Thursday, October 27, 2011

The Secular Humanist Conspiracy

Don’t you just love a good conspiracy theory?  I do.  They can be so much fun, even instructive and eye opening.  Some of course are so far off the wall that they give a bad name to the rest.   Some are so-so credible but lack any convincing evidence. Others ring so truly that they are downright scary.

Well, one that fits the last category has got to be the one I call here simply the “secular humanist conspiracy”.  For, if ever there was a true conspiracy of the kind that grabs the attention of the public, this should have been it.  But it wasn’t and it still isn’t.  It’s a conspiracy that was put into action many decades ago and is still in “all out cultural war” phase.

One must not confuse secular humanism with humanitarianism.  The two could not be farther apart.
The most amazing thing about this conspiracy is how well it has been dissimulated, brushed under the carpet,  yet not so secretly implemented.  Yet the evidence of it is everywhere.  The evidence of it isn’t even hard to find.  The secular humanist high priests worked simply and rather brilliantly in conceiving it and putting it into action.  Most of them were not even surreptitious when speaking publicly about their plans.
They met with such little opposition probably because either no one paid much attention or, those who should have and could opposed them didn’t because of their own ignorance and/or apathy.

So, where is the evidence of such a conspiracy that has led to the downfall of American society in general?
Secular Humanist Charles F. Potter wrote,
“Education is thus a most powerful ally of humanism, and every American school is a school of humanism. What can a theistic Sunday school’s meeting for an hour once a week and teaching only a fraction of the children do to stem the tide of the five-day program of humanistic teaching?” (Charles F. Potter, “Humanism: A New Religion,” 1930)
The term secular humanism was first known to have been used in the 1930′s.  In 1943, the Archbishop of Canterbury of the day, William Temple, warned that the “Christian tradition… was in danger of being undermined by a Secular Humanism which hoped to retain Christian values without Christian faith.” – “Free Church ministers in Anglican pulpits. Dr Temple’s call: the South India Scheme.” The Guardian, 26 May 1943, p.6

John Dewey, remembered for his efforts in establishing America’s current educational systems, was one of the chief signers of the 1933 Humanist Manifesto.  Called “The Father of Modern Education” John Dewey was a Communist, atheist and a signer of the Humanist Manifesto and of course one of the great secular humanist conspirators.  Dewey stated clearly enough,
“You can’t make Socialists out of individualists — children who know how to think for themselves spoil the harmony of the collective society which is coming, where everyone is interdependent.”
Isn’t it amazing how liberty and freedom of thought and speech disappear under the reign of secular humanism?! No matter how much they insist they’re all for freedom – theirs that is, not yours.
Sir Arthur Keith, a British evolutionary anthropologist and anatomist, stated, “Evolution is unproved and unprovable. We believe it only because the only alternative is special creation, and that is unthinkable.”  

Darwinian evolution is the certainly secular humanists origins myth.  Believed largely for metaphysical reasons and not scientific ones.  These religious fanatics like to pretend these days, contrary to their forefathers, that secular humanism isn’t a religion, but clearly it is as the quotes here easily demonstrate.

One of the most famous humanists, Paul Kurtz often called “the father of secular humanism”,  founded of the “Council for Secular Humanism” and of the “International Academy of Humanism, USA”, wrote in the preface to the Humanist Manifesto 2000:
Humanism is a philosophical, religious, and moral point of view.” 
Kurtz’ books call for the establishment of humanist churches.  Not a religion?
Yet, in his farewell address to the new nation of the United States of America (September 19, 1796), George Washington declared,
“It is impossible to govern the world without God and the Bible. Of all the dispositions and habits that lead to political prosperity, our religion and morality are the indispensable supporters. Let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that our national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.”
Make no mistake, secular humanism is founded upon atheism, otherwise known as metaphysical naturalism – a religion, a very old religion.

The term secularism was coined in 1851 by George Jacob Holyoake in order to describe “a form of opinion which concerns itself only with questions, the issues of which can be tested by the experience of this life.”  Once a staunch Owenite, Holyoake was strongly influenced by Auguste Comte, the founder of positivism and of modern sociology. Comte believed human history would progress in a ‘law of three stages’ from a ‘theological’ phase, to the ‘metaphysical’, toward a fully rational ‘positivist’ society. In later life, Comte had attempted to introduce a ‘religion of humanity’ in light of growing anti-religious sentiment and social malaise in revolutionary France. This ‘religion’ would necessarily fulfill the functional, cohesive role that supernatural religion once served. Whilst Comte’s religious movement was unsuccessful, the positivist philosophy of science itself played a major role in the proliferation of secular organizations in the 19th century. – (from wikipedia … verifiable)

Robert Muller (former assistant to the secretary general of the UN):
 ”Within 15 years we will have a proper government and administration of planet earth and of humanity. Why? Because the current troubles, injustices, wastes and colossal duplications of national expenditures – especially on armaments and the military – will force us to. It is inevitable. The salvation of this planet and survival of the human species depend on it. No one can for long go against evolution. Nation-states must adapt or they will disintegrate, even the biggest ones.” (http://goodmorningworld.org/blog/2006/01/gmw-852-robet-muller-happiest-person.html).
Humanist John J. Dunphy wrote:
I am convinced that the battle for humankind’s future must be waged and won in the public school classroom by teachers who correctly perceive their role as the proselytizers of a new faith: a religion of humanity that recognizes and respects what theologians call divinity in every human being.
These teachers must embody the same selfless dedication as the most rabid fundamentalist preachers, for they will be ministers of another sort, utilizing a classroom instead of a pulpit to convey humanist values in whatever subject they teach, regardless of the educational level — preschool day care center or large state university.
The classroom must and will become an arena of conflict between the old and the new — the rotting corpse of Christianity, together with its adjacent evils and misery, and the new faith of humanism.
It will undoubtedly be a long, arduous, painful struggle replete with much sorrow and many tears, but humanism will emerge triumphant. It must if the family of humankind is to survive. – A Religion For A New Age, The Humanist magazine, January-February 1983

Tell me again how this isn’t a religion in thew public education system! Darwinism is its origins myth.

These are the highly influential persons whom, with billion dollar aid from other famous humanists, pushed this “hidden agenda” into the public schools. Yet they are also the ones who are always claiming the infamous Establishment Clause when faced with any threat to the Darwinist agenda in public schools! All of this is rather amazing in itself, but the mass media – virtually all controlled by secular humanists -  have just sort of neglected to tell the public of these things! They are conspirators themselves for the most part and have not so curiously failed to report on any of this, either as it was being planned or while it was being implemented and to this day the liberal media bias and insistence on sweeping all such inferences under the rug is as clear as a warning bell.

