Friday, September 05, 2008

Interesting situation. Lets see how it turns out.

I have this theory, it’s merely a theory, that I have more in common with my brothers and sisters in Christ at church whom I my disagree with profoundly about some issue than I do with a nonbeliever whom I agree with. I am reminded of something C. S. Lewis wrote – this is a paraphrase from memory which is very unreliable – about how Christians who reside at the heart of their chosen separated sects have more in common with each other than with nominal believers of one’s own sect.

There is an illuminating article in the New Yorker. I too wince a little at this comment.

The Saddleback event illuminated Obama’s greatest liability for faith-based voters: his resolute support for abortion rights. Many, including Doug Kmiec, winced when Obama said, at a town-hall meeting last spring, that he supported sex education because he didn’t want his daughters “punished with a baby.”


An example of “principle” over science. The last 8 years has seen continual politicalization, corruption and manipulation of science unprecedented in American history. The Murder of Nikolai Vavilov: The Story of Stalin's Persecution of One of the Great Scientists of the Twentieth Century by Peter Pringle tells the story of an extreme example of the subordination of science (thankfully we haven’t gone this far) to political goals. Following are a couple quotes from a review of the book.

Stalin hated genetics — and chromosomes in particular, not least because the idea of genes as physical structures passed down through the generations suggested that nature wasn't changeable.

The internationally acclaimed Vavilov was outmaneuvered by the "barefoot scientist" Lysenko, an uneducated peasant whom Stalin no doubt preferred to the unreliably bourgeois professor. Lysenko promised the Soviet leader that he would turn the Russian wasteland into a grain-laden Garden of Eden, using the bogus science of "vernalization" to eliminate the normal two-year growth cycle of winter wheat.

I don’t quite get this “lay off Palin for God’s sake” rhetoric. Even as conservative commentator as George Will is unhappy with the choice.

So, Sarah Palin. The man who would be the oldest to embark on a first presidential term has chosen as his possible successor a person of negligible experience.

Any cook can run the state, said Lenin, who was wrong about that, too. America’s gentle populists and other sentimental egalitarians postulate that wisdom is easily acquired and hence broadly diffused, therefore anyone with a good heart can deliver good government, which is whatever the public desires. “The people of Nebraska,” said the archetypal populist William Jennings Bryan, “are for free silver and I am for free silver. I will look up the arguments later.”


I don’t understand it. Can someone help me?

Something all opponents to abortion should pay attention to. Here is a link to the study. I challenge us all - pro-choice and pro-life to take this study to heart and face the real life difficulties of this world.

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