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Muslims are necessarily fundamentalists

2006-10-06T14:51:00.000-07:00

There is an incompatibility between Islam and the ideas which are fundamental to Western civilization.

There are logical contradictions between the principles at the basis of Islam and the West. One cannot resolve logical contradictions, they cannot be solved in the way that problems can. You simply cannot square a circle.

It’s got nothing to do with terrorists, or fundamentalists, fanatics, or Islamic radicals of various sorts.

I’m here talking about mainstream Islam and the fact that it is in serious, direct and open contradiction with principles which are at the core of Western civilization and form the very basis on which all our Western world are erected.

I am not talking about issues like the treatment of women. Not only this is not even remotely the issue that concerns me most (I am much more concerned about the way Muslims treat non-human animals: just look at their terrible ritual slaughter record), but also, and more importantly, Islam’s treatment of women is only one aspect, one application of the much more general problem of Islam’s incompatibility with Western principles which I am about to discuss.

There are several elements in Islam which conflict with and contradict Western core principles. Here I'm outlining one of them.

All Muslims believe (and they must believe, I mean it’s not open to interpretation or dispute) that the Koran is the actual word of God. They think God himself dictated it word by word to Mohammed.
Christians think that the Bible was written by human beings: that leaves a lot open to different interpretations and variations in opinion, and it leaves a lot of room for mistakes.
But for Muslims, none of this tolerance and flexibility is possible. Every true Muslim must believe in the complete, literal truth of every word of the Koran.
So, basically, every Muslim is a fundamentalist. That old, tiresome, repeated ad nauseam distinction between Islamic fundamentalists and the “benign” majority of mainstream Muslims is much less important than it is constantly portrayed to be.
This fact in itself, that all Muslims believe in the literal truth of the Koran (no word of the book can actually be disputed) “invites trouble”, opens the gate to all the flood of problems that we have continuously witnessed in the history of Islam. It is a veritable Pandora’s box.
The funny thing is that Muslims themselves have used this argument in order to justify their own intransigence and intolerance, for instance when they try to justify the fatwa against Salman Rushdie. And for people with short memory, I want to remind that, when in Muslim communities living in Britain there were episodes of public burnings of Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses in the streets, it wasn’t a minority of fundamentalists who were doing and justifying the burnings. On the contrary, it was the Muslims’ majority.
Whenever I watch a TV debate or interview involving Muslims, hardly ever I see the interviewer or participant in the debate ask a Muslim person (supposedly a member of the tolerant Muslim majority who has no problems with Western values) what s/he thinks of the fatwa against Rushdie. That question, and especially its answer, obviously would immediately show an unbridgeable gulf between the supposed “tolerant Muslim” and the rest of us, and would expose this construct of the “tolerant Muslim” for what it is: a myth.
To clarify a possible misunderstanding, I am not here talking about personality traits: I don’t mean “tolerant” in the sense of nice, decent, pleasant, likeable person. I’m sure that there will be many Muslim individuals who fit the latter description. But their “tolerance”, or rather lack of it, is nothing to do with their personal characteristics: it’s not a matter of personal choice. They have no choice. If they are Muslim, they must think that the Koran was indeed written by God through Mohammed’s hand, and therefore it necessarily follows that they cannot tolerate a work like The Satanic Verses: to them it will be tantamount to blasphemy, an insult to God himself.

Violence has a different definition for Muslims

2006-09-19T14:25:00.000-07:00

To state that Muslims, by reacting with anger, attempts at intimidation and with both threats and acts of violence to the claim that Islam is violent (regardless of the question whether this was what the Holy Father simply quoted), are saying with their own actions what has been claimed just with words is even too obvious.

What I think is showing here is a semantic gulf between the West and Islam.

I cannot believe that all Muslims are so stupid (it’s possible, but statistically improbable) not to realize that for someone to say: “I’m not violent, and I’ll kill you if you say that” is a situation worth of a comedy sketch.

What I think is that when we Westerners say “violence” or “violent” we mean something entirely different from what Muslims intend by the same words.

The Western definition of those words, for reasons of culture, history and mentality, is not the Muslim definition of them. They have a negative connotation in both worlds, but they are applied to different behaviours and actions.

For example, for us in the West the act of killing someone who has offended Mohammed, Islam, the Koran or anything sacred to Muslims is an act of unqualified violence. For Muslims, it simply is not: it is indeed an act even laudable and in some circumstances legal and required (e.g. the fatwa proclaiming the death sentence for Salman Rushdie).

I personally am convinced that the Pope believes in the words he quoted from the erudite 14th-century Christian Byzantine emperor, Manuel II Paleologus. He did not retract them. The reason for his expressing regret at the way they had been taken was mainly, in my opinion, to protect the unfortunate people who are already persecuted on a routine basis and prevent them from being persecuted even more: I refer, of course, to the Christians living in Muslim countries, particularly in the Middle East, where the burning of churches is a normal occurrence, only made worse by the jihad against the Holy Father.

And, to mix the sacred with the profane, does anybody remember what the Muslim Zidane did when he headbutted the Italian Materazzi in the football World Cup final last July? He blamed Materazzi for having provoked him, stubbornly refused to apologize to him and, in the politically correct environment of the FIFA and the liberal media, he almost got away with that lame excuse. It looks like blaming others for one’s own violence and irrational behaviour is definitely a Muslim thing.

What is natural and is it better?

2006-08-22T14:04:00.000-07:00

The word “natural” is treated in a way peculiar in the extreme. This perhaps reflects our confused ideas about nature, or perhaps darker, more sinister misconceptions are at work.

There is a strange dichotomy between the positive connotation of “natural” in one realm (that encompassing health, food, medicine, environmental management, and the like) and the negative connotation of “natural” in another realm (social and political organization).

If you use the adjective “natural” in conjunction with objects of the first group, eg natural remedies, natural substances, natural environment, it is almost invariably taken as a virtue, a good qualitative appreciation.

If, on the other hand, you use “natural” in discussions of the second group of subjects, for example regarding differences between sexes, sexual orientation or a thorny question such as war, its use is at best controversial, and at worst considered a threat against the march of progress.

In expressions like "natural foods" or "natural medicines", "natural" is taken to mean, among other things, "good" and "not harmful". In the case of remedies or drugs of natural source, the idea is that they shouldn't have the nasty side effects of other drugs.
In fact, there have been cases of harmful side effects of so-called natural and herbal remedies, much the same as the risk exists with all medicines.
And, if you think about it, there's no reason why it should be otherwise.
Poisonous mushrooms are natural, and so is snakes' venom.
The idea that substances occcurring naturally should necessarily be good is a fantasy, but a widespread one. “Nature knows best” is the dogmatic slogan in this field of thought.

But, when we discuss sexual roles, the natural, biologically determined forces moulding the behaviours of men and women are treated as demonic entities to be fought tooth and nail. Something similar applies to many explanations of social facts, events and behaviour in terms of nature, including class differences, race differences, sexual orientation, violence, war.
In all these areas “we know better” than nature, we can improve on it, or this is the received wisdom.