Secular humanists love to speak of personal freedom, self-fulfillment, the good of humanity etc.  But as soon as you start digging deeper, all is defined according to their own terms, no one else’s definitions are allowed in the door!Indeed, it turns out that the religion of secular humanism is all about selfishness and population control of the mass by the self-styled “elite” of society.  They want to form a society guided only according to their own religious dogma of atheism, scientism and elitism.  The roots of secular humanism are selfishness and atheism, even though they deny the former.  Of course they deny it!

Humanism is nothing more than a modern push to create a new tower of Babel, trying to reach heaven, a new religion in defiance of God where self is the only god.   It is an attempt to return to Eden, to paradise on earth, but by all the wrong means.  Means that can never work as all the world witnessed with the former Soviet Union, China, Cuba, Cambodia etc.  The end of purely secular governments, based on atheism is nothing but human suffering, misery, mass murders, torture and “killing fields”!

Look at this revealing, and rather disgusting, quote by secular humanist geneticist Richard Lewontin,
“We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism.  It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counterintuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated.  Moreover the materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.”
And this one beats ‘em all:
“Scientists, like others, sometimes tell deliberate lies, because they believe that small lies can serve big truths.” – Lewontin, R.C., The Inferiority Complex, New York Review of Books, 22 October 1981, p. 13.

How’s that for inane drone “thinking” and overt dishonesty!?

Evolution News and Views editor, Anika Smith, wrote a column in the SPU Falcon newspaper titled “Beware of ‘Darwin Day’”.  In describing some of the more humorous elements of Darwin Day celebrations (carols, Darwin look-alike contests and even an incredible, edible tree of life) Smith notes the holiday’s familiar trappings.
    If you’re wondering what a secular humanist does to commemorate such an occasion, it turns out that these particular humanists stand on street corners and hand out leaflets about evolution in an attempt to reach passers-by.
    In Victoria, B.C., a philosophy of religion professor organized a Darwin Day celebration for his students where they decked the halls with humanist style. Participants decorated an evolution tree, exchanged Darwin cards and even sang evolution carols.
    If this sounds familiar to you, that’s because it was designed that way. This celebration, like so many others, was styled as a “light-hearted satire” of Christmas. Had the celebration taken place in a culture with a different religious history, such as Turkey, it might look something more like the Feast of Sacrifice.
Not a religion huh?  Got any more clueless claims, humanists?
Now, let’s look at some of those who signed the Humanist Manifesto III I highlighted a few :

Khoren Arisian
Senior Leader, NY Society for Ethical Culture
Bill Baird
Reproductive rights pioneer
Frank Berger
Pharmacologist, developer of anti-anxiety drugs
Lester R. Brown
Founder and president, Earth Policy Institute
August E. Brunsman IV
Executive director, Secular Student Alliance
Rob Buitenweg
Vice president, International Humanist and Ethical Union
Vern Bullough
Sexologist and former copresident of the International Humanist and Ethical Union
David Bumbaugh
Professor, Meadville Lombard Theological School
Matt Cherry
Executive director, Institute for Humanist Studies
Joseph Chuman
Visiting professor of religion, Columbia University, and leader, Ethical Culture Society of Bergen County, New Jersey
Curt Collier
leader, Riverdale-Yonkers Society for Ethical Culture, New York
Fred Cook
Retired executive committee member, International Humanist and Ethical Union
Carlton Coon
Former US Ambassador to Nepal
Richard Dawkins (what a surprise huh)
Charles Simonyi professor, University of Oxford
Arthur Dobrin
Professor of humanities, Hofstra University and leader emeritus Ethical Humanist Society of Long Island, New York
Margaret Downey
President, Freethought Society of Greater Philadelphia
Riane Eisler
President, Center for Partnership Studies
Albert Ellis
Creator of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy and founder of the Alber Ellis Institute
Edward L. Ericson
Leader emeritus, Ethical Culture
Antony Flew
Philosopher
Arun Gandhi
Cofounder, M.K. Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence
Kendyl Gibbons
President, Unitarian Universalist Ministers Association
Sol Gordon
Sexologist
Pervez Hoodbhoy
Professor of physics at Quaid-e-Azam University, Islamabad, Pakistan
Fran P. Hosken
Editor, Women’s International Network News
Joan Johnson Lewis
President, National Leaders Council of the American Ethical Union
Edwin Kagin
Founder and director, Camp Quest
Beth Lamont
AHA NGO representative to the United Nations
Gerald A. Larue
Professor emeritus of biblical history and archaeology, University of Southern California
Ellen McBride
Immediate past president, American Ethical Union
Henry Morgentaler
Abortion rights pioneer
Stephen Mumford
President, Center for Research on Population and Security
William Murry
President and dean, Meadville-Lombard Theological School
Indumati Parikh
President, Center for the Study of Social Change, India
Katha Pollitt
Columnist, the Nation
Eugenie Scott
Executive director, National Center for Science Education
Michael Shermer
Editor of Skeptic magazine
James R. Simpson
Professor of international agricultural economics, Ryukoku University, Japan
Matthew Ies. Spetter
Associate professor in social psychology at the Peace Studies Institute of Manhattan College, NY
Oliver Stone
Academy award-winning filmmaker
John Swomley
Professor emeritus of social ethics, St. Paul School of Theology
Carl Thitchener
Co-minister, Unitarian Universalist Church of Amherst and of Canadaigua, New York
Maureen Thitchener
Co-minister, Unitarian Universalist Church of Amherst and of Canadaigua, New York
Kurt Vonnegut
Novelist
Edward O. Wilson
Professor, Harvard University,


Of course I excluded a lot of other names.  Notice how many scientists, so-called “ministers” or “theologians” and wealthy and influential persons are on the list in organizations related to “ethics”, education and religion!

None dare call it conspiracy. Of course, there are no conspiracies in America! None… no no no… and anyone who says there is is a paranoid nut case.   Ya right…

So how did they succeed in bringing the religion of humanism into the whole of public departments – education, justice et al.?  Quietly, stealthily, insidiously at first, now quite openly.  They believe they are invincible, just as did Nimrod and his slaves, right before the confusion of languages was put on the builders of Babel.

The humanists simply placed all the most dedicated of their dupes in key positions of power in the education departments of the nation and then started bad-mouthing Christianity and religion, calling for the infamous “separation of church and state” all while pretending religious neutrality! All while constantly reiterating (good pedagogy) the post modernist refrains that only science can tell us the truth, the religion is passé and that it must not be allowed in the classroom.   This all while implanting their own religion in the classrooms!

No conspiracy here?

