Open List: Dilemmas of Advanced Civilization

Just trying to identify major and minor factors that challenge today's advanced civilization. The developed world's pathologies affect the whole world. Here's a start with no leading item identified.

• Pessimism.
  
• Cynicism.
• Protection of wealth.
  
• Enervation of motivation.
  
• Lack of gratitude.
  
• Lack of humility.
• Seeking power for the sake of power, or "King of the Hill."
• Misanthropic notions.
• Reemergence of ancient irrationalities.
• Deliberate monkey-wrenching.
• Abandoning reasoning, preferring feeling. (Og)
• Choosing to go along with whatever is made popular. (Og)
• The notorious get press; the notable don't unless they screw up. (mts)
  

Help me add to this. Take as negative viewpoint as you wish. It is my position that for every trouble there is also some optimistic view that can be taken.

Update: Please see Dilemmas Facing Advanced Civilization -Pt2 for part 2 in this series

The Secret of Utopias

Practical jokers find delight in the confusion, discomfort, and predicaments they can inflict on their targets.

Misanthropes -- haters of humanity -- are easily enraged when humans find happiness in their "miserable" lives.

Utopia is commonly understood to be a perfect place where nothing bad happens. Those who are selling their vision of the perfect the world are oft described as Utopians.

Question:

What provision do Utopians make for practical jokers and misanthropes?

Answer:

What? Do you really expect them to reveal to you ahead of time that it is they who plan to run things?

Practical jokers are the salesmen, misanthropes run the camps.

Missed the Misanthropes Hiding Behind Malthusianism

Dennis Prager wrote a column today, Why Are Atheist Books Best Sellers?.

Among the reasons he stated, he did not mention the haters of humanity.

The radical environmental movement has provided the misanthropes the perfect place to disguise their hatred. They do it under the cover of the "moral" authority asserted by Neo-Malthusianic movements like that foisted by the Global Warming crisis mongers.

I've made the case for this connection many times. Notably here and here. I've tried to get Mr. Prager to acknowledge the threat before. But for some unfathomable reason he chooses to miss it, not discuss it in depth. He even outright evaded it as can be heard here. Notice in that clip how he shunted all of the death worship onto the shoulders of radical Islam and let the radical Left slip by unscathed.

At the core of the Judeo-Christian branch of theology is the conviction that innocent people (like children in the womb) must not be sacrificed to whatever human fear or true-believer movement demands it.

It should thus come as no surprise that because of this protective covenant with their God that observant Christians and Jews -- and their rights to be safe with their thinking -- are being targeted.

It is not hard to see that we are in the middle stages of gradually having Christianity deemed intolerable by authorities with the mind-altering intolerance that these anti-theists (with whom Mr. Prager slammed all atheists with the title of his column) are advancing. The final stage, for which they are clearly aiming, is the status of the church depicted in the Orwellian dystopia of the novel 1984: for the church to be a vague memory.

Bottom line: It should be no surprise that Malthusian misanthropes and radical environmentalists, including some of the GW true-believers, would be prevalent at the same time as the popularity of these books. Mr. Prager failed to include them.

Essential Tangential Capture

When in conversation -- talking at length invariably touches on many subjects and... -- I frequently catch hold of a phrase of my partner's -- I delight in catching these things because it so frequently leads to discovering new depths. For instance... -- and I either can hardly wait to share my thought, or my mind is racing well past what my partner is saying.

Needless to say, this has been off-putting if not damaging to my development of friends quickly. First impressions are hard to break. And I have to admit that even I find that a fast-talking, both seemingly distant and yet interruptive conversant is not one of my favorite types with whom to spend much time.

Then add varied degrees of defensiveness or a desire to stop the other in mid-speech when they've misunderstood me, and what started out as a simple conversation, can quickly development into a heated discussion or a consequential dispute.

All this even before anything of substance has been stated.

Such can be the troubles of the owner of a semi-rapid mind like mine.


However, anyone who has dealt with me professionally and wants to gain from the skills pent up in this semi-rapid mind, knows to just let me go and occasionally check that I haven't gone too far afield. In my day job I rarely run across a problem that didn't look like another one I've already solved, so this is seldom a problem there.

