Persecution

isn't a subject in many sermons nowadays. (I'll omit ranting a out abortion, contraception and the other elephants in the room.) But my growing sense of unease in our culture of comfort and self is tweaked by little signs of a coming storm.

“Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you and utter every kind of evil against you [falsely] because of me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven. Thus they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”
(Matt 5:10-12 NAB)

We are too comfortable, too sheep-like in the presence of the increasing hostility of the world elite towards Jesus, His teaching and His disciples. We need to prepare ourselves and our children for the troubles that are coming.

Ok, sermon over. Now to the news:

Catholic prof fired for giving Church teaching on homosexuality:

Our good friend and fellow Catholic convert, Dr. Kenneth Howell, who worked for St. John's Catholic Newman Center as Director of the Institute of Catholic Thought, and taught Introduction to Catholicisim and Modern Catholic Thought at the University of Illinois, Urbana, has been fired for relating the Catholic teaching on homosexuality in his class:

• "Illinois professor fired for giving Catholic teaching on homosexuality" (CNA, July 9, 2010).
  
  
• "University of Illinois Instructor Fired Over Catholic Beliefs" (FOX News, July 9, 2010).
  
  
• [Advisory: this article is vile, anti-Catholic, and illustrates why a secular academic climate today could get a good and decent Catholic professor fired]: P.Z. Myers, "Honesty about sex is going to disqualify a lot of professors of Catholic dogma" (Pharyngula, July 9, 2010).

Read the whole thing.

(Via Musings of a Pertinacious Papist.)

Thought and Prejudice

In this instance I'm struck by the reflexive approval of most, if not all, things homosexual. When I started on a reasoned argument (rant) about why homosexual unions should not be elevated to equality with marriage, my daughters, bless them, were embarrassed and demanded we stop talking about the subject. It didn't help this was in a public place (a restaurant for Sunday Brunch).

Their aversion to disagreements with the homosexual agenda puzzles me. They have or are getting a University education. Shouldn't reasoned disagreement be the heart and soul of their intellectual life? Even if they strongly disagree with me, I'm wanting reasoned arguments and facts. They seem to recognize no value to these things independent of achieving the results they have chosen to endorse. Is this how far the intellectual rigour has fallen at Universities?

Ok, rant mode off. Here is an interesting article about how research itself is produced and disseminated in a doctrinaire fashion to promote the ideology of the day:

Who could possibly have predicted this?:

Research showing the risks of lesbian and gay parenting is ignored in the race to make a political case

(Via Catholic and Enjoying It!.)

Notre Dame: Another Perspective

Lest we be guilty of focussing exclusively on the negative and sensational here is another point of view:

DO YOU REALLY WANT TO HEAR MORE ABOUT ND?

[Robert Gotcher]




5/22/2009





Greg, close your ears.



Last night I ran into Matt Alderman, of Holy Whapping blog, at the Extraordinary Form celebration of the Mass of the Feast of the Ascension at St. Stan's parish in Milwaukee. He had a great post recently about the ND situation--one which I almost agree with completely, especially these comments:

The same students and the same student culture (both pious and less so) is still there on campus[I know this is true, because my son is there and my other son is beginning in August.], and indeed, I'd say the caliber of the Catholic student population has improved since my time there. This one incident has not changed any of this. I agree something should be done--but I also think this event ought not to be exploited by those with some sort of beef against this place, or are unaware of how the territory has changed in recent years.

Read the rest.

Courtesy of Heart, Mind & Strength.

Friday Procrastination: Link Love : OUPblog

Maybe I'm guilty of thinking in old-technology terms. An education (of sorts) appears to be as close as my ipod:

Friday Procrastination: Link Love : OUPblog: Take classes at Oxford University from the comfort of your home.

Read the whole thing.

(Via OUPblog.)

Who Will Defend Homer?

Not Simpson, but the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey. We have a rich patrimony of literature, art, and thought in the last three millennia. Are we abandoning it for Grand Theft Auto? That most high school graduates need to learn skills to get a decent living seems fair enough. But what about the ten per cent or so who will go on to positions of leadership in our society: the lawyers, doctors and so on?

