Rebane's Ruminations

When free speech goes …

George Rebane

[This is the transcript of my regular KVMR commentary broadcast on 2 September 2011.  Podcast here.]

Please accept my apologies for the extended respite you have enjoyed over the last weeks from hearing the outrageous thoughts of KVMR’s lonesome conservetarian commentator.  August got unexpectedly busy with all kinds of matters involving travel and grandkids.  So let me try to make up for it here and now with some thoughts on God’s hand and free speech.

On Rebane’s Ruminations a regular reader, who also happens to be Nevada County’s beloved cartoonist of Village Idiot fame, pointed out that Michelle Bachmann had joined the hand of God to the hurricane Irene.  The point being that here we saw exposed a possible primitive superstition in a candidate who wants to be President of the United States.  And the imparted conclusion being, what modern civilized American would ever accept someone as the nation’s leader, someone who thinks God can and does mess with weather.

Let me quickly qualify that this is not a secular humanist observation held only by locals, but is a longstanding assessment of the national left.  ‘We can’t have those bible-thumpers anywhere near the Oval Office.’

The inconvenient truth here is that God messing in the affairs of this universe and Man is a robust and fundamental tenet in all the world’s religions.  And this includes the belief systems of over 200M Americans who claim residence in the Judeo-Christian, Islamic, and Native American faiths.  Modern history overflows with national leaders publicly beseeching the Lord to intervene in their personal and their country’s behalf when faced with portents of manmade and natural disasters.  In recent times we didn’t sacrifice virgins; but then again, if that would have helped … I don’t know.

Islamophobia – a rational response? (updated 1sep2011)

                        Ignorance is the handmaiden of tyranny.  R. Clay Reynolds

George Rebane

As these pages long attest, for me the answer to the title question is a resounding YES.  And our western governments aid and abet that as being the reasonable response.  The progressive tsunami of proscribing anyone who evinces fear of Islam ranges from Mayor Bloomberg banning any and all inclusion of religion in the upcoming commemoration of 9/11 at Ground Zero, to Canadian police giving Muslims a pass on physically assaulting non-Muslims in public.  (Read this piece in the 2aug11 Toronto Sun by David Menzies)

A more compelling and terrible look into the mind of Islam is the tragic story of a young Palestinian woman who lived in Gaza.  She was severely burned in a propane cooking accident about a year ago.  Requiring more treatment than available in Gaza, she and her care givers pleaded with Israeli officials at the border checkpoint to be allowed to seek help at a nearby Israeli hospital.  She was given a compassionate pass, proceeded to the hospital where she received treatment for her burns, and after recuperating she was released to return home.

A year later, she arrives with three small children at the same checkpoint in hijab (nearby picture), looking obviously pregnant, and requesting to revisit the hospital to be checked for how her healing has progressed.  The Israeli border guards sensed that something didn’t add up, and took her into custody.  She was placed into a now standard interrogation/isolation compound nearby and asked to disrobe.  Thereupon and in great distress, she confessed that she was a suicide bomber with a mission to go into the same crowded ward where she received her treatment, and then, surrounded by medical personnel and patients, she would detonate herself.

The Israeli video here shows the last moments of her interrogation and her detonating the twenty pounds of high explosive she had strapped to her belly.  It is a devastating record of a dedicated and determined servant of Allah willing to kill without mercy the very people who showed her kindness and compassion, and all for the sole purpose that they were the most proximal infidels that in her zeal she could reach.  That consideration overarched everything else in her life.

'He is Risen!'

 

 

Happy Easter from our family to you and yours.

George and Jo Ann

On the Equality of All Cultures

Ruminations - 10dec2010

George Rebane

Yes, the ‘rich’ can pay more taxes.  But when you make them do that, they will make fewer wealth generating decisions and take the attendant risks that make those increased government revenues possible.