We don’t know whether our view of social organization is indeed better than a more natural one. Of course, the dispute is often about what is natural, but frequently that simply shifts the question, because the sort of people who have utopias and are certain about what the best society would be are also people who defy the most compelling scientific data and reject the most overwhelming empirical evidence when these don’t conform with their own pet theories.

I think that both attitudes are wrong, or rather that this dichotomic attitude, which expresses itself in the two faces of the same coin, is wrong. There should not be an a priori value judgement about nature and what is natural, in either direction.

Each situation where we compare something “natural” with something artificial, or created by human individuals and societies, should be considered according to the particular circumstances of the case and judged accordingly.

UK Muslims back 7/7: so what's new?

2006-08-08T11:48:00.000-07:00

A 7 August 2006 survey reveals that almost a quarter of British Muslims believe the July 7 terror attacks in London, the worst the city has ever seen in its long history, were justified because of Britain's support for the war on terror.

And nearly half of the UK Muslims questioned said that the 9/11 attacks on New York were a conspiracy between the US and Israel.

The survey found Muslims under the age of 24 were twice as likely to justify the 7/7 attacks as those aged over 45.

A third of those polled said that they would prefer to live under Sharia law in the UK rather than British law.

Now the question is: what is the news value of these results?

Only if you are a liberal, a leftie or a person brainwashed by politically correct propaganda, this may seem shocking to you.

Let’s face it: the Muslims living or trying to live in the West are extremely lucky that the Western people do not know almost anything about Islam.
Ignorance is the greatest ally of the Islamic world or, to paraphrase a famous song, Western ignorance is a Muslim’s best friend.

The majority of people of Western countries, understandably, do not want to read the Koran and do not want to know about the Muslim doctrine. Who can blame them? It’s one of the most uninteresting theories ever developed, philosophically it’s a non-entity.

Unfortunately, its importance does not derive from its non-existent intellectual worth: it stems from the terrible power it holds on people who culturally and morally belong to a different age from ours, from its political significance.

Who else in the West should know anything about Islam? The media people, like all those on the left of the political spectrum, are completely naïve in their misunderstanding of the Muslim world. They erroneously believe that everybody is the same, that all humans of all races, cultures and latitudes want the same things and share the same values, which is obvioulsy not true. So they attribute to Muslims the same desires, intentions and attitudes of mind that they have, so losing any possibility of grasping the first thing about them.

One detail particularly revealing of this huge incomprehension, a funny one too, occurred when Channel 4’s Jon Snow, during the TV broadcast yesterday of his survey of UK Muslims, talked in sheer puzzlement to the camera about a Muslim bloke who had just tried to convert him to his own religion: “He tried to convert to Islam even me!” he cried, in true disbelief, as if the young chap had attempted something amazing and not simply done what was the most natural thing to him, what the Koran demands him to do with any means.

The Arabic word for the part of the world which is non Muslim, translated literally into English, means “not Islam yet”. This clearly means that, for the Koran, the whole world must become Muslim one day.

The advertisng blurb for this recent survey was “You’d better know him better” next to the picture of a Muslim lad.

But the point is: we know who Muslims are already, or at least the Western authors, political thinkers and philosophers who have not been blinded by the current media propaganda and political orthodoxy know.

Whenever some Muslim commits an atrocity, you watch the news coverage and what do you get? TV crews interviewing Muslim leaders, “scholars” and common people about whether that is the “real Islam” or “what the Koran says” or not.

But you never see or read anything in the mainstream media that shows the other side of the coin, a different opinion.

This biased, one-sided reporting is the equivalent of a situation in which some staff of a large corporation, like a multi-national for example, committed something illegal or damaging to the public health or the environment, and the only people that journalists bothered to interview, the only ones asked to voice their opinion on the matter, were the spokespersons of the company involved itself.

More on double standards, the Jews, Mel Gibson

2006-08-07T08:44:00.000-07:00

In the middle of all this “much ado about nothing” regarding Mel Gibson, a headline hits the news which, in my view, sheds a lot of light on how different religious groups are treated by the media, the politicians, the “opinion-makers” (a word that, in itself, evokes Orwellian memories of thought police).

In the UK, The Sunday Times of August 06, 2006 publishes an interview with Helen Green, a former Deutsche Bank employee in London who was shockingly awarded more than £800,000 by the High Court for the alleged bullying she suffered in her workplace.

The details of the case are irrelevant here, except for the fact that she was apparently psychologically vulnerable due to her difficult childhood and upbringing, a “fragile person” as her interviewer Jasper Gerard put it.

He goes on to say:
‘“The story of Green’s childhood and the abuse she suffered is truly tragic. She was a product of a youthful affair between her Jewish orthodox mother and an Italian; the Jewish community of Leeds was scandalised. The family forced Green’s mother to send her to a Manchester children’s home.

‘“Her family would not let me in the house,” says Green, tears welling in her brown eyes. So, aged two, she was given up for adoption to another Jewish family in Lincolnshire. Her adoptive father Edward Green (now dead) was a wealthy accountant who drove a Rolls-Royce. In 1991, Green reported that he had sexually abused her and took him to court; he was later cautioned and put on the sex offenders’ register. The anguish drove her to a breakdown and she has been estranged from the rest of her adoptive family ever since.”’

Now, look at who is a bigot here.

It’s widespread among Jews and Jewish families living in the West to oppose marriage with non-Jews, and only allowing marriage within their own group.

If you have a friend of Jewish ancestry you’ll know that. And every so often little bits of information like the one concerning the above case of Helen Green emerge.

But does anybody cry out: “It’s racist!” “It’s anti-Christian!” or the like?

But, think about it, it obviously is. It may have a long tradition and a remote historic origin, but that does not justify it.

Look at the matter-of-fact way in which the Sunday Times journalist simply reported it, without even so much as raising an eyebrow.

Do you think that if this kind of discrimination had been displayed by any Christian or, even worse, a Catholic family, the reaction would have been so accepting and tolerant? Of course not.

A strange thing happened to me on my way to the Comments...

2006-08-07T08:37:00.000-07:00

This may seem a trivial event, and in many ways it is, except that it is a symptom of a more general problem.

I found a comment to my previous post “Leave Mel Gibson alone” from someone calling herself tp gal, accusing me of having left a nasty comment on her blog, of whose very existence, in fact, I was blissfully unaware.

Apparently, on the same day of my post she had, in her own words, “posted my break up with Mel Gibson. I do believe he is sorry for what he said, and like most who error [sic!] I believe that he too will be forgiven.”. If you are wondering which woman celebrity separated from the great Mel and you try to remember any gossip you might have read on the topic, don’t. What she meant was that “he doesn't deserve any more of my money”, a terrible fate no doubt, but also (this will come as a huge consolation for Gibson) shared by Tom Cruise.

