Author: digby

Brothers In Weltanschauung

“We do not claim to know all the ways of Providence yet we can trust in them, placing our confidence in the loving God behind all of life, and all of history. May he guide us now.”

In the end, I advise myself and you to fear God covertly and openly and to be patient in the jihad. Victory will be achieved with patience.

I also advise myself and you to say more prayers.

“Our prayer tonight is that God will see us through and keep us worthy,” “Hope still lights our way, and the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness will not overcome it.”

God Almighty says: “Those who believe fight in the cause of Allah, and those who reject faith fight in the cause of evil.”

“There is power — wonder-working power — in the goodness and idealism and faith of the American people.”

Verily, Allah guideth not a people unjust.

“The American people have deep and diverse religious beliefs, truly one of the great strengths of our country. And the faith of our citizens is seeing us through some demanding times. We’re being challenged. We’re meeting those challenges because of our faith.”

God Almighty says: “Oh ye who believe! If ye will help the cause of Allah, He will help you and plant your feet firmly.”

“After we were attacked on September the 11th, we carried our grief to the Lord Almighty in prayer.”

Obey Him, be thankful to Him, and remember Him always, and die not except in a state of Islam with complete submission to Allah.

“The role of government is limited, because government cannot put hope in people’s hearts, or a sense of purpose in people’s lives. That happens when someone puts an arm around a neighbor and says, God loves you, I love you, and you can count on us both.”

The jurisdiction of the socialists and those rulers has fallen a long time ago. Socialists are infidels wherever they are, whether they are in Baghdad or Aden

“I ask you to challenge your listeners to encourage your congregations to work together for the good of this nation, to work hard to break down the barriers that have divided the children of God for too long. There is no question that we can rid this nation of hopelessness and despair, because the greatest of America is the character of the American people.”

Before concluding, we reiterate the importance of high morale and caution against false rumors, defeatism, uncertainty, and discouragement.

“What I’m saying is, the days of discriminating against religious groups just because they’re religious are coming to an end. I have issued an executive order banning discrimination against faith-based charities and social service grants by federal agencies.”

Allah is sufficient for us and He is the best disposer of affairs.

“And we are a courageous country, ready when necessary to defend the peace. And today, the peace is threatened. We face a continuing threat of terrorist networks that hate the very thought of people being able to live in freedom.”

We also stress to honest Muslims that they should move, incite, and mobilize the [Islamic] nation, amid such grave events and hot atmosphere so as to liberate themselves from those unjust and renegade ruling regimes, which are enslaved by the United States.

“They hate the thought of the fact that in this great country, we can worship the Almighty God the way we see fit. And what probably makes him even angrier is we’re not going to change.”

Muslims’ doctrine and banner should be clear in fighting for the sake of God. He who fights to raise the word of God will fight for God’s sake. So fight ye against the friends of Satan: feeble indeed is the cunning of Satan

“We face an outlaw regime in Iraq that hates our country.”

Needless to say, this crusade war is primarily targeted against the people of Islam.

“A regime that aids and harbors terrorists and is armed with weapons of mass murder. Chemical agents, lethal viruses, and shadowy terrorist networks are not easily contained. Secretly, without fingerprints, Saddam Hussein could provide one of his hidden weapons to terrorists, or help them develop their own. Saddam Hussein is a threat. He’s a threat to the United States of America. He’s a threat to some of our closest friends and allies. We don’t accept this threat.”

We are following up with great interest and extreme concern the crusaders’ preparations for war to occupy a former capital of Islam, loot Muslims’ wealth, and install an agent government, which would be a satellite for its masters in Washington and Tel Aviv, just like all the other treasonous and agent Arab governments.

This would be in preparation for establishing the Greater Israel.

“My attitude is that we owe it to future generations of Americans and citizens in freedom-loving countries to see to it that Mr. Saddam Hussein is disarmed.”

This is a prescribed duty. God says: “[And let them pray with thee] taking all precautions and bearing arms: the unbelievers wish if ye were negligent of your arms and your baggage, to assault you in a single rush.”

“It’s his choice to make as to how he will be disarmed. He can either do so — which it doesn’t look like he’s going to — for the sake of peace, we will lead a coalition of willing countries and disarm Saddam Hussein.”

