Crazy Liberals
N.O.W. supports men who call women whores
Carol Platt Liebau points out the obvious hypocrisy in the modern – progressive – feminist movement.
The day after he (or a member of his staff) is caught on tape calling Meg Whitman a whore, Jerry Brown has announced the endorsement of the National Organization of Women (NOW).
You know, it’s fashionable in feminist circles tosit around bemoaning the fact that few young women want to identify themselves as feminists.
Wanna know why? This kind of hypocrisy is the reason why. It’s OK with NOW, supposedly an organization devoted to the equal and respectful treatment of women for Jerry Brown to call his opponent — an accomplished woman, and more importantly, any woman — a “whore.” It’s OK with NOW for Bill Clinton to engage in sexual harassment of an intern in The White House, and possibly worse in his pre-presidential days. It’s OK with NOW to allow Sarah Palin to be denigrated in the cheapest, lowest and most sexist ways.
NOW has nothing to do with women’s rights, or the proper treatment of women. They are simply shills for abortion and big government. They ought to admit it and take the word “Women” out of their name, because they no more stand for “women” in general than President Obama stands for small government and low taxes.
Women — and men — are on to NOW’s racket. That’s why their endorsement means nothing. They’re just political hacks. What young woman in her right mind would want to be associated with such cheap political opportunism?
killing in the name of Gaia-Sick!
Dinesh D’Souza zeroes in on the roots of Obamas Rage
(Click the above graphic to hear Obama fulfill what Beck and D’souza talk about below.) Dinesh D’Souza has a new book out that I highly recommend. It pulls together many avenues of thought into the origin of Obama’s goals and worldview. In these two short Glenn Beck segments you have Beck and Dinesh talking about a topic that I think is just fascinating. I think D’Souza is one of the better thinkers out there of the semi-younger crowd. Great author to say the least.
By the way, the short clip of the video of the history of things Beck shows is refuted quite well below. I will post links to the other parts of this critique… in case you do not know, many schools play the original video… thus in a sense “brainwashing” these vulnerable minds. The part where it is mentioned that we spend 50% of our tax money on the military is just so, so false:
SEE THE REST OF THE CRITIQUE HERE
Three-year-olds being labelled as bigots
This comes from Sweetness and Light:
Teachers are being forced to report children as young as three to the authorities for using alleged ‘racist’ language, it was claimed last night.
Munira Mirza, a senior advisor to London Mayor Boris Johnson, said schools were being made to spy on nursery age youngsters by the Race Relations Act 2000.
More than a quarter of a million children have been accused of racism since it became law, she said.
Writing in Prospect magazine, she said: ‘The more we seek to measure racism, the more it seems to grow.
For the record, Prospect is described as a left of center magazine. In 2005 its readers selected Noam Chomsky as the world’s foremost intellectual.
‘Teachers are now required to report incidents of racist abuse among children as young as three to local authorities, resulting in a massive increase of cases and reinforcing the perception that we need an army of experts to manage race relations from cradle to grave.
‘Does this heightened awareness of racism help to stamp it out? Quite the opposite. It creates a climate of suspicion and anxiety.’
The Act compelled 43,000 public authorities, including schools and churches, ‘to promote good relations between persons of different racial groups’. Details of the incidents are logged on databases.
Teachers are allowed to report racism even if the alleged ‘victim’ was not offended or if the child does not understand what they were saying.
Freedom of Information replies obtained by civil liberties group the Manifesto Club show that between 2002 and 2009, 280,000 incidents have been reported.
Being three years old is no excuse for committing a hate crime.
Democrats Fearing Aussie Trends
Wild-Racist-Liberal-Rant (If You Have Never Seen A Democratic Redneck~Here Ya’ Go)
Take note saying one is a son of god in Mormon theology is much different that a Christian saying we are adopted sons. But this distinction aside… this is some funny stuff (or scary… depending how you view this toothless wonder):
New Audio from Imam That Is Pushing Ground-Zero Mosque (Cartoon Critique)
I enjoy political cartoons. One cartoonist whom tends to be moderate-left is John Cole. I comment here-and-there on his work. the most recent comments from me were on this particular drawing he did:
I wrote the following to John and others reading his comment section (I added some emphasis that I could not on his site):
This is something the people who support this particular mosque will be regretful for (well, maybe not regretful, I mean the Left is still proud they essentially killed millions in Vietnam by pulling out). There are already ties to bad money and some supremacist quotes and writings popping up from this Imam and his financial sources.
The funny thing is ~ I mean besides the idea that the people who supported the student uprising in Iran are now supporting the same people that squashed that uprising ~ the people that we want to support [truly moderate and reformational Muslims] WOULDN’T WANT to build a mosque here.
One other point [sorta]. The argument seems to be that if you oppose this mosque you are fomenting some prejudicial fear. This tactic of argument works for those who are The shallow thinkers making them as well as The shallow thinkers hearing them. It is similar to people telling me that being against same-sex marriage is somehow prejudicial, or homophobic. They are typically surprised to find out many homosexual persons are against this “same-sex marriage” movement. (https://religiopoliticaltalk.com/2010/06/joy-behar-vs-homosexuals-on-same-sex-marriage/) I never get an answer as to how these gay people are homophobic. Showing that these cards whipped from hip-high are vacuous and not thought through.
