There are fundamental differences in ideology between liberals and conservatives. Note that when I mention differences, I am not speaking on a party level between Republican or Democrat. Arlen Specter used to be a democrat when he was the District Attorney of Philadelphia and switched parties when the political opportunities for Republicans were on the rise. Now that the political pendulum has swung the other way, he is doing the same thing in reverse.
Admittedly, Arlen Specter has been good on some issues from a conservative perspective, such as affirming our 2nd Amendment rights and supporting tough prison sentencing guidelines for violent criminals. However, where he differs with conservatives has been growing more and more over the years. Once you get to a situation where you are voting more with the political opposition and are constantly at odds both both your own own party and base of supporters, there comes a point where you have to ask if you're really in the party that you fit in best. When Senator Specter started getting a huge earful from his constituency about Amnesty for Illegals and huge increases in entitlement and bailout spending, his solution was to have his staff disconnect his own phone system once he had heard enough. He didn't give a shit what the people who voted him in expected - he was going to do whatever he wanted regardless of how much it went against the wishes of the supporters who had voted him in. In reflection, he asked himself "Why not?" After all, once it became obvious from the plethora of inside tracking polls that he wouldn't get re-elected, he knew that in this political environment that he could switch parties.
Specter's defection has prompted other weak Republicans - such as the ever increasingly-irritating Olympia Snowe - to opine with whiny sophistry about how Specter's defection could have been prevented if Republicans would learn how to reach out to moderates instead of driving them away. The very notion that Republican moderates have no place in their party is pure, 100% NONSENSE. Moderates like Specter have been around forever. McCain, Snowe, Chaffee, Jeffords...the list goes on. What has irritated conservatives is that these spineless, limp-wristed watered-down copies of Diet Democrat-Lite routinely would vote with democrats and undermine conservatives on key votes that were crucial to our political goals. Sorry, honey - don't piss down our legs and try to tell us it's raining.
I have read some stories online where liberals are struggling to figure out why Republicans like myself are so happy about this when all it does is further erode our political power. That would make sense to people who only choose to see things from within the context of a political perspective, but that would be missing the mark. The first reason is that when you don't have any real power and influence left as it is, losing more makes no difference. Considering Arlen's voting history on key issues that drove conservatives the most, having him in the party was far more irritating. What the second and truest reason is this: Conservatives have more respect for genuine liberals who act like liberals and believe in whatever liberals believe in than for Republicans like Specter, who - over the course of time - has screwed over his own base in the name of political expediency. If he wants to run with the liberals, I have no beef with it. What I do have a beef with is his unreliability and skulduggery as a representative of my state. Never knowing exactly where he stood reliably on key issues with his base was a pain in the ass.
Understand something: Political moderation has never made for good leadership. Ever. Leaders are decisive. They are confident. They have the ability to gather people up and project their vision into the masses. They inspire those that agree, and yes - royally piss off the people who disagree. What true believers in a true philosophically empowered political goal gain is respect - even begrudgingly so from their adversaries. None of those things are attained from political moderation. When democrats wanted to rebuild their party, they didn't do it by reaching out to Republicans. No - they did it by marginalizing or eliminating what few centrists managed to exist in their party to make it more ideologically left. As such, when more Republicans stopped acting like conservatives and did nothing but pander to the left and left-leaning centrist voters for years - look at what it got them. Liberals simply voted for the real thing and left-leaning centrist libertarians voted against them out of anger at their intellectually dishonest pandering. Case in point - ask John McCain what sucking up to the left for years got him when the rubber actually met the road. They threw his ass to the curb - because nobody likes someone who speaks out of both sides of his mouth.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
The curious case of Beverly Giesbrecht
We hear all the time from terrorists about how we are to submit to Islam and turn away from the West. We are told by our friends on the left that if we just try to understand these people that we will build a bridge and heal the wounds of misunderstanding.