There my problems can stem from others not knowing what I'm doing. When I move fast it makes some nervous even if it regains time others have lost; though I've never gone wrong [knock wood], I am reluctant to say so lest spoilsport "Murphy" be listening. I can do things that I often can't easily explain to others. Why? See above! The best thing would be for them to go away until I'm done. Sometimes they can't. So it has sometimes come down to this: they either trust me or I tell 'em to find someone else.

Usually they trust me. [knock wood]. But why should they?

Oh, I could write it out all right. But in the heat of the battle, you don't write out your tactics as you're figuring out what the next one must be even as you're deploying the last tactic. You're moving and reacting to rapid changes. And remember, I only have a semi-rapid mind. Hence, you can see why I attribute much of my success to luck.

Heh, heh. Well, if you know the nature of luck, then you know how much my success really isn't all luck.

Anyway, I have just passed along to you what its like to live with my limitations. They can and have made things difficult.

However. It is the very nature of my mind, a type that I share with to some extent with a lot of nerdy engineers, that makes our performance possible. The applying of ingenuity to solve problems quickly, safely, and profitably.

Tangential thought is key to human ingenuity. You run up an alley. Take in the view quickly. Run back to the main path. Run up the next alley. Repeat. Just suppress mentioning it all. Even if you could, hardly anyone will understand. One simply cannot speak as quickly as one can make observations, note the values revealed, and not be distracted from the task at hand. Well, at least not someone with a semi-rapid mind like myself.

And you can see, if this is possibly a wide-spread attribute of engineers, then in this is why many often seem distant to the rest of the public. Their experience tells them that conversations about their work aren't always productive. The essential product of their tangential minds -- well suited to solving problems on the fly -- is not easily captured in conversation, and even on paper. As to speaking with someone who has no experience at all, well, after a minute or two these are typically looking for an exit, any exit.

And so, here is where I get to one solution that has worked for me and which I heartily recommend to others.

I've rediscovered something that helps fill in for my limitations. The great tool to extended and useful conversation that is made possible by instant messaging -- IMs.


I have much thanks for Og, the Neanderpundit, who sought me out some time in the past years because of my comments and contributions at Eternity Road. And who recently renewed our acquaintance by replacing those brief IMs with now some rather elaborate ones that have helped me make this blog explode.

The gist of the matter as far as I am concerned is demonstrated thus.

When I am writing an entry to an IM, Og is doing whatever.

As he responds, I am writing more to elaborate.

He isn't distracted by my voice or by what I've written and continues to write his response.

I latch onto what he has written, and elaborate on some tangential thing.

He continues to write, or starts to respond to what I've taken off on.

Each time I hit enter, I go back and read what he's written while I was writing.

At no time do I miss what he's written, nor he mine.

When I did this with my Dad some five or six years ago, all those conversations we used have that deteriorated into shouting matches became history. Even in person, our ability to converse in a more gentle manner had been established (although my ability to hold on to a new thought of my own while he was speaking had only gotten a little better) He'd let me cue him while he was speaking and he'd continue and we could come back to my thought, sometimes even successfully. The most important thing of all, is that IMs led to the best moments I had with my Dad in his last days; and intellectually speaking, this was our best days.

So, for me at least, there still is nothing like the IM to let a wandering mind capture those things it generates off of another great mind. So thank you Og for helping me in many ways.

OTOH, for those of you who don't like the product of my output? You can blame Og for enabling me.

Sharing Fates, Indeed

As I read

"Even within the Muslim community -- especially within the Muslim community -- there is great awareness of how closely the terror attacks are linked to issues within Islam."

at the Belmont Club's Sharing Fates, Wretchard prompted my recall of the following conclusion from observation.

Multiculturalism promotes the destruction of the Social Contract.

The Social Contract is the fundamental promise that legitimizes the governmental system of the United Kingdom, that of its commonwealth legacy nations, and that of the United States.

Briefly stated: "In preserving rights equally among our people, we reserve the right to the use of force." In the United States, the paramount of human rights were written down in the Declaration of Independence: the rights to life and liberty.

In the Muslim communities, out of which the recent terrorist plots emerged, there are surely some members who have the uncommon opinion that the terrorists are bad.

But due to multiculturalism and its promotion, Sharia Law has been allowed to take the place of English common law in Muslim communities. Could there be a more explicit surrender of the UK's promise under its social contract?

