My favorite bumper sticker from the previous election cycle. These are extremely difficult times. It's impossible to understand why someone would intentionally fly an airplane into a building in order to kill thousands of people at once, and yet it has happened. Why does someone become so angry that he wants to randomly spray bullets into a crowd of innocent bystanders, or people at a music concert? Why would someone rent a truck and deliberately run over pedestrians out for a walk, killing women and children? Has the world gone completely mad? Actually, I believe millions of people have lost their minds, for the most part. The remainder of this article will list the primary reasons I'm making that claim. The more important question is why have so many people become irrationally angry? I've decided to blame three primary sources of manufactured outrage and hate: academia, the media, and politics. Faculty at major colleges and universities are overwhelmingly dominated by liberals who are political activists and literally won't permit conservative thought on campus. As a result, current generations are no longer acquiring useful and relevant knowledge through advanced education. Instead, students are being indoctrinated into liberal groupthink, and most are incapable of logic, reason, or independent thought. The college campus has not only been declared a "gun-free" zone (except for armed robbers there to prey on unarmed students) but free speech has been limited to designated areas. Conservative thought (including logic and reason) has been virtually banned, … [Read more...]
Anecdotes versus evidence
A strict materialist believes that our existence is limited to our physical bodies. They do not believe in God, Satan, heaven, hell, life after death, the near death experience, ghosts, angels, demons, spirits, souls, or any sort of supernatural phenomena. Not every atheist is a strict materialist, but by definition, strict materials are always atheists. To which I say, fine. Believe whatever you want, because you have free will. It isn't my job nor my responsibility to change your mind. As long as you can refrain from making any claims about the superiority of your beliefs over mine, we'll get along just fine. When a strict materialist makes an epistemic claim, it is typically their own personal belief incorrectly presented as fact. Whenever that situation occurs, I must offer strenuous objections because anecdotes should never be confused for scientific evidence and of all people, the strict materialist should already know this because they've told me as much on countless occasions. Personal beliefs should never be argued to be indisputable facts. Anecdotes might be interesting stories, but they will never be evidence to you unless they are your stories culled from your own personal experience and observation. If I tell you that I saw something, it's merely an anecdote. However, if you personally witness an event, it is your personal experience, and observation is a key component of the scientific method. Conversely, if you tell me that you saw something, it is still only an anecdote. However, if I observe the same thing you do, I have become a corroborating … [Read more...]
The problem of the married bachelor
Eric Schmidt I must confess that I haven't missed arguing with intellectual lightweights on social media. I especially haven't missed their silly, sophomoric argument about God and logical impossibility that some people actually believe is a clever argument, but in reality it is remarkably stupid: Can a supernatural creator-God create a rock so large that He couldn't lift it? The idea is that the atheist has presented an unresolvable dilemma to the theist by posing this question, because if God can't create such a rock, then He can't be described as omnipotent but then if He actually could create a rock too big to lift, it puts a constraint on His power so either way, God can't be all powerful. When I used to bother responding to these silly arguments I would counter that God can arguably be given credit for not one, but two logical impossibilities: the origin of our universe from nothing, and the animation of dead matter into living organisms. Making a big rock is literally child's play compared to creating a vast universe that contains galaxies, planets, and solar systems. Not only are the creation of the universe and origin of life logically "impossible," they are extraordinarily improbable in statistical terms as well. Another so-called logical impossibility that atheists like to mention during the course of these conversations is the concept of the "married bachelor." Bachelors are single, not married, so the term itself is a conundrum, meaning a logical contradiction. Could God create a married bachelor? Can God make fire cold instead of hot? The point of … [Read more...]
Mass shootings and the media
Keanon Lowe Can we have a reasonable conversation about the problem of mass murder in our society? If we're going to try, input from the mainstream media must be excluded from the discussion. The media solution is always "more gun control!" However, only a fool would believe that more laws would prevent future violence. Private gun ownership is basically illegal in Chicago, and yet an astonishing number of people are nevertheless murdered by criminals and gang members using illegal firearms. According to gun control advocates, the problem is that criminals still have access to illegal weapons because gun ownership remains legal in other areas nearby. Like Pavlov's dogs, the media's conditioned response to such tragedy is the inevitable call for more legislation to regulate the sale and ownership of guns. People don't kill people, only guns kill people. However, simple logic and raw statistics argue otherwise. The problem wasn't that these mass shooters had access to weapons, because everybody has access to something that can be used as a weapon. The problem was that his twenty victims were defenseless. If only one of the good guys had been carrying a gun as well, lives could have been saved. Frankly, if you don't understand what the Founding Fathers were thinking about when they wrote the 2nd Amendment, all you have to do is read current headlines about the growing crisis in Hong Kong. But what do these recent mass murderers who used guns and the Tsarnaev brothers (Boston Marathon terrorists) have in common? Not much, really-- except the desire to kill. Yet … [Read more...]
The Good Shepherd
Grant Brown Whenever I encounter anyone in a uniform--paramedic, police officer, fireman, military, etc. I will take the opportunity to thank them for their service. I'm the guy who prefers to run away from gunfire or a burning building, but those brave men and women run straight toward danger. John 15:13 reads, "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." In my opinion, anyone willing to put his or her life at risk in order to provide a service to our community deserves to be treated with the utmost respect. I don't care how much they are paid--when asked to confront a homicidal maniac or go out into horrible weather conditions to assist an accident victim, they go to work and do the job most of us don't have the courage or stomach to perform. All too often these people are vilified and targeted by the very people they serve for doing what the community has asked them to do, and yet they continue to do their jobs to the best of their abilities. On the other hand, service professionals do at least receive a paycheck. The Bible talks about laying down your life for your friends, but what about putting yourself at risk for a total stranger? What if the person you're trying to save has a different skin color, one you've been taught not to trust and maybe even to hate? Only one word can describe a person who would run full speed at a vicious dog mauling a neighbor without hesitation, not even long enough to pick up something to use as a weapon in self defense, and the word is "hero." But even then, that word seems sort of … [Read more...]
