Sapiens, A Brief History of Humanity

http://www.amazon.com/Sapiens-Humankind-Yuval-Noah-Harari/dp/0062316095/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1451706273&sr=1-1&keywords=sapiens

"Sapiens" by Yuval Harari, is a bit more thoughtful than standard atheist rendering of the ascent of man, with even some small refreshing hints of humility. It is broad in scope, proposing to cover the story of man from pre-history up through the Cognitive Explosion, agriculture, civilizations, religion, the "Enlightenment" and on through modern times to conjectures of the possibility that our species will pass through a "Singularity" driven by genetic engineering, nanotech, cybernetics or AI that creates a "new species" more "god" than man.

Why? Well, he summarizes the tragedy of that quite well at one point (p 391):

Our actions are not part of some divine cosmic plan, and if the planet Earth were to blow up tomorrow morning, the universe would probably keep going about it's business as usual. As far as we can tell at this point, human subjectivity would not be missed. Hence, any meaning that people ascribe to their lives is just a delusion. The other-worldly meaning medieval people found in their lives was no more deluded than the modern humanist, nationalist, and capitalist meanings of modern people's beliefs. 

The last line of the book,  ending with some trepidation of the potential amoral terror of meaningless power unleashed  is:

Is there anything more dangerous than irresponsible and dissatisfied gods who don't know what they want?

A fitting ending, but my opinion is that he does perform a useful function in pointing out that from the atheist scientific viewpoint, ALL of the religions and ideologies in world history are "imaginary" -- they have to be. This is the lament of Nietzsche as he said "God is dead" -- so Nietzsche suggested that SOMEBODY had better get down to business and form some "new myths", because the old "god myth" in his mind was dead. Fortunately, Nietzsche (and his soulmate, Hitler)  is definitely dead, so his pronouncements are at best "hollow".

I've been over this ground a few times, but it is fairly complex ground, so the fact that humans CAN'T OPERATE beyond "family, clan, tribe" exceeding orders of say 250 people tops UNLESS they have some shared believed order (he calls it "imagined order"). Religion, money, capitalism, democracy, liberalism, communism, human rights, corporations, animal rights (he likes that one, you can tell), nationalism -- they are ALL imagined (at least if you are an atheist, they HAVE to be!). This whole issue is covered well in "Dawin's Cathedral".

He asks a wonderful question on p176:

Was the late Neil Armstrong, whose footprint remains intact on the windless moon, happier than the nameless hunter-gatherer who 10K years ago left her handprint on the wall in Chauvet Cave? If not, what was the point of developing agriculture, cities, writing, writing, coinage, empires, science and industry? 

To which I'd put my tongue in cheek and add Scotch and ZZ Top. He does take the time to stumble around through the problems with "happiness" or "pleasure" as the meaning of life.

If happiness is based on feeling pleasant sensations, then in order to be happier we need to re-engineer our biochemical system. If happiness is based on feeling life is meaningful, then we need to delude ourselves more effectively. Is there a third alternative?

Both the above views share the assumption that happiness is some sort of subjective feeling (of either pleasure or meaning) and that in order to judge people's happiness, all we have to do is ask them how they feel. To many of us that seems logical because the dominant religion of our age is liberalism. Liberalism sanctifies the subjective feelings of individuals. It views these feelings as the supreme source of authority. 

He realizes the fact that "Liberalism" is the dominant religion, and he then points out the fallacy of liberalism. It will be interesting to see if he is spared from some sort of punishment from the liberal hierarchy, or if the fact that he espouses no specific alternative to the state religion gains him clemency. In one specific line he observes,  "Like Satan (who he does NOT believe in), DNA (which he does, and believes to be meaningless) uses fleeting pleasures to tempt people to place them in it's power."  For a non-sentient non-entity DNA, "uses" seems wrong ... "employs"? "infuses"? killing teleology (purpose) is much harder than killing "god", but without God, humans are the only teleological source available ... and so far, we haven't modified our DNA.

He recognizes that there is NO CHOICE but to throw the REQUIRED baby of the ability of humans to cooperate on scales much larger than 250 people out with the "bathwater" of god when you decide that "god is a myth" because certainly that means that EVERYTHING other than hard science is a "myth" (and that is at best an "inductive myth about mechanism ONLY"). It is this intellectual honesty that I find the best feature of the book. He realizes we have to have "myths" that nobody questions -- but he doesn't have any idea how that would be maintained in a truly "advanced" society that in his definition would be "pure science".

I don't completely agree with him that science is exempt from being pitched as well -- it requires a belief in universal order that is only falsifiable according to Popper, so it's "basic truth" is as fragile as the next experiment. Let's not even go into it being "imagined" just like everything else from a human consciousness that is a total mystery, and human perceptions which we are completely unable to check against some "other perception" (whatever that might be!).

He also realizes that science is completely value free -- it has no "right or wrong", it only has "correct / incorrect", "works / doesn't work".  Nuclear bombs or nuclear power are "just technology that works" -- science can say naught about which is "the good / better". It's methods explicitly deny such questions.

