Dawkins goes on to say that “atheists are a lot more numerous, especially among the educated elite, than many realize.” (p. 4) While I have no doubt Dawkins is correct that many of the “educated elite” are atheist [and most of rest are either agnostics or simply support secularism], I don’t think that this would come as much of a surprise to many, but rather is pretty common knowledge. In fact this is one of the reason his previous claim that atheists are a persecuted minority is so silly, for these elites not only dominate Universities, but also the news and entertainment media, and much of government, and they use their power and position to spread secular views, and attack and restrict religious views wherever they can, and they have been quite successful.

More importantly, Dawkins clearly sees the fact that so many of these educated elites are atheist as strong evidence that he is correct. After all if these smart people believe it, it must be true. However for those like myself, “educated elite” is not a positive term, but a negative one that refers to those who are so caught up in theory and academia that they long ago cut themselves off from reality.

One of the hard lessons that those in the physical sciences like physics and chemistry have historically struggled with is that nature often acts in ways that one would not expect. The history of science is full of scientists who had really nice theories of how nature should work, only to have them dashed to pieces when they were tested. This is a good thing as it move our knowledge forward. However as one moves out of the physical sciences and into the social sciences the ability to actually test one’s theories becomes increasingly difficult. More over the ability of the researcher influence the results increases. Yet this difficulty has not tempered the “educated elite” creation of new and novel theories.

For example, until recently it was the norm for the “educated elite” to claim that men and woman are basically the same. Any behavior differences we observer were simply the result of how they are raised. Now for those who were not fortunate enough afford such an education the ideal the men and women are the same was always pretty silly. But then the educated elite are not the elite for nothing.

Even though recent medical research, particularly on the brain, has thoroughly debunked this claim and has clearly show that, to the great astonishment of many of the elite, that men and women are different, this falsehood that they are the same continues to shaped much of the social debate in this country. After the differences were demonstrated, many of the elites simply moved from the view that the differences don’t exist, to the view that they are not that important.

For example, the idea that because of these differences, a father and a mother play different roles in the raising of a child is still questioned by many of “educated elite” who continue to maintain that these roles are completely interchangeable. It really does not matter if you have a mother and father, a mother and mother, father and father, or whatever combination you desire, the only thing that is important is that the child is loved. I have often hear the “educated elite” characterize the claim that the best way to raise a child is with loving mother and a loving father in a stable committed relationship as a bigoted and narrow minded religious view, and I should not seek to impose my religious views on society because of the separation of church and state.

In short, what defines so much of the “educated elite” at least beyond the physical sciences, is they have constructed a world view that is largely immune to actually testing and even when parts are disproven, this is not allowed to have much impact on the worldview itself. Yet because it is labeled “science” this world view is somehow seen as automatically true, differing views are then rejected as religious and therefore false.

Where this comes into play for atheism is that this is pretty much what atheist like Dawkins have done. They construct a world view based on assumptions that cannot be tested or proven, but must just be accepted, and then when God does not fit into the world view they have constructed, they conclude He does not exist.

Could it be that the vast majority believe in God for the same reason that the vast majority believe that men and women are different, and that the educated elite reject God for pretty much the same reason they once rejected the idea that men and women are different?

This is Elgin Hushbeck, asking you to Consider Christianity: a Faith Based on Fact.

Senator Kennedy summed up what is probably the view of many, assuming they know anything at all, when he said, “In Vietnam, the White House grew increasingly obsessed with victory, and increasingly divorced from the will of the people and any rational policy. The Department of Defense kept assuring us that each new escalation in Vietnam would be the last. Instead, each one led only to the next. There was no military solution to that war. Echoes of that disaster are all around us today” I agree that echoes of Vietnam are all around us, but not in the way Kennedy see it.

For sake of space I will skip the complexities of how our involvement began, and instead focus on how it ended. Most of those still alive at the time can still remember the humiliating defeat suffered in Vietnam which has come to be symbolized by the photographs of the helicopters on the roof of the US embassy evacuating as many as they could. What is hazy is the sequence of events leading up to that defeat. Following his election in 1968, Nixon pursued a policy of Vietnamization (the transferring the fighting to the South Vietnamese army), bombing, and negotiations. By mid-1969 troop reductions began, and in January 1973 a peace agreement was signed, which called for the withdrawal of all US troops and the return of POWs, which was completed by the end of March of that year. In many respects this was the ended of the war and at this point it was not a defeat. In fact it could be called a victory.

