Ryan asked:
Have I heard of Ravi Zacharias?

Yes I have. Like Dinesh D’Souza, I have little interest in reading the books he has written. I’ve listened to some lectures of his, although not the one Ryan offered. I couldn‘t make it through the first segment of the one Ryan provided because it runs off the rails from the start. From my limited exposure to Zacharias, my understanding of his argument is that he sees Christianity as the best solution to existential questions.

I basically see this as a repackaging of Pascal’s Wager. I can say my beliefs just don’t work like that. There is something that lets me know when I’m not being honest with myself. Socrates described something similar, which he called a “daimonion.” It literally means “divine something” in Greek, but I don’t know if Socrates literally meant it as a supernatural force. This might just be an instance of language getting in the way of communication. Regardless of whether Socrates believed his “daimonion” to be supernatural, I feel something similar that I don’t ascribe to the supernatural. Like other intangible feelings, it is hard to say if everyone experiences it the same way, or even experiences it at all. Maybe other people don’t have this “daimonion” and can believe whatever they wish to believe. All I am saying is that I have a “voice”, for lack of a better term, that won’t let me do that. It isn’t necessarily loud, but it is very persistent. This “daimonion” is a central part of my inner life. It is a source of doubt. It motivates me to try to learn new things and encourages me to question and verify what I think I know. I don’t know what Zacharias’ suggestion for wrestling with my “daimonion” is, but my “daimonion” recognizes that his is an argument from consequences, and to believe in Christianity, to believe Jesus was literally raised from the dead, the son and part of the tri-union God, born of a virgin, turned water into wine, walked on water etc. because it resolves some existential issues that I face would be the definition of delusional thinking.

From reading what some Christians have written, some seem to be aware of this experience of a “daimonion” as well. Since it tends to erode their faith, they seem to think it is Satan trying to lead them to go astray. Pascal seems to be aware of it as well and suggests to ignore it, and hope that it will go away in time. I consider this repression akin to the church’s repression of sex, and it has similar consequences: needless dysfunction and suffering.

I know this isn’t what apologetics means in this particular context, but I do wish Christian apologists would actually apologize. A good start would be apologizing for the murder of Hypatia of Alexandria who was killed by a Christian mob. If Christ died for our sins, Hypatia died for our ignorance. As a Christian, I don’t know how you could bear the suffering of this woman. She was dragged behind a chariot and flayed. Her quivering limbs tossed into flames. However, as a Christian, you would have to believe that was just the beginning of her torment. Your God tacitly consents for her to suffer an eternity of similar experiences, just as He tacitly consented to suffering she experienced in this life. I ask, what kind of justice is that?

In this respect, it is not enough to just say that the Bible is entirely implausible, which it is. We also need liberate ourselves from the desire to wish it were true. If the Bible were true, it wouldn’t be good news, it would be bad news. It would mean there was a celestial bully who commands that you love and fear Him. He makes you sick and punishes you for not being well. That our sins can be forgiven by sacrificing the innocent. A being exists that can and will convict you of thought crime. A being from which there is no hope of liberation and which you will never be able to overthrow. If you think Oceania in George Orwell’s 1984 was bad, that is nothing compared to heaven and heaven is the best you can hope for. The prospect of eventual annihilation and eternal oblivion is certainly a source of personal anxiety, the supreme existential crisis that Zacharias says Christianity resolves. I’m not arguing that it doesn’t, but as an existential choice, I wish more people recognized what an utterly revolting choice it is. It should be the choice we pick when we have no other options left, and even then with some trepidation and reluctance. Thankfully, there is no credible evidence for believing it to be true, and good reasons for believing it actually false.

We do live in a great age. Our knowledge has progressed that probability of the prospect of sacrificing your liberty and surrendering your conscience in this life in the hope of avoiding eternal torment in favor of suffering an eternal existence in a celestial equivalent of North Korea is so vanishingly small that it is being ignored or outright rejected by a significant and increasing portion of the population in many educated countries. For example, knowing what we know now about chemistry, it is entirely implausible that water can be turned into wine. Knowing what we know now about biology, it is completely implausible that a virgin would give birth to a male offspring.

