Monday, April 30, 2007

Christian Thinking and the Development of PC

Political correctness now infects all aspects of western society. From the corporate world to education to politics. A good essay on how Christian thought may have provoked this evil:

A Christian Background for Political Correctness?

  • "As a non-Christian, I have been complimenting Christianity for contributing immensely to many of the positive aspects of our culture. But precisely because Christianity has so profoundly shaped our culture, isn’t it plausible that it may also, at least indirectly, have contributed to some of the flaws that currently ail us as well?".....................
  • "One major component of Western self-loathing is the idea that we should we be punished for crimes, perceived or real, committed by our ancestors before we were even born. It could be argued that this idea has its roots in Christian thinking, in the concept of original sin, committed by Adam and Eve, but where all their descendants are subject to its effects. Christian ethics have proved more durable than Christian beliefs. Even when we have supposedly left the religion behind, we still believe we have to make atonement for the sins of our forefathers, but since we no longer believe that Christ has made that sacrifice for us and washed away our sins, we end up sacrificing ourselves instead."
The bolded statement has been a catastrophe both for the perceived criminal and victim. The offender lives in world begging for constant forgiveness, the so-called victim gets to live a world of where modern realities can be traced backed to some original sin.

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

The Adolescent Society

The American Thinker has a good article on the ever expanding age of adolescence. The new 18 is now 22, the new 25 is now 30 etc. It touches upon the recent shootings at Virginia Tech which is a bit of a stretch, but it does examine a notion I've been observing in my place of employment, an institution of higher education. The modern American university is not a place that instills values, nor makes demands on the development of intellect. It has become a place of extended adolescence, i.e. high school without the parents. It is place where young people explore new vices, not a place that demands the development of a mature individual.

Monday, April 23, 2007

The Bio-friendly Universe

The Bio-friendly Universe

An interesting take by Paul Davies of Arizona State University.

"Once you’ve got that linkage, you have the basis for the universe being able to engineer its own bio-friendliness through this sort of quantum feedback."

But why does the universe engineer its own bio-friendliness?

"Some people have suggested that. They have suggested that cosmic bio-friendliess is precisely due to some super-intelligence that went back in time and fixed up their own power, or something like that. Or that a super-intelligence in another universe created this universe with bio-friendly parameters. All of those things have been tried – all wildly conjectural, of course. But what I find lacking in all of those theories, including the more conventional intelligent-design argument, is that they appeal to something outside the universe that has to be accepted as given and cannot be proved. I’d like to try to explain as much of the universe, including its bio-friendly laws of physics, from within the universe – and in a way that doesn’t appeal to something outside of it."

Paul Davies is of the mindset that is biased against ID because it invokes a higher power. This is a flaw in logic as nothing in the scientific method demands that we as scientists must discount such possibility. The modern scientific mind is replete with such notions.

Friday, April 06, 2007

David Instone-Brewer on Rudy Giuliani

David Instone-Brewer discusses Rudy Giuliani's multiple marriages and "any cause" divorces on OpinionJournal.com. He equates "any cause" divorce with the modern "no-fault" one.

"There is now a growing scholarly consensus among evangelicals on this issue. Even evangelical professors like Craig Keener of Duke University and William Heth at Taylor University, who have each previously published books with more traditional interpretations, now teach differently. Drawing on my own work, "Divorce and Remarriage in the Bible" (Eerdmans, 2002), they conclude that Jesus and Paul would have rejected no-fault divorce and that they would have permitted a wronged partner to initiate a divorce based on the Old Testament grounds of adultery or neglect."

Instone-Brewer thinks that Evangelicals will eventually reject Giuliani as a presidential candidate when reasons for his dissolved marriages become clear:

"And political candidates like Mr. Giuliani, whose philandering apparently helped lead to both of his divorces, may fall out of favor with this pool of voters."