Desiderant Angeli: The Disturbing Legacy of Charles Finney

Desiderant Angeli: The Disturbing Legacy of Charles Finney

Great post on Finney and why he was not a Christian

Eat the Media Too

So tonight I am watching the news and they are talking about a recall for Johnson and Johnson products including some of the ones my kids take. So I listened up. As the story unfolded they showed footage of people from J&J before a bunch of really important looking Congress folks and laid out this scenario as though any second now J&J might be going under because of the flood of injured and dead children having taken their products.

Then the story said that no one had been killed.

No one had been injured.

No one had been sick.

There was a mention about a possible bacteria contamination in some products but no evidence that anyone had been sick from that either.

So I had to ask, "Why is this news?" While it is true that Tylenol and Motrin, like all NSAIDS (non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs) if taken for too long will contribute to kidney, liver problems and the like. I learned this when my mom died of kidney failure after a life time of chronic pain, but she took a very high dose of these drugs each and every day to manage her pain and have something resembling a normal life. So I am hard pressed to see the tragedy here.

Of course no one should give their child these medications like candy and certainly not above the recommended dosage, but I learned that by reading the label on the drugs before giving them to my children. Of course expecting people to actually read warning labels is a bit of an imposition on their rights, but hey since they haven't invented talking pill bottles yet I don';t really know what to do for that.

So why the big stink?

Well two reasons.

One, we live in a media culture and scandal sells really well to the viewing masses. Of course the hand wringing reporter on TV does not give a rip roaring snot about the children but they understand that if they wring their hands and make you care about the children then they will get better ratings, sell more advertising, and get to keep their jobs. Its a business in the news and therefore, although there may be nothing to report, corporate scandal is a big deal and the media will fabricate one out of thin air if they have to to keep us watching watching watching.

Two, we live in a litigious culture. We have all bought into the myth that if we can just get a sympathetic jury we can hit the lawsuit lottery and live happily ever after. We don't really trouble ourselves with whether or not this is right because after all, hey they got a lot of money and in the American Spirit of egalitarianism and free money for all, they should give some to me because they have more than me.

Don''t believe it?

Toyota anyone?

By this time Toyota has removed millions of acceleration modules from their vehicles to be inspected by their scientists as well as NHTSA's scientists and to date exactly not one part has been found defective. Not even in those vehicles which had acceleration accidents. In fact the evidence suggests that what actually happened was that these folks had their floor mats caught on the accelerator and panicked. It seems cold to say so, but human error is the much more likely explanation and the reason why is simple.

The general idea is that there is a software problem on these modules which causes the accidents. The problem with that is that if there were a software problem there would not have been about twenty incidents out of some four million vehicles, but rather four million incidents. The reason why is that the fly by wire system that Toyota uses controls the acceleration, not by how hard you push the pedal, but by how hard they computer thinks you pushed the pedal. If the software were defective, then the computer would misinterpret the data in each car in which said software was extant. However that has not been the case. In fact the extreme lack of commonness of these incidents indicates not that the trouble is hard to find in the software, but that a software problem does not exist.

But what about those poor suffering people who are left behind after the accidents?

Well what about them?

The simple fact that someone is hurting is not reason why that someone should receive a king's ransom from a company simply because that company had money. But to here the commercials soliciting people to come and sue Toyota on the radio you would never know it.

The point is that if you take too many nsaids and die it your fault. If you fail to put your floor mats back in correctly and die, its your fault. And if it is your fault, your existing folks left behind do not deserve money for your failure.

But the problem is that since we like corporate scandal and are conditioned to believe that corporations are evil we think it is OK to punish them whether they deserve it or not. And the problem with that is that when corporations do something which is grievous, we have a hard time determining that based on the many spectacular but frivolous stories being circulated by the media hoping for a sale.

Just thinking.

We Must Eat the Right to Save Civilization

For several years now there have been long loud complaints that our educational system is educating our children into imbecility. That left leaning professors offering an atheistic, post-modern, humanist, existential, deconstructionist historical perspective were turning out children who held degrees but failed to believe in, not God, but truth. Or at least the knowability of truth. Such graduates then went into the real world where they were compelled to make honest left-right. up-down, this-that decisions and being totally unprepared to do so they made a hash of it to say the least. It even went so far that a certain chief executive challenged what a questioner could mean by the word, "is".

This of course really is post-modernism run amok. The idea that truth is unknowable in any final sense and language is useless to help us discern it has never been more on display. And, happily, people had a visceral reaction to this shining example of intelligent inanity that sent them screaming over the edge as they asked, "Is this guy serious?"

The problem is that this reaction was short lived because while most people understood that the CEO had just uttered an absurdity, they could not say why. After all even the most ardent of nay-sayers to this statement would still comfortably say things like, "Well that's true for you..." when it was their opinion in dispute.

This is true even today, and if you don't believe it then I have a science experiment for you. The next time someone argues with you about something you say ask this simple question, "Well, do you think I am wrong?" and watch as they fumble all over themselves with the fact that yes they do think you are wrong but do not want to say so because they do not wish to offend you and they don't really know for sure if they have a leg to stand on if they do say so. Rather what they believe, at least intellectually if not actually, is that the truth which they propound has more truthiness than your truth and therefore should be believed. And if you doubt me on this, then wait and see if they something like, "Well... I did't say that..." or some gibberish of that sort, and then see what happens when you say, "The reason I ask is that I think you are wrong." By the way, I would recommend you be pretty thick skinned before trying this because your average post-modern soaked academician will at this point have a melt down which would make the 'China Syndrome' look like warmed over coffee.