The underlying reason isn’t that it isn’t just the case that a belief in Jesus requires less faith now, it is that it requires substantially more. Consequently, even from the Christian perspective, I haven’t completely understood the textual basis for condemnation of Thomas the doubter. Jesus said “blessed are those who have not seen yet have believed.” Jesus didn’t say it was required to believe in him without seeing him, he just praised those who could. According to the story, Thomas was one of Jesus’ disciples and presumably witnessed at least a few of Jesus’ other miracles and got a personal visit after Jesus rose from the dead. On the other hand, we are expected to believe, just as reverently, based on hearsay from spotty texts, some of which plagiarize each other, about a guy we’ve never physically met, which tell of implausible events that we have not seen any credible physical evidence for, coming out of a particularly illiterate part of the world and are not collaborated by independent contemporaneous secular accounts. If lots of people got up from their graves and started walking around Jerusalem, one would think someone else would make a note of it, or at least it would be in all of the gospels and not just in Matthew.

To make this point clear, I’ll draw a parallel with homeopathy. I’m not going to accept the fact that water has “memory” of let’s say onion juice, even when we know from chemistry that some of the solutions that so dilute that there is unlikely to be any molecules from the onion juice remaining, and similarly how the water “remembers” the onion juice but presumably forgets the urine, or how this exactly “memory” of onion juice helps these water molecules cure an ailment any better than a regular molecule would. That is to say, how exactly do these water molecules behave differently than other ones that don’t have a recent “memory” of onion juice? Similarly, I’m not going to accept a human man can be born of a virgin until I get a plausible explanation of where the Y-chromosome came from. I would accept parthenogenesis if the offspring were female and people noted the striking resemblances between Mary and her daughter. If this daughter then went on to tell the world about germs, atoms, stars and galaxies, spoke of Neptune and Pluto approximately 2000 years ago, I think we would have good reasons for believing some type unexplained intervention took place. Jesus’ miracles, in contrast, become increasingly discredited and provincial as our knowledge expands. Given the trend, I find it hard not to draw the obvious conclusion.

In summary, I have considered an outline of Ravi Zacharias’ argument. If you feel I am misrepresenting it, I assure you it is completely unintentional and please feel free to correct me in the comments. While I admit Christianity is a solution to the existential crises we all face, I don’t feel the solution that Christianity offers is at all desirable and is among one of the last options that I would choose, even then only if the evidence, logic and reason forced me, and with great reluctance and sorrow, for it would mean we could never be truly free. It would mean as tragic and pointless I find the suffering of poor Hypatia of Alexandria to be as an atheist. As a Christian, I would have to believe it was just an insignificant prelude to the torments the being I am compelled to worship, upon the fear of my own torment and punishment, has in store and will tacitly allow her to endure for all eternity. Thus, I freely thank all that it good that there is not a shred of credible evidence to support such a lamentable state of affairs and there are quite good reasons for believing that it is actually false. If that were not good enough, the reasons for not believing are actually getting sounder as time progresses and our knowledge expands, and I find no reason to believe this trend won’t continue far into the future as well.

This is usually the end of my interest in apologetics for I have no reason to find rationalizations for beliefs I have no desire to have in the first place independent of my “daimonion.” (Although, I occasionally can’t help myself from commenting if an apologist starts making a particularly inane claim.) However, what would convince me in one God over others is physical evidence. For example, someone showing that praying to a particular God produced better outcomes than praying to any another God under suitable controls. It wouldn’t satisfy all my objections, but it wouldn’t be something I could ignore either. This is why I didn’t really mind taking the time to read something like “90 Minutes in Heaven.” Although, I won’t spend all my time doing it, because I find many reports of miracles won’t stand up to even the most modest skepticism. I would rather just read the ones the Christians themselves find the most credible and respond to those. I think “90 Minutes in Heaven” meets that criteria. From the outset, reading apologia, like Zacharias’, just doesn’t interest me because I don’t see how it could even begin to without more evidence. Maybe you could give me some factoid from a book that would pique my interest. For example, maybe there is a book where an archeologist retraces the steps of Jesus in the Bible, finds good historical evidence for the site of the country of Gadarenes and subsequent finds the remains of a large herd of pigs in a sea or what probably was a sea 2000 years ago. Furthermore, the remains can be carbon dated to around Jesus’ time and this author got his results published in a secular peer-reviewed archeological journal thus confirming some basic facts given in the account given Matthew 8 and other gospels. Even this most likely wouldn’t convince me to become a Christian, but it is something I would find interesting to read with evidence I would accept, especially if I could see pictures of the pig bones.