Just like the “if you are against [this mosque you are against] ‘freedom of religion’” argument. Many moderate Muslims are against the building of this mosque. Are they xenophobic or Islamaphobic? Do they hate the Muslim faith? OR, do they realize that supporting extremism IN THEIR OWN religion is anti-religious?
For those who do not get outside MSNBC type news, here are some interviews/articles with moderate Muslims:
- https://religiopoliticaltalk.com/2010/08/two-more-truly-moderate-muslims-come-out-about-intentions-of-the-mosque-site-in-ny/
- https://religiopoliticaltalk.com/2010/08/a-moderate-muslim-interviewd-by-mark-levin/
- https://religiopoliticaltalk.com/2010/08/muslims-against-ground-zero-mosque/
So what is it? The anti-Islamic/anti-1st Amendment Right versus the pro-Islamic/pro-1st Amendment Left? OR, is it moderately minded/truly reformational/pro-Islamic/pro-1st Amendment Muslims against the Left and radical Islam (as proven by the Imam’s statements [more will be uncovered I am sure of it] and ties to “funny money”)??
I have gotten responses to this such as: “there are strip clubs, Burger Kings, bars at ground-zero… how can this be a sacred place?” To which I simply respond:
“Those were in place before 9/11, plus, 19 strippers didn’t fly planes into the Towers. (Non-sequitur: you proved my point, guys carrying Qur’ans not whips and chains or cherry flavored undies attacked us.) 3,000 people were killed by people doing it in the name of Islam. In fact, part of the reason they attacked was because of these gentlemen clubs, so I would rather have more of those and less of mosques to foment radical religion. So there should be — like other places where tragic events happen — a buffer zone for sensibilities. That building (besides being funded by “funny money” and being headed up by an Imam that said we were partly responsible for 9/11. There are other places for him to build a Mosque and for conservatives to bury Dems by their support of him as more quotes and radical positions come out. But a building where parts of human remains and pieces of jet were found, is unsupportable. Hell, even Howard Stern gets it.” (https://religiopoliticaltalk.com/2010/08/tearing-down-that-which-no-one-believes-the-left-and-the-ground-zero-mosque/)
I have also been told of a comparison to Timothy McVeigh. The person’s bringing this up however are often taken-a-back to find out Timothy McVeigh was an atheist. (https://religiopoliticaltalk.com/2010/08/this-comparison-would-work-if-it-were-true-tomothy-mcveigh-and-christiantiy/)
What comes from the Left nowadays are truly supporting Mona Charin’s assessment in an old book she wrote, Useful Idiots: How Liberals Got It Wrong in the Cold War and Still Blame America First.
Thank you for your visitors taking the time in reading this and for John being truly fair enough and freedom minded enough to allow shlubs like myself to challenge his lifeblood. For all the items I may disagree with him on, he shows that his work [a single frame drawing] can produce feelings and cause separate wills to clash. Which is why I absolutely love political cartoons. A Single frame can catch a whole idea that others would have to express in multiple paragraph’s [like myself].
SO, I do not wish to merely tear down, but build up: “John, keep up the ‘bad’ work” (tongue-in-cheek).
I wanted to build a bit off of that first sentence I wrote, “This is something the people who support this particular mosque will be regretful for.” Regretful because they are supporting a radically supremacist Imam and mosque, and so I confidently tell people that more and more quotes will be shown from this Imam and more and more terrorist ties will be revealed via donors. And so, here are the first compilations of some wacky stuff this Imam has said. I am sure more will be revealed soon.
I should say, more wacky than wanting America to be Sharia compliant and that we will all be Muslim soon in America. When he asks how many people have seen Fahrenheit 9/11, he mentions about half in the audience has seen it. I would LOVE to break in and ask “how many people have seen Fahrenhype 9/11: Unraveling the Truth About Fahrenheit 9/11 & Michael Moore — or, Celsius 41.11: The Temperature At Which the Brain Begins To Die: The Truth Behind the Lies of Fahrenheit 9/11 (Amazon)?” I guarantee you maybe one hand would go up. This is a great example to show how dedicated people are in scouring through what is presented to them as fact in our society. Very rarely do I find those who test all things and hold onto what is good.
From the videos text:
Whilst the NY Times front page spins interfaith yarns into PR gold faster than Rumpelstiltskin and accords godlike status to Imam Faisal Rauf, new audio surfaces. Here are a couple of soundbites of tolerance: Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf: “We tend to forget, in the West, that it has blood on its hands of innocent non Muslims. You may remember that the US lead sanction against Iraq lead to the death of over half a million Iraqi children.”
No mention of the 270 million victims of over a millennium of jihadi wars, land appropriations, cultural annihilation and enslavement. No mention of the recent slaughter by Muslims of Christians, Hindus, Jews, non-believers in Indonesia, Thailand, Ethiopia, Somalia, Philippines, Lebanon, Israel, Russia, China……………. no candor, no criticism of Islam. Imam Feisal: “The West needs to begin to see themselves through the eyes of the Arab and Muslim world, and when you do you will see the predicament that exists within the Muslim community.”