A woman named Beverly Giesbrecht did all of that. Giesbrecht, a Canadian citizen, decided to go against the West after the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center. She decided that she was not going to believe that the WTC was attacked by terrorists, but rather was a front story for a larger conspiracy. Naturally, she thought that the best way to learn the "truth" was to learn all things Islamic so that she could discern the "truth" from a balanced point of view. After setting out to attain this balance, she abandoned her Born-again Christian faith and converted to Islam. She abruptly changed her name to Khadija Abdul Qahaar and decided to follow Islam's laws, criticize President Bush, denigrate the United States and even started a website called Jihad Unspun - whose sole purpose is to spread Islamic propaganda and promote anti-Americanism. Despite doing all of this, the Taliban kidnapped her on November 13, 2008 in Pakistan. They are threatening to behead her in exchange for a $375,000 ransom.
Some have attempted to downplay the role of Islam in this case by trying to characterize this woman from the sympathetic viewpoint of her being someone that is a former alcoholic who suffers from mental illness. I could not agree more - it is called liberalism. Whenever a liberal tries to argue with you about how Islam is no different from any other religion - remember this scenario. We are not living in the Dark Ages. We are not trapped in a never-ending malaise of scientific hindrance or a lack of enlightenment. No, we are living in 21st century America - and we are expected to look at this woman’s history, actions and current plight with a mindful, sympathetic light that is supposed to should be shed on Islam? One would think that this woman’s' story would be the proverbial writing on the wall for those who choose to live with their heads in the sand when it comes recognizing Islamic terrorism for what it truly is.
I want you, for a moment - to imagine the impossible to comprehend sheer agony of feeling your own head being sawed off with a dull blade. You have been bound head to toe and cannot do anything to escape. The sound of the blade hacking and sawing through bone echoes in your own skull. You try to scream and instead let loose gurgled squealing and wheezing. In your panic, you violently struggle, urinating and defecating all over yourself. Then you experience the sick motion of disembodiment and as oblivion begins to sink in, you experience the brief horror of seeing your own headless corpse when the filthy animal that just beheaded you holds your head up as a trophy. Then, your face goes stupid - and it is all over.
This woman is most likely going to experience the horror above because she was stupid enough to hate her own civilized, western culture and that of the United States. She was seduced by an evil lie. The lie in question is the absurd belief that moral relativism can be used to justify any type of heinous behavior or belief simply by implying that everyone is entitled to the opinion they have based solely on their own point of view. This idiot so believed that terrorist animals had a right to their opinions and actions that she decided to convert to Islam in an effort to see their sick world view, thinking that this would make her a better person. Brilliant!
Anyone...and I do mean anyone - who either trusts, defends or attempts to rationalize the actions of these filthy animals suffers from a mental disorder. They are the lowest common denominator humanity has ever produced. Let this be a lesson to be learned by everyone: When you dance with the Devil - the Devil does not change - the Devil changes you.
A woman named Beverly Giesbrecht did all of that. Giesbrecht, a Canadian citizen, decided to go against the West after the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center. She decided that she was not going to believe that the WTC was attacked by terrorists, but rather was a front story for a larger conspiracy. Naturally, she thought that the best way to learn the "truth" was to learn all things Islamic so that she could discern the "truth" from a balanced point of view. After setting out to attain this balance, she abandoned her Born-again Christian faith and converted to Islam. She abruptly changed her name to Khadija Abdul Qahaar and decided to follow Islam's laws, criticize President Bush, denigrate the United States and even started a website called Jihad Unspun - whose sole purpose is to spread Islamic propaganda and promote anti-Americanism. Despite doing all of this, the Taliban kidnapped her on November 13, 2008 in Pakistan. They are threatening to behead her in exchange for a $375,000 ransom.
Some have attempted to downplay the role of Islam in this case by trying to characterize this woman from the sympathetic viewpoint of her being someone that is a former alcoholic who suffers from mental illness. I could not agree more - it is called liberalism. Whenever a liberal tries to argue with you about how Islam is no different from any other religion - remember this scenario. We are not living in the Dark Ages. We are not trapped in a never-ending malaise of scientific hindrance or a lack of enlightenment. No, we are living in 21st century America - and we are expected to look at this woman’s history, actions and current plight with a mindful, sympathetic light that is supposed to should be shed on Islam? One would think that this woman’s' story would be the proverbial writing on the wall for those who choose to live with their heads in the sand when it comes recognizing Islamic terrorism for what it truly is.