If you believe this was not a long planned and keenly executed conspiracy, I have a few big beautiful bridges to sell you… cheap, as well as some huge land lots on Mars that you can leave to your posterity when humans will be living there.

Virtually every public school in America was taken over by these people and most of America (and Europe as well) has swallowed all these lies and accepted all this.

Winston Churchill commented,
“If you will not fight for the right when you can win without bloodshed, if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not so costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no chance of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.”
This is what is going to happen, and much sooner than we think, if we don’t get off our lazy asses and stand up and protest with righteous indignation -and plenty of proof of what we state – as well as viable solutions to remedy the catastrophic consequences that secular humanism and its goons have wreaked on the morals of society already. Consequences that have already taken incalculable lives and wrought irreparable damage.

It’s time to oust this intruder, this liar, the secular dogmatist & manipulator from the whole social system of the West.

Friday, August 26, 2011

Even More BAD Thinking by Atheists

Nothing created everything.

Yes ladies & gents, this is the sum of all atheist origins myths. Even normally brilliant people like Stephen Hawking, being desperate to find any other solution to origins but a God being, i.e. a sufficient agency and power to explain the universe, are now claiming that nothing created everything.

In his latest book he claims,
“Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing,” he writes. “Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist.” – The Grand Design

First, it is very important to understand that this is not a scientific statement at all but a metaphysical belief statement. Hawking’s claim is very bad logic to say the least, but it’s far worse coming from his pen, it isn’t anywhere near the scientific ball park!

Real science says the total energy of nothing is always nothing. That’s what nothing “is”, no thing, including no energy, no “random quantum fluctuation”, no gravity.

This “quantum fluctuation” argument, I sadly saw used once again today. Yet a more meaningless phrase, if ever there was one in a context of “before the universe existed”, is very difficult to imagine. How can we have quantum anything before the universe exists? Where does the quantum something come from? What is it fluctuating exactly? What is it’s nature? No one answers this coherently because no one knows. Hawking, L. Krauss et al. are foolish atheists who, not being capable to comprehend or endure the idea of God, invent new pseudo-scientific trash to explain away reality. It’s pure scientific sounding sophism. As scientist Edgar H. Andrews put it,
“But laws of nature are nothing more than descriptions of the way nature operates. No one has ever proposed a law of nature that does not involve existing natural entities, whether they be matter, energy, space-time or mathematical systems.”

Dr Andrews is Emeritus Professor of Materials at the University of London and an international expert on the science of large molecules. He’s simply saying that you can’t have pre-existent laws of gravity and such without existing nature. And he concludes,
“attempts to explain away the origin of the universe as a spontaneous event occurring in some pre-existing ‘void’ fail the tests both of science and logic.”
This means that using some pretended and undefined “quantum fluctuation” is no better than saying, “We don’t have a clue”.

Scientist John C. Lennox commented on Hawkings latest lapse of cognition thus,
“But contrary to what Hawking claims, physical laws can never provide a complete explanation of the universe. Laws themselves do not create anything, they are merely a description of what happens under certain conditions.
What Hawking appears to have done is to confuse law with agency. His call on us to choose between God and physics is a bit like someone demanding that we choose between aeronautical engineer Sir Frank Whittle and the laws of physics to explain the jet engine. That is a confusion of category. The laws of physics can explain how the jet engine works, but someone had to build the thing, put in the fuel and start it up. The jet could not have been created without the laws of physics on their own - but the task of development and creation needed the genius of Whittle as its agent. … Hawking’s argument appears to me even more illogical when he says the existence of gravity means the creation of the universe was inevitable. But how did gravity exist in the first place? Who put it there? And what was the creative force behind its birth?”

Indeed, how can you have gravity before any mass exists, before any matter & energy exist?

Even Hawking’s ex-wife had something to say on this,
“Stephen has the feeling that because everything is reduced to a rational, mathematical formula, that must be the truth. He is delving into realms that really do matter to thinking people and, in a way, that can have a very disturbing effect on people — and he’s not competent.”

Hawking has indeed engaged in reductionism to the point of the absurd. What is troubling is that he, like his many atheist fans and colleagues, seemingly cannot see the glaring error of such foolish and yes anti-scientific claims.

As Lennox points out you can’t have mere laws creating things and you cannot have the laws of physics doing something without a universe in which they may exist! This is not hard. This is grade one science. Law is descriptive, in itself it does nothing. Moreover those laws themselves need explaining as to their own origins.

Atheism provides no answers for the origin of the universe and even less for the origin of life. But they’ll never admit it because atheism is for them a religion, a sacred calling to emptiness and a utterly vain universe. Strange that any intelligent person would ever choose such a feckless position.

Atheism is an idea that doesn’t matter. If true, nothing really matters, the universe is meaningless, life is an accident and all is permitted for no overarching moral law exists either.

Atheism is pure denial of reality. So why are the so-called New Atheists such adamant proselytizers of it? Easy. It’s their religion. No matter how much they deny it, it is nevertheless so. Dawkins, Harris et al. are their high priests, perpetually spewing forth vitriol and codswallop using pretzel logic – high in fiber makes great dung, but that’s it.

John Lennox concludes,
“Indeed, the message of atheism has always been a curiously depressing one, portraying us as selfish creatures bent on nothing more than survival and self-gratification.

Hawking also thinks that the potential existence of other lifeforms in the universe undermines the traditional religious conviction that we are living on a unique, God-created planet. But there is no proof that other lifeforms are out there, and Hawking certainly does not present any.

It always amuses me that atheists often argue for the existence of extra-terrestrial intelligence beyond earth. Yet they are only too eager to denounce the possibility that we already have a vast, intelligent being out there: God.

Hawking’s new fusillade cannot shake the foundations of a faith that is based on evidence.”

My own conclusion? Atheism sucks.

Update: An atheist, attempting to squirm his way out of reality,   responded to my comments on the "not playing tennis isn't a sport; not believing in God isn't a religion" statements above with the following nonsense:
"Apparently you don't understand analogies".  

Um, right. Analogies are so hard to understand.

So, how to answer this deeply reflective "rebuttal"? Well, the obvious answer is that analogies that don't work, because they are logical fallacies, um ... don't work. Duh. That was so hard.


Once again we see why it is that only 98% of atheists give such a bad reputation to the rest -as being such shallow thinkers and ignoramuses?  Not only does atheism suck, its for suckers who "can't handle the truth".




Saturday, August 20, 2011

More Atheist Bad Thinking

Fanatical atheists infest the halls of Internet forumdom, spewing forth anti-religion, antichrist and anti-rationality in their never ceasing goal to proselytize.