Were it still universally adhering to the social contract, Britain would see that its legitimacy, let alone its security, would be on the line here. Were it still defending its authority even in Muslim communities, it would be easier to gain intelligence. Were it still unapologetically offering protection to those who wish to report to the authorities the plans of terrorists they see mounting, the Brits would increase their security.

But under Sharia Law, the informers become criminals as soon as they take a stance with infidels against any other Muslims. The security of England is demoted to the Left's insistence on instituting multicultural acceptance at every level.

Hence, the weak of the Muslim community are put out of reach of the protection of the wider and more powerful UK justice system. And so are any English patriots who happen to be Muslim.

Thus England, in allowing multiculturalism to spread, is systematically delegitimizing itself even before it allows hostile forces to mount within it. In allowing them legally to cut the throats of those England has abandoned to it, the terrorists will find it easier to cut England's throat.

Yes Wretchard, sharing fates, indeed.

Orwellian Crazy Quilt

There was a time when politicians of any party knew they couldn't get away with blatant hypocrisy. They would typically leave the hurling of unsavory charges (of which they themselves may have been guilty) to their friends.

They knew they couldn't get away with such impertinent attacks because the major media wouldn't miss an opportunity to feed the hypocrite to their audiences.

Apparently Hillary Clinton has no fear about spitting into the wind.

For today she came out hammering President Bush for commuting Scooter's incarceration. (courtesy, Savage Nation)

Can you imagine CBS evening news leading with "In a shocker, Hillary Rodham Clinton lambasted the Bush Administration for cronyism in pardoning Scooter Libby." And then listing Bill and Hillary Clinton's vastly unprecedented number of pardons, including Mark Rich and Susan McDougal.

Nuh-uh. MSM wants to chuck the Clinton pardons down the memory hole. They'll probably succeed.

I hope I'm wrong. I surely wish we conservatives get loud again and bring embarrassment to its rightful owners.

The Dems have gotten notoriously shameless. And why not? Our GOP country-clubbers never hand them their head, let alone shame them. What price will the Dems pay if balance is conceded to MSM?

Every issue is tacky to the "leaders" on the Right, nothing is to the whole of the Left. That's some leadership we got!

As incidents like this add up, shamelessness unexposed becomes positively Orwellian. So will we now add this, and the next, and the next, to the crazy quilt of acceptable nonsense that is woven from the litanies of the Left? We will if the BS goes uncorrected by the Leftist dominated media, which more and more includes Fox.

So here is my Orwellian version of the Democrat's latest litany that will go uncorrected everywhere but on the Internet and on most conservative talk shows:

We are at war with pardons.
We have always been at war with pardons.
Strict enforcement is our friend.

Of course, back at the end of the Clinton Administration, this was the Democratic rant:

We are at war with merciless sentencing.
We have always been at war with merciless sentencing.
Pardons are our friend.

Unless you help make a football of Hillary's chutzpah, get used to the pattern.
Your masters declaring what you may remember, and their weavers making you learn to love crazy.

The Belmont Club: Here Be Irony?

With his commentary on London's extraordinary surveillance system, Here Be Dragons, Wretchard concludes:

"One of the supreme ironies of recent history is that the policies and attitudes which declared all borders open, passports unnecessary, wars obsolete, all cultures equivalent and 'soft power' the only kind that could be countenanced may have led directly to rise of fearful police states."

Why call it an irony when the police state is the consequence of all that openness?

For that matter, why does the Left side with the 'insurgents,' the Greens insist that fighting GW is more important than fighting terrorism, and our WOT's odd Rules of Engagement is the policy of the man who calls Islam the ROP?

After all, what do Leftists and Statists and Islamists all have in common?
S U B M I S S I O N.

A Curious Visitor

I received quite a bit of attention today from a new visitor out of Palm Harbor, Florida.

Over an hour long, and 54 pages views, but not a single comment. Then he went off to Eternity Road for almost 5 hours. He came to me from the Belmont Club. Lord know how much time he spent there. LOL.

Who are you fella? Stop awhile and say hello.

The Conservative Voice -- A Great New Beginning

This is a follow on both to the current (final?) defeat of the Senate amnesty bill, and to my earlier post today.