An “anonymous” user had left this comment to her Gibson post: “who gives a shit...”.

A comment with which, albeit crudely put, I would say that a lot of people could easily agree.

Offended, she tried to find the writer behind the veil of anonymity and looked at her site’s statistics logs. The problem is that she can’t understand them and she thought that the URL of the referral was the domain of the blog belonging to the comment’s writer.

So, just because somebody had visited my weblog before hers I became the culprit.
That’s how she came (jumped, rather) to the conclusion that it was me, idea that she thought confirmed when she saw that my weblog too has a Mel Gibson post.

Why do I think that this is symptomatic? Because tp gal, whoever she is, was so full of her own self-righteousness that she was too eager to condemn others without evidence or knowledge of the facts, at the same time lacking capability for self criticism.

And this is typical of the people who say the things she said about Mel Gibson, passively accepting the media’s interpretation and judgement of events and the politically correct view (or rather lack of view) of the world.

Post Scriptum. And, after she discovered her mistake, she did not even apologize. She has quite a few things to learn from Mel Gibson (a few billions, to be fair).

Leave Mel Gibson alone

2006-08-01T06:50:00.000-07:00

Mel Gibson is one of Hollywood’s finest intellects and greatest men.

The Passion of the Christ, the film he co-wrote, produced and directed in 2004, was the eighth highest-earning film in all history and the highest-earning rated R film of all time.

Mel Gibson was one of the only five actors in the history of Hollywood to win Best Director Oscars. He did so for Braveheart in 1995. That film was nominated for ten awards (including Best Costume Design, Best Film Editing, Best Original Dramatic Score, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Sound). It was a triumph and the film won five Oscars: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Cinematography, Best Makeup, and Best Sound Effects.

The accusations of anti-Semitism for the magnificent The Passion of the Christ, one of the most beautiful Hollywood films ever made, are totally unfounded and are more a sign of the bigotry of some people and of the constant paranoia surrounding the topic than anything else.

Gibson simply retold in a supremely cinematographically crafted way the story of the last twelve hours of the life of Jesus, as found in the Gospels.

This ludicrous controversy, another case of political correctness gone mad, arises from a scene which is not even in the film, the scene in which the Jewish high priest Caiaphas coaxes the unwilling Pontius Pilate, Roman governor of Judea, into executing Jesus.

When finally Pilate, exasperated, gives up and condemns the prisoner, according to the Gospel of Matthew he first shows his own lack of guilt by publicly washing his hands. The crowd then shouts: “His blood be on us, and on our children.”

This passage is one of the sources of the idea of collective Jewish guilt for the death of Jesus.

But Gibson was so eager to appease Jews that he not only did not shoot the scene as told by Saint Matthew, he even removed it altogether.

At first he filmed Caiaphas alone calling the curse down. But then Gibson’s editor, Wright, was strongly opposed to including even that version, saying: “I just think you're asking for trouble if you leave it in. For people who are undecided about the film, that would be the thing that turned them against it.”

Gibson followed that advice, but regretfully. “I wanted it in,” he says. “My brother said I was wimping out if I didn't include it. It happened; it was said. But, man, if I included that in there, they'd be coming after me at my house, they'd come kill me.”
He apparently meant organizations like the Anti-Defamation League and the Simon Wiesenthal Center, as well as certain academics.

Anyway, the whole thing is ridiculous: if this passage was in the Gospel, and the film story was the one told there, it should not have caused offence to anyone. After all, it is a Jewish crowd of the time of Jesus whose guilt we are discussing, not all Jews. It is very likely that for the Jews of Ancient Testament times, Jesus, with His extremely revolutionary ideas (so revolutionary and pioneering that we find them difficult to put into practice even 2,000 years later) did represent a threat.

I think it’s disgraceful that Gibson could not leave the original Gospel scene in the film. Have we got to the point that the Gospels have to be censored by the politically correct thought police? In Muslim countries they have the moral police; we in the West have the political police.

You can assess how strong the Jewish lobby is, if you look at this incident, involving one of those rare works of art in Hollywood cinema which was also totally innocent of the accusations, and you compare it with, for instance, the publication of the nonsensical The Da Vinci Code book and film.

Some religions are more equal than others: the existence of double standards

2006-07-31T06:47:00.000-07:00

It never ceases to amaze me how on one hand cultural products considered offensive to Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism are treated as “hate crimes”. If, God forbid, a book or a film offends Islam (and that is easy enough, because Muslims do get easily offended), on top of being labelled a hate crime it also puts author, director or producers’ lives at risk with a fatwa (in fact, a film about Islam would be even too dangerous to make).

But on the other hand to offend Christianity is “art”, as in the case of Chris Ofili's painting of the Virgin Mary covered in elephant dung and surrounded by cut-outs from pornographic magazines.

The existence of the much over-used words "anti-semitic" and "islamophobic" obviously shows that certain groups are protected by political correctness, but one group is not.

There have been many excuses put forward for Ofili's work, the most common of which have been:

1)You can attack your own religion.

No, because it is not only your religion, it is not exclusive to yourself. Many other coreligionists may be offended by something that you don't find offensive, and you have to think of its effect on them.

2) Dung is God's creation.

What about pornographic cuts? Last time I checked it was not God that created Playboy or hard core movies.
The question is one of context. It is not the human body or its products at issue here, but the association of a Christian symbol with something which has a repulsive connotation.

3) It makes people think.

Wow! So, without a product of defecation or urination slapped in front of them, people wouldn't be able to think. Whatever the persons who put forward this excuse have faith in they can't have a lot of faith in people's reflective powers.
It's possible to make people think without the "shock, horror!" techniques that someone seems to believe necessary. Incidentally, aren't they the same techniques used by popular tabloids and mags ('gutter press' they are called in England)?

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People who defend Ofili's work overlook the all-important question of communication.

We use certain words (and discard others) because we know that they convey a certain meaning to other people, that is the recipients of our communication, not to ourselves.

Communication is all about thinking of who is going to receive it and what they will make of it.

Now, art is one of the most important forms of communication.

Whether a painting is a real work of art or is art only in its producer's wishes (and wildest dreams), it doesn't alter the fact that it is a means of communication.

Whatever Ofili thinks, it should have been obvious even to a not exactly gigantic intellect like him that the majority of people who would see the painting considered elephant dung as a symbol of something totally different from Ofili's supposed and alleged original intentions.

By associating it with a symbol of Christianity, Ofili conveyed a clear message.

The message is: profanity.

Let me explain what it means, from the original Greek: it is to pollute and displace one icon with another. Now, trying to interject offensive symbology into a religion's iconography certainly is profanity. Is it profane for the culture involved, Christianity, or not? Since so many Christians protested vehemently about it, one could with certainty infer that they found it profane.