Call one of these ignorant, and usually uneducated preachers what they really are and you'll get blasted by many vehement accusations of breaking some moral principle of "niceness".

Of course, according to atheist uh hum "logic", objective morality doesn't exist, seeing there is no "ultimate foundations for ethics" and morality is "an illusion fobbed off on us by our genes to get us to cooperate,” and “the way our biology enforces its ends is by making us think that there is an objective higher code to which we are all subject.”

Hey, we can thank evolutionary biologist E. O. Wilson for that bit of ill tasting codswallop.

But here's the thing: why should anyone care when atheists point fingers at theists for calling them vidiots1 , hypocrites, or whatever, when it's true?

They contradict themselves by such accusations and never see the contradiction. If you point it out to them what do they do? Well they resort to pretending your comment is a strawman! Apparently they don't know what a strawman is. They don't know that following the laws of logic, it's been shown many times by many philosophers that atheism necessarily leads to the conclusion that no objective values exist and relativism is all that remains.

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Who Designed the Designer?

In debate circles and discussion forums on atheism vs. theism or deism; Darwinism vs Intelligent Design (ID) all across the world today we hear that ID is stuck with a serious problem.  According to the opponents of ID such as Christopher Hitchens (one the worst reasoners by the way on this subject) the ID, uh hum, stopper goes like this,
"...the postulate of a designer or creator only raises the unanswerable question of who designed the designer or created the creator."
This is a very strange statement, and incredibly presumptuous one at that. It is of course equal to the old atheist argument, "Who made God?".

The 1st error here is that it the question is based on assumption of infinite regression of Gods creating Gods, Designers designing Designers. But infinite regressions in logic are logical absurdities, since all infinite regression propositions are such.

The most curious thing however is the stupidity inherent in such bold assertions as Hitchens makes. Truly the so-called New Atheists can't hold a candle to the old ones, who tended at least to be much smarter and somewhat less smart-ass.  On the one hand the assertion seems to be based on the logical absurdity of infinite regressions, and on the other it foolishly demands an answer to a logical absurdity! Then it claims that not being able to answer a logical absurdity is somehow important in the challenge of the "who designed the designer" rebuttal.

Besides being a nonsense question, if one assumes an infinite regression of designers,  it is indeed unanswerable, as are all logically absurd questions!  An simple example of a nonsense question is "Is the color green square or round?"; or "Can God create a rock so big he can't lift it?" - which questions generally come from the minds of children not yet trained in reasoning, logical and critical thinking, not from highly educated fools like Hitchens et al.

But here is another answer to the question at hand, supposing we are not implying an infinite regression; Who cares!?

Why should anyone care if the designer himself were designed? Once you've gotten to the designer of the thing you're examining, it doesn't matter! That becomes a second and separate inquiry altogether!

Consider the following:

If I'm trying to figure out who designed the car across the street, I may be able to get to the correct answer by a simple search - checking the logo on the front or back of the car. Now, once I've determined who that designer is - say Honda - why should I look any further?  Suppose I discover it was made by Honda.  Why should I inquire as to who designed the designer, i.e. who created Honda?  The question may indeed interest me but once I've gotten to the cars maker, that is sufficient, all by itself, to be able to postulate that the car was indeed manufactured by a specific designer.

Now, here's the real issue; in ID I'm not even looking to know who the designer is! The whole purpose of ID is not to determine the designer of life, but to determine that it was indeed designed rather that self-assembled by some other non rational process.

Do I really need to know who the designer is to determine that it was indeed designed or whether it came to be by a chance series of events by some other process? The answer is no. No more than claiming that when determining that some structure was designed or not, I can't logically postulate design until I know exactly who designed it! This puts the cart before the horse. Obviously I cannot postulate a designer until I've adequately determined design.

Design must be determined first!  Otherwise postulating the identity of the designer is futile.  Moreover once design is determined, with reasonable certainty, the question, "Who did it?", is an entirely separate research issue!


Darwinist always fail to see this distinction and thus fail to come up with more intelligent questions. Why? Because their minds are on hold in strict materialism. For them it has to be 100% natural, no intelligence allowed, no goals, no purpose, no guidance allowed. So as soon as a design inference is made, they are forced by their metaphysics - not evidence, not science - to deny design.

Afterwards they come up with the intellectually void and irrelevant rebuttal, "Who designed the designer"!

Conclusion

1. Intelligent Design proponents may or may not care one whit who the designer is. The most important thing to understand is that the question of identity is irrelevant until design has been adequately supported by the evidence.

This of course assumes that design detection is scientifically possible.  Is it? Of course it is!

Design detection is practiced every day in other fields such as forensic anthropology, arson investigations, genetic manipulation determining and many other fields. No one questions the ability to determine intelligent design in those areas. Only in biology! Only there do we find such vehement, apoplectic fits being had by opponents.  This fact alone should get any honest enquirer thinking that something is gravely wrong in Darwinian fundamentalism.


2. But it gets worse for them.  Suppose I have indeed discovered the designer's identity. The question, "Who designed the designer?", is still irrelevant because, hey I've found the designer and I need not go further back.

Why should I? Only if I have evidence that the designer was also designed and so on ... back infinitely again, and back to logical absurdities again, since it is impossible to determine an infinite regressions' beginning!

Darwinian Logic Exposed

Saturday, May 28, 2011

Atheism is ‘lack of belief’? Sequel

In debates with atheists on the subject I am always being assured that newborns are essentially atheists because they are born without any beliefs.  I’m told that atheism, being lack of belief, means that newly born babes qualify as atheists.  Of course that is anserine.

A while back, I came across this article on the web entitled Children as young as four to be educated in atheism.

My, but my atheist antagonists ought to be embarrassed at this!

Surely even the most ignorant and incompetent atheist can see that there can be no need to educate young children into atheism if atheism is truly their inborn lack of belief! They are born atheists, according to them!
Isn’t it amazing how atheists contradict themselves at every turn? If newborns are already atheists why in the world would they need indoctrination in atheism? Surely just being left alone would suffice to leave them atheists. Ah, but the atheist will claim they will be inundated with theistic or deistic ideas during their lives so we must protect that innate atheism! Really? Why?

Atheism is an idea that doesn’t matter. It leads to no good, it helps no one and it tends to either universal anarchy and chaos or totalitarian despotism (remember the more than 120 million killings under atheist regimes in the 20th century alone).

If, by atheist reasoning, the universe really created  itself out of nothing (the atheists only origins option), and if the universe consequently really has no meaning, no purpose, no good and no evil, why should anyone care what anyone else believes anyway? Why are atheists so adamantly evangelistic on making sure all remain, as they allege, “atheists from birth”.