He does a good job in "The Prison Walls" (p112) of discussing how "The Imagined Order" is currently maintained ...  it's embedded in the material world (statues, buildings, etc), it shapes our desires (we buy into fabrications like "individualism" and they are so real we can't imagine an alternative, but most of all, it's "intersubjective") ... which he defines as follows:

Objective --  a truth that is OUT THERE" -- like gravity or radiation. Not ignorable by man. It would be there just the same if man ceased to exist.

Subjective -- meaning a truth that exists in the beliefs of one person (a child's imaginary friend)

Intersubjective -- a subjective truth shared by a group of people (money, christianity, human rights, progressivism,  communism,  global warming, ...)

So there you have it -- we are a species possibly on the brink of making ourselves into "superhuman gods", and we have no ideas of meaning, purpose, good/evil, etc beyond "myths" -- none of which the author finds to be apparently worthy of allegiance or even compelling.

He DOES come VERY close to one of my conjectures at one point, but he misses it by a smidgen (p 221), and there is a bit of irony in his pronouncement here considering his last line. Does he realize that he postulates the unleashing on the universe of something much akin to the belief that he finds "logical" about god (evil), but that nobody up to now has had the stomach for?

So monotheism explains order, but is mystified by evil. Dualism (Devil) explains evil, but is puzzled by order. There is one logical way of solving the riddle: there is a single omnipotent god who has created the universe, and he is evil! But nobody in history has had a stomach for such a belief. 

No, there is at least another (and probably many) logical answers -- there are MANY universes and free will is at least one of the engines that causes them to "fork". God created a perfect universe with free will. If we would have followed Gods will, there would be no evil. Evil is simply using free will to do other than what God intended  -- his perfect universe still exists, and he has even sent his Son to allow our now mostly evil one to be saved, which I believe it will be, but unfortunately at the cost of those who reject that option, again using their free will. They will exist for eternity with the result of their own choice (a choice they freely made against God's will).

It's a good read -- it is ultimately depressing if you accept his view that there is no meaning and we are eventually going to be transformed into some new species of angry, confused, capricious "gods", but it does do a better job of covering the challenge of "what is the good" than many books of this type, even though it ultimately gives no answer.

Perhaps it is meant to be the story of unleashing an evil god on the universe -- the one nobody has been willing to stomach.

15 Lefty Narrative Killing Pieces of Reality

15 Stats That Destroy Liberal Narratives - John Hawkins - Page full:





This is the synapsis, more detail in the article as well as links even MORE detail!

1. Muslims are five thousand times more likely to commit a terrorist act than non-Muslims. 
2. It's very hard to support charges that America is "racist" with statistics. 
3. BOcare is expensive and it reduces quality of care
4. BOcare only increased coverage by 2.7%
5. Sanders thinks you can fund $18B in new programs from "the rich" -- you can't 
6. In '10 38K died from drug overdoses while 30K died in car accidents, 13K were murdered and 700 died in gun accidents. 
7. Since '79 our cost on poverty programs has gone of 6x, but the poverty numbers have barely budged
8. In the last 4 years, 121 illegals released by ICE have committed murder. 
9. Since 2000, SNAP (food stamps) has grown from $20B to $80B ... 46.5 million are on it. 
10. Drug offenders make up 16% of state prison population and only 7% of Federal ... Let them ALL out and 84% of state offenders stay and 93% of Federal. 
11. Undocumented Democrats paid $39B in taxes in 2011and used $94B in services. 
12. WaPO thinks there have been 355 "mass shootings" this year. Mother Jones (supposedly FAR left) thinks 4 this year, 73 since '82. 
13. We didn't really bring in Muslims until after 1965
14. Homosexuality is not genetic, and that is WAY more "settled" than Global Warming! 
15. only 4 in 10 of the young entering the workforce last year found jobs

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The "We're Not Worthy" Civilization

Seeing the West as worse - The Orange County Register:

A society that no longer believes in its core beliefs cannot prevail against rivals who, although less wealthy and far less technologically advanced, embrace their core ideals. A West that rejects (and sometimes is unaware of) its own heritage cannot overcome those who, for religious or national reasons, have a powerful belief in theirs.

Seems pretty obvious does it not? What is it that we are supposed to believe in here in "middle north america?". Global Warming and Republicans are the greatest threat to our "civilization"? You mean the baby killing gender confused cult of shopping? THAT "civilization"?

As the great 15th century Arab historian Ibn Khaldun observed, societies that get rich also tend to get soft, both in the physical sense and in the head. Over the past two centuries, Western societies, propelled by the twin forces of technology and capitalist “animal spirits,” have created a diffusion of wealth unprecedented in world history.

Soft in body and soul -- the current essence (such as it is) of the tattered remnant of a once great civilization. The linked article could have been trimmed a good deal in my opinion, but it is generally well done. It closes as follows ...

Ultimately, we can only confront the challenge from authoritarian forces – whether in the Middle East, China or Russia – when we once again embrace our cultural values as important and worthy of protection. Our opponents – and that’s what they are – may be fundamentally weaker than us, but can count on the advantage of belief in their destiny. To save ours, Western culture needs to stay, not be put away.

