A Return to Virtue

By Douglas Kern
National Review Online

Farewell to “The Ethicist.”

Nincompoops talk ethics. Men talk virtues. Stop being a nincompoop.
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Once you realize that contemporary ethics is not morality but the clever simulation of morality, you’re halfway to qualifying for an ethics-consulting job.
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Modern ethics is what’s left when trust has completely evaporated between leaders and the led. Whether it’s zero-tolerance school-violence policies that get kids arrested for drawing pictures of guns, draconian anti-pedophile policies that get priests bounced on the strength of an accusation, mandatory sentencing laws that put potheads in the slammer for life, or anti-touching school policies that outlaw hugs, the theme is the same: authority doesn’t trust you, you don’t trust authority, so let’s invent some rules that make no sense but sound good while eliminating any possibility that human discretion or common sense can penetrate our ethical paradise. To badly mangle Eliot, modern ethics is a system of morality so universally applicable that no one needs to be good. Was ever a compliment more damning than “He’s an extraordinarily ethical fellow?” Don’t leave your wallet or your wife around extraordinarily ethical fellows.

A real system for determining right and wrong requires commonly held first principles and leadership with the acknowledged authority to interpret and apply those principles. That kind of agreement is in short supply these days. In modern societies where people adhering to all sorts of creeds regularly interact in order to make money, principles and dogma will tend to take a backseat to rough ‘n ready codes of conduct – and modern ethics is nothing if not rough ‘n ready. Morality is for heroes; modern ethics is for sophisters, economists, and calculators. We tolerate modern ethics, as we tolerate sophisters, but they should both know their place, and neither should command great love or respect. (more)

The Who? What? Where? When? and Why? of the Emerging Church

By Matt Jenson
Scriptorium Daily

Too many conversations on this subject begin, ‘What exactly is the emerging church?’ The response is some variation on, ‘Um…well…it’s sort of…well, it’s hard to pin down.’ This is true enough of any new movement, and more than true of the choir (or, as it seems at times, the cacophony) of voices that make up the emerging ‘conversation’. In part, this reflects the still-converging nature of things emergent. Over the next few weeks, I’ll post some thoughts about the emerging church. Most will be in the form of dispatches from the front. (more)

A Message On Stem-Cells: The End Does Not Justify the Means!

By J. P. Moreland
Scriptorium Daily

Suppose a serial rapist is active in a major city. As a result, many are needlessly worried because the odds of their harm are miniscule. Due to unnecessary worry, scores of women needlessly limit their activities and a small number of divorces take place from the tension throughout the city. Under these conditions, it could easily produced worthy results (including saving lives) if the police caught and punished an innocent homeless man, kept it a secret and continued to look for the real criminal. This would deter criminals by sending a message of police competency. It would calm numerous people who are needlessly worrying and, in turn, prevent other harmful effects like broken homes. Remember, the police will keep all of this a secret, continue to look for the real rapist, and if caught, frame him for a different crime. No one will know the difference. Punishing an innocent man could produce the best outcome available. But no matter how useful, it is wrong to punish an innocent man in this way. When it comes to right and wrong, the end just does not justify the means and we all know it.

Now consider a second scenario. It is well known that the Nazis kept in storage various body parts from Jewish corpses, things such as hair, skin, and teeth. After Hitler’s defeat, suppose a cure for cancer could be found if medical researchers were allowed to experiment on these parts. Would this be right? After all, think of the good that would result. But the end does not justify the means, and such research would be morally repugnant. Why? If certain items are achieved through morally repugnant means, then those items are morally tainted. It is wrong to use them even for a good result. Such an act is duplicitous, it brings benefit by means of great evil and it shows disrespect for the dead humans and their hideous murder. (more)

Scientist Implicates Worms in Global Warming

From ShortNews.com

The organic food/produce and compost loving tree huggers must now face their hypocrisy for accusing the freedom loving, fossil fuel burners for ushering in the global warming era.

Jim Frederickson, the research director at the Composting Association has called for data on worms and composting to be re-examined after a German study found that worms produce greenhouse gases 290 times more potent than carbon dioxide.

Worms are being used commercially to compost organic material and is in preference to putting it into the landfill. The German government wants 45% of all waste to be composted by 2015.

"Everybody... thinks they can do no harm but they contribute to global warming. People are looking into alternative waste treatments but we have to make sure that we are not jumping from the frying pan into the fire," said Frederickson.

What does Athens have to do with Jerusalem?

