Pacifism and total war

Gen. Curtis LeMay made some hair-raising statements about war. Among other things, he's credited with saying:

If you kill enough of them, they stop fighting. 

Killing Japanese didn't bother me very much at that time... I suppose if I had lost the war, I would have been tried as a war criminal.... Every soldier thinks something of the moral aspects of what he is doing. But all war is immoral and if you let that bother you, you're not a good soldier. 

As far as casualties were concerned I think there were more casualties in the first attack on Tokyo with incendiaries than there were with the first use of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. The fact that it's done instantaneously, maybe that's more humane than incendiary attacks, if you can call any war act humane. I don't, particularly, so to me there wasn't much difference. A weapon is a weapon and it really doesn't make much difference how you kill a man. If you have to kill him, well, that's the evil to start with and how you do it becomes pretty secondary. I think your choice should be which weapon is the most efficient and most likely to get the whole mess over with as early as possible. 

If you are going to use military force, then you ought to use overwhelming military force. Use too much and deliberately use too much... You'll save lives, not only your own, but the enemy's too. 

I had blood upon my hands as I did this, but not because I preferred to bathe in blood. It was because I was part of a primitive world where men still had to kill in order to avoid being killed, or in order to avoid having their beloved Nation stricken and emasculated.

I haven't bothered to verify these quotes from primary sources because the objective of this post is not to assess Gen. LaMay's character. I cite them because they express a certain outlook which I'd like to assess.

What's ironic about these quotes is that LeMay shares the same premise as the pacifist. Both agree that war is immoral. But LaMay takes that in the opposite direction. For LaMay, war is both immoral and inevitable: an unavoidable evil. Given that dilemma, the best way to wage war is to get it over with as soon as possible. Use overwhelming force. Don't hold back. By taking more lives in the short-term, you save more lives in the long-term. 

His position is not amoral. He believes that since there are no moral options in this situation, the best course of action is to win by any means necessary so that it doesn't take any longer than necessary. The sooner it's over with, the better for all parties concerned. 

From what I can tell, Gen. Sherman had the same philosophy, although I think he liked killing more than he let on. 

The extremes of pacifism and total war meet in Curtis LaMay. Pacifism generates an ethical dilemma. If you tell a man like him that warfare is intrinsically evil, then the effect is not to restrain him, but to remove any moral restraint whatsoever. He infers that since there is no right thing to do in this situation, ruthless efficiency is the tiebreaker. It's a short step from pacifism to pragmatism. 

The argument from Biblical miracles

This is a brief sequel to my previous post:

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2014/11/is-argument-from-miracles-circular.html

The question at issue is whether it's viciously circular to cite Biblical miracles to evidence Christianity. Insofar as Biblical miracles presume the veracity of the source, aren't we begging the question? 

There are different ways of responding to that objection. But let's consider this example:

The signs of a true apostle were performed among you with utmost patience, with signs and wonders and mighty works (2 Cor 12:12).

Should we believe Paul wrought miracles because he says so? Put that baldly, the appeal would be circular. But that's not the actual form of Paul's claim. 

Paul is reminding the Corinthians of the miracles he performed in their presence. So that's not reducible to circular attestation. 

Would Paul make a claim like that unless it was true? It's a highly exposed claim. For if it's false, the Corinthians would simply retort: "Au contraire!"

Notice that the credibility of Paul's claim doesn't even presume that he's honest. It only credits him with the mother-wit not to make imprudent claims that will be shot down, and instantly expose him as a fraud. 

Put another way, the credibility of the claim depends less on addresser than the addressee. A claim like that puts Paul at the mercy of the Corinthians. For if the claim is false, they'd say: "No, Paul–you did no such thing!" 

Now, even though the modern reader wasn't there to see for himself whether or not Paul performed miracles, that doesn't alter the logic of the claim. So long as this is an authentic letter, Paul's claim is compelling. If Paul wouldn't make a claim like that unless it was true–given the audience–then the fact that a modern reader is not in the position of the Corinthians is irrelevant. 

