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Pious cheats 1
In these two stories Christians reveal their faith to be a fraud.
I was saved from sin when I was going on thirteen. But not really saved. It happened like this. There was a big revival at my Auntie Reed's church. Every night for weeks there had been much preaching, singing, praying, and shouting, and some very hardened sinners had been brought to Christ, and the membership of the church had grown by leaps and bounds. Then just before the revival ended, they held a special meeting for children, "to bring the young lambs to the fold." My aunt spoke of it for days ahead. That night I was escorted to the front row and placed on the mourners' bench with all the other young sinners, who had not yet been brought to Jesus.
My aunt told me that when you were saved you saw a light, and something happened to you inside! And Jesus came into your life! And God was with you from then on! She said you could see and hear and feel Jesus in your soul. I believed her. I had heard a great many old people say the same thing and it seemed to me they ought to know. So I sat there calmly in the hot, crowded church, waiting for Jesus to come to me.
The preacher preached a wonderful rhythmical sermon, all moans and shouts and lonely cries and dire pictures of hell, and then he sang a song about the ninety and nine safe in the fold, but one little lamb was left out in the cold. Then he said: "Won't you come? Won't you come to Jesus? Young lambs, won't you come?" And he held out his arms to all us young sinners there on the mourners' bench. And the little girls cried. And some of them jumped up and went to Jesus right away. But most of us just sat there.
A great many old people came and knelt around us and prayed, old women with jet-black faces and braided hair, old men with work-gnarled hands. And the church sang a song about the lower lights are burning, some poor sinners to be saved. And the whole building rocked with prayer and song.
Still I kept waiting to see Jesus.
Finally all the young people had gone to the altar and were saved, but one boy and me. He was a rounder's son named Westley. Westley and I were surrounded by sisters and deacons praying. It was very hot in the church, and getting late now. Finally Westley said to me in a whisper: "God damn! I'm tired o' sitting here. Let's get up and be saved." So he got up and was saved.
Then I was left all alone on the mourners' bench. My aunt came and knelt at my knees and cried, while prayers and song swirled all around me in the little church. The whole congregation prayed for me alone, in a mighty wail of moans and voices. And I kept waiting serenely for Jesus, waiting, waiting – but he didn't come. I wanted to see him, but nothing happened to me. Nothing! I wanted something to happen to me, but nothing happened.
I heard the songs and the minister saying: "Why don't you come? My dear child, why don't you come to Jesus? Jesus is waiting for you. He wants you. Why don't you come? Sister Reed, what is this child's name?"
"Langston," my aunt sobbed.
"Langston, why don't you come? Why don't you come and be saved? Oh, Lamb of God! Why don't you come?"
Now it was really getting late. I began to be ashamed of myself, holding everything up so long. I began to wonder what God thought about Westley, who certainly hadn't seen Jesus either, but who was now sitting proudly on the platform, swinging his knickerbockered legs and grinning down at me, surrounded by deacons and old women on their knees praying. God had not struck Westley dead for taking his name in vain or for lying in the temple. So I decided that maybe to save further trouble, I'd better lie, too, and say that Jesus had come, and get up and be saved.
So I got up.
Suddenly the whole room broke into a sea of shouting, as they saw me rise. Waves of rejoicing swept the place. Women leaped in the air. My aunt threw her arms around me. The minister took me by the hand and led me to the platform.
When things quieted down, in a hushed silence, punctuated by a few ecstatic "Amens," all the new young lambs were blessed in the name of God. Then joyous singing filled the room.
That night, for the first time in my life but one for I was a big boy twelve years old – I cried. I cried, in bed alone, and couldn't stop. I buried my head under the quilts, but my aunt heard me. She woke up and told my uncle I was crying because the Holy Ghost had come into my life, and because I had seen Jesus. But I was really crying because I couldn't bear to tell her that I had lied, that I had deceived everybody in the church, that I hadn't seen Jesus, and that now I didn't believe there was a Jesus anymore, since he didn't come to help me.
In Memoriam Antony Flew
by Jillian Becker
(In part adapted from an earlier TAC post, In Memoriam: Antony Flew Philosopher of Atheism, April 18, 2010)
Antony Flew, the philosopher, atheist, and defender of freedom, died on April 8, 2010.
Obituaries on both sides of the Atlantic said that Antony Flew was the world's most famous atheist, and that he suddenly changed his mind and declared that God exists after all.
It is true that he did say this. But he never said it when he was in his right mind. And the reasoning by which he arrived at his certainty that God does not exist was never cancelled or reversed by the sloppy arguments of his senility.
Of his many books, the one that matters most for his reputation as an atheist is God & Philosophy. It was first published in 1966. Later editions appeared at intervals, the last in 2005. To judge by the new introduction he wrote, he was as sure of his atheism then as he had been in 1966.
In 2007 a new book appeared under his name titled There is a God. The subtitle crows: How the world's most notorious [sic] atheist changed his mind. The authorship is ascribed to Antony Flew "with Roy Abraham Varghese". But no one who has read God & Philosophy with attention could possible believe that There is a God was a product of the same intelligence. Either the powers of Antony Flew had faded away, or some other mind engendered this work. In fact, both those things happened. It has emerged that he did not write it. He had spoken, and other hands had written. He could not even remember what was in it. And of that failure of memory and general weakening of his mental faculties, the actual writers had taken advantage.
The actual authors of There is a God are Roy Abraham Varghese who is known for his work on "the interface between science and religion", and Pastor Bob Hostetler – two people with a big blunt axe to grind. They were desperate to find a way to prove that "God" exists. So these these two mountebanks of religion, Varghese and Hostetler, pplotted a devilish scheme. They would exploit an old philosopher afflicted with Alzheimer's disease.
Dr Richard Carrier tried to ascertain from Professor Flew himself whether he had really "found God". Carrier's detailed account (no longer to be found on the internet – we wonder why) of how Flew claimed he was, but then again was not, converted to belief in a creator-God when certain scientific facts were brought to his attention, makes the whole sorry story plain. Carrier records that the philosopher admitted to finding the subject "too hard" to deal with; that he failed to remember anything about There is a God; that he repeatedly contradicted himself. He tells us about the bewildered old man being awarded a prize by an Evangelical Christian University. (The Phillip E. Johnson Award for Liberty and Truth, bestowed on him by the university of Biola at la Mirada, California – a nest of evangelicals, dedicated to proselytizing their faith.)
The prodigal son returned! Much rejoicing in Christian circles. As if the willingness of a senile man to concede – on and off – the existence of a creator-God, were all the proof they needed to shout in the face of atheists and skeptics: "There, you see? If even he can see it now, you should not have the hubris to think you know better and continue to deny it!"
Carrier writes: "It is certainly possible that Flew looked at ten drafts [of There is a God]. I see no reason to believe Flew was able to understand or even recall what he read." Flew admitted to having "a nominal aphasia". But it was more than "nominal". "Flew could not even recall the arguments of the book , not just who made them or what his sources were."
Carrier found that whenever Professor Flew himself stated his position, it was always to reaffirm his atheism. Statements to the contrary were never made by him directly, though one at least, firmly insistent that he really had changed his mind, was put out by the publisheron his behalf.
I know that at times he did think he had changed his mind. I saw him soon after the book appeared and asked him was it true he now believed in God.
"Yes," he replied, "but not the Monster".
I understood of course what he meant by "the Monster". He had rejected the Christian God while still in his teens because he could not reconcile the evil in the world and hell after it with a beneficent deity. Such a deity could only be a Monster. His father, a Methodist minister, was distressed by young Antony's rejection of his faith, but Antony said, as he was to repeat throughout his life, that he had to go "where the evidence leads". Now he told me, only the existence of "an intelligence" can explain the nature of the universe. This intelligence, this non-monstrous god, made the laws of nature and then had nothing more to do with his creation – the theological position known as deism.
In God & Philosophy, there is a section on "Order and Design", in which the author asks the question: "Does order in nature itself presuppose an Orderer?" Elegantly and fully he reasons over a few pages that it does not. (This is not the place to quote his reasons, but I hope to whet some appetites for seeking them in the book.) "So we conclude that order in the universe by itself provides no warrant whatsoever for trying to identify an Orderer."
The meticulous arguments are abandoned as though they had never been made, in the later book falsely published as written by him, There is a God. The reason given there for belief in a creator God, is that the author has learnt about DNA, about its "enormous complexity", and sees that there must have been an Orderer who made the universe! He also sets out the "fine-tuning" argument.
Both the arguments, from "irreducible complexity" and "fine-tuning" have been thoroughly refuted.
Then there is the "Stratonician presumption", as Flew himself named it after the Greek philosopher Strato of Lampsacus, the third head of Aristotle's Lyceum, who formulated it. The presumption is that in explaining the world you can do without entities that are not necessary for the completeness of the explanation. In God & Philosophy, Antony Flew does not find it necessary to call in God or gods.
But suddenly, in There is a God, such a supernatural being becomes essential to explain the world's existence.
From Antony's point of view these pressing believers had not done him a disservice. He told me that there was to be a TV documentary about him and his conversion. He was innocently surprised at the attention he was getting, and the unexpected windfall it brought with it. He was paid what seemed to him a very large sum of money. He had never been a rich man, and he was happy for his wife and daughters that they would have this fund at their disposal.