If our leaders are out of touch with our own history and the riches of our culture, then we are being led by amnesiacs. The will to power of our leaders might turn us all into hedonistic philistines, the easier to be led.

So I justify my old age search for knowledge of the humanities, so that I might be less easily bamboozled by our plausible, but ignorant leaders.

Steynianism 151: "~ REBUILDING THE FOUNDATION: ‘A pretty good summa of the humanities’ …. (worldontheweb)"

(Via Free Mark Steyn!.)

Academy: To the Barricades

One of the things I'm expecting, and occasionally experiencing, in my academic endeavours is a steady, unreflective progressive liberalism. I try to think of it as a challenge to sharpen my thinking and communication skills. Now I'm wondering to what extent the grey-hairs of the sixties are experiencing angst over a new generations indifference to their creed.

A recent art history course included a lecture on Bernini's Ecstasy of St. Teresa, a classic of baroque sculpture. The professor compared the saint and the angel over her to carnal lovers, sated by orgasmic sex. Apparently, this is a standard modern interpretation of Bernini, as ridiculous as that is. That a religious man portraying a mystic's experience of the divine would intend the viewer to equate that with sexual gratification is nonsense walking on stilts. As the Wikipedia article says:

It is arguable that in the seventeenth century, it was possible to draw distinctions between religious and erotic experience that are more difficult to make today.

More's the pity for us, I say.

The lack of empathy from the students was palpable. The speaker then invited the young women in the audience to publicly confirm that a snippet of Saint Teresa's written description of the mystic experience sounded exactly like a woman's experience of coitus, which was embarrassing to me, at least. The professor responded to the continuing silence by pointing out that these kinds of graphical analyses would be presented to us repeatedly in future courses, so we had better be prepared.

To what extent was the silence of the audience just a natural modesty, to be overcome by repeated assaults of this sort? The professors reaction might suggest that something else was happening, a rejection of the idea that ecstasy must, at root, be carnal and sexual, period. Or, perhaps, that modesty is a value they cling to in spite of the invitation to abandon it. At this point it's still my impression that the students were more career-oriented and more modest than the professor was entirely comfortable with.

Is this experience just part of academic liberal boot-camp? Will these students be coarsened by repeated experiences of this sort? I don't know. Check with me again in a few years, God willing. In the meantime, here is a conversation about entrenched academic liberalism at a more elevated level:

Academic Point Counterpoint: "This week was the annual meeting of the editorial council of First Things. In addition to taking care of the business that magazines have to attend to, the custom at these meetings is to take up a major subject or two. This year, Wilfred McClay of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga led the discussion [...]"

(Via FIRST THINGS: On the Square.)

Brain and Consciousness

Two things that are as plain as the nose on your face, but cause no end of arguments amongst philosophers. I'm looking forward to probing more deeply into the controversy in university-level philosophy courses, if God spares me. In the meantime here's a little foretaste:

Materialists start to come to grips with global failure, but materialism dies hard: "In 'The Neural Buddhists,' David Brooks references Tom Wolfe's dramatic 1996 article 'Sorry, but your soul just died,'

.. in which he captured the militant materialism of some modern scientists.

To these self-confident researchers, the idea that the spirit might exist apart from the body is just ridiculous. Instead, everything arises from atoms. Genes shape temperament. Brain chemicals shape behavior. Assemblies of neurons create consciousness. Free will is an illusion. Human beings are ‘hard-wired’ to do this or that. Religion is an accident.

In this materialist view, people perceive God’s existence because their brains have evolved to confabulate belief systems.

Uh huh. Mario and I took it all to pieces in The Spiritual Brain. Modern neuroscience provides no basis whatever for that view - on the contrary.

Brooks, the author of BoBos in Paradise, acknowledges,

Over the past several years, the momentum has shifted away from hard-core materialism. The brain seems less like a cold machine. It does not operate like a computer. Instead, meaning, belief and consciousness seem to emerge mysteriously from idiosyncratic networks of neural firings. Those squishy things called emotions play a gigantic role in all forms of thinking. Love is vital to brain development.

Researchers now spend a lot of time trying to understand universal moral intuitions. Genes are not merely selfish, it appears. Instead, people seem to have deep instincts for fairness, empathy and attachment.