Is the argument from miracles circular?

Attempting to use the evidence of miracles in this way presents two serious problems. One problem is the need to avoid circularity in argument. By the "Christian Revelation" Clarke presumably means the Bible or at least central parts of the Bible. But the evidence for the authenticity of the Christian Revelation cannot be drawn from the pages of that revelation itself without circularity. For one would be appealing to the authenticity of the revelation, the accurate account it proves of miracles, to authenticate it as a revelation, actually and immediately sent to us from God.  

But perhaps a distinction could be made between the revelation as immediately sent from God, and the revelation as historically trustworthy. If the Bible could be established as historically trustworthy, and if its historical trustworthiness could be initially granted then, it might be argued, its account of miracles can be taken as giving additional authentication of itself as a divine revelation. Paul Helm, "The Miraculous," Science & Christian Belief, 3/1 (1991), 82.

There are various problems with the charge of circularity:

1. As a rule, narrated miracles aren't cited to attest the narrator. If the narrator cited his own miracles to validate his claims, that would be circular. Mind you, even in that case, there's a distinction between vicious and virtuous circularity. 

Typically, narrated miracles attest a character within the narrative, not the narrator himself. At that level there's not even prima facie circularity. 

2. It isn't viciously circular to judge a witness by his own testimony. Take a witness whose testimony is so dubious that we conclude that he can't be trusted. Before he opened his mouth, we had no opinion regarding his character. If self-testimony can undermine a witness's credibility, it can enhance his credibility. 

3. Moreover, the evidence for miracles isn't confined to testimonial evidence. There are men, women, and children who claim to have personal experience with the miraculous. Even if their claim is secondhand for us, it is firsthand for them–assuming it really happened to them. They don't believe it because they heard someone else say it. 

4. Apropos (3), this isn't something all of us just encounter in literature. Some of us have friends or family members who recount miraculous incidents in their lives. 

5. By the same token, if there's credible evidence for miracles throughout church history, then there's nothing presumptively fictitious or suspect about Gospel miracles, NT miracles, or OT miracles. 

6. The canonical Gospels are quite restrained in the miracles they relate. Mark's Gospel, which is usually thought to be the first one written, has the highest proportion of miracles. By contrast, Matthew and Luke deemphasize miracles in relation to Mark by the amount of additional teaching material they include. And John has fewer miracles than the Synoptic Gospels. Moreover, it's not as if John's miracles are more spectacular. So there's no pattern of legendary embellishment. 

7. In addition, some Biblical miracles have inherent credibility. For instance, some Biblical miracles pass the criterion of embarrassment:  

i) Take the scene of Jesus walking on water, which turns into a scene of Peter walking on water (Mt 14:28-31). Only Peter humiliates himself. Why would Matthew invent that story?

ii) Likewise, a story recounting the failure of the disciples to exorcise a hard case (Mt 17:14-20; Mk 9:14-29; Lk 9:37-43). Why would the Synoptic narrators invent a story or preserve a fabulous tradition which makes the disciples look impotent? Why would Christian writers fabricate stories which portray leaders of the Christian movement in such an unflattering light? 

iii) Or take the unintentionally comical scene of Christians praying for Peter's deliverance. When, however, their prayers are answered, they are incredulous (Acts 12:12-16).

iv) Even more dramatic is the episode where Jesus is rejected by those who know him best. As a result, he "cannot" (or "will not") perform many miracles there, due to their unbelief (Mt 13:58; Mk 6:5). Why would the narrators fabricate a story which, at least superficially, makes Jesus seem limited in his power to work miracles? 

v) In addition, you have reported miracles which bring Jesus into physical contact with ritually impure patients–like lepers (Mt 8:1-4; Mk 1:40-45; Lk 5:12-16), or the women who suffered from menorrhagia (Mt 9:20-22; Mk 5:25-34; Lk 8:43-48). That would grate against Jewish sensibilities. Why invent stories in which Jesus is defiled by contact with those he heals?  

vi) On a related note is the use of spittle in some healings (Mk 7:33; 8:23; Jn 9:6). Why does Jesus use spittle in a few healings, but heal directly in most other cases? Why concoct that anomalous detail? 