Obviously they feel they need more.  Should theists now start using PANIC HEADLINES of the atheist genre?

Atheists, now they’re coming for  your children!

- to mimic the Times article on Dawkins’ latest drivel on which I commented here.
Of course, this kind of headline would be entirely justified in this case, if only because they want to preach their inane religion in public schools (as though they don’t already under the guise of science). These people are fanatically against teaching any kind of religion in schools and even having any kind of religious symbol displayed in any public place, yet here they come! They now want indoctrinate kids in schools into their religion, all while claiming kids are naturally atheistic!!

Now here I will quote Dr Michael V. Antony, a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Haifa, Israel. Dr. Antony addressed this “lack of belief” argument thus (my bold):
It is often said by atheists that atheism is not a positive position at all – a belief or worldview – but merely a disbelief in theism, a refusal to accept what the theist believes, and as such, there is no belief or position for there to be evidence for. Evidence is not needed for ‘non-positions’.
While the word ‘atheism’ has been used in something like this sense (see for example Antony Flew’s article ‘The Presumption of Atheism’), it is a highly non-standard use.  So understood, atheism would include agnosticism, since agnostics are also not theists. However, on the common understanding of atheism – no divine reality of any kind exists – atheism and agnosticism are mutually exclusive. Some insist that this non-standard sense of ‘atheism’ is the only possible sense, because a-theism means without theism. But if that were a good argument, the Space Shuttle would be an automobile, since it moves on its own (mobile=move, auto=by itself). Ditto for dogs and cats.

Yet none of that really matters, for even the non-standard sense of ‘atheism’ does nothing to neutralize evidentialism’s demand for evidence. As we saw, evidentialism applies to all ‘doxastic’ attitudes toward a proposition P: believing P, believing not-P, suspending judgment about P, etc. Therefore evidentialism says, with respect to the proposition God exists, that any attitude toward it will be rational or justified if and only if it fits one’s evidence. Now it is true that if one had no position whatever regarding the proposition God exists (perhaps because one has never entertained the thought), no evidence would be required for that non-position. But the New Atheists all believe that (probably) no God or other divine reality exists. And that belief must be evidence-based if it is to be rationally held, according to evidentialism. So insisting that atheism isn’t a belief doesn’t help.
Mere absence of belief is not a position.  Atheism is, it is a chosen position.  Atheism, as denial of reality, is a form of insanity, therefore it is doubtful we will ever cease having to deal with atheist nonsense.  Will we ever see the end of this blatant insanity?

Darwinian Consensus Science

Hey guys, I was having a little visit over at Cornelius Hunter’s blog Darwins God the other day and was confronted, once again, by more Darwinist stupidity.

Dr. Hunter was pointing out how Darwinists don’t even understand their own theory.  Quickly one Darwinian fundamentalist critiqued a point made concerning the fact that a large percent of the population still don’t believe in Darwinian evolution. The opponent, someone calling himself troy, claimed that Hunter was using a “argumentum-ad-populum” and that “is just that – a childish fallacy”.

This is just utterly risible! As I explained in just a few words in response to “troy”, no one on earth relies more on argumentum-ad-populum, i.e. “consensus science” (an oxymoron), than Darwinistas (to borrow one of John A. Davison’s terms)!
Here’s the answer I wrote:
How many times have I been told “overwhelming consensus”, “virtually ALL scientists agree”, “number of peer reviewed…” etc etc. by some evolutionist seeking to justify his religious evolutionism by the number of scientists who agree!
Well I hate to rain of your clownish parade, troy et al., poor Dawinists, but just a few centuries ago the overwhelming consensus was that the earth was flat.
Since then the world has witnessed incredible and inane resistance within the sci community (in Darwinism it should be called the sci-fi community) against dozens upon dozens of -now proven- theories.
Do you need a list? Do you have a few Gigs available to store all the data?
In 1795, Alexander Gordon of Aberdeen suggested that the fevers were infectious processes, and he was able to cure them. The consensus said no.
In 1843, Oliver Wendell Holmes claimed puerperal fever was contagious, and presented compelling evidence. The consensus said no.
In 1849, Semmelweiss demonstrated that sanitary techniques virtually eliminated puerperal fever in hospitals under his management. The consensus said he was a Jew, ignored him, and dismissed him from his post.
If that last instance resembles “to a ‘t’” the current situation dissenters of the “modern synthesis” face – I give you C. Hunter for ex.- it is entirely pertinent as we see here every day!!
There is no such thing as consensus “science”.  If its consensus, it isn’t science and v.v.
“Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you’re being had”. – the late Michael Crichton
My goodness but that sounds uncannily familiar.
Shame on you Dawieners!
It’s profoundly disingenuous of you to be constantly harping on consensus for your lame brained hypothesis and then go on and on complaining whenever opponents bring up quantities of unbelievers, like CH did above.
Face the music!  If the public continues to doubt Darwin, after  over a century of having it rammed down their throats as a fact beyond any reasonable doubt, its because the public is smarter than the nitwit, educated fool scientists who, acting more like priests in their dogmatic catechism, just don’t get the glaring problems involved in their religion of Darwinian fundamentalism.
Why? Because their minds are on HOLD.
You can tell that I have no qualms at all about calling these stubbornly unreasoning people names they well deserve. Indeed, the radical Darwinians do all in their power, including breaking the law, in their feverish attempts at “protecting” the public from all that opposes their own fanatical views.  Here I could mention Richard Sternberg, Guillermo Gonzales and a few hundred other cases of Darwinian fundamentalism at work against freedom of thought and expression.  Thus it is they that are the true “science deniers”, utterly intolerant of any view but their own!

Am I saying that the peer review process is a fallacy in itself? Of course not. I’m saying that one cannot use it as a “proof” of anything.  Peers that review in biology, are more often than not those of the same opinion and in the Darwinian materialism cases, eager to approve of any article they think further justifies their own views and more than eager to disapprove of anything even remotely hinting at intelligent design.

Peer review is not an “end of debate” process. No matter how many reviewers may approve an article that doesn’t mean the view expressed therein is correct. I need to mention no more than I already did above in my response; Flat earth was a peer accepted view that was obviously wrong.  Yet deep prejudice in the scientific community of the day couldn’t accept anything contrary to what they believed. Too many careers depended on it!  Nothing has changed.
“The scientific establishment bears a grisly resemblance to the Spanish Inquisition. Either you accept the rules and attitudes and beliefs promulgated by the ‘papacy’ (for which read, perhaps, the Royal Society or the Royal College of Physicians), or face a dreadful retribution. We will not actually burn you at the stake, because that sanction, unhappily, is now no longer available under our milksop laws. But we will make damned sure that you are a dead duck in our trade.” (Gould, D.W., “Letting poetry loose in the laboratory,” New Scientist, 29 August 1992, p.51)
The story of peers approving hypotheses that were clearly erroneous has been repeated hundreds of times since. Peer review is good but it doesn’t guarantee that only correct ideas will get through the system and indeed often guarantees quite the opposite!

