A Christmas troll

Unfortunately this sort of rubbish is becoming an annual event.

Here you go people. A nativity scene without any Jews, Arabs, Africans, refugees, poor people pic.twitter.com/1eoxIIAxu5

— Matthew Dowd (@matthewjdowd) December 24, 2016

Two important things Dowd seems to be unaware of:

Mary and Joseph were not refugees. They were required by the Roman government to travel to Bethlehem so they could participate in a census and be taxed.

There is nothing in the Bible that tells us whether Mary and Joseph were rich or poor. The fact that they stayed in a stable was because there was no room at the inn (Luke 2:7), and does not necessarily indicate they were poor.

Also, it is hard to know what Dowd meant when he made his wisecrack about "Jews, Arabs, Africans". Mary and Joseph were Jews, but the terms "Arabs" and "Africans" are more recent labels unknown in the time of Jesus. Dowd might have been referring to the wise men and/or the shepherds, but it is hard to be sure.

After a number of people pointed out the errors in Dowd's ignorant Tweet he had this to say:

I am amazed. It is Christmas Eve, and the lack of civility, compassion, caring by people who claim Christianity is astounding. God Bless

— Matthew Dowd (@matthewjdowd) December 24, 2016

Well, now. I know Christians make a easy target for secular media outfits like ABC, but this was pretty cowardly. One fellow Tweeter had a good response to Dowd's Christmas Eve blast:

@matthewjdowd Any chance you're going to be this woke during Ramadan?

— FiveDownTerritory (@FDTerritory) December 24, 2016

That's what I'd like to know.

The not-so-noble lie

I recently came across this quote by Theodore Dalrymple:

In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, not to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is...in some small way to become evil oneself. One's standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control. I think if you examine political correctness, it has the same effect and is intended to.

Watching the recent media coverage of the Orlando massacre I kept thinking about Dalrymple's observation. The killer, Omar Mateen, was a registered Democrat and also was a Muslim. In fact Mateen had pledged allegiance to ISIS before he was killed, yet the media has decided that Christians and the NRA were somehow the real culprits.

The princes of this world are consistent: they will tell any lie so they can stay in power. Will you play along and pretend the evil of the media does not concern you?

The "wife of Jesus" papyrus revealed to be a hoax

Dr. Jerry Pattengale executive director of the Green Scholars Initiative, writes in the Wall Street Journal about the Jesus' wife hoax that took the secular media by storm in 2012.

First key quote from the article:

In September 2012, Harvard Divinity School professor Karen King announced the discovery of a Coptic (ancient Egyptian) gospel text on a papyrus fragment that contained the phrase "Jesus said to them, 'My wife . . .' " The world took notice. The possibility that Jesus was married would prompt a radical reconsideration of the New Testament and biblical scholarship.

Unfortunately for Dr. King, the fragment appears to be a hoax:

Then last week the story began to crumble faster than an ancient papyrus exposed in the windy Sudan. Mr. Askeland found, among the online links that Harvard used as part of its publicity push, images of another fragment, of the Gospel of John, that turned out to share many similarities—including the handwriting, ink and writing instrument used—with the "wife" fragment. The Gospel of John text, he discovered, had been directly copied from a 1924 publication.

"Two factors immediately indicated that this was a forgery," Mr. Askeland tells me. "First, the fragment shared the same line breaks as the 1924 publication. Second, the fragment contained a peculiar dialect of Coptic called Lycopolitan, which fell out of use during or before the sixth century." Ms. King had done two radiometric tests, he noted, and "concluded that the papyrus plants used for this fragment had been harvested in the seventh to ninth centuries." In other words, the fragment that came from the same material as the "Jesus' wife" fragment was written in a dialect that didn't exist when the papyrus it appears on was made.

Mark Goodacre, a New Testament professor and Coptic expert at Duke University, wrote on his NT Blog on April 25 about the Gospel of John discovery: "It is beyond reasonable doubt that this is a fake, and this conclusion means that the Jesus' Wife Fragment is a fake too." Alin Suciu, a research associate at the University of Hamburg and a Coptic manuscript specialist, wrote online on April 26: "Given that the evidence of the forgery is now overwhelming, I consider the polemic surrounding the Gospel of Jesus' Wife papyrus over."

Dr. Pattengale concludes his article with the following statements:

It is perhaps understandable that Ms. King would have been taken in when an anonymous owner presented her with some papyrus fragments for research. What is harder to understand was the rush by the media and others to embrace the idea that Jesus had a wife and that Christian beliefs have been mistaken for centuries. No evidence for Jesus having been married exists in any of the thousands of orthodox biblical writings dating to antiquity.

