I think you believe in many more conspiracies than I do.

Chasby, 

It wigs you out a little when I key on a phrase which is sometimes tangential to the main point of an article you send.  If I am not careful you will think this is such a case.

Let me assure you I understand what Dinesh is saying.  He says if you believe in a secular world there is no absolute morality, so it is proper to think that man is just the same as other animals, there is nothing wrong with killing the infirm or the unborn…etc etc etc.  Dinesh sees these conclusions to be anathema and so he goes to reject the premise:  that God does not exist.   He challenges liberals in general to admit they hail this guy and stand behind him, because if they do then in this framework they must endorse immoral acts.

I will neither endorse nor denounce Singer since I know so little him.  His story and thinking is, no doubt, more complex then Dinesh suggests, just like the Wright story is more complex than what you get from Hannity. 

Now on to my “tangential phrase”….

Dinesh associates atheism with what he calls “free market homicide”, but he does slip in this zinger.  Singer's Darwinian atheism.   How is Darwin even relevant here?  Darwin’s theory has something to do with how life evolved on the planet.  There is no statement in evolution regarding infanticide or euthanasia.  You know that, I know that.  Dinesh is convoluting separate and distinct ideas to defame a scientific theory.  The theory is not his main target of course.  Damaging a scientific theory is collateral damage in his war against liberals.  Ben Stein does much the same thing in his movie convoluting “darwinism” and the nazis.  

I love the word “Darwinism”.  I think we should have other words: “Newtonism” , “Einsteinism” “Heisenbergism”.  This is not entirely facetious.  Every time a new scientific paradigm is created it gets bastardized in the culture in so many ways.  F=MA leads to some deistic idea that God created a big magnificent clock and sits back to watch its intricate mechanisms.  Einstein comes along and suddenly morality is “relative”.  Every thing depends on the observer and his frame of “moral reference”.  After Heisenberg everything is “unknowable”.  If you describe the evolution of life then you must be atheistic.  It doesn’t follow.  NONE OF IT DOES.

It is all crazy.  The simple fact is the purpose of a scientific theory is to predict the results of experiments.  It is the first lecture that you hear in a quantum mechanics course.  I know.  I took three of them.  All of this business, this extension of the descriptions of electrons and fields, to society or religion or morality is all so much BS.  Science is science.

Dinesh at his heart is saying if you believe in evolution then you have to accept “Darwinian atheism” and THEN you have to accept euthanasia and free market homocide.  Is it true that…. If you accept “newtonism” you have to be a Deist.  If you accept relativity then you have to accept moral relativism.  Of course not, but it’s a lot easier than talking about tensors, genetics and particles moving backwards in time.

Feynman gave a talk to laymen about quantum electrodynamics in Australia.  He began by telling his audience that they were not going to understand what he was about to say.  He said that he was sure of this because HE didn’t understand what he was about to say.  NOBODY understands QED, your humble servant included. Nobody understands the theory.  The theory is ONLY useful because it allows us to predict the results of experiments.  Nobody understands, except Dinesh.  Without reading a single text on evolution he can show the hidden links between Darwinism and so many evil practices.    For Dinesh the ability to predict the results of experiments is nothing, genocide and infanticide is what it is REALLY all about.  So evolution must be wrong.  I guess moral relativism isn’t quite evil enough to prove “einsteinism” to be false.

Me?   I prefer to get my science from scientists and my politics from liberals.

Michael

Atheism and Child Murder
Dinesh D'Souza
Monday, May 12, 2008

Peter Singer is a calm, lucid and able debater, and our debate at Biola University in Los Angeles on April 25 was lively and hard-fought. Not for nothing is Singer considered a world-class philosopher and advocate.  To watch the debate go to dineshdsouza.com and click on my AOL blog.

Singer praised me for not simply making assertions of faith or hurling Bible passages at him but rather for using reason and argument to make my case . And I complimented Singer for stepping, so to speak, into the lion's den. (Biola actually stands for Bible Institute of Los Angeles.) Unlike the pusillanimous Richard Dawkins, who doesn't dare to debate me even at his home campus of Oxford, Singer was brave to come to a Christian campus to dispute the resolution "God: Yes or No." The audience of 3,000 was mostly though not exclusively Christian.

