators. All these new bureaucrats in campuses across the country — nearly 72,000 non-teaching positions added from 2006 to 2009 — cost $3.6 billion, estimated Harvey Silverglate in Minding the Campus earlier this year. And we wonder why college costs are soaring. Well, here's one reason.

Of course this is only one problem that has added to rising tuition costs. Unfortunately, there are plenty of other reasons. First, there's the rest of the burgeoning student-services infrastructure. Then there are the salaries of professors who teach one course a semester, the arms race of ever more sybaritic dorms and social centers, and the absolute monarchies of the football and basketball programs. Of course, a major figure in the soaring costs is the federal government--are you surprised? Its easy loans allow colleges to jack up their tuition even further.

Of course, all this brings into focus a key question--do colleges need such a growing diversity bureaucracy? The clear answer is no. The exact opposite is the case. Hundreds of thousands of hours and dollars are wasted each year in the futile pursuit of the same inadequate pool of remotely qualified underrepresented minority and female applicants that every other campus in the country is chasing with as much desperate zeal. The hiring process has been thoroughly corrupted. Faculty applicants are brought onto campus who have no chance of being hired, either because the hiring committee incorrectly assumed from their names or résumés that they were the right sort of minority (East Asians don’t count) for a position set aside for just such a minority, or because, although they were the right sort of minority, their qualifications were so low that their only purpose in being interviewed was to fill an outreach quota. It's a sad state of affairs.

I haven't seen as much of this because I am at a community college, but it does exist. One time when I was on a hiring committee, we were told by the administration to select different people to interview because our selections were not diverse enough. Never mind the fact that English majors tend to be of incorrect diversity. Is this situation going away at any time? Nah, too much power, prestige, and money is on the line for these colleges.

Colleges and universities--another way they waste our money

2011-12-08T06:56:00.000-08:00

Since I'm involved in higher education, I read anything I can find about the troubles (and a few successes) in this field. The other day I saw something that shocked and dismayed me. It had to do with diversity on college campuses.

UC Berkeley’s Vice Chancellor for Equity and Inclusion declared that the rising tuition at California’s public universities is giving him “heartburn.” What's ironic and irritating is that Vice Chancellor for Equity and Inclusion Gibor Basri and his fellow diversity bureaucrats are a large cause of those skyrocketing college fees, not just in California but nationally.

A little background here is important. Basri commands a staff of 17 whose job it is to make sure that fanatically left-wing UC Berkeley is sufficiently attuned to the values of “diversity” and “inclusion”; his 2009 base pay of $194,000 was nearly four times that of starting assistant professors.

These kinds of silly jobs are not peculiar to Berkeley. For the last three decades, colleges have added more and more tuition-busting bureaucratic fat; since 2006, full-time administrators have outnumbered faculty nationally. UC Davis, for example, includes a Diversity Trainers Institute, staffed by Davis’s Administrator of Diversity Education; the Director of Faculty Relations and Development in Academic Personnel; the Director of the UC Davis Cross-Cultural Center; the Director of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Resource Center; an Education Specialist with the UC Davis Sexual Harassment Education Program; an Academic Enrichment Coordinator with the UC Davis Department of Academic Preparation Programs; and the Diversity Program Coordinator and Early Resolution Discrimination Coordinator with the Office of Campus Community Relations. The Diversity Trainers Institute recruits “a cadre of individuals who will serve as diversity trainers/educators,” a function that would seem largely superfluous, given that the Associate Executive Vice Chancellor for Campus Community Relations already offers a Diversity Education Series that grants Understanding Diversity Certificates in “Unpacking Oppression” and Cross-Cultural Competency Certificates in “Understanding Diversity and Social Justice.”

Then there's the University of California, San Francisco, which created a Vice Chancellor for Diversity and Outreach earlier this year at the height of the state’s budget crisis. But this position was redundant with UCSF’s existing Office of Affirmative Action, Equal Opportunity and Diversity, the Diversity Learning Center (where you can learn how to “Become A Diversity Change Agent”), the Center for LGBT Health & Equity, the Office of Sexual Harassment Prevention & Resolution, the Chancellor’s Advisory Committee on Diversity, the Chancellor’s Advisory Committee on Disability Issues, the Chancellor’s Advisory Committee on Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Issues, and the Chancellor’s Advisory Committee on the Status of Women.

Closer to home, there's UC San Diego. It recently announced the creation of a Vice Chancellor for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion , even as the campus was losing three prestigious cancer researchers to Rice University and was cutting academic programs. Needless to say, UCSD’s Vice Chancellor for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion replicated an equally fearsome mountain of diversity functions.

I'll take a deep breath and stop here. More on this obscene waste of money at your local university in the next blog.

The polar bear--the global warming people at work

2011-12-04T19:57:00.000-08:00

Please allow me to continue with occasional reports on the unraveling of climate change/global warming hysteria. My interest started when I read Michael Crichton's State of Fear in which he used government documents to show how sneaky and downright dishonest the climate change people were getting. Here's an update on the panic surrounding polar bears.

In 2008, thanks to the global warming crowd, the polar bear was put on the endangered species list. But here's where it gets interesting. The polar bear wasn't put on the endangered species list because it was endangered, you see. Instead, it was put on the list because it "might become" endangered due to climate change. Another key reason the bear was also put on the list had to do with emotions, which seem to me to be at the heart of the entire climate change stupidity. Scientists claimed, without evidence, they had seen a group of drowned polar bears off the coast of Alaska. Of course, people around the world were horrified at this scenario.

But this story is unraveling. Now the scientist who made the claim that polar bears were drowning because of rising sea levels is under investigation for making the entire thing up. Just five years ago, Charles Monnett was one of the scientists whose observation that several polar bears had drowned in the Arctic Ocean helped galvanize the global warming movement.

Now, the wildlife biologist is on administrative leave and facing accusations of scientific misconduct. The federal agency where he works told him he's being investigated for "integrity issues," but a watchdog group believes it has to do with the 2006 journal article about the bear. Doesn't that sound familiar especially now that we have seen tons of emails that show global warming fanatics were disregarding contrary evidence and trying to suppress scientists who opposed their hysteria. Just take a look at "Climategate" in a Google search. By the way, a new batch of emails has been released, showing the same methods at work.
But that isn't stopping U.N. from continuing to promote global warming hysteria. It's moving right on, finding new species to protect. Tough luck, polar bears. There are new creatures we have to defend. Several animal species including gorillas in Rwanda and tigers in Bangladesh could risk extinction if the impact of climate change and extreme weather on their habitats is not addressed, a U.N. report showed on Sunday.

Sigh . . .These people have no shame and no sense of reality. They want to wreck the economies of the developed world for some utopian, unrealistic future. The climate has changed before, and it will again, no matter what we do.

More on character

2011-12-01T10:14:00.000-08:00

I would like to continue with challenging statements on character that I found in a book called When No One Sees. We can all learn something from these:

Always take your job seriously, never yourself. – Dwight Eisenhower.

The moderation in virtue of a single character probably prevented this revolution from being closed, as most others have been, by a subversion of that liberty it was intended to establish. His integrity was most clear, his justice the most inflexible I have ever known, no motives of interest or consanguinity, of friendship or hatred, being able to bias his decision. He was, indeed, in every sense of the words, a wise, a good, and a great man. – Thomas Jefferson, speaking on George Washington's role in preserving the Republic.

Without the aid of trained emotions, the intellect is powerless against the animal organism… As the King governs by his executive, so reason the man must rule the mere appetites by means of the spirited element. The head rules the belly through the chest – the seat of emotions organized by trained habit into stable elements… And all the time we continue to clamor for those very qualities we are rendering impossible. You can hardly open a periodical without coming across the statement that what our civilization needs is more drive, or dynamism, or self-sacrifice, or creativity. In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honor and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful – C. S. Lewis

Keep the faculty of effort alive in you by a little exercise every day. That is, be systematically heroic in little unnecessary points; do every day or two something for no other reason than its difficulty, so that, when the hour of dire need draws nigh, it may find you not unnerved and untrained to stand the test. The man who has daily inured himself to habits of concentrated attention, energetic volition, and self-denial in unnecessary things will stand like a tower when everything rocks around him, and his softer fellow-mortals are winnowed like chaff in the blast. – William James

Never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never – in nothing, great or small, large or petty – never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense. – Winston Churchill

A life not put to the test is not worth living. – Epictetus

Character counts

2011-11-28T07:19:00.000-08:00

I'm reading a book now called When No One Sees by Os Guinness. It talks about the importance of character in an age of image, a message that is important for all of us now. Scattered throughout the book are short statements dealing with character, and I want to share some of them with you here.

"Sow a thought, reap an action; sow an action, reap a habit; sow a habit, reap a character; sow a character, reap a destiny."

"Man is made to adore and obey; but if you give him nothing to worship, he will fashion his own divinities and find a chieftain in his own passions." (Benjamin Disraeli)

"Mankind would rather see gestures than listen to reasons." (Frederick Nietzsche)

"In the long run, the public interest depends on private virtue." (James Wilson).

"In the White House, character and personality are extremely important because there are no other limitations… Restraint must come from within the presidential soul and prudence from within the presidential mind. The adversary forces which temper the actions of others, do not come into play until it is too late to change course." (George Reedy, special assistant to Lyndon Johnson)

"Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one." (Marcus Aurelius)

"Fame is a vapor, popularity an accident, riches take wing, and only character endures." (Horace Greeley)

"Anger is a short madness." (Horace)

"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power." (Abraham Lincoln)

"Character counts in the presidency more than any other single quality. It is more important than how much the president knows of foreign policy or economics, or even about politics. When the chips are down – and the chips are nearly always down in the presidency – how do you decide? Which way do you go? What kind of courage is called upon? Talking of his hero Andrew Jackson, Truman once said, it takes one kind of courage to face a duelist, but it's nothing like the courage it takes to tell a friend, no." (David McCullough, biographer of Harry Truman)

Thanksgiving for me

2011-11-23T20:07:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving is a perfect time to reflect on all the good that has come into my life. What am I thankful for? So many things…

A great wife, who has shown me mercy and grace over the years despite myself.

Two wonderful sons who have started businesses and shown great abilities such as discipline, creativity, and wisdom.

Two daughters-in-law who make my sons happy each day.

A grandson who toddles up to me, lifts his hands, and says, "Up."

Jesus Christ, the most important person who ever lived.

Christian apologetics, where I can find good reasons for the faith that I follow.

A job that I look forward to every day.

DragonSpeak software that allows me to type without depending on my lousy two-finger skills.

A house with a big yard.

A golden retriever who thinks I'm pretty special.

Lots of good books that need to be read.

Library sales of used books and used audio books.

The United States of America – the best country to live in.

Two cars that are old enough to avoid sharp depreciation but still nice enough to enjoy.

The Byrds, an old rock band that still gives me a lot of pleasure to hear.

Hiking trails near enough for me to enjoy the peace and quiet.

A digital camera, which has allowed us to take wonderful videos and photos of our grandson.

Good friends to share the joys and frustrations of life.

Good health which enables me to do the things I want to do.

Aches and pains of old age, which remind me to use my time well.

Netflix, which has allowed my wife and me to enjoy documentaries.

The San Diego Chargers and Padres, who teach me patience.

Passages that seem to disprove the Trinity.

2011-11-21T20:05:00.000-08:00

As part of the presentation last week in a church apologetics class, I discussed the answer to a key question – who is Jesus? One of the areas touched on had to do with the doctrine of the Trinity, an area many Christians struggle with. There are several verses brought up by those who oppose the Trinity, and I wanted to use this time to show that their arguments don't work.

They might start with the first chapter of John. We read in the 14th verse, "And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth." Those who oppose the Trinity will point out that this verse suggests God brought about Jesus because of the word "begotten." However, a far better translation shows that this word refers to the uniqueness of the Son. A better translation would be "God the only Son" or "the only Son, who is God."

Another place those who oppose the Trinity go to in John is in the 14th chapter. We see in verse 28 that Jesus says the Father is greater than He is. But the rest of the passage tells a different story. Jesus is explaining to his disciples that they should rejoice because He is going to the Father. If it simply means that the Father is a higher being, why should the disciples rejoice? This passage refers to the fact that the Father in heaven is positionally greater than the Son on earth. Jesus is telling the disciples to be happy because He is leaving a humble position and returning to glory.

Another favorite passage for those who oppose the Trinity is in Colossians. We read in the first chapter (verses 15 and 16) about Jesus: "He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him." The use of the word "firstborn" makes it sound like Jesus was created later than the Father. However, this term has been used throughout the Bible to indicate a favored position rather than literally born first. Take a look some time at Exodus 4:22, Jeremiah 31:9, Psalm 89:27, Romans 8:29, Hebrews 1:6, Revelation 1:5. For example, Psalm 89:27 calls David the firstborn even though David was not the first one physically born in his family.

I certainly agree that the Trinity is a difficult concept. But it is taught clearly in the Bible, especially the New Testament. I can cover that sometime if anyone wishes to continue with this topic.

The Messiah and fulfilled prophecies

2011-11-17T07:26:00.000-08:00

It's Thursday, and I'll be presenting information tonight to our church apologetics class on a key question – who is Jesus? I wanted to cover in the blog today part of my answer to that question. He is the fulfillment of many messianic prophecies in the Old Testament. Let's look at just a few of many such prophecies.

I plan on starting with Psalm 22. All through the psalm are many foreshadowings about the death of Jesus on the cross. It's so obvious that it points to Jesus; as a result, it has caused a revision in the translation of Jewish Bibles today. For example, at one point (verse 16) the narrator says his enemies have "pierced my hands and my feet." Considering crucifixion was not part of the psalmist's world, it seems to predict the kind of death Jesus faced. As a result, modern Hebrew Bibles replace that word with a phrase – "like a lion." But the oldest Hebrew translations we have (the Septuagint and the Dead Sea scroll that contains Psalms) use the word "pierced." Considering that the Septuagint was written over 200 years before the time of Jesus, it seems obvious that modern Jewish translations are attempting to avoid an obvious connection to Jesus.

Then there's Isaiah 9:6. This is part of a passage referencing the birth of the child, and Isaiah says in verse six, "He will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace." Of course, this sounds like the child will be God, again suggesting a connection to Jesus. So, once again, modern Jewish Bibles have been translated differently. This verse now says that he will be called "Wonderful in counsel is God the Mighty, the Everlasting Father." Do you see the difference here? The Jewish Bible now says that this child is given a name appropriate to God rather than to him.

Two other passages suggest the Messiah will come from the line of David. Take a look some time at Isaiah 11:10 and Jeremiah 23:5-6. But there's a huge problem with this assertion. When the Romans destroyed Jerusalem in 70 A.D., all genealogical records were destroyed as well. So, anyone who claimed to be the Messiah after 70 A.D. would be unable to prove his lineage came through the line of David. Thus, the Messiah had to be on the scene earlier than that.

Other verses also reflect the idea that the Messiah needed to be in existence in the first century A.D. Consider Haggai 2:6-9, which talks about the glory of the second Temple. The verse says God will fill his house, which in the context is the second Temple. This phrase refers to his actual presence being there. Since the Temple was destroyed in 70 A.D., it again suggests Jesus as God fulfilled this prophecy. Genesis 49:10 says the scepter will not depart from Judah until the Messiah comes. Jews understood this term to mean the ability for them to have independence in their land, including judicial rights. Then the Romans in 6 A.D. took over Palestine and refused to allow the Jews to impose capital punishment. Rabbis of the time said the Messiah should have been there based on their understanding of the verse in Genesis. Well, they were right because a young man was growing up in Nazareth at that time. Finally, there is the reference in Daniel 9:24-26 that talks about when the Messiah would come and be cut off (killed). He says there will be sixty-nine sevens after the decree to rebuild Jerusalem before the Messiah appears. If you multiply 69x7, you get 483 years. Multiply that by the ancient year-long calendar of 360 days, and you get 173,880 days. Now divide that by our modern 365 days in a year. You get 476 years. Still with me? The decree to rebuild Jerusalem was in 445 B.C., so adding 476 years gets us to 31 A.D. Hmm . . . what famous person in the Bible faced death around that time? Yep, it was Jesus.

Of course, there are many more verses that I could have mentioned, but you get the idea. This whole concept of fulfilled prophecy is fascinating. If you'd like further information, take a look some time at a book called The Search for Messiah by Eastman and Smith.

The United Nations--your tax dollars at work

2011-11-14T07:35:00.000-08:00

If you pay attention to news items, I'm sure you remember that Unesco, the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, admitted the Palestinian Authority as a member, even though it's not a country and therefore ineligible. The U.S. in response ended funding for this group, so taxpayers will save $80 million a year. What's interesting is the awful history of this U.N. agency.

According to an article in The Wall Street Journal Unesco has been best known since the 1970s for its New World Information Order, a set of recommendations that would regulate journalists and legitimize the suppression of free speech by authoritarian governments.

This isn't the first time time the U.S. has withdrawn funding from Unesco. During the Cold War, Soviet officials ran Unesco's education programs, and a former head of an African military tribunal responsible for executions was in charge of culture. When France expelled 47 KGB agents in 1983, 12 were Unesco employees. When the U.S. defunded Unesco, its leadership solicited countries to make up the shortfall and got a big donation from Libya's Moammar Gadhafi. That should tell you something.

Unesco has shown blatant hostility to Israel for a long time. Back in 1974 it granted observer status to the Palestine Liberation Organization. Despite Israel's protection of antiquities claimed by Christians, Muslims and Jews, Unesco accused Israel of "persistent alteration of historic features in Jerusalem." The organization dropped its boycott of Israel in the 1970s only after the U.S. threatened to withdraw funds. In the 1990s, Unesco held a symposium on Jerusalem at its Paris headquarters that excluded any Israeli groups. Sounds less than fair.

The Journal reports that in 2009, Farouk Hosny was the lead candidate to run Unesco. He had been the culture minister of Egypt under Hosni Mubarak for 20 years; his responsibilities including censoring news media and Internet. After losing to a Bulgarian diplomat in the fifth round of voting, he blamed "Zionist pressure" and "a group of the world's Jews." He had told the Egyptian Parliament the year before that if there were any books by Israeli authors in Alexandria's library, "I will burn them myself." And this man was close to running Unesco?

But there are more examples of Unesco's unfair treatment of Israel. Last year, at the request of several Arab countries, Unesco reclassified Rachel's Tomb—the 4,000-year-old burial site of Judaism's patriarchs and matriarchs Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah—as a mosque. And last year the organization published a history of science that replaces the rabbinic scholar Moshe Ben Maimon—Maimonides—with a Muslim named "Moussa Ben Maimoun."

The point of all this is simple. Unesco is a reliable reminder that there is little accountability for U.N. actions or inactions. This world body is a joke, and we shouldn't bow to its whims nor alter our courts to reflect its standards.

The soaring costs of college

2011-11-10T07:07:00.000-08:00

This is a second blog dealing with higher education--its failure to do its job and its soaring costs. I got the information from Jack Kelly's article entitled "The Big College Scam." Notice his word choice--it's a scam.

Last time I focused on Kelly's attack leveled at the failure of higher education. Students don't learn. The president of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni said,"Students who say that college has not prepared them for the real world are largely right. The fundamental problem here is not debt, but a broken educational system that no longer insists on excellence."

For this blog, let's take a closer look at the sharply rising costs of higher education. Kelly claims that the cost of college soared and its value diminished once the federal government started to "help." The supposed purpose of federal guarantees for student loans was to make college more affordable. In fact, according to Kelly, they did the opposite by fueling the massive tuition hikes. Colleges spent the extra money to expand their bureaucracies, increase the compensation of faculty and staff, and improve physical facilities. Some of this sounds fine, but I've seen the costs even at the community college level. When the school adds a new dean, for instance, the costs soar since that person doesn't function alone. He or she needs an entire staff, adding enormously to the costs of running the school.

Kelly has some discouraging statistics on the costs associated with higher education. We spend about $10,600 per pupil in public schools, 377 percent more, in inflation-adjusted dollars, than we spent in 1961. Yet among students who go to college, 75 percent require some remedial work. And, according to a study by the American Enterprise Institution and the Heritage Foundation, teachers are paid $120 billion over market value. That's painful to hear considering that I'm a teacher.

So students who succeed in college often come out with massive debt. Add to this the problem that their skills were not improved while in school, and you have a real problem. Kelly notes that roughly 60 percent of the increase in the number of college graduates since 1992 work in low-skill jobs. In 2008, 318,000 waiters and waitresses had college degrees, as did 365,000 cashiers and 18,000 parking lot attendants.

Unfortunately, very few are honest with students considering college. They often refuse to say that college isn't for everyone ... or that rigorous exit requirements at any level do not exist. It goes back to my comments in the previous blog. Higher education is often "sold" as a commodity to students with the implied message that they will get the diploma, no matter what their skill levels or their study habits.

So how is our current President doing with this problem? It looks like he will keep the current system going a little longer. He recently proposed a student loan forgiveness program, with taxpayers eating the difference. It would save students about $8 a month, but it won't slow down college costs or make the schools better places to learn.

What's that diploma worth?

2011-11-06T19:56:00.000-08:00

I was reading an online article that had to do with higher education. Years ago, education articles were glowing as they told of the value of a college degree. But so much has changed--and not for the better.

Let's talk costs. The article reported that tuition and fees at colleges and universities rose 439 percent between 1982 and 2007. Median family income rose just 147 percent during that period. Median household income has fallen 6.7 percent since June 2009. The cost of attending the average public university rose 5.4 percent this year. See a pattern here?

But it might be worth it if the students were getting a lot for their (or their parents') money. That's not the case, however. Nearly half learn next to nothing in their first two years; a third learn almost nothing in four, according to a report authored principally by Prof. Richard Arum of New York University. The article I read had a startling statement: "Students who say that college has not prepared them for the real world are largely right," said Ann Neal, president of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni. "The fundamental problem here is not debt, but a broken educational system that no longer insists on excellence." Another education expert said, "A college degree nowadays doesn't necessarily signal that its holder has any useful work skills."

Who's to blame for this failure? Now, keep in mind that I'm conservative, so you know what's coming. "For decades our schools have abandoned the teaching of basic facts and foundational thinking skills, and replaced both with leftish received wisdom and stale mythologies, all the while they have anxiously monitored and puffed up students' self esteem," said classics Prof. Bruce Thornton of California State University Fresno. So, our students can't do much, but they feel good about themselves. Man, that's sad.

What I see is an attitude on the part of the students that is a real problem. They believe the school has promised them success if they come and plunk down their money. It's like buying soap--you pay a certain amount, and you're guaranteed a useful product. They seem to believe a diploma awaits as long as they have paid their college tuition. I blame the schools because they promise too much and ignore the fact that not all people are cut out for college. The result is disillusioned (and poorer) students

There's more to this article I read, but I want to slow it down. There's much to think about here.

California's new tax--another disaster

2011-11-03T07:22:00.000-07:00

We live in a crazy state. All is collapsing around us--high unemployment, high taxes, companies leaving for other states. And what do the Democrats in Sacramento decide to pursue? A green tax. Unbelievable.