It was also about the time that Watergate was growing into a major scandal that a year later would force Nixon to resign. With the Presidency weaken, Congress began to limit the ability of the president to respond, and contrary to our commitments under the peace agreement, reduce our funding to South Vietnam. These reductions greatly impacted their ability to defend themselves. In December 1974, North Vietnam decided to test the resolve of the new President and violated the peace treaty. Because of congressional restrictions, there was little that Ford could do other than protest diplomatically. Seeing that they had little to fear from the US, North Vietnam began to plot a takeover of the South, which began in March 1975.

Some have argued that the South Vietnamese were not worth it because they would not fight for their country. Perhaps. We will never really know. Certainly some did run, but other did fight bravely. Yet given underfunding by the Congress, and the fact that the Soviets were fully funding the North, combined with the limitations Congress place on the President, the South never had a chance. So did those who ran, run because they would not fight for their country, or did they run because they could see the writing on the wall? Determination to fight does little good when your guns are out of bullets and your tanks are out of gas. In any event, by the end of April it was all over, and you had the helicopters on the roof of the US embassy, a little over two years after the end of the military conflict. That was when you had the humiliating defeat, a defeat brought on more by Congress than the military.

So our defeat in Vietnam while very real, can in no way be consider a military defeat. Despite the Hollywood stereotypes, our troops served valiantly and militarily succeeded, even in engagements such as the Tet offensive. The Tet Offensive is commonly viewed as a defeat and the turning point in the war. Yet in military terms it was a significant victory. But, as in the current war (and for that matter most wars in the last 100 years) the battle for public opinion at home is as significant as the military conflict itself. Negative images, often very misleading shown on the nightly news, and a steady stream of negative information turned public opinion turned against war. With presidency weakened, the anti-war forces were able to block the fulfillment of our obligations under the peace treaty and ensure the fall of the South and thus our defeat.

Echoes of Vietnam? Sure. In both cases the anti-war advocates push for a withdrawn at any cost. In both cases the anti-war advocates were driven by a tremendous hatred for the President. And in both cases they show very little concern for what would happen if they got their way. However there is one big difference. In Vietnam, there never was any concern that the North Vietnamese would follow us back to our country if they won. The same cannot be said about the terrorists.

Richard Dawkins’, “The God Delusion” is yet another in a long line of books which attempts to make the claim that believing in God is irrational. As with the other attempts, Dawkins ultimately ends up only demonstrating his own lack of critical analysis. There is a very simple rule in critical thinking that I teach all of my classes: Anything can be accepted if you only consider the evidence in favor, and conversely anything can be rejected if you only consider the evidence against. While this is a pretty straight forward and simple rule, it is one that Dawkins runs afoul of from the very first page.

Dawkins, citing the John Lennon song “Imagine” wonders, “Imagine no suicide bombers, no 9/11, no 7/7, no Crusades, no witch-hunts, no Gunpowder plot, no Indian partition, no Israeli/Palestinian wars, no Serb/Croat/Muslim massacres, no Northern Ireland ‘troubles’, no ‘honour killings’, no shiny-suited bouffant-hair televangelists fleecing gullible people of their money (‘God wants you to give till it hurts.’) Imagine no Taliban to blow up ancient statues, no public beheading of blasphemers, no flogging of female skin for the crime of showing an inch of it.” (pp 1-2)

This one passage reveals three major problems with Dawkins’ approach. The first we have already mentioned. This is a list that contains only negative items. What about the positive? What about the good that religion has done? As I point out in my book, Christianity and Secularism, with Christianity’s rise to dominance after the fall of Rome, it brought for the first time an ethic of kindliness, obedience, humility, patience, mercy, purity, chastity, and tenderness. (p 101) Nor, without religion, would the church have been able to try to settle disputes between rulers during the middle ages so as to avoid war, nor limit the killing of civilians. Nor would Christians have been able to stress the equality of all people, nor lay the foundations of science and human rights, nor push for, and eventually achieve, the abolition of slavery. Christians by no means have a perfect record in this area, and in fact have far too often failed o live up to the teaches of Jesus, but by no means is the record all negative as Dawkins “Imagines.”