Scientists have more respect for elevated spiritual states.

Do they indeed? In that case, to learn what is really going on, they must acknowledge where they have been mistaken.

Brooks, however, hopes that the revolution will stop with 'neural Buddhism,'which turns out to mean things like 'the self is not a fixed entity but a dynamic process of relationships' and 'God can best be conceived as the nature one experiences at those moments, the unknowable total of all there is.'

Sorry, BoBos, it's not up to you to decide where it will end. It will end where the evidence leads, and the evidence simply does not favour materialism - yours or anyone else's."

(Via Mindful Hack.)

Human Nature

is a nonsense term for most university professors, I suspect. So, while I'm trying to master the basic terminology for discussing English literature, you may peruse this:

Christ Against the Multiculturalists: "Address written for entering students of Wabash College, Class of 2012
Christians believe that God became human in Jesus Christ. If so, it follows that there is something called humanity. That is, humans have a nature, a shared or common nature. Human nature is not just a social construction. Human nature is real. And if it [...]"

(Via FIRST THINGS: On the Square.)

Classical Education

So we're on a theme here. Can you successfully pry the remains of a classical education out of the modern university's course offerings? Even my current course, which deals with an introduction to reading and writing about short stories, poems and dramas, has a healthy dose of modern prejudices--'we have almost fifty per cent women authors'. Why? How does this advance my understanding of the best of these forms of literature over the last five hundred years?

It doesn't. It isn't about the best, there being no current consensus that such a thing even exists. Rather, it's about what will make the students conversant with the academically respectable ideologies of the day. Yikes! Indoctrination as education.

More good stuff: "

The May issue of The New Criterion is concerned with education — mostly of the ‘higher’ variety. Contributors include Roger Kimball, Alan Charles Kors, Robert Paquette, Victor Davis Hanson, James Piereson, and Charles Murray.

"

(Via Southern Appeal.)

Speaking of Choices

I've often thought about adding Latin or Greek (or both) to my dream curriculum. I had four years of Latin in high school. The last year involved translating Virgil's Aeneid ten lines a time on my own, alternating with tutoring some of the other students. I can't remember much of it, but I did learn English grammar while learning Latin.

But I already have a dream plan which, with a lot of paring of courses, still has more than 150 credits worth of courses in it. And that just to get a lousy 120-credit Bachelor's degree. But if I could just squeeze twelve more credits--one year of each. And the Latin would just be a refresher, right?

From the Alpha to the Omega: "That many of us favor a liberal arts education should be clear to any browser of these pages. It therefore should not surprise that we would favor the study of Ancient Greek, even if we got to the study of it late, in my case in graduate school. I took an intensive Greek class one summer, worked like a dog on it--between reading Churchill, Lincoln, Shakespeare, and some basketball--but managed to flunk the final exam anyway (a translation of a page from Plato's Republic....got the trees right but failed to note the forest). The point is this: I knew the study of the thing is not useful (I also studied French, German, and other modern versions of logos), but thought it a good and beautiful thing anyway. I was right.

There has, for some four years now, been a push by the students at Ashland University to get the University to offer it again (as it did until thirty years ago). Yes, I said the students. These noble fellows, through their representative institution called the Student Senate, voted unanimously for at least three years running to request the faculty to re-institute the offering of Ancient Greek (and Latin). While the noble President and the Provost have argued in favor of the thing, the Spanish Department (I must say for reasons not so noble) has urged--and so far succeeded--and argued against it. The students have even conducted a 24 hour sit-in (the first here in decades), thinking that those faculty not being open to logos might be shamed into it. So far they are losing, but the polemos has not yet ended, so some are just learning the alphabet

on their own.

I'm now thinking that a more practical argument should have been used in favor of Ancient Greek. Just fifteen minutes ago I happened to see on CBS evening news--it was an accident that I watched it, never normally do--that the father (Stanley Johnson) of the recently elected Mayor of London (Boris Johnson) said that his son's election was due entirely to his son's classical education. After all, he said, 'If you can master Ancient Greek, you can master anything.' Thank you, Mr. Johnson. Kalos. (Link to this Entry. Comments. Add Your Comments.)"

(Via No Left Turns.)