Maybe you consider my refusal to read Zacharias’ book unsatisfactory or disingenuous. I’m sorry if you feel that way, but I can’t possibly read every book any one can demand of me. If you satisfactorily address the above objections, can point to some quotes in which makes it clear I’m misrepresenting Zacharias’ argument, or make a better case for why as to why I will find Zacharias’ book the least bit interesting, I assure you, I will honestly consider it. In my defense, try putting yourself in my shoes, and imagine someone suggesting that you consider the arguments for Baal more carefully. I hope from that perspective, you might consider my position more justified.

Terry Eagleton has a new book called “Reason, Faith, and Revolution: Reflections on the God Debate.” Eagleton is a literature professor and Marxist. So, it comes as a little bit of a surprise that he seeks to defend the theory and practice of religion against its contemporary critics. Nevermind that Marx said religion was the “opiate” of the people and Marx’s philosophy is fundamentally atheistic; it was supposed to be scientific and utopian after all.

What Eagleton represents is someone who embraces the communist caricature of Marxism, a political movement which invented its own mysticism in the guise of dialectic materialism and became a secular equivalent to a toxic religion. Eagleton is a person who sees Jesus as some kind of proto-Marxist. In other words, a man who can only see things as he wishes them to be, not as they are.

Hence, we are faced with the Eagleton conundrum: the only way to protect one’s own irrational dogma is to protect them all. Unfortunately, the insanity of such an endeavor quickly manifests itself in obvious ways, as Eagleton does in his book, conflating Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins into the malevolent spirit he christens “Ditchkins.” Any serious discussion of Eagleton ends with the discovery of this delusional fantasy. Eagleton is no longer arguing against real critics of religion, he is arguing against chimeras of his own imagination.

One might complain about the supposed school-yard mentality of Dawkins and Hitchens. Don’t they know God can be the first cause because He (and it is almost invariably a He despite the fact that there seems to be no good reason why God would have genitalia if He was the only God) is eternal? No, because this issue has never been adequately met by theologians or apologists despite their sophistry and centuries to come up with a satisfactory answer. A theistic God, by definition, must be incredibly complex being and capable of observing, recognizing and resolving issues of unimaginable complexity.

Sure, a theistic God could explain the universe, but it falls well short of a good explanation for the following reason: however unlikely we find the possibility that the universe itself just came into existence by itself, we must admit that possibility that a complex God just popped into existence, or more unfathomably is eternal, and then created the universe is more improbable, and by a considerable degree.

From watching a one of Eagleton’s Yale lectures, it is obvious that he is not defending anything similar to Christianity as laymen practice it. Hence, having Eagleton defend religion is like having Michael Ruse defend science, one is never quite sure they get it. I have a hard time telling what distinction Eagleton would make between God and the numinous. It is quite possible he sees them as one in the same, but stripping the superstition out of religion is not a concession most believers are willing to make.

Eagleton makes the claim that God is not a Yeti. Yes, yetis aren’t invisible, aren’t able to read your thoughts, aren’t immortal, aren’t capable of altering natural laws of the universe, won’t convict you of thought crime, won’t punish you even after you die and don’t have a strange fetish about foreskins.

What Eagleton is clearly engaging in here is the time honored tradition of sophistry. He bemoans Dawkins running around in Oxford circles, and Hitchens in Washington, while simultaneously publishing a book based on lectures he gave at Yale. Yale! When Eagleton starts giving lectures at the atheist equivalents of Randolph-Macon Woman’s College, next-door to Liberty University, or the University of Nebraska when resolutions are being drafted against him, then Eagleton will have a leg to stand on. Eagleton’s faux-populist appeal against the supposed elitism of atheists is only effective with a particular brand of unreflective, deluded hypocrites like Eagleton and students at Yale who are well on their way to being crafted in the mould of one of their famous alumni, George W. Bush.

Thus we reach an inescapable conclusion that Eagleton is a coward, a sophist, and a deluded hypocrite. He exists in a fog, with a mind addled by the over-study of pointless subjects. I can only hope he finds the good sense to actually listen and learn, so he might produce something of productive value to our species instead of retarding it by continuing to muddy the intellectual waters.

A commenter calling himself Will left the following message:

Guys, just take a look around us…I challenge you to take an honest look at the evidence for evolution, an honest look at the evidence for a worldwide flood, the fulfilled prophecy of the old testament, just because there are many “religions” does not mean that Jesus is not the savior of the world…God does not want our religion, he wants our hearts!

I accept this challenge, although I already find it a little bit insulting.  I have looked at the evidence for evolution, a global flood, and the fulfillment of biblical prophecy and have apparently come to the exact opposite set of conclusions the commenter has.