I think the point I am about to make is in the tone of my blog post of yesterday (and noticed by Mark Alger in comments there).

In order to counter the extremely loud voices of our adversaries, you can no longer continue to whisper your displeasure.

You must find your own voice. You must be heard above the incessant din at least once -- then resort to more measured tones. Like a meeting moderator calling a meeting to order, strike your gavel, slam it down if needed.

Hey you. Mr. conservatives. You've been voting Republican for longer than you care to remember. You've been getting less and less for your efforts.

You want a change? Then you will need to change.

If you continue to whisper in country-club voice, you will continue to get country club Republicans at the head of your party. If you want more of your kind, then raise your voice so that the country-clubbers are forced to deal with you.

So blow your loudest whistle, like you're about to miss the most important taxi ride of your life. After you get into your taxi, then you can tone it down.

Take control conservatives.
Today's drubbing of American Leftists and Statists are just the beginning.

Enemy Mud-Flinging So Easily Drowns Out Voice of Allies

One sure way for the enemy to undermine us is for us to listen to their relentless BS.

Like a boxer's constant jabbing, like an artillery's omnipresent barrage, our enemy's day-in and day-out verbal arsenal of outrageous charges, ridicules, calumnies, slanders and the like, can easily wear us down.

Do we understand what is the worst possible result when we listen?

We are more apt to turn a blind ear to those who have our best interests at heart and feel we must hear constructive criticism. After enduring shouts at 120 dB, what's the chance you'll hear complaints delivered at 80 dB? After being called Hitler, how fast will you react to charges that you're going off course?

We are more apt to listen to sycophants and pretenders than those whose loyalty and wisdom we would normally not question.

One who acts in the opposite manner from this tendency is exhibiting one of the finest traits of a good leader. One who understands all this, and reacts soberly and properly when our side most needs his clear-headed decision-making, is the kind of leader I have not seen in a very long time. One who is humble enough to accept criticism. One who recognizes the constructive kind and discards the rest as just so much harmless flack. This is the kind of President who would honor our Constitution rather than see it as nothing more than an old piece of paper.

----------------------
A Case Study

President Bush has had to undergo as much or more of these sort of tactics, staged by the viral Left, than any other President in our history. Certainly the omnipresent 24/7 media and its left wing bias has never been as totally yellow-journalistic as it has been during the current administration.

But W's softness towards his opponents on the Left combined with his harshness towards principled conservatives has been a sorry thing to watch, to say the least.

I have found myself torn between two concerns: worries over his treatment and his health on the one hand, while on the other is my displeasure over his embarking on one liberal policy after another.

Is he responding to the Left because they are so loud and thereby they have drowned out the voices of those who won him his administration?

Or was his drift leftward always his intent all along? A Democrat who ran as a Republican, an earlier version of Bloomberg, but, unlike the NYC mayor, a man with a long GOP pedigree. A man who hears the voices who pillory him more with every move he makes in their favor looks like a man who is crying as he carries his hidden backer's gains all the way to the bank.

This last sense is in the tradition of the all-American populist.

Of course W's form of leftism is more in keeping with a corporate statism. His wish for amnesty would both aid the Democratic Party as well as corporate interests. That alliance is not new. Corporations play both sides of the aisle. Corporations hide behind Leftist's causes to gain them advantages over other corporations and individuals.

Anyway.

Will W finally care more for how the people feel about him at this time rather than his corporate backers and Democrat friends?
Will the seeming defeat of the Senate amnesty bill (this time?) give W one more chance to act like a true leader?

Well, we can hope.

For The Children

Every time I hear some politician try to sell some program "for the children" I am angered.

So how come, you hack, you don't ever speak up against school programs aimed at convincing children not to have children?

Programs on sex aimed at kids at earlier and earlier ages.

Programs that deny kids the period of innocence wherein sex isn't on their mind.

Programs that will get them active early when they are more at risk to sterilize themselves.

Programs aimed at normalizing sexual activities that won't bear children.

Programs aimed at normalizing couplings that won't bear children.

Programs aimed at how to find an abortionist.

You don't ever talk about these programs in the same breath that it is your "green" aim to reduce the population of your society.

You never allow anyone to tell young woman of the years of regret they may have after an abortion.

You claim to not be promoting abortions, like your lies about wishing abortions would be rare.