Free Speech Restored?

Abortion Debate Back On: "

The Queen Twit who cancelled this debate seems not to have unlimited powers after all…. 

If you’ve been following the event at York University in Toronto earlier this month, you’ll know that I was banned from speaking at York Student Federation property. I was to debate a student from the atheist society but the student federation claimed the abortion debate was akin to debating whether or not a man can beat his wife, and cancelled it last minute.

York University promised to allow us to do the debate again and as of yesterday (I don’t understand the delay) they told us we can debate again this Tuesday. My opponent is still willing to debate.

If you are able to come to Toronto, please join us for this. If you aren’t in the area, please let others who are know about this. We appreciate any of who are also willing to pray for this event too:

Event: Abortion - A Woman’s Right or a Moral Wrong?

Day and Time: Tuesday, March 18th at 5:30-7:00pm

Location: Curtis Lecture Hall E, Keele Campus at York University; the

building is by Scott Library

Jojo Ruba

Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform (CCBR)

"

(Via SoCon Or Bust.)

Argument, Discussion, and Debate

is a fine old text by Professor Craig Baird that I borrowed and luxuriated in for a couple of years or more. The civilized ideal of democracy is the forum of public debate and argument. But the era we live in doesn't have the energy to listen to two or three hours of patient, well-developed arguments. We want a fifteen-second sound bite. Alas, for us, the clever, unsound argument is more attractive than the hard work of thinking through the facts and the relationships amongst them. And so, Universities are becoming places to protect us from thoughtcrime:

Abortion Debate Cancelled by York University Student Union: "

PRESS RELEASE

For Immediate Release

March 1, 2008

Abortion Debate Cancelled by York University Student UnionThe York University Student Centre shut down an event entitled ‘Abortion Debate: A Woman’s Right or a Moral Wrong?’ at York University only a couple of hours before it was scheduled to take place late Thursday afternoon.

Margaret Fung, President of Students for Bioethical Awareness (SBA), one of the hosting clubs, describes what happened: ‘I was told in a meeting by members of the York Federation of Students that debating abortion is comparable to debating whether a man should be allowed to beat his wife. They said that there is freedom of speech to a limit, and that abortion is not an issue to debate. They demanded that the event not take place and shut us down.’

Present at this meeting in addition to Fung were Jeremy Salter, Executive Director of the York Federation of Students (YFS), Fuad Abdi, VP Operations of the YFS and also the Secretary of the Executive Committee of the Student Centre, and Amir Mohareb, President of the York Debating Society.

SBA, an official York University Student Club, worked with the York Debating Society to organize the debate. The debaters were Michael Payton from Freethinkers, Skeptics and Atheists at York for the pro-choice side and Jose Ruba from the Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Awareness for the pro-life side. It was to be an organized debate moderated by the York Debating Society. Both sides were ready and willing to debate, but after it was demanded the event be shut down, dozens of students planning on attending the event were turned away at the door.

Commenting on her feelings about what took place, Fung continues, ‘The Student Centre has made sure that anyone with different views than theirs can’t express themselves, even if both points of view are represented. They don’t seem to understand that we live in a free, democratic society. A university is supposed to be a marketplace of ideas not a propaganda machine for political extremists.’

This action at York University comes in the wake of statements by the Canadian Federation of Students (of which the YFS is a part) comparing pro-life student groups to the KKK, and announcing their intention to support student unions who ban pro-life student clubs. ‘Salter also compared pro-lifers to the KKK,’ concludes Fung, ‘And such comparisons are incredibly ignorant and, quite frankly, hurtful’.

For more information, please contact:

Margaret Fung, Co-President, Students for Bioethical Awareness: (416)650-8870, mfung08@schulich.yorku.ca

Maria Smolkova, Co-President, Students for Bioethical Awareness: (647)654-6023, marienka@yorku.ca

The Leftist brownshirts no doubt think they have won a major ‘victory’ in suppressing free speech about abortion.  But the only thing they have shown us is that abortion is on the way out. Once you cannot intellectually defend your position but must resort to the jackboot to achieve some sort of perverse ‘victory’ for your side, it’s only a matter of time before public opinion against not only your tactics but your position itself begins to turn.