Evolution has been proved, to the extent that any scientific theory can be proved, well beyond any reasonable doubt.  Read Jerry A. Coyne’s book “Why Evolution is True” for an outline.  But, some of the evidence that supports evolution include: the fossil record, atavisms, the flaws in our body plan (vestigial organs like the appendix, causes of back-pain, blind spots, hiccups), the patterns we find in biodiversity with respect to geography, none of which are explained by young earth creationism.  

A global flood is completely unsupported by any credible physical evidence.  Since a global flood would presumably leave some traces behind, any story of a global flood is almost certainly false beyond a reasonable doubt.  

As for the fulfilled prophecy, this would be strong evidence in favor of Christianity if the predictions were specific, falsifiable and otherwise inexplicable.  Similarly, if praying to one God versus another God or Gods or not praying at all really did cause significantly better outcomes for patients recovering from heart surgery (beyond that which can be explained by placebo), this would be evidence for the power of prayer.  That said,such studies have been done and they have found that prayers have no effect.  Which I think illustrates the fundamental difference between free thinkers such as myself and believers, I accept facts like these and try to modify my beliefs accordingly.  The religious hem and haw, engage in apologetics and generally just stick their head in the sand and drag their feet.  

As for Biblical prophecy, Jim Lippard gives a good explanation as to why some atheists, myself included, find the fulfillment of Biblical prophecy to be so un-compelling.

Will is correct though.   The presence of other religions of the world does not imply Christianity is false.  However, these religions make contradictory claims so they all can’t be true.  Thus, the inescapable conclusion is that a good portion of the people on the planet must be deluded when it comes to their religious beliefs.  The question is: what evidence do you have to show that you are not one of the deluded ones?

Some evidence that you might want to consider on answering the question to whether or not you are deluded is if you are rejecting the conclusions of people who clearly are more expert that yourself in demonstrable areas.  Science has proven itself to be objective leader in improving our understanding about the universe we inhabit.  I, quite literally, owe my life to science.  My father had an appendicitis in college which was long before he met my mother.  In earlier generations, such an infection would have been fatal, but thanks to antibiotics and modern medicine he survived.  This ignores all the countless ways science has improved quality of my life, from the food I eat, to the water I drink, to the books I read, to the computer I use, to the car I drive, etc.  As such, I feel no luxury to pick and choose which parts of science I accept and those that I reject when such conclusions are based on the same method and doing so would be based on mere convenience.  Similarly, I wouldn’t feel the luxury to pick and choose which parts of the Bible I would have to follow if I were to believe it was the inspired word of God and Jesus was his only son while simultaneously being God.  So, tell me, do you save?  Do you think about the future?  Do you love your enemies?  If I were to hit you, would you honestly turn the other cheek?  Do you really think it is ethical to live your life by such teachings?   Do you honestly aspire to?

For Will particularly, the IP address he sent this message from was the United States Air Force Academy.  Do you honestly see no incompatibility to the teachings of the savior you proclaim to follow and your actions?  If not, then please tell me, who would Jesus bomb?

In general, I don’t like criticizing other atheists. For example, I am not going to criticize Dan Barker and the Freedom From Religion Foundation for his display at the Washington state Capitol even though I would have added “We believe” as a preface. Nor am I going to criticize the atheist bus campaign of “There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life” although I would personally have preferred “almost certainly” as opposed to “probably.” My attitude is: at least they are doing something.

I understand that atheism constitutes a diverse set of people and views. As such, it is unlikely that one that there will be complete consensus on every issue. For example, I’ve criticized Hitchens for his stance on the Iraq war. I’ve also criticized Shermer for his assertions about free market capitalism. I was disappointed with Harris’ stance on torture.

In some ways this is unfortunate because if Hitchens deserves criticism for his support for the Iraq war, then William Kristol deserves as much if not more. There are many things I deeply respect about Hitchens. I think it was exemplified by his willingness to be water-boarded in order to determine if it were torture. I can only wish Harris had an iota of that integrity. But, I find these issues separate from advocacy for atheism, for which I want to show some degree solidarity even if I might disagree with particular tactics or would do things differently.

That said, I ran across these videos where an atheist was suing for libel over a bumper-sticker and I feel it would be disingenuous not to criticize it. One reason is that it is so beyond the par. The second reason is that it encapsulates the same line of reasoning that I criticize religious people for employing. Therefore, it would show a definite lack of integrity if I was aware of it and didn‘t criticize it.

Here is Patrick Greene explaining his lawsuit on the Atheist Experience.