With all due respect to Dr. Pattengale, in my opinion it is unfortunately all too easy to understand why the secular media would accept this without much scrutiny. The hostility of the media towards Christianity has been painfully evident for decades. Lacking the expertise to properly evaluate the controversy themselves, and having no real interest in presenting opposing points of view, I believe many journalists jumped on this story because they saw it as a way to stick it to the hated Christians while maintaining the fiction of disinterested intellectual inquiry.

We have seen this before: journalists trumpeting some manuscript because it supposedly presents proof that Christian beliefs are wrong. The enthusiastic reaction of the media to the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Judas are just two recent examples of the disturbing journalistic tendency to promote spurious writings as authentic accounts of the life of Jesus. I am not suggesting that these documents are unworthy of discussion and investigation, but some journalistic restraint is in order here. And shouldn't it be the job of journalists to report the news instead of trying to manipulate and control it?

A&E ducks

A&E has backed down. Duck Dynasty will return next spring - with the cast intact.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I have never seen the show. I will probably not watch it in the future. But at least extremist groups like GLAAD appear to have lost.

Christians should continue to love and pray for our enemies. But loving our enemies does not mean we lie on their behalf. We are all sinners - and I speak as an experienced sinner. At some point they need to hear the truth that homosexuality is wrong - even if it means they will hate us.

Don't duck the issue

OK - that's a bad pun. Pretty much everyone has heard about Duck Dynasty's Phil Robertson's comments about homosexuals not entering into the Kingdom of God, and the unhinged reaction to them from certain individuals and organizations that regard themselves as "tolerant". You can read the Robertson family's response here. (Disclaimer: I have never seen Duck Dynasty).

Frankly, this is just run-of-the-mill anti-Christian bigotry that is becoming more prevalent in the US secular media. As persecution goes, it does not match what many Christians face on a daily basis worldwide. However, I do have a few questions. I wonder how many of those who were angered by Robertson's comments believe in God, heaven and hell. If they do not, then why are they enraged that Robertson is saying that homosexuals will be condemned to a hell they do not think is real by a God they say is imaginary?

American Christian, be aware. Don't think the bigots won't come after you. Don't duck the issue. Pray without ceasing. Love those who hate you, but don't lie to them and say they are doing right when they are clearly not.

Ye shall know them by their fruits...

Christopher Swindell, a journalism professor, believes people he disagrees with politically should be slaughtered by the US military. Apparently, so do the editors of the Charleston Gazette, who decided to publish Professor Swindell's death threats. Here are the screen shots, in case the editors decide to dump the professor's calls for murder down the memory hole:

Publishing death threats has not normally been a function of American newspapers - at least until recently. Readers were more likely to get long-winded lectures on the need for more civility in politics.

The Charleston Gazette is not the only American newspaper which thinks making death threats is acceptable editorial policy. In the Des Moines Register Donald Kaul called for the torture and murder of political leaders he opposes.. Remember: these are supposed to be respectable American newspapers, not crackpot KKK or neo-Nazi websites.

It would be easy to dismiss the angry ravings of Professor Swindell and Mr. Kaul as being of no consequence, and the decision to publish their explicit death threats as just momentary lapses in editorial judgement at the Charleston Gazette and the Des Moines Register, but that would not be wise. These were not sudden outbursts that were quickly regretted but a careful, deliberate series of decisions. There were numerous opportunities for sanity to prevail, but it did not. Someone made the decision to write these death threats. Someone else made the decision that they are acceptable journalism. Someone else again made the decision to publish them. And the wider world of journalism has not yet mustered up any sense of outrage over Swindell's and Kaul's calls for cold-blooded murder.

(There is another component to this story, and that is the world of education. Swindell is a professor of journalism. While I am not hopeful, I will wait and see if the college he works for has a shred of decency and integrity and fires him.)

Journalists as a group tend to lean to the far left politically. That by itself is not a problem, but there is an undisguised hostility towards anyone who does not share their worldview chapter and verse. There is nothing subtle about it: slanted editorials have long ago been replaced by slanted stories. For that reason I do not believe the actions of the Charleston Gazette and the Des Moines Register are some kind of outlier, but represent an escalation of hostilities fueled by a combination of arrogance and hatred of opposition.

Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?

Matthew 7:16 (KJV)

About the light blogging recently...

I usually try to write at least one post every day, just a Bible verse, so that anyone who comes by will at least hear the Word of the Lord.

Part of the reason about my not doing even that small step has been my work schedule. No, that is not a valid excuse. My Savior laid down His life for me, yet I cannot take a few minutes to praise Him? Pretty lame!

But a larger reason - much larger - for my recent blackout has been a picture I came across not too long ago.

The picture is not graphic at all, yet it speaks of horror and blind terror. There is no blood in the picture, yet it is a silent testimony to the bloodshed by slaughtered innocents. The picture is both prosaic and evil.