For those that don't understand the title reference, a bit of comic relief ... because when you have a ringside seat for the end of Western civilization, a little laughter is REQUIRED!

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Truth To Pussies

Back when W Bush was regularly being insulted in every way imaginable by comedians, democrats and the media in this country, the media often used the phrase; "Truth to Power".  Where did that go?

Well, you have to have some "power" if you want to give it some "truth", and after the foggy stench of BO, there is neither. So, the media didn't report it very much a few weeks ago when a retired Lt Colonel referred to our golfer in chief has a "Total Pussy".  It would be an insult if it weren't so true -- as it is, it is just another reminder of how far this once great nation has fallen in just 7 short years. Since we clearly don't have any "Power" in the WH, this is what the guy had to say in a case of total truth to a total pussy:

Mr. President, we're not afraid, we're angry. We're pissed off, we're furious. We want you to react, we want you to do something. He's afraid. He's a total pussy, it's stunning.

We, the American people, who he does not know in any intimate sort of manner, we want action. We want action against Islamic State. 

This is a president who doesn’t want to hurt our enemies. 

This is a president who cares more about thugs in Guantanamo or thugs in Ferguson, MO, than he does about law-abiding American citizens and their right to live in safety and peace.

Back in the days of W, while the media, the democrats and the comedy elite liked nothing better than to poke nasty fun at him,  Iran halted their nuke program for awhile, and Libya gave up their WMD program because they and our own media understood that W had POWER -- they hated it,  but they tacitly admitted it all the time as they spoke of "Truth to Power".

The problem with being a powerless pussy is that nations kick sand in your face -- or not just sand, sometimes they use missiles.

Nothing grabs the attention of the American military like a member of the “axis of evil” firing rockets close to a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier, the biggest stick in the Pentagon’s massive arsenal. 

That’s just what Iran did Saturday, shooting several unguided rockets about 1,500 yards from the USS Harry S. Truman and a pair of smaller U.S. and French warships in the Strait of Hormuz.

 It takes power, guts, backbone, character, strength, leadership and a bunch of other things BO lacks to make our supposed "big stick" credible. W was credible, and the media unwittingly admitted it, as they now unwittingly admit that BO is not.

The fact that NOBODY uses the "Truth to Power" phrase these days shows us the actual truth.

Governed By Idealistic Idiots

The Reason I’m Anti-Anti-Trump:



The entire column is worth a read -- the bottom line is that the "Empty Chair" that is BO has begat Trump. A sample paragraph ...

"Our government may choose to do many things, such as giving poor children Head Starts, but the much smaller list of things any government must do includes defending the nation’s borders and sovereignty, protecting its citizens, and intimidating its enemies. That 21st-century American government seems neither particularly good at these tasks, nor particularly abashed by its failures, bolsters the Trump campaign’s central message, as distilled by the Atlantic’s David Frum: “We are governed by idiots.” "

I also like his conclusion. The entire column contains a lot of the particular BO follies of the past year that I've covered elsewhere in the blog.

Demagoguery flourishes when democracy falters. A disreputable, irresponsible figure like Donald Trump gets a hearing when the reputable, responsible people in charge of things turn out to be self-satisfied and self-deluded. The best way to fortify Trump’s presidential campaign is to insist his followers’ grievances are simply illegitimate, bigoted, and ignorant. The best way to defeat it is to argue that their justified demands for competent, serious governance deserve a statesman, not a showman.

Hear hear!


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Must Stop New Years From Coming

The time from very late Tuesday the 22nd until the 31st was the shortest and best eight days of my life as we had a wondrous holiday with our little granddaughter, her parents and our youngest son here from Denver. I knew it would be a special Christmas, but was shocked to experience one of the most rare of things in my over intellectualized, overly anxious, and tending to the darker emotions, life. I was treated to the most joyous of surprises as to just how wonderful Christmas could be. I generally dislike surprises -- and often feel concerned even when they are pleasant ones, because I feel I must not have thought adequately to realize this good thing could happen!

Oh, I still managed to "what if" some -- grandpa did a lot of the most careful driving he has ever done, however, unlike falling in love, marriage, having kids, milestones in their life, etc, the wonder and magic of a perfect little granddaughter is such an unalloyed gift that reminds me that God may always have "just one more surprise" in his plans for his children. Even for those who are very much the least deserving of all, which would be me. There are a number of times over the past seven years where I wished that my life had ended earlier because of bad things happening.  I was very wrong ... I would not have been around for those completely undeserved eight days! 

One of the many highlights of the time was the Baptism of our granddaughter, and so the embedded  "Borning Cry" which has become dear to me since becoming a Lutheran. Baptism is a completely undeserved gift, depending on none but Christ -- as is our life, made eternal through the gift of participating in God's Grace. 

It was 2008 before I understood the Lutheran phrase used at death -- "They have left this Vale of Tears".  Sudden younger death holds few advantages, but one is the likely avoidance of learning the impact of what that phrase means. Grandparents, aunts or uncles, pets, etc dying are an introduction to death, but they often fit into "the circle of life" -- the "proper order". "They had a good life" ... "they are at peace now", etc. Such phrases often bring comfort, but not always ... 