Regardless of the removal or the survival of the socialist party or Saddam, Muslims in general and the Iraqis in particular must brace themselves for jihad against this unjust campaign and acquire ammunition and weapons.

“But should we need to use troops, for the sake of future generations of Americans, American troops will act in the honorable traditions of our military and in the highest moral traditions of our country.”

Amid this unjust war, the war of infidels and debauchees led by America along with its allies and agents, we would like to stress a number of important values

“In violation of the Geneva Conventions, Saddam Hussein is positioning his military forces within civilian populations in order to shield his military and blame coalition forces for civilian casualties that he has caused. Saddam Hussein regards the Iraqi people as human shields, entirely expendable when their suffering serves his purposes.”

“…we realized from our defense and fighting against the American enemy that, in combat, they mainly depend on psychological warfare. This is in light of the huge media machine they have. They also depend on massive air strikes so as to conceal their most prominent point of weakness, which is the fear, cowardliness, and the absence of combat spirit among US soldiers.

“America views the Iraqi people as human beings who have suffered long enough under this tyrant. And the Iraqi people can be certain of this: the United States is committed to helping them build a better future. If conflict occurs, we’ll bring Iraq food and medicine and supplies and, most importantly, freedom.”

In the name of God, the merciful, the compassionate. A message to our Muslim brothers in Iraq, may God’s peace, mercy, and blessings be upon you.

“We’re called to defend our nation and to lead the world to peace, and we will meet both challenges with courage and with confidence.”

If all the world forces of evil could not achieve their goals on a one square mile of area against a small number of mujahideen with very limited capabilities, how can these evil forces triumph over the Muslim world?

“Liberty is not America’s gift to the world. Liberty is God’s gift to every human being in the world.”

God, who sent the book unto the prophet, who drives the clouds, and who defeated the enemy parties, defeat them and make us victorious over them.

“There’s an old saying, ‘Let us not pray for tasks equal to our strength. Let us pray for strength equal to our tasks.’ And that is our prayer today, for the strength in every task we face.”

…we remind that victory comes only from God and all we have to do is prepare and motivate for jihad.

“I want to thank each of you for your prayers. I want to thank you for your faithfulness. I want to thank you for your good work. And I want to thank you for loving your country. May God bless you all, and may God bless America.”

O ye who believe. When ye meet a force, be firm, and call Allah in remembrance much (and often); That ye may prosper. Our Lord. Give us good in this world and good in the Hereafter and save us from the torment of the Fire. May God’s peace and blessings be upon Prophet Muhammad and his household.

Us, them

Onward Christian Soldiers

Does anyone but me find it unbelievable that Reverend Dubya is ratcheting up the holy roller Christian fundamentalist rhetoric just prior to invading a Muslim country loaded with sacred sites ? I realize that we would be nothing but a bunch of useless Old Europeans if we “appeased” the terrorists in any way, but this seems to me to be just a tad over the top stooopid, even for the Preacher in Chief.

Apparently, we are determined that Al Jazeera and the rest of the mid-east media have hours of footage of our President speaking in religious terms that even a battle hardened Arab realist would find provocative. Lucky for us, CNN provides daily coverage of every single canned repetitive public utterance of our Great Leader, so there are endless choices of which call to prayer or faith or God those terrorist recruiters want to use in their videos.

Let’s see. Against the backdrop of seething resentment against the west and their own corrupt leaders, a demographic baby boom, and Intifada II, Al Qaeda declares Holy Jihad against the US and blows up the World Trade Center, all in the name of Allah. The US government decides this is the perfect time to invade a mideast country with whom they have an unrelated bone to pick and even though its purported ties to the perpetrators are laughable, it surely looks to said disaffected, resentful Muslim baby boomers that we just want to kill us some Arabs and we don’t care who they are. And just to make things perfectly clear, they decide that it’s a very smart idea for the President to conflate terrorism and Iraq into a metaphor for Satan using explicitly Christian crusading terms to do it.