Although there's evidence that spittle was sometimes used in Hellenistic folk medicine, that's the sort of invidious comparison we'd expect Jewish writers to studiously avoid–unless it really happened. They tell it that way because they are constrained by the facts on the ground.

Moreover, spittle has ambivalent connotations in Jewish usage, a la ritual defilement (Lev 15:8). Although Jesus wasn't in that condition, why write something that invites unwanted associations?–unless the narrator had no choice because that's how it happened.  

vii) You also have stories that just don't seem to be the kind of thing a narrator would make up, like healing the Canaanite's daughter (Mt 15:21-28; Mk 7:24-30). A desperate mother who seeks him out. Realistic dialogue. 

Likewise, transferring evil spirits from a demoniac to pigs, who proceed to drown themselves after they were maddened by possession (Mt 8:28-34; Mk 5:1-20; Lk 8:26-39). Why would anyone start from scratch with a fictional story like that? It's one of those angular encounters that happens in real life. Not something you make up if you're inventing inspirational literature. Real life is quirky. Unexpected. Incongruous. 

To be sure, I'm only discussing some Gospel miracles. But they lend independent credibility to the Gospels in which they occur, and to other miracles by association. 

viii) Then there are Biblical miracles which unbelievers love to mock, like the fate of Lot's wife (Gen 19:26), or Balaam's donkey (Num 22:28-30). But if these are so ridiculous, why would the narrator concoct anything that ridiculous? 

ix) Or take the exploits of Samson. A critic might dismiss this as something out of a comic book about superheroes. Yet it occurs in a book that's notorious for its grim, horrific realism. And Samson himself is a tragic figure. An abject moral failure. In an honor/shame culture, we wouldn't expect the narrator to invent a national hero who's an embarrassment to his own people. 

Reviews Of Christmas Books

I've written reviews of several books on Christmas issues. I'll begin with links to my Triablogue reviews, then link my reviews at Amazon, then the ones at Goodreads. Generally, the Triablogue reviews are the lengthiest, and the Goodreads ones are the shortest, with the Amazon reviews falling somewhere between those two.

Marian devotion in theory and practice

There's two kinds of Marian piety. There's the official, theoretical version. That's bad enough. But then there's what is actually practiced. What the faithful live by, day-to-day. Something that Rome alternately fosters or winks at:

Consider the practices of some Catholic Latina women in the United States, who fend off the evil eye (especially of infants) with eggs, bury statues of saints like Mary and Joseph in their front yard when the saints refuse to grant requests, and dig them up again once the request is granted. As Michelle Gonzalez Maldonado details, this sounds rather irreverent, but the practice just illustrates how intimate the relationship is between the Latino community and the saints they revere. Home altars with pictures of Mary and the Saints are the territory of Latina Catholic women. Do these practices contribute to religious epistemology? If so, how?

The council of Trent wanted to eradicate these practices of saint reverence and fending off the evil eye, in which women prominently figured as practitioners and experts. However, it did not destroy these practices in Latina women. Neither did it destroy them entirely in European women, such as my grandmother. My grandmother was a devout Catholic woman who taught me the first things about religion such as the significance of the host, the meaning of infant baptism, how to pray. She had a wooden black statue of Mary (there is a tradition of revering Black Mary in Medieval Europe, and my grandmother's home town had a tradition that still kept this alive), to whom she talked and prayed. When Mary refused to grant her requests, she would be unceremoniously turned facing the wall until Mary changed her mind. 

http://philosopherscocoon.typepad.com/blog/2014/11/what-can-my-grandmother-know-about-mary.html