Life is even more precious when the "vale of tears" has been experienced. When the rest of your family gets into the car to head to the cities to fly back to Denver with your wife driving, you realize how vulnerable we all are to losses that are all the worse in that they actually are VERY imaginable. 

Some people like to claim that "religion is imaginary",  that there is "no evidence for it". In order to reach that conclusion they must of course not consider how unlikely our existence is, historical evidence for things like the resurrection, etc, but lets just say, OK, it's "imaginary". 

We KNOW that money is all dreamed up by man. Is that real? Capitalism? Communism? Human Rights? Which parts of your important life experience aren't "all in your head"? 

Well, my best Christmas ever is now "all in my head". Will it remain the best that I ever experience? Will tragedy strike and I will again fall prey to wishing it was my last? Will it be my last? Such is the essence of our lives -- poignant, ironic, capricious, indefinite, ethereal, ineffable  ... I'm not about to give up my best Christmas just because it is all in my head -- in fact, it is very very dear to me there -- like my Christianity (if the doubters are right). Sure, the fact that my best Christmas was very much "shared" and is in others heads as well is critical to it being "real" ... same with my Christianity. Same with money ... take a look at times in history when people lose their shared faith in it. Confederate currency anyone? 

So now life goes on with that bittersweet hole in the heart, but also much gratitude to God for allowing me to live to experience that joy. We were able to take her up to see my 89 year old father and get a four generation picture -- considering he was 30 when I was born and I was 31 when my son was born, there is a lot of grace in evidence there! 

Oh how my mom would have loved to hold her! Gods ways are not our ways.  I pray that heaven will wait 100 years at least for that meeting -- and  it will be a great one!

So "New Years Eve came, just the same" (like "The Grinch")  ... and now 2016 has come. 2015 was a year that started in terrible tragedy for us, but from 6/14 on contained a lot of indescribable joy,  and it now slips it's way into being all in our heads (and hearts). 

In childhood, the feeling of "Christmas is over" (and at that time, the INTERMINABLE amount of time until next year!) was a hollow difficult feeling. My parents said "you will grow out of it!" ... and I did, but at the price of Christmas not being as magic and dear as it once was. I was too "grown up" for such childish feelings. 

As my career moved along, there was a similar feeling in going back to work after the holiday break ... that left with the end of working. Then last year was the first year with no kids able to make it home -- a different sense of the holiday that made the loss of my mother touch my heart more as well. Last year was the Christmas of the missing. 

Now I've come full circle for at least one year, to have not "grown out of it" after all! My soul feels that there is a major message of life there -- to know great joy is to know great sadness, there are no peaks without valleys. To enter Heaven we must be "as a little child" -- it seems that God has given me a great lesson in understanding that truth! 

Trumping A Conservative Party

If Trump wins the nomination, prepare for the end of the conservative party - The Washington Post:

When one steps back and looks at the bigger historical picture, certain crisis and cleavages at least appeal to trying to make sense of things. Perspective will always vary, and history is never tidy, so caution is required.

In the linked column, George Will channels his (in my opinion justified), disdain for Trump into a potential ending of the current Republican party. It is worth reading, but in general I do not agree with all that much of it.

His short history includes Teddy Roosevelt's attempt to convert the Republican party from a somewhat conservative party into a "progressive" party, failing, running under the "Bull Moose Party" banner and giving us Woodrow Wilson as a result. Wilson was the most "progressive" anti-Constitutional president up until BO. A little background on that debacle is covered in "Liberal Fascism" . The idea of a "conservative party" was preserved in Will's mind, but it was far from pure.

Will then considers the Goldwater run the point at which the Republican Party became a "true conservative party". I disagree ... we elected Nixon twice. Nixon took us off the gold standard, founded the EPA, agreed with Keynesian spending, put in wage and price control, and went to China -- none of which are in any way "conservative".

Reagan TALKED about being conservative, but given the entrenched D congress he had to deal with, he settled for ending the USSR and lived with huge deficits and a giant FICA tax increase! HW Bush raised taxes ... nuff said. W Bush created a vast new medicare drug program.

Reagan DID slow the GROWTH of government spending, but Newt and the '94 congress were the only truly "conservative influence" that the R's have managed to muster in a LONG time ... and it requires some twiddling on what one means by "republican".

The Republican party of Lincoln was ANYTHING but "conservative"! It wielded vast centralized government power and FORCE in order to edict it's will upon the South. While my review of the book "The Conservative Mind" doesn't go into much on that aspect, the book does in it's discussion of the effects of the Civil War on the conservative principle of states rights.

We really have to go back to Jefferson and Madison to find a "smaller government" party, that interestingly enough was called "The Democratic Republican Party" -- for it wanted small government AND more democracy, while the Federalists (Washington, Hamilton, Adams, ...) wanted more government and more centralized government.