The most interesting things I read on that work by Ofili are this:

"There is contempt of the past, a senseless denial of any possibility of enduring meaning, in desecration art. Desecration art functions like the parasite; it destroys the heritage from which it draws its meaning. Ofili's piece illustrates this. The icon gives the piece meaning, yet the icon is what the piece seeks to destroy. Destroy the meaning of the icon and the meaning of the piece is destroyed with it like the parasite that dies with its host. The artist is vandal and the museum the gate to this cultural barbarism."

And this:

"Or perhaps the artist, not unlike a dirtyminded little adolescent, sought the most offensive image his little brain could contrive in order to aquire a name and hopefully wealth. Because that is what art today is really about, money. It is no different from pop culture, which is what Warhol went to all the trouble to point out."

And the central issue at stake here is that no works of "art" have done the same thorough job at desecrating fundamental symbols of religions other than Christianity.

Conversely, every time a Christian symbol is depicted in "art" now is surrounded by or associated with excreta, urine, vaginas, condoms, breasts, panties, coat hangers for abortion, phallic pipes, simulated sex acts and the like.

Women get away with murder

2006-07-27T10:40:00.000-07:00

So, it’s verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity for Andrea Yates, the woman who had killed her five children aged 7, 5, 3, 2 and 6 months, on June 20, 2001 at the family home in Texas.

Her case was covered in Tammy Bruce’s book The Death of Right and Wrong: Exposing the Left's Assault on Our Culture and Values which condemned her and the feminist establishment for supporting her.

Bruce reports other cases when “diagnoses” of pre-menstrual syndrome or postpartum psychosis had the result of letting women murderers scot-free, which makes her say: “Murdering your children isn't murder if you're a woman-it's post-partum depression”.

And notice how a similar trend is now operating in Hollywood films. This supremely politically correct industry has been producing for a few years now a number of movies where the main woman character, the “heroine”, or even sometimes more than one, commits murder to steal money, or because she was tired of her husband and her “oppressive” feminine role as a housewife, or for other such “noble” reason, and is celebrated for it in the film, which normally ends with the “heroine” getting away with murder, becoming rich and independent and, obviously, happy.

Perhaps the trend was initiated by Thelma and Louise, an obnoxious film but one in which at least the the two women criminals died in the end. But successive films have gone much further than that, allowing female murderers to escape justice and instilling in the viewers’ mind the extremely dangerous idea that women can commit murder and it’s still fine.

If in Hollywood movies men commit rape, let alone murder, you can be sure that they will not get away with it, but women who are killers will often be let off the hook.

Immigration: UK public was never consulted

2006-07-27T09:40:00.000-07:00

It’s so odd that many British politicians, especially those of the Euro-skeptic variety, always go on saying that the UK public has not been consulted regarding Britain’s position in the European Union now that the process of European integration is political and not just economical as it was when the UK held a referendum on the subject in 1975.

It’s odd because no politician ever, at least in the mainstream political parties, has ever uttered a word about another dramatically important issue affecting British people’s lives much more profoundly than the country’s European membership.

I refer to the mass immigration, legal and illegal, of so-called economic migrants as well as political refugees and asylum seekers, genuine and bogus alike, that has inundated the country with a number of people from all over the world so large and so unmanageable that nobody knows exactly what it is.

I said it’s odd but in fact it isn’t. There’s a crucial reason why the decisions about mass immigration have been taken by the various successive governments from the post-war period to now without bothering to find out what the people actually wanted.

Because politicians know extremely well that the vast majority of the British population do not want this large-scale demographic experiment performed on their own skin, as all opinion polls clearly show.

The Israeli question

2006-07-26T12:14:00.000-07:00

I agree with the majority of the British public who, according to a recent opinion poll, believe that Israel’s current use of force against Lebanon is disproportionate.

It is also true that I sometimes spot a certain double standard in the way the West condemns Israel’s violence as opposed to Hezbollah’s or other Islamic terrorists’ violence in the Middle East.

But it seems to me that the root of all problems in Palestine is the existence of a state that calls itself “Jewish”. That in itself is an act of sectarianism.

Why couldn’t Jews live in a country that does not define itself by being Jewish? There is no reason why they couldn’t.

There should be a Palestinian state, therefore defined geographically and not ethnically or in terms of a particular religion, where all citizens, Jews as well as non-Jews, have the same rights.

The two-state solution often invoked does not seem to solve the problem, only to shift it. Because, if you have two states, then you have to decide their borders and that’s when new conflicts arise. Rather than solving anything, it seems to create new problems.

Judaism in itself is a religion which has intrinsic characteristics that make it basically divisive and insular, a recipe for disaster.
How can you have a religion which is the same as an ethnic group? Religion should be a choice, not an accident of birth.

Philosophy

2006-07-26T12:03:00.000-07:00

Philosophy posts
Two ways to look at reality

Are only true beliefs effective?

What is natural and is it better?

Two ways to look at reality

2006-06-04T12:31:00.000-07:00

There are two basic ways to look at reality: scientific and non-scientific.

The scientific approach, or frame of mind, says: I’ll follow the investigation of reality wherever it takes me, even if I don’t like the results of this investigation; I’ll accept them nonetheless.

The non-scientific approach , or frame of mind, says: I have certain ideas, or convictions, which are dear to me (for whatever reason), and to me they are more important than the investigation of reality and its results; therefore, I will deny those results if they don’t fit in with my convictions.

Non-scientific people are, in politics, utopians, and in all fields are those who believe in superstitions, New Age types of theories, things like astrology, tarot reading, spiritualism and so on.

One thing needs to be added here. People allow themselves to believe all sorts of irrationalities (I don’t think that there exists any idea, however absurd, that has no believer), but only when these irrational notions do not touch something which has a direct connection with that person’s interests. There are exceptions, as usual, but this is the general rule.

Examples: people who say that they don’t believe in science still make use of all science’s applications like technology; people who say that they believe in out-of-body experiences take the car to go from point A to point B, they don’t use those out-of-body powers; people who believe in telepathy use the phone, rather than relying on their ESP powers: I could go on, but you got the idea.

In politics, we can see the non-scientific approach at work constantly. The Left and utopians in general are particularly prone to have it.

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The problem of this kind of people is that they mix and confuse two processes which should be kept separate and performed at different times, never together.

The two processes are: understanding reality (or trying to), and acting on reality.

If we want to act on reality, change it, we must first understand reality for what it is, not for what we would like it to be.

“Wishful thinking” is something generally condemned, but nonetheless indulged in continuously.

It is the way of thinking more typical of a child than an adult (magic and similar), and yet many adults have not really overgrown it.

The reason why those two processes should be kept well separate is obvious: if we let our desires, or our mental image of what reality should be, have an effect and interfere while we are still in the process of understanding what is, the resulting understanding of reality will be compromised, and cannot serve its purpose of guiding us in action later on, when we need it.