I want you, for a moment - to imagine the impossible to comprehend sheer agony of feeling your own head being sawed off with a dull blade. You have been bound head to toe and cannot do anything to escape. The sound of the blade hacking and sawing through bone echoes in your own skull. You try to scream and instead let loose gurgled squealing and wheezing. In your panic, you violently struggle, urinating and defecating all over yourself. Then you experience the sick motion of disembodiment and as oblivion begins to sink in, you experience the brief horror of seeing your own headless corpse when the filthy animal that just beheaded you holds your head up as a trophy. Then, your face goes stupid - and it is all over.
This woman is most likely going to experience the horror above because she was stupid enough to hate her own civilized, western culture and that of the United States. She was seduced by an evil lie. The lie in question is the absurd belief that moral relativism can be used to justify any type of heinous behavior or belief simply by implying that everyone is entitled to the opinion they have based solely on their own point of view. This idiot so believed that terrorist animals had a right to their opinions and actions that she decided to convert to Islam in an effort to see their sick world view, thinking that this would make her a better person. Brilliant!
Anyone...and I do mean anyone - who either trusts, defends or attempts to rationalize the actions of these filthy animals suffers from a mental disorder. They are the lowest common denominator humanity has ever produced. Let this be a lesson to be learned by everyone: When you dance with the Devil - the Devil does not change - the Devil changes you.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
God and Evolution
I am not someone who has ever taken the Creation story literally. Yet, I have always found it rather dubious how angry and obnoxious some scientists get when they are even challenged on the veracity of certain specifics of their beliefs or theories. In the case of the arguments between Intelligent Design vs Evolution, some of the most die-hard advocates pushing the edge regarding their attempt to find something irreducibly complex that cannot come about because of random chance are not people who are biblical scholars. They are, in fact, scientists who are just as educated and passionate about their theories as anyone else would be, they are just pursuing their attempt to find answers elsewhere. Evolution alone, by their beliefs, cannot account for or answer many of the basic questions people have regarding life and it's origins. Those that pursue I.D. are guilty of committing a scientific sin, their biggest sin being that in the eyes of other scientists, they are attempting to use science itself to question evolution. In reality, what they are doing is starting off with a theory and are attempting to prove it. Scientifically, Darwinism and it's most ardent secular supporters should have nothing to fear.
As I see it, evolution versus a belief in a Creator are simply not at odds with one another. Evolution on many levels makes absolutely logical sense (the strongest survive and procreate). Mutations are common and observable. Survival of the fittest is part of all life. If you want to see evolution in action, go to any beach and see who the beautiful girls are hanging out with, they do not just "randomly" gravitate towards just anybody. Science however, for all of the good it has produced in attempting to explain some of mysteries of our world, is incapable of answering the serious philosophical questions that have been echoed since the dawn of man.
I have looked at the argument that has been made that I.D. cannot be proven, therefore it cannot be science, compete with science or argue with science. This flies in the face of common sense because at one point, every scientific fact was an unknown. Every fact or principle discovered since was the result of having a theory and attempting to prove it. Scientific fact was built on it's pursuit based on reason, passion and prior knowledge from previous discoveries. What we have observed in this world regarding living things is the result of an evolutionary process, but evolution is incapable of explaining everything about what life is, or how it started from nothing. It can theorize like anything else, but proof to that bugger of a question has been nagging mankind since the beginning, and every discovery since has only led to more questions that science is not capable of answering.