A major source of our problems is our loss of understanding of the human condition, and the ultimate conservative position of "transcendence" -- ultimately correct values over "what looks/feels good today" which comes from "man being the measure of all things". This is possibly best and most succinctly covered in "The Ethics of Rhetoric".

So in summary, I disagree with Will that we have REALLY had a "conservative party as a constant presence", but I agree that Trump is a clear marker post on the fall of man and the specific fall of what was America. While not "likely", I consider it "possible"  that Trump may win, and in fact, I'd claim it hard to really explain "who is worse"? Yes, both are exceedingly bad, but it is more a question of "What do you hate worst" ... complete fecklessness, total incompetence, total disdain for vast swaths of the American public (R's) that you declare them "enemies" in the same class as ISIS (Hillary) ... or Trump, which the article and day to day media now castigate with justified regularity.

So, I think things are already a lot worse than Will seems to think for "conservatives" ... and given his thought that we have had a "consistent conservative presence" in the R party for a long time, I question what he means by the term "conservative" ... (here is what I mean if you need a refresher).

His closing ...

 "In 2016, a Trump nomination would not just mean another Democratic presidency. It would also mean the loss of what Taft and then Goldwater made possible — a conservative party as a constant presence in U.S. politics"

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Hawaii Names Empty Chair for BO?

Hawaii can’t seem to name anything after native son Obama - The Washington Post:

"Like all of the previous Obama naming efforts, however, it has gone nowhere. This week, the first family returned to Hawaii for their eighth straight vacation here since Obama was elected president in 2008. "

What is the matter with Hawaii? Don't they have any prisons, sewer plants or refuse dumps? Perhaps they have a windmill, gasification plant  or an abandoned building somewhere? It sounds like they DID attempt to name a vacant lot after him -- that would have been appropriate.

Perhaps they could create a "Chair" at one of the universities, commonly done at places like Harvard, Oxford, etc  as in "The Lucasian Mathematics Chair" at Oxford, once held by Sir Isaac Newton, currently held by Stephen Hawking.

This could be the "BO Chair" and it would always be empty!

Strange that Kenya is having better success, but they have good reason! They can be thankful that BO was never THEIR leader!

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Trump Already In Office !?

http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/24/politics/sanders-omalley-dhs-deportations/

I'm thinking that this article will go away soon, but I was floored when I saw a big picture of Trump out on CNN with the headline "Democrats Rip Deportation Plan".

Who is in office again? Who runs the DHS?

CNN and the Democrats can rail against a plan and BLAME TRUMP? Are they just mixed up? Perhaps they should blame W? It may be that he started such things before he left and BO has just been too busy golfing to do any direction changes?

Things that make one wonder what the heck goes through a lot of peoples minds, and the relation it might have to even an imagined reality! It certainly appears that the country is very much "read for Trump!".  TRUMP certainly believes that the actions of the DHS are because of HIM -- as he believes that EVERYTHING is because of **HIM**!!!

So does BO in fact ... just listen to him. It is beginning to look like BO may be analogous to an evil version of John the Baptist, only BO "prepareth the way" for Trump!

Blacks Killing Whites, TP Consistency

The Lie That Turned Moms Into ‘Murderers’ - The Daily Beast:

"Robert Barnes" will not get the kind of media attention that "Trayvon Martin", "Michael Brown", or even "Jamar Clark" (Jamar is the guy shot by police in N Minneapolis a month ago, for some reason there seems to be less focus on his name).

Robert Barnes was a homeless alcoholic. A 10 year old black boy decided to tell his mother that "Barnes had hit him" (he hadn't ), so the woman got two of her friends and some kids and went down and beat the guy to death with a broken leg from some furniture and a hammer.

Why not? Barnes was certainly a LOT less innocent than a 25 week gestation baby! The NY Times talks about the terrible restriction in woman's rights imposed by 26 states on 190 million people that don't allow such babies to be murdered. 9 wonderful states allow the murder of babies as long as they are still in the womb. What basis is it again that people with little ability are supposed to use as a way to measure things like the value of a life? The ladies didn't try to sell Barnes' body parts, so in some respects they actually were quite "moral" in modern cultural terms.

So we are a nation that has decided that some human lives do not matter at all. The State even uses our tax dollars to subsidize the murder of some, so their blood is on all our hands. If anyone in the US thinks they have no sins to confess before they take communion, they can reflect on that for a bit. How exactly DOES one make a distinction as to which lives matter and which do not?

So why doesn't Robert Barnes life matter? It may be because he appears white,  but I don't think that is the reason -- although we know TP is unconcerned about an epidemic of white deaths.

Like the lives of thousands of young black men who kill each other every year, Robert Barnes death simply DOES NOT FIT THE THE PARTY NARRATIVE. There is no easy way for The Party (TP-D) to gain political power by talking about this death, in the same way as the deaths of roughly 6K young black men who murder each other each year don't fit the narrative needed to in increase TP power.

To understand The Party, **ALL** that needs to be understood is their thirst for POWER. Once you realize that they are 100% dedicated to the amassing of political power to a centralized "elite" by ANY AND ALL MEANS, they are very easy to understand, and they in fact ARE consistent!