- British students riot for more OPM
- The religious give more than the irreligious
- Nevada City protects its downtown businesses
- Where to put the new courthouse?
- Rep Boehner pulls a boner
- They tax you first, and during, and after you die

The ‘little darlins’ of Great Britain are tearing up London protesting Parliament’s decision to hike the costs of education.  These costs have gone up for all the reasons that we know.  However, the always remarkable response from the mis-educated brats is that their expenses should continue to be covered by other people’s money.  Their socialist curriculum somehow missed the part about how those monies are earned, and what motivated the earners to work hard for the cash to which they feel entitled.  They also have no clue that the more socialist economies don’t generate all that much to redistribute.

Years ago the WSJ reported on a study of charitable giving that measured how much more voluntary gifts generate than the charitable receipts from government mediated distributions.  More importantly, it was reported that the left-leaning secular humanists were pretty niggardly when it came to contributing their own bucks to worthy causes.  This has not gone down well with the people claiming the moral high ground.  Today DE Campbell and RD Putnam do an update on that (‘Charity’s Religious Edge’).

It turns out that people of religion give significantly more than those not so encumbered.  When controlling for all kinds of factors like giving to their own church/temple/mosque, the religious “actually give more money to secular causes than do secular Americans.”  The explanation is still the same old one – the seculars are mostly left-wingers who see the needy being provided for by a government that takes money from the greedy rich and redistributes it accordingly.  Given that, why should they worry?

Scattershots – 27nov2010

George Rebane

- Forest for the Trees – Al Gore’s Epiphany
- Another Chapter from the Religion of Peace

These entries struck me as having religion for their common denominator.

After years of ignoring ample financial, environmental, and engineering data about the inadvisability of turning corn into ethanol, Al Gore has admitted to seeing the light.  In his epiphany he also admitted that part of his enthusiastic promotion of the ethanol fiasco might have had something to do with getting elected to political office.  But what the sumbich still doesn’t see is that ethanol is just one scraggly tree in a forest of stunted and stillborn ecological sacraments.  More here.

The FBI sprung the trap on Mohamed Osman Mohamud, another American Muslim who was caught in the act of attempting to trigger what he thought was a devastating car bomb parked in the middle of a throng of people mostly consisting of women and children.  They had gathered in downtown Portland, Oregon for the annual lighting ceremony of the city’s big Christmas tree.  In his own words the bomber wanted people "attacked in their own element with their families celebrating the holidays".

This 19-year-old naturalized US citizen of Somali extraction was apparently radicalized through the internet.  Fortunately the FBI intercepted and played along with his intentions as the car bomb was constructed and emplaced.  Had the device been real, this Muslim would have shredded the bodies of tens of holiday celebrants, and the lives of hundreds of their relatives.

That the raghead was apprehended by the FBI in such a sting operation may indicate that our country’s security infrastructure is finally beginning to include the ‘religion of peace’ in their profiling (gasp!) of most likely terrorists.  It is clear now that they live among us and share some telling characteristics.  The Reverend Bayes lives!  More here.

God Gets to Stay

George Rebane

This week I finished reading The Grand Design by Drs Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow.  I posted earlier on a review of their new book at ‘Evicting God – The Latest Attempt’ which generated an interesting comment thread.

 

Hawking and Mlodinow have a best seller on their hands (it’s already number one in hardcover non-fiction), and fortunately the writing style is vintage Hawking – compact, simple, and to the point - that includes his occasional humorous injections.  The book is a first class, high quality production with generous use of lavish illustrations and the occasional cartoon that prevents us from getting too serious about the subject.  Actually, the subject is serious since H&M have nothing less in mind than explaining the ultimate nature of reality to us.

At the start our intrepid authors state that their objective is to answer these questions –

Why is there something rather than nothing?
Why do we exist?
Why this particular set of laws and not some other?

And they give it a mighty try, arriving in the end at a point that is close enough for government work.  But along the way we learn so many things from such a short essay (the entire book is under 200 pages).  We are given a surprisingly thorough overview of the history of human thought about existence and the universe.  And even before that we are assured that “philosophy is dead”, and then have some pretty heavy duty philosophy poured over our heads for the remainder of the book.

