CalvinDude.com

The 9th Circus Court ruled Partial-Birth Abortion Bans are unconstitutional. Not to be outdone, the 2nd Circus Court (in Manhattan) did the same.  What’s particular about the second one is the following:

[T]he 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan issued a similar decision, affirming a 2004 ruling by a judge who upheld the right to perform a type of late-term abortion even as he described the procedure as “gruesome, brutal, barbaric and uncivilized.”

And people doubt the depravity of man?  How is it that we can legalize something “gruesome, brutal, barbaric and uncivilized”?  Let’s put this in a little perspective:

Hitler killed Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, and other “undesireables.”  These actions would most certainly qualify in anyone’s book as “gruesome, brutal, barbaric and uncivilized.”  Let’s therefore use the same logic and make it legal for people to kill Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, or any other “undesireable” they choose.

Rape is “gruesome, brutal, barbaric and uncivilized.”  So let’s make that legal too.

Of course, we could really stick it to the liberals–torture is “gruesome, brutal, barbaric and uncivilized.”  So tell me why you have a problem with Iraq again?

And then we can deal with the second excuse: “the measure is vague and lacks an exception for cases in which a woman’s health is at stake.” Okay, let’s suppose that it’s true that it lacks an exception for when women’s health is at stake.  Can you please show me how a woman’s health is anymore at stake if she delivers a child all the way except for the head than if she delivers the child all the way?  Please explain that one to me, because that is what the procedure is.

But of course abortion isn’t about women’s health.  It’s about “choice.”  It’s about “convenience.”  It’s about “covering up the icky little mistake.”  Well, make no mistake about it, these excuses demonstrate nothing more than our depravity.

IAEA Report Says Iran Has Bomb Plans <– the shock of this isn’t that Iran has bomb plans, it’s that the IAEA finally admitted it.

Wow.

It’s not very often that something happens to me that actually leaves me floundering for words, but all I can say is…wow.  And not in a good, positive sense of the word, but more of the shock and dismay sense.

Last night, as I rode the bus home from work, I had to endure a conversation between a 17-year-old girl and her two friends.  Actually, to be completely fair, the entire bus had to endure this conversation.

How to characterize it.  Well, let me put it this way.  I’ve been around a lot of guys in locker rooms and have heard the typical “locker room banter” that goes on there.  Compared to what this girl said, the most perverse of the locker room talk might as well have been a Sunday sermon.

In a ride that lasted barely twenty minutes, I found out the following information about this girl.  First, she has had sexual relations with 22 people (of which 6 were men and 16 women) and she planned on hooking up with another person within the week.  She ran away from home when she was fifteen and gave birth to a child.  She really, really likes her drugs and went on for quite some time about her “gravity bong.”  And, finally, she likes to beat up other women (although the term she used wasn’t “women”) and, according to what she said, she’s left several women “for dead.”

Now I’m certainly sure that not everything she said was true, but she went into enough details to assure everyone that there was at least a grain of truth to every single one of her claims.  And as I sat there on the bus, a Scripture suddenly popped into my mind (although I couldn’t remember the reference at the time and had to look it up).

It was Jeremiah 6:15.

Were they ashamed when they committed abomination?  No, they were not at all ashamed; they did not know how to blush.

Here was a girl who wasn’t even a legal adult yet who didn’t know how to blush.  She engaged in behavior that was so perverse even people who engage in similar behavior find it an extreme.  And there in public she flaunted everything.  Yes, the metaphors about the prostitution of Israel from Isaiah and Jerermiah certainly make more sense now.

Naturally, my first reaction was a visceral one.  I felt like someone had opened up a cess pool right next to me and was splashing around in the sewage.  I felt disgusted by this girl.  But as I walked the distance from the bus stop to my house, I started to think about it more and realized that for all the depravity that was on display then, there was a deeper lesson for our culture.

This woman really was ashamed of what she has done.  It’s probably not at a conscious level, but deep inside she really did feel shame for it.  And to cover up the fact that she felt shame she had to pretend that she didn’t feel shame at all.  She had to pretend that what she was doing didn’t affect her in the slightest, that it was “normal” for her to engage in such behavior.  And to delude herself into thinking that, she did that which would be most effective: she boasted about her sinfulness in public.  After all, boasting in public means you don’t care about your sins, and if you don’t care about your sins then the shame of them doesn’t hurt so much….right?

But of course that doesn’t solve the problem.  Sex and drugs and beating up other people are only a temporary outlet for her to drown out the pain of her shame.  For a short time, it does work.  She doesn’t feel so bad because she can focus on the pleasure she gets from those experiences.  But then reality crashes back in.

So she repeats the behavior and she feels a little better, but there’s a catch.  See, now she doesn’t feel as good as she did the first time.  Perhaps it’s because she knows that reality will come back, that what she is doing isn’t fixing the problem but only delaying it slightly.  The high doesn’t last as long, so she has to do it more and more often.