In conclusion, if Darwinists insist on perpetually referring us all to the sheer numbers of  “peer-reviewed” literature in their favor and the “scientific consensus” as proof positive of their theory, they should stop either pretending that argumentum-ad-populum is a fallacy or stop using it everywhere themselves!
It is not peer review itself that is in question here but the way Darwinists use it as evidence their inane theory must be true.

Monday, February 28, 2011

The Transcendent Moral Law

The following quotations, garnered from ancient sources and cultures, demonstrate the independence of Natural Law. Of course this is hardly an exhaustive record.  I've taken this pretty much verbatim from CS Lewis', The Abolition of Man, the appendix.

Lewis added this important note :

But (1) I am not trying to prove its validity by the argument from common consent. Its validity cannot be deduced. For those who do not perceive its rationality, even universal consent could not prove it. (2) The idea of collecting independent testimonies presupposes that 'civilizations' have arisen in the world independently of one another; or even that humanity has had several independent  emergences on this planet. The biology and anthropology involved in such an assumption are extremely doubtful. It is by no means certain that there has ever (in the sense required) been more than one civilization in all history. It is at least arguable that every  civilization we find has been derived from another civilization and, in the last resort, from a single centre—'carried' like an infectious disease or like the Apostolical succession.

The reason I publish this is to show that, contrary to the claims of many moderns, morality has NOT widely varied in any fundamental area amongst the numerous civilizations, peoples and nations.  Many moderns talk of morals as though different cultures have vastly differing moralities and thus conclude that morals and values are culturally based and so there is no independent, transcendent moral law.  But this is simply not true.  The most striking thing about moral values over the centuries and across the globe is how very similar they are, not how different they are.

There are no countries, and never have been, wherein cowardice is a virtue, child rape is good or robbery is a commended action. Indeed, the only times in history where nations have begun to condone such things is within cultures that practiced the worship of demons, false gods or have practiced rigorous atheism.  Moreover, most of the great empires of the past all fell into to decline once they began to condone behavior that was contrary to the moral law.  Most of them that refused the warnings of righteous men to turn from such wickedness ended up in chaos and ultimate destruction. Does this happen over night? Of course not. It's like the decomposition of a living being into a corpse through long slow disease. God is very patient.

I need also to mention here that there is no such thing as law without sanctions.  That is, without rewards for obedience and punishments for disobedience.  Any rule without sanctions is thus no rule at all. But any true law must have an overriding authority behind it, with the right and duty to inflict penalties on criminals. Without this underlying authority there can be no law.

This is precisely where atheism utterly fails.  It wants morals without authority, but there is no such thing.  If there is no transcending authority guarding the law, there is simply is no law at all. Having ultimate foundations for ethics, atheism has no foundation for any ethics whatsoever.  This is the moral version of a universe without a creator, a universe that created itself out of nothing. And that is both logically and scientifically ludicrous. If we are to have any morals at all we need the underlying authority and only one thing responds to this call - a moral thinking absolute being, i.e. the being men call God.

I. The Law of General Beneficence

(a) NEGATIVE

'I have not slain men.' (Ancient Egyptian. From the Confession of the Righteous Soul, 'Book of the Dead', v. Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics [=ERE], vol. v, p. 478)

'Do not murder.' (Ancient Jewish. Exodus 20:13)

'Terrify not men or God will terrify thee.' (Ancient Egyptian. Precepts of Ptahhetep. H. R. Hall, Ancient History of the Near East, p. i3)

'In Nastrond (= Hell) I saw... murderers.' (Old Norse. Volospá 38, 39)

'I have not brought misery upon my fellows. I have not made the beginning of every day laborious in the sight of him who worked for  me.' (Ancient Egyptian. Confession of the Righteous Soul. ERE v. 478)

'I have not been grasping.' (Ancient Egyptian. Ibid.)

'Who meditates oppression, his dwelling is overturned.' (Babylonian. Hymn to Samas. ERE v. 445)

'He who is cruel and calumnious has the character of a cat.' (Hindu. Laws of Manu. Janet, Histoire de la Science Politique, vol. i, p. 6)

'Slander not.' (Babylonian. Hymn to Samas. ERE v. 445)

'You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour.' (Ancient Jewish. Exodus 20:16)

'Utter not a word by which anyone could be wounded.' (Hindu. Janet, p. 7)

'Has he ... driven an honest man from his family? broken up a well cemented clan?' (Babylonian. List of Sins from incantation tablets. ERE v. 446)

'I have not caused hunger. I have not caused weeping.' (Ancient Egyptian ERE v. 478)

'Never do to others what you would not like them to do to you.' (Ancient Chinese. Analects of Confucius, trans. A. Waley, xv. 23; cf. xii. 2)

'You shall not hate your brother in your heart.' (Ancient Jewish. Leviticus 19:17)

'He whose heart is in the smallest degree set upon goodness will dislike no one.' (Ancient Chinese. Analects, iv. 4)

(b) POSITIVE

'Nature urges that a man should wish human society to exist and should wish to enter it.' (Roman. Cicero, De Officiis, i. iv)

'By the fundamental Law of Nature Man [is] to be preserved as much as possible.' (Locke, Treatises of Civil Govt. ii. 3)

'When the people have multiplied, what next should be done for them? The Master said, Enrich them. Jan Ch'iu said, When one has enriched them, what next should be done for them? The Master said, Instruct them.' (Ancient Chinese. Analects, xiii. 9)

'Speak kindness ... show good will.' (Babylonian. Hymn to Samas. ERE v. 445)

'Men were brought into existence for the sake of men that they might do one another good.' (Roman. Cicero. De Off. i. vii)

'Man is man's delight.' (Old Norse. Hávamál 47)

'He who is asked for alms should always give.' (Hindu. Janet, i. 7)

'What good man regards any misfortune as no concern of his?' (Roman. Juvenal xv. 140)

'I am a man: nothing human is alien to me.' (Roman. Terence, Heaut. Tim.)