An example of this is the current attitude of the Left towards the questions of race and IQ. Many leftists wish to deny that there are genetic differences in IQ among human races, despite the overwhelming evidence in support of this; in fact, many leftists even try to deny the concept of race altogether.

And the funny thing about this is that these are the people who generally believe in the evolution theory and Neo-Darwinism, so they are in clear contradiction with themselves.

You can’t have it both ways: either there is a great scheme of things behind nature (a teleology), or there is none, and living beings are products of random processes. If you believe in the latter, you must accept that this randomness, this nature is not politically correct and may have produced human beings not in accordance with your pet theories.

I have even heard defences of that theory of genetic equality among races (that, in itself, is a contradiction in terms) that ran like: “Why should blacks have an average lower IQ than whites?”, bringing back teleology and grand design in the scientific discourse when it serves their purposes. There is no why.

Other people who should know better say: there is no connection between intelligence and skin colour.

There is no conceptual connection, but we are not talking about conceptual connection here. We are talking about genetic connection.

For example, taller humans have on average higher IQs than short humans. It is another case when, conceptually, one sees no association.

But the way genes act is by having chracteristics determined by the same gene (allele) which have no conceptual, or even functional, correlation with each other.

Here again: do you want the blind watchmaker or you don’t?

Are only true beliefs effective?

2006-06-04T10:46:00.000-07:00

I’m interested in the relationship between truth and effectiveness of a belief (or a theory).

Are true beliefs the only ones to be useful, solve problems, achieve goals?

Is there a correspondence between what is true and what is effective?

Positivism says yes (look at the relationship of correspondence between science and technology, its application).

I also say yes: historically it seems true, humankind is ever more effective and has ever more power as scientific knowledge of reality progresses.

Whenever this is not the case, it is because one acts “as if”. That is, it happens if a false belief makes one behave in the same way as a true one.

A good example is: to suffer for the death of a loved one does not serve any purpose. But if somebody says that to him/herself, it may have no effect. If, on the other hand, one thinks: “I’ll see that person again in Heaven”, s/he behaves as one who says: “Suffering serves no purpose”, even though s/he does that by following a, let’s assume, false belief, which in this case leads to the same behaviour that would be inspired by a true belief.

Sex is outside morality?

2006-06-01T06:11:00.000-07:00

“Sex raises no special moral issues at all. Decisions about sex may involve considerations of honesty, concern for others, prudence and so on, but there is nothing special about sex in this respect, for the same could be said of decisions about driving a car. (In fact the moral issues raised by driving a car, both from an environmental and from a safety point of view, are much more serious than those raised by having sex.) Accordingly this book contains no discussion of sexual morality.“

This is from the introductory pages of Practical Ethics by the influential contemporary moral philosopher Peter Singer, a leftist utilitarian with whose views, I hasten to add, I agree on other major issues, such as animal liberation and equality.

I used to believe that sex had nothing to do with ethics, long before I read Peter Singer.

I now think that I was wrong and Peter Singer still is.

The effects of the “sexual revolution” promoted by the 60s “liberation movements” have been:

1) increase in the number of single mothers and illegitimate births, with the social consequences of increases in welfare dependency, unemployment rate and crime rate, put simply a growth in the phenomenon that sociologist Charles Murray calls “the underclass”. I refer you to his books Losing Ground: American Social Policy, 1950-1980, The Underclass Revisited (AEI Studies in Social Welfare Policy), In Our Hands : A Plan To Replace The Welfare State, because these connections are well documented there, socially and statistically.

2) increase in child molestation, children's sexual abuse and pedophilia. In a world where everyone seems to be enjoying “sexual freedom”, no wonder pedophiles will be feeling that they are the only ones excluded from the party.

3) increase in teenage pregnancy

4) increase in teenage sex

5) increase in sexual transmitted diseases among children and teenagers

6) large increase in sexual trasnsmitted diseases among adults

7) creation and perpetuation of the AIDS epidemic.

How’s that for the effects of something that should raise no ethical question, from the viewpoint of a consequentialist philosopher like utilitarian Singer?

For more information on this subject, read Tammy Bruce's The Death of Right and Wrong: Exposing the Left's Assault on Our Culture and Values.
Tammy Bruce is an unusual author, in that she is a lesbian feminist, actually a former activist and leader in both gay and women’s movements in the USA, who denounces what she calls the Left Elite of which she was part before leaving in disgust.

She puts in direct connection the Left’s agenda and the homosexual and feminists movements with the repercussions of sexual freedom I listed above, of which she holds leftists responsible.

Do you have doubts whether to believe The Da Vinci Code?

2006-05-31T05:25:00.000-07:00

The Da Vinci Hoax: Exposing the Errors in The Da Vinci Code

Do you have doubts whether to believe the story of The Da Vinci Code?

Try this.
With a little intelligence, logic and thought, you may be able to solve your doubts.

Why do you think that The Da Vinci Code was intended by its author as a work of fiction?

Truth and Fiction in The Da Vinci Code : A Historian Reveals What We Really Know about Jesus, Mary Magdalene, and Constantine

For one very simple reason: because it contains accusations and claims against a real organization, the Catholic Opus Dei.

If these charges had been expressed in a declared non-fiction work (an expose, for example), the organization concerned could have sued the book’s author for libel and defamation.

Now, if the author had felt sure of his own accusations against the Opus Dei, he wouldn’t have had any trouble with this possibility of being sued, actually he would have welcomed a civil court case where his claims would be vindicated.

He obviously knew that he did not have a case against them, as it is expounded in the book.

So, he decided for the fiction label of his book.

Now, if the author had felt sure of his own accusations against the Opus Dei, he wouldn’t have had any trouble with this possibility of being sued, actually he would have welcomed a civil court case where his claims would be vindicated.

At the same time, in true gutter press hack style, he did not want truth to stand in the way of a good story.

So what did he do?

He wanted to have his cake and eat it.

He wrote a book, allegedly fiction, but by using historical figures, real organizations and true paintings as his book’s subjects, he could maintain an ambiguity that, while protecting him from possible legal actions, gave nonetheless the impression that he was talking about reality and historical events, making a gullible public believe what he wanted them to believe.

He did not have the guts to challenge his targets directly, face to face, and have his claims refuted during a civil case.

This is the work of a coward, who is afraid of a court legal action for libel and defamation, but is not afraid of spreading lies.

In fact, the parallel with tabloid gossip journalism is not coincidental. The way that book treats Jesus Christ is not very far from the way the gutter press treats celebrities.

What's wrong with The Da Vinci Code

2006-05-26T17:01:00.000-07:00

More about The Da Vinci Code.

First of all, Da Vinci is not a surname. Leonardo was illegitimate, and 'da Vinci' simply means 'of Vinci'. It's the same as writing "The of Assisi Code".

That in itself is a sign of ignorance.

Secondly, the book relies on the widespread ignorance of Christian matters among the general public. To list all the gross errors, inaccuracies, disproven hypotheses, reliance on false documents, distortions in history of art, “elaborate hoaxes”, falsified history, and so on contained in the book would take much more than a comment to a post.