The point is that we live today in an America which actually has been overthrown by post-modern thinkers who don't believe anything and expect us to believe that is right, but are not prepared to give us one single reason why. While at the same time peacefully at night they rest in the sleep of the strong certain that they have enough sycophantic jabber-jaws around them so that they may feel secure in the ocean of absurdity that the halls of higher thought have become.

Really.

That is why news media is now no longer concerned with telling both side of a story, or even the truth, but rather in shaping the news so that those who consume it will feel safe in their presumptions never once daring to hear someone who may disagree with them. Of course they may think they have because the person they listen to talks about people who disagree, but does so in a way as to shape what has been said and to lampoon dissenting opinion to protect the thoughtless sleeper from ever being roused from his lethargy of group think.

It is the same reason that news shows have become either celebrity scandal mongers or tsk tsk human interest shows which are aimed at pulling your heart strings while never telling you one damn thing.

The same reason that bookstores now divide the political aisles into left and right leaning authors so as not to have to put up with complaints from those disconcerted loud talkers who accidentally read a book jacket which broke a cobweb somewhere deep down inside.

Oddly enough the same is not true of the Christian section but the Christian Right knows nothing about Christianity and therefore this, while funny, is not terribly surprising.

And in the latest and greatest example of this herd sheltering phenomenon the Texas Board of Education has bowed out to public outrage and written Thomas Jefferson (ya know as in the) back into the history books even though he was not a Christian and believed in church state separation.

Really. I could not make this up.

Here's the thing. Down here in the land of illiterate rednecks we likes our edumication to teach that Reagan was the greatest pres-o-dint ever and ALL ABSOLUTELY ALL ALL ALL ALL ALL of our fore fathers were Christians. That this country was founded on Christian principles by Christian men who never sinned or told lies and those men gave us (wipe the tear from your eye here) the greatest country on God's Green Earth. And we hates us some ni... uh... je... uh... liberals, yeah that's it, liberals teaching our yung unns anything what says differ'nt. Thems all commies, fags, muzlums and democrats and we ain't tolleratiin their ilk round bout here.

See! If someone wrote it as fiction no one would believe it, but thanks to the thinkers in the world Thomas Jefferson is no longer fit for consumption by Texas school children.

Why?

Simple. You see since the founding fathers all have to be Christian, and since Christianity is a theist religion (theism is the belief that God not only creates but sovereignly rule over his creation nano-second by nano-second a belief most Christians no longer hold to btw) a document like umm.... I dunno.... The Declaration of Independence which says "When in the course of human events... and to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the LAWS OF NATURE AND NATURE'S GOD ENTITLE THEM..." cannot possibly be a Christian document because it ascribes the source of Law as being nature and not God. This is Deism which is the belief that God is a cosmic watchmaker who wound it all up and let it run its course. Of course many so-called Christians believe this is just what happened, but to persist in this belief is to be outside the realm of orthodoxy, and in so doing be no more a Christian than Jefferson was. That coupled with the whole messy separation of church and state thing that Jefferson wrote about along with his belief that Religion would die as men's rationality progressed just pee all over the idea that he was a Christian.

So if you're Texas and you are more interested in the Myth of America than history and are more interested in thinking rightly than in right thinking (seig heil) then you need to do away with messy and inconvenient fact.

So old Tom had to go, but thanks to the outrageous level of stupidity that this decision clearly outlines dogma has given way to protest and Tom gets to stay.

But the simple fact that Texas could even think of doing this scares me something awful. As well as (insert interlocutor here) those who will say, "Well the Liberals do it!" Yes of course the only way to deal with people who you think are wrong is to sink to their level. The difference is no liberal would say that the Declaration is not a paramount achievement of human effort no matter if they disagree with John Witherspoon having signed it or not, and they would never think of disallowing Jefferson's inclusion in the history books because he.... say, owned slaves for example. The personal foibles of great men do not disallow their inclusion in the historical narrative for historical feats.

Here are some other conservative values the Right does not embrace.

1. The government does not have the right to legalize religion any more than it can make it illegal.

2. The government does not have the right to say that consenting adults cannot get married.

3. If your state wants to tax you, it is not the federal government's problem.

4. If your federal taxes are too high it is not your states problem.

5. A respect of law demands you not secede from the union but rather participate in it.

6. It is up to you and your local community to outlaw abortion and not for a judge to overturn Roe.

7. The army is not the solution to your problems.

8. Southern Asian people blowing each other up and spilling over wars which endanger the oil supply is tough luck for the consumers and not the problem of the government.

9. You must pay your taxes even if you don't want to.

10. Jesus wants you to pay your taxes.

11. Gun toting beauty queens do not make good presidents even if they are babes.

12. God is everybody's God and who goes to Heaven is up to Him.

13. It might not be you or your preacher.

14. Jesus really does want you to pay your taxes.

15. So does Paul.

16. So does Peter.

17. A theocracy is not a conservative form of government it is fascism.

18. If you want to live in a theocracy move to Iran.

19. Not everybody believes in Jesus.

20. The government cannot legislate that everyone believe in Jesus.

21. Stop losing your mind over a cross in California you have never even seen.

22. Since you don't bother to obey the Ten Commandments stop shrieking every time someone wants them removed from a court house.

23. If you want religion taught in school send your kids to a Catholic academy.

24. Or a Muslim school.

25. If you are going to defend the Bible, read it.

AND FINALLY

Thomas Jefferson is one of the greatest Americans who ever lived and he was not a Christian...

Neither was Franklin...

So get over it.

Just thinking.