On the question of reforming Islam and expunging the texts of the threat doctrine and mandated violence and conquest: Imam Feisal: On the issue of the reformation, in terms of what is again intended by it, Islam does not need a reformation. Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf: “So men will say: women, you know, they’re emotional, ….. whatever, whatever, and women will say: men, they’re brutes, insensitive, etcetera, and you have the beginning of a gender conflict. If gender is not what distinguishes us we’ll look at skin colouring and say: n***** or whities, or whatever”
Reverend Al Sharpton was unavailable for comment. Too busy endorsing the Islamic supremacist mosque. Imam Faisal: And when we observe terrorism, whether it was done by the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka or by al Qaida or whoever is behind the bombings in London or those in Madrid,
Note, when he says about the London and Madrid bombings,that was five days after the London attacks and over a year after Madrid. It was common knowledge who the perps were at that time.
In July 2005, Ground Zero Imam Rauf gave a public lecture, presented by The Bob Hawke Prime Ministerial Centre/UniSA International and The Migrant Resource Centre, entitled, What does it take to change the relationship between the West and the Muslim world? His remarks were devastating.
Rosanne Barr Unplugged
Take A Pictoral Tour of San Francisco with Zombietime (link out)
Conversation Series: Defending the Faith Over a Syrah
[Edited for ease of use and “jump to” topics and footnotes – 12-25-18 – TIP: when you jump, just hit the back button to come back to the text]
This post is one of my oldest “Conversation Series“/ “Best of Papa Giorgio” It first made its appearance on my OLD BLOG November 26, 2006, and was really my first real wine tasting experience. It was a great time for a variety of reasons: wine, my wife, friends and family, and political/religious discussion. Mind you, I didn’t initaite the conversation, but I love the topics! As G.K. Chesterton says it best, “I never discuss anything except politics and religion. There is nothing else to discuss.” Well, there was a friend of a friend whom I didn’t know too well at the time. And this person liked to talk… about things she thought she knew a lot about: Politics, Religion, and US History. IN fact, what became apparent is that she was really (at least at the time, and I suspect now) a THEOPHOBE, which is a fear of “the belief in one God as the creator and ruler of the universe” [e.g., God in the theistic understanding – Judeo/Christian]. Likewise, she could also be categorized as a CHRISTOPHOBE – a fear of anything related to Christianity/Christ, A bias against one “particular” religious expression. She seemed to have an aversion directly related to the above. She was also a history teacher for a high school and the way she talked about history I fished out of her she like the Marxist historian, Howard Zinn. Here are some updated links to “Zinn related topics” on my site:
- Howard Zinn (1922-2010) Passing From This Hell To The Next
- Native American History In Public School (Howard Zinn Refuted)
- Chomsky and Zinn vs. America
The wine was flowing and I was on the top of my game… for those who were wondering.
Late September turned into an opportunity for my wife and me to visit some wineries in the Santa Ynez Valley. We met up with some friends and family members, as well as some of their friends/co-workers. These family member’s/friend’s co-workers I speak of all work at a public school. So the direction of the conversation didn’t necessarily surprise me, but it sure did dishearten me. What disheartened me was that this teacher wasn’t just arguing a model or philosophy of history that didn’t exist until Marx and Engels interpreted history with their worldview[1] (that all of history is a class struggle), it was that they were putting forth arguments that my oldest son could probably tear down. I say tear down because most of the arguments put forth were what is called straw-man arguments, or just plain wrong. Below I will put into a Context what will follow:
- First Contact
- Conversation Starter
- “Theophobia” — A Psychosis?
- Rhetoric vs. Argument
- Non-Religious Movements vs. Religious
- What is Fascism?
- Ethics Without God!
- Hitler: Christian or Philosophical Naturalist? | Hitler’s Occultism
- Buddhism — Self-Refuting
- Buddhism & Evil
- Eastern Charity
- Scientists Praying
- Genesis Proved Right
a) First Contact
Conversation started at the first winery about a topic that caused me to mention a letter I wrote to my son’s sixth-grade classmate’s parents. It was on Native American and Settler relations. As the conversation skimmed along I portrayed the teacher as explaining history in a similar fashion to Howard Zinn. This teacher mentioned that Howard Zinn’s view of history was good; I, then, pointed out that this view did not exist until Marx and Engels — sort of hoping this would spark said person to understand that this outlook on history, viewed through a lens of political opinion (e.g., Communism, Socialism), was not true history, rather, skewed history. This first contact at least allowed me to know with whom I was dealing.
b) Conversation Starter
The day went on; it was the usual fun, talking, learning, and laughing. At the last winery we were about halfway into our flight of wines when I hear this teacher and my wife discussing organized religion. As I am a student of comparative religion[2], philosophy[3], politics[4], and some history, I naturally gravitated over to where the real conversation was. You see, I say real because too many people believe it to be a bad thing to discuss weightier issues that include religion or politics. I think just the opposite. These items should be discussed vigorously and judicially, with a firm but kind heart. I say firm because I have found that in my many debates on-line and in person for the past decade the other party is ignorant that what they are saying is either a straw man[5] or the premise can be turned on them, and sometimes it takes persistence (being firm) to point this their dilemma out.
Now that the groundwork has been laid somewhat, lets delve into some of the conversation.
c) “Theophobia” — A Psychosis?