The picture, which can be found here, is a picture of some empty seats. Seats reserved for the media at the trial of Dr. Kermit Gosnell. Seats that are empty because those who fancy themselves protectors of the innocent and downtrodden are in fact uninterested in anything that threatens their worldview. Many times in the last two weeks I have started to write something about Dr. Gosnell. Started - and stopped. Stopped because of the descriptions of the torture and murder of babies seemed to be something straight out of Nazi Germany. Live newborns fighting for life before having their necks cruelly severed. Babies tossed in the toilet and left to struggle while they drown in urine.

Kareema Cross, a “medical assistant” who worked at Gosnell’s Women’s Medical Society clinic for four-and-a-half years, testified in a Philadelphia court today, telling of the horrors of babies who survived abortions only to have their necks snipped with scissors.

“Did you ever see those babies move?” asked Prosecutor Joanne Pescatore.

“Yes, once in the toilet,” said Cross.

The baby “was like swimming,” she said. “Basically, trying to get out.”

Many self-styled pro-choice individuals have been horrified by Dr. Gosnell's private Auschwitz. All well and good, but have they ever stopped to consider what really goes on inside a "safe" abortion clinic? The torture, mutilation and murder of newborns that happened right in front of Dr. Gosnell's queasy aides goes on every day inside a typical average abortion clinics, conveniently hidden inside a womb. Does the fact that you can't see a newborn feebly struggle or hear it when it cries in agony really make abortion somehow ... ok?

That is why the picture of the empty seats at Gosnell's trial had such a profound influence on me. Just as there are those who believe that if they cannot see the violent deaths of others or hear their screams of pain then it somehow did not really happen, the media believe that if they ignore the trial it will somehow mean the crimes never took place. "All the news fit to print" has become "We create reality, and nothing exists unless we say so".

As a child many years ago I once waded out into the ocean up to my shoulders. All the time I was looking back at the shoreline or to the sides to see how far out others were going, and if I could go as far as they did. Then I turned around and was suddenly confronted by a dark wall of water breaking over me. The wave was not high - maybe three feet over my head - but I will never forget that feeling of terror as everything else was shut out and darkness engulfed me. The wave caused me to tumble head over heels; now scraping my knees on the sandy bottom, now feeling my face being shoved into the sand. Darkness everywhere.

When I saw the picture of the empty seats, I remembered that day in the ocean. Only this was not a puny water wave, but evil larger than a mountain, an evil so high I could not make out its peak.

Over these last few weeks I feel like I had a glimpse of what trying to fight the devil by myself is like. I got stamped flat. But remember that Christ will do battle for us. We cannot defeat our Adversary, but our Champion can.

Never admit...

...you are a virgin. That is what Lolo Jones learned when the NY Times ran a hit piece on her. Tim Groseclose has all of the details.

Key quote:

For many fans, the [NY Times article] came as a surprise. The editors at the sports website sbnation.com, for instance, described its harsh tone as “pretty ruthless.” But awareness of a few facts makes the tone less surprising. One is the Times’s political bias. The other is that Jones, over the last several months, has been coming out of the closet with some conservative tendencies. First, she’s a devout Christian and a fan of Tim Tebow. Second, and perhaps most irritating for liberal elites, she’s a 30-year-old virgin. As she recently Tweeted: “Yes, I’m a virgin. #1 reason I’m single bc guys deuce out when I won’t put out. I do so to honor God & future husband.”

Jones was clearly surprised at the Times’s harsh coverage. As she said on the Today show: “I thought it was crazy . . . the fact that it was from a U.S. media, like, I mean, they should be supporting our Olympic U.S. athletes, and instead they just ripped me to shreds.” Someone should explain to Jones that what she calls “supporting our Olympic U.S. athletes,” the typical Times reporter would consider “jingoism.” Someone might also point out that you can’t be a Christian virgin and expect fair coverage from the Paper of Record.

Indeed. It is hard to imaging the Times running a similar piece on her if she were (say) a Muslim or a lesbian.

Thank you, Lolo Jones, for standing up for what you believe in.

The wider the hate, the better?

This seems to be the conclusion of at least one writer.

The recent shooting rampage at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin put the media spotlight on music groups that have hateful lyrics in their songs. The accused shooter, Wade Michael Page, had apparently played guitar for several music groups that have been accused of promoting neo-Nazi ideas.