Here's what's happening. California has become the first jurisdiction in the nation to adopt a full-scale cap-and-trade tax to combat global warming. The new taxes and regulations will require a nearly 30% reduction in carbon emissions from power plants, manufacturers, cars and trucks by 2020. Yes, you read that right--not 3% but 30%. That's a recipe for a serious economic nosedive.

It all started in 2006, according to The Wall Street Journal. This green tax was signed into law in 2006 by then-Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in the fantasy that California was going to be the green role model for other states.

How is that working out with other states? Not so well. Ten states in the Northeast entered a regional cap and trade compact to limit greenhouse gases in 2008, but that market is now dying if not dormant and states (recently New Jersey) are dropping out.

Even the federal government, known for stupidity, has wised up. In 2010 the Democratic Senate killed cap and trade, and there is no chance anytime soon this tax will be implemented in Washington.

Now with states and the federal government slowing down and being far more cautious about this crazy plan, you'd think California would also re-think the plan. You'd be wrong. Our "Golden State" will go it alone on cap and trade, and the economic fallout won't be pretty. Nearly every independent analysis agrees that water, electricity, construction and gas prices inside the state will rise. The only debate is about how much.

Here come some scary statistics about the potential costs. A 2009 study by the California Small Business Roundtable estimated costs of $3,857 per household by the end of the decade. That's staggering. Gasoline prices, already near the highest in the nation, could rise by another 4% to 6%. Dust off that bicycle. An analysis by the state's own Legislative Analyst's Office found that the higher costs of doing business would mean "leakage of jobs," with the California economy "likely adversely affected in the near term by implementing climate change policies that are not adopted elsewhere." Duh . . . no kidding. Watch the jobs flee and the economy crater.

I guess what really frustrates me is the empty symbolism of the disastrous action. A single state's policies can't possibly alter the planet's temperature given the huge carbon footprint elsewhere. Do you think China and India will be shamed by California into stopping their economic progress? Har, har.

So here we go. California—with 2.1 million people already out of work and with the nation's second highest jobless rate at 11.9%—will walk the plank with this tax. When will the voters in this state wake up?

Something I'm looking forward to

2011-10-31T10:38:00.000-07:00

This coming spring I’ll be teaching a class out at Palomar that is my favorite—English 245 (Survey of Biblical Literature). There are so many reasons I look forward to starting the class.

For one thing, I want to combat biblical illiteracy. People used to know the Bible even they didn’t believe in its theological message. Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King were able to make biblical references and expected their audiences to pick up on them. Not any more—many know nothing about its stories.

Secondly, I hope to change attitudes and stereotypes about the Bible. Some believe it is totally grim, full of dire warnings and stern moralizing. They don’t know the Bible has all emotions, including humor. There are genuinely funny parts, and I always stress those so students can appreciate the variety of emotions in the Bible.

In addition, I want to challenge people to think about the big issues of life. We look at Genesis 1, for example, and I read aloud the first four words: “In the beginning God.” I ask them to consider the importance of those words in building a worldview. If people accept or reject those four words, it will make a huge difference in how they see the world and their place in it. Either we are the product of an intelligence, or we are the result of blind chance. Either way will impact the way we choose to live.

Finally, I hope for change in people’s lives. A few years a go I had a students who was a tough guy (I thought). He later told me his life had crashed and burned. He said the Bible spoke to him in a powerful way, and since then he has become a serious Christian with a new outlook on life. A story like that is so encouraging to hear. It’s certainly not the instructor that created that change. The Bible has the power to change lives even after two thousand years.

I’m working on a website that will include much on my course—audio lectures people can listen to or download and articles relating to the Bible. Once it’s up and functioning, I’ll let you know.

The death of self-reliance

2011-10-27T07:11:00.000-07:00

Did you hear about a recent comment by Barack Obama during a speech? It reveals so much about his mentality regarding American values and the role of government from his perspective. ABC News reported the following: "At a million-dollar San Francisco fundraiser today, President Obama warned his recession-battered supporters that if he loses the 2012 election it could herald a new, painful era of self-reliance in America." I was amazed.

Obama has issued a dire warning. He is the only thing standing between us and having to rely on ourselves! This country has stood for many things, but one ideal has certainly been self-reliance. And now we are told this is a nightmare scenario.

Obama added more later in the speech to drive the point home. "The one thing that we absolutely know for sure is that if we don't work even harder than we did in 2008, then we're going to have a government that tells the American people, 'you are on your own. If you get sick, you're on your own. If you can't afford college, you're on your own. If you don't like that some corporation is polluting your air or the air that your child breathes, then you're on your own. That's not the America I believe in. It's not the America you believe in."

What are we to make of this? Our President explicitly rejects the American ideal of self-reliance that has been so important throughout our history. He sees dependence on government not as an evil, if sometimes a necessary one, but as a goal to be pursued. The rest of the country is made up of childish, naive, lost souls in need of Obama and the Democrats to guide and protect them through the use of a huge central government.

I can still remember Bill Clinton and a question he got at a town meeting as he ran for re-election. A young man in the audience plaintively told the President that "we are your children" and asked what Clinton could do to protect him from all the abuses of life. Wow . . . a product of our school system . . . This guy saw government as the only way to help him survive the difficulties ahead. He sounded like a five-year old afraid of the dark.

This is not the America we all cherish. We need to grow up and tackle life head-on. The song of the liberals is one that sounds nice and rocks us to sleep, but there's a steep price to be paid. We give up our independence and our adulthood if we follow that siren's song.

So how much like the rest of us is the Occupy Wall Street crowd?

2011-10-24T07:41:00.000-07:00

Douglas Schoen, a pollster for Bill Clinton when he was President, has conducted a survey of the Occupy Wall Street crowd. The results are interesting for those of us suspicious when we are told these protestors are just like the rest of us--common souls just tired of being ignored by the petty politics of today.

Schoen, who wrote a piece in The Wall Street Journal, believes President Obama and the Democratic leadership are making a critical error in embracing the Occupy Wall Street movement—and it may cost them the 2012 election. We are told by Obama's crowd that these protestors are just like us. For example, last week, senior White House adviser David Plouffe said that "the protests you're seeing are the same conversations people are having in living rooms and kitchens all across America. . . . People are frustrated by an economy that does not reward hard work and responsibility, where Wall Street and Main Street don't seem to play by the same set of rules." Nancy Pelosi and others have echoed the message.

But Schoen says this picture of the Wall Street crowd isn't true. According to him, the Occupy Wall Street movement reflects values that are dangerously out of touch with the broad mass of the American people—and particularly with swing voters who are largely independent and have been trending away from the president since the debate over health-care reform.

Schoen's polling firm interviewed nearly 200 protesters in New York's Zuccotti Park. His findings probably represent the first systematic random sample of Occupy Wall Street opinion. So what did he discover? These people are far-leftists, not common folk like we are told repeatedly. His research shows clearly that the movement doesn't represent unemployed America and is not ideologically diverse. Instead, it is made up of an unrepresentative segment of the electorate that believes in radical redistribution of wealth, civil disobedience and, in some instances, violence. Half (52%) have participated in a political movement before, and nearly one-third (31%) would support violence to advance their agenda. The vast majority of demonstrators are actually employed.

Here's the scary part to me. What binds a large majority of the protesters together—regardless of age, socioeconomic status or education—is a deep commitment to left-wing policies: opposition to free-market capitalism and support for radical redistribution of wealth, intense regulation of the private sector, and protectionist policies to keep American jobs from going overseas. Sixty-five percent say that government has a moral responsibility to guarantee all citizens access to affordable health care, a college education, and a secure retirement—no matter the cost. Wow . . .

So they are not like the vast majority of Americans. Occupy Wall Street is a group of engaged progressives who are disillusioned with the capitalist system and have a distinct activist orientation. Among the general public, by contrast, 41% of Americans self-identify as conservative, 36% as moderate, and only 21% as liberal. That's why Schoen believes the Obama-Pelosi embrace of the movement could prove catastrophic for their party. Obama has thrown in with those who support his desire to tax oil companies and the rich, rather than appeal to independent and self-described moderate swing voters who want smaller government and lower taxes, not additional stimulus or interference in the private sector.

Schoen says the Democrats are doing the wrong thing here. Rather than embracing huge new spending programs and tax increases, plus increasingly radical and potentially violent activists, the Democrats should instead build a bridge to the much more numerous independents and moderates in the center by opposing bailouts and broad-based tax increases. They need to say they are with voters in the middle who want cooperation, conciliation and lower taxes. Will they do this? I don't think they will. That makes the 2012 election year more important than ever--the sides will be clear--small government versus a utopian remaking of America.

Green industries and the government--a sad case

2011-10-20T07:13:00.000-07:00

I'm sure you've heard of the disaster at Solyndra, where our "wise" government leaders loaned tons of money to a green company. Despite dreams of instant benefits, the government was surprised to see Solyndra go down the drain. But that's not the only rat hole that the government's money has been poured into.

Consider Ener1 Inc., a lithium-ion battery maker also promoted by the White House. According to The Wall Street Journal, President Obama gave the company's subsidiary, EnerDel, a shout out in August 2009, in a speech in which he announced $2.4 billion in grants "to develop the next generation of fuel-efficient cars and trucks powered by the next generation of battery technologies."

EnerDel snagged a $118 million grant to produce batteries, and Vice President Joe Biden toured one of its two Indianapolis-area factories as recently as January, citing it as proof that government isn't "just creating new jobs—but sparking whole new industries." Uh-huh . . . And we know that Joe Biden always has his facts right.
Ener1 was founded in 2002, went public in 2008 and has never turned a profit. Catch that? Never turned a profit. In August, it restated its earnings for fiscal 2010 at a $165 million loss—nearly $100 million more than previously reported. On September 27 it ousted its CEO, and its share price yesterday was 27 cents—a 95% decline from its 52-week high of $5.95 in January. Gee, that sounds promising, right? I'd invest in that hot stock. Nasdaq is threatening to delist the stock, and Ener1 disclosed in a mid-August filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that it is "in the process of determining whether the company has sufficient liquidity to fund its operations." Hmm . . . ominous words.

Ener1 attributed its financial restatement to the bankruptcy earlier this year of Norwegian electric car maker Think, in which Ener1 had invested, and with which it had signed a contract to supply batteries. Think had a long history of financial troubles and was hardly a safe investment. So not only does the government have bad powers of predicting economic success, so does the company in which it invests.

Then again, Ener1 had to rely almost exclusively on Think after it lost its bid to supply batteries to Fisker Automotive, a battery-powered car maker which received a $529 million U.S. taxpayer-backed federal loan guarantee in 2010. Fisker chose to buy its batteries from a company called A123 Systems, itself the recipient of a $249 million U.S. Department of Energy grant (announced at the same time as Ener1's grant). Do you see a pattern here? Loads of government money is flowing into these programs.

But here's the catch. It's hard to sell electric car batteries when the market for electric cars is so small. The Wall Street Journal claims electric cars are expected to make up less than 1% of car sales by 2018, but that hasn't stopped the feds from financing a glut of battery makers. Some 48 different battery technology and electric vehicle projects received federal money as part of the Administration's August 2009 announcement, including such corporate giants as Johnson Controls and General Motors.

Current estimates are that by 2015 there will be more than double the supply of lithium-ion batteries compared to the number of electric vehicles. This government-juiced industry is headed for a shakeout, taking taxpayer dollars with it. This, of course, makes no sense, but that's the government for you.

This is a sad illustration of something important. We should leave commercial financing decisions to private investors and bankers who are likely to take more care with their own money.

Occupy Wall Street and the lie that powers it

2011-10-17T07:35:00.000-07:00

Are you as dumbfounded as I am at the incredible lack of knowledge of Occupy Wall Street people?? Here's a reminder of what I mean.

They have bought into the same false story about the causes of the financial crisis. According to this story, the financial crisis and the following deep recession was caused by a reckless private sector driven by greed and insufficiently regulated. Now, of course, having bought into this fairy tale, the people are angry at Wall Street and bankers rather than at the government.

Their anger should be directed at those who developed and supported the federal government's housing policies that were responsible for the financial crisis. Here's the history behind it, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Beginning in 1992, the government required Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to direct a substantial portion of their mortgage financing to borrowers who were at or below the median income in their communities. Once again, the heart triumphed over the head. A noble sentiment--to help the poor get better housing. The original legislative quota was 30%. But the Department of Housing and Urban Development was given authority to adjust it, and through the Bill Clinton and George W. Bush administrations HUD raised the quota to 50% by 2000 and 55% by 2007.

When more than half of the mortgages Fannie and Freddie were required to buy were dealing with people in shaky financial shape, these two government-sponsored enterprises had to significantly reduce their underwriting standards. You can tell where this was going to end up.

Fannie and Freddie were not the only government-backed or government-controlled organizations that were enlisted in this process by the government. The Federal Housing Administration was competing with Fannie and Freddie for the same mortgages. And thanks to rules adopted in 1995 under the Community Reinvestment Act, regulated banks as well as savings and loan associations had to make a certain number of loans to borrowers who were at or below 80% of the median income in the areas they served. The government's heavy hand was at work.

Research by Edward Pinto, a former chief credit officer of Fannie Mae (now a colleague of mine at the American Enterprise Institute) has shown that 27 million loans—half of all mortgages in the U.S.—were subprime or otherwise weak by 2008. That is, the loans were made to borrowers with blemished credit, or were loans with no or low down payments, no documentation, or required only interest payments. Wow, a disaster in the making.

Of these, over 70% were held or guaranteed by Fannie and Freddie or some other government agency or government-regulated institution. Thus it is clear where the demand for these deficient mortgages came from--our own government, not private banking or Wall Street.

The private financial sector must certainly share some blame for the financial crisis when it got involved, but it cannot fairly be accused of causing that crisis when only a small minority of subprime and other risky mortgages outstanding in 2008 were the result of that private activity.

The fairy story that came out of these events—largely propagated by government officials and accepted by a credulous media (are any of you surprised by that?)—was that the private sector's greed and risk-taking caused the financial crisis and the government's policies were not responsible. This tale led to the current situation-- the occupation of Wall Street. Now Obama and his ilk cheer on these protestors in the hopes the American people can be duped once again to blame the wrong source of their problems.

John Wooden and character

2011-10-13T07:33:00.000-07:00

John Wooden, coach of the UCLA Bruins basketball team, was probably the greatest coach who ever lived. I was thinking about him the other day when I came across an article about his father and the importance of character.

He said that ever since he was very young his father would say to him, "Be more concerned with your character than your reputation." His dad went on to explain that your character is what you really are. Your reputation is merely how you are perceived by others.

We can live for years behind the façade, with no one suspecting who we really are. We can pretend to have integrity while living a lie. But this façade will eventually crumble. And if our true character is exposed in the form of sexual immorality, ethical corruption, dishonesty, substance abuse or moral cowardice, it can cost us a lot.

Wooden's father wrote out a creed for him to follow, and he carried this with him for years. Eventually the paper began to crumble, so Wooden made copies for himself and others. This became what he called the Seven-Point Creed. Here it is:

*Be true to yourself.
*Make each day your masterpiece.
*Help others.
*Drink deeply from good books, especially the Bible.
*Make friendship a fine art.
*Build a shelter against a rainy day.
*Pray for guidance and give thanks for your blessings every day.

There's obviously nothing new or startling in that list. But think how much better our lives would be if we tried to accomplish these things. I realize it's not time for a New Year's resolution, but any day is the right time to live a richer life.

Quick answers to difficult questions

2011-10-10T18:52:00.000-07:00

Sometimes when we talk with others about Christianity, we don't have a lot of time to develop our answers. Greg Koukl, president of Stand to Reason, has two quick answers to two difficult questions.

The one issue that usually gets brought up as an attack on Christianity is the problem of evil. If there is a good God, why is there evil? Greg suggests an initial question – "So you believe in objective evil then?" If the challenger doesn't, the problem goes away. If there's no objective evil, there is no problem of evil. That should take care of relativists who raise this issue.

Then there's his follow-up question – "What do you mean by evil?" Normally, people will give all sorts of examples of evil, like murder, torture, child abuse. Greg says we should ask them instead to tell us what it is that makes those things objectively evil in the first place. This can lead to a discussion, when there's more time, about transcendent moral law and the need for a transcendent moral law maker. In other words, God must exist before you can even raise the objection about evil. If there's no God, there are simply your preferences.

The second issue raised against Christianity involves Jesus being the only way. Greg has a pretty sharp answer for that issue: "Well, that's what Jesus thought. Do you think he had any insight into spiritual things?" The advantage now is with you because the critic must take on Jesus. Good luck.

This paragraph is my own suggestion about this second issue. When people complain about Jesus being the only way, they usually follow it up with a criticism of Christianity as being narrow-minded or intolerant. Of course, we simply need to point out that these people are just as narrow-minded since they believe they are right just as much as we believe we are right. They seem to be just as intolerant about our views as they say we are about theirs.

Now, there are obviously ways to get deeper into these issues. But these responses can keep us from being inarticulate or defensive. Try them out sometime.

The case for miracles

2011-10-06T08:08:00.000-07:00

I Don't Have Enough Faith To Be an Atheist by Norm Geisler and Frank Turek has an important chapter dealing with the possibility of miracles. Since I will be speaking on this in a week, I wanted to write about miracles to make sure I understood their main points.

I think I'll start my presentation with a question: have you or someone you know experienced a miracle? It might be a healing or an answer to prayer. J. P. Moreland, a noted Christian philosopher, says he is always surprised when he asks this question of groups he is speaking to. A large number of people always raise their hands. We in the West are cold, rational people that really don't believe in miracles. But they seem to be happening around us.

Can we justify belief in miracles? That's what the authors of the book tackle. They start with a definition. A miracle is a special act of God that interrupts normal events. It's done to authenticate some message from God.

They use a simple illustration to explain how miracles add to our worldview. They tell of one speaker who brought in two boxes for his audience – one was closed, and one was open at one end. The speaker held up the closed box and said atheists believe the physical universe is closed, like the box. But he said he believed there was a God outside the box capable of reaching into it and performing what we call miracles.

The authors indicate there is a key element here. If we admit there is a God, then miracles are possible. It's always been funny to me that people do believe in God, but they have difficulty with miraculous events associated with Jesus, such as walking on water or changing water to wine. Once you have settled the idea that there is a God, then all possibilities are open since he created the entire universe out of nothing. He can certainly do other, more minor miracles.

Geisler and Turek tackle two well-known objections to miracles. The first one was by Spinoza, who said natural laws are immutable. But the authors point out the creation of the universe seems to throw that objection out the window. They say laws describe, not prescribe what will happen.

The second objection was by David Hume. He argued that natural law is a description of a regular occurrence, while a miracle is a rare occurrence. He then says the evidence for the regular is always greater than that for the rare. Next, he says, a wise man always bases his belief on the greater evidence, and, therefore, a wise man should never believe in miracles. That may sound like a good argument, but they point out the problem with "the evidence for the regular is always greater than that for the rare." Think of all the things that have happened which are rare but we have better reasons to believe in them – the origin of the universe, the origin of life, the start of new life forms, the entire history of the world. These are all rare events, yet we believe in them. The issue is not the rarity of an event; it's whether we have good evidence for it. They accuse Hume of circular reasoning – he says only believable events are regular, and since a miracle is not regular, it fails to meet this criteria.

The authors end the chapter by discussing why there are no biblical miracles happening today. They mention that most miracles in the Bible actually occurred only during three periods of history – in the time of Moses, Elijah, and Jesus. They believe that since there is no new revelation coming from God today that needs confirmation, there are fewer miracles. But I suggest that there are miracles, at least on the smaller scale involving individuals. We'll see what reaction I get when I ask the class next week whether they have experienced miracles.

The existence of a universal moral law

2011-10-03T07:24:00.000-07:00

The next section of I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist is important but not necessarily easy to grasp. The authors Norm Geisler and Frank Turek deal with the argument for God from morality. It can be summed up this way: every law has a lawgiver; there is a moral law; therefore, there is a moral lawgiver.

Of course, the key portion of that argument is the existence of a moral law. The authors start out by saying our Founding Fathers thought there was such a law. Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence that "nature's law" is "self-evident." They claim Jefferson meant you don't use reason to discover it; you just know it. All people are impressed with the fundamental sense of right and wrong. For example, everyone knows that love is superior to hate and courage is better than cowardice.

They point out that this does not mean that every moral issue has easily recognizable answers or that some people don't deny that absolute morality exists. There are difficult problems in morality. In addition, they understand that people suppress and deny the moral law every day. But they say there are basic principles of right and wrong that everyone knows, whether they will admit them or not.

The authors claim there are eight reasons why the moral law exists. First, the moral law is undeniable logically. A person may say "there are no absolute values," but this person who denies all values actually values his right to deny them. In addition, he wants everyone to value him as a person, even while he denies that there are values for all persons. So, even those who deny all values nevertheless value their right to make that denial. That's inconsistent.

Secondly, we know there is a moral law by our reactions. The authors included a great story to prove their point. A professor at a major university in Indiana gave one of his relativistic students who did not believe in absolute moral values a lesson in this point. The professor, who was teaching a class in ethics, assigned a term paper to the students. One student, an atheist, wrote eloquently on the topic of moral relativism, arguing that all morals are relative and there is no absolute standard of justice or rightness. It was actually a good paper with good documentation. The professor read the paper and wrote on the front cover, "This is a good paper, but I'm going to give it an F because you put it in a blue folder." The student, of course, was enraged and said that it wasn't fair to give him a bad grade because of the folder. The professor acted puzzled, saying the student didn't believe in moral values, so why was he talking about something being fair. The light bulb went on the student's head. He realized that he really did believe in moral absolutes. The authors say that a good way to get moral relativists to admit that there are absolute morals is to treat them unfairly. Their reactions will reveal the moral law written on their hearts and minds.

There are more arguments for the existence of moral laws, but I will save those for future blog.

Our military--who fights for us?

2011-09-29T07:29:00.000-07:00

I found an interesting piece in The Wall Street Journal that lays to rest the old lies about who really fights for us. We hear so often of our military as a refuge for those unable to make it in society, a place for the ill-trained and minorities of our society. The belief is that our nation is cruelly sending these poor saps off to die in lands they couldn't spell or find on a map. But the truth is far different.

In 2008, using data provided by the Defense Department, the Heritage Foundation found that only 11% of enlisted military recruits in 2007 came from the poorest one-fifth, or quintile, of American neighborhoods (as of the 2000 Census), while 25% came from the wealthiest quintile. Heritage reported that "these trends are even more pronounced in the Army Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) program, in which 40% of enrollees come from the wealthiest neighborhoods, a number that has increased substantially over the past four years."

Think about what that is saying. More than twice as many of our soldiers come from the wealthiest portion of our society as come from the poorest section. In fact, the Heritage report showed that "low-income families are underrepresented in the military and high-income families are overrepresented. Individuals from the bottom household income quintile make up 20.0 percent of Americans who are age 18-24 years old but only 10.6 percent of the 2006 recruits and 10.7 percent of the 2007 recruits. Individuals in the top two quintiles make up 40.0 percent of the population, but 49.3 percent of the recruits in both years."