I’m quite sure that every one of those billion Muslims around the world understands that President Bush is only talking about God and Jesus all the time because Karl says he has to pacify his base before he can move to the center to capture the swing voters in Pennsylvania and Michigan. There’s no reason to think that anyone could misinterpret his hyper-religiosity as an answer to bin Laden’s explicit call for Holy War. It’s almost primary season, fer-Gawds-sakes. Everybody knows that. Even evil heathens.

de l’audace, encore de l’audace, et toujours de l’audace

So, I come back from hiatus and turn on Fox to find that the biggest news is that Michael Jackson is sleeping with 12 year old boys and Martha Stewart might be designated an unlawful combatant and shipped to Gitmo for interrogation. They also said we are going to have something like a 500 Gazillion dollar deficit that can only be cured by eliminating all taxes on donors to George W. Bush’s re-election campaign; a plan which Neal Cavuto reported had full bi-partisan support in the congress, led by Joe Lieberman and a coalition of the willing. Some guy named Oh Sama something put out a new CD, but it wasn’t very good because he was probably dead when he made it. We are now on Code Orange (coincidentally, I’m sure) the color of a colossal nuclear fireball and Tom Ridge wants us to lay in a big supply of duct tape for some reason.

I’m not entirely sure, but from what I gathered listening to Mort and Fred, North Korea and the whole Iraq thing are up in the air due to the greater threat from Belgium. It sounded like troops are already gathering on the Spanish and Italian borders in preparation for a little coup de main in France while the felicitously named Charles Krauthamer indicated that those German pussies are begging for a little regime change.

Oh yeah. And Bill Clinton got a blow job.

Creationism Redux

Natasha at the watch makes some good points about creationism and science curriculum.

Some question if it is important whether a doctor believes in creationism and to me this is really the nub of the problem. Of course it is important because to believe in creationism means that you do not adhere, on an intellectual level, to the scientific method. That’s a big nub and a big problem. I could never put my life or the life of a loved one in the hands of a doctor who is not a a man or woman of science.

The bottom line is that science determines how the observable universe around us works. The scientific method is the process by which we observe, hypothesise, test and confirm those findings. Creationism is not science because of its basic teleological nature. It depends upon the proposal that the universe around us was formed by direct creative acts of God during the creation week described in Genesis. No matter what is observed, reproduced or falsified nothing will change that basic belief.

From the The Creation Research Society :

The Creation Research Society is one of the leading organisations researching special creation and claim to have founded their membership from members who are committed to full belief in the Biblical record of creation and early history. All of it’s members must subscribe to the following statement of belief:

The Bible is the written Word of God, and because it is inspired throughout, all its assertions are historically and scientifically true in the original autographs. To the student of nature this means that the account of origins in Genesis is a factual presentation of simple historical truths.

All basic types of living things, including man, were made by direct creative acts of God during the Creation Week described in Genesis. Whatever biological changes have occurred since Creation Week have been accomplished only changes within the original created kinds.

The great flood described in Genesis, commonly referred to as the Noachian Flood, was an historic event worldwide in its extent and effect.

We are an organization of Christian men and women of science who accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Saviour. The account of the special creation of Adam and Eve as one man and one woman and their subsequent fall into sin is the basis for our belief in the necessity of a Saviour for all mankind. Therefore, salvation can come only through accepting Jesus Christ as our Saviour.

Any student of science who believes this is rejecting the scientific method because science does not start with conclusions, refuse to change and acknowledge only data that the initial conclusions support. Therefore, anyone who believes this is not a scientist.

It’s really that simple.

To those who say that evolution is also a “belief system” I can only point out that Darwin’s Theory of Evolution, while persisting for over 140 years, has been subject to many changes. It has absorbed punctuated equilibrium, kin selection, and most of our current knowledge of DNA and genetics (including Mendel’s work then unknown to Darwin). Evolutionary scientists do not require faith to predict events. In philosophical terms religious people have faith the sun will rise tomorrow but the true scientist, based on past experience, simply expects that it will.

Creationism truly is a belief system and if people want to teach their children this belief system that is their privilege. But, it is not science and it has no place in a science classroom. If we continue down this silly anti-intellectual road in this country and allow this kind of thing to become subject to “scientific” debate, then our vaunted “benevolent hegemony” will last just long enough for us to be subsumed by irrelevance.

Predictably…

I left out one of my favorite odd-blogs, Planet Swank. It’s very politically astute, but it’s also fiendishly fun.

“Don’t Worry. I Didn’t Study Medicine in the U.S.”

Atrios agrees with Dwight Meredith’s clever letter of “recommendation” from a professor who is being sued because he refuses to recommend a student for graduate biology studies who does not support the theory of evolution.

