Chefranden, 28 November 2009 [link]

“The answer to your question is that humans are not rational beings. We are emotional beings with a relatively weak rational capacity. This rational capacity is most easily used for rationalization rather than reasoning.”

[Quoted for truth! Sorry, I realize this fellow is not a notable figure but that quote was too good to pass up.]

Click here to read Dr. Albert Mohler’s explanation for why he chose to sign the Manhattan Declaration. In my estimation, it was a powerful testimony of the necessity, passion, and courage of this document which addresses three central issues that threaten the very stability of contemporary society. The thoughts which Dr. Mohler closed his article with were especially strong, which I have included here in the hopes that it compels you to read the full article.

Finally, I signed The Manhattan Declaration because I want to put my name on its final pledge—that we will not bend the knee to Caesar. We will not participate in any subversion of life. We will not be forced to accept any other relationship as equal in status or rights to heterosexual marriage. We will not refrain from proclaiming the truth—and we will order our churches and institutions and ministries by Christian conviction.

There will be Christian leaders, pastors, seminaries, colleges, universities, denominations, churches, and organizations that will abandon the faith on these issues. They will bend the knee to Caesar. Far too many already have. The signatories to The Manhattan Declaration pledge that we will not be among them.

I want my name on that list. I surrendered no conviction or confessional integrity to sign that statement. No one asked me to compromise in any manner. I was encouraged that we could stand together to make clear that to come for one of us on these issues is to come for all. At the end of the day, I did not want my name missing from that list when folks look to see just who was willing to be listed.

nekidchickens (12 Nov 2009) RichardDawkins.net Forums

The entymology of ‘atheism’ is incorrect and incomplete (although completely dishonest). The privative ‘a-’ … expresses negation or absence; ‘theos’ means god; ‘-ism’ is a suffix that forms abstract nouns of action, state, condition, doctrine. Put ‘em together!

Perhaps this fellow should have done the math himself before making a public spectacle of his ignorance, wherein he ended up proving the truth of the very thing he was attempting to argue against. If we do the math he asked us to, we find:

(‘a-’ + ‘theos’) + ‘-ism’ = godless action, or godless state, or godless condition, or godless doctrine.

In short, it does not produce “lack of belief in gods”—confirming Thiefe’s very argument!

The etymology that Thiefe reproduced from credible sources was in fact correct and complete—and entirely honest. The term being negated is theos which, very simply, is ‘God’ and therefore translates into English as ‘godless’ or without God. There is nothing incorrect about this. And adding the suffix ‘-ism’ does not prove any incompleteness (or dishonesty), which the math above showed. Fundy atheists say the darndest things, don’t they?

(Note: This fellow was objecting to an article written by Chris Thiefe at EvilBible.com [1] who impolitely but nevertheless accurately attacked the painfully common butchering of the term ‘atheist’. And the title of this FASDT is a play on ‘entomology’ which pokes fun at his incorrect spelling of ‘etymology’.)

Here is an interesting thought to ponder over. (It was something Todd Friel said on Wretched Radio that caused me to do a little research into this.) I know Mathew Hamilton over at Thoughts Out Loud will be interested in this reflection. News reports confirm that a total of 13 people were killed by accused gunman Major Nidal Malik Hasan at Fort Hood, a U.S. military post in Texas. However, one of those soldiers killed was Francheska Velez, who was about two months pregnant at the time. (She was due sometime in May 2010.) For some people this raises the question: Should there be an additional count of murder?

Although pro-abortion advocates tend to answer in the negative, I think they answer much too quickly and with manifest ignorance of U.S. State and Federal legislation and court rulings beyond Roe vs. Wade. There is a law in the United States called the Unborn Victims of Violence Act (18 USC 1841) which is applicable when the crime falls within Federal jurisdiction, as this case certainly does. As the Wikipedia article explains, certain offenses come under the jurisdiction of the United States government when they are committed on Federal properties (Fort Hood), against certain Federal officials and employees (Francheska Velez), and by members of the military (Nidal Hasan). In other words, this case satisfies all three criteria, which makes it inarguable that Hasan should be tried on fourteen counts of murder.

It is that fourteenth count of murder that raises further interesting thoughts. In subsection (d) of the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, a child in utero is defined as “a member of the species homo sapiens, at any stage of development, who is carried in the womb.” So we observe here the fetus being recognized under Federal law as a child and human being (which qualifies the crime of murder, the unlawful killing of a human being with malice aforethought). So then, how is it that one can be a human child but not a person? Or to phrase the question differently: Why is it illegal to deprive a human child of life under the United States Code, while at the same time it is not illegal to deprive a human child of life under the Constitution?

(And isn’t it strange that United States law grants the status of ‘person’ to corporations and the protections of the Fourteenth Amendment, but will not grant the status of ‘person’ to what under law is a human child?)

(Last updated: 21/Nov/2009)

Over at the blog of my new friend, Duane Proud, [1] I am having an ongoing discussion [2] with a fellow named Adam on what can be characterized as the necessity of salvation. I am publishing the contents of that conversation here at this site because I want to build a library of intelligent discourse on important issues related to salvation and apologetics, two of my favourite subjects, which will be published under Conversations With Christians on the one hand, and Conversations With Atheists on the other. It will be a work in progress for a while so don’t look for these sections yet.

The conversation was sparked generally by the response I had given to the atheist Fluke and his “ropes” analogy of salvation (read Duane’s post for the context). This led to an exploration of particular theological issues between myself and Marc, who is an apparent ‘open theist’, beginning at Comment #34 (after Duane had emailed me privately and asked for my thoughts on Marc’s arguments), which had prompted Adam to ask the following:

Does everyone get a choice? Do the non-elect get a choice to reject or accept God? Does God, knowing those who will not freely choose Him, deny them that choice? … I’m a little hazy on the issue but I thought that there is some sort of free-will choice made for God in the Calvinist view of salvation. God, knowing what that choice will be, acts accordingly by diving in to retrieve those corpses of the bottom of the ocean of those that choose Him.

Read the rest of this entry