For TP, POWER = MEANING. It is ALL THERE IS!

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Atheists Can't Exist

Eric Metaxas: Science Increasingly Makes the Case for God - WSJ:

Actually, based on current scientific knowledge, NONE of us can be here -- but that seems especially poignant for atheists.

I once knew of an atheist whose last name was "May", who proudly declared himself a "Maytheist" -- "their own god". God is infinite, but is human hubris really limited? I sometimes wonder if the sad and hard to understand requirement of Hell doesn't fall to the need to contain the infinite hubris of Satan and those who deny the spiritually obvious with infinite hubris. Humans (in the flesh) are finite beings -- but perhaps they are allowed infinite hubris if they choose it? Would that be the opposite of choosing the infinite love of Christ? (not that we CAN choose the love ... it is by GRACE, however, since we have free will, we can choose to reject the love)

Reading the whole linked article is well worth it. I've written on the basic topic before.  A revelation of  especially the last 30 years is that another wave of human intellectual hubris in regard to our origins has washed up on the beach of reality and is now receding, leaving the beach as it was before.

After Newton and Darwin, science was pretty sure that all it took was "a few basic elements and processes", and "billions and billions of years" for us to sit back with a Scotch and observe how random chance "easily" bootstrapped a universe for us relax and ponder as lords of all -- albeit with a fairly significant concern that there HAD to be MANY other life forms out there pondering similarly.  We fervently hoped (but not prayed if we were "smart") that they were equally smug, enjoying a crackling fire and adult beverage rather than dreaming of nasty things like universal conquest!

In the early '80s there were few atheists as smug as Carl Sagan, whose "Cosmos" was a very entertaining, but very snooty journey to the beginning of time and to the far reaches of the universe "explaining everything" so that "intelligent people" could dispense with ancient religions and superstitions. Sagan pretty much cried out for the "If he is so smart, how come he is dead?" question.

Sagan now has indeed returned to the much less haughty dust from which he came, and has been replaced by an at least equally smug new "little god that shits", named Neil Degrasse Tyson, who proves to us that dust comes in different shades (he is black). Here is a quote from Neil that fits well with the theme of this post:

Every account of a higher power that I've seen described, of all religions that I've seen, include many statements with regard to the benevolence of that power. When I look at the universe and all the ways the universe wants to kill us, I find it hard to reconcile that with statements of beneficence.

What a learned position for someone whose faith says that he can't exist! Back in 1966,  Time Magazine featured a "God is Dead" cover, and Sagan  proudly gave the odds for life on other worlds:

The same year Time featured the now-famous headline, the astronomer Carl Sagan announced that there were two important criteria for a planet to support life: The right kind of star, and a planet the right distance from that star. Given the roughly octillion—1 followed by 27 zeros—planets in the universe, there should have been about septillion—1 followed by 24 zeros—planets capable of supporting life.

So, given 50 years and a lot of research, how is our search for that highly likely life going? Hmmm ... well, the "odds" have changed just a bit:

What happened? As our knowledge of the universe increased, it became clear that there were far more factors necessary for life than Sagan supposed. His two parameters grew to 10 and then 20 and then 50, and so the number of potentially life-supporting planets decreased accordingly. The number dropped to a few thousand planets and kept on plummeting.

Where did the odds plummet to? Well, the number of parameters is at least at 200 now and you don't hear many hopeful predictions about life on other worlds. In fact, the odds against even US being here are astronomical ... I cover a few of them near the end of this old post. Just for our universe to exist, the "smart money" says you need something like 10⁴⁰⁰ UNIVERSES to get to one like ours ... something like double that for getting a planet suitable  for any life at all, let alone conscious life!

So we are faced with the paradox that a rational atheist has to conclude that according to the "intelligent odds", they simply don't exist. Odds ike that are the mathematical way of saying "NO"! In which case, how can they call themselves "rational"? Or as Fred Hoyle put it ...

Fred Hoyle, the astronomer who coined the term “big bang,” said that his atheism was “greatly shaken” at these developments. He later wrote that “a common-sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a super-intellect has monkeyed with the physics, as well as with chemistry and biology . . . . The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question.”

Strange how God has arranged it so that none have an excuse but their own blind will to reject his existence and Grace!

I did take exception to one aspect of the article. Our existence is not the greatest miracle, but the 2nd greatest -- God himself caring enough to take human form and die for our sins is the greatest miracle!

Merry Christmas!

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Too Smart For Republicans

The Simple Truth: President Obama is Too Intelligent for Republicans to Understand:

I moved my summary to the top, it got a little long. The bottom line here is that "progressives" and conservatives, libertarians, Christians, etc have increasingly different world views. Since the "progressive" view is ascendent in media, education, government and law, "progressives" simply dismiss views that don't agree with them as "stupid, ill informed, etc". There really is no "dialogue", because at least from the left, there is no reason that anyone has to pay any attention to other viewpoints -- all their positions are "settled".

I think this is summarized well by this quote from the linked article:

Which brings me to President Obama. While I’m not calling him a genius, I do think he’s extremely intelligent. I also believe that his tendency to use “big picture” thinking while drafting policy is something most Republican voters simply can’t understand.