Dawkins second major error is to treat all religions as the same. They are not. In fact of the 15 things Dawkins want to imagine the world without, 11 of the 15 involve Islam either exclusively or in conflict with others. The simple fact is that, of all the major world religions, only Islam was founded by a military leader. Through-out its history, Islam as been spread by force of arms, and there remains today a significant percentage of Islam who support the use force and coercion to maintain and spread their religion. The issue is not one of religion or no religion and Dawkins would imagine and in fact, as I argue in Christianity and Secularism, it would be impossible to have no religion. Religions have to be judged individually on their own merits. Dawkins’ approach is the equivalent of arguing for the rejection investigation in favor of blind faith by lumping legitimate sciences like chemistry in with alchemy and then pointing to the problems of alchemy as a reason to reject chemistry. For Dawkins, the problems of one religion are reasons to reject all religions.

Of the remaining four items in Dawkins’ list that do not involve Islam: witch-hunts, the Gunpowder plot, Northern Ireland, and corrupt televangelists I would argue that only the first two can really be attributed to Christianity, which brings us to Dawkins’ third major error, which confuses things that involve religion with things that are caused by religion. The conflict between England and Ireland goes back much farther than the England’s change to Protestantism. In fact, this conflict is much more a cause of the religious difference, than caused by religion. As for the corrupt televangelists, con-artists can be found in most areas. That some us science to fleece people, is not a reason to reject science, why should it be any different for religion.

As for the remaining two, these are legitimate objections. (though the Gunpowder plot failed and thus had little actual impact beyond those who planned the plot, I take it to represent the religious conflict that did exist at the time). Whereas Dawkins errs by only looking at the negative it would be equally erroneous to only consider the positive. Like most everything else that involves people there are pros and cons to religion in general and Christianity in particular. A balance approach requires us to look and both the pros and the cons. As I argue in Christianity and Secularism, when this is done for Christianity, I believe that Christianity has had a strong net positive influence in the world.

This is Elgin Hushbeck, asking you to Consider Christianity: a Faith Based on Fact.

For many this is an easy question to answer. Because Bush lied we went to war on false grounds, therefore we should leave. But such a simplistic (and false) analysis hardly counts as rational argument. Even if true, that we went in on false ground does not automatically lead to the conclusion we should get out for one could just as easy argue we broke it, now it our job to fix it. Whether we were or were not correct to invade, the terrorists have since declared the conflict to be “the greatest battle of Islam in this era” and “the decisive battle.” Any decision to leave has to take into consideration not only why we entered, but more importantly what will happen if we leave.

Others point to the large number of those killed which is 3511 as of this writing, and claims that Iraq is not worth another American life. While slightly better than the previous argument, this argument fails to put this number in perspective. The costs in deaths must be compared with the threat we face, and the threat we face is determined by the goals of the enemy combined with their ability to carry them out. The goals of the enemy are pretty clear. They believe they are on a mission from God to kill or convert unbelievers. As for their ability to carry out their goals, numerous terrorist attacks, both before, including and after 9/11 has demonstrated their ability and desire to kill thousands. If left unchallenged, their ability to kill large number would only grow and unless stopped, it is not a matter of if they will someday get nuclear weapon, but when; and when they get them, they will use them. This is why many see the threat of terrorism as “The greatest threat since WWII.” But while the threats are comparable, particularly if the terrorist get nuclear weapons, the US casualties in WWII were over 400,000. In fact if we had quit WWII after reaching the casualties we have had in the war of Terror, WWII would have only lasted a few days before we threw in the towel as being too costly. On the other hand, in the current war, if the terrorist are able to detonate a few well places nuclear bombs, we would quickly exceed the casualties of WWII.

Others claim we should leave because of the mistakes that have been made. One of the things about war, however, is that it is not a static endeavor, and actions do not occur in a vacuum. Like it or not, the enemy gets to respond and there is a reason for the saying “No battle plan survives the first shot.” The early part of the civil war was marked by numerous mistakes by the Union Army, and it took years for Lincoln to find a good general. Mistakes abound in all war. Operation Torch the opening of the war in Europe during WWII was also marked by miscalculation. The battle of Armhem, chronicled in the movie a “A Bridge Too Far” was a huge debacle. That there were mistakes is a good reason to do better, but not to leave.