So there's the picture. A pair (or more?) of American Christian Evangelicals (aided and abetted by a Jewish theologian and physicist, Gerald Schroeder) had worked on him rather than with him, when he had become mentally frail, to produce this cancellation of a lifetime's thought. In his dotage, these Evangelicals battened on to him, dazzled him with science that was utterly new to him – the big bang, DNA – and rewarded him like a Pavlov's dog when he gave the response their spin elicited. He was subjected to intellectual seduction, much as Bertrand Russell was by Communists in his senile years.
What seems to me intolerably sad and wrong is that the reputation Antony Flew ought to have, as an atheist philosopher who brilliantly defended atheism throughout his long and distinguished professional life, is now to be replaced by a phony story that he who had been a convinced atheist changed his mind. Is the man who defended atheism better than anyone since David Hume, to be remembered as a deist?
Is this to be allowed to happen – that he be remembered as a man who saw the error of his atheist ways and became persuaded that there was a God – simply because he suffered a softening of the brain in his last years? The truth is that the Antony Flew who conceded the existence of a "creator-intelligence" was not "the Flew" – as he liked to allude to himself – that he had been at the peak of his powers. His faculties were deteriorating, his memory came and went unreliably, he was confused, bewildered and – because he was in a state of decline – taken advantage of.
His handwriting became shakier. He put letters to other people in envelopes that he addressed to me. (They probably got the letters I was supposed to receive.) When I sent him the print-out of an article I had written deploring the Islamization of Britain, he sent it back to me a few weeks later as an article of his own that he would like me to comment on. When he was to meet me and a few colleagues at a certain old London club which he must have visited dozens or even hundreds of times, he couldn't find it. A search party rescued him and brought him to the meeting. He had become unsure of himself. He did not always remember, or possibly even grasp, points put to him in a discussion.
But what an enthusiast he forever was for ideas! His face would light up, his voice grow urgent with excitement. A passionate intellectual who was always gentle, always courteous even in the heat of argument, Antony Flew was the epitome of a reasonable man. Or I should say that is what he had been, and that is the way he should be remembered, this great philosopher and atheist. Even those who disagree with his atheism must surely acknowledge in the name of justice and decency that his achievements, not his late and lamentable capitulations which seemed to cancel them, should be what he is remembered for.
One thing stands out from the sorry story of his exploitation. If those God-believers had to go to those unscrupulous lengths to prove there is a God, it couldn't be more plain that they have no proof.
What those desperate con-men did to Antony Flew, the great philosopher of atheism, proves the opposite. They just don't have the intellectual honesty, or perhaps even the intellectual capacity, to face the meaning of their fraud. With their cruel ruse they may have bluffed others, but only at the cost of bluffing themselves.
Deep in their consciousness, they know there is no God.
They have proved it.
Posted under Articles, Atheism, Christianity, Commentary, Ethics, Philosophy, Religion general, Superstition by Jillian Becker on Tuesday, April 30, 2013
Tagged with Antony Flew, Antony Flew atheist, Gerald Schroeder, Langston Hughes, Pastor Bob Hostetler, religious con-men, Roy Abraham Varghese, The exploitation of Antony Flew when he had Alzheimer's
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Is democracy done for? 5
The classicist Donald Kagan has given his last lecture at Yale, leaving it now in the hands of the pirates of education – the Left.
These are extracts from an article titled "Democracy May Have Had Its Day" by Matthew Kaminski in the Wall Street Journal:
Universities, he proposed, are failing students and hurting American democracy. …
On campus, he said, "I find a kind of cultural void, an ignorance of the past, a sense of rootlessness and aimlessness."
Rare are "faculty with atypical views," he charged. "Still rarer is an informed understanding of the traditions and institutions of our Western civilization and of our country and an appreciation of their special qualities and values." He counseled schools to adopt "a common core of studies" in the history, literature and philosophy "of our culture." By "our" he means Western.
This might once have been called incitement. In 1990, as dean of Yale College, Mr. Kagan argued for the centrality of the study of Western civilization in an "infamous" (his phrase) address to incoming freshmen. A storm followed. He was called a racist — or as the campus daily more politely editorialized, a peddler of "European cultural arrogance."
Oh for some European cultural arrogance!
Not so now. Mr. Kagan received a long standing ovation from students and alumni in the packed auditorium. Heading into retirement, he has been feted as a beloved and popular teacher and Yale icon. The PC wars of the 1990s feel dated. Maybe, as one undergrad told me after the lecture, "the pendulum has started to swing back" toward traditional values in education.
Has it? Is political correctness outdated? Or becoming outdated? Isn't that too good to be true?
Mr. Kagan offers another explanation [to the author of the article, in an interview]….
Actually, he's Dr. Kagan. Or Professor Kagan (since we don't do as the Germans do and string the titles together to make "Professor Dr."). But for all we know Donald Kagan prefers the Mr.
"You can't have a fight," he says … "because you don't have two sides. The other side won."
He means across academia, but that is also true in his case. Mr. Kagan resigned the deanship in April 1992, lobbing a parting bomb at the faculty that bucked his administration. His plans to create a special Western Civilization course at Yale — funded with a $20 million gift from philanthropist and Yale alum Lee Bass, who was inspired by the 1990 lecture — blew up three years later amid a political backlash. "I still cry when I think about it," says Mr. Kagan.
As he looks at his Yale colleagues today, he says, "you can't find members of the faculty who have different opinions." I point at him. "Not anymore!" he says and laughs. …
Democracy, wrote Mr. Kagan in "Pericles of Athens" (1991), is "one of the rarest, most delicate and fragile flowers in the jungle of human experience." It relies on "free, autonomous and self-reliant" citizens and "extraordinary leadership" to flourish, even survive. These kinds of citizens aren't born—they need to be educated. …
"Meaningful freedom means that you have choices to make," Mr. Kagan says. "At the university, there must be intellectual variety. If you don't have that, it's not only that you are deprived of knowing some of the things you might know. It's that you are deprived of testing the things that you do know or do think you know or believe in, so that your knowledge is superficial."
As dean, Mr. Kagan championed hard sciences, rigorous hiring standards for faculty, and the protection of free speech. Those who see liberal education in crisis return to those ideas. "Crisis suggests it might recover," Mr. Kagan shoots back. "Maybe it's had its day. Democracy may have had its day. Concerns about the decline of liberty in our whole polity is what threatens all of the aspects of it, including democracy."
Taking a grim view of the Periclean era in Athens, Plato and Aristotle believed that democracy inevitably led to tyranny. The Founding Fathers took on their criticism and strove to balance liberty with equality under the law. Mr. Kagan, who grew up a Truman Democrat, says that when he was young the U.S. needed to redress an imbalance by emphasizing equality. The elite universities after the war opened to minorities and women, not to mention Brooklyn College grads like himself—then "it was all about merit," he says.
The 1960s brought a shift and marked his own political awakening. Teaching at Cornell, Mr. Kagan watched armed black students occupy a university building in 1969. The administration caved to their demands without asking them to give up their rifles and bandoliers. He joined Allan Bloom and other colleagues in protest. In the fall of that year, he moved to Yale. Bloom ended up at the University of Chicago and in 1987 published "The Closing of the American Mind," his best-selling attack on the shortcomings of higher education.
In the decades since, faculties have gained "extraordinary authority" over universities, Mr. Kagan says. The changes in the universities were mirrored in the society at large. "The tendency in this century and in the previous century at least has been toward equality of result and every other kind of equality that could be claimed without much regard for liberty," he says. "Right now the menace is certainly to liberty."
Yes, and it is impossible to have equality of result and liberty at the same time. In other words, it is impossible to have socialism and liberty. One or the other is the choice.
His lifelong passion is Thucydides and the Peloponnesian War — the epic clash between those former allies, militaristic Sparta and democratic Athens … As Thucydides wrote, people go to war out of "honor, fear and interest." War, he also said, "is a violent teacher." Another enduring lesson from him, says Mr. Kagan, is "that you can expect people, whatever they may be, to seek to maximize their power" — then a slight pause — "unless they're Europeans and have checked their brains at the door, so mortified are they, understandably, by what happened to them in the 20th century. They can't be taken seriously."
We would say "morbid" rather than "mortified" because of what they did to themselves in the 20th century. It's a long slow suicide, but few Europeans heard in the public arena seem to realize it.
These days the burden of seriousness among free states falls on America, a fickle and unusual power. The Romans had no qualms about quashing their enemies, big or small. While the U.S. won two global conflicts and imposed and protected the current global order, the recent record shows failed or inconclusive engagements in the Middle East and Afghanistan.
Some would argue that free societies are too soft to fight brutal wars too long. Mr. Kagan offers culture and political leadership as an explanation. "We're a certain kind of culture which makes it hard for us to behave rationally when the rational thing is to be tough," he says. "We can do it when we're scared to death and there seem to be no alternatives. When it's time to nail down something, we very often sneak away."
The protection and distance offered by two oceans gives America the idea — or delusion — of being able to stay out of the world's problems.
Libertarians, please note.
Mr. Kagan also wonders about possible "geocultural" shifts at play. A hundred years ago, most people worked the land for themselves. Today they work for a paycheck, usually in an office. "Fundamentally we are dependent on people who pay our salaries," says Mr. Kagan. "In the liberal era, in our lifetime, we have come more to expect it is the job of the government to provide for the needs that we can't provide. Everything is negotiable. Everything is subject to talk." Maybe that has weakened the American will.
Also don't forget, says Mr. Kagan, "unsubtle Christianity" and its strong strain of pacifism. "Who else has a religion filled with the notion 'turn the other cheek'?" he asks. … "If you're gonna turn the other cheek, go home. Give up the ball."