For example, if you were to find, disassemble and go over the details of the parts that make up a high-end Mercedes, their individual purpose in creating a more complex object could be derived and made sense of. If, however, someone were to say that the car was randomly created or the result of chance, that person would be considered ridiculous. On the same level, a single-celled organism is not just a black-boxed mystery made of "globs of stuff". It's complexity would easily surpass a lot of the machines we use from day to day, and none of those machines are even capable of antonymous movement, self-sustaining consumption or reproduction. While a car is much different from a cell because a car is most certainly not alive, I draw my comparison based on the fact that a single celled organism AND that car did not exist at one point. Yes, they are both complex. Yes, the cell is more complex and can autonomously do things the car cannot because it is living. My question, how the hell did something like a cell come from non-living things and somehow become more than the sum of its parts? If I ever found the car as it exists now naturally (assuming I lived in a world where cars didn't exist), no one in their right mind would ever assume that it was a result of Natural Law.
Some people have expressed frustration and downright anger at me in the past for using the words "random" or "chance" when discussing such matters. Their reason was because the more I would deem any result of incremental steps leading to an evolutionary divergence as a random event (even random mutation), the more it would make the person I was discussing this with more and more uncomfortable because truly random events are not a plausible scientific building blocks for discussing an orderly and repeatable scientific process. To those people I would suggest this: Don't get hung up on the use of the words chance or random. Just do what scientists have done elsewhere by expressing them in more colorful euphemisms - such as saying 'mutation', 'alteration', 'modification', 'permutation' or 'variation'. Or my favorite...'Luck'. Yes, if I drop something gravity pulls it. If I break an egg I cannot pick it up and have it whole again. Those are observable laws. My question, how did those perfectly balanced and precise laws come from nothing?
The Big Bang theory believes that before the the universe existed, the sum of all matter was contained in a single, focused singularity that suddenly exploded. Prior to the universe existing...what we know as matter and energy were far different than they are perceived as now. All of the natural laws of nature that we know of and attempt to comprehend...from the physical to mathematical - simply did not exist. What also did not exist was life.
Some theories claim that life is an inevitable part of the existence of the universe, but when you delve into how complex the structure of DNA is, how synchronized and perfectly placed those pieces of the puzzle are, it is not an unreasonable thing to question how something that can arise from chaotic chance. I am a software engineer, and I can assure you of several things: First, a blank slate (such as a finite -state machine such as a computer or a pre-life universe) has no order or innate intelligence behind it. Second, any and all parts within would have to bend to the will of constraints imposed by the limitations of it's creation, meaning that both a computer and the universe can not do anything beyond either the will of it's user or the limits imposed on the nature of it's design.
Any software engineer knows right up front that when it comes to creating orderly, sustainable, reusable and practical source code - there are NO free features. Anything that encompasses what a program can do, how it interacts with information or when, where and why it executes any instruction is completely beholden to the logical constraints placed on it by the developer. Hence, a program can never make a mistake; it is doing exactly what it was designed to do (intentionally or unintentionally).
Consider the following: No matter how good the developer is, he is going to make mistakes. Any mistake, no matter how trivial - can hamper or completely ruin the viability of a program. He is going to have to go back and fix them.
Now imagine telling a developer that they had to create a program with the same amount of complexity of the most simplest of DNA structures for the most simple of lifeforms...with all of the future adaptobility of that program being planned ahead of time in it's design...except they had to get it right the first time and they only got one shot to get it perfect from the beginning. Also imagine that if the developer made a mistake, he didn't get a chance to start against from scratch - the task would go to a totally different person, and those same rules were passed on infinitum.
The odds of one person creating something so massively complex and antonymous without a single error or miscalculation would be mathematically impossible, but we are all expected to believe that life started out in such a manner when DNA spontaneously created itself from random poteins and amino acids combining to form the first DNA helix.
Human beings are intelligent, crafty and practical. Our sense of discovery, determination and imagination have surpassed anything that has ever existed on this planet. Despite everything we have going for us, we cannot (even with the use of all scientific knowledge and machines to assist us) create biological life from nothing, even the most simple of lifeforms. It's not that we're stupid or don't have good ideas. We can create things that mimic life, but unlike true life forms - anything we attempt to mimic is confined and constrained by the parameters of how we interpret life or define what life is. Random creation, if we are going to use that as our model - has no such limitations.
