Saturday Night is fast approaching.
I’m ready to crack open a can….
I have only one strategy… ‘Atomisation’.
Better to be a Hammer than a Nail!
Psychoactive Substances Bill – First Reading
Smoothing the pillow of a dying institution
It’s all very well for the government to redefine marriage, but what then becomes of the heterosexual institution formerly known as marriage?
Clearly, marriage as it is now—the union of a man and a woman—is a subset of marriage as it will be—the union of a man and a woman, a man and a man, or a woman and a woman. Traditional marriage will be assimilated and its cultural identity lost.
Apologists for Louisa Wall’s Marriage (Definition of Marriage) Amendment Bill are now smoothing the pillow of a dying institution.
But rest assured, traditionalists! Traditional marriage will rebound. And a hundred years or so from now, we’ll have our very own, government mandated and government funded traditional marriage television channel!
Kia kaha!
Should we shout? Should we scream?
RIP Margaret Thatcher.
Going viral
Copyright is the freedom to choose, says Peter Cresswell.
No, it’s not.
War is NOT peace, ignorance is NOT strength, and copyright is NOT the freedom to choose.
Copyright is the government telling you what songs you can and cannot sing in the shower.
This video, produced by the Copyright Alliance, is Orwellian bullshit.
Copying a tune to your medium of choice is like catching the flu on public transport.
Once an artist releases a song, the song is out there, like a virus.
The Metaphysics of the Miraculous
[Article by Mark I Rasskazov, Editor in Chief of the Transegoist Daily Journal. Syndicated.]
The Metaphysics of the Miraculous
My metaphysical model is monism, which means that I believe that there is one reality, and that everything in it is subject to a single set of physical laws (the Standard Model of Physics — until something better comes along). Now, most monists do not believe in miracles. Why? Because the term “miracle” typically denotes something which is supernatural — i.e., something which defies the laws of physics; something which requires that we appeal to metaphysical dualism: the idea that there are two planes of existence; a physical one, and a separate one, a spiritual one, which can override the physical.
The majority of people who believe in the existence of a Deity (or deities) accept some dualistic metaphysical model. I believe in God, and I accept a monistic model. I also believe in miracles. Is this a contradiction? No; but I’ve had to manipulate the concept of “miracle” somewhat.
It has been said: “That which seems miraculous is actually merely the unexplained.”
I consider that statement to be accurate.
I add one twist:
That which is, admittedly, physically explicable, yet is clearly not coincidental must be considered to be miraculous.
The Ten Plagues of Egypt can be explained as a severe natural disaster. Does that mean that it is coincidence that it happened to occur just as the time was right for the Israelis to leave?
The parting of the Red Sea in the book of Exodus has been explained as being the result of comet activity. Does this mean that it is coincidental that it occurred just as it began to look like the children of Israel had their backs against the wall?
When the Israelis arrived at the Promised Land, on two separate occasions, the walls of a city they were attacking spontaneously crumbled at a strategically advantageous moment. This could have easily been the result of seismic activity. Coincidence?
I think not.
What I think is that this entire universe is a magnificent machine, which operates in a flawless, albeit brutal and bittersweet manner.
God does have love for mankind. That’s not to say that He’s very nice. He’s not.
God’s miracles are physical events that He has set into motion long beforehand.
In that sense, inasmuch as God is sovereign, every waking moment that you experience is a clear and present miracle.
Do not squander the beautiful and terrifying miracle that is your life.
Is God unjust?
What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! For he says to Moses,
“I will have mercy on whom I have mercy,
and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”
It does not, therefore, depend on human desire or effort, but on God’s mercy. For Scripture says to Pharaoh: “I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.” Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.
One of you will say to me: “Then why does God still blame us? For who is able to resist his will?” But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’” Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for special purposes and some for common use?
What if God, although choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction? What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory— even us, whom he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles? (NIV)
You’re no fun(ction) any more
This post continues the discussion on Tim’s post The Ludicrous Claims of Evolution! Why not ESP?
In comments on Tim’s post, Terry (who is both an Evolutionist and an Objectivist) says
a camera is NOT an eye (nor is an audio recorder an ear, etc). A camera is a piece of equipment used to record images, whereas an eye is an organ of sight. The former mimics the functions of the latter, but apart from that they are worlds apart.
simply because human technology [has] been built so as to mimic certain biological functions does not justify grounds for claiming that the reverse applies and that biology can therefore ‘possibly’ mimic human inventions via the process of evolution. … Evolution is not a creative process – it is an entirely responsive process, which means that new functionality only develops and is maintained in response to the need to survive.
Terry has just committed Objectivism’s “stolen concept” fallacy and violated a fundamental tenet of Evolutionism! Doubleplusungood!
According to Evolutionism, there are no biological functions. The eye, for example, is an organ of sight, but the eye has no purpose. Its function is not to see. It has no function.
According to Evolutionism, there are no biological malfunctions, either. A blind eye, by definition, is not an organ of sight. A blind eye has not malfunctioned, because there is nothing it is supposed to do. An eye has no purpose to be fit for.
If it’s the case that the eye was designed for a purpose, as Creationists claim, then we can say that the function of the eye is to see, and that there is something wrong with an eye that does not see. It ain’t doing what it’s supposed to do, and if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch. But Evolutionism is quite explicit that no biological organ is designed for any purpose. As Dawkins says
Biology is the study of complicated things which give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose
and, as Terry himself puts it, “Evolution is not a creative process – it is an entirely responsive process.”
Evolution according to Evolutionists is a blind, stochastic process. Any appearance of design, purpose or function is just an appearance. The reason that we have eyes that see is simply because having eyes that see helped our ancestors to survive. But eyes do not, in virtue of their evolutionary history, ever acquire a purpose or a proper function.
All talk of biological functions is pre-Darwinian. Consistent Evolutionists should not talk of biological functions. If they do, they must explain that their use of the word ‘function’ is just shorthand for facts about an organism’s evolutionary history. If they don’t, they are guilty of Ayn Rand’s stolen concept fallacy.
The “stolen concept” fallacy, first identified by Ayn Rand, is the fallacy of using a concept while denying the validity of its genetic roots, i.e., of an earlier concept(s) on which it logically depends.
The concepts of ‘function’ and ‘purpose’ logically depend on the concept of a Creator. They are pre-Darwinian. Evolutionists have no right to use them.
Impending Doom! Paranoid.
I have the feeling of impending doom.
It occurred to me that the time is ripe and odds are something big or a series of events are going to happen and it will conveniently play straight into Satan’s hands.
Another mass school shooting? A bunch of them?
Something is bound to happen that will make the sheeple beg for absolute tyranny… and when they think they have peace and safety…. sudden destruction will come.
I say this because Western civilisation is perched on the Brink.
And the powers that be are ready and waiting…so that when the poo enevitibly hits the fan that they have the advantage.
They may not orchestrate the event… Satan will take care of that! Yet they are poised and ready to take full advantage of any chaos to expand their grip on power.
I’m not a Seer… yet all the Augeries bode ill!
It’s my Paranoid intuition….
April 5 Sux.
April 5 1994 Kurt Corbain Died.
April 5 2002 Layne Stanley Died.
Update: 5-5-16
On this day in 1994 and 2002 the world lost two rock legends. RIP Kurt Cobain and Layne Staley.
Posted by The Rock on Monday, April 4, 2016