The article concerned a certain music group that was apparently wrongly identified as white-supremacist. Key quote:

But if you really wanted to defend the group [Hatebreed], you had to put your lyrical criticism hat on, which, surprise!, didn't always reveal the most pleasant things about the band with songs like "A Call for Blood," "Kill and Addict" and "Destroy Everything," as the Houston Press's Craig Hlavaty wrote in his defense of the group:

Hatebreed is in fact not a Jew-hating, racist, Nazi, hate-filled act. Their hatred is more geared towards people in your everyday life, like ex-girlfriends, local politicians and law enforcement, and other meanies. Nowhere in the band's history have they ever called for racial cleansing.

Obviously, it's preferable to be an equal-opportunity hater than the type of hater that focuses exclusively on religious and ethnic minorities. Still, there's something ironic about excusing a band's reputation by explaining that they hate everybody just the same.

I am not sure what to make of the last two lines in the above article. It is possible that the author, John Hudson, was being tongue in cheek.

Nevertheless, the notion that some kinds of blind, unreasoning hate are better than others is pretty warped.

The war on science

The following article caught my eye this morning: Pakistan and the Higgs boson.

Key quote:

Have you heard about Pakistan’s contribution to last week’s discovery of the Higgs Boson? No, thought not. Remarkably, the reason you probably won’t have is because Pakistan doesn’t want you to.

Dr Abdus Salam, a theoretical physicist, carried out pioneering work in the 1960s to suggest the existence of a hypothetical particle after creating a grand unification theory for weak forces and electromagnetic fields. He won the Nobel Prize in 1979 for his efforts, the only Pakistani to have ever received the honour.

Yet, his name is largely airbrushed from textbooks in Pakistan and is rarely mentioned in public debate. The problem is that he belongs to the Ahmadi sect, a branch of Islam which is officially regarded as heretical by the Pakistani state and which is constitutionally discriminated against. Ahmadis cannot call themselves Muslim or build mosques, and are frequently the victims of violent attack.

After Salam died and was buried in the Punjab his headstone recorded his legacy as: ‘the first Muslim Nobel Laureate’. The word ‘Muslim’ has since been forcibly scrubbed out.

Can't happen in the West, right? We are so much more tolerant and dedicated to the scientific method, yes? No religious or political bigotry to worry about in scientific research and institutes of higher learning, eh? Thank goodness (or Darwin) that can't happen here.

Think again.

Mark Regnerus, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Texas-Austin, recently published a study about the children of homosexual parents and the problems that they experience. The study has provoked a backlash against the professor, who is now the target of a fact-finding "inquiry".

Key quote from the Inside Higher-Ed article:

Regnerus disclosed the Bradley Foundation and Witherspoon Institute’s sponsorship of the study, acknowledging their conservative pedigrees and asserting that “the funding sources played no role at all in the design or conduct of the study, the analyses, the interpretations of the data, or in the preparation of this manuscript.”

His disclosure squares with the code of ethics of the American Sociological Association, which does not prohibit sociologists from taking research funding from any particular funding source as long as the researcher discloses that relationship.

However, UT-Austin's standard appears to be stricter. “It is the policy of the University of Texas that research is conducted with integrity and free from any actual or apparent institutional or personal conflict of interest,” says the university’s Compliance and Ethics Guide. Texas researchers, the policy says, “must insure that there is no reasonable expectation that the design, conduct, and reporting of the research will be biased by any significant financial interest of an investigator responsible for the research or other educational activity.”

The university is currently conducting a pre-investigatory “inquiry” in response to a formal complaint lodged by Rosensweig. (The writer posted a copy of his complaint to his blog on The New Civil Rights Movement, a website dedicated to LGBT activism.) The difference between an inquiry and a full-blown investigation is that “the scope of the inquiry does not include exhaustive interviews or extensive analyses of research records,” according to the university’s Revised Handbook of Operating Procedures.

Aside from the ominous if vague terminology - just what the heck is a "pre-investigatory inquiry”, anyway? - the clumsy actions by the University of Texas have opened themselves up to the charge that the inquiry is political rather than scientific. The complaint against Regnerus was posted on a left-wing Web site, which appears to be an effort to undermine due process. Even more frightening, these "stricter" standards at UT seemed to have conveniently materialized out of nowhere.

As Glenn Reynolds, a law professor and supporter of gay/lesbians rights,wrote at his blog Instapundit:

I don’t know if the study’s any good or not — but I’m positive that if it had found that children of gay couples do better, there would be no such inquiry, regardless of who had funded it. And the point here is mostly to warn other researchers that it’s just better not to look into certain subjects, or to come up with the wrong conclusions if you do.

In many universities the so-called soft sciences (sociology, economics, psychology, etc.) have been largely ruined by political activism, and nowadays seem to do little more that ratify the prejudices of the majority of professors who make up those departments. But now there is a serious effort underway to break STEM (science, engineering, technology & mathematics) to the saddle of political correctness. Professor William Jacobson recently wrote about proposed efforts to apply Title IX to STEM enrollment. The underlying assumption is that the lower enrollment rates for women in STEM subjects represents discrimination, although proponents fail to explain why lower enrollments of men in (say) education do not also demonstrate anti-male prejudice.