Evicting God – The Latest Attempt (updated 18sep2010)

George Rebane

From multiple sources we hear that The Grand Design, the latest offering from Professors Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow, will appear a few days from now on 7 September 2010.  This is an essay on their most current theory of the cosmos - we recall that cosmology is science in the large about all existence.  The punch line of their findings is that they have finally cracked the code on ‘Why God Did Not Create the Universe’.  In the 4sep10 WSJ article of the same name, the noted scientists co-author an explanation for the rest of us as to why their main thesis must be true.

Seeing the title, I got all excited as I usually do whenever the most recent and definitive attempt to usher God out of the picture is advertised.  Maybe this time they’ll finally go beyond the next step in ‘Sonny, it’s turtles all the way down!’  Sadly, I was disappointed.  In their latest effort, Hawking and Mlodinow take another turn around the same old barn, joining the many similarly motivated scientists all of whom continue to add another lap to this irresolvable race to evict any form of an overarching intelligent designer in the cosmos.  Some time ago I gave an accounting (‘Multiverses All the Way Down’) of this perennial effort in which the reader new to the cosmology circus will also find the ‘turtles all the way down’ story.

Nevertheless, Hawking is one of my heroes (my definition, not the media’s), and I will read the book just to make sure I’m not speaking out of the wrong end on this latest attempt.  Before I continue, let’s take a look at the conclusion of their WSJ piece where they triumphantly serve their eviction notice.

The Great Commission

George Rebane

Christians are taught that one of their most important tasks in life is to win people over to Christ and the Gospel; it is called the Great Commission.  The preferred method to accomplish this has been for Christians to proselytize their religion as far and wide as possible.  Islam is among the few religions that also exhort their adherents to extend their belief system.  When expanding territorial hegemony is an added objective, this makes a lot of sense.  Today, most religions are satisfied to perpetuate their beliefs within the cultures and communities in which they arose.

After services today we picked up our church’s monthly bulletin and read about several of the missionary efforts that our church supports around the world.  I have had mixed feelings about sending Christian missionaries to distant lands, especially lands that are poor and hostile to Christianity, and hostile to western civilization in general.  In the bulletin we read about a couple from our church that is preparing to depart for Morocco this summer.  They will preach the Gospel to the Muslims, and attempt to win hearts and minds for Christ.

In preparation for their mission they are practicing (I don’t know another word for it) on local Sacramento area Muslims.  Our church membership is being asked to support their Moroccan sojourn through our wallets and prayers.  It will cost a lot more to save a soul in Morocco than in nearby Sacramento.

Christmas 2009

George Rebane

The two main events in the Christian calendar are celebrations of the Promise and the Fulfillment.  Christmas calls on us to reflect on the Promise delivered - the arrival of Emmanuel, God with us, that made real what had long been promised.  By His appearance among us, the Promise of the good news and a new covenant of salvation between Man and God became an historical event.  He had come.

As Christians, we take great joy in the remembrance of that little noticed event two thousand years ago, an event that would alter the course of Man and his empires.  Today, in our own country and around the world, Christians again stand battered and confused by forces and events we scarcely understand.  But Christmas reminds us once more of the real hope for a better world in which we, in His image, will all have the freedom to grow and give according to the talents and opportunities afforded us.

Jo Ann and I wish all of you a joyous Christmas, and a new year where ‘Better!’ will properly respond to every ‘How are you?’ coming your way.
  
 

Cosmologos

George Rebane

[This little contribution was motivated by the ongoing debate to nowhere on the various Origin Theories – spot creation, intelligent design, evolution, alien intelligence, … - between atheists of the secular humanist persuasion, and Christian organizations of various stripe – e.g. Discovery Institute, BioLogos Foundation, … .]