In 2000, Mr. Kagan and his younger son, Frederick, a military historian and analyst, published "While America Sleeps." The book argued for the reversal of the Clinton Cold War peace dividend to meet unforeseen but inevitable threats to come. The timing was uncanny. A year later, 9/11 forced the Pentagon to rearm.
With the end of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, the U.S. is slashing defense again. "We do it every time," Mr. Kagan says. "Failing to understand the most elementary childish fact, which is: If you don't want trouble with somebody else, be sure he has something to be afraid of." …
His 1995 book, "On the Origins of War," made a moral and strategic case to exert as much effort and money to safeguard peace as to win a war.
Thucydides identified man's potential for folly and greatness. Mr. Kagan these days tends toward the darker view. He sees threats coming from Iran and in Asia, yet no leadership serious about taking them up. The public is too ignorant or irresponsible to care. "When you allow yourself to think of it, you don't know whether you are going to laugh or cry," he says.
The Kagan thesis is bleak but not fatalistic. The fight to shape free citizens in schools, through the media and in the public square goes on. "There is no hope for anything if you don't have a population that buys into a strong and free society," he says. "That can only be taught. It doesn't come in nature."
So does Donald Kagan have hope that "the pendulum is swinging back"? Towards variety of ideas and traditional standards in higher education? Towards liberty and an understanding of the value of liberty? Towards strong democracy?
If so, we wish we could share that hope, but see nothing to encourage it. He has switched off his light at Yale. Is there another?
Posted under Christianity, Commentary, Conservatism, corruption, Defense, education, government, Islam, United States, War by Jillian Becker on Monday, April 29, 2013
Tagged with Allan Bloom, Lee Bass, Matthew Kaminski, Prof. Donald Kagan, The danger in Christian pacifism, The decline of higher education, The decline of liberty, The decline of Western civilization, The decline of Western culture, The end of democracy?, Thucydides, US isolationism not possible
Götterdämmerung: Jehovah, Jesus, Allah 1
We need to engage the argument raised by Mark Tapson in a review article titled Christianity, Islam, Atheism. It is also the title of a book he is reviewing. We have not read the book, and we trust him to be giving a fair representation of what the author says in it. We examine the ideas as Mark Tapson presents them to us:
Now that the Boston bombers have turned out, contrary to the fervent hope of the left, to be not Tea Partiers but Muslims, the media are spinning the terrorists' motive away from jihad and shrugging, helplessly mystified, about the "senseless" attacks. And so our willful blindness about Islam continues. Nearly a dozen years after the 9/11 attacks, too many Americans still cling to militant denial about the clear and present danger of an Islamic fundamentalism surging against an anemic Western culture. What will it take to educate them? And once awakened, what steps can we take to reverse the tide?
The vicious Boston attack makes these questions and William "Kirk" Kilpatrick's new book Christianity, Islam, and Atheism: The Struggle for the Soul of the West all the more timely. [The book is] intended not only as a wake-up call to the West about Islam, but also as a practical guide, especially for Christians, to push back against its spread and to countering Islam's Western apologists.
Christianity, Islam, and Atheism opens with a section titled "The Islamic Threat," in which Kilpatrick describes the rise of supremacist Islam and our correspondingly tepid defense of Western values.
It is true that supremacist Islam is rising, and that the West is defending its values only tepidly.
Our collapse in the face of Islam, he says, is due in large part to our abandonment of Christianity, which has led to "a population vacuum and a spiritual vacuum" that Islam has rushed to fill.
None of that is true. The West has not yet "collapsed in the face of Islam", it has just ceded too much ground. By "population vacuum" we suppose he means the shrinking populations of the European countries, which are importing population (the wrong – Muslim – population) to compensate for a shortage of workers, but whose socialist economies cannot provide enough jobs for the immigrants once they're there.
As for "a spiritual vacuum", it exists only in the eyes of these Christians who notice that once-Christian Europe has become largely non-religious. Europeans who still want to believe in a skylord have not shown a new fascination with Allah; most of them have stuck to Jesus or the Trinity.
It seems that a lot of prisoners convert to Islam. Some say that's because they get better food and other privileges that the European authorities have been intimidated into conceding to Muslims. It may be, of course, that the cruel and blood-thirsty god Allah* exerts an irresistible pull on villainous men, but it's a bit of a stretch to call that "filling a spiritual vacuum".
"A secular society… can't fight a spiritual war," Kilpatrick writes. Contrary to the multiculturalist fantasy dominant in the West today, "cultures aren't the same because religions aren't the same. Some religions are more rational, more compassionate, more forgiving, and more peaceful than others." …
That depends on what historical era you are looking at. Today most Christian sects are usually peaceful. But that hasn't always been the case, and may not be the case in the future.
As for Christianity being more compassionate, sure it is in theory but again has not always been in practice. And whether compassion is as desirable a value as Christianity insists it is, remains philosophically open to question.
The same can be said of forgiveness. In our view forgiveness is not a very good idea. First, it makes no difference to what has been done. Second, and more important, it is contrary to justice.
As for some religions being more rational than others, all religions depend on faith, not reason. It is impossible to argue that one irrationality is superior to another.
Kilpatrick notes that Christians today have lost all cultural confidence and are suffering a "crisis of masculinity," thanks to the feminizing influences of multiculturalism and feminism. He devotes significant space to encouraging Christians to, well, grow a pair, to put it indelicately, in order to confront Islam, the "most hypermasculine religion in history":
"On the one hand, you have a growing population of Muslim believers brimming with masculine self-confidence and assertiveness about their faith, and on the other hand, you have a dwindling population of Christians who are long on nurturance and sensitivity but short on manpower. Who seems more likely to prevail?"
We take his point. We would be happy to see well armed muscular Christian men marching to war – literally, not figuratively – against Islam.
Kilpatrick devotes a chapter to "The Comparison" between Islam and Christianity, in which he points out that Christians who buy into the concept of interfaith unity with Muslims would do well to look more closely at our irreconcilable differences instead of our limited common ground; he demonstrates, for example, that the imitation of Christ and the imitation of Muhammad lead a believer in radically different directions.
Again, not always. Leaving aside the question of whether Christians killing other Christians and non-Christians believed they were acting as their Christ would have acted in the same circumstances, there were centuries during which multitudes of Christians "imitated Christ" by rejecting this world and deliberately seeking hideous martyrdoms. Some still do. As Muslims do.
In "The Culture War and the Terror War" section, Kilpatrick notes that Christianity is on the losing side of the many fronts of our own culture war, and this doesn't bode well for the West's clash with a resurgent Islam. An obsession with the shallow, ephemeral distractions of pop culture isn't helping to shore up our cultural foundations. "Our survival," he writes, "hinges not on generating a succession of momentary sensations, but on finding narratives that tell us who we are, where we have come from, and where we are going":
"Our ability to resist aggression – whether cultural or military – depends on the conviction that we have something worth defending: something that ought to be preserved not only for our own sake but also for the sake of those who attack us."
Yes. But that something doesn't have to be the irrational beliefs and moral sentimentalities of Christianity. It could, for instance, be one's country. And for Americans that could mean the high values that America was founded to embody, above all individual freedom under the law.
In the section "Islam's Enablers," Kilpatrick addresses the multiculturalists, secularists, atheists, and Christian apologists for Islam whose intellectual influences have contributed to the moral decline and Islamization of the West. In a chapter with the great title "Multiculturalists: Why Johnny Can't Read the Writing on the Wall," Kilpatrick comments on the indoctrinating impact of multicultural educators and their whitewashing of Islam and denigration of our own culture:
"[O]ur students would have been better served if they had spent less time studying the Battle of Wounded Knee and more time studying the Battle of Lepanto, less time understanding the beauty of diversity and more time understanding the misery of dhimmitude."
We wholly agree with this statement. We too see multiculturalism as as an evil. We see Christian apologists for Islam as fools. But how are secularists and atheists – as such – contributing to the moral decline of the West? Mark Tapson does not tell us, and we wonder if the book does.
Finally, in "The Cold War with Islam," Kilpatrick is pessimistic of our desire to win the hearts and minds of "moderate Muslims." He examines at length just what that label actually means, and then notes that such a strategy isn't an especially helpful one:
The promotion of the moderate myth is counterproductive because it misleads the West into thinking that its problem is only with a small slice of Islam and because it strengthens the hand of traditional Islam, which is the source of radicalism, not the solution to it.
Again,we secularists-and-atheists agree.
Then comes this:
What are his recommendations for mounting a defense of our values against the aggressive spread of Islamic ones?
Reviving the commitment to our own Judeo-Christian values for starters, and then, "instead of a constant yielding to Islamic sensitivities, it may be time for some containment. Sharia… should not be allowed to spread through Western societies." He touches on immigration, noting that it's a problematic issue but suggesting that it's reasonable to question the motives and agendas of immigrant groups. The message we must send? "Islam will not prevail. The West will not yield. You must accommodate to our values and way of life if you choose to live among us."
As for going on the offensive, "instead of making excuses for Islam… we should be devoting our energies to exposing its hollowness," relentlessly sowing the seeds of doubt among Muslims and encouraging them to abandon the faith.
In all of which we heartily concur except "reviving the commitment to our own Judeo-Christian values". To which we will return.