For those who think this is no big deal, I would ask you the following: would you drive across a bridge or enter a skyscraper designed and built by someone who was enrolled because of Title IX and who graduated at the bottom of her class? Get ready, because you may have to face that situation some day! Mathematics and physics bow to no one, no matter how many lawsuits are threatened.

All of this is made much worse because of the fact that the secular media - whose scientific and engineering credentials are usually nonexistent - normally act as cheerleaders in the witch hunts against Professor Regnerus and others who reach the "wrong" conclusions. To be seen as even remotely critical of the homosexual lifestyle, global warming, or evolution is to invite personal attacks as a homophobe, a "denier", or a fundamentalist wacko. The self-described watchdogs of the press have become the attack dogs working for a narrow-minded few.

There is a war on science. The irony is that in true Orwellian fashion it is being waged by the very people who claim to represent scientific reason and progress.

Yet another movie mocking Jesus

Another attempt to use the silver screen to discredit Christianity. Yawn.

The movie is based upon the work of Paul Verhoeven, who has brought us such powerful intellectual works as Showgirls, Robocop, and Basic Instinct. Verhoeven is neither a Biblical scholar nor a historian. He is not even an expert in New Testament Greek. But maybe movie audiences can be persuaded to overlook that if they can be convinced the movie is "controversial".

Here is the most bizarre part of the article:

“If you look at the man, it’s clear you have a person who was completely innovative in the field of ethics,” Verhoeven told [Mike Fleming] last year. “My own passion for Jesus came when I started to realize that. It’s not about miracles, it’s about a new set of ethics, an openness towards the world, which was anathema in a Roman-dominated world. I believe he was crucified because they felt that politically, he was a dangerous person whose following was getting bigger and bigger. Jesus’ ideals are about the utopia of human behavior, about how we should treat each other, how we should step into the shoes of our enemy.”

Ignore that fact that Verhoeven has zero evidence to back up his claim that Jesus was crucified because the Romans feared Him. Is it really possible that Verhoeven does not see the complete illogic in his statement? If the reports of the miracles of Jesus are fabrications (as Verhoeven claims), then why should we believe any of His teachings are authentic?

Update on Asia Bibi

Dr. Nazir S Bhatti, President of Pakistan Christian Congress, strongly condemns the forced conversions of Christian and Hindu women to Islam.

This is the real war on women, and if the secular media in the West could ever stop obsessing over birth control and abortion they might realize it.

For those who do not know who she is, here is the story about Asia Bibi's unjust imprisonment and death sentence for "blasphemy" against the Prophet Muhammad.

Please continue to pray for Asia Bibi and her family.

Walls of water

In the Book of Exodus, Pharaoh was so blinded by his hatred of the Hebrews that while chasing them (in order to slaughter them) he ignored the walls of water on both sides - until it was too late.

I thought about that Bible story because of two events. The first was today, when the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (Uscirf) released its 14th annual report. The report recommended that the State Department officially designate the following countries to be designated a “Country of Concern”:

Burma

China

Egypt

Eritrea

Iran

Iraq

Nigeria

North Korea

Pakistan

Saudi Arabia

North Sudan

Tajikistan

Turkey

Turkmenistan

Uzbekistan

Vietnam

Key quote from the article:

Christians are far from the only religious group persecuted in these countries. But, Christians are the only group persecuted in each and every one of them. This pattern has been found by sources as diverse as the Vatican, Open Doors, Pew Research Center, Newsweek, and The Economist, all of which recently reported that an overwhelming majority of the religiously persecuted around the world are Christians. Globally, this persecution is experienced by all Christian faith traditions from Pentecostal and evangelical to Protestant, Roman Catholic, and Orthodox.

The second event was the recent decision by my hometown newspaper to publish this bombastic editorial. Here are some screenshots just in case the editors suddenly get cold feet and decide to dump it down the memory hole:

.

It is safe to say this editorial would keep an army of psychiatrists busy for quite a while dissecting the various paranoiac fears that seem to drive its authors. But the most important thing to remember is that the frightened bigots at The Eagle who wrote the editorial represent the soft and pampered secular progressives that dominate academia and the media in Western countries. The more removed they are from actual oppression and violence, the more likely they are to see it in everyday life - and to try to extract revenge on those who dare to disagree with them. Like Pharaoh, the only thing truly real to them is their hate.