What about the charge that our Army is disproportionately minority, especially African-American? This too is false, as the Journal points out in data for fiscal 2010 available on the Army's website: Whereas African-Americans comprise 17% of Americans ages 18-39 with high school degrees, they represent only a slightly larger proportion of enlisted soldiers, at 21%.

Yes, but what about whites? Are they shirking their military duty? Nope. They were significantly overrepresented among enlisted Army personnel in 2010. While 58% of Americans 18-39 years old are white, 64% of the Army's enlisted men and women are. One area that is particularly uplifting is the percentage of Army officers. While 74% of 25-54 year-olds with bachelor's degrees are white, 72% of Army officers are white. While 8% of 25-54 year-olds with B.A.s are African-American, 13% of Army officers are. So African-Americans are represented well as officers.

Why do myths persist despite all the evidence? It seems likely that it suits the interests of many members of the urban elite to believe that the military they do not join is composed of poor, uneducated victims of an unfair society. I'm so glad to know this idea is far from the truth.

Intelligent design in the hot seat

2011-09-26T07:48:00.000-07:00

I never finished covering the chapter in I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist that deals with evolution. I wanted to spend some time now with the authors' discussion of intelligent design as an alternative to evolution. They organize their discussion by looking at objections to intelligent design with responses to those objections.

The first objection is that intelligent design is not science. Of course, Darwinists make this claim based on their own biased definition of science. Science used to be a search for causes. But Darwinists say now that all answers must be materialistic, not allowing as they say a "divine foot in the door." The irony is that if intelligent design is not science, than neither is Darwinism because both are trying to discover what happened in the past. Darwinists would also have to rule out archaeology, cryptology, criminal and accident forensic investigations, and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence since they are all legitimate forensic sciences that look into the past for intelligent causes.

Another charge against intelligent design is that it commits the God-of-the-gaps fallacy, which occurs when someone falsely believes God caused the event when it was actually natural phenomenon. At one time people used to believe lightning was caused by God, but now we know the real reasons. But it's not that we lack evidence of a natural explanation; it's because we have positive and empirically detectable evidence for an intelligent cause. In fact, intelligent design scientists are open to both natural and intelligent causes rather than being opposed to continued research into natural explanations for the first life. In addition, intelligent design is a falsifiable premise. It could be proven wrong if natural laws were someday discovered to create specified complexity. But Darwinists don't allow falsification of their story because they don't allow any other creation premise to be considered. Actually, it's Darwinists who claim that someday they will have answers to explain how complex, information-rich biological systems came into existence--they believe in science-of-the-gaps, it appears.

Another charge against intelligent design is that it is religiously motivated. Here's a quick answer to that – so what? Truth does not lie in the motivation of scientists, but in the quality of the evidence. After all, it's not just religious people that have a worldview. So do atheists. Intelligent design is not "creation science" either. Proponents don't make the same claims of a young Earth or a worldwide flood.

One final objection to intelligent design has to do with imperfections in creatures. The fact that scientists complain about sub-optimal design implies that they know what optimal design is. It sounds like actually an argument for a designer. When they claim something is designed correctly, they're implying they could tell if it were designed correctly. Secondly, even if something was sub-optimally designed,it doesn't mean there was no design at all. In addition, all design requires trade-offs. For example, cars want to get good gas mileage but they need power, so some sort of compromise is reached. One final thought here – the book does not discuss it, but many of the complaints about bad design have turned out to be incorrect. Many systems in our bodies which at one time were considered poorly designed have actually proved to have important, helpful features.

There's one final section in this chapter dealing with motives behind Darwinism, but I think I'll save that for a future blog.

Another scientist walks away from Al Gore

2011-09-22T21:51:00.000-07:00

You've heard the old saying, :"Another one bites the dust." Well, it happened in the arena of global warming. Another Nobel laureate breaks from the climate change pack.

Ivar Giaever, a 1973 physics Nobel Laureate resigned last week from the American Physical Society in protest over the group's insistence that evidence of man-made global warming is "incontrovertible." That's the wording of Al Gore, who reassures us all that the issue really is settled.

In an email to the society, Mr. Giaever—who works at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute—wrote that "The claim (how can you measure the average temperature of the whole earth for a whole year?) is that the temperature has changed from ~288.0 to ~288.8 degree Kelvin in about 150 years, which (if true) means to me . . . that the temperature has been amazingly stable, and both human health and happiness have definitely improved in this 'warming' period."

Mr. Giaever was an American Physical Society fellow, an honor bestowed on "only half of one percent" of the members, according to a spokesman. This is no slouch. He follows in the footsteps of University of California at Santa Barbara Emeritus Professor of Physics Harold Lewis, a former APS fellow who resigned in 2010, calling global warming "the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life as a physicist." Now that's hard-hitting commentary.

But, as the late-night TV ads say, "Wait, there's more." Other dissenters include Stanford University physicist and Nobelist Robert B. Laughlin, deceased green revolution icon and Nobelist Norman Borlaug, Princeton physicist William Happer and World Federation of Scientists President Antonino Zichichi. Not that all of these men agree on climate change, much less mankind's contribution to it, but they at least maintain an open mind about warming or what to do about it.

One of the least savory traits of climate-change advocates is how they've tried to bully anyone who keeps an open mind. Remember Al Gore, who compared deniers of global warming to racists in the 1950s? With the cap-and-trade movement stymied, Mr. Gore and the climate clan have become even more arch in their dismissals of anyone who disagrees. You decide whom you wish to agree with--Professor Giaever, or Mr. Gore. My choice is pretty easy.

How did life get started?

2011-09-18T17:13:00.000-07:00

The next section of I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist deals with the design of life. It focuses particularly on the most difficult problem of all for Darwinists – where did the first life come from?

The authors point out that the first problem when talking about evolution is in its definition. Darwinists make no distinction between microevolution and macroevolution, and thus use the evidence for micro to prove macro. Microevolution has been observed (changes within species), but it can't be used as evidence for macroevolution, which has never been observed (the evolving of one organism into another kind of organism). Natural selection, the device Darwinists say that powers evolution, has never been observed to create new types.

There are five reasons the authors list to explain why natural selection can't create new life. For one thing, there seems to be genetic limits built into basic types of animals. For example, dog breeders create different kinds of dogs, but the dogs always remain dogs. Secondly, the change that occurs within types of animals appears to be cyclical rather than directed toward the development of new life forms. The two authors use an example of Darwin's finches, which were noted as having varying beak sizes depending on the weather. No new life forms came into existence; only the beak sizes changed in these birds. The third reason involves something called irreducible complexity. Living things are filled with molecular machines that are irreducibly complex, meaning that all the parts of each machine have to be completely formed and in the right places and in the right size in the correct operating order at the same time for the machine to function. The authors use as an example a car engine, which needs so many systems to operate together for success. These complex biological systems could not have developed in a gradual Darwinian fashion because intermediate forms would be nonfunctional. All the right parts must be in place in the right size at the same time for there to be any function at all. A fourth problem with natural selection is the non-viability of transitional forms. The authors use as an example the Darwinian assertion that birds evolved gradually from reptiles. Such a change would necessitate a transition from scales to feathers, but how could a creature survive that no longer has scales but does not quite have feathers? A creature with the structure of half a feather has no ability to fly. Finally, the authors discuss molecular isolation. If all species share a common ancestor, the authors indicate we should expect to find proteins sequences that are transitional from fish to amphibian, for example. That's not what is found. Scientists have discovered that the basic types are molecularly isolated from one another, which seems to preclude any type of ancestral relationship.

But Darwinists say the fossil record supports their position – does it? It actually lines of better with supernatural creation. There aren't missing links – there's a missing chain. Nearly all the major groups of animals known to exist appear in the fossil record abruptly and fully formed in strata from the Cambrian time period. This is been called the Cambrian explosion or biology's Big Bang. This, of course, is completely inconsistent with Darwinism. There's no evidence of gradual evolution but of instantaneous creation instead.

Again, I'm going to quit at this point even though I have not finished the chapter in the book. There's plenty here to think about.

The philosophy behind Darwinists

2011-09-15T07:01:00.000-07:00

This blog is a continuation of a summary of a powerful book, I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist by Geisler and Turek.. The last time I discussed the book I was working my way through a chapter about the complexity of life. This time I would like to finish that particular chapter, which talks about the philosophy behind Darwinism and materialism.

The authors say Darwinists have been successful in convincing the public that Darwinism represents science while those who oppose Darwinism represent bad science. However, Geisler and Turek say just the opposite. It's the Darwinists who are practicing the bad science because their science is built on a false philosophy.

Where does Darwinism go wrong? Many Darwinists start with the idea that God is not necessary because science can explain everything. But there are all sorts of rational beliefs that cannot be proven by science: mathematics and logic (science can't prove them because science presupposes them), metaphysical truths (for example, there are minds that exist other than my own), ethical judgments (you can't prove by science that Mother Teresa was good because morality is not part of the scientific method), aesthetic judgments (no one can scientifically prove something is beautiful), and science itself (the belief that the scientific method discovers truth ironically can't be proven by the scientific method itself).

The key point the authors wish to get across is that science itself is built on philosophy. So, if you have bad philosophy, you get bad science. How is it that science is built on philosophy? First, scientists use philosophical assumptions and the search for causes. For example, scientists assume by faith that reason and the scientific method allow us to accurately understand our world. You can't prove the tools of science by some sort of experiment – the laws of logic, the law of causality, the principle of uniformity. Secondly, philosophical assumptions can dramatically impact scientific conclusions. I think right now about the debate on climate change. Many scientists are getting a conclusion that they wish to get to keep the scientific funding going.

The authors say the bad science of Darwinists essentially comes from their false philosophy of naturalism/materialism. Geisler and Turek have five reasons why materialism is not reasonable. First, there is specified complexity in life that cannot be explained materially. Think about the DNA message. Secondly, human thoughts and theories are not comprised only of materials. How much does love weigh? Third, if life was simply material, then we could take these materials and make a living being. But we cannot do that. Fourth, if materialism is true, then all people of human history who had spiritual experiences have been completely mistaken. That's hard to believe considering the list of those who have had such experiences – think of Abraham, Moses, Kepler, Newton, Pascal, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and Jesus Christ. Fifth, if materialism is true then reason itself is impossible. Why? If mental processes are nothing but chemical reactions in our brains, why should we believe that anything is true? Chemicals don't reason, they react. We would be doomed to conclusions based on chemical reactions rather than reason.

Well, that's a lot of heady material to consider, and it deserves further thought. But I think it's pretty powerful.

Language to mask failure

2011-09-12T07:30:00.000-07:00

As you know, I'm an English teacher who likes our language. I was reminded once again of the power of words the other day. This time it has to do with politics.

The news was about Nancy Pelosi and her fellow Democrats. According to internet reports, they have dropped the word 'stimulus' from their vocabulary. This was reported shortly before President Obama's jobs speech before a joint session of Congress. He proposed another hugely expensive stimulus bill . . . oops, it's now being called a "jobs plan" much like his his $830 billion 2009 economic stimulus package. And we all know how lovely that turned out to be.

But since that previous program was so ineffective and ruinously expensive, a change in vocabulary was necessary. Democrats are now being careful to frame their job-creation agenda in language excluding references to that dreaded word "stimulus," even though their favored policies for ending the deepest recession since the Great Depression are largely the same--throw money at the problem.

The phrases used now will make people forget earlier failure, so get ready for new, uplifting language. It will now be "job creation" and "Make it in America" in lieu of "Recovery Act." Gee, I feel better about it already.

You know there's failure in the air when language has to change rather than the policies. The Democrats are wedded to the idea that money solves all problems. I hope this lesson in language wakes up the American people to the Democrats' lack of good ideas to solve our economic problems. I'm certainly not happy with the Republicans, but I think they have better plans to reduce our bloated government and return economic decisions to the people.

Al Gore as a prophet for profit

2011-09-08T07:07:00.000-07:00

At the risk of irritating readers of this blog, I want to go back to global warming again. A previous blog mentioned the latest from CERN, the respected scientific group that has issued its findings that suggest cosmic rays may be a leading cause of climate change. Well, there goes the man-caused-only rants from the leftists around the world. Who leads them? Why, it's Al Gore, bless his soul.

The other day he implied that those who oppose his agenda were the same as the racists in the 50s who opposed equal rights for African-Americans. Now, you know when someone plays the race card, he is in trouble. By the way, we can expect that in next year's presidential election, can't we?

But I don't want to go over these issues. Instead, I'd like us to consider why Al Gore is so insistent on scaring us, ranting about the issue, smearing his opponents. Does he care that much more about the earth than the rest of us? Or is there more to his position? People always say, "Follow the money." Let's do that with Al Gore.

No one has made more money from climate change hype than Gore. According to the U.K.'s Guardian newspaper, just one of the "green" companies in which Gore has invested has received over half a billion dollars in subsidies from the Energy Department. Ah, scare people enough, and they throw money your way. Scientists learned that too--yell a lot and get more funding.

Financial disclosure documents released before the 2000 election put the Gore family's net worth at $1 million to $2 million. A mere decade later, estimates are that he is worth $100 million. He's been touted in the press as one day becoming the first "carbon billionaire." Now, there's a reason to keep the hysteria alive. It's good for the pocketbook.

According to the Science & Public Policy Institute, the U.S. government has spent over $79 billion since 1989 on policies related to climate change, including science and technology research, administration, education campaigns, foreign aid and tax breaks. And why are we doing this, considering that the rest of the world, especially China and India, have no plans to ruin their economy along with us? The net impact will be nil.

According to the World Bank, the value of carbon trading doubled from $63 billion in 2007 to $126 billion in 2008. Big money has been and can be made by conning governments into formulating policies based on fraudulently hyped climate hysteria.
We still remember "Climategate," right?

While many like Gore have profited handsomely, these policies cost the nation dearly in terms of jobs and economic growth. Let's see real proof before we unilaterally dismantle the American economy.

The amazing complexity of life

2011-09-05T06:56:00.000-07:00

Back to my blog on I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist. The last blog on this covered the design argument in which the authors claim the basic laws of the universe are set up to allow human life to exist. This time I'll focus on a second type of design in the universe -- the complexity of life. The authors point out that advancing technology has enabled scientists to discover a tiny world of awesome design and astonishing complexity.

The biggest problem for Darwinian believers is to explain the origin of the first life, which is not as simple as once thought. In 1953 James Watson and Francis Crick discovered DNA, the chemical that encodes instructions for building and replicating all living things. It's a blueprint, and Bill Gates called it the most complex computer code ever seen. DNA even in a one-celled amoeba is unbelievably complex in its message. Richard Dawkins, an atheist professor of zoology at Oxford University, admits that the message found in just the cell nucleus of a tiny amoeba is more than all 30 volumes of Encyclopedia Britannica combined, and the entire amoeba has as much information in its DNA as 1000 complete sets of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Darwinists have a difficult task. They have to say life came spontaneously from nonliving chemicals without intelligent intervention. The trouble is, all experiments designed to spontaneously generate life have failed. Another difficulty they have, besides the complexity of DNA, is the origin of DNA. It relies on proteins for its production, but proteins rely on DNA for their production. So which came first, proteins or DNA? One has to be in existence for the other to be made.

So why are Darwinists so committed to their viewpoint? Because they have a philosophy which rules out intelligent causes before they even look at the evidence. Since they have ruled out any possibility of God because of their philosophical foundations, Darwinism has be true since it's the only God-free theory.

A couple of key quotations make this very clear. Phil Johnson, a Christian law professor, states, "Darwinism is based on an a priori [prior] commitment to materialism, not on a philosophically neutral assessment of the evidence." Richard Lewontin, a Harvard University atheistic professor, says, "It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenonal world but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counterintuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute for we cannot allow a Divine foot in the door." That's an amazing statement, considering he is saying Darwinists start with a philosophical position of atheism and build their science on that. So much for the neutrality of science.

But Darwinists say that they have billions of years to work with, so that may allow spontaneous generation of life to happen. The problem is that nature disorders; it doesn't organize things. Atheists and theists alike have calculated the probability that life could arise by chance from nonliving chemicals. The results are staggering. One biochemist said that the probability of getting one protein molecule by chance would be the same as a blindfolded man finding one marked grain of sand in the Sahara desert three times in a row. And one protein molecule is not even life. You need about 200 of these molecules to get life going.

This is fascinating material, but there is a lot of it. So I'll save some for the next blog.

A CLOUD covers global warming fanatics

2011-09-01T12:52:00.000-07:00

If you've read any of my blogs in the past, you know I'm skeptical of global warming. I wanted to share a recent news item that adds to my skepticism.

It regards the latest revelations from CERN over its landmark CLOUD experiment, whose significance one journalist explains here:

"The science is now all-but-settled on global warming, convincing new evidence demonstrates, but Al Gore, the IPCC and other global warming doomsayers won’t be celebrating. The new findings point to cosmic rays and the sun — not human activities — as the dominant controller of climate on Earth."

First, a little background on where this article came from and the organization CERN. The research was published this week in the prestigious journal Nature, so this is not the result of some crackpot publication. And the research comes from CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, one of the world’s largest centers for scientific research involving 60 countries and 8,000 scientists at more than 600 universities and national laboratories. This is a hugely successful and respected organization. It was CERN that invented the World Wide Web, that built the multi-billion dollar Large Hadron Collider, and that has now built a pristinely clean stainless steel chamber that precisely recreated the Earth’s atmosphere.

So what happened during the research? In this stainless steel chamber, 63 CERN scientists from 17 European and American institutes have done what global warming doomsayers said could never be done — demonstrate that cosmic rays promote the formation of molecules that in Earth’s atmosphere can grow and seed clouds. If there are more clouds, the result will be a cooler Earth. Where do these cosmic rays come from? The sun. Because the sun’s magnetic field controls how many cosmic rays reach Earth’s atmosphere (the stronger the sun’s magnetic field, the more it shields Earth from incoming cosmic rays from space), the sun determines the temperature on Earth.

The idea that cosmic rays and the sun hold the key to the global warming debate was first proposed by two scientists from the Danish Space Research Institute, at a 1996 scientific conference in the U.K. Within one day, the chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Bert Bolin, denounced the theory, saying, “I find the move from this pair scientifically extremely naive and irresponsible.” Note that it was the IPCC that played a role in later incorrect announcements on global warming. Al Gore and his fanatic followers made sure that anyone who disagreed about the politically correct theory of global warming being humanity's fault alone were vilified, marginalized and starved of funding, despite the fact that many of the skeptics had impeccable scientific credentials.

But Jasper Kirkby, a CERN scientist became disenchanted with the standard line of the global warming crowd. He convinced the CERN bureaucracy of the cosmic ray theory’s importance and developed a plan to create a cloud chamber — he called it CLOUD, for “Cosmics Leaving OUtdoor Droplets.” Needless to say, the global warming establishment sprang into action, pressured the Western governments that control CERN, and almost immediately succeeded in suspending CLOUD. It took Mr. Kirkby almost a decade of negotiation with his superiors, and who knows how many compromises and unspoken commitments, to convince the CERN bureaucracy to allow the project to proceed. And years more to create the cloud chamber and convincingly validate the Danes’ groundbreaking theory.

So, despite the fact that Al Gore implied that anyone who opposed his version of global warming was a racist, the verdict is still out. Again, I caution everyone to investigate and think this thing through before we ruin ourselves economically by following the harsh mandates the global warming crowd has set up for us.

A just-right universe for us

2011-08-29T06:30:00.000-07:00

I have been blogging on a book that our class at church will be reading together--I Don't Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist by Geisler and Turek. For this entry I want to cover what is probably my favorite section of the whole book. It involves the argument from design, also called the teleological argument. It looks like this: every design had a designer; the universe has highly complex design; therefore, the universe had a designer. In the last few years science has uncovered so much evidence of complexity in the universe that argues powerfully for the existence of God.

For one thing, the universe is specifically organized to enable life to exist on earth. Think about just the solar system--no other place is able to sustain life. We live, like Goldilocks, in a just-right position, neither too hot (Venus) or too cold (Mars).We have around us scores of improbable and interdependent life-supporting conditions that make earth a perfect home in a hostile universe. These highly precise environmental conditions go by the term "anthropic principle." The universe looks fine-tuned to support human life here on earth.

What are some of these conditions that are exactly right? I'll just list some, skipping the details, but the book explains each more fully: the percent of oxygen in the atmosphere, the transparency of our atmosphere, the moon-Earth gravitational interaction, the amount of carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere, the gravitational force in the universe, the expansion rate of the universe, the velocity of light, the level of water vapor in the atmosphere, the precise location of Jupiter in the solar system, the thickness of the Earth's crust, the rotation of the earth, the tilt of the Earth's axis, the rate of lightning in the atmosphere, seismic activity on the earth. There are something like 122 of these conditions both on earth and throughout the universe that have to be precisely right for us to exist.

The authors quote a Nobel Laureate, Arno Penzias, who has this to say after examining the conditions like the ones in the previous paragraph: "Astronomy leads us to a unique event, a universe which was created out of nothing and delicately balanced to provide exactly the conditions required to support life. In the absence of an absurdly-improbable accident, the observations of modern science seem to suggest an underlying, one might say, supernatural plan."

The skeptic's response comes in several flavors. One popular one today is called the Multiple Universe Theory. This theory says there actually is an infinite number of universes in existence, so it's no wonder that at least one looks like the one that we are in. There are significant problems with this explanation. First, there is no evidence for it. Secondly, an infinite number of finite things like universes is an actual impossibility. Third, even if there were other universes, they would need fine-tuning to get started just as ours did.

This chapter in Geisler and Turek's book discusses design of the universe, but there is much more to this design argument. The other area of design that is so powerful today has to do with the microscopic level. Design that went unnoticed in Darwin's day is being revealed in exiting ways. I'll cover those in the next blog.

The Cosmological Argument for God

2011-08-25T08:04:00.000-07:00

I want to return to an important book called I Don't Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist by Geisler and Turek. The first couple of chapters dealt with arguments for the existence of truth. The authors move to a new chapter in which they attempt to prove that God exists. Their first argument is called the Cosmological Argument.

t\They start with a story of Albert Einstein. It was in 1916 when Einstein's calculations revealed the universe had a definite beginning. This upset Einstein as well as other physicists who wanted the universe to be static and eternal. Why should they care about the beginning of the universe? Because it allowed for God as creator.

Einstein's work hinted at the possibility of God for a simple reason. His theory of General Relativity supported one of the oldest formal arguments for the existence of a theistic God -- the Cosmological Argument. It sounds complicated but it's very simple. In logical form, the argument looks like this: everything that had a beginning had a cause; the universe had a beginning; therefore, the universe had a cause. This cause came to be called the Big Bang.