Finally, there is this:
Taking that to the next level, Kilpatrick urges Christians to undertake the daunting task of mounting a widespread evangelizing of Muslims, luring them to Christianity with the liberating message of the Gospel. He concedes that this is a long-term strategy and we have no time to lose, but "both Islam and the left stand on very shaky ideological ground… Christians should take courage from knowing that in this war of ideas, all the best ideas are on their side."
Yes, Islam and the left do stand on very shaky ideological ground. But so does Christianity. Its theology to start with is so super-absurd that it's a wonder the early Christians managed to sell such a bill of goods even to ignorant slaves and women in the declining years of the Roman Empire.
But what are the moral-philosophical ideas of Christianity? Let's look at a few of them, the ones that contemporary Christians commonly say they hold.
To love all mankind? Impossible. An encouragement to hypocrisy.
Forgiving wrongdoing? Unjust. Kindness to the guilty is cruelty to the righteous.
Loving the sinner while hating the sin? A refusal to hold individuals responsible for their actions.
Acting humble? Self-abasement is an act of pride, not humility. Pride is not bad, but dissimulation is.
Teaching Christian theology and mythology as "the Truth"? Not only wrong but self-defeating, as doctrines were never even settled, disputes over them being the cause of wars and persecution throughout Christian history.
Omitted from the discussion in the review article is the fact that multitudes of Christians are also devout leftists. While it is true that the left is coddling and kow-towing to Islam, it is also true that Christian churches are teaching Marxism, often under the name of "liberation theology".
To speak of a "Judeo-Christian" tradition is to ignore the hideous fact that Christendom has been actively persecuting the Jews from the time its gospels were written. What is meant is that Christianity, after some initial hesitation, accepted part of the Jewish moral code. But citing a "Judeo-Christian tradition" ignores the fact that Christianity was a revolt against Judaism, and owes more to Greek mysticism and cosmogony, Greek other-worldliness, and Greek religious rites – the unrespectable side of classical culture – than it does to Judaism. It also ignores the thousand years of darkness that Christianity brought down on Europe. Europe owed its greatness not to a "Judeo-Christian" tradition, but to the classical enlightenment Christianity eclipsed, and its eventual rebirth.
We too would like the West to be true to the values and practices of its highly evolved civilization, which we would name not as compassion, forgiveness, charity, love, but as freedom, democratically elected government, law and order, tolerance, reason, the pursuit of science, and an endless striving to make human existence happy, long, informed, exploratory, and innovative.
Its passed time that those old bug-a-boo superstitions, shrouded in the cobwebs of the ages, were swept away.
Enough of Jehovah, the sometimes over-vengeful, sometimes just, tribal-chief type of tyrant.
He was dropped by the Christians, though they might pretend that he somehow weakened and mutated into their God the Father or dissolved into the whole of their mystical Greek-style Triune Godhead. As God the Father he's been so inconspicuous as to be best pictured dozing if not comatose these last two thousand years. Enough of him.
Jesus the Christ, whether as plump European baby, or as golden-curled Caucasian male model in a full-length white nightgown, or as a tortured body executed for sedition by the Romans on a wooden cross, or as well-nourished judge seated on a stump with a cloud for a footstool condemning multitudes to Hell, has nothing of interest to offer enquiring minds. Enough of him.
As for Allah with his side-kick Muhammad – the savage bully and his mouthpiece – he could be dispelled with more certainty and speed if the West would give up religion, and all respect for religion as such.
The downfall of the gods began quite some time ago and is overdue. (No nod to Nazism-inspiring Wagner should be inferred.) They – the gods – should all have disappeared in the Enlightenment. But they've been allowed to hang about far too long. Away with them.
Let the West defend itself with confidence in its intellectual, secular-moral, economic, and military superiority; with guns, drones, Specter bombers, and nuclear war capability; with science, technology, intelligence, and the Constitution of the United States; and always above all with unrelenting critical analysis of all ideas.
* Quotation from the linked source: "There are 493 passages that either endorse violence or talk about the hatred of Allah for the infidels, meaning all non-Muslims. The Quran is a book mainly concerned with how Muslims are to think and act towards those outside of Islam; that is, either kill them or force them to live as second-class citizens and pay [special punitive] taxes (Jizya)." It explicitly commands Muslims to "kill the infidel" (eg. Koran 9:5). It prescribes atrocious punishments for such "crimes" as adultery, homosexuality and apostasy. It is a manual of instruction in barbaric aggression.
Posted under Atheism, Christianity, Commentary, Conservatism, Defense, Demography, Ethics, Islam, jihad, Judaism, Philosophy, Progressivism, Religion general, Science, Socialism, United States, US Constitution, War by Jillian Becker on Saturday, April 27, 2013
Tagged with "Judeo-Christian" values, American secular values, Diminishing Western populations, Enlightenment values, Mark Tapson, Muslim immigration into the West, Reason versus faith, Secular Europe, The advance of Islam in the West, The imitation of Christ, The imitation of Muhammad, The irrationality of all religion, The value of patriotism, William Kilpatrick
Bad karma, bad car 0
Posted under Environmentalism, Technology, United States, Videos by Jillian Becker on Friday, April 26, 2013
Tagged with Fisker Automotive, Green cars waste taxpayers' money, green energy, The Karma Sedan
For you but not for me 2
The Democrats in Congress, who finagled the passing of Obama's socialist health care legislation – the Affordable Care Act, laughably so called – don't want the horrid thing to affect themselves adversely. So they are moving to exempt themselves from certain of its provisions.
And the Republicans – who at least opposed its ever becoming law – also fear it applying to them, so they're helping the Democrats achieve the exemption for all Representatives and Senators and their aides.
They all fear being hit by the exorbitant costs of Obamacare.
This is from Politico:
Congressional leaders in both parties are engaged in high-level, confidential talks about exempting lawmakers and Capitol Hill aides from the insurance exchanges they are mandated to join as part of President Barack Obama's health care overhaul, sources in both parties said.
The talks — which involve Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), the Obama administration and other top lawmakers — are extraordinarily sensitive, with both sides acutely aware of the potential for political fallout from giving carve-outs from the hugely controversial law to 535 lawmakers and thousands of their aides. Discussions have stretched out for months, sources said.
A source close to the talks says: "Everyone has to hold hands on this and jump, or nothing is going to get done."
Yet if Capitol Hill leaders move forward with the plan, they risk being dubbed hypocrites by their political rivals and the American public. By removing themselves from a key Obamacare component, lawmakers and aides would be held to a different standard than the people who put them in office.
The poor dears shouldn't fear being called hypocritical. Everyone's always known they're that and worse.
There is concern in some quarters that the provision requiring lawmakers and staffers to join the exchanges, if it isn't revised, could lead to a "brain drain" on Capitol Hill, as several sources close to the talks put it.
The problem stems from whether members and aides set to enter the exchanges would have their health insurance premiums subsidized by their employer — in this case, the federal government. If not, aides and lawmakers in both parties fear that staffers — especially low-paid junior aides — could be hit with thousands of dollars in new health care costs, prompting them to seek jobs elsewhere. Older, more senior staffers could also retire or jump to the private sector rather than face a big financial penalty. …
As Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC) pointed out, if the federal government doesn't pick up "the 75 percent that they have been, then put yourself in the position of a lot of entry-level staff people who make $25,000 a year, and all of a sudden, they have a $7,000 a year health care tab? That would be devastating."
Congressmen's concern for their aides is sincere. They need those people.
And even more sincere is their concern for how the Act is about to hit themselves:
Plus, lawmakers — especially those with long careers in public service and smaller bank accounts — are also concerned about the hit to their own wallets.
But how can they answer those accusations of hypocrisy?
Well, how's this for some smart-ass double-talk by spokesmen for the lawmakers? –
House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) is worried about the provision. … "Mr. Hoyer is looking at this policy, like all other policies in the Affordable Care Act, to ensure they're being implemented in a way that's workable for everyone, including members and staff," said Katie Grant, Hoyer's communications director.
Sleight-of-tongue! Brilliant!
And here's a beautiful 's explanation of why the Republican Speaker of the House will support the shocked Democrats in trying to protect themselves from the result of their own folly:
When asked about the high-level bipartisan talks, Michael Steel, a Boehner spokesman, said: "The speaker's objective is to spare the entire country from the ravages of the president's health care law. He is approached daily by American citizens, including members of Congress and staff, who want to be freed from its mandates. If the speaker has the opportunity to save anyone from Obamacare, he will."
Talk about smart! Such brains must not be drained!
Surely a little Schadenfreude on the public's part is permissible now that the Democrats are rueing what they gloated over achieving by sly and shady means:
The developing narrative is potentially brutal for congressional Democrats and the White House. … The health care law, controversial since it was passed in 2010, has been a target of the right and, increasingly, the left.
Hoist with their own petard. Harry Reid, who pushed and screwed the legislation through, now worried for himself. Nancy Pelosi concerned for her aides, now that she's found out what's in the Act as she so looked forward to doing when she enthusiastically voted for it without having read it …
Okay, some of us at TAC tried covering our mouths to muffle our laughter, but finally had to leave the dignified chamber where we work in considerate silence to guffaw freely outside …
(Hat-tip Frank)
Posted under Health, Law, United States by Jillian Becker on Friday, April 26, 2013
Tagged with Affordable Care Act, Congressmen and their aides hit by exorbitant Obamacare costs, Democratic and Republican lawmakers try to evade Obamacare provisions, Democrats rue finagling Obamacare into law, Democrats suffer ill-effects of Affordable Care Act, House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, Katie Grant, Michael Steel, Nancy Pelosi, ObamaCare, Republicans have to help Democrats evade Obamacare, Sen. Harry Reid, Sen. Richard Burr, Speaker John Boehner
More acts of religion: Christian girls crucified by Muslim Turks 1
"Each girl had been nailed alive upon her cross, spikes through her feet and hands, only their hair blown by the wind, covered their bodies." *
The information and quotations that follow come from an article by Raymond Ibrahim:
The Armenian genocide took place under Turkey's Islamic Ottoman Empire, during and after WWI.