When I came into the conversation this person, whom I will call Felicia in honor of their fallacious arguments, was saying they are against organized religion. Which is usually code for “they cannot stand Christianity?” So to set the record straight, I said that she must also be against Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, Confucism, Sikhism, and the like. Realizing the premise she laid out, she quickly admitted to the fact that she is indeed against such religious people organizing into small communities of like minded people. The presumption was that she was arguing for un-organized religion? Whatever that is!? I would hate to see what religion looks like if guided by anarchy. So I wanted to point out the biased view she held by presenting this person with a label that she probably hadn’t heard until now. I made the statement that she was Theophobic. She asked for clarification, I said much like a person can be homophobic, so to can a person be Theo(God)phobic. Obviously in our day and age of political correctness one does not wish top be labeled with a phobia, especially a teacher, this implies intolerance when the buzz-word of our day is tolerance. This clearly caught her off guard.
After thinking over what I had charged her with and the previous conversation she finally admitted to it wholly at first but after put a vague stipulation on it. This stipulation didn’t help her recover from her admitted theophobia and dogmatic biasness on stark display. You see, she has probably portrayed religious people as bias and phobic, arguing for things dogmatically, however, I wanted to point out in conversation by explicitly and implicitly pointing out in this case it was on display by her, and not I (a religious person). Even if I didn’t point this out as much as I could have, I am hopeful that in private reflection this person will reflect on how she came across.
d) Rhetoric vs. Argument
At this point the usual litany of “straw man” arguments proceeded to spill forth as they normally do when ones precious bumper-sticker beliefs are challenged and shown to be vacuous. The next thing out of Felicia’s mouth was that organized religion has killed more people and started more wars than any other reason in history. This is where I cringed — a teacher that is charged with children who makes such false claims is a red-flag to me. These types of people repeat such lines not because they have studied history or religion in-depth, but because a politically motivated historian like Howard Zinn or Noam Chomskey said such a thing, or they simply picked up the saying from another friend (who themselves had heard it from another) and it fit so well in their theophobia framework to make the rejection of religion an easy thing in their mind’s eye. This is more of a commentary on said person’s psychosis than making any sort of valid argument. This being said let us deal with this charge:
e) Non-Religious Movements vs. Religious
The Bible does not teach the horrible practices that some have committed in its name. It is true that it’s possible that religion can produce evil, and generally when we look closer at the details it produces evil because the individual people [Christians] are actually living in rejection of the tenets of Christianity and a rejection of the God that they are supposed to be following. So it [religion] can produce evil, but the historical fact is that outright rejection of God and institutionalizing of atheism (non-religious practices) actually does produce evil on incredible levels. We’re talking about tens of millions of people as a result of the rejection of God. For example: the Inquisitions, Crusades, Salem Witch Trials killed about anywhere from 40,000 to 80,000 persons combined (World Book Encyclopedia and Encyclopedia Americana), and the church is liable for the unjustified murder of about (taking the high number here) 300,000-women over about a 300 year period. A blight on Christianity? Certainty. Something wrong? Dismally wrong. A tragedy? Of course. Millions and millions of people killed? No. The numbers are tragic, but pale in comparison to the statistics of what non-religious criminals have committed); the Chinese regime of Mao Tse Tung, 60 million [+] dead (1945-1965), Stalin and Khrushchev, 66 million dead (USSR 1917-1959), Khmer Rouge (Cambodia 1975-1979) and Pol Pot, one-third of the populations dead, etc, etc. The difference here is that these non-God movements are merely living out their worldview, the struggle for power, survival of the fittest and all that, no evolutionary/naturalistic natural law is being violated in other words (as non-theists reduce everything to natural law — materialism). However, and this is key, when people have misused the Christian religion for personal gain, they are in direct violation to what Christ taught, as well as Natural Law.[6]
So the historical reality that this teacher of history seemed to ignore is that non-religious movements have killed more people in the Twentieth-Century than religion has in the previous nineteen (or for that matter, all of mankind’s history). I also pointed out to Felicia during our conversation that the non-religious view of origins has no moral law to point to any of the above acts as morally wrong or un-ethical. They are merely currently taboo. For someone to say the Nazis were morally wrong they have to borrow from the theistic worldview that posits a universal moral code. If there is no Divine moral law, then as Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s maxim makes the point, “If there is no God, all things are permissible.” Without an absolute ethical norm, morality is reduced to mere preference and the world is a jungle where might makes right.
f) What is Fascism?
This same strain of thought caused Mussolini to comment:
“Everything I have said and done in these last years is relativism by intuition…. If relativism signifies contempt for fixed categories and men who claim to be bearers of an objective, immortal truth… then there is nothing more relativistic than fascistic attitudes and activity…. From the fact that all ideologies are of equal value, that all ideologies are mere fictions, the modern relativist infers that everybody has the right to create for himself his own ideology and to attempt to enforce it with all the energy of which he is capable.”[7]
(Side note: the above definition by Mussolini [who was a philosophy major] of fascism, fits more closely with non-religious liberal democrats today than with religious conservative Republicans.)
As a way to update “F,” here are three posts to explain fascism:
g) Ethics Without God!