The authors give five reasons to prove the universe had a beginning with this Big Bang. First, the Second Law of Thermodynamics, also called the Law of Entropy, says that nature tends to bring things to disorder. We see that the universe still has some order left with some usable energy, so the universe cannot be eternal. Secondly, we have found over the last 75 years that the universe is expanding; if we could watch a video recording of the history of the universe in reverse, we would see everything in the universe collapsing back to point. Another piece of scientific evidence is the cosmic background radiation, which is actually light and heat left over from the initial explosion of the Big Bang. A fourth clue was the discovery of slight variations in the temperature of the cosmic background radiation. These temperature ripples enabled matter to congregate by gravitational attraction into galaxies. A fifth supporting fact is Einstein's theory of General Relativity, which shows that time, space, and matter are interdependent; you can't have one without the others. This theory demands an absolute beginning for all three.

The book contains an interesting quotation from Robert Jastrow, the director of Mount Wilson and founder of NASA's Goddard Institute of Space Studies. He is an agnostic when it comes to religious matters, so this is not someone in the camp of Christianity. He writes, "Now we see how the astronomical evidence leads to a biblical view of the origin of the world. The details differ, but the essential elements in the astronomical and biblical accounts of Genesis are the same: the chain of events leading to man commenced suddenly and sharply at a definite moment in time, in a flash of light and energy." In other words, Genesis seems to give a good picture of the Big Bang.

Why does God have to be dragged into this? Couldn't natural forces have produced the universe? Here's the key point -- natural forces, in fact all of nature, were created at the Big Bang. There was no natural world or natural law prior to the Big Bang. Something outside of nature had to do the job, and that's where the term "supernatural" comes into the picture.

At this point, when God is suggested as the Beginner, atheists come up with an age-old question: "Then who made God? If everything needs a cause, that God needs a cause too." But the Law of Causality does not say that everything needs a cause. It says that everything that comes into being needs a cause. God did not come into being. No one made God. He is unmade. As an eternal being, God did not have a beginning, so he didn't need a cause.

What characteristics of God can be seen from the evidence discussed in this chapter? He must be self existent, timeless, non-spatial, and immaterial. He must be unimaginably powerful. He must be supremely intelligent. He must be personal in order to choose to convert a state of nothingness into the time-space-material universe.

The authors end the chapter with a key question: "If there is no God, why is there something rather than nothing?" Good point.

Language abusers and their hypocrisy

2011-08-22T07:11:00.000-07:00

I'll get back to blogs on I Don't Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist next time, but I wanted to cover something else first that recently appeared in the news. As an English teacher, I'm very interested in the use of language. I follow politics closely, and I was amused to see hypocrisy at work in regards to political rhetoric.

An Arizona Congresswoman was shot a few months back. Liberals blamed it on political language that inflamed her attacker (this was later discovered not to be his motive). They lectured conservatives to tone down their language in the future. How has that worked out? Well, glad you asked. You may have heard the latest--it's an attempt to smear Tea Party Republicans, thanks to liberals using abusive language. How's that for hypocrisy?

According to The Wall Street Journal, at a recent two-hour, closed-door Democratic Caucus meeting, Rep. Mike Doyle (D-Pa.) said (referring to the debt-ceiling talks) "We have negotiated with terrorists . . . This small group of terrorists have made it impossible to spend any money."

This sort of language is not just happening in Congress. It's become commonplace on the opinion pages of the New York Times, where one editorialist rants:
You know what they say: Never negotiate with terrorists. It only encourages them. These last few months, much of the country has watched in horror as the Tea Party Republicans have waged jihad on the American people. . . . Their goal, they believed, was worth blowing up the country for, if that's what it took. . . . For now, the Tea Party Republicans can put aside their suicide vests. But rest assured: They'll have them on again soon enough.

But it's not just this one editorial. Others have chimed in with the same message. Last Wednesday Thomas Friedman described the Tea Party as the GOP's "Hezbollah faction." The same day Maureen Dowd approvingly quoted "some Democrats" as describing the Tea Party as "the Republican 'Taliban wing.' "

And it's not just the Times that has launched this vicious talk. Liberal columnist Margaret Carlson said, "There's a nihilist caucus which is, 'Listen, we want to burn the place down.' I mean, they're not, they've strapped explosives to the Capitol and they think they are immune from it." Then there's a cartoon from David Fitzsimmons of the (Tucson) Arizona Daily Star depicting President Obama ordering Navy SEALs to stage a bin Laden-style raid on the House side of the Capitol. This same man took center stage when the Arizona Congresswoman was shot; he was on CNN blaming "the right in Arizona" for "stoking the fire of heated anger and rage" and making the attack "inevitable." Guess it's OK to use vitriolic speech when he wants to argue for his side.

So what's going on here? Simple hypocrisy? No, it's deeper than that. Barack Obama came to power with lefties all aglow. He was going to show liberalism at its finest with his Ivy League credentials, superior attitude, pseudointellectual prattlings, and adherence to lefty ideology. But something funny happened after the inauguration. He has been an utter failure both at winning public support and at managing the affairs of the nation. Obama's failure is the failure of the liberal elite, so they are reacting with desperation and anger. Their ideas, such as they are, are being put to a real-world test and found severely wanting. As a result, their authority is collapsing. Americans need to end this experiment with leftist ideology at the next election.

Can we know the truth?

2011-08-18T07:05:00.000-07:00

Here's a second blog covering I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist, a book that we will be discussing in a class at our church. The previous blog covered the first chapter which explained that denying absolute truth and its knowability is self-defeating. In this second blog I want to cover the next chapter in the book with the provocative title "Why Should Anyone Believe Anything at All?"

The authors discuss four reasons why people believe what they believe. They include sociological reasons (parents, friends, society, culture), psychological reasons (comfort, peace of mind, meaning, purpose, hope), religious reasons (scripture, pastor/priest, guru, rabbi, imam, church), and philosophical reasons (consistency, coherence, completeness -- best explanation of all the evidence). Of course, the key question is whether each of these reasons are good ones to believe something. Notice how many of the reasons are actually poor, reflecting only subjective preferences rather than logic and evidence.

Then comes the question about logic. In our society today there is skepticism about logic. Some suggest we should consider using Eastern logic rather than Western logic. What difference do people suggest there is in these two types of logic? Some say in the East people use both-and logic while in the West it is either-or logic. But notice the word choices here -- skeptics tell us there are two types of logic, but they present them as either-or choices. That means they are actually using Western logic alone in attempting to suggest there are two types of logic. That's self-refuting. The authors point out, as result, there really is no such thing as different kinds of logic to discover the truth. There's only one type: we have to use it; it's built into the universe.

Many Americans today are involved in such self-defeating arguments because of one man -- David Hume. He believed that all meaningful ideas were either true by definition or must be based on sense experience. So, according to him, propositions were only meaningful if the claim involved abstract reasoning like a math equation, or the truth claim could be verified through one of the five senses. If he is correct, then any book talking about God is meaningless. His two conditions became the basis nearly two hundred years later for a brand of philosophy called Logical Positivism, which became popular in university philosophy departments by the mid--1960s.

But the authors point out that Hume's statements are self-refuting. Why? The claim that something can only be meaningful if it's verified by the five senses or true by definition cannot be proven through one of those two methods. Now it's true that claims that are empirically verifiable or true by definition are meaningful, but these claims don't comprise all meaningful statements as Hume contended.

One other person has brought a lot of skepticism about truth to the world -- Immanuel Kant. He said there was no way to know anything about the real world because the structure of our senses and our mind forms all sense data, so we never really know the thing in itself. We only know the thing as it appears to us after our mind and senses have form it. That sounds powerful, but once again there is a simple response. Kant claims we can't know the real world, but he claims to know something about it. So, once again, his argument is self-refuting.

The authors then go on to ask how one can know truth. They say it begins with the self-evident laws of logic called first principles. One is the law of non-contradiction, which says contradictory claims cannot both be true at the same time in the same sense. Another is the law of the excluded middle, which tells us that something either is or is not; there are no third alternatives. For example, either Jesus rose from the dead or he did not. We also learn truth through induction, observing the world around us and then drawing general conclusions from those observations.

Can observation and induction help us know something about God? Yes, according to Geisler and Turek. God may be invisible, but we can observe the effects of God just as we cannot observe gravity but can observe its effects. Much of the rest of their book discusses some of these effects of God that we can observe in the universe, but since that covers a lot of territory, I'll save that for a future blog.

Does truth exist?

2011-08-15T07:03:00.000-07:00

This fall a class at our church is going to go through a terrific book called I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist by Norman Geisler and Frank Turek. The book follows a four-step progression: truth exists, God exists, miracles are possible, the New Testament is reliable. Each of these steps leads to the next. I'd like to cover some of the material in the next few blogs, starting with the idea that truth about reality is knowable.

The authors begin by defining truth. They say it is simply telling it like it is, or that which corresponds to its object, or that which describes an actual state of affairs. Contrary to what is being taught in many public schools, the authors claim truth is not relative but absolute, meaning it is true for all people at all times and all places. By definition all truth claims are absolute, narrow, and exclusive. There are those who say Christians, for example, are narrow-minded people because they believe they have the truth. But atheists believe their point is true, which makes them just as narrow-minded. Any truth claim is exclusive, so it does no good to complain that one group thinks it is correct; all people think they have truth when it comes to a worldview.

Several other things can be said about truth as well. Truth is discovered, not invented. It is true for all people, no matter what culture. Even though our beliefs about truth may change, truth itself is unchanging. Beliefs cannot change the fact even if they are sincerely held.

But today we have the assertion that there is no truth. However, when we look at that statement, we see that it is self-defeating because it claims to be true in all cases and therefore defeats itself. It's much like hearing someone say, "I can't speak a word of English"--that's self-defeating too.Those who believe in relativism make many self-defeating statements like that -- "all truth is relative," "there are no absolutes," "it's true for you but not for me." So complete agnosticism or skepticism is self-defeating because it claims truth cannot be known but then claims that its view is true.

The authors have tried to establish that truth can be known. But what about other religious beliefs? Can they all be true? No, since they are mutually exclusive -- they teach opposites. So much for the new definition of tolerance, which now means we have to accept every belief as true. Some people will bring up the parable of the blind men and the elephant in which six blind men feel a different part of the elephant and reach a different conclusion about the object in front of them. We are told that no single religion has the truth since we are all like the blind men. This sounds okay until we think about the story a little further. Somebody in the story seems to have an objective perspective since they can see that the blind people are mistaken. So apparently people can see the truth, and this parable does not support religious pluralism.

Well, that's the first section of I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist. There's more that examines the possibility of truth, but I'll save that for a future blog.

FDR--a revised opinion

2011-08-11T07:56:00.000-07:00

Not too long ago I read The Forgotten Man by Amity Shlaes, in which she tackles the ongoing adoration of Franklin D. Roosevelt. When Barack Obama was elected, we heard many comparing him to FDR, a person who supposedly rescued the country through massive government policies. But her book challenges this, and now there's a new one that backs up her points -- New Deal or Raw Deal by Burton Folsom. His overall point is that Roosevelt's economic policies were a disaster because they prolonged the depression and made the United States economically backward compared with other nations during the 1930s.

His statistics are eye-opening. In 1929 the United States unemployment rate was the lowest in the world. Even in 1932, right in the middle of the Great Depression, unemployment was 25%; we ranked 8th out of 16 developed countries. But by 1938, by which time we had had nearly two terms of Roosevelt's programs, unemployment was near 20% and we ranked 13th of those same 16 nations. You don't hear that information from those who defend FDR by saying this was a world-wide problem. That may have been true when the Great Depression started, but it was our problem long after other nations with different economic policies had shaken it off.

Folsom does more than tackle economic problems connected to Roosevelt's time in office. He also indicts him for morally corrupting the office of the President. It was FDR who used the Justice Department to prosecute his political opponents. For example, FDR went after Andrew Mellon even though prosecutors said the case was flimsy. It was Roosevelt who demanded they go ahead and try to destroy this man. He used the IRS the same way. He used federal recovery programs which were supposed to help the entire country for blatant partisan purposes by employing people from certain states as payoffs for supporting him. Finally in 1939 the disgusted U.S. Congress rebelled and enacted legislation barring federal workers from such political activity.

Why is this book important today? President Obama and the Democrats love stimulus packages and government intervention in the economy much as Roosevelt did. However, they do not remember or they do not care that FDR's record on economic issues was so terrible. Somehow FDR had the magic touch, which enabled him to win election after election despite his failures at home. But it is certainly questionable that Barack Obama has the same touch. When we think about all the things he has done wrong over the past couple of years, it's no wonder his approval rating is so low. Obama is like FDR with his counterproductive economic policies, but he seems to be unlike him as far as his ability to reach out and connect with the American people.

Obama's shabby record here at home

2011-08-08T07:04:00.000-07:00

Last time I focused on the foreign problems that President Obama has brought the United States. But for this blog I wanted to save the really horrific for last--the utter disaster he has been for our country on the domestic front.

Let's start with the recent news about our credit rating. Friday's downgrade by Standard & Poor's of U.S. long-term debt to AA+ from AAA will be the first of many such humiliations if the Democrats don't change their economic and fiscal policies.

Then there's the federal budget deficit. According to The Wall Street Journal, the deficit is estimated to come in at around 11% of GDP in 2011, up from about 3% in 2008. Wow, we thought the Bush administration did a poor job with spending (and it did).

Of course, this has led to a huge jump in the federal debt. Under the Obama administration it has grown to $14.3 trillion this month from $10.7 trillion at the end of 2008. He has added more debt more quickly than any other President in history. Quite an accomplishment.

How is our dollar doing these days? Thanks to Obama's policies it has lost almost half its value against gold since Aug. 2008.

Every time I fill up with gas, I'm reminded of another failure of this administration.The average retail price of a gallon of gas hovered near the $1.80 mark when Mr. Obama was inaugurated. It has since more than doubled.

I am grateful to have a job, but many Americans don't share my good fortune, thanks to this administration. In November 2008, president-elect Obama promised he would create 2.5 million jobs by 2011. By October 2010 the economy had shed 3.3 million jobs.

We can't forget ObamaCare, an unpopular program rammed through Congress. It's full of exceptions for certain states and powerful companies, it will increase our expenses (it was sold as a money saver), and it will end up rationing our health care.

Other than the things I've listed, Obama has been a smashing success on the home front. He makes me yearn for Jimmy Carter, which is hard to do, considering the ineptness of the toothy one. Let's continue the comparison of Obama to Carter by making both a one-term President.

The failures of Barack Obama (Jimmy Carter 2.0)

2011-08-04T06:54:00.000-07:00

OK, I was bored and started thinking of ways Barack Obama has been a huge disappointment. Here are some, starting with foreign affairs. If I have time and don't get too discouraged, I'll switch to domestic disappointments.

First, there's the Arab world. Wasn't he going to get the angry Muslims on our side after repeated abject apologies for being an American? How has that worked out? Well, according to The Wall Street Journal, not so well--this year, Zogby International found that 5% of Egyptians had a favorable view of the U.S. In 2008, when George W. Bush was president, it was 9%. When will we learn that tyrants and crazies respect strength and resolve, not groveling?

How about trade with the world? Bill Clinton signed Nafta in 1994, which helps facilitate nearly $2 trillion in the trade of goods and services between the U.S., Mexico and Canada. George W. Bush helped get free trade agreements all across the world, from Australia to Singapore to Morocco to Bahrain. Number of these agreements signed by the current president: zero.

Then there's Libya. Obama entered this rebellion with the goal to remove the tyrant Gadhafi. Weeks later, the Libyan strongman is still there, and NATO looks like the Marx brothers. That will be seen by the rest of the world as a failure of Western resolve. Gadhafi will loom as a new threat to spread terrorism to the West.

What other stellar jobs has he been involved with? He has mistreated our ally Israel, he has repeatedly snubbed our best ally England, he failed to back Iranian protestors, he has allowed Afghanistan to spiral out of control, he urges North Korea to act better and get involved in multi-party talks (fat chance), he has been rebuffed by Putin when he attempted to set up better relations with Russia, he has not been able to put a halt to Iranian nuclear enrichment, he has allowed Chavez of Venezuela to build up connections with Iran. And so it goes.

His failure to pursue American interests, his inability to proclaim American exceptionalism, his belief that we are a nation in decline which must be gently guided down the path of senility--all these have disappointed me and so many others. But these failures are eclipsed by his domestic disasters, which I'll try to cover next time. We need a change in 2012.

Another blow to the global warming crowd

2011-08-01T10:34:00.000-07:00

If you've read my blogs over time, you know I occasionally take on the global warming fanatics. It all started when I read State of Fear, a book by Michael Crichton in which he challenged the hysterical pronouncements of Al Gore and others like him. My belief is that there may be global warming, but it probably isn't the fault of the human race and there is little we can do about it even if it is our fault, short of going back to living in caves. It always struck me that the global warming proponents wanted the U. S. to become another third-world entity, run by those who knew best. And guess who that would be.

Over the weekend I read something featured on Drudge Report that confirmed my suspicions. Did you see it? The title was "NASA Blows Gaping Holes in the Global Warming Hypothesis." Here's a brief explanation of what NASA has discovered.

Keep in mind that the alarmists always use scientific findings to "prove" their shrill pronouncements. Never mind that these evidences, when examined closely, turn out to be bogus or inaccurate. Remember Climategate?

Well, science has turned against them. In the journal Remote Sensing, research scientists at the University of Alabama (UA) in Huntsville have suggested that global warming is not occuring at the rapid rate shown by model-based forecasts. Dr. Roy Spencer, a principal research scientist in the UA’s Earth System Science Center, and his colleague Dr. Danny Braswell claim data from NASA’s Terra satellite shows that when the climate warms, Earth’s atmosphere is apparently more efficient at releasing energy to space than models used to forecast climate change have been programmed to “believe."

So, here's the bottom line: NASA satellite data from the years 2000 through 2011 show the Earth’s atmosphere is allowing far more heat to be released into space than alarmist computer models have predicted.

What about the future, so filled with dire warnings, according to the patron saint of global warming, Al Gore? The study indicates far less future global warming will occur than United Nations computer models have predicted and supports prior studies indicating increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide trap far less heat than alarmists have claimed. In addition, the NASA satellite data show the atmosphere begins shedding heat into space long before United Nations computer models predicted.

Applied to long-term climate change, the research might indicate that the climate is less sensitive to warming due to increased carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere than climate modellers have theorized. A major underpinning of global warming theory is that the slight warming caused by enhanced greenhouse gases should change cloud cover in ways that cause additional warming, which would be a positive feedback cycle. Apparently, this is not happening.

Since this new data comes from NASA, people will have to treat it seriously. If we avoid a headlong rush to embrace all the restrictions urged by the alarmists, maybe we can avoid ruining our economy and sending us all back to the 17th century.

The guru explains politics

2011-07-28T17:43:00.000-07:00

When our Christian apologetics group covered the New Age movement, we, of course, had to read comments by media personality and New Age guru Deepak Chopra , who comes up with great examples of abstract nonsense. I just found out his musings are not restricted to religious matters. He can also spout strangely amusing craziness in political matters, according to The Wall Street Journal, which recently highlighted Chopra's views as set forth in a San Francisco Chronicle column.

Chopra analyzes liberals and conservatives with four major points (you're gonna love this). Here goes--

1. Liberals are freethinkers who wisely question their own assumptions. "One of the virtues of being on the liberal side of politics is that total obedience isn't required. There are no hidden agendas. Ideology doesn't lead to unreason. . . . Liberal politics is based on a non-regimented, all-inclusive approach to democracy. Freedom of thought is paramount."

2. Conservatives, by contrast, are sheep who blindly adhere to crazy dogmas. "It feels as if the inmates are running the asylum--as in the current Republican threat to default on America's debt. . . . If you suppose that the average citizen remembers that the right wing are the very ones who got us into this forlorn tangle of wars abroad, financial collapse, out-of-control spending, and massive bonuses for the rich, you have not felt the power that fear exerts."

3. It is crucial to keep Obama in office, or the crazy, stupid conservatives might take over. "The prevailing sanity of President Obama is something that others and I have taken for granted. . . . It was such a relief to return to humane, non-ideological governance when President Obama won in 2008."

4. Therefore, liberals should stop questioning him and give him their blind support. "All of us who have taken advantage of our liberal heritage to question and criticize President Obama need to step back and consider the radical nature of the opposition. . . . If ever there was a time to stand behind the captain, this is it."

To sum it up even more concisely: Liberals are smart. Conservatives are stupid. We can't let the stupid side win. So we need to be stupid too! How's that for logic? Yeah, his religious views are similarly confusing. If you have a chance, go to Youtube and see how masterfully Greg Koukl knocked down Chopra's so-called arguments in an episode of Faith Under Fire, hosted by Lee Strobel.

What's really going on in the debt ceiling talks

2011-07-25T12:21:00.000-07:00

The current debate over raising the debt ceiling has suggested something interesting about where we are in our politics today. We are actually considering ways to cut back government growth. Imagine that.

Consider how quickly things have changed. Just last February Pres. Obama submitted a budget that would have increased the debt drastically, spending more money than any previous budget in U.S. history. The Senate rejected that in May. Then, just three months ago he called for an increase in the debt ceiling without any spending cuts, without any attempts to slow the runaway debt.

But today the same man calls for debt reduction. Of course, he also asks for an increase in taxes. The problem with these two concerns is the history of what happens when they both are brought forward. The increase in taxes always takes place immediately while the proposed cuts in spending are stretched out into the future and never quite materialize.

So how did Obama do when he offered to consider cuts in spending? Well, judge for yourself. Negotiations which were chaired by Joe Biden, our current Vice President, came up with a grand total of $2 billion in spending cuts. That was all. To put that amount in perspective, the federal government spends $10 billion each day. Of course, that was nothing but a drop in the bucket, so today we find ourselves locked in a struggle over the debt ceiling.

What I find really interesting is the suggestion that free-spending, big-government programs may be on their way out. Look at European countries such as Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal, and Ireland. Then look at places a little bit closer, like Illinois and California. As George Will says, "Entangled economic and demographic forces are refuting the practice of ever-bigger government financed by an ever-smaller tax base and by imposing huge costs on voiceless future generations."

That statement bears repeating. Will is saying that economic problems as well as a lack of population growth are bringing to a close the idea that you can have bigger government by squeezing money out of fewer people and kicking the can of huge deficits down the road to a future generation.

So, my hope is that this liberal philosophy of taxing endlessly to keep a larger and larger number of people dependent upon the government is reaching a dead end. People are waking up to the fact that economic growth under this system cannot generate enough money to keep up with the growing entitlements.

We will see in next year's election if enough Americans have awakened to this fact: Obama is using these negotiations to finance the blowout spending of his first two years by insisting on tax increases. That’s not the way to go.

California's no longer the golden state

2011-07-21T09:42:00.000-07:00

I was born in California. I'm old enough to remember how proud I was when the state passed New York to become the most populous in the nation. It was a good thing to be from California--home of great universities, Disneyland, the Pacific Ocean and surfing, Hollywood, and the Byrds (OK, I had to stick that in there). But the wheels have come off since the golden days in the Golden State.