The brilliance of "progressives" knows no bounds ... at least in their own minds. Here are the "reasons" they come to this "obvious" conclusion that they and BO are just "too smart for republicans".

Take “Obamacare” for instance. It’s not a “fix health care today” law. In fact, the law itself is made to grow and evolve over time. My belief is that it’s a springboard to true socialized medicine.

The magic of being a "progressive" is that since  you have complete dominance in the media, education and government bureaucracy, you KNOW that your positions are ALL "settled" -- they are simply factual, and anyone in disagreement must be "stupid", because certainly government controlled media both here and in other largely socialist nations have declared what "the truth" is adequately! Possibly in the near future, alternate sources of "false information" like "Faux News" can be removed, and the few people too stupid to agree with State positions can be "re-educated". In the "progressive" utopia, all will be educated to agreement!

I'm not going to argue the case for not everything including your healthcare being centrally controlled here, but I will make just a couple points. I do believe that BOcare is "working as designed" primarily has a way to transfer wealth and services from people that work or worked, to people that didn't or don't. Our healthcare costs have skyrocketed to the tune of many thousands a year -- higher charges, huge deductibles, AND we are putting $5K a year in an HSA account, "pre-spending" for the charges that we know we will have. Make no mistake, that money is a COST, but we have no choice. We KNOW it will be spent for health, as will MUCH MORE, because the current PRIMARY PURPOSE of BOcare is simply to transfer money from those that vote in a lower percentage for TP to those that vote in a higher percentage. It IS "working", and the "big picture" -- the move to socialism is EXACTLY why many Republicans oppose it!

The next topic that is all explained in the "big picture" is minimum wage.

Minimum wage is another issue you see this with. Republicans constantly paint it as a “job killer” (it’s not) while also rallying against the millions of people who are on government assistance.

In a world where the best way to create wealth is to have central planners direct the economy, the central planners can issue a directive to "businesses" that they WILL keep a certain number of people employed at a certain wage. Perhaps in that world you can repeal gravity and a few other things. In this world, supply and demand are in play.

Raise the cost of labor and the demand will fall. More technology will be used, fewer workers able to produce more will be worked longer hours, etc ... until the "progressive" dream of the USSR is re-realized here (no doubt "correctly" this time in their eternal faith), raising the cost of labor will lower the demand.  (and one of the reasons the "new USSR" will fail as well is because you can't actually repeal either the laws of supply and demand nor gravity).

The same goes for war. When it comes to ISIS, Republicans just want to send in troops and “crush the terrorists.” They’ve hammered President Obama relentlessly about how he’s handled the entire situation. See, to many of them, they just want to go in guns blazing because that’s what sounds good. But as we’ve learned by our previous war in Iraq, going into these situations haphazardly without a plan leads to absolute chaos. Remember, the existence of the ISIS we see today is a direct result of Bush’s Iraq War.

Some "progressives" even go farther back and blame Churchill for creating Israel. Many progressive "fixes" require a time machine. I wonder why it is that we still have troops in Germany, Japan and South Korea? WWII has been over for while, as has the Korean war. BO declared that Iraq was stable in 2011, and in what I consider possibly the most feckless action ever by a president, declared that pulling the troops out and letting it re-descend into chaos was "not his decision".

It is interesting that in the case of healthcare the very same person argues that BOcare provides "more early care", which is GOOD, but in the case of global cancers like ISIS, or I'm sure Fascism, Communism in the past, the smart answer is to just let it go and it will fix itself. Funny how that works ... consistency is never something to consider in the "smart progressive" world.

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Presidential Christmas Spirit

JOSEPH CURL: At Christmastime, George W. Bush was Santa, Obama is Scrooge - Washington Times:

This was published in 2014 ... but worth a look.

Being Republican means that the MSM will never point out good things you do even if it benefits them personally. The Washington Times is a conservative paper though.

But here’s the thing: In December, we never left Washington, D.C., until the day after Christmas. Never. Mr. Bush and his wife, Laura, would always depart the White House a few days before the holiday and hunker down at Camp David, the presidential retreat in Maryland. After a few years, I asked a low-level White House staffer why. 

I still remember what she said: “So all of us can be with our families on Christmas".

The President can leave town when he wants. He can care for "the little guy", or he can "let them eat cake".  People can yammer about "inequality" all they want, but those that live in the real world know that there are always GIGANTIC inequalities that mean far more than money -- lost health, mental and physical, lost loved ones -- sometimes just age, but often accident, disease, addictions, depression ... lost faith, the list would fill pages.

We are ALL "little people" -- though some of us have blessings beyond measure. Last year I was probably sitting in this same spot at some point, but no children were home and I knew that none would be arriving. It was our first empty nest Christmas. We still did good things -- visited my Dad and some family in Barron, church, etc. We were STILL very much blessed -- the kids were alive and healthy, they called and talked with us ... they were just not with us, and that is to be expected some years. But logic is logic and emotion is emotion. It IS, and "it is what it is" ... you accept it and focus on doing as well as you can as it passes like the weather. Good or bad, it always passes.