But rather than blindly strike back at their oppressors, Christians should never forget that evil men and women are punished by God in the end. Whatever men (and women) sow in this life they will reap in the next. The bigots and bullies who rage today will eventually tremble before God's holy judgment. Turn the other cheek - and pray that our oppressors will do likewise. This is what God has commanded us to do.

Journalism and sausage

There is an old saying that goes something like this: if you love sausage, don't ever watch it being made. As time went by, writing and passing laws was added to the things you might want to avoid watching while it is being created. Now Ed Driscoll reminds us that modern journalism is also something that cannot withstand much scrutiny.

Even before I was old enough to vote I have been skeptical of the modern media - especially television news. In my case it was a single news story - the failure of the nuclear power plant at Three Mile Island - that started my questioning of what I see, read and hear.

Those who were old enough to remember the events at TMI will never forget them. It was the subject of blanket coverage for weeks. I was in high school and took little notice of the outside world, yet this story was big enough to capture my attention. The eastern half of the United States was in imminent danger of a massive radiation leak, a calamity that could kill thousands and turn large sections of the country into a radioactive desert - or so the media narrative went.

One alarming thing that I noticed about the coverage of TMI by ABC, NBC, and CBS (the only sources of news available to me at the time) was the fact that it was amazingly uniform. There was little if any dissent from the prevailing anti-nuclear narrative. Groupthink seemed to be operating in full force.

It was shortly after TMI that I stared my undergraduate studies in electrical engineering. The more I investigated, the more that I realized that the journalists had gotten the TMI story wrong. Nor was this a case of missing a few facts or going a bit overboard for the sake of ratings. Subsequent stories about nuclear energy show the same pattern of fraud and deceit, a pattern that seems designed to panic people into blindly accepting the dominant media narrative.

The irony is that if you were to question these journalists, they would hotly deny that they are biased or did anything wrong. They deeply and sincerely believe that whatever it takes to advance their political agenda is both morally right and morally mandatory. Power always corrupts, and the technological power of modern journalism has created in too many journalists a "gatekeeper" mentality, in which they choose stories and facts in order to manipulate the dangerously ignorant unwashed heathen (the public).

After the massive failure of journalism regarding Three Mile Island (and nuclear energy in general) I began to question other dominant media narratives about the Cold War, racism, welfare, and other issues. Sometimes I found honest, accurate journalism. But far more often I uncovered lying, manipulation, and (occasionally) outright fabrication. Where were the "layers of fact checkers" that we have been told makes modern journalism trustworthy?

When Jesus warned us about false prophets (Matthew 24:11) He was speaking about false Messiahs and teachers. But the princes of this world are consistent, and lying to gain power is their trademark. Beware those who promise secular salvation if we just elect this person, or enact this law, or eliminate this racial group or religion, or outlaw "hate speech". What they usually deliver more closely resembles Hell than Heaven.

Be civil, you $#@*&!!

One of the most damaging accusations leveled against Christians is that of hypocrisy. It is sometimes a fair charge. We are all painfully aware of the televangelist who cheats with every woman he can gets his hand on, the priest who molests children, the church treasurer who absconds with the funds. If there is one Bible verse every non-Christians knows and loves, it is, "Judge not, and ye shall not be judged." (Luke 6:37)

But judging others - especially those whom they hate - is probably the secular media's favorite pastime. In the aftermath of the shooting of Congresswoman Gabby Giffords earlier this year, the secular media rushed to condemn anyone whose political or religious views annoyed them. Christians, the Tea Party, opponents of amnesty for illegal aliens, Republicans, Sarah Palin - all of these and more were painted as the "real" culprits. The secular media was engaged in a vicious smear aimed at those who dared to disagree with the secular progressive viewpoint.

One self-serving result of the secular media's blood libel was an emphasis on what was called the "new civility". Anyone who has even been on a college campus or lived in a totalitarian state will instantly recognize the "new civility" as nothing more than the old cries for censorship. "Disagree with us," the secular media says, "and anything bad that happens in the country will be blamed on you, no matter who actually did it. Be polite, but don't you dare disagree with whatever we say." Numerous politicians chimed in, perhaps seeing the political windfall that could be had from muzzling political opponents.

But the "new civility" seems to be a strange state of affairs indeed. James Taranto has an interesting sample of the reaction in the aftermath of the recently-passed compromise on raising the debt ceiling.


Some key quotes:

A New York Times editorial calls the [compromise] deal "a nearly complete capitulation to the hostage-taking demands of Republican extremists. . . . This episode demonstrates the effectiveness of extortion. Reasonable people are forced to give in to those willing to endanger the national interest." Haha, remember "civility"?

Former Enron adviser Paul Krugman is even huffier: "By demonstrating that raw extortion works and carries no political cost, [the deal] will take America a long way down the road to banana-republic status. . . . What Republicans have just gotten away with calls our whole system of government into question."