Threatening baseless lawsuits is a bullying tactic and it is counterproductive. No one has the right not to be offended. We may think less of people who are unnecessarily provocative or offensive (Ann Coulter comes to mind), but the best way to handle it is to ignore them or to criticize them. Show these people that they have no place in civilized discourse until they change their ways. Don’t sue. A baseless suit gives them credibility as a victim and feeds into every negative stereotype one could have about atheists.

As it stands today, atheism only exists as an aspect of a free society. We are wholly dependent on our ability to hold and share views that others find offensive. While I do feel that criticism should be somewhat proportional to the size of a person’s forum, taking legal action is equivalent to using the nuclear option. Suing the state for violating the separation of church and state is one thing; suing individuals for expressing their views on their own property is another. Patrick Greene is a fool for thinking otherwise.

The concern-trolling, many-truths Madeleine Bunting takes another opportunity to complain about those loud and certain new atheists.  Bunting apparently finds them as annoying as the fundamentalists.  

In a way, I wish Bunting were a pastor.  When I went to church growing up, we sang songs about how much Jesus loved us and how one would know it (it’s in the Bible in case you couldn’t guess).  We also sang about Noah’s flood during Bible camp.  Now, I grew up in Western Michigan, which is conservative but I didn’t consider the church radical.  We were Methodists afterall.  It is odd that no one mentioned the fact that there is actually no evidence for Noah’s flood or that rainbows are caused by white light separating out into different wave lengths.  It is one thing to say that Noah’s flood should be given the same status as Santa Claus from the luxury of an ivory tower, but doubting the supposedly divinely inspired word of God when no one in your culture does  is another.

Case in point, when I was in elementary school I knew the basics of sexual reproduction even if I didn’t know the exact mechanics.  The one thing I did know is that it took a male and a female.  So, we apply this rule and try to make it jive with the creation story of Adam and Eve.  Adam and Eve begat Cain and Abel.  Cain kills Abel.  Now what?  Unbeknownst to me at the time, I had stumbled upon the wife of Cain problem.  I asked my parents and they told me to ask our pastor, which I did.  Now here is a quiz for Ms. Bunting.  Did the pastor tell me a) the story can’t be taken literally or b) there were other people contemporaneous with Cain?  

If Bunting chose option a, she would be wrong.  He told me there were other people that God apparently created.  This should not surprise anyone.  This is how religion behaves.  Sure, the theologian may defend God as a transcendent purpose and a vague intellectual absolute when debating with atheist, but know, in the churches there is no hint, absolutely no indication, that anything you are told shouldn’t be taken as if it were the literal truth especially when a child asks an honest question.  How else could a child interpret it?  Pastors are authority figures.  It would be one thing if peddling nonsense was limited to just adults.  It is quite another thing when children are the explicit targets.

Here is another case study.  At Christmas, one of my nieces exclaimed “Happy Birthday Jesus” which I took the opportunity to correct.  Christmas is not Jesus’ birthday; it is the day we celebrate Jesus’ birth.  I don’t blame my niece for this misunderstanding.  Generally, we celebrate people’s birth on their birthdays.  It is just in this case, we don’t.  In fact, the best evidence in the Bible suggests Jesus was born in the spring, not during the winter solstice.  So, why do we celebrate Jesus. birth during the winter solstice?  This isn’t a question I should have to answer.  It is one that any intellectually honest person in a church should at least mention during Sunday school or at least give some hint of future revelation.  Instead, we see the clergy carefully construct sentences that give no hint of the underlying history which they know or should know.  This is not coincidence, and the reason it will never happen is transparent: it is inconvenient.

It is easier for the church to act as if the creation story, the virgin birth, walking on water, water into wine, Noah’s flood, Jonah’s fish adventure, etc. are true than to defend their obvious nonsense.  Who is to blame when someone calls the church on its misleading duplicity?  According to Blunting, the blame belongs to the new atheists and their certainty.

It is telling that Blunting is never specific about what the new atheists are so certain about.  Dawkins rates the probability of their being a theistic god at approximately the same probability there are fairies under the garden.  From the evidence I’ve seen, I concur with that assessment.  Now, I am willing to change my mind if compelling evidence to contrary appears.  Dawkins has previously stated his commitment to do the same.  But given the claims are so extraordinary, it would require evidence many times greater than that for evolution, as an example.