Out of an approximate population of two million, some 1.5 million Armenians died.
One of the primary causes for it — perhaps the fundamental cause — is completely unacknowledged: religion.
It is an excellent and important article, but we would argue that religion was not "one of the primary causes" of the massacre of the Christian Armenians by the Muslim Turks, that it was not "perhaps the fundamental cause" – it was the cause. The only cause.
* The quoted words in the caption are those of Aurora Mardiganian. The documentary film Auction of Souls (1919), from which this still is taken, was partly based on her memoir.
In her memoir, Ravished Armenia, Aurora Mardiganian described being raped and thrown into a harem (which agrees with Islam's rules of war). Unlike thousands of other Armenian girls who were discarded after being defiled, she managed to escape. In the city of Malatia, she saw 16 Christian girls crucified: "Each girl had been nailed alive upon her cross, spikes through her feet and hands, only their hair blown by the wind, covered their bodies."
Posted under Christianity, Commentary, Islam, jihad, Muslims, Turkey by Jillian Becker on Thursday, April 25, 2013
Tagged with Turkey's Armenian atrocities, Turkey's genocide of Armenians
Mother-love in Islam 1
This is from Gateway Pundit:
Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, the mother of Boston Marathon bombers Tamerlan and Djokhar Tsarnaev …
"If they are going to kill him. I don't care. My oldest son is killed, so I don't care. I don't care if my youngest son is going to be killed today. I want the world to hear this. And, I don't care if I am going to get killed too. And I will say Allahu Akbar!"
Are we all clear on that motive now?
Note 1: Zubeidat Tsarnaev was arrested in 2012 on charges of shoplifting some $1,600 worth of goods from a Boston store.
Note 2: Tamerlan Tsarnaev's widow Katherine, the "all-American girl" who converted to Islam when she married him, was arrested in 2007 – before she met him – for stealing $67 worth of clothing from an Old Navy store in Warwick, Rhode Island.
Posted under Islam, jihad, Muslims, Terrorism, United States by Jillian Becker on Wednesday, April 24, 2013
Tagged with Boston Marathon bombing 4/15/13, Djokhar Tsarnaev, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, Zubeidat Tsarnaeva
An O-mission 0
Posted under cartoons by Jillian Becker on Tuesday, April 23, 2013
Tagged with The Constitution of the United States
Daisyville 4
"For all their assumption of independence, girls of that class are used to the feeling of being specially protected, as, in fact, they are. This feeling accounts for nine tenths of their audacious gestures. …
"She had acquired all the appropriate gestures of revolutionary convictions – the gestures of pity, of anger, of indignation against the anti-humanitarian vices of the social class to which she belonged herself . …
"She was displaying very strikingly the usual signs of severe enthusiasm, and had already written many sentimental articles with ferocious conclusions."
– Joseph Conrad (The Informer)
First girl.
Quotations from the MailOnline:
Katherine Russell, the widow of Boston bomb suspect, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, was "an all-American girl who was brainwashed" by her extremist husband according to one schoolfriend. … At high school her personal motto was 'Do something about it or stop complaining'. She dreamed of going to college and joining the Peace Corps. …
Instead she met Tsarneav, 26, a disenfranchised man who came to America from his troubled homeland of Chechnya who rapidly had her in his thrall. By the time she was 21 she had married him and borne his child, Zahara, now three. She had converted to Islam …
It would be hard to imagine a childhood more rooted in America's pilgrim heritage than Katherine's. It is in there in the names of the towns – Plymouth, Dorset, Greenwich – where many of her friends still live and writ large in the wholesome values of the one-time Honors student's home life. …
The eldest of three daughters, to emergency physician Dr Warren Russell and nurse Judith, hers is a background steeped in the values of family and education.
She attended Daisyville Middle School, North Kingstown. As a sixth grader she is pictured smiling from the pages of the 2001-2002 yearbook dedicated to The North Kingstown Police and Fire Departments in the wake of 9/11 – a date, the opening dedication reads, "forever in our minds".
An historical event of mass murder by Muslims, noted with all the right sentiments by this nice all-American girl, but without the least understanding.
Second girl
Quotations from the Washington Post:
Three American civilians and three U.S. troops were killed in two attacks in Afghanistan on Saturday, officials said, including a powerful blast that struck officials traveling to a school to donate books. Among the dead was the first State Department diplomat to be killed in the country since the war began. The bloodshed Saturday, the deadliest day this year for Americans in Afghanistan, underscored how dangerous the country remains as the United States proceeds with the withdrawal of its remaining troops over the next 20 months, leaving security in the hands of Afghanistan's fledgling army. …
The American diplomat killed Saturday was identified as Anne Smedinghoff by her parents. Smedinghoff was recently tasked with assisting Secretary of State John F. Kerry on his trip to Kabul.
Four other State Department officials who were with her, traveling to a school in the southern province of Zabul, were injured in the same bombing, one critically, Kerry said in a statement. "She was everything a Foreign Service Officer should be: smart, capable, eager to serve, and deeply committed to our country and the difference she was making for the Afghan people," Kerry said. "She tragically gave her young life working to give young Afghans the opportunity to have a better future." …
In a somber address to State Department employees in Istanbul, Kerry paid tribute to Smedinghoff.
There is no greater contradiction, Kerry said, between Smedinghoff's zeal to "change the world" and help others and a bomber who he said drove a car into their vehicle. …
A contradiction? No. A symbiosis.
[Ann Smedinghoff's] parents, Tom and Mary Beth Smedinghoff … live in the Chicago area … "She particularly enjoyed the opportunity to work directly with the Afghan people and was always looking for opportunities to reach out and help to make a difference in the lives of those living in a country ravaged by war," they said. "We are consoled knowing that she was doing what she loved, and that she was serving her country by helping to make a positive difference in the world." …
Tom Smedinghoff said his daughter died in the pursuit of a career she loved. "The world lost a truly beautiful soul today," he said. "She was such a wonderful woman – strong, intelligent, independent, and loving."
In fact, she did not die in a car. She was walking to the school bearing a gift of books, when an Afghan came close to her and exploded himself.
Quotations from the Weekly Standard:
State Department employee Anne Smedinghoff was killed in Afghanistan last weekend. At first reports suggested the young diplomat was part of an armed convoy that was bombed, but new reports say that she was actually on foot. And that the group she was with got lost on its way to deliver books. …
The security officials said there was an initial car bomb detonated by a remote device. Then a suicide bomber wearing a suicide vest appeared and caused more casualties.
What difference did Anne Smedinghoff really make to Afghanistan?
What difference can be made by any American, or any number of Americans, to Afghanistan?
What has America bought with the thousands of lives lost in this longest war in its history?
Quotations from American Thinker including quotations from the Seattle Times:
[Stanley Ann] Dunham gravitated toward an intellectual clique. According to former classmate Chip Wall, she caught foreign films at Seattle's only art-house theater, the Ridgemont, and trekked to University District coffee shops like the Encore to talk about jazz, the value of learning from other cultures and the "very dull Eisenhower-ness of our parents."
"We were critiquing America in those days in the same way we are today: The press is dumbed down, education is dumbed down, people don't know anything about geography or the rest of the world," said Wall … "She was not a standard-issue girl. … "
Obama describes his mother [Stanley Ann Dunham] arguing with her second husband, Lolo Soetoro. Soetoro had become an Indonesian oil company manager and wanted Ann to accompany him to various social functions with American oil company personnel. Ann refused arguing, "Those are not my people." …
As with Obama, his mother's generation of these pseudo-intellectual leftist high schoolers found a way to think of themselves as superior. … Dunham thrived in the environment … As much as a high-school student can, she'd question anything: "What's so good about democracy? What's so good about capitalism? What's wrong with communism? What's good about communism?" …
Starting in the 1930s the Communist Party promoted opportunities for "inter-racial" relationships among its members. The Seattle Times describes Ann Dunham's attitude towards dating at all-white Mercer Island High School: "Dunham hadn't had a boyfriend in high school, according to Maxine Box, her best friend at the time. So Box and others were stunned when Dunham wrote them to say she'd married the University of Hawaii's first African student, a Kenyan named Barack Obama."