Young Earth Creationism Among the Magisterial Reformers

http://calvinistinternational.com/2014/11/18/young-earth-creationism-among-magisterial-reformers/

The problem of evil is trivial

The problem of evil is an abject failure. Don't take my word for it. Just ask militant atheist Richard Dawkins:

I have never found the problem of evil very persuasive as an argument against deities. There seems no obvious reason to presume that your God will be good. The question for me is why you think any God, good or evil or indifferent, exists at all. Most of the Greek pantheon sported very human vices, and the 'jealous God' of the Old Testament is surely one of the nastiest, most truly evil characters in all fiction. Tsunamis would be just up his street, and the more misery and mayhem the better. I have always thought the 'Problem of Evil' was a rather trivial problem for theists... 

http://old.richarddawkins.net/articles/127-the-theology-of-the-tsunami

Are denominations a winnowing process?

for there must be factions among you in order that those who are genuine among you may be recognized (1 Cor 11:19).

i) Ecumenists lament denominations. However, this verse raises the question of whether denominations are, in fact, necessary. 

ii) Some commentators think the verse must be ironic. Surely Paul can't say anything good about factions. Hasn't he been attacking factions within the church?

iii) Keep in mind that there's nothing in the wording of the verse itself to indicate that Paul is speaking ironically. Unless we think Paul can't be serious, there's no reason to reach for the ironic interpretation.

iv) To say that Paul thought factions are bad is simplistic. For instance, it depends on which side of the dividing line you're on, and how you got there. For one thing, you might have two (or more factions) because one group broke away from another. It's not that all parties concerned are divisive. If one group breaks ranks with another, that leaves two factions–but not because both were necessarily divisive. Rather, one group separates from another while the other group finds itself separated–as a result of the group which initiated the split. "We didn't leave you–you left us!"

You can also have factions because one group expels another group. That's different than one group splitting from another.  

Likewise, there are situations in which it may be necessary to break away. OT prophets often stood apart from the religious establishment. As did John the Baptist. As did Jesus. As did Paul himself. So it depends on whether one has just case. Even if factionalism is blameworthy, that doesn't entail that each party is blameworthy.

v) Division can be a winnowing process. Sifting the wheat from the chaff. The Bible often uses that type of metaphor. As one commentator observes:

Although this could possibly be irony…more likely it is a reflection of Paul's "already/not yet" eschatological perspective (see on 4:1-5). 

In keeping with the teaching of Jesus [Mt 10:34-37; 24:9-13], Paul expected "division" to accompany the End, divisions that would separate true believers from those who were false…Paul, therefore, probably sees their present divisions as part of the divine "testing/sifting" process already at work in their midst…God is working out the divine purposes; those who truly belong to God, the "tested/approved" (dokimoi=those who have passed the "examination"), are already being manifest in their midst, and presumably they will escape the final judgment that is coming upon the world (v32). G. Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians (Eerdmans, rev. ed., 2014), 596-97. 

The clockwork universe

While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease (Gen 8:22).

The scientific method treats the world as a closed system. A continuum of physical cause and effect. Nothing from the "outside" bypasses the chain of cause and effect. 

And that's the basis for induction. The present resembles the past, and vice versa. And that, in turn, forms the basis for sciences of origins (e.g. cosmology, geology, paleontology, paleoanthropology). 

And there's some truth to that. In the Biblical worldview, nature generally operates as if it's a closed system. Ceteris paribus, there's nothing wrong with presuming continuity. 

And yet, according to the Biblical worldview, nature is actually an open system. Open to agents (e.g. God, angels, demons, ghosts, sorcerers, miracle-workers) who can, and sometimes do, bypass the causal continuum. Open to the introduction of causes outside the ordinary chain of physical cause and effect. 

As Christians, we must make allowance for the possibility, and actuality, that induction breaks down at unpredictable points along the line. A miracle both interrupts and restarts the process. The natural order resumes after the miracle. But it resumes at a different point than if the miracle had not occurred. A miracle may not mere restart, but jumpstart or reset the process. Advance the outcome or change the outcome. Take miraculous healing. 