Until finally she’s at the point where none of the behavior works.  She is left despising herself, which isn’t what she wants, so she pretends that it’s all good.  She forces herself to believe that what she’s doing isn’t bad.  She justifies her decisions by holding onto her false presuppositions as long as she can.

But always the truth is there in the back of her mind.  The problem isn’t fixed by what she does, because the problem is her.  When the highs from her behavior wear off, she is still left with being her…only now she has even added shame for her poor attempts.

My feelings toward this girl changed from outright disgust to more of a feeling of sadness.  Our culture is, on the whole, just a different version of this girl.  We glorify sex, drugs, and violence on TV, in the movies, in video games.  Where, then, is this girl supposed to turn?  The entire world promises her only that which she is already engaged in, and she knows deep inside that that just doesn’t work.  The proof is in the fact that she had to defile herself in public to pretend that it doesn’t hurt so bad.

Our culture is defiling itself in public for the same reasons that this girl was.  And the same underlying despair is always going to be present.  Until the root of the problem is addressed, there can be no cure.  There will only be travel from one fix to the next, with the dreaded knowledge that all it accomplishes is a slight delaying of the inevitable.

Since I had pointed out my discontent with his previous article regarding homosexuality, I do have to say that Alain’s Blurb for 1/28/06 was actually pretty good.  Some highlights:

Marriage – I want to marry three men, six women, four children (ages ranging from seven to ten), two dogs and a mule. And I want insurance and benefits for all of them. You do not like it, hate crime!!! Go to jail, get fined.

 

Hey everyone, this is my coming out notice. I have decided to CHANGE MY GENDER!

 …

I am no longer to be considered a monogamous heterosexual male. From this point on, I am to be recognized as a Para-sexual. This is how I perceive my sexual orientation. You will love me and must accept me for whom I truly see myself to be.

What, you never heard of a Para-sexual? No I am not homosexual. No, I am not BI-sexual. Quit trying to limit my freedoms!

He has more after this too, but I have to say that for a satirical piece this does do a good job (mainly because it is satire and not an argument).

 

The anit-right pres bias is getting even worse now.  Just read this article which claims that Republicans are all racists. Apparently, a group of liberal scientists (and they all had donated money to Democrats) got together and did a test which they claimed showed people with “negative” attitudes toward blacks voted for Bush.

There are at least two things wrong with this off the bat.  Firstly, the black vote is almost all Democrat (running about 80-90%).  Since it is probably safe to assume that any black people in the test are not going to have “negative” attitudes toward blacks, it’s safe to say that many Democrats did not simply because they were black to begin with.  (Notice, however, that this article does not even begin to test the opposite theory, which is how “negative” feelings towards whites affects voters.)

The second problem is that this is by far not a random sample.  After all, we read this:

For their study, Nosek, Banaji and social psychologist Erik Thompson culled self-acknowledged views about blacks from nearly 130,000 whites, who volunteered online to participate in a widely used test of racial bias that measures the speed of people’s associations between black or white faces and positive or negative words.

Yes, see that.  They “culled” views of whites and thus were already looking for racist people to begin with.  Hardly a fair sampling of the data, and definitely not enough evidence to warrant the charge “We have 50 years of evidence that racial prejudice predicts voting. Republicans are supported by whites with prejudice against blacks.”

Well, we have common sense and enough evidence to see this is a biased study.  If I can see that, what’s stopping the press from seeing it.  Oh yeah, that little thing called BIAS

When did I
See the landscape
Bristle with entropy
Filled, cold and bleak
Under crimson skies
That shuddered in fear?

I saw something there
Then it was gone
And no one remembered
Because it was “wrong”
To think back on the past
That even time forgot.

Bitter streams draw near
With floods overhead
Mocking the sound
Of the fountain that bleeds.
We go with narry a sigh
And narry a gasp.

So when did I
Make a contribution
To ease the suffering
Of his substitution
Instead of just mocking
That which saves

When did I
Care
Or even regret
This cold blast of air
That put him there
Under my own thumb?

This is funny. A priest is on trial for saying that Jesus existed. The article says:

The priest’s atheist accuser, Luigi Cascioli, says the Roman Catholic Church has been deceiving people for 2,000 years with a fable that Christ existed, and that the Rev. Enrico Righi violated two Italian laws by reasserting the claim.

Which is funny, since A) the Roman Catholic Church hasn’t existed for 2,000 years and B) even if it had existed that long, Jesus most certainly historically existed.

Then we read stuff like this:

“The point is not to establish whether Jesus existed or not, but if there is a question of possible fraud,” Cascioli’s attorney, Mauro Fonzo, told reporters before the hearing.

That is obvious bunk, as the only way that there could have been “fraud” is if Jesus didn’t exist.  Thus, it is to establish whether Jesus existed or not; something that ought not be up to any legal system, as it is a historical question not a question of law.

But of course, the Italian courts is not the goal of this individual.  Rather:

He has said he has little hope of the case succeeding in overwhelmingly Roman Catholic Italy, but that he is merely going through the necessary legal steps to reach the European Court of Human Rights, where he intends to accuse the church of what he calls “religious racism.”