I am a Christian, although the pastors of our church may take issue with that claim – perhaps with some success.  Over the last fifty years or so I have been privileged to witness the debate between secular humanists – firmly wrapped in the mantle of pre-bounded science – and Christians of diverse leanings and backgrounds, each putting forth arguments that range from the sublime to the ridiculous.  It has been quite a show, a show that may soon be coming to an end and leave both sides muttering in their adult beverage of choice.  Perhaps, resolution lies elsewhere.

Let’s first lay down that well-known observation by the late Arthur C. Clarke –

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

The astute reader will immediately expand the truth of the above by substituting ‘religion’ for ‘magic’ – both being notions that can be developed without the bounds of reason.  To subsume the above, I offer –

Once you make the reasonable case that we can (soon) create universes with sentient and sapient life, the proposition that we also exist in a created and evolved cosmos becomes our most compelling Origin Theory.

Today the secular humanist is wedded beyond divorce to the theology that this is a purposeless (non- or extra-teleological) cosmos, and our Sisyphusian fate is to keep peeling back layer after layer of the causal cosmic onion, ad nauseam.  A more modern and proximal anecdote has the punchline, ‘Oh no you don’t sonny, it’s turtles ALL the way down!’  (The final rejoinder from an old-timer explaining his cosmology to a smart-aleck TV reporter trying to best him with the repeated questions of how the world is supported on the backs of turtles upon turtles as claimed by the old-timer.)

To deny my proposition would put one in a situation of maximum and unfounded hubris.  In that state we would go forward with the full support of science and apparent reason, setting in motion the creation of an hierarchy of intelligent universes, while continuing to hold that only we are the progenitor gods able to do this.  More specifically, we would be forced to argue/believe that somehow the technological hierarchy that we created below us, could not, for some unexplicable reason, also have been hierarchically applied to us from above.

In light of this, and if we survive Singularity, I believe that we and our post-human progeny will have the most compelling basis for adopting a position of utter humility and awe on the existence of our own Source. 

 

He Is Risen!

 

Ruminations - 28dec2008

George Rebane

Emeritus Professor Robert Johnston, UC Irvine, will be presenting on land use and transportation modeling in the age of anthropogenic global warming.  This will be on 18 Feb 2009 in Incline Village (details here).  Of course, the whole presentation starts with the revealed truth that AGW is real as inscribed on the stone tablets brought down from Mt. Gore.  For the technical reader, please note that in the syllabus of the good professor’s references, there is a glaring lack of studies which corroborate the performance of the cited models with the real world.  This is of a piece with similar holes in the work of those using the various climate change models for their political ends.

To close California’s near $50B looming budget deficit, the Democrats are planning to tax the bejeezus out of its citizens and businesses.  And our Governator of the Compliant Character will probably go along with them.  We are already the second highest tax state in the country, and are paying for it with an exodus of corporations and the well-heeled.  And the new tax addicts will continue to ignore their impact on business and jobs.  The most recent big red flag, that warns us of the economic disaster to come from new carbon and deficit taxes, is that Silicon Valley had just one new IPO in 2008.  Compare that with an average of 28 per year since 1985.  This is not only bad, but VERY BAD.  All of this matters not to politicians betting their sinecures on the demonstrated smarts of the California voter. 

The rank and file Christian has some major catch up to do if the religion is to remain a staple of American culture.  Most of us in the faith are more than fuzzy about our theology, and almost none of us are aware of the secular humanist assault – led by luminaries such as Daniel Dennett and Richard Dawkins – on Judeo-Christian beliefs and traditions.  Here is a report on the recent activities of Freedom From Religion, one of a growing number of primarily left-wing organizations active in banning religion from the American scene.

The Independent reports on “scientific illiteracy (being) all the rage among the glitterati”.

When it comes to science, Barack Obama is no better than many of us. Today he joins the list of shame of those in public life who made scientifically unsupportable statements in 2008.

These folks, of course, are the cows with the shiny bells that lead the rest of us in the unquestioning herd.