RedBlueChristian

“She would have been a good woman,” the Misfit said, “if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life.”

The line occurs near the end of Flannery O’Connor’s short story, “A Good Man Is Hard To Find.” It refers to a self-absorbed grandmother who had just been murdered (along with her son and his family) by a religiously reflective killer. Sadly, the poignant observation seems to fit many Americans’ relationship to the events of 9/11/2001.

For some weeks following that infamous date, Americans focused intently on things that matter: courage, honor, integrity, especially patriotism. An inconceivable tragedy highlighted the tenuous nature of the blessings we take for granted–family, peace, freedom–and temporarily diverted attention from the superficial, vile, or self-serving activities which preoccupy so many of us.

During that time firemen and cops replaced movie stars and pop divas as society’s most admired individuals. Anonymous heroes without Malibu mansions or drug rap sheets were honored instead of their celluloid counterparts. People were jolted into asking serious questions: “What is really important? What is worth dying for? Why am I here?”

As months wore on, however, it became obvious that many individuals– especially the rich and famous camera cult–were eager to reinstitute the old regime. Where, after all, would MTV be if youngsters began to idolize Todd Beamer instead of Eminem or Madonna? Where would Hollywood’s hedonism rank in a world where integrity was defined by virtue and self-sacrifice instead of doing whatever the heck you please? And how could Leno and Letterman deliver nightly monologues for audiences that weren’t tawdry and cynical?

Where would the talk-show Lilliputians be in a world where national leaders aren’t caricatured as blithering idiots who deserve nothing but contempt? And what would happen to that cohort of intellectuals whose sense of moral superiority rests solely on acts of vicious criticism–folks physically revolted by exhibitions of patriotism and profoundly depressed at the prospect of restraining their venom another day?

A world where personal virtue is taken seriously isn’t to the liking of these groups. Like the children of Israel in the book of Exodus, they long to return to the “fleshpots of Egypt”–to revel in the thoughtless security of a society where matters of life and death are reduced to vulgar punch lines in yet another South Park episode.

They wish to “get on with their lives”–to forget the truths of death, heroism, and evil and to slide back into a world of cheap sex, cheap talk, and cheap rebellion. They crave a life of comfortable celebrity devoid of nobility and moral earnestness.

As the memory of 9/11 fades, “American Idol” replaces the World Trade Center on pop-culture’s jumbotron. Too many Americans, it seems, need to be shot every day to avoid reverting to lives of brutish pettiness.

I appreciate Blue Christian Deborah White, she is usually a good thinker and writer at About’s Liberal Politics. I truly appreciate her voice as a RedBlueChristian blogger. However, her critique of ABC’s “The Path to 9/11″ reveals why the Democratic boat always sinks when addressing today’s global Jihadist War.

Instead of crying for censorship and threatening ABC like many prominent Democratic politicians, she simply dismissed it as racist (white people verses dark-skinned people), stupid, boring, dull, silly, and containing a downright bigoted betrayal of Middle East neighborhoods (although I do not think she has spend anytime in the Middle East to really know). And yes, of course, a good Democrat has to suggest that Hugh Hewitt was likely paid off by ABC to stir up all those wacko war-loving conservatives. In conclusion, Deborah provides no in-depth factual critique, sadly as I would have been all ears, and in the end, she apparently decided to watch the baseball game instead of Part II in her last dig to dismiss it as cow dung.

The Democratic approach to “The Path of 9/11″ – either censorship or total trash – is why their boat is once again taking on water fast when they are forced to address the real issues related to the global Jihadist War (not just bitching about Iraq), the key issue in 2008 in my view.

Although I thought the film piece was very well done and fast-moving, there were of course factual errors, but the WHOLE THING was not trash! The basic factual running theme through this docu-drama was that Clinton and Bush adminstrations both played politics, and were often very incompetent, in the face of factual evidence concerning the growing Jihadist threat leading up to 9/11. I hope we can all agree on this factual truth.

I leave for Turkey very early in the morning, and I will be reading Lawrence Wright’s new book, The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11. I hope Deborah, and others, will also give it a read, and then we can all dialogue about the real historical facts.

Again, I truly appreciate Deborah and her valuable Blue Christian insights, and I do not mean in this post to diminish her contributions in the smallest way. I must confess, however, I did enjoy the Cruella Deville protrayal of Madeleine Albright, someone I have very little appreciation or respect for.