I aim to make it clear that nobody can deny knowing how you "greens" really hate humanity. I know you for the cowards you are. You dare not argue for your intentions in a free forum. You might get gored.

So the next time one of you rotten bastards, everybody knowing you are sneakily promoting zero children, claims that you're doing something "for the children," KNOW that I am telling a large number of people that "the sooner that liar arrives in hell, it is a certainty more children will live."

The Dual Nature of Man; Key Biblical Warnings - Part 2

These thoughts are brought to you by an agnostic; a seeker. I am an agnostic who studies scripture in hopes to find what supports belief, not that which undermines it. My understanding increases with discussions I have with others. By sharing my synthesis of all these ideas I hope I am repaying my debt to those who have endeavored to enlighten me.

[Readers note: Part 1 has not yet been published.]

It appears to me that man wants two primary things after basic needs are met.

1. To enjoy themselves as much as possible.
   
2. To think that they matter; that they are important.

In short, man wants both to be carefree and taken seriously.

There certainly appears to be a dilemma in choosing between the two. Is the conflict unresolvable? Those who want it all can be said to be seeking a perfectibility of human desires. Or, quite simply, seeking the perfectibility of mankind.

Are they kidding themselves? More importantly, are they a danger to others for wishing it so?

So. How is this dichotomy revealed in scripture? Is it resolved there?

Let me make something clear. Not all biblical warnings are explicit. While I could be in error to believe that this biblical warning is unstated, I know this warning is implied in many ways.

For example, with "Dust thou art; and to dust thou will return," scripture is clearly warning that we individuals ought very well consider our humble origins before thinking too grandly of ourselves.

We love the earth out of which we were formed. We'd love to be able to shape the earth to deliver to us our fondest delights. As more and more this comes to pass, what do we find happening? Many people look at that success, and consider it to have been inevitable. They see it as a consequence of our mastery.

In a humbler time, a sense of gratitude for success was at least given lip service to Something outside of man. It seems that today, when there is any gratitude for this grand success -- our progress -- there seems no end of men willing to accept the honor. Rather than see it all as having been put there for us, there are those of us who are inclined to think -- and have the rest of us grateful for "the fact" -- that it was all made accessible by them.

Funny that. Also funny is how this attitude feeds those with the affliction I explore in part 1.

Isaac had twin sons, as different as could be. One carried out his obligations, the other pleased his worldly desires.

The pronoun "his" in the last sentence works as a double-entendre, for both Isaac and each son's inclinations. Isaac favored the latter, but grudgingly accepted the former's claims as superior. This last sentence is also a double-entendre. Both the son and each son's mission were for what Isaac had dual feelings.

This almost certainly ties back to the seminal event in Isaac's life: his being offered to God as a burnt offering. Surely Isaac had dual feelings about the covenant with The Creator to which he and his dad, Abraham, had agreed.

I do not think the dichotomy is ever resolved in the old testament. It repeats regularly.

• Abraham's two sons.
  
• Jacob's two wives.
  
• Joseph's two sons.
  
• Moses and Aaron.
  
• Saul and David.
  
• Life and Sacrifice.
  
• Justice and Charity.
• Naivety and Innocence.
• Wise in ones own eyes and wise indeed.
  
• Enjoyment and Obligation.

Without a doubt, many take the new testament to be witness to One Who avoided life's finer things.

But was it that He avoided life's finer things, or really that He avoided acquiring those things for what they would tell the world about Him? The enjoyment of the finer things cannot itself be bad for one; but He warns that the wishing for them could be. He said the path to Him is narrow. Be careful in your choices.

So I think the dichotomy continues.

For me perhaps the following is the most revealing evidence as to why I think man is imperfectible. The universe has its physical laws. Everything within it decays. Yet some men want to live forever: certainly when they are untroubled, especially when they are taken seriously. How can man's wants ever be satisfied? In the pursuit of sating the insatiable, those who succeed to sufficient power have never stopped short of consuming other men.

There are on the horizon those who wish to live forever and who demand to be taken seriously.

The more mankind achieves, the greater too many think they have become. And with that thought is accompanied something quite dark: a greater threat to far too many by those who feel obligated to control those lesser than themselves.

George W Bush Gets One Right

I'm going to get hell for this.