Roars Robert Kuttner of The American Prospect: "The United States has been rendered ungovernable except on the extortionate terms of the far-right. For the first time in modern history, one of the two major parties is in the hands of a faction so extreme that it is willing to destroy the economy if it doesn't get its way. And the Tea Party Republicans have a perfect foil in President Barack Obama."

And, as Roll Call reports, Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, the Kansas City, Mo., Democrat, "said early reports of the new deal appeared to be 'a sugar-coated Satan sandwich.' " Hey, it's better than peas!

Not to be outdone, Vice President Joe Biden reportedly attended a meeting of Congressional Democrats who labeled their Republican counterparts "terrorists". No word if they were being force-fed Satan sandwiches at the time.

That is just a small sample of the reaction to the deal. For my part I oppose the budget deal, but ... supporters are now terrorists? Hostage-takers dispensing Satan sandwiches? Is this the "new civility" we were promised? And whatever happened to, "Judge not, and ye shall not be judged"? If this is the "new civility", then include me out.

Incidentally, Congresswoman Giffords voted in favor of the compromise - her first vote since the shooting. Do her Democratic colleagues consider her a terrorist?

When religions collide...

In this case, the two faiths on a collision course are Islam and multiculturalism. In Canada, the Toronto District School Board is drawing criticism for allowing an imam to conduct Friday prayer services for Muslim students.

According to superintendent Jim Spyropoulos, Muslims are required to pray on Friday so “we have the duty to accommodate.” Interesting. The article also goes on to quote trustee Gerri Gershon, who says, “We have people asking what accommodation we provide for Christian students, but the system is set up to accommodate Christian students; Christmas and Easter are already holidays.” Two whole holidays. Gee, that's mighty big of them. I wonder what would happen if some Christian students tried to pray on school property during class time and a Christian pastor came to the school to conduct religious services.

But while it is tempting to enjoy a bit of schadenfreude while watching secular progressives defend the necessity of having non-Christian religion taught in public schools during class time (in the holy name of multiculturalism), it would be wrong. Consider the sobering possibility that a similar situation will probably arise in the USA one day. Or perhaps it already has: given the fact that the secular media sees Islamophobes lurking under every bed, it is safe to say such a story would likely go unreported. Such a story would go against the official secular media Narrative of America-as-plaything-of-intolerant-Christian-bigots. As the great political philosopher Whoopi Goldberg might say, there is truth and then there is truth-truth, and the latter should never be allowed to interfere with the former.

Secular progressives with their multicultural fundamentalist beliefs cannot have it both ways. They cannot defend using public school property and class time to instruct students in Islam while shrieking "Christianist indoctrination!" at any perceived hint of Christianity in those same schools (example: consider the near berserk fury that greets any skepticism of evolution in biology classrooms). The Western educational system is a closed shop where ideas and opinions outside of the major universities are not allowed. Shouldn't these secular progressives practice the multiculturalism they supposedly believe in? Either shut down the instruction in Islam, or open up the schools to all forms of religious teaching.

"Absolute truth" ain't what it used to be

Jill Abramson set to become NY Times new executive editor.

Key quote:

Ms. Abramson, 57, said that as a born-and-raised New Yorker, she considered being named editor of The Times to be like “ascending to Valhalla.”

“In my house growing up, The Times substituted for religion,” she said. “If The Times said it, it was the absolute truth.”

Hmm: journalism as religion. Is the headquarters of the Times now a church or a temple? Are kiosks that sell the Times prayer stations or sacrificial alters? Should critics who point out the fact that the Times and much of the rest of the secular media is biased and inaccurate be considered heretics or infidels? When Times reporters write editorials endorsing candidates, does this violate the separation of church and state? Should the Times be considered a religious document and banned from public schools along with the Bible? And - Darwin forbid! - does throwing away a copy of the Times or letting your pet poop on it constitute desecration?

It looks like the Times will soon be giving the Onion a run for its money.

UPDATE (11:18 PM): It appears that in addition to "absolute truth" not quite being absolute, it is also not permanent. The Times has removed the quote I cited in my post. Over at Instapundit (a daily must-read for me) Professor Reynolds has noticed it as well.

I had thought about doing a screen capture of the original article, but I decided against it. Foolish move on my part. I should have realized that Abramson's quote was so dumb it probably would be dumped down the memory hole sooner or later. Which is exactly what happened.

Jesus: a prophet of Islam?

That's the claim made in a series of billboard ads in Australia.

Which leads to the following questions: can movies, TV shows, books, magazine and news articles, college classes, athiest groups, and art exhibits that mock Jesus be considered Islamophobic? Are "artists" like Madonna and Brittney Spears who make sneering references to the crucifixion of Jesus Islamophobes? In countries such as Canada could they be prosecuted for "hate crimes"?