Radical Christianity is just as threatening as radical Islam in a country like America.

That was Rosie O’Donnell on ABC’s “The View” just this morning. According to Mary Katherine Ham, who watched the show, this line received applause from the studio audience. [HT: Hot Air]

Granted, I don’t expect much from the audience for “The View”, but WOW! One day after the anniversary of 9/11. Just wow. These people are clueless.

Update: Here’s a rundown that includes video of Rosie’s statement. Her full comment seems to be making an equivalence between Christians in this country and radical Islamists abroad. Given her outspoken liberal views, I think we can reasonably assume she’s referring to evangelicals, most of whom are conservative.

Several commenters below have already agreed this is an appropriate comparison. Sorry, I don’t see it. For all the dumb things he has said recently, Pat Robertson is no Osama bin Laden. Rick Warren is no Zawahiri. On his worst day, D. James Kennedy is no Zarquawi. And George Bush is no Saddam.

I have been trying to figure out why so many people have fallen for conspiracy theories about 9-11. There seems to be an inherent distrust in anything American and a deep antipathy towards Bush. Why? I am not sure, it is possible in our relativistic society, that conservatives are mistrusted because they actually do believe in a yes or no, especially the issues on abortion, homosexual rights, war etc. (not that consevatives have a lock on truth). It is easy to turn someone who believes there is an absolute standard for right and wrong into the “bad guy” who desires to ruin our fun or freedom or whatever someone wants to call it.

I realise that the extreme right can also be blinded by their own ideology, and are dangerous (remember Timothy McVeigh?). However, it is a stretch to believe that George W. Bush is anything remote to a Timothy McVeigh. The polarisation and hatred emanating from conspiracy theorists seems to be almost pathological. Notice I am speaking about conspiracy theorists here and not just the left. They mistrust a president and political party so much that what they want to believe is more important than truth. There is an ignorance about Islam that cannot be ignored. Anyone who is not a Muslim is the enemy. We (the United States) are the enemy simply because we do not practice Islam. Under Islam there can be no separation of church and state. This ignorance mixed with a paranoid fear of conservatism has bred something ridiculous.

Bush/Halliburton/Zionist/CIA/New World Order/Illuminati conspiracy for world domination. That day, Popular Mechanics, the magazine I edit, hit newsstands with a story debunking 9/11 conspiracy theories. Within hours, the online community of 9/11 conspiracy buffs – which calls itself the “9/11 Truth Movement” – was aflame with wild fantasies about me, my staff and the article we had published. Conspiracy Web sites labeled Popular Mechanics a “CIA front organization” and compared us to Nazis and war criminals. For a 104-year-old magazine about science, technology, home improvement and car maintenance, this was pretty extreme stuff. What had we done to provoke such outrage?

Research. Read More.

The Fauxtography scandal of recent days seems to highlight an inherent desire we all have… to want what we, sometimes, can’t have.

Whether it be more extensive destruction from the IDF, damage from surgically precise missiles, or simply a slimmer Katie Couric, why do we use such methods as attempts to deceive? Do we, somehow, place more importance on what our eyes have seen versus what our ears have heard? Certainly, it would seem, as long as the data is valid and without appreciable “noise,” then we can trust our senses. Right? Yet, while both our eyes and ears receive data, it is the brain that interprets the data.

Consider this short video. It is a video of two groups of people, each passing a basketball between themselves. After the video has loaded, view it with the task of counting how many times the two basketballs are thrown. Once you’ve completed that task, view the file again, this time without concern for counting the number of passes.

C.S. Lewis, in Miracles, wrote,

In all my life I have met only one person who claims to have seen a ghost. And the interesting thing about the story is that the person disbelieved in the immortal soul before she saw the ghost and still disbelieves after seeing it. She says that what she saw must have been an illusion or a trick of the nerves. And obviously she may be right. Seeing is not believing.

At The Belmont Club we read of the “notion of altering the future by manipulating symbols in the present.” In Sacrificing truth on the altar of diversity, Jeff Jacoby writes about the dilemma some textbook publishers have in including “pictures of disabled children in your elementary and high school texts,” due to the fact that the physical condition of many disabled children make photographing them difficult. The solution, according to Jacoby, is sometimes found in photographing able-bodied children in wheelchair props. Additional deceptions occur, such as passing off Hispanic or Asian youth as American Indians, because they “look very similar.”

Whether forging handicapped children, or Texas Air National Guard memos, the truth remains.