That's not some ad hoc consideration. It's fundamental to the Christian worldview. To Christian supernaturalism and dualism. 

And that's something which theistic or deistic evolutionists refuse to take into account. They don't take that seriously. They operate as though nature really is a closed system. Indeed, some of them think that's the case. They are really back to the clockwork universe.  

There are scientists with a very literal-minded view of reality. Victor Stenger is a case in point. They have a rule-bound mindset. They think nature always follows the rules. Indeed, they think nature ought to follow the rules. As though nature made them a promise. If a miracle happens, then nature broke its promise. A miracle is "cheating." They indulge in that childish personification of nature. 

Many “Transgender” People Regret Switch

http://www.thenewamerican.com/culture/item/19507-the-transgender-con-many-transgender-people-regret-switch

... Sadly, the consequences of this ignorance can be irreparable. Just ask Paul Rowe, who now regrets his 1989 genital-mutilation surgery. Feeling stuck in limbo, he’d like to be his old self again but says it’s fruitless. “I can never become a complete man again,” he laments. “There's no turning back."

And no one knows this better than the original poster boy for ground-breaking “transgenderism,” tennis player Dr. Richard Raskind. Better known by the name he assumed after genital-mutilation surgery in 1975, “Renee Richards,” the physician is quoted as saying in “The Liaison Legacy,” Tennis Magazine, March 1999, “I get a lot of inquiries from would-be transsexuals, but I don’t want anyone to hold me out as an example to follow.… As far as being fulfilled as a woman, I’m not as fulfilled as I dreamed of being. I get a lot of letters from people who are considering having this operation … and I discourage them all.”

Obviously, surgery or not, sexually confused individuals have a cross to bear. But they very well might be happier if they consider the counsel of former psychiatrist-in-chief for Johns Hopkins Hospital Dr. Paul McHugh. “‘Sex change’ is biologically impossible,” he says. “People who undergo sex-reassignment surgery do not change from men to women or vice versa. Rather, they become feminized men or masculinized women.” And that’s why he concluded long ago, “We psychiatrists … would do better to concentrate on trying to fix their minds and not their genitalia.”

Selective multiculturalism

Critics of Japan’s whaling practices are guilty of “eco-imperialism” for trying to impose their beliefs on countries that hunt and eat whales, Japan’s pointman on the issue said Wednesday. 

Critics of whaling needed to drop their “zero tolerance” stance and recognize that different countries have “different codes,” said Joji Morishita, Japan’s commissioner to the International Whaling Commission. 

Take people in India who don’t eat beef, Morishita told reporters in Tokyo.
“What if they start promoting their habit on the rest of the world, and are promoting an anti-McDonald’s, anti-beef steak movement throughout the world with economic sanctions,” he said. “People can see the stupidity of this if you talk about beef, but what’s the difference between a cow and whales?” 

Ordinary people in Japan viewed countries who criticized whaling as cultural imperialists, Morishita said.
“[They] say, ‘I don’t eat whale meat, however I don’t like the idea of beef-eating people or pork-eating people saying to Japanese people to stop eating whales,’ ” he said. “We do recognize that, from country to country, we have different codes and different conditions. But maybe we shouldn’t impose our code on others,” he said. 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/japan-vows-to-resume-antarctic-whale-hunt-for-science-next-year/2014/11/26/5133884c-73f2-11e4-95a8-fe0b46e8751a_story.html

I guess Randi's not so amazing after all

http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/Page30.htm

The New and Improved Balance of Power in the Middle East

George Friedman of Stratfor has written an insightful article describing the new balance of power among the regional powers in the Middle East. With the rise of the “Islamic State”, in parts of territorial Syria and Iraq, the new reality of having the “Islamic State” in their backyards has caused a new dynamic among virtually all the nations in the region.