The high priests have failed us!

Well, this is certainly new! The Italian seismologists who failed to predict the 2009 quake are being charged with manslaughter by the Italian government.

In Western society there has been an unwelcome development in the past few decades. It seems that when anything bad happens, such as a natural disaster, then someone is obviously guilty and must be held legally responsible. Often this takes on a politically partisan tone: President X or Governor Y should have done something (no one can say precisely what) to have prevented a particular catastrophe. This is a favorite game of the secular media.

The charges against the Italian scientists are ridiculous. Given the present state of the science, it is impossible to predict earthquakes with any reasonable degree of accuracy.

At the same time, I feel that scientific organizations protesting the prosecution such as the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) are partially to blame for these developments.

The AAAS has been one of the loudest voices pushing the idea of scientism. Science, we are told, can explain everything we see in the natural world, and that those who argue that reality is more than what we see in the natural world are dangerous religious fanatics. The AAAS has also pressed hard the reactionary notion of "settled science" in an effort to avoid debating critics of flawed theories such as natural evolution and climate change.

Here is the problem when you push the notion of science as Supreme Lord: you risk turning scientists into high priests of a religious faith. And when the high priests fail, the unwashed heathen tend to get a bit angry.

It is true that Christianity has been used to advance such evils as the Inquisition and the Salem witch trials. But science's hands are not free of blood, either. A rejection of Christianity can lead to horrors such as Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. The fact that scientists in those countries either ended up in concentration camps or the terrified bootlickers of the authorities does not alter the fact that scientists were among the chief early sponsors of these monstrosities.

For that reason, don't be surprised if cases like the one involving the Italian seismologists become more common. Having used the secular media and government power to try to squelch ideas and opinions that differ from their own, the AAAS should not be shocked when the same sword is used on them.

You are ugly! Science says so....

There has been a major blow-up in the secular media over a post in Psychology Today. Dr. Satoshi Kanazawa, an evolutionary psychologist, is under fire for writing that black women are seen as less attractive that other women.

In an interesting rebuttal that also appeared in Psychology Today, Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman and Jelte Wicherts claim to have refuted Dr. Kanazawa's statistical analysis. Unfortunately, they also write this disturbing statement:

It is our view though that such research should be held to a higher standard than other research topics both in scientific rigor and presentation (see here for a similar argument). This should be so especially for topics that could potentially cause harm and suffering to individuals within a particular group. Science doesn't operate in a vacuum. Rigorous science collection and responsible science reporting is essential not just for the progress of science but also for the betterment of society (isn't that the point of psychology?).

There are some obvious questions in response to this statement: (1) Should all groups (what Dr. Kaufman means by a "group" is not clear) be protected, or just certain ones? (2) Who decides what constitutes "harm and suffering to individuals within a particular group"?

It is also interesting that Dr. Kaufman admits that Dr. Kanazawa might have reached a valid conclusion, even though he takes issue with the analysis used to reach it. This leads to a third question: (3) what is the highest priority of science - the betterment of society, or a fearless pursuit of the truth? The fact is that these two values can and sometimes do collide.

I am a mathematician, a white American who is married to a beautiful black African woman, so I find the idea that "attractiveness" is a quantity that can be measured objectively a bit of a crackpot notion. Beauty, as Dr. Kaufman notes, is mostly in the eye of the beholder. The images in the secular media of what constitutes female beauty come from a relatively tiny minority that happen to work in Hollywood and the fashion industry. Fashions change from year to year, and the images we see likewise vary. Trying to measure something as ephemeral as "attractiveness" is like trying to measure starlight by pouring it into a measuring cup.

Even so, I am not really in sympathy with Dr. Kaufman's concerns. He may be on solid ground with his analysis of Dr. Kanazawa's work, but it seems Dr. Kanazawa's real sin was in offending the wrong people. Let me ask a hypothetical question: what if Dr. Kanazawa had performed a similar analysis using similar data and concluded that Christian women were seen as less attractive than other women? Or Republican women? Or traditional women (meaning stay-at-home mothers)? Would Dr. Kaufman and others attempt to debunk that research with the same vigor they are showing now?

If one takes the writings of Richard Dawkins seriously, then religious belivers in general - and Christians in particular - are perhaps the most evil people in history. If there has been any backlash against Dr. Dawkins from the scientific community for his many popular bestsellers advancing such claims, then I have missed it.

Let Dawkins be Dawkins - and let Kanazawa be Kanazawa. If Dr. Kanazawa gets fired for this article don't pretend that political pressure had nothing to do with it. If you sow the wind (in pushing edgy topics in science) do not complain when you reap the whirlwind.