In the first decade of the 21st century, California's population grew by only 10%, the smallest population growth in its history as a state. It will not gain any seats in Congress or electoral votes for the first time in its history. Much of its population growth in the last 10 years came from immigration from Mexico, both legal and illegal. For the first time, California had a net outflow of population among American citizens. Think about that--people who have the means are getting out of the state.

What happened? All of California's natural assets are still here. Its climate is just as wonderful, its resources as abundant, its agricultural productivity as great, its infrastructure as developed. The answer lies, as you probably have guessed if you've read any of my earlier blogs, in politics.

Lefties and their allies have persistently put roadblocks in front of those who wanted to get ahead in this state. The environmental movement has become harsh and strident. It threatens to strangle the state's economy in a crazy and confusing monstrosity of regulations. The state's vast oil and natural gas potential on the continental shelf has been off limits for years. Environmental groups and others have become masters at tying up economic development in court.

But that’s not the only reason for people to give up on California. Non-environmental regulations have mushroomed as well. It can take months to obtain permits to open even the simplest business. Is it any wonder that the state's unemployment rate, 11.7%, is one of the country's highest?

I think the biggest cause of California’s dysfunction has to do directly with its politics. Let’s see . . . who runs the state government? Oh yeah, Democrats. And not your run-of-the-mill variety. Out here we have grown a lethal, spend-crazy, anti-business, out-of-touch-with-reality set of politicians who see more taxes as the solution to all problems. An ever-growing political class, largely funded by public service unions, has hugely increased the size and cost of government. California now has among the highest tax rates in the country as well as some of the greatest budget deficits.

It’s pretty discouraging now to live in California. No quick solution exists. My guess is that it will take severe economic conditions to wake up the voters, who will then toss out the entire dysfunctional legislature and start over.

The key question for the 2012 election (oh no, I'm rhyming like Jesse Jackson)

2011-07-18T11:46:00.000-07:00

Well, a week ago a new jobs report came out. It showed an unemployment rate that moved up to 9.2%. This reminded me of a famous line used by Ronald Reagan when he ran for President against Jimmy Carter. You remember Carter? He's the man who had only one term and then spent years growing more bitter and angry, lashing out at George W. Bush and Israel.

Reagan's line came at the end of his only debate with then-President Carter. It was devastating: "When you make [your decision to vote next Tuesday]," he said to the American people, "it might be well if you would ask yourself: Are you better off than you were four years ago? Is it easier for you to go and buy things in the stores than it was four years ago? Is there more or less unemployment in the country than there was four years ago? Is America as respected throughout the world as it was?"

Why am I bringing this line up now? This latest unemployment bad news is starting to feel like a rerun of the 1970s. Both Carter and Obama suggested Americans should ratchet down their dreams and expectations for the future. Nobody likes the feeling that our President is not sold on the positive possibilities of America. Remember when Obama refused to say the United States was an exceptional country?

These latest numbers regarding unemployment are just a small part of a general unease in this country. We are worried about where things are headed. Food costs are up, gas prices have soared under this President, any economic progress seems weak and uncertain, the world seems hostile while the administration appears hesitant about what to do.

The official response from the administration is not likely to dispel these concerns. The Wall Street Journal reports that Austan Goolsbee, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisors, has recently stated that the best-case scenario for 2012 will be an unemployment rate of 8.2%. Wow, that's a lot higher than when Obama took office, despite all his spending and all those promises of jobs "created or saved."

So, we need to face that question: "Are you better off?" For many the answer is "No." Obama will have to say in his re-election bid that it would have been worse if he hadn't been elected. Remember when he ran in 2008? Then he was the man of the future, the candidate of change who declared that his nomination would mark the moment "when the rise of oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal." Instead, doom and gloom have settled over the nation.

Maybe he can get away with that defensive position. Maybe Americans who believed Mr. Obama when he said unemployment wouldn't go past 8% if we passed his stimulus will now be persuaded by his explanation that his job was tougher than he or his economists expected. Maybe that's the only way to get around the "Are you better off?" question.

But I think Americans expect more from their leaders. If we're not better off, policy changes that fail should be acknowledged, and those who peddled such rosy but inaccurate cures should be voted out of office.

Christians in China--an ominous trend

2011-07-14T11:58:00.000-07:00

We hear liberals praising China repeatedly. Thomas Friedman, famous New York Times prize-winning columnist, gushed over China in several columns. But this country's dictatorial leaders are cracking down on Christians who consider God, not the Communist Party, the head of the church.

Take the example of Shouwang Church, one of Beijing's largest unsanctioned "house" churches. The Wall Street Journal reported recently that since early April, police have prevented church members from gathering for normal Sunday worship services. Hundreds have been detained for short periods, and the entire church leadership has been under house arrest since April. This church, whose 1,000-strong congregation is mostly upscale professionals, actually paid $4 million for meeting space in a Beijing office building. But under pressure from the authorities, the sellers refused to hand over the keys, leaving the church with no place to meet.

China tolerates Christian church services, but only within the narrow boundaries of theology and church life dictated by the State Administration for Religious Affairs. Estimates of the number of Christians in China vary widely, ranging from a government figure of about 20 million for its own churches to that of outside observers who say the total is as high as 130 million.

Most Chinese Christians belong to unofficial house churches like Shouwang, which reject Communist Party-controlled theology and consider God—not the Communist Party—the head of the church. The number of house-church Christians, while hard to estimate, is likely more than 60 million.

The recent crackdown on house-church Christians is the outgrowth of a Communist Party initiative launched last December, called "Operation Deterrence," to force all house-church Christians to be incorporated with the government. In light of the savage treatment of practitioners of Falun Gong, a meditation group brutally repressed since 1999, the implications of "Operation Deterrence" are alarming.

Why hasn't Shouwang Church agreed to join the government organization? It claims this government administration was an outdated product of the Cold War, and that the faith that the government allows is what church history calls liberal theology, while the faith of the house churches is evangelical theology.

Evangelical churches around the world, of course, have always stressed the need for Christians to share their faith. But the Chinese government forbids its churches to evangelize. Last autumn, the Lausanne Conference on World Evangelism was held , but authorities blocked some 200 invited Chinese house-church representatives from leaving China.

This crackdown on Christians is part of a rising tide of repression against dissent that's often accompanied by interrogations and torture. Recently, the wife of blind human rights activist Chen Guangcheng said that she and her husband were beaten and tortured for several hours by a gang of plainclothes thugs led by the village Communist Party secretary. Worryingly, some of the Shouwang church detainees found government church representatives taking part in the police interrogations, "educating" and "rebuking" the Shouwang Christians. Incredibly, a key government official denies that house churches even exist.

We need to join groups like Open Doors and Voice of the Martyrs to keep pressure on China and help to shed light on the ongoing repression of our fellow Christians in China.

Blatant religious discrimination that calls for a response

2011-07-11T09:35:00.000-07:00

I am a big fan of Frank Turek, who has debated Christopher Hitchens on the existence of God and who is the co-author of I Don't Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist. He recently ran up against political correctness in a big way. I wanted you to hear the whole story, so I'm adding a letter sent by columnist and college professor of criminology Dr. Mike Adams to the president of Cisco Systems.

June 16, 2011
Mr. John Chambers
Office of the President
Cisco Systems, Inc.
Mail Stop SJC10/5/4
300 East Tasman Drive
San Jose, California 95134
Dear Mr. Chambers:
I want to bring to your attention a recent decision made by your HR team that I think does not reflect your leadership of Cisco. Dr. Frank Turek was fired as a vendor for his political and religious views, even though those views were never mentioned or expressed during his work at Cisco.

By way of background, Dr. Turek is an eight-year veteran of the United States Navy. He and his wife have two sons serving in the United States Air Force. They defend our Constitutional rights and appreciated your personal support of Senator John McCain in the last general election.

Given your Republican leanings, I know you do not believe that free speech and religion rights vanish when one works with Cisco. I know that you do not believe that all political conservatives, Jews, Christians, Mormons and Muslims should be fired for their deeply held beliefs. But that is how the Cisco policy of “inclusion” was applied to Dr. Turek.

In 2008, Dr. Turek was hired by Cisco to design and conduct a leadership and teambuilding program for about fifty managers with your Remote Operations Services team. The program took about a year to conduct, during which he also conducted similar sessions for another business unit within Cisco. That training earned such high marks that in 2010 he was asked to design a similar program for about 200 managers within Global Technical Services. Ten separate eight-hour sessions were scheduled.

The morning after completing the seventh session earlier this year, a manager in that session —who was one of the better students in that class—phoned in a complaint. It had nothing to do with content of the course or how it was conducted. In fact, the manager commented that the course was “excellent” as did most who participated. His complaint regarded Dr. Turek’s political and religious views that were never mentioned during class, but that the manager learned by “googling” Dr. Turek after class.

The manager identified himself as gay and was upset that Dr. Turek had written this book providing evidence that maintaining our current marriage laws would be best for the country. Although the manager didn’t read the book, he said that the author’s view was inconsistent with “Cisco values” and could not be tolerated. (Dr. Turek is aware of this because he was in the room when his call came in.) The manager then contacted an experienced HR professional at Cisco who had Dr. Turek fired that day without ever speaking to him. The HR professional also commended the manager for “outing” Dr. Turek.

This firing had nothing to do with course content—the program earned very high marks from participants. It had nothing to do with budget constraints—the original contract was paid in full recently. A man was fired simply because of his personal political and religious beliefs—beliefs that are undoubtedly shared by thousands of your very large and diverse workforce.

I assume the intent of Cisco’s value of “inclusion and diversity” is to ensure that people in that diverse workforce will work together cordially and professionally even when they inevitably disagree on certain political, moral or religious questions.Please note that Dr. Turek agrees with that value and was demonstrating it. The manager and HR professional were not.Dr. Turek was being inclusive working with them. They were being exclusive by refusing to work with him, even though his viewpoint was never discussed during his work at Cisco. (Ironically, the people who say they are fighting for “tolerance” are often the most intolerant!).

I have a couple of important questions: First, what action would have been taken had Dr. Turek been aproponent of same-sex marriage but a conservative employee had complained? Second, given your support of Senator McCain, a same-sex marriage opponent, are you qualified to be working at Cisco?

My purpose in writing is simple: I am asking you to correct a policy of “inclusion” that is currently being applied as a policy of exclusion.

Dr. Turek has been excluded now from earning a living with your company. Moreover, he is concerned about the thousands of conservatives, religious and secular, who are employees of Cisco. He has spoken to several who live in constant fear that they will similarly be “outed” for their deeply held religious and/or political convictions. In my view, such totalitarian political correctness is immoral and un-American, and I doubt it engenders a climate of diversity and collaboration you so eloquently champion.

I thank you for your attention to this matter and look forward to your prompt reply. I can be reached atadams_mike@hotmail.com. I intend to publish your response next week.

Respectfully,
Dr. Mike S. Adams

OK, that decision by the Cisco people has really bothered me. I plan to write Mr. Chambers as well, and I hope you decide to do the same. Such bigotry has no place in our society.

Thoughts on Evan turning one

2011-07-07T12:17:00.000-07:00

Recently our family celebrated the first birthday of our grandson Evan. It made me realize how many things I have learned to appreciate over this past year.

For one thing, I have come to be even more impressed with the power of God. When I look at him, I'm amazed at how intricate he is, down to his tiny fingers and toes. His complexity is not a result of random chance in the universe. He is the result of a master architect at work.

I also appreciate the changes I have seen because of a different perspective. When I was a new father myself, the day-to-day swirl of life left me little time to see the gradual changes taking place in my sons. Now, as a grandfather, I see him from a distance, separated by time, geography, and emotions. I am constantly aware of the progress he makes as he learns to walk, point, eat solid foods, and express himself. It's a constant delight.

Furthermore, I am in awe of the job my wife did as a parent. I was at work Monday through Friday when our kids were young. I'm sure I appreciated the efforts my wife Sharon made, but my respect for her has grown as I see how difficult it is to raise Evan even though he's a great kid. The patience, wisdom, and love required for all good moms is enormous. Janelle, Evan's mom, and my wife have these qualities in abundance. I am so grateful for them.

I can see the true value of friends and families for support now. Janelle has several women with whom she can share activities and concerns. Evan has aunts and uncles who love him and provide encouragement for both Jordan and Janelle. His grandparents live close enough to help with babysitting.

I also realize how important it is to pick the right activities for children. Both Jordan and Janelle have refused to allow television to become a babysitter. Instead, they both read to Evan. This will pay off someday in a child with more creativity, a better vocabulary, sharper reading skills, and an ability to focus on the task at hand.

So, happy birthday to Evan. You're off to a great start in life, and I'm looking forward to sharing many more years with you.

Cosmic scales

2011-07-05T11:51:00.000-07:00

Ever since I was a little kid, I have enjoyed astronomy. Part of the reason has been the mind-boggling scale of our universe. I thought about that the other day and looked up in reference books various ways to understand the size of our solar system and the universe in which it is situated. I thought you might like to read some of these.

Let's start with the solar system. If the sun was represented by a yellow beach ball with a 2-foot diameter, the earth would be the size of a pea 215 feet away and Jupiter would be the size of a large orange 1,056 feet away. Or consider this other scale: if we represent the sun by a large orange, the earth would be a sesame seed about 49 feet away and Pluto, a grain of millet, would be over 3,400 feet away. According to this scale, the nearest star to the sun, Alpha Centauri, would be nearly 2,500 miles away. Now, let's consider cosmic distances. If you could drive to the sun at 55 mph, it would take 193 years to get there. If you wanted to get to Alpha Centauri, you take 52 million years at the same speed. Here are other ways to think about sizes. The sun weighs as much as 300,000 planets like Earth. Over 1 million earths would fit inside the sun. The moon's entire orbit around the Earth could fit inside the sun.

All right, much of that was mind-boggling, but it gets crazier when you consider the Milky Way galaxy in which our solar system is found. If the diameter of our solar system was scaled to 1 inch, then our galaxy's diameter would be about 100,000 miles. If our entire solar system could fit into a coffee cup, our Milky Way galaxy would be the size of North America. If you took an Apollo spacecraft to Alpha Centauri, the nearest star, it would take 850,000 years to get there. Or, think about this. If our sun was represented by a basketball in New York City, the next star would be a basketball about 5000 miles away.

For some people, the message in the above statistics is that we are insignificant. We live on a nondescript planet and circle an average sun near the edge of an typical galaxy. But discoveries in the last 10-20 years have shown that this is not the true picture after all. So much has to happen exactly right to produce life that it appears to be extremely rare. In fact, Paul Davies, who is a well-known secular physicist and professor, says he believes we may be the only intelligence in the entire universe. So, the question becomes very simple -- are we the product of chance or intelligence? To get things so exact both on the cosmic scale and down to our cellular makeup (consider DNA, for example), it requires the intervention of an intelligent agent. I think I know who that is.

The 4th of July and American exceptionalism

2011-07-04T06:46:00.000-07:00

The term "American exceptionalism" refers to the ideals expressed in the Declaration of Independence and the unique American identity which arose from an American civilization that honored them. When our current President was asked if he believed point-blank in this concept, he said each nation believes in its own exceptionalism, which, of course, really says there is no such thing as true American exceptionalism. A new book contrasts this idea effectively -- A Nation like No Other by Newt Gingrich. On this Fourth of July I wanted to include some quotations here from this book to illustrate how unique our country is and how blessed we are to be part of it.

"Belief in American exceptionalism leads inevitably to a smaller, more effective, accountable, and limited government. The American revolutionaries did not shed their blood for the welfare state; nor did they replace the arbitrary rule of King George and his officers with their own oppressive bureaucracy. Instead, they fought for individual liberty -- that made America an exception among all other nations."

"Big government and an increasingly centralized economy are the antitheses of liberty, which is fundamentally connected to free enterprise, local power, smaller, more effective, limited government. Our Founding Fathers understood these ideals and fought for them, just as we, in a different way, must fight for them today."

"No nation had ever before embraced human equality and God-given individual rights as its fundamental organizing principle. America was the exception, because never before had a nation recognized sovereignty in the citizen rather than the government. Never before had a nation been brought forth that was dedicated first and foremost to identifying the source and nature of the individual's rights and defending those rights, and only secondarily to defining the scope of governmental power -- and then only in relation to, and limited by, the individual's unalienable rights."

"Acceptance of this simple hierarchy -- God, then the individual, then government -- set America apart, an exception from all nations that came before it."

"True liberty had come to mean [to the Founding Fathers] freedom of faith and conscience, while religion was deemed necessary to support liberty, a gift of God. The purpose of liberty was to give glory to God. If God was forsaken, liberty's purpose would be destroyed, and liberty itself would give way to tyranny."

There's much more to think about in A Nation Like No Other, but I'll save that for a future blog. I hope on this Fourth of July that we take some time to appreciate how special America really is.

Hollywood and the Left--Part 2

2011-06-30T12:26:00.000-07:00

I'm continuing a blog that reveals the left-leaning bias of Hollywood elites. No surprise there. Primetime Propaganda by Ben Shapiro is the source; he taped some interviews with Hollywood big shots. Let me share some additional accounts from these tapes.

One story has to do with Dwight Schultz, best known for his roles as Murdock in The A-Team and Barclay in Star Trek: The Next Generation. The late Bruce Paltrow knew that Schultz was a fan of President Ronald Reagan. When Schultz showed up to audition for St. Elsewhere, a show Paltrow produced, to read for the part of Fiscus, Paltrow told him: "There's not going to be a Reagan a--hole on this show!" The part went to Howie Mandel.

Another video Shapiro will release shortly has producer-director Nicholas Meyer being asked point-blank whether conservatives are discriminated against in Hollywood. "Well, I hope so," he answers. Meyer also admits his political agenda for The Day After, a TV movie he directed for ABC that was seen by 100 million people when it aired in 1983. "My private, grandiose notion was that this movie would unseat Ronald Reagan when he ran for re-election," Meyer says.

In another case we hear from Family Ties creator Gary David Goldberg. He explains how he tried to make Republican character Alex Keaton the bad guy but that actor Michael J. Fox was too lovable. Ironic that Fox later used his physical handicap to rally Democrats against Republicans.

There are two more comments that I found interesting and revealing. COPS creator John Langley says he’s partial to segments where white people are the criminals. Fred Silverman, the former head of ABC and later NBC, notes that “there’s only one perspective, and it’s a very progressive perspective” in TV comedy today. Don't you love the term "progressive" to denote lefties who won't tolerate dissent from their positions?

You may be wondering why these Hollywood elites revealed their biases so clearly in the videos. Shapiro said the executives felt comfortable talking about politics with him because they assumed, incorrectly, that he is on the left. He also says he didn’t disclose that he’d be releasing the tapes, but that his subjects have no reason to complain. “I asked them for permission to tape, and there’s no reasonable expectation of privacy when you’re being interviewed for a book,” he said.

The author's final comments are a perfect way to end this blog. “If they’re going to be shocked at something, it should be themselves, not me,” Shapiro said. “They should be shocked that opinion is so one-sided in Hollywood that it’s OK to say, ‘I’m fine with discrimination.’”

Hollywood and the Left

2011-06-27T12:31:00.000-07:00

As if we needed proof, a new book is coming out in which TV executives admit that Hollywood pushes a liberal agenda. I'm not shocked--are you? But it's interesting that taped interviews accompany the book, (Primetime Propaganda by Ben Shapiro), so it'll be hard for these execs to say they were misquoted. I wanted to share some of these statements by the liberals, who always claim to be the tolerant ones. Here some are in no particular order.

In one video, Friends co-creator Marta Kauffman says that when she cast Candace Gingrich-Jones, half-sister of Republican former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, as the minister of a lesbian wedding, “There was a bit of ‘f--- you’ in it to the right wing.” Kauffman also acknowledges she “put together a staff of mostly liberal people,” which is another major point of Shapiro’s book: that conservatives aren’t welcome in Hollywood.

Maybe that’s because many liberals call them“idiots” and have “medieval minds.” At least that’s what Soap and Golden Girls creator Susan Harris thinks of TV’s conservative critics. However, the ranks of dumb right-wingers has dwindled, according to Harris, whose video has her saying: “At least, you know, we put Obama in office, and so people, I think, are getting – have gotten – a little bit smarter.”

Some of the videos have executives making rather obvious revelations. Larry Gelbart and Gene Reynolds talk about pacifist messages in M*A*S*H and MacGyver producer Vin Di Bona says anti-gun messages were a recurring theme in that show. But an additional video has Di Bona, who also created America’s Funniest Home Videos, becoming remarkably blunt about his approval of a lack of political diversity in Hollywood. When Shapiro asks what he thinks of conservative critics who say everyone in Hollywood is liberal, Di Bona responds: “I think it’s probably accurate, and I’m happy about it.”

Another video has Leonard Goldberg — who executive produces Blue Bloods for CBS and a few decades ago exec produced such hits as Fantasy Island, Charlie’s Angels and Starsky and Hutch — being very honest. He said liberalism in the TV industry is “100 percent dominant, and anyone who denies it is kidding, or not telling the truth.” Shapiro (the author of the book) asks if politics are a barrier to entry. “Absolutely,” Goldberg says.

Shapiro got another honest reply from Fred Pierce, the president of ABC in the 1980s who was instrumental in Disney’s acquisition of ESPN. After the author says, “It’s very difficult for people who are politically conservative to break in” to television, Pierce responds: “I can’t argue that point.” Those who don’t lean left, he says, “don’t promote it. It stays underground.”

Then there's House creator David Shore. He acknowledged that "there is an assumption in this town that everybody is on the left side of the spectrum, and that the few people on the right side, I think people look at them somewhat aghast, and I'm sure it doesn't help them."

Well, there are many more that I'll save for the next blog. Again, these are hardly revelations, but they come from those in the know. The smug and condescending comments are repulsive, especially considering these are the self-anointed tolerant ones. Are there ways we can limit our support for these left-wing factories?

Scary news about ObamaCare

2011-06-23T12:31:00.000-07:00

OK, I'll admit that I was never in favor of ObamaCare. I was sad that the U.S. Congress backed such a scheme. But it's been eyeopening to see what has been reported lately about it. Reports are coming out that are devastating about the impact of this act.

The Wall Street Journal reports on a recent such study. It concluded up to 78 million Americans would lose their current health coverage as employers stopped offering insurance because of President Obama's Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

But I thought Obama had assured us this wouldn't happen. The report contradicted Mr. Obama's frequent pledge that under his reform, "if you like your health-care plan, you can keep your health-care plan."

This wasn't the only negative report. In May 2010, former Congressional Budget Office (CBO) Director Douglas Holtz-Eakin concluded that employers would drop coverage for about 35 million Americans because of ObamaCare. A month later, in June 2010, the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA) came up with a far higher estimate--between 87 million to 117 million. And last November, an analyst told health-insurance company executives that 80 million to 100 million people might lose their employer-provided health insurance.

Why will this happen? It's so simple even I can understand the economics behind it. The Journal reports that, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation's Employer Health Benefits 2010 Annual Survey, the annual premium for an average policy last year was $5,049 for a single worker, with the company picking up roughly $4,150 and the employee the rest. For a family of four, the total cost was $13,770, with the company picking up $9,773.