A bookish outsider and only child, she was plunked down in Hawaii the year after it became a state by her restless father and her resolute mother. In her first months as a college freshman, at 17 years old, she got pregnant by her first boyfriend, an older student from Kenya named Barack Hussein Obama, who married her but left her when the baby was 11 months old. Twice, she married men from different cultures and races, then divorced them. With the help of her parents, she raised two biracial children as a single mother on the Pacific islands of two nations, got degrees in math and anthropology, spent years in peasant villages studying Javanese cottage industries, and pieced together grants and development work to make money and provide for her children's education. …
Quotations from Godlike Productions (condensed from other sources):
In Hawaii, she married an African student at age 18. Then she married an Indonesian, moved to Jakarta, became an anthropologist, wrote a dissertation on peasant blacksmithing in Java …
"She felt that somehow, wandering through uncharted territory, we might stumble upon something that will, in an instant, seem to represent who we are at the core," said Maya Soetoro-Ng, Obama's half sister. "That was very much her philosophy of life – to not be limited by fear or narrow definitions, to not build walls around ourselves and to do our best to find kinship and beauty in unexpected places."…
"She was a very, very big thinker," said Nancy Barry, a former president of Women's World Banking, an international network of microfinance providers, where Soetoro worked in New York City in the 1990s. …
In a Russian class at the University of Hawaii, she met the college's first African student, Barack Obama. They married and had a son in August 1961, in an era when interracial marriage was rare in the United States. Her parents were upset, Obama learned years later from his mother, but they adapted.
The marriage was brief. In 1963, Obama left for Harvard University, leaving his wife and child. She then married Lolo Soetoro, an Indonesian student. …
Those choices were not entirely surprising, said several high school friends of Soetoro, whom they remembered as unusually intelligent, curious and open. She never dated "the crew-cut white boys," said one friend, Susan Blake: "She had a worldview, even as a young girl. It was embracing the different, rather than that ethnocentric thing of shunning the different. That was where her mind took her."
Her second marriage faded, too, in the 1970s. …
"She gave us a very broad understanding of the world," her daughter said. "She hated bigotry. She was very determined to be remembered for a life of service and thought that service was really the true measure of a life."
All three good, broad-minded, liberal girls. Two of them married men of another culture to prove it. One walked among enemies to show how friendly she was. All of them wanted to be noble.
At least two of them were academically smart.
Joseph Conrad saw such Western, educated, gently-reared, idealistic girls as belonging to a certain class of which he wrote:
"Its own life being all a matter of pose and gesture, it is unable to realize the power and the danger of a real movement and of words that have no sham meaning. It is all fun and sentiment."
And disaster.
Posted under Afghanistan, Commentary, Ethics, Islam, jihad, liberalism, Miscellaneous, Terrorism, United States by Jillian Becker on Monday, April 22, 2013
Tagged with Anne Smedinghoff, Katherine Russell, Stanley Ann Dunham
What too-good America did wrong 3
The U.S. armed the Afghans and helped them drive out the Soviets, rescued Kuwait and Saudi Arabia from the psychopathic sadist Saddam Hussein, bombed Christian Serbs to rescue Muslim Kosovars and Bosnians, liberated Shiite Iraqis from Hussein, liberated Afghans from the brutal Taliban, poured billions of dollars of aid to terrorist Palestinian regimes, used our jets to help the Muslims in Libya free themselves from the psychotic Gaddafi, and supported in word and coin the jihadist, America-hating, anti-Semitic Muslim Brothers in Egypt so that Muslims can enjoy "freedom and democracy." And that's not all. We have incessantly protested our respect for the wonderful Islamic faith, censored our official communications and training programs to remove any references to jihadism or the Islamic theology that justifies holy war, euphemized jihadist attacks like the Fort Hood murders as "workplace violence," invited imams to pray in the White House, filled our schools with curricula praising Islam and its contributions to civilization, scolded and prosecuted writers or cartoonists who exercise their First Amendment right to criticize Islam, abandoned "profiling" as a technique for identifying possible terrorists trying to board a plane or enter the country, hired as advisors to the FBI, the Pentagon, and the CIA Muslim apologists who recycle blatant lies and distortions – we have done all this liberating of Muslims and flattering of them and their faith, and they still don't like us, and they still want to kill us.
We've taken this list of What America Has Done For Muslims from an article by Bruce Thornton. He compiled it to refute the oft-repeated fallacy that Muslim violence is an understandable (even condonable) reaction to "Western bad behavior", such as – in Muslim eyes – "colonialism, imperialism, greed for oil, support for Israel, disrespect of Islam and Mohammed, the War on Terror that has demonized Muslims". He doesn't indicate approval of any of the actions he lists, but refers to them only to show that accusations of American ill-treatment of Muslims are untrue; that in fact America has treated Muslims tremendously well.
Far too well. That is the point we want to stress. More than that, we say America should not have done any of those things. (With the exception of destroying Saddam Hussein; a worthwhile achievement not because Kuwait and Saudi Arabia were "rescued" from him, but because the destruction of a monstrous tyrant is not a thing to be regretted.)
By going to the aid of the Kosovar terrorists against the Serbs, and the Afghans against the Soviets and the Taliban; by supporting the Muslim Brotherhood and the terrorist Palestinian regimes; by inviting Muslims to give policy advice in government departments; by defending them against criticism and praising them in the schools, America has not only flattered Muslims, but boosted their arrogance, endorsed their claim that they are owed much by the West in general and America in particular. Worse, America's willingness to expend blood and treasure in their causes has positively encouraged them to carry on with their own "bad behavior" since that is what has brought them such rewards. If they are intensifying their jihad against the non-Muslim world – and they are – it is very largely because the are finding it profitable to do so. Some jihadists might be jailed; a few might even be executed; but for the most part Islam is being treated like the maiden needing to be rescued by the brave knight who will slay any dragon threatening her.
Islam is the self-declared enemy of the West, of America and what America stands for: liberty, tolerance, equality before the law.
Until Islam is treated as the enemy and not as a victim needing rescue and largesse, it will continue to kill and maim Americans, disrupt their lives, deprive them of their nearest and dearest, and constitute an ever intensifying menace.
But will America stop playing Lady Bountiful and St. George to its mortal enemy, and act like the great power it is? Will the present Islam-loving administration be got rid of and sane pro-American leadership take over? Will America win this war?
Posted under Afghanistan, Arab States, Commentary, Egypt, Ethics, Iraq, Islam, jihad, Muslims, Palestinians, Terrorism, United States, War by Jillian Becker on Sunday, April 21, 2013
Tagged with America's aid to Islam, Bruce Thornton, Helping Muslims encourages jihad, Islam the enemy of the West, Muslims and US policy


Why am I choosing to write a letter to my "teenage" son when he isn't even one year old yet? As a mom it is hard not to think about your child growing up and your responsibilities along the way. I wonder every day what kind of man my son will become. And I think about all the things I hope to teach him and the environment I would like to provide for him.
Yet, when he gets older and we are presented with challenging moments, it may be hard to remember these important lessons. So I thought by writing down some of the things on my mind it will come in handy when I need a reminder not to sweat the smaller stuff.
Enjoy reading my letter and leave me a note - what would you add?
You are now in your teens and hopefully I have had the privilege of seeing you develop into who you are today. And although your father and I have already taught you so much and I am positive you are an outstanding young man, there are a few things I would like for you to consider especially at this juncture in your life.
Truth be told, I learned this one the hard way. Which is probably why it is number one on my list. Fortunately, I had a great mentor that taught me the power of not having all the answers and asking the right questions.
Be curious! Even if you do know the answer, asking good questions often provides you with fresh perspective you would not have had on your own.
Of course, this does not mean that you should never have the answers but it is good to learn the situations in which it would serve you better to have more questions than answers.
Which means it is important to become really good at asking the right questions. One thing I learned is the power of five. Asking one question might seem good enough but if you go five levels deep you are bound to uncover something really important that you may have missed if you didn't dig. NOTE: I almost deleted this part - because I pictured you asking me why five times when I told you no to something! LOL But then I left it in because of #3.
This one is quite simple. Often people will point to external factors when something goes wrong that was in their control. Do not be this person. Look at a situation and be honest about what went wrong and why. Take accountability as necessary. People are much more forgiving when you are honest than if you place blame and deny accountability.
Be open minded but have your own opinions and values. However, respect other people's views and learn to embrace differences!
Conflict is inevitable so learning to navigate through tricky situations is very important. You do not have to agree with everything or everyone but please learn the art of diplomacy and how to respectfully challenge opposing views (especially when dealing with your parents ha ha).
In addition, when in a situation of conflict, try to find a win-win solution. A professor I had in grad school taught us this by having us arm wrestle in class. We were paired up with a classmate and had 2 minutes to arm wrestle each other. The goal was to see who could win.
After time was up, he went around the room and asked every group how they did. The majority of people either had one winner or zero winners. This was not surprising since it is the basic notion of "fight or flight."
However, there was one group who claimed both people won equal times. Everyone was confused and wondered how they accomplished such results. Well before starting to wrestle, they determined that if they just went back and forth for the full 2 minutes, they could both win. Genius!
When dealing with setbacks, many people focus on the problems rather than searching for solutions. While it may be easier to fall into this trap, you will be able to handle a great deal more in life when you understand how to find solutions and keep moving forward.
Your dad always says fail fast forward. And I agree. You should not worry if there is a setback, only if it prevents you from moving forward.
Being popular may seem like everything right now but I am here to tell you that your future will not be based on if you were homecoming king or president of student council. Spend time now development quality relationships. Learn who you are, how to communicate with others, what it takes to be a team player, and even how to say I'm sorry. These are skills that will make the biggest difference in your life. I promise.
And if you are homecoming king, that is also okay!
Your mind is powerful. When you think something it quickly becomes a reality. Practice having a positive outlook on life early. Energy is contagious. Be the person people want to be around because they feel better as a result.
Every morning I ask Alexa to play "Happy" by Pharrel to start our day off right. You loved hearing the music as we danced around the kitchen. And you would giggle and smile so big! I will always remember and cherish these moments.