The only problem is that without God, man is the one who dies, quite literally. As Dr. Ravi Zacharias observes: “Conveniently forgotten by those antagonistic to spiritual issues are the far more devastating consequences that have entailed when antitheism is wedded to political theory and social engineering. There is nothing in history to match the dire ends to which humanity can be led by following a political and social philosophy that consciously and absolutely excludes God.“[8] And,
One of the great blind spots of a philosophy that attempts to disavow God is its unwillingness to look into the face of the monster it has begotten and own up to being its creator. It is here that living without God meets its first insurmountable obstacle, the inability to escape the infinite reach of a moral law. Across scores of campuses in our world I have seen outraged students or faculty members waiting with predatorial glee to pounce upon religion, eager to make the oft-repeated but ill-understood charge: What about the thousands who have been killed in the name of religion?
This emotion-laden question is not nearly as troublesome to answer if the questioner first explains all the killing that has resulted from those who have lived without God, such as Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, Mao, et al… why is there not an equal enthusiasm to distribute blame for violence engendered by some of the irreligious? But the rub goes even deeper than that. The attackers of religion have forgotten that these large-scale slaughters at the hands of anti-theists were the logical outworking of their God-denying philosophy. Contrastingly, the violence spawned by those who killed in the name of Christ would never have been sanctioned by the Christ of the Scriptures. Those who kill in the name of God were clearly self-serving politicizers of religion, an amalgam Christ ever resisted in His life and teaching. Their means and their message were in contradiction to the gospel. Atheism, on the other hand, provides the logical basis for an autonomist, domineering will, expelling morality…. The Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevski repeatedly wrote of the hell that is let loose when man comes adrift from his Creator’s moorings and himself becomes God — he understood the consequences. Now, as proof positive, we witness our culture as a whole in a mindless drift toward lawlessness — we live with the inexorable result of autonomies in collision.
[Zacharias cites Hitler, “I freed Germany from the stupid and degrading fallacies of conscience and morality… I want young people capable of violence — imperious, relentless and cruel.“][9]
h) Hitler: Christian or Philosophical Naturalist? | Hitler’s Occultism
After pointing out that non-God movements are much more murderous than God movements, Felicia mentioned that my lumping Hitler in my analogy was wrong, she said he was a Christian and that I was wrong.[10] I had never heard this before — just kidding, I have heard this brought up quite often and will deal with it in brief here (as I promised Felicia I would).[11] First off, all someone would have to do is read Mein Kampf to understand that Hitler himself stood in stark contrast to Christianity. In fact, Hitler admitted himself that he was a philosophical naturalist; I will quote from a larger essay I did on the subject some years back:
While not having the time to mention some of what is above as well as below, I promised Felicia that I would show her some evidence that Hitler was not a Christian. Many of the Nazi emblems, such as the swastika, the double lightning bolt “SS” symbol, and even the inverted triangle symbol used to identify classes of prisoners in the concentration camps, originated among homosexual occultists in Germany (some, such as the swastika, are actually quite ancient symbols which were merely revived by these homosexual groups). In 1907, Jorg Lanz Von Liebenfels (Lanz), a former Cistercian monk whom the church excommunicated because of his homosexual activities,[17] flew the swastika flag above his castle in Austria.[18] After his expulsion from the church, Lanz founded the Ordo Novi Templi (“Order of the New Temple“), which merged occultism with violent anti-Semitism. A 1958 study of Lanz called, “Der Mann der Hitler die Ideen gab” — or, “The Man Who Gave Hitler His Ideas” — by Austrian psychologist Wilhelm Daim, called Lanz the true “father” of National Socialism.
List, a close associate of Lanz, formed the Guido Von List Society in Vienna in 1904. The Guido Von List Society was accused of practicing a form of Hindu Tantrism, which featured sexual perversions in its rituals (the swastika is originally from India). A man named Aleister Crowley, who, according to Hitler biographer J. Sydney Jones, enjoyed “playing with black magic and little boys,” popularized this form of sexual perversion in occult circles.[19] List was “accused of being the Aleister Crowley of Vienna“.[20] Like Lanz, List was an occultist; he wrote several books on the magic principles of rune letters (from which he chose the “SS” symbol). In 1908, List “was unmasked as the leader of a blood brotherhood which went in for sexual perversion and substituted the swastika for the cross“.[21] The Nazis borrowed heavily from Lis’s occult theories and research. List also formed an elitist occult priesthood called the Armanen Order, to which Hitler himself may have belonged.[22]
The Nazi dream of an Aryan super-race was adopted from an occult group called the Thule Society, founded in 1917 by followers of Lanz and List. The occult doctrine of the Thule Society held that the survivors of an ancient and highly developed lost civilization could endow Thule initiates with esoteric powers and wisdom. The initiates would use these powers to create a new race of Aryan supermen who would eliminate all “inferior” races.