Historians, art historians, archaelogists have conclusively demonstrated that the whole story of the book is a lie (you could call it a work of fiction, if it weren't for the ambiguity of its status), not a fact.

Some of this is revealed in the book below, The Da Vinci Code: Fact or Fiction? by Hank Hanegraaff and Paul L. Maier

And, if this had been a book (and film) offensive to Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, it would be considered a hate crime. If, God forbid, it had been offensive to Islam, on top of being labelled a hate crime it would also put author, director and producers’ lives at risk in fear of their lives with a fatwa (in fact, a film about Islam would be even too dangerous to make).

But to offend Christianity is “art”, as in the case of Chris Ofili's painting of the Virgin Mary covered in elephant dung and surrounded by cut-outs from pornographic magazines.

The existence of the much over-used words "anti-semitic" and "islamophobic" obviously shows that certain groups are protected by political correctness, but one group is not.

The forgotten victims: persecution of Christians in Asian and African countries

2006-05-26T16:59:00.000-07:00

What about the constant persecution of Christians in Asian and African countries?

In India alone, there have been at least 75 incidents of anti-Christian attacks so far this year.

There have been hundreds of attacks against clergy members and other Christians in the last few years in India, including murders, gang raping, bomb attacks, threats and other violence.

The Indian government does nothing about it.

In case you have not had enough of The Da Vinci Code

2006-05-24T13:22:00.000-07:00

If I want to make a lot of money by writing an absurd story with no evidence to support it, disproven by historians, art historians and archaelogists, a story intended to attack Christianity which is an easy target because it is already under siege, a story that will treat Jesus Christ in the same way that Hello! and other gossip magazines treat celebrities, what shall I do?

Wait a minute, someone else has already done it.
They have written The Da Vinci Code.

Shame! It was such a great idea!

Links

2006-05-24T12:10:00.000-07:00

Weblogs

Up Pompeii. Exposing Islamic Jihad in Britain and Europe

Get Religion

Fundamentally Right

My Learning Curve

The Politically Incorrect Mom

Liberal Implosion

Mr Minority

Real Britain

Directories and search engines
Homerweb Search

Blog Excerpts

YooFindit.com: Search Directory - Human edited internet search directory of business, shopping, health, travel, sports, games, computers and more.

Paradox of the Left

2006-05-24T11:03:00.000-07:00

We don’t know any more what is Left and what is Right in politics.

Look at the UK parties: Liberal Democrats are more left-wing than the traditionally socialist Labour, which is more right-leaning than it used to be historically, and which some people (critics? cynics?) say is more right-wing in its policies than the Conservatives.

Part of the confusion stems from the fact that the Left, whose very nature was to be anti-Establishment, is now The Establishment, having been effectively in power throughout the West since the end of the war, whether or not they are in government: they have the ideological power and influence, effectively controlling media, universities, cinema, and other powerful means to influence public opinion through the so-called “popular culture”.

There will be no more Stormings of the Winter Palace, no more revolutions, in the modern world or, at least, in that part of the world that has indeed become modern.

There will be no need for that, because whoever controls the media will be in power. And I could add: not only the old media, but also the new ones.

Politically correct insults

2006-05-24T09:20:00.000-07:00

To say things like “racist” or “fascist” has become these days the equivalent of what in the past could have been, I suppose, “sinner” or “heretic”.

I mean that they are and are meant as just insults thrown at somebody, and they don’t have any of the original meaning any more.

Their over-use and use out of context or rather in the wrong context (in the case of the modern insults) guarantee that their sense has been lost.

They are simply insults representing the current ideology (political correctness), and orthodoxy, much as perhaps the older abuse did.

They have no specific meaning. All they mean is generic. They mean: I am in the majority and you are in the minority, therefore I am right and you are wrong (because for the kind of people who use them might is right).

The nature of power

2006-05-23T11:10:00.000-07:00

Power is always held by a minority.

It is in the nature of things, of human beings, of human societies.

Democracy has been created just to limit and moderate the consequences of this, but it cannot overturn it.

Majorities are not suitable for command. First of all, the average intelligence of a great mass of human beings will never be as high as that of an elite. Secondly, a large number of people is unlikely to share the same views beyond obvious aspects of agreement, so there will be factors of internal division. Thirdly, there is an element
of amorphousness in a mass of people. It is perhaps well expressed by the terms “silent majority”. It’s uncharacteristic and unlikely that a great number of people will be determined at the unison towards any given objective, whereas a minority can be very resolute and belligerent.

I would compare a majority to a ball of paper, and a minority (or elite minority) to a sharp point of a knife or sword.

Religion

2006-05-12T14:50:00.002-07:00

Religion posts

Christianity is a crime punishable by death under Sharia law

Eastern religions are not as animal loving as commonly assumed

Religions are not the same, not even monotheistic religions

Distorted perceptions of Islamic violence

In case you have not had enough of The Da Vinci Code

The forgotten victims: persecution of Christians in Asian and African countries

What's wrong with The Da Vinci Code

Do you have doubts whether to believe The Da Vinci Code?

The Israeli question

Some religions are more equal than others: the existence of double standards

Leave Mel Gibson alone

A strange thing happened to me on my way to the Comments...

More on double standards, the Jews, Mel Gibson

UK Muslims back 7/7: so what's new?

Violence has a different definition for Muslims

Muslims are necessarily fundamentalists

Society

2006-05-12T14:50:00.001-07:00

Society posts

Welfare state, students, immigration

Relationships

Why when we say 'racism' do we think of white racism?

Sex is outside morality?

Immigration: UK public was never consulted

Women get away with murder

Culture

2006-05-12T14:50:00.000-07:00

Culture posts
Clash of civilizations?

Politics

2006-05-12T14:49:00.000-07:00

Political posts
Socialism is ethically wrong

The nature of power

Politically correct insults

Paradox of the Left

Why when we say 'racism' do we think of white racism?

2006-05-12T13:56:00.000-07:00

I found an interesting blog by an Indian in London.

It has a post entitled Dubai - Still Racist?, in which it says:

"Dubai (and the UAE) then and now is arguably one amongst the more institutionally racist places in the world with a strict hierarchy of privilege. Arabs are at the top of the heap, followed closely by Western Europeans and US (called the Whites in Dubai), Eastern Europeans, Philipinos and finally Indians and Pakistanis. The different communities were completely isolated from each other in terms of housing, schools, social clubs – it was like two different worlds – a glittering world inhabited by the Whites and the Arabs, and a more dreary one by us lot.
“…Advertisements for jobs explicitly state – "No Asians Please". Salary differentials based on nationality abound.
“…What is really interesting is that most of the younger Whites who live in Dubai often come from pluralistic, tolerant societies and are as embarrassed about the obvious racism as we are."

