President Trump

I have to admit I am a bit shocked.

As one who would have wished for someone other than Trump to oppose the lawless and radical Alinskyite Hillary Clinton, I did not believe Trump had a chance.  What does it mean?

For starters it means that Hillary really was a worse candidate than Trump.   Her baldfaced lies about just about everything, her clear corruption in using the Clinton foundation as part of a massive pay-for-play scheme, her utter incompetence on foreign policy and her reckless disregard for both the law and national security with her email server fiasco clearly had an effect.

It also means that a good chunk of the American public are sick and tired of being told that only politically correct left wing ideals can qualify as "justice" or "compassion".   I have no doubt that the race baiting of the left upsets a lot more people than the charges of racism hurled at everyone to the right of Al Sharpton.

But it means as well that both parties have lost touch with a majority of Americans.  The reason Trump was the candidate was in part because significant numbers of voters on the right simply did not want another Bush, another establishment Republican or anybody at all who was part of the system.

While that can be a good thing, it can also be a dangerous one.   Fixing the corruption, cronyism, and inertia that is Washington is necessary - but no doubt some want to burn it down altogether.

We'll see what happens.   My hope is that with Republicans controlling both houses and the presidency, at least the Supreme Court will not become a tool of the left and that some of the illegal executive actions the current president has taken can be rolled back.  I hope that the guiding principles will be the restoration of the Constitution to its rightful place and not the principles of retaliation or mere populism.

I will say with Trump there is hope for that.  With Hillary I truly believe the Republic the founders had envisioned would have been lost.   For that I am grateful, if cautious.

The Central Questions - Part 1

(This is a repost from a few years back.)

The central questions

In my 54 years on earth, I have had only two significant challenges to my faith.  It occurs to me that both of those challenges focused on the same basic questions, perhaps the central questions that all human beings have to ask.

This will sound a bit odd, but those two challenges were evolution and Calvinism. (More)

The Central Questions - Part 2

Evolution, built on a foundation of naturalism and uniformitarianism asserts that what we experience now, including corruption, suffering and death, have been the norm from the beginning of life on the planet.   Death is not an enemy, but is instead part of the engine of progress toward higher life forms. It is necessary for the weak to die so that the strong can prosper.

In it's atheist form, there is no purpose at all to this pattern.  Life arose, but it could have failed to arise.   Creatures that survive are "better"  only in the sense that they were better equipped to survive.

In it's theistic form, God may have devised a universe that made life possible and may in some hidden sense be the energy behind the laws of nature, but the "survival of the fittest" reality is nevertheless the overarching fact of existence.   Death cannot be an enemy if it is a necessary component in the development of more complex life forms.

So why do we suffer?   Because suffering and pain are evolutionary developments that aid our survival, a notion that is brutal if there is no purpose in existence and perhaps far worse if this was "God's method of creation".

In either case the traditional "free will" explanation for the origin of evil and suffering cannot be maintained.   Evil and suffering are part of the fabric of reality from the beginning and by design.   

Don't Blame Never Trump

No doubt Trump supporters will want to blame the Never Trump crowd if Hillary gets elected.

No.  I have little doubt some Never Trumpers will quietly check the box next to his name with the other hand firmly over their noses.   Yes, Hillary is that bad.  But that may not be enough.

If Trump loses to the most vulnerable and disliked Democratic candidate in history, there are three places to lay the blame.

First is Trump himself.  

Naturalism - Not a Scientific Necessity

I have often written about the scourge of naturalism on this blog.   The usual knock on both Intelligent Design and Creationism in its various is that neither are true "science", because the scientific method is built on the foundation of methodological naturalism.  

Short form of the argument is that unless scientists continue looking for natural explanations for everything, they will resort to a "god of the gaps" argument, say "God did it" and science will grind to a halt.  

Count Me as Never Trump

There are many reasons to dislike Donald Trump as a candidate.  And as much as I would like to focus on his policies, whatever they really are, I have to take a moment to rehearse some of the more egregious personal attacks that in my mind reveal the utter lack of character necessary for the leader of this nation.

There is a reason I find this exercise necessary.   Politics has gotten ugly in the age of Alinsky.   His “Rules for Radicals” suggests as a legitimate strategy the practice of isolating individuals as figureheads and then demonizing them with lies and ridicule.  It forces them to waste time responding to charges that ultimately have no defense and distracts the rank and file from real issues.  It has been a tactic of the left for years and one I find utterly opposed to the practice of democracy. 

So to see Donald Trump and his minions using such ugly, immoral and unprincipled tactics and using them successfully means that the right side of the political spectrum has sunk to the same gutter as the thugs of the left.  What good is “winning” the Republican nomination if one utterly shreds any principles that once were a normative part of a civilized society built on self-government?  (More)

Is Trump a Fascist? Probably Not, but...

I have little doubt analogies linking politicians to villains of the past are generally unfair and unwise, not only for impugning the individual in the present, but also for minimizing and misrepresenting the evil of the past.   Lately, with the rise of Donald Trump to the front of the GOP Presidential race, comparisons to Hitler are popping up and more commonly the word “fascist” is used of both Trump and his supporters.

Full disclosure, I have no love for Trump as a potential President.   His campaign has been vulgar, insulting and crass.   He labels his opponents with insults and slurs to avoid discussion of issues and policies.   He demeans the process itself.   But more to the point, I have little confidence that whatever his current campaign positions are, he will follow through and not change his poistion if he is elected.   If I had to choose between Trump and either Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders, I would find it difficult to vote at all.

But is Trump a fascist as some of his opponents claim?  (More)

Daily Suffering: The Practical Difference Between Calvinism and Arminianism

There is no mystery in the universe as profound and troubling as the problem of evil.  Many who are atheists will cite this very problem as the primary reason for not believing in God.

On an intellectual level, an Arminian can live in a quiet truce with other Christians over this issue because on an intellectual level, both sides generally accept that much of the problem is indeed a mystery.  But on an emotional level, the question goes too deep.

On an emotional level, I fear the Calvinist and the Arminian are in completely different universes when it comes to dealing with pain, suffering and evil in the midst of human experience.  (More)

Shadow of Oz - Pay no Attention to That Scientist/Theologian Behind the Curtain

Wayne Rossiter followed an interesting path, from Christianity to Darwinism to a vocal atheism, to crisis and back to Christianity.   While he remains a practicing scientist, he found himself troubled by the path chosen by many Christian intellectuals in attempting to maintain a purely Darwinian view of origins while claiming to hold to Christian beliefs.   He begins the book with the troubling tale of a young college student who was so devastated by the destruction of his faith through Darwinism that he committed suicide.   While extreme, this brief story sets the stage for the discussion of the uneasy marriage of two contradictory worldviews.   (More)