These are the things that have made me convinced that there is a God.
If I were to demand here and now under the penalty of death to every scientist in the world that they give me proof that life existed outside of our planet, every scientist would be dead, because no such proof exists. Yet, I believe it exists anyway. My reason is because since life exists on our planet, it would have a wonderful opportunity to exist elsewhere. On that note, look at the people who participate in purely scientific endeavors like the S.E.T.I. project. These poor souls have absolutely nothing going in their favor. They search, look and listen intently for any sign of life outside our planet despite the overwhelming odds that make the likelihood of any such discovery a fool's hope. They are treated as abused mascots by the scientific community because all of their work has not produced anything tangible. Their work is constantly under-funded and under-appreciated. They are also overworked and underpaid. In an ultimate example of irony - everything they do is based on the exact same principle that is the hallmark of all religious beliefs: Faith.
The belief in a Creator has been with mankind for as long as recorded history, and despite thousands and thousands of years of agonizingly slow technological advancement or the inability to record and save information for future generations (outside of word of mouth), our ancestors ascended with and passed on a belief in something greater than ourselves, looking at the world with the awe that comes from an inborn desire to seek out and understand our place in it. That is how I perceive the consciousness of the human soul, and I cannot deduce that something so beautiful can be a part of something unplanned.
As I see it, evolution versus a belief in a Creator are simply not at odds with one another. Evolution on many levels makes absolutely logical sense (the strongest survive and procreate). Mutations are common and observable. Survival of the fittest is part of all life. If you want to see evolution in action, go to any beach and see who the beautiful girls are hanging out with, they do not just "randomly" gravitate towards just anybody. Science however, for all of the good it has produced in attempting to explain some of mysteries of our world, is incapable of answering the serious philosophical questions that have been echoed since the dawn of man.
I have looked at the argument that has been made that I.D. cannot be proven, therefore it cannot be science, compete with science or argue with science. This flies in the face of common sense because at one point, every scientific fact was an unknown. Every fact or principle discovered since was the result of having a theory and attempting to prove it. Scientific fact was built on it's pursuit based on reason, passion and prior knowledge from previous discoveries. What we have observed in this world regarding living things is the result of an evolutionary process, but evolution is incapable of explaining everything about what life is, or how it started from nothing. It can theorize like anything else, but proof to that bugger of a question has been nagging mankind since the beginning, and every discovery since has only led to more questions that science is not capable of answering.
For example, if you were to find, disassemble and go over the details of the parts that make up a high-end Mercedes, their individual purpose in creating a more complex object could be derived and made sense of. If, however, someone were to say that the car was randomly created or the result of chance, that person would be considered ridiculous. On the same level, a single-celled organism is not just a black-boxed mystery made of "globs of stuff". It's complexity would easily surpass a lot of the machines we use from day to day, and none of those machines are even capable of antonymous movement, self-sustaining consumption or reproduction. While a car is much different from a cell because a car is most certainly not alive, I draw my comparison based on the fact that a single celled organism AND that car did not exist at one point. Yes, they are both complex. Yes, the cell is more complex and can autonomously do things the car cannot because it is living. My question, how the hell did something like a cell come from non-living things and somehow become more than the sum of its parts? If I ever found the car as it exists now naturally (assuming I lived in a world where cars didn't exist), no one in their right mind would ever assume that it was a result of Natural Law.
Some people have expressed frustration and downright anger at me in the past for using the words "random" or "chance" when discussing such matters. Their reason was because the more I would deem any result of incremental steps leading to an evolutionary divergence as a random event (even random mutation), the more it would make the person I was discussing this with more and more uncomfortable because truly random events are not a plausible scientific building blocks for discussing an orderly and repeatable scientific process. To those people I would suggest this: Don't get hung up on the use of the words chance or random. Just do what scientists have done elsewhere by expressing them in more colorful euphemisms - such as saying 'mutation', 'alteration', 'modification', 'permutation' or 'variation'. Or my favorite...'Luck'. Yes, if I drop something gravity pulls it. If I break an egg I cannot pick it up and have it whole again. Those are observable laws. My question, how did those perfectly balanced and precise laws come from nothing?