For my part, the chain of coincidences would have to be so great it would be more likely that I had gone insane than the existence of Jehovah been proved, that is how deep the gulf that runs between my conception of what a universe would look like if Jehovah actually exists and the one I perceive myself as inhabiting.  It is would also be more probable that I were experiencing an atheistic universe inside a theistic one.  Such notions are a foundation of solipsism, where observable reality plays no role in informing our opinion about the universe we inhabit.  There is nothing we can do to disprove solipsism’s radical skepticism, maybe Blunting is looks forward to the day of when we can get rid of the new atheist’s demands for objective evidence and therefore pontificate indefinitely on various aspects of imagined realities without any hope of resolution.  I have no doubt it is easier for the intellectually lazy to be coddled in unassailable ignorance, but a minority of us see a real virtue in trying to view the world as it really is.

In the same theme, Bart Ehrman takes the opportunity to bash the “new atheists” also

Ehrman – who grew up casually Episcopalian, became a fundamentalist in high school, had his faith eroded by decades of studying the Bible’s textual history and now calls himself a “happy agnostic“– seems to be riding the same anti-religion wave that has swept Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens onto the best-seller list and late-night talk shows. But he says that while they share some readers, he tries to distance himself from the so-called new atheists.

“They seem to understand so little about religion,” he told me in a telephone interview. “If somebody attacked science with as little knowledge, they’d be laughed off the map.”

First of all, people attack the theory of evolution and therefore science (because it was discovered using the same method) with considerably less knowledge than any of the “new atheists” mentioned have towards religion. Far from being laughed off the map, it seems to be a prerequisite to getting one elected to the Texas Board of Education, a large state with a correspondingly large biology textbook market where standards they adopt become the de facto standards for many other states. This is a real struggle that has real implications for what children are taught in the biology classroom.

Either Ehrman is saying that the “new atheists” are more ignorant about religion than creationists who attack evolution (keep in mind, Kirk Cameron thinks you should be able to find a chimeran “crocaduck ” because birds and reptiles share a common ancestor and that banana’s are an atheist worst nightmare in spite of hundreds of years of cultivation and selective breeding) or we don’t laugh people off the map according to the criteria Ehrman supposes.

I can’t say that I’m that surprised this is how certain segments of the media portray the “new atheists,” the people with the sheer audacity to challenge establishment views and institutions with clarity and honesty. The central problem religion posses is that we leave our collective moral authority to the prejudices of illiterate goat herders. No matter how benign religion may become, the danger still lurks. All it takes is one charismatic person to look at the text and say, “we have been doing this all wrong, look at what it says right here.” Such people are impossible to deal with on a religious level, because once you accept the fact that the Bible is the infallible, or at least inspired, word of God all else follows. The only way to refute it is to reject the premise. This is something, by definition, a religious believer refuses to do.   Avoiding religious radicalism in the future means fostering secularism today. This is something that all the “new atheists” seem to understand, although apparently lost on Bunting and Ehrman.

One of the themes of “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed” was that there was a dogmatic rejection of Intelligent Design in academia.  There is, in fact, no dogmatic rejection of Intelligent Design on the part of academia.  An acceptance of Intelligent Design as an intelligible explanation for aspects of nature would signal that we had entered into a new dark age.  The most succinct reason Intelligent Design isn’t a good scientific theory is because it doesn’t explain anything.  It is consistent with any and all facts we could discover about the universe including incorrect ones.  We find a natural explanation for the bacterial flagellum, the designer moves on to explain some new mystery.  Intelligent Design is no more than dressed up ignorance and no better than saying “I don’t see how this could have come about naturally, so let’s say Fred did it.”  

Sure, animals look like they have been designed, in the same way the Sun looks like it goes around the Earth.  Darwin explained how we got it backwards.  Animals adapt to their environment through a combination of mutation, inherited traits, differential survival and reproduction.  Darwin presented a substantial amount of evidence to support this view.  Since his time, every piece of credible evidence we have found has supported the general framework he proposed making it one of the best supported scientific theories in history. 

When people say they don’t feel secure about questioning evolution in academia, I say good.  It means reason is still prevailing.  If you choose to question evolution, you better have something more than your ignorance, because if that is all you bring to the table, you have just proven, beyond any shadow of a doubt, your incompetence.

Just like we wouldn’t want a detective who would throw up his hands at every mystery and declare a ghost must have done it, we don’t want to institutionalize ignorance with Intelligent Design.  Making the best decisions possible is contingent on having an accurate view of reality.  Science has proven itself to be the unmatched leader in enhancing our understanding of nature.  It is unfortunate consequence of our limited capacities that scientific knowledge has become so vast that it requires specialization to continue to make rapid progress.  Still, it is criminal to deny children a broad, basic and accurate understanding of what scientists have discovered even if we can‘t present every last detail.  