Similarly irrational is the argument that because we have gone of the war in Iraq there is more terrorism in the world. One problem with such arguments is that there were many terrorist acts before the invasion of Iraq, including 9/11. In addition the ability of the terrorist to carry out large attacks was growing. Are we really supposed to believe that had we not invaded Iraq, the Terrorist would have gone away? But an even worse problem, is the fact that whenever you fight back of course there will be more conflict than if you do nothing. When we entered WWII there was more conflict after we entered than before we entered.

A possible difference in this war is the claim that our very being in Iraq is enflaming the Muslim world, leading more people to become terrorist. This may very well be the case, but it goes to the heart of the larger problem we face. As mentioned before, for decades despotic rulers, and radical cleric throughout the Islamic world have blamed the US and Israel for pretty much every problem Muslims face. We were blamed before 9/11, we blamed for going into Afghanistan, and blamed now for going into Iraq. After all in a poll of public opinion in six Islamic countries a few months after 9/11 showed that only 18% believed that the 11 hijackers were Arab men, and only 9% believed that the US was correct to go into Afghanistan.

This is one of the main reason I always saw the war in Iraq as a big risk, with a significant chance that it could grow into a much larger war. For the moment, while things are certainly difficult in Iraq, the chance of this growing into a larger war seem small. But it remains a danger. However the best solution would be to achieve victory in Iraq such that we can leave the country with a stable democratic government that can defend itself.  More next time.

With the emergence of modern science and the understanding of nature that we have gained as a result, the need for religion has diminished. So now we have a much better understanding of the physical basis of lightening and thus no longer need the lightening god to explain it. With each advancement of science, the need for religion has diminished. Or at least so the argument goes.

Skeptics now tend to write off every claim that God has not been excluded by claiming it is nothing more than a God-of-the-Gaps argument. God is only invoked to explain those areas where there is a gap in our scientific knowledge.

Now there is no doubt that the God-of-the-gaps charge is at times accurate. But even so, that does not make it always accurate, nor does it mean that atheistic charge does not have problems of its own.

One of the problems is the skeptics view of religion that sees it as little more than an explanation for nature to be supplanted later by science. Most religions, and in particular Christianity, are much, much more than just an explanation for nature. In fact for Christianity, explaining nature is at best just a backdrop to the primary focus which is our relationship to God. Christianity does maintain that God created the universe and everything in it, but it also believes in a creation governed by reason. In fact much of modern science came out the desire to understand the creator by studying the creation, in the same way you would study a painter by studying their paintings.

But a more serious problem is that while Christians are sometimes guilty of gap arguments, not all arguments pointing to the problems of science are gap arguments. The problems with gap argument is that they are based on the absence of evidence, and thus commits the fallacy of an argument from ignorance, we do not know, therefore it must be God.

However, if instead of pointing to an absence of evidence, an argument points to the evidence against, it is no longer a gaps argument. For example, if one looks at the evidence for the origin of the universe, it clearly points to a beginning. There are two main competing scientific theories for how this took place both of which cannot explain how the whole process could started on in first place. An objective look at the evidence says that the universe had a beginning. Either the universe created itself, (and absurd idea) or there was some other creator. This is not a gaps argument because it is simply going where the evidence points.

Much the same can be said for the origin of life where the more it is examined, the more impossible it seems to get. Again this not a gap argument because is not grounded on the lack of an explanation, but on the evidence that it is impossible.

In fact, in both of these areas, if anyone has a gap type argument, it is the atheist. But rather filling the gap with appeals to God, they appeal to chance. Whereas Christians believe that God can do anything, atheist believe that chance can do anything if given enough time. This chance-of-the-gaps type argument takes many forms. For life, the belief is that regardless of how impossible the evidences says the origin of life would be, there is always a small chance, however tiny, that it could have happened so it is not completely impossible. But arguing something is not completely impossible is not quite the same as arguing that is happened.

One popular incarnation of this chance argument is to postulate an infinite number of universes and then claim that we just happen to be in the universe where all these seemingly impossible things did actually happen by chance.

What is often overlooked by atheists and agnostics in all these appeals to chance, is that by their very nature, these arguments run contrary to the evidence. After all, if the evidence clearly supported natural processes, there would be not be any need to appeal to chance. For example, one does not need to appeal to an infinite number of universes to explain the possibility of lightening.

When dealing with the unknown, one can either go where the evidence currently points, or try to explain away the evidence so as to maintain current beliefs. For both the origin of the universe and life, the evidence is currently against it being completely natural. Attempting to explain this away so and to maintain a worldview that precludes the existence of God and the supernatural, is putting faith in the worldview above evidence and reason, and in doing so theses skeptics are guilty of exactly what they accuse Christians of doing. Claiming that unknowns can be explained by chance is a chance-of-the-gaps reasoning. It is placing one’s faith in chance ahead of the evidence.