The Big Bang theory believes that before the the universe existed, the sum of all matter was contained in a single, focused singularity that suddenly exploded. Prior to the universe existing...what we know as matter and energy were far different than they are perceived as now. All of the natural laws of nature that we know of and attempt to comprehend...from the physical to mathematical - simply did not exist. What also did not exist was life.
Some theories claim that life is an inevitable part of the existence of the universe, but when you delve into how complex the structure of DNA is, how synchronized and perfectly placed those pieces of the puzzle are, it is not an unreasonable thing to question how something that can arise from chaotic chance. I am a software engineer, and I can assure you of several things: First, a blank slate (such as a finite -state machine such as a computer or a pre-life universe) has no order or innate intelligence behind it. Second, any and all parts within would have to bend to the will of constraints imposed by the limitations of it's creation, meaning that both a computer and the universe can not do anything beyond either the will of it's user or the limits imposed on the nature of it's design.
Any software engineer knows right up front that when it comes to creating orderly, sustainable, reusable and practical source code - there are NO free features. Anything that encompasses what a program can do, how it interacts with information or when, where and why it executes any instruction is completely beholden to the logical constraints placed on it by the developer. Hence, a program can never make a mistake; it is doing exactly what it was designed to do (intentionally or unintentionally).
Consider the following: No matter how good the developer is, he is going to make mistakes. Any mistake, no matter how trivial - can hamper or completely ruin the viability of a program. He is going to have to go back and fix them.
Now imagine telling a developer that they had to create a program with the same amount of complexity of the most simplest of DNA structures for the most simple of lifeforms...with all of the future adaptobility of that program being planned ahead of time in it's design...except they had to get it right the first time and they only got one shot to get it perfect from the beginning. Also imagine that if the developer made a mistake, he didn't get a chance to start against from scratch - the task would go to a totally different person, and those same rules were passed on infinitum.
The odds of one person creating something so massively complex and antonymous without a single error or miscalculation would be mathematically impossible, but we are all expected to believe that life started out in such a manner when DNA spontaneously created itself from random poteins and amino acids combining to form the first DNA helix.
Human beings are intelligent, crafty and practical. Our sense of discovery, determination and imagination have surpassed anything that has ever existed on this planet. Despite everything we have going for us, we cannot (even with the use of all scientific knowledge and machines to assist us) create biological life from nothing, even the most simple of lifeforms. It's not that we're stupid or don't have good ideas. We can create things that mimic life, but unlike true life forms - anything we attempt to mimic is confined and constrained by the parameters of how we interpret life or define what life is. Random creation, if we are going to use that as our model - has no such limitations.
These are the things that have made me convinced that there is a God.
If I were to demand here and now under the penalty of death to every scientist in the world that they give me proof that life existed outside of our planet, every scientist would be dead, because no such proof exists. Yet, I believe it exists anyway. My reason is because since life exists on our planet, it would have a wonderful opportunity to exist elsewhere. On that note, look at the people who participate in purely scientific endeavors like the S.E.T.I. project. These poor souls have absolutely nothing going in their favor. They search, look and listen intently for any sign of life outside our planet despite the overwhelming odds that make the likelihood of any such discovery a fool's hope. They are treated as abused mascots by the scientific community because all of their work has not produced anything tangible. Their work is constantly under-funded and under-appreciated. They are also overworked and underpaid. In an ultimate example of irony - everything they do is based on the exact same principle that is the hallmark of all religious beliefs: Faith.
The belief in a Creator has been with mankind for as long as recorded history, and despite thousands and thousands of years of agonizingly slow technological advancement or the inability to record and save information for future generations (outside of word of mouth), our ancestors ascended with and passed on a belief in something greater than ourselves, looking at the world with the awe that comes from an inborn desire to seek out and understand our place in it. That is how I perceive the consciousness of the human soul, and I cannot deduce that something so beautiful can be a part of something unplanned.
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