The Islamic State Reshapes the Middle East:

Christmas Resources 2014

For several years, I've been posting a collection of resources for each Christmas season:

Children of the Corn

Many ancient, primitive societies practiced human sacrifice. And I've read that pagan cults still practice human sacrifice in pockets of African and Latin America. 

Due to Christianity, human sacrifice has been outlawed in the Western world. Yet the impulse still exists. It simply expresses itself in a somewhat muted form. 

I notice that every so often, the Establishment has an urge to destroy someone. As if it needs to get that out of its system. Periodically, the Establishment picks on somebody or some group, which it hounds mercilessly. 

To take a few examples, a generation ago you had the recovered memories fad. It was a classic witch hunt, only this time it was a secular witch hunt. The lives of innocent men, women, and children were forever destroyed by charges of imaginary sexual or ritual Satanic abuse. It was eventually discredited. Burned itself out. But not before leaving devastation in its wake. 

Right now there's the "campus rape culture" frenzy. This is hysterically overblown. The accused are denied elementary due process. 

Eventually, lawsuits will bring this to an end. Some innocent students have rich parents who can afford to fight back. College administrators will reverse course. But not before ruining the reputation of many male students on trumped up charges.

The Establishment also likes to elevate certain people, then tear them down. At one time Britney Spears was a huge pop star. But when she faltered, the Establishment took delight in covering her downfall. Same thing with Michael Jackson. Same thing with Bill Cosby.

My point is not whether these were ever admirable people in the first place. But the Establishment has this quixotic quality. It loved them until it turned on them. Every so often, the Establishment sets out to destroy one of its own. "We made you and we can break you!"

It's like Shirley Jackson's The Lottery, or The Wicker Man, or Children of the Corn. As if the Establishment the needs a sacrificial victim to appease the gods. This goes in cycles. After satiating its vindictive impulse, it moves one. Things return to normal for a while. Deceptively calm. But that's followed by another collective psychopathic outbreak. No one is safe. You never know who will be next. 

Swimming with sharks

Unbelievers take offense when Christians say atheism is dangerous. They respond that you don't need God to be moral. Just look at all the virtuous atheists!

Christians reply that this misses the point. The issue is, in the first place, whether atheism has a basis for morality. Moreover, there's naturally a disconnect between how Christians view atheists and how atheists view themselves. For instance, we don't think abortion, after-birth abortion, and euthanasia are virtuous. 

There is, however, another point to be made. There are two forms of moral restraint: internal and external. Conscience or a personal honor-code exerts self-restraint. 

In addition, law and social approval or stigmatization restrain behavior. So the real test of atheism is twofold: what happens to atheists when there's nothing on the outside to shore up what's missing on the inside? 

Take the assassination of Trotsky. Lenin, Stalin, and Trotsky were atheists. But unlike your next-door atheists, they were the law. There was no law to tell them what they could or could not do. They made the rules. A law unto themselves.

There was nothing between the atheists and each other. No moral buffers, internal or external. In that morally denuded setting, their philosophy reduces to "Do unto others before they do unto you."

It becomes a game of chicken. Should you try to kill your fellow atheist before he tries to kill you? There's a risk either way. If you try and fail, you're a marked man. But if you wait for him to make the first move, it may be too late. Even if they didn't plan to kill you, why take the chance? 

Any vulnerability is an invitation to be murdered by your comrades. Once Trotsky began to slip, he was doomed. Out of power, it was safe to kill him. Indeed, it was prudent to kill him. Kill or be killed.  

Lenin was weakened by stroke, but there was some value in keeping him alive as an inspirational figurehead, while Stalin consolidated power behind-the-scenes. 

The French Reign of Terror is another case in point. Close your eyes and imagine a world where there's nobody you can trust. A friendless world. 

Now open your eyes. This isn't just a hypothetical exercise. It happens. It happens when a moral void on the inside meets a moral void on the outside. Only power fills the void. The will to power. 

We use metaphors like "back-stabbing" and "watching your back." But when atheism is in the ascendent, these are realities rather than metaphors. 