THIS year, son Garrett, wife Vicki and our precious granddaughter Tula are here and life is grand! Son Keenan arrives on Christmas Day and we will all be up at Barron for a great celebration with that side of the family, with Tula's Baptism and special Christmas with the Bruellman side of the family over the weekend. Our cup runneth over!

Some believe that the government can "fix" inequality by playing a modern Robin Hood with the mighty dollar ... stealing from the rich and giving the poor. I don't, but maybe so -- it's a bad time of the year to argue.  We can just agree to disagree.

It IS however true that a President can decide to hang around Camp David so that the bulk of the  massive staff, security, reporters, pilots, etc can spend Christmas with their families. As the reporter in the article says, those years were priceless -- as I know this year is to me.

Sure, but the cynics will say "that's just a few hundred people at most". Like the guy walking along the beach with hundres of starfish washed up, throwing a few back into the sea being approached by a cynic who says "You can't even help a tiny fraction of all those starfish!, Why bother?". The other man replied "I can help that one." As he threw another back into the sea.

Somehow I like it better than W's thoughtfulness is largely unsung -- he was around politics long enough that he no doubt knew that what he did would not be appreciated at least very publicly, because politics, especially left wing media politics, takes no "time off", and Christmas itself is an affront to much of the other side.

Likewise, Obama knows he can do what he wants and there will be little or no critical coverage .. he is not subject to this kind of thinly veiled disgust about W and "his ranch" ...

But he will make time for fun, or at least his idea of it. Bush rarely takes the type of vacation one would consider exotic -- or, to some, even appealing. His notion of relaxation is chopping cedar on his ranch or mountain biking through rough terrain, all in 100-degree-plus temperatures in dusty Texas where crickets are known to roast on the summer pavement. He seems to relish the idea of exposing aides and reporters to the hothouse environment.

What a bumpkin! Chopping cedar, mountain hiking in sweltering temperatures when he could be coddled in luxury at the Hamptons, Martha's Vineyard, Hawaii or a host of other wonderful destinations. How sad!

That is the world we live in. "The Party" with all it's massive control of the entire government bureaucracy, 90% of the media, entertainment and education works 24x7 to make BO look as good as they possibly can. They worked just as hard for 8 years to make W look bad, but somehow, it doesn't work as well as they believe it HAS TO!

It reminds me of the season -- Herod certainly didn't want to have the King of the Jews arrive, but somehow he still did. As Christians, we know that the battle is won, but here deep in the game, way behind, with the situation looking hopeless, it often doesn't look that way.

But there are always "hints" if you listen and look. The spirit wins out -- it can't be faked or manufactured, but it also can't be hidden, for in truth, all that survives is spirit.

Spirit and Truth ... the only way to KNOW!

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The Almighty Climate Disconnect

To The Horror Of Global Warming Alarmists, Global Cooling Is Here - Forbes:

"Booker could have been writing about Robinson when he concluded his Sunday Telegraph commentary by writing, “Has there ever in history been such an almighty disconnect between observable reality and the delusions of a political class that is quite impervious to any rational discussion?”"

Yea, probably ... the run up to WWII and the appeasement of Hitler come to mind.

This article is a good narrative of climate from Medieval Warming Period through the Little Ice Age to today with discussion of our increasing knowledge of the effects of the sun on earth temperatures.

We have had a warm and wet fall and start of winter here in MN, so it FEELS like we might be under "Global Warming" since a white Christmas will be "just barely" (it's snowing now). Local conditions in the short term are not relevant to "climate change" ... cold or hot. "Climate" is about huge advancement/retreat in CONTINENTAL GLACIERS  ... as I continue to harp on, since the last glaciation we are in the midst of a historically long warm spell, the previous analogue being 120K years ago. We are in the 5th peak in 450K years ... just imagine for a moment what it is like during ALL that time in the squiggles below -2 ! Hello mile of ice over Chicago!

As I've covered a number of times, plants really like CO2 and they like warmth MUCH better than cold. In fact, if the predictions of this article and a few others I've done blogs on come true, we may REALLY have a problem with FOOD rather than having to have some people move off the beach!

Let's not look at those previous temp peaks very long -- if one does, you realize that our next "cooling" could last for "order 100K" rather than order "couple hundred".

Now 100K years of -2 to MINUS 9! cooling could REALLY "explain climate"!

Do you suppose they would give up on "AGW is settled" after 50K years? Nah ... settled is SETTLED!

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Obama's Girls Depicted As Monkeys

http://feeds.nydailynews.com/~r/NydnRss/~3/Sfgs1oURYpo/washington-post-cartoonist-draws-ire-ted-cruz-cartoon-article-1.2474489Sent with Fast News Android ( http://goo.gl/athvJ )

Oh wait, it was the Cruz girls. Surprisingly they did actually pull the cartoon ... Cruz is just Hispanic, and I'm not sure, but being an R, probably a "white hispanic" ... like Zimmerman.

Nothing racist or nasty about this!

Want to make any bets if it was the Obama girls the cartoonist would be fired?