This is Elgin Hushbeck, asking you to Consider Christianity: a Faith Based on Fact.

While there is little evidence to say that Saddam was involved in 9/11, and I never believe he was, there is no question that Saddam supported terrorists, including paying $25,000 to the families of suicide bombers. In addition Saddam was a destabilizing force in the Middle East.

To really deal with the threat of Terrorism, we must not only take on the terrorists, but we must also deal with the situation that is creating them. For decades US policy towards the Middle East has basically been that we did not care what the dictators did in their own countries, as long as the oil continued to flow. The result has been the creation of circumstances were these despotic rules along with radical clerics have explained away the problems in their own countries by blaming the US and Israel. In fact in a recent Zogby poll of opinion in six Middle Eastern countries, 80% had an unfavorable view of the United States, (57% very unfavorable), 72% said the US was one of the biggest threats to them (80% included Israel), and 69% said the true goal of US policy was “weakening the Muslim world.” Critics will probably say this is all because of Bush, but this is not new. One only has to go back to the year 2000, before Bush was even elected, to see hundreds of thousands marching in Morocco burning US and Israeli flags. And of course terrorism has been a growing problem for decades.

On 9/11 the state supporters of terrorism were: Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Syria, and Sudan. To really solve the problem all would need to stop their support. Unless we were to take them on all at once (a policy no one I know of supports) they would have to be dealt with in sequence. While not on the list Afghanistan was a logical first place to start, as it was the home of Al Qaida, and few except those who are opposed to all wars agreed. For those who see the terrorism as a law enforcement issue Afghanistan should have been the end of it, at least until the next attack. And with the other countries still supporting terrorism, there would have been another attack.

For those who see this as a war, the main question is where to go next. I would argue that Iraq was the next logical step. It had been a very visible antagonist for nearly a decade, it was in violation of the peace treaty, it was firing on US aircraft virtually on a daily basis, it was a major abuser of human rights, and was in violation of 16 UN resolution, in addition to supporting terrorism. More importantly a successful transformation of Iraq, would put pressure on others with the hope that military action would not be necessary. For example, it has long been reported that the Iranian people are unhappy with their government, and Iran is ripe for revolution.

For awhile it looked like this policy was working. Following the invasion of Iraq, Libya did renounce terrorism, give up its WMD programs and took steps to rejoin the world community, though this had been in the works for some time. There were even some positive signs in Syria as it was forced out of Lebanon. Iran and Syria, could see what was happening and have actively responded by supporting opposition to the US. The terrorists also see key importance of a US victory in Iraq, and describe the conflict as “the greatest battle of Islam in this era” and “the decisive battle.” How can Iraq be unimportant to the war on terror, if the terrorist see it in these terms?

Yet critics claim invading Iraq was unnecessary, it was an optional war, a war of choice. Because of their law enforcement viewpoint, they wrongly see this as a choice between war and peace. But we are at war. The terrorists are not fighting us because we invaded Iraq, they declared war on us long before Iraq, and have been fighting us for decades, and they will continue to do so. There are only two ways wars can end. Either both side mutually agree to stop, or one side defeats the other. The terrorist show no signs of stopping, they see themselves as on a mission from, and to stop would be to disobey God. So, unless we are willing to give up Western civilization and live under Islamic Law, it is not a question of whether or not we will fight, but a question of where and when. As long as there are state supporters of militant Islam, the threat posed by militant Islam will grow stronger. It is not a matter of if they will get WMDs, it is a matter of when. And make no mistake, when they get them, they will use them. Unfortunately many find the idea of fanatics who believe they are on a mission from God to kill or convert unbelievers getting nuclear weapons so unthinkable they do not want to face up to the real danger we face.

So it is not a choice between war and peace, but between war now, or an even larger bloodier war later; of stopping militant Islam before it gets WMDs (assuming it is not already too late to do this) or waiting until they have them and have used them. This was not only a good reason for going into to Iraq, it is just as valid now, if not more so. If we should not have fought them in Iraq then just where should we fight them? Or should we let them choose the battleground that is best for them?