Discworld

If this is how ANE peoples (e.g. the Israelites) conceived of cosmology...

...then not only would the sun have cast a shadow on the Earth, but couldn't the sun have likewise cast a shadow backwards against the firmament? If so, then couldn't this shadow be discernible at least at certain locales and/or at certain times of the day or year?

Adam-of-the-gaps

I've been reading Adam, the Fall, and Original Sin, Hand Madueme and Michael Reeves, eds. It's an uneven collection of essays. For now I'd like to focus on the scientific question. Mdueme puts his finger on one difficulty with theistic evolution and/or old-earth creationism:

One weakness, however, is the potential of an Adam-of-the-gaps fallacy. Paleontology, paleoanthropology, and associated disciplines are judged basically reliable as sources of truth and they provide the main story; the task of the theologian is then to find a way to identify the historical Adam within that story (237).

That certainly looks like an ad hoc amalgam of two divergent paradigms. Young-earth creationism doesn't have that problem. But it trades that problem for a different problem: challenging the science that drives old-earth creationism and theistic evolution. 

1) Let's some general observations about the scientific method. All things being equal, an operating assumption of scientists is that the past produces the future. Antecedent conditions effect subsequent conditions. 

The same physical causes produce the same physical effects. In that respect, past and future resemble the present.  Therefore, taking our knowledge of the present as a frame of reference, we can extrapolate forward and backward. 

For instance, dating techniques presume constancy in the rate of natural processes. Likewise, evidence for human evolution based on population genetics (e.g. the "bottleneck") presumes constancy in the rate natural processes. 

Physical causes operate with mechanical regularity. They do whatever they were programmed to do–no more and no less. 

2) Up to a point, that's a reasonable assumption. And it has some theological warrant. We call this ordinary providence.

So, for instance, a Christian goes to the doctor, under the assumption that diseases typically have physical causes which are physically treatable. 

3) However, that's qualified. If nature takes its course, a terminal cancer patient will die. 

Sometimes, however, a terminal cancer patient undergoes remission in answer to prayer. In that situation, past conditions don't produce or predict for future conditions. In that case, the outcome doesn't belong to the chain of events (i.e. physical causation). 

That's because physical causes are not the only causes. Not even the only causes of physical effects.

That, however, interjects a degree of unpredictability into the presumption of continuity between past, present, and future. 

The history of the world contains singularities. Outcomes discontinuous with prior states. Indeed, the world began with a singularity: fiat creation.

In addition to that macrocosmic singularity, the history of the world is punctuated by microcosmic singularities. Miracles which bypass the causal continuum. 

All things being equal, linear extrapolations from the present into the past are reasonable. But that means bracketing kinds of mental agency which produce immediate physical effects. By "immediate," I mean apart from an intervening physical medium. Candidates include God, angels, demons, ghosts, and human psi. 

Because God usually operates behind the scenes, working via physical means, it's easy to ignore God when we do science. God is like a necessary background condition. Unobtrusive. We don't expect God to intervene at any particular time and place, so our default policy treats the course of nature as the norm. 

But it's precisely because divine intervention is unpredictable that scientific prediction or retrodiction is unreliable to some imponderable degree. We can't quantify when or where God (or other agents) will interrupt the course of nature. That interjects an unstable element into historical reconstructions. The scientific method is arbitrary in that respect. It's true–except when it's false. 

That's why pious Christians have a two-track policy. We presume ordinary providence, but we also pray.

Nature is like a machine. It has a default setting. But it also has a manual override. God can break the cycle in answer to prayer. 

4) Moreover, this isn't just hypothetical. There's more to human history than ordinary providence. There's special providence. And miracles. And answered prayer. And the occult. 

Let's consider some of the putative evidence for human evolution:

i) Comparative anatomy. There are fossil remains of creatures that have a humanoid appearance. Hands. Skulls. Bipedalism. 