By John Mark Reynolds
Scriptorium Daily

Paganism and pagan philosophy never recovered from Paul’s message. When Paul begins his sermon by saying that he perceives that the men of Athens are very religious he is placing a wedge between the popular religion of Delphi and the religion of the persons on Mars Hill. Paul decries the idols in the city of Athens. Since Luke intentionally points out that Stoics and Epicureans are present, and Paul will quote a Stoic poet Aratus, the reader can be sure Paul knows that the Stoics are not idol worshipers. In fact, Luke is at pains to show Paul’s erudition as he also has the Apostle quote Epimenides, a sage of the sixth century. So at the very start of the speech, the compromise with Delphi is exposed and used by Paul to make a point. No Epicurean or Stoic believes in idols, but over their shoulders looms the great temple of Athena and all around them is a city given over to the worship of objects made of matter.
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If there is a God, then no temple can hold Him. He also creates all things and provides a basis of unity for all men who are His children. Paul is establishing points of agreement between his gospel and some of the philosophies of the Greco-Roman world. There is nothing in this sermon thus far that would have offended or even educated a good neo-Platonist or Stoic. Paul’s statement that the God is “creator” might have been controversial if it were understood as Paul meant it, but both Plato and the Stoic philosophers demonstrate that they would use language of “creation” even if they did not believe in a literal first moment in time or creation out of nothing.

Paul’s discussion that men are called to seek God with the hope of finding Him has Socratic echoes. Paul recognizes that there is a quest for the Divine and does not believe that this quest can be ended by any human effort. Instead this knowledge will come as a product of divine revelation an idea that Plato seemingly allows for in construction of the liver in Timaeus. Four centuries of interaction with philosophy had now proven beyond a doubt to the Greco-Romans on Mars Hill, man is not only political, not only desires to know, but he is also religious. Man wishes to know God. Paul has not found God, but God has found Him.

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The philosophical integrity of the Athenians saved some of them from missing Paul’s message. Paul argued well and many wanted to hear more of his message. In this sense, they were the pagan equivalents of the Berean Jews who sought out the truth of Paul’s message in the Sacred. The main group well positioned to hear Paul would have been the neo-Platonists. These thinkers could allow for the personal survival of a human soul for all eternity. (Phaedo) They had access to creationist language in Timaeus. They had a notion of a final judgment in the Republic’s myth of Er. The unity of humankind was not foreign to them.

What did they lack? They had not concept of the God becoming man and then providing a way for man to become like God. The idea of the Incarnation linked to theosis (man becoming like God) was exciting. That the divine Creator should “appoint a man” to judge the world at the Day of Doom and by doing so raise this man to divinity was beyond novel. In many ways, the Christology that lies behind this part of Paul’s remarks, uniting the Divine logos with man forever is the answer to the dilemma of Plato’s Cave. It is no shock that at least some of the persons on Mars Hill came to faith quickly. In the conversion of Dionysus the Areopagite, we see the model of the Christian Greco-Roman world to come.

We began this tour in the church of the Holy Wisdom in Constantine’s city. There the happy marriage of Athens and Jerusalem came to a great culmination (though not the final one!) in a work of profound philosophy expressed in stone. That Byzantine Empire has fallen to other masters, but other churches in other nations can carry on its work. We can create little expressions of Holy Wisdom all over the world thanks to that small Jewish man from Tarsus, Paul, and his day on Mars Hill. (more)

Politics and the English Language

By George Orwell

Most people who bother with the matter at all would admit that the
English language is in a bad way, but it is generally assumed that we
cannot by conscious action do anything about it. Our civilization is
decadent, and our language--so the argument runs--must inevitably
share in the general collapse. It follows that any struggle against
the abuse of language is a sentimental archaism, like preferring
candles to electric light or hansom cabs to aeroplanes. Underneath
this lies the half-conscious belief that language is a natural growth
and not an instrument which we shape for our own purposes.

Now, it is clear that the decline of a language must ultimately have
political and economic causes: it is not due simply to the bad
influence of this or that individual writer. But an effect can become
a cause, reinforcing the original cause and producing the same effect
in an intensified form, and so on indefinitely. A man may take to
drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the
more completely because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is
happening to the English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate
because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language
makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts. The point is that the
process is reversible. Modern English, especially written English, is
full of bad habits which spread by imitation and which can be avoided
if one is willing to take the necessary trouble. If one gets rid of
these habits one can think more clearly, and to think clearly is a
necessary first step towards political regeneration: so that the fight
against bad English is not frivolous and is not the exclusive concern
of professional writers. (more)

Population and Poverty

By Michael Miller
Acton Institute Commentary

Of course the common perception is that population growth causes poverty, so reducing population should also reduce poverty. But the facts do not bear this out. Neither do basic economics.

The idea that population growth causes poverty comes from the ubiquitous zero-sum-game fallacy: the idea that the economy is a pie with only so much to go around. But the economy is not a pie -- economies can grow, and population growth can actually help development. A growing population means more labor, which along with land and capital are the main factors of production.

Behind much of the zero-sum thinking concerning population is the theory of Thomas Malthus, who in 1798 predicted the earth was heading for an impending food shortage because population was growing geometrically while the food supply was only increasing arithmetically. Thus, he predicted that the number of people would soon outstrip the food supply and lead to mass starvation by about 1850. Among his mistakes was the failure to account for technology -- a product of human creativity.