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It has often been pointed out that adversity reveals a person’s true character better than anything except possibly the acquisition of power. Whether it is the result of great tragedy such as the sinking of the Titanic, or the destruction of Greenburg Kansas, or great evil such as the attacks on 911 or the recent shooting at Virginia Tech, or more personal situations, when tested by great adversity minor flaws can crack wide open revealing great weaknesses, or we can find inner strengths we never knew existed.

Two recent news events have highlighted both extremes. In May we saw the story of Andrew Speaker. Speaker had been diagnosed with a strained of tuberculosis that was drug resistant. But he was planning to honeymoon in Europe, and while he was told it was better that he not fly, he was not ordered to stay away from planes. So he went to Europe as planned.

While Speaker was in Italy, doctors learned that not only was his TB resistant to drugs, the particular strain he had was both very dangerous, and “extensively drug resistant.” Dr. Marin Cetron, director of the Center for Disease Control’s division of global migration and quarantine, said “He was told in no uncertain terms not to take a flight back.”

But Speaker didn’t want to wait. Disregarding what the doctors said and the potential risk he posed to others he would come near, he took a commercial aircraft From Rome to Prague, and then from Prague to Montreal. From there he drove to into the United States. By doing so he put at risk all he came in contact with, especially the passengers in the seats around him.

Selfish? Clinical Psychologist Andrea Macari, PH.D came to Speaker defense on the O’Reilly Factor (06/01/07) claiming that “I think all acts are selfish… selflessness is just an illusion.” While such views are increasingly common in the Me-First worldview so clearly demonstrated by Speaker, they stand in stark contrast to another recent new story, the story of Liviu Lebrescu, a story I hope you remember.

Born in Romania, Librescu survived the Holocaust later immigrating to Israel. Twenty years ago Librescu came to United States where he was a researcher and lecturer in engineering. He was teaching a class on mechanics on the day of the Virginia Tech murders, when he heard the shooter coming close to his classroom. Librescu told his students to run to the window and climb out. He, however, ran to the door and blocked it with his body, to give time for the students to reach safety. He gave his life so that his student could live. If we are to believe Macari, Librescu gave his life in a selfish not a selfless act.

Later in the interview on the O’Reilly Factor concerning the TB patient Andrew Speaker, Macari couldn’t believe O’Reilly when he said that if he has been in Speaker’s situation, he would have stayed put, so as not to put other people in danger. If you live in the moment with a Me-first attitude, such moral certitude probably does seem unbelievable, even foolish. But as Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 2:14 “A person who isn't spiritual doesn't accept the things of God's Spirit, for they are nonsense to him. He can't understand them because they are spiritually evaluated.” (ISV)

However, if instead of a Me-First view of the world, you have a set of core values upon which you base your moral decisions, and you have thought about right and wrong and how your actions impact others, as God’s word teaches us, one reaches a different conclusion.

This is one of the problems with secular attacks on Christianity. They claim to want to replace what they see as the mythology of Christianity with reason and science. But if we are not created in the image of God, but merely the result of chance combined with time, there is no purpose in life, other than to live it. If all there is, is simply the here and now, the selfish actions of Speaker would be the rational action, after all survival of the fittest would argue that you should do whatever it takes to survive. On the other hand noble acts like Librescu would be the irrational one. What possible reason could there be to give up your life, if there is nothing beyond this life.

This is the problem with secular moralities. There is no firm core, no bedrock upon which to base a moral system. They are not, as they claim, based on reason, for reason is process not a foundation. Ultimately they end up being based on the self and what is in the best interest of the self. This is why secular moral views have such great difficulty not only condemning evil but also praising the noble, without having to appeal to values that have been embedded in the culture by the religion. But as secularist continue to chip away at religious values, ultimately they end up like Israel during the time of the Judges, where “,each person did whatever seemed right in his own opinion” (Judges 21:25 ISV) which is then combined with the increasingly popular line “who are you to judge.” Unfortunately I fear that the upcoming generations will contain more Speakers than Librescus.

This is Elgin Hushbeck, asking you to Consider Christianity: a Faith Based on Fact.

However Pete Wilson brought what he called “compassionate conservatism.” What this really amounted to was a proposed $15 Billion increase in state spending, while trying to run conservatives out of the party. Eventually he made a deal that “cut spending” by $7.5 billon so he only needed a $7.5 billion dollar tax increase, which included the infamous “Snack Tax” which was quickly repealed angry voters.