In Atrios’s lively comments section, commenter Dominion posts a bit from the Texas Republican Party that endorsed and apparently prevailed in allowing public school teachers to voluntarily teach creationism. In another comment someone points out that we don’t ask our doctors what religion they practice before we let them treat us.

These two issues present the essence of the problem that we are going to confront if we don’t nip this creationist monster in the bud.

I don’t currently ask what religion my doctor practices because until recently it was understood that anyone who wanted to be a doctor, or indeed work anywhere in the sciences, would necessarily support the scientific method and, as such, would not support creationism. If this is changing, and this lawsuit would indicate that there are those (including John Ashcroft apparently) who believe that requiring scientists to believe in science is a form of religious discrimination, then we can no longer assume that such a standard exists. If this lawsuit prevails then I will most certainly ask any young doctor I encounter whether he went to school in Texas and make certain judgments based upon what he says. I would never knowingly put my life in the hands of a man or woman of “science” who believes in creationism.

Businessmen in Texas and elsewhere in the Bible Belt had better think long and hard about whether this is good for business. It’s going to be a little bit difficult to evaluate the products and technology of a state that allows its worker force to be so improperly educated that they could emerge from the school system believing that creationism is as valid as evolution. If this extends to higher education, they will be in deep trouble.

And Texas workers are going to start having problems, as well. I doubt that most employers have ever considered whether employees in a scientific field believe in creationism, but if this prevails, they are going to have to. Since it would be discriminatory to ask a candidate about his religious beliefs, I would imagine that they will logically have to develop skepticism about hiring people who are products of the Texas school system (or any of the Bible belt states that are intent upon pushing creationism in the schools) because there is no way of knowing if they understand and apply the scientific method to all aspects of science or if they have been improperly taught that creationism meets that standard.

Our “Texas” president wants to extend this nonsense to the nation as a whole. He is packing scientific panels with religious zealots, removing scientific information from federal sites that conflicts with the tactics of the religious right and has shown no respect for using science as the fundamental foundation for making scientific policy. Just last week, the administration set forth its plan to allow the government to fund drug treatment for religious organizations even though there have been no studies or evidence provided that such programs actually work.

If this continues, it will have the effect of delegitimizing American science everywhere. If we do not insist upon using the worldwide accepted scientific standard then people are justified in not trusting our products, our medicine, our technology or us. At the very least, it will give others an effective marketing tool. (Would you buy a drug/car/cleaner/computer/cosmetic from a country that endorses creationism as a reasonable alternative to evolution in its science classrooms?) And like the employer who has no choice but to look askance at everyone the standardless Texas school system churns out, no matter how many of them are not creationists, the world at large will have no choice but to discount much of American output because we are no longer scientifically reliable.

The funny thing is that this is really a medieval attack on science using post modern argumentation. As usual, the gall of the Right on this is astounding, considering their decades long attack on “relativism.” But, in this case, they are also taking some bold steps to undermine the United States’ standing as leader of the world in science and technology.

First they repudiated the Enlightenment, now they are repudiating the Renaissance. But, this really should not be surprising. The Dark Ages, after all, were some of the glory days for Christians.

It’s only Blog -n-Roll

I have been terribly remiss with updating the blogroll, but I’ll try to begin here, today, now.

Many of these blogs are familiar to eveyone and some are new. And still others are a little bit specialized or a little bit eccentric. Some are even…gasp…illiberal. I like them all for a variety of reasons and encourage everyone to visit and enjoy. In no particular order:

Infomania:

Pennsylvania Gazette

The Note

MediaGoGo:

Punditwatch

Political Pulpit

consortium news

Scoobie Davis

eriposte

spinsanity

Laugh-In:

The Maelstrom

The Poorman

What The Heck

Blog-o-Rama:

Silt

Liberal Oasis

History News Network

Seth D Michaels

Interesting Times

reading and writing

the talking dog

Altercation

David E’s Fablog

Musings

Orcinus

The Sacred and the Inane

highwater

skimble

The Hauser Report

Neptune World

busybusybusy

alicublog

political strategy

Testify!