Simply wanting something to be true does not make it true. It’s a lesson that remains lost to many adults, which is one reason we need to make sure we teach it to our children.

Posted by Rob Asghar under Abortion, Republican Party, Christian (Red) Right, Political Philosophy, 2006 U.S. Elections at 10:29 am.
I’ve defended Focus on the Family in the past and I do have very dear friends who toil there, attempting to dispense good parenting wisdom to beleaguered 21st century parents.

Some at Focus feel that they get a bum rap, especially when it’s insinuated that Focus is politically partisan in a manner that violates its tax-exempt status.

I know how they feel, but then I read this. Does it not go too far? Though not legally able to endorse specific candidates, Dobson seems to both skirt the issue and go far beyond it. He also goes past his “family” focus to war issues — in a way that seems more confirm a partisanship.

Is this an overreaction from a liberal? At a time when All Saints Episcopal in Pasadena is being harassed by the IRS for its politics, what is our consistent standard for mixing religion & politics?

UPDATE: A colleague points out to me that the event I linked to was sponsored by “Focus Action,” which is “c-4″ organization–a separate entity from Focus on the Family, a “c-3″ organization. Under IRS regulations, c-4 entities are NOT tax-exempt, and are specifically designed for grass-roots lobbying. More info is at www.focusaction.org.

However, I still suspect FOTF will have an uphill climb here in convincing others that “FOTF Proper” and Focus Action are two distinct realms, given how Focus can play such an influential “education/information” role that paves the way for Focus Action’s work.

The Christian should care for the environment not simply because it is the wise thing to do, but because it honors God.

The Naturalist, someone who believes the late Carl Sagan’s line about the universe being all there is, was, and ever will be, ostensibly cares for the environment but is ultimately unable to explain why. True, they will say it is the ethical thing to do, and I certainly agree with them on that point, but they are at a loss to provide a coherent reason why it is the ethical thing to do (from a strictly natural point of view). Despite attempts to give an evolutionary explanation, the reason ultimately becomes, JUST BECAUSE. Hints of divine revelation notwithstanding, it can be amusing, in a way, to peruse the responses adherents to Naturalism give to, not only our status as human beings, but our responsibilities as well.

Krauze, over at Telic Thoughts, relates what one naturalist with the National Park Service wrote in the Los Angeles Times.

“We have become a plague upon ourselves and upon the earth… Until such time as Homo sapiens should decide to rejoin nature, some of us can only hope for the right virus to come along.”

Wow. If we are simply naked apes, then how do we justify attributing right and wrong to our actions as a whole? Where, exactly in the realm of Nature, did the abstract notions of right and wrong come from? If swarms of locusts, devastating entire forests, are neither right nor wrong, then why not grant humans destroying the planet the same courtesy? On the other hand, this naturalist evidently believes that we humans have somehow detached ourselves from Nature (else why make the statement that we could decide to rejoin nature?). Well, if we can decide to rejoin nature, then we must have decided, sometime in the past, to leave it. Exactly how do these free will choices mesh with determinism? And did you catch the supplication of hope for “the right virus to come along”? What he’s advocating there is the notion that one of the best things that could happen to the human race is for some virus or disease to come along that would significantly reduce our population size, thereby reducing our harmful effect on the planet.

MikeGene, also from Telic Thoughts, informs us of an atheist scientist’s disdane for an upcoming book by Francis Collins titled, The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief. Note one particular incident in Collins’ life that upsets the atheist scientist.

His [Collins] epiphany came when he went hiking through the Cascade Mountains in Washington state. He said: “It was a beautiful afternoon and suddenly the remarkable beauty of creation around me was so overwhelming, I felt, ‘I cannot resist this another moment’.”

The atheist scientist’s reply is resplendent with Naturalism’s Fatal Flaw:

I’ve been hiking in the Cascades, too, and I also find it overwhelmingly beautiful, but I see it as evidence of the power of nature and time and material forces, and my shared origin in the same forces that formed rock and cedar and mountain streams. His is an emotional argument; it has no logical force, and his conclusion is not a necessary product of his experience, since my interpretation is just as valid.

The problem with the atheist scientist’s response is that he attempts to sneak the abstract into the realm of the strictly natural. Simply put, in the world of Naturalism, his interpretation IS just as valid as Collins’. And so is an interpretation that the Cascades are grotesque, or that the sight of them justifies torturing infants. The atheist scientist has no way of discounting the validity the last interpretation other than by appealing to some form of higher authority (and an abstract one at that).