If this was not enough, rather than holding out an olive branch to conservatives and unifying the party by appointing someone like Bruce Hershenson to fill his empty senate seat, Wilson made an in-your-face appointment of John Seymour, further angering conservatives. Things were so bad that when Seymour ran for reelection in 1992, the Republican party had trouble meeting in fear that the party would condemn their own candidate.  Not too surprisingly - he lost.

Frankly if 187 did anything, it helped revive the Republican party, and Pete Wilson saw his poll number increase with the proposition. In addition the proposition passed with strong support. But then the courts overturned it. This combined with several other propositions that were overturned caused many people to ask “What the point of voting?”

This was compounded by rampant voter fraud, such as when Bob Dornan lost his house seat as a result of illegal aliens voting, fraud which was never prosecuted. Then Republican office holders in the state decided that it was better for them to make deals with the Democrats so as to guarantee a safe seat in redistricting. As a result politicians in California now effectively pick their voters, rather than the other way around. Republican Presidential candidates also write off the state, making it a self-fulfilling prophecy.

As a result of the decline in the state, and the rise of liberal regulation, overcrowding, rampant illegal immigration (In San Bernardino, a old Sam’s Club location recently was turned into a large store catering to those who speak Spanish) many Republican voters began to write the state off and those who could started leaving. (It’s a prime reason I am no longer in California).

The problems of California are very similar to the problems of the Republican party nationally. While Bush has been ok on the war, he has been marginal at best, and often poor on domestic policy. Frankly it was my experience with Pete Wilson that caused me concern when Bush also ran on “compassionate conservatism.”

As a general rule, when Republicans run on a upbeat and positive conservative message that expresses hope for what this country could be if government would get out of the way, we win. When we run with apologies for being conservative and promise to be sort of Democrat-Lite we lose. Yet too many Republican politicians never seem to learn this simple lesson.

Now I admit there is some room for legitimate disagreement on this point. Some think that however horrible the atrocity, US forces should only be used for US interests. I disagree. At some point the atrocities in a country become so horrific that the world can no longer sit by, but has an obligation to put a stop to it. Most see the holocaust and say “never again.” But sadly, it does happen, and ‘never again’ becomes empty rhetoric, as we saw with Cambodia, and more recently with Rwanda and now Darfur. Granted, we don’t want to be the world’s policemen for every grievance, and we do need to take into account a number of factors such as feasibility, but when we can do something, do we really want to stand by while hundreds of thousands of people are not just killed but brutally tortured and do nothing other than say “that’s terrible” or, if we are really outraged, pass some meaningless UN resolutions?

Yet what is so ironic about the current situation, is that many of the same people who are so critical of the Iraq war, were very supportive a war based solely on humanitarian reasons in Bosnia, and currently argue for sending troops into Darfur. Given their support for these actions, and the opposition to the Iraq war, it would seem that for many critics, humanitarian reasons are valid only if there is no national interest stake. If there is an national interest at sake, then humanitarian reasons are to be ignored, and the war opposed.

Before moving on to what I have always believed was and is the most important reason, there are the secondary costs to the world community for failing to act. Whether it was the result of Saddam’s bribing key countries with oil for food money, an attitude of appeasement, self-interest, pacifism, or whatever, the failure of the UN to doing anything other than pass resolution after resolution after resolution shows that it resolutions are meaningless and can be ignored. The last resolution was put forward as a last chance, and even then Iraq did not comply. As Hans Blix, hardly a supporter of the war, report to the security council when the deadline passed, “Iraq appears not to have come to a genuine acceptance - not even today - of the disarmament, which was demanded of it and which it needs to carry out to win the confidence of the world and to live in peace.”

As a result of this, and numerous previous examples of inaction, the UN had proven itself to be worst than inactive. With their flat out refusal to take any action combined with their willingness to condemn any who do, they have placed themselves into the role of defenders of dictators. Dictators know that UN resolutions are ultimately not worth the paper they are printed on. Thus the UN is far more effective at protecting those who commit atrocities than stopping atrocities. Is it any surprise then, that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad responded to the UN threat of passing resolutions condemning its nuclear program by saying “Iran does not give a damn about such resolutions."