I have been so disappointed with our president, and I've been exceptionally dismissive lately of him (on the verge of outright despising him).

So I felt I had to given him some support where it was due. No halfway measures today. Those innumerable other things of his I dislike will simply wait for another day. Still, please pray that he won't betray me and those like me now that we've chosen to defend him in this: his stand against federal funding of embryonic stem cell research .

This time I think he will stand his ground (although I suspect his stand on amnesty could undermine his stand on this. If it does, I think he will indeed be damned.)

Even as embryonic stem cell research seems less and less useful, this doesn't stop the death cultists in the Left and in establishment media (forgive the redundancy) from acting as if all medical advancement will come to a grinding halt.

I personally think that the death cultists know how ugly they are to most Americans. Partial birth abortion and their despicable stand on it has put quite a distance between them and even partially decent human beings, let alone the vast majority of Americans. So this apparent non-wasteful use of either aborted embryos, or those eggs that may be fertilized in a dish, would make them seem heroic. And Establishment media has done its best to reestablish that illusion.

I have always like Michael J. Fox. And I am sad that he has Parkinson's Disease. I lost my Dad's mother and two of my Mom's brothers to it; and my Dad's sister suffers from it now. But the research will not "provide cures." The best anyone could legitimately say was that it "might provide" cures. (I can hear those few charging me with nitpicking again. Well, you guys can go to hell. Get off my blog.) And the brouhaha is only about fed funding. He's not tried to pass legislation to stop the practice, something quite a few in the country would be happy to see, Christian or not.

President Bush's statement that ending human life in order to preserve human life is unethical was once not a controversial statement. One didn't need to be a believer to accept that. (I'm not and I accept the premise as the civilizing one that was once simply stated as "to seek to err on the side of preserving innocent life.") But that doesn't stop the death cultists and their useful idiots from saying Bush has no right inserting his beliefs into his decisions.

Oh, he should insert their beliefs and then they'd be O.K. with him? Yeah. Right.

Look. Let me summarize. They believe that the embryo is insufficiently human to be protected. Fine. But it's only a belief. They could be wrong.

Unharmed, with normal intercourse leading to pregnancy and then, excepting for miscarriage, when left to grow it is a baby. But saying "it isn't in any way human" greatly relieves guilty consciences. And there are plenty of those not-dead-yet consciences; and the death cultists know it. So many in fact that it is illegal in some places to tell an abortion candidate that they may come to regret their decision to abort.

But facts like that have to be outlawed. Don't you people recognize fascism when it passes laws like that? (See? There's the education issue again. Thanks Bushie for you enlarging the Dept of Ed instead of putting a stake through its heart. Oops. I thought I would not to do that. Oh well. Shoot me.)

So he should insert their belief, that the embryo isn't human, so let's exploit it. And then they'll like Bush? Hardly. Like me they don't like him for other reasons. Our other reasons are different.

Congratulations President Bush. You got one right. Let's hope your trying to ram amnesty down our throats doesn't lose you the veto overriding ability you had before you betrayed our borders. (Oops).

God Asked Abraham To OFFER Isaac, Nothing More

Since I wrote At the Core of the Judeo-Christian Ethos: What Animates Its Critics 5 August 2006 [update 6 Feb 2012: or, if that link goes bad again, here instead], it became one of my most hit upon pieces. All that interest led me to become even more aware of the many ways Genesis 22 is interpreted. I prove how much of it is blatant misinterpretation.

The Reason For This Essay
Of all the misinterpretations, I think there is one most damaging, most slanderous.

In numerous places I found serious people asserting variations of the opposite of what God intended. I am not going to link to them. They already get too much attention. It should be needless to say that I am strongly at odds with these other people.

It is clear that scripture, in Genesis 22, in all that followed in scripture, and from much that preceded it, that God did not demand Abraham kill Isaac in sacrifice. (Nor was Abraham eager to do so, perhaps the second most damaging misinterpretation.)

Reading What Has Been Written
It clearly says that God asks Abraham to offer Isaac at the place of sacrifice. I am sure there are some who will try to get off the hook by charging me with nitpicking. To them, well, you can go to Hell.

To the rest of you, you should rightly be asking: "So why the offer?"