As a Christian I cherish the environment we live in, not because we are responsible to it, but because we are responsible to the One who created it.

To many conservatives, Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney looks like the GOP’s best presidential hope in 2008. He’s an actual conservative Republican, unlike current front-runner John McCain (or Rudy Giuliani), lacks Newt Gingrich’s baggage, and displays considerably more political skill and media savvy than Virginia Sen. George Allen or Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist.

Romney is generally socially and economically conservative, while having the political skills to win election in the nation’s most liberal state. He’s reputed to be a strong leader with a good understanding of the important issues of the day. OpinionJournal’s John Fund writes,

Right now John McCain is the front-runner for the 2008 GOP presidential nomination. But everyone expects that a single major competitor will emerge to challenge him from the right. The question hung in the air of this past weekend’s Family Research Council summit in Washington: Who will that candidate be for the GOP’s powerful social conservative base?

FRC officials says they invited Mr. McCain to speak, but he declined. But another potential candidate benefited greatly from showing up. Surprisingly, it was Massachusetts’ Gov. Mitt Romney, a Mormon with a Harvard M.B.A who governs the nation’s most liberal state. The 1,800 delegates applauded him frequently during his Friday speech and gave him a standing ovation afterward. Mr. Romney detailed his efforts to block court-imposed same-sex marriage in the Bay State and noted that the liberal Legislature has failed to place a citizen-initiated referendum on the ballot. He excoriated liberals for supporting democracy only when they think that the outcome is a foregone conclusion that favors their views. He certainly picked up fans at the summit. “I believe Mitt Romney may be the only hope social conservatives have in 2008,” says Maggie Gallagher, author of a book defending traditional marriage.

Such faint praise as social conservatives’ “only hope” may speak more to the weakness of the GOP’s current presidential lineup than to Romney’s strength, but the Massachusetts governor does seem to be setting himself up as the serious conservative alternative to the horrifying possibility of a John McCain candidacy.

There’s only one problem. Romney is a practicing Mormon, a religious affiliation that many commentators believe may cripple him with the very voters whose support he will need to win the presidency.

So here’s my informal and very unscientific poll of RedBlueChristian readers: Would Romney’s Mormonism lead you to not support, or to support less strongly, his candidacy for president? Why or why not?

Here are a few recent articles on Islamic extremism, one from the right and one from the left. First is this piece by Charles Krauthammer in the Washington Post. Krauthammer argues that many Muslims make fierce calls for tolerance of their own religion, but do not extend the same courtesy to other religions. But worse than this is the western media’s complicity in this hypocrisy:

First Salman Rushdie. Then the false Newsweek report about Koran-flushing at Guantanamo Bay. Then the Danish cartoons. And now a line from a scholarly disquisition on rationalism and faith given in German at a German university by the pope.

And the intimidation succeeds: politicians bowing and scraping to the mob over the cartoons; Saturday’s craven New York Times editorial telling the pope to apologize; the plague of self-censorship about anything remotely controversial about Islam — this in a culture in which a half-naked pop star blithely stages a mock crucifixion as the highlight of her latest concert tour.

In today’s world, religious sensitivity is a one-way street. The rules of the road are enforced by Islamic mobs and abjectly followed by Western media, politicians and religious leaders.

Second is an article in the L. A. Times by the militant atheist and antitheist Sam Harris, a liberal who argues that the American left, blinded by their ideology, fail to see the real threat posed by militant Islam:

my correspondence with liberals has convinced me that liberalism has grown dangerously out of touch with the realities of our world — specifically with what devout Muslims actually believe about the West, about paradise and about the ultimate ascendance of their faith …

At its most extreme, liberal denial has found expression in a growing subculture of conspiracy theorists who believe that the atrocities of 9/11 were orchestrated by our own government. A nationwide poll conducted by the Scripps Survey Research Center at Ohio University found that more than a third of Americans suspect that the federal government “assisted in the 9/11 terrorist attacks or took no action to stop them so the United States could go to war in the Middle East;” 16% believe that the twin towers collapsed not because fully-fueled passenger jets smashed into them but because agents of the Bush administration had secretly rigged them to explode.

Such an astonishing eruption of masochistic unreason could well mark the decline of liberalism, if not the decline of Western civilization.

Strong words from a self-avowed liberal atheist. I recommend reading both articles in full.