So, no, it isn’t dogmatic.  It is having standards.  Evolution meets a incredibly high standard for evidentiary support.  The reason why Intelligent Design can’t compete with evolution isn’t because of bias or discrimination, it is because it is remarkably inferior and if you can’t understand that then you have no business in the education system.

Crooks and Liars has Jim Cramer’s appearance on the Daily Show.  There was definitely a moment of who-are-going-to-believe as Cramer tries to ignore the fact that Stewart has just played a tape where Cramer admitted that he manipulated the market and following it up with example on how to start a rumor and short Apple’s stock.   

Cramer was all over the map, advocating criminal indictments, kangaroo courts, and positing his street-cred as an Obama voter.  To me, he never seemed to answer the fundamental question: what does he see as CNBC’s role as an institution?  Cramer, lamely, kept admitting that CNBC needed to do better without ever striking at the heart of the issue.  

The focal point of Stewart’s criticism was how CNBC pushes itself as a reliable get-rich-quick network.  When Santelli complains about bailing out loser’s mortgages, he fails to mention that no home owner is leveraged 30 to 1, unlike many investment banks that we are now pumping money into.  The unbelievable sense of entitlement that the executives of bailed out firms demonstrate when simultaneously asking the government for money while threatening dire consequences if their demands aren’t met shows the accountability free and disconnected nature of the Wall Street aristocracy.  Stewart likens it to Sherman’s march to the sea; it is more like Nero fiddling as Rome burns.

The problem is that CNBC could have been the early warning system to let the public know something was going wrong.  Instead, CNBC cheered on Wall Street, and why not?  Everyone was making money at least on paper.  In reality, executives walked away with the real cash for illusory short-term gains and people who entrusted their savings in the market are left holding the long-term losses.

Michael Parenti has an article called “Capitalism’s Self-inflicted Apocalypse.”  While, it might be a tad over-the-top.  The real economy is based on work, not gambling.  Until we get back to that foundation, and limit the tax that these middle-men can place on the productive economy by their arbitrary and obviously undeserved control of capital, disasters like the ones we are experiencing aren’t unexpected, they are inevitable.

The Washington Post has an article on students from Liberty University taking a trip to the Smithsonian Natural History Museum, presumably as a test of their religious indoctrination. Yes, they could claim that it is, I, who is indoctrinated with “Darwinism.” But, see, there is this little thing that I like to call reality. Evolution is true for the same reason the theory of gravity is true, they were arrived at by the same method. Believing in creationism requires a complete distortion of cosmology, astronomy, biology, geology, physics, along with countless other scientific fields. Steve Hendrix, the author of the piece, calls this “challenging the conventional wisdom.” I call it being in denial.

It seems to pass Hendrix without additional mention that at one moment DeWitt bemoans that some of material in the museum was out-of-date, pointing to a 1980’s-era introductory video, while one of his students is taken aback at Grandma Morgie.

Now, I’ve been to the Smithsonian Natural History Museum recently. The morganucodon is at the end of the exhibit on the dinosaurs. The overall point, which seems to have been entirely missed by this student, is that the dinosaurs go extinct, and when they do, mammals, like us, take their place.

This is not a trivial point. Evolution says that you share a common ancestor with all other forms of life on this planet. Yes, there is a common ancestor between us and chimpanzees, which usually draws the most attention. But, there is also a common ancestors between us and dogs, dinosaurs, fish etc. Richard Dawkins wrote a book examining our connections with this “Tree of Life” in The Ancestor’s Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Life. Neil Shubin wrote more specifically about our fish ancestors in Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body.

Somehow, I don’t feel the education of these students is lacking because they don’t have access to the latest information. Instead, it seems that they have no mastery over the basics.

I could be extrapolating too much, but the course is titled “Advanced Creation Studies” so it is more likely that this is just the tip of iceberg on nonsense that would spew forth from the mouths of these students upon a little more prodding. In the end, it is just a travesty that Liberty University is an accredited institution.

Christopher Hitchens has a piece in Slate called “Don’t Say a Word” which raises concerns about a non-binding U.N. resolution on “Combating defamation of religions.” Non-binding U.N. resolutions are pretty ineffectual. They are more or less a litmus test for general attitudes in the world and high-minded platitudes. Now a particular irony comes from the fact that this particular resolution appears to come out of Commission for Human Rights. As Hitchens points out, many member states do not have spectacular Human Rights records.