So the whole issue of whether Jesus existed and thus this priest committed fraud is all moot in the first place.  This whacko just wants to charge the church with “religious racism” (whatever that is).  I wonder if he’s read Galatians 3:28.  For some reason I doubt it.

Finally, we read this:

“When somebody states a wrong fact, abusing the ignorance of people, and gains from that, that is one of the gravest crimes,” Cascioli told reporters

I wonder if Cascioli will apply this standard to himself.  After all, he claims the existence of such a thing as a “wrong fact”, and since this case is certainly one in which he will gain something (he is, after all, the author of “The Fable of Christ”), then he has obviously committed “one of the gravest crimes” (and since the “gravest crimes” demand the gravest punishment, he should be executed for stupidity).  Almost makes me want to write the Euro-peon Court of Human Rights and sue him.

Those of you who read this blog (and I know there are at least two of you!) might remember that I’ve been reading through Scripture in my ESV, since it’s so easy in that translation to just read large chunks of Scripture.  There is a benefit to reading through the Bible quickly.  You get a good overview of the entire Scriptures.

However, there is also something rewarding about going slowly through Scripture too.  And today, as I continued to read through Isaiah, I was struck by a particular verse.  It’s one that I’ve read before, true, but today it really caused me to slow up a bit and think.

The verse is Isaiah 43:25.  The basic context to the passage is this: Israel has been following after idols.  God has been comparing Himself to these idols and demonstrating that He is supreme and these idols are all empty vessels.  God speaks about punishment coming for Israel because of their idolatry.  Then, he says the words in Isaiah 43:25.

I, I am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins.

We could easily focus on the fact that God is merciful to sinners, and that is indeed a good place to go in this verse.  However, I was struck more by the phrase “for my own sake.”

If we think about this humanistically, it makes no sense.  We are the ones who are sinners.  Would it not be for our sake that God forgives us?  Indeed, in our culture we tend to think, “God loves me because I am valuable.”  We focus our worth on ourselves, when the reverse is true: “I am valuable because God loves me.”

The bottom line is that God always acts for His own sake, and not ours.  God loves us for His sake, He saves us for His sake, and He keeps us for His sake.  Salvation, when seen from God’s eyes, is about Him and not about us.  God only saves us because He wants to do so, not because we are worth saving.  It is always for His sake and not ours.

…with a form letter, of course.  But at least I can assume someone there read my letter, or at least the first paragraph. I was told:

 

Thank you for contacting us.We appreciate your comments. We will forward your e-mail to the appropriate department for review.

 

 

Oooh, shiver me timbers.  In any case, you may have read what Brit Hume pointed out, which makes what ABC did even worse:

ABC’s “Nightline” Monday night reported that Justice Antonin Scalia missed the John Roberts swearing in at the White House because he was playing tennis and going fly-fishing at a resort in Colorado, courtesy of the conservative Federalist Society. The report mentioned only in passing that Scalia taught a legal seminar while on the trip, then quoted at some length New York University Law professor Stephen Gillers, who said the whole thing was unethical. While “Nightline” identified the Federalist Society as conservative, it characterized Gillers only as an ethics expert.

In fact, Gillers is a left-wing Scalia critic who once described the prospect of Republican control of both the White House and Congress as a nightmare. As for Scalia, that seminar he taught in Colorado was a 10-hour course for more than 100 lawyers and law students, open to members and non-members of the Federalist Society. He received no fee for it.

I just read this article. The article I’m refering to is the one quoted by the piece there.  It is an article by Guy Randall Adams about AOL and the homosexual agenda.

Unfortunately, the article is a good example of what happens when people who agree with you in principal do a bad job of expressing their views, which in turn makes your position look bad as a whole.  By saying that, I do not mean to imply that there is nothing good in the article–indeed, there are some shining spots in it.  For instance, Mr. Adams does finally get around to quoting some Scripture for the Christians who read it, and some statistics for the non-Christians who might read it.

But the first part of the argument is extremely flawed.  It starts off by asking us to imagine the things that homosexuals do when they engage in sexual activities.  We are, naturally, supposed to be horrified by what we’d imagine, and thus use that as our “reason” for being mad at AOL for having Gay groups on their website.

The problem is, that means we are turning an emotional response into an argument.  If this is all we have to argue our position, the first time we meet someone who resists us our defense crumbles like a house of cards.  After all, how difficult is it for a homosexual to say, “I can’t imagine eating escargo, and yet people do it all the time without there being anything immoral about it.”  And if all you have is your emotive response (”I don’t like what I imagine homosexuals doing!”) then your argument cannot stand against that simple counter-example.

Emotive arguments are good for rousing up the base, but in the end they are bad because after meeting a knowledgeable opponent the base will suddenly realize they have nothing to back their emotional stance.  Unless we also learn facts and reasoning, all the emotion in the world is nothing but sound and fury.