So perhaps atheism has found an able advocate. But unbelievers may want to think twice before lining up behind Singer, who argues in favor of infanticide, euthanasia and (this is not a joke) animal rights! One of Singer's interesting proposals concerns what may be called "fourth trimester" abortions, i.e. the right to kill one's offspring even after birth!

Here are some choice Singer quotations on the subject which I get from his books Rethinking Life and Death and Writings on an Ethical Life.

On how mothers should be permitted to kill their offspring until the age of 28 days: "My colleague Helga Kuhse and I suggest that a period of twenty-eight days after birth might be allowed before an infant is accepted as having the same right to life as others."

On why abortion is less morally significant than killing a rat: "Rats are indisputably more aware of their surroundings, and more able to respond in purposeful and complex ways to things they like or dislike, than a fetus at ten or even thirty-two weeks gestation."

On why pigs, chickens and fish have more rights to life than unborn humans: "The calf, the pig, and the much-derided chicken come out well ahead of the fetus at any stage of pregnancy, while if we make the comparison with a fetus of less than three months, a fish would show more signs of consciousness."

On why infants aren't normal human beings with rights to life and liberty: "Characteristics like rationality, autonomy and self-consciousness...make a difference. Infants lack these characteristics. Killing them, therefore, cannot be equated with killing normal human beings."

In my opening statement I showed the profound connection between Singer's Darwinian atheism and his advocacy of infanticide and euthanasia. Remarkably Singer responded by saying he didn't come to debate his bioethical views! Rather, he wanted the debate to focus exclusively on the question of whether God exists or not. I didn't want this to be a debate in which Singer and I ended up talking on completely different subjects, so I engaged him on his chosen ground.

Even so, I was disappointed that Singer wouldn't stand up for the opinions that have made him famous, or infamous. Our topic resolution was broad enough to permit a discussion both of the existence of God and also of the social implications of the theist and the atheist positions. I view Singer's work as exploring the consequences of living in a truly secular society, devoid not only of the Christian God but also of Christian morality.

So while Christianity introduced into Western civilization the concept of dignity of human life, Singer explicitly says we have to get rid of this outdated concept. He contends that God is dead and we should recognize ourselves as Darwinian primates who enjoy no special status compared to the other animals. In the animal kingdom, after all, parents sometimes kill and even devour their offpsring. Singer argues that the West can learn from the other cultures like the Kalahari where children are routinely killed when they are unwanted, even when they are several years old.

Some of Singer's critics call him a Nazi and compare his proposals to Hitler's schemes for eliminating the unwanted, the unfit and the disabled. But as I note in the debate, Singer is no Hitler. He doesn't want state-sponsored killings. Rather, he wants the decision to kill to be made by you and me. Instead of government-conducted genocide, Singer favors free-market homicide.

Given the connection that Singer draws between atheism and child murder, using the former as his premise to recommend the latter, I wonder if our atheist friends are going to rush to embrace this guy as one of their heroes. Is Singer showing us where the road to complete secularism actually leads?

HOUSE GOP WHIP ROY BLUNT: I don't think anybody believes that. I think everybody does believe from his record that here is somebody who has always been willing to complain about the way business was done in Washington. And, frankly, people want to see that...

BLITZER: When it comes to domestic economic issues, what is the major difference between President Bush's policies, what he wants to do, and what John McCain would do if he were president?

BLUNT: Well, I think what John McCain wants to do is continue these pro-growth tax policies that our friends on the other side have been talking...

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: But that's what President Bush wants to do too.

BLUNT: And there is nothing wrong with that. There is nothing wrong with that.

BLITZER: So it would be in effect a third Bush term when it came to pro-growth tax policies?

McCain replied that as a member of the GOP, Whitford added, he always intended to back the party's nominee. Then, the actor said, someone asked McCain whether he had cast a vote in favor of Bush.

RUMSFELD: Now, it turns out he [Shinkseki] was right. The commanders–you guys ended up wanting roughly the same as you had for the major combat operation, and that’s what we have. There is no damned guidebook that says what the number ought to be. We were queued up to go up to what, 400-plus thousand.

Q: Yes, they were already in queue.

RUMSFELD: They were in the queue. We would have gone right on if they’d wanted them, but they didn’t, so life goes on.