Now let's see what happens when you factor in ObamaCare. Under its provisions, , businesses can stop providing health-care coverage, paying a $2,000 per-worker fine instead. For small businesses, the trade-off is even more attractive: They are given a pass on the first 50 workers.

Workers losing coverage will be moved into the "exchange," a government-run marketplace to buy health plans. Those whose insurance costs were more than a specified share of their income (9.5% in 2014) could get subsidies. The exchange starts in 2014 and is fully operational by 2016.

So it's pretty obvious what will happen. It will be extremely attractive for companies to dump the increasingly more expensive coverage and pay a lesser fine. There will be huge ramifications for the country's finances if more workers lose coverage than was estimated.

The original estimates were expensive enough under Obama's scheme. The CBO and the congressional Joint Committee on Taxation predicted that 24 million workers would be covered by the exchange. Of these, nine million to 11 million would lose their employer-provided coverage, offset by six million to seven million who would be getting employer-provided insurance, for a net of three million workers losing company-sponsored coverage. The CBO said the exchanges would cost $511 billion over ObamaCare's first decade.

But what if these recent estimates are closer to the truth with far more people dumped into the exchange than originally estimated? Costs from the increased subsidies will explode.

If between 78 million and 87 million people are moved into the exchange, the tab could more than triple. You do the math--$511 billion times 3. I'll wait . . . But it gets worse. If 117 million people were dumped into the exchange, ObamaCare would cost nearly $2 trillion more than expected in the first decade alone. Much of this extra expense would come from workers losing their employer-sponsored insurance.

It's one thing to merrily go along during great economic times, lavishing money here and there. But we don't live in such times. We are now, to our horror, finding out how harmful this measure is. More Americans are realizing that unless repealed, ObamaCare will sink America in a sea of red ink. This helps explain why the nation has turned so hard against it—and against its author whose slippery pledges so misled us. I don't plan on gloating. Instead, I will work hard to see this current administration does no more damage to our economy after 2012.

Recent articles in the news

2011-06-20T14:49:00.000-07:00

A couple of items in the news caught my eye the other day. See what you think. I'll tell you at the end what connection these two articles have for me.

Item number one: the self-confidence of young people today. The Associated Press reports on a new survey that finds "college students and others their age are more self-centered--narcissistic, even--than past generations." That's hardly a surprise to me. Just last semester I had a student sitting in class, hiding behind a backpack, working his cell phone. His obvious message to me was simple: "What I'm doing is far more important than what you are talking about."

Here are the specifics about this survey. Researchers found that a larger percentage of incoming college freshmen rated themselves as "above average'' in several categories compared with college freshmen who were surveyed in the 1960s. When it came to social self-confidence, about half of freshmen questioned in 2009 said they were above average, compared with fewer than a third in 1966. Meanwhile, 60 percent in 2009 rated their intellectual self-confidence as above average, compared with 39 percent in 1966, the first year the survey was given.

That's really sad. So many of these people are not getting a good education, but they don't recognize this. Part of it is their fault, but I blame the society for much of this attitude. We tell the young people over and over how great they are so we don't hurt their self-esteem. We say they just aren't good at math, that it's a built-in problem rather than a lack of discipline. We don't require them to tackle difficult things. We keep them living in an warm-and-fuzzy adolescent world where they reinforce each other's values.

The second article had to do with a national union leader's comments. Remember how the left chastised the conservatives for tough language? Remember how liberals clucked about the violent rhetoric that needed to be toned down, forgetting all the venom that had spewed from the left? Here's another case where the hypocrisy just smacks one between the eyes. It was reported that a national union leader went nuclear on Gov. Chris Christie, calling him a Nazi over and over, according to Newark's Star-Ledger . The following message was delivered: "Welcome to Nazi Germany," Christopher Shelton, a top official at the Communication Workers of America, told thousands of protesters today outside the Statehouse in Trenton, the capital of New Jersey. "The first thing that the Nazis and Adolf Hitler did was go after the unions." So I guess this man didn't get the memo that pleaded for political rhetoric to be calmed down. Can we all agree that politics is a tough business and that nobody has the moral high ground here?

Is there a connection for these two newspaper accounts? I suggest liberal attitudes are on display here. They have done a poor job with our schools in the first case since they are the ones who urge sensitivity rather than results. In the Trenton affair, we see the vaunted sensitivity voiced by the liberals doesn't apply to those they disagree with.

Some good news on the energy front

2011-06-16T07:53:00.000-07:00

A recent article in The Wall Street Journal entitled "America Needs the Shale Revolution" gave me some needed good news. So much negative information has been out there regarding our future energy situation, with claims that we are running out of everything and must depend on costly new green energy. Well, that's not true. The U.S. is on the verge of an industrial renaissance if—and here's the catch with the Obama administration in place—policy makers don't foul it up by restricting the ability of drillers to use the technology that's making a renaissance possible: hydraulic fracturing.

There is already a shale drilling boom now underway in Texas, Louisiana, Pennsylvania, Oklahoma and other states. It is creating jobs right now (unlike the pie-in-the-sky green energy plans), slashing natural-gas prices, and spurring billions of dollars of investment in new production capacity for critical commodities like steel and petrochemicals. And again, unlike green energy claims that never seem to materialize, it's actually accomplishing more energy independence by spurring a huge increase in domestic oil production, which has been falling steadily since the 1970s.

Of course, the greens who believe in their vision of a future America powered by wind (mostly their hot air), aren't going along with this process. Despite the myriad benefits of the low-cost hydrocarbons that are now being produced thanks to hydraulic fracturing, many on the left are hyping the possible dangers of the process, which uses high-pressure pumps to force water, sand and chemicals into shale formations. Doing so fractures the formation and allows the extraction of natural gas or petroleum.

I'm sure many people assume this is a new, risky, untried process since they haven't heard about it before. But that's not the case. Hydraulic fracturing is not a new technology. In fact, it has been used more than one million times in the U.S. over the past 60 years, according to the Journal.

Still, environmental activists are hoping to ban the process or have it regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Opponents claim the process can harm groundwater. But the Journal points out that drinking-water aquifers are separated by as much as two miles of impermeable rock from the shales that are being targeted by the fracturing process.

Despite the opposition, some of America's biggest industrial companies are enthusiastic about the merits of natural gas. For example, the CEO of U.S. Steel, told the Journal writer in an interview that the shale revolution is "the first bit of good news in U.S. manufacturing in two decades." Another CEO said that "we could change the entire manufacturing base in the U.S. if we just embrace what's happening in natural gas." That's quite a declaration, one that we should take seriously.

How does this process, which produces natural gas or petroleum, help change our "entire manufacturing base"? Here's one example from the Journal. In March, Nucor, America's biggest steel producer, broke ground on a new $750 million direct-reduced-iron (DRI) plant in Louisiana. The plant's key commodity is low-cost natural gas, which will be superheated and then mixed with iron ore pellets and scrap in a furnace. The DRI process allows companies to produce about the same amount of steel with about a quarter of the capital they'd need to build a conventional integrated steel plant. And they can produce that steel with lower carbon-dioxide emissions because they are replacing metallurgical coal with methane. Nucor may ultimately invest $3 billion in Louisiana on plants that could create as many as 1,000 permanent, high-paying jobs. Meanwhile, U.S. Steel may soon build a DRI plant of its own. Sounds good to me.

Here's another example of this process helping our economy. Thanks to hydraulic fracturing, U.S. drillers are producing lots of ethane and propane, which are key feedstocks for the petrochemical sector. Last October, Chevron Phillips Chemical Company announced plans to build a new plant in Baytown, Texas that will provide components for the production of polyethylene, a plastic resin used to make milk jugs and beverage containers. A few months later, the company said it was examining the feasibility of building a major petrochemical plant on the Gulf Coast.

How about other examples? In April, Dow Chemical announced plant expansions at several facilities in Louisiana and Texas, including construction of a new ethylene plant on the Gulf Coast that will begin operating in 2017 and a new propylene production facility that will begin operating by 2015. Dow's reason for the expansions: "competitively priced ethane and propane feedstocks." And last week Shell announced that it is developing plans to build a large ethylene plant in the Appalachian region. Ethylene and propylene are building blocks for a wide variety of consumer products including plastics, fibers and lubricants.

Of course, the drilling industry itself is creating jobs. Over the past 12 months, some 48,000 people were hired in Pennsylvania by companies working in the Marcellus Shale, a massive deposit that underlies several Eastern states, including Pennsylvania and New York. A new study by Tim Considine, an energy economist at the University of Wyoming, estimates that drilling in this area could add as many as 15,000 new jobs to the New York economy by 2015. The study also estimated that shale drilling in New York could add some $1.7 billion to the state's economy by 2015 and increase the state's tax revenue by more than $200 million.

Our oil production has been helped by this process. Hydraulic fracturing is unlocking huge quantities of oil from shale. In March, domestic crude production was 5.63 million barrels per day, the highest level since 2003. Amazingly, production is rising despite the Obama administration's de facto moratorium on drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. And shale oil production will likely continue rising from deposits like the Bakken Shale in North Dakota, where state officials are predicting output will hit 700,000 barrels per day by 2018, double the state's current production.

So what's the bottom line here? America needs cheap, abundant and reliable sources of energy to keep a vibrant industrial base. The shale revolution now underway is terrific news. I hope we continue to develop this technology despite the attempts of the greens to send us back to pre-technological dreamland.

Defense spending and the Obama adminstration

2011-06-13T07:37:00.000-07:00

I have been reading about Robert Gates, our Secretary of Defense, who will be stepping down this month after four-plus years at the Pentagon. He has been warning about our reckless plans to cut defense severely, considering what a dangerous world we are in.

Back in the 90s, we thought threats were disappearing to our national interests. As a result, the Clinton administration decided to cash in the Cold War peace dividend. Of course, we soon found out that bad ideas and dictators didn't end in 1989.

Many Americans assume we spend way too much on defense. It usual is the first target of budget cutbacks. But in historical terms, the U.S. spends relatively little on defense today, even after the post-9/11 buildup. This year's $530 billion budget accounts for 3.5% of GDP, 4.5% when the costs of the Afghan and Iraq wars are included. That seems like a lot to us, but we have to know what the spending was like in other times as a percent of GDP. The U.S. spent, on average, 7.5% of GDP on defense throughout the Cold War, and 6.2% at the height of the Reagan buildup in 1986.

But on coming into office, the Obama Administration decided on new priorities. And defense wasn't one of them. The money went instead to new European-sized entitlements, starting with $2.6 trillion for ObamaCare. The White House proposed a $553 billion defense budget for 2012, $13 billion below what it projected last year. Through 2016, the Pentagon will see virtually zero growth in spending and will have to whittle down the Army and Marine Corps by 47,000 troops. The White House originally wanted deeper savings of up to $150 billion.

It was a good thing that Gates helped fight off some of these ideas. But he was unable to get any share of the stimulus. Instead, he has cut or killed some $350 billion worth of weapon programs. He told his four service chiefs last August to find $100 billion in savings. The White House came back and asked for another $78 billion. Last year, Mr. Gates said that the Pentagon needs 2%-3% real budget growth merely to sustain what it's doing now, but it could make do with 1%. The White House gave him 0%.

Defense money has focused on the demands of today's wars over hypothetical conflicts of tomorrow. This has distracted from budgeting to address the rise of China and perhaps of regional powers like a nuclear Iran that will shape the security future. I'm especially concerned about Iran and its capacity to stir up trouble in the Middle East. The decision to stop producing the F-22 fighter and to kill several promising missile defense programs may come back to haunt the U.S.

Liberals always think you can balance the budget by cutting defense way back. Not true. Gates noted that if the defense budget was cut by 10%, "which would be catastrophic in terms of force structure, that's $55 billion out of a $1.4 trillion deficit. We are not the problem." Good point.

Thanks to FDR and the New Deal, entitlements got their start, and Obama is happily increasing their weight in the budget. Under current projections, entitlements will eat up 10.8% of GDP by 2020, while defense spending goes down to 2.7%. The Wall Street Journal reports that if current trends continue, those entitlements (Medicare, Social Security, etc.) will consume all tax revenues by 2052.

Take a look at Europe, which headed down this same path years ago. Today it spends just 1.7% of GDP on defense. They can get away with this since the nations there can relax and depend on us to protect them. But what happens when we weaken our defense? Who do we look to for protection? China? I don't think so. It all comes down to the need for a strong economy, one that is able to generate enough money for defense and internal improvements. Here's where Obama's administration is a disaster. His fiscal policies leave us with no money for either. He needs to find a new job in 2012.

A look at Israel and the Palestinians

2011-06-09T08:23:00.000-07:00

I recently read an article by Michael Brown on townhall.com, attempting to clarify the situation in the Middle East regarding Israel and Palestine. Considering how emotional this issue is, I think it's worthwhile to go through the five points he made.

1. There is no such thing as a historic “Palestinian people” living in the Middle East. It's true there have been Arabs living in the land of Palestine for centuries. But here's the key point--at no time before 1967 did these Arabs identify themselves as “Palestinians,” nor did they seek to achieve any kind of statehood there. So this is a made-up name for political purposes. In addition, before 1967, there was no such thing as Arab, Palestinian nationalism and no attempt to develop the territory as a homeland for the Arabs who lived there. The conclusion? The concept of a Palestinian people is a modern invention, and it is part of the anti-Israel propaganda machine without any basis in fact.

2. There were anti-Jewish intifadas in Palestine two decades before the founding of the State of Israel in 1948. There is a fantasy being sold about the peaceful coexistence of Jews and Arabs before the state of Israel was formed. The reality is far different-- as Jews began to return to their one and only ancestral homeland in the late 19th century, hostilities began to rise among their Arab neighbors, despite the fact that there was more than enough room for both. By the way, the Jews paid for the land; they did not steal or wrench it away through warfare. By the 1920’s, radical Muslim leaders like Haj Amin Al-Husseini, who later backed Adolph Hitler, were organizing intifadas against the Jewish population, with many Jewish lives lost. And what helped fuel this hostility was the anti-Jewish sentiment found in the Koran and early Muslim traditions. Post-1948 Jew-hatred simply built on centuries of Islamic anti-Semitism.

3. Jewish refugees fleeing from Muslim and Arab countries were absorbed by Israel after 1948; Arab refugees fleeing from Israel after 1948 were not absorbed by Muslim and Arab countries. With their huge size, it would have been easy for Arab countries to absorb the approximately 600,000 Arab refugees who fled Israel in 1948 when war was declared on Israel by five neighboring Arab nations. To this day, these refugees are not welcomed by other Arab states. These states want this problem to stay on the front burner as a way to avoid fixing their own problems and showing what failures modern Arab states are. How did Israel do with this same refugee problem? The tiny nation absorbed roughly 800,000 Jewish refugees that had to flee from Muslim nations after 1948.

4. Only one side in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is truly committed to peaceful co-existence. Michael Brown, the author of this article, says there is an common expression that sums this up: If the Palestinians put down their weapons, there would be no more war, but if the Israelis put down their weapons, there would be no more Israel. He cautions the reader that we shouldn't believe all Palestinians are warmongers and all Israelis are doves. But "the vast majority of Israelis are not driven by a radical ideology that calls for the extermination of their Arab neighbors, nor are they teaching their children songs about the virtues of religious martyrdom." Good point.

5. The current uprisings throughout the Muslim and Arab world today remind us that Israel cannot fairly be blamed for all the tension and conflicts in the region. If Israel disappeared, the Arab world would not be a peaceful place. As an example, Brown cites the constant disputes between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority. He notes that in 1980, Abd Alhalim Khaddam, then Syria’s Foreign Minister, admitted, “If we look at a map of the Arab Homeland, we can hardly find two countries without conflict. . . . We can hardly find two countries which are not either in a state of war or on the road to war.”

Let me close with a powerful quotation from the article: "Certainly, there are many obstacles that stand in the way of a true peace between the Israelis and Palestinians, and the road ahead is fraught with uncertainty, but it would be a good starting point if we replaced myths and emotional arguments with facts." Isn't that true of so much we argue about?

Final ways to judge between religions and worldviews

2011-06-06T06:43:00.000-07:00

In previous blogs I have discussed a couple of ways a person can judge religions to see which one would be the best. The first way was to look at the factual evidence (manuscripts, history, archaeology, anthropology, founders of each religion). The second way was to examine each set of beliefs for logical inconsistencies. For this blog I would like to examine a final two areas -- religions as they deal with ethics/human nature and the satisfaction they can bring.

Some religions are simply weaker when it comes to ethics and human nature. Think about Eastern religions with their focus on karma compared to Christianity. Under the concept of karma, a person suffers because of past-life sins, so he/she must work out and pay for these moral shortcomings. If you see somebody suffering, just keep going and don't interfere with his/her karma. Christianity, on the other hand, from its very beginning was focused on helping the poor, the needy, the sufferers. The Roman world was amazed and impressed at how early Christians took care of those unwanted by their society. I don't think there is any doubt that the Christian system is superior here in its care for other humans.

Christianity strikes me as the best religion when it comes to understanding human nature. For example, it is the only religion that understands the weaknesses of humanity. Why do I say that? Christianity is the only one not based on works. All others tell their adherents to complete task after task, which leads to frustration and feelings of guilt or inadequacy. None of us can live up to the standards and requirements other religions burden us with. In addition, it's only Christianity that says humans are a mixture of good and evil. This belief explains the wonderful things we can do as well as the horrific deeds that we can inflict on each other. It explains our low self-esteem since we are honest with ourselves and know our shortcomings, no matter what sort of face we put on for the rest of the world. It also explains why we feel guilty.

Christianity is also superior for the way it deals with morality. Unlike other religions and cults, Christianity says morality is from God. Standards of right/wrong are outside us rather than made up by us as we go along. This is far more satisfying and saves us from the trap of relativism in which each person generates his/her own set of principles, a recipe for anarchy, frustration, and social upheaval.

Finally, a fourth way to judge religions has to do with subjective satisfaction. For example, we can live the Christian life -- we eliminate guilt and the sense of frustration when we fall short of ethical and moral standards. Compare this to other religions -- we can't live Christian Science (we know death is real), Scientology (it's a fantasy based on money), Eastern religions (all is maya, an illusion??), Mormonism (no factual basis). In addition, Christianity provides a sense of awe. Consider some of its claims -- God is a three-personed being, He created all out of nothing, He came to earth for us, He rose from the dead, He cares about each one of us. Christianity also satisfies in the things it declares to be real -- miracles, resurrection, prayer, existence of the soul. It explains many things--pleasures that never totally satisfy, our refusal to be amoral, and our longings for truth and beauty.

One other thing about Christianity that is satisfying is how it unites the two-story house modern man lives in. There is a lower story in which humans are told the only thing that counts is science and facts. So here dwells the idea of people as machines/products of mindless evolution. This level says there is no point to life. So we can't really live there. Instead, people escape to a second story where meaning, freedom, values, ethics, and wishes exist. People who have ignored Christianity have been trying to live in this schizophrenic way. But the Christian faith says we can have it all and integrate both stories due to the existence of a God who cared enough to come into our world and save us from ourselves.

So when someone says we can't judge between religions, let him/her know there are several ways--how the religions correspond to reality, whether they are logically consistent, what they say about ethics and human nature, and whether they are satisfying to us in deep ways. I never wanted to be part of a religion because it "resonated" with me. I wanted to follow a religion that was true.

Another way to judge between religions and worldviews

2011-06-02T06:58:00.000-07:00

For the last couple of blogs, I have been discussing several ways we can judge between various religions, contrary to what relativists believe. Last time I completed the first way to judge -- the factual evidence. This time I'd like us to consider a second way to compare religions, which is to see how logically consistent each one is.

Let's start with deism, so popular back in the 1700s (think Jefferson) but still around today. This is the idea that God created everything, but he left us on our own. Its motto could be taken from Alexander Pope: "Whatever is, is right." Things are determined, no miracles happen. But let's consider some of the logical problems here. This belief system says we have no free will. The simple common sense tells us that cannot be the case--we know we make choices each day. Secondly, this system says we know certain things about God, but how is this possible if there is no revelation?

Now let's consider naturalism, the idea that there is no God, nature is everything. This system of belief makes us nothing but thinking machines. Here's the problem -- If we are only thinking machines, how can we trust our thoughts enough to believe that naturalism is true? Secondly, much like deism, this system says we have no free will. Here's another problem -- how do we get morality in such a system? In other words, how do ethics ("ought") come from "is"? Do molecules generate morality? I don't think so.

Then there's nihilism. If all is useless, why do nihilists believe their thinking and philosophy have substance and value? After all, everything is pointless except what these people tell us -- you see the contradiction there? Also, consider modern art, which often has nihilism at its core. But the artists must think this art has value and meaning, which contradicts nihilism.

What about Eastern religions? They also suffer from contradictory ideas. For example, if all is one as they teach, why do we have individual souls that get reincarnated? Practitioners refuse to follow logical rules, claiming these are just Western ideas. But logic has no cultural boundaries. Another set of problems concerns karma. Who or what works out our karma since there is no personal God overseeing everything? If we are paying off our karma, why don't we remember our past lives? It seems like we are doomed to repeat our failures under this system.

New Age beliefs share much with their Eastern counterparts, so some of the same logical concerns will be repeated. But there are other concerns too. For example, if the self is both universe and the universe-maker as New Agers claim, how can there be an occult that they get in touch with through channeling? Doesn't that suggest another world beyond their reach? If we are divine as they say, why is there human evil? How is it that an impersonal force created personal beings? If we all create our own reality, why do we all share the same reality?

Another popular belief system today falls under the general term postmodernism. Again, it has logical problems. If we make up our own reality as postmodernists claim, why did they write books? After all, nobody would understand what they were trying to communicate if their system is true. If all utterances are a power play as claimed, then that utterance is a power play and we can ignore it. If we are only the product of the blind forces of nature and society, then so is our view that we are only the product of the blind forces of nature and society, so we can ignore it. Postmodernists says we cannot trust human reason, but they prove this theory using human reason.

Let's consider Christian Science. If sickness is an illusion, why do practitioners try to heal Christian Scientists? If "man is incapable of sin, sickness, and death" (as Christian Scientists claim), why do people die? If our physical senses do not tell us the truth about the material world, how can we trust them when we read Mary Baker Eddy's book?

Let's end with a brief look at two other religions today regarding logical consistency. Mormonism gives us what they claim is an objective way to determine truth: a subjective burning in the bosom. Mormons seem to think we will all get the same result because their faith is true, but obviously this is not the case. Jehovah's Witnesses have had to deal with changes in their doctrinal positions over the years. One way they have done that is to claim that the change came from new light given to them by God. But how can new light come from God if it can change?

Of course, this was a quick tour through various religions. If you take the time to examine their key beliefs, you will see many more examples of logical inconsistencies.

But what about Christianity? Charges have been made that it too is logically inconsistent for the doctrine of the Trinity. But notice that Christians do not say we believe in three gods and one god. Instead, we say God is one being who expresses himself in three persons. This doctrine goes beyond reason but not against reason. It certainly is a mystery of the Christian faith, but it is the logical conclusion of two biblical truths -- there is one God, and there are three distinct persons who are God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Again, this is a subject that requires further examination, but look into it for yourself--you'll see that the Trinity solves problems rather than creates problems.