Hitler dedicated his book, Mein Kampf, to Dietrich Eckart, one of the Thule Society’s inner circle and a former leading figure in the German Worker’s Party (when they met at the gay bar mentioned earlier).[23] “…And among them I want also to count that man, one of the best, who devoted his life to the awakening of his, our people, in his writings and his thoughts…“[24] Hitler was definitely not a Christian.
i) Buddhism, Self-Refuting
Felicia then mentioned that Christianity is refuted by science and that most of our smartest, brightest scientists are accepting Buddhism. So I broke this statement up into two parts, that is: are scientists converting to the pantheistic worldview?[25] And, does Buddhism comport with reality/science? I will deal with the latter first. Although not the time nor place to explain the Law of non-contradiction, for those who don’t know, I will briefly explain. The law of non-contradiction is simply this: “‘A‘ cannot be both ‘non-A‘ and ‘A‘ at the same time.” In the words of professor J. P. Moreland (Ph.D., University of Southern California):
“When a statement fails to satisfy itself (i.e., to conform to its own criteria of validity or acceptability), it is self-refuting…. Consider some examples. ‘I cannot say a word in English’ is self-refuting when uttered in English. ‘I do not exist’ is self-refuting, for one must exist to utter it. The claim ‘there are no truths’ is self-refuting. If it is false, then it is false. But is it is true, then it is false as well, for in that case there would be no truths, including the statement itself.”[26]
I brought up Aristotle and his discovering and codifying many of the Laws of Logic, the most important being the Law of non-contradiction, one of the most important laws of logical thought.[27] Another major problem that faces the pantheist is that there is no reality except the all-encompassing God. Everything else is illusion, or maya. But again, this is a nonsensical statement that is logically self-refuting. If everything is illusion, then those making that statement are themselves illusions. There’s a real problem here. As Norman Geisler (Ph.D., Loyola University of Chicago) pointed out, “One must exist in order to affirm that he does not exist.“[28] When we claim that there is no reality except the all-encompassing God, we are proving just the opposite. The fact that we exist to make the claim demonstrates that there is a reality distinct from God, which makes this key doctrine of pantheism a self-defeating proposition. It is an untruth — by definition.
j) Buddhism & Evil
I then mentioned that Buddhism cannot answer the problem of evil and I provided her with an easily understood example that I often use, it is the example real evil.
Let’s say I am home with my 10-year-old son. My work calls me into work on an emergency so I call my uncle Bo to come over and watch him so I can go in. While I am at work my Uncle Bo rapes and sodomizes my son. Well, eastern philosophies that use the karmic understanding of reincarnation posit that something my son did in a previous lifetime demanded that this happen to him in this lifetime.
Felicia didn’t like this much. She defended reincarnation as if I was being bigoted and intolerant (like she was really being towards Christianity). So I gave some more examples dealing with how holy men in India walk by the needy. In India and Tibet and other areas that hold to reincarnation as the predominate philosophy; in other words, one is in his or her predicament, for the most part, because of a previous life. For the Dalai Lama and other “Holy Men” to help these poor unfortunates is to tamper with their karma. These before mentioned men will literally walk right past the poor, invalid, maimed, un-educated, starving, mentally ill people and completely ignore their pleas for help and assistance. All because of their caste or karmic past! It takes a person who a priori accepts (presupposes) the theistic worldview, specifically the Judeo-Christian worldview, like Mother Theresa who went to India and adopted the city of Calcutta, doing what these holy men didn’t. And may I be so bold as to posit that if a Buddhist or Hindu actually helps the needy, they do so out of compassion which is consistent with theism, not pantheism.
k) Eastern Charity
Another example I gave which wasn’t allowed to go to its fruition, because those who have tough challenges refuse to hear the tough answers: While speaking in Thailand, Ron Carlson was invited to visit some refugee camps along the Cambodian border. Over 300,000 refugees were caught in a no-man’s-land along the border. This resulted from the Cambodian massacre under Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge in the mid-70’s (which is known as the “killing fields“) and then subsequently by the invasion of the Vietnamese at the end of the 70’s. One of the most fascinating things about these refugee camps was the realization of who was caring for the refugees. Here, in this Buddhist country of Thailand, with Buddhist refugees coming from Cambodia and Laos, there were no Buddhists taking care of their Buddhist brothers. There were also no Atheists, Hindus, or Muslims taking care of those people. The only people there, taking care of these 300,000[+] people, were Christians from Christian mission organizations and Christian relief organizations. One of the men Ron was with had lived in Thailand for over twenty-years and was heading up a major portion of the relief effort for one of these organizations. Ron asked him: “Why, in a Buddhist country, with Buddhist refugees, are there no Buddhists here taking care of their Buddhist brothers?” Ron will never forget his answer:
Ron, have you ever seen what Buddhism does to a nation or a people? Buddha taught that each man is an island unto himself. Buddha said, ‘if someone is suffering, that is his karma.’ You are not to interfere with another person’s karma because he is purging himself through suffering and reincarnation! Buddha said, ‘You are to be an island unto yourself.‘” — “Ron, the only people that have a reason to be here today taking care of these 300,000 refugees are Christians. It is only Christianity that people have a basis for human value that people are important enough to educate and to care for. For Christians, these people are of ultimate value, created in the image of God, so valuable that Jesus Christ died for each and every one of them. You find that value in no other religion, in no other philosophy, but in Jesus Christ.“[29]
Do you get it now? It takes a “Mother Teresa” to go into these embattled countries and bathe, feed, educate, care for these people — who otherwise are ignored due to harmful religious beliefs.