Whether Hitchens falls into the camp of “Islamophobia” as he calls it, I’ll leave up to the reader. However, I will note that he is an unapologetic defender of the invasion of Iraq.  I will also note that there was a good deal of violence directed towards Muslims in the aftermath of 9/11. That isn’t to say that there is any type of moral equivalence, but just as it was wrong for hijackers to kill scores of innocent people, the same principle applies to the innocent victims of assaults and beatings because they happened to share the same faith as those who attacked the US. I feel the non-binding resolution tries to address the second problem while acknowledging the first.  Hitchens makes no mention of the violence directed at Muslims in the wake of 9/11.

As for gagging of criticism of Islam, Hitchens establishes some credentials as a wing-nut. However, there is this absurd notion that religious convictions should be free from criticism. This is not unique to Islam, since many Western countries promote the same idea. The basic premise is that all people should have the right to have a set of beliefs which are free from criticism. These beliefs are generally religious. Now, the reason why people want a set of beliefs free from criticism is obvious, there are beliefs that people would like to hold but cannot be defended.

America has already gone down this road to a certain extent, as it is considered rude to bring up religious or political topics in polite company (taboos on politics is a particularly baffling aspect of the culture since the United States is a participatory democracy, that is, public opinion is supposed to matter). Although, the country is so doctrinally Christian at this point, not being able to criticize those other false religions, especially the scourge of secularism or Islam, is unlikely to go over too well. Hence, the extraordinary indignation over this essentially meaningless resolution.  It is this same demographic that generally wants the United States out of the United Nations. This resolution just adds fuel to the fire.

Now, it may seem strange that we have an atheist and Christians banding together to promote scares about secret Muslim plots to take away treasured American freedoms.  However, the Hitchens/Christian alliance against Islam is not unprecedented because we see similar tag-teams surrounding the implausibility of Scientology.

Rampant paranoia aside, the wrong-headedness of this resolution is laid on the foundation that there should be beliefs free from criticism. The premise of the U.N. resolution is shut up and get along, which is the antithesis of freedom. Free societies are not utopias. There will always be tensions between conflicting ideas. There will always be those who are intentionally provocative or offensive. The individual human freedom that we are defending is precisely the freedom of those who annoy us most. Otherwise, we don’t have freedom; we have tyranny.

The growing consensus seems to be that banks will be nationalized. The case for nationalizing banks is pretty much a done deal as far as economists are concerned.  Krugman lays out the case fairly well.  I hate the term “stockholders” in this context, because it isn’t really stockholders that are the problem, at least directly.  The problem is with the executives of the banking companies and the ridiculous moral hazard they are faced with.  Society has an incentive to keep these financial institutions afloat.  The executives have an incentive to run the businesses into the ground precisely because they know society will not allow these institutions to fail.  

Why not pay exorbitant bonuses to yourself as your company is losing money hand-over-fist?  Might as well do it now while you still can.  It is precisely this perverse incentive for those who actually run the company that necessitates a government intervention, especially if the institution is FDIC insured.

As such, it is an illusion to say stockholders control a company.  I’m a stockholder and in many cases the ownership is indirect through mutual funds.  It is a complete illusion to say I exercise any power in the corporations in which I own a stake.  Myself and stockholders like me theoretically have power but it is too dilute.  Locking me out from benefits of a bailout is nothing compared to the executives.  However, saying so requires an admission that there is a corporate master class, and such an admission is not considered polite when you are an academic talking to the proles in the New York Times.

Regardless, the nationalization that is proposed is always temporary.  Why?  I’m not saying that re-privatization is not a good idea, but I want someone to explain it to me.  And one key point I would like to see addressed is explaining how re-privatizing banks would ensure a crisis like this won’t happen again, because, to me, this current crisis seems to be a direct result of a private profit motive combined with successful lobbying.  

It is particularly galling because the alternative is so obvious.  Why not keep the banks nationalized and centralize them?  Why not lock out the for-profit motive of lending entirely?  The Federal Reserve system already effectively sets interest rates, why not just take it one step further and provide financial services directly to citizens and businesses in the form of a national bank. Citizens could deposit and obtain loans from this bank.  We could get rid of FDIC.  If people wanted to risk putting their money in private banks, fine.  But, if it goes under, the government is not going to come and bail you out.  I even imagine there are some economies of scale with such an approach, in that it may be more efficient than the current banking system.  It would also reduce the need for regulatory oversight of private banks.  At the very least, there wouldn’t be “stockholders” to screw things up.