Something I have learned from your daddy is not to take yourself too seriously. He always uses the saying, "the worry of today is the joke of tomorrow!"
And if you ever need someone to turn to that will make you laugh so hard you almost pee your pants...call grandpa!
The Beatles were right! When you feel down and you don't know where to turn please know that your dad and I are here for you and will accept you with open arms.
Love yourself but also love the people around you. You can learn from Grandma how to give amazing hugs.
There are probably many things I am forgetting, or couldn't add because I have yet to learn them myself, but I hope you take away a few things and it helps you on this journey of life.
P.S. Expect a second letter to your older adult self soon! Love you son.


jewellery inspection, decreased vision or diminished eye sight.
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22 watt round Fluorescent globe.
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Warranty cover for one year.
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As Sheldon stresses about picking a wedding date, Amy tries to convince him he has a more laid-back side. Also, Koothrappali and Stuart compete to win the heart of Bernadette's new co-worker, Ruchi.
Wolowitz and Sheldon bond when they drive to the desert to shoot off a model rocket. Also, when Leonard's mom finds a new best friend in Penny, it rubs Leonard the wrong way.
Sheldon and Koothrappali confide in Bernadette when they can't handle Amy and Wolowitz working together. Also, Penny and Leonard learn new tactics for how to deal with Sheldon from an unlikely source.
Leonard and Howard are furious after they learn Sheldon went to work with the military behind their backs. While Bernadette is on bed rest, she asks Raj to do some digging when she suspects Ruchi is trying to steal her job.
Leonard's book raises questions. Amy guest stars on the new Professor Proton show.
Penny gets the opportunity to host Bill Gates at work when his company wants to partner with hers. Leonard, Koothrappali and Wolowitz do everything in their power to meet Bill, while Sheldon thinks he's the target of an April Fool's prank.
When Sheldon learns that his mother won't attend his wedding unless he invites his brother, Georgie, he and Leonard travel to Texas to end a family feud. Also, the Wolowitz kids inadvertently infects Amy, Bernadette, Wolowitz and Koothrappali with pinkeye.


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Published September 9, 2019 in IT Service Management
Educating IT for a tech-savvy Gen-Z
How Yale and CalPoly universities are taking "always on" to the next level.
Abby Loesch
Product Marketing Intern
IT teams in every organization, in every industry, are doubling down on delivering excellent customer service. According to the Service Desk Institute's report on Customer Experience in ITSM, more than 50 percent of IT professionals ranked "Customer Experience" as the most important quality of their service delivery. But in the higher education sphere, where education is your commodity and students are your end users, IT teams face unique challenges – and drive unique priorities.
Students often live on campus, and may need or expect 24/7 support. And because most currently matriculated students belong to the tech-savvy Generation Z, their expectations for technology and service are sky-high.
We spoke to Ken Wieler, CIO of Yale School of Management in Connecticut, and Alison Robinson, Associate VP of IT at CalPoly San Luis Obispo, California, to learn what it's like to serve students as customers, and how they're optimizing the customer experience. Their respective schools are very different – Yale SOM is a graduate school with less than 1,000 students, while CalPoly is a polytechnic state university with more than 20,000 students – but both IT leaders embrace the importance of an excellent customer experience.
Improving the user experience
It's official: kids' most important learning is happening outside the classroom
By Dominic Price	In Teamwork
Gone are the days of spiral notebooks and chalkboard dust. The mechanisms of learning have changed dramatically over the last couple of decades, and IT teams have played a central role in that transformation, helping educators find innovative ways to cater to students' unique needs and iterating on the learning experience, all while operating in the traditionally stagnant "industry" of education. For example, the IT team at Yale SOM has upgraded classroom technology in order to offer remote in-classroom experiences for EMBA students, which is hugely important for those who work full-time and attend classes on the weekends. They may not always be able to make it to New Haven, but they want to feel like they're in the room even when they aren't. "To deliver as much of an immersive experience as possible, my team is exploring classroom technology such as 360-degree cameras that allow remote learners to see their classmates and truly feel present," says Ken.
The Yale SOM IT team partners with faculty to explore even more creative pedagogy. Several years ago, the dean of the school asked Ken to produce multimedia case studies to give students broader context on their curriculum through videos and news articles. "These case studies would reflect the way we absorb knowledge in the real world and challenge students to identify and synthesize the most important or interesting information – find the message in the noise," says Ken. "As the school saw it, students are living in a world with a lot of chatter, and when you're confronted with an issue in the corporate world, you aren't given a neat ten-page packet of information to help you navigate it." Ken and a colleague stayed up late one night putting together a customizable prototype that is still used today as the format for all Yale SOM case studies.
Offering next-level support
In an age of on-demand everything, where students have the highest of standards for consumer experiences from services like Uber, Amazon, and Netflix, they expect IT support when and where they need it. In order to deliver that kind of experience, Alison and her team at CalPoly SLO have focused on self-service and service availability. "If students need to check out equipment, there are kiosks in the library where you can swipe your student ID and grab a laptop," she says. As tech-savvy Gen-Z-ers, students only need guidance, not hand-holding. The IT team at CalPoly is looking to expand the kiosks to other places on campus so that they can meet students where they are and offer even more self-service options.
At Yale SOM, Ken and his team are dedicated to providing a higher level of service for busy graduate school students and the faculty that teach them. For example, they've worked hard to reduce response times to just two hours. As Ken points out: "If the entire organization can't print, as stupid as it may sound, the entire organization comes to a stop."
A big part of their success in delivering excellent support is down to their weekly meetings with student representatives and faculty, which help them stay plugged in to the community and understand students' wants and needs. Ken and Alison are both committed to delivering efficient and exceptional support because they understand that technology should facilitate learning, not get in the way of it.
Reaching new heights in the cloud
By Scott Farquhar	In Platform
Higher education is an industry that can be slow to accept change, but Ken and Alison both emphasize that it's necessary to improve their students' experience. Alison and her team recently made a switch to the cloud: "It enables anywhere, anytime, any device access to campus resources," she says. So students can now work outside, at home, or at Starbucks instead of visiting a computer lab to access the software they need. They also created a mobile app that allows students to access course materials wherever they are – Alison has seen students doing math homework on their phones.
At Yale SOM, Ken is experimenting with new ways of working. It's a smaller school, so they can be more nimble and adopt more agile practices. As Ken points out: "The environment, community, and technology changes constantly so we always have to be open to reevaluating processes and making improvements."
The relationship between higher-ed IT teams and the students they serve is different from the one corporate IT teams have with their employees. The mission of universities is to educate and empower their students. Students aren't just the IT team's customers – they're the university's customers, too. As Ken and Alison demonstrate, the best IT teams in higher education understand that, and go to great lengths to improve the customer experience and help their students succeed.
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Bring Your Full Self to Work
Teams are made up of individuals, and they function best when each member is happy, healthy, and productive. These stories will show you how to grow your skills, make your own path, and become the best version of yourself.
Communication in the Workplace
Crossed wires and missed connections - good communication among teams is tablestakes for effective teamwork. Get best practices and sound advice on how to create understanding and work together better.
Want to work with the most talented people in your field? Then help create a lust-worthy company culture they'll beg to be part of. We'll show you what it means to embrace transparency, foster a sense of belonging, form connections, and have a little fun along the way.
We believe the best products are created by diverse teams that welcome the contributions of all. Here we share our journey toward greater balance and celebrate those companies turning the industry around.
With an Open mindset, teams can achieve great things. They can truly unleash their potential. But what does Open really mean? It's not about the type of office or the perks of the job. It's not even about the tools you use - although they help. Truly Open work is a frame of mind. It is the willingness to share your point of view, and listen to the point of view of others.
Whether you dread what the future holds for workers or embrace it with open arms, there's a lot to know and discover. We report on industry trends and broader economic forces to help you (and your career) stay ahead of the curve.
Work life balance: everyone wants it, few know how to attain it. But once you do, you'll be amazed as the stress of work and life melt away, your productivity soars, and your personal life feels, well, like yours. Dive into all the different elements that make up a work life balance.
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Price of a postage stamp set to… decrease? Seriously?
NEW YORK — For the first time in nearly 97 years, the price of a stamp is set to go down.
On April 10, a first-class stamp will cost 47 cents, down from its current 49-cent price.
The reduction is part of a pre-arranged agreement with Congress. The Post Office got to increase the price of stamps by 3 cents in 2014 to help it raise $4.6 billion in revenue. But the price hike was only set to last two years. (It gets to keep one cent of the increase to keep up with inflation).
The Post Office is practically begging Congress to let it keep stamps at 49 cents. It says rolling back prices to 47 cents will cost the already badly bleeding Post Office $2 billion a year.
Congress has pegged stamp price increases to inflation, which has barely budged over the past decade.
The Post Office is still reeling from the Great Recession, when its sales fell by $7 billion in 2009 alone. The Postal Service says that package volume is way up over the past few years, but it's "not nearly enough to offset the decline in revenues" from first-class mail.
Standard mail, such as first-class letters and postcards, make up 76% of the Postal Service's sales — all of which have prices capped by Congress.
Postcard stamp prices will drop by a penny to 34 cents, and international stamps will cost $1.15, down from $1.20.
There's hardly anyone alive who remembers the last time the price of a stamp fell. That was in July 1919, when first-class stamp prices dropped from 3 cents to 2 cents.


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Put together a stunning outfit by pairing this tie with a white collared shirt and a pair of black slacks. Made from a special blend of wool and silk. Includes a wool inlay to insure it keeps its shade for many wears to come.