This is a very promising sign for pro-lifers.  It shows that there is a recognition that abortion simply cannot be defended in a debate and the pro-aborts must call in the union thugs to ensure darkness prevails on Canadian campuses.

Canadian universities have become nothing more than whores for the abortion lobby.

Pathetic.

"

(Via SoCon Or Bust.)

More Reading

Well, if I had the time. While I'm enjoying the Art History Course (and wishing I knew some of this stuff when I was in Italy or visiting the Prado) My abysmal ignorance of music and music history has been bothering me. Maybe this recommendation would help:

Shawn Tribe: Music History for the Shy and Intimidated: "

People have funny attitudes toward the topic of music, especially serious music. The attitude is that it is like physics or metallurgy or something: you have to be an expert or you dare not speak out on the topic for fear of showing one's ignorance. I can understand this. For non-musicians, musicians seem to speak a foreign language, and they are passionate about disagreements. No one wants to make a misstep for fear of being blasted and humiliated. This is a special problem today since music (again, serious music) is not taught like it once was.

Well, I'm here to tell you about a fun workaround that I've recently read. It is called A Student's Guide to Music History, by R.J. Stove. The size is great: about 90 pages. The price is right: $8. More than that, I'm amazed at how much content and substance that the author is able to pack into such a small space and not have it read like a series of small biographies and program lists.

Most music history texts treat pre-Bach music almost as if it is pre-music music. This one is different. A major and very impressive feature is that the author is familiar with Gregorian Chant and the polyphonic tradition, so we get very nice and respectful treatments of the lives and works of Palestrina, Josquin, Tallis, Victoria and others. And by the time that we arrive at the Baroque, it is clear that it doesn't emerge out of nowhere: hundreds of years of great development precede.

The author has the right mix of repertoire, biography (always a fascinating anecdote about each composer!) and any historical data of the time that had an impact. I've learned so much about, e.g. how the Protestant reformation ended up nationalizing music styles, and the impact of the emergence of the nation state on music and culture.

This is not a religious work, but the author is not shy about telling the reader when a motivation of a performance or composition is religious. So in this way, the book is more complete than others, despite its size.

Another point about the subject matter: the author is writes unashamedly about Western music. His point is not that there are not great musical traditions that are part of India or China or Japan. There are but to cover all of that in a perfunctory way is more of an insult than a compliment. So he dispenses with all the multicultural pieties to write only about Western music. He also avoids the absurd cliche of all art histories in attempting to say that all things culminate in such and such famous guy who is alive today (and probably forgotten tomorrow). This book solves the problem completely: he ends in 1945.

I'm current using the text for a small class for young teenagers, and they love it, even though the prose is actually a serious challenge for them. To me, this is a plus: it never talks down to readers. He offers judgments on the music as he goes along but it is clear that his primary purpose is not to get the reader to believe what he believes; rather he is there to serve the main purpose of the volume, which is to educate.

While this book won't teach you to read music, it is guaranteed to make you conversant in the topic, so much so that you will be able to enlighten even people who think they are knowledgeable. And you will be better prepared to listen to music of the great composers, and imagine them almost as friends. I hope that some major publisher finds this work and commissions the author to write a large series. Until then, this little gem will serve as an excellent substitute.

"

(Via New Advent World Watch.)

Civil Discourse

is sadly so rare on the subject of abortion and Embryonic Stem Cell Research">ESCR. I was an early purchaser of the book being discussed below, but haven't yet read it through. Given that there are only a couple of months left in the Introduction to Philosophy course that inspired me to purchase the book, I'd better get going.

That being said, here is part of what seems to be a model of civility:

"CIVIL ENGAGEMENT: GOING ANOTHER ROUND ON EMBRYOS" [Kevin Miller]


2/22/2008


On NRO, by George and Tollefsen:


Will Saletan has posted a reply to our response to his review of our book Embryo: A Defense of Human Life. His efforts to shore up the points on which we criticized his review are, we believe, unavailing, but before identifying what strike us as grave defects in his argument, we wish to say a word about Saletan himself and why we appreciate this opportunity to engage him in debate. He is an intellectually honest and deeply morally serious man who genuinely aspires to get to the right answer on the vexed question of the moral status of the human embryo. He is unfailingly civil in engaging people with whom he disagrees, and he is, on any reckoning, one of the smartest and best informed journalists writing on bioethical issues. ...