There is obviously much more that could be said here, so I hope you check it out for yourself. You can examine various worldviews and religions for inconsistencies in their beliefs. When you do, I hope you see the superiority of the Christian perspective.

Judging between religions--part 2

2011-05-30T11:25:00.000-07:00

I am discussing several ways we can judge between various religions, contrary to what relativists believe. For this blog, I'd like to examine the differences between the various religious leaders as part of my first point--that there is factual evidence we can look at in determining which religion seems the best for us to follow. See my previous blog for the first point regarding factual evidence for the belief.

Let's start with Jesus. I have created a special presentation about his uniqueness, so I'll give you a simplified edition of it here. Napoleon said about him, "Jesus Christ is no mere man." H. G. Wells noted, "I am not a believer, but I must confess as a historian that this penniless preacher from Nazareth is irrevocably the very center of history." Others have said similar things.

There are other ways he is unique. We have unique sources of information about him--close to his time and a great number of them. The prophecies he fulfilled are unique among religious leaders. What he did (miracles, healings, exorcisms) has never been equaled by other religious leaders. What he said was so different from others--who else claimed to give eternal life, raise people on the last day, to be the truth, to exist before Abraham? What his friends said about him was unique as well--they saw him as more than a human. Even his enemies claimed things about him that were unique--Jews later said he was a sorcerer, Roman historians said he was worshiped as a god. The impact he had on the world was so much better than any other religious leader--Jesus and his followers helped elevate the role of women, led to the creation of hospitals, created universities, brought about capitalism/civil liberties.

Now let's look at other religious leaders. Mohammed was a person devoted to revenge, he married young girl and had sex with her way earlier than he should have, he lacked mercy toward his enemies. How about Joseph Smith? Here's someone who dabbled in the occult, claimed to translate ancient Egyptian (proved to later be a fraud), and made many false prophecies. Does Mary Baker Eddy do any better? Hardly. She claimed her second husband was mentally poisoned, she claimed her book was unique but plagiarized it. Her claims of severe injury and healing were exposed by her own doctor as false. Then there's L. Ron Hubbard, founder of Scientology. He became a recluse to avoid tax problems, he was known as a poor naval officer, he dabbled in the occult, he ended up married to two women the same time. Let's close with a look at the two early leaders of Jehovah's Witnesses. Charles Russell was a fanatic about pyramid power, he divorced his wife, he peddled miracle wheat, he lied in a courtroom about knowing ancient languages. Judge Rutherford, who followed Russell as head of the JWs, smuggled liquor during Prohibition, was estranged from his wife, made a lot of failed prophecies, lived a luxurious life.

So, there's another way we can judge between religions. Just look at the founders. I'll take the amazing life, sayings, and impact of Jesus any time.

Can we judge religions?

2011-05-26T07:57:00.000-07:00

We live in an interesting society today. People are schizophrenic when it comes to judging things. They have no trouble deciding which car to buy, which house to live in, which job to take. But if you ask them which religion is the best one, you get replies like "Who can say," "There is no way to tell," "I just picked one that resonated with me." But in the next few blogs I'd like to suggest that there are four good, careful, rational ways to select a religion.

First of all, there is such a thing as factual evidence when it comes to religions, contrary to popular opinion. Let's start with scientific evidence, an area I'll spend the rest of this blog covering. All religions have some sort of holy book. Consider the manuscript evidence available for major world religions. Only Christianity has the earliest manuscripts (closest to the originals) and the largest number of manuscripts, which allows a better way of determining what the originals said. Compare this to other religions like Buddhism, Islam, or Hinduism. Their religious documents were compiled hundreds of years after the founder, so who knows what he originally said.

Then there is archaeological evidence. Again, think of all the places and people mentioned in the New Testament. Over and over scientists have discovered the accuracy of these claims. But consider Mormonism -- this religion says there was a huge civilization in Central and North America. However, nobody has ever found a single shred of evidence to indicate that this is true. In addition, Mormons believe Native Americans are Jewish remnants, but modern scientific study using DNA has shown these people to be Asiatic.

Other scientific discoveries have shown some religions are more accurate than others. Take cosmology. Hinduism says the world has always been here, going through cyclical processes. However, in the last 100 years evidence has mounted for the Big Bang, a beginning to the universe at a particular point in time. So the cosmos is not eternal as Hinduism claims. Islam says human life starts in a clot of blood -- not true. It also claims the sun sets in a muddy pool -- again, not true. The American Psychiatric Association denounces Scientology as a quack religion. It is the Judeo-Christian belief that looks good here. Consider its reference to God creating out of nothing--sounds like the Big Bang.

We can also factually examine the history of religions. Let's start with Jehovah's Witnesses. Almost everything practiced by them before 1935 is now considered pagan-- voting, participating in war, observing holidays, smoking, believing Jesus died on a cross. Scientology has a history of indictments of its top officials. Mormonism has seen its Book of Mormon go through many changes although Joseph Smith claimed it was the most perfect book ever written. Islam got its start through bloodshed and warfare. Today, it is the fundamental, true believer in Islam who creates all the problems of terrorism because this individual is staying true to the original aims of his religion. How does Christianity do in this area? Much better than the others. It started as a small group proclaiming a resurrected Jesus in the very city in which he was put to death, which tells me something amazing must have happened for them to be able to make that claim where it would have been easy to prove it false. Christianity spread due to the compassion that it showed to women, children, the poor, those on the lower rungs of society.

I want to continue this in future blogs, but I'll stop here and give you something to think about. Keep in mind that I'm going through a lot of information very quickly, but you can verify all that I have said here if you are curious about this topic. Next time I'll look at the founders of religions to see if we can judge between them.

The wrong lessons about FDR and the New Deal

2011-05-23T07:24:00.000-07:00

I'm halfway through a powerful book by Amity Shlaes which looks at the Great Depression -- The Forgotten Man. I recommend the book highly because it changes much of what we thought we knew about that time and how economics works. We are living through a very tough time now, and we have a president who believes in mistaken notions about what happened in the 1930s.

The author starts by describing extremely difficult economic times. She tells of a president and his backers who are out of touch with the common people; they do all the wrong things, such as raising taxes during this terrible time. What's surprising is the year which she is describing -- 1937. From her stories and shocking statistics, the reader first thinks she's describing the results of the crash of 1929. But in fact she is describing a depression within the depression that occurred five years after Franklin Roosevelt was elected. But aren't we told FDR got us out of the Great Depression?

Shlaes then describes the old, dominant view that most of us probably believe to be true about this time period. Thanks to many historians and history books, we believe that the 1920s was a time of false growth and low morals. The crash, which occurred in 1929, was an acknowledgment of the breakdown of capitalism. Dangerous inflation by speculators brought down the market. There was a belief that Washington needed to get more involved to save the financial well-being of the country. Hoover made things worse by failing to do much. Roosevelt, however, made things better by the being in charge and setting up the New Deal, which revitalize the country. According to this standard but incorrect view, we now realize that FDR's program is the best way to handle the economy in times of both crisis and stability. The New Deal also gave us powerful, dynamic leaders that led us out of the mess. FDR saved the country in peace and then in the war.

Shlaes says this view does not capture the realities of the time. Instead, the 1920s was a time of true economic gains. The crash of 1929 did not cause the depression. Instead, it was a necessary correction for a too-high stock market. In addition, she says Hoover and Roosevelt actually had much in common -- both preferred to control events and people, both underestimated the strength of the American economy, both mistrusted the stock market, both overestimated the value of government planning, both doctored the economy habitually. Roosevelt's remedies often came from socialist or fascist models abroad, which stressed collectivism.

All this is from the opening chapter of her book. I find it fascinating that the standard model of how we view the New Deal and Roosevelt is so flawed. Unfortunately, today we are drawing the wrong lessons from this time. Obama and his advisers, like FDR and his people, see the government as the savior and view free markets with great suspicion. We've seen the results of this attitude, and it hasn't been pretty. Let's hope there are enough people who know how capitalism really works to send our current administration packing.

Memorial Day reminder of the sacrifices

2011-05-19T10:09:00.000-07:00

Memorial Day is coming up soon, and I wanted to share something I found in a recent issue of World magazine. It’s a powerful, moving letter sent by a Civil War soldier, Major Sullivan Ballou, to his wife a week before he was killed at the Battle of Bull Run. It was featured in Ken Burns’ Civil War documentary. Think about how much we owe to those who have given up everything to protect us.

Dear Sarah:

The indications are very strong that we shall move in a few days, perhaps tomorrow. And lest I should not be able to write you again I feel impelled to write a few lines that may fall under your eye when I am no more…

… Sarah, my love for you is deathless, it seems to bind me with mighty cables that nothing but omnipotence can break; and yet my love of country comes over me like a strong wind and bears me irresistibly with all those chains to the battlefield. The memory of all the blissful moments I have enjoyed with you come crowding over me, and I feel most deeply grateful to God and you, that I have enjoyed them for so long. And how hard it is for me to give them up and burn to ashes the hopes and future years when, God willing, we might still have lived and loved together, and seen our boys grow up to honorable manhood around us.

If I do not return, my dear Sarah, never forget how much I loved you, nor that when my last breath escapes me on the battlefield, it will whisper your name…

Forgive my faults, and the pains I have caused you. How thoughtless, how foolish I have been! … But, oh Sarah, if the dead can come back to this earth and flit unseen around those they love, I shall always be with you, in the brightest day and in the darkest night… always, always. And when the soft breeze fans your cheek, it shall be my breath, or the cool air your throbbing temple, it shall be my spirit passing by.

Sarah do not mourn me dead; think I am gone and wait for me, for we shall meet again.

The fight for federalism and liberty

2011-05-16T12:20:00.000-07:00

America's Founding Fathers wanted a federal government of limited powers. But over the last fifty years we have seen a steady erosion in federalism as the national government takes over more and more control of our lives. I was recently reminded of this when I read an article in Imprimis, a publication of Hillsdale College. By the way, the school will send you this interesting monthly if you contact imprimis@hillsdale.edu. Every month it has interesting articles by leading thinkers in various fields.

The article that caught my attention was by Virginia's Attorney General, Ken Cuccinelli. He argues that there are two current issues which are being used by states to reassert federalism in defense of liberty – the new healthcare law and new EPA regulations.

Virginia was the first state to argue in federal court that the new health care law is unconstitutional. A federal judge back in December ruled in Virginia's favor that the mandate requiring people to purchase a private product (in this case, health insurance) is unconstitutional.

The first legal argument against this law is that the government's attempt to use the Commerce Clause of the Constitution to mandate the purchase of a private product goes beyond Congress's power. There has never been a mandate like this in all of American history. In fact, King George III was told by his own lawyer that a colonial boycott of British goods was legal under British law because no one could be forced to buy against his/her will. Obama's administration could use the same argument (that the government has a right to mandate purchases of private products) to force us to buy cars, alarm clocks, gym memberships, orthopedic shoes, non-slip mats for our bathtubs. If Virginia and all the other states that are suing lose this case, Congress will be granted a virtually unlimited power to order the American people to buy or to do anything.

What's interesting is the argument put forth by the Obama administration. It says that the fine for not buying government-approved health insurance is not a penalty, but a tax. Why? Because a tax to pay for the healthcare scheme would be constitutional under Congress's taxing authority. Of course, what's sneaky and hypocritical about this is that when Congress and President Obama debated the healthcare law, supporters repeatedly said that the fine for not buying health insurance was a penalty, not a tax. Obviously they said this because of the negative associations with calling something a tax. So now the administration is flip-flopping on the issue.

Virginia is also fighting an EPA decision. Back in December 2009 the EPA declared that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are pollutants dangerous to public health because they are alleged to cause global warming. The EPA relied primarily on data from the United Nations global warming report. But we now know, due to leaked e-mails, that some of the world's prominent climatologists manipulated data to overstate the effects of carbon dioxide on the environment (Climategate). Much of the U.N. report relied on that questionable data, and this, in turn, was what the EPA relied on. Some scientists have rethought their positions on global warming. One renowned climate researcher, Judith Curry of Georgia Tech, who had been a long-time proponent of the global warming theory, admitted recently that data in that UN report was misleading and that "it is obvious that there has been deletion of adverse data" that would work against the theory of rapid global warming in the last century.

But is it such a big deal if the EPA is regulating CO2 emissions? Yes because some estimate the cost to every American household will be $3000 a year due to higher prices for energy, food, clothing, and any other goods that require energy to manufacture or transport. These new rules would add nearly $1000 to the price of each new vehicle purchased. What's really amazing is that all this sacrifice and all this money spent will produce such minimal results. The EPA's own model shows that over the next 90 years these regulations would only reduce temperature increases by less than 0.03°F. Amazing and discouraging that people would put us through so much for so little gain. These increased energy costs will drive industries out of business or force them overseas, leaving us with fewer jobs.

As the Attorney General points out, we do need to care for the environment, but we also need to care for our economy. He notes that economic growth underwrites environmental protection. It is the wealthy countries which pay for environmental improvement. He says," The only places on earth that have strived for a clean environment share two key characteristics: free people and free markets."

So it's important for us to get involved in this fight for federalism. Freedom is being eroded gradually but persistently, and we need to stand against those who would deprive us of it.

A new low for Obama

2011-05-12T10:43:00.000-07:00

Well, just when you thought the Obamas had reached a new low, along comes Common, a rapper who performed at the White House last night. You may have noticed this item on the Drudge website, but you may not have seen some of the lyrics to his “music.”

First is his song threatening police and former President Bush. Here are some of the lyrics for you to ponder:

A Letter to the Law
. . . Tell the preacher, God got more than one son
Tell the law, my Uzi weighs a ton
I walk like a warrior,
from them I won’t run
. . . make them the main attraction
Turn around and attack them
Black gem in the rough
You’re rugged enough
Use your mind and nine-power, get the government touch
Them boys chat-chat on how him pop gun
I got the black strap to make the cops run
They watching me, I’m watching them
Them dick boys got a lock of cock in them
My people on the block got a lot of pok* in them
and when we roll together
we be rocking them to sleep
. . . Burn a Bush cos’ for peace he no push no button
Killing over oil and grease
no weapons of destruction
How can we follow a leader when this a corrupt one
The government’s a g-unit and they might buck young black people
Black people In the urban area one
I hold up a peace sign, but I carry a gun.

OK, besides the bad poetry, notice the references to guns and death—“nine power,” “”we be rocking them to sleep,” “Burn a Bush.” Nice, huh? Can you imagine if a white President invited a KKK leader to show up and sing threats to the black community??

Then there’s his other poem (using the term loosely) called “A Song for Assata.” This is a reference to convicted cop-killer and former Black Panther Assata Shakur, formerly known as Joanne Chesimard. She was convicted for the 1973 slaying of Trooper Werner Foerster on the New Jersey Turnpike, escaped prison in 1979, and is living in asylum in Cuba. Note the great sympathy for her in the portions of the song I have put here:

In the spirit of god.
In the spirit of the ancestors.
In the spirit of the black panthers.
In the spirit of assata shakur.
We make this movement towards freedom
For all those who have been oppressed, and all those in the struggle.
Yeah. yo, check it-

. . . Shot twice wit her hands up
Police questioned but shot before she answered
One panther lost his life, the other ran for his
Scandalous the police were as they kicked and beat her
Comprehension she was beyond, tryna hold on

. . . They lied and denied visits from her lawyer
But she was buildin as they tried to destroy her
. . . I read this sister's story, knew that it deserved a verse
I wonder what would happen if that woulda been me?
All this shit so we could be free, so dig it, y'all.

I'm thinkin' of assata, yes.
Listen to my love, assata, yes.
Your power and pride is beautiful.
May God bless your soul.

. . . It’s time for her to breathe, and not be told how or when
She untangled the chains and escaped the pain
How she broke out of prison I could never explain
And even to this day they try to get to her
But she's free with political asylum in cuba.

I'm thinkin' of assata, yeah.
Listen to my love, assata, yeah.
We're molded from the same mud, assata.
We share the same blood, assata, yeah.
Your power and pride, so beautiful...
May God bless your soul.
Your power and pride, so beautiful...
May God bless your soul.
Oooh.

So this is the person the Obamas stand beside, the person they want in the White House, the person they think can help bring us all together (wasn’t that what Obama told us he wanted when he ran for President?). What a disgusting joke.

Obama and Bush both deserve credit

2011-05-09T11:08:00.000-07:00

I am so proud of our military for taking out Osama bin Laden the other day. But the forgotten man of this affair is former President George W. Bush. Our current President failed to mention him during his speech reporting the death of bin Laden. It might be useful to take a look at the last several years to see what a debt Obama owes Bush.

We now know that CIA interrogators during the Bush administration gathered the initial information that ultimately led to bin Laden's death. The United States located al Qaeda's leader by learning the identity of a trusted courier from the tough interrogations of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the architect of the 9/11 attacks, and his successor, Abu Faraj al-Libi, according to The Wall Street Journal.

President George W. Bush, not Obama, constructed the interrogation and warrantless surveillance programs that allowed this week’s action to take place. Remember how congressional Democrats and media pundits viciously criticized him for allegedly exceeding his presidential powers and violating the Bill of Rights? We were all going to live in a police state if Bush got his way, right?

After he became President, Obama set to work to dismantle the methods Bush had employed to keep us safe. In January 2009, he signed executive orders to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay and limit the CIA to U.S. military interrogation methods. He made it clear that al Qaeda leaders would be tried in civilian courts. And in August 2009, his attorney general, Eric Holder, launched a criminal investigation into CIA officers who had interrogated al Qaeda leaders. Nice, huh? Our own people were being investigated instead of Islamic terrorists.

What would have happened if Obama had been in power immediately after the attack on the Twin Towers? After their "arrest," we would have read KSM and al-Libi their Miranda rights, provided them legal counsel, sent them to the U.S. for detention, and granted them all the rights provided a U.S. citizen in criminal proceedings. Of course, we would have gained no information to fight terror, and their trials would have become an anti-America farce.

The good news is that things have changed. Congressional pressure and reality have forced Mr. Obama to give up his law-enforcement approach to terrorism. Thanks to congressional funding riders, Gitmo remains open and terrorist detainees there cannot be brought to the United States. Attorney General Holder has finally dropped his ill-conceived plan to prosecute al Qaeda leaders in Manhattan, and he has now restarted the military commissions devised by the Bush administration. By the way, has there ever been such an inept attorney general?

Other good news has followed. The repatriation of Gitmo detainees has ceased, again due to congressional pressure. Mr. Obama's advisers have even publicly reaffirmed his authority to capture or kill terrorists as enemy combatants. Drone attacks have more than tripled.

Of course, Obama deserves credit for ordering the mission that killed bin Laden. But he and the American people should also recognize that he succeeded despite his urge to disavow Bush administration policies. I’m hoping that the American people, if not Obama, will acknowledge George W. Bush’s role in making last week's dramatic success possible.

A new book illustrates God's grand design

2011-05-05T09:50:00.000-07:00

There’s a new book out by Jonathan Wells that sounds good. He is the author of Icons of Evolution, a devastating look at examples and models of evolution that have been proved wrong (or in some cases, have been shown to be frauds). His new book is called The Myth of Junk DNA. Here’s a brief overview of it, taken from his preface to the book.

At one time scientists claimed that much of our DNA was useless leftovers from evolutionary past times. They believed this because of discoveries in the 1970s that showed only a tiny percentage of our DNA codes for proteins. There were some biologists who predicted that non-protein-coding DNA would turn out to be functional, but the dominant view (obviously colored by an evolutionary worldview) said most DNA was junk.

Here’s the fun part--that view has turned out to be spectacularly wrong. Wells says that after completion of the Human Genome Project in 2003 many hundreds of articles have appeared in the scientific literature documenting the various functions of non-protein coding DNA, and more are being published every week.

But many biologists who claimed most DNA was junk have not gone quietly into the night. Since 2004, biologists Richard Dawkins, Douglas Futuyma, Kenneth Miller, Jerry Coyne and John Avise have published books which still use this discredited argument. So have philosopher of science Philip Kitcher and historian of science Michael Shermer. What’s sad is the report that one other special person is in this camp--Francis Collins, former head of the Human Genome Project and present director of the National Institutes of Health. He’s a Christian who holds to theistic evolution. Wells said it’s ironic that Collins clings to this position, considering that he co-authored some of the scientific articles providing evidence against "junk DNA."

Wells points out that these authors claim to speak for "science," but they have actually been promoting an anti-scientific myth that ignores the evidence. So he believes it's time to expose the myth for what it is.

His thesis can be stated in a single sentence: “Far from consisting mainly of junk that provides evidence against intelligent design, our genome is increasingly revealing itself to be a multidimensional, integrated system in which non-protein-coding DNA performs a wide variety of functions.” Wells sees this as evidence for intelligent design.

Dr. Fuz Rana explored this idea as well in his book The Cell’s Design. I would encourage people to consider any of Wells’ books or Rana’s to see how God’s good work is being revealed.

The death of Osama bin Laden

2011-05-02T09:59:00.000-07:00

I am strangely delighted at the death of Osama bin Laden. I’d like to explore the news of his death and my reactions.

I say “strangely delighted” for two reasons. As a Christian, I do mourn the loss of a soul that probably never found the truth. There is so much error in Islam—its concept of God, its emphasis on works, its holy book that comes so many years after the person who supposedly received it from heaven and has such poor manuscript evidence. Osama unfortunately was not a heretic of his faith. He was the most faithful adherent to Islam as it was originally conceived. I get tired of hearing that Islam was hijacked by people who have perverted the faith. No, it’s the other way around—the majority of Muslims are backsliders, ignoring the vicious commands as laid out in the Qur’an. Osama and his followers are the true believers.

Secondly, I am delighted because justice was meted out. So many times in this world we see justice stymied for some reason—incompetence, bribery, strong-arm tactics, ignorance. Of course, we know God is in command and will take care of it all eventually. But it’s satisfying to see the wronged nation able to track down and eliminate the source of so much evil and suffering. The United States once again has helped the world out, as we did before during World War 2 when we crushed the evil Nazi regime.

I watched President Obama’s report last night with mixed feelings. He acted strong and made no apology for the death of bin Laden. That was good. But why did he have to use so many personal pronouns (“I”) to tell how it all came about. There was no room to compliment President Bush for establishing the Guantanamo site and getting valuable information out of the detainees. All we heard as the run-up to his election was how Obama would do away with Bush’s methods. Now that he’s President, Obama has seen the wisdom of so much that Bush set up. A thank-you last night would have been appropriate for the courage with which Bush pursued the war.

We know the war will go on, and that is discouraging. But the news last night showed the courage and determination of our fighting forces. Thanks to all the brave men and women who keep us free. God bless them.