'Love your neighbour as yourself.' (Ancient Jewish. Leviticus 19:18)

'Love the stranger as yourself.' (Ancient Jewish. Ibid. 33, 34)

'Do to men what you wish men to do to you.' (Christian. Matthew 7:12)

2. The Law of Special Beneficence

'It is upon the trunk that a gentleman works. When that is firmly set up, the Way grows. And surely proper behaviour to parents and elder brothers is the trunk of goodness.' (Ancient Chinese. Analects, i. 2)

'Brothers shall fight and be each others' bane.' (Old Norse. Account of the Evil Age before the World's end, Volospá 45)

'Has he insulted his elder sister?' (Babylonian. List of Sins. ERE v. 446)

'You will see them take care of their kindred [and] the children of their friends ... never reproaching them in the least.' (Redskin. Le Jeune, quoted ERE v.437)

'Love your wife studiously. Gladden her heart all your life long.' (Ancient Egyptian. ERE v. 481)

'Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of your youth...' (Ancient Jewish. Pro 5:18)

'Nothing can ever change the claims of kinship for a right thinking man.' (Anglo-Saxon. Beowulf, 2600)

'Did not Socrates love his own children, though he did so as a free man and as one not forgetting that the gods have the first claim on our friendship?' (Greek, Epictetus, iii. 24)

'Natural affection is a thing right and according to Nature.' (Greek. Ibid. i. xi)

'I ought not to be unfeeling like a statue but should fulfil both my natural and artificial relations, as a worshipper, a son, a brother, a father, and a citizen.' (Greek. Ibid. 111. ii)

'This first I rede thee: be blameless to thy kindred. Take no vengeance even though they do thee wrong.' (Old Norse. Sigdrifumál, 22)

'Is it only the sons of Atreus who love their wives? For every good man, who is right-minded, loves and cherishes his own.' (Greek. Homer, Iliad, ix. 340)

'The union and fellowship of men will be best preserved if each receives from us the more kindness in proportion as he is more closely connected with us.' (Roman. Cicero. De Off. i. xvi)

'Part of us is claimed by our country, part by our parents, part by our friends.'  (Roman. Ibid. i. vii)

'If a ruler ... compassed the salvation of the whole state, surely you would call him Good? The Master said, It would no longer be a matter of "Good". He would without doubt be a Divine Sage.' (Ancient Chinese. Analects, vi. 28)

'Has it escaped you that, in the eyes of gods and good men, your native land deserves from you more honour, worship, and reverence than your mother and father and all your ancestors? That you should give a softer answer to its anger than to a father's anger? That if you cannot persuade it to alter its mind you must obey it in all quietness, whether it binds you or beats you or sends you to a war where you may get wounds or death?' (Greek. Plato, Crito, 51, a, b)

'If any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he has denied the faith.' (Christian. I Timothy 5:8)

'Put them in mind to obey magistrates.'... 'I exhort that prayers be made for kings and all that are in authority.' (Christian. Titus 3:1 and I Timothy 2:1, 2)

3. Duties to Parents, Elders, Ancestors

'Your father is an image of the Lord of Creation, your mother an image of the Earth. For him who fails to honour them, every work of piety is in vain. This is the first duty.' (Hindu. Janet, i. 9)

'Has he despised Father and Mother?' (Babylonian. List of Sins. ERE v. 446)

'I was a staff by my Father's side ... I went in and out at his command.' (Ancient Egyptian. Confession of the Righteous Soul. ERE v. 481)

'Honor your Father and your Mother.' (Ancient Jewish. Exodus 20:12)

'To care for parents.' (Greek. List of duties in Epictetus, in. vii)

'Children, old men, the poor, and the sick, should be considered as the lords of the atmosphere.' (Hindu. Janet, i. 8)

'Rise up before the gray haired one and honor the old man.' (Ancient Jewish. Leviticus 19:32)

'I tended the old man, I gave him my staff.' (Ancient Egyptian. ERE v. 481)

'You will see them take care ... of old men.' (Redskin. Le Jeune, quoted ERE v. 437)

'I have not taken away the oblations of the blessed dead.' (Ancient Egyptian. Confession of the Righteous Soul. ERE v. 478)

'When proper respect towards the dead is shown at the end and continued after they are far away, the moral force (tê) of a people has reached its highest point.' (Ancient Chinese. Analects, i. 9)

4. Duties to Children and Posterity

'Children, the old, the poor, etc. should be considered as lords of the atmosphere.' (Hindu. Janet, i. 8)

'To marry and to beget children.' (Greek. List of duties. Epictetus, in. vii)

'Can you conceive an Epicurean commonwealth? . . . What will happen? Whence is the population to be kept up? Who will educate them? Who will be Director of Adolescents? Who will be Director of Physical Training? What will be taught?' (Greek. Ibid.)

'Nature produces a special love of offspring' and 'To live according to Nature is the supreme good.' (Roman. Cicero, De Off. i. iv, and De Legibus, i. xxi)

'The second of these achievements is no less glorious than the first; for while the first did good on one occasion, the second will continue to benefit the state for ever.' (Roman. Cicero. De Off. i. xxii)

'Great reverence is owed to a child.' (Roman. Juvenal, xiv. 47)

'The Master said, Respect the young.' (Ancient Chinese. Analects, ix. 22)

'The killing of the women and more especially of the young boys and girls who are to go to make up the future strength of the people, is the saddest part... and we feel it very sorely.' (Redskin. Account of the Battle of Wounded Knee. ERE v. 432)

5. The Law of Justice

(a) SEXUAL JUSTICE

'Has he approached his neighbour's wife?' (Babylonian. List of Sins. ERE v. 446)

'You shall not commit adultery.' (Ancient Jewish. Exodus 20:14)

'I saw in Nastrond (= Hell)... beguilers of others' wives.' (Old Norse.Volospá 38, 39)

(b) HONESTY

'Has he drawn false boundaries?' (Babylonian. List of Sins. ERE v. 446)

'To wrong, to rob, to cause to be robbed.' (Babylonian. Ibid.)

'I have not stolen.' (Ancient Egyptian. Confession of the Righteous Soul. ERE v. 478)

'You shall not steal.' (Ancient Jewish. Exodus 20:15)

'Choose loss rather than shameful gains.' (Greek. Chilon Fr. 10. Diels)

'Justice is the settled and permanent intention of rendering to each man his rights.' (Roman. Justinian, Institutions, I. i)

'If the native made a "find" of any kind (e.g., a honey tree) and marked it, it was thereafter safe for him, as far as his own tribesmen were concerned, no matter how long he left it.' (Australian Aborigines. ERE v. 441)

'The first point of justice is that none should do any mischief to another unless he has first been attacked by the other's wrongdoing. The second is that a man should treat common property as common property, and private property as his own. There is no such thing as private property by nature, but things have become private either through prior occupation (as when men of old came into empty territory) or by conquest, or law, or agreement, or stipulation, or casting lots.' (Roman. Cicero, De Off. I. vii)

(c) JUSTICE IN COURT, &C.

