David Cohen is (allegedly) a Constitutional law professor at Drexel University in Philadelphia, the very city where the Declaration of Independence was penned in the days leading to July 4th, 1776, Why someone would pay this man to teach law students about the Constitution is beyond me, because the drastic solution he proposes won't solve the problem he thinks is epidemic -- gun violence. In a recent op-ed published in Rolling Stone magazine, Mr. Cohen argued for the repeal of the 2nd Amendment on the grounds that the Founding Fathers "got it wrong" when they granted ordinary citizens the right to bear arms (radical liberals: 'bear arms' means the right to own a gun.) Mr. Cohen began his embarrassing article with the somewhat pompous declaration, "I teach the Constitution for a living." This statement is intended to imply to Mr. Cohen's audience that he possesses superior knowledge about the Constitution, even to the Founding Fathers (implied by his "correcting" them and identifying things he claims were mistakes in the original document, and only in his own mind, of course) -- an appeal to establish his opinion as authority - which by doing with his very first words, commits a logical fallacy. Mr. Cohen continues: "I revere the document when it is used to further social justice and make our country a more inclusive one. I admire the Founders for establishing a representative democracy that has survived for over two centuries. But sometimes we just have to acknowledge that the Founders and the Constitution are wrong. What is this nonsense about social justice? … [Read more...]
Radical liberals and the rights of others
Before I say the first word about politics, I need to be clear that I'm neither a registered Democrat or Republican; I am a independent voter who holds both political parties in pretty much equal disdain. They don't even bother trying to represent me in Washington. I'd love to be able to think of myself as a liberal -- it sounds wonderful, at least in principle. Some of the synonyms for the word 'liberal' are generous, abundant, copious, and plentiful. And of course, the antonyms for liberal include intolerant, stingy, narrow-minded, mean, and greedy. Really...who wants to be thought of as mean, or intolerant? I certainly don't. But the problem with self-identifying as a liberal is that the political ideology and the dictionary definition of the word appear to have very little in common with each other. Now people who know me personally know that I'm not really a confrontational sort of person, but neither am I the "go along to get along" sort of person, either. I'm about ten times more likely to initiate a conversation about the upcoming football season for the Georgia Bulldogs than politics or religion, but I'm also not shy about expressing my opinions or correcting the record whenever it seems necessary. I have this very annoying tendency of stubbornly refusing to concede that I could be wrong about something in lieu of better evidence. I'm also very unlikely to simply take your word for anything if the argument from authority has been invoked. Naturally, being radically liberal is a political orientation, not a religious one. It has been my experience … [Read more...]
Home Improvement(s)
When we bought our new house earlier this year, we realized several significant projects would need to be completed before we could relax and truly call this "home." Of course we needed a fence so our dogs wouldn't roam all over the neighborhood, and the Chamblee Fence Company recently completed an outstanding installation -- this is the first fence I have ever owned that the gates can only be left open if they are held or blocked, perfectly positioned so that they will automatically swing shut and close, a feat previously only managed post-installation, with a special hinge from Home Depot. There is nothing that will put fear into the heart of a pet owner quite like discovering an open gate when their dogs have been outside, enjoying the yard. Chamblee Fence has been in business longer than I've been alive for a very good reason. The fence came after the rotted old timber retaining wall was ripped out and replaced the incredible crew at Bentley's Nursery and Stone Yard. When professional engineers have highly recommended their professional work, it was an added bonus that Bentley's quote was considerably less than other estimates, and the quality was obviously exceptional. Check out the before... and after pictures! My final project was one that we decided to tackle ourselves, even though I need my fingers for typing, and hammers tend to place them at risk. Therefore my solution for the construction … [Read more...]
Demonic possession
The material world is often called the "real" world by strict materialists, who believe anything and everything can be explained away as natural phenomena. In the mind of a strict materialist, a personal experience with ghosts must be explainable as either an optical illusion or figment of the imagination, but never as the disembodied mind or spirit of a dead person, no matter what sort of evidence has been offered. Strict materialists don't believe in God, Satan, angels, demons, ghosts, or any other type of supernatural phenomena. I do, but I would never dream of trying to convince a strict materialist that Scott Patterson's ghost story was true. I wasn't there. I wouldn't even try to convince a strict materialist that my own personal ghost stories are true. Although the experiences documented in my writing constituted empirical evidence of supernatural phenomena collected via the scientific method, they are merely anecdotes to any third parties. It is rational, and logical to immediately seek a "natural" explanation for an inexplicable...until you run out of possible explanations that don't defy all logic and reason. All I would say to the strict materialist is this: when you run out of other options to explain some phenomena, leave open the possibility of a supernatural explanation. Don't completely rule out anything without evidence, or a better explanation. Even though Jesus implies that ghosts exist in the Bible when he differentiates between the characteristics of a ghost to his resurrected form, the strict materialist will not accept that as legitimate … [Read more...]
Hope without faith
Recently a friend of mine had an exchange on the internet with an atheist during which he asked what compelling evidence for an omnipotent (supernatural) deity might change the atheist's mind. My friend received this answer in reply: If all the stars were rearranged in the sky to spell "this is God communicating with you" and that everyone around the world could see it in their own language at the same time, then that would really make me change my mind. It's a good thing, knowing the standard for evidence of God has been set so low! (For the tone deaf, that was practically dripping with sarcasm.) I wondered to myself: does this person apply the same level of skepticism to climate change, or the theory of evolution? Was this person even being serious? After all, sciency types and the evangelists of scientism like to huff and puff about insufficient evidence for belief in a supernatural God, but they typically become quite vague or absurd when asked what it would specifically take to pass their personal threshold of disbelief. Then I remembered the wisdom of G.K. Chesterton, who said, "When men choose not to believe in God, they do not thereafter believe in nothing, they then become capable of believing in anything." At some point it occurred to me that this particular atheist might be thinking of author Douglas Adams as some sort of god. The evidence requested can be found on the pages of Adams's classic novel The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. However, in that hilarious book, God's message was not conveyed to humanity by reorganizing stars to spell words, … [Read more...]