I find it so interesting that, when people think of racism, they almost invariably think of white racism against other ethnic groups or cultures, whereas in fact white racism is a minuscule phenomenon in comparison with the racism you find among other peoples.

Distorted perceptions of Islamic violence

2006-05-12T12:48:00.000-07:00

Towards the end of the last millennium, when the year 2000 was near, many people were asked what was in their view the most important invention of those thousand years. The majority gave answers like the television, or the computer, or the internet.

The Italian philosopher Umberto Eco answered: the cultivation of the bean, whose introduction in the Middle Ages freed the European peoples from the spectre of hunger. In an essay translated and published in the English newspaper The Guardian, he argued in favour of the "humble bean", this highly-proteic, wholesomely-nutritious vegetable.

He explained how it's easy to focus only on the most recent inventions, for the same distortion or optical illusion which is at the root of perspective in art.

I agree with him on that: closeness in time causes events near to us to appear bigger than they objectively are in relation to other events, in much the same way as closeness in space makes near things appear bigger.

Faced with the increasing threat of Islamic terrorism, people in the West have tried to understand it in terms which are near to us and our modern views of the world: Third World poverty, the so-much repeated mantra of the "widening gap between rich and poor nations", the Palestinian cause, the perceived injustice of Arab and Muslim humiliation, and similar.

Very rarely one hears or reads a commentator capable of placing this modern phenomenon into a wider temporal context, of putting it into historical perspective.

And yet it would be sufficient to listen to what some leaders of that terrorism are saying. Osama bin Laden openly refers to the West as Crusaders (as well as Zionist).

This is exactly the way the Muslim world sees us: descendants not only of the Crusaders, but also of those European states who defeated the Ottoman Empire when it was about to conquer Vienna in the 17th century. That was the moment when their seemingly never-ending expansion was put to a halt. It happened only three centuries ago: after all, it's not such a long time in the three-thousand years of history of the Western civilization. Especially, it's not such a long time for people like the Muslims. Again, time is perceived differently according to what is being done or happens during that time. Many things have happened to us, Europe in 1647 was hugely different from now; but not so many changes have happened in the Islamic world.

Welfare state, students, immigration

2006-05-12T09:24:00.000-07:00

In the UK there is a constant talk of the need for immigrants’ skills and an endless repetition of the fact that there are many necessary jobs and positions which would be left vacant without immigration.

Let’s see. Is it the number of unskilled and manual workers which is not high enough to fill the vacancies?

In that case, why are there millions of people on welfare in Britain?

In the United Kingdom, almost 5.2 million people of working age are not working and receive state hand-outs in various forms.
It is a well-known fact that the system is abused and the welfare money goes to many people who don’t or shouldn’t really need it, but that’s what happens.

And if the labour force which is needed and imported from abroad is composed of skilled, professional and intellectual workers, why are all the university students supported in their studies by the taxpayers through various public grants and loans not available to fill these positions?

Because, having removed the market as the force to influence people’s choice in university courses and careers, we end up with a great number of the university population specializing in ‘media studies’ and other subjects which are of no or little relevance to the country’s economy, while the much-needed skills are overlooked.

After all, if the state is paying for somebody’s studies, why should that person or his/her family bother so much about what course or faculty to choose? It is not an investment to consider carefully.

So, British taxpayers are in the enviable position of having to support an enormous number of unemployed unskilled or semi-skilled people because ‘there are no jobs’, having to pay for students’ education and, on top of all that, being told that they have to put up with huge figures of immigration because ‘there are not enough workers and skills in this country’.

Religions are not the same, not even monotheistic religions

2006-05-11T12:15:00.000-07:00

The often heard view that all religions are the same or, at least, the monotheistic or so-called Abrahamic religions (Christianity, Judaism and Islam) are very similar is an extremely fallacious view, with potentially deleterious consequences due to the confusion it generates.

This is another myth of our age. The belief in God is too generic to form a common basis. The Christian God is not the Muslim God, and I'm referring to the concepts of God.

To say that all religions are the same (they all involve a belief in God) is equivalent to saying that all physical theories are the same (they all deal with time and space).

A concept takes its meaning from the theory of which it is part.

So, for example, Newtonian time and space are different from Einsteinian time and space. When a new physical theory (relativity) is developed, it redefines the concepts of the old theory (classical mechanics) in a way which may completely transform and revolutionize them.

So is the same for the concept of God in different religious doctrines.

Eastern religions are not as animal loving as commonly assumed

2006-05-11T11:50:00.000-07:00

The myth that Eastern religions are animal loving is, indeed, a myth.

Compare this (fiction):

“Hindu groups are well known for promoting vegetarianism and animal rights, particularly the protection of cows.” (from The Myth of the Hindu Right webpage
http://bharatvani.org/books/civilization/partII10.htm)

with this (fact):

“Among the Hindus of Nepal, animal sacrifices are common even today, not only for the mother goddess, but also for almost all deities of the Hindu pantheon. The Hindu way of slaughtering the animal may be less painful than others, as it involves an immediate severing of the whole neck of the animal by one quick stroke of a sword or an axe (otherwise great calamities are believed to befall the sacrificer), rather than slitting of the throat.” (from Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_sacrifice)

Even Buddhism is not so kind to animals as is commonly taken for granted.

Not only did Buddha taste beef but it is well known that he died due to eating pork. Emperor Ashok, after converting to Buddhism, did not turn to vegetarianism; he only restricted the number of animals to be killed for the royal kitchen.

Clash of civilizations?

2006-05-11T11:41:00.000-07:00

Q: So, we are now facing "the clash of civilizations": the West and Islam, two civilizations which are equally great.
A: Yes.
Q: On one side, we have the civilization that gave the world democracy, the concept of rights, Roman law, Greek tragedy, Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, Galileo, Leonardo da Vinci, Newton, Einstein, Darwin, modern science, technology, Michaelangelo, Caravaggio, Raphael, Giotto, Brunelleschi, perspective in art, Picasso, Beethoven, Mozart, Vivaldi, Verdi, Homer, Virgil, Dante, Shakespeare, Euclid, Saint Peter's Basilica, the Empire State Building, Kant, Voltaire, ...
A: OK, let me stop you. We've got an idea.
Q: On the other side, we have the civilization that gave the world the Koran, a few pretty mosques, the numbers notations we use...
A: No, actually the numbers we use were invented in India. We call them Arabic only because they reached us through Arabic translations of the original Sanscript texts.
Q: Even the zero?
A: Yes, the zero as well is an Indian invention.
Q: OK, so on the other side, we have the civilization that gave the world the Koran, a few pretty mosques, and er... a few pretty mosques.

Christianity is a crime punishable by death under Sharia law

2006-05-05T11:38:00.000-07:00

The news.

Sunday, March 19, 2006.
KABUL, Afghanistan — An Afghan man who allegedly converted from Islam to Christianity is being prosecuted in a Kabul court and could be sentenced to death, a judge said Sunday.