l) Scientists Praying
The August 22, 2005 New York Times had a fantastic article based on a Nature Journal report about religious belief among scientists: 40% of American scientists believe in God, specifically a God to whom they can pray and expect to receive an answer.[30] Pantheism (Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism and the like) do not have a God to pray to. I also mentioned science has in fact backed the Hebrew/Christian account of creation, I used the following example (not quite word-for-word mind you):
m) Genesis Proved Right (updated 1-16-2016)
For almost 2,300 years, the universe was thought to be static, or, eternal — however, the Bible clearly states that it had a beginning[31]…
This should be put in bullet points for easy memorization:
- Albert Einstein developed his general theory of relativity in 1915;
- Around the same time evidence of an expanding universe was being presented to the American Astronomical Society by Vesto Slipher;
- In the 1920s using Einstein’s theory, a Russian mathematician (Alexander Friedman) and the Belgium astronomer (George Lemaitre) predicted the universe was expanding;
- In 1929, Hubble discovered evidence confirming earlier work on the Red-Light shift showing that galaxies are moving away from us;
- In the 1940’s, George Gamow predicted a particular temperature to the universe if the Big Bang happened;
- In 1965, two scientists (Arno Penzias and Robert Woodrow Wilson) discovered the universe’s background radiation — and it was only about 3.7 degrees above absolute zero.
So the Bible has stood on one interpretation of the universe when the world was against it. And the Bible ended up being spot on. Not only that, but the Big Bang demonstrates that a Cause must have happened, and that this cause is outside the time-space dimension and would be an absolute Cause (this fits with the theistic model for God, not pantheistic).
That’s it. I hope you all enjoyed the journey down “Straw-Man Lane,” where the premisi are fallacious and the conclusions are wrong.
FOOTNOTES
[1] People have presuppositions, and they will live more consistently on the basis of these presuppositions than even they themselves may realize. By “presuppositions” we mean the basic way an individual looks at life, his basic worldview, the grid through which he sees the world. Presuppositions rest upon that which a person considers to be the truth of what exists. People’s presuppositions lay a grid for all they bring forth into the external world. Their presuppositions also provide the basis for their values and therefore the basis for their decisions. “As a man thinketh, so he is,” is really profound. An individual is not just the product of the forces around him. He has a mind, an inner world. Then, having thought, a person can bring forth actions into the external world and thus influence it. People are apt to look at the outer theater of action, forgetting the actor who “lives in the mind” and who therefore is the true actor in the external world. The inner thought world determines the outward action. Most people catch their presuppositions from their family and surrounding society the way a child catches measles. But people with more understanding realize that their presuppositions should be chosen after a careful consideration of what worldview is true. When all is done, when all the alternatives have been explored, “not many men are in the room” — that is, although worldviews have many variations, there are not many basic worldviews or presuppositions (Francis A. Schaeffer, How Should We Then Live? The Rise and Decline of Western Thought and Culture, Crossway Books, Wheaton [1976], pp. 19-20.).
[2] world religions, as well as cults and the occult;
[3] worldviews, philosophy of science, philosophy of history, philosophy of religious, philosophy of political, philosophy of law, etc;
[4] currant affairs — hot button issues, socio-economic/religio-political topics, left-right dichotomies, and the like;
[5] A straw man argument is a logical fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent’s position. To “set up a straw man” or “set up a straw-man argument” is to create a position that is easy to refute, then attribute that position to the opponent. A straw-man argument can be a successful rhetorical technique (that is, it may succeed in persuading people) but it is in fact misleading, because the opponent’s actual argument has not been refuted.Obviously red-herrings, non-sequiturs, and ahistorical beliefs/statements are all intertwined as well.
[6] “The real Murderers: Atheism or Christianity?“
[7] Mussolini, Diuturna pp. 374-77, quoted in A Refutation of Moral Relativism: Interviews with an Absolutist (Ignatius Press; 1999), by Peter Kreeft, p. 18.
[8] Ravi Zacharias, Can Man Live Without God?, (Dallas: Word, 1994), p. XVII.
[9] Ibid., pp. 22-23
[10] Two articles I recommend: “Was Adolf Hitler A Christian? A Common Objection to Creationism“, and, “Darwinism and the Nazi Race Holocaust.” The author’s bio follows for those who think that believers are un-educated:
EDUCATION
M.P.H., Northwest Ohio Consortium for Public Health (Medical College of Ohio, Toledo, Ohio; University of Toledo, Toledo, Ohio; Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, Ohio), 2001; M.S. in biomedical science, Medical College of Ohio, Toledo, Ohio, 1999; Ph.D. in human biology, Columbia Pacific University, San Rafael, California, 1992; M.A. in social psychology, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, Ohio, 1986; Ph.D. in measurement and evaluation, minor in psychology, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan, 1976; M.Ed. in counseling and psychology, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan, 1971; B.S., Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan, 1970. Major area of study was sociology, biology, and psychology; A.A. in Biology and Behavioral Science, Oakland Community College, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, 1967.
HONORS/AWARDS/CERTIFICATIONS
Fellow of the American Scientific Affiliation, 1983; Who’s Who in America; MENSA; Ohio certification to teach both elementary and high school levels; Professional memberships.