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Despite the evidence, the World Bank continues lavishing American tax dollars on population control when that money could be put to better use on such things as infrastructure, telecommunications, and fighting corruption. Perhaps the World Bank has become captive to ideologues more concerned with the eugenic visions of Planned Parenthood than with actually helping families climb out of poverty.

Literally billions of dollars have been spent to reduce populations in developing countries, but have yielded no real economic progress. We know the factors that create economic growth and development: consistent rule of law for all citizens, property rights, sensible regulation, and a culture that encourages and rewards entrepreneurial behavior. These traits have never existed perfectly anywhere on earth, but the degree to which they have been present reflects the degree to which prosperity has been achieved. Conversely, where they remain absent -- as in much of the developing world today -- poverty and misery are found in their stead.

Many of the same people who protest the “cultural imperialism” of multi-national corporations like McDonalds, Coca-Cola and Wal-Mart vigorously support forcing the Western, secular sexual morality of contraception and abortion on women in Latin America, Africa and Asia -- many of whom view them as moral evils and a violation of their dignity. (more)

Adolescent Intellectuals

By Thomas Sowell
Human Events

The truly dangerous period in life is the time when the child has learned the limits of his parents' control, and how to circumvent their control, but has not yet understood or accepted the underlying reasons for doing and not doing things. This adolescent period is one that some people -- intellectuals especially -- never outgrow.

The widespread and fervent use of the word "liberation" in a wide variety of contexts is one of the signs of the adolescent belief that only arbitrary rules and conventions stand in the way of doing whatever we want to do. According to this vision of the world, the problems of all sorts of individuals and groups -- women, minorities, homosexuals, children -- are to be solved by liberating them from the restraints of laws, rules, conventions and standards.
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Some of the painful consequences of various "liberations" that began in the 1960s have included the disintegration of families, skyrocketing crime rates, falling test scores in school, and record-breaking rates of teenage suicide.
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The left has never understood why property rights are a big deal, except to fat cats who own a lot of property. Through legislation and judicial rulings, property rights have been eroded with rent control laws, expansive concepts of eminent domain, and all sorts of environmental restrictions.

Some of the biggest losers have been people of very modest incomes and some of the biggest winners have been fat cats who are able to use political muscle and activist judges to violate other people's property rights.
Politicians in cities around the country violate property rights regularly by seizing homes in working-class neighborhoods and demolishing whole sectors of the city, in order to turn the land over to people who will build shopping malls, gambling casinos, and other things that will pay more taxes than the homeowners are paying.

That's why property rights were put in the Constitution in the first place, to keep politicians from doing things like that. But the adolescent intellectuals of our time have promoted the notion that property rights are just arbitrary rules to protect the rich.
Many academics and federal judges are sufficiently insulated from reality by tenure that they never have to grow up. (more)

Divergence In the Gospels

By Mark Shea

It is often objected that the Gospels contain variations, that every variation is a “contradiction,” and that such “contradictions” mean the Gospels are historically worthless.
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Did the Titanic pop its rivets or tear a hole in her side? Did she split in two at the surface as some witnesses said or did it happen just as she sank? What about the “mystery ship” that was nearby? Was Mr. Ismay a coward for getting in a lifeboat? Why did nearby ships not come to the rescue?

The list of curiosities and “discrepancies” in the record surrounding the Titanic is a much-loved pastime for disaster buffs.

But only a fool would conclude from this, even after 2,000 years, that there was no Titanic and that she did not strike an iceberg and sink on April 15, 1912. These are the main lines of the story on which everybody agrees.

In the same way, what impresses anybody who reads the New Testament without a set determination to look for loopholes is how the whole body of witnesses to the story of Christ all agree on the main lines of their story. Indeed, what is truly remarkable is that one does not even need the Gospels to reconstruct the essential events to which the community bears witness. It’s all there in the epistles long before the Gospels are written.

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The point is this: Paul is writing his Last Supper account in the early 50s. This means the memories of the community he is drawing on have been set in liturgical concrete very quickly after the events they commemorate (barely 20 years prior).

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If the witnesses to these events went on to lives of persecution, poverty, exile, wandering, opprobrium and martyrdom for their testimony, normal people would not object, “Well, the record is unclear if there were two shots or three at Dealey Plaza. And newspapers of the period clearly said Dewey won. So clearly JFK and Truman never existed.”

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Bottom line: The same standards we apply to any other testimony apply to the Gospels. If witnesses substantially agree that the Titanic sank or JFK was shot or that we landed on the moon or that Jesus existed, then discrepancies between them only serve to show that people are people, not that the whole thing never happened. (more)

'In What Way Am I a Criminal?'

By Alvaro Vargas Llosa
TCS Daily

This is what some say about our immigration problem. Mr. Llosa seems to allow his emotion to overwhelm his good judgment, morality, and sense of justice. He forgets that this issue doesn't only concern the illegal immigrants but all who are affected by them, including national security and the justice system. A thief is a thief whether he is rich or poor. A con artist is a con artist whether he is wealthy or destitute. The appropriate solution is not to make a hero out of him because of what he might have gone through to become one.