The Purpose of Life
The purpose of the offering was to demonstrate to the world how the God of Abraham (not Abraham's god), The Creator of the universe, was different from other gods, especially those to whom human sacrifice was practiced. Look.

The Creator made existence itself. He made life and death. He gives life to all and then reclaims all eventually. He does not need puny men to put to death others -- especially innocent human beings -- for Him. (As I wrote in my prior essay, men too easily kill other men for their own "reasons," fears and hatreds.)

For all life, for whatever lifespan one is given, is supposed to be a blessing and to a purpose. And the purpose may stand as a blessing to other men, as a temporal angel, and as a testament to God. (Those who live for any length of time in great pain and disability is another issue entirely. Certainly such a state is nothing to be wished for. I'm willing to explore this at another time. For now my position is that the occasional awful state of existence still does not make all existence any less of an overall blessing. That is, unless one hates existence itself. People who hate in that manner do indeed exist. They may arise from anywhere in the people. Maybe they are another form of birth defect. They make war with God in every generation.)

The Key Point Of The Offering
Abraham and Isaac would go through the formality of making such an offer for a purpose. The formality had to be in the manner familiar to those who so practiced to the other blood demanding gods of the ancient world such as Moloch.

For, in that way, it could then not be said that Abraham was less willing, less god-fearing, than the other practitioners. And it gave the God of Abraham the opportunity to specifically deny such an offer. The formality offered to Him the opportunity to show that the slaying of innocent human life is not required by Him. The God of Abraham offered the world a break from the cruelest traditions in common practice at that time.

Yes, there are other things implied with the offering. And The Covenant followed from it. But what I have just written is what the central reason for the offering appears to me to be.

My understanding is supported thus:

• It is consistent with the idea of an all powerful Creator.
• It is consistent with the idea of justice and charity that is the basis of all The Law.

Be it the Christian or Jewish interpretations of the laws, the central theme remains, and that stems from what I think is the correct interpretation of the offering in Genesis 22. The strong have an obligation to protect the weak; to prevent the weak from being forced to sacrifice themselves to cover the failings of the strong. Even to the point of voluntarily sacrificing ones life or possessions in keeping faith with this idea. Many of us would not be alive but for the prior sacrifices of earlier generations. The concepts of duty and obligation to those who sacrificed before us are attendant when one follows this ethos. It actually endows ones life with a greater purpose that is timeless. It is something completely unknowable to the poor resigned cynic. And it is a concept that the "Progressives" have been actively seeking to eradicate. It is a key aim of Critical Theory.

What prompted this essay
As I stated at the top, the hits to my old essay led me to discover many interpretations of Genesis 22. Quite a lot of that was so at odds with the whole context of scripture that to ascribe simple error to all of it stretches credulity to the breaking point. Without doubt some of it is deliberate misinterpretation. Animosity towards religion, and hate for the Judeo-Christian ethic in particular, is probably what drives it. Is it a sign of willing acceptance that so many repeat the wrong interpretations without looking deeper into their accuracy? Well, dear Reader, since you have gotten this far, it looks like you must be a blessed exception. I hope I may have made clearer what the decent explanation to this passage must be. I hope I have made it easier for the faithful to battle their detractors. Please drop me a line if I have.

But more importantly, if you did find that this was helpful, then I pray you help spread this explanation so that it reaches people both who have been misled and those who would otherwise be misled. Silence serves the detractors.

I challenge anyone to demonstrate how this interpretation of Genesis 22 is wrong.

Update on support and indirect challenges:

• Did Abraham Fail his Final Test?

  10/11/2012: The Rabbi who authored the essay at this link allowed me one comment. He responded to it, but without adding much light. I then further responded to fill in the gaps for what could have been his misunderstanding of sustainability, but he moderated out my follow-up comment. Even worse, 3 months later he allowed an anonymous 3rd party "A Reader" (sounds like a sock-puppet) to side with him against my comment. I posted a rebuttal to that, and the rabbi refused to publish that one too. The details of the follow-ups not published there I will publish in a new post soon. [TBD].

  It appears the rabbi committed or permitted the erasure of the entire commentary history that he previously allowed to appear. Fortunately we have the Wayback Machine's snapshot preservation available.  
  