'Whoso takes no bribe ... well pleasing is this to Samas.' (Babylonian. ERE v. 445)

'I have not traduced the slave to him who is set over him.' (Ancient Egyptian. Confession of the Righteous Soul. ERE v. 478)

'You shall not give a false witness against your neighbour.' (Ancient Jewish. Exodus 20:16)

'Regard him whom you know like him whom you don't know.' (Ancient Egyptian. ERE v. 482)

'Do no unrighteousness in judgement. You must not consider the fact that one party is poor nor the fact that the other is a great man.' (Ancient Jewish. Leviticus 19:15)

6. The Law of Good Faith and Veracity

'A sacrifice is obliterated by a lie and the merit of alms by an act of fraud.' (Hindu. Janet, i. 6)

'Whose mouth, full of lying, avails not before thee: thou burnest their utterance.' (Babylonian. Hymn to Samas. ERE v. 445)

'With his mouth was he full of Yea, in his heart full of Nay? (Babylonian. ERE v. 446)

'I have not spoken falsehood.' (Ancient Egyptian. Confession of the Righteous Soul. ERE v. 478)

'I sought no trickery, nor swore false oaths.' (Anglo-Saxon. Beowulf, 2738)

'The Master said, Be of unwavering good faith.' (Ancient Chinese. Analects, viii. 13)

'In Nastrond (= Hell) I saw the perjurers.' (Old Norse. Volospá 39)

'Hateful to me as are the gates of Hades is that man who says one thing, and hides another in his heart.' (Greek. Homer. Iliad, ix. 312)

'The foundation of justice is good faith.' (Roman. Cicero, De Off. i.vii)

'[The gentleman] must learn to be faithful to his superiors and to keep promises.' (Ancient Chinese. Analects, i. 8)

'Anything is better than treachery.' (Old Norse. Hávamál 124)

7. The Law of Mercy

'The poor and the sick should be regarded as lords of the atmosphere.' (Hindu. Janet, i. 8)

'Whoso makes intercession for the weak, well pleasing is this to Samas.' (Babylonian. ERE v. 445)

'Has he failed to set a prisoner free?' (Babylonian. List of Sins. ERE v. 446)

'I have given bread to the hungry, water to the thirsty, clothes to the naked, a ferry boat to the boatless.' (Ancient Egyptian. ERE v. 446)

'One should never strike a woman; not even with a flower.' (Hindu. Janet, i. 8)

'There, Thor, you got disgrace, when you beat women.' (Old Norse. Hárbarthsljóth 38)

'In the Dalebura tribe a woman, a cripple from birth, was carried about by the tribes-people in turn until her death at the age of sixty-six.'... 'They never desert the sick.' (Australian Aborigines. ERE v. 443)

'You will see them take care of... widows, orphans, and old men, never reproaching them.' (Redskin. ERE v. 439)

'Nature confesses that she has given to the human race the tenderest hearts, by giving us the power to weep. This is the best part of us.' (Roman. Juvenal, xv. 131)

'They said that he had been the mildest and gentlest of the kings of the world.' (Anglo-Saxon. Praise of the hero in Beowulf, 3180)

'When you cut down your harvest... and have forgot a sheaf... you shall not go back again to fetch it: it shall be for the stranger, for the fatherless, and for the widow.' (Ancient Jewish. Deuteronomy 24:19)

8. The Law of Magnanimity

(a)
'There are two kinds of injustice: the first is found in those who do an injury, the second in those who fail to protect another from injury when they can.' (Roman. Cicero, De Off. I. vii)

'Men always knew that when force and injury was offered they might be defenders of themselves; they knew that howsoever men may seek their own commodity, yet if this were done with injury unto others it was not to be suffered, but by all men and by all good means to be withstood.' (English. Hooker, Laws of Eccl. Polity, I. ix. 4)

'To take no notice of a violent attack is to strengthen the heart of the enemy. Vigour is valiant, but cowardice is vile.' (Ancient Egyptian. The Pharaoh Senusert III, cit. H. R. Hall, Ancient History of the Near East, p. 161)

'They came to the fields of joy, the fresh turf of the Fortunate Woods and the dwellings of the Blessed . . . here was the company of those who had suffered wounds fighting for their fatherland.' (Roman. Virgil, Aeneid, vi. 638-9, 660)

'Courage has got to be harder, heart the stouter, spirit the sterner, as our strength weakens. Here lies our lord, cut to pieces, out best man in the dust. If anyone thinks of leaving this battle, he can howl forever.' (Anglo-Saxon. Maldon, 312)

'Praise and imitate that man to whom, while life is pleasing, death is not grievous.' (Stoic. Seneca, Ep. liv)

'The Master said, Love learning and if attacked be ready to die for the Good Way.' (Ancient Chinese. Analects, viii. 13)

(b)
'Death is to be chosen before slavery and base deeds.' (Roman. Cicero, DeOff. i, xxiii)

'Death is better for every man than life with shame.' (Anglo-Saxon. Beowulf, 2890)

'Nature and Reason command that nothing uncomely, nothing effeminate, nothing lascivious be done or thought.' (Roman. Cicero, De Off. i. iv)

'We must not listen to those who advise us "being men to think human thoughts, and being mortal to think mortal thoughts," but must put on immortality as much as is possible and strain every nerve to live according to that best part of us, which, being small in bulk, yet much more in its power and honour surpasses all else.' (Ancient Greek. Aristotle, Eth. Nic. 1177 B)

'The soul then ought to conduct the body, and the spirit of our minds the soul. This is therefore the first Law, whereby the highest power of the mind requireth obedience at the hands of all the rest.' (Hooker, op. cit. i. viii. 6)

'Let him not desire to die, let him not desire to live, let him wait for his time ... let him patiently bear hard words, entirely abstaining from bodily pleasures.' (Ancient Indian. Laws of Manu. ERE ii. 98)

'He who is unmoved, who has restrained his senses ... is said to be devoted. As a flame in a windless place that flickers not, so is the devoted.' (Ancient Indian. Bhagavad gita. ERE ii 90)

(c)
'Is not the love of Wisdom a practice of death?' (Ancient Greek. Plato, Phadeo, 81 A)

'I know that I hung on the gallows for nine nights, wounded with the spear as a sacrifice to Odin, myself offered to Myself.' (Old Norse. Hávamál, I. 10 in Corpus Poeticum Boreale; stanza 139 in Hildebrand's Lieder der Älteren Edda. 1922)

'Verily, verily I say to you unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone, but if it dies it bears much fruit. He who loves his life loses it.' (Christian. John 12:24,25)