Saletan challenges our argument on the scientific facts, and we are happy to engage him precisely there. ...

Via Heart, Mind & Strength

Thinking About Thinking

While I'm taking a break from cramming studying for a Mid-term today (what is a spandrel, anyway?). So read this and think about it:

CRITICAL THINKING [Kevin Miller]
2/18/2008


about "critical thinking"?

I'm inclined to agree that people throw the expression around too often, without really thinking through exactly what it's supposed to mean - and also that people are far too willing to pit the need for "critical thinking" against the need for mastering (including memorizing - as well as understanding) content.

Via Heart, Mind & Strength

Universities Should be Bastions of Free Speech

So I'm disappointed to see that part of my student fees go to this fascist authoritarian organization:

Canadian Federation of Students’ Dangerous Waters: "

Due to recent scandals in which student unions across the country have begun usurping the freedoms of expression and from discrimination, it was only a matter of time before the CFS decided to comment on this issue. Now, I’m not sure on how correct Warren Kinsella is when threatening people every time he feels offended by their blog posts, but if his latest threat to a blogger who implied that he was a Nazi has any merit, the following comment might be trouble for the CFS:

When asked whether Ryerson students should be exposed to both sides of the abortion issue, Hudson said allowing an anti-choice group would be like allowing a white supremacist group on campus.

If there’s a lawyer out there that can share some insight on this, I’d be most grateful. More as it develops…

"

(Via ThePolitic - Canadian Political Weblog.)

Up for Air

While Life hasn't been actually overwhelming, I have been trying to do some catching up in the Philosophy course. I have been frustrated by a deficient conceptual vocabulary (how's that for a mouthful?). So just before the second Mid-term I borrowed several books from the University Library.

I quickly finished John Finnis' Fundamentals of Ethics the weekend before the exam. I purchased it from Amazon(.com) and hope to have it in my library in January. First impression: it's a good primer in a modern version of Natural Law Ethics.

This family of ethical systems barely rated a mention in our course, and then simply as Command Law ethics. You know, God says it so we have to do it. The strong implication is that this a purely religiously based ethical system. Cicero would have been surprised.

Having seen Alasdair Macintyre mentioned around the web, and particularly in First Things, I had a go at After Virtue. That was a heavier slog, not a weekend skim, at all, at all. It's interesting that the authors of the course textbook, when discussing various modern proponents of Virtue Ethics (only a reading from Aristotle is given), don't mention Professor Macintyre. It makes me wonder if his (subsequent to the first edition of his magnum opus) conversion to Catholicism compromised their evaluation of his philosophical integrity. Does such bias exist in academia? Perish the thought!

And now I'm going through Gomez-Lobo's Morality and the Human Goods. It's sub-title is An Introduction to Natural Law Ethics. This book I can highly recommend for the interested, but philosophically challenged, reader. It has a good conversational style and keeps the reasoning clear and easy to follow. He shows awareness of all the modern ethical theories and appears to deal with them fairly. And he equips the attentive reader with the vocabulary to deal with some of major ethical problems we moderns have to deal with.

And my copy of Finnis' Natural Law and Natural Rights arrived about a week ago. I hope to get into that before my next Philosophy course starts, probably in January.

Now I have to get off philosophy (the final is in a little over a week from now) and read P.D. James' The Children of Men.

Good Reading!

Confession Time

I've had a sneaking suspicion that the ESCR advocates had more than one mad scientist in their ranks. It's doubtful that this issue will get into our discussions in the class; there's too much on our plate now.

Why NOT Embryonic Research?: "

I heard about this new stem cell research yesterday on NPR, which broadcast a brief debate on the subject between Sean Tipton, president of the Coalition for the Advancement of Medical
Research, and Richard Doerflinger, deputy director of Pro-Life
Activities for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Basically, Dr. Doerflinger takes this advance as Great News in that soon there may be no scientific (let alone moral) justification to continue controversial research on human embryonic stem cells, whereas Dr. Tipton thinks such research should continue - just in case. He sees stem cell research as a race to the finish line (his analogy) and whatever it takes to get there is fine, even though 'some people' have moral problems with it.