There are, however, problems with that line of evidence:

a) Ostriches and kangaroos are bipedal. But that doesn't relate them to man. Some bats, marsupials, and chameleons have opposable digits. But that doesn't relate them to man. 

b) Moreover, bipedalism is unrelated to cognitive ability. 

c) Modern humans coexist with apes and monkeys. We share morphological similarities, yet there are drastic cognitive differences. Why think fossil "hominids" must be anything other than extinct apes and monkeys? 

ii) Apropos (i), some "hominids" use tools, yet that, by itself, isn't probative. There are animals that use tools, viz. crows, sea otters, green jays, trapdoor spiders, and woodpecker finches. 

Or take beehives and spiderwebs. If apes and monkeys did that sort of thing on a larger scale, Darwinians would chalk it up to simian brainpower.  

Most fossil artifacts aren't uniquely human in that regard. Cave paintings and musical instruments are unmistakably human. But much of the other "evidence" is quite ambiguous. 

iii) Another line of putative evidence is the alleged correlation between cultural evolution and encephalization. That, however, is tricky to parse. 

a) To begin with, the relationship between minds and brains is somewhat baffling. For instance:

http://www.psych.ufl.edu/~steh/PSB4504/brainnecessary.pdf

b) Knowledge is cumulative. Knowledge builds on knowledge. And the rate of progress can accelerate. We see that in the rapidity of technological advances. It takes a long time to get to the tipping point. After that, the rate of progress picks up pace. Crossing that threshold is the hard part. 

Gen. Curtis LeMay reputedly said we should bomb the Viet Cong back to the Stone age. Suppose something like that happened to human civilization.

As long as modern know-how survived, we could probably get back to where we were in a few decades. If, however, the knowledge was lost or forgotten, then it would take centuries or probably millennia to start from scratch. 

You can't have a Newton without a Kepler. You can't have an Einstein without a Riemann or Mach. If Einstein was born before Riemann or Mach, he wouldn't develop Relativity. 

And it's a matter of space as well as time. If Linus Pauling, Paul Dirac, or Claude Shannon were born in the Amazon jungle, and never made contact with the outside world, their genius would go to waste. 

In addition, some scientists, like Newton or von Neumann have a unique skill set. If we had to start all over again, you wouldn't have a Newton, Einstein, or von Neumann. You'd have other geniuses with different skill sets. 

Although we might make the same scientific breakthroughs, we wouldn't make them in the same order. It might be sooner or later. You might have scientific theories which overlap with the theories we have, but the pieces would be rearranged. The pieces would come together in different ways at different times.     

Thanksgiving and Puritan Geopolitics in the Americas

Summary

The first winter took many of the English at Plymouth. By fall 1621, only 53 remained of the 132 who had arrived on the Mayflower. But those who had survived brought in a harvest. And so, in keeping with tradition, the governor called the living 53 together for a three-day harvest feast, joined by more than 90 locals from the Wampanoag tribe. The meal was a moment to recognize the English plantation's small step toward stability and, hopefully, profit. This was no small thing. A first, deadly year was common. Getting through it was an accomplishment. England's successful colony of Virginia had had a massive death toll — of the 8,000 arrivals between 1607 and 1625, only 15 percent lived.

But still the English came to North America and still government and business leaders supported them. This was not without reason. In the 17th century, Europe was in upheaval and England's place in it unsure. Moreover, England was going through a period of internal instability that would culminate in the unthinkable — civil war in 1642 and regicide in 1649. England's colonies were born from this situation, and the colonies of Plymouth, Massachusetts Bay and the little-known colony of Providence Island in the Caribbean were part of a broader Puritan geopolitical strategy to solve England's problems.

More Early Opponents Of Mary's Perpetual Virginity

Tertullian and Helvidius are often named as early opponents of Mary's perpetual virginity, but other opponents of the concept seem to be mentioned less often. I've discussed some of them in recent posts, namely Hegesippus, Irenaeus, and Victorinus. What I want to do in this post is cite some other examples.