DR BERGMAN IS OR WAS ACTIVE IN THE FOLLOWING ORGANIZATIONS
National Association for Gifted Children; American Educational Research Association; National Council on Measurement in Education; American Sociological Association; American Psychological Association; Ohio Psychological Association; Association for the Scientific Study of Religion; American Association of Suicidology; Institute of Religion and Health; American Society of Corrections.
THE PROFESSIONAL ORGANIZATIONS THAT DR BERGMAN IS NOW A MEMBER OF AND/OR INVOLVED IN, INCLUDE
Ohio Science Teachers Association; American Biology Teachers Association; The American Scientific Affiliation; The American Association for the Advancement of Science; The American Association for the History of Science; American Chemical Society; American Institute of Biological Sciences; Ohio Academy of Science; American Institute of Chemists; New York Academy of Sciences; The New York Museum of Natural History; Other professional memberships; Society for the Scientific Study of Male Psychology and Physiology, President & Founder.
RADIO, VIDEO TAPES, AND TELEVISION SHOWS
Dr Bergman has appeared on approximately 200 radio shows and 14 television shows for various Public Television and other stations. His research has been featured several times on the Paul Harvey Show, and once by David Brinkley.
[11] Another myth is that the Pope helped or supported Hitler. A good book by Rabbi David G. Dalin and is entitled The Myth of Hitler’s Pope: How Pope Pius Rescued Jews from the Nazis.
[12] Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, translator/annotator, James Murphy (New York: Hurst and Blackett, 1942), pp. 161-162.
[13] “The SS Blood and Soul,” one of four videos in a video series entitled, The Occult History of the Third Reich (St. Lauret, Quebec: Madacy Entertainment Group, 1998); Now in DVD – ISBN: 0974319465). See also: NAZI Occultism | God vs. Hitler
[14] see chapter 15, “The Elephant in the Living Room.“
[15] Marvin L. Lubenow, Bones of Contention: A Creationist Assessment of Human Fossils (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1992), p. 47.
[16] Sir Arthur Keith, Evolution and Ethics (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1947), p. 230.
[17] Dusty Sklar, The Nazis and the Occult, Dorset Press; New York [1989], p. 19
[18] Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, The Occult Roots of Nazism: Secret Aryan Cults and their Influence on Nazi Ideology, New York University Press; New York [1985] p. 109
[19] J. Sydney Jones Hitler in Vienna 1907-1913, Stein & Day; New York [1983], p. 123
[20] ibid., p. 123
[21] Dusty Sklar, The Nazis and the Occult, Dorset Press; New York [1989], p. 23
[22] Robert G. L. Waite, The Psychopathic God Adolf Hitler, Signet Books; New York [1977], p. 91
[23] Wulf Schwarzwaller, The Unknown Hitler: His Private Life and Fortune, National Press Book; Washington D. C. [1989], p. 67
[24] Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, translated by Ralph Manheim: Houghton Mifflin; New York [1971], p.687
[25] A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism – PDF List of over 600 Scientists, and Professors who Disagree with Darwinism, pantheists (Buddhists, Hindus, and the like) support Darwinism, broadly.
[26] J. P. Moreland, Scaling the Secular City: A Defense of Christianity. (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Books, 1987), p. 92. I recommend Francis Beckwith (Ph.D., Fordham University) & Gregory Koukl’s (M. A. Trinity Law School) book, Relativism: Feet Planted Firmly In Mid-Air. (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Books, 1998).
[27] “…is considered the foundation of logical reasoning,” Manuel Velasquez, Philosophy: A Text with Readings (Wadsworth; 2001), p. 51. “A theory in which this law fails… is an inconsistent theory”, edited by Ted Honderich, The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, (Oxford Univ; 1995), p. 625.
[28] Norman Geisler, Christian Apologetics. (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Books, 1976), p. 187.
[29] Ron Carlson & Ed Decker, Fast Facts on False Teachings. (Eugene, Oregon: Harvest House, 1994), pp. 28-29.
[30] Also see: Newsweek (7/20/98), Society/Science, “Can Science & Faith Be Reconciled?”
[31] “The Evidence of Cosmology: Beginning with a Bang,” in, The Case for a Creator, by Lee Strobel
[32] Robert Jastrow, God and the Astronomers, p. 21. Said Jastrow of Einstein: “We know he had well-defined feelings about God, but not as the Creator or the Prime Mover. For Einstein, the existence of God was proven by the laws of nature; that is, the fact that there was order in the Universe and man could discover it.” This is the basis for Natural Law, which is the foundation for the ethics found in our Declaration of Independence and Constitution. Not to mention why science boomed in the West and why the East lagged behind, because the universe isn’t real in eastern thinking. Why study and dissect an illusion? A Hindu scientist must first reject his religions presuppositions and then borrow the presuppositions of the Judeo-Christian worldview, which is that a) the universe exists, and b) men can discover truths about it.
[33] Ibid., p. 104
Liberal Anti-War Protestors vs. Tea Party Protests
Of course the “racial epithets” hurled from Tea Partiers towards members of Congress just hasn’t been shown to be true. Great video – h/t to NewsBusters:
Now that both liberals and conservatives have coordinated protest movements it is fair to compare the two. Luckily sECULAR sTUPIDEST has put together a great video which shows the March 20th, 2010 Anti-War protest in D.C. and the March 20th, 2010 Tea Party in D.C. (Language Warning)