...Consider the possibility that man is to God as a dog is to a man, and a dog is to man as a flea is to a dog; i.e., the man, the dog, and the flea, who are merely tagging along for the ride, have neither the faintest idea as to why their masters do what they do nor the means to ever understand why.

The question then becomes: Is God indifferent to us, as the dog is to the flea, or does he allow us to suffer for reasons we do not understand? When someone takes his dog to the veterinarian, the dog has no idea why his master allows pain to be inflicted on him. In the same way, perhaps, God doesn't always give us what we want, but he knows what we need.

Robert Ringer

Hat Tip: Right Wing News via Conservative Grapevine

Civilization is not an evolution of mankind but the imposition of human good on human evil. It is not a historical inevitability. It is a battle that has to be fought every day, because evil doesn't recede willingly before the wheels of progress.

Andrew McCarthy

There's been much talk recently about the Somali pirates. It is heartening to hear that the pirates got what they deserved. But I am completely baffled that a handful of pirates in a lifeboat with one hostage managed to hold off three American warships for four days.

And not only that, but the hostage actually escaped, giving the Navy a window of opportunity to sink their little dinghy. Do destroyers not have cannons these days?!

What is it that has paralyzed our society in the face of danger? It's not just pirates off the coast of Africa. It's gangs in the inner city and drug lords in Mexico. Why do we tolerate crime and destruction and anarchy?

There are sections of the city not two miles from my house I would not venture through except in a group, and wouldn't enter at night even with an armed party. Is this normal?

Civilization is the restriction of human behavior. When we remove those restrictions, when we no longer restrain ourselves, no longer enforce restrictions on those who will not restrain themselves, civilization falls. A society that tolerates murder, ignores theft, and encourages sloth cannot be called civilized. Such brings decay. An inner city ghetto in America is better off, I think, than Somalia, but the lawlessness is the same. I wouldn't go into either.

We've let men like this take over whole neighborhoods. When really they ought to stuck on a pike in the village square. (Pirates should be hung from the yardarm. There are traditions for these things, after all.)

Hat Tip: Mark Steyn, via Conservative Grapevine

The topic we were discussing in men's Bible study the other day was moral law. One of the sticking points was whether moral law comes from an outside source, or whether it is made up by society. Obviously, Christians believe that moral law comes from an outside source; God. Whereas evolutionists and many other scholars believe that moral law is made up by society.

Where Calvinball comes in is with an analogy that was used to describe moral law. In almost all games, the rules are made up by an outside source. The players don't make up the rules as they go. Nor do they even agree on the rules before the game starts. The rules exist from beforehand, whether in basketball or Monopoly, and the players are expected to follow them. This is our outside source. The rules of play are created by some external entity and anyone who wants to play the game follows those rules.

In Calvinball, however, the players make up rules as they go. Rules are invented and disbanded at whim. This is the evolutionary theory, where people make up rules to progress themselves, and eventually eliminate them when they are no longer useful.

Both approaches to games are possible. You and your buddies can make up your own rules and have a great time. Or you can play an existing game and have a great time. But in real life, the question is whether moral law is absolute or relative. For it to be absolute, it must come from an outside source. And by outside, I mean outside of humanity. Any objective standard is external to the thing being measured.

With relative moral law, we can invent and modify right and wrong however it suits us. But in a dispute, whose right and wrong do we use? Whoever has the bigger stick. If right and wrong are social constructs, then whoever has the power to enforce the standard gets to set the standard. But if the standard changes, it's not really standard.

Which is shiny and all, but it doesn't really tell us which of these theories is correct. Either we're all playing basketball, even if we don't know the rules and are inclined to cheat, or we are playing Calvinball, and only use rules we like.

Maybe I should go read some more Calvin & Hobbes and see what other theology I can discover.

Hot chicks. With lightsabers. Need I say more?

Hat Tip: House of Eratosthenes

We traded beauty for ugliness, truth for lies, liberty for comfort, love for indifference, responsibility for frivolity, duty for entertainment, history for sound bites, and children for pleasure. We had gold, but we tossed it aside and replaced it with cleverly designed dross. We turned men into women and women into men and marveled at our new creative power. We stopped looking up to Heaven and began to keep our gaze firmly fixed on the ground. We abandoned the old God for a host of hip, cool and slick new ones.

The Return of Scipio

Everything that is wrong with society.

Hat Tip: House of Eratosthenes