It wasn't so much his point of view that puzzled me (after all, you can't expect someone who doesn't believe in moral absolutes to behave as if they do*) but the way he defended it; So, why should we continue with controversial research, even in the face of grave moral misgivings? Because 'we live in a pluralistic society'.

H'okay...

Now, I'm sure Dr. Tipton could give a better, more well-rounded defense than that, if pressed, but tho whole idea (very popular, of late) that a 'pluralistic society' must allow scientists to pursue 'whatever works' is just freaky.' Never mind advanced ethical philosophy, has Dr. Tipton never seen Frankenstein or Them or even The Hideous Sun Demon? Hollywood had this all sussed many decades ago... there are Some Things that Man was Not Meant to Tamper With.

And, the question must be asked; if Moral Pluralism is the standard, the foundational dogma of our modern society, then what is NOT to be allowed, and why? Aren't all ethical frameworks equally - that is subjectively - valid? Why NOT eugenics? Why NOT a genetically modified warrior race? Why NOT chemical and biological weapons?

The natural law would proscribe all these things on the basis that they are offenses against human dignity. Pluralism might find them all wrong now (because most people find them morally repugnant, even if they can't say why), but there can be no guarantee about the future. If most people' - or even if enough of the right people - become okay with it at some point, well, we can expect these kinds of examples of the New, Improved Dynamic Morality.

'How beautious mankind is! O brave new world: That has such people in't!'.

*This touches on a recent mammoth combox debate on morality and ethics. There is this idea that one may arrive at a workable moral framework in a number of ways and that there will be little practical difference in the end. But that is not true. Toss out moral absolutes and the divergences in ethical philosophy and practice are profound and immediate.

"

(Via JIMMY AKIN.ORG.)

China

Not the kind you get out for Thanksgiving Dinner. (Felicitations to our American friends who are about to celebrate.) Rather the country and it's future: bleak. Try growing an economy while the population shrinks: can't be done over the medium and long-term. This has been an observation of mine for years (as my poor, harassed daughters will attest). This article was an excuse to renew the assertion here.

I'm getting the usual pre-test jitters (Mid-Term #2). I'll try to get through the paralysis and do creditably well on Monday. Anyway, that's the excuse for the lull in blogging.

The two issues to be dealt with on the mid-term are Abortion and Euthanasia, as my readers no doubt have noticed. I'm at least better prepared than the average fresh-out-of-high-school classmate, in that I've done reading and thinking about these topics for some decades. But formulating and properly critiquing arguments to a freshman standard is a challenge. But that's the point of an education, right? (To be intellectually challenged, I mean.)

The Philosopher and the Pro-Lifer

If Mark is right, this might not bode well for the next three weeks. We'll be spending five sessions considering different philosophers takes on abortion. It's almost a certitude that none of them will exhibit abhorrence. So, how do rational, self-interested people (the type of the modern philosopher) deal with primitive reactions like Mark's? Maybe I should forgo wearing a Choose Life t-shirt to class...

Cinema Relativiste It's not possible to be fair and balanced...: "Cinema Relativiste

It's not possible to be fair and balanced about abortion. That's because abortion is simply and solely evil. The attempt to be 'fair and balanced' will mean that, on the one hand, you will show what abortion actually is (and turn people's stomaches, filling even many pro-choice people with grave doubts about the hideous thing they are supporting). Then, on the other hand, to compensate for the horrors you have just shown the viewer, you will go off and find a few extremists and crazies and try to pretend that they stand for all prolifers.

If you are skilled at numbing your conscience, you will then feign agnosticism about the whole thing. If not, your screaming conscience will shout until it is heard and you will admit that the fringe 'prolife' crazies who shoot abortionists are a tiny minority representing only themselves, while every abortion supporter in the world is, in exact truth, fighting to make sure that the horrors you just witnessed in that operating room will be repeated millions upon millions of times.

There only two possible responses to abortion: abhorrence or deeper and more complex corruption of conscience. There is no 'fair and balanced' view of it. None."

(Via Catholic and Enjoying It!.)