Again, government as part of the problem, not the solution

2011-04-28T09:50:00.000-07:00

Because of my job, I read a lot of news items about colleges. The Wall Street Journal reports that Sarah Lawrence College now costs a staggering $58,716 (including tuition, fees and room and board) for 2011-12, which makes it America's most expensive college. The Journal goes on to indict Washington as adding to the problem.

Of course, what the government has done is to rush more financial aid to help with high tuition costs. But many see this as part of the problem, not a solution. "Right now the incentives for our colleges and universities are all wrong," says Ohio University economist Richard Vedder, who runs the Center for College Affordability and Productivity. "It's wrong for colleges, who have no incentive to keep down costs. It's wrong for students, whose needs are ill-served by loans and grants that go directly to the school. And it's wrong for taxpayers, whose dollars are making education more expensive without expanding opportunity for those who most need it."

The Journal had some stats that really opened my eyes. I thought the aid programs were helping the poor, but it’s not working well at all in reaching this goal. People the universities deem rich pay the full sticker price. This might be thought to help subsidize the poor, says Mr. Vedder, but the college population today in fact has a lower percentage of people from the bottom income quintile than it did in 1970 (notwithstanding a massive increase in federal aid). Something’s wrong here with that result.

Meanwhile, those in the middle scrounge for subsidies—like Pell Grants and federal loans—that are not keeping up with the tuition inflation they are causing. The costs soar while the grant and loan money trails behind.

In all other aspects of our society today, great choice prevails. Not so when it comes to paying for college. In higher ed we're stuck with the same one-size-fits all model that worked back in the decades when only the very privileged went to college. President Obama wants to continue things as they have been. According to the Journal, the "reform" he signed last spring—restructuring federal grants and loans—will likely fuel rising costs as schools absorb that money, spend it on their own priorities, and continue to raise tuition at rates that outstrip the Consumer Price Index. That’s not the way to go.

The Journal suggested some other ways to think about making college more affordable. For example Pell Grants need changing. Right now, a college student who graduates in four years with a perfect 4.0 grade point average gets less money than a student who takes six years and squeaks by with a 1.9. A more competitive—and imaginative—Pell Grant might tie it to performance, and maybe even give a cash bonus to a student who graduates in three years.

Another proposed solution is really imaginative. The author of the article asks what would happen if we allowed a private firm like Google to pay for a student's bachelor's degree in exchange for, say, 10% of that student's earnings for a set period after he or she graduated? I wonder if the student would have to wear a Google T-shirt to class.

I really liked another possible reform. Michael Poliakoff of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni suggests having federally approved accrediting agencies stop measuring inputs, such as faculty-student ratio, and start conducting performance audits of outputs such as what a university spends on instruction versus administration, what its graduation rate is, how its graduates fare in employment, and so on. I bet that would be extremely revealing and embarrassing for a lot of colleges and universities.

As a college teacher, I see so many students who need and deserve help to finish their education. Let’s hope a better approach gets implemented in the near future.

Can we test religions?

2011-04-25T10:14:00.000-07:00

We hear so many people today who are relativists when it comes to religion. Now, they aren’t relativists when it comes to the rest of their lives--there is actual truth in their minds. After all, they have jobs, family, friends, and other things that they know are really there and are of a particular construct. They get paid a certain amount, they drive a particular car, they know how much is left to pay on their house mortgage.

But get them talking about religion, and all specific truths go out the window. You hear things like, “Who knows?” Or “All roads lead to God.” Or “All religions are the same.” Is this true? Is there no way to tell differences between religions for the purpose of examining which might be true? Are all religious faiths a matter of leaps in the dark, wishful thinking, and nonevidential? I don’t think so. There are ways we can test religious claims, just as we can test truth claims in science, history, or advertisements.

Here’s the first way: What’s the evidence for the particular religion in the real world? This entails examining archeology, history, science, and manuscripts. Do the claims reflect our current understanding in these areas? Let’s take Mormonism. Wow, it really fails this test in a big way. No evidence exists for the story of huge civilizations here in the Americas as their Book of Mormon proclaims. The Qur’an gets its science wrong and has manuscripts that are far removed from the time of Mohammed. How does Christianity do here? Very well, thanks. This blog won’t take the time to explore the issue, but there is plenty of evidence from each of the four areas listed above.

Here’s the second way to judge religious claims: What’s the problem of the human race and how do we solve it? All but one say we are the problem and we are the solution. We have to try harder, we have to wake up, we have to follow a list of commands, we have to pray a certain way, we have to . . . You get the idea. It’s all on us. But we’ve all tried this. We know our own weaknesses, we see our failures, we have bad self-images. Only Christianity says the solution lies outside us. God gave us a gift, thanks to the sacrifice of Jesus. It’s our choice—let Him save us, or continue with the thousand attempts to reach God through our own strength.

The third way to judge religions is simple: Does it correspond to the way the world really is? For example, Hinduism says the world is an illusion (maya). But do we really believe that? If everything was an illusion, how would we know since we are part of that illusion? That doesn't make any sense to me. Then there's reincarnation, a key belief of Eastern religions and new-age thought. Where's the evidence for that? If it was true, the world should be getting better and better, and we know that's not the case. Christian Science says disease and suffering is an illusion; does that seem believable? Christianity reflects reality in so many ways – it says there is something noble about the human race, there's also something very wrong with the human race, there is such a thing as evil and suffering, etc. Science, in an echo of the Bible, reveals a world of order and design (creation as a result of God).

A fourth way to examine religious claims has to do with the leader of that movement: How is its religious leader viewed by the world? There is only one who stands out among all religious leaders thoughout history – Jesus. Why is that? I have written on the uniqueness of Jesus before, so this will be a short summary of what makes him unique – the evidence for his life and sayings, prophecies involving his life, the events of his life, what he said, what friends and enemies said about him, the positive impact he's had on the world, and the vital relationship between him and his religion. Even nonbelievers admit that Jesus was the most unique person who ever lived.

Finally, one other way to judge a religion is simple: What is the history of that religion? Let's take Jehovah's Witnesses as an example. This organization has repeatedly set specific times for the return of Jesus, only to be embarrassed when it didn't take place. In addition, it has a history of changing major beliefs over the years. The same is true of Mormonism – polygamy was okay at one time, but not now; blacks were considered inferior, but not now. Then there's Islam, which has a history of bloodshed and violence. It Islam spread through the sword. Christianity, on the other hand, said all people were equal, spread through the Roman world through peaceful means, elevated women to a much higher degree than previous religions, treated the poor and weak with respect and kindness.

So, there are ways we can look for truth among religions. Only one passes all the tests and should, therefore, be seen as more credible--Christianity.

The sky is falling . . . oh wait, no it's not

2011-04-21T10:23:00.000-07:00

Well, it happened again. Someone has pointed out a new problem with all the hysteria surrounding climate change. I delight in these revelations because we need to base our actions on reality, not hypothetical, alarmist scenarios dreamed up by Al Gore and his ilk. Here’s the latest case in which climate change folks are shown to be extremists and, dare I say, liars. By the way, I took this from The Wall Street Journal, a publication I highly recommend due to its reputation and careful analysis of many topics ranging from politics to science.

In 2005, the U.N. Environment Program (UNEP) published a color-coded map under the headline "Fifty million climate refugees by 2010." The primary source for the prediction was a 2005 paper by environmental scientist Norman Myers.

Let’s see . . . how has this prediction turned out? Six years later, this flood of refugees is nowhere to be found, global average temperatures are about where they were when the prediction was made. Here’s the most interesting thing of all--the U.N. has attempted to distance itself from this embarrassment by wiping the inconvenient map from its servers.

The map, which can still be found elsewhere on the Web (I’ve seen it), disappeared from the program's site sometime after April 11, when Gavin Atkins asked on AsianCorrespondent.com: "What happened to the climate refugees?" It's now 2011 and, as Mr. Atkins points out, many of the locales that the map identified as likely sources of climate refugees are "not only not losing people, they are actually among the fastest growing regions in the world." Oops!

Of course, the people responsible for the map have an answer, but I’ll leave it up to you whether you find it convincing. The program's spokesman says the map vanished because "it's not a UNEP prediction. . . . that graphic did not represent UNEP views and was an oversimplification of UNEP views." He added that the program would like to publish a clarification except that the staffers able to do so are "all on holiday for Easter." So, do you buy this?

The climate-refugee prediction isn't the first global warming-related claim that has turned out to be laughable. The Journal says it is more concerned that people responsible for earlier predictions then have the nerve to claim these mistakes weren’t really their fault.

I agree. Once again, to me the main issue is not climate change itself. Instead, it’s the way so-called authorities can scream hysterically, be taken seriously by a mainstream press that never investigates the issues, and then pretend they never made the statements which have later been proved to be false. Let’s keep a sharp eye out for those who want to move us emotionally with weak arguments, especially when their goal is to weaken our economy in some utopian dream.

Women and Christianity--a final look

2011-04-18T12:46:00.000-07:00

So here’s the last of several blogs in reaction to Jimmy Carter’s pronouncement that Islam and Christianity are the same in their treatment of women. That’s simply not true. I’ve gone through the New Testament’s comments on women to show how much females were raised in relation to the culture around them. For this last blog, I’d like to acknowledge some problems within the church but end on the positive things that have come about due to the high status of women the gospels and letters of the New Testament proclaim.

Yes, Jimmy Carter was on to something—there have been church leaders in the past who have denigrated women. Some people mistakenly believe these contemptuous beliefs of the church fathers are rooted in an anti-female Bible, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth. People held these wrong beliefs in spite of, not because of, the biblical teachings. Those individuals allowed themselves to be shaped by the beliefs of the surrounding pagan, anti-female culture. It’s unfortunate that some of them didn’t allow the woman-honoring principles found in Scripture to change their unbiblical beliefs. But that’s the failing of imperfect followers of Jesus, not a failure of God or the New Testament.

Let’s consider the years since then. Over and over we see the positive results of a faith that emphasizes the value of women. As Christianity spread throughout the world, its redemptive effects elevated women and set them free in many ways. The Christian ethic declared equal worth and value for both men and women. Husbands were commanded to love their wives and not exasperate their children. These principles were in direct conflict with the Roman culture, which gave a husband absolute power of life and death over his family, including the wife.

The biblical view of husbands and wives as equal partners caused a huge change in marriage as well. Christian women started marrying later, and they married men of their own choosing. This eroded the ancient practice of men marrying child brides against their will, often as young as eleven or twelve years old. The greater marital freedom that Christianity gave women eventually gained wide appeal. Today, a Western woman is not compelled to marry someone she does not want, nor can she legally be married as a child bride. But the practice continues in parts of the world where Christianity has little or no presence. Consider Islam—Mohammed married a six-year old and had sex with her within three years. How’s that for a contrast with Christian values?

Another effect of the salt and light of Christianity was its impact on the common practice of polygamy, which demeans women. Many men, including biblical heroes, had multiple wives, but Jesus made clear this was never God’s intention. Whenever he spoke about marriage, it was always in the context of monogamy. He said, “The two [not three or four] will become one flesh.” As Christianity spread, God’s intention of monogamous marriages became the norm.

Two more cruel practices were abolished as Christianity gained influence. In some cultures, such as India, widows were burned alive on their husbands’ funeral pyres. It ended when the British intervened, thanks to their Christian faith. In China, the crippling practice of foot binding was intended to make women totter on their pointed, slender feet in a seductive manner. It was finally outlawed only about a hundred years ago.

As a result of Jesus Christ and His teachings, women in much of the world today, especially in the West, enjoy more privileges and rights than at any other time in history. It takes only a cursory trip to an Arab nation or to a Third World country to see how little freedom women have in countries where Christianity has had little or no presence. It’s the best thing that ever happened to women, despite the pronouncements of Jimmy Carter.

Paul's controversial statements on women

2011-04-14T09:38:00.000-07:00

I’d like to do a further blog on Christianity and the role of women, thanks to alarming comments by Jimmy Carter, who suggested Islam and Christianity have a similar outlook on women—seeing them as second class. That’s far from the truth. Let’s take a look at Paul’s comments in the New Testament, which, unfortunately, many have seen as insulting to women.

One passage by Paul which has stirred controversy is found in 1 Timothy 2:11-14 where the author seems to tell Timothy that women should be in submission to men and should keep quiet in church. But is that what he really said? His remarks may have been for that culture, not ours because in other places Paul talks about greeting each other with a holy kiss and the necessity for head coverings, practices which are now nonexistent. So that’s one possibility. Then you have to see another passage (Titus 2) where Paul encourages older women to teach younger women—so apparently it was OK for women to talk and teach others. In addition, the verb in the original is different from what we usually see --“I do not permit” actually is “I am not permitting at this time.” That’s a big difference. There may have been a particular issue of confusion and noise that Paul was dealing with in one particular church.

Then there’s 1 Timothy 3:1-4 where Paul gives requirements for overseers in the church. It seems like he’s excluding women here because he uses the male pronoun. But again, if you look at the original Greek, it says “If a man or woman desire” to indicate either sex could qualify.

Take a look at 1 Corinthians 14:34-35, in which Paul seems to tell women to keep quiet in church. However, go back a couple of chapters in the same letter and see 11:5 where Paul tells women how to go about praying or prophesying. So it looks like it was OK for women to talk in church. Paul probably is speaking here about disorderly talking rather than any talking.

Keep in mind several things here. These passages were all from pastoral letters rather than general theological letters. Paul was addressing particular needs in particular churches in a particular culture. Secondly, our translations may not reflect clearly the original Greek. Finally, we have to balance these statements with others that definitely support equality—see Galatians 3:27-28 and Ephesians 5:21.

So Paul may be getting hit unfairly with charges of hostility to women. It strikes me as ironic how some very conservative church leaders can use these verses in an attempt to shut out women yet rely on these same women to teach Sunday school, lead music, and head up many programs at church. You can’t have it both ways—either keep the women from any role in the church or allow them to speak and teach.

Did Jimmy Carter get it right? Does Christianity share Islam’s disregard for women? I don’t think so.

Women as seen by two famous followers of Jesus

2011-04-11T10:43:00.000-07:00

In my last blog, I reacted to Jimmy Carter, who was quoted recently as saying all religions have treated women badly. I wanted to set the record straight—Christianity has done much to elevate the significance of women. I covered the way Jesus dealt with women. This time I’d like to turn to Peter and Paul to see how they viewed women.

Peter encouraged women to consider themselves as valuable because God saw them as valuable. His call to aspire to the inner beauty of a trusting and tranquil spirit is staggeringly counter-cultural, especially in today’s world where women are seen as objects. He writes, “Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as braided hair and the wearing of gold jewelry and fine clothes. Instead, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God's sight. For this is the way the holy women of the past who put their hope in God used to make themselves beautiful.”

Equally staggering is Peter’s call to men to elevate their wives with respect and understanding: “Husbands, in the same way be considerate as you live with your wives, and treat them with respect as the weaker partner and as heirs with you of the gracious gift of life, so that nothing will hinder your prayers.” Consideration, respect, fellow heirs—these were concepts totally alien to men of Peter’s generation.

The biggest criticism of Christianity and its view of women is due to statements by Paul. He is often accused of being a misogynist, one who hates and fears women. But Paul’s teachings on women reflect the creation order and high value God places on women as creatures made in his image. Take a look at what he had to say in Ephesians 5--he challenges men to love their wives in the self-sacrificing way Christ loves the church. In a culture where a wife was nothing but property, Paul elevates women to a position of honor previously unknown in the world.

Paul also provided highly countercultural direction for the New Testament church. Consider the Jewish synagogue--women had no place and no voice in worship. In the pagan temples, the place of women was to serve as prostitutes. The church, on the other hand, was a place for women to pray and prophecy out loud (1 Cor. 11:5). Spiritual gifts used to build up the church are given to women as well as men. Older women are commanded to teach younger ones. The invitation to women to participate in worship of Jesus was unique in that day.

Maybe next time I can look closely at a couple of passages that critics especially love to point out as representative of Paul’s distrust of women.

Women and Christianity

2011-04-07T10:11:00.000-07:00

Jimmy Carter has done it again. In today's Drudge Report he says much of the discrimination and abuse suffered by women around the world is attributable to a belief "that women are inferior in the eyes of God." Carter said such teachings by "leaders in Christianity, Islam and other religions" allow men to beat their wives and deny women their fundamental rights as human beings. Once more he sees a moral equivalency between Christianity and Islam where it doesn't exist. He needed to explain that Christianity has elevated the status of women. So, for the next couple of blogs, I'd like to explore that idea further in hopes of clarifying what our "beloved" former President has said.

What would be the status of women in the Western world today if Jesus had never been born? Let's compare their status in the West with that of women under the control of Islam. In most present-day Islamic countries, women are still denied many rights that are available to men, and when they appear in public, they must be veiled. In Saudi Arabia, for instance, women are even barred from driving an automobile. In many Arab countries where the Islamic religion is adhered to strongly, a man has the right to beat and sexually desert his wife, all with the full support of the Koran.

This command is the polar opposite of what the New Testament says regarding a man’s relationship with his wife. Paul told the Christians in Ephesus, "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her." And he added, "He who loves his wife loves himself." Jesus loved women and treated them with great respect and dignity.

The New Testament’s teaching on women also wasn't found in the Greco-Roman culture of Jesus' time. In ancient Greece, for example, a respectable woman was not allowed to leave the house unless she was accompanied by a trustworthy male escort. A wife was not permitted to eat or interact with male guests in her husband’s home; she had to retire to her woman’s quarters. Men kept their wives under lock and key, and women had the social status of a slave. Girls were not allowed to go to school, and when they grew up, they were not allowed to speak in public. Women were considered inferior to men.

The status of Roman women was also very low. Roman law placed a wife under the absolute control of her husband, who had ownership of her and all her possessions. He could divorce her if she went out in public without a veil. A husband had the power of life and death over his wife, just as he did his children. As with the Greeks, women were not allowed to speak in public.

Even the Jewish faith, from which Christianity grew, failed to give women a high status. Jewish women were barred from public speaking. The oral law prohibited women from reading the Torah out loud. Synagogue worship was segregated, with women never allowed to be heard.

Now, consider how Jesus interacted with women--what a difference. Let's look at the story of his encounter with a Samaritan woman at a well in John 4. How he dealt with her was extremely unusual, even radical. He ignored the Jewish anti-Samaritan prejudices along with prevailing view that saw women as inferior beings. He started a conversation with her—a Samaritan, a woman—in public. The rabbinic oral law was explicit: “He who talks with a woman [in public] brings evil upon himself.” Another rabbinic teaching prominent in Jesus’ day taught, “One is not so much as to greet a woman.” So we can understand why his disciples were amazed to find him talking to a woman in public. Today we read this story unaware of what a powerful statement Jesus is making here regarding the rights and dignity of women.

There are many other ways Jesus demonstrated his regard for women. Mary, Martha and Lazarus entertained Jesus at their home. He allowed Mary to do what only men had been allowed to do, namely, learn from Jesus’ teachings. Mary was the cultural deviant, but so was Jesus, because he violated the rabbinic law of his day [about speaking to women]. By teaching Mary spiritual truths, he violated another rabbinic law, which said, “Let the words of the Law [Torah] be burned rather than taught to women. In addition, women followed Jesus, a highly unusual phenomenon in first-century Palestine. This behavior may not seem unusual to us today, but in Jesus’ day it was highly unusual. Scholars note that in the prevailing culture only prostitutes and women of very low repute would follow a man without a male escort. Another example is that of Jesus' resurrection scene. The first people Jesus chose to appear to were women; not only that, but he instructed them to tell his disciples that he was alive. In a culture where a woman’s testimony was worthless because she was worthless, Jesus elevated the value of women beyond anything the world had seen.

Does anyone see anything like this concern for the status of women in other religious movements, especially Islam? Nope. Let me continue this in a future blog. In the meantime, enjoy the colorful comments of Jimmy Carter as the fiction which they are.

Is California Waking Up to the Problem?

2011-04-04T10:12:00.000-07:00

Recently The Wall Street Journal ran a piece on the huge uproar over taming the public unions, which are bankrupting so many local and state governments. Of course, we know about Wisconsin, but I was amazed to read that even here in California, an increasingly liberal and out-of-control blue state, things are changing for the better when it comes to the feeding frenzy of the public unions.

According to the Journal, some people in California, which now has a huge deficit of 26 billion dollars, are starting to wake up to the problem. For example, Costa Mesa, in Orange County, just fired half of its work force. Days later, Los Angeles reached a tentative deal in which workers would pay more into pension and health plans.

Then there's San Francisco, about the last place in California you would expect to find an official determined to fight the financial weight of its public unions. But the man taking on the unions in San Francisco is its Public Defender, Jeff Adachi, who runs an agency of lawyers that provide legal services to poor people. He is a card-carrying San Francisco Democrat. Why is he worried about public union costs? As he sees it, payments for public pensions and health care are defunding social programs and the entire network of support services.

Last year he got up an initiative, Proposition B, which would have required current workers to pay more toward pension and health-care costs. He got some surprising help. For example, he got financial support from a prominent local Democrat, Mike Moritz of Sequoia Capital. California's most famous living Democrat, former Assembly Speaker and San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, supported him. He collected 76,000 signatures. Even though Prop. B lost by 13 points beneath a mudslide of public union money, Adachi is retooling his proposition for another vote this November.

This is not the only good news from San Francisco. A few weeks ago, a small group of current and former municipal officials and taxpayer advocates in the San Francisco Bay Area convened to form California United for Fiscal Reform.

Its co-chairs are Adachi and Stephanie Gomes, the outspoken city council member from Vallejo, famously the largest California city to declare Chapter 9 bankruptcy. Their first meeting this month attracted representatives from Menlo Park, Pleasanton, Contra Costa County, and Sonoma County. The Journal quotes Gomes as saying, "These costs are a tsunami. If we can't rely on the state to fix it, we have to do it locally, and we have to join together, because the unions are joined."

The message is reaching other areas of the state too. In Orange County, the California Foundation for Fiscal Responsibility and the Pacific Research Institute recently held a "Pension Boot Camp," where some 175 elected officials and others heard talks such as, "What hasn't Calpers [the state’s public-employeee retirement system] told you?"

The catch is that much of these retirement systems are protected from cutbacks due to constitutional mandates. That means the lead on major reform would have to come from the mercurial Gov. Brown. He talked about it in his campaign, but not much since.

But the Journal reports that high-level help for the embattled locals may come from another California official, U.S. Congressman Devin Nunes. Rep. Nunes is building support for his Public Employee Pension Transparency Act, which would require states and municipalities to produce a coherent picture of their pension obligations. Imagine that. The bill says that they can stay opaque if they wish, but failure to disclose would cut them off from the federal tax exemption for muni bonds.

Serious Californians know how much trouble they're in. Last June, the Civil Grand Jury in San Francisco (again, notice this is from san Francisco) issued a report on pensions, "The Billion Dollar Bubble." Its conclusion: "This report is a warning of a deepening crisis in the City's financial condition. . . . We cannot wait."

A report last month from the state's respected Little Hoover Commission said that California has no choice but to take on the court decisions mandating pension costs.

So maybe the state is waking up. Let’s do our part by supporting those officials who see the problem and are willing to do something about it.