The hypocrisy of the Muslims.

"We are not against any particular religion in the world. But in Afghanistan, this sort of thing is against the law," the judge said. "It is an attack on Islam. ... The prosecutor is asking for the death penalty."

No, they “are not against any particular religion in the world”.
Except that they consider being Christian a crime punishable by death.
That’s not being against a religion, is it?

The response of Western media.

I watched a Channel 4 report on this, that made it sound as if Abdul Rahman (this is the name of the Christian man) was mad (it reported that he was mentally ill), and as if the Afghan governement wasn’t all that bad.

Or, look at the Guardian Online:
“Don't make a martyr” is the headline, and the article by a Faisal Bodi (isn’t it a name that says it all?) says:
“Sending Abdul Rahman to the gallows would indict Islam on a charge of which it is wholly innocent.
“Nobody likes a turncoat. Whether it's a scab crossing a picket line, or a footballer joining his club's arch rivals, the consequences of defection will usually haunt them for life.
”It's a cross that Abdul Rahman, the Afghan convert to Christianity, is currently having to bear.”

By the way, the explanation for his madness could be this one, from two comments posted on Jihad Watch by the same person:
“As I noted here, the idea that Abdul Rahman is insane is a more or less clever attempt to please both the irresistable force of Afghanistan's allegiance to Sharia and the immoveable object of American presence and pressure.
Officials say the man, Abdul Rahman, will be released from custody soon.
Who will protect him from raging Sharia-minded mobs when he is freed?”
“Sarinwal Zamari may be floating this idea to extricate the Karzai government from the tight place this case has put it in. It is a common view among Muslims that only someone who is insane, corrupt or under immense pressure would convert from Islam to Christianity, so this angle will make sense to those in Afghanistan who want Abdul Rahman's blood. Likewise it will get them out of holding the trial without their having to say or do anything contrary to traditional Muslim apostasy law. This could be the perfect pirouette to allow Karzai to save face with both camps.”

Relationships

2004-12-21T13:43:00.000-08:00

Why a post on a personal matter, like relationships in couples?

Because this is a site about ideas. Ideas on many and various subjects, with something in common: I believe that they all touch important topics.

So, the themes will mainly be questions of general, social interest, like politics and ethics, but sometimes personal matters will be covered too.

For years I've believed that a relationship was something you had to work on, and you had to build it, to use a metaphor, like a house.

I now think of it more like gold. In Medieval Europe, alchemists were trying to discover the philosophers' stone, the substance which they hoped would turn all metals into gold. They obviously never did. Gold is either there or isn't. It's a given. You can't create it or build it, you can only find it if you're lucky, or not find it if you're unlucky.

Or, to remain in the house metaphor, you can build, yes, but only if you've found the right foundation for your house, a solid basis of rock or stone. If you've found a sandy terrain, there's nothing you can do to make your building a success. It will always collapse in the sand under it. And then you may say to yourself: if I hadn't put that wall in that point, if I had moved it a bit to the left, or to the right, the building would have resisted.

No, if you've built on the sand the result will always be the same: the house will not resist.

Now, that terrain which you must be lucky enough to find for your building is, in a relationship, a solid basis of compatibility between the two people which, again, is there or is not there. It may depend on many factors to do with people's backgrounds, family history, childhood, genetics, experience, choices, and the general way in which people develop their personality. This fundamental compatibility that I'm talking about obviously concerns primary, vital questions, or at least so considered by the people involved.

Obvious domains will be political ideas, ethical ideas, social behaviour, attitudes towards other people, what one expects to achieve in life, how one regards love relationships and one's expectations from them, and so on.

About fidelity, a British survey of women in 1993 found two thirds would not forgive a single act of infidelity by their partners, so the quickest and easiest way to wreck a relationship is to have sex with someone else: just once will suffice in most cases. Men are slightly more tolerant of unfaithfulness. Just over half would forgive one act of infidelity, but three out of four would walk out if it happened again.

There are huge differences between men and women when it comes to relationships generally though. For example, if it came to conflict between job and relationship, only 6% of women would put the job first and almost six out of ten would choose the relationship as the priority.

Socialism is ethically wrong

2004-12-08T15:13:00.000-08:00

The fact that communism, or even socialism, cannot be implemented in reality, is by now widely accepted; even leftists and liberals, if unhappily and grudgingly, had to surrender to the overwhelming historical evidence which has accumulated especially in the last couple of decades, showing that a socialist economy is almost a contradiction in terms, and a society based on those principles is barely feasible, and certainly not a happy one.

But hardly anyone seems to question the ethical validity of socialist ideas. In the mind of most people, they still inhabit the moral high ground.

In fact, I believe that socialism not only starts from premises which are wrong factually, but it is also wrong ethically.

First of all, let's start from explaining what wealth is. There is a common misconception that wealth is a theft of sort, that people become rich by taking from others.
I don't think that this idea began with socialism. The French libertarian socialist, or anarchist, Proudhon, famously said: "Property is theft", but I don't think that he was original in that.
No, it seems to me that, when you lack something, to blame someone else for your want is one of the simplest, most instinctive of all human impulses: envy.

The thought behind this seems to be that there's only a given, limited amount of goods, and if somebody has more, then it follows that somebody else must necessarily have less.
There's a long history of that idea, perhaps beginning with humanity itself, through Robin Hood to modern-day socialists.

It is a misconception, due to a failure to understand the nature of wealth.
Wealth is essentially created, not given.
If anybody is in any doubt about it, they just have to think of these two peoples: the Arabs of the Persian Gulf area and the Swiss.
Nature has given an enormous wealth to the first, in the form of oil (although the reason why oil is "black gold" has to do with the huge economic and historical development of the West, and the need of Western societies for it). And yet the countries of the Gulf are among the least developed, the poorest of the globe economically, let alone in every other sense.
The second live in an extremely hard habitat, a region of high mountains very unsuitable, on the face of it, to human settlement and economic prosperity. Still, the Swiss have the highest per capita income in the world.

It is obviously the use that both these populations have made of their natural resources that has made them rich or poor, not those resources in themselves. And that use stems from a conscious choice of those people, which in turn comes from their mindset, their way of thinking.

And here we go to another of the things that Marx got wrong. Where did Marx go wrong? In many, many fundalmental parts of his theory, in many of his hypotheses.

The Christian concept of free will is not only correct, but useful and effective.
Psychoanalysis and Marxism have both done a lot of damage, they are both highly destructive ways of thinking.

It's true that most individual human beings only use a little part of their potential. That doesn't imply the flattering idea, which has sometimes been expressed, that everybody is potentially an Einstein or a hidden genius.
It just means that most human beings don't realize how much control they can have on their lives, how much difference a choice rather than another can make on one's destiny.

What do you believe that The Da Vinci Code is?
A load of rubbish A great novel It's only fiction, and badly written too It's historical truth An utter and total bore
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