I believe that one of the reasons for the war in Iraq, was Saddam’s miscalculation that the UN and his allies such as France and Russia, would be able to keep the US from attacking, or force them to withdrawal quickly if they did. He falsely believed “time was on his side and that the Coalition would never be allowed to attack” and so could continue flaunting the UN resolution. Theodore Roosevelt taught that we should speak softly, but carry a big stick. The UN seems to be speak loudly, but do nothing to back it up. If the UN had clearly supported strong action in Iraq, there is at least a chance that the Iraq war would never have happened, and Iran would not now be threatening the world with its nuclear program. But they didn’t, and it was thus left to the US and its allies to act.

I will conclude my review of Sam Harris’ The End Of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason, by looking at the alternative that Harris presents. Harris fundamentally argues for a view of life that seeks happiness through the process of reason and evidence. In his attacks on religion, Harris is not arguing for secularism per se but for reason. This is how he attempts to avoid the charge that the greatest evils in human history ( the holocaust, the massacres in communist countries, of Russia, China, Cambodia, Vietnam, etc) have been the result of secular regimes not religious one. As we saw in part one Harris’ claim that religion is at the root of most conflicts in human history is false. Still religion has been responsible for evil. Yet secularism made up any gap and far surpassed religion in just one century.

Harris seeks to avoid this problem by claiming that the evils caused by secular governments were because of secular dogmas and thus similar to the religious dogmas he condemns. The problem is that while hindsight is always 20-20 and thus allows a small fig leaf to avoid such culpability, this is really no different than the Christian who tries to claim that those who did evil in the name of Christ are not really following the true teachings of Christ. Frankly, I think that Harris’ view is even worse off for at least the Christians can point to clear a foundation (the Bible) about which we can discuss. Harris has no foundation other than happiness, and no means to pursue clarifying what this means than science.

But the history of science is full of problem, wrong turns and downright errors. This is not really a criticism of science; this is just part of the nature of discovery. But it is hardly a firm basis for morality. For example Harris tries to lay the blame for the holocaust on religious anti-Semitism, ignoring the fact that many of Christianity’s strongest critics were extremely anti-Semitic showing that anti-Semitism is not simply an Christian or even religious phenomena. Still if the holocaust had been lead by Christians had been limited to the six million Jews, Harris might have had a point. But 12 million died in the holocaust. What about the other six million others who died along with the six million Jews, or the fact that Hitler was not religious? While religious anti-Semitism sadly did play a role, it pales in regards to the role played by science and “reason.”

Both Fascism and Communism saw themselves as scientific alternatives to religion. In particular for the Holocaust there was the science of eugenics and others theories that trace themselves back to Darwin and the theory of evolution and its survival of the fittest. While justly rejected now, in the early part of the 20^th century this was the “scientific” view of the day. Hitler did not seek to exterminate the Jews because of the false religious view that they were Christ-killers, but because of the false scientific view that they were inferior people who were corrupting the purity of master race. Harris rejects this view now as just another false “dogma” but that is the nice thing about hindsight, it is always 20-20. Someday I hope that the current ban on DDT will also be seen as a false dogma, but it is still in effect and still defended, and is resulting in the deaths of between one and two million people each year for a total in excess of 40 million people since it went into effect.

The key problem with Harris’ view is that his choice of happiness both vague and subjective. For example, China argues that the group is more important than the individual, and thus individual rights can be superseded by the state as it seeks to better the whole. Someone else might see that acquisition of power as the key to their morality, or as Hitler, the building of a master race through selective breeding and the elimination of the mentally ill etc, to make the best people possible. Without an objective standard by which to measure, it would simple be a matter of personal preference which of these to choose. Nor would one be able to say, for example, that building of a master race was wrong and therefore not a valid option, as what is being chosen is the foundation for morality, that it, the basis by which we would decide was right and wrong. This is how those secular regimes in the 20^th century were able to kill hundreds of millions of people, for as strange as it sounds they lived in a moral systems that said it was good.

While Christianity has nowhere near a perfect record, I believe that any objective review of the evidence would show thatven with its faults and missteps, Christianity has been and continues to be a very positive force in human history. In the last 150 years since science has attempted to separate itself from religion and replace it as a guide for society, the results have often been disastrous. In effect Harris is asking us to abandon what has a proven track record, what has for example provided the intellectual and moral back ground for countries like the United States, and instead embrace what had never worked and when tried as lead to the greatest evils in history. Now that is a real leap of faith.

This is Elgin Hushbeck, asking you to Consider Christianity: a Faith Based on Fact.