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1 edition of Polymer Surfaces and Interfaces found in the catalog.
Manfred Stamm
by Manfred Stamm
Published 2010 by Gardners Books .
Pagination p.
Polymers, an international, peer-reviewed Open Access journal. Dear Colleagues, Inspired by nature, current approaches in surface science and engineering usually focus on creating a surface with designed physical/chemical features, e.g., chemical functionalization on the surface, hierarchical micro/nanostructured surfaces, chemical gradients, dynamical transformable surfaces by induced surface. This text deals with the behavior of polymers at surfaces and interfaces. Topics covered include the nature and properties of the surface of a polymer melt, the structure of interfaces among different polymers and between polymers and nonpolymers, the molecular basis of adhesion and the properties of polymers at liquid surfaces. Emphasis is placed on the underlying physical : Richard A. L. Jones, Randal W. Richards.
This book chronicles the proceedings of the Symposium on Polymer Surfaces and Interfaces: Characterization, Modification and Application held as a part of the Society of Plastics Engineers Annual Technical Conference, Boston, May , The articles in this book address many aspects of polymer surfaces and : Hardcover. item 3 Polymer Surfaces and Interfaces III by R. Richards (English) Hardcover Book Free - Polymer Surfaces and Interfaces III by R. Richards (English) Hardcover Book Free. $ Free shipping. No ratings or reviews yet. Be the first to write a review. Best Selling in Nonfiction. See all.
Abstract. The surfaces and hidden interfaces of polymers play an important role in the properties and applications of polymers. The most important characterization techniques are briefly discussed and compared with each other with respect to the information that can be gained, but also with respect to applicability to polymer surface and interface by: Title: Polymer Surfaces And Interfaces: Acid-base Interactions And Adhesion In Polymer-metal Systems Format: Hardcover Product dimensions: pages, X X 0 in Shipping dimensions: pages, X X 0 in Published: .
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Polymer Surfaces and Interfaces by Manfred Stamm Download PDF EPUB FB2
Surfaces and interfaces of polymers play an important role in most of the application areas of polymers, e.g. moulds, foils, thin films, coatings, adhesive joints, blends, composites, biomaterials or applications in micro- and nanotechnology. Scientists and engineers in research and development will benefit from an application-oriented book that helps them to find solutions to both fundamental and applied problems.
They will know that the surfaces and interfaces of polymers play an important role in most of the application areas of polymers, from moulds, foils, and composites, to biomaterials and applications in micro- and Format: Hardcover.
About this book Introduction Surfaces and interfaces of polymers play an important role in most of the application areas of polymers, e.g.
moulds, foils, thin films, coatings, adhesive joints, blends, composites, biomaterials or applications in micro- and nanotechnology. 'This book is an excellent introduction into the very complex subject of the interaction of polymers at surfaces and interfaces from a fundamental point of view.
It is coherent and comprehensive. this book should be considered a valuable and needed addition to the library of graduate students of macromolecular chemistry and physics and for Cited by: Physics of Polymer Surfaces and Interfaces emphasizes current theoretical ideas and modern experimental tools for characterizing the physical properties of polymer surfaces and interfaces.
Foremost are their important roles in polymer technology throughthe processes of wetting, adhesion, adsorption, and through their effect on the kinetics of phase separation and mechanical mixing of. Physics of Polymer Surfaces and Interfaces emphasizes current theoretical ideas and modern experimental tools for characterizing the physical properties of polymer surfaces and interfaces.
Foremost are their important roles in polymer technology throughthe Book Edition: 1. The thermodynamics of surfaces and interfaces supplies basic information relating to the energy of the surface, often expressed as surface tension.
Many instrumental methods have helped clarify the nature of polymer surfaces and interfaces, especially the measurements of surface tension, and instruments such as ESCA (XPS), SEM, SIMS, and AFM.
The diversified technological areas of surface science reflect the explosion of scientific information on surfaces and interfaces of materials and their spectroscopic characterization.
The large volume of experimental data on chemistry, physics, and engineering aspects of materials surfaces and interfaces remains scattered in so many different periodicals, therefore this handbook compilation is needed.
Surfaces and Interfaces publishes research papers in all fields of surface science which may not always find the right home on first submission to our Elsevier sister journals.* The journal aims at being a fast and efficient platform for disseminating scientific results in this wide area of research.
Polymer Surfaces and Interfaces book. Acid-Base Interactions and Adhesion in Polymer-Metal Systems. By Irina A. Starostina, Oleg V. Stoyanov, Rustam Ya Deberdeev. Edition 1st Edition. First Published eBook Published 20 May Pub.
location New York. Imprint Apple Academic by: 8. Acid-Base Interactions and Adhesion in Polymer-Metal Systems. DOI link for Polymer Surfaces and Interfaces. Polymer Surfaces and Interfaces book.
Acid-Base Interactions and Adhesion in Polymer-Metal Systems. By Irina A. Starostina, Oleg V. Stoyanov, Rustam Ya Deberdeev. Edition 1st Edition. First Published eBook Published 20 May Author: Irina A. Starostina, Oleg V.
Stoyanov, Rustam Ya Deberdeev. Polymer Surfaces and Interfaces: Characterization, Modification and Applications Manfred Stamm (auth.), Manfred Stamm (eds.) Surfaces and interfaces of polymers play an important role in most of the application areas of polymers, e.g. moulds, foils, thin films, coatings, adhesive joints, blends, composites, biomaterials or applications in.
This book chronicles the proceedings of the Symposium on Polymer Surfaces and Interfaces: Characterization, Modification and Application held as a part of the Society of Plastics Engineers Annual Technical Conference, Boston, MayThe articles in this book address many aspects of polymer surfaces and interfaces.
Polymer Surfaces and Interfaces - Volume 21 Issue 1 - J.T. Koberstein. Since their commercialization in the late s, applications for synthetic polymers have grown at an extraordinary rate, to the point where polymers are now ubiquitous in our by: The book shows the important role that acid-base interactions play in establishing interfacial adhesive-adherent contact and outlines practical recommendations regarding parameters of quantitative estimation of acid-base surface properties that implies the relationship with adhesive ability in polymer.
Vibrational spectroscopic and optical techniques can be used in different ways to characterize polymer surfaces and interfaces with respect to structure, orientation, composition and : Manfred Stamm.
This text deals from a fundamental viewpoint with the behaviour of polymers at surfaces and interfaces.
Topics covered include the nature and properties of the surface of a polymer melt, the structure of interfaces between different polymers and between polymers and non-polymers, the molecular basis of adhesion, and the properties of polymers at liquid : The theoretical and experimental study of polymers, polymer surfaces and thin films has undergone a revolution in the last 25 years.
This book captures recent advances in this field. It covers equilibrium aspects, kinetics and reactions at interfaces. Polymer Surfaces and Interfaces: Acid-Base Interactions and Adhesion in Polymer-Metal Systems - CRC Press Book This book presents the analysis of up-to-date techniques used for the determination of acid-base properties in view of their applicability to examination of solid organic and inorganic surfaces.
Polymer surfaces, interfaces and thin films [Book Reviews] Article (PDF Available) in IEEE Electrical Insulation Magazine 16(6) December with 74 Reads How we measure 'reads'.
Chapters 8 to 10 cover polymer adsorption at solid surfaces, polymers in solution and surface active polymers, respectively. Chapters 11 and 12 discuss adsorption and surface and interfacial tension, while Chapters 16 deal with mixed surfactant systems.Get this from a library!
Polymer surfaces and interfaces. [W J Feast; H S Munro;] -- A collection of review papers which give an up-to-date interdisciplinary view of current technology and research on polymer surfaces.
Contributors are drawn from both academia and industry, and.Poly mer Interface and Adhesion provides the critical basis for further advancement in thisfield.
Combining the principles of interfacial science, rheology, stress analysis, and fracturemechanics, the book teaches a new approach to the analysis of long standing problemssuch as: how is the interface formed; what are its physical and mechanical properties;and how does the interface modify the 4/5(3).
caistab-gabon.com - Polymer Surfaces and Interfaces book © 2020


When buying a new home, homeowners can pick and choose from various home styles. Unfortunately, unless you're building, there will be some compromise on the design of your home. However, once you're settled in, you can begin updating your home to your personal tastes and style. This is where your own creativity and imagination can come into play.
Consider the number of times you run your hands under it quickly while cooking. What about rinsing plates or filling a glass or pot with water? When the kitchen faucet isn't working properly, the kitchen doesn't run smoothly.
Most homes have it: That cramped entryway filled with gardening pots, or the dark basement corner cluttered with cleaning supplies. Spaces needed for completing those messy but necessary household chores. But why do laundry or cut flowers in a dark, dingy space?
Looking for ways to save energy in your home, keep safety at the forefront for your family and determine the best windows for your house?
Dark and confining may be fine for a cave, but it isn't what most people want in their homes. Today's homeowners want well-lit, personal spaces throughout the house, and more continuity with the outside world.
Veering away from its utilitarian roots, the function of today's kitchen has broadened to become a social gathering space for friends and a homework space for kids. Summer is a good time to spice up your kitchen's comfort level and transform it into the nucleus of your home.


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Anti-Semitic graffiti outside British synagogue deemed hate crime by local police
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The members of Leeds' Jewish community were shocked to find anti-Semitic graffiti outside the main synagogue in the city. The local police department has...