• Objects in the rear view mirror

• Highway 61

Thoughts Provoked By a Misapplied Word

Today, I had only a little time because I have to leave. While quickly perusing Wretchard's greatly expanded reportage, I was sensitive to what I think was an unintended slander, by our gifted world correspondent/analyst, of modernity.

I read it at The Belmont Club: Airport Security. The following was the comment I left there. I hope my reaction further provokes awareness of, and the threat to, our civilization by the "Progressive" movement known as political Postmodernism.

Wretchard wrote: This just goes to show how much damage modern political correctness has inflicted on the Geneva Convention. [Emphasis added].


It is definitely not modern, and this error could be seen as a slander of the modern period. If anything, the Geneva convention helped advance modernity.

But what we have now is a product of the postmodern. You've used the term before, and it couldn't be more accurately ascribed, both to this situation and to the proponents who've made this tragedy possible.

Also, instead of modern or postmodern, you could have used the word contemporary, but then that would have been redundant (unless you wanted to imply that PC has evolved, er, devolved, er, progressed - yeah, progressed!).

I think I experienced what had to be going through your mind and feelings as you composed this line. The error in it reveals both comedy and tragedy, and maybe a desire to avoid editorializing in the direction I went, though I'm pretty sure you didn't intend the comedy.

Who Celebrates You Knowing Nothing?

Tonight, Og and I stumbled upon this little truth.

Og: Art is not the relating of an event. Art is interpreting it.
PF: And a piece of modern art can relate different things to different people, a Rorschach.
Og: Sure. But we're talking politics, and not art.
PF: And that has patterns that most people will recognize. What clearer reason for politicians demanding control of education?

Politician: They who don't know the lessons of history will accept it again. Perfect!

The Danger of Labels

Converging current events prompted me to toy with this idea. But no matter how I start it, it comes back to people feeling uneasy without them.

What's This Noise About Global Cooling?

"Science is at war with global warming. Science has always been at war with global warming. Global cooling is our friend." </straight-faced sarcasm>
[supporters whoop and woot in the background]

New Media Will Have Supplanted Old Media When?

How will you know when new media has supplanted old media?

When Newspeak becomes Liarspeak. When we will have reclaimed our language so that a label matches the word that is being used for that label.

Currently liberals are not. Progressives are not. Democrats are not. A Constitutionally Limited Republic is not. Gay is not.

Each of these misnomers have become accepted jargon for things they are not mostly because establishment media uses them that way. If you attempt to use liberal in its original sense, you stand a good chance of being misunderstood and then punched in the nose by a real liberal.

It is a fact that these words now carry a meaning that a large number of people think of negatively. The ability to use the word in its original sense is destroyed because your listener, especially a stranger, will most likely think you are using it with its current meaning. In some instances, such as in a joyously carefree experience, the moment is apt to be spoiled when you think of the word that was once widely used to describe the experience: gay.

In fact, when you read the appendix of George Orwell's 1984 you will find that is the whole intention of Newspeak. To make it impossible for human beings to think of anything the state chooses. The language, far from its ages old use of enabling communication between individuals, has moved beyond propaganda to become a tool to enslave mankind. And don't discount that there is an unmistakable bonus it provides its masters. It delivers a burst of fleeting joy to those who exercise power in this manner; employing power because they can. ["Oh c'mon. How does Pascal know this is true?" Ask me.]

Right now "old" media only looks derelict. Kind of like the second Death Star in Star Wars. Still capable of delivering to American Statists a host of once illegal new voters who can't understand English enough to comprehend how sophistic are these bastards.

When writers on the Internet can once again use the word liberal and have it mean "pertaining to the liberty of individuals" rather than "a label under which power seekers can suppress liberty in order to enforce their concept of equality," then old media will have truly become old.

"Progressives" Are Demonstrably Dangerous to Human Life

Mark Alger today provoked me to refine my old observation about Progressives.

Seeing as what ilk today has been anointed with the Progressive label by establishment media are the very same ones enamored of Postmodernism, they ought be forced at every opportunity to face and twist in the logical consequences of their blatant contradiction.

Postmodernists clamor for regress; ergo, the new progressive favors repression not liberty.

Therefore, those who claim and those who grant the progressive label to these haters of the human ability to advance and to thrive: both are liars whose primary goal is to mislead their fellow humans to an early death.