Blue Streak

Unqualified Offerings

A Level Gaze

dr limerick

mousemusings

Hronkomatic

gorilla-a-gogo

beauty of gray

the bloviator

Into the Breach

That Other Blog

Netron

Name of Blog

the watch

raatz

the bog

gamersnook

get donkey

Truth Is a Blog

Democratic Veteran

Shouting ‘cross the Potomac

Gail Online

mfinley

Just One Minute

Liberal Desert

Cobb the Blog

Jason Rylander

The Goblin Queen

“In The Event Of A Moon Disaster”

A speech drafted by William Safire for President Richard M. Nixon to give to the nation should Neil and Buzz not be able to rejoin the command module and be faced with death on, or around, the moon. This text remained secret for thirty years.

Fate has ordained that the men who went to the moon to explore in peace will stay on the moon to rest in peace. These brave men, Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin, know that there is no hope for their recovery. But they also know that there is hope for mankind in their sacrifice.

These men are laying down their lives in mankind’s most noble goal: the search for truth and understanding. They will be mourned by their families and friends; they will be mourned by their nation; they will be mourned by the people of the world; they will be mourned by a Mother Earth that dared send two of her sons into the unknown.

In their exploration, they stirred the people of the world to feel as one; in their sacrifice, they bind more tightly the brotherhood of

man. In ancient days, men looked at stars and saw their heroes in the constellations. In modern times, we do much the same, but our heroes are epic men of flesh and blood.

Others will follow, and surely find their way home. Man’s search will not be denied. But these men were the first, and they will remain the foremost in our hearts. For every human being who looks up at the moon in the nights to come will know that there is some corner of another world that is forever mankind.

Per Ardua, Ad Astra.

— “To the stars through hardship”, motto of the Royal Air Force.

RIP Rick Husband, William McCool, Michael Anderson, Kalpana Chawla, David Brown, Laurel Clark, Ilan Ramon.

Lemmings

Atrios points to an interview with Kurt Vonnegut in which he points out something so insightful that I think it bears some examination. He says:

What has allowed so many PPs [pathological personalities] to rise so high in corporations, and now in government, is that they are so decisive. Unlike normal people, they are never filled with doubts, for the simple reason that they cannot care what happens next. Simply can’t. Do this! Do that! Mobilize the reserves! Privatize the public schools! Attack Iraq! Cut health care! Tap everybody’s telephone! Cut taxes on the rich! Build a trillion-dollar missile shield! Fuck habeas corpus and the Sierra Club and In These Times, and kiss my ass!

This gets to one of the most frustrating aspects of dealing with this administration. We keep expecting that they will be held accountable for lying, or breaking their promises or misrepresenting their policies or any number of other things we can file under the heading of WTF? But, because they are moving so fast and with such focus we simply cannot assess the damage before they are on to the next item.

They execute, they don’t plan. Their vision is a laundry list. They do not reassess their policy goals, ever, because they do not really have goals. They have an itemized agenda. And, they just keep moving. Like sharks. They don’t have regrets and they never question. They have faith that whatever their team is doing, it must be right and the most important thing is to GET THE JOB DONE.

That’s why this administration is so irrational and incompetent on every single level

These people are not natural leaders. They are natural followers. Like lemmings, they are following their instincts without knowing that they are all jumping off the edge of a cliff. Unfortunately they are taking us and the rest of the world with them.

American Reformation

CalPundit links to Devra and others regarding the Catholic church’s recent edict to politicians regarding their positions on abortion.

CAN CATHOLIC POLITICIANS DISAGREE WITH THE CHURCH?….

The bishop’s newfound aggressiveness seems to have been partly prompted by a Vatican document released a couple of weeks ago telling Catholic politicians that they are obligated to follow church doctrine on a variety of topics, including abortion. As Jim Capozzola pointed out last week, the Vatican wasn’t really saying anything new, but they were trying to re-emphasize existing doctrine, and it seems to have hit home.

I am not a religious person. I try, however, to be sensitive and respectful of others beliefs and I don’t usually cast my political positions in terms of religious faith or my own agnosticism.

But, I really have to ask my Catholic friends how they are able to take seriously moral edicts from the leaders of their church at the present time? I find it impossible to understand how papal infallibility, moral instruction and rampant institutional child molestation and cover-ups can be reconciled through either logic or faith.

Maybe it’s just me, but if I were a member of such a congregation I think I’d be thinking in terms of Schism II. For the hierarchy to be taking political action, in this country at this time just smacks of the kind of hubris that landed this church some serious deep waters a few centuries ago.

Again, it’s really not my business. But, I would be very interested in hearing how rational Catholics are dealing with this.